Arts & Entertainment
People Of The Books from page C27
Jeff Rovin, who has written books, comics and TV shows.
In Goldie's Lox and the Three Bagels: Fractured Jewish
Fairy Tales (Citadel Publishing; $14.95), the author
brings his sense of humor to some classics.
For the Traveler
Peter Greenberg, travel editor For the Today show, gives
plenty of advice in The Complete Travel Detective Bible
(Rodale; $17.95). The author covers reservations, packing,
credit card rights and so much more.
Fifty-one wineries — and the wine country that sur-
rounds them — are described through text and pictures
in From the Vine: Exploring Michigan Wineries (Ann
Arbor Media Group; $34.95). Authors Sharon Kegerreis
and Lorri Hathaway, who grew up in northern Michigan,
promote this tasty industry.
For the Brainiac:
Author Jonah Lehrer explores paths to knowledge in
Proust Was a Neuroscientist (Houghton Mifflin; $24).
Lehrer contends — with examples — that artists have
shown essential truths about the mind way before the
scientists got there.
For the Linguist
Margalit Fox goes to a remote Middle East village where
everyone knows sign language and reports her experi-
ences in Talking Hands (Simon & Schuster; $27). Joined
by four linguists, she reports on the language instinct.
For the Word Lover
Splitsville, webinar and darknet are among the 2,500 new
words found in The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary
(Oxford University Press; $175). Each entry follows the
format featuring various meanings, origins, part of speech,
pronunciation and combinations with other words.
For the Yiddishist
Just Say Nu (St Martin's Press; $23.95), by Born to Kvetch
author Michael Wex, points out colorful phrases and con-
versation extenders — all with a Yiddish focus. The idea
is to make Yiddish part of everyday talk.
Janet Perr explains the definitions of Yiddish words
with comical canine images in Yiddish for Dogs
(Hyperion; $14.95). From chutzpah to kibbitz, there's a
dog to show the way to understanding.
For the Dog Lover
The discipline — and hopefully comedy — of
How to Raise a Jewish Dog (Little, Brown; $12.99)
comes from the fictitious rabbis of the Boca Raton
Theological Seminary. Authors Ellis Weiner and
Barbara Davilman cover the usual dog-training sub-
jects in unusual ways.
For the Sports Fan
Jewish News columnist George Cantor adds to his list
of published books with I Remember Bo: Memories
of Michigan's Legendary Coach (Triumph Publishing;
$22.95). Vintage Bo, a commemorative DVD, accompanies
the biography of Bo Shembechler.
For the Nonagerian
Actor Kirk Douglas recently celebrated his 90th birthday
and ponders life in Let's Face It: 90 Years of Living,
Loving and Learning (Wiley; $22.95). He tells about
experiences with family and friends — many very
famous.
For the Self Helper
Comedian Joy Behar gives celebrity secrets for getting
out of slumps in When You Need a Lift But Don't
Want to Eat Chocolate, Pay a Shrink or Drink a
Bottle of Gin (Random House;$17.95). Richard Lewis,
David Brenner and Jerry Herman are among the heavy
lifters.
Actor Charles Grodin — with friends and friends
of friends — points out how to learn from errors in If
I Only Knew Then ... Learning from Our Mistakes
(Springboard Press; $24.99). Celebrity confessions
become essays by Alan Alda, Peter Falk, Paul Newman,
Ben Stiller and many more.
-
BoOks For - Foodip,
"Tell me I can have any three ingredients to cook
with, and I guarantee that two of them will be garlic
and olive oil, and the third will be a vegetable," writes
Martha Rose Shulman in Mediterranean Harvest:
Vegetarian Recipes From the World's Healthiest
Cuisine (Rodale Books; $39.95). The author provides
cooks with more than 500 dishes from her extensive
travels in Spain, France, Italy, the Balkans, Greece,
Turkey, the Middle East and North Africa.
Vegetarians will find 100 more recipes to savor
- most published for the first time - in The Vegetable
Dishes I Can't Live Without (Hyperion; $22.95), by
Mollie Katzen, author of the Moosewood Cookbook.
Covering many special occasions for dining, chef
and teacher Myra Kornfeld makes use of whole grains,
high-quality fats, natural sugars and an abundance of
seasonal produce in The Healthy Hedonist Holidays:
A Year of Multicultural Vegetarian-Friendly Holiday
Feasts. "Even if you're not Chinese, how celebratory
it is to have a Chinese New Year's Feast, and what an
opportunity to learn about a festival," Kornfeld notes.
"You may not be Jewish, but what fun it is to have a
latke party."
Released to coincide with her new Food Network tele-
vision series of the same name, Nigella Express: 130
Recipes for Good Food, Fast (Hyperion; $35) is British
Jewish author Nigella Lawson's tome for cooks on the
go who want to still eat well, even when time is short.
Recipes all fit on one page, opposite a full-color photo.
"However little time or effort I can expend on the
day's supper, I have to know it will deliver nothing less
C28
November 29 • 2007
than pure pleasure," writes Lawson.
As chef of the New York restaurant Jams, Jonathan
Waxman helped invent contemporary American
cuisine and served as a mentor to many of today's
premier chefs. His first cookbook, A Great American
Cook: Recipes From the Home Kitchen of One of
Our Most Influential Cooks (Houghton Mifflin; $35),
presents his dishes the way he makes them at home -
though definitely not a kosher home. "OK, I love bacon
(and, yeah, I'm from a Jewish household)," he writes.
Leaving no Jewish food unturned is Judy Bart
Kancigor, whose Cooking Jewish: 532 Great Recipes
from the Rabinowitz Family (Workman; $19.95) mixes
five generations of traditional and untraditional reci-
pes with 160 warm stories of her family. The author,
who appeared at this month's Jewish Book Fair, writes:
"This is not the definitive book on authentic Jewish
cooking. This is a slice of life, as it were, a portrait
of one family, warts and all, how we live and how we
cook."
A slow cooker can be the key for stress-free cooking
for a large group. In Not Your Mother's Slow Cooker:
Recipes for Entertaining (Harvard Common Press;
$18.95), authors Beth Hensperger and Julie Kaufmann
detail 300 contemporary and classic recipes using
fresh and wholesome ingredients from a wide variety
of American and world cuisines. Check out the book's
recipe for cholent with an Argentine twist.
"I love the new book
by George Germon
and Johanne Killeen
called On Top of
Spaghetti (William
Morrow; $24.95),"
says The Barefoot
Contessa's Ina
Garten. The authors,
chef-owners of the
Al Forno restaurant in
Providence, R.I., offer
their experience cook-
ing pasta in Italy, in
their restaurant and at
home with a collection
of innovative pasta
recipes.
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Moms with kids who
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should check out
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A Great America
Secrets to Get Your
Kids Eating Good Food
(Collins; $24.95). The author hides pureed vegetables
and other healthful ingredients - "food that my kids
wouldn't touch in their natural form" - in kid-pleasing
dishes including macaroni and cheese, chicken nug-
gets and burgers. Low-fat brownies with carrots and
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