Hardcover 176 pages, with 45 photographs
Published 2009 ISBN 978-1-60085-118-6 Product #071264
The International Association of Culinary Professionals (IACP) has named
DamGoodSweet by David Guas and Raquel Pelzel a
2010 Cookbook Award Finalist in the American category and
Baking and Dessert category for the
2010 James Beard Foundation Book Awards.
50 down-home dessert recipes from New Orleans. Don't miss this delicious opportunity to experience the tempting treats of this richly diverse city in a fascinating cookbook that's part travelogue and part memoir.
A rich gumbo of authentic Southern sweets. You won't be able to decide which one of these amazing recipes to try first! Finally, the culinary secrets and stories behind the exquisite sweets unique to the heart of Louisiana are revealed. Along with the insights that only a native son -- and a cooking pro -- can provide.
Beignets to peanut brittle to bananas Foster! Now you can recreate the to-die-for sweets -- pralines, heavenly hash, and, of course, pecan pie -- that are synonymous with New Orleans. Just a taste of what awaits you...
- Sweet Potato Tart Tatin
- Calas Fried Rice Fritters
- Lemon Icebox Pie
- Cafe au Lait Cème Brûlée
- The GAP's Fried Apple Pie
- Mahatma Rice Pudding
- Cane Syrup Ice Cream
- Black & Blue Crumble
- Red Velvet Cake and more
Pastry Chef of the Year. That's just one of the accolades awarded author David Guas. This outstanding chef-turned-restaurant-consultant captures the essence of down-home cooking he learned as a teenager in his Aunt Boo's country kitchen. And writer Raquel Pelzel contributes her vast culinary experience as a former editor and cookbook author.
A lagniappe at its very best! A chapter of this book is devoted to "lagniappes", a Southern term for small unexpected gifts. And it's a fitting way to describe this cookbook -- a gorgeously packaged sampling of New Orleans's sweetest treats!
Order yours now!
Read what others had to say about DamGoodSweet:
"When I take a bite (well, okay, 15 bites) of David Guas' Chocolate Bread Pudding and Red Velvet Cake I think, thank goodness for his Aunt Boo and his childhood sno-ball stand. There's no one more qualified to bring us all the delicious flavors, smells, and memories of a lost New Orleans."
-- Tanya Wenman Steel, Editor-in-Chief, Epicurious.com
"A one-man preservation society and dessert cart marching band, pastry chef David Guas' irresistible New Orleans recipes should ignite more joy and abandon than a month of Mardi Gras."
-- Michael Batterberry, Editor-in-Chief/Publisher, Food Arts Magazine
"Your desserts have always been the talk of the town and your reputation as a pastry chef is equal to none. We are looking forward to the unveiling of more of your wonderful creations."
-- Roland Mesnier, former White House Executive Pastry Chef
"This is a great book that truly makes the refined world of sweets approachable. David Guas does a marvelous job of incorporating his love and passion of the Southern larder with soulful pastries and sweets. A Dam Good Sweet book!"
-- John Besh, Chef of Restaurant August, named Best Chef of the Southeast by the James Beard Foundation in 2006
"New Orleans is a city rich in a culinary tradition of sweets. In his recipes, David allows us to share in these Southern traditions, which include quintessential desserts like beignets and bread pudding to lesser known but still important Fried Apples Pies and Banana Pudding with Vanilla Wafer Crumble."
--
Emily Luchetti, Executive Pastry Chef, Farallon and Waterbar Restaurants, and author of
Classic Stars Desserts,
A Passion for Desserts, and
A Passion for Ice Cream
I was no angel growing up in New Orleans, a city that caters more to debauchery than to chastity. At the ripe old age of 14 I'd break out of my bedroom window and sneak into the garage to "borrow" my dad's car, coasting in neutral until I was midway down the block before daring to turn on the ignition. I had a fake ID and routinely snuck off my high school's campus. I'd lie to my parents, fight with my sister, and be an all-around punk of a kid--and when I pushed mom and dad too far, they'd send me to Aunt Boo's in Abbeville, three hours west of New Orleans, where I could, according to Aunt Boo, have some good, clean fun and gain back my righteousness by making roux.
At Aunt Boo's house, the kitchen was sacred. It wasn't fancy, dressed up with polished copper pots and the like; it was functional. She had a few time-honored and blackened cast iron pots and skillets that she used for her gumbos and étouffées, a few baking pans, and a hard-working oven. I'd enter the kitchen and find her at the stove, a wooden spoon in one hand, a cold beer in the other, stirring up a pot of something that smelled so amazing I thought I'd died and gone to heaven. I took comfort in her kitchen, a place of order and rules that were not broken under any circumstances. She was the master and I her apprentice. It was my first taste of kitchen hierarchy.
Together, Aunt Boo and I made classic Louisiana dishes like shrimp Creole and a spicy redfish and tomato stew called coubeyon (say it: coo-BE-yawn with a silent "n" at the end). She taught me how to blacken fish, whip up her Nana's old-school banana bread, and make my first roux. Heck, she even gave me my first cast iron pan. The most important lesson that I learned from her was that there's a time for fun, and a time to be serious, and cooking good, honest food was a serious matter. It was in her kitchen that the seeds for my future as a chef were sown.
I got my first break as a pastry chef at the age of 11, when I was hired to make sno-balls (New Orleans-style shaved ice) at an old storage room that had been converted into a sno-ball stand on Chef Menteur Highway. It was the first time I ever made something that other people paid to eat. Little did I know this was the beginning of my career in desserts.
After high school, I went to college and was home within two years--the party-going New Orleanian in me came out, and my studies suffered. I got a job slinging steak in a cheesesteak shop and quickly climbed the ranks from grill cook to manager. Once again, I discovered how satisfying it was to make other people happy. Making cheesesteaks wasn't glamorous, but it pointed me in the right direction: culinary school.
