Swearing, cussing, or cursing, out of anger, excitement, or just because, is something most of us do, at least to some degree. Turn on the television or open a magazine, and there it is. Damn! is an insightful and entertaining look at our evolving use of profanity over the last half-century or so, from a time when Gone with the Wind came under fire for using the word damn to an age where the F-bomb is dropped in all walks of life. Writer and artist Rob Chirico follows the course of swearin...

Field Guide to Cocktails is not an ordinary bartender’s guide. Here are more than 200 recipes for the world’s best libations, with tried-and-true classics like the Tom Collins and the Fuzzy Navel and contemporary favorites like the Mojito and the Cosmopolitan.Full-color photographs of the cocktails are cross referenced to in-depth descriptions of the drinks. The histories are the stuff of legend: The Gin Rickey was mixed up to satisfy a thirsty lobbyist; Grog was drunk by ...

What happens when a promising young New York chef, Charles Mitello, loses his job because he suddenly develops food allergies? He writes about it. In Charles' case, however, it is not as a cookbook author but as a promoter, in the frenzied world of cookbook public relations. Bombastic chef and author Victor Buzzone, his company’s biggest client—literally and figuratively—is seeking national media attention, but Charles is simply not coming through for him. Seemingly stuck, Charles discover...

Mo Rocca, host of "My Grandmother's Ravioli" says: "When life gives you lemons, make limoncello! Not My Mother's Kitchen is a funny, loving, and oh so useful manual on food, family and survival when your mom is a terrible cook."Serving up a tale that is part memoir and part cookbook, acclaimed foodie Rob Chirico shares his culinary journey after growing up with an Italian-American mother who was hopeless in the kitchen.Rob Chirico learned to cook ...

“A true populist, as interested in celebrating the most humble wok-slinger as he is in extolling the superchef. If his sharp eye and his wicked tongue have brought him acclaim, what has kept him in the spotlight is his heart. Like Oscar Wilde, he is a moralist in the guise of a libertine.” —Denver PostThe instant New York Times bestseller and follow-up to Anthony Bourdain’s blockbuster classic on the cooking life, Kitchen Confidential

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • Julia's story of her transformative years in France in her own words is "captivating ... her marvelously distinctive voice is present on every page.” (San Francisco Chronicle).Although she would later singlehandedly create a new approach to American cuisine with her cookbook Mastering the Art of French Cooking and her television show The French Chef, Julia Child was not always a master chef. Indeed, when she first ar...

Honest, self-aware, and wonderfully tender, The Call of the Farm is for anyone who has daydreamed about a simpler life—or fallen too deeply in love.Rochelle Bilow, a classically trained cook and aspiring food writer, was nursing a broken heart and frustrated with her yet-to-take-off career when she set out to write a short profile of a small, sustainable CSA farm in central New York. At most, she expected to come away with a cute city-girl-in-the-country p...

The funny, poignant memoir of one man’s struggle to come to terms with his celiac diagnosis, forcing him to reexamine his relationship with food.When Paul Graham was suddenly diagnosed with celiac disease at the age of thirty-six, he was forced to say goodbye to traditional pasta, pizza, sandwiches, and more. Gone, too, were some of his favorite hobbies, including brewing beer with a buddy and gorging on his wife’s homemade breads. Struggling to understand why he a...

"How to Eat a Small Country shares a few key traits with Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat, Pray, Love in particular an infectiously likeable narrator and mouthwatering descriptions of European food. But Finley’s memoir is less precious, more honest, and ultimately more rewarding." -- Boston GlobeA professionally trained cook turned stay-at-home mom, Amy Finley decided on a whim to send in an audition tape for season three of The Next Food Network Star, and the imp...

"Fans of Donna Leon's mysteries set in Venice and starring her cosmopolitan detective, Commissario Guido Brunetti, will be delighted to have this cookbook" ( Milwaukee Journal Sentinel).Aside from their puzzling mysteries, Donna Leon's novels featuring Commissario Guido Brunetti have long been celebrated for their mouth-watering descriptions of food: multicourse lunches at home with Paola and the children, snacks grabbed at a bar with a glass of wine or tw...

A cornucopia of culinary essays from "the Henry Miller of food writing. His passion is infectious" (Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg, The Wall Street Journal).Jim Harrison was one of this country's most beloved writers, a muscular, brilliantly economic stylist with a salty wisdom. For more than twenty years, he also wrote some of the best essays on food around, now collected in a volume that caused the Santa Fe New Mexican to exclaim: "To read this book is...

“Hot sex, looking good, scoring journalistic triumphs . . . nothing made Alyssa love herself enough until she learned to cook. There's a racy plot and a surprising moral in this intimate and delicious book.”--Gael Greene, creator of Insatiable-Critic.com and author of *Insatiable: Tales from a Life of Delicious ExcessApron Anxiety* is the hilarious and heartfelt memoir of quintessential city girl Alyssa Shelasky and her crazy, complicated love affair with...the kitchen....