The best Hospitality, Travel & Tourism books: Reddit reviews

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My girlfriend is a pescatarian (who doesn't even eat all seafood) and I am a picky eater with a distaste for a lot of greens. A recipe we both like without substitutions is a rare beast. That's why by far the best cookbook/cooking information for me has been the Culinary Institute of America textbook The Professional Chef. It's not built around recipes at all. The chapters are built around techniques and skills, and recipes are like the homework problems at the end of the chapter/book. Reading through it and learning about technique has allowed us to successfully improvise with the ingredients we do like much more so than trying to substitute liberally in others' precise recipes.

I highly suggest you take a look into reading Jonathan Safran Foer's "Eating Animals." It directly addresses this cultural/emotional component you're bringing up.

I used to be obese. 320 lbs at my worse. It's been 6 years since my BMI crossed into the overweight range and now is on the edge of normal and overweight.

I think the biggest problem for me (and several others I've spoken to) is that the American diet is just really unhealthy. Nobody cares when an "average" weighted person goes to Burger King or Taco Bell for lunch everyday.

When you're fat though, everyone has an opinion. "Eat a salad bro..." Becomes something you hear all the time. OK, I get a salad, now what? Oh, the weight just doesn't fall off? Meanwhile the salad has cheese, fried chicken, ranch dressing, etc... All the low calorie stuff.

There's a societal problem with what we consider "healthy". I really recommend the book Salt, Sugar, Fat. It's really eye opening as to how foods are called healthy and really shouldn't be.

I also think skinny people who have never had a weight issue really need to take a step back, even if they have the best intentions. It's often more damaging than anything because they usually give terrible advice. They have no idea how hard it is and how addicted to types of food most obese people are. It's not a chemical addiction so it's harder to understand for a lot of people, but it's there.

Anyone who has an attitude of, "I can't wait to eat that again when I'm done with this diet" isn't going to lose any weight. Those people ALWAYS put the weight back on because they go back to their poor eating choices as soon as they've hit a goal.

Buy a copy of the Smuggler's Cove book and go from there.

If you really want to get into making tiki drinks, you should buy the Smuggler's Cove book to get a good grip on what you're doing. The book also has recipes for most of the common syrups in the back. It is under $20 on Amazon, so it costs about the same as a decent bottle of rum.

The Professional Chef. Tons of recipes, no fluff. Definitely more textbook than cookbook though.

Also, an Amazon reviewer of the book said this

>The biggest inconvenience is that the quantities are referenced by weight so it might say 2oz of sugar and I have no idea how much that is. 

Which is just funny to me. The book has measurements in both imperial and metric for each recipe.

Before you go buying a bunch more rums, you need to get a copy of Martin Cate's Smuggler's Cove book. The chapter on the different types of rums alone is worth the price of the book.

https://www.amazon.com/Smugglers-Cove-Exotic-Cocktails-Cult/dp/1607747324

Rum wise, you need something Jamaican. I would recommend Appleton. Smith and Cross can also be fun. Overproof also gets used frequently; Plantation Old Fashioned Traditional Dark (OFTD) is popular.

Personally, I would also consider my copy of Smuggler's Cove: Exotic Cocktails, Rum, and the Cult of Tiki to be essential.

Well, on the extreme side, "The Professional Chef" textbook I believe is the one used by the culinary institute of America. I picked one up off Amazon for $36 just for the hell of it. It's really interesting and reads more like an academic text than a cook book. It can be quite intense though.

A much more popular choice and a much easier read would be "The Food Lab" by Kenji Lopez-Alt who is a writer for serious eats. The book has plenty of recipes but does an unbelievably amazing job explaining the science and reasoning behind the choices that are made as well as various "experiments" that kanji does to answer cooking questions. It definitely teaches technique and really helps put you in the right "mindset" for cooking without a recipe.

Here are links to both.

https://www.amazon.com/Professional-Chef-Culinary-Institute-America/dp/0470421355

https://www.amazon.com/Food-Lab-Cooking-Through-Science/dp/0393081087

You can try "the case against sugar" its a pretty good book if you want to understand more about sugar and the impact on the brain and body.

https://www.amazon.com/Case-Against-Sugar-Gary-Taubes/dp/0307701646

Personally I still have sugar, I found that having regular candy on hand at least prevents me for reaching for the chocolate.

https://www.amazon.com/Professional-Chef-Culinary-Institute-America/dp/0470421355/

This is the primary instructional book for the Culinary Institute of America.

