Vook is excited to announce that Judith Klinger’s CookVook, “Cooking Simply: The Italian Way,” is #9 in the iBookstore! Congratulations, Judith!

She took a few minutes to answer some questions about her passion for cooking:

Q. What inspired your CookVook?
A. I want to demonstrate that cooking at home with real food isn’t hard, and in fact, it can be fun. And what is better than delicious Italian style cooking? I believe in eating real food, sustainable, local and in season, and those are all things the Italians are very, very good at. Plus, I live in gorgeous Umbria and it was great to shoot the video on the “home turf” so to speak.

Q. What are some of your favorite recipes?
A. My favorite recipes are the ones that aren’t fussy and highlight good ingredients. Take risotto for example, once you know how to make risotto, you can make endless variations with what you have on hand: pear and Gorgonzola, seafood, porcini mushroom, and of course, truffle risotto.

Q. What do you like to cook on the weekends?
A. Check out my blog for last weekend’s bonanza here.

We are up in Snowbird Utah for the month, so this past weekend we had Black SableFish Brodetto, Sablefish Chowder and Side Stripe Shrimp Ceviche. What? You thought we were up here eating chilidogs?

Most nights we wind up with between 4 – 8 people for dinner and I never know how many are coming until about an hour before dinner.

Honestly, there is no difference between weekdays and weekend cooking. Maybe on the weekend I’ll do something more elaborate, but that’s only if I feel inspired. I cook dinner most nights and we always eat dinner together, even when we work late. I’m a firm believer that our family is so close because we always shared dinner. One of my happiest moments is when my son MMS’s me a photo of the dinner he made.

Thanks, Judith.

Watch her create some yummy smashed potatoes here and download her Vook here.

We’ve launched a string of great vooks over the past month, and now we’re pleased to announce our latest title: The Breakaway Japanese Kitchen. Breakaway is our first “cookvook”—a vook that lets you read inspiring recipes and watch author Eric Gower make the dishes right in front of you. Eric prepares meals such as roasted hamachi with a miso-apricot glaze, udon with herby pesto and smoked salmon salad with edamame.

“The Breakaway Japanese Kitchen” is available in both of our  standard formats—as a browser based vook and as an app for your iPhone or iPod Touch. We’ve also included a free preview mode of the vook so that you can try it before you buy it. This premier cookvook features recipes and professionally shot videos so you can easily learn how to prepare Eric’s contemporary Japanese dishes.

Having lived in Japan for more than fifteen years, Eric has developed an appreciation for minimalist cooking that achieves singular bold flavors. A cooking teacher and private chef, Eric is also the author of three cookbooks. “The Breakaway Japanese Kitchen” cookvook features more than a dozen videos of Eric preparing dishes, shopping for ingredients and guiding readers through his approach to bold, Japanese-inspired dishes.

“When Vook approached me about doing the first cookvook, the epiphany was immediate,” said Eric Gower. “Integrating written recipes and stories with in-the-kitchen visuals is such a no-brainer way to connect with home cooks everywhere. It’s the perfect medium to make hesitant cooks feel more comfortable, because you can SEE how simple the breakaway approach really is, yet still have the written instructions to guide you.”

Vook CEO Brad Inman summed up the appeal of The Breakaway Japanese Kitchen, saying, “A cookvook is able to take written recipes and complement them with an engaging visual component. It’s like having a personal chef to guide the home cook in the kitchen, step-by-step.”

Try the Breakaway Japanese Kitchen in the free preview mode or get the complete vook and start cooking today!