Media Shelf

Media Shelf

COURTESY IMAGE

Rocky the Sea Turtle


New Books of Bay Area Interest

Melt: The Art of Macaroni and Cheese

by Stephanie Stiavetti and Garrett McCord with a foreword by Michael Ruhlman and photography by Matt Armendariz

(LITTLE, BROWN AND COMPANY, 2013, $30, 211 PP)

Mac and cheese lovers, listen up: This book by two recipe developers can turn your simple pasta-and-cheesy world upside down. Oakland-based Stephanie Stiavetti, the foodstress behind TheCulinaryLife.com, and Sacramento’s Garrett McCord of VanillaGarlic.com dive into the comfort zone of mac and cheese and turn the familiar into the extraordinary. Their well-organized book offers 75 recipes, quirky foodie tidbits, and coffee-table-gorgeous images of delicious iterations of their obsession—a perfect blueprint for experimentation that covers the basics as well as concoctions seemingly far removed from their humble macaroni and cheese origins.

Rocky the Sea Turtle

by Tina Cole Kreitz, illustrated by Chris Harper Triplett

(MASCOTT BOOKS, 2013, $14.95, 38 PP)

Alameda’s Tina Cole Kreitz has written a cute book for kids about a young girl, Aleka, and her grandmother and their interaction with a gentle green sea turtle. An encounter with such a creature off Oahu inspired her tale. A portion of the book sales goes to the Hawaii Wildlife Fund. Also coming soon from the author: The Last Gift Box: A Present to Those Who Follow Me, “a guidebook for my return flight,” the completion of which allows her to die with all her affairs in order. It’s a handbook others can follow to organize everything from wills and trusts to critical care and funeral arrangements.

The Weed Runners: Travels with the Outlaw Capitalists of America’s Medical Marijuana Trade

by Nicholas Schou

(CHICAGO REVIEW PRESS, 2013, $16.95, 209 PP)

Curious about the inner workings of the U.S. multibillion-dollar marijuana growing and distribution industry? Nicholas Schou, managing editor of the OC Weekly and a former writer for the San Francisco Bay Guardian, has your interest covered in this zigzagging tale of wheeler dealers, drug runners, and pot growers. Schou, author of Kill the Messenger and a Long Beach resident, concentrates on the particularly heady years (2009–2012) of the changing pot economy when marijuana looked destined for mainstream acceptance.

This article appears in the November 2013 issue of Alameda Magazine
Did you like what you read here? Subscribe to Alameda Magazine »