I was looking through the paper one day and saw an ad for Sclafani Cooking School in Metairie. All of a sudden it clicked--I knew this was what I wanted to do with my life. I learned about mother sauces, stocks, consommés, and how to season food; the whole pastry session was--at most--three days long!
When I went looking for a job, I started with Gerard Crozier, one of the premiere French chefs in the city. He hired me to work at his restaurant, but a few days later unhired me because the person whose job I was taking changed her mind. It was a tough break but actually a lucky one, too, because a few days later I went for an interview in the best kitchen in all of New Orleans, at the Windsor Court Hotel. I applied for
a job in the savory kitchen, but the only department hiring was pastry, so I interviewed for a job there with the executive pastry chef, Kurt Ebert, a master pastry chef from Germany. He wasn't too impressed with me, but I convinced him to hire me. It changed my life.
On my first day I got a crash course in how to hold a pastry bag by piping meringue onto 400 lemon
tartlets, and I learned how to use a dough sheeter by making a seemingly never-ending supply of spicy cheese straws. I didn't catch my breath for nearly two years. Jeff Tunks, the Windsor's executive chef, would come to the pastry department in the basement and we'd shoot it for hours, him perched on a few 50-pound bags of flour and me piping, whisking, kneading, and rolling. He spoke elusively about a project he was involved with in Washington, D.C. He had his goons (a term I use lovingly to describe his sous-chefs), Cliff and Linton, take me out for billiards and Buds® and ask me all kinds of hypothetical questions, like would I leave town if the right job came along? I guess I answered the questions right because in February of 1998, I packed up and left New Orleans for the nation's capital to open a restaurant that would be known as DC Coast and to serve as its executive pastry chef.
Within seven years I had helped to open three more restaurants: TenPenh, Ceiba, and Acadiana, with me being the head of pastry for the whole family. To get inspiration for TenPenh, I went to Indonesia to learn about Southeast Asian sweets for the dessert menu. For Ceiba, a Cuban-influenced restaurant, I tapped into my Cuban heritage (my dad was born in Havana, though his mother is a native Louisianan) and
traveled to Miami to hang with my Cuban cousins. I revisited the desserts I loved best from my hometown when I compiled recipes for the Louisiana-influenced menu at Acadiana. It opened just twelve days after Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast.
The neighborhoods I grew up in, New Orleans East (a part of the Ninth Ward), and my parents? home in Lakeview were nearly erased by Hurricane Katrina. It hit me hard. After Katrina, I was inundated with memories of New Orleans. It was
then I knew I had to record and preserve not only the dessert recipes of the region but my memories, too.
DamGoodSweet is the culmination of these efforts. About two years ago I left my DC Coast family to start my own consulting business. And soon I will be opening my own bakeshop, where I?ll showcase the flavors of New Orleans and the surrounding region.
Whether due to Katrina or for other reasons, like new real estate developments or older proprietors who choose to retire, many of New Orleans's institutions, including Lawrence?s Bakery (also called Mr. Wedding Cake) in Gentilly on Elysian Fields Avenue and McKenzie's next to the A&PSM in New Orleans East, have faded away. But many are thriving, like Hansen's, Hubig's, and Clancy's.
Writing this cookbook is a way for me to celebrate the restaurants, bakeries, and sweet shops that remain and thrive in New Orleans as well as to keep alive the traditions of long-gone institutions. DamGoodSweet is for my family, friends, and anyone who holds dear the traditions and institutions of this unique city.
Customer Reviews from Amazon
Average Customer Review:
Suzie Housley, Midwest Book Review, January 3, 2010
A Southern masterpiece exists in David Guas and Raquel Pelzel's DamGoodSweet: Desserts to Satisfy Your Sweet Tooth, New Orleans Style. Through the pages of this informative cookbook you will be swept away to discover the true essence of delicious New Orleans cuisine.
The fifty recipes that make up DamGoodSweet: Desserts to Satisfy Your Sweet Tooth, New Orleans Style are derived from historic recipes of times past. Each one serves as a tribute to the true New Orleans culture.
Some of my favorite recipes that bring New Orleans to my own kitchen included:
Buttermilk Beignets
King Cake
Red Velvet Cake
Pralines
Just the mention of the above listed recipes puts a smile on my face as I remember the last time I visited New Orleans. Each recipe brings back fond memories of a city that I can't wait to revisit.
What is so unique about this book is the author intertwines the recipes with famous New Orleans landmarks. With the Buttermilk Beignet recipes a history lesson of the French Market and Cafe Du Monde is presented. This historic detail gives a greater appreciation of the recipe and its origin.
DamGoodSweet: Desserts to Satisfy Your Sweet Tooth, New Orleans Style is a cookbook that you absolutely will fall in love with. Each recipe captures the magical beauty and radiance of New Orleans. This book will become a priceless addition to your cookbook collection. You will find yourself consulting it when you want to make an extra special dessert.
Classic New Orleans, November 14, 2009
What's not to love about the taste of New Orleans? Cooks from all over the world think of the best and most exciting classic desserts when they hear the name of this famous city and its region. That is just what a home cook finds in the Dam Good Sweet (Desserts to Satisfy Your Sweet Tooth, New Orleans Style) cookbook. Recipes include: Bananas Foster; Crepes du Vieux Carre; Pecan Pie; Black and Blue Crumble; Lemon Icebox Pie; Red Velvet Cake; Pralines; Turtles; and Peanut Brittle. There are 50 delicious recipes; family and travel stories; and numerous color photographs in this unique volume. The book is gorgeous; the recipes are outstanding. I can't wait to try my hand at making the Pralines! This will also make a wonderful gift.
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