Cook with Jamie: My Guide to Making You a Better Cook by Jamie Oliver

We here at FabulousFoods.com have long been fans of Jamie Oliver’s engaging and inspiring laid back style. His previous books have made fine food fun and accessible to average cooks. With this humongous guide, he takes the concept further than ever before, giving readers a complete cooking tutorial a la Oliver. Whether you are brand new to cooking, or an experienced cook looking to add new skills to your repertoire, you’ll find lots of inspiration in these pages.

Of course there are lots of great Jamie Oliver recipes in this book – 160 in all from his famous Fifteen restaurants, but it’s about much more than that. Within the text and tons of photos in these pages, Jamie is giving you the secrets to becoming a better cook, no matter what you are preparing. You’ll learn tips, tricks, and techniques that you will carry through life, transforming ordinary meals into extraordinary feasts that will wow anyone lucky enough to consume them.

Jamie Oliver has said he considers the book a prequel to his 6 other wildly successful titles. He hopes to get readers to think about shopping and cooking in ways they might not have considered before. Jamie, who is known for intermixing his enthusiasm for food with his commitment “to give something back” to the industry, is donating every cent earned from the sale of Cook with Jamie to the Fifteen Foundation, which he started with the goal of helping and inspiring disadvantaged young people to start a career for themselves in the restaurant and catering industries.

Indulge: 100 Perfect Desserts by Claire Clark

Dessert loving gourmets have something to celebrate with the release of Claire Clark's new book. The head pastry chef of Thomas Keller's famed Napa Valley restaurant The French Laundry, Clark has assembled 100 of her favorite dessert recipes. If you want to make a dessert that will WOW your guests make your reputation as a culinary force to be reckoned with, you couldn't find a better guide.

Clark's dessert are creative and sophistication, with surprising flavor combinations and artful presentations. Which is not to say you have to be an accomplished pastry chef to accomplish all of them. Many (like the one reprinted in our Related Recipes section below) are simple and easy to make, yet they still pack a powerful impact. Of course others take more time and commitment, but the results are always well worth it.

Recipes are clear and consise. Many include beautiful full color photos. With each dish, Claire includes her won recipe notes to help insure you get great results at home.

Techniques of Healthy Cooking by the Culinary Institute of America

The experts at The Culinary Institute of America have done yet another fabulous book. This one is important for anyone who wants to eat a healthier diet – and isn’t that everyone?

Drawing on the latest dietary guidelines, this encyclopedic book includes detailed information and advice on ingredients and serving sizes, guidance on developing recipes and menus, and more than 400 delicious recipes. Nearly 150 vibrant, color photographs showcase finished dishes and illustrate the techniques, ingredients, and equipment of healthy cooking.

The food looks too good to be healthy, but the detailed nutritional analysis proves they in fact are. This is an indispensable guide that you will turn to over and over again, for both recipes and instructions.

Complete Book of Indian Cooking by Suneeta Vaswani

The years 2007 and 2008 seemed to be the year time of the Indian cookbook (the previous year it was New Orleans). At least 8 have crossed our desks. This is our favorite and a book we find we urn to often when in the mood for Indian cuisine - which is often. Not only does it have a huge volume of recipes - 350 in all - its diversity is unmatched in the other books we've seen. Bombay born Vaswani takes all of India's regions and their diverse culinary styles and ingredients into account in her comprehensive recipe collection.

I loved the fact that an information bar at the top of each recipe shows a map of India and the region where the recipe comes from. It's an effective way of learning about the styles and nuances of Indian regional cuisine as you prepare the dishes the regions are known for. The author's writing style is clear and concise in the recipes, making them easy to accomplish, even for beginners, while her personal notes and observances bring the reader closer to the culture of the food.

As exotic as Indian cuisine may seem to uninitiated westerners, most dishes can be made with ingredients easily found in US supermarkets. For the few things that my prove more elusive, the author includes sources.

The Science of Good Food -- The Ultimate Reference on How Cooking Works by David Joanchim and Andrew Schloss

David Joachim is no stranger to FabulousFoods.com list of favorite authors. His Food Substitutions Bible is one of our all time favorite reference books. With this encyclopedic reference, Joachim and partner Andrew Schloss have outdone themselves. This is a fascinating look at the world off food with tons of practical tips and information that EVERYONE -- from experienced chefs to novice home cooks -- can put into immediate use to make their cooking better.

Ingredients, tools and techniques are all covered in this book that contains over 1600 entries, arranged alphabetically and cross-referenced s it's always easy to find the information you need when you need it. The book goes into the science -- the actual hows and whys of cooking. The amount of information is astounding -- the answer to nearly any culinary question can be found within these pages. Use this information to take your cooking up to the next level (or two or three). Even those who don't cook will find the information interesting and intriguing and will come away with a greater appreciation for the foods we eat and what it takes to prepare them.

