The Best of Gourmet: Featuring the Flavors of China

Review Grilling has come a long way in America over the past decade, and now Gourmet shows you how to fire up your grill in style with a Sizzle in the City dinner that applauds Latin flavors. Yuca chips, avocado jicama salsa, and pink daiquiris are a colorful beginning, then it's on to grilled matambre (spinach-and-carrot-stuffed flank steak). Coconut tuile cones with passion-fruit ice cream add a final touch of chic to a very fashionable party. This is just one of the dozens of remarkable menus you'll find in this volume of The Best of Gourmet.

And speaking of sophistication, this year's Cuisines of the World section turns to San Francisco, a city that blends global cuisines for a taste all its own. Here you'll find a celebration feast inspired by the vibrant Italian community of North Beach, a glamorous Food Noir dinner, a handful of local favorites like crab Louis and Hangtown fry (fried-oyster omelet), and several dishes featuring the irresistible artichoke.

Indoors or out-let The Best of Gourmet, Featuring the Flavors of San Francisco make a stylish difference in your entertaining.

Book Description Nowadays, everyone who entertains is looking for outstanding casual fare that will allow them to spend more time with their guests. Dishes must be quick and easy to prepare (or able to be made ahead) and filled with the purest ingredients for optimum flavor. The Best of Gourmet, Featuring the Flavors of Thailand is filled with twenty-eight such menus-most are very relaxed, all are absolutely delicious.

For example, after a chilly day on the slopes, you may want to treat your houseguests to A Ski House Dinner. Begin the evening around the fire with champagne and a large platter of ever-so-tender smoked salmon with cilantro cream. Later, roasted veal chops with shallots, tomatoes, and olive jus nestled on pillows of soft polenta make a rich, indulgent entrée. And before everyone retires, a heavenly warm chocolate raspberry pudding cake, made the day before and reheated, is served with a glass of cognac.

When the summer heats up, why not spend A Weekend at the Shore with friends? You'll have three clever menus in hand that take advantage of the season's abundant fresh produce, include plenty of make-ahead dishes, and satisfy hearty seaside appetites. On Saturday morning you can serve Breakfast on the Beach with buttery-rich baked blueberry-pecan French toast. Lunch Indoors includes a serve-yourself composed salad of classic favorites and a lovely rhubarb rice pudding. Then, after a long day in the sun, Dinner on the Deck promises a seafood meal to remember with curry-marinated mussels, followed by grilled lobster with Southeast Asian dipping sauce.

Or perhaps a last-minute Beyond Backyard Basics dinner is closer to what you had in mind? This little gem of a menu features ratatouille with penne-a heavenly jumble of roasted eggplants, onions, yellow squash, and red bell peppers, with plum tomatoes, garlic, thyme, parsley, and basil. For dessert, multicolored grapes perched atop pastry cream in puff pastry shells make a scrumptious and ever-so-pretty choice.

So which menu will you try first? You'll find more than eighty pages of exquisite full-color photographs to help you decide. Altogether, this volume holds more than 350 recipes-including the very best recipes that appeared in Gourmet's food columns during 1999. There are hundreds of dishes that can be made in forty-five minutes or less (look for the clock symbol ð); plenty of leaner and lighter selections (look for the feather symbol F); seasonal ideas for everything from apples to zucchini; and an impressive array of tempting sweets and snacks.

This year's Cuisines of the World section turns to the intriguing flavors of Thailand with a traditional dinner for eight and a collection of Thai snacks. Dishes such as steamed red snapper with ginger, grilled beef salad, fish cakes, and coconut ice cream demonstrate the sweet, sour, hot, and salty tastes of this fascinating country. Informative primers and exquisite full-color photos add further insight.

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