With the advent of the Internet and the Kindle, Border’s found it harder and harder to survive. News of their pending demise gave rise to a personal worry about the little red gift card, I had been toting around in my wallet for the last 3 years. If that generous birthday gift from 2009 were to maintain its value I had to get in there and redeem it.
I was lucky because at our local Borders the culinary section was not that picked over. All books were 20% off and with a Borders’ membership the total discount came to 30% off on every book, with selected titles having an even higher discount. The titles are linked to Amazon, if you can’t get to a Borders to look for them near you.
The first book I picked up was The Food Lovers’ Companion by Sharon Herbst a thick reference that looked interesting. Also in the sack were some biography’s: Appetite for Life, a Julia Child biography, Ferran a bio of the acclaimed chef of El Bulli in Spain who is acknowledged as the foremost restranteur in the world and is a leading practitioner of the culinary magic called Molecular Gastronomy.
Rounding out the selection were some classics, How to Cook a Wolf by MK Fisher, noted for her food writing as literature, The Physiology of Taste by Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin and Mastering the Art of French Cooking (Volume II) by Julia Child. I have an old hand-me-down copy of the first volume and have lusted after the second volume for years now. The final purchase was Eating by Jason Epstein, a noted book publisher and gourmand.
A last work thrown into my future book report mix is Heirloom by Tim Stark. I was intrigued by a copy on a visit to the Seed Saver’s Exchange in Decorah, Iowa during the Summer Food Drive (which I have a blog post still to write about) and enjoyed reading it immensely last summer when the tomatoes were coming in. If you don’t know about the Seed Saver’s Exchange, they are a repository of as many varieties of heirloom seeds (those out of favor with the current agri-business) as they can get their hands on. They do a worthwhile service, have an intriguing catalog and are a great place to pass a summer afternoon if you happen to be all the way up in Decorah, Iowa.
Busy as we are launching Smart Kitchen the online cooking school, I am really looking forward to getting into these tomes and blogging a book report of sorts about each. The first will happen, as soon as possible, but certainly after pushing out Lesson 8 to the editor and rejiggering the health & Sanitation section of Lesson 1.
P Chef
Smart Kitchen
“The Smartest Way to Learn to Cook™”