El Norte: The Cuisine of Northern Mexico

Rating:
Summary: El Norte is a work of art.
Review: If you want one beautiful book about Mexican food and how to prepare it authentically, get El Norte.TEXAS BOOKS IN REVIEW

Rating:
Summary: The book is a work of art.
Review: The book is a work of art. Drawings, photos in black-and-white of chefs and their kitchens enhance the recipes. Most attractive are twelve color plates of foods one could die for, made from recipes in the book. If you want one beautiful book about Mexican food and how to prepare it authentically, get El Norte. TEXAS BOOKS IN REVIE

Rating:
Summary: Makes me want to fire up the grill and get cooking ...
Review: This cookbook does a great job of presenting Northern Mexican cooking -- until I came across this book, I'd found the choice was between cookbooks that concentrated on the more exotic South (e.g. Oaxaca, Veracruz, and the Yucatan), the Mexican American experience (e.g. Cocina de la Familia), or Tex Mex ... not a whole lot on Sonora, Chihuahua and Coahuila.
The book is attractively laid out, with well written recipes that make me want to fire up the grill and get cooking each time I leaf through it. Also, the book starts with a very handy no nonsense introduction to chiles and other essential ingredients which should appeal to folks who've had no luck securing a steady supply of epazote or huitlacoche.
This book now sits on my kitchen bookshelf alongside books by Diana Kennedy and Zarela Martinez ... unlike a few others by better know writers, that have gone the way of garage sales ;-)