(Hachette Book Group / Little, Brown; September 2008)

Authors Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg consider their pioneering work on flavor composition CULINARY ARTISTRY their most important of the last century (i.e. prior to 2000), and their eight-year labor of love THE FLAVOR BIBLE their most important since.

Upon its publication in 1996, CULINARY ARTISTRY received little media attention and wasn't nominated for a single award. And yet, in the years since, countless professional chefs and home cooks have gone on to cite it as their favorite and/or most-used cookbook, including Alinea chef Grant Achatz, Le Bernardin pastry chef Michael Laiskonis, "Top Chef" winners Hung Huynh, Stephanie Izard, and Hosea Rosenberg, and Michelin two-star chef John Campbell. Strong word of mouth spurred sales of 100,000 copies.

Upon its own publication in 2008, THE FLAVOR BIBLE has been more readily embraced by fans of CULINARY ARTISTRY as well as others who can appreciate this groundbreaking reference of contemporary compatible flavors that is as useful to anyone who cooks as a thesaurus is to anyone who writes. In addition to winning the 2009 James Beard Book Award, THE FLAVOR BIBLE has appeared on numerous lists of the year's most outstanding culinary books, including those compiled by "Today," "Good Morning America" and People magazine as well as About.com, Austin Chronicle, Barbara-Jo's Books to Cooks, Chicago magazine, CoolHunting.com, Fresno Bee, Metroland, Restaurants & Institutions, San Francisco Chronicle, Sarasota Herald-Tribune, SheKnows.com, South Bend Tribune, StarChefs.com, Tucson Citizen, Vancouver Sun, What's Up Anapolis, and many others.

"This is the single most useful book in our kitchen."
— Shauna James Ahern, Gluten-Free Girl

"Few food books in recent memory have excited me
as much as this one."
— Claudia Alarcon, Austin Chronicle

"A whole new way to think about food
in the sort of conceptual way chefs do."
— Meredith Arthur of Chow.com, on the James Beard Foundation Blog

"An instant kitchen classic [and] amazing reference."
— Barnes & Noble

"THE FLAVOR BIBLE offers something that is rare and precious:
true originality."
— Rose Levy Beranbaum, RealBakingWithRose.com

"THE FLAVOR BIBLE is an amazing new book."
— Anthony Dias Blue, WCBS Radio

"Culinary genius....A must-have."
— Keren Brown, Seattle Post-Intelligencer Blog

"An extraordinary book. I recently added THE FLAVOR BIBLE to my cookbook collection, which numbers more than 1,000 volumes...It has immediately become one of my favorites (and definitely my #1 favorite in English)."
— Barb J. Cohan, pastry chef, Paloma Fine Dining in Philadelphia

"This dynamic duo writes some of the best reference books around. THE FLAVOR BIBLE brings it all together under the banner of flavor."
— The Cookbook Store in Toronto

"Erudite, magnanimous, chaulked with years of inspiration."
— GastronomicGuesswork.com

"A masterpiece."
— Michael Gelb, New York Times bestselling author of How to Think Like Leonardo da Vinci and Discover Your Genius

"A gospel...A wealth of inspiration...It's a book to provoke cooks and chefs to greater creativity, classic and avant garde."
— Gael Greene, Insatiable-Critic.com

"With this season's THE FLAVOR BIBLE, [the authors have] confirmed their position as masters of the gustatory universe."
— Ron Holden, The Examiner

"One of the best cookbooks I've ever encountered."
— In Good Taste in Portland, OR

"Sets down in print what has often been believed inexpressible."
— Mark Knoblauch, Booklist

"Amazing...[and highly recommended for holiday gifting]."
— Sandra Lee, "Today"

"Starred review...A unique resource...Wonderfully inspiring
and immensely useful."
— Library Journal

"One of the Best Cookbooks of 2008."
— Sara Moulton, "Good Morning America"

"Contains the most useful culinary lists ever assembled."
— Michael Natkin, Herbivoracious.com

"It may be the best food-related book ever...An essential book.
It's like the Rosetta Stone, except it's been left by the world's great chefs for cooks who know the basics."
— Tyler Nemkov, Denver Westword

"[THE FLAVOR BIBLE] resembles none of the foodie culture's memoirs or cultural histories or cookbooks...It's more like the I Ching. Open it randomly, and it will open you up to an array of possibilities in your culinary future."
— Emily Nunn, Chicago Tribune

"A must-have reference for all kitchen shelves —
mine is right next to Joy of Cooking."
— Kirsten Ott, The Sunday Paper

"One of the best Cookbooks of the Decade: 2000-2009."
— Brad Parsons of Amazon.com, Al Dente

"Starred review...Readers will find themselves referring to this handsome volume again and again."
— Publishers Weekly

"[One of 19] must-have food books [of all time]."
— Ellen Rose, "Good Food" on KCRW Radio / NPR

"One of my favourite cookbooks of this century."
— Joe Saumarez Smith, Cooking Index

"A seminal work...Destined to become a classic."
— Lucinda Scala Quinn, Martha Stewart Living Radio

"An amazing book...I think it's their best work yet."
— Steven A. Shaw, Executive Director, eGullet Society

"Sure to be a classic kitchen reference guide for years to come...
The best and most useful culinary reference book of the year."
— Amy Sherman, CookingWithAmy.com

"Top 10 Cookbooks for Your Christmas Gift List.
#1: THE FLAVOR BIBLE is an invaluable resource."
— Michele Thompson, SheKnows.com

"Head and shoulders above the rest...I think it is going to join The Silver Spoon [Italy's bestselling cookbook of the past 50 years, which has sold more than 2 million copies] as a classic cookbook."
— Matthew Wake, founder, Books Books Books,
the English-language bookstore in Lausanne, Switzerland

(Journalists can request a review copy of THE FLAVOR BIBLE here.)

Purchase Online:

THE FLAVOR BIBLE

Eight years in the making, THE FLAVOR BIBLE is a landmark book that will inspire the greatest creations of innovative cooks and chefs by serving as an indispensable guide to creativity and flavor affinities in today's kitchen.

Cuisine is undergoing a startling historic transformation: With the advent of the global availability of ingredients, dishes are no longer based on geography but on flavor. This radical shift calls for a new approach to cooking — as well as a new genre of "cookbook" that serves not to document classic dishes via recipes, but to inspire the creation of new ones focused on imaginative and harmonious flavor combinations.

THE FLAVOR BIBLE is your guide to hundreds of ingredients along with the herbs, spices, and other seasonings that will allow you to coax the greatest possible flavor and pleasure from them. This astonishing reference distills the combined experience of dozens of America's most innovative culinarians, representing such celebrated restaurants as A Voce, Babbo, Blue Hill, Cafe Atlantico, Chanterelle, Citronelle, Gramercy Tavern, The Herbfarm, Jardiniere, Jean Georges, Le Bernardin, The Modern, Moto, and The Trellis.

You'll learn to:

* explore the individual roles played by the four basic tastes — salty, sour, bitter and sweet — and how to bring them into harmony;

* work more intuitively and effectively with ingredients by discovering which flavors have the strongest affinities for one another;

* brighten flavors through the use of acids — from vinegars to citrus juices to herbs and spices such as kaffir lime and sumac;

* deepen or intensify flavors through the layering of specific ingredients or techniques; and

* balance the physical, emotional, mental and spiritual aspects of cooking and serving an extraordinary meal.

Seasoned with tips, anecdotes, and signature dishes from the country's most respected chefs and pastry chefs, THE FLAVOR BIBLE is an essential book for every kitchen library.

Purchase Online:

THE FLAVOR BIBLE

Reviews of THE FLAVOR BIBLE:

1 DOMINICK

"What Flavor Is Your Bible? 1 Dominick Cafe is the kind of place where food cognoscenti and theatre diva's mingle. Food writers Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg stopped by with a preview copy of their latest cookbook, THE FLAVOR BIBLE. Is it the greatest cookbook ever? It definitely deserves a spot on my kitchen shelf next to The Joy of Cooking! Read Andrea Strong's review of the book on The Strong Buzz."
—1 Dominick (October 1, 2008)

"This. Book. Is. FABULOUS. THE FLAVOR BIBLE by Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg. So many of you say you don't know what foods go together if they're not already wrapped up in a frozen burrito. This book takes out every single ounce of guesswork. It looks at every ingredient you can think from the most basic to the most exotic and lists out the best ingredients that go with it. It even has the absolute best pairings bold and in big capital letters so you CAN'T GO WRONG. Not only does it talk about ingredients, it talks about methods of cooking. For example, what's the best way to prepare that bag of carrots in your fridge? Boil? Saute? Raw? THE FLAVOR BIBLE tells us that you get the best flavor out of carrots when you roast them. I mean for real, how awesome is that kind of knowledge! You'll be unstoppable!! They've already done the experimenting (and messing up) for you, and by they, I mean crazy awesome chefs from all over the place. Seriously, y'all, this book is a savior for any of you who want to throw dinner together but just don't know what should be thrown. You'll wonder how you ever cooked without it."
— Kendra Adachi, MyFirstKitchen.net (May 21, 2009)

"Since we bought [THE FLAVOR BIBLE], back in October, I'm pretty sure it has been opened every single day. I tried to take a beautiful photograph of it, but there's no taking away the smudged fingerprints and dented corners. We are often holding this book in our hands. Years ago, this book would have intimidated me. There are no recipes. Every food is in alphabetical order, rather than being organized by type or style of cuisine. Before I met Danny, I would have looked at this book and put it away. But he has taught me how to cook from feel, from experience, rather than from recipes alone. (I still use recipes, most of the time, but now they are only starting points, a gun going off toward the sky. I'm not nearly so straight-backed examining them, as I was before.) For that reason, this book is invaluable....He's the jazz musician. I'm the grammar teacher....
That's why this book works for him, and more and more, for me now too. Say you bought some ramps at the farmers' market (they're coming here soon), in your eagerness to celebrate spring. But when you are home, you realize — you have no idea what to do with them. Look up ramps in this book. What you'll find is a list of other foods that go particularly well with ramps: asparagus, bacon, butter, carrots, chicken, chives, cream, cured meats, etc. Some of the foods are in bold, meaning they go particularly well with ramps: Parmesan cheese, pasta, new potatoes. Hm. What to make? Well, Danny has taught me to think creatively. It's April, so we want something light, not like the pot roasts and meatloaf nights of February. What's for dinner? What about rice pasta with roasted asparagus, sauteed ramps, prosciutto, and Parmesan cheese? Or, grilled halibut with black pepper-ramp puree? Or warm polenta with morel mushrooms and a creamy ramp sauce? Actually, I'm hungry again. Those are all just ideas from looking at the ramp section of this book...."
—Shauna James Ahern, author and host, Gluten-Free Girl
(April 7, 2009)

"Gift Guide: For Gluten-Free Cooks and Eaters...As much as I love recipes, I also love the confidence that comes from having good technique under my knife and a knowledge of what flavors mingle well in a meal. Knowing how to braise meat and potatoes or sear Alaskan salmon until it's cooked rare? That's just from experience. But knowing the flavors that marry well with others or that dislike an entire set of herbs? That's all in THE FLAVOR BIBLE. This book is invaluable for anyone who wants to play with his food."
—Shauna James Ahern, SeriousEats.com (December 8, 2009

"Santa's Bag Is Full of [10] Books for Cooks This Holiday Season: THE FLAVOR BIBLE by Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg. Few food books in recent memory have excited me as much as this one — perhaps because it really isn't a cookbook at all. Instead of prescribed, carefully measured recipes, Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg give us an insight into the minds of 'America's most imaginative chefs' to inspire the reader to create new dishes based on imaginative and harmonious flavor. In their introductory chapter, they explain the formula: Flavor = taste (what is perceived by the taste buds) + mouthfeel (what is perceived by the rest of the mouth) + aroma (what is perceived by the nose) + 'the X Factor' (what is perceived by the other senses, plus the heart, mind, and spirit). Then they break the formula down further into individual components (sweet, sour, temperature, piquancy, pungency, etc.), flavor affinities, function, seasonality of ingredients, and — just as important — the essence of the moment ('Why do you need or want to cook in the first place?'), which together create the ultimate goal of 'deliciousness.' They follow with carefully organized charts for every ingredient, type of cuisine, and culinary term imaginable, indicating taste, flavor function, commonly used cooking techniques, tips, flavor affinities, and incompatibilities. All this invaluable information is interspersed with comments and insights from acclaimed chefs such as Monica Pope of t'afia (Houston), Maricel Presilla of Zafra (Hoboken, N.J.), Traci Des Jardins from jardinière (San Francisco), Homaro Cantu from moto (Chicago), Michael Lomonaco of Porter House (NYC), and José Andrés (cookbook author and TV personality) that help explain why and how they create their culinary masterpieces. Give this book to someone who loves to cook; chances are they'll reward you with a fabulous meal prepared with you in mind."
—Claudia Alarcon, Austin Chronicle (December 5, 2008)

"I am a creature of habit. I will do the same thing over and over even when I know it's not working for me, so I like having tools around that aid and abet my creativity and personal freedom. In the kitchen, having a pantry of high quality ingredients and products that move me is key for allowing me to improvise and create amazing meals. The book THE FLAVOR BIBLE by Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg, whose cover you see here, is another great tool. The book is a reference guide to hundreds of ingredients, everything from apples to zucchini and every herb, spice, spirit and cuisine in between. Each item has its own description in terms of flavor profile, season, and the best techniques and tips for using it. It also has suggestions and knowledge from some of America's greatest chefs. But that's hardly the best part. This book is the kitchen improviser's bible because it lists all the matching flavor affinities for each ingredient! So say you have beets in your fridge and you're not sure what to do with them. Not only will the book give suggestions on cooking them, but it lists all the other flavors, ingredients, herbs and spices that go well with beets in alphabetical order...I don't know about you but I find this terribly exciting! These pairings make my mouth water. That's what makes this volume invaluable. Once you've used it for a while, you gain a more natural sense of what goes with what, which will lend itself in numerous creative and tasty ways in your cooking. Learning the essentials and then riffing on that in your own style is precisely what makes a great cook. I think one of the privileges of being human is that we get to develop our style, our character, to know who we are and what we stand for in the scheme of things. Cooking and eating is a brilliant, fun and tasty way to develop that."
—Dana Joy Altman, The Huffington Post (October 26, 2009)

"I got [Page and Dornenburg's] WHAT TO DRINK WITH WHAT YOU EAT as a gift last month, devoured it, and immediately ordered THE [FLAVOR] BIBLE. I haven't been disappointed. The book is a treasure trove of information for advanced cooks who want to think about flavor pairings that are both ordinary and extraordinary....There's not a single recipe for the novice cook, but if you know how to handle your proteins, grains, and plants, you'll be overwhelmed by the sheer intensity of the possible ideas inside, many of which come from the best chefs of this generation. I'm averaging about three pages an hour because I'm constantly testing ideas against my mental palate — a remarkable pleasure."
—Chris Amirault, PhD, Director of Operations of eGullet Forums, on eGullet.org (January 29, 2009)

"Cooking the Books with Ellen Clark. In December, PW talked to cookbook buyers at the major chains about their outlook for the holiday season, and despite the gloomy pall cast over retailing in general, many of the buyers seemed optimistic. The week after Christmas, we caught up with Borders cookbook buyer Ellen Clark for an anecdotal recap. Overall, Clark said, '[Cookbooks] did really well for us. I think we did better last week [the week of December 22] than was expected.' Clark ran down the hits and surprises of the biggest cookbook shopping season of the year. PW: So which cookbooks performed best this holiday season?... Were there any pleasant surprises? EC: There were some books that we had expected to do well, but nowhere near as well as they did. One is THE FLAVOR BIBLE by Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg, who are very well-respected chefs [sic]. It’s a great book for people who like to create on their own, but who might start out with a recipe. That did really well for us."
—Lynn Andriani, Publishers Weekly (December 31, 2008)

"On September 7, THE FLAVOR BIBLE celebrated one year on Amazon’s 'Cooking, Food & Wine' top 100 bestseller list. And, its authors are quick to add, before Julie & Julia-related books took over much of list’s prime real estate, THE FLAVOR BIBLE spent most of its life in the top 25. How did a book without a movie tie-in, national TV presence or celebrity authors, that doesn’t contain one recipe, achieve such success? THE FLAVOR BIBLE teaches readers to cook without recipes, inspired by tried-and-true compatible flavors. Authors Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg, a husband-and-wife team who have written a string of books chefs love, think of the book as 'a thesaurus of flavors that work well together.' The book explains, for instance, that tropical fruit goes with lime juice, lime zest and rum; quail is well-matched with thyme and vinegar; and that one of Swedish cuisine’s main flavors is dill (and that you should avoid garlic and piquancy when making Swedish dishes). It’s a smart, useful book that won a 2009 James Beard Award and has garnered praise from publications ranging from O to the Chicago Tribune to the popular food blog 101 Cookbooks. Little, Brown published THE FLAVOR BIBLE a year ago this week — and went into its fourth printing this summer...."
—Lynn Andriani, Senior Editor, Publishers Weekly (September 14, 2009)

The Angry Brit

"And the nominees are....It's that time of year again! The James Beard Foundation Awards. The nominees were announced this morning an several of my favorite food-related people have been nominated. Most notably...two of my all-time favourite books have been nominated: Fat by Jennifer McLagan and THE FLAVOR BIBLE by Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg."
—The Angry Brit (March 23, 2009)

"THE FLAVOR BIBLE is a must for cooking and cocktail mixologists with an alphabetical listing of flavors and ingredients; it also includes short essays on regional tastes and from chefs."
—The Awesomer (September 17, 2009)

ONE TREE PAST THE FENCE

"Without further [ado] meet my first guest...The Angry Brit. An incredible writer, a fantastic writer, I encourage you to go check out her blog site, BUT... not before you read her here....Q. What ...is the one cookbook you’d take with you? A. ...The one cookbook I would take with me is THE FLAVOR BIBLE by Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg, because if I have that with me, then I will have all the inspiration I will ever need."
—Kathleen Bade, "Eight with Kate," One Tree Past the Fence (March 28, 2009)

"Third Annual Cookbook Awards: Polls Are Open. The third annual cookbook awards nominees have been elected. The staff at Barbara-Jo's Books to Cooks voted for their favourite cookbooks of 2008, and here are the top ten: A16 Food & Wine (Ten Speed Press), Beyond the Great Wall by Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Duguid (Random House), In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan (Penguin), Fat by Jennifer McLagan (McClelland & Stewart), THE FLAVOR BIBLE by Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg (Little, Brown & Co.), Friday Night Dinners by Bonnie Stern (Random House), Maggie's Harvest by Maggie Beer (Penguin Books), A Platter of Figs and Other Recipes by David Tanis (Artisan), Shark's Fin and Sichuan Pepper by Fuchsia Dunlop (W.W. Norton), and Urban Italian by Andrew Carmellini and Gwen Hyman (Bloomsbury). Now it is time for you to vote for your top cookbook of 2008. From the list above, elect your favourite and let us know which one you choose by emailing bookcook@intergate.ca."
—Barbara-Jo's Books to Cooks in Vancouver (January 13, 2009)

"An instant kitchen classic, this amazing reference lists thousands of culinary ingredients, teaming each one with its best flavor complements to produce taste combinations that are as surprising as they are delicious."
—Barnes & Noble (April 2009)

"Although it does contain several recipes, THE FLAVOR BIBLE, by Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg, is not a cookbook. It isn’t really a bible either, for that matter. If I had to classify this book it would be half dictionary, half encyclopedia, and all wonderful. In the opening chapters, the authors invite us to learn the language of food, cooking and flavor, and they don’t mean the simple terminology like the difference between stirring and folding that often perplexes young chefs in the making. Instead, they treat each flavor, each type of flavor, as if it were a part of speech, so coriander, for example, might be an adverb, while cinnamon is a verb, and within the pages of this book, we learn how each works with the other, or with a number of other herbs and spices. Want to know what flavors compliment the sweet-tart complexity of a cranberry, or know the perfect ratio of coriander to cumin for maximum taste? THAT is the information this book provides. The bulk of the pages are filled with tables of 'flavor affinities' including everything from celery to potatoes and beef to spinach, with many, many others in between (and on either side). It tells you the peak seasonality for each food or spice, what they work well with, and what combinations are best avoided. There are certain cookbooks that tend to become staples in the well-rounded kitchen: Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking, The New Basics by the authors of the Silver Palate series, and The Joy of Cooking, among others. THE FLAVOR BIBLE should be included among those shining stars. It’s a kitchen resource no serious cook should be without."
—Melissa A. Bartell, AllThingsGirl.com (January 2, 2009)

"As usual, the brief period between our December editorial closing and the filing of this letter allows us a yearly teeth-gnashing over whatever, through oversight or too-tight space, failed to make it into the annual roundup. Such as...applause for a terrific new reference book like Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg's FLAVOR BIBLE....."
—Michael and Ariane Batterberry, Food Arts (December 2008)

"Sooner or later, every dedicated cook learns that a recipe is simply a launching point for cooking, a guideline. If you really want to learn to cook well you need to understand what gives a dish balance in taste, how the weather and the season affects the dishes you would want to make, which ingredients work well together and which don't....The more you understand which flavors work well together, which offer a natural balance, the more masterful your results will be. It is this subject that authors Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg address in THE FLAVOR BIBLE Page and Dornenburg spent 8 years researching to prepare the contents of THE FLAVOR BIBLE. They interviewed countless chefs for their suggestions of what foods, spices, herbs complement each other. THE FLAVOR BIBLE is designed for inspiration, for those days when you know you want to make something with a particular ingredient, and are looking for what would work well with it. For example, arugula is something we have growing in spades this time of year. Looking it up in THE FLAVOR BIBLE I find an interesting recommended 'flavor affinity' that I have not considered — arugula with pears and prosciutto. The book is set up like one giant index. Just look up an ingredient, and there will be a list of other ingredients that are well matched with it, as well as suggestions for groups of ingredients that work well together....If you are interested in improvising beyond a basic recipe, and want the best possible results, you will find this book a godsend. It's as if someone picked the brains of the best culinary talent just for you."
—Elise Bauer, Simply Recipes (April 22, 2009)

"Holiday Gift Ideas 2009: All of the following recommendations I own; they are products that I love, use regularly, and think would make an awesome gift for a fellow cook....5. THE FLAVOR BIBLE: Every cook who is even remotely interested in experimenting with their cooking should have THE FLAVOR BIBLE. I have bought more copies of this book to give as gifts than any other. Last April I wrote a detailed review here. In a nutshell, the authors list every ingredient they can think of in alphabetical order, and under each ingredient a recommendation of other ingredients that pair well with it. So, if you are making poached pears, you can look up 'pear' in THE FLAVOR BIBLE and find the spices that go with it, like vanilla or cardamom. Improvise with confidence with this book."
—Elise Bauer, SimplyRecipes.com (December 11, 2009)

"There's A New Bible On the Block. Since The Cake Bible was published 20 years ago, there have been so many books using the B word I’m expecting a whole section in the book stores devoted to food bibles. 'What’s in a name? That which we call a rose...' of course is true up to a point, but I don’t need to tell you what’s in the name 'bible' and if you’re going to use it as part of the name of your book it had better be one. THE FLAVOR BIBLE is. If you look up the word bible in the Encarta Dictionary, after you get past the first few religious connotation definitions, you’ll find the one that best applies here as well: 'essential book: a book that is considered an authority on a particular subject.' Written by my esteemed friends and colleagues Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg, THE FLAVOR BIBLE not only fits this definition it offers something beyond bible that is rare and precious: true originality. There is not a single recipe in the book — this is not about learning how to roast a chicken — it’s about understanding taste, flavor synergy, ingredients — what they are and how they work with each other. Beautifully organized alphabetically by ingredient and also including ethnic cuisine, each ingredient is coded for weight, volume, technique, and tips (occasionally function as in sesame oil: 'heating'). Studded throughout the book are quotes, concepts, and tips from illustrious chefs, past and present, and other notables such as the response of U.S. Poet Laureate Charles Simic when asked in an interview 'What advice would you give to people who are looking to be happy?' His answer: 'For starters, learn how to cook.' And here’s a great tip from one of my favorite chefs, Michèl Richard (who is a perfect example of happiness, married many years with more children than I can remember). He uses miso broth instead of chicken for his onion soup. This is one of Andrew’s favorite tips as well. Karen intrigued me with Dominique and Cindy Duby’s clever idea to alternate slices of apples and eggplant in a tart because the absorbent eggplant soaks up the juices of the apples to keep the tart less soggy -- so much so that the eggplant tastes like apple! Karen said 'We haven't tried it yet ourselves, but the logic made immediate sense.' Yes indeed it does and I can hardly wait to see for myself! This book will soon have you thinking like a food professional. It will change your approach to how you look at food and ingredients. Here’s how it works: A food professional approaching something new first smells, then tastes, and then the sensory brain starts spinning trying to imagine what it would enhance! An example of one of my iwb most startling food synergies: several years ago I had just perfected a passion ice cream and happened to notice that my windowsill rosemary was in bloom with exquisite little lavender flowers. Rosemary leaves are resinous and intensely overpowering for something as subtle though singular as passion fruit but the flowers had a flavor all their own — almost impossible to describe and somehow I immediately thought to garnish the ice cream with them. Both visually and gustatorially they provided a whole new and heavenly dimension to the ice cream. Read this book from cover to cover. It’s an education. Even if you never intend to cook a thing as long as you live it will indeed make you happier. It will make eating more enjoyable and you’ll never again have to feel uncomfortable in a restaurant wondering exactly what you’re ordering."
—Rose Levy Beranbaum, Real Baking with Rose Levy Beranbaum (November 29, 2008)

