Killer Ribs: Mouthwatering Recipes from North America's Best Rib Joints by Nancy Davidson

This tome on the art of smoking ribs was published in 2006. It details some of the best rib eateries in all the 50 states and in Canada. Yes, Canada! Turns out that our friends to the North are known for taking culinary tours of American BBQ and some have brought the all-American meal of ribs, beef, pork and everything in between, back across the border with them!

If you are using this book as a travel guide, you might be rather disappointed. Of the 3 locations listed in my home state of North Carolina, 2 of them are now defunct. More often than not, BBQ joints are a family run business. So unfortunately death, divorce or old age has caused for quite a few rib joints to close. COVID-19 did a number on the restaurant industry as well. My advice, utilize a Google search when using this book as your next culinary travel guide.

Thankfully, there's more to this book than locales. In every 2 page spread, along with a history of the restaurant and its pit masters, you get a recipe and tips for selecting the right cut of meat and the best wood for the job. I was surprised that many of the recipes were provided by the pit masters. I always thought such information was treated with more care and confidentiality than an American President with Top Secret documents. 

Some of the recipes are for the rub. Some are for making sauces. Fewer are about actual cooking of ribs. Surprisingly, there's a recipe for making alligator ribs and another one for mutton. And if you are thinking about skipping the rub, DON'T! You might think that the salt is unnecessary sodium in the formula. But it's needed to help break down the proteins and impart the other spices and smoke deep down all the way to the bones. If you are worried about your blood pressure, find ways to cut it in the sauce. I was surprised to find how many pit masters thumb their nose at BBQ sauce! It's naked ribs or nuthin'!

So why did I read this book? Well, recently, my wife ordered me a smoker. We got a fantastic deal that I don't think I am at liberty in mentioning here. (Feel free to PM me if you want the details.) Now that the smoker has arrived and I am setting it up, I realized that I had this book, which I got as a prize for participating in last year's summer reading program at our local library. It felt as good a time as any to get some further learning on the subject. 

Here's a few highlights:

* Remove the back skin. Or don't. Some pit masters think that elastin keeps the ribs from falling apart. 

* Use the smoker to primarily impart the flavors. Going at a temp no higher than 250F, a lot of pit masters get the ribs up to temp by finishing in the oven.

*Speaking of ovens, that's the time for the sauce. Not while in the smoker. That's the #1 way to ruin a smoker. Not to mention, burning the ribs.

*Lastly, the amount of celery seeds and celery salt used by rib joints... It's a wonder that I have made it to 48. I'm very allergic to stuff. Yet I would say 3 out of every 10 recipes didn't call for the stuff! I eat ribs a lot. How have I not succumbed to a batch of saucy hidden dangers?!

If anything, I learned the process. I've got my own ideas for the blend mixture of wood chips to use. Same goes for the sauce. Just about every pit masters in here has firm guidelines for how to smoke their meats. But when it comes to flavors, spiciness and taste, they almost always say to adjust with what you prefer. 

I've got nearly 2 decades of culinary education and experience, so with exception of the mutton recipe, I'm going to experiment. But if you are a newbie to cooking, definitely start out with what the experts say on the first go-round. Then adjust to your preference as you repeat the recipe. 

Oh, and one more thing, if you are going to become the next great pit master, get a high quality smoker. But don't break the bank. The cheapest of smokers often are not worth the materials that they are constructed from. In fact, the greatest smoker I ever encountered was my grandfather's and it was made from an old drum and ample amounts of solder. If you know how to build it yourself and you can do the job right: do it! Size doesn't necessarily matter either as the 2nd best one was a tiny little number my other granddad got at Lowe's. 

If there's one thing that I know about BBQ, not grilling barbecue, but BBQ'd beef, pork, chicken and gator, apparently, it's that while all these championship pit masters claim that they know how to make perfect smoked grub, there is NO definitive way to smoke meat. So, go with what you know and love and you'll enjoy the lengthy process of low and slow for some killer ribs!

Worth Consuming!

Rating: 8 out of 10 stars.

How to Feed a Dictator by Saddam Hussein, Idi Amin, Enver Hoxha, Fidel Castro, and Pol Pot Through the Eyes of Their Cooks by Witold Szablowski

The subject matter about the personal chefs of some of the world's most evil rulers might seem taboo to many. Until about a month ago, I didn't even know that this book existed. I think it was a story on CNN that talks about the documentary movie of the same name where I learned about the book. The film was on Netflix, which of course, I don't subscribe to. But I learned in the piece that the doc was based on a book. 

Immediately I went to Amazon and placed an order. I would have finished this book a week earlier but for some reason, my first order was cancelled. I'm wondering if some other culinary teacher out there saw the news story at the same time I did and snatched the copy I ordered up before me. I hear that if a simultaneous order is made on the same item, timestamp proof gives the sale to the person who completed their order first.

It really wasn't such a big deal. I did have to pay an extra 2 bucks for my copy. But I like the faux menu cover better than the one for the used copy I first tried to obtain.

Polish writer Witold Szablowski focuses on 5 dictators: Cambodia's Pol Pot, Cuba's Fidel Castro, Iraq's Saddam Hussein, Albania's Enver Hoxha and Idi Amin, the President of Uganda and the Last King of Scotland apparently. Despite being a history major in college, I had never heard of Hoxha and though I knew a tiny bit about the Killing Fields of Cambodia, Pol Pot could have very easily been a foreign made cooking vessel for all I knew. 

