The 4-Hour Chef: The Simple Path to Cooking Like a Pro, Learning Anything, and Living the Good Life

by Timothy Ferriss    (Find this book)
WHAT IF YOU COULD BECOME WORLD-CLASS IN ANYTHING IN 6 MONTHS OR LESS?

The 4-Hour Chef isn’t just a cookbook. It’s a choose-your-own-adventure guide to the world of rapid learning.

#1 New York Times bestselling author (and lifelong non-cook) Tim Ferriss takes you from Manhattan to Okinawa, and from Silicon Valley to Calcutta, unearthing the secrets of the world’s fastest learners and greatest chefs. Ferriss uses cooking to explain “meta-learning,” a step-by-step process that can be used to master anything, whether searing steak or shooting 3-pointers in basketball. That is the real “recipe” of The 4-Hour Chef.

You'll train inside the kitchen for everything outside the kitchen. Featuring tips and tricks from chess prodigies, world-renowned chefs, pro athletes, master sommeliers, super models, and everyone in between, this “cookbook for people who don’t buy cookbooks” is a guide to mastering cooking and life.

The 4-Hour Chef is a five-stop journey through the art and science of learning:

1. META-LEARNING. Before you learn to cook, you must learn to learn. META charts the path to doubling your learning potential.
2. THE DOMESTIC. DOM is where you learn the building blocks of cooking. These are the ABCs (techniques) that can take you from Dr, Seuss to Shakespeare.
3. THE WILD. Becoming a master student requires self-sufficiency in all things. WILD teaches you to hunt, forage, and survive.
4. THE SCIENTIST. SCI is the mad scientist and modernist painter wrapped into one. This is where you rediscover whimsy and wonder.
5. THE PROFESSIONAL. Swaraj, a term usually associated with Mahatma Gandhi, can be translated as “self-rule.” In PRO, we’ll look at how the best in the world become the best in the world, and how you can chart your own path far beyond this book.  --  Publisher Marketing

Consider the Fork: A History of How We Cook and Eat

by Bee Wilson    (Find this book)

Since prehistory, humans have braved sharp knives, fire, and grindstones to transform raw ingredients into something delicious—or at least edible. Tools shape what we eat, but they have also transformed how we consume, and how we think about, our food. Technology in the kitchen does not just mean the Pacojets and sous-vide of the modernist kitchen. It can also mean the humbler tools of everyday cooking and eating: a wooden spoon and a skillet, chopsticks and forks.

In Consider the Fork, award-winning food writer Bee Wilson provides a wonderful and witty tour of the evolution of cooking around the world, revealing the hidden history of everyday objects we often take for granted. Knives—perhaps our most important gastronomic tool—predate the discovery of fire, whereas the fork endured centuries of ridicule before gaining widespread acceptance; pots and pans have been around for millennia, while plates are a relatively recent invention. Many once-new technologies have become essential elements of any well-stocked kitchen—mortars and pestles, serrated knives, stainless steel pots, refrigerators. Others have proved only passing fancies, or were supplanted by better technologies; one would be hard pressed now to find a water-powered egg whisk, a magnet-operated spit roaster, a cider owl, or a turnspit dog. Although many tools have disappeared from the modern kitchen, they have left us with traditions, tastes, and even physical characteristics that we would never have possessed otherwise.

Blending history, science, and anthropology, Wilson reveals how our culinary tools and tricks came to be, and how their influence has shaped modern food culture. The story of how we have tamed fire and ice and wielded whisks, spoons, and graters, all for the sake of putting food in our mouths, Consider the Fork is truly a book to savor.  --  Publisher Marketing

Hungry Girl to the Max!: The Ultimate Guilt-Free Cookbook

by Lisa Lillien    (Find this book)

Go TO THE MAX with the most massive and complete Hungry Girl cookbook ever—-650 recipes from the guru of guilt-free eating! 

Consider this your HUNGRY GIRL BIBLE. In Hungry Girl to the Max!, Lisa Lillien has created a book that is a must-have for anyone who craves insanely delicious food without the high-calorie price tag! HG classics like large-and-in-charge egg mugs, oversized oatmeal bowls, crock-pot recipes, comfort foods, foil-pack dishes, and fast-food swaps are all here. You’ll also find single-serving recipes, dishes with five ingredients or less, meatless meals, and more. Including:

*Chili Cheese Egg Mug (195 calories)

*Cinna-Raisin Oatmeal (301 calories) 

*Over the Rainbow Pancakes (267 calories) 

*Onion Rings Parm (176 calories)

*Garlic-Bread White Pizza (289 calories) 

*Southwestern Meatloaf (232 calories) 

*Cheesed-Up Taco Turkey Burgers (219 calories) 

*Veggie-Loaded Cashew Chicken (318 calories) 

*Gooey-Good Fuji Apple Pie (159 calories) 

*Chocolate PB Pretzel Cupcakes (135 calories) 

. . . and SO much more!  --  Publisher Marketing

The Science of Good Cooking: Master 50 Simple Concepts to Enjoy a Lifetime of Success in the Kitchen

by America's Test Kitchen   (Find this book)
In this radical new approach to home cooking, we use science to explain what goes on in the kitchen. Unlike other food science books, we make a direct and practical connection between the science and the cooking. We divide the book into 50 core principles, support them through detailed yet friendly explanations, bring them alive with color illustrations and inventive experiments, and reinforce them through recipes that put the principle to work. At Cook's Illustrated, we've been asking why in the kitchen for over 20 years and often find our answers in science. We believe good science makes great food and that understanding basic science will make you a great cook.  --  Publisher Marketing