"New Culinary Reference Book: THE FLAVOR BIBLE by Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg inspires the creation of new dishes based on imaginative and harmonious flavor combinations. Don't think recipes, think flavor combinations for meat, seafood, cheeses, vegetables, fruits, herbs, spices and much more. Sure to be a classic!"
—Sally Bernstein, Sally's Place (September 9, 2008)

"The Bitten Word's Holiday Gift Guide 2009. Some of you might be scrambling for gift ideas. Then again, some of you might be like us, sort of lazily drifting towards the holidays.  Maybe there will be gifts, and then again, maybe there won't. A holiday surprise!  We're trying to keep it simple this year. Rather than just buy a bunch of stuff, we want to give friends and family things that they will really enjoy.  So here are some ideas for you that we've collected over the last few months....Four foodie books we read (and loved) this year, including Ratio, THE FLAVOR BIBLE, The Fortune Cookie Chronicles and Gael Greene's wonderfully smutty Insatiable."
—Clay and Zach, The Bitten Word (December 9, 2009)

MAMA COOKS

"It’s miraculous, I agree, but there are two reasons I was able to create something delicious without a plan, a trip to the store, or a cookbook: I had five whole minutes to think, along with THE FLAVOR BIBLE, which had just come in the mail. The latest book by the prolific writing couple Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg — their seventh — doesn’t give recipes, but instead lists flavor affinities, techniques and great pairings, all of which they’ve been thinking about and working on for nearly a decade....Thanks to THE FLAVOR BIBLE, though, not only was I able to pull a really tasty meal together at the last minute, I even enjoyed doing it. It’s so nice to find a resource book that, rather than telling me what to do, gives me the tools I need to make something special (or simple) by myself. Thank you, Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg. This will be my 'cookbook' of note for the foreseeable future."
—Betsy Block, MamaCooks.com (September 8, 2008)

"THE FLAVOR BIBLE is an amazing new book. I'm Anthony Dias Blue with the Blue Lifestyle Minute. How do you know what flavors go together? The age-old question creates problems for many cooks, and sets apart great dishes. THE FLAVOR BIBLE by Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg will advise you on which flavor combinations to choose — from fennel pollen to kaffir lime to yuzu juice, this cookbook doesn't just list recipes, but encourages innovative new dishes based on harmonious flavor combos. Organized in alphabetical order and cross-referenced, this guide provides helpful combinations for meats, seafood, cheeses, fruits, vegetables and more. And if you're looking for compatible literature, pick up WHAT TO DRINK WITH WHAT YOU EAT and CULINARY ARTISTRY by the same authors for companions to THE FLAVOR BIBLE. It's time for a book to de-mystify the essence of what makes good recipes — and this book does the trick."
—Anthony Dias Blue, WCBS Radio (October 28, 2008)

"Cooks Like Books Under the Tree. Books are among the most popular gifs this holiday season. And for the chef on your holiday list, there is an ample selection from which to choose. You might want to consider [this Top 10 list]: Throughout their food careers, THE FLAVOR BIBLE authors Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg have nurtured mutually beneficial relationships with the most knowledgeable, respected and expressive culinary personalities in the world. Capitalizing on that, they have collected and combined wit and wisdom in this book for the person on your list who likes to explore, experience and share new and different flavors and combinations, and who is able to adapt recipes to do so. Incidentally, there are no actual recipes in this book that treats cooking as an evolving art, 'combining inner and outer selves.' The first two chapters (totaling about a 10th of the book) are about using the language of food (taste, mouthfeel and aroma) to communicate (maximize flavor and pleasure by tapping heart, body, mind and spirit). The remainder is devoted to charts for matching foods and ingredients according to cuisine, seasons, flavor affinities, heartiness, volume and technique. It suggests combinations to try and others to avoid. These are supplemented by opinions and quotations of the aforementioned personalities. For example, Michael Anthony (Gramercy Tavern), David Waltuck (Chanterelle), Brad Farmerie (Public) and Michael Laiskonis (Le Bernardin) all weigh in on the whys and ways of using various acids in cooking. THE FLAVOR BIBLE's approach is at the same time broad and specific. The serious cook on your list will have to see it to appreciate it. (Little, Brown, $35)."
—Linda Brandt, Sarasota Herald-Tribune (December 3, 2008)

"When we first received THE FLAVOR BIBLE by Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg ($35, Little, Brown and Co.) in late 2008, we couldn’t decide if we hated it or thought it was the most brilliant cookbook we’d seen in years...The nearly 400-page hardback tome doesn't contain a single [recipe], at least not in the traditional sense. But if you're interested in flavor combinations to seek out and combinations to avoid, suggestions for the best preparation technqiues and what chefs and other culinary professionals like to make with specific ingredients (such as sauteed strawberries in black-pepper cabernet sauvignon sauce with vanilla ice cream and a sacristan cookie), the $35 cover price is money well spent....If you look at it as a reference guide to jump start creativity in the kitchen, the possibilities are endless."
—Kelly Brant, Arkansas Democrat & Gazette (June 3, 2009)

"The Cookbook Store's Alison Fryer appeared on Breakfast TV on Wednesday, December 17th. She featured 20 of the year's best food and wine books, including THE FLAVOR BIBLE by Dornenburg and Page...."
—"Breakfast Television," CityTV (December 17, 2008)

"THE FLAVOR BIBLE: Culinary Genius. THE FLAVOR BIBLE is nothing less than a must-have in every creative cook's household. No, it's not a recipe book; it's a reference book that gives you lists of which foods harmonize well together. How does it work? You look up the ingredient that you want to use and then read down the list of foods that pair well with this ingredient. For example: Pineapple has many ingredients on the list such as bananas, brandy, avocado (surprising), black pepper and so many more. There is also a list of flavor affinities...pineapple + avocado + watercress, pineapple + coconut + honey + ginger and other combinations that just give you an oomph of motivation....."
—Keren Brown, Seattle Post-Intelligencer Blog (October 1, 2008)

kitchenhacker.net

"You may have heard of THE FLAVOR BIBLE. Sara Moulton called it one of the best cookbooks of 2008 on Good Morning America. It hit the #1 best-selling spot in Amazon's cooking category. It has gotten a good bit of recognition.There's a good reason for this book's reputation. It contains incredibly useful information that I've never seen stated explicitly in a cookbook before....THE FLAVOR BIBLE is a great reference. It may be the best idea-generator for the kitchen that I've come across. I suspect that it could be an excellent part of a beginning cook's education, but that educational process would look different from what we're used to seeing. THE FLAVOR BIBLE is a fascinating read."
—Stuart Broz, KitchenHacker.net (February 7, 2009)

T H E__G O O D__L I F E

"I have a book called THE FLAVOR BIBLE by Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg. It is probably, out of my 90+ cookbooks and technique books, the most important book I own....I made a really good sorbet today, and I used this book to do it. We had some bananas that were overripe. Looking up the entry for bananas, it screamed at me to use CHOCOLATE, COCONUT, ICE CREAM and RUM (using the book's formula). So I did. And there was much rejoicing."
—Kevin and Vanessa Bruyette, The Good Life (February 10, 2009)

"Starred Review. Award-winning culinary writers Page and Dornenburg believe cooking has undergone a revolution from being based on geography (e.g., French, Japanese, etc.) to being based on flavor. After writing about classic flavor matchups in CULINARY ARTISTRY and about how to combine food with drink in WHAT TO DRINK WITH WHAT YOU EAT, the authors here return to their idea of creating dishes based on flavor and taste. The authors first discuss the four basic tastes and the roles played by weather, the season of the year, and other environmental factors in cooking. The rest of the book is an extensive alphabetic guide to different culinary ingredients. Each entry includes information on the ingredient's taste and the best cooking techniques as well as a list of other foods that work well with it. In addition, a range of award-winning American chefs contribute their valuable insights on using selected ingredients and ideas for different dishes. Rather than just another collection of recipes, this is a unique resource that both beginning cooks and serious chefs will find wonderfully inspiring and immensely useful. Highly recommended for all public library collections."
—John Charles, Library Journal (November 15, 2008)

"THE 2008 HOLIDAY GIFT LIST: COOKING [1st of 8 books recommended]: THE FLAVOR BIBLE by Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg (Little, Brown and Company). If your friend is adventurous enough, perhaps coming up with new, original dishes might be in order. In THE FLAVOR BIBLE, Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg tap the knowledge of the country's leading chefs to compile a comprehensive guide to seasoning and perfecting any dish. With thousands of ingredient entries organized in alphabetical order and cross referenced, your friend will be able to concoct her own dishes by figuring out which ingredients work well together in unexpected ways."
—Yennie Cheung, HipsterBookClub.com (Holidays 2008)

"Gift List Ideas: It's not a gadget or cookware but the absolute best 'Kitchen Helper' I've ever purchased is a book, THE FLAVOR BIBLE by [Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg]. It doesn't matter if you've got the best cookware or gadget, if you don't know what to throw in the pan. It's not really a cookbook per se but it's the best $35.00 I've ever spent on cooking stuff. You can see what you've got to eat, look in the book and see what you need to bring out the best most impressive taste. It truly is a 'flavor Bible.'"
—Chow.com (September 29, 2008)

"Cookbooks for Cooks and Foodies. For the Adventuresome Cook: THE FLAVOR BIBLE by Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg. This culinary reference guide isn’t for beginners. The authors  assume you know your way around the kitchen, and in doing so, provide extensive lists of ingredient combinations intended to jump start your culinary imagination. If you expect detailed recipes, you’ll be disappointed. But if you’re looking for inspiration, the dish ideas, flavor pairings, chef cooking tips and handy charts will keep the creative juices flowing long after the holiday adrenaline has left your system. How good is this book? It’s won the 2009 James Beard Award for Reference and Scholarship. Posts this book inspired: My soon-to-be-famous Concord Grape Sorbet."
—Charmian Christie, Christie's Corner (December 15, 2009)

"2009 James Beard Nominees. The James Beard Nominees were announced this past week.  The award recognizes excellence in food writing.  Here is the complete list of nominees for this year, compliments of Amazon. This year’s list was full of really cool things....The thing I was most excited about though was Karen Page and Andrew Dornenberg’s new book, THE FLAVOR BIBLE.  I love these authors.  Their books are reference books and can help all cooks, professional or otherwise, when it comes to pairing flavors, creating menus, or picking the right drinks for your meal.  I have their other two books, CULINARY ARTISTRY and WHAT TO DRINK WITH WHAT YOU EAT on my desk and I use them all the time when planning menus or trying to come up with ideas for dinner.  I’ll be adding this one too! Great crop of books this year – congrats to all the nominees."
—Meridith Coady, Food Geek San Diego (March 28, 2009)

"An extraordinary book. I recently added this book to my cookbook collection, which numbers more than 1,000 volumes (probably more like 1200 but I'm still cataloging). It has immediately become one of my favorites (and definitely my #1 favorite in English). If you are a serious cook, love to read cookbooks like novels, and view recipes as suggestions rather than as requiring strict adherence to precise measurements, then this is the book for you! (Did I say I LOVE this book?) I make all of the desserts for my husband's restaurant. If I snag some particularly luscious fruit and want to make it into a dessert, this is the book I reach for first. I don't WANT to be told how to make a fruit sorbet. I already know how. But I love having a list of suggested flavors and products that go with what I already have. It's like having an uber-creative friend at your side saying 'hey, why not try THIS?' And if you are not an experienced cook, this book provides invaluable guidance that a recipe book never could. It is wholly different from every food book I have ever read. The book is clever, useful, and obviously the product of prodigious research. To the authors, I send my humble gratitude. You have made my life immeasurably easier, and my dishes far more interesting than ever before. This book is a must-read if you love to eat or love to cook. I have already bought six copies and have given two as gifts. It's THAT good."
—Barb J. Cohan, pastry chef, Paloma Fine Dining in Philadelphia (October 12, 2008)

"A new book called THE FLAVOR BIBLE...A user-friendly, intuitive guide...Wonderful...Really, really interesting....I suspect this book is going to do very, very well, because the concept is great, and it's laid out beautifully. Like your book WHAT TO DRINK WITH WHAT YOU EAT, it's intuitive in terms of how you use it and it's a great, smart layout. Again, the name is THE FLAVOR BIBLE by Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg, who are pretty frequent guests on this show."
—Mike Colameco, host, "Food Talk" on WOR 710 AM (October 6, 2008)

"On the Shelves of the Professionals: Home cooks and gluttons for food photography aren't the only people who benefit from a great cookbook. Many of the country's best chefs rely on caches of cookbooks to derive continual inspiration and to relearn vital lessons of the kitchen. SAVEUR reached out to a handful of professional chefs and writers to find out which cookbooks have been stained with wine and oil and earmarked with copious notes...Michael Laiskonis, pastry chef, Le Bernardin, New York City: CULINARY ARTISTRY and THE FLAVOR BIBLE by Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg. Among all the 'cookbooks' in my collection, CULINARY ARTISTRY may well be the most beaten and battered. What Page and Dornenburg catalogued in these volumes are the building blocks used in dishes, and it's basically a reference guide to what goes well with what. More than simply helping to generate ideas and flavor combinations, the books also address, from a chef's perspective, how and why these marriages work. THE FLAVOR BIBLE, their latest book, builds upon the first and tracks our evolution in that ten-year interim. Every time I glance at these books, I see something new."
—Alexandra Collins, Saveur (March 2009)

"Food Pairings: Grab a date and join us for a special Valentine's edition of our Food Series. We'll meet a team of award-winning food writers who also happen to be married. We'll explore the best pair foods and they'll share stories about getting along in the kitchen as cooks and as a couple....Mike: THE FLAVOR BIBLE is a great book....Peter: It is the definitive book on the subject."
—Host Mike Collins and special guest Peter Reinhart, "Charlotte Talks," WFAE Radio in Charlotte, NC (February 13, 2009)

"Andrew Dornenburg and Karen Page's THE FLAVOR BIBLE will help get you started on flavor composition...For those with an interest in adding 'kitchen' flavors and creativity to their cocktails, CULINARY ARTISTRY offers an intense introduction that will have you off and running."
—Christopher Conatser, mixologist, Delaware Cafe in Kansas City and 2008 winner of the Greater Kansas City Bartending Competition (2008)

"New Books: THE FLAVOR BIBLE. Page & Dornenburg. This dynamic duo writes some of the best reference books around. Whether a professional or home cook, you need their books on your book shelf. Remember BECOMING A CHEF ($32.95), CULINARY ARTISTRY ($32.95) and WHAT TO DRINK WITH WHAT YOU EAT ($46.00). This latest tome brings it all together under the banner of flavour and they don't disappoint. Hardcover, 380 pp. $38.00."
—The Cookbook Store, which is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year in Toronto (October 2008)

cookerati

"It’s no secret I love to play around in the kitchen. If there’s one way I’m challenged, it’s probably knowing which flavors blend best with each other. That’s why I’m digging THE FLAVOR BIBLE. As you would probably gather from the title, THE FLAVOR BIBLE is a reference listing tons of different foods, herbs and spices and everything you want to know about them but were afraid to ask....THE FLAVOR BIBLE was written by Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg who also wrote the handy WHAT TO DRINK WITH WHAT YOU EAT.  I recommend it for the foodie in your life. Already my pages are marked and dog-eared and I know I’ll be using this for years to come. Don’t buy another sweater for your favorite cook; THE FLAVOR BIBLE is a much better investment. Two giant and enthusiastic Cookerati thumbs up."
—"Holiday Gift Guide," Cookerati.com (October 1, 2008)

"Staff Picks: THE FLAVOR BIBLE. Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg have created an extensive and comprehensive guide for cooks and chefs of all levels who are passionate about food. With imput from noted chefs across America, this book will help you explore various flavor combinations that will help you deepen, brighten and intensify your palate. Complete and concise, this kitchen must-have is a great way to discover and create new and exciting dishes."
—Alan, Staff, The Cook's Library in Los Angeles (October 2008)

"THE FLAVOR BIBLE. With thousands of ingredient entries organized alphabetically and cross-referenced, this is the ultimate reference guide for chefs at any level. The follow-up to Dornenburg and Page's last hit WHAT TO DRINK WITH WHAT YOU EAT, this book is just as informative and allows for a lot of imagination. Available from Amazon for $35."
—"Gift Guide 2008," CoolHunting.com (December 2, 2008)

"FLAVOR BIBLE puts ingredient ideas at your fingertips. Let’s Say you bought a tin of smoked paprika to use in a recipe, and now you’re wondering what to do with the rest of it. Or you’d like to move beyond your mom’s brown-sugar-heavy acorn squash recipe but aren’t sure which seasonings will work best. If you have THE FLAVOR BIBLE (Little, Brown, $35) on your cookbook shelf, the answers are only a few page flips away. Authors Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg researched flavor combinations for eight years. They compiled a massive flavor database and interviewed top-name chefs — including Sharon Hage of Dallas’ York Street — about how they think about flavor. The result is not a cookbook; it is a reference book. Not a book for cooks who must have a recipe to follow, it’s more appropriate for improvisational or instinctive cooks. The meat of the book is an alphabetical list of some 600 ingredients and the compatible ingredients or uses for each; the most commonly mentioned combinations are listed in boldface. Also listed with each entry is the ingredient’s season, dominant taste (bitter, sweet, sour), weight (light, medium, heavy), volume (among herbs, parsley would be quiet and rosemary loud) and primary function, as well as recommended cooking techniques and tips."
—Amy Culbertson, Fort Worth Star-Telegram (October 8, 2008)

ProChef SmartBrief

"New book puts flavors into words. A new book,THE FLAVOR BIBLE, attempts to classify flavors for food the way it is done for wine. 'In our less humble moments, we say we've written a chef's thesaurus,' said Karen Page, co-author with husband Andrew Dornenburg. Chicago Tribune. (01/28)."
—The Culinary Institute of America's ProChef SmartBrief (January 28, 2009)

"At holiday time, what cook doesn’t love peeling back the gift wrap to discover a new cookbook? Newcomers to cooking can’t wait to try everything, but even seasoned cooks — who don’t really need more recipes — welcome the inspiration of a new cookbook. We polled a few Culinate contributors and friends to learn which, out of all the cookbook gifts they’ve been given as gifts, they appreciate the most, and here’s what we learned....Hm. Sounds a little like our columnist Hank Sawtelle — although he’s referencing a different book — or two. 'Lately I’ve been reaching for How to Cook Everything by Mark Bittman and THE FLAVOR BIBLE by Dornenburg and Page (not a cookbook per se but an “inspiration book”) several times a week. With these two books together there is very little you can’t do. Certainly any ingredient you have lying around or that you bring home from the market can be worked into a coherent dish. So if I can change the question to ‘If I could only have (or give) two cookbooks, what would they be?’ these are the ones.'”
—Culinate.com (December 18, 2009)

Fraternity Kitchen

"I usually don’t write on the weekend; who wants to read about me and my perfect life in Queen Anne — it’s all about the guys (I’m pretty sure there are a few readers who are not looking for recipes or pictures of books here).  But THE FLAVOR BIBLE is too interesting not to share, so the non-food-obsessed can just skip this one.  It’s not a cookbook at all, but more of a creativity catalyst.  You look up an ingredient, say, 'eggplant,' and find a list of flavors that marry well with that ingredient, combinations you might not have thought of, chefs’ tips on using it, lucsious menu descriptions… I just discovered the book this weekend and I’m addicted.  I’ll put it down and then think 'coconut milk!' or 'persimmon!' and have to consult the Book.  For the guys who wonder what sort of out of control behavior I get up to on my weekends, this is it."
—Chef Darlene, chef at a fraternity at the University of Washington in Seattle, on FraternityKitchen.net (October 5, 2008)

"Your outstanding book has a place of honor in my new library."
—Marcel Desaulniers, 1999 James Beard Foundation Outstanding Pastry Chef and 1993 Best Chef: Mid-Atlantic of The Trellis restaurant in Williamsburg, VA

"When your fan base ranges from Grant Achatz of Alinea to the crew of Top Chef, when your cooking books are repeatedly referenced as 'bibles,' what's next? For Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg, it was taking on that title for real, with a new book titled THE FLAVOR BIBLE. Don't think of it as a cookbook, it's something more like — not a flavor dictionary, exactly, and not an encyclopedia. Maybe a thesaurus, plus the equivalent of a 'friends' list on a culinary Facebook of ingredients. The book is billed as an essential one for any kitchen library, but in some ways 'it is not for everyone,' Page acknowledged when the couple was in town last week for a Cooks and Books event. Why not? Because it doesn't have recipes. What the bulk of it offers, instead, are brief basics about the characters of a bazillion foods (open one random page and you'll get grits, grouper, and guavas, jump to another for sunchokes, Swedish cuisine, sweetbreads), along with the ingredients that they can best be paired with when cooking. The lists of flavor affinities are augmented by commentaries and advice from chefs across the country. (Sage, for instance, lends 'a masculine touch' to skate, says Eric Ripert of Le Bernardin.) The likes of Michel Richard and Daniel Boulud and Dan Barber weigh in from the other coast, local luminaries Jerry Traunfeld and Holly Smith represent our area. Returning from the farmer's market with a bunch of chervil, for instance, and wondering what the heck to do with it? THE FLAVOR BIBLE warns you to use it fresh, not cooked. Its best companions would include eggs and egg dishes, or fish, or salads — but there are more than four dozen suggestions. To use this information, you need the confidence to cook without a recipe, one reason I suspect the couple's books are beloved by chefs. But Page and Dornenburg see a broader need for such a resource, as our society (thank you, Food Network) has seen a revival in basic cooking skills and creativity. Moreover, the variety and breadth of ingredients home cooks have available to them has exploded over the past decade. Past books, for instance, might have talked about 'mushrooms.' Now they talk about shitakes and boletes and matsutake and morels. More than recipes, the couple thinks, what people need now is inspiration. They put the book together by compiling a massive database over the course of eight years, deconstructing dishes from the menus of chefs they admired throughout the country. The part I found the most intriguing was their classification system for foods, particularly the concept of the "volume" of an ingredient, something like audibility on a stereo dial. It helped, bringing in these ideas, that their last book dealt with flavor pairings for drinks. 'There's so much more of a vocabulary when it comes to wine than when it comes to food,' Page said. The chefs they interviewed for the book openly shared their secrets, said Page — a nice nod to an overall 'strong professional commitment in the culinary field to educate the next generation.' The couple's previous books have wound up as required reading in culinary schools. During the Seattle trip, their explorations included an event at The Corson Building, had lunch at Quinn's and dinner at Poppy. I had to ask what they thought of Poppy, and was glad to see it win kudos. 'We eat out a lot, and we tend to have very jaded palates,' Page said, but what Traunfeld is doing is 'extraordinary.' We had this conversation, by the way, at Trophy, not too far from their guest spot that morning on KUOW. Does chocolate cake pair well with chocolate frosting and chocolate sprinkles? The answer was a unanimous yes."
—Rebekah Denn, columnist, Seattle Post-Intelligencer (October 6, 2008)

"[THE FLAVOR BIBLE] is the book every cook should have, especially Southerners who like to prepare meals
by instinct and love."
—Loraine Despres, author, The Scandalous Summer of Sissy LeBlanc and The Southern Belle's Handbook

"A new resource for all kinds of cooking....Here is a familiar scenario: You've got a hodgepodege of ingredients at home and you don't have a clue as to what to do with them. Enter THE FLAVOR BIBLE, a new book which promises professional help in assessing what kinds of ingredients and spices work best together....A new book takes the ingredients you have at home and helps you figure out which ones work best together. Andrew Dornenburg and Karen Page are avid eaters and prolific cookbook authors. After spending years in the food world, they know how many people eat. 'We go to the grocery store, we go to the green market to see what looks great, we kind of buy things here and there, then we get home and say, 'What the heck am I gonna do with all of this?' said Page. So their latest project THE FLAVOR BIBLE, aims to help both home cooks and professional chefs. 'What we thought was any ingredient you could ever imagine — from apples to zucchini blossoms — if you want to know the herbs, spices and other flavorings that best enhance them, you can look it up in a single volume.' We caught up with them at The Spice House in Old Town, an excellent source for flavor enhancers. As a former chef, Dornenburg says the book serves as a reference point. 'If you look up apples, you'll find cabbage, cinnamon and maple all go together. OK, well I'm gonna go in the kitchen, don't need a recipe to dice some apple, to slice some cabbage, I'll saute it, maybe throw in some bacon, a little maple syrup, and I reduce that down and I'd serve that with a piece of chicken breast or pork,' said Dornenburg. He says simple, everyday ingredients like peppers, eggplant and garlic can be turned into completely different meals, depending on a few variables. 'Slice the peppers, slice the eggplant, the garlic.. throw it on a pizza with some mushrooms. No problem. Grab those same ingredients, dice them up, add some coconut milk, maybe a little cilantro, and you're in Asia.'"
—Steve Dolinsky, host, ABC-TV Channel 7 (Chicago) (October 8, 2008)

