Cookbook

Mix one pack wasabi peas with one pack chocolate-covered almonds. No, seriously, this looks like a good gift for a new college student. I'm getting one for Z___ A______. It's the "I Love Trader Joe's College Cookbook. " "Each recipe - from fabulous finger foods to delicious desserts - has been thoroughly tested to guarantee it's not only tantalizingly tasty but also easy to make when kitchen space, cooking utensils, preparation time, and chef's attention span are in short supply.

Alchemy is hosting an appearance by the chef and popular cookbook author Rose Levy Beranbaum on Wednesday, May 1. The three-course luncheon will be followed by a short discussion and Q-&-A session with the author, who has been referred to as the "Diva of Desserts. " Her books include "The Cake Bible," which is currently in its 48th printing and was listed by the James Beard Foundation as one of the top 13 baking books on "the Essential Book List. " Autographed copies of Beranbaum's "The Cake Bible" can be reserved in advance for an additional $35. Proceeds from the event will be donated to the Cure PSP -Foundation.

Fernando writes Rice and Curry, a blog about Sri Lankan food and spicy cuisine. He posted just yesterday from Sri Lanka's capital, Colombo, about Sri Lankan street food. UPDATE: S.H. Fernando's "Rice & Curry: Sri Lankan Home Cooking" has been included among the New York Times notable cookbooks for 2011 .   Definitely have a look . Fernando's new book, "Rice & Curry: Sri Lankan Home Cooking" is a great gift for an adventurous home cook, especially if it's packaged with Skiz's Original Sri Lankan curry powders , which come in raw and roasted versions, which can be ordered through the Rice & Curry website.

Kathy Brown wasn't always much of a chef - but she was an educator. When Brown, the former head of Grace Christian School, was diagnosed with amyloidosis of the heart in April 2008, she began experimenting with recipes to suit her new low-fat, low-salt, low-sugar diet. Compelled to share what she'd learned, Brown started compiling a heart-friendly cookbook for other patients. While Brown later received a successful heart transplant, the 62-year-old died in December 2010 before she could finish the book.

Southern chef Paula Deen makes no apologies for her butter-filled unhealthy recipes. So it's no surprise that her cookbook tops the list of worst of the year in terms of health in a report by the Physicians Committee For Responsible Medicine. The group, that promotes healthy foods and eating, said Deen's and other unhealthy cookbooks encourage Americans to fill up on high-fat, meat-heavy meals. Jamie Oliver, the chef known for his aggressive campaign to make school lunches healthier, is also listed as one of the worst offenders.

Mention ". . . not by bread alone," the cookbook compiled by members of Woods Memorial Presbyterian Church in Severna Park, and Marcia Magette might lick her lips and think of dirt worms.That's because her recipe for adding gummy worms to dirt cake -- a mixture of chocolate cookies, cream cheese and pudding served, appropriately, in a flower pot -- is one of about 700 recipes featured in the book.". . . not by bread alone" has sold about 550 copies, enough to pay for its printing. But the Woods kitchen committee hopes to raise $5,400 for the church by selling the remaining 450 copies at $12 each.

IF YOU KNOW a "Muffie," if you just adore dainty sandwiches with crusts removed, and if you have a sense of humor, then you will enjoy "The WASP Cookbook" (Warner Treasures, 1997, $12.95)The 29-year-old author, Alexandra "Dabber" Wentworth -- tall, lanky and blonde -- gives, in the first page of the book, the dictionary definition of WASP: "White Anglo-Saxon Protestants, the conservative, wealthy and privileged class that formerly dominated U.S. society."In conversation she simply calls WASPs "my people."

NEW YORK -- Claudia Roden was calling.The English food writer had heard about Dalia Carmel's cookbooks in Israel and had gotten her phone number at a food conference in Boston. Now she was in New York and wanted to come over and look through the books."You see?" said Ms. Carmel, smiling. "This happens all the time."Tall, handsome, with short gray hair and a soft Israeli accent, Ms. Carmel is living out every collector's dream. The passion for buying cookbooks that was for many years "my private disease, my mishegoss [craziness]"

THE CARROLL SPRINGS School community has created a cookbook that satisfies the heart and soul as well as discerning tastes. Its 96 pages contain recipes for appetizers, breads, casseroles, desserts, main dishes, salads and soups. Each page also has a dash of humor, and each recipe offers a unique look into the students' world. Carroll Springs is a special education school with 33 students and a staff of multidisciplined teachers and specialists. Communication throughout the school often is guided by pictures, so each recipe in the cookbook offers pictures of key ingredients.

For some people, cooking is murder.From the leg of lamb used as a murder weapon to the traces of arsenic in the elderberry wine, food has often played a role in literary mayhem. So when a group of mystery writers collaborates on a cookbook, you'd better believe their prose has little in common with Betty Crocker's.Poring through "Cooking With Malice Domestic," a cookbook devised by Jean and Ron McMillen, owners of Mystery Bookshop: Bethesda, readers will come across such evocative directions as "beat to death," "flay and dismember half a small chicken" and "crack those eggs -- show no mercy."

