SPEND LESS MONEY ON GAS

SPEND LESS MONEY ON GAS BUT STILL GET WHERE YOU WANT TO GO!

BEAT HIGH GAS PRICES NOW!
by Diane MacEachern

Author and environmentalist Diane MacEachern has written numerous times about how to help our planet, now she is turning her attention to helping our bank accounts. With gas prices soaring over $4.00 a gallon and no end in sight, it’s no wonder that drivers are looking for ways to cut back on their gas usage. This handy guidebook offers dozens of easy-to-follow tips to help you “beat the pump” and save up to $50 a month in gas. Get helpful info such as:

* How to make gas go farther when you drive to work or go shopping
* Information to help you choose a new fuel-efficient car
* Ways to use the Internet to find the cheapest gas in the neighborhood
and more!

“Eco expert” Diane MacEachern is the author of numerous eco-friendly books and founder of the popular Website biggreenpurse.com.

Beat High Gas Prices Now!
by Diane MacEachern
ISBN-13: 978-0-7407-6002-0
ISBN-10: 0-7407-6002-5
UPC: 050837241954
$8.95 ($12.50 Canada)
Size: 5” x 8”, 80pp, ppb

Things Cooks Love: Implements. Ingredients. Recipes. Spotlighted on Project Foodie

If you love cooking then you probably love cookware; checking out new tools, and gadgets along with buying them and using them to make new and interesting dishes. I’m not a big shopper but walk me past a cooking store and I simply have to go in. And even though I'm a foodie, I often see things that I just don’t know how or why to use. Or I only know of one use and buying something for just one recipe is a bit too much of a luxury. That’s why the new Sur La Table cookbook, Things Cooks Love, with recipes by Marie Simmons is so great. It presents a whole slew of neat cooking tools, pans, and other foodie equipment along with great recipes that use them. For example, below is an overview of a Cazuela pan popular in Spanish cooking along with a recipe for Sea Bass Fillets with Tomatoes and Roasted Red Pepper and Almond Sauce. The recipes also present alternative equipment in case you don’t have all of cookware mentioned in the book but still want to try out the recipes.

Cazuela

From Things Cooks Love: Implements, Ingredients, Recipes
by Sur La Table and Marie Simmons, Andrews McMeel Publishing, 2008

The rustic earthenware cazuela—in Portugal, the same vessel is known as a tacho de barro—is found in the kitchen of every Spanish cook, though Catalonian cooks are especially renowned for their large repertoire of slow-cooked cazuela dishes. Glazed on the inside and unglazed on the outside, the versatile vessel is kiln-fired at a high temperature so that it can tolerate both the direct heat of a stove top and the radiant heat of an oven.

Cazuelas are usually only about 3 inches deep but come in a wide range of shapes—round, square, rectangular, oval—and sizes, including casseroles just large enough for a single serving. All of them are attractive and hold heat—and cold—well, which means they can travel from the stove to the table.

Sea Bass Fillets with Tomatoes and Roasted Red Pepper and Almond Sauce

From Things Cooks Love: Implements, Ingredients, Recipes
by Sur La Table and Marie Simmons, Andrews McMeel Publishing, 2008

Prep 45 min

Cook time 55 min

Serves 4

This recipe starts with the cazuela on the stove top for sautéing, and then, once the fish fillets are added, you slip the cazuela into the oven. The fish is served with a red pepper and almond sauce, a loose adaptation of the Spanish romesco. Any firm white fish fillets can be substituted for the sea bass.