None of these 5 men are going to win congeniality awards. Though if you had to force me to pick a dictator who had the best intentions based on the chefs who describe them, I would probably say that Castro is portrayed as the most sympathetic figure. Pol Pot was the most difficult to understand. Why would you want your people to be free and yet you kill millions of them? I think Idi Amin's former chef knows a lot more than he let on. Amin is rumored to have dined on the liver and flesh of his political adversaries. Hussein had a temper and could easily turn on you if you pissed him off. But he loved loyalty and would lavish his riches on those he trusted most. Plus, I do agree that his sons were both 10 times more vicious and bloodthirsty than he was. And when it comes to Enver Hoxha, a hero of his native land when it comes to his fight against the Nazis, I have 2 very distinct opinions. 1) he became corrupted by being thrust into his post-World War II leadership role and 2) based on talk about a head injury sometime in the 50s or 60s, I think Hoxha suffered from the later CTE effects of post-concussion syndrome. Perhaps had he not been injured, he might not have been so ruthless. 

You might think that the 6 total chefs interviewed by the author deserves zero sympathy or care for the mere fact that they feed some of the 20th century's most diabolical leaders. But you got to realize that these chefs were literally cooking not just for their lives but for the lives of their spouses, children and family members. Did some of them financially benefit? No doubt. But there were times where they were a hair breath away from being executed because they over-salted the soup or burnt the bread. As to paraphrase one of the chef's: your role in an authoritarian government goes out of play when your very survival is on the line. And from what I gathered, only Castro's 2 surviving cooks and Pol Pot's chef choose their professions. The other 3 literally had no say in the matter or it was too late to back out once their clients were revealed to them 

This is a compelling book. I'm not sure why the story Pol Pot's chef is broken into 4 chunks in between chapters before she's given a chapter of her own. It really disrupts the flow of the narratives. Also, there's not really any standardized recipes in the book. A lot of them cooked based on the personal preference or whims of their employers. Though I would be interested in trying the ceviche techniques discussed that were a favorite of Castro's. The steak dish made of grapefruit, during a time of severe Cuban beef shortages also look interesting. But the goat pilaf recipe that Saddam Hussein loved so well, forget it! Once you've kissed a goat and her babies, you can never eat of their relatives ever again. I might have a morbid curiosity about the dining habits of dictators. But I'm not a monster.

Worth Consuming!

Rating: 8 out of 10 stars.

How to Eat a Lobster and Other Edible Enigmas Explained by Ashley Blom

The culinary arts are chock full of conundrums. How do you crack open a lobster in order to get the maximum amount of meat from inside? Is it possible to eat an artichoke without getting those eternally dry thistles stuck in your throat? Which fork do you use for the salad course? Can you prepare yourself to eat demonically spicy food when in reality, you've got the palette of an iceberg?

Food Blogger Ashley Blom explores dozens of mysteries that have dominated kitchens and dinner tables for centuries. This is a book I wish I had years ago. I recall a demo I did for my culinary students that used a technique that I learned in culinary school involving opening a coconut. The established way had me using the hilt of a very sharp chef's knife and bringing it down in force atop one of the fruit's trio of eyes. The blade ended up cracking off the handle and shooting about 10 feet across the lab. While quite comical, it could have ended disastrously if the blade impaled one of my students. Needless to say, I haven't conducted a coconut demo since. Now thanks to another possible method brought forth from this book, I'm willing to give the coconut another go!

A very short read, both in size and length, this 2017 guide from Quirk Books would make a great gift for the foodie in your life. Pair it with a bottle of wine and you've got an exquisite house warming gift. Add a portrait of Ulysses Grant or Ben Franklin inside and you've got an informative graduation gift that might help bring another lost soul into the world of food and fine dining. Just overlook the millennial slang peppered throughout these pages.

Featuring tips for food prep, table etiquette and how to interact properly when challenges arrive dining out or as a dinner party guest, this should be required reading. Everybody eats. But not everyone knows just how to do it. I've been in the culinary industry for nearly 2 decades and I learned new tips and tricks here. This is definitely going to be a reference book for me to use in my culinary lesson plans. 

Worth Consuming!

Rating: 9 out of 10 stars.

The Incredible Story of Cooking: From Prehistory to Today 500,000 Years of Adventure (2026 Comic Book & Graphic Novel Reading Challenge)

It's impossible to cover all aspects of over a half million years of cooking in less than 215 pages of comics. But writer Benoist Simmat and artist Stephane Douay do a decent job. Originally published in French, this book focuses mostly on the contribution of France to the culinary arts. Being a culinary graduate, I had wondered like many other culinary students why French cuisine is considered the fundamental region of which to begin learning how to cook. Thanks to Douay and Simmat, I feel like I have a definitive answer. Although you kinda have to draw a line between several important periods in history to get there. 

The beginning of France being the central hub of the culinary galaxy has to do with the Roman Empire. To the Romans, food was considered a gift from the gods and it was something to be treasured and conserved. With emperors such as Caligula and Nero, excess became the norm amongst the elite. And with this over-abundance came unnecessary waste. One such popular recipe called for one to use 100 flamingo tongues. The rest of the bird was bound for the trash heap. As a result of such wanton use of resources, many wealthy Romans sought other lands that made complete use of all parts of the food source being used.

This migration took many Romans north to Gaul, which is now modern day France. The Romans saw how the Gauls would use all parts of the animal slaughtered to make sausages, pates, and early versions of gelatin and terrines. This also explains why French cuisine utilizes many Italian ingredients and techniques. But why did French cuisine take over the world?

That answer has to do with the French Revolution. Right around when the American colonies began to seek independence from England, France was experiencing a level of decadence with the bourgeois class on par with Rome. Only, France wasn't so much wasting food as they were keeping the choice bits away from the peasants. 

France was a powerful ally to the American colonies. Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson were impressed by the cuisines of France they experienced while acting as ambassador for the fledgling United States of America. So impressed, they brought back chefs and recipes to share when they returned. Likewise, the first modern restaurants were taking shape in France, and they saw popularity with both sides of the French Revolution.

Some French chefs who were considered loyal to King Louis XVI fled France. They saw the guillotine used upon their benefactors and feared that they would be next. Thus a great migration of French chefs took French cuisine to the United Kingdom, Germany, Spain and the United States. Those chefs who were on the side of Napoleon, such as Marie-Antoine Carême became the first celebrity chefs. These chefs were also used in a new sort of warfare, the diplomatic state dinner which was supposed to beguile visiting dignitaries with the culinary prowess of France.

