Title: A Feast of Ice and Fire: The Official Game of Thrones Companion Cookbook

Authors: Chelsea Monroe-Cassel and Sariann Lehrer

Publisher: Random House, 2012

Summary/Review: What sets the compelling books of the A Song of Ice and Fire book series by George R.R. Martin apart from so many typical swords and sorcery stories is the author’s extreme attention to the little details. Precise depictions of clothes, architecture, the nuances of battle and for many readers, the detailed descriptions of the food of his imagined worlds of Westeros and Essos are what make these books feel more like literary fiction than high fantasy. Each of the kingdoms and cities have their own distinct culinary flair, from the frozen wilderness of the Wall to the desert landscapes of Dorne. And now you can cook your own feast inspired by Game of Thrones.

Bloggers and superfans Monroe-Cassel and Lehrer have combed through medieval cookbooks looking for inspiration for their recipe blog, The Inn at the Crossroads (named for a particularly infamous location in the book series.) The resulting cookbook is terrific. Organized into geographical locations from the books, most recipes are presented twice: Once using the traditional medieval instructions followed by a modern spin suitable for today’s kitchens. The inclusion of the old-world recipes make this cookbook useful for students who might need to prepare authentic medieval food for school assignments in addition to traditional culinary historian-types. If you are as big a fan of ASOIAF as I am, you can look forward to preparing lemoncakes, Tyroshi honeyfingers and even a pot o’brown for your next viewing party or re-read of the books.

Who will like this?: Fans of the series who are interested in what their favorite characters would be eating.  Anyone who is interested in the Medieval times and are curious about the cuisine.  Anyone looking for a fun way to try something new!

If you like this, try this:  If you enjoyed the food and are interested in seeing what other cookbooks are out there, you can try an “unofficial” Game of Thrones cookbook.  One title is “The Unofficial Game of Thrones Cookbook: From Direwolf Ale to Auroch Stew – More Than 150 Recipes from Westeros and Beyond” by Alan Kistler.  You can also try “The Medieval Cookbook” by Maggie Black, though this is completely unrelated to the show.

If you are interested in the series and haven’t read the book, it’s about time you tried!  Also, check out one of our previous reviews for the game of thrones graphic novel!

Recommended by: Nicole, Teen Librarian

If this looks like a book you would be interested in, visit the Fairfield Public Library catalog to check its availability and place a hold [link will open in a new window]

Title: The Rosie’s Bakery All-Butter, Cream-Filled, Sugar –Packed Baking Book

Author: Judy Rosenberg

Publisher: Workman Publishing Company, Inc., 2011

Summary/Review: The Rosie’s Bakery Cookbook is a wonderful thing.  It was a holiday gift from 2 colleagues so any subsequent weight gain when I bring one of these very tasty treats into work with me to share is not my fault.

Judy Rosenberg, the author, is the owner of the Rosie’s Bakery chain located in the Boston area and she  learned the considerable amount she knows about baking great desserts on her own.  She not only shares her excellent recipes but she also shares excellent advice.  She starts with one basic rule: “Don’t be intimidated.”  I love to bake but I try not to put myself in a position where I’m baking something completely unfamiliar for a special occasion.  This helps to cut down on the intimidation factor.  Following “Rosie’s Five Steps to Carefree Baking” will also help.  Briefly, they are:

1.       Read the entire recipe

2.       Prepare your ingredients in advance

3.       Avoid distractions

4.       Bake when you’re not tense or in a hurry

5.       Make sure you understand basic baking techniques (and the thoughtful instructions will help with this.)

My plan was to start with recipe number one and just work my way, recipe by recipe, through the whole book.  But I made the mistake of taking a quick glance at the Brownie section so I started on page 269 which is now marked with a chocolate thumb-print.  I did navigate away from the brownie section briefly to make the Applesauce-Raisin Cake and it was well worth  it.

This book is a treat, as are the baked goods you will produce.  Anyone who loves the occasional (or the more than occasional) indulgent dessert will find a recipe in this cookbook that will become a favorite and possibly a family legend.

Who will like this?:  If you share, everyone who knows you.

If you like this, try this :  The Complete Magnolia Bakery Cookbook, Recipes from the World-Famous Bakery and Allysa Torey’s Home Kitchen

The SoNo Baking Company Cookbook: The Best Sweet and Savory Recipes for Every Occasion

Baked: New Frontiers in Baking

Recommended by: Sue D’Num

Does this look like a book you’d like to read? Visit the Fairfield Public Library catalog to check availability and place a hold!

