This new series of fifteen books - The Food Service Professional Guide TO Series from the editors of the Food Service Professional are the best and most comprehensive books for serious food service operators available today.

These step-by-step guides on a specific management subject range from finding a great site for your new restaurant to how to train your wait staff and literally everything in between. They are easy and fast -to-read, easy to understand and will take the mystery out of the subject. The information is "boiled down" to the essence. They are filled to the brim with up to date and pertinent information.

The books cover all the bases, providing clear explanations and helpful, specific information. All titles in the series include the phone numbers and web sites of all companies discussed. What you won't find are wordy explanations, tales of how someone did it better, or a scholarly lecture on the "theory". Think of them as "Cliff Notes TM" on the subject matter.

Every paragraph in each of the books are comprehensive, well researched, engrossing, and just plain fun-to-read, yet are packed with interesting ideas. You'll be using your highlighter a lot! The best part aside from the content is they are very moderately priced. You can also purchase the whole 15 book series the isbn number is 0-910627-26-6. You are bound to get a great new idea to try on every page if not out of every paragraph. Do not be put off by the low price, these books really do deliver the critical information and eye opening ideas you need you to succeed without the fluff so commonly found in more expensive books on the subject. Highly recommended!

Customer Review: A good starting point for further research

I found that such book is a good starting point for my dissertation due to the fact that it highlights a diverse range of issues which form the basis for the whole research work to be done.

Customer Review: Profits walking out the door?

This is a collection of tips on how to reduce your operating costs for both alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages (including soft drinks). The book does spend quite a bit more time on alcoholic drinks, so you'll get more for your money if you have a bar or a restaurant with a liquor license. In general, the book is well written, easy to understand, and a quick read.

Feel free to skip the first chapter, a brief section on the basics and forecasting that really doesn't go into enough depth to be useful (for example, the author states there are three main types of budget, proceeds to tell the reader they're useful--but never explains the difference between them). You'd be better off with a book specific to the food service industry in general for budgeting/forecasting advice.

Other than that, the book gives nothing but useful tips specific to the beverage industry. It includes information on costing (starting with basics such as estimating yield per bottle including evaporation and spillage), purchasing and inventory control (including security tips), portion control, selecting drinks, how to run a cash bar at a banquet, and selecting and training employees. One of the biggest problems in the beverage industry is theft--liquor is easy to move and hard to track. The book spends a lot of time on the issue and covers everything from how to spot fraudulent billing and inventory practices to where to put the tip jar. Don't get me wrong: the author doesn't encourage you to treat your employees like your enemies, but explains that you should clarify that protecting your assets also means protecting the reputations and livelihoods of all your trustworthy employees.

There are a few places where you're going to have to do further research--your local and state liquor and employment laws, for example--but on the whole, this book gives you what you need to know to keep your restaurant's beverage costs under control.

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Hailed as the most entertaining reference to wine culture, this book arms readers with valuable knowledge of wine etiquette, while identifying those sensless acts of snobbery that often lead to embrassing situations.

Customer Review: Learn about wine (or just how to pretend to know about wine)

Hilarious. This book will teach you all the rules you'll have to follow, and all the affectations you'll have to take on, to pass as a wine snob. At the same time, though, you'll really learn about wine. This book was first published in 1981 and it also offers a glimpse into gourmet snobbery before good food was democratized and celebrity chefs took over. The illustrations are just as funny as the prose and they will both remind you of real wine snobs you know. Every aspiring wine connoisseur should read this book.

Customer Review: An amiably and expertly written guide

The Official Guide To Wine Snobbery by Leonard S. Bernstein is an amiably and expertly written guide to everything from how to properly hold a wine glass, to matching foods and wines, to popular controversies surrounding wines and their tasting, and a great deal more. Informed and informative, The Official Guide To Wine Snobbery is an enjoyable, accessible, 160-page instructional guide which is especially recommended for non-specialist general readers with an interest in the pastime and culture of wine tasting.

