Nothing Fancy
Recipes and Recollections of Soul-Satisfying Food
Part of the William and Bettye Nowlin in Art, History, and Culture of the Western Hemisphere series
International favorite dishes and personal stories from a celebrated food writer and foremost authority on traditional Mexican cooking.
Diana Kennedy is the world's preeminent authority on authentic Mexican cooking and one of its best-known food writers. Renowned for her uncompromising insistence on using the correct local ingredients and preparation techniques, she has taught generations of cooks how to prepare traditional dishes from the villages of Mexico, and in doing so, has documented and helped preserve the country's amazingly diverse and rich foodways. Kennedy's own meals for guests are often Mexican, but she also indulges herself and close friends with the nostalgic foods in “Nothing Fancy”.
This acclaimed cookbook-now expanded with new and revised recipes, additional commentary, photos, and reminiscences-reveals Kennedy's passion for simpler, soul-satisfying food, from the favorite dishes of her British childhood (including a technique for making clotted cream that actually works) to rare recipes from Ukraine, Norway, France, and other outposts. In her inimitable style, Kennedy discusses her addictions-everything from good butter, cream, and lard to cold-smoked salmon, Seville orange marmalade, black truffle shavings, escamoles (ant eggs), and proper croissants-as well as her bêtes noires-kosher salt, nonfat dairy products, cassia "cinnamon," botoxed turkeys, and nonstick pans and baking sprays, among them. And look out for the ire she unleashes on "cookbookese," genetically modified foods, plastic, and unecological kitchen practices! The culminating work of an illustrious career, “Nothing Fancy” is an irreplaceable opportunity to spend time in the kitchen with Diana Kennedy, listening to the stories she has collected and making the food she has loved over a long lifetime of cooking.
My Mexico
A Culinary Odyssey with Recipes
Part of the William and Bettye Nowlin in Art, History, and Culture of the Western Hemisphere series
By universal acclaim, Diana Kennedy is the world's authority on the authentic cuisines of Mexico. For decades, she has traveled the length and breadth of the country, seeking out the home cooks, local ingredients, and traditional recipes that make Mexican cuisines some of the most varied and flavorful in the world. Kennedy has published eight classic Mexican cookbooks, including the James Beard Award-winning Oaxaca al Gusto. But her most personal book is My Mexico, a labor of love filled with more than three hundred recipes and stories that capture the essence of Mexican food culture as Kennedy has discovered and lived it. First published in 1998, My Mexico is now back in print with a fresh design and photographs-ready to lead a new generation of gastronomes on an unforgettable journey through the foods of this fascinating and complex country.
Nothing Fancy
Recipes and Recollections of Soul-Satisfying Food
Part of the William and Bettye Nowlin in Art, History, and Culture of the Western Hemisphere series
International favorite dishes and personal stories from a celebrated food writer and foremost authority on traditional Mexican cooking.
Diana Kennedy is the world's preeminent authority on authentic Mexican cooking and one of its best-known food writers. Renowned for her uncompromising insistence on using the correct local ingredients and preparation techniques, she has taught generations of cooks how to prepare traditional dishes from the villages of Mexico, and in doing so, has documented and helped preserve the country's amazingly diverse and rich foodways. Kennedy's own meals for guests are often Mexican, but she also indulges herself and close friends with the nostalgic foods in “Nothing Fancy”.
This acclaimed cookbook-now expanded with new and revised recipes, additional commentary, photos, and reminiscences-reveals Kennedy's passion for simpler, soul-satisfying food, from the favorite dishes of her British childhood (including a technique for making clotted cream that actually works) to rare recipes from Ukraine, Norway, France, and other outposts. In her inimitable style, Kennedy discusses her addictions-everything from good butter, cream, and lard to cold-smoked salmon, Seville orange marmalade, black truffle shavings, escamoles (ant eggs), and proper croissants-as well as her bêtes noires-kosher salt, nonfat dairy products, cassia "cinnamon," botoxed turkeys, and nonstick pans and baking sprays, among them. And look out for the ire she unleashes on "cookbookese," genetically modified foods, plastic, and unecological kitchen practices! The culminating work of an illustrious career, “Nothing Fancy” is an irreplaceable opportunity to spend time in the kitchen with Diana Kennedy, listening to the stories she has collected and making the food she has loved over a long lifetime of cooking.
