Gourmet's Guide to Cooking with Wine: How to Use Wine to Take Simple Recipes from Ordinary to Extraordinary Book

Building on the concept of The Spaghetti Sauce Gourmet, this book shows how to use wine as the ultimate convenience ingredient that will add big impact to recipes and simple dishes. Why? Wine is versatile. It can be used with nearly every type of food. Use it to marinate meats, flavor stews, punch up sauces for fish, chicken, pasta, vegetables, and take desserts from everyday to elegant. Add a splash (even from that half-drunk bottle in the fridge from two days ago) and you instantly add class to the most humble fare.

Alison Boteler is the author of eight books on cooking, crafts and entertaining children including The Disney Party Handbook and Creative Children's Parties. She has contributed to magazines as well as Family Fun's website. Television credits include appearances on NBC's Today Show and a regular guest on Lifetime's Our Home.

Ann Weber - Library Journal

Boteler (The Great American Bake Sale) has produced a winner with this collection of classic recipes and innovative renditions. She gives a brief description of wine varietals and the wine regions of France and Italy as well as other parts of the world. Also included is a table for determining the percentage of alcohol that burns off during various cooking methods. Ten chapters are replete with appetizers and soups, salads and salad dressings, great European classics, main dishes, side dishes, brunch dishes, and desserts. The recipes for European classics, including beef bourguignon, coquilles Saint Jacques, and veal marsala, evoke memories of past elegance. Many recipes put a new twist on old favorites, such as adding mirin, Japanese rice wine, to green beans with slivered almonds and shiitake mushrooms. Food traditions from Europe, Asia, the American South, and other corners of the world are integrated. Both aspiring new nesters and seasoned cooks will appreciate the book's elegant simplicity. All instructions are easy to follow, and the ingredients are readily available. Highly recommended.