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at Special Prices
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Dec. 22,11-4

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eleoanza

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7415 Orchard Lake Rd. • West Bloomfield • (810) 737-2666

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by: Susan S hap iro

With Some Dreidels
You Win, No Matter
Which Side It Lands On...

Tradition! Tradition!

Call Alicia R. Nelson
for an appointment

(810) 557-0109

AA
•

COOKBOOKS page 12

oriented people can't quite seem
to segue their love of bytes into the
kitchen. But there are some use-
ful ways to utilize the software —
organize your free-floating recipes
from Mom, Aunt Sue and the
weekly food section, and then ac-
tually find and use them, learn
cooking techniques through video
sequences, and import recipes
from the Internet into a computer
cookbook.
I played around with five CD-
ROMS, all of which offer similar
features: the ability to create your
own cookbook(s), resize recipes,
create shopping lists, and sort and
compile recipes to make them
more accessible. The software price
range is between $25 and $40.
What would I recommend?
Lifestyle Software Group produces
a pretty consistent line of user-
friendly cooking software. The ti-
tles I tried were The Micro Kitchen

Companion, The Southern Living
Cookbook and Betty Crocker's
Cookbook. Each was easy to install
and use.
The Micro Kitchen Companion
offers fairly pedestrian recipes —
Church Supper Chili, Mexican
Lasagna, Olive Sandwich Spread,
for example — but they are easy
to read and follow.
The Southern Living Cookbook
is similar but offers a choice be-
tween a photo interface and recipe
search of more than 1,300 recipes.
There are cooking basics, 18 tech-
nique chapters and recipes sorted
by theme. The Cook's Calculator
gives users the ability to figure out
weights and measures, metric con-
version, equivalents and cooking
times for vegetables.
The Betty Crocker Cookbook is
a well-conceived CD that can do a
recipe search based on ingredients
in the kitchen, offers a series of
chapters on canning, grilling, nu-
trition and food safety, and allows
users to develop the most useful
way for them to identify recipes.
Two CDs that promise a lot but
are less than satisfying are Digi-
tal Gourmet Deluxe and Master-
Cook Cooking Light.
Digital Gourmet Deluxe has a
huge number of recipes that are
easy to locate and reference; it can
resize, create shopping lists and
do nutrition calculations, but it has
none of the bells and whistles that
take advantage of its being on a
CD-ROM.
Cooking Light was also a dis-
appointment. Visually, it's a chal-
lenge to use — tiny print requires
resizing of recipes on the screen.
The photos are low quality, and
while the recipes look delicious, it's
just too much trouble. It does come
with a manual, but you know
you're in trouble when the tech
support phone number is a mis-

print (the area code is 206, not
204).

Cooking Schools
Around The World

CARON GOLDEN

SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH NEWS

If you're feeling more adven-
turous, there are ways to locate ex-
otic or unusual courses across the
country or even around the world.
Your first stop should be at the
bookstore or library for 'The Guide
to Cooking Schools," an annual
publication from Shaw Guides. It
offers a detailed listing of cooking
schools, courses, vacations, ap-
prenticeships and wine instruction
throughout the world. Each list-
ing provides information on the or-
ganization's emphasis, the courses,
the faculty, costs and contacts. The
book also has an appendix with
food and wine organizations and
recommended reading, such as
newsletters and books.
If you have access to the Inter-
net, go on-line to Sally's Place
(www.bpe.com/food/) . You'll find a
listing of cooking schools in the
United States and selected coun-
tries. The list is broken down by
state. with address and phone
number and a brief description.
And, of course, you can do a search
on Yahoo or other search engines.
What courses sound tempting?
Here is a sampling of some of the
more intriguing offerings:
Hugh Carpenter's Napa Valley
Food and Wine Adventure. Five
cooking classes with five days of
partying, wine-tasting, touring,
seminars and croquet; (707) 944-
2221.
Jane Butel's Cooking School. Ei-
ther three-day or weeklong cours-
es featuring traditional New
Mexican cooking and light South-
western cooking. When you're not
cooking, head out for skiing or bal-
looning; (800) 473-8226.
Peter Rump's School of Culi-
nary Arts (New York City). Offers
weeklong cooking technique class-
es at seven different levels, plus
specialized topics such as a Viet-
namese Cuisine Workshop or a
Wedding Cake Workshop Week-
end; (212) 522-4210.
Of course, we can't ignore the
big guys, all of which offer cours-
es for both professionals and am-
ateurs:
Le Cordon Bleu (London, Paris,
Tokyo), (800) 457-CHEF.
The Culinary Institute of Amer-
ica at Hyde Park, N.Y., (800) 888-
7850, or in Napa Valley, (800)
333-9242.
Ritz-Escoffier Ecole de la Gas-
tronomie Francaise in Paris, (800)
966-5758. ❑