Fall 2021 Abrams Dinner Party

Featured ~ Bookapotamus

It’s my third year with a seat at the table with the generous hosts at the Abrams Dinner Party and I AM STUFFED! Haha!

The books this season have been INCREDIBLE. I’m drooling over every single one and so thrilled to be able to share them all with you! From pasta to cheese, cakes to cocktails – there is no shortage of dinner ideas in this house. We’ve travelled from Alsace, France to the Philippines with so many stops in between.

The Fall 2021 season of the ABRAMS Dinner Party included the following titles:

Christmas with Southern Living — By Editors of Southern Living

From the editors at Southern Living, warm and welcoming holiday recipes and creative ideas for decorating, entertaining, and handmade gifts

Discover fun and creative new ways to decorate, entertain, and handcraft gifts for the holidays. Sparkling menus and easy décor ideas, along with more than 100 brand-new recipes from the professionals of the South’s most trusted kitchen, make entertaining a breeze for celebrations of all sizes. Inside, the editors of Southern Living reveal their favorite cooking tips and make-ahead secrets that take the pressure off hosting and put the focus on family and friends. There is also a special gifts-from-the-kitchen section with recipes for treats to wrap and share. More than 200 photographs show off dazzling holiday decorations and table settings to try, plus inspired designs for holiday wreaths, trees, centerpieces, and mantel arrangements. Christmas with Southern Living is the go-to resource for everything you need to make your holiday bright.

Peace, Love, and Pasta — By Scott Conant

From award-winning chef and Food Network personality Scott Conant, a cookbook of restaurant-quality Italian meals that you can make easily in your home kitchen

Thirty-five years into an illustrious career of restaurant openings across the country, widespread acclaim, and frequent appearances on the Food Network’s Chopped and many other shows, Scott Conant has returned home to create his most personal cookbook yet. Meals cooked from simple, fresh ingredients were staples of Conant’s childhood in a New England family with roots in Southern Italy. From his grandparents’ garden to the dinner table, he learned early on to appreciate the nuances of different flavors and ingredients, and the strong connection between food and family.

Focusing on these foods Conant grew up with and the ones he makes for his loved ones today, Peace, Love, and Pasta compiles simple, fresh, and flavorful Italian recipes for the home cook to bring to their own family’s table. These recipes are built on the art of cooking for love, fascination with flavors and ingredients, and the simple pleasures of taste and conviviality.

Nailed It! — By Nailed It!

The hilarious, family-friendly official cookbook of the hit Netflix show Nailed It!, attempting the best in baking and celebrating the failures along the way

In this official companion cookbook, the creators of Nailed It! share the tips, tricks, and detailed recipes behind the incredible cakes and baked goods from your favorite episodes, as well as simplified versions of some memorable challenges to give even the most inexperienced baker a fighting chance. With recipes ranging from stress-free cookies and cupcakes you can whip up with ease to the most intimidating cakes ever revealed behind Door #2, this book contains everything you need to put your skills to the test—and have an absolute blast along with way, whether your creation is a mouthwatering masterpiece or a delicious disaster.

Inside, you’ll also find tips for hosting your own Nailed It! challenge, an Introduction and tricks of the trade from head judge Jacques Torres, exclusive interviews with some of our incredible celebrity guest judges, and odes to iconic host Nicole Byer. With this book, bakers of every age and every skill level can come together and get their hands (and their kitchens) dirty, and with hilarious stories from behind the scenes and throwbacks to the show’s most noteworthy baking disasters, it’s also a must-have companion for every fan.

Cheese Sex Death — By Erika Kubick

From lauded cheesemonger and creator of the popular blog Cheese Sex Death, a bible for everything you need to know about cheese

For many people, the world of artisan cheese is an intriguing but intimidating place. There are so many strange smells, unusual textures, exotic names, and rules for serving. Where should a neophyte begin? 

From evangelist cheesemonger Erika Kubick, this comprehensive book guides readers to become confident connoisseurs and worshippers of Cheesus. A preacher of the curd word, Kubick provides the Ten Commandments of Cheese, which breaks down this complex world into simplified bites. A welcoming sanctuary devoted to making cheese a daily part of life and gatherings, this book explores the many different styles of cheese by type, profiling commonly found and affordable wedges as well as the more rare and refined of rinds. Kubick offers divine recipes that cover everything from everyday crowd pleasers (think mac and cheese and baked brie) to festive feasts fit for holidays and gatherings. This cheese devotee outlines the perfect cheese plate formula and offers inventive yet easy-to-execute beverage pairings, including wine, beer, spirits, and non-alcoholic drinks. These heavenly spreads and recipes wring maximum indulgence out of minimal effort and expense. Filled with seductive photography and audacious prose, Cheese Sex Death is a delightfully approachable guide to artisan cheese that will make just about anyone worship at the altar of Cheesus.

