Based on B.E.S. popular and authoritative The New Food Lover's Companion, this enlarged and enhanced reference volume was written for discerning home chefs and everybody else who wants to become more knowledgeable about good food and elegant dining. This second edition has been updated with new information to reflect the way we eat in today's world. The authors have taken into account our healthier lifestyles and more diverse palates to include: More than 500 new listings, including entries relating to Indian and Southeast Asian ingredients, plus expanded coverage of South American, Hispanic, and Middle Eastern cuisines Updated information for hundreds of existing entries A blood alcohol concentration chart for men and women An extensive breakdown of food labels and nutritional facts Department of Agriculture recommendations for a 2,000 calorie per day food plan More than 7200 entries plus line art are included in this seminal work. Miniature glossaries are interspersed throughout the text. Sidebar features throughout the book offer quick tips on food purchases, as well as Fast Facts and advice on preparation, serving, and dining. Handy appendices cover many topics including suggestions for substituting recipe ingredients, a microwave oven conversion chart, recommended safe cooking temperatures for meats and fish, and much more! The deluxe hardcover binding with dust jacket includes a ribbon place marker and golden-tipped page edges, making this gorgeous book as much a showpiece as it is an indispensable reference.

Offers more than seven thousand alphabetical entries providing information on all aspects of cooking and dining, including food preparation methods, cooking utensils, serving suggestions, ingredients, wines, and meat cuts.

Arranged alphabetically, this guide contains comprehensive definitions for wine related terms.

This deluxe hardcover volume features an original selection of a noted artist's illustrations for the 1894 edition of Austen's romantic classic. Each of the 58 images has been individually colored to complement the style and sensibility of the pen-and-ink drawings.

From the PEN/Faulkner Award–winning author James Salter and his wife, Kay—amateur chefs and terrific hosts—here is a charming, beautifully illustrated food lover’s companion that, with an entry for each day of the year, takes us from a Twelfth Night cake in January to a champagne dinner on New Year’s Eve. Life Is Meals is rich with culinary wisdom, history, recipes, literary pleasures, and the authors’ own stories of their triumphs—and catastrophes—in the kitchen. For instance: The menu on the Titanic on the fatal night Reflections on dining from Queen Victoria, JFK, Winnie the Pooh, Garrison Keillor, and many others The seductiveness of a velvety Brie or the perfect martini How to decide whom to invite to a dinner party—and whom not to John Irving’s family recipe for meatballs; Balzac’s love of coffee The greatest dinner ever given at the White House Where in Paris Samuel Beckett and Harold Pinter had French onion soup at 4:00 a.m. Sophisticated as well as practical, opinionated, and indispensable, Life Is Meals is a tribute to the glory of food and drink, and the joy of sharing them with others. “The meal is the emblem of civilization,” the Salters observe. “What would one know of life as it should be lived, or nights as they should be spent, apart from meals?”

Each entry includes nutritional value, general information, buying tips, culinary uses, and, when appropriate, health benefits, lore and legend, by-products, and descriptions of the more popular varieties. In the face of staggering confusion and conflicting claims about the nutritional value of different foods and herbs, this book is a detailed and invaluable guide to natural foods. It is a perfect companion to cookbooks and should be required reading for chefs everywhere. No mere collection of dry nutritional information, Whole Foods Companion also explains the origins and naming of different foods and relays some of the legends and traditions with which they have been associated.