Cookbooks

9 years ago

My step-sister (a fabulous cook and caterer) wants to start a cookbook club in the fall. Where a group prepares several recipes from a cookbook together.

Which got me thinking about cookbooks - and my current lack of cooking enthusiasm. What I froze, canned, dried last year is running low and my garden isn't producing much yet. Enough but not inspiring.

Anyway I am looking for cookbook recommendations for next fall and now. I am going to recommend one of Claudia Roden's books because I like the stories as well as the recipes.

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agmss15
Original Author

9 years ago

I suggested Ottolenghi to her. I was invited to a dinner where the hostess made some chicken fennel clementine dish of his that was amazing. Like Roden he introduces me to Jewish cooking very far from my Lithuanian/NY/NJ roots. I love bialy, real bagels and smoked fish but I don't love gelfilte fish

I have a frugal gourmet that my aunt gave me years ago because I borrowed it so often. I will keep an eye out for the others.

My step- sister would like the Spanish cookbook. Her mom reconnected with her southern Italian roots - the whole family all spend a fair amount of time in the village of the g grandparents. She likes Mediterranean cuisine.

Thanks!

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Comments (10)

sushipup1
9 years ago
Marcella Hazan's Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking. Whenever we need a new recipe, we browse there.
lindac92
9 years ago
Dig out some of the oldies....James Beard on Bread....of course any julia Child....and I opened the Frugal Gourmet the other day....
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I have a copy of, "the NEW Fannie Farmer-Boston Cooking-School COOK BOOK", 1953. My father, in his retirement, took on the care of several Summer homes in Southern Maine. He would check on them during the winter, board up windows against storms, uncover rose gardens when the time was right, deal with emergencies...that kind of thing. During the Summer, when people were in residence, he was sort of a general, all around handyman. His largest client was old money...there was a beach named after the family, a road named after the family, and a huge home, loaded with antiques that had been the original furnishings. An elderly Black woman came up every summer from South Carolina to be their cook for the season. Little bittie thing, set in her ways and stubborn as heck, but since she'd been cooking for the family for decades, she knew what they liked and how to manage them. I had been separated from my father at age 5, and when I found him again in my early 30's, I went out to stay with him and my stepmother for a year to get to know them. He took me down to meet Marguerite. She was a kick, and we got along...several years later, when she knew that she wouldn't be able to make it up again the next season (or ever), she gave my father her Fannie Farmer for me. It still has a bunch of book marks in it, some with shopping lists, some with her name, some with cryptic notes I can't decipher, all in the same, slanted hand. I actually use the book quite a bit, but I don't disturb the bookmarks. I sometimes puzzle over the marked pages, wondering which recipe she had marked... I also have my mother's copy of "The Complete American-Jewish Cookbook",1952. It has a separate section of Passover recipes. There are no pork recipes, naturally. Generally, the cookies and bread recipes are good. As for unique...I have an Ethiopian cookbook...the only one I've been able to find. "Exotic Ethiopian Cooking-Society, Culture, Hospitality, & Traditions. I've only made a couple of dishes out of it. I love Ethiopian food, and when I found out how much Nit'ir Qibe (purified herb & spice butter) is used in most of the dishes I love, I realized why I love them. For example, in dishes made from 1 pound of ground beef, it is not unusual that they contain a cup of butter. A typical lentil dish pairs 2 cups of lentils with 2 cups of butter. No wonder I love it!
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Oh, Alisande, I do remember the Blueberry Hill cookbooks!! In fact, I own both the original and the menu one, tho I always preferred the original. It was my mother's copy, published in 1959 and she bought it for $6,95, possibly at a used book store. I am one of those folk who love to "read" cookbooks, especially the chatty ones. Always enjoyed these, and now have a desire to re-read them, thanks to your post. Thank you!
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My binder of collected recipes is priceless -- it's one of the things I'd grab in case of fire (that, and my Bible, passport, and birth certificate). Many of my recipes are old family recipes passed down from people who have long since departed this earth, along with ones that have become new traditional favorites over the years, recipes that I'm "known for" in my circle. Most of them I could probably re-create from memory if needed, but many I cannot. The cookbooks I would be fine ditching, but not that collected recipe binder. I could catalogue it digitally, but why bother? It's just so much simpler for me to just pull out the binder from the island and start cooking. {shrug} ETA: Many cookbooks are beautifully photographed and do make nice coffee table books, BTW.
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Our LFL got off to a slow start. Day one, no book taken. Day two, no book. Day three . . . is it possible that passer-by don’t realize it is a little free library? We hung a sign. And then it was Greekfest. That is the three day food fest at the Greek church a block away, which draws the entire city, it feels like, for roast lamb, dolmas, shwarma, and assorted Greek fun and games. Our quiet neighborhood fills up with revelers walking to and from their cars parked in every bit of curb, from Friday to Sunday it’s like Broadway here. Typically, the leaves also start falling and rain follows. Greekfest marks the flowering of fall and the first hint of the coming winter. Along with thousands of people walking by our house, and now our LFL. Whether it was the sign or Greekfest that broke the drought, who knows, but books have been flying off our shelves. I’ve had to re-stock again and again. Naturally, the kids’ books have been popular, as well as genre fiction (sci-fi and mystery, mostly), but non-fiction has moved and so has literature. Books that I worried might never find takers, have; like ”Miss Manners Guide To Excruciatingly Correct Behavior”. Although, books that I’d think would have gone, have not; like ”The Naked And The Dead”. Neither cookbook in there has found a new home, but they are good ones and I’m hopeful: ” The Silver Palate Cookbook” and “Cuisine Rapide”. Like many cookbooks, those are rather large, and have to lay flat on the bottom shelf, which may reduce their visibility. I have also had to re-stock the trinkets: toy cars, playing cards, cocktail umbrellas, random stickers, and so on. Greekfest is over and traffic at the LFL will slow, but I’m no longer worried that no-one will ever take the books. We have boxes and boxes more ready to be placed on the shelves - I estimate maybe a year’s worth of inventory. Persons unknown have even contributed a couple of books. I think I will put together a light that turns on when the doors are opened, to help people browse during the dark winter months.
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fawnridge (Ricky)
9 years ago
The old Better Homes & Gardens one is a classic and should be in every kitchen!
plllog
9 years ago
Yeah, Ricky, but it's not exactly inspiring...

