More books to help

So it has been awhile since I have posted on here, but working two jobs can have that effect on you. This post will contain the names and descriptions of some books I have read and continue to read that have helped me with my cooking and cooking knowledge.

First off there are two books that I think every cook and aspiring cook should read. They are Culinary Artistry and The Flavor Bible by Andrew Dornenburg and Karen Page. The first book explains how to create art with food by using the flavors of the ingredients and by plate design/food presentation. The second focuses more of the flavor's of food and the flavors brought out by different combinations of foods.

Both books contain something I find very helpful and very amazing. They both take foods and list them along with what makes these different foods pop and amazing. For example they will have the word Tuna and under it will be things like Wasabi, Nori wraps, etc. In the Flavor Bible they list each food, season, and cuisine and tell you things like the volume of the food (how loud or quit it is in flavor), its weight (if it is a dense or soft food), its taste (salty, sour, sweet, bitter), its function (cooling vs warming), season it is best with, flavor affinities (what it is good with), and helpful tips and techniques like what to avoid serving the food with. Culinary Artistry does the same but not to the extent of the other.

These books can help you take a recipe and make it your own creation. You can pull out something like potatoes from the recipe and insert something like rice or risotto if it goes great with your main ingredient. You can even create your own recipes by just combining the ingredients that go with your main ingredient. Like take Mussels and see that you can take cream, saffron, curry, shallots, and garlic, cook together in a saute pan until the mussels are opened and the shallots and garlic are soft, and you will have a nice winter appetizer or entree.


The next set of books will help to teach you new cooking skills and will help you to know what it takes if you ever decide to be a professional cook. One I own and am currently reading is the Culinary Institute of America's Professional Chef. This is their textbook that teaches all their new students things like how to use a knife, how to make stock, how to braise, how to sautee, how to grill, and so on. Each cooking school has a text book like the CIA's. Le Cordon Bleu has Professional Cooking and another I read that was used at L'Ecoule Culinaire and Keiser is called On Cooking. All the books have the same information and people from each school claim theirs is the best but only the people using them can tell what is good for them. I have skimmed through all three and so far the Professional Chef is more in depth and is thicker than the other two. All three can be found on Amazon.com. So if you want to learn some new skills, like how to cut steak from a whole ribeye or how to make brown sauce, pick up any of the three books above. To expand on that knowledge you can also pick up any other textbooks, like from the CIA Baking and Pastry: Mastering the Art and Craft, Garde Manger: The Art and Craft of the Cold Kitchen, and the Art of Charcuterie.

Watch for more posts from me very soon as I am always reading and always cooking. Feel free to ask any questions as well and I will answer them as I can.