It's big and seems a bit daunting, but if you attempt it page by page, it will explain exactly (and in perfect detail) all of the basics.

Took me about 2 years to make my way through it, but now I actually have skills and can make things "on my own" without needing detailed recipes.

Edit:

> How to cook everything from the best culinary school in America. This is The Mothership for recipes and basic culinary techniques. Anyone and everyone serious about food and cooking should have one in their kitchen.

--Anthony Bourdain

If you like learning from books I would highly recommend buying a used copy of a Professional Cooking book that Culinary colleges use.

New ones cost about $50-75 but older editions with 98% of the same content can get found for $20 and can be used as a culinary bible.

Amazon: The Professional Chef

My wife bought me a copy of <em>Smuggler's Cove: Exotic Cocktails, Rum, and the Cult of Tiki</em> when coronavirus started. We’ve really enjoyed making tiki drinks. If you have visited r/tiki yet I recommend it!

The great news is your goals and dreams are super realistic. Even a home on the smallest amount of land can be turned into a farm.

There are lots of good books on the subject, but check this one out.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0865717656/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_P6xlFbG6FJHFF

Personally, I've turned my small lot into raspberries, strawberries, blueberries and grapes. All super low maintenance and all super rewarding with how much they produce.

Smuggler's Cove: Exotic Cocktails, Rum, and the Cult of Tiki is pretty much our bible. https://www.amazon.com/Smugglers-Cove-Exotic-Cocktails-Cult/dp/1607747324

Also get the Total Tiki app, which will give you tons of recipes and show you what you can make with what you have on hand. https://beachbumberry.com/publications.html

With those two you'll pretty much have everything you need.

Cheetos are supposed to be a really well designed junk food.

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Salt Sugar Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us - Michael Moss

“This … is one of the most marvelously constructed foods on the planet, in terms of pure pleasure,” he said, ticking off a dozen attributes of the Cheetos that make the brain say more. A key one is the puff’s uncanny ability to melt in the mouth like chocolate. “It’s called vanishing caloric density,” Witherly said. “If something melts down quickly, your brain thinks that there’s no calories in it, and like popcorn, you can just keep eating it forever.”

The Culinary Institute of America has a series of very comprehensive, if expensive, books. I recommend The Professional Chef as a starting point.

I'll actually say that you might want to spend a little on picking up a good book about tiki, like Smuggler's Cove: Exotic Cocktails, Rum, and the Cult of Tiki. It's worth it for the recipes alone, but the chapter on rums is pure gold. You'll learn that "light" and "dark" don't really mean anything.

Other's here have recommended Cocktail Wonk's blog, and that's a good place to learn, as well.

And your counter argument was that eviscerstion doesn't happen. I could stand on how probability works, that no system is perfect, mistakes happen, things get missed, and that the faster things move, the more mistakes will happen. If that's not good enough, there's also Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser or The Jungle by Upton Sinclair (if you want your information way out of date). Short version is that the business needs of mass meat production have turned our slaughter process into a horror show.

I don't doubt that at least the people on the line try not to make the animal suffer, but this is what businesses do: throw everything under the bus in order to keep the business running. Get the work done or they find someone who will.

Hey there! So the broad fork is a tool used by a lot of organic and no-till/low-till to avoid conventional tilling and more destructive practices. After a few seasons of broad forking and proper compost amendments a lot of growers find the soil structure has improved so much they can retire the broad fork. The broad forks loosens the soil to about 8-9inches, but it doesn’t churn or turn it. Doesn’t destroy soil organisms and doesn’t expose underground carbon to the air, thus stopping the soils ability to sequester carbon.

I highly recommend doing some reading into the broad fork, or grelinette as it’s originally known as. Definitely check out The Market Gardner by Jean-Martin Fortier, a well known organic no-till farmer from Quebec. And The Living Soil Handbook by Jesse Frost, a well-known no-till farmer from Kentucky, he is also the host of the No-Till Market Garden podcast and YouTube channel.

Both sources talk about no-till/low-till and how the broad fork/grelinette fits in to those systems.

My personal background is in organic/sustainable production horticulture and ag.

https://www.amazon.ca/Market-Gardener-Successful-Handbook-Small-Scale/dp/0865717656/ref=asc_df_0865717656/?tag=googlemobshop-20&amp;linkCode=df0&amp;hvadid=292984809546&amp;hvpos=&amp;hvnetw=g&amp;hvrand=5254386317196992908&amp;hvpone=&amp;hvptwo=...

https://www.notillgrowers.com/livingsoilhandbook/d9z5gkf1bbnhu0w5xxb3trngiqhwgo

You're actually on the right track. Too many people jump into tiki and buy hundreds of dollars worth of ingredients that end up gathering dust. Go slow, and add as you need, and as you find a new drink you want to try making.

