Gourmet Books

"Sharing Mountain Recipes: The Muffin Lady's Everyday Favorites" by Randi Levin (aka The Muffin Lady) showcases a compendium of nutritious, delicious, and thoroughly 'kitchen cook friendly' recipes of easily prepared dishes ranging from breakfast favorites to special occasion treats. Ingredient supplements for special dietary needs are provided in addition to diverse tips for cooking and backing that will prove especially helpful for the novice chef. With recipes ranging from Dreamy Cheese Mashed Potatoes; Lemon Poppy Muffins; Berry Baked French Toast; and Sunshine Salad; to Sweet Poultry Kabobs; Seafood Au Gratin; Fried Bananas; Butter Cream filled Coffeecake. Of special note is the two pages devoted to 'A Few Favorite Submarine Sandwiches", the chapter on 'The Accessories of Foods', and unique recipe cited as being 'The Gourmet Mash for the Elder Horse'. There's even a poem to 'The Alligator Pear'. Enhanced with a 'Cooking Language Conversions' page, a U.S. to Metric Conversions chart, an a detailed index, "Sharing Mountain Recipes" is a welcome and recommended addition to any and all personal, professional, and community library cookbook collections!

Reviewed by Cherie Fisher for Reader Views (09/06)

The Muffin Lady strikes again! "Sharing Mountain Recipes" is Randi Lee Levin's second cookbook. Her first cookbook "Baking at High Altitude; The Muffin Lady's Old Fashioned Recipes" won the Colorado Independent Publishers Association award, the Best First Cookbook in English, USA and then the Best First Cookbook in the World 2004 award. Her latest book completely lives up to the quality of the first cookbook.

As a person who is dating an Italian chef, has several subscriptions to cooking magazines and owns over 100 cookbooks that have been read from cover to cover, I found "Sharing Mountain Recipes" to be one of the best and most comprehensive cookbooks I have ever read. The Muffin Lady incorporates sound advice on cooking techniques at all altitudes, wonderful recipes and puts a lot of love into her work. You will feel like you are sitting in her kitchen trying out recipes with her when you read this.

The book starts off with the statement "There is one extraordinary ingredient that goes into everything that I cook and bake. Please do not forget this ingredient, for it is imperative to all recipes. Whenever I am cooking or baking, I add extra spoonfuls of Love to all of my recipes. Love added to all things good, makes them just a little bit better." Almost all of the recipes have stories about where they came from and how other people responded to them.

This cookbook is for all level of cooks. Levin has basic recipes for starter cooks and breaks down even her most complex recipes so that even the most novice cook will be able to create these wonderful recipes. I was also impressed with the fact that she is conscious about different dietary needs. She usually has several variations of each recipe, the original in all its fattening glory, the heart healthy version and the diabetes friendly version. As the Executive Director of the Diabetes Foundation of Rhode Island I would not hesitate to recommend this book to families that are adjusting to a diabetes friendly menu (if they promised to use the healthy recipe variations!).

"Sharing Mountain Recipes" is broken down into several sections including comfort foods, breakfast, lunch, dinner and of course, dessert. The Ultimate Comfort Food section is full of favorite mac n' cheese, mashed potato and chocolate recipes. Oh yes....I can feel my diet going right out the window with these beauties. Each section is filled with recipes from Levin's treasure trove that she inherited from her grandmothers, friends recipes and her own creations.

This book will make a great gift for the Holidays, engagement parties and showers. It would also make a wonderful host gift when I am going to someone else's home for dinner. Well, onto my biggest dilemma for this weekend, am I going to make Aunt Lil's Matzo Ball Soup or Doe's Beef Stew from "Sharing Mountain Recipes"? What would the Muffin Lady advise? Hmmmm.... she would probably give me a taste of something delectable in her kitchen and tell me to do both because there is always next weekend too!

This is a good book with many excellent basic recipes, with spelling errors and errors of omission ie oven temps, etc. Interesting to read and fun to use.

Teasers as warmup course, or appetizer feast, here is consummate surreal gourmet providing the inspiration with about fifty recipes composing sections on: fish, meat, fowl, veggies, sweets.

This continues his strong past of imaginative food with stylish twists of humor and fun with food. Try the likes of: Fish Cakes (salmon cupcakes with dill mashed potato icing); Cocktail Dates (bacon-wrapped parmesan-stuffed dates); Cowboy Cookies (chile-crusted tenderloin between carmelized yam slices); Inside Out BL's (bacon, arugula, and goat cheese sandwiched between fried tomato slices);Knuckle Sandwich (nutella, hazelnuts and sauteed pears on toasted pound cake).

Add to all this suggested menus, brief primer and notes oon frying and advance-prep ingredient handling, and suggested menus.

