Rock and Roll Cook Book Pick: Are We Having Any Fun Yet? Cooking & Partying Handbook

Are We Having Any Fun Yet? Cooking & Partying with Sammy Hagar
by Sammy Hagar and Josh Sens
Dey Street Books
2015
303 pages, with index
color photos
ISBN: 9780062370006

Sammy Hagar might sing, "I can't drive 55!" but he sure can party and boy, can he cook! Are We Having Any Fun Yet? is a testament to the man's love of life and of food! From the first pages of the foreward written with love by friend and famous New Orleans chef and restauranteur Emeril Legasse to Sammy's own heartfelt musings of his grandfather's cooking and hunting  to recipes from Cabo, Mill Valley, and Maui, Sammy entertains readers with personal stories and glimpses into a down-to- earth, totally rocking guy. Many photos with famous friends are also included. It's a fascinating book that transcends the usual "recipe" book.

Sammy gives background to visiting  a then sleepy beach town called Cabo San Lucas and opening the Cabo Wabo, meant to be a small beach bar  and the  struggles of keeping it running in the early  years. It's fascinating to see the day to day problems  of opening a rock venue and  in a foreign country on top of that. Fast foreward to today: the Cabo Wabo is and continues to be a successful business--no doubt due to Sammy's personality and his take on fresh, clean  food done right.  From Cabo Shrimp to Lobster Burritos to Tomatillo Salsa Sammy has the goods and can hook you up. From the bar in Cabo, Sammy opened up other locations and a line of tequila and other spirits.

With culinary friends like Emeril and Guy Fieri, Sammy's kitchen rocks! If Cabo is where Sammy gets his party on, Mill Valley is where he relaxes and settles in with wine and Osso Buco. Recipes for Chorizo and Pork Loin Paella make the mouth water, with photos of food that make the soul happy and Sammy's stories, like Sammy himself, always are full of life and humor.

The last destination Sammy calls  home is his Maui residence. Oceanfront and tranquil, full of fruit trees and a bounty of vegetables, it truly is a garden of Eden sans evil  serpent. Cooking and creating with year round fresh ingredients opened up a world of food for Hagar. He includes numerous cocktail recipes, many using his own spirits.

Truly a fun read and trip through parts unknown (thank you Anthony Bourdain), Are We Having Fun Yet? asks. Well, the answer is, "Yes, this is fun!"

Highly recommended for fans of rock, Hagar fans, foodie fans, spirits fans and anyone who enjoys great storytelling. This is vintage Hagar. A great gift for anyone with a little rock and roll and a little spice!

Recommended grade 9 and up. Profanity, cocktails, rock stories, and sheer fun!

This review has been posted in compliance with the FTC requirements set forth in the Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising (available at ftc.gov/os/2009/10/091005revisedendorsementguides.pdf)

FTC Required Disclaimer: I received this book from the publisher. I did not receive monetary compensation for this review.

Foodie Pick: Voracious

Voracious: A Hungry Reader Cooks Her Way Through Great Books
by Cara Nicoletti
Little Brown and Company
2015
274 pages with index and recipes!
ISBN: 9780316242998

Supremely satisfying, divinely dulcet, and totally transcendent, Voracious: A Hungry Reader Cooks Her Way Through Great Books is sure to satiate the most voracious readers, eaters, and foodies.  Cara Nicoletti marries two passions of life: reading and eating. The two truly are connected after all.

Nicoletti shares each book and her own thoughts about the food found within and what it brought to the characters, tone, and plot of each novel. From Nancy Drew to Charlotte's Web and Where the Red Fern Grows  to Les Miserables to the Aeneid to Middlesex, Nicoletti delivers  up her dish on great books and the culinary creations they inspire.

