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Treasures from the Kingdom of Fungi: Photographs of Mushrooms and Other Fungi from Around the World
by Taylor F. Lockwood

This book showcases 274 of the most enchanting color mushroom images and other fungi from around the world by photo-mycologist Taylor Lockwood. A must-have book for anyone interested in mushrooms and/or spectacular photography.

Why Do Donuts Have Holes?: Fascinating Facts About What We Eat And Drink
by Don Voorhees

Find the answers to a veritable menu of fascinating questions. With categories such as "On the Hoof," "Eat Your Greens," and "Saucy!" here is a truly unique culinary compendium sure to appeal to trivia buffs and even the most finicky readers.

The New Joy of Cooking
by Irma S. Rombauer, Marion Rombauer Becker, and Ethan Becker

Irma Rombauer collected recipes from friends for the first Joy of Cooking, and published it herself. For this sixth edition, the All New, All Purpose Joy of Cooking, Ethan Becker, grandson of Irma and son of Marion Rombauer Becker, worked with Maria Guarnaschelli, senior editor and vice president at Scribner's. Together, they called on top food professionals to produce a Joy that reflects the way we eat today.

"The Joy of Cooking" is the most enduring and trusted cookbook of all time, now revised with thousands of great new recipes that will keep home cooks reaching for "Joy" for years to come. 1,000 line drawings. Ribbon marker.

Click here to order.

Appetite for Life:
A Biography of Julia Child
by Noel Riley Fitch
http://members.aol.com/noelriley

This 512 page authorized biography of Julia Child, age 85, chronicles her accomplishments. Ms. Fitch worked with Mrs. Child's many papers and diaries to catalogue Child's life from growing up in a privileged California family to attending Smith College to marrying Paul Child, who helped her with her career. From her many cookbooks to her popular television shows, even her injuries, her mastectomy and face-lifts...it's all there!

The California Design Library Kitchens
by Diane Dorrans Saeks

In Kitchens, style writer and editor Diane Dorrans Saeks offers an innovative approach to thinking about and practically designing a kitchen. She reveals the inspired home-designs of some of Californias top interior designers, architects, and chefs. Inspiring photographs accompany instructive, practical text, with tips from those who depend on their kitchens to be both efficient and beautiful. Learn how to choose winning floors, counters and cabinetry; how to plan for storage and other essentials; how to select gorgeous color schemes; and much more. This book makes the timeless, comfortable elegance of West Coast style a perfect fit for any home, apartment or loft no matter where you live.

The Dean & Deluca Cookbook
by David Rosengarten with Joel Dean and Giorgio De Luca

The co-founders of the upscale gourmet markets, Dean & DeLuca, and the host of Taste on the TV Food Network, Rosengarten, have created a new type of basic cookbook, one with encyclopedic details from etymology to how-to's of sauces, salads, pizzas and more. It is the most amazingly dull-looking book, has another "dangerous" white cover and little or no "life" to it, but read it anyway; it's really got the details down pat. Loads of information.

The Diners Dictionary
by John Ayto

Contains an account of the meaning, origin and development of over 1200 food and drink terms. Somewhat British in focus, but does cover US, French, Italian and other cuisines. No illustrations.

The Encyclopedia of Herbs, Spices, and Flavorings
by Elisabeth Lambert Ortiz

A great book with gorgeous pictures. Covers a broad range of topics: kitchen herbs; kitchen spices; flavors of the world (overviews of cuisines from around the world); fruit and vegetable flavorings (tomatoes, chocolate, coconut, etc.); extracts, essences and sweeteners (from meat extract and fish paste to sugars, syrups and honeys); edible leaves and flowers; oils, vinegars and dairy products; sauces, preserves and condiments; and coffee, tea and spiced drinks.

