Cookin' for Trouble makes us wanna play with our food.

​She cooks, sings, and rocks out with her comedic brethren in her rock 'n' roll comedy cooking show Bitchin' Kitchen, now in it's second season.

We had a chance to speak briefly with Nadia G. about her show, her new book and how she likes to stay bitchin'.

New Times: You have your 2008 Bitchin' Kitchen Cookbook, and now a new book called Nadia G.'s Bitchin' Kitchen: Cooking for Trouble. What inspired this second book?
Nadia G.: Well in terms of the inspiration, as the old saying goes "it takes a village," and with this new cookbook, I was inspired by the women in my family. These are the people who have been cooks all their lives and they have many recipes to share. In my own bitchin' community we held a contest to find the five most bitchin' recipes and the winners' ones are shared in the cookbook. For this new book, we had a bigger budget, so we got to do more then just Nadia G. looking hot in front of a background. (Laughs) We were actually able to flesh out the scene. It's very rich in terms of photography.


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How's your cooking game? Sure, your eating game is up to snuff, but food tastes even better when you know how it's made. The key to mastering the art of cooking at home is to become well-rounded, and that means tackling your weaknesses. In the words of Mr. Miyagi, "first learn stand, then learn fly."

With that in mind, we present some of our favorite accessible cookbooks that will fill the cracks in your cooking game. Go on Daniel-san, and become a cooking master.

​1. Cooking for Geeks by Jeff Potter ($19.30 from Amazon.com)

To truly elevate your cooking game, you need to understand how cooking works. Ugh, sounds like science class, right? Not so much. Take the section on oven-overclocking, which shows you how to achieve a temperature of 1000° F by utilizing your oven's cleaning cycle and disabling the safety lock all in order to cook the perfect pizza. Maybe they should change the name of this book to "Cooking Like MacGyver."

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​That would be Jason Sheehan, whose Dirty Cooking made Time Magazine's just-released list of ten best nonfiction books of the year: "A great tell-all by the Anthony Bourdain of greasy-spoon kitchens." Sheehan, a James Beard winner, just this week moved from being the restaurant reviewer for Westword, our sister publication in Denver, to doing the same for Seattle Weekly, another of our many relatives. Way to go Jason.

Jackie Sayet

Judge this book by its cover.

​Last night was one of many funerals for a fallen hero taken before its time, Gourmet magazine. Ruth Reichl, its jilted guardian, gave a remarkably candid and emotional eulogy for her final book tour appearance.

The remarkably (yet not surprisingly) composed former editor-in-chief addressed what she later tweeted as a "smart crowd" at the free Miami Book Fair event in downtown Miami. The profound sense of loss was palpable in the packed ballroom, as was the disbelief still lingering in her delivery. 

This was expected. Fully digesting that something so respected and loved is gone forever takes time, and the news is still so fresh, with the last vestige of the epicurean media icon -- its final issue -- still on stands.

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Charwei Tsai

Cover art meets the culinary arts

You won't find a food stylist in the credits for this cookbook.  But there is eye candy, of a different kind.

In Lovely Daze Special Edition Book: ROSE, pastry chef Angela Garcia explores the ingredient rose in dessert recipes paired with drawings and paintings by artist Cristina Rodriguez. 

The beautiful collection will be unveiled internationally this weekend at the Tokyo Art Book Fair and will be available for $15 online here in about two weeks. Both Angela and Cristina are of Colombian decent and currently based in Miami.
 
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