Thai Cookbooks

David Thompson has a new Thai cookbook out called Thai Street Food.  His first book, aptly named Thai Food, is already a must have classic for anyone interested in cooking Thai.

Mr. Thompson is Australian and as you can probably guess from his name isn't Thai.  I first encountered him and his cooking on a trip to London several years back when I ate at his Michelin-starred restaurant Nahm.  As someone who has traveled extensively in Thailand I'd like to think I know a thing or two about Thai cooking and all I can say is Mr. Thompson is a master.

Not only are these books filled with brilliant recipes, they are filled with beautiful photography, especially the new one Thai Street Food.  Both of these books are available on my Amazon Store along with a lot of other Urbanfoodguy recommended books.  Great gift ideas for all your foodie friends.

Lani's Farm Stand

The bounty of the Fall season is so beautiful!  This last picture of squash blossoms made me think of a recipe I saw recently where instead of deep frying and battering them, as is usually done, they were stuffed with different kinds of crab, then pan fried lightly and served with a black truffle sauce.  How good does that sound?

These pictures are all of Lani's Farm Stand which is at Union Square Green Market on Mondays.  They grow organically and it is well worth the effort to make sure you get to the Monday market to visit Lani's stand.  They have the best salad greens anywhere (she mixes mint and basil in with delicate baby greens: sheer perfection!)

A great cookbook with inspirational recipes to take advantage of all this amazing bounty is Harvest to Heat (not sure about that title...) but the book is wonderful, I've made several recipes from it and so far they are all winners.  Written by Darryl Estrine and Kelly Kochendorfer and with a lovely forward by Alice Waters.  The theme of Harvest to Heat is the relationship between farmer (fisher, cattle raiser etc.) and cook. The authors go all over the country and find pairings of the two.  So, for example, I made this amazing fish dish where the fish is poached in a sweet pepper butter sauce.  The recipe is a collaboration between Gabriel Rucker of Le Pigeon restaurant in Portland and Manuel and Leslie Lukas Recio of Viridian Farms.

And of course be sure to buy it at my Amazon Store where I keep adding more and more wonderful Urbanfoodguy approved goods for you and your kitchen. 

Urbanfoodguy Has an Amazon Store

I've been working most of the day trying to figure out how to add a permanent Amazon link here and I'm not so sure how successful I have been.  The good news is that I have started an Amazon store and will start to link any book or item I write about at the bottom of each posting.  If you want to buy something on Amazon and you think it is something cool and appropriate for my site, let me know. For now I have started out with what I know best:  books.  Kitchenware, videos and other stuff will follow as my learning cure improves!  Anyway, here is the Urbanfoodguy Store: I will be adding more products constantly, so please check back!

Do me a favor:  if you are thinking about buying something on Amazon that is food related let me know.  I'll add it to my store and then you can buy it from the Urbanfoodguy store and I'll make a little bit of money off of the sale.  This is my first real foray into trying to actually make some money off of my endeavors here, but I have realized over the years of doing Urbanfoodguy that it truly has become a full time job and seeing as how real full time jobs in the real world seem scarce these days I'm trying to make my passion into a living.

Your help and support is greatly appreciated.  Thanks again for stopping by.  Up next:  Short Ribs!