This is fun food, more lighthearted but serious food as well along the lines of Gale Gand's "Just A Bite" or her partner's Rick Tramonto's "Amuse Bouche."

Through my job in the kitchen appliance industry, I was lucky enough to see Bob Blumer do his thing in a very intimate (about 10 people) setting. From the moment he showed up wearing an AC/DC t-shirt and a pair of outrageous chef's pants, I knew this was going to be a lot more fun than the typical Food Network cooking shows(except maybe maybe Giada's Everyday Italian...but that's for different reasons).
Besides tasting great, the foods he prepared were just downright funny! He was very personable and had a great sense of humor which is reflected throughout this entire book.
I wasn't going to give this book 5 stars simply because these are just not foods you can prepare on any sort of a regular basis. They are mostly meant to be...for lack of a beeter way to describe it....different. But I reconsidered and gave it 5 stars anyway because it's just so damn funny and so damn original!
If you are going to a party, get-together or anytype of social event where food will be served, and you want your offering to be the talk of the moment...this is the book for you. Even if you're not a great cook or don't do such a hot job preparing these bites, the presentation alone will make you the hit! Check it out!

I tried the smores shooters, and coconut shrimp popsicles, the sauce on the shrimp popsicles tasted great like something you would get in a resteraunt.I also tried the bang bang drummettes, and the inside out BLTs which tasted great. Living in Colorado I enjoyed the smores shooters as they are a great treat to have before you go snowboarding!

Bob Blumer's Surreal Gourmet is one of the most-used cookbooks I have. Blumer's irreverent style is matched only by his recipes. Particularly good are the ceasar salad, steak au poivre, and herb butter, just to name a few. Bob's art is worth the price alone.

I love this cook book. It's simple and easy to follow. Bob explains why it's best to use certain ingredients that will make a difference in the overall flavor, like using sea salt or fresh herbs. I love the black olive spread, the eggplant spread and the caesar salad. But, I also learned some great simple techniques like using a good wooden bowl for making the caesar. I also liked the tips at the end of each recipe, for wine, music etc. This cook book has so much to offer, good food, lots of useful tips, great artwork, and it's so much fun to read.

"The Surreal Gourmet" had first caught my eye for its novelty and humorous illustrations. But once I started cooking from it I found out that Blumer's recipes are really very good! The roasted garlic appetizer might seem less novel now than it did when the book first came out, but it's easy and seriously delicious. I can make a meal out of it. And the carrot and ginger soup is easy, with a unique flavor. I'm glad that there are still more recipes in the book that I haven't tried, because I have faith in Blumer -- faith that they will be tasty, easy, and unique.

Judy Zeidler comes up with good ideas and these are more simple than her other books...some are perhaps simplistic, but on the whole it's a good book for the kosher cook who's in a hurry. One omission is that she doesn't designate which are dairy and which are meat or pareve; those in the know will know; others could probably use more help, but it is a worthwhile book to add to your kosher cooking collection.

'The 30-minute Kosher Cook' recipe book by Judy Zeidler is brilliant. Truthfully, I haven't tried every single recipe, but I have tried the majority of them and they are everything they are supposed to be - quick, easy, tasty & of course, (the best of all) kosher recipes. I especially like her bread recipes and the Apple Pizza (for Rosh HaShana) was also a success.
If you're a kosher (or not) cook, who's in a real hurry (aren't we all?), then this is the cookbook for you! Truly, this is one of the best cookbooks I own.
Also highly recommended in addition to this book, is 'Jewish Cooking for Dummies' by Faye Levy.

Ainsley Harriott is one of Britain's most loved chefs and his playful, friendly style is loved by all. He becomes completely absorbed in his cooking and his love of food is very contagious.

In Ainsley Harriott's Gourmet Express, you will enjoy the tastiest of fast foods. There are six chapters to show how fast food can be made at any time of the day. The "Snack Attack" chapter includes delicious Celtic Samosas, a Hot Crispy Cajun Chicken Sandwich and even a recipe on how to make Nori-rolled Sushi.

After learning to do the "pan swivel" from his show, in which you swirl items around in the pan while looking most confident :)...I thought I would try some of Ainsley Harriott's recipes. That one technique where he swirls the food around in the pan has been very helpful for me when I make my turkey meatball recipe. It helps to brown all the sides of the meatballs evenly. Who would have known.

Well, I tried the "Parisian Mustard Sausage Rolls" which were just smashing. Now, I did have to use Crescent roll dough, which did work quite well and I used breakfast pork sausage links. We served the rolls with eggs and orange juice for breakfast.