Arty Parties  — By Julia Sherman

In her follow-up cookbook to Salad for President, cook, writer, and artist Julia Sherman shows us how to apply an artist’s touch to our own home gatherings.

Artists throw superior parties, and we can learn from their willingness to draw outside the lines, choose character over perfection, and find boundless joy in feeding family and friends. Cook, live, and host like an artist with inspired, easy recipes and playful hands-on experiments in the kitchen.

Sherman shows you how to be the architect of your own uniquely memorable bash, whether that means a special breakfast for two, or a “choose your own adventure” meal that’s flexible enough to feed a crowd. Forget the codified markers of good taste—Arty Parties instead reveals that modern gatherings are less about “getting it right” and more about getting your hands dirty, building community, and taking risks in the kitchen and beyond. Featuring colorful food that is confident in its simplicity, Sherman shares easy-to-follow, healthy recipes that value imaginative flavor combinations over complexity: dishes like an avocado-lemongrass panna cotta, saffron tomato soup, coconut rice cakes with smashed avocado and soy-marinated eggs, and roasted broccolini and blood oranges with a creamy pepita sauce. 

This book also invites readers into the idiosyncratic gatherings of internationally acclaimed artists, from a chic office party in a Parisian art book publisher’s atelier to an underground earth oven pizza party on a secluded hillside in Los Angeles. Woven throughout are Sherman’s own homegrown events that are relatable yet wonderfully experimental in tone.

Utterly unique and beautifully designed, Arty Parties is a guide to creating meaningful experiences that nourish both the host and their guests in body, mind, and soul.

Filipinx — By Angela Dimayuga, and Ligaya Mishan

In her debut cookbook, acclaimed chef Angela Dimayuga shares her passion for Filipino food with home cooks.

Filipinx offers 100 deeply personal recipes—many of them dishes that define home for Angela Dimayuga and the more than four million people of Filipino descent in the United States. The book tells the story of how Dimayuga grew up in an immigrant family in northern California, trained in restaurant kitchens in New York City—learning to make everything from bistro fare to Asian-American cuisine—then returned to her roots, discovering in her family’s home cooking the same intense attention to detail and technique she’d found in fine dining. 

In this book, Dimayuga puts a fresh spin on classics: adobo, perhaps the Filipino dish best known outside the Philippines, is traditionally built on a trinity of soy sauce, vinegar, and garlic—all pantry staples—but add coconut milk, vinegar, and oil, and it turns lush and silky; ribeye steaks bring extra richness to bistek, gilded with butter and a bright splash of lemon and orange juice. These are the punches of flavor and inspired recipes that home cooks have been longing for.

A modern, welcoming resource for this essential cuisine, Filipinx shares exciting and approachable recipes everyone will wholeheartedly embrace in their own kitchens.

The Spirit of Alsace — By Gabriel Kreuther and Michael Ruhlman

From award-winning chef Gabriel Kreuther, the definitive cookbook on rustic French cooking from Alsace

Gabriel Kreuther is the cookbook fans of the James Beard Award-winning chef have long been waiting for. From one of the most respected chefs in the United States, this cookbook showcases the recipes inspired by Kreuther’s French-Swiss-German training and refined global style, one that embraces the spirits of both Alsace, his homeland, and of New York City, his adopted home. Sharing his restaurant creations and interpretations of traditional Alsatian dishes, Kreuther will teach the proper techniques for making every dish, whether simple or complex, a success. Recipes include everything from the chef’s take on classic Alsatian food like the delicious Flammekueche (or Tarte Flambée) and hearty Baeckeoffe (a type of casserole stew) to modern dishes like the flavorful Roasted Button Mushroom Soup served with Toasted Chorizo Raviolis and the decadent Salmon Roe Beggar’s Purse garnished with Gold Leaf.

Featuring personal stories from the chef’s childhood in France and career in New York as well as stunning photography, Gabriel Kreuther is the definitive resource for Alsatian cooking worthy of fine dining.

