3 ‘Must-Have’ coffee-table books for the Holidays

Looking for some last-minute gift ideas? Here are three gorgeous coffee-table worthy books for the foodie, entertainer or traveller on your list. You may just want to pick up a copy of each to help you get any party started in style.

First, the Drinks!

Fancy AF Cocktails:  Drink Recipes from a Couple of Professional Drinkers by Ariana Madix and Tom Sandoval, contributions by Danny Pellegrino.

Who doesn’t love to try a new cocktail during the holidays? Fancy AF Cocktails is the perfect addition to your trendy new bar cart!

From warming drinks like the Tom Toddy and festive drinks like the Naughty Holiday martini, to cool-as-a-cucumber cocktails for summer like the Stay Cay, this is a book you will turn to again and again. Chapters are entitled ‘Classy,’ ‘Trashy,’ ‘Shots’ and ‘Recovery,’ featuring drink (and fashion photos of Ariana and Tom) to match the theme.

“We like to think we’re all a mix of classy and trashy, so we hope you enjoy the cocktails we created,” state Ariana and Tom on the book cover.

Celebrities Ariana and Tom co-star on the show Vanderpump Rules on Bravo. Before being seen bartending at SUR and Villa Bianca on the show, Ariana was mixing drinks at some of the most popular establishments in New York and L.A. Tom is also the co-owner of Tom-Tom, which as named Best Bar in Southern California by Los Angeles Travel Magazine in 2019.

This gorgeous celebrity couple know their stuff and soon you will be whipping up some Fancy AF cocktails too!

Excerpted from Fancy AF cocktails:  Drink Recipes from a Couple of Professional Drinkers by Ariana Madix and Tom Sandoval, contributions by Danny Pellegrino. Photos by Kelly Puleio. (C) 2019 Reproduced by permission of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. All rights reserved.

Now the Food!

Joy of Cooking: 600 New Recipes and More than 4,000 Favorites Revised and Updated, by Irma S. Rombauer, Marion Rombauer Becker, Ethan Becker, John Becker and Megan Scott

If you only had room for one cookbook on your shelf, the Joy of Cooking is likely the only cookbook you would ever need. It’s likely that your mother or grandmother still have a copy of the original book which was published in 1931 when Irma S. Rombauer self published the first 3,000 copies. Today there are more than 20 million copies in print.

Want to make Yorkshire Pudding? Check. Swedish Meatballs? Check. Ribs? Check. Learn how to cook Quinoa? You get the idea.

This new version has been thoroughly revised by Irma Rombauer’s great grandson John Becker and his wife Megan Scott, who have added more than 600 new recipes. Every section has been updated to include the latest and greatest ingredients and techniques for the home cook. With 1,156 pages including the much-needed index, this book is so hefty you could use it as a free-weight for exercise when it’s not being used for cooking!

Readers will discover tried-and-true favourites like Chocolate Chip Cookies and Southern Corn Bread, along with new recipes for things like Smoked Pork Shoulder, Megan’s Seeded Olive-Oil Granola, Crispy Pan-Fried Tofu and Rustic No-Knead Sourdough, plus gluten-free recipes for pizza and yeast breads.You’ll also find menus for entertaining and information on how to use ingredients from amaranth to za’atar.

Pick up a (hefty) copy of this Holy Grail of Cookbooks today!

Joy of Cooking is published by Scribner, an imprint of Simon & Schuster, Inc. NY, by Irma S. Rombauer, Marion Rombauer Becker, Ethan Becker, John Becker, Megan Scott. Illustrations by John Norton, papercut illustrations by Anna Brones. Original copyright 1931, this Scribner hardcover edition copyright 2019.

And the Conversation Starter!

1,000 Places to See Before You Die: The World as You’ve Never Seen it Before by Patricia Schultz

This is the coffee table book to beat all coffee table books! Written by #1 New York Times Bestselling Author Patricia Schultz who’s first version sold over 3.5 million copies, the book has been reimagined with over 1,000 new photos and almost 550 pages of intriguing text in this deluxe gift edition. The book will take you on a joyous trip around the world without having to leave your living room.

Patricia Schultz captivates our hearts in the same compelling way her original book spoke to our minds, moving from eloquent word to breathtaking images, as she takes us on a visual journey of the best the world has to offer. As we turn the pages, we feel it all: joy, curiosity, passion, nostalgia (if we’ve been there), and inspiration (because we want to go there). We see extraordinary images of mist curling over The Great Wall, elephants grazing on the floor of the Ngorongoro Crater (Northern Tanzania), look inside Iceland’s Grand Canyon or a view of Cappadocia in Turkey.

Guests will be fighting over who gets to look at this book first, and certainly it’s a great conversation starter about great trips, past, present and future.

Images excerpted from 1,000 Places to See Before You Die by Patricia Schultz (Artisan Books), Copyright 2019. Iceland Grand Canyon photo by Curdin Wuethrich/Getty Images. Cappadocia image by Natapong Paopijit/Getty Images. Photos used with permission by the publisher.

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