During the month of May, Guy Fieri’s schedule will be filled with book signings in New Jersey and New York for the third installment of the Triple D book series, The Funky Finds in Flavortown: America’s Classic Joints and Killer Comfort Food. Check out his book tour schedule below to see if he’ll be near you.

While you’re there, have Guy sign a copy of The Funky Finds in Flavortown.

Click here to get the info

A quick history lesson: Cinco de Mayo was born on the fifth day of the fifth month of the year 1862, when General Ignacio Zaragoza, with the support of local civilians and Zacapoaxtla Indians, led 2,000 poorly equipped Mexican soldiers to victory over 6,000 French cavalry and infantrymen at the Battle of Puebla. Though Zaragoza’s success was short-lived — the following year, French forces swept through Puebla en route to Mexico City, where they managed to overthrow the still-young Mexican Republic — his victory lives on in Mexico, where Cinco de Mayo is a minor national holiday, primarily observed in Puebla and Mexico City. And also more obscurely but perhaps more passionately, in the United States, where in recent decades Cinco de Mayo has morphed into a major festival of Chicano culture.

It’s with this latter, domestic incarnation in mind that, for this month’s cookbook recommendations, I have plucked some choice morsels detailing the remarkable contributions of Mexican-Americans to regional cooking in the United States. So, just in time for Cinco de Mayo, here is a virtual tour of Mexican-influenced border cooking — from Tex-Mex to Cal-Mex, with a stop along the way in Santa Fe, N.M. — in four cookbooks that beautifully sketch the cultural wellsprings from which these regional cuisines were born.

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If you’re starting to think of the perfect Mother’s Day gift for the mom in your life, FN Dish is about to make it easier for one lucky reader. The editors have collected several cookbooks from superstar moms and Food Network chefs, and Food Network has bundled them together for a giveaway. Whether you keep them for yourself or gift them, this is the ultimate literary treat.

We’re giving away a collection of cookbooks from Food Network chefs, featuring:

Alex Guarnaschelli’s Old-School Comfort Food
Melissa d’Arabian’s Ten Dollar Dinners
Marcela Valladolid’s Mexican Made Easy
Gina Neely’s The Neelys’ Celebration Cookbook
Ree Drummond’s The Pioneer Woman Cooks

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During the months of April and May, Alex Guarnaschelli’s schedule will be filled with book signings across the country for her first book, Old-School Comfort Food. Check out her book tour schedule below to see if she’ll be in a city near you.

While you’re there, have Alex sign a copy of Old-School Comfort Food:

Monday, April 8: New York City
Event: 4:30-7:30 p.m., Kraft Kulinary Event at Columbia University

Wednesday, April 10: Bridgewater, N.J.
Event: 2:30-4:30 p.m., Costco (signing)

Click here for Alex’s entire book tour schedule

Whether Alex Guarnaschelli is cooking at restaurants Butter or The Darby, dishing out top-notch critiques as a judge on Chopped, racing around Kitchen Stadium as the newest Iron Chef or cooking up a storm with her daughter at home, fans of hers know that Alex does comfort food best.

Alex grew up in a home surrounded by a love of cooking, where souffles and cheeseburgers were equally revered. The daughter of a respected cookbook editor and a Chinese cooking enthusiast, Alex developed a passion for food at a young age, sealing her professional fate. In her premiere cookbook, Old-School Comfort Food, she shares her journey from waist-high taste tester to trained chef, along with the 100 recipes for how she learned to cook — and the way she still loves to eat.

Want to get Alex’s secrets to great home cooking? You can pre-order a copy of Old-School Comfort Food here, or enter in the comment field below for a chance to win one. To enter: Tell us which one of Alex’s recipes is your favorite and why in the comments (you must include the URL — find Alex’s list of recipes here). We’re giving away an autographed copy of the book to five lucky, randomly selected commenters.

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Is it possible to ascribe narcissism to a foodstuff? Do ingredients have egos? Is there vanity in a vegetable? The curious world of single-subject cookbooks suggests “yes!” Broccoli, did you really need an entire book? Hemp, wouldn’t a magazine feature have sufficed? Foods on sticks, where is your modesty?