New Native Kitchen — By Freddie Bitsoie and James O. Fraioli

Modern Indigenous cuisine from the renowned Native foods educator and former chef of Mitsitam Native Foods Café at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian

From Freddie Bitsoie, the former executive chef at Mitsitam Native Foods Café at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian, and James Beard Award–winning author James O. Fraioli, New Native Kitchen is a celebration of Indigenous cuisine. Accompanied by original artwork by Gabriella Trujillo and offering delicious dishes like Cherrystone Clam Soup from the Northeastern Wampanoag and Spice-Rubbed Pork Tenderloin from the Pueblo peoples, Bitsoie showcases the variety of flavor and culinary history on offer from coast to coast, providing modern interpretations of 100 recipes that have long fed this country. 

Recipes like Chocolate Bison Chili, Prickly Pear Sweet Pork Chops, and Sumac Seared Trout with Onion and Bacon Sauce combine the old with the new, holding fast to traditions while also experimenting with modern methods. In this essential cookbook, Bitsoie shares his expertise and culinary insights into Native American cooking and suggests new approaches for every home cook. With recipes as varied as the peoples that inspired them, New Native Kitchen celebrates the Indigenous heritage of American cuisine.

Home Made Basics — By Yvette van Boven

From acclaimed cookbook author and illustrator Yvette van Boven, a comprehensive kitchen resource for making hundreds of simple dishes from scratch

In her latest cookbook, Yvette van Boven shares step-by-step explanations for the foundational dishes that can transform how you cook and what you eat at home. Accompanied by her signature illustrations and beautiful photography, van Boven offers more than 400 recipes for delightful dishes that tell you how to make everything: simple dressings, vegetables, pastas, gnocchi, tortillas, perfectly poached eggs, and much more. Whether you’re new to cooking or an experienced home chef, this cookbook teaches you to make satisfying food without a lot of fuss or complicated ingredients. In her unique and friendly voice, the author guides you through every step of cooking simple, well-made everyday meals.

A staple for everyone who loves to cook at home, Home Made Basics offers fresh, healthy, and original meals you’ll want to make all year round.

The Regency Book of Drinks — By Amy Finley

A loving homage to the era celebrated by the hit Netflix series Bridgerton—and the cocktails that shaped its high society

As a society doyenne and undercover libertine, Lady Thornwood knows what makes a drink perfect. In The Regency Book of Drinks: Quaffs, Quips, Tipples, and Tales from Grosvenor Square, this respectable cocktail connoisseur presents a guide of over 75 cocktail recipes shaped by the Regency era in both refinement and ingredients—and served alongside a heaping dose of high-society gossip, scandal, and speculation. Beginning with the gentlewoman’s advice on setting up a Regency bar, the best glassware and garnishes, and an overview of the period’s most popular ingredients, the book is then divided into six subsequent recipe chapters drawn from high-society life during the London social season, from occasions such as “The Evening Soirée” to “Delicate Daytime Drinks” to even those rare, deliciously nonalcoholic drinks for “Polite Company.” Throughout these chapters, Lady Thornwood weighs in with stylish sidebars and entertaining advice on how to host gatherings that are the talk of the “ton.”

Amidst all of her sly cheek and drama, our hostess presents readers and cocktail aficionados with an intriguing true history. In Regency England, as Britain’s Empire expanded, cocktails were becoming social currency—a showcase for wealth, trade connections, and even modern marvels like ice. The Regency shaped British high society for a century and helped launch the cocktail revolution we still enjoy today. As Lady Thornwood says, “As the Regency unfolds, ships sail up the Thames from every corner of the globe freighting exotic spices, vibrant fruits, and marvelous elixirs. Let us toast this bounty and craft it to our purpose. Cocktails stiffen the spine, unlock the tongue, and add sheen to even the dullest drawing room. Coupes up!”

Southern Living 2021 Annual Recipes — By Editors of Southern Living

Southern Living graciously invites you to enjoy the latest annual compilation of top-rated recipes from the editors of Southern Living magazine—now in full color

The editors at Southern Living magazine share beautifully photographed, step-by-step recipes for regionally inspired dishes, from quick and easy meals to family favorites to special-occasion treats. For decades, Southern Living Annual Recipes has collected every recipe from an entire year’s worth of Southern Livingmagazine in a single, complete volume, creating an indispensable companion for devoted readers and an inspiring discovery for all who know and trust the authority that Southern Living magazine brings to great Southern cooking.

Along with the go-to southern recipes cooks crave—delicious Sunday suppers, mouthwatering desserts, regional favorites, and traditional holiday meals—readers will find helpful tips and creative menus from the legendary Southern Living Test Kitchen. A special bonus section presents a surprise selection of reader-favorite recipes that cannot be found anywhere else.

I’ll see you in the Spring of 2022 with more new fun food and drink releases with the Abrams Dinner Party!

Happy Holidays!

Published by Bookapotamus

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