The Art and Craft of Chocolate by Nathan Hodge

The Art and Craft of Chocolate by Nathan Hodge ISBN-13: 9781631594663 Paperback: 160 pages Publisher: Quarry Books Released: Aug. 21, 2018

Source: ebook review copy from the publisher through NetGalley.

Book Description, Modified from Goodreads:
In The Art and Craft of Chocolate, world-renowned chocolatier Nathan Hodge takes you on a grand tour of chocolate—from its processing, history, and trade to how it's made, bean to bar. The book includes the basic principles of chocolate-making at home and recipes for traditional moles, drinks, baked goods, rubs, and more.

An expert in the bean-to-bar movement and a leader in sustainable chocolate sourcing, Hodge introduces the concept of bean to bar chocolate—a process that starts with whole cocoa beans, which are roasted, ground, and smoothed into chocolate—and discusses sustainability and social consciousness, along with his own chocolate making philosophy.


My Review:
The Art and Craft of Chocolate provided a brief history of chocolate and an overview of how chocolate bars are made, from growing the tree to the finished product. There were photographs showing the various stages of processing the bean and the equipment that's used. In side boxes, the author suggested some ways that a person could process cocoa beans in their home to create their own chocolate. However, it sounds very time intensive and unlikely to provide good results unless you buy some specialized equipment. At the end, the author provided 25 recipes which add cocoa powder or nibs to various dishes. Overall, I'd recommend this book to those interested in learning about how chocolate is made.


If you've read this book, what do you think about it? I'd be honored if you wrote your own opinion of the book in the comments.


Excerpt: Read an excerpt using Google Preview.

Wildlife Scenes in Acrylic by Jerry Yarnell

Wildlife Scenes in Acrylic by Jerry Yarnell ISBN-13: 9781440350214 Paperback: 114 pages Publisher: North Light Books Released: Aug. 14, 2018

Source: ebook review copy from the publisher through NetGalley.

Book Description, Modified from Goodreads:
Bring landscapes to life with popular workshop instructor, best-selling author and television personality Jerry Yarnell! Jerry has made painting a pleasure--and a success--for thousands of artists, both beginner and experienced alike. In this book, he delivers eight new, fun-to-create wildlife scenes in his signature teaching style. Following Yarnell's clear and friendly instructions, readers will learn how to pant a variety of animals, landscapes and seasons--from horses in a spring pasture, to tropical ocean sunsets, to winter birds nestled amid snow-laden pines.


My Review:
Wildlife Scenes in Acrylic is an art instruction book on using acrylic paints to create landscapes that include animals. This is a good book for beginners, though perhaps not complete beginners since he didn't include much advice specific to acrylics or on creating realistically proportioned animals. His focus was more on painting techniques. He started by describing the specific tools and materials that he recommended and which you will need to complete the demonstration paintings. He defined some painting terms, described various techniques, talked about color, and provided formulas for mixing common colors that will be used in the demonstrations.

He provided step-by-step instructions for 8 landscape paintings: Yellowstone waterfall, swamp sunrise, desert path, night owl against the moon, horses in a spring pasture, ocean beach sunset, deer along an autumn creek, and birds among snowy pines. The instructions and illustrations were clear and easy to follow. Each painting had some new challenges, but the basics of how to achieve each effect was described so it can be achieved with practice. Overall, I'd recommend this book to acrylic painters interested in learning his style of painting landscapes.


If you've read this book, what do you think about it? I'd be honored if you wrote your own opinion of the book in the comments.

Travels with Foxfire by Foxfire Fund Inc

Travels with Foxfire by Foxfire Fund Inc ISBN-13: 9780525436294 Paperback: 336 pages Publisher: Anchor Books Released: Aug. 14, 2018

Source: ebook review copy from the publisher through NetGalley.

Book Description, Modified from Goodreads:
The new volume in the classic, million-copy-selling series celebrates the stories of men and women from across Appalachia. Since 1972, the Foxfire books have brought Appalachia to hundreds of thousands of readers. Travels with Foxfire, the sixteenth book in the series, once again captures the music, the history, and the food (and drink!) of the region, through the stories of men and women from throughout the region. Across more than thirty entries, we discover the secret history of NASCAR (it involves bootleggers), hear from perhaps the world's foremost expert on privies, and uncover old family recipes for Buttermilk Corn Bread, Apple Fritters, barbeque sauce, and more. A rich compendium of the collected wisdom of the artists, craftsmen, musicians, and moonshiners who call Appalachia home, Travels with Foxfire is a joyful celebration of a distinctly American culture.


