Bear needs title for cookbook, offers prize

Thank you, all, for your thoughts and suggestions: those who took it seriously; those who had fun; and the others. Here are all the titles suggested so far, posted here and delivered privately. At the moment, I think my favorite is "Strange Breadfellows," but, God help us all, I am also drawn to "Buuuuuuuuurp." (Many people missed or chose to ignore the fact that these are real recipes, that may actually taste good.) The decision (by the publisher) needs to be made in about 6 or 7 weeks, when their next catalog goes into production. So any further thoughts, either posted here, or to me at [email protected], will be welcomed. Thank you. --John

Bill Highsmith
Bearly Cooking: 100 Recipes to Write Home About
Palate Persuasion: 100 Recipes to Challenge Your Cooking Comfort Zone
Quirky Cuisine: <one of above subtitles>
The Kitchen Tinker: (186) Eclectic Recipes and Hare Braising Tales
Cooking East of Eden: Recipes and Tales
Extreme Cooking: the <Gourmet> Survival Guide
The <Gourmet> Guide to Extreme Cookery: <subtitle>
Recipes your Mother Never Told You (and Never Will): <subtitle>

Neil Hynd
101 Things to do with a Dead Chicken

Bill Huffman
Bear's Guide to Cooking for Fun

Tracy Gies
Bear's Guide to Cooking Food Nontraditionally
What Comes Before the Colon: A Guide to Pleasing Your Digestive Tract With Nontraditional Cooking

Quinn Tyler Jackson
Unusual, but not Un-Bear-able: Bears' Guide to Edible Non-Traditional Cooking

Joanna Enderlin
Horse of a Different Color: Unusual(ly) Good Recipes
Cooking Outside of the Box
You Put What in Where?
Unusual(ly) Good Recipes and Mostly True Stories
Cooking for Smarties: Recipes no Dummy would Dare
Daringly Different: Unusual Ingredients, Combinations, Preparations and Mostly True Food Stories

Betty Arehart
Culinary Surprises
A Touch of the Unique
The Unique Touch
Culinary Uniques

Phyllis Yee
Now, That's Interesting!
Now, That's Different!

Nicole Ballard
On Beyond Basic descriptive subtitle)
The Adventuresome Chef: (descriptive subtitle)
Recipes for Adventure: (etc.)
Chocolate-Salmon Casserole and Other Recipes for the Jaded Palate
Culinary Uncustomary

Ellen Crowley
Strange Breadfellows

Tami Ellinport
Recipes That Call for What?

Shirley Stuckey
Odd-Eat-ies

Mary Monaco
An Unusual Cookbook

Hope Wile
Not Your Mother’s Cookbook

PSalmon
Fear and Loathing in the Alimentary Canal: A Masochist's Guide to Gastrointestinal Distress
Gag Reflex: 163 Shocking Recipes to Raise Your Bile
After the Apocalypse: Cooking for the Damned or
Feed the Damned: Cooking for a Post-Apocalyptic Age
Iron Chef: Gutbusting Recipes for an Iron Constitution
What Color Is Your Gastric Chute? A Stomach-Churning Guide for the Brave and Foolhardy

Russell Morris
More-Than-Wonderful Meals: Culinary Credentials for the Less-Than-Wonderful Chef

Peter French
Buuuuuuuuuuuuuurp!

Tom Hogan
Food for Thought - A readers guide to Gastrological Delights

Gerstl
Bear's guide to the best distance recipes: How to cook in the kitchen while sitting in the living room watching TV

 

A few titles that come to mind:

The Surrealist's Cookbook
Dinner Take All
Removable Feasts
Stomach-Pumping Delights
Cooking With Norman: Recipes From the Bates Motel
Cafe Bourgeoisie
Guess What's Coming to Dinner



Cheers,

------------------
Tom Head
www.tomhead.net

co-author, Bears' Guide to the Best Education Degrees by Distance Learning (Ten Speed Press)
co-author, Get Your IT Degree and Get Ahead (Osborne/McGraw-Hill)

 

Another cookbook!?!? That's just what the bookstores need! It's kind of like the adage, "The world could always use another good lawyer."

