As we enter into the fall and winter holiday season, one question is burning on everyone’s mind: “What do I give my loved ones?” This year national kitchenware retailer Sur La Table and award-winning author Diane Morgan guide you through the essentials of gifting from the heart with their new cookbook, Gifts Cook Love: Recipes for Giving (Andrews McMeel Publishing, September 28, 2010, $25.00, Jacketed Hardcover, 192 pages). From sweet and savory gifts to drinkable delights and smoked, cured and dried goodies, Gifts Cooks Love is packed with ideas for year-round gift giving. Recipients need not be culinary aficionados to welcome the gifts—they must simply enjoy food and drink.
Gifts Cooks Love offers something for every level of cook—providing accessible recipes delivered with helpful kitchen tips and techniques, detailed ingredient notes, as well as guidance for artfully wrapping and presenting the forty edible gifts. Recipe categories include Sweet Preserved Gifts; Savory Preserved Gifts; Smoked, Cured & Dried Gifts; Baked Gifts; Confections & Chocolate Gifts; Drink Gifts; No-Cook Gifts; and Make-A-Gift.
Simple no-cook recipes such as Backyard BBQ Rub and Seven Month Vanilla Extract make gifting a cinch for novice cooks. For the more experienced cook, sweet recipes range from unique confections such as Blackberry-Merlot Jellies to the eye-catching Biscotti Christmas Tree, while savory recipes Eight Hour Braised Onion and Apricot-Bourbon Mustard will delightfully whet the palate.
In addition to the assortment of recipes, Gifts Cooks Love escorts readers through the gift-giving kitchen and gift-giving pantry, while offering essential tips and techniques for preserving and dehydrating as well as insightful ideas on decorating and packaging for a stunning presentation. There are even gift tag suggestions explaining the contents.
Using recipes throughout the cookbook, the final chapter is an exciting grab bag of unique and crafty ways to package up your edible offerings into grander presents for those occasions when a showier gift is necessary. Let your creativity flow as you mix and match to make a gift kit, wrapping and delivering a present that speaks from the heart and elicits an enthusiastic smile. Make-A-Gift Kits offer fantastic solutions for a variety of gift-giving occasions, including Retro Popcorn Kit (great Golden Globe event/movie night hostess gift); Pasta Kit (for the Italian food lover); Breakfast for Two (excellent new parent or bridal gift); Grill Kit (for the King of the Grill); and S’Mores Kit (great for outdoor parties or celebrating National S’Mores Day on August 10).
Gifts Cooks Love will show you how to turn your handcrafted, delicious food gifts into personal expressions of thoughtfulness, gifts that any cook will love to give or receive.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Sur La Table is the trusted authority when it comes to all things cooking related. Sur La Table entices aficionados and curious beginners alike with its amazing selection of cookware, bakeware, tools, cookbooks, and cooking school programs designed to make any cook’s life easier. It is the co-author of six books, including The Art and Soul of Baking, which received the 2009 IACP Cookbook Award for Baking, was chosen by Gourmet magazine as a book club selection, and was nominated for 2009 baking book of the year by the James Beard Foundation. The original store and headquarters are in Seattle, WA, and Sur La Table operates more than 80 stores nationwide as well as a Web site and catalog.
Diane Morgan is an award-winning cookbook author, freelance food writer, culinary instructor, and restaurant con sultant. She is the author of fourteen cookbooks and has been involved in the world of food for more than twenty-five years. Diane has been a regular contributor to the Los Angeles Times food section and has written for Bon Appétit, Fine Cooking, Cooking Light, the Oregonian, Northwest Palate, and Edible Portland. She has appeared on NBC’s Today show, ABC World News Now, The Early Show on CBS, the Food Network, Smart Solutions on HGTV, Seasonings on PBS, and Good Day Oregon. In addition, for the past two years, Diane has consulted on the core menu, promotional seasonal menus, and recipes for a chain of family dining restaurants in the Northwest. She lives in Portland, OR.
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