Review: How to Cook the Finest Things in the Sea

Title: How to Cook the Finest Things in the Sea Series: Standalone Author: Ari Kolender Publish Date: April 1, 2025 Publisher: Artisan Books Genre: Cookbook Age: 16+ Started Reading: March 11, 2025 Finished Reading: March 13, 2025 NetGalley?: Yes

Book Summary from Goodreads:

James Beard award nominee and owner of LA's popular Found Oyster and Queen St. restaurants brilliantly demystifies the art of cooking fish and shellfish with 100 straightforward and delicious dishes for every seafood from cod to salmon, crab, oysters, scallops, and even tinned and frozen fish.

You don’t need to be an experienced chef to make delicious fish and shellfish. Cooking great seafood is all about simplicity and confidence, and this book gives readers the techniques to make sure their seafood always shines. Organized by cooking method, there are chapters on grilling, baking, broiling, frying, and more. Chef Ari Kolender worked at the country’s best seafood restaurants before opening his beloved spot Found Oyster in Los Angeles. Now, in his first book, Kolender teaches readers versatile, fool-proof techniques for serving up fish and shellfish every possible way. With an emphasis on sustainability, How to Cook the Finest Things in the Sea offers 100 recipes for everything from Clam Chowder and Fried Cod Sandwiches to Two Bean Squid Salad and Low Country Fish Stew. Kolender takes the intimidation out of cooking fish and shellfish. He shows why crudos, ceviches, and aguachiles are some of the easiest seafood dishes to prepare at home, and he explains how to bake fish and veggies in paper packets for the gentlest way to cook seafood. Readers will learn the ultimate grilling method to make Grilled Mackerel and Miso Barbeque Shrimp, or they can recreate the magic of a seafood shack with chicken-fried and beer battered seafood. A larder chapter features a whole world of accompaniments for seafood, including Red Yuzu Mayo and Pickled Green Tomato Tartar Sauce, plus a Seafood Primer walks readers through how to select, store, and clean the seafood they bring home. Whether seafood newbie or fanatic, How to Cook the Finest Things in the Sea will change the way readers think about seafood and guide them through techniques to unlock the dynamic flavors of fish and shellfish.

My Two Cents:

Goodreads Rating:  5 Stars

A fantastic resource for those looking to add more seafood to their diet. This book has an amazing variety of recipes to keep things from getting boring, while also giving you the information to get you well on your way to being a seafood pro. The book starts off with a lot of info on different ingredients that you get from the sea, including not only fish, shellfish, bivalves, but goes into seaweed and roe as well. There are instructions on what to look for when purchasing, and what ingredients are better fresh, canned, or frozen, and what the best way to store or prepare them are. The book is split up into type of preparation, and each section has a good variety of recipes using different types of seafood. Through the book are tips and instructions for difficult parts of preparation, like preparing a lobster or crab, many recipes also have substitution suggestions. This book isn't just for those who live near ports and can get fish fresh from the boat, it has a lot of information and recipes for using frozen, salt, canned, or smoked fish, allowing it to become a resource for anyone to enjoy seafood in their diet. I read this ebook through NetGalley.

To Sum Up: An excellent book to inspire you to include more seafood in your diet.

Review: Calm Your Roar Like a Dinoaur

Title: Calm Your Roar Like a Dinosaur Series: Standalone Author: Brenda S. Miles; Colleen A. Patterson Illustrator: John Joseph Publish Date: February 4, 2025 Publisher: Magination Press - American Psychological Association Genre: Children’s Fiction Age: 3-6 Started Reading: January 21, 2025 Finished Reading: January 21, 2025 NetGalley?: Yes

Book Summary from Goodreads:

Feeling frustrated, frenzied, or full of roar? Calm yourself like a dinosaur!

This book teaches little kids progressive-muscle-relaxation, a mindful self-guiding mediation technique proven to calm and ground the whole mind and body. With its catchy mantra and playful rhyme, Calm Your Roar presents a super fun and playful easy-to-learn skill that benefits dinos of all ages, and guaranteed to turn dinosaurs into relaxosaurs. All dinosaurs have a “roar” inside themselves, from everyday feelings of frustration, anger or stress. Dinos big and small will learn that is OK and progressive-muscle relaxation is a great way to release that roar!

My Two Cents:

Goodreads Rating: 4 Stars

If you have a kid who has big feelings and needs some help with how to handle them, especially if they like dinosaurs, this book is a huge resource. I read this to my daughter (5) and as we were going through the motions my son (2) came over and started doing them too. They both love dinosaurs so pretending their body parts were stretching like the dinosaurs' really got them involved. The illustrations were fantastic, both kids enjoyed turning the new page to see which ones were showing up. They both loved the one breathing page where the bird was getting flipped around by the dino's breath. The information at the beginning of the book for parents was great, giving additional tools to help work with the kids while we went through everything. It's a very cute book with an easy to follow pattern to help kids calm their 'roar' and get back on even footing. We read this ebook through NetGalley.

To Sum Up: A fun book to help kids learn emotion regulation.