The Vegetable Gardener's Cookbook
“Happiness Is Baking: Favorite Desserts from the Queen of Cake”
"Save Me the Plums: My Gourmet Memoir" By Ruth Reichl
It’s 1975. Imagine the culture shock a family that has just fled Vietnam experiences upon entering a California supermarket. Yet Andrea Nguyen’s mother learned to adapt non-Viet ingredients to feed Vietnamese food to her family.
While “EatingWell Soups: 100 Healthy Recipes for the Ultimate Comfort Food,” is a collection of recipes selected by the editors of EatingWell, the contributors include such culinary luminaries as Lydia Bastianich, Bill and Cheryl Jamison, and Raghavan Iyer.
New Year’s resolutions of the culinary type are somewhat predictable: Eat less sugar, less red meat, less food altogether.
This month, we look for cookbooks that are multipurpose: both excellent to cook from and desirable as presents.
“Red Truck Bakery: Gold Standard Recipes from America’s Favorite Rural Bakery”
“Southern Snacks” serves up new twists on old favorites, like the dip below, and clever riffs on classics, like transforming melon-and-prosciutto to watermelon with country ham.
Once September rolls around, impromptu summer cooking meals revert to routine weeknight cooking for families with school-age children. Sam Kass, chef and former senior adviser for national nutrition policy, wants to change our routines.
“Food 52 Any Night Grilling: 60 Ways to Fire Up Dinner (and More)”
“Saladish: A Crunchier, Grainier, Herbier, Heartier, Tastier Way with Vegetables”
“Soul: A Chef’s Culinary Evolution in 150 Recipes”
“Secrets of the Southern Table: A Food Lover’s Tour of the Global South”
“More Glass Onion Classics: Recipes from a Southern Restaurant”
“Eating from the Ground Up”
In “Weeknight Cooking with Your Instant Pot,” personal chef and cooking teacher turned full-time food blogger Kristy Bernardo didn’t set out to write a how-to. Rather, she offers a collection of 75 recipes using the machine to put dinner on the table in a fraction of the usual time, from qui…
“The Cottage Kitchen: Cozy Cooking in the English Countryside”
Holiday cookbooks bought to use or give as gifts should educate as well as entertain. We submit two excellent candidates.
Whether it be persimmons or paw paws, author Nancie McDermott delivers a 101 on their characteristics and recipes for them in “Fruit,” the newest cookbook in the University of North Carolina Press Savor the South series. (See example below.) Especially interesting are sections on lesser-know…
"Peter Callahan’s Party Food." Caterer to the stars, Peter Callahan produces beautiful bites, and whether they are in an array of the mini hors d’oeuvres that he is credited with inventing, a sensational sushi station, or an ice cream stand, all are artistically displayed. You’ll be wowed by…
“Food52 Ice Cream & Friends: 60 Recipes and Riffs.”
“On Vegetables: Modern Recipes for the Home Kitchen"
“Tartine All Day: Modern Recipes for the Home Cook”
“Over Easy: Sweet and Savory Recipes for Leisurely Days”
Michelle’s Chocolate Rice Krispy Peanut Butter Bon Bons
The 2017 edition of the Charleston Wine + Food Festival boasts more than 100 events over five days (it started Wednesday), featuring “homegrown flavor” with notable local and guest chefs, mixologists, winemakers, storytellers and artisans, adding up to around 500 professionals stirring every…
By establishing the Lee Brothers Library series with Rizzoli, brothers Matt Lee and Ted Lee have been able to bring what may be the first of many culinary jewels back into print, Pamela Strobel’s 1969 cookbook. Laced with Strobel’s poetry and seasoned with her life story, it is, as the readi…
“Stir, Sizzle, Bake: Recipes for Your Cast-Iron Skillet”
“Big Bad Breakfast: The Most Important Book of the Day.” Author John Currence owns a number of highly successful restaurants in Oxford, Mississippi, among them Big Bad Breakfast, the fountainhead of this cookbook. Like the hangtown fry recipe below, the food is robust, ranging from eye-opene…
“Victuals: An Appalachian Journey, with Recipes”
For the most part, the food at Tradd's in downtown Charleston is just mildly bad.
Melfi’s is the third restaurant that Brooks Reitz and Tim Mink have opened on the short strand of Upper King Street bounded by Congress and Sumter streets
It’s typically not a good sign when your mind wanders outside of a restaurant during a meal.
With football season underway and Election Day looming, here’s something upon which everyone can agree: Charleston has so much pizza.
★★★★☆ SNOB
★★☆☆☆ High Cotton
★★☆☆☆ Old Village Post House
Restaurant goers are a sophisticated bunch. The upshot of eating all those drunken noodles, pelmeni and empanadas is gaining a more nuanced understanding of the cultures that created them.
With the exception of James Islanders stuck in the previously barbecue-deficient area between Melvin’s Barbecue and Smoky Oak Taproom, locals probably won’t adjust their barbecue habits based on what’s served at Martin’s.
As Park Circle’s restaurant scene has flourished, proud residents have taken to declaring that there’s hardly any reason to go downt…
At the height of Pappy Van Winkle mania, bourbon obsessives made an astounding discovery: The whiskey in bottles marked W.L. Weller …
Owned by the former chef de cuisine at The Ordinary, Maison is about the closest thing the Charleston food scene has to a workplace canteen.
The conch stew is a to-drive-for dish at Korner Kitchen in Hollywood. And, when the weather’s nice, the prime seating is on the latticed-in front patio.
Malagon is making exceptional food, but its owners don’t want you or me to know it.
Answering readers' food questions
Q: Is there anywhere in Charleston to get corn sticks?
For a stellar cinnamon roll that’s almost sure to be in the display case when you arrive, I’d suggest Brown’s Court Bakery.
On a recent trip to Savannah, our restaurant critic visited three places that she would bring up if neighbors to the south wanted to talk swap.
Charleston's newest restaurants
Even if the punning name Pho King isn’t to every eater’s liking, it’s an excellent way to help American-born English speakers remember how to correctly pronounce the name of the signature Vietnamese soup.
Just in time for the traditional wedding season, Poogan’s Hospitality Group has become the latest Charleston restaurant company to create a standalone downtown facility big enough for ceremonies, receptions and rehearsal dinners.
Since debuting a hot dog wrapped in seaweed and topped with wasabi five years ago, the Riverdogs haven’t offered much in the way of …
As recently as five years ago, the only source of boba tea in downtown Charleston was Chopsticks House, which made its beverages from powder and didn’t offer any topping other than pearls.
Interesting drinks around town
Exploring what locals eat throughout a day
Kimberly Rentz lives in Summerville.
John Watson lives in West Ashley
Joyce Erb lives on Daniel Island.
More Food
Since debuting a hot dog wrapped in seaweed and topped with wasabi five years ago, the Riverdogs haven’t offered much in the way of sushi to t…
Anyone who’s eaten at a Charleston restaurant with fried Brussels sprouts on its menu knows the drill.
Joyce Erb lives on Daniel Island.