Links

Aroma Cucina Blog -- Judith Klinger pens this fun food blog. She splits her time between New York City and Montone, Italy. After running a successful apparel design company, she turned fulltime to her passion for food. Her posts are insightful (because of her interest in history?) and just plain fun to read.

Hogwash: Thoughts on Food & Life -- Jess Thomson is a delightful food writer who lives and writes in Seattle. Her blog is easy to read, engaging, and sprinkled with pretty pictures and delicious sounding recipes.

Cucina Testa Rossa -- Laura Pauli is the delightful "red head" (testa rossa) who traded in her software skills for a chef's toque. She's now traipsing around France, cooking with some of the greatest chefs in the world. This is her blog, and hands down, Laura is one of the funniest food writers I've ever read. Check out her book (part memoir/part cookbook) called My Keyboard for a Cutting Board: Adventures in a French Kitchen V 1.0, which you can buy on her blog site.

Scottsdale Culinary Institute -- My alma mater, located on Camelback Rd. in Scottsdale, with a new campus at the Galleria. The school is now owned by CEC, but was privately owned, with small class sizes when I attended. The school offers a Le Cordon Bleu certificate along with the A.O.S Culinary Arts degree, and Bachelor programs for Culinary Arts and Hospitality Management. They also have a baking and pastry program.

Arizona Culinary Institute -- Located on Shea Blvd, just before Fountain Hills. Many of my favorite instructors from SCI left to join ACI. It boasts small class sizes and a shorter program (9-months).

Shaw's Guides -- Shaw publishes books on cooking schools, golf schools and camps and now they're branching out to other areas. Their website is just as helpful as having the hard copy book. Within the cooking schools, you can find professional for recreational (hobbyist) cooking schools.

Cook Street School of Fine Cooking -- Located in über cool LoDo (an area of downtown Denver, Colorado) Cook Street offers a wide variety of culinary courses for everyone from the aspiring professional chef, to the backyard grill master.

AndyFood Culinary Studio -- Scottsdale, AZ. Andy offers both demonstration and hands-on classes. He's a "Mr. Martha" when it comes to food presentation and table decorations.

Kitchen Classics -- Phoenix, AZ. I love the independent spirit of this comfy store and school. No wonder it was awarded kitchen store of the year by Gourmet Retailer.

Sur La Table -- Scottsdale, AZ and across the country. This link is to Sur La Table's home page, but you can link to their culinary programs from there.

Simply Impressive -- Mesa, AZ. Home-based, and small, hands-on classes are Judy Toth's specialties at this relatively new, but popular cooking school in Mesa. Judy, a self-taught but experienced home-cook, gives more than recipes and instruction during her classes. She delves into the history of the dishes she teaches, and focuses not only on technique, but plate presentation.

A new quarterly food magazine, debuting in Phoenix in February 2006. Filled with engaging stories and gorgeous photographs, Edible Phoenix will connect consumers with local growers, retailers, chefs, and food artisans. The website includes a food related calendar, and offers an email newsletter.

Now this is just the coolest site! Craving a certain food? Type it in the search box and Cookthink will spit out recipe ideas for you. The site also produces a weekly email focusing on a specific food, like pineapples. You can customize your own Cookthink page that captures searches you've performed and recipes you want to keep track of. Go check it out... it's really cool!

David Leite is a an award-winning food writer and Leite's Culinaria is his showcase. The site features monthly cookbook reviews, recipes tested and rated by David's panel of home cook recipe testers, articles written by David and other writers and much, much more. I never miss checking out his site to see what's new. Oh, when he added Linda Avery as his food editor, his site won a James Beard Award.

Chef Tools.com -- A great site for chef tools. If you're a serious foodie, you need to check out this site. You'll find things here you won't see at Sur La Table or Williams Sonoma, and some that you do, but this site is really targeted to those who love to cook and love to entertain.

