Tom Colicchio – Chef Extraordinaire, TV Host, and Author

March 22, 2017February 21, 2017 / Linda / Leave a comment

tom Tom Colicchio is a well-known American chef. He co-founded the Gramercy Tavern in New York City and was the executive chef. He also is the founder of Crafted Hospitality, which includes Craft, Riverpark, Fowler & Wells, Craftbar, Craftsteak, Beachcraft and Heritage Steak restaurants. He is the recipient of five James Beard Foundation Awards. I was introduced to him via the Emmy award winning television show on Bravo, Top Chef. That I would be watching a cooking show is very funny because I don’t, and I can’t, cook. I can read a recipe, but executing it becomes an inedible, unsightly disaster no matter how hard I try. You would think I’d get frustrated or bored watching a cooking show, but Mr. Colicchio is the perfect host for this fast-paced competition among a varied collection of American chefs.

Mr. Colicchio has come out with a new cookbook that will appeal to the hearts of sandwich lovers. It is listed below, along with a few other cookbooks he has had his hand in. Also listed, a powerful documentary film he produced on hunger in America.

‘wichcraft: craft a sandwich into a meal…and a meal into a sandwich – Shares the secrets behind the ‘wichcraft restaurant group’s spin on the sandwich, with recipes for their most popular offerings,essays on stocking the sandwich pantry, and an interview with the owners.

Eat Like A Man: the only cookbook a man will ever need – “So long, dude food. Most men who love food have a roasting pan and a decent spice rack, but they’re still looking for that one book that has all the real food they love to eat and wish they could cook. Esquire food editor Ryan D’Agostino is here to change that with his unapologetically male-centric Eat Like a Man–a choice collection of 75 recipes and food writing for men who like to eat, cook, and read about great food. It’s the Esquire man’s repertoire of perfect recipes, essays on how food figures into the moments that define a man’s life, and all the useful kitchen points every man needs to know. Satisfying, sexy, definitive, and doable, these are recipes for slow Sunday mornings with family, end-of-the-week wind-down dinners with a lady, Saturday night show-off entertaining, poker night feeds, and game-day couch camping. Or, for when a man is just hungry”–

Smart Chefs Stay Slim: lessons in eating and living from America’s best chefs – Celebrity chefs including Michelle Bernstein, Eric Ripert, Tom Colicchio, and Giada de Laurentis provide answers to the often-asked question of how they stay so thin and fit when their occupation clearly is based on their love of indulging in food.

Ten: All the foods we love and ten perfect recipes for each – Identifying thirty-two of our favorite foods, from roast chicken and burgers to mashed potatoes and cakes, a innovative cookbook presents ten variations of each food in a collection of more than three hundred recipes, many contributed by such leading chef s as Jean-Georges Vongerichten, Tom Colicchio, Anthony Bourdain, and others.

A Place At The Table (DVD) – 50 Million Americans—1 in 4 children—don’t know where their next meal is coming from. A Place at the Table tells the powerful stories of three such Americans, who maintain their dignity even as they struggle just to eat. In a riveting journey that will change forever how you think about the hungry, A Place at the Table shows how the issue could be solved forever, once the American public decides—as they have in the past—that ending hunger is in the best interests of us all.

Hot New Contemporary Romance Series

February 6, 2017December 23, 2016 / Linda / Leave a comment

heart-2 I’ve been reading contemporary romance books for a very long time. It’s getting harder to find a book that grabs my attention and captures it until the end of the book. After awhile, the plots seem to be so similar and the endings predictable. After starting three books and returning them to the library after just two chapters, I was thrilled to find a book that held my interest all the way to the end! Author Tessa Bailey has come up with a fresh new series, Romancing the Clarksons, about four siblings coming to terms with the death of their mother.

The first book in the series is Too Hot to Handle.
The road trip was definitely a bad idea. Having already flambéed her culinary career beyond recognition, Rita Clarkson is now stranded in God-Knows-Where, New Mexico, with a busted car and her three temperamental siblings, who she hasn’t seen in years. When rescue shows up—six-feet-plus of hot, charming sex on a motorcycle—Rita’s pretty certain she’s gone from the frying pan right into the fire . . .

