My latest search for recently released cookbooks and food related literature led me to a bunch of amusing new books.

Gastroanomalies by James Lileks will tickle the funny bone of anyone who survived the food trends of the mid 20th century.

In an era where cooks wanted to put their best foot forward, there was no end to the creative, cost-efficient, and cream-based dishes that disgraced the family dinner table, the cocktail party, or the neighborhood BBQ. Recipes involving ingredients like ground meat, bananas, and cottage cheese sound innocent enough-unless you mix them all together in a strange attempt to cover every food group at once.

For anyone who adores cornbread and the food that best accompanies it, The Cornbread Gospels by Crescent Dragonwagon is a must have! Ms. Dragonwagon extols the virtues of cornbread in its many forms and offers more than 200 recipes in this labor of love.




This is too funny! An entire book dedicated to Peeps, those little Easter marshmallow candies! Peeps: Recipes and Crafts to Make With Your Favorite Marshmallow Treat by Charity Ferreira offers the serious Peeps fan hours of fun.




For those who love a good drink or would like to learn more about them, have a look at In the Land of Cocktails by Ti Adelaide Martin and Lally Brennan.

Proprietors of the legendary New Orleans restaurant Commander's Palace, Ti and Lally are cocktail divas, spread-ing the gospel about how to make drinks properly, from why a true Sazerac can only be made with Peychaud's bitters to why hand-chipped ice is best for cocktails. In this marvelously entertaining book-both a guide to making some of the world's best cocktails and a memoir of the authors' lives surrounded by family, friends, and delicious food-there are recipes for familiar classics like the Corpse Reviver and the Old-Fashioned; New Orleans favorites like Brandy Milk Punch and the Sazerac; and new inventions created by Ti and Lally, such as their now-famous Whoa, Nellie!