I just sent a very long email to Best Buy about my laptop. Hopefully something good will come of it.
The cake is a really nice alternative, and much lighter (tasting anyway… not so sure on calories!) than cheesecake. As I said, I’ve gotten rave reviews every time I’ve made it.
I love these cookbooks: http://www.perryvalleygrange.org/id334.htm.
My first mother-in-law had one she regularly used and I spent a lot of time reading it. I like the down home-iness.
:smack:
How could I forget to mention Moosewood? I frequently cook out of both the original 1970s version by Mollie Katzen and one of the collective’s newer books The Moosewood Daily Special, which is just soups and salads. I looooove the Tibetan Lentil Soup recipe from Daily Special… I make that one fairly regularly (which for me, means more than once a year).
Rebo, I had to giggle over your definition of “quite a few” as 20 cookbooks… at last count, my collection was somewhere around 60 books, and still growing. 
And yes, I’m fully aware I have a problem, but I have no plans to stop buying when it comes to two things I love: cookbooks and shoes.
Nava, I’m with you… the best kind of cookbook is the kind that tells you a story while it’s sharing recipes. I’m not a big fan of cookbooks that are just a laundry list of recipes without any sort of personal touch from the author, because they’re just no fun to read (and really, I read my cookbooks more than I ever actually cook from them).
Muppet! We’re like cookbook twins!
Breakfast Book, Joy of Cooking, Dorrie Greenspan…
Fun!
Adding to the cookbook list: The Silver Spoon, which is usually described as “the Joy of Cooking of Italy.” Countless recipes (like 2000) and interesting ingredient commentary. No cookbook shelf is complete without it.
The ultimate food porn magazine. Comes out quarterly, in a hardbound format. Gorgeous photography of gorgeous food, and the most mindblowing 50-ingredient recipes imaginable. Highly recommended for hardcore foodies; everyone else will be baffled.
For all looking for a knockout holiday dessert, look no further. I present maple syrup cheesecake.
http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/VERMONT-MAPLE-SYRUP-CHEESECAKE-14965
I have made this a buncha times. People knock each other over trying to get to it. A friend brought it to a dessert cookoff and won the blue ribbon. It’s ridiculously easy and sweetened only with maple sryup.
IMPORTANT: you must use Grade B syrup for this. There are no substitutions. For thems not in the know, Grade B is denser, darker, not quite as sweet and much more intensely mapley as Grade A. Trader Joe’s carries it, among others.
Tupug, look at The Taste of Country Cooking and The Gift of Southern Cooking by the wonderful Edna Lewis. She was a magnificent cook and free spirit who had a restaurant in NYC in the 50s and 60s called Cafe Nicholson, patronized by the likes of Truman Capote and other Southern ex-pats. She grew up surrounded by the children and grandchildren of slaves in a small farming community. Her books are just gorgeous. Her editor was the great Judith Jones, the woman who gave us Julia Child and many others.
The Lee Bros. Southern Cookbook is pretty good too.
I am hungry now.
Soapy, clearly it’s because we have impeccable taste in cookbooks.
Riffing off of Cervaise, I have seen no mention of my very fave magazine in the whole wide world, Saveur. Unlike Gourmet and Food and Wine, it focuses specifically on food; travel is merely the means to get to the food. No “Jinx and Jeepers disembark from the cruise ship to be greeted by the concierge of the Foo-Foo Arms” crap. I have almost every issue.
I just wish they would make a index for people like me who want to use the recipes. I’ve mailed them a few times asking for one and they always have a lame excuse. Their latest one was “we’re trying to put them all online.”
Screw that! I don’t have a 'puter in the kitchen. And why should I print out a recipe when I got 100-plus magazines sitting there? Just make a pamphlet telling me what recipes are in which magazine. How hard would that be? An intern could do it in a week or less. Sheesh. Da noive.
Great OP Soapy!
I have to admit I don’t currently own any cookbooks :eek: . I do however have loads of recipes culled from a variety of sources, but primarily from two food/recipes magazines in Australia - Super Food Ideas and Australian Good Taste. The first is really aimed at busy, working families who need quick, easy meal ideas and menu plans (they do a great 5 day 2-course dinner plan, complete with a shopping list and suggestions for leftover/excess ingredients). The second magazine is more of a special occasion magazine, but they do great features on using seasonal produce. Plus, they both have a recipe index (attached to each magazine, and a yearly menu index released online - great when you can’t quite remember which issue had the recipe for Mushroom and Bacon Risotto)!
A lot of the recipes from both magazines are released here, usually about 6 months after publication, but since I don’t live in Australia, it is a very handy website.
Oh, I see that I forgot to mention the Greek and Italian cookbooks… My great failing is picking up old books from musty used bookstores, I’ve found bazillions of great recipes from those and they seldom cost more than a buck or two. It’s really a trip looking at cookbooks by the decade and seeing ingredients fall into and out of favor. Reading cookbooks is even more fun than trying the recipes, sometimes. When people ask how to get good at cooking I recommend reading cookbooks and trying to imagine how the finished dish would taste. It’s that imagination and foresight, to my mind, that distinguishes the good cooks from the wannabes.
