Yes we love our coffee here in Seattle, but I think we love our sushi just as much!

Seattle is a Mecca for sushi, and we have some fantastic places to polish one’s sushi etiquette.
Some of my favorites include; Nishino in Madison park for elegant creations and presentations, Shiro for old school classics, Chiso and Kappo, the it sushi place of the moment for their amazing fresh fish and creative presentations, Umi Sake House, Belltown’s sophisticated take on the Japanese izakaya style of eating, and Blue C Sushi for super creative rolls, fun hot foods, great salads and all in all, just fun.

Wherever you decide to go don’t be afraid to try ordering something new. Put your trust in the hands of the chef and order “omasake,” the chef’s choice. Some of the items may be unfamiliar, but you will be rewarded with delicious treats.

And if after all of this you still can’t get enough sushi, check out this great read The Zen of Fish: The Story of Sushi, from Samurai to Supermarket by Trevor Corson, Harper Collins. It will have you rethinking everything you thought you knew about sushi. For example, did you know that Sushi started as a method of using rice to ferment the fish? It was a preservation tool!

Two fun new books just popped across my desk this last month and have me eager to get in the kitchen.

The first is The Art and Soul of Baking by Sur La Table and Cindy Mushet, Andrews McMeel Publishing. What a tome it is! Destined to become dog-eared, and sepia toned from splashes of vanilla, this complete guide to baking surely will be cherished for years to come. Mushet guides bakers through the tools and the vocabulary of the trade. Recipes range from low risk quick breads like Pumpkin Walnut Bread, to challenging layered doughs. What sets Mushet’s book apart are her “Tips for Success” and “What the Pros Know” sidebars peppered through the book. These hints and tips help dissolve myths and offer practical solutions to some of the most common baking questions; like, “Why do muffin fillings fall to the bottom?” Pick up The Art and Soul of Baking to find out.

The second book to catch my eye this month is Art of The Slow Cooker: 80 Exciting New Recipes by Andrew Schloss, Chronicle Books. With a tight economy and efficiency on the mind, people are turning to crock pots in record numbers. But disappointment can result from the “dump and heat” method. Schloss outlines delicious recipes that require a quick browning of the meat first to develop complex and deep flavor. His recipes include everything from soups to stews (a pot pie even), to pulled pork and an All Day Cassoulet. What would a cookbook be without dessert? You’ll run across a tempting Chocolate Pudding Cake and just in time for the holidays a Supremely Edible Fruitcake! This is a fantastic holiday gift giving book for anyone with a busy life style.

There are so many books out there today for cooks; everything from celebrity cookbooks, to food memoirs, to single subject exposes, to resource guides for chefs, You can really find exactly what you are looking for.

I am a self admitted cookbook junkie, with over 1000 in my library here at the food studios. My assistant Mary also collects cookbooks, housing a respectable number in her tiny abode. We both love pouring over the pages, reading ingredient lists, and then there are the photographs!

This last couple of months a slew of cookbooks have come across our desk here at the Kathy Casey Food Studios, and Mary and I have selected our favorites to share with you. Almost all of these books are out now and available from your favorite bookseller.

Chefs On the Farm: Recipes and Inspiration from the Quillisascut Farm School of the Domestic Arts. By Shannon Borg and Lora Lea Misterly, Skipstone $24.95
Sustainability has never been so delicious. The Quillisascut cookbook is the printed counterpart to Rick and Lora Lea Misterly’s Quillisascut Farm School of the Domestic Arts in Rice Washington. A collaborative effort between Lora Lea- Goat Cheese Queen, Shannon Borg– Food Writer, Karen Jurgensen– Chef Instructor at Seattle Central Community College and Quillisascut School of the Domestic Arts, and award winning photographer Harley Soltes.

The book is divided seasonally, with recipes as well as look at farm life during each season. Beautifully photographed, you instantly settle into sense of time and place. The recipes are explosions of textures and flavors, using local ingredients that are anything but ordinary. A cornerstone for sustainable cooking as well as life on the farm, Chefs on the Farm is more than a cookbook, but a manual for rethinking our approaching food.