To Kill a Mockingbird impacts many readers with its message of defending the underdog. The novel is full of food (as is the South). Nicoletti regales readers with descriptions from the book: "....scuppernongs, dewberry tarts, peach pickles, hickory nuts, cherry wine, butter beans and Lane cake..." I thought I was the only reader on the planet who was bothered by some of these foods. I was fourteen when I read To Kill a Mockingbird, and I took to the dictionary for a definition of scuppernongs--this was a  pre-Google, pre-Internet era. I discovered scuppernongs are a variety of grapes that grow in the South. I looked everywhere for someone who could tell me what the heck a Lane cake was. Finally I found an old Southern lady on the golf course--where else?--who told me Lane cakes are popular in the South and loaded with booze ("shiney"--i.e. moonshine). To Kill a Mockingbird brought the South to life for readers everywhere. Biscuits are a staple of every diet in the South. They are so prevalent In Maycomb, Calpurnia shines Scout's shoes with a biscuit. In honor of Harper Lee's classic, Nicoletti provides a recipe for Biscuits with Molasses Butter. She also gives cooks helpful tips throughout. For example, you can freeze pre-formed, unbaked biscuits.

For The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, Nicoletti writes about the description of Ichabod Crane and his "insatiable and all-consuming hunger." Ichabod is  a lowly school teacher, not a wealthy landowner. He salivates over Katrina Van Tassel's family table and their hearty meals. Everywhere Ichabod goes, he sees an abundance of food, "...he beheld vast store of apples; some hanging in oppressive opulence on the trees; some gathered into baskets and barrels for the market; others heaped up in rich piles for the cider-press. Farther on he beheld great fields of Indian corn..." In honor of Ichabod, Nicoletti offers up Buckwheat Pancakes to which you can add toppings of maple syrup, peanut butter, bananas, honey, or smoked salmon which she admits with humor,  "I've tried them (the pancakes) with all of these toppings, for research purposes, of course."

Rebecca, my all time favorite Gothic read, gets full literary and culinary treatment here. The food abounds in this novel. There is literally food everywhere and it is shocking to see the depth and breadth of it. For breakfast they dine on: "...scrambled eggs and bacon, fish, boiled eggs, porridge, and ham...and entire table of condiments for the toast and scones--jam, marmalade and honey--as well as dessert dishes and mountains of fresh fruit." The narrator in Rebecca never reveals her name which makes this  novel all the more creepily Gothic and romantic.  For Rebecca, Nicoletti gives a nod to our nameless heroine and creates an ambrosia called  Blood Orange Marmalade.

Readers will devour every recipe and anecdote with gustatory glee. This novel is a treasure trove for the eye, the mind, the soul and the palate. Truly a rare find!

Highly, highly recommended for foodies, readers, cooks, chefs, and eaters everywhere. If you know a foodie, this book is a delectable gift that they will treasure! This is one book I will return to again and again for the food and for the stories!

FTC Required Disclaimer: I received this book from the publisher. I did not receive monetary compensation for this review.

Foodie Pick: Guy on Fire: 130 Recipes for Adventures in Outdoor Cooking

Guy On Fire: 130 Recipes for Adventures in Outdoor Cooking
by Guy Fieri and Ann Volkwein
William Morrow
2014
342 pages with index
ISBN: 9780062244710

Foodie fun for wannabe and gonna-be chefs! Rock star chef and megawatt personality Guy Fieri keeps it real and that's what viewers of Food Network love about him. His full on fun personality, wit, wisdom and Guy-isms: "off the hook," "that's money!" "That's the real deal," "off the chain," and a ga-zillion other ways to describe food keep viewers watching, young chefs dreaming, and the public hungry to buy his cookbooks.

Guy on Fire is sure to please even the most skeptical outdoor cooking enthusiast. Fieri loves to cook outside, but unlike the ordinary back yard griller, Guy throws extreme  tailgate bashes and participates in serious "que" contests. Everything he does, he does with passion and brilliance. Fieri includes a Master Tool and Equipment List which is comprised of everything any outdoor chef would need including a wine opener, cast iron Dutch oven, a  hatchet, basting brushes, and multiple cutting boards--different colors for each meat--and no wood boards (due to contamination of cooked and raw meats and wood contaminates easily).

