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"This beautiful book is an amazing new window into the ingredients, the recipes, the stories of my home country." - José AndrésIn Spain, long-time Barcelona resident Jeff Koehler gathers the countrys many time-honored dishes and age-old culinary customs, and distills the Spanish table down to its essence - food that is prepared simply but full of homemade flavors, and always meant to be shared. Each chapter is an ode to Spains delightful kitchen, from gazpachos, salt cod, and poultry, to savory and sweet conserves. The story of the country is told through two hundred recipes from classics like Shellfish Paella, Artichoke Egg Tortilla, and creamy Flan to delicacies such as Chilled Melon Soup with Crispy Jamon and Monkfish Steaks with Saffron. Dishes from Spains leisurely multicourse meals and simple tapas alike celebrate seasonal ingredients: wild mushrooms, asparagus, and local game. Sidebars trace Spains rich culinary traditions, taking us from ancient Moorish cities to the arid fields of the Castilian countryside, and allow us to meet the people who still, with devotion, cultivate them. Accompanying these are hundreds of evocative photos of the markets, orchards, green hills, and fishing ports from which this delicious cuisine originates. Add to this a thorough glossary that includes techniques such as preparing snails, using saffron, and making perfect fish stock, as well as a helpful source list. Novices and veterans of the Spanish kitchen alike will gain a deeper understanding not only of Spains cuisine but of its culture.A New York Times Book Review Notable Cookbook
About the Author
Jeff Koehler is an American writer, traveler, photographer, and cook.
His writing, recipes, and photographs have appeared in many publications, including NPR.org, the Washington Post, NationalGeographic.com, Saveur, Food & Wine, Gourmet, Fine Cooking, EatingWell, Los Angeles Times, CS Monitor, Afar, Men's Journal, Atlantic Monthly online, Virtuoso Life, Dwell, Tin House and Penguin's literary journal The Happy Reader. He has work included in Best Food Writing 2010 and other anthologies, and has been awarded a prize by the North American Travel Journalist Association.
His latest book is Darjeeling: The Colorful History and Precarious Fate of the World's Greatest Tea is published by Bloomsbury (May 2015) .
He is the author of four cookbooks. Spain: Recipes and Traditions was published in 2013 to glowing reviews and was named one of year's best cookbooks by the New York Times, NPR's Here and Now, Entertainment Weekly, Mother Jones, Poor Man's Feast, the Washington, D.C., public libraries, and elsewhere.
Morocco: A Culinary Journey with Recipes (2012) was named a top cookbook by the CS Monitor. Publishers Weekly ran three pieces on the book: "Some international cookbooks stimulate appetites and others induce wanderlust--this survey of Moroccan cuisine does both. Food writer and photographer Jeff Koehler captures the complexity of his subject matter with the exacting detail of a scholar and the color and sensuality of a spice market." Koehler, another PW reviewer wrote, had "produced a cookbook that's almost too pretty to sully with crumbs. Almost. If only the recipes here, spanning iconic dishes to street foods, weren't so darned appealing."
Rice, Pasta, Couscous: The Heart of the Mediterranean Kitchen (2009) was called "a palate-rousing roundup for those with a taste for travel" (Publishers Weekly) . "Koehler's patient, detailed instructions and color commentary are transporting."
And his first book, La Paella: Deliciously Authentic Recipes from Spain's Mediterranean Coast (2006) has become the standard on Spain's iconic dish and was named by the New York Times as a noteworthy cookbook. It has gone through numerous printings and continues with strong sales, often the number one selling Spanish cookbook on Amazon.com.
The Seattle Times perhaps summed it up best, calling Koehler "a natural writer and storyteller."
He has largely photographed his own cookbooks: NPR called the photography in Spain "simply stunning," Publishers Weekly noted the "sumptuous photograph [that] complete the almost-like-being there experience" in Morocco, while the Chicago Tribune called that same book "beautifully photographed."
Koehler has also photographed two cookbooks for Ten Speed Press, Teresa Barrenechea's The Cuisines of