Oaxaca al Gusto
An Infinite Gastronomy
Part of the William and Bettye Nowlin in Art, History, and Culture of the Western Hemisphere series
A James Beard Foundation Award–winning record of the traditional regional cuisines of Oaxaca, from one of the world's foremost authorities on Mexican cooking.
No one has done more to introduce the world to the authentic, flavorful cuisines of Mexico than Diana Kennedy. Acclaimed as the Julia Child of Mexican cooking, Kennedy has been an intrepid, indefatigable student of Mexican foodways for more than fifty years and has published several classic books on the subject, including The Cuisines of Mexico (now available in The Essential Cuisines of Mexico, a compilation of her first three books), The Art of Mexican Cooking, My Mexico, and From My Mexican Kitchen. Her uncompromising insistence on using the proper local ingredients and preparation techniques has taught generations of cooks how to prepare-and savor-the delicious, subtle, and varied tastes of Mexico.
In Oaxaca al Gusto, Kennedy takes us on an amazing journey into one of the most outstanding and colorful cuisines in the world. The state of Oaxaca is one of the most diverse in Mexico, with many different cultural and linguistic groups, often living in areas difficult to access. Each group has its own distinctive cuisine, and Diana Kennedy has spent many years traveling the length and breadth of Oaxaca to record in words and photographs "these little-known foods, both wild and cultivated, the way they were prepared, and the part they play in the daily or festive life of the communities I visited." Oaxaca al Gusto is the fruit of these labors-and the culmination of Diana Kennedy's life's work. Organized by regions, Oaxaca al Gusto presents some three hundred recipes-most from home cooks-for traditional Oaxacan dishes. Kennedy accompanies each recipe with fascinating notes about the ingredients, cooking techniques, and the food's place in family and communal life. Lovely color photographs illustrate the food and its preparation. A special feature of the book is a chapter devoted to the three pillars of the Oaxacan regional cuisines-chocolate, corn, and chiles. Notes to the cook, a glossary, a bibliography, and an index complete the volume.
Mercados
Recipes from the Markets of Mexico
Part of the William and Bettye Nowlin in Art, History, and Culture of the Western Hemisphere series
In this travelogue/cookbook, the Award-winning author of “Yucatán” takes you on a tour of Mexico's most colorful destinations-its markets.
Serving up more than one hundred recipes, Mercados presents unique versions of Oaxaca's legendary moles and Michoacan's carnitas, as well as little-known specialties such as the charcuterie of Chiapas, the wild anise of Pátzcuaro, and the seafood soups of Veracruz. Sumptuous color photographs transport us to the enormous forty-acre, 10,000-merchant Central de Abastos in Oaxaca as well as tiny tianguises in Tabasco. Blending immersive research and passionate appreciation, David Sterling's final opus is at once a must-have cookbook and a literary feast for the gastronome.
Drug War Zone
Frontline Dispatches from the Streets of El Paso and Juárez
Part of the William and Bettye Nowlin in Art, History, and Culture of the Western Hemisphere series
Thousands of people die in drug-related violence every year in Mexico. Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, adjacent to El Paso, Texas, has become the most violent city in the Mexican drug war. Much of the cocaine, marijuana, and methamphetamine consumed in the United States is imported across the Mexican border, making El Paso/Juárez one of the major drug-trafficking venues in the world.
In this anthropological study of drug trafficking and anti-drug law enforcement efforts on the U.S.-Mexico border, Howard Campbell uses an ethnographic perspective to chronicle the recent Mexican drug war, focusing especially on people and events in the El Paso/Juárez area. It is the first social science study of the violent drug war that is tearing Mexico apart.
Based on deep access to the drug-smuggling world, this study presents the drug war through the eyes and lives of direct participants. Half of the book consists of oral histories from drug traffickers, and the other half from law enforcement officials. There is much journalistic coverage of the drug war, but very seldom are the lived experiences of traffickers and "narcs" presented in such vivid detail. In addition to providing an up-close, personal view of the drug-trafficking world, Campbell explains and analyzes the functioning of drug cartels, the corruption that facilitates drug trafficking, the strategies of smugglers and anti-narcotics officials, and the perilous culture of drug trafficking that Campbell refers to as the "Drug War Zone."