Fat, Cakes and Good Eats.

So, I've been on a cookbook binge recently. (These are all library cookbooks, btw, so I don't own them, yet)

fat: an appreciation of a misunderstood ingredient, with recipes

by Jennifer McLagan

This was a fascinating cookbook. As a result of reading it I went out and hunted down real leaf lard to play with. It is structured differently than other cookbooks, with recipes by fat source, rather than dessert or appetizer. She begins with butter, the most commonly available fat, moves on to pork, then poultry (including duck fat, mmmmm) and beef and lamb fats. It also follows in the traditions of books like the Omnivore's dilemma, and Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, in demystifying something that has become fraught with negative connotations.

Some of the recipes seemed a little over-the-top to me, as I really wonder if anyone would make bacon baklava, it seemed as if, in some ways, she was searching for more unusual ways to use an ingredient, but on the whole, it was a fascinating cookbook. I'm not sure that I would render lard in order to deep-fry, but apparently it does not create an odor, and can be reused! She does have a section on deep-frying with lard. With all the information we now have on quality fats, it really shows that less-processed (ie unhydrogenated) fats do have a place in our lives. This is one cookbook that would be a great buy for any meat-eating foodie on your list!

Rose's Heavenly Cakes by Rose Levy Berenbaum

This is a fabulous baking book. She has a section on gluten-free (or almost so) cakes and desserts, where the gluten component can be removed and the dessert will still be successful. She goes by weights as well as cups in the book, so it is a little different from the cookbooks I grew up with. She also seems to understand that while baking is somewhat chemistry, it is also somewhat intuitive as well. The other thing I loved about this cookbook is that it has fantastic resources. Resources for all the ingredients/decorations that a lot of other cookbooks use, and then forget where to tell you to buy them. She also has a section on cakes made with oil, which do require a different mentality to make. I do wish she had mentioned (and maybe she didn't realise this) but cakes made with Wondra or pastry flour are easier to convert to gluten-free, since both/either are low-gluten flours. Cheesecake and flourless chocolate torte are wonderful, but g-f people can get a little tired of those! It was still nice to have some mainstreamed options in a cookbook dedicated to baking.

Good Eats, The Early Years, by Alton Brown.

This is a fun compilation of the first six seasons of Good Eats. The one quibble I have with this cookbook is the footnotes. On the one hand, its cute, on the other, I found myself finding the footnotes box first, and reading through the episode with an eye on the footnotes because they were odd footnotes. Often on ingredients, or methods, or the history. Some of them would have been better served as being notes at the end of the recipe, or simply incorporated into the text. That being said, that was really my biggest issue with the book. It was fun reading about the different episodes, seeing the recipes in one place, and seeing what they would have added if they'd had time. I loved the little nuggets of trivia (and I think that was what annoyed me about some of the footnotes, is that they would have done better as trivia).