The Incredible Story of Cooking covers other global cuisines, just not to the extent of French cooking. Japanese, ancient Greek and Chinese, meso-American, Spanish, English and Middle Eastern cuisine are briefly explored. Jewish cooking is virtually ignored and whenever American cuisine is mentioned, it's demonized as the 'Land of McDonald's.' Interestingly enough, this book begins with a look at prehistoric cooking and eating; which is rather ironic as the paleo diet, a current trend based on how cavemen ate, closes this examination of the history of how and why we eat as we do. It seems that our palates are attuned to a certain way of eating and those cuisines rotate through cycles, just like the seasons as they bring back the fruits of humanity's harvests. 

Completing this review completes Task #3 (About Food) of the 2026 Comic Book and Graphic Novel Reading Challenge.

Worth Consuming!

Rating: 7 out of 10 stars.

Food For Thought: Essays and Ruminations by Alton Brown

How many people can say that Alton Brown told them to go to culinary school. Well he did and I did. Mind you, I didn't just enroll as soon as he gave me advice at a Raleigh area food expose when I asked him about some of my career goals. The time just wasn't right. But what he told me was definitely something that I spent a very long time thinking upon.

Thanks to a life changing back injury which resulted in an ill-fated, but fun as heck running, hot sauce shop, I finally took Alton's advice and enrolled in culinary school. About a year later working in the school's store room, I found that I had so much fun educating the hapless students who came in looking for extra ingredients ordered by their chef instructors  that I made it my ultimate goal to become one myself.

I spent the recommended 5 years time sloughing through the culinary industry rising to the rank of sous chef when I got the chance to go back home to teach at the very same culinary school where I got my degree in Hospitality management. When the school, which was a for-profit institution, finally closed after tons of pressure from the Federal government, I found myself wanting to continue teaching. But all of the culinary schools were either shutdown or over an hour away commute. So I found myself working as a freelance restaurant consultant, which opened me up to a bunch of culinary experiences. Finally, in 2019, I found a new home as a culinary teacher... for high school students! 

Anyways, I know that this is a really long setup for a review of a book written by Alton Brown. But feel like I should mention all of this because the Food Network legend is my biggest inspiration as a culinary teacher. I use humor, games, videos, props and unusual facts to help inspire those called 'Generation Alpha' to want to become the next generation of chefs. With cell phones, the threat of Ai destroying the restaurant industry as we know it, and a general disregard for hard work, it's a very difficult task. Thankfully, growing kids love to eat and TikTok for all it's annoying little habits, has done more to inspired young people to go experiment with their food than just about any reality series hosted by Gordon Ramsay, the late Anthony Bourdain and Guy Fieri combined.

This book is comprised of essays written by Brown primarily for this volume. It's not a collection of works he's has previously published in other publications. Here, Alton reflects on how his past history both involving and separate from food inspired him to go to culinary school for his second degree in order to change the scope of the traditional cooking show with his brilliant series Good Eats. Alton also looks at food portrayed as in books, TV and movies, his thoughts on the future of the culinary industry and potential trends we might see on our dining room table - that is if communal eating is still destined to be a thing in 5-10 years. He also postulates his theory for teaching the next generation of cooks and chefs. 

This was the chapter of which I was most interested in seeing how I stacked up. I mean, I asked the guy nearly a quarter of a century ago how do I become the host of my own cooking show and while I don't have a weekly series on cable or the Internet, I am hosting my own cooking show 3 times a day, 5 days a week; barring summer break, teacher work days and those blessed school holidays!

Alton says that to be an effective teacher you must entertain, engage and empower. I try so hard to do these 3 things. I've been trying my entire career as a culinary teacher which I have been doing for just about a decade. At least my wife thinks I do these well. And I do have contact with some of my students years after they've graduated and I am not just talking about being friends with on Facebook.

I love teaching and I try to learn from my mistakes. During my first day as a high school teacher, I got all high and mighty about the term 'Chef' and told a couple swaggering teen boys who declared themselves to be chefs that they hadn't earned the title. Needless to say, I didn't connect with those 2. But I have learned that when a kid calls themselves a chef, they're not attempting to challenge my skills, knowledge and experience. They're showing a passion for an art form that one day they might want to make into a career. 

From this read, I didn't even know Alton Brown wasn't really a chef. Nor does he want to be referred to as one. He considers himself a 'food educator.' And for the sake of pretension, true chefs don't refer to themselves as that, I learned.  For the most part, I refer to myself as a culinary teacher or instructor. But just as. French teachers have their students call them Madame or Monsieur, I do have my guys call me Chef. It's my way of making our Culinary labs as real world approached as possible by maintaining Escoffier's kitchen brigade system. I've stepped away from the ego trips for the sake of making a quality impact on my students and their career goals.

I approached this book as a student coming back to his mentor after years in practice for a refresher course on whether or not the pupil had achieved a job well done. I still fight with feelings of inadequacies because I've never once ever been mentioned in the same sentence as any teaching award, much less even been nominated. But I feel like I've lived up to Sensei Brown's philosophy on the culinary world and how to teach it. Have I made mistakes? Oh, yes. But I think that my philosophy on how to make cooking and eating even more fun and exciting than it already is, was thanks in very large part to Alton Brown.

If you became interested in cooking around the turn of the 21st century, during the heyday of the Food Network before it became all about competition instead of creativity and love of the food, whether you became a culinary professional or not, you need to read this book. Use it as a reference to see how well you did over the years. Did you pick up the baton from Alton and his predecessors? (In my case, that would be Julia Child, Martin Yan, Jeff Smith of The Frugal Gourmet and Chef Masaharu Morimoto.) Or did you let the pursuit of perfection kill that spark of passion for cooking?  

