My shelves are overflowing with this years’ latest cookbooks and more! Take a Sneak peak at 1,000 Mitzvahs: How Small Acts of Kindness Can Heal, Inspire, and Change Your Life; ALL ACCESS: The Rock ‘n’ Roll Photography of Ken Regan; Hanukkah Stories: Thoughts on Family, Celebration and Joy; Syd Arthur; Inside the Jewish Bakery; Kosher Revolution: New Techniques and Great Recipes for Unlimited Kosher Cooking; Rose Petal Jam and Fresh & Easy Kosher Cooking: Ordinary Ingredients, Extraordinary Meals.
1,000 Mitzvahs: How Small Acts of Kindness Can Heal, Inspire, and Change Your Life (Seal Press/ $16.00/ November 2011), by Linda Cohen, shares her two-and-a-half-year journey from sorrow to inspiration through simple daily acts of kindness. When her father passed away in 2006, Cohen’s busy life as a mother, wife, and entrepreneur came to a screeching halt. She took a spiritual sabbatical to work through her grief, and she came out of it resolved to embark upon a project: perform one thousand acts of kindness—mitzvahs—to honor her father’s memory. More than a touching story of a daughter’s love for her father, 1,000 Mitzvahs is a testament to the transformational power of kindness, and a call to arms for those who would like to follow in Cohen’s footsteps with their own mitzvahs—no matter how large or how small.
About the Author: After graduating high school, Linda Cohen left her New England home to study for one year in Israel, where she found a strong connection to her Jewish identity. She returned to the United States to pursue a bachelor’s degree in Jewish studies from the University of Judaism in Los Angeles, after which she received a master’s degree from Brandeis University in Jewish communal service. Since then, she has been both a professional and a lay leader in the Jewish community. As a lifelong volunteer, she actively encourages people to discover the benefits of being in service to others. Linda lives in Oregon with her husband and two children.
ALL ACCESS: The Rock ‘n’ Roll Photography of Ken Regan, photographs by Ken Regan, text by Jim Jerome, preface by Keith Richards, introduction by Mick Jagger, afterword by James Taylor (Hardcover/$75/October 2011). An extraordinary archive from acclaimed photographer Ken Regan provides an unprecedented backstage pass to 40 years of the biggest bands and moments in rock history!
Ken Regan was there when the Beatles touched down on U.S. soil for the first time in 1964. He caught candid snapshots of their arrival at JFK International Airport in New York City, photographed their backstage downtime at the Ed Sullivan Show and spent a day clowning around with the Fab Four in Central Park. This is what you call access-the type of proximity and intimacy with artists that have made Regan’s images sought-after windows to the most historically significant moments in the last 40 years of rock and roll.
And with his exceptional new book, All Access: The Rock and Roll Photography of Ken Regan, Regan grants you, a little taste of that backstage wonderment. He palled around with the Stones in 1975 in Montauk. He took Dylan’s favorite picture of himself. He hit the gym with Madonna in 1985. He’s ridden shotgun with Run DMC in Hollis, Queens. “I was able to catch many legendary rock pioneers at ease,” Regan writes. And as readers will note, it is Regan’s “interest in doing more than just photo ops and concert shoots” that delivers some of the most remarkable cultural documents of the past half-century. All Access is a collection of photographs, but more than that, it is a compilation of memories, stories from the front lines of several revolutions: the rock revolution; Pete Seeger’s peace movement and Woodstock (“a photographer’s paradise”); and the birth of hip hop. “As a photojournalist, there were thousands of assignments that I covered over the last four decades,” say Regan. “I am forever grateful.”
About the Author(s):
Ken Regan is an award-winning photographer, whose work has appeared on more than 200 magazine covers, including Time, New York Times Magazine, Rolling Stone, People, Newsweek, Life and Entertainment Weekly. He visually documented such extraordinary concerts as The Band’s Last Waltz and George Harrison’s Concert for Bangladesh. His previous photography book, Knockout: The Art of Boxing, earned an Independent Book Publishers Gold Medal Award. Regan lives in New York and Massachusetts.
Jim Jerome has coauthored a number of best-selling memoirs, collaborating with leading figures in popular music, film, television, cable news and business. He has also profiled hundreds of rock, pop, country music, film and television artists for People, Us, InStyle, and AARP magazines. He lives in New York.
Mick Jagger is a singer, songwriter, and founding member of The Rolling Stones. The iconic Rolling Stones front man has released five solo albums, beginning with She’s the Boss in 1985 and was knighted in 2003 by the Prince of Wales for Services to Music.
Keith Richards is a guitarist, vocalist, songwriter and founding member of The Rolling Stones. He has released solo albums with his band, X-Pensive Winos and in 2011 published his autobiography, Life, which became a New York Times best seller. He lives in Connecticut with his wife, Patti Hansen.