How to Cook Everything Vegetarian by Mark Biittman

Popular author and columnist Mark Bittman who taught a generation how to cook in his How to Cook Everything series and his Minimalist column now turns his attention to vegetarian cooking -- with a vengeance! Bittman has written one of, if not the, definitive reference on vegetarian cooking in this massive, encyclopedic in scope, book. Weighing in at over 1000 pages that contain over 2000 vegetarian and vegan recipes and variations, this book definitely belongs in every vegetarian's kitchen. But omnivores will benefit greatly too, by discovering new ways to add more healthy fruits, vegetables and whole grains into their diets.

Like all of Bittman's books, the recipes are clear, simple and easy to prepare. He has a knack for preparing quality foods with minimal fuss, making this book accessible to cooks at all levels -- even beginners. Especially beginners as this book is as a much a teaching cooking tutorial as it is a recipe collection.

If you ever thought eating a vegetarian diet was boring, you'll never feel that way again after reading these pages. The variety contained here is astounding, and depth of information lets you get as sophisticated as you want (he even shows how to make your own tofu). But perhaps best of all are all the quick to prepare healthy meals that will provide your family with wholesome menus, even on the busiest of nights.

Country Cooking of France by Anne Willan

Renowned for her cooking school in France Anne Willan combines years of hands-on experience with extensive research to create the definitive work on rural French cooking. The book is an encyclopedic love letter (dare I say love epic) to the heart and soul of French cuisine.

Willan lovingly explores the ingredients and flavors of rural France from the culinary, historic and cultural contexts. The book is so beautifully produced, it would be equally at home on a coffee table as it would be in the kitchen. Filled with breathtaking full color photos of both the food and the countryside, paired with Willans compelling narratives, this is a book even non-cooking foodies can appreciate.

That said, this is primarily a cookbook. It's pages will give you the ability to transport yourself and your dinner guests from anywhere in the world to France, via the sensual pleasures of the table. More than 250 authentic recipes represent the best that French country cooking has to offer, from regions throughout the country.

Sauces by James Peterson

When it was first released back in 1991, James Peterson's encyclopedic work on the subject of sauces was an instant classic. This new edition contains even more material, including many historical sauces, as well as special emphasis n French and Italian cooking.

Professional chefs and talented home foodies will surely find inspiration in Peterson's pages, that will improve the overall quality of their cooking. For in addition to just a massive collection of sauce and sauced dish recipes, Peterson is always teaching his readers lessons that can be applied to other dishes beyond the one at hand.

Sauces provide a lot of leeway for culinary creativity and nothing can transform and uplift a dish they way the flavor of the right sauce can. With Peterson's guide, you will always have the right sauce recipe right at hand. This book belongs in the reference library of any serious cook.

Frozen Desserts by the Culinary Institute of America

If you're serious about making frozen desserts -- any kind of frozen dessert -- you could hardly find a better guide than this gloriously produced book from the Culinary Institute of America. In its pages are everything you need to know to put even Ben and Jerry to shame.

If you're looking for quick and easy cooking, this isn't it. The book will appeal to professional and ambitious amateurs. But if you want to produce world class frozen desserts, the answers are here. The recipes are for gourmet fare with presentations as breathtaking as the desserts are flavorful. While you will find some classics, most of these dessert recipes would be at home in any top trendy haute cuisine restaurant.

Holly Clegg's Trim and Terrific Gulf Coast Favorites by Holly Clegg

When best selling cookbook author Holly Clegg (of the Trim and Terrific series fame) heard that the Louisiana coast is disappearing at the alarming rate of 25-35 square miles per year, she just had to do something. After all, as a Louisiana resident herself, Holly frequently uses the Pelican state’s seafood bounty in her Trim and Terrific cooking. So Holly teamed up with America’s WETLAND Foundation whose mission is to raise public awareness of the state of America’s Gulf Coast, to produce this cookbook that celebrates the best of Louisiana style cooking, albeit Trim and Terrific style.

America’s WETLAND Foundation benefits from a portion of the book’s proceeds. Everyone benefits from the tasty easy to prepare recipes. As always Holly has included nutritional info and statistics so everyone, including diabetics, can plan these recipes into their diets. There are also lots of mouth watering full color photos that look so good you can almost taste and smell them.

Like all of Holly’s Trim and Terrific books, the recipes in this one are straight forward, and quick, and easy to prepare -- this is not gourmet haute cuisine, just good food. And while the book does celebrate the flavors of the south, Yankees will have little trouble finding the ingredients (with the possible exception of crawfish).

So do your tastebuds, and America’s vanishing Gulf Coast, a favor and pick up a copy of Trim & Terrific Gulf Coast Favorites for yourself or a for a thoughtful gift that makes a difference.