Art and Architecture Catalog 2013

We’re excited to present the 2013 Art and Architecture Catalog from The David Brown Book Company and Casemate Athena!

Click on the cover image above to download your own copy!

No Need to Knead

We’re excited to present this great new review from TheTelegraph on Grub Street Publishing’s new release No Need to Knead by Suzanne Dunaway.

In this book, acclaimed professional baker Suzanne Dunaway reveals her truly revolutionary technique for baking unforgettable breads that that require no fuss and no special equipment. The crusts are lighter, chewier, and the crumb is moist, stays fresh longer, and has more intense flavor than most breads. Her ingredients are simply flour, water, yeast and salt – and, passion. She uses no preservatives or additives of any kind. The recipes are her own creations, developed over years of trial and error. You will find focaccia, ciabatta, pane rustico and pizza as well as breads from around the world such as baguette, sourdough flapjacks, blini, muffins, corn bread, brioche, African Spiced bread, kulich and kolaches. In addition many of the basic bread doughs are fat-free, sugar-free and dairy-free making then perfect for people on strict dietary or allergy regimes. There are also dozens of recipes for dishes you can make with bread – soufflés, soups, salads and even desserts such as chocolate bread pudding. Plus fun recipes to make with children. Suzanne Dunaway is the owner and head baker of Buona Forchetta Hand Made Breads in Los Angeles. Hailed as one of the seven best bakeries in the world by one magazine and Gourmet called her breads ‘addictive.’

Read the full review by Bee Wilson here.

Verdura – Top 100 Cookbook

We’re excited to announce that Verdura: Vegetables Italian Style was named one of the Top 100 Cookbooks of the Last 25 years by Cooking Light Magazine.

Landing a spot in the 9 Best Italian Cookbooks, the magazine writes,

A book well before its time, Verdura proposed 21 years ago the amazing idea that vegetables should become the center of the meal. It still offers inspiring takes on all things fresh. Vegetables are given the antipasti treatment, as well as turns in salads, soups, pastas, pizzas, frittatas, and more (including fruit-based desserts).

Sustainable Rose Garden – WFRS Literary Award Winner

We’re pleased to announce that the The Sustainable Rose Garden: A Reader in Rose Culture by Pat Shanley, Peter Kukielski and Gene Waering was awarded the 2012 World Federation of Rose Societies Literary Award.

In describing the work, the WFRS writes,

This book brings together experts from around the world to inform gardeners about developments in the new trend toward creating environmentally friendly yet enduring rose gardens with “sustainability” as the key. This means gardening that is consciously aware of the dangerous health and environmental risks posed by using traditional synthetic chemicals and pesticides.

Great Review of The Noble Art of the Sword

As seen in Toy Soldier & Model Figure Magazine. For more information about The Noble Art of the Sword, go here.

New Books from Athena

Over these past couple of months, we have received a lot of great new books that we’d love to share with you!  There’s sure to be one to catch your eye so check them all out below!

Delicious Cookbooks

North African Cookery	Recipes from the Spanish Kitchen
Classic Vegetarian Cookery	Paul Food

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Ice Creams, Sorbets, and Gelati Voted Best Ice Cream Book

We’re pleased to announce that the Guardian has selected Ice Creams, Sorbets, and Gelati as the best ice-cream recipe book.

In reference to the book, Catherine Phipps writes,

“…It has a sciency bit even I can understand and apply, there’s a gorgeous, cartoon-filled history section and constant references to source material. I love the diagrams for milk shakes, float and sundaes from The Soda Fountain magazine, and the list of Escoffier’s bombe combinations encouraged me to buy a mold. As for the recipes, you can skip across continents and through the ages – there are savory cheese ice creams from the Regency period in Britain, rose flavored, chewy Middle Eastern ice creams made with mastic or sa’alab, perfumed kulfis, sorbets incorporating every kind of alcohol or fruit you can think of plus numerous vanilla and chocolate ice creams i use a bases for many of my own experiments. Truly a book full of promise!”

To read the full list of great ice cream books, read the Guardian‘s post here.

Johann Christian Neuber in the New York Times

A few posts ago, we mentioned the launch of the Gold, Jasper and Carnelian: Johann Christian Neuber at the Saxon Court exhibit in the Frick Collection.

On July 11, The Frick Collection hosted their annual garden party and gave their guests access to this great exhibit. Parts of Neuber’s work were even featured in the Evening Hours section of the New York Times.

This collection has received great reviews, including a great piece also in the New York Times titled A Jeweler Picks Up Where Nature Left Off.  In the article, Roberta Smith focuses heavily on one of Neuber’s work titled the Breteuil table,

Ensconced in the museum’s Oval Room, the show’s 43 small, impeccably wrought wonders also include gemstone buttons, a cane handle, several bonbonnières (candy boxes) and one astounding piece of furniture, a modest-size but luxuriously decorated oval table. It was commissioned from Neuber by his chief patron, Friedrich Augustus III (1750- 1827), Elector of Saxony, in 1779, as a gift to the French diplomat Baron de Breteuil. Still owned by the baron’s family, it has never before crossed the Atlantic…the Breteuil table, whose top is something of a pitched battle among sizable Meissen porcelain plaques of mythological scenes, circles of imitation pearls (made of rock crystal and silver dust), and rather bulky swags and wreaths of bas-relief gemstones. As if that were not enough, the legs are decorated with a combination of petrified wood, amethyst, cabochon carnelian and diamond-cut rock crystal, gilt and more imitation pearls…The winner is the field of battle itself, a radiating surface tiled with 128 postage-stamp-size squares: Each is a sample of a different gemstone or petrified wood, numbered according to an identification list in a small booklet that came with the table (and can be perused on a nearby touch screen).

To learn more about the Breteuil Table and the rest of Neuber’s work, make sure to get a copy of the accompanying book Gold, Jasper and Carnelian: Johann Christian Neuber at the Saxon Court.

The Queen’s Diamond Jubilee

Tomorrow, June 2nd, is the beginning of the central weekend of the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee. This celebration marks the 60th year of the Queen Elizabeth II’s reign.

Also on this day 60 years ago, Rosemary Hume and Constance Spry, along with the students of their cooking school, served a newly invented dish called Coronation Chicken.

In honor of the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee, here is the original recipe from The Constance Spry Cookery Book from Grub Street Publishers. This classic dish is a perfect meal to prepare for your own jubilee party.