Cooking Korean Food in Color

Lately Korean cook books and food blogs tend to have similar recipes. After a while they all seem to blur together. Robin Ha on the other hand has provided a fresh and creative presentation in her book Cook Korean!.

If you have read a couple of Korean cook books you will be familiar with the content. You are presented with typical Korean Ingredients followed by instruction on how to make all the kimchi you can eat. Then you have your ban chan (side dishes), stews, meat, and standard Korean cuisine.

Robin takes it to the next level by adding her personal touch by incorporating her personal life and illustrating every piece of the book. The illustrations are simple, but she pays great attention to the tiny details in her drawings. I never had to guess on what she was trying to represent.

For those of you who are not big on reading and are trying to get into Korean, I suggest taking a journey with Robin Ha in Cook Korean!.

I received this book from the publisher for an honest review.

Something About Food

Questlove recently seemed to have appeared everywhere I look. He made his way from music, to TV, and now to my foodie book collection. As a musician and foodie himself, he explores the creative process of cooking with some of the greatest chefs on the planet right now.

If you are looking for a book for recipes or cooking ideas, you might want to look elsewhere. The book is composed of 10 interviews with chefs and their thought process and inspiration. The interviews touch on chef's drive and inspiration to cook while connecting it to Questloves' experiences as a musician. The pictures and most of the content is beautiful and brilliant. Each interview had some sort of connection between music and food which helped give me a better sense of each and every chef.

It was a nice casual read, but for readers who are into the more technical aspect of cooking (like me), the book will not quench your thirst for knowledge.

I received this book from the publisher for an honest review.

Around the Fire - A tour of Ox Resaturant

Around the Fire by Greg Denton, Gabrielle Quinonez Denton with Stacy Adimando

Around the Fire focuses beyond its restaurant Ox in Portland and beyond the grill, but instead the Denton's take on Argentinian cuisine. I am always an advocate of grilling food and am in search of anything that improve my mastery of fire. Around the Fire covers all the basics of grilling with the insight of these pros hard at work. For a cook book coming out of the kitchen of a restaurant, there is little background on the restaurant and authors in comparison to similar books. If I had visited Ox or had a personal connection to the restaurant I would have been disappointed, but without any attachment I appreciated that it put food at its focus.

The book focuses on 4 distinct sections: 1) Appetizers/Starters, 2) Meats, 3) Vegetables, and 4) Drinks and Desserts. The recipes are sandwiched between beautiful pictures of the dishes and wets the appetite. I got hungry several times while making my way through the book. Some recipes such as the Grilled Foie Gras or Grilled Lamb heart might not be easily made by the home chef, but recipes like the Grilled Skirt Steak with an Onion Marinade are very approachable and gave me inspiration for other dishes.

If you like your books very straight to the point with beautiful pictures and recipes, Around the Fire is right for you.

I received this book from the publisher for an honest review.

Got Lucky with Lucky Rice

Lucky Rice, by Danielle Chang, is the name of a festival that brings night markets of Asian Cuisine into a grand feast. Similarly, Danielle has brought together 100 wonderful Asian recipes with mouth watering pictures into one book. Lucky Rice is the book that I wish Lucky Peach's 101 Asian Recipes would have been.

The pictures captured have been well thought out with props and lighting. The recipes are simple enough for amateur cooks to make, but have a level of difficulty that won't make a well seasoned cook yawn. Me being the soup fanatic that I am, I am looking forward to making the beef noodle soup and tonkotsu ramen, but it is not only limited to that. The whole book is broken up into 10 Categories:

• Street Eats
• Funky Foods
• Snacks and Grub
• Soups and Broths
• Spicy Dishes
• Asian Mash-ups
• Rice Bowls and Beyond
• Lucky Feasts
• Cocktails
• Sweets

This is the first time in a while that I have been excited about an Asian Recipe book. It's like I've hit a jackpot.

I received this book from the publisher for an honest review.

Koreatown - Korean Food in a Nut Shell

Koreatown, by Deuki Hong and Matt Rodbard, is an all around resource for the state of Korean food in American and a comprehensive list of recipes that will turn your home kitchen into a kimchi slinging restaurant. 

Deuki and Matt do a great job of documenting their journey to different Koreatowns throughout America with their vivid pictures. I felt their pictures often told more of a story than the text itself. For those of you who are familiar with Lucky Peach, there are celebrity articles scattered throughout the book from chefs such David Chang and artists and musicians like Linkin Park's DJ Joe Hahn.

Koreatown is has you covered with almost any Korean recipe that you could imagine. Most of the recipes can be found on blogs or Youtube, but this book conveniently keeps it all in one tight package.

I received this book from the publisher for an honest review.

Building Flavors with Slow Fire

I can tell you now that Slow Fires by Justin Smillie is one of my favorite cook books of 2015. While this book briefly tells the story of Chef Smillie and his restaurant Upland, the book reads as a guide through flavor and techniques of slow cooking (Braising, Roastings, and Grilling).

Smillie provides a quick primer on each cooking technique at the beginning of their chapters. He follows the instructions with a total of 52 recipes of complete meals as well as the preparation timing for each component. The instructions are accompanied by gorgeous pictures and detailed directions. My favorite thing about this book is the ideas and flavor pairings that come to mind while reading. I can't wait to use the burnt onion dashi in a ramen recipe or make his avocado-chile butter with clams.

Most books I tend to only make one or two dishes, but Slow Fires makes me want to cook the book in its entirety. 

I received this book from the publisher for an honest review.