If James Bond drank Malbec instead of Martinis, he would be in this book. At first, I'll admit, I was skeptical–would I be interested in reading a whole book about the history of Argentine wine? But reading this book is like having your BFF climb into bed with you and tell you all the latest chisme. […]
Sandra Gutierrez's passion for food permeates the pages of her new book, The New Southern Latino Table. In it, she talks about her upbringing in Guatemala–a fusion of Latin and American cultures that reached into all areas of her life–language, culture, and especially food. Gutierrez credits her tia Maria, an accomplished and avid writer and cook, […]
Andrea Nguyen's family fled Vietnam in the early 1970s with little more than a tattered orange notebook full of family recipes that her mom rescued from their home. The notebook later became the inspiration for Nguyen's James Beard Award-nominated tour de force, Into the Vietnamese Kitchen–the first Vietnamese cookbook published in English. She followed with […]
In 2009, when I met Peter Perez of Chronicle Books at the IACP conference he told me that Laura Catena was writing a guidebook to Argentinean wines and wine regions, to be published by Chronicle in 2010. Guidebook is an understatement–Bible of Argentine Wine is a more accurate description–and the wait is finally over! If you're not familiar […]
Nirmala Narine, who has been called 'the Indiana Jones of Spices', was born in Guyana in the family kitchen on an empty flour sack, delivered by a marijuana-puffing midwife. Her grandfather was an Ayurvedic scholar and Hindu priest who introduced her to the importance of spices and cooking holistically. Narine spent the first ten years of […]
