Awards Books

This famous chef takes classics from French cuisine and adds the California touch of some lighter sauces with American ingredients.

He relates that this book was tested on students in his cooking school, so the average home gourmet should be able to pull these off. I would not encourage beginners to try one of these for a meal unless they practice the technique several times before the real thing. Puck has great suggestion: If you are giving an important party, it is sometimes better to present five recipes that you have mastered, rather than struggle with twenty that are new to you."

What I love about Puck is the attitude he brings: kinderspiel--my child's play. Share and laugh, great advice.

Especially have enjoyed preparing Lamb Chops with Cream of Shallots and Coulibiac of Pike with Crayfish. With each entree he also suggests an appropriate wine.

Wolfgang Puck's Modern French Cooking for the American Kitchen is a wonderful collection of recipes which will easily fill anyone's appetite. This book of recipes provides the reader with many great sauces which will bring enormous flavor to any dish that a person is creating in their kitchen. The recipes in this book have an American flavor with a French twist. This book is sophisticated and is geared more towards people with a intermediate knowledge of food preparation. If a person has this knowledge in the kitchen I suggest that they add this book to their collection of recipes. If you do feel like going out to eat at Spago you now can bring Spago home to your kitchen. If you enjoy this book of recipes I suggest that you look further into other Wolfgang and Spago recipe books. I am going into the hotel and restaurant business and from books like this I am able to further my education and knowledge about the various details of the food industry.

This is one of several Award Solutions professional computer based training courses that I have taken at the wireless cellular company I work for. They do an absolutely fantastic job of making complex subjects easy to understand. These courses include animated graphics with audio narrations that really help solidify the information. They do a lot better job than a book to get you up to speed in a hurry on a complex subject. These courses are perfect for those who need to hit the ground running in this technology or provide a great way to prepare for a job interview. Highly recommended.

The Final Judge of the 2001 Emily Dickinson Award in Poetry, David Kirby, W. Guy McKenzie Professor of English, Florida State University, wrote the following about the winning poem, "Because We are Men," as well as commenting on other poems featured in this anthology:

"If you're a poet, it's easy to love poetry, which makes it difficult in the extreme to judge a contest like this one that has so many praiseworthy entries. But when I read a poem, the first question I ask myself is, do I want to read this poem again? (You can't do that with Moby-Dick or Macbeth, but you can re-read most poems right there on the spot; indeed, if the poems are any good, you have to.) Then I want to know, Is every part as good as the whole? After all, a great poem can be deflated by a flat ending or a wobbly middle or sometimes just a comma error. But then all art contains error, as the sages of the desert tell us, so finally I ask myself if the poem transcends its own frailties. In other words, I end up where I started: do I want to read this poem again?

The problem is that almost all the poems I read for this year's Emily Dickinson Award competition meet these criteria. Finally, though, I chose "Because We are Men." True, it's a manly poem, and I am a man. But his poem about warriors is, in a larger sense, about the victims of wars, and each of us is a victim of one conflict or another, from the domestic to the global (not to mention the most widespread fighting of all, the kind that takes place in our minds.) At the highest level, though, "Because We are Men" is about the oldest of literary themes, isolation, as well as isolation's opposite, connection. "Because We are Men is succinctly encyclopedic; it's just two pages long, but it covers the world. It has a sound as new as the terrifying events of September 11, yet its lines remind us that, as William Carlos Williams said, "It is difficult/to get the news from poems/yet men die miserably every day/for lack/of what is found there."

I also like "The Nuclear Family" because of the brainy, goofy way it combines family and geography in a way that makes both a lot more fun than they could ever be on their own. Finally, "Closing Time" is a poem that makes God more human and our fathers more hauntingly god-like; it's hard to imagine a topic more rewarding for either poem or reader.

As I say, all the poems are winners in one way or another. This year's poets honor me by allowing me to read them, and they honor poetry by continuing to pursue this most difficult, most rewarding craft."

In this day and age, WANGO is often misrepresented or misinterpreted. Not since Cram's 1977 review of Int'l WANGO practice has anyone so skillfully demonstrated the proliferation of NGOs. As Brown points out, it's going to take a few sittings to delve through all the red tape, but the limbo stick keeps getting lower and the song keeps getting faster. Voodoo Bravisimo!

This Guide is so incredibly handy. When travelling on business I always take the Guide along to guarantee a fine dining experience for me and my clients. It has never steered me wrong that is why I've also purchased it for clients who, like me, travel often or who enjoy fine dining, fine wines, etc. Excellent resource. Impressive gift. Nothing like Zagats -- this is fine dining. The only problem with it -- I understand there are MORE Dirona restaurants around the country but they are not listed in the directory. That's too bad.

I bought this Brainy Baby set of books when my little granddaughter arrived. Although she's now only five months old, the books hold her attention as I read to her. As a retired teacher, I recommend parents and grandparents start reading these to your little ones early on.

Although this book is out of date, it still offers a great review of the best actors, actresses and films of 1927 to 1985, including such classics as Gone With The Wind, Casablanca, The Godfather and Rocky. (Note: Les Fox is a NY Times bestselling author, and one of millions of people fascinated with Oscar winning films and movie stars.)

Published in 1962, this is a collection of 8 x 10" prints of every winner of best actor & actress between the years 1928 - 1961. I believe that amounts to 66 - 8 x 10" prints. This is a wonderful and unique collection! The pictures come in a cardboard portfolio and are suitable for framing. Original price was $3.00 in 1962 when this was produced. This collection was done by an artist named Nicholas Volpe and he did a charcoal portrait of all 66 of the Academy Awards winners.

And the Oscar goes to....This Book is very Informative and a must for Oscar watchers. Telling you who should have been nominated, who was nominated and who should of won over who did. Hard to put down and great reference material. Perfect coffee table book available for the coffee stains.

"Across the Long Bridge" is a well-presented anthology of 133 poems (120 prize-winning and commended entries, plus 13 poems by the judges), attractively spread over 267 pages.

Most entries in poetry contests fail to pass beyond the first round of judging. The initial failure rate can be as high as 90% and the sad fact of life is that a third of these entries are well written. The reason they fail is simply they are inappropriate for that particular contest. The entrant has obviously not read anthologies of previous prize-winning poems and has therefore formed no ideas at all as to the range and type of verse that the judges are seeking, nor any obvious limitations on subject matter.

It's astonishing how many entrants believe that all literary contests are run on much the same lines. But each contest is unique. To have any chance of winning a cash prize, it is essential to study previous award-winning entries and tailor your own submissions accordingly. Anthologies not only provide a showcase for winning poets but are an essential guide for writers who contemplate entering current or future competitions.

As Chief Judge for both the Tom Howard Poetry Contest and the Margaret Reid Prize for Traditional Verse, and the editor of anthologies such as "Across the Long Bridge", I uphold certain standards, but those standards are not necessarily the same as those in place for other contests. For instance, I will accept comic verse as potential prize-winners. Many other contests will not. In fact, one of my favorite poems in this anthology is "Chefosaurus" by Graeme King (whose entry won a High Distinction): "A dinosaur went walking to see what he could munch: Perhaps a small triceratops would make a tasty lunch?"

Still on the humor trail but in a more satiric vein is a short piece, "If Lions Were Smart", by Greg Schwartz (who won a Commended certificate). The opening lines: "If lions were smart, if they had human brains/They'd all look in mirrors and style their manes./Rather than hunting for food, and that's all/They'd hunt zebras for sport and hang heads on their wall."

Contest judges have a hard life, but contestants would make it much easier for both the judges and themselves, if they would only skim through an anthology like "Across the Long Bridge" before submitting their own entries.