State by State, The Best of the Best Cookbook Series

Quail Ridge Press has published 41 cookbooks, covering all 50 states in their "Best of the Best" series. Recipes from The Great Ranch Cookbook, and The Cool Mountain Cookbook appear in the Best of the Best From Big Sky, covering cookbooks from Montana and Wyoming. The Best of the Best series are compiled from church cookbooks, Junior League cookbooks, and other state specific cookbooks.

Gwen McKee and Barbara Moseley, the two dynamos behind the series just released a hardcover compilation of all the state books called "Best of the Best from America Cookbook." The Cool Mountain Cookbook makes a contribution in this book with Lemon Huckleberry Scones. There is a little sampling of each state book in this overall compilation. Each chapter has an introduction to the state, providing a bit about what ingredients make that state special. We highly recommend any of the Best of the Best books!

History Cooks® -- Home of the award-winning “Food Journal of Lewis & Clark.” History Cooks® features recipes, historical cookbooks for adults & kids, food history presentations & ideas for exploring food and culture. The award-winning “Food Journal of Lewis & Clark: Recipes for an Expedition” from History Cooks® and culinary historian Mary Gunderson features authentic recipes from the Trail, plus maps & drawings. I bought a copy for my father-in-law, and avid cook and history buff, and he loved it.

The Scottsdale Culinary Festival -- Gourmet food takes center stage every April for the Annual Scottsdale Culinary Festival. Wineries, chefs, celebrities, locals and tourists alike gather together for a culinary extravaganza.

Epstein Studios Food Photography -- Ken Epstein is a talented photographer based in Phoenix, Arizona. Check out the food photos on his site.

Chocolate Snowball -- Letty Flatt, Executive Pastry Chef at Deer Valley Resort, Park City, UT, is the author of a phenomenal cookbook featuring fabulous desserts from Deer Valley. She is also an extraordinary cooking teacher. Her site has lots of great recipes and more about her book.

Fabulous Foods.com -- An incredibly fun food site that stands out among all those other food sites. Fabulous Foods has great cookbook reviews, features and articles by/about celebrity foodies, and recipes/tips/ideas galore. Go visit!

Pecos Valley Spice Company -- one of my favorite sites for the freshest tasting southwestern dried chiles and spices. I order fresh ground chile (not anything like the commercial chile powder you buy at the grocery store which contains other additives) and I order the freshest ground cumin (and then store it in the freezer to keep it fresh.

The Global Gourmet -- interesting site covering a variety of topics relating to gourmet food, wine and travel.

Wild Joe's BBQ Sauce -- Okay, so I, too, was skeptical of a guy from Illinois making barbecue sauce. But this guy uses only natural ingredients, and stays away from the corn syrup, food coloring, and you can taste the difference. And he got his recipe from western roots. (But you can still give him a hard time about making BBQ sauce in Chicago!)

Kitchen Appliances from Kitchen Aid, Viking & other top brands. Find kitchen appliances like coffee makers, juicers, grills & cookware, bakeware, dinnerware, wine racks and cooking recipes.

Forschner Chef's Knives from C. A. D. Cutlery Company. I own a Forschner chef's knife with a rosewood handle. Not only is it the sharpest knife in my block, it was less than half the cost of my Wusthof and Henckels. It's a great, light-weight knife that retains the sharpest edge.

A complete catalog of appliances, bakeware, cookware, cutlery and culinary supplies for the pro chef or the cook at home.

I wish I had discovered these totally stylish, extremely comfortable Gel Pro Chef mats while I was testing recipes for my books. I saw an ad for these gel-filled kitchen mats in several cooking magazines, and I finally decided to try them out. That was about a year ago, and now I can't imagine being without them.

They're not cheap and only come in two sizes (20" X 36" ($99.95)and 20" X 72" ($199.95). I think they are worth it, and I only wished I had ordered them years ago. If you spend a lot of time on your feet in the kitchen, you really should try these.