The Skinny: How to Fit into Your Little Black Dress Forever
(Meredith Books, December 2006)
Not a day goes by without someone asking me how I manage to stay so thin given the high calorie content of my job. Well, here's the answer. I wrote this book with my good friend Robin Aronson. She and I went to Barnard together, and have been great friends ever since. Anyway, the book was her idea. Desperate to lose the rest of the weight she'd gained having her (adorable) twins, she asked me, her skinniest friend, how I stay thin while eating foie gras at night and cookies for breakfast (she knows me well, that Robin). Now Robin knows me from college, when I weighed a whopping 35 pounds more, so she knew that I once lost a lot of weight and have since kept it off (which rules out any possibility of me being an ectomorph, though I wish!). Nope, I just exercise and attempt to limit my portions, and over the years I've developed a whole roster of tips and strategies for keeping the weight off. And we know they work. While writing the book, Robin not only lost the 20 pounds of baby weight should hadn't been able to shed, plus another 15 pounds. She's skinnier than ever. Trust us, this book will show you the way to Skinnydom.
Here's an excerpt from the cover letter that's accompanying the galleys (to give you some more info):
Can you eat food you love and still look fabulous in your little black dress? Absolutely! The Skinny: How to fit into your little black dress forever (Meredith) by Melissa Clark and Robin Aronson will show you how.
Melissa and Robin believe that when we sit down to eat, we should celebrate the pleasure of food, not fear the fat (or the carbs or the calories) in it.
The Skinny shows how you can balance eating rich and eating smart so you can look fabulous in that little black dress forever. (Here's a hint - eat more fruits and vegetables. Here's another - Eat what you love.)
Melissa Clark is a sophisticated food writer who eats out nearly every night. She's a regular contributor to The New York Times, Food & Wine, Cookie, and Martha Stewart Weddings and Living, among many other publications. She's also the co-author of 17 cookbooks with some of the best chefs in the world, including David Bouley, Daniel Boulud, and pastry chef Claudia Fleming. The woman knows how to eat. And drink. And she wears a size 2.
Robin Aronson is a health writer and mother of twins. She wrote The Whole Pregnancy Handbook: A doctor's guide to the wise use of conventional and alternative medicine before, during and after pregnancy with Joel Evans, MD. The former editor-in-chief of Parents.com, the web site for Parents magazine, she knows that losing baby weight isn’t always easy (she had 60 pounds of it to lose) - but then she went on The Skinny and lost all the weight and a little bit more.
In The Skinny, Melissa and Robin combine insights from their different lifestyles and their friendship to make a book that any woman can relate to. There are tips for eating out, eating in, even for after-dinner snacking. And there are 75 simple, delicious recipes that show all you can do with fruits and vegetables, and shortcuts and tips for preparing them without fuss.
The Skinny isn't about rules and it's not about denial. It's about loving what you eat and how you feel.
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Anyway, the book comes out in December, but even now you can pre-order it on Amazon... 
For anyone who aspires to restaurant-chef-type food but not the long ingredient lists and interminable cooking directions, here’s the perfect book. Melissa Clark retains the spark of genius in the chefs’ original time-consuming recipes, but pares them down (interrupts the chefs) to their most essential, simple elements, allowing any cook to create four-star cuisine at home without a staff of sous-chefs, an unlimited budget, and an entire weekend to fritter away. Chef, Interrupted is like taking a cooking class from not one or two but more than fifty world-renowned chefs across a broad spectrum of expertise, including seafood with Eric Ripert and dessert with Claudia Fleming, American standouts like Tom Colicchio and Wylie Dufresne, and the international flavors of Norman Van Aken, Bobby Flay, and Marcus Samuelsson.
For the past decade, Melissa Clark has made a name for herself by doing one thing very adeptly: making chefs’ recipes accessible to home cooks, whether through coauthoring books with the likes of David Bouley and Daniel Boulud or writing “The Chef” columns and other articles in The New York Times. Melissa is a genius at discovering what’s really great about a chef’s recipe, then simplifying it—keeping the part where the recipe is inventive and delicious, and then interrupting the chef when it gets out of hand.
The result—this book—is a remarkable combination of creative cuisine and real-life practicalities, and Chef, Interrupted offers a fantastic panoply of mouthwatering dishes. From salads like Suzanne Goin’s Arugula-Mint Salad with Apricots and Cumin to fish like Christian Delouvrier’s Roasted Cod with Brandade Potatoes, from Jonathan Waxman’s Pollo al Forno with Panzanella to Tom Douglas’s Citrus-Braised Pork Shank with Bread-Crumb Gremolata, from Bill Telepan’s Heirloom Pea Pancakes with Smoked Salmon and Crème Fraiche to Claudia Fleming’s Goat Cheese Cake with Thyme Macerated Raspberry Compote—this is restaurant food that you can really and truly make at home.