I find that when cooking from a cookbook by a chef, you can adapt the recipes slightly to your own taste. I left out the Dijon mustard and they were still very good. While this recipe was in the "Snack Attack" chapter, they work very well to add a gourmet flair to a breakfast plate. I will also keep this recipe in mind for a brunch.

I am looking forward to making Butternut Squash Spiced Soup, Sweet and Sour Chicken, Lightning Lamb Dhansak (great picture!), Baconeese, Citrus Couscous, Golden Raisin Salad and Banana Raita. Each recipe has a nice bold heading and the text is easy to read. There is a headnote from Ainsley to add a pleasant personal touch.

"You know what it's like: home late from work and you'd love a delicious supper, well...a touch of French pistou blended with some al dente Italian pasta and you have the perfect answer....." pg. 95, Premier Pistou-Pasta

The colors in this book are delightfully refreshing and almost tranquil. If you are a cookbook collector, you will enjoy reading the headnotes at the beginning of each recipe and the "Try This" or "Chef's Tips" info at the end of some recipes.

Chef Ainsley gives advice on how to adapt a recipe, why you shouldn't make a recipe with fresh herbs too far ahead of time, how to make use of frozen foods like rice or how to completely change a recipe by substituting various ingredients.

So, if you are looking for tasty sandwiches, hot snacks, delicious soups, mouthwatering curries, mini-pizzas and pastas you can make in a hurry, you will enjoy some great fast food at home.

If you love this book, look for Ainsley Harriott's Meals in Minutesand Ainsley Harriott's Barbecue Bible.

~The Rebecca Review

So far, I have only tried three of the recipes but I intend to try a lot more. I love how the recipes are written in Ainsley's voice. It reminds me so much of the Ainsley Harriott show and how he would talk.

The recipes are very delicious, although one of the recipes I tried took longer to cook than indicated. The Baconese potatoes were a big hit. If there was one thing wrong with the book it is that the conversions are a little off. Where most cookbooks would say 1/4 cup of ingredient, Ainsley says 3oz. of ingredient for the American conversions. Also the book is a little inconsistent in that sometimes the British units are in parentheses and sometime the American units are in parentheses.

My overall rating is great recipes but you need to do a little math to do the conversions in you head.

This is a great little book to have on hand for late night munchies. Using items common in the pantry of most Americans, you're able to use this book to guide you through making the favorite snacks, desserts, and even some entree's we grew up on. Even has tips on "gilding the Lily", making those classics just a wee bit better.

Most of those born between the end of WWII and the late 1950s remember a time when moms delighted the family with wonderful meals that looked as if they'd taken hours to prepare. This was a time before political correctness, the "Food Police", and before the fast food industry took over. All the popular staple recipes are in here, from the famous Rice Crispies snacks to the easiest pot roast ever. Mr. Mclaughlin includes anecdotal comments that many readers will relate to. The reason I give it 4 stars is that all the photos in the book are in black and white. It could have been an outstanding presentation with color. But this does not take away from the great recipes. It's worth searching out the used books for this one.

I love this book for several reasons.

First, the menu suggestions are great. They range from two servings to around fifty, there are meals suitable for each season (some are grill-oriented, some are Thanksgiving feasts, etc.), and you can choose from light and healthy to downright sinful meals.

Second, the recipes require a great variety of skill levels. A novice can start with the easier recipes and work up to the more difficult ones without needing to buy a new book! This is also great because even those who are experienced and passionate cooks (who, like myself, would usually revel in the four-hour mushroom lasagne prep time) have days when they want a simple, toned-down meal. It's all here.

The recipes are also very easy to follow. They list at the outset any special equipment you will need, and the preparation instructions are clear and concise.

Those without access to specialty grocery stores might have trouble coming up with some ingredients (creme fraiche, figs, radish sprouts, or Israeli couscous come to mind), but there are many recipes whose ingredients are easily found at the most common of groceries.

I have to say that I dislike the way the "Unusual Pastas and Grains" section is separated from the "Pastas and Grains" section. It's also disappointing that Thai recipes are stuck in their own "Cuisines of the World" section without references in other more specific sections (for example, Ai-Teem Ga-Ti, aka Coconut Ice Cream, is not mentioned in the "Desserts" section earlier - so if you choose to page through the desserts section, you will not be aware that there are other dessert recipes elsewhere in the book).

All in all, I'd say that this book offers great recipes and menu suggestions for cooks at all levels, but it could be organized more efficiently.

I loved the look of the food in this book. I really felt inspired. The freshness of the menus appealed to me, also. The photography was wonderful! It made you want to pick up a fork and begin to do a taste test on every page. The grilled pineapple with vanilla ice cream was simple to make and a treat for unexpected guests on Sunday afternoon. It is good of Gourmet to study so closly the food culture of another country. It really gave the reader a good sense of what Thai cooking is all about. It is a good addition to the other Gourmet books and something to look forward to every year. A GREAT GIFT for cooks of all levels.