Implements: 12-inch Cazuela or 12-inch Skillet and 2-Quart Shallow Baking Dish, Strainer, Small Skillet, Blender

For the Sea Bass Fillets

• 3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
• 1 large sweet onion, cut into ¹⁄8-inch wedges
• 1 clove garlic, sliced paper-thin
• ½ teaspoon sweet paprika
• 1 (28-ounce) can Italian plum tomatoes
• Coarse salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 4 (6-ounce) skinless sea bass fillets
• 2 tablespoons finely chopped fresh Italian parsley or mint, or 1 tablespoon of each

For the Pepper and Almond Sauce

• ½ cup whole natural (skin-on) almonds, coarsely chopped
• 1 clove garlic, coarsely chopped
• 8 jarred piquillo peppers, or 2 large roasted and peeled red bell pepper (page 268)
• 1 teaspoon coarse salt
• ½ teaspoon sweet paprika
• 4 to 6 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil, or more as needed
• 1 tablespoon aged sherry vinegar

1. Add the olive oil to a 12-inch cazuela or skillet and heat slowly over medium-low heat. When the oil is hot enough to sizzle a piece of onion, increase the heat to medium, add the onion, and sauté, stirring, for 15 minutes, or until golden. Add the garlic and sauté for 5 minutes, or until softened. Stir in the paprika.

2. Set a strainer over a bowl and empty the can of tomatoes into the strainer. Use your hands to break the tomatoes into chunks, squeezing out and discarding the seeds. (Freeze the tomato juices for soup or another use.)

3. Add the broken, seeded tomatoes to the onion mixture and simmer over medium heat for 10 minutes, or until the mixture has cooked down. Add ½ teaspoon of salt and a grinding of pepper and remove from the heat.

4. While the tomato mixture is simmering, preheat the oven to 400°F.

5. If using a cazuela, arrange the fish fillets in a single layer on top of the tomato mixture. Season the fish with salt and pepper and sprinkle with the parsley. Place a spoonful of the tomato mixture on top of each fillet. If using a skillet, transfer the tomato mixture to a 2-quart shallow baking dish and arrange the fish fillets in a single layer on top. Season with salt and pepper and sprinkle with the parsley. Place a spoonful of the tomato mixture on top of each fillet.

6. Place the cazuela or baking dish in the hot oven (it’s fine to put it in a hot oven because it has been preheated on the stove top) and bake the fish for 15 minutes, or until the thickest part of a fillet is opaque, rather than translucent, when tested with the tip of a small knife.

7. While the fish is baking, make the sauce: Put the almonds in a small, dry skillet, place over medium-low heat, and heat, shaking the pan, for 5 minutes, or until lightly toasted. Let the almonds cool slightly and then transfer to a blender. Add the garlic, peppers, salt, and paprika, and process until pureed, stopping to scrape down the sides of the blender as needed. With the motor running, add 4 tablespoons of the olive oil in a thin, steady stream. Taste and add more olive oil as needed to correct the balance. Add the vinegar and process to combine. Alternatively, make the sauce in a mortar: First crush the garlic and salt with a pestle. Then add the almonds and pound until the mixture forms a paste. Add the peppers and pound until blended. Slowly add the olive oil, pounding until the mixture is light and smooth. Add the vinegar and stir to blend. You should have about 1 cup of sauce. Taste and add more salt as needed. Transfer to a small serving bowl.

To serve, place the cazuela in the center of the table. Pass the sauce.

About Things Cooks Love: Implements. Ingredients. Recipes.

The first in a series books by Sur La Table, speaks to the love that cooks of all levels feel for their tools. Whether you're passionate about the gorgeous copper pot you just received as a gift, a rice cooker you have always wanted to try, or your grandmother's well-aged cast-iron skillet, award-winning author Marie Simmons provides inspiration to make the best use of your cookware along with delectable recipes to enhance the experience.

http://www.projectfoodie.com/spotlights/cookbooks/things-cooks-love.html

Stupid History: Tales of Stupidity, Strangeness, and Mythconceptions Throughout the Ages Is Best-Seller

Stupid History: Tales of Stupidity, Strangeness, and Mythconceptions Throughout the Ages
by Leland Gregory

Currently #1 in quality paperback books at Borders;
#11 on Bookscan paperback books; (#2 in humor paperbacks on Bookscan)

Everyone knows that the Greeks created smooth, white marble art right? Not according to Stupid History (Andrews McMeel Publishing, $9.99). It turns out that those works of art were actually painted in bright colors and eventually the color faded to what’s left today.