James Taylor is a Grammy Award- winning singer, songwriter and guitarist. He was awarded the National Medal of Arts in 2011, the nation’s highest honor for artistic excellence. He lives in Massachusetts with his wife, Kim, and their two sons.
Hanukkah Stories: Thoughts on Family, Celebration and Joy (Frederick Fell Publishers, Inc./$16.95/2011) by Nancy Rips is a beautiful, hardcover gift book filled with heartwarming reminiscences about Hanukkah experiences across the globe –from an RV campground in California, on the ice in Finland, even aboard Spaceship Hubble. There’s also a chapter just for latkes, including chocolate chip ones.
Syd Arthur (Pearlsong Press/ $19.95/2011) Prince Siddhartha, raised behind palace walls and showered with every extravagance, abandoned his protected life to embark on a spiritual journey. He ultimately reached enlightenment and became known as Buddha, which means one who is awake, and spent his life teaching that everyone has the potential to awaken.
Twenty-five hundred years later in the cloistered world of suburbia, meet Syd Arthur. Syd is a middle-aged Jewish woman who is potentially awake but likes to start her day with a strong cup of coffee, just in case. Her daughter has just left for college; she’s starting to feel the empty nest and searching for meaning in her life. Ellen Frankel’s new novel chronicles the mid-life adventures of her heroine, Sydney Arthur, as she struggles with the issues that woman face today from diet fads and weight obsession, women’s friendships, to the search for more meaning in life. Frankel takes Syd to higher levels as she takes her out of her secured suburbia and enters the bigger world she yearns to discover. And once she finds out how to sift thought the fluff and reach to the core, nothing can stop her journey toward Nirvana.
Using humor and style, Ellen Frankel brings Syd Arthur to life. As many of us approach the empty nest and loneliness that comes with our children moving on and out, we struggle to find purpose and fulfillment within ourselves. Frankel makes Syd’s search a universal one that all women will relate to and get some hearty laughs in all at the same time.
About the Author: Ellen Frankel, LCSW, worked in the field of eating disorder treatment and prevention for over 15 years. She has been interviewed by national newspapers, traditional and online magazines, as well as national radio programs across the country. She has appeared on local and national television including NBC’s Today Show, CBS’s Early Show, Fox New’s Your World with Neil Cabuto and The Doctor Phil show. In addition to her latest book, Syd Arthur, Ellen is the author of Beyond Measure; A Memoir About Short Stature and Inner Growth (Pearlsong Press 2006) and is the co-author of The Diet Survivor’s Handbook; 60 Lessons In Eating, Acceptance And Self-Care (Sourcebooks 2006) and Beyond a Shadow of a Diet; The Therapist Guide to Treating Compulsive Eating (Brunner-Routledge 2004). She has also published in professional journals and has been featured in local newspapers The Boston Globe, The Jewish Journal North of Boston, and The Jewish Advocate. Ellen lives in Marblehead, Mass. With her husband, Steve, and dog, Karma. She has recently experienced the empty nest firsthand as both her daughter and son are currently in college. Happily for her, they both accepted her friend request on Facebook.
Inside the Jewish Bakery Recipes and Memories from the Golden Age of Jewish Baking (Camino Books/ $24.95/2011) There is nothing like being in a bakery, staring at counters of freshly made delights, trays full of breads and bagels, cookies and other treats, and deciding what to buy. Small, family-run Jewish bakeries that once lay at the heart of close-knit urban neighborhoods all over America have fallen victim to the demise of the old-school bakers, shifting demographics and economical realities. But Stanley Ginsberg and Norman Berg seek to keep the memories of these Jewish bakeries alive with their new book. More than just a collection of recipes, Inside the Jewish Bakery chronicles the history and traditions as well as the distinctive baked goods of Ashkenazi Jewry in Eastern Europe and its immigration to America. Utilizing a vast array of sources, the authors have crafted an engaging “edible history.”
Kosher Revolution: New Techniques and Great Recipes for Unlimited Kosher Cooking is the groundbreaking new book by kosher caterer (and former prep cook for Food Network) Geila Hocherman and acclaimed food writer Arthur Boehm, (Kyle Books/ $29 /October 2011). Geila Hocherman is a kosher cook with a mission—to make kosher cooking indistinguishable from any other kind. Don’t get her wrong. She loves good, traditional kosher cooking, but is also determined to make kosher fare just as delicious and inventive as any other type of cuisine. “Because I fell off the kosher wagon for a time,” says Hocherman, “I know what trafe tastes like, and some of it is very, very good. So I can help anyone create the best, most diversely flavorful kosher cooking.”
Playing by the kosher kitchen rules—using kosher-certified ingredients only and observing prescribed dietary rules—Geila and Arthur set out to show kosher home cooks how to make modern, blow-them-out-of the-water kosher dishes—exciting, contemporary food, from wine-braised short ribs to beef and chicken satays with peanut sauce and more—Kosher Revolution.