"THE FLAVOR BIBLE: Taking eight years to pull together, these two award-winning authors have penned a groundbreaking culinary reference invaluable to home cooks and professional chefs alike. Filled with thousands of entries the book provides a virtual goldmine of spectacular flavor combinations for meat, seafood, cheeses, vegetables, fruits, herbs, spices, and much more. There’s nothing else out there to match it, so pick up a copy and take your flavor combinations to a whole new level!"
—Jeremy Emmerson, GlobalChefs.com (October 2008)

"The Chart: Best-Sellers: Food Books Top 20. Recession emptying out your wallet? Cook at home! Here's the latest best-seller list from Kitchen Arts & Letters....8) THE FLAVOR BIBLE by Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg."
—Entertainment Weekly (November 7, 2008)

"It need not be said that the Joy of Cooking or Mastering the Art of French Cooking are indispensible books to have around, but once a home cook or simple food enthusiast has these standbys, what books make great gifts? This guide to cookbooks as gifts focuses on the best books of the past few years as well as some modern classics and pinpoints the perfect present for the baker, the trend-watcher, and the first-time cook....Best Books of 2008 and Trendy Favorites: For the most organized chef, the recently released FLAVOR BIBLE (Little, Brown, & Co., 2008, ISBN 0316118400) is a must-have item, making ingredient pairing all the more simple."
—Judith Faucette, Suite101.com (November 29, 2008)

"Great cooking goes beyond following a recipe: It is knowing how to season ingredients to coax the greatest possible flavor from them. The authors of THE FLAVOR BIBLE have talked with dozens of America's leading chefs to discover their secrets of creating deliciousness in any dish....First of all I want to talk about this extraordinary accomplishment that the two of you have created in writing THE FLAVOR BIBLE...It's really unlike any other cookbook I've ever seen."
—Jean Feraca, host, "Here on Earth" on Wisconsin Public Radio (December 12, 2008)

"Meandering through the mouth-watering pages of THE FLAVOR BIBLE. On today's show we speak with the co-authors of (and the married couple behind) a wonderful new book called THE FLAVOR BIBLE: The Essential Guide to Culinary Creativity, Based on the Wisdom of America's Most Imaginative Chefs.... My guests today are Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg...the authors of a number of acclaimed cookbooks and food-oriented books including WHAT TO DRINK WITH WHAT YOU EAT. Their latest book is a must for home chefs and devoted foodies. It draws upon the thesaurus as an inspiration, cross-referencing foods and spices and all their complements. THE FLAVOR BIBLE is really the ultimate look at how foods pair together...For people who love to dabble in the kitchen...and love to experiment, this is the perfect book for them."
—Rich Fisher, host, "Studio Tulsa," KWGS / Public Radio Tulsa (February 17, 2009)

"Top [11] Cookbooks of 2008: THE FLAVOR BIBLE. Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg (Little, Brown and Company) $35.00. Brought to you by the award-winning duo that created BECOMING A CHEF and CULINARY ARTISTRY, THE FLAVOR BIBLE is a comprehensive reference on the essence of flavors and flavor combinations. The third chapter is the meat of the book, comprised of 'The Charts': 600-plus entries about ingredients and regional cuisines (with lists of complementary flavors or typical ingredients). Each entry has its own list of characteristics, common flavor combinations, function, affinities, avoidances, and so on. This self-dubbed bible is meant to be just that: a philosophical and practical guide to cooking based on chef-inspired flavor combinations rather than regional ones. Blurbs from famed chefs regarding their fondness for particular flavors and lists of particular dishes are sprinkled throughout. As CULINARY ARTISTRY defined the classical combinations that chefs employ, THE FLAVOR BIBLE reinvents these combinations and provides a jumping-off point for new flavor ventures."
—Lynley Fleak, JJ Proville, and Heather Sperling, StarChefs.com (December 13, 2008)

"Christmas and books go together like lamb and chile peppers, allspice and beef, anchovies and lemon, angelica and cream, and Dornenburg and Page. If you have doubt, then picking up two copies — one for your library and one as a gift of the culinary duo's latest tome, THE FLAVOR BIBLE, will reassure your beliefs that great things go hand in hand. For fans of the duo — and there are many — THE FLAVOR BIBLE is a gift that adds flavor to every cookbook shelf. Billed as 'the essential guide to culinary creativity, based on the wisdom of America's most imaginative chefs' the pages guide the reader through a pairing of ingredients that assist and add to any culinary artist's creativity. Developing a repertoire of food and flavors is not an easy task. And, although most chefs believe they have the ability to meld and fold ingredients together it takes more than a dash of this and a dollop of that to truly create a palate pleasing plate. Of course we all think our food is some of the most flavorful on the planet or at least the menu, but do the majority of us really have the ability to decide if garlic and cinnamon compliment each other when sprinkled on carrots? THE FLAVOR BIBLE answers these questions. Don't think this is a cookbook. It's not. However, it definitely helps lay the groundwork and foundation for a creative vision that so many of us seek Dornenburg and Page have managed to include tips and trivialities that some would consider secrets from the worlds most renowned culinary artists. The duo summoned contributions and advice from a list of experts from the world over. Jose Andres, Meeru Dhalwala, Michel Richard, and Eric Ripert are only a few of the names that grace these pages. With Christmas less than a week away, this is the perfect gift for anyone in your kitchen. But more importantly, the book should be read as it not only spurns the creative juices but will also offer a new outlook on your future. At a time when we are all under unbelievable pressure, it's not that bad to take this book, scan the pages, pick a section, read it and then let your mind wander. A vision appears with a new menu for the New Year. Flavors are impact full: dishes dance with ingredients your customers never imagined possible in your restaurant. Suddenly the colors come together and the plate again becomes a canvass. The techniques you have quickly learned and the combinations make the marriage of salt and pepper look like a mundane relationship. You are out of the rut. Your menu changes between Christmas and New Year's Eve. The New Year looks brighter. All because of THE FLAVOR BIBLE. Buy it. Read it religiously."
—John Foley, AllBusiness.com (December 19, 2008)

Foodfan.dk

"THE FLAVOR BIBLE: The Sublime Combination! Now it is here, the book you did not know existed! Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg have written the book on all the (relatively) the sublime combinations you can cooking. The two writers have had a chat with America's top chefs and made a short overview of what fits into your cooking. I bought this book just 4 months ago and has now almost been good night reading and a dear friend. I love to compose new dishes and flavor combinations to find good when I cook food. In these moments, THE FLAVOR BIBLE was the first counselor at the same time it is also a huge help, the evenings you are unimaginative and considering whether pepper tastes good with lemon. The book is basically structured as an encyclopedia / dictionary and it requires little habituation. Each ingredient has a corresponding list of other ingredients that match this....It is easy to navigate through the book. In between are small boxes with either descriptions of classical European dishes with an ingredient, as well as various restaurants specialties. All in all, this one, in my opinion, indispensable book for you who are curious and do not always need to follow a recipe 100%. Because there are no recipes in THE FLAVOR BIBLE, this is certainly an important information for many, but let you not deter, it may be more fun than you think! Let your imagination have free rein, after a consultation in THE FLAVOR BIBLE."
—FoodFan.dk (Denmark Food Blog; auto-translated by Google) (January 31, 2009)

FOOD LOVERS LIKE ME

"Just Add Flavor....File this one under 'Why Didn't I Think of That?' I just picked up a copy of the new book THE FLAVOR BIBLE: An Essential Guide to Culinary Creativity, Based on the Wisdom of America's Most Imaginative Chefs by Karen Page and Andrew DornenbUrg (Little, Brown). It's all about how to combine different flavors to come up with an incredible dish. The innovative advice, as the title states, comes from top-notch chefs. But what I think is so GENIUS about this book is that you can look up just about any food item and find a laundry list of flavor pairing suggestions, pairings that you know will work (read: no more winging it in the kitchen, with unsavory results). Here's just a few I came across today:
Black-Eyed Peas: suggestions range from cardamom and cayenne to garam masala to fresh ginger.
Salmon: suggestions range from juniper berries and mangoes to Champagne and white miso.
Just about every type of cuisine is covered. They even tell you how to use some of those specialty food items like Five-Spice Powder and Piquillo Peppers you might have hugging the sidelines in your pantry. This book is a library-must-add for any cook who likes to improvise."
—Food Lovers Like Me (September 19, 2008)

"Our 12 Favorite Cookbooks...THE FLAVOR BIBLE - Karen Page & Andrew Dornenburg."
—Blog of Philip Foss, executive chef of Lockwood at the Palmer House in Chicago (October 2008)

"[Chef Timothy Hollingsworth] also treated himself to a copy of the new work by Andrew Dornenburg and Karen Page, THE FLAVOR BIBLE, which brought back memories...When he first moved up from commis to cook at The French Laundry, John Fraser (today the executive chef of Dovetail in New York City) had recommended that he read one of the authors' earlier collaborations, CULINARY ARTISTRY. The book features extensive lists of ingredients and other foods they get along with. Hollingsworth, who was then starting to participate in those nightly menu meetings, spent his wee hours studying those lists so that he'd look like he knew what he was doing in the meetings when fellow cooks with finely honored palates and improvisational talent turned to him and said, 'What to you want to run?'....Hollingsworth broke out his copy of THE FLAVOR BIBLE, the new book by Dornenburg and Page, whose earlier CULINARY ARTISTRY had gotten him through those menu meetings during his formative years at The French Laundry. He thumbed it to death that night, looking up possible accompaniments for caviar, for cod, for scallops, and for any number of ingredients, both assigned and elective, that he had been grappling with. He stayed up until three in the morning like that, filling his head with new ideas, sketching them in his notebook, getting ready for the next day, a day in which — if nothing else — he would cook from the heart."
—Andrew Friedman, Knives at Dawn: America's Quest for Culinary Glory at the Legendary Bocuse d'Or Competition (pp. 131 and 143-144) (December 1, 2009)

"the bookworm: Pete Mulvihill of Green Apple recommends: It’s a great time for cookbooks and food writing — publishers present their best books at this time of year, and our cooking section is jam-packed with the seasonal bounty. Here’s a brief list of promising books for every food lover, baker, home cook, beginner, restaurant owner, line cook, and vegetarian on your list....For the serious home cook: beyond following recipes: THE FLAVOR BIBLE: The Essential Guide to Culinary Creativity, Based on the Wisdom of America's Most Imaginative Chefs
by Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg. This is a food-based follow-up to their highly successful (and well-used at my house) book on pairing food and wine (WHAT TO DRINK WITH WHAT YOU EAT). After an impassioned and reasonable introduction on how cooking is an act of love, a creative process, and not just the transformation of food through heat, there’s an interesting chapter or two. But the bulk of this book is a dictionary style list of what ingredients best complement each other (and what techniques marry them best). Sound simple enough? You try pairing kohlrabi with dozens of things to discover that sesame oil works best. This book offers basic, tested help for those who wish to move beyond recipes to something more creative."
—Marcia Gagliardi, TableHopper.com (December 9, 2008)

"Ever stood before a mountain of fresh figs and didn't know what to do with them? Do you have some ponzu sauce in the fridge you can't figure out how to use? And what goes with fennel pollen anyway? Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg have created an encyclopedic guide to flavour pairings, based on consultation with many top chefs. Included in THE FLAVOR BIBLE's roster of culinary consultants are BC's own Vikram Vij and Meeru Dhalwala of Vij's and Dominique and Cindy Duby of Wild Sweets fame. You can listen to our entire conversation at the Granville Island Public Market. (With the book's help, I made a tasty "Carrot Apple Ginger Maple" soup. Sorry, there's no recipe. Just experiment!)"
—Margaret Gallagher, host, "The Early Edition" on CBC Radio (September 24, 2008)

ENDLESSSIMMER

"The Only Bible I Need.....If you’re still trying to figure out what to get the foodie on your list, and you couldn’t find something here or here, may I suggest to you the anti-cookbook: THE FLAVOR BIBLE. Here’s one of my favorite excerpts, and I’m not even kidding, I actually took a highlighter to the page to capture this: 'Slavish followers of recipes, who treat them as gospel instead of guidelines, make the mistake of putting more faith in someone else’s instructions than they do in themselves.  Many people would do better in the kitchen if they didn’t blindly follow recipes.  In fact, following recipes may be holding you back from achieving your potential as a cook.' Let me explain.  This is clearly not a conventional cookbook, it’s more about theory and concepts and lists.  Lots of lists.  First, it defines flavor and teaches how to build a dish around different aspects, such as: taste, mouthfeel, aroma, and the elusive 'X factor.'  The book is also filled with interviews from different chefs from around the country (and Canada) about how they conceptualize a dish, how they develop flavors, how they execute the final product.  But it’s all in story format.  No recipes.  No measurements. And then come the lists.  Starting with achiote seeds and ending with zucchini blossoms, authors Karen Page and Andrew Dorenburg list every single food product available and then name all of the other ingredients that could possibly be paired with the starting ingredient.  Each ingredient is also defined by its season, taste, weight, best cooking technique and flavor affinities....I have found the book captivating, especially reading about all those molecular gastronomy scientists and their take on how to create unique, yet familiar food.  In fact, I wish the book was more about chefs’ theories and less lists.  (Does anyone know about a book like that out there?  I still 5 days of Chanukah left!) So if you’re into the ES paradigm of food, you will totally enjoy this new bible."
—Stefanie Gans, EndlessSimmer.com (December 24, 2008)

GASTRONOMIC GUESSWORK

"FLAVOR BIBLE, Alinea Book, A Day at El Bulli & Charcuterie. I am soon to be beset with innovative ideas from four new books (three just published). Each will be deserving of reviews in their own right, but the thirst for knowledge and desire to explore have preempted me from doing so just yet, I'm now surprisingly optimistic about actually preparing several Alinea dishes. A few first impressions: THE FLAVOR BIBLE: Erudite, magnanimous, chaulked with years of inspiration."
—GastronomicGuesswork.com (October 2, 2008)

"Culinary Creativity from Julia Child and James Beard 2.0! Karen Page is a Harvard MBA and the former chairperson of the Harvard Business School Women’s Alumni Association. Andrew Dornenburg, is a world class chef who cooked with Anne Rosenzweig at Arcadia. Together, they are the James Beard Award-winning authors of BECOMING A CHEF and 8 other outstanding books on food and wine. Their 2006 release WHAT TO DRINK WITH WHAT YOU EAT has become the definitive guide to food and wine pairing...Now, they’ve released a new book that is a must have for everyone who takes a creative approach to culinary enjoyment: THE FLAVOR BIBLE: The Essential Guide to Culinary Creativity, based on the Wisdom of America’s Most Imaginative Chefs. Page and Dornenburg have created a masterpiece that legendary food critic Gael Greene calls, 'A gospel…A wealth of inspiration…' As the authors explain: 'Cuisine is undergoing a startling historic transformation: With the advent of the global availability of ingredients, dishes are no longer based on geography but on flavor. This radical shift calls for a new approach to cooking — as well as a new genre of “cookbook” that serves not to document classic dishes via recipes, but to inspire the creation of new ones focused on imaginative and harmonious flavor combinations.' Page and Dornenburg also write one of the most informative and engaging food/wine blogs on the planet. Check it out: www.becomingachef.com."
—Michael Gelb, New York Times bestselling author of How to Think Like Leonardo da Vinci, Discover Your Genius, Innovate Like Edison, et al, MichaelGelb.com (February 2, 2009)

"Our guests today are two of North America's most imaginative cookbook authors: Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg, whose new book is THE FLAVOR BIBLE...It's a strong candidate for our annual Top 10 list, which will be announced December 8th....Every chef should have a copy of this book."
—Anthony Gismondi and Kasey Wilson, hosts, "Tony and Kasey's Buzz on Food and Wine," CFUN Radio (November 22, 2008)

"Just in time for holidays, top chefs release tomes. Despite a job market that's floundering, cookbook writers are prolific as ever. Recent weeks have seen an influx of new titles on the market, from well-known chefs and authors. With people returning to the kitchen to save money, these recipe and reference books make ideal gifts for the holiday season. Here are some top choices: THE FLAVOR BIBLE by Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg (Little, Brown and Company, 384 pages, $35). Every serious cook will keep going back to this reference book, which charts flavor affinities and pairings in great detail. Learn that goat cheese pairs especially well with cherries and thyme, and get ideas from chefs around the country for complete dishes."
—Amanda Gold, San Francisco Chronicle (December 3, 2008)

"You know the usual pairings: cinnamon and apples, basil and Italian, rosemary and lamb, garlic and olive oil, lemon and parsley: yada, yada, yada — tell me something new. This is exactly what award-winning authors Page and Dornenburg do – articulating and distilling the creativity, expertise and wisdom of America’s tops chefs...into a book that is already a classic for any kitchen. It so greatly expands the borders of what any home cook does, with innovative ways through adventuresome territory — that of flavor."
—Marcy Goldman, Better Baking.com

"We asked Ellen Rose from the Cook's Library for her complete list of must-have food books.  Here's what she wrote: 'When KCRW invited me to post a list of my favorite books I had to have some criterion since I have thousands of cookbooks.  I decided to go through my books and pick the ones [19 in total] that are falling apart, pages stuck together, comments written all over the pages, and spotted with food — all from years of use. For reference I love: 1. The New Food Lover's Companion by Sharon Tyler Herbst and Ron Herbst. 2. THE FLAVOR BIBLE by Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg."
—"Good Food" hosted by Evan Kleiman, KCRW Radio / NPR (December 12, 2008)

"I mentioned before that I was infatuated with THE FLAVOR BIBLE, the new book by Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg. I wasn’t kidding — it’s one of the best cookbooks I’ve ever encountered...."
—"Good Thymes" Blog, In Good Taste (October 1, 2008)

"Mixologists have been using the flavor theories of chefs for years to create cocktails and this is especially apparent in many of the 'culinary cocktails' that have dotted the cocktail scene as of late. For anyone with an interest in designing specialty cocktails, creating spectacular drink and food pairings, or exploring the realms of flavors and taste in general, THE FLAVOR BIBLE is the ultimate resource — a giant thesaurus of flavor that was created by Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg....THE FLAVOR BIBLE is a perfect compliment to Page and Dornenburg's WHAT TO DRINK WITH WHAT YOU EAT and is an essential reference book for anyone interested in advanced flavor pairing....To understand flavor and how different flavors work with one another is essential for the advanced bartender and anyone interested in exploring new cocktails. THE FLAVOR BIBLE is the best resource I've seen yet that takes the professional experience of taste to the next level of study. "
—Colleen Graham, Cocktails.About.com (Holidays 2008)

"The 10 Best Cocktail Books of 2008: #5) THE FLAVOR BIBLE by Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg. THE FLAVOR BIBLE is designed for cooks as well as bartenders and is the ultimate thesaurus of taste and pairing for anyone who wants to perfect their flavor matching skills. Written by the authors of WHAT TO DRINK WITH WHAT YOU EAT, Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg have included every possible flavor combination in this awesome reference guide including flavors that work with the most popular spirits. If you're planning a full-course meal with a matching cocktail menu or simply trying to create a new drink you need this volume in your library.”
—Colleen Graham, Cocktails.About.com (December 1, 2008)

"Young chef not short on creativity: Working 70 to 80 hours a week seems like child’s play to this young, hip and extremely energetic executive chef at Arlington’s young, hip and extremely energetic Tallula Restaurant, part of the Neighborhood Restaurant Group. New to his post, Andrew Markert is not new to the group’s network of local restaurants and their kitchens, having served as the chef de cuisine under chef Anthony Chittum at Vermilion, the group’s contemporary American restaurant in Old Town Alexandria....Where else does he get these ideas, one wonders. He answers that he turns often to the THE FLAVOR BIBLE: The Essential Guide to Culinary Creativity so he does not crib ideas from another chef. Then he goes on to describe his rabbit pappardelle with candied pearl onions and pistachio froth, and you have to think that THE FLAVOR BIBLE stirs up some offbeat ideas, so much that the word 'playful' doesn’t quite sum it up...."
—Alexandra Greeley, The Examiner (November 6, 2008)

"The Flavor Gospel. ill you be looking at  pears finally ripening in the bowl on your kitchen counter one of these days and think, 'what can I do with these besides eat one and wait for the rest to rot?'  Are you eyeing the leftover pork loin from Friday’s dinner wondering what magic you have on hand to make a picnic lunch for four on Saturday? Should you thaw some ciabatta rolls and whip up some garlic-yogurt curry mayonnaise?  What would Gina DePalma of Babbo do with those pears? Or Gabriel Kreuther at The Modern?  Want an idea for the pork from Vikram Vij in Vancouver? That’s when you want to pick up THE FLAVOR BIBLE   (Little,Brown, $35) by my friends and frequent co-conspirators on tasting expeditions, Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg.   The two of them, relentlessly prolific food book writers (okay, I’m jealous), often show up at dinner glowing from a five mile run to cap a deadline day.  Essential sippings for their weekly wine column in the Washington Post  never seem to interrupt the superhuman flow of books from their dueling computers or maybe I mean dual computers. Their IACP award-winning WHAT TO DRINK WITH WHAT YOU EAT   is just being reissued as their latest hits the bookstores. Inspired by chefs’ enthusiastic use of an earlier work, CULINARY ARTISTRY, as a source of ideas for creating dishes, and by the greater availability of ingredients as well as the wide-ranging creativity of celebrated chefs, the two of them have been collecting ideas for flavor affinities and actual dishes for several years.  The BIBLE is that gospel, a wealth of inspiration, arranged in alphabetical order.       No, it’s not a cookbook with recipes.  It’s a book to provoke cooks and chefs to greater creativity, classic and avant garde, or just to read when you’re hungry."
—Gael Greene, "Bite," Insatiable-Critic.com (September 21, 2008)

"Favorite Collectible Cookbooks of 2008. Sorry I’m tardy with my annual list of cookbooks for Incurable Collectors. But since you might be returning the violet hoodie your aunt sent or that striped apron with kitchen tools in the pocket or the two extra copies of the cookbook you told everyone you wanted, you’re likely to have some loose change and credit slips. Possibly having been in consumer lockdown for months, you’re ready for a splurge. This is about books I want to keep even though my shelves are sagging and countless biggies are stacked up as end tables....Since I first recommended THE FLAVOR BIBLE (Little Brown $35) by my prolific award-winning food writer friends Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg, this encyclopedia of flavor pairings has captured rave reviews and climbed the charts. Both pros and home cooks like the idea of using these provocative flavor pairings to cook without recipes. Chestnuts?  Chestnut spice cake and marscapone. Chestnut semifreddo with candied chestnuts and pear.  Chestnuts and Brussels sprouts.  Chestnuts and figs. That’s how it goes, often in the voice of some celebrated chef’s musing.  It comes with the same curiosity and passionate tasting the two writers put into their IACP award-winning Britannica of food and wine pairing WHAT TO DRINK WITH WHAT YOU EAT, recently reissued by Bulfinch Press $35."
—Gael Greene, Insatiable-Critic.com (December 26, 2008)

"My guests this morning are the authors of THE FLAVOR BIBLE, Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg....You rock!"
—Bonnie Grice, host, "In the Morning with Bonnie Grice," WLIU-FM Radio / Southampton NPR (January 29, 2009)

"I'm delighted to welcome back IACP Award-winning authors Andrew Dornenburg and Karen Page. They have tackled a challenge...with their new book THE FLAVOR BIBLE...A goldmine of flavor combinations...Another stellar book...A must-have."
—Chef Jamie Gwen, radio host, "Food & Wine with Chef Jamie Gwen" on 97.1 FM (October 5, 2008)

"THE [6] BEST COOKBOOKS of 2008. For last-minute gifts or to add to your own cookbook collection....THE FLAVOR BIBLE by Karen Page & Andrew Dornenburg. A terrific reference manual…The book takes every flavor imaginable and finds every possible flavor pairing."
—Chef Jamie Gwen, host, "Food and Wine with Jamie Gwen" on 97.1 FM (December 2008)

