The esteemed food critic for the "San Francisco Chronicle" has spent years twisting the arms of the Bay Area's best chefs for the secrets to their signature dishes--now collected in this must-have cookbook.

The founder of Gigi’s Cupcakes shares her personal success story, her hard-won business acumen, and the life-changing inspiration that has helped her follow her dreams in this warm-hearted and encouraging memoir that “will inspire savvy entrepreneurs to invest in their own dreams” (Daymond John, star of ABC’s Shark Tank). Featuring delicious dessert recipes for cupcakes and more in each chapter. As a young child, Gigi knew that if she wanted to succeed, she had to work hard and offer a service that people wanted to buy. At age seven, she sold eggs out of her little red wagon to neighbors. At age fifteen, she bought cleaning supplies and started a cleaning service out of her rural California home. When she moved to Nashville at nineteen, she had her heart set on becoming a country music star. Cleaning houses by day to support herself for over a decade, she realized that God had other plans for her. If she wouldn’t be a successful singer, she decided she would grow a business that she could be proud of. An extraordinary baker throughout her life, she decided to open a cupcake shop with all the money she could pull together. With the help and support of her family, she was able to open her first store in a prime Nashville location. The news of her cupcakes spread quickly, and the franchise became a huge success. Now, in The Secret Ingredient, Gigi reveals how her failure led her to explore her passion for baking and how she became a successful businesswoman. With spunk, humor, and insight, she weaves her hard-won wisdom and business acumen into the fun, fascinating, and instructive stories of her life. Each inspirational chapter concludes with a treasured family recipe for cupcakes and other scrumptious desserts. For anyone with big dreams, Gigi’s message is simple: believe in yourself, walk with integrity, work hard, and trust in God. Your life may not turn out exactly how you expected or hoped, but it will be so much better than you could have ever imagined. “If you ever need to feel inspired by a dreamer, this is a must read” (Tony Brown, music producer).

How would you like to serve up five-star restaurant food at your next dinner party? QVC personality Hope Fox makes it possible with this one-of-a-kind cookbook, which shares amazing recipes from 100 top restaurants across the country—ten each from ten top food cities. Best of all, Fox has streamlined and simplified all of the recipes so you can easily prepare them in your own kitchen, using basic equipment and supermarket ingredients. The book is brimming with impressively delicious starters and main courses—Braised Duck Legs with Asian Spices from Jean Georges in New York, Seared Scallops with Tomato Beurre Blanc from Restaurant Michael Mina in San Francisco, and Chicory Coffee Lacquered Game Hens from Commander's Palace in New Orleans, to name just three. With dishes like these, plus 97 more from restaurants like Spaggia in Chicago, Jöel in Atlanta, and Lucques in Los Angeles, it’ll be a cinch to impress your dinner party guests—for less!

How our collective intelligence has helped us to evolve and prosper Humans are a puzzling species. On the one hand, we struggle to survive on our own in the wild, often failing to overcome even basic challenges, like obtaining food, building shelters, or avoiding predators. On the other hand, human groups have produced ingenious technologies, sophisticated languages, and complex institutions that have permitted us to successfully expand into a vast range of diverse environments. What has enabled us to dominate the globe, more than any other species, while remaining virtually helpless as lone individuals? This book shows that the secret of our success lies not in our innate intelligence, but in our collective brains—on the ability of human groups to socially interconnect and learn from one another over generations. Drawing insights from lost European explorers, clever chimpanzees, mobile hunter-gatherers, neuroscientific findings, ancient bones, and the human genome, Joseph Henrich demonstrates how our collective brains have propelled our species' genetic evolution and shaped our biology. Our early capacities for learning from others produced many cultural innovations, such as fire, cooking, water containers, plant knowledge, and projectile weapons, which in turn drove the expansion of our brains and altered our physiology, anatomy, and psychology in crucial ways. Later on, some collective brains generated and recombined powerful concepts, such as the lever, wheel, screw, and writing, while also creating the institutions that continue to alter our motivations and perceptions. Henrich shows how our genetics and biology are inextricably interwoven with cultural evolution, and how culture-gene interactions launched our species on an extraordinary evolutionary trajectory. Tracking clues from our ancient past to the present, The Secret of Our Success explores how the evolution of both our cultural and social natures produce a collective intelligence that explains both our species' immense success and the origins of human uniqueness.

