What's your favourite cookbook?

pudding · Joined: 05 Aug 2004 Posts: 583 Location: NSW, Australia

I'm not sure if this topic has been discussed before, but I was repacking my bookshelf today and was going through my collection of cookbooks.

I kept having that "Aaah!" feeling each time I came across a favourite that I hadn't used or looked at for a while.

Jean reccomended a couple of cookbooks in her book which I am unfamiliar with and am keen to take a look at.

Anyone have any favourites they would like to share? I'll start!

I love Modern Classics by Donna Hay (it's Australian) and The Cook's Garden by the Australian Womens Weekly magazine.

The second one doesn't have many recipes but it has lots of information about growing seasonal vegetables at home and how to prepare, cook and preserve them once they've grown. Thinking about eating is a very motivating way to garden!

CraftinFool · Joined: 14 Apr 2004 Posts: 809 Location: New England

Mu husband is the one who usually finds good ones and shares them with me. a great find lately is Chef Kathleen (can't remember the exact title, something like cooking healthy with chef kathleen).

she has good recipes and I especially like her overall advice and outlook. She draws heavily from her own experience but shares it in a way that doesn't distract.

xuli · Posted: Thu Sep 30, 2004 11:25 am Post subject:

Great topic!

My favorite cookbook author, far and away, is Mollie Katzen (who wrote the first Moosewood cookbook, as well as The Enchanted Brocolli Forest -- which, in my opinion, is her best).

I also like all of the cookbooks in the Moosewood series, as well as Laurel's Kitchen.

Yum.
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shawneemonkey · Joined: 16 Apr 2004 Posts: 161

i'm digging How it all Vegan and the Garden of Vegan books. yummy recipes, most of them very easy, and without a bazillion ingredients. because if it's not simple, my eyes glaze over. heh.
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peppermintsquare · Joined: 14 Apr 2004 Posts: 162 Location: austin

shucks, everyone has taken my top favorites already...

how it all vegan
garden of vegan
moosewood series
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jean · Posted: Thu Sep 30, 2004 1:49 pm Post subject:

marcella hazan: the essentials of italian cuisine.

the joy of cooking

julia and jacques cook at home.

all the fattening, old school style stuff! i am looking to lighten up things. i really like the naked chef cookbooks, whcih i have gotten from the library.

for the vegans, have you checked out the angelika cookbook? super good.
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Sommer · Joined: 20 Jul 2004 Posts: 44 Location: Southern California

I'll probably get razzed for this - but I really love the Barefoot Contessa series!
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amyspart · Joined: 03 Jun 2004 Posts: 21 Location: NYC

this is more of a "book that happens to also have recipes in it", but I just read "Home Cooking" by Laurie Colwin and really really enjoyed it. I believe that it's actually a compilation of her columns that originally appeared in Gourmet.

jangrl · Joined: 27 Apr 2004 Posts: 103

two words: nigella lawson.

jangrl
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teeny17 · Joined: 11 Sep 2004 Posts: 40 Location: i hour from toronto

The Hot Wok Cookbook, by Linda Doeser
I like this because wok cooking is so fast and easy and wonderful! the book is full of lots nice asian flavous, as the book says on the front...yummy.

super sissy · Joined: 20 Aug 2004 Posts: 13

As a person who reads cookbooks for fun, I have to chime in. I often wonder what I would choose if I could have only one. It's not easy, but hands down it is:

Chez Panisse Vegetables by Alice Waters

I know that her recipes are not always practical for a quick weeknight meal, but they are worth the effort whenever I have time. And for this kind of food, I always try to make time. It's also more informative than your average cookbook. Just check it out!

alterego · Joined: 13 Apr 2004 Posts: 60 Location: New Haven, CT

Great thread! I second the Joy of Cooking (but you've got to get the newest one, edited by the grandson) and the Nigella cookbooks (which I don't own but have checked out of the library and enjoy very much). The cookbook that has had the most impact on me is The Unplugged Kitchen, by Viana LaPlace. My mom introduced me to this cookbook a few years ago and I shared it with my two best friends and we all LOVE it. It's not even recipes, so much, more like just way pared down ways to prepare and eat vegetables, mostly. It's very soothing and eye-opening, and she introduced me to a lot of the things that are now central to how I eat (plus she's got a recipe for leek-and-orange salad, which is just leeks and oranges chopped together and dressed with olive oil, sea salt, and fresh cracked pepper--this is a GREAT brunch salad).

I should look into the Garden of Vegan/How It All Vegan cookbooks. They do look very cute, but I'm not vegan and sometimes get turned off by recipes that bend over backwards to avoid dairy and eggs. However, I could really use some fresh and simple ideas. OK, I'm sold!

peppermintsquare · Joined: 14 Apr 2004 Posts: 162 Location: austin

alterego, I am not vegan either, just vegetarian. I have to say that most of the recipes I have made from those cookbooks came out pretty good, but a few not so good (peanut sauce comes to mind).

The desserts are the ones that I am sometimes wary of the whole no egg thing. However, I did make an awesome vegan carrot cake from How It All Vegan. In my mind, if I am afraid applesauce just won't work to keep the dessert together like eggs, I might throw in a free range vegetarian-fed egg.

Also, the Garden of Vegan has a recipe for Portabello Mushroom Bake that is sooooo yummy. I shared the recipe with a meat eater and she loved it.
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jean · Posted: Fri Oct 01, 2004 10:11 am Post subject:

ada · Joined: 09 Jul 2004 Posts: 87 Location: London, UK

I am also a Nigella fan - especially her 'How to be a Domestic Goddess' (all baking and deserts - and thus far, all fabulous. Plus, the pictures are the baking equivalent of porn). I also like the Moosewood books, especially the low-fat one, and the one (ack! I can't remember the name) that catalogues recipes they used on their 'specific ethnicity' nights (man, I'm awful with names right now... please bear with me)- like, where they would cook all italian, or turkish, or uzbekistani... lots of good soup recipes in that.

Two I love that haven't been mentioned yet:
'Feasts from the Place Below' by Bill Sewell - subtitled 'seasonal celebrations from London's top vegetarian restaurants'.
and
'Real Vegetarian Thai', by Nancie McDermott.

There's another cookbook that I don't use much (because it isn't veggie and I am), that I have gifted to several carnivore foodie friends who LOVE it. I gave a copy to my little sister and my mother refused to let it leave the house when my sister moved out... anyway, it's by Stephanie Alexander, an Australian chef, and is a sort of food encyclopedia, with recipes for each food and a cross-index, called 'The Cook's Companion'. It's a bit expensive, but every (non-veggie) cook I know swears by it.