Eggs are another story. There is no egotism in an egg book, not when you consider the crucial role eggs play in nearly every aspect of cooking, from breakfast to dinner, sweet to savory. Yes, eggs deserve a book — books! And books they’ve gotten. One online source lists 405 cookbooks on the subject.

At the Food Network Library, we keep a mere half dozen, but each is so wonderful in its own way that we just had to share. Here are four favorites from past and (recent) present: the best, the most-charming and the most-beautiful egg books from Food Network’s shelves.

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I’m the librarian of the Food Network’s library. I am looking for winter, but struggling. I see Mindy Heiferling’s A Taste of Spring, Elizabeth David’s Summer Cooking and Rick Rodgers’ Autumn Gatherings. Nowhere do I find winter.

This seems odd. Without the luxury of hibernation, I find that we’re forced into the kitchen during winter — if only in search of warmth or light. Our kitchens slow down to the pace of a simmer, larders get rooty, meats get more stew worthy. Winter may be low season in the farm cycle, but it is high season for cooking. Winter’s true harvest is to be found in the kitchen.

Cookbooks may pretend to have an aversion to winter, but don’t believe them. To find winter, look for it in bowls. Because bowl foods, literally and spiritually, physically and metaphysically, radiate warmth. Cold hands like a warm bowl. And the soups, stews, braises and other slow-cooking one-pot dishes that belong to bowls are the foods that truly deserve the name “comfort food” (everything else is the comfort of nostalgia).

Get my four favorite books dedicated to bowl foods

It has certainly been an amazing year for cookbooks by Food Network chefs, and that also goes for the many talented contributors who write for FN Dish. We have their books piled high on our desks, but FN Dish editors thought it was time to share the love. Whether you keep them for yourself or gift them to a loved one, here’s the ultimate literary holiday treat.

We’re giving away a collection of cookbooks from FN Dish contributors and Food Network chefs that includes:

• Melissa d’Arabian’s Ten Dollar Dinners
• Ree Drummond’s The Pioneer Woman Cooks
• Food Network Magazine‘s 1,000 Easy Recipes
• Marisa McClellan’s Food in Jars (read Marisa’s weekly column, The Weekender)
• Hedy Goldsmith’s Baking Out Loud (read Hedy’s baking column and make her recipes)
• Catherine McCord’s Weelicious (read Catherine’s monthly column, The Product Puree)

You can buy them all, including Marisa’s, Hedy’s and Catherine’s books, or enter for a chance to win all of them. To enter: Tell us what your favorite FN Dish post of the year was in the comments. We’re giving away this collection of cookbooks to one lucky, randomly selected commenter.

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Food Network stars reveal their favorite cookbooks. Give one (or all!) to the chef in your house.

ALTON’S PICK:
The Fireside Cook Book
Alton Brown’s most beloved cookbook, written by James Beard, isn’t about food science or crazy gadgets — it’s an old-school American classic. “It’s a clear portrait of American cuisine at its post World War II height, before the rise of California or fusion cuisine, or any cuisine for that matter,” he says. $30, Simon & Schuster

MARC’S PICK:
The French Laundry Cookbook
Iron Chef Marc Forgione loves Thomas Keller’s fine-dining bible as much for how it looks as for what it says. “When I first picked up this book, I realized I had never seen food look like that before,” Marc says. “Reading Keller’s stories about ingredients, purveyors and staff helped me confirm that I wanted to be a chef.” $50, Artisan

Keep reading for more Iron Chef picks

This holiday season, as you’re scouring the stores in search of a gift to please that cousin, brother or mother-in-law who’s returned every present you’ve ever bought them, look to a carefully chosen cookbook to finally ensure gift-giving success. There’s indeed a cookbook for every kind of eater and cook, even kitchen novices, so it’s important to consider the recipient when you’re shopping for cookbooks. Is she an entertaining guru with a flair for the fancy, or an elementary but determined baker? Does he prefer healthful, balanced meals to richly indulgent ones, or is he passionate about all things offal? Food Network’s Cookbook Gift Guide features cookbooks to impress all of them. We’ve rounded up 17 of our favorite new and noteworthy cookbooks written by Food Network chefs, famed food stars and prominent home cooks alike to help you find the best possible gift for everyone on your list.

Read on to find a few of our cookbook suggestions, then check out Food Network’s entire Cookbook Gift Guide to get all 17 of the sweet and savory cookbooks in our collection.

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