Scroll down for a recipe for Cardomom – Apple Stuffed French Toast with Cider Syrup

The Cooks Country Cookbook: Rediscovering American Home Cooking. America’s Test Kitchen, $34.95
With fall comes the desire to create American home-style classics, and what better than to turn to the pages of The Cooks Country Cookbook. Brought to you by the same people behind the popular magazine Cook’s Illustrated, the recipes are tirelessly tested and composed of clear methods to set the home cook up for sure success. Delicious recipes include: Hearty Beef Stew, Corned Beef Hash, and a tempting Chocolate Blackout Cake.

Cooking with Les Dames d’Escoffier: At Home with the Women Who Shape the Way We Eat and Drink. Edited by Marcella Rosene with Pat Mozersky, Sasquatch Books, $35.00
Les Dames d’Escoffier is an international organization of women leaders in food and beverage and hospitality – the organization promotes women into the hospitality fields, making connections through food and provides scholarships. Recipes from Seattle Dames include Braiden Rex Johnson-food writer, Leslie Mackie of Macrina, Fran Bigelow of Frans Chocolates, me-Kathy Casey, and more.

We’re hosting a cookbook release party here at the Kathy Casey Food Studios on October 16th. You’ll enjoy nibbling on bites from the book as well as rubbing shoulders with Seattle’s taste makers. Tickets, which include a signed book, are available from the Dames Seattle website.

Sunday Soup: A Year’s Worth of Mouthwatering, Easy-to-Make Recipes. Betty Rosbottom, Chronicle Books, $19.99
This is a beautiful book and is perfect for the gift giving season! Not just another collection of soup recipes, Betty Rosbottom kicks off the book with a stock chapter, instructing readers on how to make great stock and drilling in the importance of making great stock. The rest of the book is divided up by season. In addition to soups and stocks, there are fantastic recipes for soup perfect sides like Green Bean, Cherry Tomato, and Bacon Salad. Old classics and new exciting flavors incite mouth watering. I’m dying to try the Scallop and Corn chowder or Apple Soup with Crumbled Roquefort and Bacon, yum!

Cardamom–Apple Stuffed French Toast with Cider Syrup
From the Cookbook Chefs on the Farm by Shannon Borg and Lora Lea Misterly

Makes 4 servings

I use hominy bread (a yeasted bread made with a mixture of wheat flour and corn flour) for this recipe; its slightly nutty flavor prevents the dish from being too sweet. If you can’t find it in your local market, a good sourdough works well. Adding the sugar to the apples at the beginning of the cooking process keeps them firmer. For a lower-fat version, milk or half-and half may be substituted for the heavy cream.

Preheat the oven to 200 degrees F.

French toast:
4 Honeycrisp (or other tart) apples, cored, quartered, and cut into ¼-inch-thick slices
4 tablespoons organic sugar (evaporated cane juice)
1 teaspoon ground cardamom
4 tablespoons (½ stick) unsalted butter, divided
4 eggs
½ cup heavy cream
¼ teaspoon vanilla
Pinch of kosher salt
4 slices hominy bread, cut 1½ inches thick

Cider syrup:
1 cup apple cider
1 cup organic sugar (evaporated cane juice)

1. In a small bowl, toss the apples with sugar and cardamom. In a sauté pan over medium-high heat, melt 2 tablespoons of the butter. Add the apples and stir occasionally for about 3 minutes, or until the apples are soft and lightly browned. Remove from heat and cool slightly in the pan.
2. Meanwhile, in a small bowl, whisk together the eggs, heavy cream, vanilla, and salt until frothy. Slice a long slit in each piece of the hominy bread from the top crust to about an inch from the bottom and side crusts. Stuff the bread with the apples; reserve a few apples to garnish the dish. Pour the egg–cream mixture onto a plate and soak the stuffed bread in batches, turning until saturated.
3. Melt 1 tablespoon of the butter in a large sauté pan over medium-high heat. Place two slices of the bread in the pan and cook until brown, about 2 minutes on each side. Remove from the pan and keep warm in a 200-degree oven. Repeat with the remaining 2 slices of bread and butter.
4. To prepare the cider syrup, pour the apple cider and sugar into a small saucepan. Bring to a boil, then reduce the liquid to 1 cup.
5. Serve the French toast warm with butter, the reserved apples, and cider syrup.

