2011 GIFT GUIDE

• Mrs. Santa's Book Bag

  The best cookbook gift ideas for 2011

• Reclaiming Our Food: How the Grassroots Food Movement Is Changing the Way We Eat

  A collection of cookbook gift ideas for 2011

  BY MELANIE HAUPT

• My Family Table: A Passionate Plea for Home Cooking

  BY VIRGINIA B. WOOD

• The New Southern-Latino Table: Recipes That Bring Together the Bold and Beloved Flavors of Latin America & the American South

  BY MM PACK

• The Happy Table of Eugene Walter: Southern Spirits in Food and Drink

  BY VIRGINIA B. WOOD

• Made in Italy and Rustic Italian Food

  BY RACHEL FEIT

• The Food of Morocco

  BY MICK VANN

• Sunday Roasts: A Year's Worth of Mouthwatering Roasts, From Old-Fashioned Pot Roasts to Glorious Turkeys and Legs of Lamb

  BY KATE THORNBERRY

• > Drinkology Beer: A Book About the Brew

• The PDT Cocktail Book: The Complete Bartender's Guide From the Celebrated Speakeasy

  BY WES MARSHALL

• Home Cooking With Jean-Georges: My Favorite Simple Recipes

  BY MELANIE HAUPT

• The Art of French Baking

  BY MONICA RIESE

• Off the Menu: Staff Meals From America's Top Restaurants

  BY RACHEL FEIT

• The Book of Tapas

  BY MICK VANN

• An Everlasting Meal: Cooking With Economy and Grace

  BY MM PACK

• Complete Chinese Cookbook

  BY KATE THORNBERRY

Drinkology Beer: A Book About the Brew

A good beer book will be filled with information. The best will also be filled with recommendations of tiny craft breweries. All cover some of the ins and outs of making beer, its history, and various styles. Luckily for those of us who aren't master brewers, James Waller understands beer deeply enough to make complex concepts simple, like what IBUs are or processes of kraeusening or sparging. And while there are other books that make the complicated parts easy and also offer almost everything else that Drinkology Beer does, you almost never get a writer as entertaining as Waller, who is so gifted that he could probably make a textbook on plumbing a scintillating read. Drinkology Beer is not the ultimate beer book. That award still goes to Michael Jackson's Great Beer Guide. But for any beer lover who takes delight in masterful writing, Waller's book soars to the top of the must-have list.