![\"michael](\"\/images\/2011\/12\/michael-smith.jpg\")
\nMichael Smith
\n <\/h5>\n
Today on Food Matters I revealed my suggestions for cookbooks as gifts for the 2011 holiday season. But it\u2019s very important to match the cookbook to the cook. You don\u2019t give a book that has complicated recipes in it to a beginner, and you don\u2019t give someone who already has 300 cookbooks the Dummy\u2019s Guide to Boiling Water.<\/p>\n
I started with someone who is known for producing cookbooks that are for the relatively inexperienced home cook. The latest from Chef at Home, Chef at Large, and Food Network star Michael Smith is called Chef Michael Smith\u2019s Kitchen, in which he has put together one hundred of his all-time favourite recipes that he makes at home on a regular basis. No fancy ingredients, not too many fancy methods and a photo for every recipe.<\/p>\n
![\"Mark](\"\/images\/2011\/12\/Mark-McEwan.jpg\")
If you are looking for a book with just a little more technique, but still fairly easy recipes to make in the Italian fashion, check out Mark McEwan\u2019s Fabbrica. McEwan is the chef behind quite the culinary empire in Toronto, with Fabbrica being his latest restaurant, what he describes as a casual but elegant, authentic Italian eatery. As he built the restaurant he built his collection of Italian recipes, so decided to put all those together in a cookbook. He takes pride in both the restaurant and the cookbook for being authentic Italian, and says you can learn how to do it, too.<\/p>\n
![\"Jennifer](\"\/images\/2011\/12\/Jennifer-McLagan.jpg\")
The recipes in this next book aren\u2019t necessarily ones that require a lot of skill but it\u2019s the ingredients that are the challenging part. This book is called Odd Bits, How To Cook The Rest of the Animal, by Jennifer McLagan. Jennifer had real hits with her previous books, Fat, and Bones, and since she\u2019s taken care of those underused parts of animals, the Odd Bits was everything else left over. So, liver, tongue, heart, kidney, all the stuff many people shudder at just at the thought of eating it, but she takes it on in an effort to stop us from wasting an animal we\u2019ve raised to eat and to get us new flavour sensations. This book is also full of fascinating facts about offal and if the person who you\u2019re thinking about giving this book to already goes just to butcher shops instead of supermarket meat counters they would probably like to see this under the Christmas tree.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
![\"Natalie](\"\/images\/2011\/12\/Natalie-MacLean.jpg\")
The perfect wine read for this year is Ottawa-based wine writer Natalie McLean\u2019s second book, Unquenchable, A Tipsy Quest for the World\u2019s Best Bargain Wines. For this book Natalie traveled the world to find bargains, we\u2019re talking well under 20 dollars a bottle for the most part here…because there is a lot of wine out there we can experience at lower prices that is just as good or even better than the higher-priced stuff.<\/p>\n
Other books you can consider as great gifts for this year:<\/p>\n
Jacques Pepin: The Essential Pepin<\/p>\n
Nigel Slater: Tender, Volume II<\/p>\n
Jamie Oliver: Jamie Oliver’s Food Escapes<\/p>\n
Coleman Andrews: The Country Cooking of Italy<\/p>\n
Edward Behr: The Art of Eating<\/p>\n
Becky Selengut: Good Fish<\/p>\n
Ottolenghi: Plenty<\/p>\n
My Last Supper – The Next Course<\/p>\n
While researching this item it was a real pleasure to be able to interview Jennifer McLagan, Natalie MacLean, Michael Smith and Mark McEwan. The entire interviews cover much more detail about their books and other facets of their lives than I had time to mention on the show today, so if you’d like to hear more from them, just click on the files below to listen.<\/p>\n
Don Genova Interviews Natalie MacLean<\/a><\/p>\n Don Genova Interviews Michael Smith<\/a><\/p>\n Don Genova Interviews and Mark McEwan<\/a><\/p>\n Don Genova Interviews Jennifer McLagan<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Today on Food Matters I revealed my suggestions for cookbooks as gifts for the 2011 holiday season. But it\u2019s very important to match the cookbook to the cook. You don\u2019t give a book that has complicated recipes in it to … Continue reading