We've all had meals that missed the mark. I still remember the third meal I ever tried to make after becoming a foodie. My wife and I still talk about how terrible it was. But despite injury and a lack of time, I still haven't given up trying to make my next meal my greatest work of culinary art. And I've got Alton Brown to thank for it and I think you can too when you pick up this 2025 dissertation on the state of the world of the culinary arts.

Worth Consuming!

Rating: 10 out of 10 stars.

Adventures in Advent: Advent 2024, Day 7

 If you're new to the Foodie community and don't have many ideas on where to start, then might I suggest this edible Advent calendar from the Tilz Collection? In it, you receive 24 different spices and blends to craft an array of culinary delights from countries such as Turkey, Vietnam and Pakistan.

Unfortunately you don't get a recipe card or booklet giving you ideas on how to use your daily gift. But the tins that the spices and herbs come in as reusable as well as labeled. For the retail price on Amazon of $45.99, this is an affordable way to start a spice rack for your kitchen.

When I decided to get serious about learning how to cook 25 years ago, I didn't know where to start. Mostly because at that time, I didn't know what I liked and disliked. Now a professional chef, I've got a repertoire that I feel pretty confident in. But man how I wish I had one of these when I was first starting out. I would have had a blast.

If you do decide that this is the Advent calendar for you for next year or you want to get this as a gift for someone else, websites such as Epicurious and the Food Network homepage will help you figure out how to use these ingredients in any skill level recipe from beginners to advanced.

Feasting on Asphalt: The River Run by Alton Brown

Recently one of my culinary students asked me if I had ever heard of Alton Brown. Had I heard of Alton Brown? He's like my culinary hero. He's one of the reasons I got into becoming a foodie. He actually advised me in person to go to culinary school in order to achieve certain career goals I had.

Yes, I have heard of Alton Brown!!!

I had several of his books on the bookcase in my office and brought them out for my student to inspect. From looking them over I inspired myself to take one of his books and give it a read in my quest for extending my culinary knowledge. 

I chose Feasting On Asphalt: The River Run because I had been such a fan of the 6-part documentary along with the first miniseries. In 2007, Alton Brown and his camera crew rented motorcycles and a RV to drive the entire length of the Mississippi River, starting all the way down in the Louisiana Delta up to the lutefisk filled waters of Minnesota. 

Along the way, the crew would explore the diners, restaurants and food manufacturers that were off the beaten path in hopes of recapturing the spirit of the All-American road trip before the days of the interstate highway systems made everything much more accessible.

There's a lot of fun to be had going the long way. Sadly, the extra time isn't one of those benefits. But by travelling the byways as opposed to the interstates, there are still some small town gems to be found. But you better hurry as larger box stores and restaurant conglomerates are making those bight spots fade into distant memory.

This book is a journal companion piece to the video diary Brown makes of his trip. Added to this book that you don't find on the show are about 40 recipes. Brown also includes a buyer's guide for some of the special ingredients he bought along his trek to make those dishes. However, being that this book is about 15 years old and COVID lockdown did considerable damage to the smaller corners of the culinary industry, don't be surprised if many of the attractions and purveyors are no longer in business.

I wish Alton Brown had written such a journal for his first road trip which explored the original path of legendary Route 66. Also, I just recently learned that there was a third volume in the series! Feasting on Waves had Alton and company on boats touring the Caribbean. How did I miss this one?! And why didn't Alton write a book about it?? I especially would like such a thing since with Alton Brown's relationship with Food Network has been terminated, Feasting on Waves is no longer available on streaming. 

Ah... missed opportunities.

Worth Consuming!

Rating: 10 out of 10 stars.

A Hard Candy Christmas: Advent 2023, DAY 14

There are these creatures in Doctor Who, called the Silence, where if you stop looking at them, you forget that they even exist. That's kinda how I feel about today's featured candy. I'm talking about Gum Drop Nougats. 

Gum Drops are the trapezoidal candies that are slightly harder than a gummi bear. They come in flavors of lemon, cherry and lime; often sold as ZOTS. However, during Christmas, companies make a spiced flavor that has components of cinnamon, clove and ginger. These guys are typically red. In the mix are a green variety that is peppermint or spearmint flavored. I like the Christmas mix of gum drops almost as much as I like the regular blend. If not even better. But I love gum drops when they are added to nougat!

I'm not normally a fan of ultra chewy candies. I'm also not really a fan of marshmallow. Yet, if you take that marshmellowy white nougat, chop up some gum drops into them (preferably of the holiday mix variety) and then portion that concoction out into bit sized squares, I cannot resist them. I then hoard a few and eat them over the course of the following January. And then a year or two passes, in which I completely forget gum drop nougats exist until I somehow run into them at a party or in my stocking and BAM! It's a temporary obsession all over again!

It's probably a good thing being a diabetic that I forget about gum drop nougats as they are 100% sugar. But they are so tasty and those vivid colors in a field of pure white is just so intoxicating. You might be asking 'how did I remember these for my Advent?' Thankfully, it's because I ran across them as I was doing my research for this blog. I plan out my Advent and each day's focus weeks in advance. Had I not come across the nougats while doing a Google search for something else, I might have substituted another candy in the place of the gum drop nougats. Selective amnesia or not; that would have been a crime against confections of the holiday sort.

Popcorn! by Frances Towner Giedt

This is my last Culinary reading of 2023, It's a short read of less than 110 pages. I got this book as part of the 'Take a Book, Leave a Book' program of the Bald Head Island Library earlier this summer. My students are always asking to make popcorn and I support them wanting to explore their culinary interests. I just would like for them to season things up a bit if I did let them make popcorn. Hopefully this book might help. Plus, with the numerous fun facts, you really learn about this history of this food stuff!

