Just when it seems that Rachel Ray and Giada DeLaurentis have cuted up cooking beyond return, there are, thankfully, some others pulling it back from the perky oblivion. Not that there's anything wrong with being perky. It's just that there's something so "All-American baby-sitter" about both of them, that I can't take them seriously past the gourmet peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. When Ray starts in about EVOO (extra-virgin olive oil) my eye starts to twitch. And Giada, with the soft-focus cover photo, hey wait a minute, there's no food anywhere to be seen... oh, okay, the asparagus is covered up by her name.

Following my comment about pb&j sandwiches and the tendency in both divas of tele-cooking towards cooking in the italian vernacular, my thoughts lean to a book that came out last summer called Simple Italian Sandwiches: Recipes from America's Favorite Panini Bar. The cover photo shows a delicious looking panini being pulled apart with the mozzarella replete with bits of basil and tomato stretching languidly between the two grilled sides. Whew. On the inside it covers some fairly amazing combinations, all of which give the grilled cheese a run for its money. Although, I suppose not everyone has a panini grill or even a panini-fied George Forman grill. I certainly don't, so I just have to make these sandwiches with a heavy hand and a spatula without the aesthetically pleasing grill marks.

Another niche cookbook I've been particularly fond of lately is Arabesque by Claudia Roden who is well known for her cookbooks of the Mediterranean region. These books are always steeped in the history and culture of the particular region she is focused on, informing every bite with the layers of narrative and flavor. Roden focuses on the three very different culinary traditions of Morocco, Turkey, and Lebanon. Tagines, kebabs, and mezze that reflect the ancient menus of these countries are represented and updated to reflect more current influences. This is not only a wonderful cookbook, it is also I book I've sat down on the couch with and read. Claudia Roden is every bit as much a cultural historian as she is a cook.

Now going a totally different direction, I've been meaning to talk about a book that caught my attention some time ago largely because I used to work with a whole gaggle of vegans, but also because DC's premier vegan bakery Sticky Fingers has moved into my neighborhood and so my interest in the quality of vegan bakery has increased significantly. Yes, I'm talking about Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World. Darling of the vegan foodie world Isa Chandra Moskowitz has returned with a book that gives vegans a spot in the food fad that is cupcakes. She's been featured in the New York Times and the Washington Post talking about veganism in general and cupcakes in particular. Of course she also has her own public access cooking show called Post-Punk Kitchen, which can also be viewed at http://www.theppk.com/, dedicated to pretty much whatever she feels like cooking. I haven't yet baked anything from the book, I'll admit, but I have heard some very positive reviews from some very discerning bakers. I do have a list of which ones I am going to make, starting with the Carrot Cake Cupcakes and the Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cupcakes with Cinnamon Icing.

Thanks for entertaining my all over the map indulgence in cookery this week. All the deep-freeze weather kept me inside and a close friend of my kitchen. But now with spring in the air and ice mounds melting at a rapid rate I guess it's out of the kitchen and back into the world. Unless it drops back down to freezing tomorrow.

I’ve got no new travels on the horizon, which is really just as well. It seems just about the whole country is snowed or iced in at this point. We were certainly spared the brunt of the storm here in DC, but we have a pretty, treacherous icy sheen on everything now.

As I stomped through the heavy snow-mush yesterday on my way to work I pondered what to write about this week. I’m kind of between books right now, having had an unprecedented read-a-thon last week while I was away. By “between books” I mean I’ve started about two or three new books and I haven’t yet decided which one I will favor with continued reading.

I’m leaning towards the new Paul Auster, Travels in the Scriptorium. It’s a clever little novel with a man who wakes up in a rather blank room with just about no idea who he is or what he’s doing there. Having just finished an excellent book that starts out in much the same way (The Raw Shark Texts, which I promised to go into in greater detail closer to its date of publication, and I will) perhaps I ought to figure out what my preoccupation with amnesia and identity before I get any further.

What I have been reading in the absence of books lately are magazines. All this airline travel and the indoor exercise forced upon me by the nebulous “wind chill factor” have steered me to the world of the article. And I have to say I’ve been pleasantly surprised. What with everyone turning to the web (myself included) for their dose of pithy article length missives on culture and politics, I wasn’t sure how it would be. But a few weeks ago I picked up the New Yorker and read a hilarious and blasphemous (two great tastes…) story by Shalom Auslander about the conflict between his religion and his love of the New York Rangers. The Rangers win. So I’ve been picking up the New Yorker every week since then.

Another magazine I’ve been enjoying is The Believer. Yes, that’s the one all tied into the whole McSweeney’s thing. Though sometimes they indulge in short goofy pieces that are goofy in a difficult way, the magazine puts most of its considerable efforts into their long form articles and its interviews. In their most recent issue they have interviews with the National Book Award winner Richard Powers and Curb Your Enthusiasm’s Cheryl Hines among others. I haven’t read the Powers interview, but the Cheryl Hines one was a delight. Her interviewer was Sleater-Kinney’s Carrie Brownstein and they get to the heart of the matter, which is Florida, Larry David, and women comedians in that order.

Lastly, there is a magazine called ReadyMade that’s been around for a couple of years and fills both the junk collecting and the “I should be able to wire a lamp” need that I like to look through with the vague promise to myself that one day I’ll actually make one of these projects and it will revolutionize my life. Of course, I am still waiting for that day. They also, conveniently, put out a book (ReadyMade: How to Make [Almost] Everything: A Do-It-Yourself Primer) that has a whole host of Do-It-Yourself projects bound up in a clever package.

Perhaps next week I’ll discuss the finer points InTouch Magazine or the nuances of UsWeekly and how it captures what People Magazine cannot. Or maybe, I’ll have read something a little more substantial.

I’m back from Portland! The ABA’s Winter Institute was all it was cracked up to be, a fantastic opportunity to get a little perspective, meet some hard-working booksellers, and learn a lot of new things and some old ones, too. Some highlights include a panel discussion on new media and VP Al Gore’s former speechwriter and contributing editor at Wired magazine Daniel Pink, who spoke about his book A Whole New Mind, a call to arms for all right-brain thinkers to take their place in the new post-industry economy of the future. You may not believe me, but I attended some truly interesting seminars on the business of bookselling. Yes, I said truly interesting.

Milling around, learning, and socializing with 499 other booksellers can be pretty exhausting so I took the opportunity to spend the weekend in Portland by myself. I checked into another hotel, which was far swankier than the Doubletree and set out by foot. With the advice of a few friends familiar with Portland I mapped out a few routes and successfully exhausted myself in two days time. But, I sure ate well along the way. I don’t think I’d ever really heard about Portland as a food mecca, but there’s got to be like a 2 to 1 human to restaurant ratio there and I am not complaining. Except that I missed a lot if dining opportunities, so maybe I am complaining a little.

Portland is pretty well known for its seemingly bottomless well of musical talent mostly in the indie way, a sort of a blending of the harder, ‘grunge’ elements from further north in Seattle, with a hippie, crunchy sensibility gurgling up from the south. I ventured out to a place called Slabtown, which used to be owned by the hipster darlings The Dandy Warhols, and saw a friend’s band (The Bugs) play.

All told, I had a great time and relaxed a little. The weather was unseasonably beautiful, with only one day of the standard issue cold and rain. But most of all, I got some serious, uninterrupted reading time in. Time which I will go into greater detail about next week when I’ve snapped back to reality.