Beverages Books

As a former bartender at a private country club, I can fully appreciate Mr. Field's work and position at the Ritz Paris. His book is a vey informative and enjoyable read. I had the pleasure to live at the Ritz for two weeks in 1981 after graduation from college, and look forward to visiting again soon to see the completed renovations that were in progress when I was there. The book sure makes me yearn to return to the Ritz as soon as I can. When I do, I will be sure to drop by the bar to say "hello" to a very accomplished barman!

I have had the enjoyable opportunity to share many cocktails with Colin, and am extremely thrilled that he has published a book of some of the great cocktails that he serves to his guests at the Ritz in Paris.

While this book does have a "small" collection of recipes for standard cocktials (Mojito, Whiskey Sour, Pina Colada, Daiquiri...), it is a very small list, and simply represents some of the standard cocktails the way that Colin makes them in his bar. This book instead shines in the collection of cocktails that appear in Chapter 5 : "Cocktails and the stories that belong to them". Here Colin shares his recipes for the "Ritz Pimm's", "Miss Bonde", "The Georges", "Serendipiti", and many others which Mr. Field shares not only the recipe, but some of the story surrounding its birth.

The "Bar Hemingway" is indeed a unique bar in the heart of Paris, just as Colin Field is a unique bartender. It should then come as no great surprise that his first cocktail book reflects this uniqueness in ways that will make it a favorite of many.

I was so fortunate to have the opportunity to spend New Year at the Ritz in Paris. The absolute highlight was the time spent in the Hemingway Bar. I never understood the meaning of serendipity until I found it, and to find there was a cocktail named after it when I did was more than the icing on the cake. Colin and his colleagues are not only masters of their trade, but also charming, witty, knowledgeable, humurous in the extreme. The perfect barmen. I bought the book as a souvenir and have been unable to put it down since opening at the first page. This is a must for any pretender to Colin's throne. Unfortunately, I suspect his abdication from the position of best bartender in the world will be a long time coming. The Hemingway Bar is the best kept secret in Paris and long may it remain so. Ssssshhh, don't tell anyone.

The importance of Bo Simmond's praise for this book on Amazon can not be exaggerated; there is no better library of wine books in the United States. Sullivan himself has studied wine and its history in California for over 30 years. He has a clear and concise style, and his text is well documented and reliable.

Sullivan has contributed his California wine history database to winefiles.org. It contains over 30,000 citations to primary sources in California's wine history, including books, newspapers, trade journals and other periodicals.

In addition to "A Companion to California Wine', Sullivan is the author of:

"Napa Wine: A History from Mission Days to Present";

"WINES AND WINEMAKERS OF THE SANTA CRUZ MOUNTAINS" (Los Gatos: D. R. Bennion Trust, 1992);

"Like Modern Edens: Winegrowing in Santa Clara Valley and Santa Cruz Mountains 1798-1981"; and

"Zinfandel: A History of a Grape and Its Wine" (California Studies in Food and Culture, 10).

Sullivan continues to write about California wine, and has written over a hundred articles on the subject, which have been published in leading wine periodicals. "A Companion" is a great place to explore his work and California wine history in general.

Robert C. Ross 2008

I am the librarian at the Sonoma County Wine Library, and I have known Charles Sullivan for some years. His newest work will probably be THE one volume reference on California wine from now on. In concise and informative entries, Sullivan encompasses the whole of California's rich wine heritage. He covers all the varietals and most of the wineries A to Z. His writing is insightful, dispassionate and fluid, and his research is superb.

This lean volume is everything you'd want in a companion: Lively, intoxicating, and beautiful in appearance; her lean, supple prose swells provocatively beneath the sheer, black jacket that clings suggestively to this tight, curvaceaous body of work. But she is more than a sensual treat! Her wit, though not of the highest order, gives some delight as well and one would be proud to appear with this companion under one's arm even at a Mensa gathering.

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This is such a well structured and informative guide that I do not make my numerous trips into wine country without it.

Its one great failing is that the publishers have not seen fit to update it in over 7 years!

