For Groovy Grandmas

Got kugel? Got Kugel with Toffee Walnuts? Now you do. Here's the real homemade Gefilte Fish – and also Salmon en Papillote. Grandma Sera Fritkin’s Russian Brisket and Hazelnut-Crusted Rack of Lamb. Aunt Irene's traditional matzoh balls and Judy's contemporary version with shiitake mushrooms. Cooking Jewish gathers recipes from five generations of a food-obsessed family into a celebratory saga of cousins and kasha, Passover feasts – the holiday has its own chapter – and crossover dishes. And for all cooks who love to get together for coffee and a little something, dozens and dozens of desserts: pies, cakes, cookies, bars, and a multitude of cheesecakes; Rugelach and Hamantaschen, Mandelbrot and Sufganyot (Hanukkah jelly doughnuts). Not to mention Tanta Esther Gittel’s Husband’s Second Wife Lena’s Nut Cake.

Blending the recipes with over 160 stories from the Rabinowitz family—by the end of the book you'll have gotten to know the whole wacky clan—and illustrated throughout with more than 500 photographs reaching back to the 19th century, Cooking Jewish invites the reader not just into the kitchen, but into a vibrant world of family and friends. Written and recipe-tested by Judy Bart Kancigor, a food journalist with the Orange County Register, who self-published her first family cookbook as a gift and then went on to sell 11,000 copies, here are 532 recipes from her extended family of outstanding cooks, including the best chicken soup ever – really! – from her mother, Lillian. (Or as the author says, "When you write your cookbook, you can say your mother's is the best.")

Every recipe, a joy in the belly.

This book celebrates the plants of the Old Testament and New Testament, including the Apocrypha, and of the Quran. From acacia, the wood of the tabernacle, to wormwood, whose bitter leaves cured intestinal worms, 81 fascinating chapters—covering every plant that has a true botanical counterpart—tell the stories of the fruits and grains, grasses and trees, flowers and fragrances of ancient lore. The descriptions include the plants' botanical characteristics, habitat, uses, and literary context. With evocative quotations and revelatory interpretations, this information is all the more critical today as the traditional agrarian societies that knew the plants intimately become urbanized.

The unusually broad geographic range of this volume extends beyond Israel to encompass the Holy Land's biblical neighbors from southern Turkey to central Sudan and from Cyprus to the Iraq border.

Richly illustrated with extensive color photography and with a foreword by the incomparable Garrison Keillor, this delightful ecumenical botany offers the welcome tonic of a deep look into an enduring, shared natural heritage.

• Choose a top-of-the-heap idea;Come up with a blockbuster title;
• Craft an attention-getting pitch;
• Create a selling proposal;
• Find the right agent, publisher and editor;
• Understand a book contract and royalty statements;
• Enhance presentation skills;
• Develop sales, marketing, and publicity savvy;
• and, if necessary, self-publish (as did Irma Rombauer for The Joy of Cooking and James Redfield for The Celestine Prophesy).