Pages are lively and nearly  edible. "Guy's Straight-Up Burgers with a Pig Patty and Donkey Sauce" are sure to jump start taste buds--a burger made from bacon?! Sounds like heaven wrapped up in rainbows and glitter! Every recipe comes not only with ingredients and instructions, but Fieri adds helpful prep tips that will save time. Fieri adds a brief  note to most recipes or tells a funny "Guy"  story--fans of his will find this cookbook a great addition to their kitchen.

Tailgating used to mean ingesting overcooked  brats, boring  hot dogs and soggy burgers, but not in Fieri's extreme tailgating world. It's go big or go home. Who knew Bacon-Wrapped Scallops Glazed with Maple Butter was even a possibility in a parking lot? Fieri lists supplies needed for a successful tailgating event: trash bags, paper towels, wet towels, two ice chests--one for food and drink and the other just for clean ice. How many tailgaters out there put this much thought into an ice chest just for ice?

Photos of recipes are always expected in a successful  cookbook, but Fieri also includes family photos of backyard BBQs and parties, tailgates and contests. Illustrations by Joe Leonard capture the fun mood and party vibe.

Guy on Fire make the perfect gift for that cookbook collector or foodie fan. Anyone who loves to grill, camp or tailgate would like this book as a gift.

Highly recommended for cooking fans of all ages.

FTC Required Disclaimer: I purchased this book for the library. I did not receive monetary compensation for this review.

This review has been posted in compliance with the FTC requirements set forth in the Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising (available at ftc.gov/os/2009/10/091005revisedendorsementguides.pdf)

Foodie and Book Club Pick: My Berlin Kitchen

My Berlin Kitchen
By Luisa Weiss
Viking
2012
302 pages with recipes

Fans of Luisa Weiss’s blog, The Wednesday Chef, are in for a real treat—her own true story of cooking, living and loving. Weiss was a young child when her parents divorced, her father relocating to America and her Italian mother living in Berlin. She traveled between the two continents throughout her childhood and teens, never feeling truly at home or belonging to any country. She remembers the long flights and the Christmases away from either her father or her mother, but never Christmas with both of them.

The only place young Luisa felt safe was in the kitchen, the aromas and colors of familiar food welcoming her into its open arms. Luisa soon associated certain foods with certain family members or places. Her father gave her a recipe for the family’s Tomato Sauce—great comfort food handed down from her Italian grandmother (maternal). Whenever Luisa prepares it, she remembers her father and her grandmother, and she hopes to pass it along to her children someday. She points out that everyone needs a great tomato sauce.

From her uncle Pietro, Luisa includes a delicious recipe for Pizza Siciliana, a Sicilian treasure topped with escarole, anchovies, provolone and grape tomatoes. Serious foodies will love recipes for Erbsensuppe (German Pea Soup), Braised Leeks and Meatballs in Tomato-Chipotle Sauce.

Luisa’s story is shared by countless numbers of career women on the fast track. Through their 20’s and 30’s, they are building a career and not thinking about marriage or children, and suddenly, they hear that biological clock ticking faster. They nearly panic. It’s time! Their clock keeps reminding them. Find a husband. Settle down. Start a family. And like Luisa, they may fight the clock; they may walk away from love. Only to discover it has always been there.

My Berlin Kitchen is a charming and winsome read with wide appeal. It’s a love story, a coming of age story, a food story, a family story, a life story. Like Eat, Pray, Love, this novel will captivate and capture hordes of hungry new fans (pun intended).

Highly, highly recommended for foodies, romantics, and book club members everywhere. Mature content. Wide appeal for high school libraries. Teens will be enthralled by Luisa’s “jet-set” lifestyle.

FTC Required Disclaimer: I received this book from the publisher. I did not receive monetary compensation for this review.

Foodie Pick: Man With a Pan

Man With a Pan
edited by John Donohue
Algonquin
2011
326 pages

This is a great gift for upcoming Father's Day or any man's/boy's birthday:

Humorous, touching, quirky, and comforting, Man With a Pan is a satisfying collection of twenty-one famous authors' and cooks' stories of their own cooking adventures for their families. Throw in Mario Batali and season well with some spicy Stephen King and you have a great simmering pot of literary and culinary "tales of fathers who cook for their families."