I shopped around extensively at local travel bookstores to find a good wine country book, and I think this one is the best. It has beautiful color pictures on almost every page. Many of the pictures show the wine labels, which helps make the book a nice souvenir for you to remember the wine/winery later. The pictures are supplemented with insightful commentary on the wines, history of each winery, and even pictures/descriptions of the restaurants, lodgings. The maps are also in color, and are detailed for each town. Also included is an events/festivals list and analysis of wine vintages by year. All that, and it's still small enough to carry with you when you visit the wineries.

My wife and I were completely delighted following the "tours" in this guide. The maps, directions and winery descriptions were second to none! Anyone contemplating a trip to the California wine country should consider this book a MUST. Of course, if your not planning a trip, you will be after reading this! We stayed at two different B&B's recommended by the book and were very pleased. The book accurately depicted the quality of the rooms and hospitality of the staff. Again, I highly recommend this wine country guide.

Robert Wemischner has created a cookbook that works. The recipes creatively use tea in an accessible form. This a a worthy successor to his "Vivid Flavors" cookbook. The author takes us beyond the standard fare, but in a way that a reasonable home cook can reproduce.

I am a big fan of tea. I also love meals that are both simple and elegant. I'm not your traditional "homestyle" cook. That said, I also hate fussy, pretentious food that requires a lot of time and fuss in the kitchen. This book was very much what I was looking for.
The ideas presented here are flavorful and innovative. The presentations are simple, but lovely. The color photographs are plentiful, and beautiful. There is a photo of every recipe in the book. I don't know about you, but I love to see what the final product looks like.
Some of the recipes are easier than others. None of them require hours of work and preparation. Also, some have a short list of ingredients.
Finally, there are a variety of ideas here ranging from Asian and Thai inspired dishes to some more "fusion" cuisine. I highly recommend this book to anyone who enjoys cooking and is looking for something "different" but not too complicated.

While many tea cookery books focus on foods to serve with tea, this book shows you how to use tea as a basis for cooking a variety of foods. Beginning with a general introduction of tea, the book goes on to teach the reader about various types of teas, how to brew and store them, and then how to cook with them.

This book is great for the newcomer or the experienced tea lover, the professional and not-so-professional cook. With beautiful pictures and recipes like Smoked Chicken Salad with Tea Vinaigrette, Tea Cured Salmon, (my favorite) Spring Rolls with Thai Tea Sauce, Tea Smoked Chicken, Earl Grey Truffles and Chai Ice Cream to whet the appetite, how could you go wrong?

Great reference book. I have been in the foodservice business for years and I learned a few things from reading this book.

As a professional health facilities planner, I was in need of a definative reference on planning institutional kitchens and cafeterias. This book is particularly informative and exceeded my expectations.

I like the fact that this book discusses how to make the design and layout of a facility function in its favor. As I read it, it continues to remind me that a lot of thought has to be put into the environment of the facility and people within various specialties must be integrated to make everything work smoothly.

Excellent reference for anyone working in the food industry or anyone who wants to understand the ingredients on their food labels.

Easy to read, items are listed alphabetically as you would expect from a dictionary, but another useful section of the book also includes informational overviews of food ingredient categories such as sweetners, colorings, emulsifiers,etc..

Definitely something I use and recommend.

I work with food ingredients every day and this book is a standard, easy to use, quick reference.

This book is what I am looking for all this while. I have tried seaching high and low in most of the bookstores in my hometown, but to no avail. I was tired. I am utmost glad Amazon.com has the perfect solution. This book not only enrich my knowledge, it also enhance my career in food industry, as I am in now!

In a very balanced way, between the " conaissance" and the simple language, it is a very good book. Most of the conseils and description of the beers of the world are correct. The others i'll try!

Turns a novice beer drinker (me) into a beer connoisseur! I consulted the guide before my last vacation and ended up at a great new brewery in my home town. It'll be a great holiday gift for my beer-guzzling friends!