Title: The Orchard

Author: Theresa Weir

Publisher: Hachette Book Group, September 2011

Summary: I used to pick out the shiniest, darkest red apple with a perfect exterior. Not wanting to bite into something unexpected, I inspected it closely for holes. I took my time trying to find the best one, but I never gave much thought about what went into making such a beautiful apple…until I read The Orchard.
Seeing the farm through the author’s eyes, as someone who had never worked on one before, she interprets what really goes on in the fields–how the pesticides stay on their skin, give off a strong scent, and essentially become a part of them. Seen as an “outsider” by the farmers, she is able to see what they cannot see, or what they refuse to see.
Not only does this book bring truth to a subject that is not spoken often of, but her personal story takes into account how the past shapes the future, addresses the impact of family obligation over individual choice, and considers the awareness of fate.

Recommended by: Sharyn, Circulation Dept.

Does this look like a book you’d like to read? Visit our catalog here, where you can check availability and place a hold.

Title: Tomatoland: How Modern Industrial Agriculture Destroyed Our Most Alluring Fruit

Author: Barry Estabrook

Publisher: Andrews McMeel Publishing, June 2011

Summary: As an avid home cook, with a bent toward vegetarian and Italian food, this book was a real eye-opener about the principle ingredient in many of my dishes:  the tomato.

   Barry Estabrook researches the subject with a reporter’s eye as he travels the southern United States, particularly southern Florida, investigating exactly how corporate agribusiness (I’m am NOT saying that they are a Great Satan by any means, as corporate farms produce an enormous amount of food at very reasonable prices) has taken over the “slicing” tomato, as opposed to the canned or juice tomato, business in the United States. He explains that the genetic background of the tomato is actually an arid-landscape, don’t-water-me-too-much plant, which could not be further out of its element than in South Florida, where there is sandy soil and far too much humidity for the fruit we remember as a vine-ripened tomato. There are some bright spots in his research, such as organic and small scale farmers who grow a dizzying variety of tomatoes, only in season and only harvested at their peak of perfect ripeness.

   Just as in Fast Food Nation and classics like The Jungle, the inhuman conditions, abject poverty and actual slavery, in the U.S. tomato picking and farming industry is graphically exposed.

   He goes on to describe the extensive chemical fertilizer and pesticide use which is required to create the unnatural per-acre yield required to farm tomatoes in such a concentrated fashion. He concludes that the exalted culinary position of the slicing tomato, that jewel of almost every home gardener and farmer’s market, has largely been  co-opted by a rock-hard, chemically-and-genetically-altered, unnaturally inexpensive commodity that can be produced in soil not at all conducive to its growth, shipped in its greenest, hardest state without so much as a bruise, gassed with ethylene to force at least a pale pink or orange hue and sold to fast food chains and in your local supermarket all year long at very low prices, as long as you don’t care what it looks like, tastes like, and don’t bother to check its all-but-non-existent nutritional value.

Who Might Like This?: Anyone interested in cooking, eating, or feeding others.

Recommended by: Mark Z., Guest Reviewer

Does this look like a book you’d like to read? Visit our catalog here, where you can check availability and place a hold

Title: Baked/Baked Explorations

Author: Matt Lewis

Publisher: Abrams, Harry N., Inc. October 2008/October 2010

Summary: This winter has really been no fun.   I’m not a real fan of winter sports so having fun out in the snow is not something I look forward to.  Lurching spastically down a ski slope or falling on my butt on a frozen pond doesn’t leave me feeling invigorated and full of the joy of life.  I prefer to pull the shades, draw the curtains, put on some music and bake, so two of my favorite books have been getting a real work out lately.

Baked (2008) and Baked Explorations (2010) by Matt Lewis and Renato Poliafito

I knew I was going to love the Baked cookbook when I read Lewis and Poliafito’s philosophy of breakfast:

 “As the first meal of the day, we think it should not be squandered on tasteless bran thingamajigs, dreary wheatgrass shakes and not-so-healthful nutrition bars…A glorious baked good is a wonderful thing to wake up to…Our breakfast philosophy comes down to this: We want you to go to bed with visions of lemon loaves and marble bundts dancing in your head.”

While you can feel virtuous and glowing with health digging into the oatmeal or bran flakes in the morning, give me a slice of lemon, lemon loaf, some double chocolate loaf with peanut butter cream cheese spread or some monkey bubble bread before I have to leave the house and spend a happy twenty minutes chipping ice off my car.