We have grandchildren in da house today, Grandboy has no school so he and Callie-dog are over to keep us company. Tomorrow he has no school again, but daughter has scheduled dentist, doctor and flu shot appointments so it’s no fun allowed day! Good thing I picked up more vegetarian corndogs, the kid loves those things!
Right, I’m lurking, and cookbooks are one of my Bad Habits. I have three shelves full. So far.
Ones I use?
I do not follow recipes well, but my favourite (with recipes I sometimes use, or just read for inspiration):
Anything by John Thorne, especially Outlaw Cook
Anything by Nigel Slater, but particularly Appetite and Kitchen Diaries, which has a great zuchinni potato walnut cheese crumble thing. It’s delicious.
I also got Eat Me a month ago.
The Bread Bible, Rose Levy Berenbaum
I’ve got Rosie’s book, too, Pie, on Robin McKinley’s recommendation. It’s great.
Our visit to Niagara was fantastic, and Muppet, I went to Anna Olson’s bakery, and One On Twenty for lunch with my step-MiL. I had braised lamb with cauliflower gratin, beet and citrus marmalade, a Caesar with prosciutto, and a very nice chardonnay.
Indubitably!
I am having such fun reading about these cookbooks! Keep them coming!
An interesting development has occured. There is a gas leak in the building where my shop is. The gas has been shut off and it’s not sure when it will be turned on again. It appears we may be cooking from home tomorrow.
I can’t believe thatMrs Appleyard has not made it into this MMP. I love Mrs. Appleyard and recommend it for reading purposes. Well, also for cooking but they are a fun read even if you do not cook.
I have a lot of cookbooks. The ones sharing the shelf in the kitchen downstairs (well, the ones which are in English anyway) with Mrs. Appleyard are The Betty Crocker Cookbook (for the tables and reference mostly), Fields of Greens, A Fresh Taste of Italy, The Southeast Asian Cookbook.
My own cookbook is a photo album of the type with the liftable plastic sheet, I just stick recipes in. It has the advantage of being easy to clean as I am a taster and not a measurer, ahem. Also, it is easy to get to the recipes to scribble all over them and strike things out and add them in which I am wont to do.
Recently it has been open to the recipe for* borstplaat op z’n amerikaans* – borstplaat is a sort of cross between fudge and fondant which Dutch guys eat at this time of year, usually in the shape of hearts. This particular recipe is my own perversion, er, invention – mostly I added maple syrup and spices (Dutch guys seem to think maple syrup is health food, for reasons I have not yet worked out) and also for speculaas which is a Dutch spice and butter cookie also eaten at this time of year.
The fun part of speculaas is that you make it by pushing the dough into a speculaasplank though it must be said that the not fun part is getting the damn thing out of the speculaasplank, a problem I have finally solved by dusting it with a mixture of cornmeal and cornstarch. I don’t know why plain old flour doesn’t work, it should but it does not.
However, Thing One and Thing Two are always very helpful about disposing of failures, whether actually baked or not.
I have about a dozen non-descript cookbooks that I’ve accumulated over the years. The one I use the most is an ancient Better Homes & Gardens - it’s falling apart - or at least it falls open to the recipes I use most often. Not that I follow any of them exactly - they’re just initial suggestions, which I then jazz up.
I also have Top Secret Recipes, but I don’t think I’ve ever used it to make anything. It seemed like a good idea at the time…
The most frequently used cooking guide is a small binder that my mother in law made for my husband’s first wife. When she left, she didn’t take the recipes, so I have it. My MIL handwrote all of her family’s favorites, including some notes about where she got the recipes. Her buttermilk pie and peach streusal pie are killer good!
She included a bunch of blank sheets, so I’ve added some of my family recipes, too. But most recently, all the additions are printed pages of on-line recipes or Mumper recipes. I keep saying one of these days I’m going to put all of the recipes on the computer, then burn a couple of disks. Maybe after I retire. I do need to write down my own inventions. My daughter has asked several times how I make this or that dish, and many of them are just tossing in what looks like the right amount of stuff. I cook like my grandmother…
Happy Monday! I left work early and ran the mulcher/vac in the back yard, getting the first wave of leaves sucked up. On Weds, I’ll do the front yard, ahead of the rain forecast for Thurs. I need to get some laundry done this afternoon. And I should organize my pantry so I can figure out what I need to buy for Turkey dinner.
Yet here I sit. You people are a bad influence on me! For shame!
Well.
I was coming in here all excited about the Roadfood.com calendar for 2009. It sounded like an awesome find and I was going to buy one as a Christmas present for myself. But, darn it, $20 plus $3 for shipping for a calendar? I guess it wasn’t meant to be.
I’m not much of a cook. I have a Joy of Cooking kicking around somewhere, but that’s about it as far as actual cookbooks go.
Speaking of joy, I apparently tore my ACL! Not badly, and it’s feeling a lot better, but I really did screw my knee up. Lovely. I’m supposed to go to physical therapy. At least I don’t need surgery right now, thank Og.
That looks divine! I am such a cheesecake sucker! :rolleyes:
**snowbunny **- you are your mother’s daughter. You just wanna be a BioBunny!
Hope you feel better soon. Knee ouchies are no fun!