Food & Cooking

A guide to ramen for the home cook, from the chef behind the beloved shop Otaku Ramen.

Sarah Gavigan is otaku. Loosely translated, she’s a ramen geek. During her twenty years working in film production and as a music executive in L.A., Gavigan ate her way through the local ramen spots, but upon moving back to her native Nashville, she found she missed the steaming bowls of ramen she used to devour. So she dedicated herself to mastering the oft-secretive but always delicious art of ramen-making and opened her own shop within a few years.

An Italian American born and raised in the South, Gavigan is an unlikely otaku. While her knowledge of ramen is rooted in tradition, her methods and philosophies are modern. Though ramen is often shrouded in mystery, Gavigan’s 40+ recipes are accessible to the home cook who wants to learn about the cuisine but would sometimes rather make a quick stock in a pressure cooker than labor over a vat of liquid for twenty-four hours.

Ramen Otaku strips the mystique from ramen while embracing its history, magic, and rightful place in the American home kitchen.

In his debut cookbook, James Beard Award–winning chef Dan Kluger shares 190 recipes to help home cooks master flavor and technique

Dan Kluger, a chef celebrated for his simple yet flavorful food, knows there’s more to mastering cooking than just following directions. So with each of the innovative, elegant recipes in his debut cookbook, he includes a valuable lesson that applies beyond the tasty dish. For example, master the art of mixing raw and cooked versions of the same ingredient while preparing a Sugar Snap Pea Salad with Manchego Vinaigrette.

From homemade pantry items to vegetable mains, meats, and grains, this book is not just sophisticated recipes but a master class of lessons for more flexibility and innovation in the kitchen.

Salads for all seasons, moods, occasions and cravings.

For too long salads have languished on the side-lines of dining tables, reduced to mere accompaniments or starters, but what if we gave salads the limelight they deserve? Salads Are More Than Leaves brings salads centre stage, showcasing dishes that are big on flavour, texture and impact. You’ll never see salads in the same way again.

Featuring sections on building your salad, maximising flavour and plating your salad to impress, More Than Leaves includes over 80 recipes for salads to get excited about. Each recipe includes substitutions for vegan and vegetarian variations, suggestions for pairing salads and ways to get ahead when you’re short on time.

From the surprisingly simple to the lusciously extravagant, with so called ‘naked cakes’ what you see is what you get!

Here you will find recipes and decoration ideas for exquisitely beautiful cakes. While in previous years the fashion had been for cakes to be encased in fondant and decorated in a fancy style, there is now an established trend for stripping cakes back, and decorating them more simply with edible flowers and vibrant berries or using different shades of batter to make the cake itself the star attraction.

Whether you want to create Vintage Elegance, Rustic Style, Romantic Charm, Chic Simplicity or Dramatic Effect, or make something to represent the Changing Seasons, you’ll find the perfect recipe and design here. Choose from floral cakes such as Rose Petal Cake, zingy citrus bakes such as Clementine Cakes and luxurious berry fruit offerings including Blueberry and Lemon Drizzle Cakes. There are plenty of ideas to tempt the sophisticated nut-lover and chocoholic, such as Chocolate Chestnut Cake, Hazelnut Harvest Cake, and Pistachio Layer Cake. These cakes are not for every day—they are special treats and perfect for birthdays, weddings, and other celebrations all year round.