"A sweet potato is not related to the potato. Nor is it related to a yam. It is its own, delicious thing and deserves widespread admiration beyond the Thanksgiving meal....The rich flavor of the sweet potato needs little tweaking and certainly does not need garnishing with sweet, puffy marshmallows on holiday tables. Try them steamed, sliced and sprinkled with herbs and a touch of butter. Or roast them, split open and top with a teaspoon of sour cream or yogurt mixed with horseradish to taste. Other compatible flavors, suggested by Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg in THE FLAVOR BIBLE, include bacon, apples, onions, chilies, lemon and cilantro."
—Carol Mighton Haddix, Chicago Tribune (October 13, 2008) and (Tacoma, WA) News-Tribune (October 15, 2008)

"From the Bookshelf: Cooking Without a Recipe: THE FLAVOR BIBLE expands on an idea that Dornenburg and Page touched upon in their books CULINARY ARTISTRY and WHAT TO DRINK WITH WHAT YOU EAT; indexing different ingredients with their complementary flavors. There's a section on regional and international flavor profiles, little essays from chefs about the idea of flavors and pairings, and a guide to different cuts of meat. If you're looking for recipes, you won't find any here; this book is truly intended as a reference and a jumping-off point for your own creations. For accomplished cooks who already have their techniques down pat, it'll be a great resource to get more inventive with their own creations...."
—Jessica Harlan, About.com (June 11, 2009)

"Alumni Books....THE FLAVOR BIBLE: The Essential Guide to Culinary Creativity, Based on the Wisdom of America’s Most Imaginative Chefs by Karen Page (MBA ’89) and Andrew Dornenburg (Little, Brown & Co.). This guide to creating delicious dishes contains tips, anecdotes, and signature dishes from the most imaginative chefs in the country. Thousands of ingredient entries, organized alphabetically and cross-referenced, provide a wealth of flavor combinations that will teach readers to use ingredients more effectively, experiment with temperature and texture, excite the nose and palate, and balance all elements of an extraordinary meal."
—Harvard Business School Bulletin (March 2009)

"James Beard Award-winning authors and husband/wife team Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg have done it again; they've created another invaluable resource that will surely inspire home cooks and professionals alike.  THE FLAVOR BIBLE picks up where their previous book CULINARY ARTISTRY left off, diving even further into the world of food flavor pairings and encouraging unlimited creativity in the kitchen. This book isn't a traditional cookbook in that there isn't a single recipe in the book. Instead it's a guide that you will find yourself turning to again and again for ideas.  For example, this is a great book to refer to after a trip to the Farmers' Market when you come home loaded down with the latest seasonal ingredients and you want to know how to pull it all together. I have to say that, in my opinion, this is not a guide for the beginning cook.  It is better suited for someone that's slightly more seasoned in the kitchen. Nor can this book be absorbed in one sitting.  Instead, you'll find yourself referring to it regularly to help you not only better your overall recipe development, but also to help you train your palate to instinctively know how to figure out what food flavors work together."
—Foodie Heather, ProjectFoodie.com (December 26, 2008)

He Cooks, She Cooks

"Acid Redux: In the Los Angeles Times food section today, editor Russ Parsons discussed the benefits of adding acids like vinegars to a dish. How many times have you watched Top Chef, or something like it, and heard the judges say, 'It needs more acid' and wondered what exactly that meant? 'Needs more acid' used to be my go-to phrase for sounding like a food snob in jest. Then I started to read about more about cooking, and suddenly acid is no joke. Acidity is sourness. As I mentioned the other day, THE FLAVOR BIBLE talks a lot about balancing flavors, and sourness is one of those. The book says acid is only second to salt in enhancing flavors. There’s a quote from Sharon Hage, a chef at York Street in Dallas, 'We have lemon juice right next to the salt when we cook. Acid is the most important aspect of how a dish tastes — whether it is there as subtle punctuation or an exclamation point!' The LA Times article focuses on vinegars (balsamic, red wine, sherry, apple cider), but I use citrus fruits a lot. Anything Thai or Latin benefits from a squeeze of lime, as something Mediterranean or Middle Eastern will be enhanced with lemon. Oranges are a lot less harsh than their yellow and green cousins, and orange zest adds depth to desserts, like in an apple-cranberry pie. Wine is great for awakening dishes too. White wine or sherry in a stir-fry marinade or a dry red in tomato sauce are almost critical to me now.  The point is, when something seems sorta blah, a squeeze of citrus or splash of wine or vinegar could be your redemption. THE FLAVOR BIBLE tells me so."
—HeCooksSheCooks.net (February 18, 2009)

"Organic farm allows work for weekly veggie shares....Bryan Irwin, 32, lives near the farm and decided to buy a worker share after he was laid off in April from his engineering job with an automotive supplier. 'I'm interested in locally grown food and reducing my carbon footprint,' he said. 'And since I'm unemployed, I have nothing but time on my hands.' Irwin said he's learned a lot about vegetables. 'This has changed the way I eat,' he said. 'The food is so fresh and good, and hopefully it's something I can sustain once the season is over.' He said he likes to sauté and grill the vegetables. He's picked up several cooking ideas from THE FLAVOR BIBLE by Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg (Little, Brown and Co., 2008, $35). 'A couple of weeks ago, we got kohlrabi, and the book said it's seasoned well with dill and goes well with potatoes and Parmesan cheese,' Irwin said. 'So that's what we did with it, and it was great.'"
—Karen Herzog, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (August 1, 2009)

Los Altos Town Crier

"Cookbooks as gifts: for your favorite foodie. Bookstores’ cookbook aisles, bright and cheerful as Christmas candies, are a good indication of our interest in books that aid and inspire us to cook. The holiday season, with its special pleasure in preparing and sharing food with others, is the ideal time to give these books as gifts. The following titles will tickle food-lovers’ fancies. Covering a range of subjects, they share what I consider the essential food-book traits: they give the gift of an innovative approach, artful ingredient pairings or inspiring practicality – and often a combination of all three....THE FLAVOR BIBLE: The Essential Guide to Culinary Creativity, Based on the Wisdom of America’s Most Imaginative Chefs (Little, Brown and Co., 2008) is a marvelous resource for creative cooks sensitive to flavor. Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg offer alphabetical entries that cover a range of ingredients, from achiote seeds to zucchini blossoms. Each ingredient is flanked with others that provide strong flavor alliances. This conceptual approach to flavor pairing is inexhaustible in its potential to spark adventures. Duck meat’s affinity with cherries and vinegar or the happy marriage of dates and pistachios, for example, opens the door to any number of inspired creations."
—Eve Hill-Agnus, Los Altos Town Crier (December 9, 2009)

"ON THE BOOKSHELF: Pumping up and pairing up flavor: Many people think the secret to great cooking is mastery of technique. It helps, but it's hardly crucial. The key to cooking that tempts and satisfies, that brings people to the table, then brings them back for more, is understanding flavors and how they work together. And while a culinary degree certainly helps one understand this, more important is a willingness to try new foods, as well as old foods in new combinations. Now there is a book to help you take that flavorful trip. Flavor masters Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg have compiled an encyclopedic primer to flavor. Their just-released THE FLAVOR BIBLE not only explains what foods taste like, but also offers exhaustive lists of flavor pairings for each. They suggest mascarpone, for example, goes nicely with almonds, ladyfingers and peaches, among many other options. They also suggest pairings to avoid, such as maple syrup and brown sugar (too intense). The first two sections of the book explain how flavor works and offer advice from chefs and others about how they pair various flavors to create great recipes. It's one of the rare cookbooks without recipes that everyone should learn to cook from."
—J.M. Hirsch, AP Food Editor, The Associated Press (September 5, 2008)

"When culinary luminaries Andrew Dornenburg and Karen Page are in town to promote their new book THE FLAVOR BIBLE, it seems appropriate to have lunch at an old testament to Chicago dining....Old Grease and Bug Spray are two items you will not find in THE FLAVOR BIBLE: The Essential Guide to Culinary Creativity, Based on the Wisdom of America's Most Imaginative Chefs (Little Brown, $35). Think of it as a Baseball Encyclopedia for foodies. Need to know something about Brussel sprouts? You look it up in the 380-page FLAVOR BIBLE. I never knew oregano was a botanical relative of marjoram, but there it is in black and white in the book, between maple syrup and mascarpone...."
—Dave Hoekstra, Chicago Sun-Times (October 1, 2008)

"Bookshelf: THE FLAVOR BIBLE. Is this something new? A chef who cooks, a spouse who writes....Couple of times this pre-holiday season we've seen this (welcome) phenomenon.
First, there's chef Andrew Dornenburg and his wife and longtime collaborator, the writer Karen Page. Over they years they've developed a giant culinary database along with an easily understood style of presenting complex information (charts, interviews and such). Starting with BECOMING A CHEF and CULINARY ARTISTRY, both very popular with kitchen pros, they won a prestigious award from the International Association of Culinary Professionals for WHAT TO DRINK WITH WHAT YOU EAT. With this season's THE FLAVOR BIBLE, they've confirmed their position as masters of the gustatory universe. For each conceivable ingredient (caviar, cayenne, celery) they assign a season, a taste, a flavor 'weight,' a flavor 'volume,' a function, flavor affinities, and assorted techniques and tips, along with a shopping list of related foods and cuisines. (Caviar: Russian cuisine, Champagne; Cayenne: avoid caviar). Page and Dornenburg quote several dozen top chefs in the course of their 375 page volume; Holly Smith (of Café Juanita) and Jerry Traunfeld (of Poppy) are the two locals."
—Ronald Holden, The Examiner (November 19, 2008)

"New read: The book: FLAVOR BIBLE: The Essential Guide to Culinary Creativity, Based on the Wisdom of America's Most Imaginative Chefs by Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg. Cost: $35. Best for: Being your guide to hundreds of ingredients along with the seasonings that will allow you to coax the greatest possible flavor from them. "
—Loretto J. Hulse, TriCity Herald (December 24, 2008)

I'LL EAT YOU

"Bacon Apple Squash Bread: On our day off last week, J and I sat around and baked with squash.  We consulted THE FLAVOR BIBLE, which I recently won in a giveaway from Joy of Desserts. This book is awesome and when you use it, you feel like inspired geniuses, or at least J and I did. You look up an ingredient, and it will give you a list of other ingredients whose flavor complements your theme ingredient.  A lot of them are traditional, obvious combinations, but there are also many you might not readily think of, which helps when you want to make something outside your typical flavor profile. Tons of great new stuff came out of the kitchen that day, including this great quickbread studded with dried apples and bits of crispy bacon."
—I'llEatYouDelish.blogspot.com (October 20, 2008)

"It's time once again, ladies and gentlemen, for the holiday tradition that is the Liquor Snob Holiday Gift Guide. If you're wondering what to buy for the boozer, sot, or lush of your life, fret no more, because we're gonna hook you up. It's time once again, ladies and gentlemen, for the holiday tradition that is the Liquor Snob Holiday Gift guide. If you're wondering what to buy for the boozer, sot, or lush of your life, fret no more, because we're gonna hook you up....THE FLAVOR BIBLE and WHAT TO DRINK WITH WHAT YOU EAT are tied as our favorite cocktail creation / cookbooks of 2009. Highly recommended."
—Jake Jamieson, editor-in-chief, LiquorSnob.com (November 20, 2009)

"DANIEL Boulud takes his Halloween costumes as seriously as he takes his four-star cuisine. The chef was decked out in a red-hot racing suit loaned to him by Michael Schumacher, the seven-time Formula 1 champion, at an after-hours party in Restaurant Daniel's 'spooky' lower-level prep kitchen. Other revelers celebrating the publication of THE FLAVOR BIBLE by Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg included chefs David Burke (as the Joker) and Balthazar's Riad Nasr with his face painted. Daisy May's BBQ chef Adam Perry Lang and 'Top Chef' winner Hung Huynh donned wigs, while Drew Nieporent wrapped a life-like snake around his neck. But Baroness Sheri DeBorchgrave stole the show as a buxom, transgendered spider whose 'male gender' kept falling out of her fishnet stockings."
—Richard Johnson, "Page Six," New York Post (November 5, 2008)

"THE FLAVOR BIBLE by Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg is the newest addition to my cookbook collection! This book has a large list of ingredients, with a list of other ingredients that go well with the main ingredient you looked up. This is perfect for me, since I often stray away from recipes, or make something based on what I have in my cabinets. There are also paragraphs by chefs with tips about how to bring out the flavors in your food. Also, there is a section that talks about how we taste and perceive food, and the importance of balancing flavors, textures, and temperatures."
—Katelyn's Food (October 25, 2008)

"Some time ago I bought a book called WHAT TO DRINK WITH WHAT YOU EAT by Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg. As all of you who have bought on Amazon, the system automatically started recommending 'other' books. Among them was THE FLAVOR BIBLE which was to be released September 2008; anyway, next thing I know is I have pre-purchased a copy. I have now had the book for almost one month and I am enjoying the book so much, I had to tell you about it. Basically the book´s philosophy is that most of us amateur cooks have enough basic knowledge on cooking techniques that we can now focus on flavors. You search for the item you want to cook (scallops) and it lists all the ingredients which a vast array of chefs (who they interviewed) said were good matches. It was a pleasure to go through my fridge and find out that the asparagus, the curry powder and the scallops that I had could work well together. I used my basic cooking knowledge and Diego says I haven´t cooked as well for a long time! I feel sorry for all my cooking books which now just adorn the bookshelf! This book would make any cook happy for the holidays!"
—Ana Keller, Keller Estate Blog (October 27, 2008)

Ketchikan Public Library

"Culinary Jazz: With our new book THE FLAVOR BIBLE: the essential guide to culinary creativity, based on the wisdom of America's most imaginative chefs, Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg give you that fundamental knowledge of flavors, seasonings and ingredients that allows you to understand why certain things compliment each other and other foods should never be used in the same dish. Even better, their interviews with chefs from around the country help explain the underlying factors that can elevate a dish from good to great. Are you using foods appropriate for the season? For the climate? Is your cooking technique overpowering the strength of your ingredients?...So give this book a try and see if it doesn't open up some new possibilities for you in the kitchen. Remember that scene in Sabrina where Audrey Hepburn returns from Paris and whips up a meal at Humphrey Bogart's office using tomato juice, crackers and eggs?"
—Ketchikan Public Library in Ketchikan, Alaska (February 13, 2009)

"Heidi Swanson had a massive number of cookbooks, a little extra time on her hands and a passion for eating healthy. Working her way through her cookbook collection one recipe at a time, in 2003 Swanson created the recipe journal 101cookbooks.com. Today, she has thousands of followers on Twitter and Facebook....Q. Are there cookbooks you rely on? A. The cookbooks I keep close at hand are classics. I really love books that are mindful about design as well, where the photography or layout is remarkable. On my site, I list cookbooks and (more than a dozen) favorites (including) THE FLAVOR BIBLE, Nigel Slater's Appetite and Ottolenghi: The Cookbook."
—Kristine M. Kierzek, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (July 28, 2009)

"THE FLAVOR BIBLE. Building on the success of their earlier CULINARY ARTISTRY, Page and Dornenburg, who have a remarkable instinct for knowing what it is that people want to know, offer an ambitious guide to flavor combinations organized by ingredient that suggest both classic and innovative pairings and are designed as spurs to a cook’s imagination. Chefs from Gramercy Tavern’s Michael Anthony to Vikram Vij of Vancouver, BC, contribute their two cents, adding depth to the discussion. Highly useful. Color throughout. $35.00."
—Kitchen Arts & Letters, New York City (Fall 2008)

"Feeling the pinch of the economic crisis whenever you start to plan a meal? Buying a slew of ingredients for each recipe can really take a toll on a grocery budget. Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg, authors of THE FLAVOR BIBLE, are here to help us learn to eat from our pantry and to make do with what we already have in the house....I thank both of you for coming up with such a great resource. It's really quite wonderful....Andrew Dornenburg and Karen Page have written extensively on food and wine. They have four award-winning books including THE FLAVOR BIBLE: The Essential Guide to Culinary Creativity, Based on the Wisdom of America's Most Imaginative Chefs. I chose this book to be in the KCRW Cookbook Club for Angels [whose members receive five hand-picked cookbooks annually]."
—Evan Kleiman, host, "Good Food" on KCRW - Los Angeles (NPR) (January 10, 2009)

"I love to eat out but I do not like to cook. Yet, THE FLAVOR BIBLE by Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg could actually cause me to become a chef at home, something my husband never dreamed possible. First of all, the book is beautiful — you want to touch the pages of exquisite photos and then you want your food and drink to look just this beautiful....I have already ordered numerous copies to give as gifts and each person who has been lucky enough to receive it says they could not live without it."
—Rikki Klieman, "The Buzz Board: Smart People Recommend," Tina Brown's The Daily Beast (October 27, 2008)

"Get some ideas on cooking combos from 4 star chefs [in THE FLAVOR BIBLE]. Andrew Dornenburg and Karen Page 'wrote the book' on flavor combinations and guide you through it. Whether you're a foodie or not, you'll want to hear this interview."
—Teri Knight, 102.9 Lite FM (September 10, 2008)

"Creative, self-motivated cooks who don't demand recipes' precise prescriptions will cheer the publication of this guide to the kingdom of taste. Addressing the nature of flavor and its role in cooking, the authors have gathered creativity and wisdom from dozens of the world's best chefs. Page and Dornenburg define the aesthetic of flavor as a combination of taste, mouthfeel, aroma, and a mysterious factor perceived by the other senses and by the diner's emotions. They then break down in hundreds of tables how ingredients' flavors relate to one another. For example, the table for Apples notes their affinity for cinnamon, pork, rum and nuts. They also list the most common ingredients of national cuisines. In some cases, they note clashes, such as oysters and tarragon. This is a valuable reference for all aspiring chefs and sets down in print what has often been believed inexpressible."
—Mark Knoblauch, Booklist (September 15, 2008)

"Top Cookbooks of 2008: 2008 may have been a bad year for just about everything else, but it was a great year for cookbooks. Honestly, I can't remember the last time this many gorgeous, fascinating and downright inspiring books hit the shelves in one year....This year, for the first time, I've assembled a list of my favorite books to hit the shelves. My criteria for inclusion were simple: that they have been published in 2008, that they're worth the precious space they occupy on my living room shelf, and that they get me completely, irrationally excited each time I pick them up. Oh yeah, and that they have really good food inside....THE FLAVOR BIBLE by Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg. Are you an improvisational cook? Do you ever stand in front of a fridge full of ingredients and wonder how on earth you might assemble the contents into something edible? Do you dream at night about titillating new flavor combinations? Do you want to better understand the mechanisms of taste and learn how great chefs construct their dishes? If any of these apply to you, you'll want to have this book on your shelf tomorrow. This is a self-described 'new breed of cookbook', one that delivers not recipes, but inspiration. I would call it more of an encyclopedia of taste, cataloging just about every ingredient under the sun and cross-referencing it with other complimentary ingredients, cuisines and cooking characteristics. You'll learn that fennel pollen is a 'quiet' flavor, should be used only to finish a dish, and is complemented by things like fish, lemon and pistachios. You'll learn that Chilean cuisine typically includes the flavors of corn, cumin, garlic, oregano and raisins. You'll learn the different flavors and uses of piquillo, guindilla, ñora and choricero peppers in Spain. You'll even learn how to compose an entire menu around flavor affinities. I've only begun to scratch the surface of what this book offers, but already I can tell that it's one of the most useful books I've run across in a long time."
—Melissa Kronenthal, TravelersLunchbox.com (December 11, 2008)

"Tip Sheet: Our Top Picks for the Week. Read: THE FLAVOR BIBLE by Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg ($35). This unique cookbook encourages chefs to ditch their recipes and follow their imaginations instead. The book lists thousands of classic as well as offbeat flavor combinations. Look up 'chicken' and you get 'figs, honey, thyme and white wine,' among dozens of other serving ideas."
—Anna Kuchment, Newsweek (September 15, 2008)

Guaranteed GF

"I read a lot of cookbooks....Yesterday I went to see Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg speak about their latest book, THE FLAVOR BIBLE....After an hour with Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg at the 92nd Street Y in Tribeca, I swore that THE FLAVOR BIBLE would be added to my culinary library. Karen and Andrew had my full attention right away based on a single line item in the agenda they handed out: Flavor = Taste + Mouthfeel + Aroma + 'the X Factor.' I knew before they even started talking, that not only did they truly understand the subject of flavor, they understood how to share that information. As they explained each part of this equation, it became clear the book had a lot to offer. Anyone, beginners to professionals, could elevate the quality of their dishes just by mastering this formula....THE FLAVOR BIBLE is their 8th book with a truly unique concept. Though THE FLAVOR BIBLE doesn't contain a single recipe, for anyone who likes to develop recipes, THE FLAVOR BIBLE is the recipe for culinary success!"
—Stacy LaRoche, GuaranteedGF.com (February 12, 2009)

"9 Famous Foodies to Follow on Twitter. Hungry for some tasty tweets? The culinary community is sweeping the Twittersphere, and now you can keep up with some of the biggest names in the biz just by clicking the 'follow' button on Twitter. Here are some faves... @KarenAndAndrew: You heard of THE FLAVOR BIBLE? Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg wrote the book."
—Michele Laudig, Phoenix New Times (July 10, 2009)

"The Blogger Beat: Endless Simmer. A little of this, a little of that — this week's Blogger Beat chats with Endless Simmer's Stefanie Gans. Q. Number of cookbooks you own and your favorite in your collection: 'I have an entire bookcase dedicated to cookbooks, but I only ever reach for two: THE FLAVOR BIBLE by Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg, for when I can’t figure out what that missing ingredient is in my almost-right dish, and James Beard’s Theory & Practice of Good Cooking, for when I forget how many minutes to cook a hardboiled egg.'”
—Emily Leaman, Washingtonian (October 14, 2009)

"Favorite Cookbooks & Recipes of 2008. Here's a round-up of some of my favorite cookbooks and recipes that I presented on the site in 2008. A few are books that I've been devouring, and others are those I've been bookmarking recipes in, to make on the site in the upcoming months. All in all, the best of the year...When I was making my colorful quince tarte Tatin and writing up the post about it, I remembered my handy copy of THE FLAVOR BIBLE. Even though I know everything in the world (or at least I think I do...), I leafed through it, looking for what goes with quince. And lo and behold, there's a whole world of flavors out there, outside of my head! This culinary heavyweight, by Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg, takes every flavor imaginable and searches for each and every possible flavor pairing. It's a terrific reference and I'm happy it's on my shelf, within easy reach."
— David Lebovitz, DavidLebovitz.com (December 13, 2008)

"I was so taken by the concept of the new tome THE FLAVOR BIBLE: The Essential Guide to Culinary Creativity, Based on the Wisdom of America's Most Imaginative Chefs by husband-wife team Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg that I asked is we could chat a bit about their groundbreaking book. Q: Describe the basic concept behind THE FLAVOR BIBLE. It's at the same time both radical and logical...."
—David Leite, LeitesCulinaria.com (October 14, 2008)

"Basil is one of the most versatile herbs, working well with tomatoes, zucchini and in pesto sauces as well as pasta and egg dishes, according to THE FLAVOR BIBLE by Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg (Little, Brown and Company, $35). It's also wonderful on salmon, chicken and pizzas."
—Bill Lohmann, Richmond Times-Dispatch (April 22, 2009)

"It's a lot easier these days than it used to be to find really exotic ingredients in the local supermarket. But do you know what to do with most of them? Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg have put together a reference tool that explains why you might want to include things like fennel pollen, yuzu juice or kaffir lime in your cooking — and then suggest other ingredients that can be combined with them. Their book THE FLAVOR BIBLE is published by Little, Brown and Company and I'm very pleased to welcome Karen and Andrew to the show today."
—Leonard Lopate, host, "The Leonard Lopate Show" on WNYC Radio (November 11, 2008)

The Capital

"Gifts for the Cook: Most foodies already have every tool imaginable for every technique they've been taught. And not every cook can house a library of cookbooks or food reference tomes, no matter how great the latest titles many be. Here are a few gifts, many found locally, that should appeal to the special chef in your life....While you're in the bookstore, don't forget a cookbook or two for your favorite foodie. There are many to choose from, but two cookbooks I crave are My Bread by Jim Lahey with Rick Flaste, and THE FLAVOR BIBLE by Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg."
—Diana Love, The Capital on HometownAnnapolis.com (December 9, 2009)

DAILY MUNCH

"By far, one of the most loved books on cooking in my house is CULINARY ARTISTRY by Andrew Dornenburg and Karen Page. The book explores cooking in a way that makes it a constant point of reference for meal planning and recipe creation.... Dornenburg and Page are back with a new book THE FLAVOR BIBLE which takes this concept of flavor matching to new heights. THE FLAVOR BIBLE dedicates 374 pages to a thoroughly researched collection of flavor combinations across all of the major world cuisines. The book is not a cookbook, but rather a cross-reference of these elusive flavor match-ups aimed at saving you the hours of research required to make your meals taste exceptional. Like previous offerings from the authors, THE FLAVOR BIBLE is a compilation drawn from some the best and brightest chefs around the globe, distilled down into a highly usable reference destined to be stained with sauces from the love it receives in your kitchen."
—Jake Ludington, DailyMunch.com (September 27, 2008)