Jasper Ellis has a bad boy reputation in town, and he loathes it. The moment he sees Rita, though, Jasper knows he’s about to be sorely tempted. There’s something real between them. Something raw. And Jasper has only a few days to show Rita that he isn’t just for tonight—he’s forever.

The author managed to surprise me with intricate story telling and dramatic turns of events – a complex story hidden beneath excellent writing, with an intriguing cast of characters. This dysfunctional cast of four siblings literally leads you on a journey of anguish, vulnerability, sorrow, humor and passion. This is a book full of life and passion!

I will admit that parts of Too Hot to Handle were, well, too hot for me! There are several explicit sex scenes throughout the book, but not enough for me to stop reading it. Whatever your comfort level is, the book is worth reading to the end. Just skip what is uncomfortable for you!

Book two in the series is Too Wild to Tame – due out January 31, 2017. Hired to work for the country’s most powerful senator, Aaron Clarkson, known for his prowess in the bedroom, finds it hard to not mix business with pleasure when he meets the senator’s daughter, the black sheep of her conservative family who is wild, gorgeous and 100 percent trouble.

too-hard Book three in the series is Too Hard to Forget – due out April 25, 2017. Peggy Clarkson is returning to her alma mater with one goal in mind: confront Elliott Brooks, the man who ruined her for all others, and remind him of what he’s been missing. Even after three years, seeing him again is like a punch in the gut, but Peggy’s determined to stick to her plan. Maybe then, once she has the upper hand, she’ll finally be able to move on.

In the years since Peggy left Cincinnati, Elliott has kept his focus on football. No distractions and no complications. But when Peggy walks back onto his practice field and into his life, he knows she could unravel everything in his carefully controlled world. Because the girl who was hard to forget is now a woman impossible to resist.

Author Tessa Bailey – Tessa Bailey is originally from Carlsbad, California. The day after high school graduation, she packed her yearbook, ripped jeans and laptop, driving cross-country to New York City in under four days.

Her most valuable life experiences were learned thereafter while waitressing at K-Dees, a Manhattan pub owned by her uncle. Inside those four walls, she met her husband, best friend and discovered the magic of classic rock, managing to put herself through Kingsborough Community College and the English program at Pace University at the same time. Several stunted attempts to enter the work force as a journalist followed, but romance writing continued to demand her attention.

She now lives in Long Island, New York with her husband of nine years and four-year-old daughter. Although she is severely sleep-deprived, she is incredibly happy to be living her dream of writing about people falling in love.

Linda Reads: You’re The One By Robin Kaye

August 31, 2013May 1, 2015 / Linda / Leave a comment

This is book two in Robin Kaye’s Bad Boys of Red Hook series. They do not have to be read in order. Book one is Back To You and is available at the Cheshire Library. The series concentrates on three men who bounced around the foster care system until a New York cop took them under his wing.

You’re The One centers around Logan Blaise, the manager of a successful Napa Valley winery. He’s engaged to the winery’s owner’s daughter and living the high life. When his foster father becomes ill, Logan heads back to New York to temporarily oversee his father’s restaurant, the Crow’s Nest. No sooner does he arrive, the chef has a family emergency and has to quit.

Skye Maxwell comes from a famous restaurant family in San Francisco. She has four brothers who were gifted with their own restaurants on their 30th birthday. Being an exceptional chef, all Skye has ever wanted was a kitchen/restaurant of her own and she expects to receive her own restaurant on her 30^th birthday. Instead, she is promoted to Business Manager of all the family restaurants. Devastated, she very quietly and secretly disappears. She heads to New York City, hoping to find a job as a chef on her own merits, not on her family’s reputation. She ends up in Brooklyn and stumbles upon the chef wanted sign in the Crow’s Nest’s window.

Right away there is an attraction between Logan and Skye – a love/hate attraction. Both characters have to overcome formidable obstacles in their pursuit of love, happiness, independence, and acceptance. Both have families interfering with their journey, both have self-doubts to overcome, but neither one can deny the incredible chemistry that exists between them.

Ms. Kaye writes a heartwarming, believable story set in the wonderful backdrop of Brooklyn and San Francisco. It is warm, funny and very entertaining. Secondary characters add another interesting layer to a very well-written story.