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Food Schmooze: Clinton Street Baking Company Cookbook; The Improvisational Cook;

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Clinton St. Baking Company Cookbook: Breakfast, Brunch and Beyond from New York's Favorite Neighborhood Restaurant

The Clinton St. Baking Company is one of the hottest brunch spots in a city obsessed with brunch. A tiny thirty-two-seat eatery on Manhattan's trendy Lower East Side, the restaurant draws long lines of customers who come from far and wide to sample fresh-baked goods, hearty omelets, sugar-cured bacon, and light-as-air pancakes with maple butter.

In the Clinton St. Baking Company Cookbook, owners DeDe Lahman and Neil Kleinberg share more than 100 treasured recipes that have made their restaurant a sensation. Learn the secret to their house-made buttermilk biscuits and tomato jam, irresistible muffins and scones, delicious soups and sandwiches, and their decadent, eye-catching desserts. Helpful techniques, like Neil's patented omelet "flip and tuck," and gorgeous color photographs throughout will have readers cooking like pros in no time, and sharing the delicious results.

The Improvisational Cook

What happens if you . . .

. . . pair prosciutto with roasted pears?

. . . shave Parmesan on French fries?

. . . add pepper to a chocolate cake?

. . . pan-fry macaroni and cheese?

In The Improvisational Cook, Sally Schneider helps home cooks declare their independence from recipes and set lists of ingredients by offering a fun, more spontaneous way to cook. The secret lies in understanding the internal "logic" of a recipe and its creative possibilities.

Start with an essential dish, such as Caramelized Onions. Following Schneider's clear advice, it can become a savory onion jam; a real onion dip; a quick bruschetta topping with anchovies and olives; or a rustic onion soup with dried porcini mushrooms—all in just a step or two.

The possibilities are endless. Prepare a savory lemon jam to go with lamb or veal chops, or turn it into a cake filling. Roast a whole lobster instead of a fish in a salt crust. Add minced rosemary or Earl Grey tea to butter cookie dough. Turn a brownie batter into an elegant, pepper-scented chocolate cake.

Schneider gives cooks the know-how to embellish, adapt, change, alter, modify, and experiment in their cooking with plenty of encouragement and helpful information. Here are the tools and insights everyone needs to find his or her own voice in the kitchen—from where to get inspiration, to learning "what goes with what," to pantry staples that make improvising easy.

The Essential New York Times Cookbook: Classic Recipes for a New Century

Amanda Hesser, the well-known New York Times food columnist, brings her signature voice and expertise to this compendium of influential and delicious recipes from chefs, home cooks, and food writers. Devoted Times subscribers will find the many treasured recipes they have cooked for years—Plum Torte, David Eyre's Pancake, Pamela Sherrid's Summer Pasta—as well as favorites from the early Craig Claiborne New York Times Cookbook and a host of other classics—from 1940s Caesar salad and 1960s flourless chocolate cake to today's fava bean salad and no-knead bread.

Hesser has cooked and updated every one of the 1,000-plus recipes here. Her chapter introductions showcase the history of American cooking, and her witty and fascinating head notes share what makes each recipe special.

The Essential New York Times Cookbook is for people who grew up in the kitchen with Claiborne, for curious cooks who want to serve a nineteenth-century raspberry granita to their friends, and for the new cook who needs a book that explains everything from how to roll out dough to how to slow-roast fish—a volume that will serve as a lifelong companion.

For more than 25 years, the two-time Peabody Award-winning Faith Middleton Show has been widely recognized for fostering insightful, thought-provoking conversation. Faith Middleton offers her listeners some of the world's most fascinating people and subjects. The show has been inducted into the Connecticut Magazine Hall of Fame as "Best Local Talk Show".

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