"I love it, I love it, I love it! Thank you both for creating this amazing book, both for me and for humanity....Your book is now sitting in the premiere spot for important reading: my bed-side table."
—Chef Nathan Lyon (June 2009)

"Every Sunday, I review a cookbook in an attempt to lend some guidance in a field that has become overrun. These days everyone is writing cookbooks and it is incredibly upsetting to buy a dud and have it sit on your shelf for years — staring at you, mocking your poor judgment. This week I’m reviewing THE FLAVOR BIBLE by Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg. To call this a 'cookbook' is not at all accurate. There is not a single recipe in this book. It isn’t going to teach you how to poach or grill or give you a killer recipe for tiramisu. None of that. But it will provide you with a wealth of information, that if used correctly, can lead you down many awesome meals....When I saw FRESHNESS before FRISÉE and FRUIT, FRESH after it. I realized I was looking at an alphabetical list of… well… everything food, flavor, and cooking. And I said to myself, ' Oh no they didn’t!' But they did. From achiote seeds to zucchini blossoms, they list it all. It takes some time to learn how to read the charts because they contain so much information. Each ingredient has below it a huge list of 'compatible flavors.' By compatible flavors they mean more than just foods that go with the primary food, but flavors. This means that they list stuff like 'Chinese cuisine' and 'Brandy' and 'salad dressings.' As someone who preaches the benefits of learning to cook and feeling empowered in the kitchen, I started breathing heavily when I realized how much information this book contains. It is a tome and, in fact, a bible. This book is more than just a cookbook. It is a challenge to the reader. A challenge to pick flavor, one that you don’t know well enough (or at all) and go down to your market, find it, and cook something with it. That said, there are zero recipes in the book. If you are looking for a specific way to use any of the flavors, you won’t find it exactly in this book. They give you a pretty darn clear map, but they don’t drive the car for you. Which is even better in my opinion. Lame analogies aside, if you ever find yourself at a loss as to what to cook or what to cook with, this is the book for you. I have a feeling that it will accompany me through many kitchen successes and mishaps. It is without a doubt one of the coolest innovative kitchen reference books I’ve seen."
—Macheesmo.com (December 14, 2008)

"Have you ever prepared a new dish, and been surprised at how well two flavors paired up? Valentine’s Day is a poignant reminder of the power of a perfect match. I’ve been poring over a new book, called THE FLAVOR BIBLE. It lists foods alphabetically, and gives every conceivable flavor pairing for each. For instance, did you know mangoes and oranges compliment chicken? Or that chocolate and coffee compliment beef? The award-winning authors Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg have been married to each other and worked together for more than 20 years. They literally wrote the book on flavor matchmaking. THE FLAVOR BIBLE is as useful to anyone who cooks as a thesaurus is to anyone who writes: It’s a groundbreaking guide to hundreds of ingredients, and the herbs, spices and other seasonings that are its 'soulmates.' Available in bookstores, or from Amazon.com, the book is $35, but it is big and encyclopaedic. I can’t put it down. Except when I’m in the kitchen, trying out the improvisations suggested in the book."
—Victoria Malmer, Palm Beach Post (February 11, 2009)

NEWYORKBUZZ

"THE FLAVOR BIBLE: The Ultimate Reference Book for Cooks. Here’s a scenario we’ve all been through: It’s dinnertime, and you open your fridge to inspect what ingredients you have to work with: some unidentified meat, maybe one or two veggies, milk that’s gone sour, and a pantry filled with spices and dried herbs. Ok, so now what? A recipe book will prove useless since you’re likely to be short of say a dozen ingredients, give or take. So you probably mix everything together and hope for the best. But the end result is always the same: a mediocre meal that just doesn’t taste 'right.' Wouldn’t it be nice to have a list of all the foods that taste good together? We can all think of a few classic food pairings: chocolate and raspberries, apples and cinnamon, kaffir lime leaves and coconut milk, are a few of the matches made in my gustatory heaven. But what about some of the less obvious combos, like salmon and lentils or carrots and maple syrup? Now, with a new reference book aptly named THE FLAVOR BIBLE, you can look up any ingredient and find an exhaustive list of its most compatible flavor combinations. With THE FLAVOR BIBLE, the home cook or aspiring chef has all the inspiration he/she needs to create a flavorful meal. Besides learning what ingredients work best together, the book also defines the multiple factors that determine flavor, shares surprising food facts from famous chefs, and lists specific restaurant dishes where you can taste some of those perfect food combinations. Authors Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg were kind enough to answer some of this foodie’s questions...."
—Termeh Mazhari, New York Buzz (November 4, 2008)

"Last-Minute Gifts: Three Books for Food Lovers: So you've bought Alinea for your favorite wannabe gastro-physicist and The River Cottage Cookbook for your farm-to-table friend. At a loss for the other foodies you're shopping for? Here are the three books that top my own wish list: For the kitchen experimentalist: THE FLAVOR BIBLE: The Essential Guide to Culinary Creativity, Basxzd on the Wisdom of America's Most Imaginative Chefs by Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg. Another sequel of sorts, this follow-up to Page and Dornenburg's award-winning tome on wine pairings, What to Drink with What You Eat. could have been titled What To Eat with What You Eat. I, for one, am a sucker for lists, and in this book, lists abound. In an entry on avocados, for instance, I learn that the ingredient complements a range of flavors from arugula to yogurt, with over five dozen in between. The idea? To equip the home cook to innovate, but logically."
—Amy McDaniel, Slashfood.com (December 22, 2008)

"Authors of New Cookbooks at Manhattan's Borders: Borders' Manhattan stores are hosting a November full of food writing and cookbook events featuring author appearances, discussions and book signings.  All events are free of charge. 7:00 pm, Wednesday, November 5 — Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg discuss THE FLAVOR BIBLE: The Essential Guide to Culinary Creativity, Based on the Wisdom of America’s Most Imaginative Chefs at Borders Kips Bay (32nd Street at 2nd Avenue).  For information call 212-685-3938.”
—Kate McDonaugh, editor, TheCityCook.com (October 22, 2008)

"We have recommitted ourselves to cooking really interesting, healthy meals especially since there is such an abundance of fresh, local produce and goods in California. We bought a really cool book called THE FLAVOR BIBLE which Billy is studying. It gives you food pairings that are dead on perfect. Things that go together just right for a really wonderful fusion of flavors. We have been inspired in the kitchen by what he has gleaned from this book so far for sure. For instance, if you have a bunch of beets... you just flip to that section of the book and it will tell you what goes well with beets. For instance beets + chives + orange + tarragon = delicious. If you don't have these exact items handy just scroll through the list of paired ingredients til you find three or so that you have and then let your imagination take over. It is a really fun way to cook."
—Bethany and plein air artist Billy McLane, who are traveling across the USA in their Airstream Travel Trailer, Full Hook Ups (March 10, 2009)

"My New Favorite Thing: THE FLAVOR BIBLE by Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg. I have to admit, this isn’t really my new favorite thing. As everyone in the kitchen can attest to, this has been my favorite thing for quite a while. This is by far one of my favorite reference books for cooking. It is a comprehensive guide to figuring out which flavors complement specific ingredients. The book is set up in alphabetical order. Simply turn to the ingredient you are cooking with and it will provide a list of other produce, meat, cheese, etc that it pairs well with. It also provides the best cooking methods for the ingredient, its appropriate season and serving suggestions from chefs around the country. I find it so helpful because it reminds you about certain flavor combinations that work well and unlocks your imagination as well as introduces you to flavor combinations that perhaps you had not thought of."
—Heather Meldrom, Martha Stewart's Everyday Food (October 26, 2009)

"This book [THE FLAVOR BIBLE] is amazing! You guys hit a home run....."
—Pat Miller, host, and Tyler Wiard, Elway's Cherry Creek executive chef and guest co-host, "Gabby Gourmet," KHOW Radio in Denver (November 22, 2008)

"Oink, said the candy bar....It’s not clear where the trend began — chefs have been toying with pigs and cocoa for years — but it’s been oinking loudly lately. Chocolatiers are sprinkling bacon bits in chocolate bars or covering whole, crispy strips of bacon with thick mantles of chocolate....Chocolate with bacon makes sense to Karen Page, who, along with Andrew Dornenburg, authored THE FLAVOR BIBLE. They’re considered the food world’s leading experts on flavor affinities. 'In our 1996 book CULINARY ARTISTRY, I mentioned that chocolate and bacon were two of the five ingredients that I’d confidently determined as a kid that I would be able to survive on for the rest of my life,' Page said. 'The others, by the way, were bananas, peanut butter and Rice Krispies. I had experimented with countless permutations of those five ingredients as a child, thus ignoring societal admonitions not to ‘play with my food.’ ”
—Greg Morago, Houston Chronicle (January 28, 2009)

Lemon Tart

"[THE FLAVOR BIBLE], the latest book by authors of BECOMING A CHEF, Andrew Dornenburg and Karen Page, has been around for a few months and has been on my radar since then.  With birthday money in tow (thanks, sister), I purchased it last month and I'm not sure there's ever been a book that I have consulted more in 6 weeks than this one. The idea is simple: a unique reference book that doesn't tell you how to cook but gives you tested flavour combinations to help you get creative on your own. Research for this book included interviewing countless chefs and food professionals about flavours they have combined in their dishes with great results...In conclusion, what else can I say about this book. It's a keeper, a long term resident and I predict one that will become a classic in years to come."
—Tami Moritz, Lemon Tart (February 12, 2009)

"The Best Cookbooks of 2008...THE FLAVOR BIBLE by Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg. This book is for the serious home cook. Page and Dornenburg start with a fascinating discussion of all the components that go into making flavor. Then they interview several prominent chefs about how they build flavor (which is my favorite part of the book) followed by a list of ingredients and what they pair well with. This book will give the home cook wings to invent their own dishes without the aid of a recipe."
—Sara Moulton, "Good Morning America" (December 23, 2008)

"13 Foodie Finds for Under $30....Having trouble finding an affordable holiday gift for the foodie on your list? Here are 13 fabulous foodie finds for under $30 USD. I hope this will spark your imagination, or at least give you some things to add to your own wish list!....There are any number of cookbooks available, but one that's on every cook's list (if they don't have it already) is THE FLAVOR BIBLE, currently listed at $23.10 [on Amazon.com]."
—Mrs. W's Kitchen (December 8, 2008)

"Books are wonderful gifts at holiday time (or anytime, for that matter). The gift of a book that has been thoughtfully purchased with the interests of the recipient in mind will be remembered and enjoyed for a long time. Below are some nonfiction suggestions that might be 'just perfect' for someone you know. Cooking and eating: THE FLAVOR BIBLE: The Essential Guide to Culinary Creativity, Based on the Wisdom of America's Most Imaginative Chefs by Karen Page & Andrew Dornenburg. This new approach to inspired creative cooking is based on a thorough knowledge of ingredients — what flavors work well together and what cooking techniques are best for each ingredient."
—Kim Erickson Myers, Portsmouth Herald News (December 10, 2008)

"Congratulations on THE FLAVOR BIBLE! Well done. It is really interesting to read and see what everyone does with the same ingredients."
—Carrie Nahabedian, 2008 James Beard Foundation Best Chef: Great Lakes of Naha restaurant in Chicago

"Thanks to Keren (the Frantic Foodie), I recently had the opportunity to join a little blogger's coffee klatsch with Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg, authors of the indispensable tomes CULINARY ARTISTRY, WHAT TO DRINK WITH WHAT YOU EAT, and most recently THE FLAVOR BIBLE. They were in Seattle to promote their new book and catch up on the ever-changing food landscape in our fair city. If you look on any professional chef's bookshelf, chances are that Page and Dornenburg's books are going to be there, battered and bruised, coffee stained and taped together at the spine. Why this place of pride? Because these books contain the most useful culinary lists ever assembled: lists of traditional and modern flavor pairings and techniques to use with every imaginable foodstuff....If you are the kind of cook that feels reasonably confident in your skills and just needs a bit of inspiration, those lists will light a fire under you. I'd be right in the kitchen, pan-roasting those carrots, glazing them with a bit of orange juice and brown sugar and finishing with minced flat leaf parsley and Maldon salt. Do you really need a recipe for that?....You can follow their blog at BecomingAChef.com, and here are all of their books on Amazon. I can't recommend them enough."
—Michael Natkin, Herbivoracious.com (September 29, 2008)

"Gifts for bookworms: Authors share top picks...Best-selling writers recommend their fave books to give this holiday season. Need a gift for the book lover on your list? It can be hard to sort through thousands of titles to get the right page-turner. Here, five well-known authors share their favorite books from their respective areas of expertise: nonfiction/fiction, cookbooks, children’s books and coffee table books. Browse titles recommended by Dan Brown, Sandra Lee, Mitch Albom, Jeff Kinney and Margaret Russell. Sandra Lee, Host of Food Network's 'Semi-Homemade Cooking with Sandra Lee': THE FLAVOR BIBLE by Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg (Little Brown) [is] amazing."
—NBC's "Today" Show (December 15, 2009)

"Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg's last book WHAT TO DRINK WITH WHAT YOU EAT was critically aclaimed, and one of my favorite cookbooks. Their new book THE FLAVOR BIBLE is similar...It is a beautiful book...Great information....I'm looking forward to your next opus."
—Patrick Neas, host, KXTR Radio, Kansas City's Classical Station (October 20, 2008)

"Our foodie world, star-quality guests include award-winning authors and delightful husband-and-wife team, Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg.  Alternately described as cultural anthropologists and even 'the Jane Goodalls of the chef world' for their groundbreaking, award-winning works on the contemporary food revolution, they joined us to talk about their newest book — eight years in the making — THE FLAVOR BIBLE: The Essential Guide to Culinary Creativity, Based On The Wisdom Of America's Most Imaginative Chefs. By the way, Karen and Andrew are authors of several other books you're certain to know, like BECOMING A CHEF, which happens to be one of my all-time favorite books and won the James Beard Book Award for Best Writing On Food, CULINARY ARTISTRY, the first-ever reference on flavor compatibility and culinary composition, and CHEF'S NIGHT OUT, among several others."
—Nycci and David Nellis, hosts, "Dishing It Out" on 1500 AM and 820 AM in Washington, DC (November 23, 2008)

"It's 1:30 in the morning and, regardless of what substance I may or may not be on, my stomach is yelling at me to eat. I scour my kitchen but finding nothing pre-made, stare at some beets, hoping they will miraculously become a meal. This is about the time when I consult the good book. It may be the best food-related book ever. It is THE FLAVOR BIBLE, and here's what a few reviewers have said about it: 'One of the best cookbooks I've ever encountered.' 'An extraordinary book. I recently added THE FLAVOR BIBLE to my cookbook collection, which numbers more than 1,000 volumes...It has immediately become one of my favorites (and definitely my #1 favorite in English).' That and the fact that authors Andrew Dornenburg and Karen Page just took home a James Beard Award for THE FLAVOR BIBLE really cement its status as an essential book. It's like the Rosetta Stone, except it's been left by the world's great chefs for cooks who know the basics. Essentially, THE FLAVOR BIBLE is a giant book of lists. Sure, the beginning has some useful information about plate and flavor composition, but that's in no way the meat of the book. The meat here is in the lists: hundreds of ingredients, and what goes with them. That's it. But it's enough to focus your mind and help foster mass amounts of creativity. I stumble over to the book and on page 77, I begin to read down the list of things that go with beets. Apples, arugula, avocado, basil, beef...on and on and on (over 90 things total for beets). I come upon horseradish, and remember I have some in my fridge. I then flip to the horseradish page and see that chives (which I also have) go with it, so I have my foundation. If I was working in a restaurant, I could make a roasted beet napoleon with the horseradish and chive oil and more, but tonight, drunk in my kitchen, I find solace in simplicity.
Some beets, some horseradish and some chives: Seems easy enough, but I probably would've found myself eating butter with a spoon if it weren't for a little guidance from the holiest of food books. I'm just spreading the word."
—Tyler Nemkov, Denver Westword (May 15, 2009)

"Kitchen Tip: This is just one of many invaluable kitchen tips from our new favorite book, THE FLAVOR BIBLE, by Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg. When using smoked paprika...."
—News from In Good Taste Cooking School (October 3, 2008)

"Holiday Gift Guide: Cooking and cookbook reading are separate activities in my house, and I’m a devotee of both. Where others plunk themselves in front of the cacophonous Food Network, I prefer to enrich my culinary ambitions with the quiet majesty of the page. Then I photocopy the recipes that intrigue me, so that the books themselves remain as pristine as possible. Shopping from my list, therefore, puts you in no danger of presenting a loved one with some overhyped celebrity-driven screed. The celebrities we’ll meet are the chefs themselves, generally as insane as any A-list actor or music star, but at least proffering actual nourishment....[One of 12 books recommended] But forget recipes for a moment. THE FLAVOR BIBLE, by Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg (Little, Brown, $35, littlebrown.com), contains not a one. It’s an exhaustive list of the component items you mix into meals, and it gives many a history of those associations along with excellent ideas for combinations you may never have thought of. Always reliably engaging writers, Page and Dornenburg make even as austere a premise as this one work."
—B.A. Nilsson, Metroland (December 11, 2008)

"Molecular Gastronomy: Four new cookbooks offer insight into the science of flavor....At the heart of these inventions is flavor and the desire to redefine your experience of savoring it. Ferran Adrià continually reexamines flavors alone and in combination, and you can jump-start your own experimentation with THE FLAVOR BIBLE, the first cookbook by Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg that doesn’t contain a single recipe. Page and Dornenburg already wrote a definitive study titled CULINARY ARTISTRY that went behind the scenes with a number of chefs to understand a broader aesthetic of cooking than found in the blueprints of recipes. Its section on flavor combinations foreshadowed the more extensive work in THE FLAVOR BIBLE (Little, Brown, $35, littlebrown.com). It’s an exhaustive ingredient-by-ingredient listing that also delves into the characteristics of regional cookery. To pick an ingredient at random, parsnips are defined by season (autumn-winter), taste (sweet), weight (medium-heavy), volume (moderate) and techniques/tips ('Always use cooked...bake, boil, braise, deep-fry, grill, mash, puree, roast, steam'). This is followed by a long list of potential companions, starting with allspice, anise and apples, and finishing (69 elements later) with wine and yogurt. The listing ends with suggested flavor affinities ('parsnips + butter + cream + potatoes,' 'parsnips + carrots + nutmeg + potatoes,' and several more). The pages are livened with sidebars naming specific dishes developed by a variety of chefs as well as quotes from the chefs themselves. A sprinkling of attractive color photos breaks up the grayness of the pages. 'Strive for balance over an entire menu, i.e., appetizer, entrée, and dessert,' the book advises. 'Envision the course of a meal as a piece of music having a melody, rhythm, and tempo.' In other words: What’s music to the palate may be, as yet, an unfamiliar tune."
—B.A. Nilsson, Metroland (December 4, 2008)

"THE FLAVOR BIBLE is the most wonderful, wonderful book.... It's informative and easy to read....It's a problem-solver."
—Barbara Nowak and Beverly Wichman, hosts, "Sauced!" on WLAC NewsRadio 1510 in Nashville (November 9, 2008)

"Trumpeting flavor: Authors explore ingredients by taste in a new approach to learning to cook. Taste. Allegedly, you either have it or you don't. But flavor is a bit more complex. Which shouldn't be too surprising. After all, everybody has to eat. And when we do, food's flavors create the lovely, almost subconscious emotional and physical reactions that inspire us to return to eating for nourishment. In addition to being one of life's great pleasures, it also helps keep us alive. And yet, until now, it seems that no one had ever attempted to digest those flavors — meaning classify, catalog, assimilate them — in any substantive way. Husband-and-wife team Andrew Dornenburg and Karen Page have tried to do so in their latest compendium-style book, THE FLAVOR BIBLE (Little, Brown, $35). 'It's shocking,' said Page, on a recent afternoon, sipping a glass of something 'jammy' and tasting chocolates at the Michigan Avenue wine / chocolate / cheese bar Eno. 'When you think of what is important to know when you're cooking — knowing what to add to make something more delicious [is important] ... Why wouldn't anybody write this down?' The couple, co-authors of six other books that are highly regarded in the food world, are dedicated to opening up the esoteric nature of flavor. 'We wondered, 'Why do we have those [precise descriptive] words for wine but not for food?' ' Dornenburg said. But is it really possible in a world so obsessed with food that such a book has never been published? Dornenburg and Page pointed out that the iconic French chef and writer Auguste Escoffier codified French cooking more than 100 years ago....And until very recently — with the movement toward focusing on fresh, local, sustainable ingredients with less manipulation (which Escoffier would have liked) — the culinary world had been focused on technique as a major path to culinary heights. 'But no one had ever codified flavor,' Dornenberg said. Of course, having your food's flavor 'codified' may sound a bit chilly — like dissecting a kiss. But the book itself is alluring in ways that may take the general food enthusiast by surprise. Honestly, who knew that page after page (more than 350 of them) of cross-referenced lists of ingredients, a few photos and not a single recipe could end up being the kind of book you want to cozy up with in bed? And it is selling like hot cakes (with maple syrup, which according to the book is both sweet and bitter, and would be good combined with nuts, but fantastic with bananas, blueberries or pears)....Their Eureka! moment came during a long car trip. 'We started wondering, 'What would the ultimate cookbook be like?' ' Page said. "Well, it would teach you to make any dish you ever wanted. But would it be infinitely long and have a recipe for absolutely everything? Well, no. Maybe you can just keep the principals: What makes things taste delicious? Well, you have the four basic tastes, and you have mouth feel, temperature, texture, you have aroma.' So they applied to food what they had learned about classifying wine, a skill exemplified in their last book, WHAT TO DRINK WITH WHAT YOU EAT: The Definitive Guide to Pairing Food with Wine, Beer, Spirits, Coffee, Tea — Even Water — Based on Expert Advice from America's Best Sommeliers. The new book reveals what they refer to as the 'essence' of various ingredients and cuisines in terms of season, taste, weight, volume, function and technique. And, because the book's subtitle is 'The Essential Guide to Culinary Creativity, Based on the Wisdom of America's Most Imaginative Chefs,' the listings contain synthesized information and advice on complementary pairings of ingredients from 38 chefs from around the country. The resulting book resembles none of the foodie culture's memoirs or cultural histories or cookbooks. 'In our less humble moments, we say we've written a chef's thesaurus,' Page said. It's more like the I Ching. Open it randomly, and it will open you up to an array of possibilities in your culinary future. For instance, on pages 134-35, you will find yourself at the entry, 'Cod' (weight: medium; volume: quiet; technique: bake, boil, broil, cakes, deep-fry, fry, grill, poach, roast, saute, steam). It's followed by 'Cod, black' (dishes: warm salad of poached salt cod, porcini mushrooms, and Yukon golds — chef David Pasternak of Esca in New York). Then 'Coffee and espresso' (taste: bitter; weight: medium; volume: moderate loud) and 'Cognac.' Under each heading are sublists of the ingredient's compatible foods (see chart). It is a book that may seem overwhelming, but as soon as you start reading, the transformative power of putting the right flavors together becomes apparent....Twelve years ago, when their second book, CULINARY ARTISTRY appeared in bookstores (chef Grant Achartz of Alinea has said it is his 'most used cookbook'), 'there was no shelf in bookstores for food writing,' Page said. And the book, which was a precursor to THE FLAVOR BIBLE, was ignored by non-professionals. But the time for the BIBLE has clearly arrived. Because we live in a time when it's simply not enough to say that honey is sweet. 'We can do a lot better than that,' Page said. With THE FLAVOR BIBLE, they have. But Page and Dornenburg aren't finished yet. 'Someone asked us, 'What do you think about grains of paradise?' Page said, referring to the peppery seeds from West Africa. 'But they're not in the book. We have to do a second edition! We could keep going and going and going'."
—Emily Nunn, Chicago Tribune (January 28, 2009)

