I ran across this magazine at a Whole Foods market this week. Tastes of Italia is a feast for the eyes and Mediterranean-lovin’ heart and tummy! It contains beautiful travel reviews, mouth-watering recipes, amazing food photography, and interviews with our favorite Italian personalities. For instance, the July 2008 edition, which is on stands now, features an interview with everyone’s favorite “Everyday Italian,” Giada De Laurentiis.

Healthy Cooking magazine is from the publishers of Taste of Home. Just like Taste of Home, the magazine is full of recipes that are very user-friendly. The June/July 2008 edition, which is on stands now, features over 84 recipes! The pictures are fabulous and tempting.

In the magazine that prints 6 times a year, you’ll also find great articles on timely issues like lactose-intolerance, healthy recipe comparisons, diabetes, cooking in 30 minutes, and personal success stories.

They are also well known for their recipe contests and eagerness to print recipes from “everyday” kind of cooks. Visit their website for contest and recipe submission information.

The Clean Eating magazine is one of those magazines for me. Several months ago, I bought the Eat Clean Diet book to help me understand more about eating more clean, unprocessed foods. I devoured the book. It’s cram packed with useful information about how to make clean, unprocessed foods a part of your everyday eating lifestyle. Tosca Reno, the author of the diet book, is also the inspiration behind the magazine, which is presented by the same publishers as the well-known Oxygen magazine.

The magazine prints 8 times a year. Each edition is filled with amazing recipes, great interviews, exercise suggestions, product reviews and fun tips. It’s also a beautiful magazine. As a professional photographer, I’m smitten with the food photography in this magazine. Every image is styled to perfection and tempts you to want to give the recipes a try.

Comfort Food

Comfort Food

Jacob whips a story together that features the personal life of fictional celebrity chef Gus as its main ingredient. This 50-year-old cooking icon seems to blend the personalities and traits of Ina Garten, Paula Deen, and Sandra Lee into one lovely character. As the story develops, we see an emotionally scarred Gus battling with herself over loss of youth, loss of control in the lives of her grown children, loss of money, the possible loss of a job, and an emerging desire to be the sensual woman that she knows is lurking around in there somewhere. Gus’s ability to go toe to toe with a beauty queen provides for comedy when her competitive nature simmers to the surface and sometimes comes to a rolling boil!
Jacobs’s recipe for a successful novel is plated with interesting secondary characters who help us understand Gus a bit more and give us a peek into the “real” life of a celebrity. For those who are addicted to all things food related, this book will make a pleasant summertime read that also assists in feeding our addiction. For those not “into food” (do those really people exist?) you just might pick up on enough food jargon to make for interesting dinner conversation at your next party!

Cover image from Powells.com

This coffee table-worthy book is presented by Renewing the Countryside. Quoting directly from their website:

Renewing the Countryside strengthens rural areas by championing and supporting rural communities, farmers, artists, entrepreneurs, educators, activists and other people who are renewing the countryside through sustainable and innovative initiatives, businesses, and projects. We do this by sharing stories of rural renewal, building awareness and support for sustainable endeavors, connecting people interested in sustainable rural development to each other, providing practical assistance and networking opportunities for those working to improve rural America, and fostering connections between urban and rural people.

The cookbook features local restaurants and merchants who live close to the land of Minnesota and are all about keeping it local. The book gives a marvelous travel tour across the state via the various communities and restaurants featured in the book. You’ll learn many interesting factoids, including: why the trout is so angry and just what the Scandinavian link to Minnesota’s cuisine is.

The recipes range from exotic and fairly difficult to very basic and simple. I tried 3 recipes from the book. All were a success. My family especially enjoyed the Tourlou recipe from page 129 (which is pictured above). But we also enjoyed the Salsa and the Hummus recipes from page 99!

I’ve never been to Minnesota. But after reading this local cookbook, I think I’ll be planning a trip soon! The photography alone makes the book worth it’s $29.99 price. You can purchase the book by clicking here.

Recipe for Tourlou

Serves 4-5
1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil
2 medium onions, sliced
1/4 cup sliced garlic
1 fennel bulb plus the fennel fronds
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1/4 cup fresh basil chopped or 1 tsp. dried basil
2 bay leaves
4 cups peeled and diced eggplant
4 cups zucchini, thinly sliced
4 cups fresh green beans, with the ends trimmed
2 cups fresh diced tomatoes or 2 cups canned diced tomatoes

Preheat the oil in a dutch oven on medium and cook the onions and fennel with all the seasonings until the onions are tender. Add eggplant and cook about 5 minutes. Stir the eggplant to coat with the seasonings and oil. Add zucchini and green beans, stirring to coat with seasonings, and cook until the green beans start to change color. Add tomatoes and stir gently. Let the mixture simmer until it’s to the consistency that you prefer. Serve immediately and sprinkle with feta cheese and serve with crusty peasant bread.