A Basket of Books: Something Different to Chew on

If you're looking for ideas for books for gifting, these have recently landed here thanks to their publishers or publicists. Yup, free.

None of 'em are cookbooks, although some are food related.

The Devil's Dinner by Stuart Walton

This one is all about peppers, from mild to mind-numbing. It starts with the biology of the pepper plant and the fruit, then moves into the history of peppers.

There's a handy list of peppers would be useful for anyone who wants to use a wider variety of peppers, but who isn't sure what the varieties are. That was actually one of my favorite parts of the book, and I have to say that even though I cook a lot, I wasn't familiar with many of the peppers on the list.

Finally, we get treated to the cultural and symbolic aspects. There's a reason so many hot sauces reference the devil, right? While this wasn't as compelling a read as a novel, it did tell its story, and while it was the result of a whole lot of research, it wasn't a difficult read.

If you've got a friend or relative who's a chili head and likes to read, this could be a lovely stocking stuffer.


Grits by Erin Byers Murray

Although I was raised in the midwest and didn't event taste grits until I was an adult, I totally adore them, so it was fun to dive into the history of them.

While this does travel the history trail, the author is right in the midst of it, talking about the research and the people she met along the way so it's kind of a personal journey as well as a whole lot of information about corn and grits.

The grain itself doesn't get a whole lot of story time, with the book focusing more on the more modern history of the milling and the cooking. Although ... the different mills themselves include history of their own.

This book also has some recipes. It's not a cookbook by any means, but there are recipes using cornmeal and grits, so when you get hungry, you can stop reading and start cooking and eating. This was an interesting read, and I loved that a few recipes were included. I don't know if I'll ever make the sweet grits, but I'm always willing to try a new recipe for cheesy grits.

Always.


Wild Wine Making by Richard W. Bender

While this is essentially a recipe book, it's also kind of a hobby book, since you won't be making wine after work and serving it for dinner. The book assumes that you're fairly new at wine making (good assumption) and starts off with lots of information about the equipment you'll need. Fortunately, it doesn't assume that you're starting a winery, so the requirements are reasonable.

If you're worried about the "wild" part of the title, you won't need to go foraging in a scary forest for suspicious fruits, leaves, and roots. Instead, you should be able to by your ingredients at a grocery store. However, some of the ideas are a little off-the-beaten-path when compared to the more usual grapes. There are recipes that include everything from apples to bananas to cayenne ... and most of the rest of the alphabet, too. And if you're really ready to be wild, there are wines that include cannabis, as well.

While these wines aren't going to be as easy as the ones you can make with a wine kit, they look like a really good next step for someone who wants to take off the training wheels and have a bit more fun.

The Art of Doodle Words by Sarah Alberto

I'll admit it. I doodle a lot when I'm writing. But I'll also admit that my doodles aren't quite like art. So I was amused by the idea of a book that could turn my crummy doodles into something a little better.

None of the letter doodles in this book are particularly difficult, but when the doodling added things that were supposed to look like something else, I decided that I really didn't need to embarrass a burger that way.

These ideas and techniques would be great for people who want to try their hand at crafty things, like making greeting cards, doing fancy lettering in scrapbooks, or even just to add something fun to store-bought cards.

While I don't know if I'll ever really get that crafty, doodling with letters is kind of fun, just for amusement.


Kawaii Doodle Cuties by Zainab Khan

When it comes to doodling, I'm not that great at drawing things that are recognizable as whatever they're supposed to represent, but this book might change my tune. A little bit. Maybe.

It starts out super-simple, like drawing a very basic kiwi fruit or macaron, then adding a cute little face that's pretty much just eyes and a smile. Yup, I can do that.

Each chapter starts with simple stuff, then the complexity increases. I can do a shamrock, but a cute Great Barrier Reef might be just slightly beyond my current capabilities. Although I agree it would be fun to try.

And that's kind of the point, right? It's fun. It's not art class, and there is no grade.

This would be a fun book for adults who want to do a little more than color in adult coloring books, but would also be fun for kids who want to learn how to draw more than stick figures and lolliop trees.

Although I make fun of my own drawing skills, I might actually spend some quality time with this book, just to see if I can draw the panda. Because it's freaking cute.

Why yes, I do get a lot of books for free from publishers. Yup.

Wild Drinks and Cocktails

I have a love-hate relationship with getting proof copies of cookbooks. On one hand, I like getting my hands on a book well before it's released to the public.

On the other hand, when I get an uncorrected proof, I have limitations as far as what I can say about it. I can't quote anything, because text could change during the correction process. And I don't think it's fair to write about recipes for that reason. They could change, so any evaluation of a recipe would be unfair.