The Fannie Farmer Cookbook
by Marion Cunningham

What would I do without my Fannie Farmer Cookbook? Anyone who owns a copy, published originally in 1896 under the title The Boston Cooking School Cook Book by Fannie Merritt Farmer, knows what I mean. That even goes for those of you who won't cook anything more complicated than an egg, although it would likely upset Marion Cunningham, the cookbook's current author, if she knew that her nearly 900-page reference on everything from onion sandwiches to pickled watermelon rind was serving as little more than a point of departure for the Martha Stewart-like fantasies of armchair cooks. The latest edition of the Fannie Farmer Cookbook, actually published in 1990 but spruced up this year with a new jacket and note from the author in celebration of its 100th anniversary, is packed with essential information for cooks of all ages and years of experience. Yes, there is a recipe for the humble scrambled egg here, along with a variations that include a choice of ham, cream cheese, chives, chicken livers or asparagus. But you can also find step-by-step instructions on the lost art of cutting up a whole chicken, what to do with leftover lamb and a treatise on how beef has changed over the last 20 odd years. Cunningham has made sure that although the main of the recipes have a traditionally American flavor, the last two editions of the Fanny Farmer Cookbook (she produced her first revision in 1979) have change along with the way we eat. That explains the expanded sections of vegetarian recipes emphasizing grains, legumes and all manner of green vegetables. "Meat is becoming more like a condiment," she notes in a recent interview. Cunningham also had to be mindful of Americans' preoccupation with fat, which the author finds regrettable. While she appreciates the need to limit the amount of fat we consume for health reasons, Cunningham believes that attempts to purge it from every aspect of our diet can sometimes harm the quality of our foods and make cooking and eating excruciatingly dull and formulaic. By demanding low- and non-fat products, we come to regard food as a prescribed drug rather than a source of joy and sustenance. As a result, we abdicate responsibility for adopting eating habits emphasizing moderation, nutritional value and balance.

Food Lover's Guide to San Francisco
by Patricia Unterman

It covers not only restaurants and cafes but food shops, farmers' markets, bakeries and cookware , tabletop and wine shops. Unterman, like Wells, is a long-time restaurant reviewer and has covered the City thoroughly, including the East Bay and the Wine Country. The San Francisco Bay Area is one of the greatest places in the world to eat and drink, and this book is the long awaited map to those pleasures.

The Food Tiptionary
by Sharon Tyler-Herbst

"Always store eggs large end up -- it keeps them fresher and helps keep the yolk centered. Never place them near odoriferous foods because they easily absorb odors right through their shells." This tip, and many others, can be found in Sharon Tyler Herbst's book The Food Lovers Tiptionary. Herbst, author of the Food Lovers Companion and Wine Lover's Companion, has provided the household culinarian with a map by which to navigate around the kitchen's hazards. Keeping steamed broccoli green may seem a somnambular task to some, but for others the appetizing color is as evasive as the perfect custard. Herbst can help there too. The book is organized alphabetically and covers everything from abalone "overcooking abalone toughens it. SautÈ it briefly for no more than 20 to 30 seconds per side" to zucchini. There's even a lengthy section on measurements complete with a metric to American conversion table.

Fresh From The Farmers Market
by Janet Fletcher

Illustrated with beautiful photographs by award-winning photographer Victoria Pearson, Fresh From The Farmers Market offers cooks a seasonal produce guide, plus eighty fabulous recipes. Author Janet Fletcher celebrates Americas incomparable harvest with recipes and photos that showcase the riches of each season. Her compelling text conveys the pleasure of shopping at the farmers market, and highlights the benefits of buying direct from the grower: access to fully ripe, fresh-picked local produce; the chance to buy unusual varieties, which many supermarkets never carry; and the availability of organically grown produce. This book guides readers to fruits and vegetables at peak freshness, and explains how to recognize quality. Then, Fletcher puts these fruits and vegetables center stage, in tantalizing recipes, motivating us to make the most of our purchases.

Gourmet To Go: A Guide to Opening and Operating a Specialty Food Store
by Robert Wemischner and Karen Karp

This book covers everything you'd need to know about the Specialty Food business. Co-author Robert Wemischner draws on his personal experience of owning a top take-out business in Beverly Hills. Gourmet To Go has chapters devoted to staking out locations, negotiating with contractors and even how to hire and train employees!

