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First Timer’s Kit

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Fine Waters

Water is indeed everywhere-especially bottled water. High-end restaurants now have water lists in addition to wine lists, water bars are opening up around the globe, and gourmet markets are selling dozens of different varieties of domestic and imported bottled waters. Consumers are beginning to recognize that bottled water, like wine, has a unique identity that is defined by its origin.

Fine Waters introduces readers to the epicurean delights of water, sharing the ins and outs of the characteristics that provide various waters with their unique flavors, as well as recommended food pairings, stemware suggestions, and optimum serving temperatures for enjoying both still and sparkling waters. The book also provides tasting notes for more than 100 of the world’s best bottled waters. Produced in full color, with photographs throughout, Fine Waters is the first guide to this up-and-coming food trend.

DR. MICHAEL MASCHA is a food anthropologist, culinary expert, and proprietor of finewaters.com.

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Field Guide to Tools

What’s a plumb bob look like? Where can I find a chop saw? How can I tell the difference between a tire wrench and a box wrench?

If you’ve ever asked these kinds of questions, you need Field Guide to Tools, an illustrated guide to the world of hardware stores and home improvement centers. From glass cutters and marking gauges to grout saws and caulk guns, you’ll learn how to identify and use more than 100 different tools. Author John Kelsey (a columnist for This Old House magazine) provides step-by-step directions for using each tool, along with interesting historical anecdotes and creative alternative uses. Best of all, the book includes color photographs of every tool for easy identification.

Don’t attempt another fix-it-yourself project without Field Guide to Tools!

JOHN KELSEY writes the “Talking Shop” column for This Old House magazine and was formerly the editor of Fine Woodworking magazine. He is the publisher and editor-in-chief at Cambium Press, which specializes in woodworking and furniture making.

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Field Guide to Seafood

There’s more to seafood than lobster tails and fried calamari. Today’s supermarkets are stocked with a bounty of delicious and delightful choices—everything from salmon and snow crabs to oysters, barnacles, and even sea cucumbers! But you don’t need a degree in marine biology to make sense of it all—just Field Guide to Seafood.

Award-winning chef Aliza Green explains everything you need to know about different types of seafood, fish, and prepared fish: how to select them, prepare them, serve them, and more, with a recipe for every one. Beautiful full-color photography depicts carp, catfish, clams, eel, squid, and more than 100 other swimmers. Don’t buy seafood without it!

Aliza Green is a chef, food writer, and teacher based in Philadelphia. She’s the author of Field Guide to Produce (Quirk, 2004), Field Guide to Meat (Quirk, 2005), Field Guide to Herbs & Spices (Quirk, 2006), and Starting with Ingredients. She is coauthor of the James Beard Award–winning cookbook Ceviche! Seafood, Salads, and Cocktails with a Latino Twist.

Posted by impart

Field Guide to Produce

Produce: It’s not just apples and oranges anymore. Today’s supermarket shelves are stocked with strange, exotic, and delightful items such as quince, jicama, kumquats, amaranth, yuzus, and wing beans. But you don’t need a degree in botany to make sense of it all—just carry along Field Guide to Produce! This practical guide to the world’s most popular fruits and vegetables features more than 200 full-color photographs—plus detailed descriptions, selection tips, and guidelines on peeling, blanching, cooking, and eating.

Award-winning chef Aliza Green describes everything you’re likely to find at your local grocery store and farmers’ market—from common cabbages and coconuts to more adventurous fare like chayote and cherimoya. Grocery shopping—and dinner—will never be the same again!

ALIZA GREEN is a chef, food writer, and teacher based in Philadelphia. She’s the author of Field Guide to Herbs & Spices (Quirk, 2006) and Field Guide to Produce (Quirk, 2004) as well as the coauthor of the James Beard–award winning Ceviche!: Seafood, Salads, and Cocktails with a Latino Twist. Visit her on the Web at alizagreen.com.

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The Quotable Douchebag

 

Vanity. Arrogance. Cluelessness. Ego. These are the defining traits of douchebags everywhere – and now their most outlandish statements have been compiled into a single volume. The Quotable Douchebag features dozens of boneheaded and tasteless remarks from scores of actors, musicians, athletes, and politicians, including:
 
David Hasselhoff: “There are many dying children out there whose last wish is to meet me.”
 
Gene Simmons: “[I] don’t believe there’s any difference between a monogamous and a polygamous relationship. Those are all just big words, like gymnasium.”
 
Sean Hannity: “I’ll tell you who should be tortured and killed at Guantanamo: every filthy Democrat in the U.S. Congress.”
 
And many, many more. Complete with photographs of these clowns in all of their chest thumping glory, The Quotable Douchebag is the perfect gag gift for anyone fed up with the men in her life.
 
MARGARET MCGUIRE lives in Philadelphia, the city voted the #1 ugliest city by Travel+Leisure magazine.

Posted by impart