Narsai David: Holiday Cookies and How To Cook Fast

SAN FRANCISCO (KCBS)— 'How To Cook Everything Fast' is an intriguing new cookbook by Mark Bittman. He's been doing a great job in the New York Times, but you'll find this latest effort more comprehensive as it's about as big as the family bible or a small volume of a dictionary.

It's a substantive piece of work with some 2,000 recipes that are all new. The recipes are actually color coded with prep steps in blue and cooking steps in black.

Bittman runs gamut of cooking in a short amount of time, whether that means preparing meals in 15, 30, or 45 minutes.

Also, just in time for the holidays is a book called, 'Holiday Cookies: Prize-Winning Family Recipes from the Chicago Tribune for Cookies, Bars, Brownies and More'. I keep churning through this one and every page I turn, makes me want to start doing something else.

Middle-East Fruit Bars look so dramatic on the photograph that I can't wait to get and the kitchen and try the recipe myself. The pecan pie cookie looks absolutely irresistible and there are all the traditional kinds of things you'd expect like nut crescents, short bread and plenty of chocolate items.