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THE IMPOVERISHED, DESOLATE mountain regions of the Abruzzo during Mussolini's reign provide the backdrop for the three greatest novels by Ignazio Silone, one of the twentieth century's most important writers. In Fontamara, Bread and Wine, and The Seed Beneath the Snow - presented together for the first time in English to mark the centenary of the author's birth - Silone narrates the struggles of the cafoni, the farmers and peasants of his native Abruzzo, against poverty, natural disasters, and totalitarianism.
The first novel in the series, Fontamara, is a political fable that portrays the bitter trials of the villagers of Pescina as they battle with landowners who have appropriated their only source of water. First published from his exile in Zurich in 1933, and banned in his own country, the novel was translated into twenty languages and won Silone instant international literary fame.
Silone's masterpiece, Bread and Wine, introduces the semi-autobiographical character Pietro Spina, an anti-Fascist revolutionary who returns to his homeland after fifteen years in exile. He seeks refuge among the Abruzzo peasants by posing as the priest Don Paolo Spada.
Pietro's story continues in The Seed Beneath the Snow, Silone's personal favorite in the trilogy. Pietro Spina flees again and, with the police in close pursuit, is taken in by his grandmother Donna Maria Vincenza. Though comfortably settled in Italian bourgeois society, she jeopardizes her own life in order to protect him.

Customer Review: Good for Practice

Fontamara (at least) has another virtue, in addition to those cited by other reviewers: it's a pretty good text for practicing your Italian. Fairly simple language, straightforward grammar. Some street-talk and jargon but not a lot and hey, that's what learning is about. Some cute bits of peasant black humor to keep things moving. Not the edition here, of course: this one is in English. But there is a nifty Italian edition available from Manchester University Press in England (ISBN 0-7190-0662-7) with helpful notes and an excellent glossary by Judy Rawson.

Customer Review: brilliant, non-didactic political fiction

Silone's trilogy of novels about the rural Abruzzo region of Italy under fascist rule is beautifully written (and beautifully translated by Alexander Stille--a bad translaot can ruin a great work of literature). I can't quite put my finger out what it is, but there is something captivating about the prose. The three novels in this collection are also deeply political--but without being didactic, which is no easy feat. If you're trying to convey a message through fiction, it's all too easy to fall into using cardboard cut-out characters who hit you over the head with a message. This never happens in Silone's work, not once. Many authors, for instance, would be tempted to romanticize the cafoni, the down-trodden peasants of the area. Far from doing this, Silone shows the ways in which their oppression has made many of the cafoni bitter, greedy and envious. Neither is Silone's depiction of the cafoni entirely negative though--some of them are remarkable (particularly Berardo in the first novel Fontamara) and most are too grounded to be taken in by ideological abstractions. The main character of the second two novels, Pietro Spina, is a decent man, a former member of the Communist Party who has gone underground and, as he has had time to reflect on things, has drifted away from the party, seeing how its authoritiarianism and dogmatism stands at odds with the ideals it proclaims--but Spina still holds onto his socialist beliefs after some fashion. As Stille explains in his introduction (the first introduction to major literary work I haven't found dull), this reflects Silone's own life experiences. Interestingly though, Spina never becomes a mouthpiece for Silone's own Christian socialist beliefs--they are articulated in more subtle ways throughout the trilogy. This is a political novel in which there is no black and white, but only shades of grey; and in which human friendship is more important than anything else.

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Spanning over a century of African-American life  and culture, this classic oral history celebrates  one remarkable family's heritage as told through  photos, reminiscences, and recipes--now back in  print after six years.

B & W  photographs throughout

Customer Review: Great even just for reading!

This is as interesting as a "reading" book as it is as a cookbook. The recipes are very creative, too. A lot of "homestyle" cookbooks just seem to be "1,001 things to do with canned soup" but this one isn't like that at all--the recipes are genuinely interesting and are varied, from ice cream to homemade wine to Sunday dinner.

Customer Review: Down home cookin'

I purchased this book in hardbound when it came out years ago. I used it until the pages fell out. Now, I'm older and can't consume so much butter and sugar other artery clogging ingredients, but for special occasions I pull this baby out and go to town. Mmmm-mmm-good!

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The last person Stella Robertson expected to meet at a late evening signing for her latest vampire book was a handsome man wearing a tux, cape and realistic vampire fangs. But it was Halloween so she dismissed his claims of knowing more about vampires...until he spoke directly into her mind and convinced her he did know what he was talking about. As prince of the California nightwalkers, Sebastian Moret knew it wasn't wise to get too close to his favorite author, but she was so lovely, so sexy, and her blood so delicious sometimes even a four-hundred-year-old vampire is tempted into a mistake. But this mistake haunts him when Stella seeks him out, not once, but twice. When she tracks him to his winery in the Napa valley, Sebastian is forced to make Stella his companion to buy her silence. Given the rocky start, both Stella and Sebastian know that their relationship needs work. When Sebastian and his werewolf servants come under attack, the pair must put aside their differences and use all of their wits and talents to thwart the plot against them.