Southern chef Paula Deen makes no apologies for her butter-filled unhealthy recipes. So it's no surprise that her cookbook tops the list of worst of the year in terms of health in a report by the Physicians Committee For Responsible Medicine. The group, that promotes healthy foods and eating, said Deen's and other unhealthy cookbooks encourage Americans to fill up on high-fat, meat-heavy meals. Jamie Oliver, the chef known for his aggressive campaign to make school lunches healthier, is also listed as one of the worst offenders.

Fernando writes Rice and Curry, a blog about Sri Lankan food and spicy cuisine. He posted just yesterday from Sri Lanka's capital, Colombo, about Sri Lankan street food. UPDATE: S.H. Fernando's "Rice & Curry: Sri Lankan Home Cooking" has been included among the New York Times notable cookbooks for 2011 .   Definitely have a look . Fernando's new book, "Rice & Curry: Sri Lankan Home Cooking" is a great gift for an adventurous home cook, especially if it's packaged with Skiz's Original Sri Lankan curry powders , which come in raw and roasted versions, which can be ordered through the Rice & Curry website.

When the doctor's office receptionist summons her, when she flashes her credit card at the grocery store, when she leaves a phone message — the reaction to her last name these days is always the same. Voltaggio? "They say, 'Are you …?' And we say yes," says Bobbie Voltaggio, aunt of chefs Bryan and Michael, whose 2009 appearance on "Top Chef" made the Italian word for "voltage" a household name far beyond the close-knit Frederick area where she lives and her nephews grew up. "As soon as they see the last name, we know what they want to know.

Mix one pack wasabi peas with one pack chocolate-covered almonds. No, seriously, this looks like a good gift for a new college student. I'm getting one for Z___ A______. It's the "I Love Trader Joe's College Cookbook. " "Each recipe - from fabulous finger foods to delicious desserts - has been thoroughly tested to guarantee it's not only tantalizingly tasty but also easy to make when kitchen space, cooking utensils, preparation time, and chef's attention span are in short supply.

The Passover Seder offers a ritualized retelling of how the Israelites were delivered from bondage in Egypt. Even today, more than 3,000 years later, it's quite a story. There's also quite a story behind a new kosher cookbook, "Persian Food from the Non-Persian Bride" (Feldheim, $34.99), whose subtitle promises "And Other Kosher Sephardic Recipes You Will Love!"The author is Reyna Simnegar, a mother of five boys ages 2 to 9 living in Brookline, Mass., whose Persian husband loves real Persian cooking.

Louise H. Knust, a former fashion illustrator and a cookbook author, died Nov. 19 at Gilchrist Hospice Care of complications from a fall. She was 83. Born Louise Hazelhurst, the daughter of an import-exporter and a homemaker, she was raised in Bolton Hill. She attended Notre Dame Preparatory School and graduated in the late 1940s from the Maryland Institute College of Art . Earlier in her career, she had worked as a fashion illustrator in New York City before returning to Baltimore and working for Hutzler's and Stewart's department stores.

IN THIS WEEK'S playlist of new releases, Missy Elliott, one of hip-hop's true innovators, takes the road most traveled. Acclaimed indie pop artist Jeff Klein goes hardly anywhere. Eclectic singer-songwriter Shannon McNally bravely dives into the earthier side of country-pop. And soul man Anthony Hamilton is rediscovered. Missy Elliott, The Cookbook: Critics and fans dismissed Elliott's last album, 2003's This Is Not a Test! And for good reason. Her third set in three years, the CD felt recycled and labored, as if the rapper-singer-songwriter-producer-video artiste was trying to duplicate the brilliance of 2002's Under Construction.

If I have a passion besides my husband and watching spring happen, it's food: eating it, working with it, reading about it, playing with it.I'll get to indulge all those fancies with the new cookbook, "Of Tide & Thyme," classic and contemporary recipes celebrating Annapolis. The cookbook, coming to stores in April, is a several-year project of the Junior League of Annapolis."Of Tide & Thyme" offers recipes from Junior League members, all triple tested before being included in the book. It also capitalizes on the lifestyle of Annapolis and the Chesapeake Bay in general, with local racers and cruisers offering tips for fTC foolproof provisioning, and the ultimate directive: The Art of the Crab Feast.

Gladys Rodriguez, her husband and two young sons fled Castro's Cuba 40 years ago and made a nail-biting journey to the United States, where they eventually took the oath of U.S. citizenship during a bicentennial event at Baltimore's Fort McHenry in 1976. So you might expect that she and her family would exhibit the powerful patriotic feelings that might lay dormant in other Americans. For Rodriguez, those feelings found voice in, of all things, a cookbook. "My daughter-in-law had a friend who was injured in Iraq," said Rodriguez, who lives in Crofton.