Following up on my last post, here are five favorites I return to time and time again. All are reliable sources for good eating! Home Cooking and More Home Cooking by Laurie Colwin The novelist Laurie Colwin wrote playful, funny novels (Goodbye without Leaving is my favorite) about complicated characters, and also wrote straightforwardly about everyday cooking, the kind that sustains body and soul. Home Cooking, the first collection of her pieces from Gourmet and......

Welcome to a two-part review of the year’s best cookbooks. In part one, I’ll list five new books that inspired me in the kitchen in 2007…part 2 will include five rediscoveries that you might want to add to your shelf. Chocolate & Zucchini: Daily Adventures in a Parisian Kitchen by Clotilde Dusoulier A cookbook by a blogger! (with another book in press!) Inspired by a two-year stay in San Francisco, Dusoulier developed the blog......

Those of you living meat-free, rejoice! October is World Vegetarian Awareness Month. Some vegetarians are doing it for the health reasons, some to support animal rights and live cruelty-free, and others to protest the increasing McDonald-ization of the world's food supply. The World Vegetarian Day website is offering a free trip to Vegetarian Summerfest for one lucky winner who contributes a story about what they are doing to celebrate their lifestyle choices this month.......

- Jonathan Gold pays tribute to the late, great Al Langer in this week's LA Weekly. - Losanjealous interviews Palms Thai's Thai Elvis: um, does he put fish sauce on his peanut-butter and banana sandwiches? -EaterLA is totally representing our Tom Colicchio obsession; here they're peepin' on the continued progress of Craft over in Century City. - Go see Rescue Dawn: and sneak in a bottle of Baron Herzog wine in honor of the......