Check It Out:

With the holidays soon upon us, it’s time to bring out the cookbooks and look for new recipes. The Newport Beach Public Library has many to choose from for making your holiday menus a delectable treat. One is “Turkey: An American Story.”“Turkey: An American Story.” Andrew F. Smith discusses fact and myth in the multifaceted history of the turkey. While not a traditional cookbook, you can wow your guests with an amazing amount of facts and history about the bird.

“Paula Deen Celebrates! Best Dishes and Best Wishes for the Best Times of Your Life,” by the Food Network author, focuses on making memorable meals for special occasions. Deen packs the book with her trademark stories of family and friends, as well as decorating and entertaining tips from her personal assistant, Brandon Branch.

The late, celebrated cookbook writer Sheila Lukins, co-author of “The Silver Palate” delivers a glossy full-color volume encompassing almost all the possible celebrations in life in her cookbook, “Celebrate!” “I’m in the mood to celebrate,” Lukins says. “It’s the kind of joyous mood that makes me happy to call friends and family and invite them over for good food, good conversation, and good cheer! It’s the kind of mood that makes needing a reason to celebrate...” Should you find yourself looking for a reason to celebrate, relax. Lukins provides 43 of them.

“The Healthy Hedonist Holidays: A Year of Multi-Cultural, Vegetarian-Friendly Holiday Feasts,” by Myra Kornfeld, author of “The Voluptuous Vegan,” focuses on holidays reflecting America’s multicultural society. For each celebration, Kornfeld offers a vegetarian entree, a fish or poultry dish, numerous sides and dessert, all designed to leave us feeling energetic and nourished after the meal, as well as delighted during the experience. The menus will entice every guest — vegetarian, semi-vegetarian, carnivores, omnivores who can’t eat dairy, and people who just love good food — with delicious, satisfying “flexitarian” meals.

“How to Cook a Turkey: And all the Other Trimmings” is meant to be a holiday survival guide for a wide range of home cooks: first timers who have no idea where to even begin; more experienced cooks who, nonetheless, forget every year what temperature to cook their turkey at and for how long; and cooks of all levels who like the idea of having one compact holiday handbook of recipes and how-to information specific to their circumstances. The book contains 100 recipes for everything from appetizers to desserts (including an entire chapter on pies), as well as lots of information on everything to do with turkeys (buying information, thawing times, oven temperatures, cook times), as well as on stuffing and making gravy.

Martha Stewart makes an appearance in the DVD “Martha’s Classic Thanksgiving” as well as in a set of three DVDs titled, “Martha’s Holiday Celebrations.” The DVDs present Stewart with tips on cooking a wide range of foods for the holidays as well as a collection of Thanksgiving Day decorating, entertaining, craft and cooking ideas.

With all of these festive cookbooks the Newport Beach Public Library wishes you a delicious start to the season.

CHECK IT OUT is written by the staff of the Newport Beach Public Library. All titles may be reserved from home or office computers by accessing the catalog at www.newportbeachlibrary.org. For more information on the Central Library or any of the branches, please contact the Newport Beach Public Library at (949) 717-3800, option 2.