“A culinary mystery story leavened with Pallant’s passion, charm, and devotion to the ageless allure of the risen loaf.” —Aaron Bobrow-Strain, author of White BreadSourdough Culture presents the history and rudimentary science of sourdough bread baking from its discovery more than six thousand years ago to its still-recent displacement by the innovation of dough-mixing machines and fast-acting yeast. Environmental science professor Eric Pallant traces the tradition of sourdough across continents, from its origins in the Middle East’s Fertile Crescent to Europe and then around the world. Pallant also explains how sourdough fed some of history’s most significant figures, such as Plato, Pliny the Elder, Louis Pasteur, Marie Antoinette, Martin Luther, and Antonie van Leeuwenhoek, and introduces the lesser-known—but equally important—individuals who relied on sourdough bread for sustenance: ancient Roman bakers, medieval housewives, Gold Rush miners, and the many, many others who have produced daily sourdough bread in anonymity.Each chapter of Sourdough Culture is accompanied by a selection from Pallant’s own favorite recipes, which span millennia and traverse continents, and highlight an array of approaches, traditions, and methods to sourdough bread baking. Sourdough Culture is a rich, informative, engaging read, especially for bakers—whether skilled or just beginners. More importantly, it tells the important and dynamic story of the bread that has fed the world.“Pallant deftly covers a wide breadth of time and place in Sourdough Culture, interweaving experts’ research with his own travels, research, and experiments.” —Pittsburgh City Paper“A tour de force of social, economic, political, and gastronomic history that is both meticulously researched and highly readable.” —Stanley Ginsberg, author of The Rye Baker

A James Beard award winner offers ‘‘an invitation to ‘start riffing with the contents of your refrigerator’ and encourage a new perspective on leftovers’’ (Publishers Weekly).When it comes to leftovers, Sara Dickerman believes that there is nothing better than figuring out the right way to reframe a good meal into another, potentially great meal. Second meals aren’t just reheating last night’s dinner. At Sara’s house, re-invention might mean pureeing roasted vegetables into a quick soup, crafting a beautiful salad with some second-day salmon, or stuffing cooked rice into roasted poblano peppers. But unlike other cookbooks that emphasize thrift, Secrets of Great Second Meals focuses on creating inviting, sophisticated, and healthy recipes that are flexible enough to adapt to what you have on hand.Sara shows how to make the most of your food the way chefs do. With a little planning, you can look at extra food from one dinner as components to another meal that has already been prepped. Sara provides a list of the top ten most versatile dishes for multiple meals, offers advice on food storage, and includes tips on adding freshness and flavor using salt, acids, herbs, and texture. Most importantly, she gives home cooks the tools they need to improvise confidently.Illustrated with full-color photos, Secrets of Great Second Meals makes re-imagining food for a second meal not just a good, cheap, waste-reducing thing to do, but way of making every day eating more inventive and enticing.“[For] anyone who has ever looked quizzically at a container of leftovers while trying to plan a new meal will find what they’re looking for.” —Booklist

Bring homemade ramen to your table with a delicious fusion of seventy recipes, including soup bases, noodles, toppings, and sides.Author Amy Kimoto-Kahn shows you how to put together a bowl of piping hot ramen in a myriad of ways with a choice of four soup bases, ramen noodles (homemade or store-bought), and traditional and non-traditional ingredients. Enjoy bowls of pork, chicken, and beef ramen. Or branch out with seafood, vegetarian, and spicy soups—and even cold ramen and a breakfast version topped with bacon and a poached egg. Make your soup base in advance and you have a quick, easy, and special midweek family meal.Try your hand at:Indonesian Pork Ramen with Coconut Curry SoupChicken Meatball RamenTeriyaki Beef-Wrapped Asparagus RamenCalifornia Ramen with Crabmeat, Avocado, and CucumberSpicy Tofu RamenCrispy Greens Ramen with Swiss Chard, Kale, and Brussels SproutsWith simple step-by-step instructions and mouthwatering photos, Simply Ramen will turn your kitchen into a ramen-ya for family and friends.Delve into the world of Asian cuisine with the Simply . . . series. From ramen to pho to hot pots, these beautifully photographed cookbooks serve to diversify your kitchen and your palette with easy-to-follow recipes for these iconic dishes.“Ramen, in all its many variations, starts out simple. A simple stock, a simple tare, and some simple noodles . . . Amy Kimoto-Kahn lays the groundwork in the first few pages of her debut cookbook, then gives the home ramen chef enough ideas to satisfy their slurp cravings for years to come.” —Brian MacDuckston, Ramen Blogger (ramenadventures.com)