C’mon, what cookbook or books do you own that are so good they are well-thumbed, covered in sauce and never fail to give you what they promise?
Mine are: The Australian Women’s Weekly Cookbooks These are tiny little books that do exactly what they say on the front. There are hundreds, so you can get exactly the ones you want and their recipes are always great.
The Ballymaloe Cookery Course For when I want to do something a bit fancy, this really does have EVERYTHING in it, but it’s not a practical book for everyday meals.
The Delia Smith Collection Because it’s not a kitchen until you have a Delia book…I have the Chocolate one and it is FAB.
The two cookbooks I use the most are The Joy of Cooking (the recent update, with the addition of Asian and Latin American recipies and the subtraction of all that good info on how to dress a squirrel carcass) and Sundays at Moosewood, which is a nice collection of pretty simple, well-written recipies grouped by national/regional cuisines, all vegetarian (but you could add squirrel to any of the recipies if you like).
Joy is the only cookbook I’ve ever owned that you can just sit down and read. The section of coffee is pretty interesting. I wonder if this is available overseas?
Other than the Joy (and I remain faithful to the 1972 edition, hey sometimes I have questions about squirrel cookery), my most favored cookbook is The Minimalist Cooks Dinner by Mark Bittman.
The New Best Recipe --> This is another reading cookbook, from the people who try each recipe 99 different ways to find the “best” way to make something. Sometimes they goof, but it’s still a pretty solid book.
Rachael Ray’s 30 Minute Meals --> I know, I know. But her recipes work for me - I enjoy them. And the pasta recipes are worth the price of admission.
Better Homes and Gardens Cook Book --> Yep, the red gingham. This is the classic I remember from my mom’s kitchen, and it’s the one I use (instead of The Joy of… - I don’t like Joy’s layout). I consult this one and the New Best Recipe for the basics.
I love everything from America’s Test Kitchen, first. I cook a lot out of them and out of How to Cook Without a Book (surely you see the inherent paradox, but it’s a great book) and on weekends, Slow Cooker Ready and Waiting, which is anything but ready and waiting but amazingly good. But it’s not your mama’s “roast and can of soup and then 8 hours later dinner” crock pot books; t here’s a bunch of prep work before it goes into the crock pot and it’s rarely a whole workday’s worth of cooking time, so that’s a weekend thing.
Then, for books I haven’t actually made anything from but like to sit around and think about except I’d have to go to three ethnic grocery stores for ingredients, True Thai and Rick Bayless’ Mexican cookbooks. I also love to read Anthony Bourdain’s Les Halles Cookbook - it’s great, he calls the mushrooms “little fuckers” and such.
What’s with you people? No one has yet mentioned Dear Julia’s favorite reference, the Larousse Gastronomique? It’s biased toward Continental cuisine, of course, although the latest revision is more broad-minded.
Evan Kleiman’s books (Pizza, Pasta, Panini, Cuisina Rustica, Country Inn: The Best of Casual Country Cooking) are great references for casual European-style food that is easy to make and sophisticated enough for all but full dress formal dinners. The Joy of Cooking is of course a stock standard and with good reason, though I find my copy scribbled with notes of things I do differently than their standard recipes. I have yet to find a good comprehensive text on Pan-Asian cooking, though I’d like to start in on learning Punjab and Tibetian cooking.
It’s not really a cookbook per se, but I recently purchased On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen, and so far it’s quite interesting. And if you apsire to be an epicure you must read M.F.K. Fisher’s The Art of Eating, which contains many good recipes and useful advice within her essays.
Among my list of oft-used recipe books, with those that have not been previously cited, would be:[ul]
[li]Biba Gaggiano’s *Trattoria Cooking * (this is the one that I have used for years)[/li][li]*Saveur Cooks Authentic French * (or Italian) - both are great[/li][li]Barbara Kafka’s Vegetable Love[/ul][/li]Among good books on techniques:[ul]
[li]Jacques Pepin’s Complete Techniques[/li][li]Weber’s Big Book of Grilling[/li][li]Le Cordon Bleu Complete Cooking Technique[/li][/ul]
I will agree that the American Test Kitchen books are very good particularly when you benefit from the one thousand and one different methods used to fix the recipe and learn from their mistakes.
Anything by John Thorne. I own Outlaw Cook and Pot On The Fire and use them both often.
I read Nigella Lawson’s How To Eat for fun and ideas.
My most used one is probably Appetite, by Nigel Slater. I love him. His food writing and his recipes rock.
