The annual festival of books, authors and reading in Clayton, The Big Read, becomes “The Big Cook” when the annual book festival welcomes four fun cookbook authors for a day of cooking demos and book signings this Saturday.
The demonstrations, which will happen around the corner from the Big Read at Portabella at 15 N. Central Ave., include:
• 11 a.m. Lauren Chattman will discuss her inventive how-to, Cookie Swap. The book offers recipes that range from the simple to the sophisticated, featuring pumpkin-cheesecake brownies, flaky cardamom palmiers and green tea sandwich cookies with almond cream. Chattman is a prolific author of dessert cookbooks. Her previous books include Instant Gratification, Cool Kitchen, Mom’s Big Book of Baking and Dessert University, written with former White House pastry chef Roland Mesnier.
• 12:30 p.m. John Schlimm II will demonstrate tips from The Ultimate Beer Lover’s Cookbook. Schlimm is a descendant of the Straub family, as in Straub Brewing, and his cookbook, with more than 400 recipes, is the largest beer cookbook going. The author is, incidentally, also noted for being a serious collector of autographs.
• 1 p.m. David Utley and Kaywan Samadani, chef and director of food and beverages, respectively, for Harrah’s St. Louis, will prepare recipes from the new Seven Stars Cookbook: Recipes from World-Class Casino Restaurants. The book features an intro from Paula Deen and, in addition to recipes that have re-made casino restaurants into foodie destinations, related dishes from chefs Bobby Flay, John Besh, Bradley Ogden, Francois Payard, Paul Prudhomme and Guy Savoy are included.
• 2 p.m. Italian cook Rocky Fino will talk about crafty seduction methods in his Will Cook For Sex Again, Again, and Again: A Guy’s Guide to Cooking. The “Good Time Gourmet,” as he has been known to call himself, writes on his Web site, “There are two truths about men and women. Women love chivalry and men want to get lucky. Cooking is the catalyst that can fuse the two.”
Hubba, hubba.
This article appears in Oct 1-31, 2010.