"Hallelujah! Celebrating the Good Book: THE FLAVOR BIBLE ($35, Little, Brown), that is. That other Bible is very interesting, but Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg's book (which I wrote about when I was a reporter for the Chicago Tribune's Good Eating section)  is much newer and you probably haven't heard quite as much about it.  I explain it in more detail in my Trib piece. You should definitely read it to see how the book works, because it will change your life no matter what your level as a cook. And it will give you back your courage as a cook, especially if you have been discouraged in previous culinary endeavors....I like to pick up THE FLAVOR BIBLE (subtitle: The Essential Guide to Culinary Creativity, Based on the Wisdom of America's Most Imaginative Chefs) often, for inspiration; I also like to read it in bed, which is a bit odd since it has no plot. Just look up the ingredient you're obsessed with (for me, right now, it's apples), and take it from there. By the way, the sandwich in the Tribune piece was inspired by Ina (and don't pretend you don't know which 'Ina'), and the salad, which is fabulous, is my own invention.  Karen and Andrew are charming and brilliant; with good reason, they are particularly proud of the fact that Grant Achatz, the enigmatic and exquisitely innovative Chicago chef who created the restaurant Alinea (and whom I interviewed in his kitchen a couple of years ago for Men's Vogue), has called the precursor to this book, Page and Dornenburg's CULINARY ARTISTRY, 'My most used cookbook.' Already, this morning, I've used THE FLAVOR BIBLE to decide what to do with my slightly raggedy apple surplus. I opened the book to Apple, of course (Season: autumn Taste: sweet, astringent Function: cooling. . . . Techniques: bake, caramelize, deep-fry, etc); checked out the dishes that a few famous chefs mention as favorites (Caramelized Apple Sundae with Butter Pecan Ice Cream, from Emily Luchetti, of Farallon, in San Francisco, for instance); then decided that I'm going use the apples to make a dense buttery cake, or maybe a sour cream cake, with a bit of chopped candied ginger and chopped apricot. At least, I think I am. I have all the ingredients here (which I'll admit influenced my decision). I may be barking up the wrong tree, but those ingredients are complementary, so I know the flavors will be nice. There is not a single recipe in this book, which is part of its charm — the possibilities seem more endless — so the vehicle is up to me...."
—Emily Nunn, Cook the Wolf (March 20, 2009)

"Years from now, when we trade war stories about the recession of 2008, we'll remember how we cut back on dining out and cooked more at home. So what better holiday gift than cookbooks you'll actually use? I'm not talking about the vacuum-sealing, water-bath-heating techniques in Thomas Keller's Under Pressure: Cooking Sous Vide (Artisan, $75) or the molecular gastronomy in Grant Achatz's Alinea (Ten Speed Press, $50). Though these books are dazzling, they're too intimidating for the average home cook. What fits these austere times are books that improve your cooking skills, teach you how to be thrifty, or just have tasty and easy recipes. Here are six titles that will get a workout in the kitchen: THE FLAVOR BIBLE: The Essential Guide to Culinary Creativity, Based on the Wisdom of America's Most Imaginative Chefs, by Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg (Little, Brown and Co. $35). They're the cooks who inspire the most envy — you know, the ones who combine random ingredients into delicious meals. It seems like a rare talent, but with THE FLAVOR BIBLE this skill can be learned. Here's how the book works: Page and Dornenburg asked some of America's best chefs for all the foods that complement, say, persimmons. Then they compiled a list of the responses, marking the ones that occurred frequently. (In this case, we learn that brandy, pomegranates, vanilla and walnuts are among the most popular pairings for persimmons.) Imagine hundreds of these lists for different foods, along with notes about the intensity of their flavors, recommendations for cooking techniques, commentary from chefs, and more. So, how do you use the book? After mulling over an idea that combined butter cake, creme fraiche and persimmons, I checked the lists. Of all the pairings, a few stood out: brown sugar with both persimmons and creme fraiche, and cinnamon and allspice with persimmons. The result was a cinnamon-allspice cake topped with brown sugar creme fraiche and sliced Fuyu persimmons. Do I really have to explain how yummy this was? The bottom line: Any avid cook will covet this book. Period."
—Joan Obra, Fresno Bee (December 16, 2008)

"Three Best Bets for Culinary Reads: Did you know that fennel pairs nicely with langoustines, lobster and crab? Or how about Thai fish sauce with steak? Beyond the assumed tried-and-true pairings (tomatoes and basil, lamb and rosemary, apples and cinnamon), how do you know what flavors go together? Why not take a page from the best or, better yet, 374 pages? In THE FLAVOR BIBLE: The Essential Guide to Culinary Creativity, Based on the Wisdom of America’s Most Imaginative Chefs, Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg guide readers through thousands of food pairing ideas and suggestions to inspire the chef in all of us to create new and harmonious flavor combinations. Great cooking goes well beyond following a recipe. It’s also about knowing how to season and prepare ingredients to coax the best possible flavor and pleasure from them. Page and Dornenburg draw on the combined experience of dozens of leading chefs from top restaurants across the country, who share their flavor discoveries, cooking techniques and tips in sidebars such as 'Selecting and Using Salt,' 'Herbs 101' and 'Pairing Pastas with Sauces.' THE FLAVOR BIBLE, $35, is a must-have reference for all kitchen shelves — mine is right next to 'Joy of Cooking'.”
—Kirsten Ott, Life, Food & Style Editor, The Sunday Paper (November 2, 2008)

Al Dente
"Books of the Decade: 2000-2009: When compiling these lists, I came back to the books I cook from the most in addition to a few that I simply enjoy reading, cover to cover, like a novel, for their narrative approach, to a couple that I'm too intimidated, still, to even think about cooking from, but remain a resource of inspired ideas....THE FLAVOR BIBLE by Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg."
—Brad Thomas Parsons, Cookbook Editor of Amazon.com, on Al Dente (January 15, 2010)

Al Dente

"GIFTS: Cook Books: Tasty Picks for Beginners or Pros: THE FLAVOR BIBLE. For cooks ready to go beyond recipes and improvise, married food writers Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg offer an inspiring glossary of foods and their natural flavor partners. (Little, Brown, $35)."
—People magazine (Holidays 2008)

"...This holiday season, in particular, economic realities are compelling many to stretch food dollars, returning leftover awareness to the front burner....'Thanksgiving makes November a traditional time for leftovers, so it seems like a good time to start focusing on making the most of leftovers year in and year out,' cookbook author Karen Page said last week. Leftovers should be looked at not as recycled table scraps but rather as ingredients full of taste potential, she said. The turkey sandwich, made with leftovers, is a good example, Page said. 'A lot of people look forward to the turkey sandwich the next few days as much as they look forward to the meal,' she said. Page and her husband, professional chef Andrew Dornenburg, collaborated on the recently published THE FLAVOR BIBLE: The Essential Guide to Culinary Creativity, Based on the Wisdom of America's Most Imaginative Chefs. The 384-page book contains no recipes, but it is rich with lists of compatible flavors. More of a culinary compass than a map, THE FLAVOR BIBLE will guide home chefs as they create and improvise, Page said. The book's list runs from A to Z — from apples to zucchini. Under each entry herbs, spices and other seasonings that best enhance the flavor are listed. Pumpkin, which gets a lot of attention this time of year, has an affinity for allspice, bay leaf, butter, cheese, cinnamon, cloves, cream, cream cheese, garlic, ginger, lemon juice, nutmeg, olive oil, onions, orange juice or zest, pepper, pumpkin oil and seeds, raisins, rum, sage, salt, sugar, thyme and vanilla, according to the book. Page said her husband likes to point out that upscale restaurants may use leftovers in some dishes, but they are not called leftovers. 'Andrew says in restaurants, leftovers are called 'what's in the walk-in,'' she said."
—Tom Perry, Des Moines Register (November 19, 2008)

"Here's a closer look at a book we think you're going to want to check out....The pictures in this book are so luscious, and the content is so delectable, you just might find yourself drooling as you read THE FLAVOR BIBLE: The Essential Guide to Culinary Creativity, Based on the Wisdom of America's Most Imaginative Chefs. Award-winning authors Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg have written several ground-breaking books chronicling and celebrating America's culinary revolution. After writing about classic flavor match-ups in CULINARY ARTISTRY, the authors return to the concept of flavor with THE FLAVOR BIBLE, creating dishes based on flavor...."
—Molly Pesce, host, "Barnes & Noble Tagged!", BN.com (April 6, 2009)

"Essential Spice Books...Looking for ways to expand your spice knowledge and inspire your culinary adventures? Carol Peterman has perused countless books on the subject and has compiled this list of essential additions to your cooking library. New books will be added from time-to-time, so be sure to check back every now and then....THE FLAVOR BIBLE is much more expansive and focuses on culinary flavor combinations as a whole, not just herbs and spices. If you like to cook off the top of your head, and create your own dishes without recipes, this is a great reference book for identifying flavor pairings....THE FLAVOR BIBLE by Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg: This is the ultimate culinary idea generator. THE FLAVOR BIBLE lists hundreds of ingredients in alphabetical order. Plus, each ingredient features dozens of matching flavors based on interviews with highly regarded chefs and culinary experts across the U.S. and Canada. If you like to create your own dishes, this book is a fantastic resource. Commentaries and tips from highly regarded chefs are included throughout the book, as well as examples of dishes from their menus to illustrate successful flavor pairings. This is a book of concepts and ideas, not recipes. Although there isn't a single recipe in the entire book, Page and Dornenburg have put the flavor pairing expertise of dozens of culinary professionals in our hands to inspire our own culinary masterpieces."
—Carol Peterman, TableFare.com (March 2009)

"Flavor experts Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg are back at it. The pair who brought us the 2007 IACP Cookbook of the Year WHAT TO DRINK WITH WHAT YOU EAT have now written a book that could easily be called 'What to Eat with What You Eat,' except it's more complicated than that, earning the title THE FLAVOR BIBLE. If you've ever wondered what would be the best way to use that large hunk of Gouda cheese you were tempted to buy at the market, or what would be the perfect menu to serve your guests on a chilly autumn day, this book just may provide the answer to those questions. However, don't expect these authors to give you recipes to solve those culinary challenges. This review will tell you more about how this book does help with these and similar situations. The Bottom Line: Anyone who has picked up an unusual ingredient on a whim, or felt in the mood for a certain flavor, will find inspiration in this book for designing a menu with that ingredient or flavor. Cooks will love how it frees them from formal recipes, and more casual cooks will like how it supports their more free-spirited attitude toward cooking."
—Donna Pilato, Entertaining.About.com (September 29, 2008)

gonzo gastronomy

"The zen of food, for me, is born out of creativity and imagination. While recipes serve as a great starting block, for those of us that relish preparing food, the kitchen is a place of transformation — where flour, yeast and honey become bread; where tomatoes, basil and garlic become a marinara; where eggs, cream and day old bread become bread pudding. But it is also a place where WE, as cooks, can be transformed. When you get in that creative 'zone,' crafting the meal is cathartic…hell, in my house it’s psychotherapy! So what I want, more than anything else, is something that will serve as a map in the kitchen more so than an actual guide. I want something that inspires. Apparently, what I wanted was THE FLAVOR BIBLE. Written by Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg (WHAT TO DRINK WITH WHAT YOU EAT and CULINARY ARTISTRY), this book doesn’t have a single recipe in it. Instead, it alphabetically references thousands of culinary ingredients (including liquors like scotch and rum) and lists flavor combinations that will serve as idea starters. Just choose an ingredient, cuisine, technique or season, and you’ll find lists of complementary ingredients that will rank as 'ethereal, highly recommended, and frequently recommended' as well as those you should avoid at all costs! If you have someone in your life whose soul belongs in a kitchen, THIS is what you have to get him/her for the holidays. Put the silly kitchen gadgets down and STEP AWAY. We will NEVER use them, except when you come to visit!"
—Katie Pizzuto, Gonzo Gastronomy (November 5, 2008)

"Things to Do: #1) Go to the September 17th book launch of THE FLAVOR BIBLE: The Essential Guide to Culinary Creativity, Based on the Wisdom of America's Most Imaginative Chefs, the newest definitive volume by Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg. The signing will be at the Green City Market (Clark Street and Lincoln Avenue) at 11:30 am."
—Penny Pollack and Jeff Ruby, "Dish," Chicago magazine (September 11, 2008)

"SOUL FOOD. Our dining editor, Penny Pollack, dishes on her [five] favorite cookbooks from 2008....THE FLAVOR BIBLE
by Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg (Little, Brown; $35)
Why she likes it 'A what-goes-with-what book. No recipes, just tons of fun and useful info.' Ideal for The adventurous home cook."
—Penny Pollack, Chicago magazine (December 2008)

" (Starred Review): Dornenburg and Page’s follow up to their award-winning WHAT TO DRINK WITH WHAT YOU EAT certainly compliments its predecessor (part of the intent), but works equally well as a stand-alone reference for cooks of all skill levels. An alphabetical index of flavors and ingredients, the book allows readers to search complimentary combinations for a particular ingredient (over 70 flavors go well with chickpeas; over 100 are listed for oranges), emphasizing the classics (chives with eggs, nutmeg with cream, sardines and olive oil, etc.). Entries for ingredients such as chicken, beets and lamb span multiple pages and feature menu items from chefs such as Grant Achatz of Alinea, Alfred Portale of Gotham Bar and Grill and Le Bernardin’s Eric Ripert. Regional tastes are well-represented in broad entries for classic German and English flavors, as well as the more fine-tuned flavors of, for example, northern France or West Africa. The listings, combinations and short essays from various chefs on different matches are meant to inspire rather than dictate — there are, in fact, no recipes included. Instead, the volume is meant as a jumping-off point for those comfortable in the kitchen and eager to explore; though experienced cooks and chefs will benefit most, novices will find themselves referring to this handsome volume again and again as their confidence grows."
—Publishers Weekly (September 15, 2008)

"Today I am thrilled once again to welcome back award-winning authors and power food couple Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg. Karen and Andrew join me today to share their latest book — a seminal work — THE FLAVOR BIBLE: The Essential Guide to Culinary Creativity, Based on the Wisdom of America's Most Imaginative Chefs. We'll discuss how their interest in flavor pairings and compatibility influenced them in researching and writing this book, as well as the basic principles of making food taste great and the guidelines for maximizing flavor....Extraordinarily useful....A completely new way to look at an old problem....It really provokes you to think in ways that you don't necessarily think about cooking and eating....Destined to become a classic....An amazing book."
—Lucinda Scala Quinn, MSLO Executive Editorial Food Director and host of "EatDrink" on Martha Stewart Living Radio (October 2, 2008)

"Cookbooks to consider for the holidays. It’s that delicious time of year — when Tribune elves feverishly page through the array of new cookbooks in search of the few [6] that have been chosen for the annual review. THE FLAVOR BIBLE, The Essential Guide to Culinary Creativity, Based on the Wisdom of America’s Most Imaginative Chefs, Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg (Little, Brown and Company, 2008, $35). Here is a book that will have your salivary glands going, just imagining the tasty combinations as you read. This is not a cookbook. It is in fact a bible — a book of essential flavor rules — to be revered and referred to often.
There are no mouthwatering photographs, this is not a book you might just flip through in search of an appealing recipe.
In fact, there are no recipes. But THE FLAVOR BIBLE provides the reader with a better understanding of cuisine — including foods you should eat, foods you might love to eat and foods you have yet to experience. It’s essential to start with 'Genesis' or chapter one: 'Flavor = Taste + Mouthfeel + Aroma + The X Factor: Learning to Recognize the Language of Food.' Let there be light or culinary enlightenment. This chapter will help you realize the basic flavors and how our taste buds translate those flavors to our brain. This is really the place to start. The book continues with a chapter on cooking for the body, mind and spirit. Before delving into a cooking assignment, first understand the moment or the who, what, when and where. What type of gathering will it be? Where will it take place? Then go on to analyze the season — what might be available fresh and what the weather may dictate (warm and spicy foods for the winter months or cold and light dishes for summer serving, etc.). The book goes on to offer insight to types of flavors and country of origin, from A (achiote seeds) to Z (zucchini blossoms). Hundreds of pages of common and unusual specimens, that make up cuisine for a variety of cultures are featured."
—Karen Rallo, South Bend Tribune (December 14, 2008)

"What to do with all those leftovers? One of our favorite topics is food, especially at holiday time. If you need inspiration, one of many new cookbooks — this is actually more than just that — is called THE FLAVOR BIBLE. Let's turn to the authors, married couple Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg."
— Dan Raviv, national correspondent, CBS News Weekend Roundup (November 28, 2008)

"THE FLAVOR BIBLE: The best book I've ever purchased. I got this book last week, and it's great."
—DeLawrence Reed, Army veteran and home cook in Long Branch, NJ, on MixingBowl.com (May 18, 2009)

"THE FLAVOR BIBLE is...terrific....A wonderful Christmas gift."
—Judith Regan, "The Judith Regan Show" on Sirius Satellite Radio (November 11, 2008)

"The Palate Wizards Speak: Nothing about food is more subjective than its flavor, which can invoke agony, ecstasy or something in between from the person doing the eating. That's why cooks who consistently create meals whose flavors bring pleasure to a wide range of customers are true magicians. No chef wows 'em every time; the great ones come close. Another key: When a skilled cook can deliver great flavor experiences even while using up orphaned ingredients from a restaurant's walk-in or pantry, the food cost will always look good. And in the current economy, the ability to conjure up flavorful meals from lower-cost ingredients makes a cook worth his or her weight in gold. How can chefs pull all this off? A handful innately seem to know the flavor combinations that will work best. Everyone else, though, has to rely on trial and error. Or at least they did before the arrival of THE FLAVOR BIBLE: The Essential Guide to Culinary Creativity, Based on the Wisdom of America's Most Imaginative Chefs (Little, Brown and Co., $35). In it, ace culinary writers Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg weave together the collective intuitions of dozens of leading chefs to come up with a 380-page book about cooking that contains not a single recipe. It offers instead a series of exhaustive lists that describe what-goes-best-with-what, all of it so arranged as to make flawless flavor development accessible to all. Articulating this process by words alone is a tall order. It's challenging to explain flavor development without the luxury of side-by-side taste comparisons to illustrate each point. But Page and Dornenburg are skilled-enough wordsmiths to do it — no small feat....If the goal of your restaurant is to faithfully reproduce classic flavor pairings that have withstood the test of time, you probably don't need this one. But if you want to keep up on contemporary flavor trends, minimize your food cost and sneak in thrifty ingredients along the way, buy a copy of this book."
—Restaurant Hospitality (December 2008)

"Books That Cook. Each fall, publishers release the year's most-anticipated books by restaurant professionals as a prelude to holiday gift giving. Chefs and other readers will find inspiration in the amazing photographs, innovative recipes, unique stories and descriptions of hands-on techniques....THE FLAVOR BIBLE, by Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg (Little, Brown, and Co.). To wean cooks off of recipes and encourage experimentation, Page and Dornenburg have created a comprehensive flavor-pairings reference."
—Restaurants & Institutions (November 1, 2008)

"Gourmet Cooking — Without Recipes. Watermelon and feta cheese don't sound like they go together like peanut better and jelly. But unusual pairings can make for great dishes — if you know how to match them correctly. We talk with two food experts about how even novice cooks can use unexpected flavor pairings to make great meals: Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg, co-authors, THE FLAVOR BIBLE."
—Rebecca Roberts, guest host, "The Kojo Nnamdi Show" on WAMU Radio / National Public Radio (November 18, 2008)

THE BOOK STALL

"THE FLAVOR BIBLE by Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg ($35) couldn't be better titled. After reading the book, I'm a convert. Inspired from America's greatest chefs and formatted as a reference guide, hundreds of herbs, spices and other seasonings are matched to a wide range of dishes, offering not only tried-and true combinations, but also new and exotic flavors. As one of Newsweek's 'Top Picks of the Week,' this book may change the way you reach for the spice rack!"
—Aurora Roman, bookseller, Newsletter of The Book Stall at Chestnut Court in Winnetka, Illinois (October 2008)

"Tribune Food: Cross-Indexed Deliciousness. Emily Nunn pays some much-deserved homage to Andrew Dornenburg and Karen Page's book THE FLAVOR BIBLE, a meticulously cross-indexed reference of preparations, ingredients, and their component flavors. As a reference book geek I am completely swooning over this title from a purely organizational perspective, but this is the kind of book that should be packaged and sold along with Harold McGee's On Food and Cooking as a You Seriously Ought to Own This If You Are Going To Be Into Cooking boxed set."
—Helen Rosner, Smith College alumna and blogger, MenuPages.com - Chicago (January 29, 2009)

MARKET TO MOUTH

"I do draw on my training when I grocery shop and cook, so rather than pretend that those of you who are not as comfortable in the kitchen as I can completely do without your cookbooks, I'm going to recommend a book, though it's not a cookbook! Yesterday I spent the afternoon chatting with a foodie friend who a number of months ago introduced me to THE FLAVOR BIBLE by Karen Page. It's a big book, alright, almost encyclopedic, but it's a phenomenal resource for anyone interested in learning about mixing and matching food and flavors. Knowing what foods and their flavors go with other foods and flavors goes a long way when you're doing your grocery shopping and thinking about what meals you might like to make that week."
—Louise Ross, Market to Mouth (March 6, 2009)

MARKET TO MOUTH

"I do have a something I want to draw your attention to however; it's an article in O Magazine which touches on the idea of recipe-independence, a concept I refer to a lot. As I've stated in previous posts, recipe-independence can be achieved by trusting your creativity and taste-intuition, and by understanding complimentary foods and flavors, or flavor pals. O's article uses THE FLAVOR BIBLE (I highly recommend this brilliant book for anyone who loves to cook. You can buy it here, see the link to the right and below.) as a resource for guiding home-cooks away from recipes and toward their inner 'culinary authority.'"
—Louise Ross, Whole Foods' recession-strategy blogger on Market to Mouth (April 7, 2009)

S U P E R _C H E F

"[THE FLAVOR BIBLE] is not a cookbook but a reference book about what flavors work together for our contemporary palates....Throughout the chapter are sprinkled the names of chefs who work especially well in the different realms....More quotes follow with chefs discussing strategies for balancing flavor...Many of these quotes are remarkable because they give insight into the thought processes and philosophies of chefs....This is a valuable resource on a cook's bookshelf. The quotes from chefs and food authorities bring a depth to the lists of ingredients and expand ideas of how to bring flavors together."
—Juliette Rossant, SuperChef.com (October 15, 2008)

"Caller: My favorite cookbook is THE FLAVOR BIBLE. And I think it is not great for everybody. Roberts: Because it has no recipes in it. Caller: Exactly. I think it is good for people who spend some time cooking, who understand the basic techniques, but aren't quite sure just how to include certain ingredients and exclude others. And I think it allows for a lot of creativity, sort of touching on what Adam was saying earlier about recipes being like a blueprint. And it really gives you the opportunity to create your own. Roberts: THE FLAVOR BIBLE is interesting because it's just about taste. Gopnik: Right. It's an example of the grammatical cookbook we were talking about. The idea there is instead of giving you a recipe, it gives you these kinds of clusters of flavors and ways you could put them together....Bhide: If you know your ingredients, you understand the herbs and spices, you'll be great at following THE FLAVOR BIBLE because you understand the basics....Then you can, I think, pretty much do anything, because then you know how they interact with each other. That's the place where I think THE FLAVOR BIBLE would be awesome."
—Rebecca Roberts, in conversation with Adam Gopnik and Monica Bhide on "Talk of the Nation," National Public Radio (December 3, 2009)

Ruhlman

"Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg have been publishing innovative books about cooking and the chef world for longer than I have. Their popular BECOMING A CHEF was published the summer I was harrassing the Culinary Institute of America to let me in to write about, well, becoming a chef.  I was mortified they’d beat me to it. It proved to be not just a different book from what I was attempting, but a valuable research tool for me then and throughout the years (its history of American restaurants and chefs with opening dates or significant restaurants is something I’ve  returned to throughout the years).  It remains a valuable book especially for people considering entering the profession. Their most recent book, THE FLAVOR BIBLE, published last year was one I kept hearing about.  Finally I got around to having a look myself.  What I’ve liked about their work is that they have consistently brought the unique perspective of the chef to their work, making it accessible to all without over glorifying or over-simplifying it. As I’ve said before, in many ways I’m anti-cookbook in my views. There are too many of them, and only a handful each years have anything new to offer.  THE FLAVOR BIBLE is completely unique.  After opening chapters on how to build flavors in your meals, it is a glossary of ingredients and cuisines and all the flavors that go with them or are associated with them.  Look up kale and you have a quick breakdown of seasonality, cooking technique and flavors that go well, one of which is cheddar cheese, something I’d never thought of, but hell, why not?  Look up rhubarb or mint or basmati rice for pairings. When I need to come up with new dishes — what’s something new can I do with this lamb, for instance — this is a book I’ll be opening for ideas.  A great gift for the cook who likes to improvise and experiment."
—Michael Ruhlman, Ruhlman.com (December 16, 2009)

"Personal Chef Neil Wilson on Bibles, Lemon Zest, and Thanksgiving Leftovers: This is personal chef Neil Wilson. He used to be in the army — but now he makes delicious ravioli (seen here in its pressed dough, pre-stuffed form). Before becoming a personal chef, Wilson attended L’Academie de Cuisine and then worked as a line cook for Palena. Here are some of his cooking tips: Buy this book: THE FLAVOR BIBLE. Look up any popular ingredient, and it will provide a rundown of complimentary herbs, spices and foods, and other cuisines in which the ingredient is featured."
—Ruth Samuelson, Washington City Paper (April 23, 2009)