I am a Canadian living out in Spain, and when I went to visit the family, I dropped by a bookstore in Toronto to get a cookbook... when I saw that the "Chez Piggy" cookbook got an award for 1999 canada cuisine. I bought it! Up to now, I have tried many recipes... The deserts are amazingly good. While going thru the book, you somehow become a fan of "chez piggy". I feel sad now, that I didnt get the chance to travel to kingston to try out the restaurant!!

I was at a NATO conference in Kingston,Ontario, (this fact plays in the following text) the last week of June 2000. At everyone's and every guidebook's recommendation, we ate at Chez Piggy in the heart of historic Kingston. I am American. We tried it with some Brit friends, and spent another evening there with French friends. All loved the ambience, the appetizers, and especially the entrees. So I bought the recipe book. I've tried two soups (leek and Stilton; Russian gazpacho) that seemed more summer-themed (the book has terrific sounding navy beans and other winter-time soups). The taste neared the restaurant's, although we had to watch the ingredients (many) carefully.

Next I wanted to compare our "Ly's Grilled Fire Ribs" to the succulent offering at the restaurant. The recipe is straightforward once they share the secrets (e.g., oyster sauce, beer) and the flavor will liven up any barbecue or other meal. A definite keeper for company, you can make them well ahead if you wish and heat them later.

The recipes all seemed more natural and healthy than fatty or greasy---a clean trip all around. next we'll try the pork tourtiere (when it gets cool) and desserts (soon as we can).

The book has numerous great tips and hints, terrific pictures of the former Lovin' Spoonful guitarist (Zal himself!). All in all an excellent job and a wonderful reminder of the fine time we had at Chez Piggy--both the book and restaurant provide many, many warm surprises.

Ok I purchased this cookbook for one recipe and that was the Green Bean recipe but ended up loving the entire cookbook. It is the same cookbook at the "Mickey's Gourmet Cookbook" so don't but both of them, they are the same page per page, word for word. I found out the hard way.
You will find quite a few recipes from the Grand Floridian and if you have ever eaten there you know everything is excellent. Several of the restaurants they feature are no longer around like the ones from the Disney Village now deemed the Disney Market Place so you are able to recapture a taste that is no longer around.
Even King Stephens Banquet Hall has a few recipes and we all know that is now Cinderella's dining room now. It is a good book with tons of delicious and savory food. The deserts will make you go wild.
I would recommend this book for people who can't cook and people who can. They are all simple and easy to prepare. Most are made with simple ingredients you have readily available in your kitchen, so no running to the store for something weird or special.

I love this cookbook. They recipes are easy to follow and they taste like you've slaved for hours. Totally awesome. Not to mention it's great to some home from vacation and find out that you can have some of your favorite meals at you own table. Not to mention the kids will eat things that are good for them just because they know it's a "Mickey recipe". My only complaint is that I want more recipes.

The Country Gourmet is a legacy of family recipes and love for family. You'll not only find mouth-watering, easy-to-follow recipes, but you'll find that Margie Robertson-Toone is a connoisseur of life and love, and that her stories are as delectable as good country cooking. This is a great book for those who love to cook, and perhaps even greater for those who don't. The combination of family stories and luscious results of the reicpes will inspire you to try every dish and remember that for family, every effort is worthwhile. Margie's Mudd Hogg Pie is the favorite of my seven-year-old mud-hogging grandson who feels so special when I've baked a pie just for him--the fact that the recipe makes two is a special bonus for hubby and I. The Country Gourmet is a wonderful tribute to good country food, family love and especially to Mama--Iva Lou Robertson, whose love lives on the hearts of her family and in her stories in The Country Gourmet. Thanks, Margie, for sharing her with us.

What have I done with my copy of this book? Unless I am mistaken this is the correct title, but it is no longer on my shelf. Has instructions for various breads and pizzas,what to do with an excess of basil, a middle eastern dinner, an Indian dinner (with several variations, koftas, raita, all yummy). Written by a couple (?) who moved to the mountains(?) of North Carolina (?)in the late seventies (?)and had to figure out how to achieve the ethnic tastes they had enjoyed in New York as well as fresh ways to use the bounteous local produce. Some of these have become my signature dishes. I cannot live without it and hope Amazon will find it for me or that I can track down the author. If you have this book, please contact me. I will pay to have it copied.

PS August 10, 2006. The 2003 review at this location must refer to another book by the same name. I did finally get a copy of ISBN 0 8940-187-2, a discarded library edition printed in 1981. I cherish it.