Product Description

Queer Eye for the Straight Guy’s food-and-wine connoisseur, Ted Allen, presents a quick-reference cookbook—giving you the food you really want to cook and eat, and the know-how to pull it off with ease.

"With most cookbooks, you could plow through 134 pages of complicated hors d’oeuvres, salads, and the author’s philosophical musings about food before you get to the stuff you actually want to eat. Not here. I’m going to save you the trouble and get to the point right up front.” These first sentences of the book sum up what Ted Allen’s The Food You Want to Eat is all about—the tempting, delicious, satisfying fare you really want on your dinner table tonight, without the fuss and the formalities. Chapters include:

•I Know What You Want to Eat: the essentials of steak, chicken both fried and roasted, warm caramel brownie sundaes, and a luscious mac and cheese that will have you thinking outside the box—way outside.

•Happy Hour: for the kind of parties real people actually throw; no engraved invitations or seating charts, just easy, delicious recipes like crostini, a simple tuna tartare that kicks, the crowd-pleasing spicy Cajun “pigs” in much nicer “blankets” than you’re used to, four incredible pizzas (one for each season), and of course ten perfect cocktails.

•The Cookout: fulfilling everyone’s desire for great barbecued ribs, plus the more adventurous (but even easier) rosemary grilled leg of lamb, and Ted’s secret to the ultimate hamburger.

•Poultry: whether baked, braised, or sautéed, chicken is often what’s for weeknight dinner, and here’s everything from soy-and-honey-glazed roast chicken to “around the world on a chicken breast” with superb ways to liven up those boneless, skinless, tasteless cutlets. Plus a simple (really!) duck, and a turkey that doesn’t demand the traditional Thanksgiving heroics.

Ted also delves into chapters on an array of fantastic salads that are a far cry from rabbit food; pastas featuring Italian classics like a great ziti with sausage and your basic pasta with red sauce, as well as easy Asian adventures such as cold soba noodles with sesame-peanut sauce; seafood for everyone who’s afraid to cook fish; meats that range from an amazing marinated grilled pork tenderloin and killer chili to a classic pot roast and osso buco; vegetable recipes that will make you love broccoli in a whole new way; and desserts for after dinner—and breakfasts for after after dinner.

This is the debut cookbook from one of the most engaging, most entertaining people ever to wield a spatula, filled with the incredibly simple, delicious real-life recipes for The Food You Want to Eat. In a word, mmmm.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #21467 in Books
• Published on: 2005-10-11
• Released on: 2005-10-11
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 192 pages

Amazon.com Review
Ted Allen, the food-and-wine expert from Bravo's Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, has written a cookbook for those seeking a solid dish repertoire for everyday cooking and entertaining alike. The Food You Want to Eat offers 100 recipes for the likes of Old School Caesar Salad; Crispy Oven-Fried Crabcakes; Paella with Seafood, Chicken and Chorizo; and Mustardy Barbecued Spareribs. These favorites that live up to the book's title, but Allen also provides some repertoire-stretching dishes like Pan-Roasted Salmon with Tomato Vinaigrette and Thai Green Chicken Curry with Vegetables. In his role as cooking tutor, and in asides like The Essentials of Steak, Allen also helps readers to understand how dishes work, and therefore how to cook more easily. A whole chapter that imparts cookout smarts, plus a short selection of easy-to-do meal-finales, which includes Chocolate-Glazed Almond Butter Cake, Warm Spiced Apple Tart, and New Age Floats, round out this useful, photo-illustrated collection. --Arthur Boehm

From Booklist
Best known for his role as the food guru on cable TV's Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, -Allen takes the full spotlight in this book, which takes cooks and eaters back to the days before counting calories, carbohydrates, and cholesterol became a national obsession. Allen chats amiably about food and techniques, occasionally making wry asides, as he does about "the politics of poultry production": "I like to joke that I'll only eat chickens that are organically farmed by differently abled Unitarian lesbians of color." His recipes are for comfort foods and old favorites, many updated with a modern twist: spinach salad with bacon and figs. Solid sections on salads, pastas, meat, poultry, and seafood are included, as is a chapter, "Happy Hour," covering both food and cocktails. The dessert section is rather disappointing, but Allen makes up for it by suggesting a wine for each dish. Photos of Allen, often hands deep in the ingredients, are scattered throughout the book. He's obviously having fun, and wishes the same for his reader-cooks. Stephanie Zvirin
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

About the Author
Ted Allen is the food-and-wine specialist on the Emmy Award–winning hit show Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, and one of the authors of the New York Times bestselling book of the same name. Ted also is a journalist and a contributing editor to Esquire, where he was a finalist for a National Magazine Award in 2001. Originally from Ohio, he cut his culinary teeth as a dining critic and editor at Chicago magazine. He lives in New York City.

Customer Reviews

My new food bible
After several seasons of Ted Allen guest-judging on Top Chef I decided to give his cookbook a try. Initially a library loan, I fell so in love with the recipes that I bought my own copy. The recipes are fairly simple and taste divine; of the four that I've tried so far, I've enjoyed them all. I also like that wine pairings are included with the recipes as the appropriate wine can truly complete a meal.

While the publisher was smart to put a protective cover on the book (so you can bring it into the kitchen without fear), it's strange that the binding they use doesn't allow the book to lay flat (so keeping it open in the kitchen can be difficult). The pages are glossy and of good quality; pictures are at a minimum. All the necessary information for making the dishes (appropriate measures, et al) is present, and Allen includes great tips for when you're shopping for the components. The sections are divided by food type (meat, poulty, vegetables, etc.) which allow you to mix and match to your preference.

Though sufficient, I wish the index in the back were more detailed. For example, it would be helpful to know what dishes use rosemary when I'm left with a bushel of it after making a recipe that requires just a few leaves. Other than that, I'm very happy with this book. I'm not interested in flashy recipes, I want something that TASTES GOOD, and The Food You Want to Eat delivers.

The Food You Want To Eat
Love the book, great recepies and the ones I've tried are tasty and easy. Book has a cover that wipes clean - always a plus.

honorable mention
I love Ted Allen, but this cookbook was really nothing special, like a previous reviewer said before me I would have liked more pictures of the food, and less of Ted Allen in cheesy poses.