Since it first hit the market, more than 200 million copies of the game Angry Birds have been downloaded into people's phones (U.S. gamers have spent more than 1.2 billion hours playing it!), 30 million t-shirts have been sold and three million plush toys have hit people's beds. So naturally the game's creator, Rovio, is going to... self-publish an Angry Birds cookbook filled with egg recipes? more ›

Attorneys defending a 67 year-old Westchester cookbook author from federal human trafficking violations and sexual abuse charges are attempting to suppress information that he had a legal, consensual encounter with a 16 year-old girl in Michigan in 2008. (At the time, the age of consent in that state was 16.) The Post reports that the lawyers told the judge "the questionable ethical and moral choice of an older man sleeping with a very young female would "lead many jurors to hate [Joseph] Yannai," and after stressing that his behavior was "not criminal," it "would certainly be viewed as abhorrent by a large portion of society." more ›

The IACP Awards, or more informally—the “cookbook awards”—were given out somewhere in Denver over the weekend. A few Gothamist interviewees from the past year were honored: The big Chanterelle book, by David Waltuck, Andrew Friedman, and photography by Maria Robledo, won for Food Photography & Styling. Bottomfeeder, a first person chronicle of the sustainable seafood movement by essayist Taras Grescoe, won the Literary Food Writing award, and Fat: An Appreciation of a Misunderstood Ingredient, by Jennifer McLagan won in the Single Subject category. Eat Me Daily’s Helen Rosner offers some smart criticism of the judges’ choices and how they'll inform the future of cookbooks; here’s a decent-sized preview of the award-winning Chanterelle. Meanwhile, we’d be remiss if we failed to mention another Gothamist interviewee’s ascendancy to some kind of specially selected, niche list: Food Party host Thu Tran has just been named one of Paper magazine’s Beautiful People 2009. more ›

You will never find Chef Bobby Flay too far away from an ancho chili pepper. Back in 1991, he opened Mesa Grill in New York, his shrine to the Southwestern flavors for which he is now famous around the world. In 1992, Mesa Grill won New York Magazine's Best New Restaurant, and the following year, Flay was given the James Beard Rising Star Chef award. Since then, he has created a mini-empire of six restaurants, including two other Mesa Grills, one in Las Vegas and another in the Bahamas. more ›

In case you haven't noticed, 'tis the season for giving and all that jazz. You've got a friend/relative/other loved one who can't get enough of the epicurean lifestyle, and you're looking for the perfect gift. Never fear -- 'tis also the season of gift guides, which will steer you to gifts that will guarantee a smile. First, our own five gifts for the foodie under $50, all available online, including a beautiful olive wood mortar... more ›

Alice Waters is considered by many to be a revolutionary. She opened Chez Panisse in 1971 and began awakening America to the benefits of local, sustainable agriculture by changing her menu according to what was available seasonally. She has taken this charge beyond her restaurant through her books as well as through her Edible Schoolyard program, which enables public school children to explore the connection between what they eat and where it comes from through... more ›

The folks over at the all delicious, all the time site Serious Eats rounded up and presented a bumper crop of recipes from the newly released Mark Bittman cookbook last week, the 996-page How to Cook Everything Vegetarian: Simple Meatless Recipes for Great Food. The latest in Bittman’s “How to Cook Everything” series, this giant book is exactly what those omnibus, fried-shallot-and-butternut-squash glossy vegetarian porn books strategically posed on chain bookstore discount tables purport to... more ›

, by Simone Ortega. more ›

Diamond asked the residents of New York City's most diverse nabe about their food preferences and solicited recipes. Her project, which is being presented by the Queens Museum of Art, runs through October 14. The goal of "This Is What Eat," is to "unite and empower its readers through food." Based on the diversity of recipes it seems to be a resounding success. The dishes run the cultural gamut from red beans and rice and macaroni cheese to shrimp ceviche and Belgium Chicken Soup. more ›

(published in the U.K. last year as White Slave) makes clear that while establishing his restaurants in England in the early nineties, White never did the obvious thing by flying over to France, the culinary epicenter of the world, in order to crib from the temples of haute cuisine, steal the secrets from other chefs. more ›

Nach Waxman is wearing a baseball hat decorated with the diamond shaped Avery Island Tabasco logo as he takes Gothamist around the stacks at Kitchen Arts and Letters, his 23 year-old Upper East Side bookshop. He is talking about Rachael Ray. “It’s a funny story,” says Waxman, describing his first impressions of the current Triscuit box doyenne. He shakes his head and laughs. “Nobody here had heard of her. We didn’t carry her books. Now that we do, we don’t sell them.” Nach (pronounced knock) Waxman doesn’t mind, but Gothamist thinks that maybe he could use the shelf space --Kitchen Arts and Letters is a very small store. more ›

, by Elaine Cohen, owner of the Cupcake Caboose catering company. Cohen provides ideas for whimsical cupcake designs, rated from easy (one spoon) to more difficult (three spoons). She offers very basic recipes for vanilla and chocolate cupcakes and frostings, but even if you don't really cook, you can still join in on the fun of decorating by picking up some cake mix, canned frosting, food coloring, and candy decorating supplies. more ›

Neo Soul provides healthy preparations of soul food favorites. Craving fried chicken? Williams’ recipe calls for crushed Special K for that extra crunch, but the frying is done in the oven instead of in oil. Country-style greens replace the pork with smoked turkey wings for a similar smoky flavor. And never fear, the mac and cheese is still there, but skim milk cuts down the calories (the carbs are still there), and the dessert section contains lighter versions of sweet potato pie, pecan pie, and red velvet cake. Neo Soul retails for $21.95. more ›

. John, whose passion for vodka was ignited when he began traveling to Moscow for work (he now lives there). Simultaneously, he had to learn how to cook, given the dearth of decent restaurants in Moscow at the time, and behold -- the origins of The Vodka Cookbook. more ›

by John Willoughby, Zanne Early Stewart, Ruth Reichl (Houghton Mifflin, 2005) more ›

by Dana Cowin & Kate Heddings (American Express, 2005). more ›

by Myra Kornfeld (Simon and Schuster, 2005) more ›

by David Rosengarten (Little, Brown, 2003) more ›

by Edna Lewis and Scott Peacock (Knopf, 2003) more ›

by Kathleen King (St. Martin's Press, 2005) more ›

by Mario Batali (Clarkson Potter, 2002) more ›

Zarela's Veracruz: Mexico's Simplest Cuisine (Houghton Mifflin, 2004) more ›

by Dave Lieberman (Hyperion, 2005) more ›

by Mark Bittman (Wiley, 2005) more ›

by Mark Bittman (Wiley, 2005) more ›

Cupcakes! by Elinor Klivans (Chronicle Books, 2005) more ›

Bouchon by Thomas Keller (Artisan, 2004) more ›

The Angelica Home Kitchen: Recipes and Rabble Rousings from an Organic Vegan Restaurant by Leslie McEachern (Ten Speed Press, 2003) more ›

The Glorious Foods of Greece: Traditional Foods from the Islands, Cities, and Villages by Diane Kochilas (Morrow, 2001). more ›