This 1995 book contains several dozen popcorn recipes divided into the categories of Sweet, Savory and Skinny. You'd think that every recipe would be the same just telling the prepper to pop the corn, then add seasonings, toss and eat. However, author Frances Towner Giedt utilizes pots, stoves, sauce pans and even the oven for making these popcorn snacks. There are several recipes that sound really good like the Rocky Road Popcorn Balls and the Taco flavor. There's even a few trail mix style recipes that incorporate nuts, fruit and chocolate into the popcorn. A few other recipes might not be so easy to create as posted. For a nearly 30 year old book, there are some ingredients called for that I don't think manufacture anymore, such as the powdered spaghetti sauce mix called for to craft the pizza popcorn dish. But if I can find out a substitute, I really want to make this stuff.

I also share a bit of concern with the skinny recipes. Not that I don't think that they could be tasty or anything like that. I think some of the nutritional values and dietary suggestions might be a tad outdated. The author has written or co-authored several healthy eating cookbooks sponsored by the Joslin Diabetes Center, a reputable medical institution. So I suspect Frances Towner Giedt's facts are accurate and sound. However, there's been tons of research that has changed dietary recommendations and requirements almost a dozen times in the last 4 decades. Plus, I think some of the butter and sugar substitutes called for are now considered carcinogenic. My advice: if you 21st century aspiring popcorn chefs out there ever use this cookbook, do your research on any of the name-brand items called for in the healthy recipe section.

Worth Consuming!

Rating: 8 out of 10 stars.

Star Wars: The Life Day Cookbook- Official Recipes From a Galaxy Far, Far Away

Yesterday was Life Day. It's like Star Wars Christmas. First established as part of Star Wars canon, the Wookiee people's most sacred day was introduced in the Star Wars Holiday Special on November 17th, 1978. The special is notable not just because of how bad it was, but also because it contained a small animated segment that marked the debut of the galaxy's greatest bounty hunter, Boba Fett! 2023 marked the 45th anniversary of all that and it just so happened that yesterday coincidentally when I finished reading this Life Day themed cookbook.

The book is written as if it really did exist in the Star Wars universe. The writer is acclaimed chef of Maz Kanata, Strono 'Cookie' Tuggs, who is a main character at the Star Wars experience at Disney, was also the writer of the Galaxy's Edge cookbook from 2019.

There are over 3 dozen recipes written from Cookie's perspective. He talks about the actual ingredients and the planets that they come from. Thankfully, you're not expected to have bantha meat and mudhorn eggs on hand. Earth-bound writers Jenn Fujikawa and Marc Sumerak assist to translate Cookie's recipes with the human equivalent ingredients. 

If you look over the recipes closely, you'll realize that the Star Wars universe enjoys holiday treats that are similar to ours. Gloomroot Pancakes are the latkes with sour cream and apple sauce we enjoy at Hanukkah. Wroshyr Sap Cider is the hot apple cider that keeps us warm near a roaring fire. There are even some non-holiday recipes involved too. The color-changing Cirilian Noodle Salad is the magical Unicorn Noodles dish I've made with younger students for years now. Can't afford to buy supplies at the Black Spire Outpost? Cookie has you set with several DIY projects to make life day robes, trees and orbs. 

Speaking of the orbs. For Life Day yesterday, I taught some of my Culinary Arts students how to make a mini version of the jelly orbs recipes. I didn't have the right ingredients. But I was able to use a fair substitution. Hopefully after Thanksgiving, we'll give it another go with the required agar agar powder.

The photos in this cookbook were absolutely stunning. So colorful and vibrant. The food stylists behind these portraits deserve beaucoup accolades and I hope they've won some awards for them. 

Lots of great ideas. Maybe next year for some holiday fun in a galaxy far, far away, I might use recipes from this cookbook to my students to do a culinary venture based on Life Day. My student's might not enjoy it as much as me. But it'll be a heck of a lot less stressful than having to do a Thanksgiving themed sale. 

Worth Consuming!

Rating: 10 out of 10 stars. 

As Cooked on TikTok by Emily Stevenson and TikTok

TikTok.

If you ask me, it's the single most important piece of media to influence and inspire amateur chefs and foodies in the last 5 years. In the 80s, it was PBS cooking shows. The 90s and 2000s, it was Food Network. The 2010s was the decade of abrasive chefs like Anthony Bourdain and Gordon Ramsay. Today, if a student comes to me wanting to explore a new recipe, the idea usually came in the form of a video from TikTok.

Due to the apps questionable tracking methods of users data, I don't use TikTok. Plus my school blocks it. So if a student wants me to see something on the social media site, they usually have to show the video from their phones. So when I discovered this officially licensed cookbook over the summer, I jumped at the chance to buy it for my culinary classes. 

The recipes are all from TikTok users. Add to it some cooking tips from professional chefs such as Blue Ginger's Ming Tsai. Throw in some useful cooking hacks from the TikTok tech team and include QR codes in order to access each recipe and you're as close to becoming a TikTok chef without being an official user of the site.

My students were very excited when I showed them this book. Some laughed, thinking it was absurd to buy a cookbook when I can get all the recipes for free on TikTok. But just about everyone I shred this book with was enthusiastic to use this new resource.

I decided to incorporate this cookbook into my lesson plans under the unit for recipe development as well as the unit for pricing and budgeting. Incorporating social media technology into a culinary business was also explored. We tested out several recipes ranging from a cake recipe that only called for ice cream and flour to a lasagna noodles recipe that called packs of ramen noodles. 

My students were very surprised at how the ice cream cake turned out. But I explained to them that ice cream with it's milk, fat, sugar and eggs has everything else you need to make a cake with in addition to the other ingredient of flour. So if you are in a pinch or can't afford all the ingredients that a cake recipe calls for, you can make a semi-decent cake alternative similar to a pound cake loaf consistency.

The reaction to the ramen lasagna was mixed. Some folks liked it. Others abhorred it. All wanted to know why someone would use ramen noodles to make a lasagna. I explained that a lot of users on TikTok are Millennials and Gen Zers on a budget. You can buy 4 packs of ramen for almost as much as 1 pound of lasagna noodles - or cheaper. Frugal cooking calls for creative substitutions and as a chef who's known for utilizing items about to go bad or expire in creative and affordable ways, it's one thing that I really admire about the TikTok community. 

