Things Cooks Love Reviewed By Gourmet News

Sur la Table taps cookbook author to pen kitchenware- centric cookbook
(April 11, 2008)

SEATTLE--Noted cookbook author Marie Simmons and Sur La Table, based here, have teamed up to create the kitchenware-centric cookbook, Things Cooks Love: Implements, Ingredients, Recipes. Published by Andrew McMeel Publishing, it will be released April 22.

The 325-page book is divided into three sections--Essential Cookware and Tools, Cooking with Kitchen Essentials and Globe Trotting Cooking Essentials. The book starts off with a list of must-have items--all the cookware, gadgets, knives and appliances needed for a well-stocked basic kitchen. Then additional specialty items needed for a "well stocked global kitchen" such as a cataplana for Portugese cooking, karahi used in Indian cooking and bamboo steamer used in Asian preparations, are listed.

"Cooking is fun and can be a pure pleasure if you have the right tools," Simmons said. And this book also tells cooks what to do with them. While managing the Berkeley, Calif., store and culinary program, Sur La Table's Doralece Dullaghan saw the same look again and again on first-time customers' faces. Dullaghan, who is now director of strategic partnerships, described the overwhelmed look as the "Oh-my-god expression. What is all this stuff?" What do I do with this?"

It's the first of three cookbooks for the kitchenware retailer. The Art & Soul of Baking by Cindy Mushet with Sur La Table, and the third, A Cook's Guide to Knives by Sarah Jay with Sur La Table, will be released this fall.

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