Watch out for “Maze, The Cookbook” this April. It is the first cook book of Jason Atherton, who heads the award-winning restaurant Maze. It contains about 30 of his signature dishes. Atherton is one of Gordon Ramsey’s proteges (he must be pretty darn good to get his attention).

If you’re a fan of celebrity chef Robin Miller, you can preorder her new book, Robin to the Rescue.

One of the most popular celebrity chefs of the Food Network, Robin Miller specializes in quick and easy meals. In fact, her book organizes the recipes by main ingredient, so busy cooks can quickly find a dish based on what they have in the fridge. There are also tips on how to prepare big batches ahead of time, or transform leftovers into a “new” dish.

Jerry Seinfeld’s wife, who released the book “Deceptively Delicious: Simple Secrets to Get Your Kids Eating Good Food” will have to defend her rights (and honor) in court.

Chase Lapine, author of “The Sneaky Chef: Simple Strategies for Hiding Healthy Foods in Kids’ Favorite Meals” brought a lawsuit for copyright and trademark infringement to U.S. District Court in Manhattan.

Both Lapine and Seinfeld have been very vocal about their, uhm, differences — but after Jerry called her a crazywoman in an interview, she decided to take it to courts. Her reason? “He may be a public figure, but he has no right to slander, and his wife has no right to plagiarize.”

Seinfeld’s lawyer, on the other hand, accuses Lapine of making everything up just to boost her book sales.

Forget the gingerbread house. Your holiday dessert should be simple to prepare, so you can spend more time with your family (that is what Christmas is about, right?). Here’s a quick chocoalte mousse recipe from Nigella Lawson’s cookbook, Nigella Express: 130 Recipes for Good Food, Fast.

Nigella says that most mousses need to be made the day before, to allow the egg yolk to set. Here’s her “instant” alternative. She does away with eggs, which not only saves time but allows you to safely feed it to young children.

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups mini marshmallows
4 tablespoons (1/2 stick) soft butter
9 oz best-quality semisweet chocolate, chopped into small pieces
1/4 cup hot water from a recently boiled kettle
1 cup heavy cream
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1. Pour the marshmallows, butter, chocolate, and water in a heavy-bottomed saucepan.
2. Melt over gentle heat, stirring occassionally. Remove from heat and let cool.
3 Whip the cream with the vanilla until it’s got a thick consistency. Fold it into the cooled chocolate mixture.
4. Pour into individual dishes or cups and chill until ready to serve.

Watch Nigella’s regular TV show, Nigella Express on the BBC Channel for more recipes and tips.

Italian chefs always have a signature pasta dish, and this is one of Roberto Donna’s favorites. It’s delicious, gourmet enough to serve guests, but fuss-free for days when you’re too tired from holiday shopping to cook.

One of the most popular chefs in the Washington DC area, Donna actually hails from Italy, and aims to teach what “real” Italian food is (as opposed to the watered-down stuff they sell at steakhouses).

Serve this dish with a Pinet Noir, he suggests, and a bowl of light chicken broth.

Ingredients
1/2 loaf Italian bread, crust removed and sliced (preferably day old bread)
1 onion, very thinly sliced
6 celery ribs, thinly sliced
1 small cucumber, peeled, quartered, seeds removed, and thinly sliced
4 tomatoes, peeled, seeded, quartered
1 bunch basil, shredded
3/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
1/3 cup white wine vinegar
Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Instructions

Soak the bread in cold water for 15 minutes. Then, in a separate container, soak the onion in water as well (place on paper towels when done).

Mix celery, cucumber, tomatoes, basil and onion. Throw in the the oil, vinegar, salt and pepper. Add the bread and toss well to combine.

Before Food Network, before celebrity chefs were even a million-dollar brand, there was Julia Child. She was the food guru, and many a housewife made her cookbook their kitchen bible. (To the gratitude of their well-fed husbands.)