The Great Food Almanac
by Irena Chalmers

This book is the ultimate resource for everyone who loves food. Come to think of it, that's most of us. Chockablock with facts, figures and countless bits of trivia, you'll read about calories, diners, edible flowers and even Elvis' last snack (clue: it was something sweet). An A-to-Z compendium which spells F-U-N for foodies.

Inconspicuous Consumption
by Paul Lukas

An irresistible and irreverent survey of many products and services that have come to fertilize the terrain of American consumer goods. Author Lukas is a master observer of American ingenuity's late twentieth-century offerings. From popular hopping cart goods to obscure livestock services, from unappetizing food products to beautifully functioning tools, few of life's everyday pleasures go unscrutinized by America's hardest working consumer. More than 100 items are reviewed. Don't be surprised: plenty of brainstorming sessions and hard-earned dollars go into production, packaging, and marketing of the items we hold dearest to us. Inconspicuous Consumption answers many of the questions that have been nagging at the consciousness of American consumers for years. This is a fun and informative review of the products and services we have shamefully let go unobserved.

The International Pantry Cookbook: An Everyday Guide to Cooking with Seasonings, Prepared Sauces, and Spices
by Heidi Haughy Cusick

In this 270 page book Cusick shows how to use all kinds of easily available store-bought gourmet condiments and sauces to create hundreds of delicious dishes without fuss or hours spent in the kitchen. She turns basic recipes into tantalizing and vivid meals from around the world with the simple addition of store-bought spices and sauces. She offers a thorough introduction to regional flavors of the Caribbean, Latin America, the Middle East, the Mediterranean, Africa, Asia, and the fabulous flavors of the Creole region. She includes basic recipes for soups, salads, vegetables and beans, grains and pasta, seafood, meat and poultry, pizza, crostini and toast. Cusick's enthusiasm for cooking while experimenting with international flavors is infectious and informative.

New Easy Basics Cookbook
by Sunset Books

Sunset's most seasoned food authority, Jerry Anne Di Vecchio, has updated and re-tested the magazine's most popular recipes and combined them with invaluable facts, and hundreds of step-by-step instructions and tips. The result is this one-if-a-kind resource that provides a fundamental body of knowledge tailored to the contemporary needs and the creative fancies of today's cook. This guide contains a wealth of information from selecting the right utensils and pots and pans to basic cooking techniques. Meat and poultry cooking times and temperatures, metric and standard measures, low-fat substitutes and more are deftly complied here, along with fully illustrated, easy-to-follow instructions. This tome really is nothing less than an entire cooking course between two hardbound covers. A must have for most cooks.

New Food Lover's Companion
by Sharon Tyler Herbst

Broadly hailed as an invaluable book for anyone who cooks, this extensively expanded, updated version of the popular bestseller is an A-to-Z guide packed with more than 4,000 food and drink definitions (with pronunciations), including over 900 new listings. The most up-to-date information on culinary terms including preparation and cooking methods, kitchen utensils, herbs and spices, meat cuts, types of cheese, fish, foreign foods, exotic fruits, and beers, wines and cocktails. Extensive appendices include a buying guide, temperature charts, measurement tables, metric equivalents, herb and spice charts and pan sizes. A must for all cooks!

The New Joy of Cooking
by Irma S. Rombauer

The ever popular Joy of Cooking cookbook has been revised for the first time in 30 years. The publishers have vastly expanded the possibilities for this book's future and put the country's food experts within reach as prominent food experts authored the various chapters. Three years of work has provided new recipes, the latest food and nutrition knowledge...a cookbook for both the novice and experienced cook. This is the most comprehensive, best organized and easiest-to-use "Joy" ever.

The Recipe Writer's Handbook
by Barbara Gibbs Ostmann and Jane L. Baker

This is one of the most in-depth manuals a budding food writer could want. It includes: a glossary of food terms, preferred spelling list, purchasing information and a listing of professional food associations and promotion organizations. It even covers nutritional analysis of recipes and how to write recipes for television and radio.

The Restaurant Lover's Companion
by Steve Ettlinger

This book provides explanations of typical menus from 14 different ethnic categories. Appropriate eating methods, historical information and hints on ordering are all found in the Companion. Ettlinger also defines commonly used terms. The extensive index is a useful tool when fact gathering.