Southern food. Atlanta finds. Great cocktails. Smart home cooking. Butchering your own meat. Here are some new books I’d recommend if these topics interest you — or someone on your gift list:
“Food Lovers’ Guide to Atlanta” by Malika Harricharan (Globe Pequot Press, $14.95): This little book from the author of the Atlanta Restaurant Blog offers short, friendly reviews of restaurants and markets, arranged by geography and divided into two categories — “Foodie Faves” and “Landmarks.” Keep it in the glove compartment when you want something more detailed than a Zagat Survey but less helter-skelter than the musings of the hoi polloi on Yelp.
“Sweet Auburn Desserts” by Sonya Jones (Pelican Publishing Company, $24.95): Classic Southern desserts from the wonderful woman behind the Sweet Auburn bakery. There are a few innovations like Sazerac Tassies (flavored like the anise-scented cocktail), but you buy this book for recipes like brown sugar pound cake and that sweet potato cheesecake that Bill Clinton fell in love with once upon a time.
“An Everlasting Meal: Cooking with Economy and Grace” by Tamar Adler (Scribner, $25): The former chef of Athens’ Farm 255 restaurant, Adler proves herself an adept essayist in this extended discourse on instinctive home cooking. Though highly personal, it’s much less a food memoir than a kind of cooking tao.
“The Culinarian: A Kitchen Desk Reference” by Barbara Ann Kipfer (Wiley, $19.99): The best print reference I’ve seen in quite some time. This book is packed with definitions and explanations in a clean, easy-to-read font. A great gift for the home cook who’s never, ever, getting an iPad.
“the Art of Eating: Essential Recipes from the First 25 Years” by Edward Behr (University of California Press, $39.95): The cookbook that grew out of Behr’s idiosyncratic quarterly magazine of the same title. Behr is a francophilic cook, a fine writer and a natural teacher who has an unerring gift for making you want to try his recipes. This book is larded with many fine bits of knowledge you’ll soon want to pass off as your own.
“Serious Eats: A Comprehensive Guide to Making & Eating Delicious Food Wherever You Are” by Ed Levine (Clarkson Potter, $27.99): A really fun read from Levine and his merry band. Like on their popular food website (www.seriouseats.com), they focus on iconic foods — fried chicken, pancakes, barbecue, falafel — and mine the liminal space between dining out and cooking at home in their search for the soul of the dish. Recipe czar J. Kenji Lopez-Alt is a great, convincing talent. He’ll change the way you cook.
“The Art of French Baking” by Ginette Mathiot (Phaidon, $45): The latest tome from this publisher’s line of classic European cookbooks, translated and adjusted for the American home cook. If you’re looking for precise recipes for brioche, meringues, puff pastry and cream puffs, this is a book you’ll refer to often. The padded, white, faux-leather cover is pretty cool, too.
“Whole Beast Butchery: The Complete Visual Guide to Beef, Lamb, and Pork” by Ryan Farr with Brigit Binns (Chronicle Books, $40): So you’ve bought that whole suckling pig. Now what? This is like the picture book Jeffrey Dahmer read as a kid, with step-by-step visuals and how-tos. But if you want to learn how to break down a primal cut of beef (a skill that can save you lots of money), then this is the book for you.
“A New Turn in the South: Southern Flavors Reinvented for Your Kitchen” by Hugh Acheson (Clarkson Potter, $35): The Georgia chef’s book is shaping up as one of the breakout cookbooks of the season and has earned its rightful place on many best-of lists. Acheson’s honest, smart, funny voice comes through in every block of text, and his recipes show such a fresh perspective. The unsung hero in this book is Rinne Allen, the photographer and designer who gives the book a country-cool hipster notebook look. It feels very now.
“The PDT Cocktail Book: The Complete Bartender’s Guide from the Celebrated Speakeasy” by Jim Meehan and Chris Gall (Sterling Epicure, $24.95) Has someone in your household gotten really picky about their brand of vermouth, their glassware and (seriously?) that whole shaken-vs.-stirred brouhaha? Then he or she needs this book, penned by the folks behind New York’s most famous speakeasy bar, which hides behind a phone booth entrance. Not only are there recipes for all the old classics, but also the newer craft cocktails that PDT (the name stands for “Please Don’t Tell”) made its name on.
“My Family Table: A Passionate Plea for Home Cooking” by John Besh (Andrews McMeel Publishing, $35.00): You could say this book is a vehicle for the rising celebrity chef to show of his cute kids and mug for the camera, both of which he does. But the subtitle says it all. At his wife’s urging, Besh turned his attention to his home kitchen. The book’s unusual chapters are designed to give home cooks a degree of mastery, such as “Kitchen Focus” with its template recipes for creamed vegetable soups, fruit crumbles and risotto. Other smart chapters look at “Dinner from a Cast Iron Pot,” “School Nights” and “How to Cook a Fish.”
“Essential Pépin” by Jacques Pépin (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, $40): More than 700 of the cooking great’s favorite recipes and a searchable DVD demonstrating cooking techniques. A must-have for anyone who watched food preparation on television before the words “top” and “chef” found each other. A great resource.