I have both Plenty and Jerusalem by Yotam Ottolenghi (gifts). They're coffee table books, so easier to copy out what one wants to use in the kitchen but definitely inspiring. Gorgeous, and just reading the recipes makes me hungry. I would love to cook my way through both. (The only thing stopping me from doing so is other cooking commitments...)

A much smaller and more unassuming (though still lovely) one is Classic Spanish Cooking by Elizabeth Luard. Every recipe I've tried is a winner, and they all read well.
sushipup1
9 years ago
Our very favorite book, one we've had almost 40 years, is Simone Beck's Simca's Cuisine, a menu-based book with such names as "A Sunday Night Dinner for 6, to Empty the Icebox". "A Lunch for 4, Dreaming of the South Seas". "A Winter Lunch by the Hearth for 6".
User
9 years ago
last modified: 9 years ago
I started a cookbook book club here three years ago. Our first meeting, we all brought appetizers and the book it came from. We then signed up to host each month and developed our rules after a couple of trials and errors as far as main dish was concerned.

The rules are simple:

The hostess selects the "theme" (theme being used loosely as it CAN be theme (like Italian), or it can be a particular chef (like Lidia) or it can be a region (like Sicilian). The hostess also provides the entree and on a rotating basis we all bring one item: appetizer, salad, starch, vegetable, bread and dessert. We have enough members that except for starch and bread, we have two of everything else so whatever the hostess was supposed to bring we just skip that. We have decided to limit membership to 10 because of space when hosting. We've done lots of interesting meals -- the last one being "Any Mediterranean Country but Greece" and this month's will be Backyard BBQ. We have cooked from one cookbook but our goal is NOT to make members buy a book so instead of one cookbook (like Cooking for Jeffrey by Ina Garden) we tend to just say "Barefoot Contessa" because you can find recipes on line.

The one thing that we try to do is not to bring anything "tried and true" -- I've cooked a lot from Barefoot Contessa but if she were our theme, I would pick out a recipe that I've never made before!
Lars
9 years ago
Here are some of my favorites:

The Soul of a New Cuisine by Marcus Samuelsson (African)

Greek Cooking in an American Kitchen by St. Demetrios Church Cookbook Committee

Land of Plenty by Fuchsia Dunlop (Sichuan)

Fonda San Miguel by Tom Gilliland & Miguel Ravago (Mexican, Tex-Mex)

Japanese Farm Food by Nancy Singleton Hachisu

Morimoto, The New Art of Japanese Cooking by Masaharu Morimoto

I also have a collection of Cajun cookbooks, and that is a style that I make very often. I have several other Japanese cookbooks as well, but those two are my favorites, and I have another Sichuan cookbook.
Islay Corbel
9 years ago
For great, every day cooking, I love the Hairy biker's chicken and egg book. Great chicken dishes from round the world. Schwarma from Israel, rissoles.....The TV series is very funny too if they show them in your neck of the woods.
annie1992
9 years ago
I only have a couple hundred cookbooks. What I like depends on my mood, from Farm Journal to Fine Cooking, you never know!

I got used copies of The Frugal Gourmet from RobinKate a long time ago in a swap we had here, and I enjoy them very much. I always enjoy Alton Brown, in written or video form, and rely on Cook's Illustrated for a couple of "favorites".

My all time favorite, though, is "Fork in the Road", by Eric Villegas. He's a Michigan chef, had his own show on PBS called "Fork in the Road", worked for Taste of Home, owned Michigan Venison, a local company that sold venison, ran a restaurant, specialized in local ingredients and food. He's just entertaining.

Another favorite is Ellie Krieger's "Comfort Food Fix". She makes some of my comfort foods actually not so bad for me, LOL. I met her at a food and wine show in Grand Rapids, she's married to a Michigan guy and her book has some very "normal" food, to me at least.

Annie

Cookbooks

agmss15
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sushipup1

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agmss15
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