Cooking = Fun!

Cooking can be a lot of fun! I bet you've never heard recipes SUNG to you before. The Recipe Project: A Delectable Extravaganza of Food and Music, with songs by the group One Ring Zero, began as a simple idea: take the recipes of today's top chefs, set them to music, and sing them word for word. The result? A quirky cookbook/CD combo you can dance and shimmy to while cooking. A different mood for each recipe is guaranteed.
 


However much folks may enjoy singing along as they cook, many feel that eating the food is more fun.  And to get to the eating part, a bit of guidance is extremely helpful. How do we make that tasty food so we can enjoy it? One way is to discover yummy recipes in cookbooks.

The Urbana Free Library loves cookbooks and we have a vast collection. Here's a sampling of some of the best and brightest we've gotten lately.


If you're a fan of the cooking competition reality show Top Chef/Top Chef Texas, you may have been intrigued by this culinary marvel, which was a highly-desired prize for one of the recent quick fires. Modernist Cuisine: The Art and Science of Baking by Nathan Myhrvold is a "six-volume, 2,438-page set that is des­tined to rein­vent cook­ing." Yep, it's an elegant whopper of a cookbook that has already found devotees here at Urbana Free. The photographs are amazing and the text clearly expresses the joys of molecular gastronomy .


Modernist Cuisine Trailer from Modernist Cuisine on Vimeo.


Food Network TV chef Ree Drummond presents simple but extremely tasty recipes in her latest cookbook, The Pioneer Woman Cooks Food From My Frontier. She's posted a full color preview of the mouthwatering results on her blog.










And finally, for the purists among you, we have Pam Anderson's How to Cook Without a Book: Recipes and Techniques Every Cook Should Know by Heart. Anderson has sympathy for all those who come home from work tired and have to fix a meal. They have to page through a cookbook and scramble to make sure they have all the ingredients before they can even start dinner. Anderson believes all recipes are "variations on a theme",  so she stresses technique. You can pull together a meal easily, recognizing what you can prepare from the ingredients you have on hand, eliminating a cookbook as the middleman. (Of course, you DO need Anderson's cookbook to attain this goal. We're happy to have it in our collection so you can check it out.)



Urbana Free is the place to be for cookbooks! Come in and browse the 641.5's. Give us a call at 217-367-4405 to place any requests, or email us reference@tufl.info

Cold, Yummy and Healthy

Just when you think summer is over, along comes another spell of intense and cloying warmth. It's the perfect time for refreshing ice pops!

Ice Pop Joy: Organic, Healthy, Fresh, Delicious, by Anni Daulter, is a great alternative for those looking for cool but healthy treats. Don't depend on those refined sugar popsicles you get at the store. Why not make your own, nutritious versions? And these aren't just pops for kids--these have great appeal for adults, too.

Check out the book's website for more pictures and some free recipes. But check the book itself out from the Urbana Free Library, and create all sorts of scrumptious icy taste treats yourself. Bet you'll want a supply to enjoy all year round--not just in the heat of summer.

Local Food Resources Guide

Last fall, the Common Ground Food Coop approached the library about collaborating on a bibliography featuring library materials and local resources on the theme of local food [1]. This, we thought immediately, was a very good idea.

The Coop had a fantastic collection of information on state and local organizations, and we had a good collection of books and videos.  We just needed to pare things down a bit to fit on an 11 x 17 sheet of paper and some nice local foodsy pics.  You know makes a local foods bibliography look good?  Photos of the Urbana Market at the Square taken by Lisa Braltz Kelly [2].

So, what's in the bibliography?  As I mentioned on WCFN's Page Turners segment on Tuesday morning, the guide is broken up into a few sections [3].  The first section includes books on the issues--why we care whether food is produced locally or from industrial food production.  These books approach the issues (including issues of health, environment, employment, and local economies, for example) from both broad and narrow scopes, and range from personal stories to more scholarly sorts of works.  There's even a book in this part of the list that disagrees with locavores, in case you're curious why anyone would argue with such level headed reasoning (stubborn devotion to theoretical free market economics).