We also explored food trends and how recipe ideas go viral by making one of the foods that put TikTok on the culinary map: cloud bread. Essentially egg whites, baking soda, some sort of dairy and of course food coloring, these tie-dyed little cakes are like eating a eggy little cloud. We also learned that with something as simple as cloud bread, it's really easy to mess it up. The easiest recipes usually are.

There's a bunch of recipes that I personally hope to explore. Full of quirky and creative ideas that can also be rather affordable, I think I found a great modern resource for my culinary students; that's also a book! Sure, my students could use the app on their phone. But one problem I noticed with TikTok is that nothing is written down. Unless you follow the video precisely and can remember all the steps, my students often get lost and tend to forget something important. So while the app is free, having everything collected in a book that can easily be photocopied and shared with multiple cooking teams is a handy tool to help bring a relatable culinary resource safely into my classroom without breaking the confidentiality of anyone's online presence.

Plus a portion of the sale of this cookbook benefits No Kid Hungry; a very worthwhile cause that I support and personally battle every single day within my school's struggling community.

Worth Consuming.

Rating: 9 out of 10 stars.

The 100 Most Jewish Foods: A Highly Debatable List

A Hanukkah present from my Jewish bride, this book is part cookbook and part chronicle of the Jewish experience in relation to food. This book came about from an article of the same name that appeared on the Jewish culture website, Tablet. Edited by Tablet editor Alana Newhouse, several dozen notable Jewish chefs, restaurateurs and foodies wax poetic on Jewish foods all the way from matzoh to schmaltz to even yes, bacon. Just because it's a Jewish food, that doesn't mean you should eat it...

Names I recognized from this book were Molly Yeh, Michael Twitty (a personal favorite of mine) and Zac Posen. There was one writer whose name I cannot remember and to be honest, I'm glad I forgot it. It was the pseudonym of an African American rabbi. Thankfully, he only wrote 2 pieces in this book. But it was enough to make you lose your appetite. The only times that the F-word appears in this book, it's this gentleman's diatribes full of piss and vinegar that were just unasked for. 

The foods listed in this book are not ranked. There is 1 exception that most of the contributors agreed was essential to Jewish cooking, cuisine and culture. I won't reveal what it was. But I can say that I agree with the consensus. But I did disagree with 1 food that I felt was wrongly absent. Where are the knishes?

If you had me name the top 5 most Jewish foods, the knish, a meat, cheese or potato filled hand pie, would probably be the 3rd thing I come up with. There are some dishes that seem similar in this read. But in a book that arranges by alphabet instead of rank, the Ks were devoid of the knish!

If the Knish is in here under another name, then I really wish that this book had a glossary in the back. There were a lot of Yiddish words that I didn't know and unless I went to Google them, I also didn't understand. A small 1-2 page listing of some of the most common Yiddish and other Jewish terms from other languages was needed.

Jewish cooking gets ignored quite a bit in the culinary world. Most students I teach know that pork isn't Kosher. But they have zero idea what being Kosher means. This book is going to be a great help in that. I'm also hoping to utilize some of the recipes in this book with my students. There's a lot of dishes that are amazingly complex for a cuisine often thought of comprised of mostly peasant food and dishes that grandma made. That assessment could not be further from the truth. I made an amazing red lentil stew from this book. Other than my accidentally forgetting to add the lemon juice at the end, it turned out so freaking well. And there was at least 30 more recipes on my list now to try in the future.

Also, there were at least 1 or 2 books from some of the contributors of this book that I am interested in one day getting my hands on. So, there's a ton of potential more learning and exploration on the horizon for me and my pupils ahead. 

Worth Consuming!

Rating: 8 out of 10 stars.

Bryson Fars: The Millionaire Creator/Jewel: The Magical Chef (Family Comic Friday)

I'm diverting a little bit on today's Family Comic Friday post. Instead of family friendly comics and graphic novels, I want to highlight a couple of books made for kids BY KIDS!

Last weekend, my bride and I went to the Geek & Grub Market at Fred Fletcher Park in Raleigh, NC. Geek & Grub is held monthly in Raleigh (with other locations like Durham, NC, Charlotte, NC and in Virginia occasionally).  There were food trucks, bakeries, toys, comics, and games. A costume contest! Prizes! Lots of fun for all ages! This month's theme was super heroes and despite the rain, there managed to be a fairly decent sized crowd. 

It was in the vendors area that I met the creators of the 2 books I am featuring, Elijah B. and Jewel L. They're siblings. Elijah was around age 10 or 11. Jewel was younger. I think she said she was 8. It's a family effort as their Dad, Ron L. is the illustrator of their books. 

Elijah B.'s book was titled Bryson Fars: The Millionaire Game Creator. It's an origin story of how Bryson Fars and his older brother and sister worked together to create a video game that combined race cars with football. Bryson is invited to showcase his new creation which gains the interest of a famous video game designer named Sizzle McDougall, who wishes to turn it into his studios' next big online offering. However, things are not all as they seem as suddenly Bryson's program seems to have a virus and cannot operate just as Sizzle is unveiling his new game, one based on Bryson's idea!

Bryson Lars is a chapter book. So I think it's something kids, especially those interested in video games and computer coding & design, will enjoy. I'm thinking those in grades 3-5 is the target audience, as some of the coding concepts can be a bit advanced. But as always, if you have a 2nd grader who can whip up a web page better than you can, then most definitely, buy them this book!

Jewel L,'s book is called Jewel: The Magical Chef. It's a fanciful book written in rhyme about a chef with magical animal friends and amazing cooking skills. One day, a wicked witch cooks up some dastardly treats in hopes of turning the children of the kingdom into goat-creatures. Can Jewel cook up an antidote to save her friends? With the delicious recipe at the back of the book, there's a very good chance that she can!

