From chef James Syhabout of two–Michelin-star restaurant Commis, an Asian-American cookbook like no other—simple recipes for cooking home-style Thai and Lao dishes
James Syhabout’s hugely popular Hawker Fare restaurant in San Francisco is the product of his unique family history and diverse career experience. Born into two distinct but related Asian cultures—from his mother’s ancestral village in Isan, Thailand’s northeast region, and his father’s home in Pakse, Laos—he and his family landed in Oakland in 1981 in a community of other refugees from the Vietnam War. Syhabout at first turned away from the food of his heritage to work in Europe and become a classically trained chef.
After the success of Commis, his fine dining restaurant and the only Michelin-starred eatery in Oakland, Syhabout realized something was missing—and that something was Hawker Fare, and cooking the food of his childhood. The Hawker Fare cookbook immortalizes these widely beloved dishes, which are inspired by the open-air “hawker” markets of Thailand and Laos as well as the fine-dining sensibilities of James’s career beginnings. Each chapter opens with stories from Syhabout’s roving career, starting with his mother’s work as a line cook in Oakland, and moving into the turning point of his culinary life, including his travels as an adult in his parents’ homelands.
From building a pantry with sauces and oils, to making staples like sticky rice and padaek, to Syhabout’s recipe for instant ramen noodles with poached egg, Hawker Fare explores the many dimensions of this singular chef’s cooking and ethos on ingredients, family, and eating well. This cookbook offers a new definition of what it means to be making food in America, in the full and vibrant colors of Thailand, Laos, and California.

Hawker Fare: Stories & Recipes from a Refugee Chef's Isan Thai & Lao Roots

Cookbooks, Food & Wine

Syhabout, James

Birdsall, John

Cooking Education & Reference

Anthony Bourdain/Ecco

Main Courses & Side Dishes

After World War II, a newly affluent United States reached for its own gourmet culture, one at ease with the French international style of Escoffier, but also distinctly American. Enter James Beard, authority on cooking and eating, his larger-than-life presence and collection of whimsical bow ties synonymous with the nation's food for decades, even after his death in 1985. In the first biography of Beard in twenty-five years, acclaimed writer John Birdsall argues that Beard's struggles as a closeted gay man directly influenced his creation of an American cuisine. Starting in the 1920s, Beard escaped loneliness and banishment by traveling abroad to places where people ate for pleasure, not utility, and found acceptance at home by crafting an American ethos of food likewise built on passion and delight. Informed by never-before-tapped correspondence and lush with details of a golden age of home cooking, The Man Who Ate Too Much is a commanding portrait of a towering figure who still represents the best in food.

The Man Who Ate Too Much: The Life of James Beard

Biographies & Memoirs

Professionals & Academics

W.W.Norton&Company

Heroes Rascals & Rogues

MATTHEWS, Rupert

AA Publishing

Whales and Dolphins

Siena

The Art of Western Riding

Crafts, Hobbies & Home

Mayhew, Bob

Pets & Animal Care

Howell Book House

A Finalist for the 2022 James Beard Foundation Cookbook Award (Writing)\nThe definitive biography of America’s best-known and least-understood food personality, and the modern culinary landscape he shaped.\nIn the first portrait of James Beard in twenty-five years, John Birdsall accomplishes what no prior telling of Beard’s life and work has done: He looks beyond the public image of the "Dean of American Cookery" to give voice to the gourmet’s complex, queer life and, in the process, illuminates the history of American food in the twentieth century. At a time when stuffy French restaurants and soulless Continental cuisine prevailed, Beard invented something strange and new: the notion of an American cuisine. 
Informed by previously overlooked correspondence, years of archival research, and a close reading of everything Beard wrote, this majestic biography traces the emergence of personality in American food while reckoning with the outwardly gregarious Beard’s own need for love and connection, arguing that Beard turned an unapologetic pursuit of pleasure into a new model for food authors and experts. 
Born in Portland, Oregon, in 1903, Beard would journey from the pristine Pacific Coast to New York’s Greenwich Village by way of gay undergrounds in London and Paris of the 1920s. The failed actor–turned–Manhattan canapé hawker–turned–author and cooking teacher was the jovial bachelor uncle presiding over America’s kitchens for nearly four decades. In the 1940s he hosted one of the first television cooking shows, and by flouting the rules of publishing would end up crafting some of the most expressive cookbooks of the twentieth century, with recipes and stories that laid the groundwork for how we cook and eat today. 
In stirring, novelistic detail, The Man Who Ate Too Much brings to life a towering figure, a man who still represents the best in eating and yet has never been fully understood―until now. This is biography of the highest order, a book about the rise of America’s food written by the celebrated writer who fills in Beard’s life with the color and meaning earlier generations were afraid to examine. 16 pages of photographs

Food in America and Europe has long been shaped, twisted, and upended by queer creatives. Beloved food writer John Birdsall fills the gap between the past and present, channeling the twin forces of criticism and cultural history to propel readers into the kitchens, restaurants, swirling party-houses, and humming interior lives of James Baldwin, Alice B. Toklas, Truman Capote, Esther Eng, and others who left an indelible mark on the culinary world from the margins. Queer food is brunch quiche à la Craig Claiborne, Richard Olney's ecstatic salade composée, and Rainbow Ice-Box Cake from Ernest Matthew Mickler's White Trash Cooking. It's the intention surrounding a meal, the circumstances behind it, the people gathered around the table. With cinematic verve and prose that dazzles, What Is Queer Food? is a monumental work: a testament to food's essential link to a modern queerness that reveals how, like fashion or tastes in music, food has become a language of LGBTQ+ identity.

What Is Queer Food?: How We Served a Revolution

History

Do you dream of watching the sun set over Ayers Rock, exploring the peaks of Denali, or feeling the spray of Victoria Falls? Are you awestruck by nature's beauty? Then here's an adventure you simply cannot afford to pass up! 501 Must-Visit Natural Wonders takes you on a grand tour of the planet's most dazzling natural creations. 501 Must-Visit Natural Wonders is literally bursting with stunning images and fascinating text describing the allure of spectacular natural destinations, offering a source of inspiration and practical advice for travelers. Explore world-famous sites like the Grand Canyon, Mount Everest, and the Great Barrier reef, and discover lesser-known gems such as Japan's Shirakami-Sanchi Forest and the remote Indian Ocean island that is home to 100,000 giant tortoises. Amazing locations around the world are revealed: mountain ranges, deserts, gorges, rivers, glaciers, marshes, cliffs, waterfalls, coral reefs, and tropical rainforests—Mother Nature at her most magnificent.

501 Must-Visit Natural Wonders (501 Musts)

Travel

Brown, Jackum

Barran, Miranda

BROWN, DAVID

Specialty Travel

Thunder Bay Press

Optical illusions are fun visual tricks that confuse and surprise the brain. Inquisitive kids will discover the secrets behind the world of optical illusions in this exciting new book. Step-by-step instructions for 50 easy-to-do experiments include liquid illusions, mirrors, kaleidoscopes, and 3-D images. By using common household items with the materials included in the book, kids will be off exploring the fascinating world of optical illusions in no time. Seeing is believing!

Optical Illusions Lab (Science Lab)

Children's Books

Science, Nature & How It Works

Silver Dolphin Books

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Birdsall, John. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Birdsall, John