Cook Like a Rock Star ─ 125 Recipes, Lessons, and Culinary Secrets

If chefs are the new rock stars, Anne wants you to rock in your own kitchen!

For Anne Burrell, a classically trained chef and host of Food Network’s Secrets of a Restaurant Chef (where she shares impressive recipes and smart techniques that anyone can master), and Worst Cooks in America (the show that transforms hopeless home cooks), being a rock star in the kitchen means having the confidence and ability to get a great meal on the table without a sweat. In her debut cookbook, she presents 125 rustic yet elegant recipes, all based on accessible ingredients, along with encouraging notes and handy professional tricks that will help you cook more efficiently at home.

With Anne's guidance, even the novice cook can turn out showstoppers like Whole Roasted Fish or Rack of Lamb Crusted with Black Olives, which are special enough for guests but easy enough for a weekday evening. For Piccolini (Little Nibbles), try making Truffled Deviled Eggs, Sausage and Pancetta Stuffed Mushrooms, or Baked Ricotta with Rosemary and Lemon. Delicious first courses include Pumpkin Soup with Allspice Whipped Cream and Garlic Steamed Mussels with Pimenton Aioli. And if you're craving pasta, Chef Anne's Light-as-a-Cloud Gnocchi, Sweet and Spicy Sausage Ragu, or Killer Mac and Cheese with Bacon will blow you away.

Whether she's telling you how to use garlic most effectively ("perfume the oil, remove the garlic, and ditch it—it's fulfilled its garlic destiny!") or reaffirming the most important part of cooking (it should have the “sparkle factor!”), you will never feel alone at the stove. Anne's effervescent personality and unmatched vitality will be there every step of the way--as teacher, coach, cooking partner, and friend.

Organized from “Piccolini and Firsts” to “Pasta, Seconds, Sides,” and, of course, “Dessert” Cook Like a Rock Star is all about empowering you with the confidence to own what you do in your kitchen, to be excited by what you're making, and to experience the same kind of joy that Anne feels everyday when she cooks and eats.

ANNE BURRELL graduated from the Culinary Institute of America and has worked at some of the top restaurants in New York (including Lidia Bastianich's Felidia and Peter Hoffman's Savoy). She cooked professionally in Italy, taught at the Institute of Culinary Education, and battled alongside Mario Batali on Food Network's Iron Chef America. During her tenure as executive chef at Centro Vinoteca, she also oversaw the kitchen of Gusto before being recruited to Food Network full-time, first as the host of her own show, Secrets of a Restaurant Chef, and then as cohost of the primetime hit Worst Cooks in America.

SUZANNE LENZER graduated from the Institute of Culinary Education following a career in advertising. A food writer and stylist, over the past four years she has worked closely with cookbook author and New York Times columnist Mark Bittman. A native of Los Angeles, she lives in New York City.