Lookie Lookie What I Bought!

Yup... Miss M is gonna drink the Mark Bittman Kool-Aid.

***Got an iPhone? Yeah, there's an app for this.***

If you know someone who really likes food, or if you read food blogs/websites, you've probably heard of him. He wrote a little piece in the New York Times about making No Knead Bread in a Dutch oven. He's been on the Today show and did a show on PBS with Mario Batali and Gwyneth Paltrow. He's been on NPR. And, he writes cookbooks. I picked up one at my local used bookstore this weekend.

(buying local AND recycling... go me)

I know what you're thinking - you're not even through with Jamie Oliver's book yet! I know, I'm not! I do have every intention of working my way through the rest of the recipes that I have selected in that one and blogging about them. In fact, my sweet mother in law sent me a copy that got here on Friday as a Mother's Day gift so I was able to return the one I had to the library. I am not abandoning that one quite yet. It's just that when I saw this copy, in decent condition (who wants a crusty cookbook? Yuck) I had to get it because this? Is not a cheap book. It retails for $35 but I got it for $17 using a store credit I had from a photo contest that I won a couple of months ago.

Essentially, it was free.

I'm so excited to try some of the things in here, especially these:

If you follow me on Twitter or on Facebook, you'll remember that a few weeks ago I was wishing I had someone to show me how to make potstickers from scratch. Now, between this recipe and this tutorial, I am ready to try them! (btw, how stinking awesome is the name of that blog?)

Another thing I like about this book is that it covers the basics of a lot of foods. Seeing as how I grew up on such delicacies as Ground Beef and Corn (ingredients: ground beef, can of corn, salt, pepper, garlic powder) and Ground Beef and Noodles (ingredients: ground beef, ramen noodles) I don't know a lot about certain foods simply because I haven't been exposed to them. This book is just as much a textbook as it is a cookbook. Behold:

Oh yes. I have grand plans to learn how to make my own sausage once I get my hands on the meat grinder attachment for my stand mixer.

I want to try these too. Some baby LOVES tortellini.

This book also has a kick butt glossary of pretty much every cooking term imaginable.

One of my favorite parts is inside the back cover:

I can NEVER remember to what temperature I'm supposed to cook meats. I have charts in some of my other cook books, but they're located somewhere in the pages and consequently, they're hard to find. It was pure genius to put this in a place where it's easily accessible for people like me who have a hard time remembering numbers.

Expect to see some things from this book in the future!