To gain this cooking flexibility, Geila and Arthur tell readers how to create a “kosher revolution” pantry, one that takes advantage of today’s expanded, multi-ethnic, kosher ingredient availability. Once the shelves and refrigerator are stocked, Hocherman offers an expanded culinary toolbox that will show readers how any non-kosher dish or recipe can be converted to a kosher one with nothing lost in translation.
Rose Petal Jam (Tabula Books /$35/September 2011/Hardcover; ISBN 9780956699206) By Beata Zatorska & Simon Target. Accompanied by her English husband, Simon, Beata spent a summer exploring her home country, traveling tiny roads lined with wild rose bushes and finding castles and palaces among meadows and forests. This culinary journey became the basis for Rose Petal Jam, which is beautifully illustrated with hundreds of full-color photographs of the recipes, countryside and the main cities of Poland including Warsaw, Gdan´sk and Kraków and family pictures. This visually stunning book has other unique touches too including favorite poems and paintings from the nation’s galleries, providing readers with a wonderful introduction to the food, culture, people and places of Poland. Rose Petal Jam features more than 50 recipes that reveal Polish cuisine to be both subtle and varied.
“It was my job at age 5 to gather fresh rose petals from my grandmother’s garden. Those silky soft petals, sparkling with dew, came away easily in my hand and landed gently in my wicker basket. Their rosy fragrance lingered on my fingers for the rest of day. My grandmother, Józefa, put those petals in a large stone mortar, covered them with lots of sugar and blended them into a thick, magenta-colored paste. Rose Petal Jam was her most precious preserve – a dollop of summer to be released during the long winter months.” — Beata Zatorska, from Rose Petal Jam
Beata Zatorska learned to make rose petal jam, pierogi, and other Polish recipes in the kitchen of her grandmother’s farmhouse in a remote village in the foothills of the Karkonosze Mountains where she grew up. When she returned 20 years later her grandmother, a professional chef, was gone but she found her handwritten recipes for preparing traditional Polish dishes and preserves. Rose Petal Jam is a delightful collection of recipes, memories, and locations that celebrates the best of Poland.
About The Authors:
Beata Zatorska was born in Jelenia, Góra, in southwest Poland and raised and taught to cook by her grandmother. She began her medical studies in Wroclaw but left for Australia at the age of 19. She finished her medical studies in Australia, graduating from the University of Sydney and now works as a family practice doctor in Sydney. Her fascination with medicine began during long mountain walks she took with her grandmother, who taught her the use of herbs and wildflowers in cooking and healing. Like many Poles who live in other countries, she has kept Poland in her heart. When she finally returned, the first thing she did was leap into a wild rose bush to smell the petals – the scent of her Polish childhood.
Simon Target read English and Music at Cambridge University before studying at Britain’s National Film School. A well-known writer/director, he has directed television chefs and food writers such as Donna Hay, Curtis Stone, Kylie Kwong and Rick Stein among many others. The son of Australian landscape painter Pat Prentice, Simon lovingly photographed the country where Beata grew up.
CookKosher.com co-founder and food editor Leah Schapira introduces Fresh & Easy Kosher Cooking: Ordinary Ingredients, Extraordinary Meals.
(Artscroll/Mesorah//$34.99/Hardcover)
Inspiring everyone from traditional kosher cooks to everyday working women and moms, Leah shows how to use simple, fresh ingredients to create time-sensitive, tasty meals for all to enjoy.
A busy wife and mother, Leah extends her recipes to a wide audience of people who don’t have much time to cook. She includes useful tips, minimal ingredients, and easy-to-follow steps. The book is organized into delicious chapters with sections containing timesaving tips such as menus, freezer-friendly meals and an index of food pairings for week-night recipes. Her seasonal menus encourage home cooks to take advantage of market-fresh, simple ingredients for even easier recipe planning.
A unique feature of Fresh & Easy is the Menu Suggestions section following the Table of Contents, which provides full-color thumbnail photos of many of the recipes. A busy home cook can choose at a glance what to make in a hurry. Even better, leave these pages open and let family members suggest from the pictures what they’d like for dinner meals in the coming week. In addition, all main dishes come with at least two side dish pairings, which simplifies the decision of how to round out a meal.
Leah’s recipe offerings are generous, with over 170 selections subdivided by Menus, Soups, Salads, Dips and Sauces, Side Dishes, Brunch and Lunch, Main Dishes, Traditional Jewish foods, and Desserts, with full-color photos throughout the book. Leah’s Dessert section is substantial, with 37 suggestions ranging from Brownie Ice Cream Sandwiches to Colorful Popcorn to Watermelon Sorbet. The Mains consist primarily of chicken, beef, and fish, but they are welcome variations on familiar themes such as Chimichurri Skewered Steak (a Brazilian dish), Creamy Thai Chicken Thighs, Citrus Sea Bass and some very delicious Chicken Fajitas.