I suppose it's also possible for a recipe to get deleted. I doubt it happens often, but with my luck I'd be telling you all about recipes I made that aren't even in the book any more.

Photos aren't always in their finished state. I've gotten some proof copies that had black-and-white photos, and others had photos that had notes about cropping. And often the index is missing or incomplete. If one recipe references another one, those page numbers might not be there, so it can be a bit of a hunt to find the those referenced recipes.

Right now I'm looking at an uncorrected proof of Wild Drinks and Cocktails by Emily Han. And I actually have a lot to say about it.

Note: the book has been released, but I haven't seen the final version.

While I have a few cocktail recipe books, this one has an interesting twist. When they're talking about "wild" recipes, they're not using it as a synonym of crazy ... they're talking about wild ingredients. Like needles or tips from certain evergreen trees, herbs, and fresh berries.

But that doesn't mean you need to go foraging. Most of the things you'll need (except those evergreen needles) are readily available at your local grocery store. And while fresh herbs are no doubt preferred, the book mentions when dried herbs can be substituted.

I have quite a few recipes bookmarked, including one that will have me trimming the spruce trees in front of my house. I also want to make orgeat. I've seen in used in cocktails, but I haven't found it for sale anywhere. Cherry bounce sounds like a lot of fun, too.

There are also recipes for sweet and dry vermouth (wow, I never thought of making my own), gin (starting with vodka and herbs), bitters, flavored wines, liqueurs, and all sorts of other concoctions.

Of course, there are cocktails I want to try, too, after I make the other ingredients.

It's not all alcohol, though. There's also a recipe for making homemade ginger ale and several for making flavored fizzy sodas, flavored syrups, infusions, and non-alcoholic drinks like the cherry balsamic shrub that I'm planning on making.

If you want to bring your cocktail-making to another level, I think you'll really like this book.

I received the book from the publisher at no cost to me.

Infuse

I really expected the cookbook, Infuse, by Eric Prum and Josh Williams, to be a commitment. I've made a lot of long-term infusions of my own that have taken months to finish. So I expected to see a lot of those recipes in the book.

Instead, the book has quite a number of quick infusions that you make and use right away, short infusion that might be overnight or 24 hours, and then longer infusion from two to four weeks.

I thought it was really interesting that the book started with a spicy oil, followed by a pizza recipe for using the oil, followed by some vinegar-and-oil salad dressings.

I never really thought of salad dressings as infusions. I always considered them emulsions. But, if you're adding herbs and spices to the salad dressing, the flavor does infuse into the liquid. So, okay, I'm okay with calling them infusions.

What I thought was interesting were the quick alcohol-and-fruit infusions. These recipes required muddling or mashing the fruit in the alcohol, shaking, and straining. Then they're ready to be used. I've always let my fruits mingle with the alcohol for much longer. The peach bourbon infusion that took four weeks was more like what I've made before.

Water infusions - fruit water, refrigerator tea, and cold-brewed coffee - were pretty quick as well. Which is certainly normal for those.

So, if you want to dabble in infusing and you're not the patient type, you might really like this book. If you're looking for deep, complicated infusions that you start in the summer and use in the winter, you won't find those here. I think four weeks was the longest infusion, although I'll admit I haven't read all the recipes in the book.

Along with the recipes for making the infusions, there are some recipes for using the infusions, like the pizza that used the spicy oil, pancakes to go with a syrup recipe, and a few drink recipes. There's not a recipe for each infusion, but I don't think they're necessary. Some of them are intended to be used as is, and the others should be easy to find a use for.

Like photos? This book is very photo-heavy. Not only is there a photo for every recipe, but there are sometimes as many as three full-page photos between recipes, and a few times there were five full page photos in a row. The photos are nice, and some were informative in terms of ingredients, but it's a surprising number of photos compared to text.

The one thing I didn't like about this book - and it's certainly not the fault of the authors - is that the font used for the recipes is small, and it's blue-gray instead of black, and the lines that make up the letters are thin.

Fortunately there's a lot of white space - infusion recipes aren't all that complicated - so at least the text isn't crushed together. But I really wish they would have used some of that space to increase the font size by a point or two. And black text, please. With the slightly glossy paper, this was really hard to read.

While I like the idea of the book and I'll probably play around with some of the recipes, if I was paging through this in a bookstore I have to say that I'd probably pass, just because of the readability factor.

If you're thinking about buying it, I'd suggest looking at a copy first to see what you think of the text.

I received this book from the publisher through Blogging for Books, for the purpose of a review.