My Review:
Travels with Foxfire is a collection of interviews with people who live in the Appalachia region. Most of these people were in their 60s or 70s, though some were younger. We're given a short biography of their life plus some stories they shared about a certain topic. The speaker often assumed that the reader was already familiar with what they were talking about. For example, the Southern Gospel performers never really explained what that type of music was, they just debated if its popularity was waning and told some funny stories from their performances. This book is more for people who want to reminisce about "You remember when...?" than for people interested in learning details about how people used to live.

The book included some people with odd hobbies, successful authors (including cookbook authors), hunters, herbal gatherers, artists, singers/writers, and people who had been involved in moonshine production, stock car racing, drive-in movie theaters, and water dowsing. Overall, the stories were interesting and amusing, but I'd hoped for something a bit more informative as well.


If you've read this book, what do you think about it? I'd be honored if you wrote your own opinion of the book in the comments.

Essential Techniques of Landscape Drawing by Suzanne Brooker

Essential Techniques of Landscape Drawing by Suzanne Brooker ISBN-13: 9780399580666 Hardcover: 208 pages Publisher: Watson-Guptill Released: August 7, 2018

Source: ebook review copy from the publisher through NetGalley.

Book Description, Modified from Goodreads:
This beginner's guide to drawing in graphite pencil uses step-by-step exercises to teach fundamental methods for rendering all aspects of the natural landscape, with additional lessons on using charcoal, colored pencil, pastel, and other media.

This book pairs the most universally-pursued topic for artists (drawing) with the popular subject matter of the natural landscape. Brooker breaks down landscapes into their various elements--including the terrain, water, sky, and trees--to convey how the fundamentals of drawing are applied to capture each aspect. Using the graphite pencil as her baseline instrument, Brooker provides you with step-by-step lessons that help you improve your rendering skills.


My Review:
Essential Techniques of Landscape Drawing teaches the basic techniques of drawing and how to apply them to landscape drawing. The author started by talking about the different tools and materials for drawing. She explained various terms and techniques, like foreshortening, perspective, proportion, and such. She also covered the basics like how to hold a pencil, the grid method, composition, light and shading. She talked about how to apply these concepts to a drawing when you begin a drawing.

Then she specifically talked about how to draw sky, terrain, trees, and water. In each section, she provided several step-by-step demonstrations showing how to draw different types of clouds, trees, etc. The first part of the book focused on pencil drawing, but she did cover charcoal pencils, colored pencils, and pastel pencils at the end and included one demonstration for each. Overall, I'd recommend this informative book.


If you've read this book, what do you think about it? I'd be honored if you wrote your own opinion of the book in the comments.

Practical Landscape Painting by David Hollis

Practical Landscape Painting by David Hollis ISBN-13: 9781782402800 Paperback: 96 pages Publisher: Ivy Press Released: April 5, 2018

Source: ebook review copy from the publisher through NetGalley.

Book Description, Modified from Goodreads:
Watercolour offers both portability and gorgeous, rich, mutable colours. This is the perfect introduction for anyone who has thought about painting in watercolour but isn't sure where to start. Unintimidating and accessible, it will help you to get the pictures in your head onto the page.


My Review:
Practical Landscape Painting teaches beginners some of the basics of watercolor painting. It will appeal most to those who like to jump right in to the painting. The author explained what materials you need to do the projects in the book. He kept the materials pretty basic: 7 colors, a suitable round brush or two, and cold-pressed watercolor paper.

Most of the book focused on learning landscape painting through doing 7 projects. He started each project with a description of the technique or concept. He then described how to use this to create a simple landscape watercolor scene. There were step-by-step pictures to illustrate the text. The projects were used to explain types of washes and how to do them, painting skies using the wet-in-wet technique, tonal contrast, texture and patterns, color theory and composition, shapes and forms of trees, and perspective and shadows. At the end, there were a series of watercolor sketches which he did in Ireland. He described the techniques and process that he used to create each of them.


If you've read this book, what do you think about it? I'd be honored if you wrote your own opinion of the book in the comments.

Your Brain on Plants by Nicolette Perry; Elaine Perry

Your Brain on Plants by Nicolette Perry; Elaine Perry ISBN-13: 9781615194469 Paperback: 204 pages Publisher: The Experiment Released: Aug. 7, 2018

Source: ebook review copy from the publisher through NetGalley.