"Call it a commandment for great cooking, knowing how to use the right flavors in your kitchen. Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg are co-authors of THE FLAVOR BIBLE, a new book on how to take the ingredients you have at home and figure out which ones work best together.... A must-have for every cookbook collection....A beautiful book. Congratulations!"
—Steve Sanders, "Lunch Break," WGN-TV (November 13, 2008)

"I just bought a fascinating new book called THE FLAVOR BIBLE by Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg. It's a compendium of ingredients and the herbs, spices, condiments and other foods that go with them. This is going to be a great resource for the times when I have something unusual that I've never cooked with and need to figure out what would work with it or to rethink and reconceive familiar ingredients to bring out new flavors."
—San Diego Foodstuff (October 23, 2008)

aspendailynews

"...[F]ew of us have the time or inclination to improve our cooking skills. What we want, what we need, is something that will help us become better cooks without having to further our skillset.
That's a tough proposition, though. In fact, if such a thing existed, it would have to be considered a second coming of sorts — a miracle, a gentle hand placed right where we ache. Can you feel it? It's nothing less than the healing powers of a new book called THE FLAVOR BIBLE. Hallelujah. Our prayers have been answered. THE FLAVOR BIBLE is the newest offering from my favorite foodie authors, Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg, a husband-wife duo whose previous works include BECOMING A CHEF, CULINARY ARTISTRY, DINING OUT, CHEF'S NIGHT OUT, THE NEW AMERICAN CHEF, and WHAT TO DRINK WITH WHAT YOU EAT. Chapters one and two discuss occasion, seasonality, region, taste, mouthfeel and aroma, all concepts that we can use to ensure that each time we enter the kitchen we're apt to improve ourselves as cooks. Chapter three covers flavor affinities, and contains a list of almost every imaginable ingredient, in alphabetical order, and a corresponding list of those ingredients which best complement it....Wow, that's a concept I can turn into a quick salad or appetizer, learn a little along the way, and, most importantly, incorporate a little of my own creativity into the dish-without blindly following someone else's recipe. What's more, I can take THE FLAVOR BIBLE with me to the grocery store. If avocadoes are on sale, I can simply reference my bible for complementary ingredients.
Ultimately, I hope, we'll be delivered from our reliance on recipes, and instead of racks of food mags, there will be a copy of THE FLAVOR BIBLE found in every nightstand drawer next to every bed in every hotel around the country."
—Rob Seideman, Aspen Daily News (November 20, 2009)

Hunter Angler Gardener Cook

"Braised Rabbit, and a New Way to Look at Food. I made braised rabbit last night, and it was good. But the dish was also something more: I made it up. No cookbook involved, although I did get a little help from a very different kind of book that offers was a new (at least to me) way to look at food that is changing the way I cook....Certain rules just seem natural. Beef doesn’t go very well with fish stock. Put chiles, citrus, vinegar and wine together and you’d better serve Tums as dessert. On the other side of the ledger, you’ll find butter and lobster. Mint and lamb. Lemon and fish. Classics, all — cliches, really. We need to go deeper. Which brings me to this curious set of books that are helping me do this. They are written by a duo who have spent considerable time interviewing great chefs, asking them what flavor combinations they employ. Chestnuts marry nicely with cream, yes, but did you know they’ll play with rosemary just as well? (I did, but for every one I do know, there are 50 I didn’t.) The authors are Andrew Dornenburg and Karen Page, and the books are CULINARY ARTISTRY and THE FLAVOR BIBLE. These are not cookbooks. They are schematics for a skilled cook, points of departure to guide invention. Think of them as a way to prevent you from pairing mahi mahi with braised lamb and a strawberry sauce, topped with sun-dried tomatoes. What are these books then? For the most part, they are lists of ingredients that skilled, professional — even great — chefs have paired and paired well. CULINARY ARTISTRY focuses on classic flavors that chefs have combined for millennia. THE FLAVOR BIBLE looks more at what chefs are doing now. I own both, but I did not really appreciate CULINARY ARTISTRY or THE FLAVOR BIBLE until some months after I 'read' them...But something happened when I took a second look at Page and Dornenburg’s second book. I began to think. What if I put away my cookbooks for a while and just played with flavors, using only these books? Great chefs have many of tried-and-true flavor combinations filed away in their minds, but even Eric Ripert or Thomas Keller will not know all of them. (Ferran Adria might.) That’s where the books would be useful, a guide to my wanderings. The first foray was this braised rabbit....Brooding flavors of dried mushrooms, homemade guanciale and a dark duck stock pulled the rabbit toward winter, while the white wine and young greens tossed in at the end lifted it toward springtime. It was the perfect dish for just this day — not tomorrow, not two weeks from now or last month. Today.  What will tomorrow bring?"
—Hank Shaw, Hunter Angler Gardener Cook (March 2, 2009)

Hunter Angler Gardener Cook

TheBookChick

"Tucson Festival of Books Reading Picks. I’m just now recuperating from the Tucson Festival of Books (#TFOB on twitter). Based on the entertaining and enlightening author sessions, here are the [five] titles on my ‘to read’ list: Page & Dornenburg’s THE FLAVOR BIBLE (okay, not a read, but a kitchen reference and check it out in this month’s Oprah mag)."
—Theresa Shaw, BookChick.com (March 18, 2009)

"...With my insatiable appetite for cookbooks, I sought to discover who is saying what about the top ten best cookbooks in 2008. Listed below are my top ten favorites, followed by a few links I found that list others' choices for the 'winners.' However, it was not easy to narrow my menu to ten, since there are so many outstanding books from which to choose!...THE FLAVOR BIBLE by Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg."
—Pamela Sinclair, Northwest College professor and author, A Taste of Wyoming (January 18, 2009)

"Sometimes a food book comes along that I think 'I wish I had written that.' It doesn't happen as often as I would like but THE FLAVOR BIBLE is one of those volumes. Written by respected food authors Andrew Dornenburg and Karen Page, THE FLAVOR BIBLE is all about what flavor pairings work well together....I found this book extremely useful in terms of finding ingredients in the farmers market or in my store cupboards and then using THE FLAVOR BIBLE for suggestions about what I should be cooking. It really is excellent at sparking ideas in the mind of the more experienced cook and making them think of new combinations or ideas that will add a bit of extra zip to a recipe.   THE FLAVOR BIBLE would be useful to any cook but for anyone who is serious about their food — either as an enthusiast or as someone who makes a living from cooking — then I think this will become one of the indispensable books in their kitchen library. As such, it is one of my favourite cookbooks of this century."
—Joe Saumarez Smith, Cooking Index (November 2008)

"A Guide to Culinary Creativity: Picture yourself trying to cook dinner. You have a little of this and a little of that. You'd like to be a creative cook, but what flavors work well together? Does mint work with fish? Does coriander taste good on beets? Can ginger be used in desserts? Today, the authors of the new cookbook THE FLAVOR BIBLE join us to offer answers. Maybe we'll add cinnamon to your chicken or cloves to your cabbage. Call in with your base ingredients or your questions about flavor combinations."
—Steve Scher, host, "Weekday," KUOW Radio / NPR (September 29, 2008)

"The Ultimate Kitchen Companion. Food and drink luminaries, Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg, are esteemed for their groundbreaking culinary books including WHAT TO DRINK WITH WHAT YOU EAT. They have done it again with THE FLAVOR BIBLE: The Essential Guide To Culinary Creativity, Based on the Wisdom of America’s Most Imaginative Chefs.
This invaluable kitchen companion is a compilation of eight years of extensive flavor pairing research. Since 2000, the couple spent thousands of hours visiting restaurants, interviewing chefs, combing menus, Web sites and cookbooks. The 384-page flavor guidebook is unique, but easy to use. Thousands of ingredients, herbs, spices and seasoning entries are organized alphabetically and cross-referenced, making it what the title promises — a flavor bible. Choose from achiote seeds to zucchini blossoms. Look up techniques, seasons and cuisines. You’ll also find signature dishes, tips and bits of wisdom from America’s most respected chefs including Mario Batali, José Andrés and Charlie Trotter. Inspiration is the book’s purpose — helping cooks understand how to best season ingredients while simultaneously encouraging individual creativity. This is a must-have for both the experienced chef and home cook beginner."
—Lynn Schwartz, What's Up Annapolis (December 3, 2008)

Grow. Cook. Eat.

"My New Favorite Book. Twelve years ago, Karen Page and her husband Andrew Dornenburg published CULINARY ARTISTRY. They interviewed hundreds of chefs around the country to learn more about what makes cooking an artistic endeavor. The real value of this book was the middle section that had a listing of 'flavor marriages.' In encyclopedic format, they listed ingredients, such as chicken, mushrooms or artichokes, with a list of ingredients and flavors that paired well....This year, they finished the work that I wanted to...and they published THE FLAVOR BIBLE. This isn’t so much a cookbook as it is a reference book to stir creativity....With this book, you can browse the listings for chicken, and see that it pairs well with coconut, galangal and lime, or with garlic, pancetta and sage. From here, you can have a much more productive web search of recipes. Or, if you’re like me, you’ll just make something up with the various ingredients that I now feel confident match each other....I highly recommend THE FLAVOR BIBLE."
—Julia Shanks, GrowCookEat.com (January 7, 2009)

Hunter Angler Gardener Cook

"Braised Rabbit, and a New Way to Look at Food. I made braised rabbit last night, and it was good. But the dish was also something more: I made it up. No cookbook involved, although I did get a little help from a very different kind of book that offers was a new (at least to me) way to look at food that is changing the way I cook....Certain rules just seem natural. Beef doesn’t go very well with fish stock. Put chiles, citrus, vinegar and wine together and you’d better serve Tums as dessert. On the other side of the ledger, you’ll find butter and lobster. Mint and lamb. Lemon and fish. Classics, all — cliches, really. We need to go deeper. Which brings me to this curious set of books that are helping me do this. They are written by a duo who have spent considerable time interviewing great chefs, asking them what flavor combinations they employ. Chestnuts marry nicely with cream, yes, but did you know they’ll play with rosemary just as well? (I did, but for every one I do know, there are 50 I didn’t.) The authors are Andrew Dornenburg and Karen Page, and the books are CULINARY ARTISTRY and THE FLAVOR BIBLE. These are not cookbooks. They are schematics for a skilled cook, points of departure to guide invention. Think of them as a way to prevent you from pairing mahi mahi with braised lamb and a strawberry sauce, topped with sun-dried tomatoes. What are these books then? For the most part, they are lists of ingredients that skilled, professional — even great — chefs have paired and paired well. CULINARY ARTISTRY focuses on classic flavors that chefs have combined for millennia. THE FLAVOR BIBLE looks more at what chefs are doing now. I own both, but I did not really appreciate CULINARY ARTISTRY or THE FLAVOR BIBLE until some months after I 'read' them...But something happened when I took a second look at Page and Dornenburg’s second book. I began to think. What if I put away my cookbooks for a while and just played with flavors, using only these books? Great chefs have many of tried-and-true flavor combinations filed away in their minds, but even Eric Ripert or Thomas Keller will not know all of them. (Ferran Adria might.) That’s where the books would be useful, a guide to my wanderings. The first foray was this braised rabbit....Brooding flavors of dried mushrooms, homemade guanciale and a dark duck stock pulled the rabbit toward winter, while the white wine and young greens tossed in at the end lifted it toward springtime. It was the perfect dish for just this day — not tomorrow, not two weeks from now or last month. Today.  What will tomorrow bring?"
—Hank Shaw, Hunter Angler Gardener Cook (March 2, 2009)

"[THE FLAVOR BIBLE] is an amazing book, and I think it's their best work yet."
—Steven A. Shaw, Executive Director of the eGullet Society for Culinary Arts & Letters, on eGullet.org (January 30, 2009)

"Too cool. Just received in the mail a book called THE FLAVOR BIBLE, and although I've only perused the first few pages I'm already hooked. There's a big part of me that's totally a list person, so I love the way authors Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg go about breaking down the experience of eating into categories, viz: *Taste: sweet, sour, salty, bitter, umami (this we know) *Mouthfeel: temperature, texture, piquancy (sharpness) and astringency ("pucker" inducing, a drying sensation as in highly tannic wine -- thus different from "sour") *Aroma: pungency, chemesthesis (tickling sensations as from carbonation, or "tricks" like mint seeming "cool") *And finally, the X factor: visual/physical, emotional, mental and spiritual. They go on to talk about chefs who embody these four X factors: Alice Waters and Dan Barber: Physical. The connection to the locale is strong, who source from their own farms, with an interest in the simple brilliancy of fresh flavors. Rick Bayless, Vikram Vij (because of their ties to specific cultures, people and traditions): Emotional. Grant Achatz (and other "conceptual" chefs, like Keller, Adria, etc.): Mental. Daniel Boulud and Patrick O'Connell: Spiritual. Because they transcend the previous three categories and attend to ambiance and service to create a meaningful experience. So here's the question: Where would you place our top chefs according to these categories? Allan Susser? Michelle Bernstein? Michael Schwartz? Johnny V? Stephen di Asprinio? Norman Van Aken? Dean James Max? Oliver Saucy?"
—Gail Shepherd, Miami New Times (October 10, 2008)

"Andrew Dornenburg and Karen Page have done it again. They've written yet another book that is sure to be a classic kitchen reference guide for years to come. THE FLAVOR BIBLE lists thousands of ingredients and what other ingredients complement them...These days I need ideas more than I need recipes so the format is perfect for me. THE FLAVOR BIBLE helps solve the 'what else can I do with brussels sprouts?' question and expands your culinary horizons with entries for unusual ingredients such as quince (which has an astounding 51 ingredients associated with it), or lavender. The ingredient lists came about by reviewing menus, restaurant reviews and cookbooks from all across the country. Some ingredients also have a season, weight, volume, and technique(s) indicated. But there is more to the book than just that. Top chefs from Jose Andres to Vikram Vij share their philosophy about using specific ingredients and techniques and there are also lists of intriguing dishes and 'flavor affinities' such as butternut squash, risotto and sage or mango, almonds and lime. The book is very similar in format to their earlier award-winning book What to Drink with What You Eat....I recommend this book wholeheartedly. I am already finding it an endless source of recipe inspiration and impossible to put back on the shelf."
—Amy Sherman, Cooking With Amy (September 15, 2008)

"Cookbooks for Giving and Keeping. There were a lot of important restaurant cookbooks that came out this year: A Day at El Bulli, Alinea and Thomas Keller's Under Pressure: Cooking Sous Vide come to mind. I am not opposed to serious books, but the books I turn to again and again tend to not be the weighty ones. Just like cooking and eating, I like cookbooks to be fun. Today I am recommending two fun books, two thoroughly enjoyable non-cookbooks and two local San Francisco Bay Area cookbooks, one of which actually is a restaurant cookbook, but also much more than that....I raved about THE FLAVOR BIBLE a few months ago. It's a book to go to for ideas, inspiration, and sometimes reassurance that yes, that seemingly crazy combination you came up with does in fact make perfectly good sense. Sneak a peek at some of the signature dishes of top chefs and find out what flavors pair well. I find this book helps me get out of the ruts I sometimes get into with a specific ingredient, always cooking it one way, forgetting to step out of my comfort zone and try something new. Since reviewing it, I have used this book many times in creating new recipes for my wine retailer client. This is hands down the best, and most useful culinary reference book of the year."
—Amy Sherman, CookingWithAmy.com (December 17, 2008)

"THE FLAVOR BIBLE: A Thesaurus of Combinations. If you're like me, when you combine flavors you rely on two things: guaranteed combinations — like tomatoes and basil, lamb and rosemary, apples and cinnamon — and educated guessing. That strategy leaves a lot of room for error. Award-winning authors Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg have taken the guessing out of the equation with their newest book THE FLAVOR BIBLE: The Essential Guide to Culinary Creativity, Based on the Wisdom of America's Most Imaginative Chefs ($35). It is the first comprehensive 'thesaurus' of modern flavor combinations organized as an easy-to-use alphabetical reference featuring more than 600 popular ingredients (meat, fish, vegetables, fruits, cheeses, etc.) and the herbs, spices, wines and other flavorings that best enhance them. Check out a copy of THE FLAVOR BIBLE to find out more — it's like sitting down at the kitchen table to talk with some of the best chefs in the country. It will also help you elevate your cooking to new heights."
—Denise Shoukas, foodspring.com, National Association for the Specialty Food Trade (February 2009)

The Slant of The Slope

"...Here is the bookstore’s quasi-annual round up of ideas for books we’d like to get, anyhow.  We hope it may help you in list-making endeavors. Cookbooks: [1st of only 5 recommended] THE FLAVOR BIBLE by Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg (Little, Brown & Co., $35.00): Less cookbook than guidebook, culled from the minds of America’s most imaginative chefs. Intended to lead you towards the greatest possible flavors and pleasures from food, this book provides exhaustive information on herbs, spices, and seasonings on their own and in harmony with each other."
—The Slant of the Slope, Community Bookstore of Park Slope in Brooklyn, New York (Holidays 2008)

sum.ptuo.us

"Well, they've done it again! Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg have released THE FLAVOR BIBLE, an inspiring guide to help cooks better understand how to pair and balance flavors from around the world. I have turned to their book CULINARY ARTISTRY for ideas and 'flavor pals' for years. With input from many well-respected chefs, THE FLAVOR BIBLE takes heightening the flavor experience to a whole new level."
—Kimberley Slobodian, sum.ptuo.us (September 16, 2008)

"Tasteful Books....Taste Dictionary: THE FLAVOR BIBLE. A must for anyone who has discovered foodpairing, is THE FLAVOR BIBLE by Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg. This sequel to their earlier book CULINARY ARTISTRY is a kind of dictionary for flavor combinations. In alphabetical order in the book you will find a wide variety of ingredients, from fish to meat and herbs and wine, and each ingredient is what the best flavor combinations. Page and Dornenburg will draw on the experience of top chefs, and less on purely chemical bases. Their list is not complete, but very surprising and inspiring for those who are Brussels sprouts, duck or fish have a different twist to give. Furthermore, the authors of this book make their appearance at the symposium Foodpairing in Bruges, which I already mentioned this blog."
—Annemieke Smit, weblogs.vpro.nl/uitgekookt (December 23, 2008) (auto-translated from Dutch by Google)

"THE FLAVOR BIBLE by Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg is...one of the more unique books that I've ever picked up. Phenomenal. All their books are. They take your cooking to the next realm."
—Ron Smith, host, "The Home and Lifestyle Show" on KTSA Newstalk Radio 550 AM (October 25, 2008)

"THE FLAVOR BIBLE is touted as 'A Groundbreaking Thesaurus of Compatible Flavors'. Its [sub]title is 'The Essential Guide to Culinary Creativity, Based on the Wisdom of America's most imaginative Chefs'. What better recommendation could there be for a wondrous guide regarding what flavors to add to which dishes? We all know that 'tomatoes and basil, lamb and rosemary, apples and cinnamon' blend well together to create lovely tastes. With the global market being what it is, new and exciting flavors are available on the shelves of our local stores just waiting for us to give them a try and discover our own favorites. This cookbook 'doesn't merely prescribe recipes, but rather inspires the creation of new dishes based on imaginative and harmonious flavor combinations.' Using this new guide can open up a whole new method of cooking and possibly enhance already favorite recipes. Bet you'd never think of adding cheese to pumpkin, mixing orange and rum, or adding rosemary to cabbage or risotto. The symbiotic relationship of so many flavors blending together makes the mouth water. The suggested flavors to be used in combinations for salmon, for instance, are endless — twenty for plain salmon — more for cured or smoked. It is impossible to list the possibilities placed before us here. Even an overview would take more than the space allotted for this review. This wonderful book — my chef daughter almost salivated over it — is 'filled with thousands of entries — organized alphabetically and cross-referenced' and providing a 'virtual goldmine of spectacular combinations for meat, seafood, cheeses, vegetables, fruits, herbs, spices, and much more'. THE FLAVOR BIBLE would make a marvelous gift for the holidays — that is after you have purchased one for yourself. This cookbook is a must for every kitchen."
—Mary Ann Smyth, BookLoons.com (October 2008)

"Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg are the authors of eight bestselling books focusing on food and drink, many of which have been winners or finalists for James Beard and/or IACP Cookbook awards. They have been married since 1990, write a monthly wine column for The Washington Post, and blog at BecomingAChef.com. Their most recent book, THE FLAVOR BIBLE: The Essential Guide to Culinary Creativity, Based on the Wisdom of America's Most Imaginative Chefs, is an incredibly thorough and well-researched reference guide for home and professional cooks alike."
—Laren Spirer, Gothamist.com (October 10, 2008)

"Wouldn't you love to tailgate a gifted chef around, observing, asking and learning?...Well, a couple of New York food writers (and they're actually a couple) make a career out of doing [this]. Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg, award-winners and finalists for their many culinary books, interview these chefs, eat at their restaurants and conduct research with determination. Their most recent book, THE FLAVOR BIBLE, took eight years of 'painstaking research on modern flavour combinations,' they say. They took notes on compelling flavour combinations they bit into at restaurants, they analysed menus, restaurant reviews and cookbooks to see how creative chefs were mixing up flavours. And of course, they talked to top chefs...The book explores the roles of the four basic tastes — sweet, sour, bitter and salty — and how to harmonize them. It's a guide to working more intuitively with ingredients, understanding their individual properties and maximizing flavours by learning tricks of technique."
—Mia Stainsby, Vancouver Sun (September 24, 2008)

"Local cookbook store choose their Top 10. Okay, maybe the cookbooks on this Top 10 list of cookbook gift ideas aren't all local, but it helps support a local cookbook store, Books To Cooks, which does an incredible job in supporting the local mania for all things food. This is the Books To Cooks' staff choices for the top cookbooks published this year: West: The Cookbook by Warren Geraghty (local author); Fat by Jennifer McLagan; THE FLAVOR BIBLE by Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg...."
—Mia Stainsby, Vancouver Sun (December 19, 2008)

"Routt County Spotlight: Jessica Lynn Raiford. Occupation: Caterer, Steamboat Meat & Seafood Co. Place of birth: New Orleans. Q. When did you move to Routt County, and what brought you here? A. November 2005 hurricanes...Q. Has a book ever changed your life? What was it and why? A. THE FLAVOR BIBLE, book about the fundamentals of flavor and food and how to begin putting it all together. It gave me courage to even start cooking."
—Steamboat Pilot & Today (Steamboat Springs, CO) (August 1, 2009)

"In the Kitchen. THE FLAVOR BIBLE. One of 29 books singled out."
—The Strand, New York City (Holidays 2008)

"THE FLAVOR BIBLE — A Cookbook to End All Cookbooks? From Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg, acclaimed authors of BECOMING A CHEF, DINING OUT, CHEF'S NIGHT OUT, and THE NEW AMERICAN CHEF, among others, comes THE FLAVOR BIBLE (Little Brown & Co., $35). Rather than offer precise and detailed recipes on how to replicate a dish of a given chef or author, with THE FLAVOR BIBLE, you’ll learn to celebrate the process of creating your own dish. In fact, you will not find even one single recipe in this book. Instead, you’ll be presented with cross-referenced alphabetical charts that offer complementary flavors and appropriate cooking techniques for every ingredient imaginable from sea bass, to green beans, beef short ribs, blue cheese, piquillo peppers, and on and on. In addition to the flavor charts, the book adds the valuable advice of the country’s greatest chefs and their tips and thoughts about the process of cooking creating delicious meals from a wide array of flavors. THE FLAVOR BIBLE is definitely a different kind of cookbook in that its goal is almost to remove the need for a cookbook altogether. Indeed, it teaches a very practical way of cooking. Instead of being tied to a recipe and making sure you have all the ingredients, you are freed to cook from what is in your pantry because you’ll have a guideline of what pairs well with what and how to make your dinner come together from whatever is on hand."
—Andrea Strong, Strong Buzz (September 25, 2008)

"Most cooks can easily recite several classic flavor pairings: lamb and rosemary, tomatoes and basil, apples and cinnamon. But when we wish to be more adventurous in the kitchen, and possibly even develop our own recipes, what principles ought to guide us?....Andrew Dornenburg and Karen Page, authors of the classic handbook on flavor pairing, CULINARY ARTISTRY, recently published a new book that builds on their earlier work. THE FLAVOR BIBLE ($35, Little, Brown and Co.) decodes the language of food, explaining the roles of flavor, texture, aroma and mouth-feel in how we experience a dish. The authors quote dozens of top chefs as they describe how they create recipes. The rest of the book is an amazingly thorough 337-page guide to modern flavor pairing, from achiote seeds to zucchini blossoms."
—Christine Stutz, Baltimore Examiner (January 21, 2009)

"5 New Books on Food: Holy molé! THE FLAVOR BIBLE, by Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg, is a delicious meditation and primer on taste. Most of the book is organized by ingredient: Look up pumpkins, say, and the book will list food pairings, peak season, flavor affinities, dishes from well-known restaurants that feature the ingredient. Sure to be inspirational to anyone who loves to cook."
—Charlie Suisman, Manhattan User's Guide
(September 9, 2008)