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Wine regions are attracting increasing numbers of tourists through tours, wine festivals and winery, restaurant and cellar door experiences. Presenting applied research in wine tourism from Europe, North America, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand this book reviews the latest management and marketing strategies. It highlights the lessons learnt for wine and tourism industries and concludes by examining the future of the wine tourism industry.

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Collection of informative and irreverent columns from one of America's foremost wine critics. Screw caps, liquor laws, glassware, sommeliers, spitting and, yes, alcohol are covered along with grapes, countries and appellations. Connoisseurs, neophytes and beer-swillers alike will find themselves laughing, pondering and armed with everything they need to impress friends, terrify enemies and stop wine snobs in their tracks.

Customer Review: A fun read

Jennifer Rosen is a true expert on wines of all types. She displays many innovative and fun ways to share her knowledge. A great read for wine lovers at all levels.

Customer Review: Just Plain Fun

Rosen's writing is creative and appealing without seeming forced, which is rare. This book will entertain even those who don't feel compelled to read everything ever written about the world of wine. Give this book to someone who's never read a wine book and they'll laugh their way through it before realizing how much they've learned.

Rosen is one of the food and wine writers I turn to when I want a little bit o' fun inserted into my day. She reminds me of what attracted me to the wine business in the first place. I can't read Rosen without smiling.

Dave Chambers, Wine Merchant

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From the grape to the glass, award-winning wine writer Joanna Simon takes readers through the tantalizing range of styles, grape varieties, and wine-producing regions and offers refreshingly down-to-earth advice on how to buy, taste, serve, and store wine for maximum enjoyment.

Customer Review: An excellent introduction into the world of wine

This was the assigned text book for the International Sommelier Guild Level 1 course. The material is well organized and concise. It provides a good introduction to wines from the grape, the regions in which they are grown, the wine making process, how to evaluate wine and food pairing. Joanna Simon provides a good place to start for anyone who wants to enjoy the amazing world of wine.

Customer Review: Great pictures, not so great content

If you want a wine book that has great photos this would fit the bill. If you also want a wine book that is very short on substance this is a good choice.

As an introductory text, "Wine: An Introduction" leaves a lot out. As a professional sommelier this was my very first text book and I must say that this book did not cover the basics of wine well at all.

The book only covers the top 6 main varietal grapes in a moderate level beginner of detail. The rest get anything from a sentence to possibly two paragraphs. Very little information about regions, regional styles, vinification, or the industry surrounding wine makes an appearance.

Want to know about grapes? Try buying "Vines, Grapes & Wines". Want to know about regions try "The World Atlas of Wine". Both are availible on Amazon.com. Both are much, much better books at helping you find your bearings in the stormy seas of wine.

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Disgruntled Winery Workers Coffee Gift Basket is measuring 9x9x4. Contains 15oz mug, BONUS free set of 4 coasters, biscotti and 5 blends of gourmet coffee. French Vanilla, Kenya AA, Decaf Colombian Supremo, Chocolate and Italian Roast Espresso elegantly presented in our signature black planet coffee gift box. A very nice and thoughtful gift for any occasion.

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Customer Review: Trampling Out the Vintage

Ralph Steadman is a very wicked person. Has no respect
for nothing, this guy. Anybody who could do drawings
for Hunter Thompson couldn't possibly get serious
enough to do justice to wine, could he?

The Grapes of Ralph is a semi-serious, very funny
look at the world of wine by a guy with a truly enviable
talent for illustration. His drawings range from wistful
to wildly exaggerated. The text, which is sometimes as
funny as the drawings contains a good bit of information
along with the humor. I bought two copies, one for
the bookshelf and one to cut up and frame in the
winecellar.

--Lynn Hoffman, author of THE NEW SHORT COURSE IN WINE and
the novel bang BANG. ISBN 9781601640005

Customer Review: Ralph, wine & pen

Ralph Steadman is a wonderful artistic talent. In this book he combines his love of wine, humor, and his comedic illustrations. If you are a true wine lover (i.e. someone who just doesn't take the whole wine tasting thing too seriously, but knows what she or he likes) you will thoroughly enjoy this book. It is also a wonderful gift for wine-lovin' friends. Enjoy!

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