Last month I read the book An Edge in the Kitchen by Chad Ward. I’ve heard a lot of good reviews about this book, so I made it one of my first steps in an effort to improve my knife sharpening skills. But how did the book stand up to its high praise?

Well, it is definitely a worthwhile read if you are into kitchen knives or want to dive into the cutlery world a bit more. The book is essentially an expansion of a 2003 eGullet Society tutorial authored by Ward covering knife maintenance and sharpening. Here is the link to that piece.

An Edge in the Kitchen is a very good resource and does a wonderful job when providing advice on knives and sharpening equipment. It is also good at explaining the different styles of knives, types of blade steel, and highlighting the differences between European and Japanese cutlery. I also like how the book debunks several knife myths. Basically, this is a great place to start if you want to learn about sharpening knives.

With that said, the book is not a perfect product. One main flaw is that it is rather poorly organized, illustrated, and laid out. For instance, the knife skills instruction is needlessly repeated in two parts of the book, and the overview of sharpening systems is at the very end but would have been better placed earlier in the book. Even the page margins are funky leaving many pages with a strange emptiness with text squeezed in at the spine.

Other than that, I also found the book a little clumsy. The knife skills section — though informative — felt awkwardly included. I know that buying, using, and maintaining knives seems like a logical combination, but in my opinion, the skills section broke up the flow of the book. I wish the author had kept the book focused on the equipment more and hadn’t tried to address the grander topic of knife skills.

Despite these minor drawbacks, I still found the book useful and I would highly recommend buying it. It is a solid reference for knife sharpening and a good buyer’s guide for knives and accessores. With this book, you will no doubt have all the requisite information to ensure that you have sharp, well-maintained knives for your kitchen.

You can purchase An Edge in the Kitchen at Amazon, and you can also visit Chad Ward’s website at chadwrites.com.

Fine Cooking featured the cookbook How to Roast a Lamb by Michael Psilakis in the Dec/Jan issue. Psilakis is an American chef of Greek heritage out of New York City, and his contemporary takes on Greek food have made him a rising star in New American cuisine. He has operated several restaurants in New York City, but his restaurant Anthos is one of only two Greek restaurants with a Michelin star, and in 2008 Psilakis was named Best New Chef by Food & Wine and Chef of the Year by Bon Appetit.

Psilakis is a self-taught cook, and this cookbook is his first. In it he blends personal essays with beautiful photographs along with contemporary takes on Greek food. Many of the recipes are rather complex and call for a lot of ingredients, but at 304 pages thick there are still a lot of dishes that are accessible to the average cook. If anything, it will inspire people to cook more Greek food.

The cookbook, despite its title, is not just about lamb, but I was initially attracted to it because of the lamb dishes. My local CSA is now offering lamb to its members, so I will be stocking up on my lamb cuts of meat this week and want some guidance for a great holiday lamb dish. I can’t wait.

You can purchase How to Roast a Lamb at Amazon.com for $18.90.

After failing at my first attempt at making mozzarella cheese, I succeeded the second time around.  A couple of weeks ago I wrote about my less-than-satisfactory effort, so I made some changes and all worked out fine. Basically, the last time I felt that the microwave step of heating the cheese to get it all stretchy, along with the firmness of the cheese curds were the big problems. So here is what I did differently.

First of all, since temperature is important, I boiled some water and re-calibrated my thermometers, then picked which thermometer was best. It turns out the thermometer that came in the cheesemaking kit was completely off, almost ten degrees lower than the boiling point at 212 degrees. I can’t imagine anyone would have an easy time making cheese with that thermometer.

The next thing I changed is I let the curds and whey cook to a higher temperature than recommended by a few degrees, and then let the mixture sit twice as long. This ensured that my curds were nice and firm.

After the curds set, I cut them up with a knife, stirred them a bit, and reheated the mixture to the higher temp for the waterbath, all according to the recipe. I sided with using the hot waterbath method instead of the microwave, and that helped a lot. Last time, the microwave unevenly heated the cheese curds, and they ended up breaking down into a ricotta-like texture. The hot waterbath, even though a bit more time consuming, worked great for getting the mozzarella all stretchy so it could be kneaded and formed properly. It was a lot more forgiving than a microwave.

