Favorite Cookbooks

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Sandy, we have a couple of Cook's Illustrated cookbooks that we ordered online, and they are great! One is the grilling book, and the other is the vegetable one.
Thing being, when you order one, they start sending them to you for a "30 day free trial". If you open it to look at it, you have to pay shipping to return it. I know...I tried to send one back.
If you pay to join their website, you get a free subscription to their monthly magazine, which is very informative and interesting, but not worth the price (to me). I ordered one of "free two issue" deals, and then couldn't get them stopped and the bills kept coming. Pain in the neck! :mad:
 
Cookbooks

pdswife said:
The one I use the most is

BETTER HOMES AND GARDEN
NEW COOKBOOK
10TH EDITION.

I love my Jamie Oliver and my James Mcnair's though. They are fun to
read.

I also have 5 or 6 of the "cookshelf" books. They are pretty good.
And My NEW BASICS COOKBOOK and GREAT GOOD FOOD are also nice.

Oh heck I love all cook books.

:chef: For me, choosing a favourite cookbook is difficult but I have to say "at this moment" it is "Mary Ann's Gilligan's Island Cookbook that I got at a garage sale a few weeks ago for 50 cents.

I buy most of mine at thrift stores and garage sales and the thrill is seeing what I can get for the cheapest amount of money.

I am in the process of doing an inventory and know there are well over 400 books but won't have a clear number until inventory is finished. I have many BHG and Betty Crocker's. I just love them.

Collecting cookbooks is my passion.

Ruth
 
callie said:
I love cookbooks...some of my favorites are "local" cookbooks. When I'm away from home, I always look for local church cookbooks, Junior League cookbooks, school cookbooks, etc. Usually lots of local flavor in those.

i agree! those local cookbooks always have good, familiar recipes, some of which you've tasted before at social/family events. i love when several people send in recipes for the same thing, i love seeing the differences between thier recipes.
 
One of my favorites is my Grandma Snarr's "Baptist Cookbook". We are not Baptist, but they do have the prettiest hymns and the best cookbooks.
 
My all time favorite has to be The Fannie Farmer cookbook. This was the first cookbook I bought in paperback when a newlywed and have always found it to cover just about everything. Well, lo these many, many years later, this poor little paperback became brittle so I recently purchased a new edition off eBay. Rec'd it just last week and it's about twice the number of pages as the one I've been using. I like the bits of background info she gives on so many of the recipe ingredients and also offers up alternatives to some of the ingredients in recipes. I have lots of other cookbooks, but this one, I feel, absolutely has to be in everyone's cookbook library. I gave one to my new daughter-in-law years and years ago and she loves it as well. I'm now on an eBay search for a cookbook titled "The Wise Guy Cookbook", but haven't had any luck finding it. I'm waiting receipt of a Joy of Cooking book, purchased based on recommendations from some of you as to it's usefullness.
 
I too am an avid cookbook collector. Like others I find it hard to choose my absolute favorite. I love curling up on the couch on a rainy day and thumbing through them for inspiration. I may not think every thing in each sounds delicious but there's enough in each one of them to get my mouth watering. The one that I seem to reach for lately though is my All American Cookbook. I discovered this when one of my older brothers came down for Thanksgiving to help me cook dinner and he brought his addition. I was so happy to find a chop suey recipe in it that showed ingredients that my deceased mother used in her recipe. It gave me the baseline for me to add additional items I know mom used and I'm thrilled to finally be able to make chop suey like my mom used to.......boy I sure missed that. So thats one I will hang onto forever.
 
i've got peter reinhart's break baker's apprentice & it's real interesting. i've got on order "how baking works" by paula figoli (a food scientist who "invented" craisins for ocean spray). it's more about the how/why of baking rather than a book of recipes. i read a review that said it's got info like what (for example) the effect of doubling the sugar would have on the colour, taste texture, etc of a dough/bread. there's a chapter on everything involved in bread like wheat, gluten, leavening agents, nuts/berries, & many other things. & at the end of each chapter there are review questions and also experiments to try in the kitchen! (or bakery)

other books on my list:
the king arthur flour's baker's companion
the taste of bread -- raymond calvel
special & decorative breads -- alain couet
special & decorative breads -- roland bilheux
on baking: a textbook of baking & pastry fundamentals -- sarah labensky
on cooking: techniques from expert chefs -- sarah labensky
 
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I love better homes and garden cook book, use it alot, I also subscribe to the betty crocker magazine,and buy alot of the cooking mags. they have on display at the grocery store...
 
Which year of the Fannie Farmer Cookbook should one be on the lookout for? Also, does Leon's Italian Cookbook from 1994 (which I think is the last version) have the same recipes from the earlier publications?
 