Jewel: The Magical Chef is a book that younger readers can enjoy. K-5 to 2nd is the age range I put this book. However, if you have a 3rd or 4th grader who is interested in cooking, sharing the fruit salad recipe at the end of this book would be a great way to show aspiring cooks and chefs to craft their own recipes. I'm going to share this recipe with my Culinary students next semester and they're in high school!

Plus, there's several black & white sketch pages in the back that I think you could color. So, consider Jewel: The Magical Chef to be a sort of activity book that's full of fun and perfect for a rainy summer day. By the way- I hear that Jewel L. is working on a recipe coloring book. I'll be sure to snag several copies of that for my students and other aspiring culinarians when it drops!

Both Bryson Fars: The Millionaire Creator and Jewel: The Magical Chef are available for sale on Amazon! These two children can't even drive a car and they've got a pair of books on the biggest online market platform in the world! As American Ninja Warrior's Matt Iseman says 'What's your excuse?"

Elijah B's book will help inspire children to learn about creating their own video games and computer programs (and hopefully they'll stay away from making computer viruses). Jewel L's book will inspire youngsters to cook and create their own recipes. Together, these young writers might inspire the young reader in your life to become writers as well! 

The road to becoming a writer isn't hard. It just starts with 1 sentence on a blank page!

Best of luck to all future dreamers!

Poorcraft: The Funnybook Fundamentals of Living Well on Less (2022 Comic Book and Graphic Novel Reading Challenge)

Today more than ever, people need help making ends meet. Inflation, rising gas prices and the war in Ukraine are taking a toll on all our wallets. C. Spike Trotman takes it upon herself to help those with financial constraints with this graphic novel full of money saving tips. Along with whimsically cartoony artist Diana Nock (The Intrepid Girlbot), Trotman presents a method called Poorcraft. But it's really an amalgamation of a bunch of economical philosophies and techniques.

My wife and I partook in Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace University seminar a few years back. Trotman's advice on how to pay for a car and to reduce debt using the 'snowball' effect of paying off the smaller dues first and then applying that money to the next larger bill, is something I learned from Ramsey.

In this book, Trotman uses the character of Penny and her faithful dog, Nickel to help their pal Mil out of a sticky financial situation. From finding affordable housing to the use of transportation, cutting corners on grocery, clothes and entertainment and how to navigate the tricky paradox that is called higher education, just about any lifetime situation is covered in this book.

Not everything in this book is practical for everyone. Penny's use of a bicycle along with a bus to get around everywhere isn't really feasible for somebody who lives in a rural area. But a bunch of the tips in this book are universally helpful.

Ryan Estrada, one of the reviewers on the back cover suggests that Poorcraft replace Seuss' Oh, The Places You'll Go! as the essential work to give high school graduates. I'd almost agree with this assessment. Only, I think rising Juniors should get this book in order to avoid the traps of for-profit universities, un-repayable student loans and how to utilize affordable community colleges in order to meet the core class standards. Some of my pupils seek me out with help looking at culinary schools and I think the resources listed in this book will assist with that.

I'm thinking of hanging on to this book as a resource for the high school culinary classes I teach. There's a lot of great tips for cooking on a budget without resorting to just ramen noodles! That's a major concern in my students- being able to cook for themselves after high school. Our unit on the cooking of authentic ramen was a big hit with my upperclassmen. My level 1 students can't wait to do it this coming school year!

C. Spike Trotman has two other books in the Poorcraft series. One is about travelling on a budget. But it's her budget cookbook that I'm looking to add to my collection of texts useful for teaching culinary. I learned a lot from this book and I think my student will too!

Worth Consuming!

Rating: 9 out of 10 stars.

Completing this review completes Task #29 (With Chapter Titles) of the 2022 Comic Book and Graphic Novel Reading Challenge. 

Flavor Issue One

Here's a classic review that I did in 2018 but never got around to posting it. 

Enjoy...

1977: A Madman Turns 40: 2017- Day 12

   When I'm not reading books, I'm a professional chef and culinary instructor. Today marks my first day teaching for 2017. For the next 11 weeks, I'm going to be teaching a class of about 20 students European cooking.
    
    With this milestone, I thought I would take a look at the culinary scene in 1977 for today's A Madman Turns 40.

* Chef Jeremiah Tower leaves Alice Water's Chez Panisse to venture out on his own. Many consider this move the beginning of California fusion cuisine which Tower's considered the father of. However, some accounts say Tower left in 1978, so this may or may not be the 40th anniversary of California fusion cooking which is comprised of fresh locally grown ingredients and a marriage of 1 or more culture's cuisines. A Thai Chicken Pizza is an example of this type of cuisine.

You can actually buy first editions on Amazon for not very much money.

*Paul Bocuse, considered the greatest chef of all-time, publishes his first cookbook in English:  Paul Bocuse's French Cooking.

*The Food and Agriculture Act of 1977 sets price limits for consumers while allotting farmers the right to meet growing quotas and still obtain federal help. This really benefits peanut farmers in particular. I mention this because the President of the United States at this time was a peanut farmer too (more on this guy next week.)

*1977 was the beginning of a 20 year study of the National Food Consumption Survey. Over 60,000 people were studied annually to determine food portions and calorie consumption. Spoiler Alert: the study found that our appetites got bigger as did our waist sizes as we as Americans were consuming more calories. One thing that surprises the researchers were that it's not just natural born citizens but immigrants as well, who are eating more as time progressed. Data from this study will change dietary recommendations and eating plans for those with diabetes, heart disease, and even eating disorders

* Ruth Graves Wakefield, inventor of the Tollhouse Cookie, the first chocolate chip cookie, passes away in this year.

Poor little snake, cut down in his prime.
What am I say? It's a frickin' snake?!