 

A Spoonful of ... Something

Just Try It

 

Rat Meat and Other Delicacies: Bay Area Cooking After the Dot-Com Crash

 

I have several ideas:
Cooking Kooky.
Cooking Concoctions.
Cooking Combinations.
Cookery Combinations.
Food Fusions.
Gadfly Gastronomy.
Gastronomy Gadfly.
Gadfly Gastronome.
Improbable Preparations.
Dining Diverse.
Delirius Dinners.
Eating Unusual.
Eating Eccentric.
Eating Exciting.
Eating Excitement.
Variety Victuals.
Victual Variety.
(It's too bad "Epicurious" has been used.)
The Errant Epicure.
The Craft of Grazing Grafts.
Cool Cuisine.
New Nosh.
Speaking of unusual combinations, how is this: I rarely come across these because I rarely move among the "elite" folk who come up with them, but I was at some event some years ago at Columbia University, and the caterers served these little circles of white bread, topped with cream cheese or butter, topped with sliced turkey, topped with sliced kiwi fruit. It sounded terrible, but it was quite tasty.

 

Actually, the turkey/kiwi combo sounds tasty -- and so refined.

Victual Variety isn't bad -- and if there's a website associated with it, then that could be Virtual Victual Variety.

 

Yes -- has that jeunesse croissant.


How about:

Vital Victuals: A Variety of Eclectic Recipes for Slightly Eccentric Tastes

 

Bear's Guide to Grizzly Cooking

 

Cooking Chutzpah: Recipes for Effect

Started out as a tongue-twisting joke, but then began to like it, in part:
Cookery Chutzpah or Kosher Kookery?

 

How's about:

Your Dog Will Love These, Too

Un"Bear"ably Good Cooking

There Are Starving Children In China Who Would Kill To Eat This Stuff
(it never worked for Mom, but hey!)


I'll probably buy it, too, and contribute further to the Bear Family fortune (every penny well-spent, I might add).

Good Luck,


Tony

 

So I posted a simple "unusual recipes wanted" message yesterday on a recipe forum (epicurious.com), and overnight, I have (a) five really neat recipes, and (b) seventeen really hostile "stop spamming this group with your phony sales pitch" sorts of messages.

Sigh.

Do you suppose there is any forum or news group that is safe? I once joined "Good Bears of the World" (www.goodbearsoftheworld.com), whose sole purpose is delivering teddy bears to sick children in hospitals. I wonder if they have their attackers as well?

 

Weird and disgusting food: http://www.andreas.com/food.html

Not a title suggestion (but I wouldn't turn down the 1/2 kilobuck).

I've been exposed to the durian fruit at a Thai friend's house. It is prepared outdoors because of its uniquely revolting smell.

 

There's a place in Oakland's Chinatown that has durian ice cream. The Chinese friend who took me there said she was once on a flight from Hong Kong to San Francisco that had to turn back when a durian fell from the overhead rack and broke, and the odor so was absolutely overpowering.

At the point, on December 9th, the title finalists, are:

Strange Breadfellows
Off the Wall and Onto Your Plate
Now that's different
This is not your mother's cookbook (unless your mother specialized in really unusual recipes)
Flabbergastronomy
A Taste of the Unique
Extreme Cooking
The Adventuresome Chef

But none is the clear leader at this point, and there are still 3 or 4 weeks to when the spring catalog goes into production.

 

You have listed them in the order of my least favorite to first pick. This may not be in order of funniest but I think you really want a title that sells more books.

 

Cooking without a Parachute:

(or without a net)

 

"What's the Difference? It All Ends Up in the Same Place."

 

Haute Queasine
Recipes You Ort To Try


------------------
Bill Gossett

 

A bit of trivia . . . In the gay male culture, the term bear is used to refer to someone who is very hairy, often a stereotypical trucker or biker type, usually overweight, and often in leather. As in "GWM seeks bear for..."

And no. Unfortunately, I don't think there are any safe forums or newsgroups unless they are moderated closely. In any forum - just as in any classroom, any organization, any church, etc. - there is always at least one jackass who likes to disrupt things.

 

Who Moved My Cheese and Replaced It With This?