I'll admit it, friends: I'm super shy when it comes to me on video so I've held this one back for a while. Now it's time to let it fly.

This week my new book — Good Food To Share: Recipes for Entertaining with Family and Friends — hit the big shelves in the sky at Amazon and other major online book retailers, and soon it will grace the real wood bookshelves (at least they are in my fantasies) of bookstores across America.

With the keen eye and heart of photographer Ray Katchatorian behind the lens and in the editing room, my publisher, Weldon Owen, put together this short video about how I think about making a meal. They literally rolled the cameras and followed me around for three days as I cooked, talked, laughed, served and even shook my hips to some tunes.

We're using this video to celebrate the new book, though my real hope is that it just gets you excited about cooking.

When I first started to work on this book, knowing it was in the entertaining category, I thought long and hard about what entertaining meant. In my mind, entertaining as a word applied to my work is a bit of a silly notion; because this thing we do with food feels so much more deep than other forms of entertainment in our culture. The act of cooking is really about feeding the bellies and souls of the people we love, and I take it very seriously.

I'm willing to go with this funny "entertaining" word as long as it conjures up an image of gathering friends, turning on good music, pouring drinks, and being generous in every sense of the word. This is why I do what I do. Simple as that.

If this new book inspires you to let loose and cook for people you really dig in a way that celebrates great food and the folks that grow and raise it, then my job is underway. Life is short. Start now.

• Buy Good Food To Share from Powell's, Barnes & Noble or Amazon

• More from Ray Kachatorian

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