Another little known history gem: Even though most of us believe that Benjamin Franklin discovered electricity, the Greeks had it figured out long before his time. Franklin’s infamous kite and key experiment was only testing the electric nature of lighting.

Just how many other historical tales are actually untrue? Luckily, Stupid History sheds some much needed light on these and many other false historical assumptions. This entertaining volume not only corrects historical inaccuracies, but also offers little known facts and quotes to entertain every reader.

Imagine everyone’s shock when you tell them that the Dead Sea is a really a lake!

Stupid History: Tales of Stupidity, Strangeness, and Mythconceptions Throughout the Ages by Leland Gregory
Andrews McMeel Publishing, LLC
Price: $9.99 ($12.50 Canada)
ISBN: 978-0-7407-6054-9
Paperback: 5 x 7, 320 pages

Things Cooks Love Featured in Chicago Tribune

Things Cooks Love: Implements. Ingredients. Recipes. by Sur La Table and Marie Simmons and an interview with Marie are featured in Chicago Tribune:

By Emily Nunn | Tribune reporter
June 4, 2008

Thirty years ago, Marie Simmons never could have written anything like her new book, "Things Cooks Love: Implements. Ingredients. Recipes"(Andrews McNeel, $35). Of course, nobody else could have either.

Back when Simmons was starting her career in the food business—she's now a popular teacher, award-winning cookbook author (she has written more than 20), syndicated newspaper columnist and monthly columnist for Bon Appetit magazine—American cooks just weren't all that curious about how to use such multi-culti equipment as a cataplana or a chitarra.

Those are just two of the 100-odd "things" that Simmons' large and lushly attractive book—the first in a series coming from cookware retailer Sur La Table—teaches readers to use in making her companion recipes, all of which reflect an expanding interest in global cuisine.

"The concept was very astute of Sur La Table," said Simmons recently, over pizza at Osteria Via Stato, while in town to promote the book. "It's based on the fact their customers kept coming up and asking how to use things available in the stores. They just said, 'Hey, we've got to get this in a book.'"

Which could lead you to believe that Simmons has simply written a gorgeous kitchenware catalog for Sur La Table—if it weren't for the fact that no brands are mentioned in the book's three major sections ("Essential Cookware and Tools," "Cooking with Kitchen Essentials," and "Globe Trotting Kitchen Essentials"); none of the equipment, which ranges from the humble whisk to the lovely Indian karahi (a cast-iron skillet with high, rounded sides and large loop handles) is sold exclusively at the store; the recipes do, as she intended, "sound luscious"; and Simmons always recommends an alternative to a piece of equipment. A really good pommes Anna pan is "a $475 pan, but I say you can use an iron skillet," she said with a laugh.

Even as a veteran, Simmons said, writing the book—which is intended both for beginners and advanced cooks—opened her up to new cooking experiences.

"It was inspiring. . . I learned so much," she said. "I'd never used the chitarra," she added, referring to the Italian stringed tool (the name translates as "guitar") for cutting pasta. She now uses it "all the time" to make the book's rosemary whole-wheat breadsticks.

"I'd never used a cataplana, that's the Portuguese domed pan—the stew is fabulous," she said. But using a large granite mortar and pestle instead of a blender to make pesto, she said, was the most fun. "There was a huge difference with the flavor," she said, citing the "unscientific" theory that steel blender blades dull the flavor "You start with garlic, salt, pine nuts, then add the basil, little by little, and you smash smash smash, then slowly drizzle the oil in. ... It smells so different.

"I think it's more tactile and because it's more tactile, it tastes better," she added.

Which goes to her idea that good cookware should make you "more intimately involved with the food."

And it may explain why what a person chooses to cook with can be as personal as what he or she buys to wear.

"It's sort of like shopping for shoes," Simmons said. "You have your practical flats you wear all of the time, and then there's the little pair of strapless backless heels you just have to have. You won't wear them as much, but you're going to love them.

