Complete Idiots Guide to Spices and Herbs or The Bialy Eaters

Complete Idiot's Guide to Spices and Herbs

Author: Leslie Bilderback

Zest it up!

Using spices and herbs-the key to any delicious meal-can be daunting with so many to choose from, not to mention the many possible combinations. In this book, a master chef and baker unlocks the key to the dazzling world of flavor by showing cooks of every level how to use and combine over 150 of the most popular spices and herbs. She also provides delicious recipes, fun facts, tips on storage, and a resource guide on where to get hard-to-find spices and herbs. The book also includes dozens of easy-to-follow and delicious recipes.

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The Bialy Eaters

Author: Mimi Sheraton

The legendary food writer tells the poignant, personal story of her worldwide search for a Polish town’s lost culture and the daily bread that sustained it.

A passion for bialys, those chewy crusty rolls with the toasted onion center, drew Mimi Sheraton to the Polish town of Bialystock to explore the history of this Jewish staple. Carefully wrapping, drying, and packing a dozen American bialys to ward off translation problems, she set off from New York in search of the people who invented this marvelous bread. Instead, she found a place of utter desolation, where turn of the century massacres, followed by the Holocaust, had reduced the number of Jewish residents there from fifty thousand to five.
Sheraton became a woman with a mission, traveling to Israel, Paris, Austin, Phoenix, Buenos Aires, and New York’s Lower East Side to rescue the stories of the scattered Bialystokers. In a bittersweet mix of humor and pathos, she tells of their once vibrant culture and its cuisine, reviving the exiled memories of those who escaped to the corners of the earth with only their recollections, and one very important recipe, to cherish.
Like Proust’s madeleine, The Bialy Eaters transports readers to a lost world through its bakers’ most beloved, and humble, offering. A meaningful gift for any Jewish holiday, this tribute to the human spirit will also have as broad appeal as the bialy itself, delighting everyone who celebrates the astonishing endurance of the simplest traditions.

Library Journal

The bialy is a small, round yeast bread with an indentation in the center, topped with onions and, sometimes, poppy seeds. This bread was a staple of the 60,000 Jews who lived in Bialystok, a city in northeastern Poland, before they were murdered or forced to flee during the Holocaust. After having discovered the bialy in New York, Sheraton, cookbook author (Food Markets of the World) and former New York Times food critic, set out to investigate the history of this salty, crusty bread. She began her quest in 1992 with a visit to Bialystok, where she found a Jewish population of five--and no bialys. Undaunted, she tracked down and spoke with former Bialystokers throughout the world. With warmth and candor, Sheraton records her aging interviewees' memories, allowing them their anger as well as their longing for the bread of their lost home. A bialy recipe is included. Highly recommended.--Jane la Plante, Minot State Univ., ND Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.

Internet Book Watch

Bialys are bread rolls with toasted onion centers: her passion for these rolls led the author to the Polish town of Bailystok, where she investigated the origins of the Jewish staple and those who invented it. Bialy Eaters blends a culinary expose with a travel memoir and will prove of particular interest to Jewish food fans.