Great book! Fascinating historical anecdotes, extensive descriptions of various craft-breweries and beers, and terrific photographs make for a fun and informative book. This is a must-read for anyone with a strong interest in beer...interest beyond gargantuan plastic mugs and flaccid, aluminum-flavored, fraternity party kegs of 'weak-weiser'!

With fifteen years of beverage catering all over the world under my belt, I can assure anybody considering this book: buy it! Planning parties always involves lots of stressful details, calculations, planning, and organization that make the process a headache rather than a joy. This book does the opposite, thankfully. Miss Charming helps anybody from a pro to a home enthusiast handle everything without forgetting about the fun and creativity that every cocktail party should have. It's a fun, easy read packed with useful information including resources, recipes, and helpful hints. The recipes are great and well-written, unlike most cocktail recipe books which confuse even the most seasoned bartender with vague procedures and obscure ingredients and feature lots of unpleasant recipes that nobody drinks these days. Not this one: Cheryl explains in plain english every delicious recipe so your cocktails come out perfect. The hints and tips she provides are worth the price of the book alone. (Do YOU know how much ice you need for a party of 100 people? This book tells you!) This is the book that will save your next party and make you look like a genius. I have two copies... one on the bookshelf and one for reference I keep with my catering gear. Cheryl is the Martha Stewart of the bartending world.

What a great party handbook! This very handy party planner is easy to follow and contains lots of recipes for cocktails both alcoholic and virgin. Ms Charming includes in her manual many recipes and suggest the perfect cocktails to accompany. She gives you thematic ideas and tells you how much to buy for your party. Lots of bang for your buck.

This book tells you like it is.......it takes a lot to put together a great party. But this book makes it feel very easy. Great guide and quick ideas that will work whether it's for drinks or food. The Martini names alone are worth having this book. Noone will forget these cocktails. Another unique creation from Cheryl Charming!!

`The Food of Northern Spain' by culinary writer, Jenny Chandler contributes much to achieving parity between writings on regional cuisines in Spain and Italy. This is such a popular genre nowadays, there have been a few less than luminary titles recently, but this one is a real winner.

It will take a close look at the map of Spain to understand the region of which Senorita Chandler is writing. It is easy to think of it as only the northern Atlantic coast of Spain, west of the Pyrenees, but she is really taking the entire line, virtually all along the same meridian of latitude, from northwestern, Celtic Galacia to the very urban and modern Catalonia on the Mediterranean coast, including the landlocked Navarre and parts of Aragon.

The appropriateness of this choice is clear once one has read important recent books on both the Basque and Catalan cuisines, both of which tout their subject as Spain's culinary center. Senorita Chandler makes the excellent case that this entire region, distinguished primarily by deep valleys in mountainous terrain and rough seacoasts, taken together, is the culinary heart of Spain.

While this does not appear on the surface to be a very scholarly study, a la Coleman Andrews or Paula Wolfert, of this cuisine it is really much more studied and revealing of the soul of its subject than other recent oversized travelogues of Spanish cuisine.

The author begins with a chapter of Background on each of the regions comprising her chosen territory. While giving us not much more than two pages per province, she manages to evoke the spirit and resources of the region as brightly and as passionately as a much longer discourse.

Next, is an excellent chapter on the Storecupboard and Cellar on the principle ingredients of the regions. I am taken by the fact that she begins not with olives and olive oil, but with peppers. It is crystal clear from every book I've read on Spanish cuisine that the great variety of peppers arriving from the New World are as much an influence on the food of northern Spain as the tomato is for the cuisine of southern Italy. A bit of reflection tells me that peppers as a class are a far richer addition than tomatoes, as the range of colors, sizes, and flavors of peppers is far greater than the similar range for tomatoes. There is just so much variety you can squeeze out of a plum tomato, even if it was grown in the shadow of Vesuvius. This little essay on peppers also reveals something about Spain that I have known for years about far-flung former Spanish colonies such as the Philippines, but which never came to the fore in other books. This is the fact that to Spaniards, canned produce is just as good as fresh, it's just different, not inferior. This will become obvious to you the next time you pass the 30-foot long Goya section of your supermarket. The Goya brand is Spanish, not Mexican, as I was want to jump to before actually looking at a can of Goya beans and a bottle of highly regarded Goya olive oil.