But it’s not just about breakfast.  The Baked brownie recipe has been praised by the The Today Show, America’s Test Kitchen, AND Oprah.  Lewis suggests serving them with ice cream – a most excellent suggestion.  The maple cupcakes with maple cream cheese frosting are another winner, and they contain nuts – an excellent source of protein.

The books are beautifully illustrated by Tina Rupp, a New York based photographer who specializes in photographing “everything that has to do with food.”  Though it can be slightly depressing to compare your finished product to the photos.

My most recent experience with one of the baked recipes was the lemon, lemon loaf and it is a wonderful way to forget that the outside world is grey and cold and covered in really gross looking snow.  After juicing the lemons your whole kitchen smells like citrus.  Put on some Gloria Estefan, close the curtains and you’re in Florida.

Recommended by: Sue D’Num

Look yummy? To put a hold on Baked visit our catalog here or Baked Explorations by visiting here

Title: The Gourmet Cookie Book: The Single Best Recipe From Each Year 1941-2009 and Chewy, Gooey, Crispy, Crunchy Melt in Your Mouth Cookies 

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, November 2010 and Artisan, November 2010

Author: Gourmet Magazine and Alice Medrich

Summary: Two great new cookie books – just in time for holiday baking. 

Many people who bake for the holidays understand the role tradition plays in cookie selection.  If I don’t include almond cookies, butter cookies decorated with red and green sprinkles, peanut butter blossoms, molasses crinkles and the traditional chocolate chip on my cookie platters I’ll probably hear about it.  So don’t neglect the favorites, but these wonderful books will inspire you to try a few new recipes that might become next years asked for cookie. 

The Gourmet Cookie Book offers up the “best” recipe each year from 1941-2009.  I would have loved to have been on that selection committee. 

According to Gourmet, Speculaas, baked in the Netherlands for centuries were left in the fields as offerings to the gods to ensure a good harvest. A cross between a spice cookie and a shortbread I think this will definitely find its way onto my list of holiday cookies.

It’s fascinating to see how the presentation of the recipe evolves over the years.  The earlier recipes read like someone transcribed their grandmother’s directions as she was explaining how to make the cookie. It wasn’t until 1982 that Gourmet started to separate the list of ingredients from the instructions and not until 1984 were the ingredients presented in the shopping list format that we’re used to today. 

Each recipe is accompanied by a picture of what you’d like your cookie to look like when you’re done. Chewy,Gooey, Crispy, Crunchy Melt in Your Mouth Cookies organizes the recipes by texture. I skipped immediately to gooey and can say that the cocoa brownies are most excellent. I received no complaints from my test group – my fellow co-workers who are always ready to help out.  But seriously, if you’re giving away baked goods they have to be truly awful for people to complain so it’s kind of tough to judge based on that. Next on my list of recipes to try out – the Chocolate Pudding Bars. 

Alice Medrich has written a number of cookbooks and you can view her blog at http://alicemedrich.blogspot.com.  Read the introduction and User’s Guide in Chewy Gooey.  She gives some excellent advice – especially if you really do want your cookie to not only taste good but also look like the cookies in the pictures.

Both books were on my holiday wish list, but I can’t wait that long so I’ll be placing my order this week.

Here’s an idea – give one, or both, of these books as early holiday gifts for someone on your list who loves to bake.  Give them with book marks - to mark the pages of one of the many recipes that I’m sure you’d like to try.  You might luck out and get back a cookie platter that you probably won’t want to share. 

Recommended by: Sue D’Anum, staff member

Title: Broccoli and Other Tales of Food and Love

Author: Lara Vapnyar

Summary: A fabulous and creative collection of short stories that revolve around food in the lives of a New York City Russian community. The stories are well written, humorous and witty. Some of the humor is very black, but that bit of gloominess makes the stories more poignant and human. The Russian flavor, vivid descriptions and wonderful prose makes this author and unique and entertaining story teller.

Recommended by: Laurie, Circulation

Title: Stealing Buddha’s Dinner

Author: Bich Minn Nguyen

Summary:This book is unique, entertaining and interesting in it’s perspective on the immigrant (Vietnamese) experience. The setting takes us back to the 1980′s in Michigan. Much of the assimilation experience is relayed through foods such as ice cream, Pringles, and Happy Meals.

Who will like this book?: This memoir is a must for foodie bookworms!

If you like this, try this: Bento Box in the Heartland by Linda Furiya and Fortune Cookies Chronicles by Jennifer 8. Lee

Recommended by: Laurie, Circulation.