* I thought this food tidbit was amusing, glam rocker Alice Cooper's pet boa constrictor dies when the rat it was to dine on bites him first and it gets an infection. 

If any of my readers would love to gift me a set of these, please email me.
Donations gladly accepted.

* Burger King sells some really cool glassware depicting scenes from a little know film called Star Wars and they make a killing. During this sale, BK actually outsells McDonald's for the first time.

* Instructional cooking show Gourmet Cooking with Earl Peyroux begins airing in 1977. The show will produce 600 episodes before Peyroux retires in 1995.

1977-2017.

* The California Culinary Academy opens in San Francisco. Now known as Le Cordon Bleu College of Culinary Arts, the cooing school is scheduled to close in September after operating for EXACTLY 40 years.

  Okay, so one 40th anniversary isn't going to be a good one.

   Hopefully, this isn't a sign as this Madman chef hopes to be around and kicking, I mean cooking, for several more years to come (God willing.) Good eating habits, new trends, high calorie foods, culinary training, healthy appetites, and the beginning of mass merchandising of popular TV shows and movies highlight the world of food and cooking in my favorite year. 

   Oh, I hear the class bell, time to mold some more aspiring cooks into the chefs of tomorrow.

   Bon appetite. 

Countdown to New Who: Advent 2016: Day 13

Everyone loves the Christmas joke.

   This Christmas, why not make your holiday gathering of family and friends a Doctor Who themed event? Apparently, the decorations are minimal as seen by these photos of past Doctor Who Christmas episodes. But the food doesn't have to suffer.
     Today's Advent gift for you is an extensive guide to all sort of Who eats.... 
   
      You can also click here for some official BBC Doctor Who themed recipes.

   If you can throw in some Jelly Babies (or Gummi Bears in a pinch), some Jammie Dodgers (Linzer Cookies), and some holiday crackers (I'll teach you how to make those tomorrow!) from your favorite store with a pretty sweet ethnic foods section, like Kroger or Harris Teeter, you're all set.

You'll also need some paper crowns

  

   Best of Luck!

It's those crackers I told you about- more tomorrow...

  
Enjoy...

Relish: My Life in the Kitchen

    The graphic novel medium is pretty much an untapped resource when it comes to food. Yet, with it's visual aesthetic, you'd think that this would be the perfect venue for it. Maybe that's because no one's been able to crack the code- until now...

    Lucy Knisley's Relish is a glimpse at her life story and how food has had such an impact on her life and that of her family. Her mother was a superstar employee at Dean & Deluca and later a much sought after caterer in Northern New York. Her uncle ran a trendy Big Apple gourmet shop in the 80s and her father is a consoussier of the Manhattan restaurant scene. 

    Added to this neat tale are several recipes. Knisley draws out pictures of each item and provides unique insight into the selection of products, substitution of ingredients, and other variants. Her pasta carbonara recipe is something that I am dying to try out one day soon.

    This 2013 graphic novel by First Second has a suggested reading of ages 6-12 but really, this is a memoir and tribute to food that any age can enjoy. I think it should be required reading at the culinary school where I teach. It's got some many great insights on food trends, what it means to be a chef, and how food brings people and cultures together.

     A really awesome read that I highly recommend. Be on the lookout for other food related graphic novels by Knisley, like I am: French Milk (2008) and An Age of License (2014.)

   Worth Consuming

   Rating: 10 out of 10 stars.
      

Fuds: A Complete Encyclofoodia from Tickling Shrimp to Not Dying in a Restaurant by the Mizretti Brothers

   Imagine a restaurant so awful, so insane, and possibly a little on the dangerous side and you've got Fuds: a trendy restaurant in Brooklyn that has taken the hipster foodie crowd by storm. With it's famous offerings of 'Dead Dog co-plated with Yam Clippings and a Leafy Lage Dumping' and ' Roundeye Flank Stringers with a Yankee-Poisoned Marinara and Fuzzy Rice Curds' this is any culinary instructors worst nightmare.

   Thankfully, Fuds is the brainchild of Kelly Hudson, Dan Klein, and Arthur Meyer (the later two are currently Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon writers.) Originally started as a gag menu for a made up restaurant, Fuds really did take the Brooklyn scene and spin it on its ear. Going viral in 2012, people actually thought Fuds was real and tried to visit it to try these oddities while some tried to get the Health Department to close it down.

   Building from the success of the joke, Hudson, Klein, and Meyer created this book as a tutorial from the fictious restaurant's owners the Mizretti Brothers. Along with some of their most famous recipes, the Brothers included helpful tips on how to audition a new garbage man, knife safety (or lack thereof), how to save someone from choking (so they can pay for their meal) and explore the history of Fud. 

   This book was very funny and as a professional chef, I loved how it didn't take itself serious at all. I've seen so many jokers act like their going to be the next Charlie Trotter and end up figuring out that being in the restaurant business is really hard work and they drop out. So, it was funny to see a couple of goofballs half-ass it in the culinary industry for a change (even if it was all made up.)

   This book is a little vulgar. Lots of F-bombs and other four letter words are peppered throughout. But what surprised me more was the number of sex toys used in making some of the recipes in this book. I strongly advise anyone 18 and older to not try any of these recipes EVER! Especially the one that calls for 24 kilos of uncut cocaine. I'm pretty sure that one would kill you. 

   I found out about this book thanks to a plug from Jimmy Fallon on his show. Otherwise, I would have completely overlooked this book at the library. It's a fun read and it should be taken as such. Again, this is a parody- please don't make any of the recipes in this book! They will make you very sick at the very least.

    Lastly, if any of this book's real writers ever stumble across this review, I just would like you to know you spelled the title of your book wrong. It's a joke in my wife's family to spell Food F-U-D. But you forgot to put those two tiny dots over the U in Fuds. If you ever make a 2nd printing or a sequel, I hope you guys will put the correct accent mark over the U! Otherwise, you just look silly...

   Worth Consuming!

   Rating: 8 out of 10 stars.