I truly enjoyed reading tales of woe and tales of human kindness. From Sean Wilsey, living in NYC when the World Trade Center was hit on 9/11, he says, "the first thing I did was boil a pot of pasta. I made ravioli at ten thirty in the morning....and began to grasp what was happening." Pasta, it seems, helps in a crisis, even one as huge as that horrific event in American history. Each father/cook shares his favorite recipes and what's on his culinary bookshelf as well. Foodies will be sure to devour their stories and want to try their hand at some of the recipes. An interesting recipe that sounds delicious from Wilsey is "Pistachio Pesto" which I wouldn't even consider a pesto since there's no basil. He substitutes Bottarga di muggine which is gray mullet roe available on the web or in Italian specialty stores.

From Daniel Moultroup, recipes include an easy recipe for pickles and how to can fresh tomato sauce; from Christopher Little--a delicious sounding Low Country Boil featuring sausage, crawfish, shrimp and beer. Stephen King gives directions on the proper care of cooking an omelet with only a few expletives and how to prepare fish in the microwave, yes...the microwave, and a wonderful recipe for chocolate cake he calls "Pretty Good Cake."

More than one father/cook stresses the importance of getting the kids to help prepare the meal, whatever it is. This helps them take ownership and they are more likely to try what's on the menu if they help in the prep. Mario Batali tells readers not to make any new ingredient a big production. Simply prepare it and put it on the table. If the kids ask what it is, you simply say, "pesto" or "cardoons." A cardoon is a little like an artichoke in appearance or a tall stalk of celery and Batali swears they are great sauteed and then hit with a bunch of fontina cheese. I mean, what isn't delicious with fontina?

Teens who love food and have an apetite for culinary adventure are sure to be fans of Man With a Pan. With more and more fathers involved in child-rearing and cooking, more boys may pursue careers in kitchens around the world. The Food Network has made cooking cool, and chefs like Guy Fieri and Bobby Flay--wildly popular chefs with restaurants and cookbooks and huge empires making serious bank--have teen fans--many of them male--who are watching and learning.

Highly, highly recommended grade 8-up. One or two mentions of sex but no details. Some language--especially Stephen King--you gotta love him.

FTC Required Disclaimer: I received this book from the publisher. I did not receive monetary compensation for this review.

Chick Pick: Love? Maybe.

Love? Maybe.
by Heather Hepler
Dial
2012
272 pages

Available January 5, 2012

Highly entertaining, well-written, and enjoyable, Love? Maybe. is Heather Hepler's latest young adult novel. Like The Cupcake Queen (her last novel) Love? Maybe. is set in a backdrop of a foodie paradise--a sweet shop owned by Jan, an evil genius chocolatier with an eye for beauty and a gourmand's palate for the gastronomically strange--take Kalamata Caramels, for example, olives and caramel--yet it works and customers eat them up! (pun, intended) Jan is a genius in baking sweet concoctions but not a tough businessman or an organized bookkeeper. For that, he employs Piper Paisley, a teen girl who is an organizing queen who just happens to come up with major fantastic sweet ideas for his shop. Piper is all business but disillusioned about male/female relationships.

Piper's birthday is Valentine's Day--which she dreads every year. Because of her mother's failed marriage and last relationship, Piper is jaded when it comes to romance and love. She knows there is no knight in shining armor, no hearts and flowers, no I Love You, and no happily ever after. She's seen it first-hand, after all. Piper is cynical and downright curmudgeonly when it comes to love. While her friends--spunky, amusing Jillian and heart-broken Claire look forward to Valentine's Day--Piper dreads it. Her mother owns a busy flower shop and Valentine's week is her busiest time of year, so she counts on Piper to help with younger siblings Dom and Lucy. Piper spends her time at school, at the sweet shop, picking up her siblings, doing homework, doing mother duties until bedtime, and falling into a stupor of slumber.