Next in importance, especially for the northern marches, is cheese. I was delighted to discover here that the famous Spanish Cabrales cheese is actually a mix of milk from cows, sheep, AND goats. The catalogue of cheeses is not as large or renowned as the great Italian or French cheese kingdoms, but it is pretty important and sizable. This section is rounded out with essays on Olives and olive oil, Pork, Pulses (legumes, beans), salt cod, Crustaceans, Mollusks, Cephalopods and Wild Mushrooms.

In the land of tapas and pinchos (very characteristic of the north), you would expect the next section on matching Spanish food and wine. This is not as exhaustive as Penelope Casas' coverage in `The Food and Wine of Spain', but it is illuminating and very easy to read.

The recipes are organized as one would a traditional cookbook, by type of dish or course. These are:

Light Bites and Tapas, featuring pinchos of olives, anchovies, foie gras, chorizo, and croquettes. The obvious centerpiece is the recipe for tortilla espanola. The description is lovingly given, but may be just a bit less detailed than Senora Casas' recipe in her book `Tapas'. Senorita Chandler also doesn't give us the scoop on how it is served (usually in wedges in the South and cut into cubes and stuck on skewers in the North). I am especially happy to see her recipes for empanadas, with both tuna and pork fillings.

Soups and Starters, featuring a gazpacho with asparagus and a gazpacho with beetroot, a blended mushroom soup, a squid soup, tuna tartar, grilled scallops, and Escabeche.

Salads and Vegetable Dishes, featuring a tuna mixed salad, a spinach and ham salad, and vegetable stews reminiscent of Ratatouille.

Rice and Pulses, featuring two of the most famous Spanish dishes, Cocido and Paella. Interestingly, Ms. Chandler agrees with most others that it is Cocido and not Paella that is the apple of most Spaniard's culinary soul.

Fish and Shellfish, with lots of salmon and salt cod dishes. Hake is very popular here, and Sea Bass is as common here as on the Chilean coast.

Poultry, Meat, and Game, featuring some really surprising combinations such as chicken and prawns and partridge with chocolate. And, some of the steak recipes are gorgeous.

Sauces and Seasonings, with Allioli (with no egg!) et al.

Desserts, with fritters, flans, and coulis.

This book succeeds in its task of really making you interested in the cuisine of the author's chosen regions. While the author doesn't push scholarship, there is both learning and passion aplenty here, all appropriate to its subject.

An excellent foodie read AND cookbook.

This is a small, but very choice cookbook, simply chock full of the most delicious looking recipes. It is simply perfect for cooks - at any skill level - who like to cook healthy, home-made food without spending twelve hours in the kitchen. It also has a lovely, well written guide to the rarely mentioned northern provinces of Spain - Galicia and Asturias, especially - which has now made it my ambition to visit them for myself. However, if your idea of "Spanish" cooking is Mexican or Central American, let this one alone; it is traditional European home cooking with enough of a gourmet touch that you can serve a formal dinner party but not so complicated that you cannot make it for the family. I think this is one book that everyone who likes to cook should have on their kitchen shelf.

Jenny Chandler's style is truly unique. She combines the most enticing dishes and mouthwatering photography with a fabulously dry wit. Indulge your senses!

I am a big Harris fan, if you love great (often simple) food this is a great book. Fabulous recipes.

Fabulous recipes - great for fresh vegetable/fruit season. I have made a few of the recipes and they were superb! I highly recommend this cookbook.

This is a fabulous book for anyone interested in fresh French cooking. The recipes are simple and appealing, with most of the required ingredients being easy to locate. Lush color photographs throughout will help to whet your appetite. I've only made two of the soups so far, The Good Wife's Soup and Cauliflower Soup, both of which were divine and very easy and quick to make. The first was a sort of potato-leek-cheese concoction and the second was a big hit with company! I cannot say enough good things about this book.