For many people, pastries, cakes, chocolates, and sweets come ready to eat right from the grocery store. If they're lucky, a local bakery or chocolate shop satisfies the community's sweet tooth. Few people think they have the skill or the time to tackle something as seemingly complicated and time-consuming as homemade pastry. In The Pastry Chef's Apprentice, author Mitch Stamm simplifies a culinary school's core pastry curriculum and teaches the reader just how quickly you can go from sifting and stirring to spectacular. The masters featured in The Pastry Chef’s Apprentice teach classic pastry skills, such as caramel, pate a choux, tart crusts, and more, to the amateur food enthusiast. Through extensive, diverse profiles of experienced experts plus fully illustrated tutorials and delicious recipes, the reader gets insider access to real-life chefs, bakers, culinary instructors, and more. With these new skills—or just the chance to revisit their old standards—everyone from casual cooks to devoted epicures will learn dozens of new ways to take their kitchen skills to the next level. Featured chefs include: Laurent Branlard, USA: restaurateur and Executive Pastry Chef at the Swan and Dolphin Resorts at Disney World Frederic Deshayes, France: Chief Pastry & Bakery Instructor at At-Sunrice GlobalChef Academy Thaddeus Dubois, USA: former White House Executive Pastry Chef and Culinary Mentor Robert Ellinger, UK/USA: owner of Baked to Perfection, founder of the Guild of Baking and Pastry Arts, and international pastry competition judge Lauren V. Haas, USA: Assistant Pastry Chef at Albert Uster Imports and Instructor at Johnson & Wales University Thomas Haas, Germany/USA En-Ming Hsu, USA: Chef Instructor at the French Pastry School in Chicago William Leaman, USA: World Champion Baker and Owner of Bakery Nouveau in Seattle Iginio Massari, Italy: Author, Restaurateur, and Founder of the Academy of Italian Master Pastry Chefs Kanjiro Mochizuki, Japan: Executive Pastry Chef at the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo Ewald Notter, Switzerland/USA: Founder and Director of Education of Notter School of Pastry Arts Kim Park, South Korea: owner of the Green House Bakery and captain of South Korea’s national pastry team Jordi Puigvert, Spain: founder of Sweet‘n Go, consultant, and professor at the School of the Hotel de Girona in Spain Anil Rohira, India/Switzerland: Corporate Pastry Chef for Felchlin Switzerland and coach and judge for national and international competitions Sébastien Rouxel, France/USA: Executive Pastry Chef for the Thomas Keller Restaurant Group Kirsten Tibballs, Australia: Founder of Savour Chocolate and Patisserie School in Melbourne Franz Ziegler, Switzerland: Author and Consultant

Mountains have long inspired the wit and daring of the world's most fascinating explorers. In this definitive collection of mountain lore, Alan Weber exhibits forty-three essays by artists and adventurers to whom climbing was more a mission than a sport. Beginning with the fabled tale of Hannibal's Roman invasion-men, horses, and elephants in tow-through the hitherto impassable Alps, the accounts progress to recent descriptions of high-peaks mountain climbing in Mount Everest and the formidable K-2. Included among the earlier pieces are Petrarcha's introspective journey to the Windy Mount; William Windham's exploration of Montenvers and the "Sea of Ice" in 1741; and English artist-critic John Ruskin's essay on mountain climate and culture. Literary masters portray the idyllic and imperfect aspects of mountain life: the restoration poet Andrew Marvell offers a hymn to the Barrow hills, while poems from Shelley, Lord Byron, and Matthew Arnold praise the natural beauty and fresh air of the mountain crags. Because It's There pays homage to the spiritual introspection and respect for nature engendered by the looming mountain ranges that have demarcated territories, protecting villages and cities from invasion. The explorations these mountains have inspired have tested human endurance and mental strength. Alan Weber is a research fellow of the Institute for European Studies at Cornell University and a CEMERS Associate Fellow at the State University of New York at Binghamton. He is the editor and author of Nineteenth Century Science: A Selection of Original Texts, and Women Almanac Writers (Forthcoming). A long-time member of the Penn State Outing and Cornell Outing Clubs, he has rock and ice-climbed in the Adirondacks, Green and Shawangunk Mountains, and Mount Rainier.

Join a fellow traveler on a walkabout through Paris and London, and then travel with him across England, Scotland and Wales. After those walkabouts, accompany him as he journeys across America and follows the equator to Australia. Finally, wander with him along the corridors of modern and postmodern philosophy, and as he travels with old and new Philosophes, who all voiced an opinion as regards this travel book. It is a book that people won't buy, won't read and won't praise. Mark Twain After reading only a few pages, I gave up the study of philosophy forever. Voltaire I cannot look upon the book without shedding tears. Bertrand Russell If I could only make a travel book like that, I would be perfectly willing to die-even anxious. John Dewey I have seen a great many travel books in my time, but none that this one reminds me of. Will Durant This travel book is one-third fabrication, one-third prevarication and one-third barefaced lies. However, the rest of the book is the unadulterated truth. Dr. Morris A. Nussbaum

This unique collection of "The Complete Travel Books, Anecdotes & Memoirs of Mark Twain (Illustrated)" has been designed and formatted to the highest digital standards. "The Innocents Abroad" humorously chronicles Twain's "Great Pleasure Excursion" on board the chartered vessel Quaker City through Europe and the Holy Land in 1867. "Roughing It" follows the travels of young Mark Twain through the Wild West during the years 1861–1867. The book illustrates many of Twain's early adventures, including a visit to Salt Lake City, gold and silver prospecting, real-estate speculation and a journey to the Kingdom of Hawaii. "Old Times on the Mississippi" is a short account of Twain's experiences as a cub pilot, learning the Mississippi river. "A Tramp Abroad" details Twain's journey through central and southern Europe with his friend. As the two men make their way through Germany, the Alps, and Italy, they encounter situations made all the more humorous by their reactions to them. "Life on the Mississippi" is a memoir by Mark Twain of his days as a steamboat pilot on the Mississippi River before the American Civil War, recounting his trip along the Mississippi River from St. Louis to New Orleans after the War. "Following the Equator" – In an attempt to extricate himself from debt, Twain undertook a tour of the British Empire in 1895, a route chosen to provide numerous opportunities for lectures in English. The book is a social commentary, critical of racism towards Blacks, Asians, and Indigenous groups. "Some Rambling Notes of an Idle Excursion" presents a series of stories about a trip that Twain and some friends took to Bermuda from New York City. "Chapters from my Autobiography" comprises a rambling collection of anecdotes and ruminations of Mark Twain, assembled during his life. Samuel Langhorne Clemens (1835-1910), better known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American writer, humorist, entrepreneur, publisher, and lecturer.