Gifts

Cooler weather tends to bring out the inner cook in all of us when we want to spend more time in the kitchen creating special meals for ourselves, as well as for family and friends. Always on the lookout for inspiration, we fell in love with The Complete Autumn & Winter Cookbook by America’s Test Kitchen, which has over 550 recipes that will dazzle the senses and provide plenty of inspiration for everyday meals, holiday meals, breads, brunches, festive drinks, …

Whether you are looking for a bit of culinary inspiration, wisdom, or humor, A Chef’s Book of Favorite Culinary Quotations – An Inspired Collection For Those Who Love To Cook And Those Who Love To Eat compiled by Susi Gott Séguret and published by Hatherleigh Press, Ltd Is a perfect read for yourself, or for your favorite foodie. The book features over 200 memorable quotations from Auguste Escoffier, Irma S. Rombauer, James Beard, Julia Child, Jacques Pepin, Alton Brown, Virginia …

We do lots of cooking and baking that require very precise, exact temperatures where a degree or two higher or lower can mean the difference between success or failure. Throughout the years we have used many cooking thermometers to ensure accuracy, and recently "discovered" the ThermoWorks Thermapen® ONE, which has the added benefit of producing fast one-second digital readings! Cooking and baking just got a lot easier. With holiday shopping just around the corner, the ThermoWorks Thermapen® ONE is a …

Whenever I think of memorable dinners that Edward and I have enjoyed throughout the years, truffles are always involved. Decadent, earthy, exotic, and expensive, a little goes a long way to add flavor. Cooking With Truffles: A Chef’s Guide written by Susi Gott Séguret and published by Hatherleigh Press, Ltd. delves into the intriguing world of truffles and provides both insight and 150 delectable truffle recipes designed for the professional chef as well as the home cook. Bon Appetit!

We recently "discovered" a fabulous Brazilian gourmet confectionary named Soul Sweet Boutique located in Newark and Elizabeth, New Jersey, which also sells online and ships throughout the United States. Owned by Thatiana Rangel, Soul Sweet Boutique carries a wide selection of traditional Brazilian desserts along with modern sweets to tempt your palate. Since the pandemic curtailed our annual trips to Brazil, in addition to missing our "family" and friends, we missed the sweets of Brazil and were thrilled to find …

The SAMBA Montclair Cookbook by Chef Ilson Gonçalves is a glorious celebration of authentic Brazilian homestyle cooking. Originally from the state of Santa Catarina in the south of Brazil, Chef Ilson Gonçalves makes his home in Montclair, New Jersey where his creative cuisine has dazzled patrons with restaurant, SAMBA Montclair, since it opened in December 2010. His cookbook takes the reader on a visual and taste bud tour of Brazil with his delectable recipes ranging from appetizers to desserts. It …

Cold and rainy weather will soon be here making it the perfect time to stay inside and play family board games. I grew up playing epic, marathon games of Monopoly with my sister Joanne and brother David. As young children we spent many countless happy hours playing this game of skill, luck, and strategy, which was permanently installed on the games table in the family room of our home. When I learned that Top Trumps USA Inc. was introducing a …

If you love wine, history, and formal dinners, you are going to love the book Wine and the White House: A History by Frederick J. Ryan, Jr. I fell in love with this stunning book filled with interesting anecdotes about the Presidents of the United States of America from President George Washington through President Donald Trump, and provides an in-depth look at the history of wine served at the White House through the years. For gastronomy lovers, the book is …

High-quality extra virgin olive oil, affectionately known as EVOO, is like liquid gold for professional chefs and dedicated home cooks. With a rise in the organic farm movement we were thrilled to find The Trentasette Collection Organic EVOO, which is USDA Organic certification, OU Kosher certified, and is Non-GMO imported from Italy by the company, Italian Products & Beyond that is the perfect complement to your organic farmers markets finds. Used for dipping, drizzling, cooking, sauteing or finishing, we loved …

What I found especially interesting about the book Vincent van Gogh A Life in Letters edited by Nienke Bakker, Leo Jansen and Hans Luijten published in September 2020 by Thames & Hudson, Ltd is that Vincent’s story is not told by someone else, rather his life deftly unfolds by Vincent himself through his letters to his brother Theo van Gogh (1857 – 1891) providing the reader with new insight into the mind and world of the artist.