What's cookin'?

It is lunch time at Grass Roots, so it must be time to discuss food. At least we should talk about books about food. Oh, I do love a good cookbook...

The inventory surveys we asked people to complete a few weeks ago has brought some lovely changes to our shelves, including an increased cooking section with more variety. (Thanks for the feedback!) One of the significant changes I noticed right away is more ethnic cookbooks. Yum!

We've included a few Indian cookbooks in our inventory, including 660 Curries: The Gateway to Indian Cooking by Raghavan Iyer, and How to Cook Indian by Sanjeev Kapoor, who is quite the celebrity chef in the rest of the world. Personally, I am not familiar with Indian cuisine, but there are over 1,100 recipes between these two books. That sounds like a pretty good foundation to me, and one to explore. You could make a night of it and read A Passage to India by E.M. Forster with your book group, and enjoy a recipe out of one of these cookbooks.

Italian cooking is something I have considerably more experience with, though I there's no way I could compete with Giada. The Glorious Pasta of Italy by Domenica Marchetti may just up my game, however. Sadly, I'm a sucker for a well-designed cookbook with nice pictures, but that is not the only reason I admire this one. There's a lot of information about pasta here, including buying and using dried pasta, a glossary of pasta shapes, and recipes and tips for making your own pasta at home. (I admit I cheat; I use a Kitchenaid. But it's still delicious!) It also covers basic sauces, but then it moves beyond. Bake it, sauce it, stuff it--heck, you can even make it sweet! If you love pasta, you've got to check this one out.

I can not not talk about international cookbooks without mentioning something French. This recommendation, however does not include pretty pictures. To make up for it, there is a recipe for Oreilles de Veau Farcies, Sauce Bernaise. I'm not going to translate that for you. The French Menu Cookbook, a classic tome by Richard Olney, will do that for you. It's a tidy little book organized with menus and wine pairings. If you think an evening reading The Sharper Your Knife, The Less You Cry by Kathlenn Finn while nibbling on Fonds d'Artichauts aux Deux Mousses with a fine wine is your idea of a good time, I recommend this book.

Surely that's enough to keep your mouth watering until you come by and visit us. If you can't wait, you can click on the titles that interest you, and the link will take you right to our fantastic new website, www.grassrootsbookstore.com. Easy browsing and ordering right there!

Hopefully, though, you'll still come by and visit us. See you in the bookstore!

Pamela.