Now, her life will be made into a movie, starring no less than Meryl Streep. It will be directed by Nora Ephron, and will be based on Julie Powell’s book, Julie and Julia: 365 Days, 524 Recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen.

Julie was a fan who made it her mission to try every single recipe Child ever made, but the renowned chef would have nothing to do with her and never returned her calls. “I’m just not interested,” she said in one of her final interviews.

Maybe having Oscar-winner Meryl Streep portray her will make her feel a little better.

Chef Jody Adams personifies the ease of being a great chef through the use of available resources found in your kitchen today. Being a good cook is a given with practice, but with more practice and a touch of imagination at that, good chefs are sure to arise. This has been one of the beliefs that have catapulted Chef Jody towards mastering the art of cooking.

Cooking in the eyes of Chef Jody would simply be like following instincts rather than the usual traditional cooking practices that people see on television or from reading the available cookbooks in stores today. It all boils down to following a cooking style which would carve out your name in the genre of food that a person would want to cook up.

This is the secret that Jody Adams shares as her ultimate success in cooking. With a wide array of recipes that includes starter meals, seasonal prepared meals and Italian tradition meals such as pasta until deserts, Chef Jody has a long list of recipes all based on her instincts and what she can do around the kitchen. People can do this as well if they know how to go around the kitchen of their homes as well.

Technorati Tags: chefs, jody adams, italian, deserts, seasonal

A lot of cooks would agree that the use of wine in some meals have added a certain spice in making them sought after. Such can be attributed towards the contributions of Chef John Ash, an internationally recognized chef, educator and author. His continued work and application of wine towards cuisine and his evident mastery for winery has been his obvious trademark that has brought him towards world wide prominence.

John is known to hold various classes and teaches culinary schools and institutions with regards to the tricks of the proper use of wine for culinary meals. Majority of his known reliability has been attributed towards the wine industry and such has been something that has continued to push him up towards fame and fortune.

He has published two books, namely American Game Cooking in 1991 and From the Earth to the Table: John Ash�s Wine Country Cuisine in 1996. The latter book was awarded the Julia Child Award for Best Cookbook in 1996 by the International Association of Culinary Professionals.

Technorati Tags: wine, cuisine, recipes, game, birds, culinary

Cooking is best practiced if it has been something that was experienced from the start especially during childhood. Such is the story of one of the glamorous personalities to grace TV cooking shows in the mold of Silvana Franco. Franco trained as a chef at High Peak College in Buxton and obtained a degree in Home Economy at South Bank University.

Silvana started out writing for BBC Worldwide in its Vegetarian Good Food Magazine. She made this her cup of tea until she was elevated to a senior writer. She soon graced the TV sets for such shows as Gourmet Express 2, Ready Steady to Cook and Two�s Saturday Kitchen. But despite her continuous rise to stardom, she never let go of her writing which include that of Can�t Cook, Won�t Cook, Ainsley�s Big Cook Out and Friends for Dinner.

She also runs a food media company called Fork, proof of her continued love and loyalty in the field of cooking.

Technorati Tags: cookbook, chefs, tv shows, vegetarian

With a dozen best-selling cookbooks tucked under his belt, Jeff Smith, is best known for hosting the popular American cooking show that began in Washington. The show was aired in PBS from 1988 to 1997.

Smith was a United Methodist who graduated at the University of Puget Sound in 1962 and Drew University in 1965. His first run at food ventures was the Chaplain�s Pantry where he held cooking classes to the public and stored deli and kitchen supplies as well.

Being in the celebrity status that he is in the world of cooking, Smith has had his share of controversies as well. Legal issues concerning sexual harassment in the 70�s were just some of the trials that Smith had to go through.

Known to be the food genius that he is, Smith has authored several books under his wing including The Frugal Gourmet (1984), The Frugal Gourmet Cooks with Wine (1986), The Frugal Gourmet Cooks American (1987) and The Frugal Gourmet Cooks Three Ancient Cuisines: China, Greece, and Rome (1989).

Technorati Tags: cookbooks, jeff smith, frugal, gourmet