Saturday, June 18, 2011

Craig's "Dude Approved" Recommendations: Men and Meals


The Frankies Spuntino Kitchen Companion and Cooking Manual
This witty cookbook featuring recipes from the famous Italian-American restaurant will seduce home cooks with shortcuts and insider tricks gleaned from years spent in gourmet kitchens, easy tutorials on making fresh pasta, and an amusing discourse on Brooklyn-style Sunday sauce."



 Mad Hungry: Feeding Men and Boys
Four hungry brothers. Three ravenous sons. A husband who loves to eat. Lucinda Scala Quinn has spent much of her life feeding the men and boys in her life and teaching them how to feed themselves. Now Scala Quinn chef, television personality, and Martha Stewart Omnimedia's resident food guru shares winning strategies for how to sate the seemingly insatiable, trade food for talk, and get men to manage in the kitchen.

She provides recipes for single-skillet meals and dinners that yield fabulous leftovers and that are a cinch to stretch for extra guests. Her grab-and-run breakfast will help kids start the day right, and her healthful drinks make it easier for guys to say no to soda. Scala Quinn's recipes are easy to prepare, affordable, and so good that even the most finicky eater will want to dig in.

Along with her cooking techniques and survival strategies ("Never be caught without bacon"), Quinn muses about life in a predominantly male household and provides empowering advice to feed guys' spirits as well as fill their bellies. With her help, homemade meals become second nature, nourishing both diner and cook

Dad's Own Cookbook
It's time to become the new hero of the kitchen. Or at least put aside your fear of frying (not to mention sauteing, roasting, or tossing a salad). Dad's Own Cookbook shows how to do everything from handling a knife properly to juggling three dishes so that dinner comes together on schedule. Its lively charts, tips, and directions replace intimidation with pleasure and camaraderie, and its 150 great recipes will turn the most culinarily challenged dad into the family chef.

 Man with a Pan
Look who’s making dinner! Twenty-one of our favorite writers and chefs expound upon the joys—and perils—of feeding their families.

Mario Batali’s kids gobble up monkfish liver and foie gras. Peter Kaminsky’s youngest daughter won’t eat anything at all. Mark Bittman reveals the four stages of learning to cook. Stephen King offers tips about what to cook when you don’t feel like cooking. And Jim Harrison shows how good food and wine trump expensive cars and houses.

This book celebrates those who toil behind the stove, trying to nourish and please. Their tales are accompanied by more than sixty family-tested recipes, time-saving tips, and cookbook recommendations, as well as New Yorker cartoons. Plus there are interviews with homestyle heroes from all across America—a fireman in Brooklyn, a football coach in Atlanta, and a bond trader in Los Angeles, among others.

What emerges is a book not just about food but about our changing families. It offers a newfound community for any man who proudly dons an apron and inspiration for those who have yet to pick up the spatula.

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