Studios Books

If you like to try your hand at making goodies at home, this book is for you! The authors give you recipes for making your own liqueurs, flavored vodkas, jellies, jams, cheeses, seasoning mixes, sauces, specialty mustards, exotic desserts, gourmet meats--the list is almost endless!

The recipes are generally easy to follow and use ingredients that are readily available. If special ingredients or equipment are needed, there's a handy guide in the back on where to order these things. And there are explanations that make sense for the more complicated procedures, such as cheese-making and brewing spirits. You're not left to wonder what some term or procedure means!

I've used this book for several years to make Christmas gifts. My friends expect the cordials and liqueurs, as well as the gourmet jams and relishes now! And I've given this book to friends the world over, as well. No one has been disappointed yet by this book. It is a true treasure on my cookbook shelf and shows the splatters of many successful uses.

This is a wonderful book if you are looking to get started recording. As a performer, I wasn't exactly sure where to start when I wanted to start recording, but this book has answered the questions that I've had and brought up things that I hadn't even thought about!! It's an easy-to-read and easy-to-understand book that I recommend!!!

Romeo and Juliet first gained fame as painters...yes, these painting horses have decided not only are they artists but the stars of their own book. Kids will love the photos as the horses decide to move from barn to the house, and the book chronicles their adventure along the way. Cheryl Ward has a great writing style, and has produced a book that is well written and illustrated, and great for out-loud story hour also. As a Library Tech, I heartily recommend this fun book for beginning readers. Cheryl is currently working with a third unwanted-rescue horse - also teaching him to paint. [...].

This catalogue has plans that can actually be built! Finally a realistic home plan catalogue. I've actually built a Spectrum Home and couldn't be happier with the outcome. The plans were easy to read, actually worked and are easy build off of.

I really like this book. It's very beauiful! It
has pieces of romantic love songs and poetry in it. It
also has some very lovely illustrations and a few photos.
It makes a great Valentine.

If you're wondering what to get your foodie friends for the holidays, you may want to consider making Sudi Pigott's "How to Be a Better Foodie" your stocking stuffer of choice. This chic little brown & pink book is choc full of entertaining food related tidbits: from a rundown of the "better foodie" cupboard essentials (Jordanian Zatar made the list, which I appreciated), to food quotations, to an index of flavors to enjoy when traveling and an almanac of seasonal produce. There's also a list of "better foodie stocking stuffers," which includes items like candied chestnuts and a hand-tied bunch of Madagascan vanilla pods. Altogether this is a light-hearted, enjoyable book that doesn't take itself too seriously and even seems to poke playful fun at the idea that serious foodies are snobs. Hence the references to the "linguine literati" and advice sections on the best better foodie pet. "Bee keeping has an endearing, albeit competitive buzz," the author muses, and on the topic of entertaining she recommends cultivating an air of "studied nonchalance" by flaunting your relationship with the local fishmonger. Foodies will appreciate the mixture of humor and real food-related content. I've added several obscure handcrafted cheeses to my "must try" list since reading this book, along with a generous helping of better foodie knowledge - who knew that chili heat is measured in scovilles, the official scale measure of hotness? Or that watercress was called "poor man's bread" in the nineteenth century? "How to Be a Better Foodie" won't become your go-to reference book, but it will become a much enjoyed conversation starter.

This book is perfect for an entry level artist as well as someone who has been drawing for some time. I've been sketching choppers for a long time, more seriously in the last few years, and I'm thrilled to see how much this has to offer me in the way of disciplining my process.

It also covers the basics such as perspective, bike construction, and other aspects that are of value to anyone interested in drawing bikes. This is true for the fine artist/painter, the cartoonist, or the enthusiast who wants to develop a hobby in drawing bikes.

Quintessetial guide to love, sex and marriage. Reminiscent of Eric Weber and Kevin Doyle with a little P. J. O'Rourke and P. G. Wodehouse thrown in. Not overly burdened with verbiage - but what's there is choice. I used to give OH, THE PLACES YOU WILL GO
to graduates. Now I give McBride's classy little tome.

I used to do sign painting, and this is the kind of book that we would grab instantly! An excellent treatment and description of Roman family of fonts, with history, instruction, details, samples, layouts and classic italic alphabets. 80 pgs, hardback. Great deal, recommended.

During the nineteenth century, an interesting development in American art occurred in New York and environs called the Hudson River School. This group had a specific intention of building national pride and a sense of place. Their subject was the Hudson River and its natural surroundings, not choosing to paint New York skylines or cityscapes-on-the-banks, but rather the river itself, unsullied for the most part. While the buildings, houses, mills, and other human constructs cannot help but be pictured in certain scenes (and ships and boats also feature), it is clear from most that it is the river itself that is the principal subject.

New England had a strong pantheistic philosophical/theological streak at this time, and an awe and reverence for nature not only as the work of God, but rather as part-and-parcel of God, can be seen in the paintings. The artistic founders of the school could be said to be John Trumbull, William Dunlap and Asher Durand, around 1825. Washington Irving and James Fenimore Cooper added a literary element to the same. These artists were also joined by Thomas Chambers, Edward Moran, Jasper Francis Cropsey, Sanford Robinson Gifford, William Guy Wall, Frederic Edwin Church, as well as artists bearing names that became established even beyond the Hudson River School, Winslow Homer and Victor Gifford Audubon.

The paintings here are varied in their use of light, colour, and perspective, but there is an important spirit that permeates all of these images. The book contains a hundred images on full-colour plates; some paintings are so true to life it is amazing they are not photographs, while others border on Impressionistic, but all treat their subject with a keen eye and gracious development.

This artwork is of vital importance now as the Hudson Valley continues to lose natural settings in favour of increasing development - as many as twenty times the number of people who lived in the Hudson Valley during the Hudson River School times lives there now.

The authors and compilers of this book agreed that the royalties of the book should go to the Scenic Hudson Preservation Conference, and thus this book helps to preserve the Hudson Valley in many ways.