![]() For the cooking and cookbook-reading enthusiasts on your holiday shopping list, GadgetGals offers our top cookbook picks to make your gift recipients smile and ready to hit the kitchen. All are available at amazon.com. Books Published This Year 1. I Know How to Cook by Ginette Mathiot; published by Phaidon. This French best-seller goes counter to Julia Child's chef-driven recipes. Written in 1932 for French housewives and translated into English this year, it is as essential to French home cooks as Joy of Cooking is to us. Ginette Mathiot published more than 30 cookbooks in her lifetime and earned a reputation as the authority of French home cooking. 2. Rose's Heavenly Cakes by Rose Levey Berenbaum; published by Wiley & Sons. The baking doyenne does it again. Her exact directions make cake bakers of anyone who can read. She starts with her 10 rules of baking, a must for success. Then you're off to select sponge cakes, flourless cakes, and more, and end, for anyone with a steady hand, with wedding cakes. $40 3. My New Orleans Cookbook by John Besh; published by Andrews McMeel. A great read on cooking from the Big Easy and environs, written by today's hottest NOLA chef and owner of six restaurants. The 16 chapters and 200 recipes are arrange by seasonal events. Yes, Mardi Gras has its own chapter. A cookbook five years in the writing but Hurricane Katrina gave Besh a 'sense of stewwardship.' The book is worth buying just for the gumbo recipes. $50 4. How to Roast Lamb, New Greek Classic Cooking by Michael Psilakis: Little Brown and Company. Psilakis is a New York City chef of Greek heritage with highly regarded restaurants Kefi, Anthos, and Mia Dona. The New York Times calls him the Greek-American Mario Batali. Not only does the book tell you how to roast lamb but also increasingly popular roast goat. The book has 150 recipes organized into 9 chapters on 233 pages. $35 5. Peter Reinhart's Artisan Bread Every Day; published by Ten Speed Press. Peter is one of the all-time great bread gurus who knows how to share simple breads for home bakers. After all, he's a baking instructor at the Johnson and Wales University in Charlotte, NC, and the author of seven bread cookbooks. Peter says that anyone can make artisan bread if you have flour and a refrigerator. Refrigerator? Now that should make you curious enough to own this book. $30 6. Mastering the Art of Chinese Cooking by Eileen Yin Fei Lo; published by Chronicle Books. This book does for Asian cooking what Julia's book did for French cooking. It's divided into cooking lessons, starting readers in the marketplace to buy the ingredients. Then it walks you through 100 classic recipes with photographs and step-by-step drawings that illustrate Chinese cooking techniques. Eileen already has written eleven cookbooks, but we think this one, well-planned with fabulous food and cooking tips, is her best yet. $50 7. Gourmet Today by Ruth Reichl; published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Gourmet magazine may be history, but this collection of 1000 recipes preserves many of the magazine's great ones for cooks everywhere. Plus, as Ruth Reichl says, the book is written for the way we eat and cook now. $40 Previously published books worth owning: 8. Mastering the Art of French Cooking by Julia Child, Simone Beck, and Louisette Bertholle; published by Knopf. Every cook should have a culinary dictionary and this two-volume classic in their home library. The recipes hold up just as well for today's tastes as they did when the book was first published in the 1960's. It is always a good resource to go to when you need something special to make. If you loved the movie Julie and Julia, then this book is a must. Volume 1 Two-volume set $90. 9. Beyond the Great Wall: Recipes and Travels in the Other China by Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Duguid; published by Artisan. Both captivating travelogue and inspiring recipe collection, this book makes perfect bedtime reading, yet it's also for the serious cook who likes to try something new in the kitchen. Alford and Duiguid are well known for traveling the four-corners of the world, recording what they learned about the food cultures of places that many of us have never been. A 2009 James Beard Cookbook Award winner. $40 10. The Best Casserole Cookbook Ever by Beatrice Ojakangas; published by Chronicle Books. Some say casseroles have made a comeback. We don't think they ever left the home dinner table. This is a tome of a book with more than 500 recipes, covering appetizers to desserts, and created by one of America's most trusted home cooking authorities. You won't find dated casseroles of yore based on cans of soup. These casseroles are inspired and reinvented for today's tastes. How Beatrice came up with such a diverse and appealing mix amazes us.$25 11. Bakewise: The Hows and Whys of Successful Baking with Over 200 Magnificent Recipes by Shirley Corriher; published by Scribner. One of our favorite foodie friends, Shirley is phenomenal at making baking as simple and fun as saying 1-2-3. A chemist by training, she knows how to write a recipe so everyone can have success, helping you understand the hows and whys along the way. No wonder this is a 2009 James Beqrd cookbook Award winner.$40 12. Half-Baked Gourmet: Party Food by Jan Hazard; published by HP Trade. OK, a bit of promotion for GadgetGal Jan here, but give us credit for listing it last. This is a fabulous book for all party-givers wanting easy appetizers that are guaranteed to impress. Few ingredients and simple preparation are the hallmarks of all 192 recipes. Another handy feature: the book stands-up for easy reading a you cook. And you can't beat the price. $2
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