Jan fears that Piper is losing her youth and her appreciation of things to come. He has a fatherly, Star Wars Yoda-like talk with her and tells her that, "hearts are delicate things" but that love is worthwhile. He makes her swear to open her heart to possibility.

Jillian and Claire rope Piper into their Valentine's Day plan--they must have a boyfriend by Valentine's Day! Their plan includes makeovers and magic. Jillian finds a magic book with a love potion and the girls make love potion truffles for the sweet shop. Jan uses Piper's idea of candy hearts she calls Consternation Hearts. Instead of sayings like "Be Mine" and "UR Cute" they say "Ewww" and "Um...No" Jan adds hearts that say "Hope" because he can't stand the idea of teen cynicism.

Piper has her heart set on Ben Donovan and doesn't even realize her best friend Charlie from next door is truly the boy for her. As Valentine's Day draws closer, Piper finds gifts in her locker from a secret admirer. Jillian falls for Jeremy, a nerdy guy who has always been around and she finally realizes she likes nerds.

Relationships work out for all the characters and teen readers will love the heart-warming ending. Just in time for Valentine's Day, this novel is a gem worth relishing!

I loved Piper's name: Piper Paisley. It shows that her mom still has a creative and fun side. It's a fun name. Girls will love Jillian and want her for a BFF. The teen dialog is spot-on and delightful. Readers will love Jan, the thoughtful and big-hearted sweet shop owner who still finds beauty and romance in the world.

Highly, highly recommmeded grades 7-up. This is a "sweet" treat for girls! Girls who loved Hepler's The Cupcake Queen and Mandelski's The Sweetest Thing will be sure to love this new novel.

FTC Required Disclaimer: I received this book from the publisher. I did not receive monetary compensation for this review.

Book Club & Foodie Pick: 52 Loaves

52 Loaves
by William Alexander
Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill
2010
339 pages with recipes and bibliography

Laugh out loud funny, seriously entertaining, almost overly informative--I did not know anything about threshing wheat until William Alexander explained it pain-stakingly for me--this food-for-thought journey of one introspective, insanely driven, nearly crazy man to bake the "perfect" loaf of bread sustains the reader. I was sorry when his journey ended and I turned the last page.

When Alexander tastes the perfect bread in a restaurant, he sets out to find how to bake the perfect loaf from scratch--I do mean scratch--he wants to plant his own seeds, harvest his own wheat, make his own flour, build his own bread oven--he wants to "return to the earth"--this is a serious labor.

He decides to tweak the "perfect" recipe and does a mountain of research, buying the best books about bread and seeking out bakers who live on the east coast. He even enters a bread contest in New York. Still not satisfied, he travels to Paris and enrolls in the hoity-toity French school Ecole Ritz Escoffier. He ventures to Morroco where he almost dies and ends up in a monastery in Normandy where he instructs monks to use their centuries old oven to begin baking the monastery's bread.

Each chapter tells that week's successes and mostly--failures. To sum up, Alexander tells the reader what he's learned in his year-long experiment:

"--Bread in a healthy diet doesn't make you fat.
--Too much bread, washed down with wine, does.
...Do not untake any project that promises it can be completed in a week-end.
--Do not drink the water in Morroco. Or the tea, or the coffee. In fact, you might think about skipping Morroco altogether. I hear Barbados is nice this time of year.
--Trust strangers. Well, some. Only those you can trust.
--Choose one thing you care about and resolve to do it well.
--Whether you succeed or not, you will be the better for the effort.
--Bread is life." (from the novel)

I could almost smell the aroma of baking bread as Alexander described each week's offering. Well-written prose almost sings off the pages. Alexander has the knack of mixing his memoirs with hysterical, often biting, humor that targets mostly himself. This is a great Christmas gift for book lovers who also happen to love food or for that "closet" wanna-be baker.

Highly, highly recommended grades 9-up and serious food junkies. This is a great book club pick for all kinds of book clubs.

Only one mature situation--Alexander gives up sex with his wife because he's worried about timing the yeast rising in his latest batch of dough.

FTC Required Disclaimer: I received this book from the publisher. I did not receive monetary compensation for this review.