With Think Like a Chef, Tom Colicchio has created a new kind of cookbook. Rather than list a series of restaurant recipes, he uses simple steps to deconstruct a chef's creative process, making it easily available to any home cook. He starts with techniques: What's roasting, for example, and how do you do it in the oven or on top of the stove? He also gets you comfortable with braising, sautéing, and making stocks and sauces. Next he introduces simple "ingredients" -- roasted tomatoes, say, or braised artichokes -- and tells you how to use them in a variety of ways. So those easy roasted tomatoes may be turned into anything from a vinaigrette to a caramelized tomato tart, with many delicious options in between. In a section called Trilogies, Tom takes three ingredients and puts them together to make one dish that's quick and other dishes that are increasingly more involved. As Tom says, "Juxtaposed in interesting ways, these ingredients prove that the whole can be greater than the sum of their parts," and you'll agree once you've tasted the Ragout of Asparagus, Morels, and Ramps or the Baked Free-Form "Ravioli" -- both dishes made with the same trilogy of ingredients. The final section of the books offers simple recipes for components -- from zucchini with lemon thyme to roasted endive with whole spices to boulangerie potatoes -- that can be used in endless combinations. Written in Tom's warm and friendly voice and illustrated with glorious photographs of finished dishes, Think Like a Chef will bring out the master chef in all of us.

The I Want to Be... series provides young readers with some exciting opportunities to think... an attractive choice for beginning readers ... Recommended. -- Library Media Connection The I Want to Be... series gives young children a realistic insight into the working day of adults. Easy-to-read captions and color photographs of men and women from different cultures help children understand what's involved in each occupation. Young readers learn all about what it takes to do an interesting job well. Along the way, they appreciate the contributions these workers make to our lives and the world around us. Popular cooking shows on television are capturing the imagination of youngsters as well as adults, and children are keen to know what it takes to become a professional chef. In I Want to Be a Chef, young readers will learn about what goes on behind the scenes of a restaurant. They'll observe chefs mixing, chopping, baking -- and working as a team. They'll find out about training, assisting, different types of chefs, and safe food-handling practices. They'll also learn about chefs who write cookbooks and host television shows. The book ends with a checklist that summarizes the qualities of a good chef. I Want to Be a Chef is packed with real-life photos and includes interesting and easy-to-read captions -- plus a recipe or two. It's a book in which the whole family can become involved.

Building upon Timothy Ferriss's internationally successful "4-hour" franchise, The 4-Hour Chef transforms the way we cook, eat, and learn. Featuring recipes and cooking tricks from world-renowned chefs, and interspersed with the radically counterintuitive advice Ferriss's fans have come to expect, The 4-Hour Chef is a practical but unusual guide to mastering food and cooking, whether you are a seasoned pro or a blank-slate novice.

I Want to Be a Chef is packed with recipes for breakfast, lunchtime and dinner, with plenty of healthy snacks and sweet treats, too. Clear step-by-step pictures help you to mix, roll out, slice, fold in, chop ... all the way to a successful result. Ages 8+.

Tom Colicchio, chef/co-owner of New York’s acclaimed Gramercy Tavern, offers inspriation to cooks of any skill level with 140 simple recipes and technical tips. Realizing that his own culinary style had grown increasingly unembellished, and gambling that New York diners were experiencing that same kind of culinary fatigue (brought on by too much “fancy food”), Colicchio set out to prove that the finest food didn’t have to be the most complicated. So in March 2001 he opened a new restaurant, Craft, that offered diners simple, soulful dishes centered around single ingredients that went on to shake up many people’s ideas of what “restaurant food” should be like. Craft of Cooking leads you through Colicchio’s thought process in choosing raw materials—like what to look for in fresh fish, or how to choose the perfect mushroom—to show that good food is available to anyone with access to a good supermarket, farm stand, or gourmet grocery. The book also features “Day-in-the-Life-of-Craft” portraits, which offer a fascinating, behind-the-scenes glimpse at areas of the restaurant beyond the dining room. These segments allow you to peer into the fast-paced prep kitchen, to witness the high drama of reservations, and to get a taste of the humor and empathy necessary to serve New York’s colorful visitors and foodies. Using Tom’s straightforward and friendly voice, Craft of Cooking offers recipes suited to any purpose—from a quick family meal to a festive dinner party for twelve.

“Exudes a down-to-earth vibe. Packed with creative recipes constructed from fresh seasonal produce . . . accessible and inspiring at the same time.” —HuffPost Stephanie Izard knows how to inspire, captivate, and cook up a storm. Fan favorite and the first and only woman to win on TV’s Top Chef, she’s also the chef and owner of the acclaimed Girl & the Goat restaurant in Chicago. Girl in the Kitchen collects more than one hundred of Izard’s best recipes, from innovative appetizers like Asian-Spiced English Peas to luscious desserts like Quince and Fig Cobbler with Vanilla Mascarpone. Beautifully photographed and bursting with flavor, personality, and insights into the top chef’s process—including where she finds her cooking muses, how she shops for food, and which beers and wines she chooses to accompany her meals—this book represents the culmination of a craft and provides inspiration that reaches far beyond the kitchen walls. “A cookbook that should make anyone comfortable in the kitchen. The photos by Dan Goldberg are lush, and tips throughout cover techniques, ingredients, and wine or beer pairings for each dish. Izard wants her readers to have fun and even invites them to change up the recipes—just the way a professional chef does.” —Chicago magazine “Stephanie’s book is not only one of the most visibly appealing and beautiful cookbooks I’ve seen in a very long time, it’s also filled with awesome creative recipes that are sensible (like her). Stephanie is an amazing chef, an immense talent and a wonderful woman.” —Michelle Bernstein, James Beard Award–winning chef

A cookbook based on the first three seasons of the television cooking competition also includes behind-the-scenes anecdotes from the show, competitors' reflections, and episode guides.