Wednesday, December 31, 2008

Cater Your Own Wedding or Stonewall Kitchen Favorites

Cater Your Own Wedding: Easy Ways to Do It Yourself in Style

Author: Michael Flowers

Why would anyone in their right mind consider catering their own wedding reception? Considering the skyrocketing costs of wedding receptions, the proper question should really be, how could you not consider this alternative?

Cater Your Own Wedding has helped thousands of brides, couples, and families take the guesswork out of planning, preparing, and putting on the reception, but now it does even more. In this revised edition, it also tackles the much-overlooked, often-dreaded rehearsal dinner, transforming it from a please-don't-make-me-go affair to a can't-miss event.

Packed into an all-new chapter, you'll find tips on throwing a rehearsal shindig that's big on fun and light on stress. It holds your hand every step of the way, so even if you've never organized anything grander than a family cookout, you can do this!

This delightful how-to book provides all the professional catering help a bride will need and all the cost-cutting tips that make affordable elegance a reality. Taking all the guesswork out of the process of planning, preparing, and putting on a reception, Cater Your Own Wedding enables even the most inexperienced host to throw a memorable party with no stress. The book outlines six different types of receptions to suit different needs, complete with mouthwatering, original menus, and detailed, easy-to-follow recipes.

Cater Your Own Wedding also includes tips on everything from shopping to sanitation concerns, decorating ideas and allocation of tasks, step-by-step instructions, checklists, timelines, and diagrams to ensure that everything runs like clockwork, even if you've never done anything like this before.



Interesting textbook: Photoshop Masking and Compositing or Animating with Blender

Stonewall Kitchen Favorites: Delicious Recipes to Share with Family and Friends Every Day

Author: Jonathan King

Remember your favorite meal when you were a kid? Maybe it was a hearty helping of Mom’s fabulous meatloaf, a side of creamy mashed potatoes, and a slice of chocolate layer cake for dessert. Maybe that’s still your favorite dinner, only now you use a mixture of ground meats and a handful of chopped herbs for the meatloaf, stir roasted garlic into the potatoes, and tuck fresh raspberries into individual molten-centered chocolate cakes—just like the owners of Stonewall Kitchen. When it comes to re-invigorating classic flavors, nobody does it better than Stonewall Kitchen, whose condiments, preserves, and dressings have tickled the taste buds of millions across the country for more than fifteen years. Now, in their follow-up to the IACP Award–nominated Stonewall Kitchen Harvest, Jonathan King, Jim Stott, and Kathy Gunst share their all-time favorite recipes for America’s favorite dishes.

Here is the food we crave, updated for today’s tastes with ingredients such as fresh herbs, citrus zest, fresh ginger, and spices. A swirl of basil puree enlivens Spaghetti Carbonara, adding yet another dimension of flavor to this celebrated dish. New Eggs Benedict trade their heavy, complicated hollandaise sauce and Canadian bacon for a light, quick chive-lemon butter, smoked salmon, and baby spinach. New England Five Onion Soup with Cheddar Croûtes puts a decidedly American spin on France’s most famous soup. Given Stonewall’s passion for condiments, naturally the sauces and salsas are spectacular, with everything from Winter Parsley Pesto to Orange-Miso Dipping Sauce. To keep these dishes fresh for years to come, nearly every recipeincludes up to a dozen “favorite variations.” With chapters including Breakfast; Soups and Chowders; Salads; Sandwiches; Seafood; Pasta, Potatoes, and Bread; Poultry and Meat; Vegetables; Sauces and Salsas; and Dessert and tips on everything from eggs to bacon to cheese to chocolate liberally scattered throughout the book, Stonewall Kitchen Favorites celebrates and rejuvenates the time-honored American cuisine we all love.

Complete with 125 irresistible recipes, 150 stunning full-color photographs, and a foreword by Ina Garten, author of the bestselling Barefoot Contessa cookbook series, here is a new, tempting look at America’s most cherished dishes—the food you’ll want to eat night after night. Stonewall Kitchen Favorites helps families create new memories of favorite meals at the table.

Publishers Weekly

Gourmet food purveyors King and Stott may have made a name for themselves with preserves and condiments, but with this third cookbook they prove they can also handle dishes as wide-ranging as Huevos Rancheros and Rack of Lamb. The well-rounded collection features hearty American fare with a modern flair; a typical recipe is Three Moms' Meatloaf, which calls for fresh parsley, thyme and rosemary, and includes tomato paste (no ketchup). Above all, the authors are not bound to tradition. Recipe introductions often clue readers in to the rationale behind a recipe ("Where is it written that all croutons must be made from leftover bread? Why not experiment with squares of polenta?") and "favorite variations" sections offer modifications to every recipe. Although it's initially strange that there's no appetizer chapter considering the subtitle's emphasis on entertaining many of the dishes in the "Seafood and Fish" and "Pasta, Potatoes, Bread" chapters would make pleasing hors d'oeuvres (e.g., Scallop "Chips," Grown-Up Potato Puffs, Tuna Tartare on Cucumber Rounds). This laid-back book deserves a warm reception from anyone who likes their food easy and delicious. 150 full-color photos. (Aug.) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

Two decades ago, King and his partner Jim Stott started the Stonewall Kitchen line of preserves and condiments with a tiny booth at a farmers market. Today, they have eight shops throughout New England, a caf , and a product line sold around the world (they now also market a line of "pantry products" for Ina Garten, a.k.a the Barefoot Contessa, who wrote the introduction to this book). Like Stonewall Kitchen Harvest, the authors' last book, this one offers recipes for all courses of a meal, featuring food they like to cook at home or serve at the caf : Lobster BLT (the top-selling item there), Chicken Breasts with Mediterranean Stuffing, and Roasted Vegetable Platter with Green Sauce. It's simple but sophisticated upscale fare, illustrated throughout with color photographs. Sure to be popular; for most collections. Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.



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