Janine Allis explains how she grew Boost Juice bars into a global phenomenon. How do you turn a single juice bar into a global company with more than 6000 employees and $160 million in global sales? Ask Janine Allis. In The Secrets of My Success, Australia’s hottest entrepreneur tells the inside story of the growth of Boost Juice, including her personal journey from housewife with no formal business training to successful entrepreneur. Along the way, she discovered the 30 business and leadership tips she calls her ‘recipes for success’. The Secrets of My Success also explores how Allis’s personal philosophy based on a love for life has brought the company loyal customers and created satisfied, dedicated employees. The perfect guide for budding entrepreneurs to reject the traditional wisdom that the only way to succeed in business is with a business degree An inside look at the successful management and leadership philosophy of one of Australia’s greatest entrepreneurs Includes a full-colour photo insert section. For today’s entrepreneur looking for non-traditional paths to extreme success, The Secrets of My Success offers practical business and leadership wisdom combined with Allis’s own compelling personal story.

Learn to cook from the best chefs in America Some people say you can only learn to cook by doing. So Adam Roberts, creator of the award-winning blog The Amateur Gourmet, set out to cook in 50 of America's best kitchens to figure out how any average Joe or Jane can cook like a seasoned pro. From Alice Waters's garden to José Andrés's home kitchen, it was a journey peppered with rock-star chefs and dedicated home cooks unified by a common passion, one that Roberts understands deeply and transfers to the reader with flair, thoughtfulness, and good humor: a love and appreciation of cooking. Roberts adapts recipes from Hugh Acheson, Lidia Bastianich, Roy Choi, Harold Dieterle, Sara Moulton, and more. The culmination of that journey is a cookbook filled with lessons, tips, and tricks from the most admired chefs in America, including how to properly dress a salad, bake a no-fail piecrust, make light and airy pasta, and stir-fry in a wok, plus how to improve your knife skills, eliminate wasteful food practices, and create recipes of your very own. Most important, Roberts has adapted 150 of the chefs' signature recipes into totally doable dishes for the home cook. Now anyone can learn to cook like a pro!

This eye-opening book introduces a new definition of success, emphasizing personal rather than material goals. As he delineates the seven biblical secrets to success, Gaylord Briley shows readers how God encourages them to succeed and offers them a blueprint for doing so.

Can Scarlett discover the secret ingredient to happiness? Scarlett is sick of being the star—and victim—of her mom's famous blog. Her solution? Become completely boring and deprive her mom of embarrassing material. The only problem is, being boring is, well, boring. So when Scarlett finds a gorgeous kitchen in the house next door, left empty by an elderly neighbor during a hospital stay, it's too tempting to resist. Before she really knows what she's doing, Scarlett is whipping up a batch of scones...and making an unexpected friend. But can they keep their baking a secret? And can Scarlett find the secret ingredients—to cake, family, and friendship?

Millions of viewers have watched the contestants on The Biggest Loser, NBC's hit show, radically transform their bodies and their lives. In turn, many of those inspired fans have shed countless pounds on their own by following The Biggest Loser weight-loss program. But as anyone who has tried to get in shape knows, the hardest part of any regimen isn't the battle of the bulge--it's the battle of the mind! Now, the contestants share their diet and exercise success secrets and confess what helped them overcome their biggest challenges. Through their astonishingly candid revelations, you'll learn how to: -Find the time and energy to work out -Overcome powerful cravings for your favorite foods -Avoid slipping back into unhealthy-but comfortable-habits -Power through weight-loss plateaus -Overcome the temptation to quit and regain focus -Maintain weight after reaching your goal Staying healthy is a daily battle-and The Biggest Loser contestants have learned what it takes to win! Discover how their tried-and-true diet and exercise tips, insider wisdom, and personal stories can help you achieve your goals and live the life you've always wanted.

The difference between rich and poor is universal. Less than 2 percent of people on Earth truly know what it takes and they are not bad people like you think. It's not who you know, or talent or luck or hard work. The answer is simpler than you think but it means completely changing your perspective of life itself. This highly inspirational life-changing book from world-renowned speaker author Markus Rothkranz reveals the step by step detailed outline to never being afraid of money ever again. Includes interviews with three powerful wealthy people who play with the richest most famous people on Earth, who share their secrets and blow all the myths you've ever heard about the rich. Your dreams exist for a reason. It is your destiny to prosper and help the world. We are entering a new golden era of opportunity, where normal people can finally thrive and live their dreams.