The second section includes books for those of you who want to be more proactive in supporting local foods.  These books get very local, like the beginner gardening books to help you grow food in your back yard or your apartment patio.  This level of local just scales up from there--you can raise chickens or cattle, keep bees, make your own yogurt, start your own farm, and sell your produce at the farmers' market.

Want to leave the dirty work to the farmers' already working Central Illinois?  That's fine.  You might be interested in the books on community supported agriculture (CSA), budget-conscious local eating, or preserving or cooking food you got at the farmers' market.

The last part of the bibliography is the best because it provides information and links to a selection of state and local organizations through whom you can get involved in the local foods movement, learn to grow and raise your own food, rent land and actually grow your own food, and buy locally produced food.

You can get your own copy of the Local Food Resources guide at The Urbana Free Library or the Common Ground Food Coop.  You can also find the guide on the library's website [4].  Happy learning/growing/eating!

Freshly harvested local links:

1. The Common Ground Food Coop's site has location info, hours, and information on their highly popular classes and events.

2. Urbana Market at the Square's Flickr stream

3. You can see the video of me talking with Anne Dill (Part 1 | Part 2) on PageTurners at Illinoishomepage.net.

4. Check out the online Local Food Resources guide

Makin' Whoopie

Zac, a cheftestant on Bravo TV's Top Chef: Just Desserts, created a gourmet-level, deep fried Whoopie Pie recently.  And I thought, what the heck is a Whoopie Pie?  Not exactly a central Illinois delicacy.

Now I know all about the tasty treat, thanks to Sarah Billingsley's & Amy Treadwell's extensive recipe guide, Whoopie Pies: Dozens of Mix 'em Match 'em, Eat 'em Up Recipes.

What is a whoopie pie?  Basically, it's a snack comprised of two cake-like cookies, with a yummy filling in between.

The variations are endless! The book contains decorating ideas, tools you'll need, how to store your little mouthfuls, and a variety of ideas for cakes and creamy fillings that can be mixed and matched.

Whoopies pies don't have to be sweet, either! You could create savory Jalapeño cornbread cakes and smudge them together with bacon-chive goat cheese--or not.  It all depends on your tastebuds.

To wet your appetite, the authors are starring in their own book trailer, demonstrating some of their cooking and decorating techniques. So check'em out--or check the book Whoopie Pies out from us at The Urbana Free Library and have a delicious time.

Geometry of Pasta

From the publisher who brought you Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters, and other Quirk-y books comes...

The Geometry of Pasta by Caz Hildebrand and Jacob Kenedy.

I heard about it last week on All Things Considered [read the story], and I thought it was interesting, if lacking in useful info.  Not so!  It is a cookbook, and a great-looking one, too.  Filled with black and white illustrations of different pastas, it's fun to look at even when you're not hungry.  The book trailer below provides some excellent examples of the illustrations and style of the book.

Cake Pops--scrumptious little mouthfuls

Tootsie Roll pops®, Dum-Dums®, candy pops in general.  We've all devoured these tasty treats on a stick.

Bakerella--blogging at Bakerella.com--has reinvented this candy favorite in cake format. Her charming book full of recipes--Cake Pops: Tips, Tricks, and Recipes for More Than 40 Irresistible Mini Treats--is brand new at The Urbana Free Library, and is ready for you to taste test.

The construction basics and all the recipes are explained with clear step-by-step instructions and illustrated with close-up color photos. 

Now, my personal favorite mini cakes are the Sugar Sheep. If you follow the sheep link to Bakerella's blog, you'll see the little cuties in full color and get complete instructions on how to make them. They're in the book, too, along with Pastel Bunny Pops, Bride & Groom Cake Pops, and Lovely Little Ladybugs.