I also divided the curds into two batches so if I messed up one time, I could still have a second attempt. Both batches turned out, but it was good to have a back-up plan. For flavoring, I added thyme, freshly ground pepper, and salt.

So I am on my way to completing my top 10 cooking goals for 2010. One of those goals was making cheese, and though I will not stop with just mozzarella, I probably won’t be going crazy with home cheesemaking any time soon. I will, however, be ordering the book: Home Cheese Making (shown above) to plan out my longer term cheese projects, but the next attempt will just be a simple ricotta cheese. A while back I made some Italian gnudi (boiled ravioli stuffing) from a recipe by Giada De Laurentiis, and in that recipe it calls for ricotta. I think I will make some fresh cheese and try that instead.

I ran across today a site called Bob’s Your Uncle and they offer this great book called Dinosaur Soup. Essentially, kids explain how to cook their favorite recipes with some pretty funny results. There are some sample pages on the site that you can browse to get an idea of what is on the inside. For instance, the kids instruct that you should cook your pasta sauce until is “splatters on the stove,” stir stuff with a hose, start off with a barrel full of strawberries, and one recipe for cupcakes calls for a cup of salt.

Bob’s Your Uncle also has a set of four melamine plates that have different kid recipes on them. I think I might try this with my own child. She would probably love to see her unique recipes when she gets older.

A few years back Food & Wine recommended the stone-ground grits from Charleston Grill ($10 for 2 pounds), and I ordered them. Then I kept on ordering them. Good stone-ground grits can make a fabulous dish, and even as a northerner I loved those Charleston Grill grits. If you want to order them, the restaurant has a website, but you will have to call them to order at 843.937.9142 as there is no online shop.

Then fairly recently in Alabama, I started using an organic blue corn grits from McEwen & Sons ($7 for 2 pounds) out of Wilsonville, Alabama. They were also great and the blue color gave the grits some flair, though I couldn’t tell much difference in taste between yellow or white corn. They all seem pretty much the same to me, and it is hard to compare them to the Charleston Grill grits because I used them in different recipes.

Also in Alabama is an excellent restaurant called Highland’s Bar & Grill, and they serve a wonderful creamy grits. I don’t know what brand of grits the chef, cookbook author, and restaurateur, Frank Stitt, uses but his recipe is really good. I’ve had them a few times and they never fail. You can find his recipe here relayed via Martha Stewart. Or you can buy his cookbook, Frank Stitt’s Southern Table, at Amazon.

Several cooking magazines have recommended Anson Mills out of Columbia, South Carolina. They produce heirloom grits for many restaurants worldwide, and the October Gourmet also recommends their Carolina Whole Hominy Quick Grits if you don’t want to spend the extra time preparing them. The picture above is of Anson Mills’ coarse ground yellow grits.

Of course a search of the foodie Chowhound and eGullet forums usually reveals an abundance of recipes and resources for every cooking topic under the sun — grits included. Here are some of the other recommendations from those sites on where to buy grits online. I am sure there are more sellers as they didn’t mention my two sources, but these will provide more than a good start at least. Keep in mind that shipping costs can be high, so the price per pound is only part of the bill, and sometimes the shipping is more than the cost of the product itself.

Charleston Favorites ($6 for 1 pound)

Bob’s Red Mill ($2.19 for 24 oz. bag) You can find this brand in most stores with a natural foods section.

Hoppin’ John’s ($7 for 2 pounds)

Falls Mill ($16 for 10 pounds, the minimum for mail order)

Adams Mill in Dothan, Alabama. There’s no website, so you must call 800.239.4233.

Carolina Plantation ($8 for 2 pounds)

Nora Mill Granary ($10 for 5 pounds)

Adluh ($2.50 for 1 pound)

Logan Turnpike Mill ($5.50 for 2 pounds)

Lastly, there are tons of recipes and opinons out there on how to prepare grits, and I won’t even try to enter this discussion, but on Bon Appetit’s site, they give a very basic explanation of the types of grits and also some tips that most people agree upon. You may want to check that out before delving into the very personal world of grits preparation and hundreds of recipes.