Book Description, Modified from Goodreads:
As scientists come to better understand how the brain works, the gap between traditional and alternative medicine is narrowing fast. Botanical Brain Balms, cowritten by a neuroscientist and an expert in medicinal plants, describes the beneficial effects of more than 56 plants on memory, mind, and mood—think St. John’s wort for depression, lavender for stress, and sage for cognitive function.

Expert authors Elaine and Nicolette Perry share insights into their own research into how plants can help us sleep, reduce stress, improve memory, and simply feel better. Botanical Brain Balms is organized to allow those experiencing anxiety, sleeplessness, or even pain to go directly to the appropriate chapter, where they’ll find orienting info about appropriate medicinal plants, including how plant compounds work on different parts of the brain.

Make-at-home recipes and remedies for teas, tinctures, balms, cordials, and even foods featuring ingredients proven to alleviate symptoms appear throughout, as do complementary exercises such as meditating on a chamomile lawn, qi gong in a wildflower meadow, and walking in woodland. An appendix includes the scientific documentation.


My Review:
Your Brain on Plants talked about 56 plants that affect your mind or emotions. The authors covered 7 calming plants, 8 memory boosters, 8 plants that lift spirits and relieve mild depression, 7 plants that promote sleep, 7 plants that relieve pain, 7 plants that combat mental fatigue and restore vitality, 5 plants that alter your consciousness, and 5 plants that help in several ways at once. Many of these plants are easy to find, like sage, peppermint, cat mint, garlic, ginger, turmeric, green tea, blueberries, rosemary, and walnuts. Others were less common and may be more difficult to find, though I've seen many of them at my health food store.

For each plant, there's a picture of the plant plus general information about what it looks like and where it grows, historical uses and folklore, a summary of scientific studies, the bioactive ingredients, uses and how to take it, and safety warnings. There were also some recipes for foods, drinks, lotions, and such that used the plant. While this is a very pretty and informative book, I'd hoped for more information about the scientific studies. These were summarized in a small paragraph or two while the history and folklore was usually two to three times as long.


If you've read this book, what do you think about it? I'd be honored if you wrote your own opinion of the book in the comments.

Vegan Yack Attack on the Go! by Jackie Sobon

Vegan Yack Attack on the Go! by Jackie Sobon ISBN-13: 9781631594229 Hardcover: 208 pages Publisher: Fair Winds Press Released: July 3, 2018

Source: ebook review copy from the publisher through NetGalley.

Book Description, Modified from Goodreads:
Vegan Yack Attack on the Go! has options you can make in advance, take with you, or prepare quickly and easily once you get home. Packed with everything from car breakfasts and work lunches, to airplane snacks and potluck fare, you'll feel confident knowing you can go anywhere, do anything, and still eat delicious food. Beautifully photographed recipes you not only want to eat, but can whip up in any slice of time you can carve out, whether it’s at night, in the morning, or on a lazy Sunday. Recipes include:

No-Bake Apricot Almond Bars
Beastly Cauliflower Breakfast Burrito
Acorn Squash Chips
Bagel Hummus Veggie Sandwich
Whole Wheat Empanadas
Sheet Pan Squash Tacos
Pressure Cooker Pesto Spaghetti Squash
Chickpea Tendies & Waffles
Lentil Balls with Zesty Rice
Peanut Butter S’mores Dip



My Review:
Vegan Yack Attack on the Go! is a cookbook focused on quick, portable, vegan (no meat, dairy, eggs) snacks and meals. There were just over 100 recipes, and most of the recipes were less than 30 minutes (or 10 minutes) to make. The author used things like store-bought "vegan cheese" or "vegan yogurt," probably to save time and effort. She even used a gluten-based meat substitute in some of the recipes. She indicated if a recipe was safe for people with certain allergies, but she did use soy products in a number of recipes and tree nuts in others. The recipes also used added oil (usually sunflower oil) and added sugar (usually agave nectar). While the recipes looked simple enough to do and generally used common ingredients, there just weren't many recipes that looked interesting to me.

The recipes were grouped as breakfast and snacks (including smoothies, bars, cookies, a scramble, etc.), prepare ahead of time food (bars, veggie chips, granola, crackers, etc.), lunch (sandwiches, a wrap, salads, etc.), meals and sides that take less than 30 minutes to make and serve about four people (chili, burgers, pasta, cornbread, etc.), main dish recipes that are easy to double or triple, campfire and grill recipes, and sauces and jams.


If you've read this book, what do you think about it? I'd be honored if you wrote your own opinion of the book in the comments.


Excerpt: Read an excerpt using Google Preview.