"I like to think I've mastered baking with spices. Sugar cookies that come alive with cardamom and chocolate chip brownies that get a boost from cinnamon are no problem, but I still get nervous about adding spices to savory dishes. So if you're anything like me and quake at the thought of cooking savory foods with spices, consider [this] your new go-to book: THE FLAVOR BIBLE (Little, Brown) by Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg. This is a reference book, plain and simple, so if you're hoping for recipes, this is not for you. But don't let the phrase 'this is a reference book' scare you because this is a great reference book! This book is the result of years of research in which the authors queried chefs about food and flavoring, and the pairings behind some of the most classic and innovative dishes in the world. In THE FLAVOR BIBLE, the authors have ingredients (epazote, blood oranges, squid) and other food categories (brunch, English cuisine, sweetness) broken down with their respective food/flavor pairings. Want to know what goes well with duck? Apples and cherries might be obvious, but how about bay leaf and turnips? What about pairings for peas? The usual suspects like butter, Boston lettuce, and heavy cream show up. But had you considered ginger and honey? It's the surprising twists and turns that make this book so valuable, along with asides from famous chefs explaining some of their favorite food pairings and how they use the ingredients."
—Esther Sung, Epicurious.com (January 8, 2009)

"Fall Favorites 2008: Cookbooks: I don't keep many cookbooks in my actual kitchen, THE FLAVOR BIBLE is one of few exceptions. I've long been a fan of Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg, and their latest release is often just what I needed to give my creative juices a jolt."
—Heidi Swanson, 101Cookbooks.com (October 19, 2008)

"Take 5 With Tami Hardeman: Q. I'm confident that everyone in the food blog community knows you already but for those who don't, would you like to introduce yourself? A. [That's sweet of you to say.] My name is Tami Hardeman. I'm an Atlanta-based food stylist with a blog called Running with Tweezers...Q. One cookbook that you can't live without or you recommend that everyone should have? A. It's not a cookbook...but I think THE FLAVOR BIBLE is the best food-based book I've ever gotten. So helpful and eye-opening about flavor pairing. There are taste combinations that I, for one, would never have thought go together."
—Sean, host, Take Thou Food (January 15, 2010)

Cary Taylor

"Books to Live By: Jared Van Camp, my line mate at Blackbird and now chef at Old Town Social had an affinity for books that surpassed all others.  He gave me a copy of CULINARY ARTISTRY by Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg that really helped me get a grasp on what worked together.  It is a rudimentary book that has only been trumped by the same author’s newest tome, THE FLAVOR BIBLE.  I bought it when it debuted and have cooks and servers alike grabbing it from the bookshelf in the kitchen every day. So here at the end of the year, when the 'best of' lists saturate daily candy and front pages, I decided to come up with the books that I come back to regardless of the season or situation: THE FLAVOR BIBLE by Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg:  Everything you need to know about traditional flavors, seasonality and great insight on ingredients from some wonderful chefs."
—Chef Cary Taylor, Executive Chef, Chaise Lounge (Chicago)

"Top 10 cookbooks for your Christmas gift list. Looking for the perfect cookbook for your foodie friends or that family member who really needs to learn how to cook? Good news, this year’s top 10 picks will help you choose a book that satisfies the extreme foodie on your gift list as well as the novice cook looking for how-to’s on everything from the basics of cooking to easy, elegant entertaining to deliciously preparing vegetarian fare. #1) THE FLAVOR BIBLE by Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg. Considered to be a definitive guide to bringing out the most sublime flavors of any dish, THE FLAVOR BIBLE is an invaluable resource for every day meals to please the family as well as formal dinners to impress the most discerning of guests. Drawing on the culinary insight of leading chefs around the country, authors Page and Dornenburg present a delicious compendium of hundreds of ingredients, the most optimal pairings, and expert techniques to make every dish utterly delish. The book even provides tips for mixing the best cocktails. Though THE FLAVOR BIBLE doesn’t contain a single recipe, it does give the home cook and seasoned chef a culinary reference with essential tidbits to tuck away for the next casual dish or four-course spread."
—Michele Thompson, MS, SheKnows.com (November 12, 2008)

“Here's my Christmas wish for you: I hope that the New Year brings you the ability to cook without a recipe. Today, I've got the authors of THE FLAVOR BIBLE joining me — very cool people and a very cool book....Your book just blows my mind! This is literally a bible of compatible flavors....This is truly THE book for foodies this holiday."
—Amy Tobin, Amy's Table, Q102 (Cincinnati) (December 20, 2009)

THURSDAY NIGHT SMACKDOWN

"For those who do like playing with flavor combinations but want to go a little more free-form, I highliy recommend THE FLAVOR BIBLE."
—Thursday Night Smackdown (March 20, 2009)

"Meant as a sort of companion piece to their IACP award-winning What to Drink With What You Eat, Page and Dornenburg's follow-up [THE FLAVOR BIBLE] works just as well on its own. Like its predecessor, the book is a reference material rather than a traditional cookbook. Ingredients and cuisines are listed alphabetically, enabling cooks to find complimentary flavors. Virtually all the key ingredients/flavors have at least a dozen other items/dishes that go well with them, but some such as pasta, chicken, duck and peaches, have entries that span one or more pages with expanded text to accompany their listing. In many cases the authors include commentary from well-known chefs like Emily Luchetti, Mario Batali, and Michael Lomonaco, among others, expounding on their favorite uses for key ingredients or flavors. This isn't a cookbook in the traditional sense — you won't find any recipes here. What you will find, though, are thousands of flavor combinations as well as new ideas for pairings that will enable you to add depth to your cooking as well as to create new riffs on personal favorites. New cooks may be frustrated initially, but virtually everyone who's serious about cooking as well as finding new uses for items they have on hand will find themselves referring to it again and again. Look for this to make a lot of year-end top 10 lists as well as garner an award or two."
—Kyle Tonniges, The Reader (August 25, 2008)

"Sometimes just reading what goes with what gives inspiration enough...Books focusing on ingredients can be helpful, and one impressively thorough one is THE FLAVOR BIBLE by Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg, whom you might recognize as former Washington Post wine columnists. The bulk of this book is a terrific list of hundreds of ingredients awith exhaustive pairings for each of them....The book also tells you what flavor profiles are compatible with each food and, sometimes, which flavor pairings you should avoid."
—Jane Touzalin, The Washington Post (September 9, 2009)

TRIBECA TASTE

"Greatest Cookbook Ever? Food writers Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg are great friends to Taste of Tribeca. Their latest cookbook, THE FLAVOR BIBLE, is destined to join the ranks of culinary classics."
—Tribeca Taste (October 2, 2008)

"I'm teaching a 'beyond the basics' series right now with a group of long-time students...This week the topic was seasoning, and I was sorely tempted to do a salt tasting, and then just hold up [THE FLAVOR BIBLE]. While we did go into the hows, whens, whys and whats of seasoning in as much depth as one can in a 2-hour class, I made sure to pass the book around, and pretty much implored everyone to go get it....A recent review I read of THE FLAVOR BIBLE likened it, very aptly, I thought, to the I Ching. I use it for inspiration both before and after I shop...picking up what looks great, checking the BIBLE for flavor pairings, and taking off from there, OR doing the fridge search, and then consulting Dornenburg and Page for inspiration. I absolutely love this book, a masterwork. I'm working on a book now, which gives me even more respect for it — I can't even imagine what the process of creating this entailed. Staggering."
—Cherie Mercer Twohy, one of 300 CCPs (certified culinary professionals) worldwide and owner, Chez Cherie in La Canada, California (January 30, 2009)

"National Public Radio has called them 'the brightest young author team on the culinary scene today.' Their books have won or been finalists for coveted James Beard Awards for food writing. They're wine columnists for The Washington Post, and their résumé includes hosting the first online chat done by Julia Child, back in 1996 when online chatting was a novelty. Now Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg are headed for Milwaukee as part of a multicity tour for their new book, THE FLAVOR BIBLE: The Essential Guide to Culinary Creativity, Based on the Wisdom of America's Most Imaginative Chefs (Little Brown, $35). They'll stop at the Milwaukee Public Market on Nov. 13 for a reception and book-signing. We caught up with the Manhattan-based husband-wife team to chat about their new book, an alphabetical guide to ingredients based on the expertise of famed chefs: Homaro Cantu of Moto in Chicago and Johnny Iuzzini, pastry chef of Jean Georges in New York, to name a few."
—Jan Uebelherr, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (November 5, 2008)

NorthJersey.com

"Pros reveal their favorite cooking tools. Josh Bernstein, chef-owner of 9 North in Wayne: THE FLAVOR BIBLE by Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg. 'It is the most comprehensive book on flavor matching. I live by this book,' he said. 'It helps you combine flavors and take the guesswork out of the process.'"
—Elisa Ung, restaurant reviewer, NorthJersey.com (May 24, 2009)

"Chef Glenys Morgan of Barbara-Jo’s Books to Cooks cannot wait to delve deeper into the flavours of Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg’s latest book THE FLAVOR BIBLE (hardcover, $38.50). These authors of WHAT TO DRINK WITH WHAT YOU EAT, BECOMING A CHEF and DINING OUT have completed another winning compilation in THE FLAVOR BIBLE. This book will be sacred to all ambitious chefs. Hundreds of ingredients and flavour affinities fill the pages of this essential reference guide. THE FLAVOR BIBLE is more than just lists of ingredients. The authors offer personal tips and preferences throughout, such as how kohlrabi is an underrated vegetable, etc. The taste, weight and volume of common and exotic ingredients invite cooks to learn why certain flavours and spices work with particular matches. Just as important, it highlights what to avoid in flavor combinations. This book will improve chefs of all levels and backgrounds. Stop by the shop this week to pick up this new arrival."
—UrbanDiner.ca (September 22, 2008)

"This delightful book is a reference for anyone who likes to make up recipes as they go along and wants a starter for their creative juices. Organized alphabetically by ingredient, each item has a list of complementary flavors. Each list contains items in bold and in all capital letters, indicating the highest popularity of the pairing among chefs. For example, rosemary goes well with apricots, mackerel, and risotto (among many, many other things); combines particularly well with eggplant and roasted meats; its best friends include pork and potatoes; and both lamb and garlic are its perfect match. Quotes by well-known chefs about flavors and names of popular dishes are shared throughout the book, and with two introductory chapters, they are both inspiring and pleasurable to read. Whether you love to cook or love to read about food, this book is highly recommended."
—Kariin Van Ausdal, Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh
(October 2009)

"No matter your culinary level of expertise, following are a few must-have cooking basics for your pantry library....And when you think you've got the hang of this cooking thing, you'll want to add THE FLAVOR BIBLE: The Essential Guide to Culinary Creativity, Based on the Wisdom of America's Most Imaginative Chefs — cited as one of the best books of 2008 — by Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg. Karen and Andrew are the brilliant husband and wife team who masterfully open the door to deconstructed, behind-the-scenes culinary experiences. And THE FLAVOR BIBLE is no exception. An alphabetical index of flavors and ingredients, the book allows readers to search complimentary combinations for a particular ingredient. The listings, combinations and short essays from various chefs on different matches are meant to inspire rather than dictate. I compare it to the equivalent of a Pantone swatch book for the fellow graphic designers out there."
—Dawn Viola, adjunct design instructor at IADT in Orlando, The Examiner (March 5, 2009)

Speed Reading: Books, Books, Fish: ...Q. Now, cooking: THE FLAVOR BIBLE. Why, oh why, oh why have we got a cookery book on the Speed Read? A. "In the last two weeks, we've just been hit by a seeming avalanche of cookery books. And a lot of them are good, but THE FLAVOR BIBLE is really head and shoulders above the rest. It's not a traditional cookery book, in the sense that it doesn't give you any recipes. But what the authors did was they went round and interviewed all of the top chefs in the U.S. and they wrote a list of all the possible ingredients you could use — like beef, cottage cheese, Parmesan, beans — and they describe the taste of those ingredients. What they've done very cleverly is made a list of the flavors which best complement these things....It's almost like a flavor palette. It's really for people who want to be creative and imaginative but are not sure which flavors go best with which."
—Matthew Wake, owner of Books Books Books, an English-language bookstore in Lausanne, on World Radio Switzerland (May 15, 2009)

"Flavored With History: Ever since Adam first bit into that apple, flavor has had an astounding effect on mankind.  Please join us as the award-winning husband-and-wife team of Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg speak about flavor pairings  in food and drink throughout history. Their talk will be based on their new book,  THE FLAVOR BIBLE:  The Essential Guide to Culinary Creativity, Based on the Wisdom of America's Most Imaginative Chefs. This is a unique tome, in that it doesn't contain a single recipe.  Rather, it provides inspiration for the creation of an unlimited number of dishes.  One of their first books, CULINARY ARTISTRY, offered a groundbreaking approach to the idea of flavor pairings and garnered astounding sales [approaching] 100,000 copies; the book is said to have revolutionized the way leading chefs cook, including Chicago’s Grant Achatz of Alinea, who claims it is his most used cookbook.. THE FLAVOR BIBLE has already been described as CULINARY ARTISTRY on steroids."
—WBEZ.org, Chicago Public Radio (November 2008)

"In THE FLAVOR BIBLE, Andrew Dornenburg and Karen Page have put together the be-all, end-all to figuring out what foods work best to bring out the best taste...A godsend...This is incredible. You've tapped some of the greatest minds in kitchens across America, for crying out loud...This is probably the most unique book on cooking out there."
—Don Weeks, host, WGY Radio (October 13, 2008)

"When I heard the UPS truck outside this morning I knew what it was delivering: my new copy of THE FLAVOR BIBLE: The Essential Guide to Culinary Creativity, Based on the Wisdom of America's Most Imaginative Chefs. I ran downstairs from my office to the front door and there it was…I’d heard from many of my food-loving friends and bloggers about this fabulous book, but had no idea how good it really is. So good that I just had to share it with you. As someone who writes about food I often struggle to come up with something clever and delicious. This book has solved that problem! Thank you Karen and Andrew for what must have been an exhausting exercise. Comprised of an impressive and extensive list of foods and cuisines, the book includes synonyms, seasons, functions, cooking techniques, flavor affinities/matching, and more. Brilliant! For example, if you have a bunch of chestnuts and don’t know what to do with them it suggests ingredients from Armagnac to sweet Marsala, but recommends avoiding berries. Flavor affinities for chestnuts include bacon and fennel or orange and pear, to name just a couple. Call-outs are also given to famous chefs and how they use that particular ingredient — such as Gina DePalma, pastry chef at Babbo, who created a Chestnut Spice Cake With Mascarpone Cream. Simply put, THE FLAVOR BIBLE is an inspiring must-have for your kitchen! Even if you don’t write about food."
—Sheri Wetherell, VP, Foodista Blog (January 28, 2009)

"Get to Know Seasoning Commandments in 'Flavoring Bible.' It's not easy taking on some of the culinary world's biggest questions, but Karen Page and her husband Andrew Dornenburg seem to enjoy the work. Spending hours polling chefs, producers and others in the food world to create their multi-layered culinary guidebooks, they've tackled BECOMING A CHEF, DINING OUT, and WHAT TO DRINK WITH WHAT YOU EAT. Their latest is THE FLAVOR BIBLE: The Essential Guide to Culinary Creativity, Based on the Wisdom of America's Most Imaginative Chefs (Little, Brown). It takes on the culinary code that lives within great cooks: think flavor pairings like corn and basil, pears and blue cheese or sausage and apples....In other words, it lists nearly every food, herb, spice and condiment you can think of, and offers up every food, herb, spice and condiment that goes with it — some called out in bold or capital letters if they're truly great pairs."
—Rachel Wharton, New York Daily News (September 24, 2008)

"Pick of the Week: THE FLAVOR BIBLE. One would think such an ephemeral idea as'flavor' couldn't be nailed down, but the duo behind THE FLAVOR BIBLE — a glossy new colossus of cook porn devoted to creative flavor combinations — is up to the challenge. Authors Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg delight in turning recipes on their ear, urging readers to explore the salty, sour, bitter and sweet world of which spices and ingredients taste good together and why — with a little cross-referencing and advice from some of the world's best chefs tossed in along the way. Page and Dornenburg are no strangers to this territory: 2007's WHAT TO DRINK WITH WHAT YOU EAT won the International Association of Culinary Professionals' Cookbook of the Year award, while their home mantle fairly groans with other accolades for their past cookbook work. And the couple also pens the Washington Post's weekly wine column, so yeah, they know a little bit about good taste. The cost of Thursday's meet-and-greet with Page and Dornenburg ($35) includes the book, wine, appetizers and all the kitchen talk you can muster between mouthfuls. in Good Taste, 231 NW 11th Ave., 248-2015. 5:30 pm. $35. Reservations required. Register at ingoodtastestore.com."
—Willamette Week (Week of September 24, 2008)

"More than Ten Commandments: Thou shalt read THE FLAVOR BIBLE, the ultimate ingredient guide: The world's most imaginative chefs know great cooking goes beyond merely following a recipe — it's knowing how to season ingredients to coax the great possible flavour from them. But that's only one part of the puzzle. In THE FLAVOR BIBLE, prolific food-book authors Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg offer insight into the thought processes of chefs....Page and Dornenburg's hefty, cross-referenced encyclopedia takes every ingredient and tells you quite simply how best to prepare it and what flavours enhance it....THE FLAVOR BIBLE will make you think about all of your favourite recipes in a different light."
—Kasey Wilson, Wine Access magazine (February / March 2009)

"Training: THE FLAVOR BIBLE. Since the activity has been low, I thought to come up with a quick but kalasbra books. It was enough with a quick gluttar in the book — THE FLAVOR BIBLE by Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg....An ambitious attempt to explain what the taste is, and that in the spirit linnéansk catalog and systematize all edible. I'm not sure I agree with everything but it is an impressive approach and less push than the molecular gastronomy approaches to para raw materials with similar flavor molecules. Now I am a little wind and whimpers even. I anguish over my own stupidity not to have bought the book before. I met Mr Dornenburg at a cocktail [party] before the gala, when he received prize for the couple's last book on pairing food with wine [WHAT TO DRINK WITH WHAT YOU EAT], found him both likable and knowledgeable, and then forgot to buy both the book and this one. And I will call me matnörd! More detailed review follows eventually, but do not wait to order it. Surely, you deserve an extra Christmas present?"
—Lisa Forare Windbladh, Matmolekyler.taffel.se (December 25, 2008) (auto-translated from Swedish by Google)

"I purchased [THE FLAVOR BIBLE] recently, and it has given me a lifetime's worth of amazing ideas. It has also changed the way I shop: now I arm myself with a list of possible complementary flavors, then see what looks freshest at the store, and cook! Everything I've made since this purchase has met with rave reviews. There are a number of excellent, even award-winning cookbooks, on my shelf, but this one is in a league of its own. Treat yourself and your loved ones to these flavor combinations."
—E. Winn, Vitamins, etc. in Austin, TX (January 30, 2009)

"California's wine culture that came of age in the Bay Area during the past several decades has since spread to libations that were for a while considered as hip as the Edsel. But it was the connoisseur's approach to wine that has foodies scouring the markets for the freshest local eggplants or sipping vintage cocktails mixed with distinctive ingredients. Adhering to that flavor-first philosophy, New York-based Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg have produced a guide that can help in those bewildering moments when the question arises: 'What is that? And how do you use it?' Or, just 'What's for dinner tonight?' THE FLAVOR BIBLE takes the approach that a great chef is like a poet, putting together ingredients — instead of words — in surprising ways. But the culinary bards, who are married and write a wine column for The Washington Post, keep their feet planted in reality with advice about more prosaic foods such as sauerkraut and sausages. 'Cuisine is no longer determined by geography. Now it's determined by flavor,' said Page, who has a background in journalism and economics — and a food-loving Midwestern family. Dornenburg, a professional chef, used to make regular pilgrimages to Top Dog as a teen. But it was at the Santa Fe Bar and Grill in Berkeley under the hand of Jeremiah Tower, of Chez Panisse fame, that the Concord native's passion for food was ignited. The couple's approach in THE FLAVOR BIBLE takes up where their earlier book CULINARY ARTISTRY left off in 1996, when they realized that chefs had to thumb through cookbooks to come up with the information that they spent the past eight years compiling. The authors arranged everything in a 380-page tome that functions like an index of flavor and a simplified descriptive version of Dmitri Mendeleev's periodic table. Instead of chemicals, however, THE FLAVOR BIBLE includes vegetarian dishes, tofu and just about every cut of beef a butcher can carve, as well as Tex-Mex and Thai cuisine. THE FLAVOR BIBLE the couple's eighth book, is not a cookbook although the volume includes discoveries, tips and techniques from top chefs, such as 'Selecting and Using Salt,' or 'Herbs 101.' Think of the book more as a dating service for ingredients, matching the compatible ones and warning against the wrong pairings, whether it is the day's discoveries at a farmers' market or leftovers. Recipes are included in the couple's previous book, WHAT TO DRINK WITH WHAT YOU EAT. There they offered advice about putting food and drink together — including nonalcoholic beverages — to enhance the flavors of both. Readers get the lowdown on what goes with Chimay beer or escargot, as well as french fries, McDonald hamburgers, Oreos, osso bucco and oysters. No surprise that flounder pairs well with a Chablis but it also goes well with cocktails containing cognac. But who knew Zinfandel was the right pick for Doritos, or that Champagne works with doughnuts? ' We wanted to simplify the wine world,' Dornenburg said. 'We wanted to make it easy to get started with any meal.'"
—Angela Woodall, Oakland Tribune and Alameda Times-Star, The Argus, Contra Costa Times, The Daily Review, Inside Bay Area, San Mateo County Times, and Tri-Valley Herald (December 19, 2008)

the Book Brothel

"THE FLAVOR BIBLE by Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg. Rating: 10/10....Before this book existed, I didn’t know I needed it, but now I don’t want to cook without it....An absolute must-have for anyone who aspires to cook better food of any type of cuisine."
—Lisa Yanaky, BookBrothel.com (February 11, 2009)

"Corn Broth: The idea of using husks to make corn broth comes from Vitaly Paley of Paley’s Place in Portland, Ore., as mentioned in THE FLAVOR BIBLE by Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg. I like to use cobs, husks and even silks for as much corn flavor as possible. This broth can be used as the base of soups such as Corn-Poblano (see related recipe); it also can stand in for chicken broth in corn risotto and can be added in increments to sauces for a boost of corn flavor."
—Joe Yonan, food editor, The Washington Post (July 29, 2009)

"THE FLAVOR BIBLE: Karen Page, Andrew Dornenburg. 'It's kind of like chess,' says Joe Marcus, chef of the West Bank Cafe. 'You start with one move, and you see another move down the road, and then after that you're thinking two or three moves / ingredients, and you have a complete dish...It's an imperative. It's a great book. Every chef should have this book....'"
—YouTube.com (October 22, 2008)

"THE FLAVOR BIBLE (Karen Page, Andrew Dornenburg): This is a new one, and I’m working my way through it.  It’s a fascinating reference companion.  Here’s how it works.  You have an ingredient — say — crab.  You look it up, and it lists all the flavors that could work with it.  Classic flavors, like avocados, chives and lemon are in bolded caps.  Recommended flavors, like ginger, lemongrass and Dijon mustard, are bolded.  But it also gives some flavor additions you may not have considered, like apples, mangoes, and yogurt.  It’s compiled by surveying the world’s top chefs.  Really cool for the kitchen flavor Picasso."
—ZenKimchi.com, Korean Food Journal, the longest-running Korean food blog (December 20, 2009)

"THE FLAVOR BIBLE by Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg. For the serious cook or those that aim to be, Page and Dornenburg have assembled a compelling toolkit that will allow culinary creatives to concoct their own recipes and develop ways to expand their repertoire.Indeed, there are no recipes here; rather there is a comprehensive encyclopedia of ingredients describing what they can be tastefully combined with. Each item is detailed by the season in which it is available, overall taste, weight, volume, cooking techniques and numerous tips. So, if you have ever wondered what to do with some of the more exotic vegetables, spices and meats you find at your local ethnic food store or Whole Foods, THE FLAVOR BIBLE offers a cornucopia of ideas for fresh experimentation."
—Sarah Zupko, PopMatters.com (November 26, 2008)

Andrew with Daniel Boulud,
celebrating TFB on Halloween

FOR MEDIA INQUIRIES or to request a review copy of THE FLAVOR BIBLE, please contact Carolyn O'Keefe at Little, Brown at
carolyn.okeefe@hbgusa.com

To read the press release for THE FLAVOR BIBLE, click here.
For a .jpg of the cover of THE FLAVOR BIBLE, click here.
For a B&W .jpg of the authors' headshot, click here.
For a four-color .jpg of the authors, click here.

Hachette Book Group USA