I'll echo that a good book like "Smuggler's Cove: Exotic Cocktails, Rum, and the Cult of Tiki", $16 on Amazon, will give you recipes, rum tips, and some cool fun history. But if you can get to a tiki bar to taste a few basic drinks (I agree with Mai Tai, Painkiller, Daiquiri), that will help you know what it's supposed to taste like. Let us know where you are and we can recommend the best nearby tiki bar.

When syrups go bad, they usually grow mold. It won't make you sick, but it'll taste yucky. You'll be able to tell because the syrup will get cloudy or have things floating in it or smell like vinegar. If you keep your syrups in the fridge, you can definitely keep them more than 2-3 months. I'm embarrassed to admit it, but I have a bottle of Liber & Co. orgeat that I opened Sept. 26th. Still good because I take it out, use it, and immediately put it back in. (Pro tip: write the date you open it on the bottle.) If you're making your own, sanitizing the container will make the biggest difference. (Boil for 5 minutes.) Your Monin syrup is likely still good, but it may be getting "tired" and losing flavor. I too recommend Liber & Co. for syrups. (https://www.liberandcompany.com/) Join their "Cocktail Club" and sign up for their newsletter and you'll get coupons and discounts. You can also find a lot of syrups on Amazon, but I find they tend to be cheaper direct from the companies.

Welcome to the fun! Enjoy!

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It’s not possible to be fat without consuming large amounts of carbohydrates. It’s principally an issue of appetite regulation.

Obesity was basically non-existent in the 1800s and only started to increase in incidence when populations started to consume more sugar and simple, refined carbohydrates.

The Case Against Sugar is a very good read.

I boken Salt, Sugar, Fat viser forfatteren hvordan matindustrien hooker oss på usunn mat. En strategi er å ha sterke merkevarer med et flaggskip-produkt, og så i regelmessig avstand lansere "crazy varianter" som stort sett bare kjører i begrenset tid. Poenget er ikke å lage noe godt, men å friske opp interessen for produktet og sørge for at forbrukeren fortsetter å være hooket på salt, sukker og fett.

Tenker alltid på det avsnittet når jeg ser disse "nyhetene" :)

Something I always see neglected here is COOKING SKILLS. There's a reason chuck wagons had a Cooky whose sole job was to fill everyone's bellies and make sure the coffee was hot. I'm not saying become a chef but everyone needs to purchase a cookbook that teaches practical skills. If you can find an original Fanny Farmer this book is the best for cottage cooking skills. From slaughter to roast beast the book will in great detail teach you. Otherwise just find something that teaches some basic kitchen skills not a recipe book. My recommendation is the Professional Chef it's a bit expensive but barring how to slaughter everything you need to know how to cook good is in there.

I mean, a good setup is key. I actually really like the way Jim Meehan thinks through it because there's a ton to consider when you're building out a space. You might not need to do a prebuilt station like this but you should definitely invest in an architect/designer who will maximize the value of your space. That said, while I haven't worked with that particular setup it does look similar to setups I've seen at many of the craft places I've worked at. Lots of good design ideas, some of which are maybe a bit excessive. Also worth checking reviews for this because I'm willing to bet some of the shit here breaks fairly easily and that could be a huge pain in the ass.

There is a great book called “Salt Sugar Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us”

Book: https://www.amazon.com/Salt-Sugar-Fat-Giants-Hooked/dp/0812982193

Video of author speaking on the subject: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c13hXuBbj9o

Salt Sugar Fat by Michael Moss does a great job in detailing this. Food company's entire existence is dependent on our willingness to eat whatever they push toward us.

This may seem like out left field, but everyone I see Smuggler's Cove I think of this book. Check it out if you wanna learn how to make good tiki cocktails.

At my school, we used The Professional Chef in first year, and The French Laundry Cookbook for second year. I still use them both on a regular basis.

Over the past two years I have really been getting into rum and tiki drinks. This book changed my life https://www.amazon.com/Smugglers-Cove-Exotic-Cocktails-Cult/dp/1607747324

My favorite is also one of the most simple, the daiquiri

juice of one lime, 0.5 oz demerara syrup (a 2:1 mixture of demerara or brown sugar and water), 2 oz light rum (My go to is plantation three stars, cheap and delicious. Can also go with plantation's stiggings pineapple rum for a more complex flavor).