Tired of creating the usual iced sheet cakes or the same old cupcakes for a party?  Tired of cutting and plating cake slices?  (And washing plates and forks afterwards?)  Try a different type of presentation! Create a whole bunch of decorative individual cake pops and serve a veritable forest of fun!

For more inspiration, visit the Cake Pop section of Bakerella's blog.

The Diabetic Pastry Chef

My mother was recently diagnosed with diabetes. Her weakness, cake. Therefore, I was delighted to come across The Diabetic Pastry Chef by Stacey Harris. Filled with delicious recipes, (I have tried a few myself), and lots of tips on how to cut sugars, carbs, and even cholesterol from your favorite goodies, this book is a must have for anyone with diabetes who wants to continue to indulge their sweet tooth.
The recipes encompass breads, cakes, pies, cookies and more. Might I suggest the peanut butter oatmeal chocolate chip cookie? Maybe you'd prefer the earl gray cake with chocolate sauce? Banana waffles? Or perhaps a sour cream apple pie sounds good with fall just around the corner?

Next to every recipe are the Nutrition Facts allowing consumers the knowledge of just how much fat, sodium, carbs, etc... are contained in each treat. And, Stacey does a wonderful job of explaining the difference between types of flours used, sugar substitutes, and discussing different aspects of controlling diabetes.

One tip my husband and I tried was to use 1/2 c plain yogurt instead of eggs and oil in our box mix brownies. We saved 119 grams of fat and 424 milligrams of cholesterol per batch. And they were delicious, tasting more like a chocolate cake.

So grab a copy for yourself and see just how sweet it is!

2Cute 2B Ignored

Yum-Yum Bento Box: Fresh Recipes for Adorable Lunches
by Crystal Watanabe and Maki Ogawa

Indulge in the latest trend from Japan. Turn your favorite food into cute little edible tidbits and create charming little boxed lunches that will appeal to your kids and those you love.

Yum-Yum Bento Box is also the perfect cook book for those of you who enjoy craft projects. You will need some basic tools to form and sculpt the food into chickens or kitties or mushrooms or little elves. Most of the ingredients are commonly available, but you might need to visit your favorite oriental food department to obtain components such as nori or rice flour for some recipes.

Make your food come adorably alive--visually that is! If you'd like to take this delightful new book home, place a hold or give us a call at The Urbana Free Library. 217-367-4405 or email us at reference@tufl.info.

Want to know more? Visit the book's website to see more delightful food pix. And learn how to make the Three Little Pigs bento featured in the book by watching a brief video.

Boy, does that sandwich look yummy!

Our mouths may water every time we see a scrumptious color food photo in a cookbook or hear the raucous tunes of a TV commercial touting the most delectable meal ever. Where do all the wonderful cooks who turn out those lovely dishes come from? My food never looks that good!

If you read Food Styling: the Art of Preparing Food for the Camera, you'll learn that the delicious-looking food needs a bit of help to look so tasty. Yep--it's not the cook but the food stylist who gussies up and tweaks those tidbits to the utmost.

Career food stylists have their own tips and tricks, many of which are passed on in full color in this unique vocational guidebook. Do you know that it can be hard to burn proper, attractive grill marks on meat? That margarine is preferred to butter in photo shoots because it melts more slowly and photographs more attractively? That you can brush thinned-out soy sauce on toast to even out the browning? (A caveat: some of the tips make the food photograph wonderfully, but also make it inedible.)

If you're just planning to take some casual snaps of a family picnic for Flickr posting, you probably won't need most of the tips in this book. But you can learn a lot about making food gorgeous for those special times. And discover some cooking techniques, too.

Whether you're searching for a new career, want to get some photography ideas, or just think about food, Food Styling: the Art of Preparing Food for the Camera will pique your interest. And it's available now at The Urbana Free Library. Want to take this new book home? Place a hold or give us a call at 217-367-4405.