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You wouldn't know it by looking at her - either during her years as Corky Sherwood on CBS's Murphy Brown or now on her hit ABC comedy Hope & Faith - but actress Faith Ford loves to eat. And she comes from a long line of excellent Louisiana cooks who taught Faith as much about fried catfish and hush puppies as they did about fresh local peaches and homegrown tomatoes. The result is that Faith is an excellent cook whose style incorporates everything she loves about eating comforting down-home Southern favorites, and everything she loves about eating light, fresh foods that are as healthy as they are flavorful. After dreaming of a cookbook for years, Faith finally shared her updated Southern classics and traditional family favorites with me. I helped her write it all down and voila, here it is.
Recipes include: Old-Fashioned Smothered Chicken, Golden Crispy Oven-Fried Chicken, Mom's Smoky Beef Brisket, Southern-Style Fried Catfish, Broiled Red Snapper with Olives, Onions, and Tomatoes; Grilled Veggie Po' Boys; Cora's Skillet Candied Sweet Potatoes, Snap Beans and New Potatoes, Buttermilk Biscuits, Sweet Summer Melon-Mint Salad, Coconut Brownies, and Fluffy Lemon Icebox Pie.
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Along the Danube, with Vienna at its heart, is a culinary terrain that encompasses the flavors of Austria, Switzerland, Germany, the Czech Republic, Hungary, former Yugoslavia, and Italy, not to mention influences as far ranging as Turkish, Alsatian, French, Spanish, Dutch, Bohemian-Moravian, Polish, Croatian, Slovenian, Slovakian, Serbian, and Jewish cuisine. The result is as diverse as it is far ranging. But why would David Bouley, the celebrity chef known for his French-influenced fare, write an Austrian cookbook? The answer goes beyond his love for the classic Austrian dishes like goulash, schnitzel, roast duck and strudel.
There is another side to Austrian cooking, and working with Mario Lohninger, executive-chef at The Danube restaurant, Bouley has developed stunning recipes that pick up where more modern innovations begin to emerge. Bouley’s touch refines and revitalizes, bringing traditional and satisfying dishes up-to-date in the most luxurious way possible. This is not just contemporary Austrian food, or Austrian-French-American fusion. It’s a vision—a fantasy of flavors that might have come about if the Austro-Hungarian Empire was still extant. These diverse recipes capture a moment of peak flavor, combining classic technique and influences from around the world, and translating them into a culinary language with an opulent Austrian gestalt.
Recipes include: Tyrolean Wine Soup with Smoked Trout Crepes; Warm Rabbit Salad with White Asparagus and Tarragon Reisling Sauce; “Kavalierspitz”, Traditional Boiled Beef with Spinach Puree, Apple Horseradish Sauce and Baby Vegetables; Striped Bass with Szegediner Sauerkraut; Passionfruit Parfait; Apple Strudel; and Cinnamon Cookies.
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Stylish, sophisticated home cooked meals without fuss?is that too much to ask for? Not any more, says Peter Berley, my friend and the former chef at Angelica's Kitchen restaurant in the East Village. This is how the Modern Vegetarian eats on weeknights. With Fresh Food Fast, Peter Berley brings a sustainable, nourishing lifestyle out of the ideal and into the lives of the average over-committed person. In our first book, the award winning Modern Vegetarian Kitchen, (see below) Peter brought a contemporary approach to flavor and presentation together with vegetarian cooking at its most evolved. Fresh Food Fast is a welcome follow-up act, fusing a dedication to natural, organic living with the universal need for speed. Fresh Food Fast offers busy, hungry cooks the confidence of Peter?s creative, slightly goofy, hands-on style, in an accessible format that takes the guesswork out of putting together a meal. Shopping, prepping and cooking instructions mean that each seasonal menu can be fluidly prepared in under 45 minutes.
Recipes include: Curried Chickpea Pancakes with Spicy Tahini Sauce; Bruschetta with Broccoli Rabe and Ricotta; Chilled Avocado Soup with Lime and Jalapeño; Tomato Goat Cheese Strata; Seared Tofu with Spicy Black Beans and Mango Salsa; Barley Risotto with Golden Beets, Swiss Chard, and Goat Cheese; Caramelized Bananas with Blood Orange and Pistachio; and Fresh Fig Crostini with Ricotta and Honey on Toasted Walnut Bread.