Fish Without a Doubt, the new book by Rick Moonen and Roy Finamore, Houghton Mifflin publishing, should be on your bookshelf now. This comprehensive tome takes the fear out of fish with an in-depth guide to preparing, storing, and shopping fish. Each fish is broken down into what to look for, best method of preparations, and flavor, giving you a chef’s mastery of the subject. Moonen and Finamore are excellent guides through this region of culinary know how, providing practical, step by step, advice to the cooking publics quires, even tackling the “when is it done” question, and the “fish-y” odor issue.

The recipes are sublime and feature influences from all over the world (Sauteed Char with Hoisin Galze and Wasabi Butter Sauce) and restaurant classics we just can’t get enough of (their take on the seared tuna). Food porn photos of Crispy Bay Scallop Hush Puppies or Bouillabasse for the American Kitchen will have you forgetting whatever you had planned for dinner and thinking fish.

Why the Chinese Don’t Count Calories, Lorriane Clissold, Skyhorse Publishing

As the Chinese Government is busily renaming restaurant dishes in preparation for the onslaught of foreign visitors at the 2008 Summer Olympic Games, Lorraine Clissold’s Why the Chinese Don’t Count Calories, Skyhorse Publishing, couldn’t come out at a better time.

I have to say, before this book ever landed on my desk I had little ideal of Chinese culinary culture and the daily eating habits of the most populated country in the world.

“It is is about crossing a cultural boundary to discover a different way of thinking about food and diet,” Lorraine writes.

Not just a diet manifesto, this guide to the Chinese way of eating feels more like a chat with an industry insider, Lorriane comes across well read and well informed, offering tips that appear at first common sense, but quickly cause you to reflect on your own eating habits. Her 15 secretes outlined in the book span across any eating culture and she expertly translates Chinese seasonings and dishes into familiar western preparations for those who aren’t quite ready to give up their morning coffee and bagel for congee. Yum!

We’ve Always Had Paris…And Provence: A Scrapbook of Our Life in France

Patricia and Walter Wells

Who hasn’t dreamt of a life in France. Long mornings, lingering over a frothy cappuccino and the flakiest pain au chocolate. Strolling along the Champs Elysées, an afternoon lollygagging in the left bank, and fabulous meal made from the freshest meats and produce to cap off the day. American’s have and always will be captivated by a life in France, and with Patricia and Walter Well’s New Book “We’ve Always Had Paris…And Provence,” we can life out life in France, at least vicariously through the expatriate pair.

Patricia Wells is a well known French culinary expert with many books under her name, and contributor to The International Herald Tribune, Food and Wine, and other culinary magazines. The first chapter starts off with a take from Walter then Patricia. Less “He said, She said.” The two finish stories as lovers finish each other’s sentences, seamlessly. You practically expect to see a picture of the two smooching at the end of each chapter, instead, mouth watering recipes.

Another book to come across my desk recently is the “Swedish Cakes and Cookies” cookbook, translated into English by Melody Favish, published by Skyhorse Publishing Inc.

I love to bake and this book inspires with drool-worthy photos of familiar Swedish baked goods like Danish Pastry Twists (danishes) and Checkerboard Cookies to yummy Arrak Balls and Margareta’s Spicy Rusks.

More than just a collection of recipes, this super useful book includes tips and alternatives for gluten free cakes and cookes, as well as photo step-by-step for making yeasted dough and puff pastry.

Flipping through the recipes makes me long for Christmas cookie exchanges and it’s only May!