Born in Southern California in the brightly cast shadow of the Cold War, Andrew Kelbow grows up in an average American family—average until Andrew's father leaves his mother under a cherry tree in the Mohave desert. How the remaining Kelbows survive this rift is a study in diversions, both illicit and ordinary, and over the course of 30 years Andrew must discover for himself the true definition of the happy family.

Greetings from the Golden State: A Novel

Brenner, Leslie

Literature & Fiction

Picador

Winner of the 1999 Versailles World Cookbook Fair Award For Best Culinary History, English LanguageIn Leslie Brenner's "witty and sumptuous" look at the history of the American food revolution, an award-winning food writer traces a fascinating culinary heritage and looks to a promising future. Hundreds of years ago, Native Americans feasted on regional ingredients like Olympia oysters, fresh herbs, and wild fowl. Now the best American chefs are returning to those roots. How did we get here? From the Puritan diet to Prohibition, from Julia Child through waves of immigration in the 1960s, Brenner traces the evolution of a national cuisine in delicious detail. Highlighted by interviews with Ameria's leading culinary innovators, including Julia Child, Alice Waters, and Robert Mondavi--and aided by heaping dollops of wit and opinion--Brenner serves up a singular history of American cuisine that will be of deep interest to anyone who loves to eat well.

American Appetite: The Coming of Age of a National Cuisine

Cookbooks, Food & Wine

Cooking Education & Reference

Harper-perennial

Compares modern cocktail parties with those of the past, offers advice on planning a party, and shares recipes for cocktails, hors d'oeuvres, and canapes

Art of the Cocktail Party: The Complete Guide to Sophisticated Entertaining

Beverages & Wine

Plume

In this friendly introductory guide, food and wine writer Leslie Brenner tells how to: Pour and taste wine Develop a taste memory Order from a wine list Select a wine at the store Match food with wine In addition, helpful sidebars illuminate such subjects as: How--and why--to swirl without sloshing Disarming a snotty waiter Ten great wines to bring to a dinner party Going beyond California Chardonnay Starting your own cellar for under $100 Along the way, Lettie Teague's funny and informative cartoons enhance the text and make great devices for remembering the most important facts. Before long, your old standby, Chateau Screwtop, will be a distant memory. Accessible and concise, Fear of Wine will appeal to anyone who wants to know a little bit about a subject that can bring great pleasure. At last, a guide that is as fun to read as wine is to drink!

Fear of Wine: An Introductory Guide to the Grape

Bantam]

For foodies, restaurant fans and restaurant workers, chefs and chef-wannabes, and for everyone who devoured Kitchen Confidential, here is a revealing look at what goes on behind the scenes at the world-renowned Restaurant Daniel as chef/owner Daniel Boulud strives for perfection–and for the New York Times’ top four-star rating. The hushed, elegant atmosphere of a fine restaurant often conceals an intensely stressful workplace where highly trained, underpaid staffers work backbreaking hours against impossible dead-lines, often at the whim of a driven and demanding yet creatively gifted boss. New York’s Restaurant Daniel is one such place. With the complete cooperation of Chef Daniel Boulud, author Leslie Brenner spent a full year at the restaurant, getting to know the staff in the kitchen, the front of the house, and the manager’s office. And she reports on it all with a vivid immediacy: the maître d’ shuffling reservations when a VIP shows up unannounced, the young pastry chef who gets passed over for a promotion (and then gets the last laugh), even the financial arrangements that keep the restaurant’s doors open for business. And underlying all the daily drama is Chef Boulud’s obsession with getting a fourth star from the New York Times.

The Fourth Star: Dispatches from Inside Daniel Boulud's Celebrated New York Restaurant

Clarkson/Potter

A simple guide to creating your own infusions and essences from herbs and spices, fruits, cooked vegetables, wines, and spirits, explains how to distill these pure intense flavors and provides delicious recipes using them. Tour.

Essential Flavors: The Simple Art of Cooking With Infused Oils, Flavored Vinegars, Essences, and Elixirs

Kinsolving, Katharine

Cooking by Ingredient

Viking Press

How Fine to Dine... A Restaurant Journal

Galison

A deftly satirical first novel chronicling thirty-two years in the life of a spectacularly dysfunctional California family. Set against the backdrop of the Cold War, Vietnam, and the Kennedy assassination, Andrew Kelbow's idyllic life in the San Fernando Valley -- all swimming pools and tennis lessons, Technicolor and Formica, Stingray bikes and Mexican cleaning ladies -- is disrupted one day when his entertainment-lawyer father leaves his mother under a cherry tree in the Mojave desert. How do the Kelbows handle such upheaval in the years that follow? In denial, mostly: they're pathologically happy-go-lucky, chronically unengaged. Gastronomic, nuptial, seismic, musical, and cinematic diversions, along with a healthy dose of illicit drug use, gambling, truancy, and political activism, keep the family functioning -- but barely. As the Kelbow family pushes the fine line between the Eastern notion of living in the moment and the California hedonism of instant gratification, can simultaneously over-and underachieving Andrew focus enough to imagine his way out of this lunatic paradise?

United States

Henry Holt and Co.

Within every fine restaurant there exist two worlds: the elegant, hushed environment of the dining room and the chaotic, explosive, high- tension scene behind the swinging kitchen doors. The ability to create dishes that are utterly sublime and turn them out at breakneck pace while simultaneously juggling kitchen crises, coddling demanding patrons, and managing overworked staff is what defines a four-star chef. In The Fourth Star, award-winning author Leslie Brenner goes inside those swinging doors to explore the realities behind Daniel, capturing the dramas that arise in the insular, high-pressure milieu of a world-class kitchen. New York’s food establishment had been stunned when Daniel Boulud’s newly opened flagship restaurant was awarded only three stars from the New York Times. From that moment on, it became Boulud’s unspoken mission to regain the four-star rating that he’d previously garnered during his tenure at Le Cirque and then at his own first restaurant. That he was striving to do all this on an unprecedented scale, turning out nearly four hundred meals in a few short hours of service—meals that had to be absolutely perfect every time—made this goal all the more ambitious. Brenner paints a portrait of a remarkable French chef at a pivotal moment of his career, as Boulud relentlessly drives his staff to the peak of excellence. The Fourth Star provides full access to every aspect of Daniel, investigating everything from the maître d’s table assignment policies to the internecine politics of advancing up the culinary ladder. Filled with delectable, undercover details and moving personal drama, Brenner’s chronicle is an addictive read about the inner workings of a super-lative restaurant. The Fourth Star is destined to satisfy restaurant lovers, professional cooks, and armchair chefs alike.

Biographies & Memoirs

Professionals & Academics

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Brenner, Leslie. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Brenner, Leslie

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Brenner, Leslie. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Greetings from the Golden State: A Novel

American Appetite: The Coming of Age of a National Cuisine

Art of the Cocktail Party: The Complete Guide to Sophisticated Entertaining

Fear of Wine: An Introductory Guide to the Grape

The Fourth Star: Dispatches from Inside Daniel Boulud's Celebrated New York Restaurant

Essential Flavors: The Simple Art of Cooking With Infused Oils, Flavored Vinegars, Essences, and Elixirs

How Fine to Dine... A Restaurant Journal

Greetings from the Golden State: A Novel

The Fourth Star: Dispatches from Inside Daniel Boulud's Celebrated New York Restaurant