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There are few tastes as compelling as that of a piece of meat or fish cooked over an open fire. Something magical happens: the skin contracts and crisps, turning crackling and brown; the juices drip and run; the flesh becomes sweet and intensely flavored. As the Chef of Beacon restaurants in New York City and Stamford Connecticut, Waldy Malouf pumps his oven and grill to their hottest to create straightforward foods with robust, essential flavors?crisped, browned, succulent and smoky. In High Heat, he proves that chefs don?t have a monopoly on these results, and that anyone with an oven and/or grill can roast, broil or grill their way to high flavor. Almost every recipe in this intense, exciting collection is written with instructions for grilling or roasting, so that you can choose a technique to suit the weather, your tools, or just your mood.
Recipes include: Charred Filet Mignon Tartare; Smoky Corn and Cod Chowder; Roasted Winter Squash with Maple and Cayenne Glaze; Crisp Penne with Ricotta, Roasted Tomatoes, and Herbs; Roasted Spice-Rubbed Chicken Under A Brick; Rack of Lamb with Black Olives and Lemon; Hot Smoked Salmon with Spicy Cucumbers; Thin Crusted Pizza with Charred Lobster and Tomatoes; Roasted Summer Berry Shortcakes; and Apple Cheddar Pie.
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“The ideal dessert is a few perfect, intense tastes filled with balanced flavors and textures.” –Claudia Fleming
Claudia was named America's top pastry chef by the prestigious James Beard Foundation in 2000 and this book stems from her acclaimed menus at Gramercy Tavern. Critics and diners have never disagreed about the merits of her ingredient-driven creativity and elegant composed desserts like Rose Meringues with Summer Berries, Raspberry Sorbet and Goat Yogurt-Rose Mousse. Lucky for home cooks, each component is flavorful enough to serve as an individual recipe, and they are readily adapted to the home kitchen. Stunning photos illustrate the fresh, bright simplicity of these desserts. For special occasions—or if you just feel enthusiastic—serving suggestions after each recipe send you on the way to pairing desserts. The final chapter, Signature Composed Desserts, is made up of the recipes you’ve enjoyed from the other chapters, with all the impact of Claudia’s restaurant desserts. These creative recipes are fully grounded in solid, common-sense techniques, and a thorough appreciation for what dessert should be.
Recipes include: Chestnut Honey-Roasted Pears, Bay Leaf Flan, Lavender-Lemon Pound Cake, Licorice Ice Cream, Coconut Tapioca Soup, Maple Baked Apples with Dried Fruit and Nuts, Sauté of Tomatoes and Plums, and Chocolate Brownie Cookies.
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I wrote this book with my friend Samara, a genius cook who has spent countless summers on Nantucket, and lived there for several years. Really, the book was her idea, I was just along for the ride. But what a ride! Nantucket is marvelous, and it really does live up to its reputation as having a cluster of brilliant, innovative restaurants. This book is a portrait of all the intense culinary creativity that thrives on the faraway isle. The 18 gorgeous menus are taken directly from the island?s most revered restaurants, featuring seasonal, seafood-oriented, sophisticated recipes that you can make at home (really). The book also has stunning photos of food, views and people, and an insider?s profile of each restaurant, which we think give a unique view of the warm, elegant yet easy-going destination that is Nantucket.
Recipes include: Mixed Nantucket Field Greens with Arugula Oil and Preserved Lemon Vinaigrette; Tuna Tartare with Cucumbers and Sriracha Aïoli; Green Tomato Soup with Chipotle Corn Cream; Le Languedoc Lobster Bisque; Moroccan-Spiced Wild Striped Bass with Couscous and Minted Cucumber; Grilled Pork Chops with Braised Clams, Roasted-Garlic Mashed Potatoes, and Oven-Roasted Haricots Verts; Individual Strawberry-Rhubarb Tarte Tatins; and Rosewater Angel Food Cake with Blackberries and Lemon Verbena Syrup.
Fans have been lusting for Peter’s creative, hands-on, natural cooking since his years as the beloved chef of New York City’s nationally acclaimed Angelica Kitchen. This IACP and James Beard-award winning cookbook is filled with time-saving tips, ingredient facts, and illustrations that bring techniques to life, providing the reader with an instant grounding in Peter’s methods and the wealth of knowledge that inspires his ideas. From chewy seitan to tangy crème fraîche to crusty sourdough, and from boiling beans with seaweed to never covering a pot of cruciferous vegetables, Peter’s detailed, passionate explanations of how and why ingredients merge to create health and flavor benefits will show home cooks how to use wholesome and fresh foods to create beautiful, flavorful vegetarian and vegan meals.