"That's the way I feel about the cataplana or the tagine," she said. (A tagine is a shallow, glazed terra-cotta, stainless-clad, or cast-iron vessel with a high conical lid.) "You won't necessarily use them every day. You're going to use it, though, and you're going to love it; and when you're not using it, it's going to be sitting there for you to admire. That's the kind of love affair that cooks have with their cookware."

http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/food/chi-marie-simmons-cookbook-4jun04,0,997214.story

Things Cooks Love Reviewed on Apartment Therapy-The Kitchn Blog

Things Cooks Love: Implements. Ingredients. Recipes. by Sur La Table and Marie Simmons is reviewed by Sara Kate Gillingham-Ryan on the Apartment Therapy-The Kitchn blog.

Just as we were in the midst of the Kitchn's inaugural Kitchn Cure (eight fun-filled weeks of kitchen cleaning, organizing, stocking, cooking, ending with a big bang of a party in May), a book called Things Cooks Love: Implements. Ingredients. Recipes. (Andrews McMeel Publishing, $35) landed on my desk.

I kept calling it Things Cooks Need, because that's where my mind was, guiding Cure-takers toward cleaning out their cupboards to leave only what they really need to cook well.

I barely had time to glance at it before I left on a business trip. And, I'll be honest, I was skeptical. The book comes from Sur La Table (and is written by a lovely food writer named Marie Simmons) and is based around the gear you have in your kitchen. Hmmmm, Sur La Table puts out a book whose recipes are based on cooking implements. I smelled a marketing ploy.

And then I went to New Orleans for the International Association of Culinary Professionals conference and found myself on the very first night sitting next to Marie Simmons, the author of the book. She is absolutely delightful, extremely knowledgeable, and a great dinner companion. We both had that Speckled Trout Amandine.

I asked her point blank about my suspicions and she told me about how the book came to be, making me feel much better about the book.

It was of paramount importance to her that each recipe's implement suggestions included alternatives. Take, for example, the recipes for using a tagine. Simmons suggests a Dutch oven or a braiser. I might have gone even further to suggest any oven-safe pan covered tightly with foil. It was also critical, Marie told me, that the book not tout brand names. And it doesn't. Sure, most of what you find in the pages is available at Sur La Table.

Getting past the fraction of the book that is actually dedicated to kitchen implements, you'll find original recipes, tips on things like making bread crumbs, how to cut a mango (or read it here) and how to trim an artichoke, and a rundown on various ethnic pantries (the Mexican Pantry includes a list of all those confusing dried chile varieties).

This would be a great book to give a newlywed, or someone just starting their first kitchen who may be faced with gifts they don't necessarily know how to use. So, if you do find yourself owning a tagine, you at least can read about how to use and care for it before deciding to return it.

I might add that if you do decide to return that tagine and it came from a store that carries Things Cooks Love (like Sur La Table), get the book instead. Or come back on Thursday when we'll be giving away five copies.

http://www.thekitchn.com/thekitchn/book-reviews/book-review-things-cooks-love-047379

Things Cooks Love: Implements. Ingredients. Recipes. Named Cookbook of the Day by slashfood.com

Things Cooks Love, Cookbook of the Day

Posted May 28th 2008 3:01PM
By Marisa McClellan

For those of us who are enamored of cookware, mixers, bowls and cooking utensils, stores like Sur La Table are dangerous places. We walk in and are instantly taken by a shiny chrome pasta machine or the sleek mandoline. Often times, we plunk down our cash for these items, but once we get them home, intimidation starts to set in and we question whether the purchase was such a good idea. Frequently, these tools get shoved to the back of the kitchen cabinet to collect dust until, years later, you pull them out and sell them at a garage sale.

The new cookbook, Things Cooks Love, is setting out to help you make the most of those stove top smokers, fish poachers and tortilla presses. Written by cooking teacher and cookbook author Marie Simmons, this book starts off with the basics and moves on to the more glamorous and unusual tools and pieces of cookware.

In addition to being a useful and easy-to-follow book, this volume is also downright beautiful. It would make a wonderful gift for the foodie in your life, as it is filled with gorgeous photography and each page is designed to be interesting and eye-catching. It is definitely a winner.

http://www.slashfood.com/2008/05/28/things-cooks-love-cookbook-of-the-day/