Constance said:
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I have also made my own recipe book. I printed the recipes on both sides of card stock, enclosed them in poly covers, and put them in a loose leaf notebook so I can add to it whenever I wish. This was my Christmas present for my children a few years ago, and I send them new packets of pages every year now.

Here's an example of one of the pages...

Constance, I love how you made your own recipe book. I would love to do this myself. Would you mind telling me how you did it? Do you have some kind of recipe cd/program on your computer that helped you design the page? How did you get the picture on the page as well. I think my family would flip if I did something like this for them for Christmas or maybe a mother's day gift.

Thanks for any help. :)
 
My favorite's are

The Professional Chef
Professional Baking
Essentials of Italian cooking
On Cooking
James Beard's American Cookery
 
I have expressed this about myself before, that I'm not much for following recipes, and instead love to make my own creations. There have been plenty of times though, where I had a lack of inspiration and cookbooks are a great place to look for some ideas. I like the Better Homes and Gardens, but even more than that I like these huge ethnic cookbooks that are always on the discount racks at my local Borders or Barnes and Noble. They are about 200 page books, with photos, and they have them for every style of cooking imaginable.

Better Homes and Gardens is also a good place to go to read about different techniques you might be unfamiliar with. Everyone remember the first time they melted chocolate and it turned hard as a rock? LOL
 
Better Homes and Garden. 10th Edition is a good one....

come to think of it, there's few cookbooks i don't like

i bought the softback edition of The Joy of Cooking, and it fell apart

i collect them more than use them

i like regional cookbooks, too

there was one called Cooking with Coca-Cola that i liked to read but not use for some reason
 
Another great book is "Culinary Artistry" by Andrew Dornenburg and Karen Page. It's not a recipe book, more like a text book (though it does have recipes) that teaches flavour combining, why certain foods match and how to bring a plate together. It is geared towards restaurant cooks and chefs (there are sections on menu designs and menu composing) but the compiled lists of mains ingredients and herbs and veggies and starches are fantastic.

Andrew and KLaren also wrote 'Becoming a Chef' and 'Dining Out' , but I have not read either.

J
 
Jeremy said:
Another great book is "Culinary Artistry" by Andrew Dornenburg and Karen Page. It's not a recipe book, more like a text book (though it does have recipes) that teaches flavour combining, why certain foods match and how to bring a plate together. It is geared towards restaurant cooks and chefs (there are sections on menu designs and menu composing) but the compiled lists of mains ingredients and herbs and veggies and starches are fantastic.

Andrew and KLaren also wrote 'Becoming a Chef' and 'Dining Out' , but I have not read either.

J

Did they ever update that book or is the 1996 version still being printed.

I also recommend this book, although some of the info and flavor combinations are a bit dated. It is still a very good starting point and reference tool though.
 
My very favorite cookbook is the Joy of Cooking. It has all your major old favorites in it and it is the one my mother always had in the house growing up. I also love this middle eastern cookbook that I have. It is beat up and dog earred and I wish I could get another copy but it is very expensive on the secondary market and it isn't in print anymore. I also love 2 new cookbooks by Tyler Florence.
 
paxpuella said:
Constance, I love how you made your own recipe book. I would love to do this myself. Would you mind telling me how you did it? Do you have some kind of recipe cd/program on your computer that helped you design the page? How did you get the picture on the page as well. I think my family would flip if I did something like this for them for Christmas or maybe a mother's day gift.

Thanks for any help. :)

Sorry I havn't answered this, Pax (peace). It's late tonight for me, but I'll be back tomorrow and answer any of your questions.
:chef:
 
I've been collecting cookbooks for many years now & have more than a couple hundred of them. Ranging from the coffee-table types (like the "Beautiful" series) to old old ones with recipes on how to roast raccoons & groundhogs - lol!!

I can settle in & read a cookbook like a good novel & make a habit of scouring 2nd-hand bookshops & online sources for new acquisitions.

As far as my basic day-to-day favorites, it's hard to choose because it depends on what I'm planning to cook. However, the ones I seem to pick up the most are The Victory Garden cookbooks - both the strictly vegetable one & the seafood/vegetable one; the new Joy of Cooking; the big basic Martha Stewart volume; all of the 3 "Vegetarian Epicure" volumes; Julia Child's "The Way To Cook"; Irene Kuo's "The Key To Chinese Cooking"; various Indian cuisine cookbooks. Gee, the list is really endless.

I've also developed quite a few of my own recipes that I have stored on my computer & on disc.
 
If there is one cookbook I would never let go, and we own a couple of hundred, it is Escoffier.

It is not something you go to and follow recipes, but I love to read it.

It taught me how to make stock and sauces (although I have other books on the subject).

If I had to name a second favorite it would be James Beard's Theory and Practice of Good Cooking which I found in an obscure little shop in Key West while on vacation many years ago.
 

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