Recipes include: Apple, Fennel, and Walnut Soup; Warm Dandelion Salad with Spicy Tempeh and Sage Vinaigrette; Beer-Braised Seitan with Sauerkraut and Onions; Porcini Mushroom, Red Wine, and Walnut Terrine; French Country Sourdough White Bread; and Almond Custard with Mixed Berry Parfait.
Buy the bookClassic and luxurious, this is a natural pairing that couldn’t be more celebratory or refined. Of course, Champagne and caviar are both investments, so it helps to know what you’re looking for, and this is your guide to understanding, pairing, purchasing, serving, and enjoying these delicacies. Recipes provide creative and sophisticated ways to incorporate two of life’s finest pleasures into your occasions. And the testing, as you can imagine, was heavenly…
Recipes include: American Cornmeal Blinis; New Potatoes with Caviar and Crème Fraîche; Smoked Salmon Mousse with Caviar; Fresh Tagliatelle with Chives, Crème Fraiche, and Salmon Caviar; and Tuna Tartare with Wasabi Caviar on Taro Chips.
This book will appeal to the latent happy homemaker in all of us, with dessert recipes as bright and homey as Mary Engelbreit’s Americana-inspired illustrations. With over 100 recipes for cobblers, tarts, cakes, candies and more, this book is as cheering as it is appetizing.
Recipes include: Brown Sugar-Baked Apples; Ginger Peach Cobbler; Banana Butterscotch Cream Pie; Raspberry Brown Butter Tart; Heavenly Coconut Cake; Chocolate Peanut Butter Ice Cream Pie; Candy Cane Butter Cookies; and Chocolate Cognac Truffles.
When the vegetarian diet met the Mediterranean diet, something truly beautiful was born. When Vegetarian Times met the Mediterranean diet, they put together a diverse collection of vibrant, fresh, and wholesome recipes that encapsulate the delicious flavors of North Africa, Egypt, Israel, Turkey, France, Greece, Italy, Spain and more. There may be ever newer reasons for eating vegetarian, but the age-old wisdom of the produce-rich Mediterranean diet, based on the trinity of grains, olive oil and wine, makes for an exquisite, well-founded meatless cuisine.
Recipes include: Turkish Fennel Salad; Pasta e Fagioli; Marinated Pearl Onions with Tomato-Saffron Sauce; Grilled Polenta with Triple-Pepper Sauce; Pasta with Fava Beans and Peas; Chickpea-Couscous Croquettes; Vegetable Tagine with Olives and Prunes; Farro and Sun-dried Tomato Focaccia; Baked Quince with Red Wine and Almonds; Olive Oil Cake; and Turkish Apricot Candies.
Making ice cream in an ice cream machine is really easy—you just need a good recipe. Here are more than 75 definitive recipes for ice cream, frozen yogurt, sherbet, sorbet, and sauces. From straightforward to bizarre (you'll have to look for yourself, I'm not telling the strangest recipe in the book), low-fat to extravagant, these recipes will help you make the most of your ice cream maker and experience the pride that comes from making it better than you can buy it, whether you’re serving an exotic sorbet at a summer luncheon or indulging in vanilla ice cream so perfect, as my friend and assistant Zoe Singer says, you'll hit your Mama (she says this is a common expression…)
Recipes include: Apple Cardamom Ice Cream; Chocolate Gelato with Grappa-Soaked Raisins; Instant Chocolate-Hazelnut Ice Cream; Ginger Spiced Pumpkin Ice Cream; Litchi Ice Cream; Lemon Custard Ice Cream; Cinnamon Almond Sherbet; Pineapple Margarita Sorbet; and Tangerine Sorbet.
Sylvia Woods is the “Queen of Soul Food” and her family cookbook includes delicious and satisfying soul food recipes from her home and restaurant as well as from the big, food-loving network of her friends and family. The book also tells Sylvia’s amazing rags-to-riches life story for the first time, from her childhood in Hemingway, South Carolina, to the opening of the now world-famous Sylvia’s Restaurant, in Harlem. Snapshots through the years show how preparing and eating wonderful food has been an integral part of life for Sylvia and her family and friends.
Recipes include: Bedelia’s Vidalia-Dressed Garden Salad; Bedelia’s Barbecued Beef Short Ribs; Bacon with Grits; Crizette’s Crispy Corn Fritters; Garlic Chicken; Sylvia’s Collard Greens with Smoked Turkey; Butter Beans and Okra; Mama’s Sweet Potato Poon; Southern-Style Coconut Custard Pie; and Thomas Cooper’s Renowned Lemonade.
You can toss pasta with practically anything edible and call it an easy meal, but even comfort food can be classy. This pretty book is filled with pasta recipes so simple, appealing and elegant that you’ll want to try them all. Ranging from little-known Italian classics, to fresh, summery salads, to surprisingly easy yet impressive baked pasta dishes, to creative combos you can center a meal around, these straight-forward recipes and hunger-provoking photos make it clear that pasta is one of the best foods for every mood and season—as if you needed convincing…
Recipes include: Six-Herb Pasta Salad; Moroccan Vermicelli and Chickpea Soup; Pumpkin Tortelloni with Cilantro Vinaigrette; Linguine with Black Pepper Bread Crumbs; Salmon with Tagliatelle and Fried Leeks; Beef Daube with Rigatoni; Gemelli with Asparagus and Roasted Mushrooms; and Orzo Pudding with Pistachios and Raisins.
This sequel to The Bread Machine Cookbook focuses in on the bounty of dessert, breakfast and tea, coffee, or snack-time sweet breads and pastries that you can create in your bread machine, or with breads you’ve made in your bread machine. Recipes are international in scope, with a variety of classics as well as all the inspired experiments that sounded weird but turned out great (we love weird experiments that turn out great…especially those involving canned lotus paste…you'll have to buy the book to see for yourself).
Recipes include: Quick Croissants; Chocolate Brioche; Butterscotch Pear Bread; Orange Blossom Tea Puffs; Glazed Chelsea Buns; Moravian Sweet Potato Sugar Cake; Maple Walnut Coffee Ring; Pistachio Rose Braid; Rum Babas; Sweet Lavender Focaccia; and Summer Pudding
You can spend 20 minutes chasing your tail and wondering how to feed imminently arriving guests, or you can spend that time making a meal that is both satisfying and exciting. This book cuts through the anxiety and confusion that makes cooking far more complex than necessary. With the Instant Gourmet approach, you’ll be able to let pristine, flavorful ingredients shine in party hors d’oeuvres, elegant main courses and side dishes, pizzas, and desserts. So please, relax and feel free to procrastinate, the cooking will be fun. Of course, if making conversation at your dinner party feels like a chore, well then you’ll need a different book.
Recipes include: Green Bean Salad with Walnuts and Pecorino; Pancetta, Pearl Onion and Sage Pizza; Cold Cucumber Soup with Shrimp and Tarragon; Turkey with Anchovy Butter; Pork with Dried and Fresh Apples; Poached Bay Scallops in Ginger-Beet Broth; Cumin Couscous with Zucchini; Sour Cherry Fool; and Chestnut Rum Mousse.
INFO TK, but it's a cute little book with everything you need to know about cooking in it.
Legend has it that the joys of coffee were first discovered by a frisky goat—and then the astute shepherd who noticed what his flock was nibbling. This small, frisky book(if I may say so myself) is large in scope, and it fully explores the rich subject of coffee. Connoisseurs will savor the in-depth information about the world history and agriculture of the bean, the health facts and myths surrounding it, how to buy, store, and prepare coffee for serving brewed, as cappuccino, espresso, Turkish coffee and more. The recipe section shows enthusiasts how to use coffee in cooking—both savory and sweet—to add the depth of flavor that makes this America’s favorite drink.
Recipes include: Cappuccino Pancakes; Cream of Mushroom Soup; Pâté au Café; Swordfish Steaks with Ginger, Orange and Coffee; Coffee Punch; Coffee-Chestnut Extravaganza; Moist Mocha Cake; Granita di Caffè; and Espresso-Anise Wafers.
If you thought having a bread machine would mean having great bread, well you were in for a disappointment. But not to worry, you just need recipes designed for this appliance. After all, kneading by hand and baking in the oven is a far cry from throwing everything into a box and pressing a button, so work with your machine and use this recipe-packed paperback to discover how easy and fulfilling it is to bring the wonderful smells and flavors of homemade bread up-to-date with a bread machine. These recipes allow bakers to maximize the convenience of this appliance without sacrificing the wide range of pleasures that sweet, savory, soft, crusty, plain, fancy, classic and original breads can offer. It was my very first cookbook, by the way…so long ago…
Recipes include: Country White Bread; Five Grain Health Bread; Sesame Cashew Bread; Buttermilk Oatmeal Rolls; Swedish Rye Bread; Fresh Herb and Onion Pizza; Sourdough Bread; Cherry Almond Bread; and Mexican Chocolate Bread.