Cookbooks

[wshaffer]

So, The Observer has published a list of their 50 best cookbooks: 50-11 here and the top 10 here. Despite the fact that ranking cookbooks is a silly thing to do, I couldn't resist checking to see how many of the top 50 I own. Turns out I own three of them:

Number 42: Nigella Lawson's How to Eat. This is a book that's almost more fun to read than it is to cook from. I've had particularly good luck with it when I want something classy but unfussy to serve at a party.

Number 39: Harold McGee's On Food and Cooking. I wouldn't really call this a cookbook - I don't think there are any per se recipes in it. However, it is one of the best books about cooking that I own, because it explains what is happening to the food when you cook it. If you want to know how to cook a perfect steak or make a souffle without stressing, it's a great book.

Number 4: Nigel Slater's The Kitchen Diaries. I'm fairly sure that I've never cooked any of the recipes from this book. Which isn't necessarily a criticism - it's just that the book is very much a chronicle of seasonal, spontaneous cooking, and when I read it, it tends to inspire me to be seasonal and spontaneous, rather than to deliberately recreate any of the recipes. Also, some of the ingredients are very British, and would be tricky to source out here.

Not entirely surprisingly, none of my absolute favorite cookbooks made the list. I make no claims for these being the best cookbooks in the world, but here are three that I cook from all the time:

Mark Bittman's Fish. If it swims in the sea, Bittman will have a recommendation for how to cook it.

Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything. I think everyone needs at least one big comprehensive cookbook that covers the basics and the standards - the one that you pull down off the shelf when you need to know how to make marinara sauce, or roast a chicken, or need an idea for what to do with the 3 pounds of fresh beets you impulse-bought at the farmers' market. How to Cook Everything fills that niche for me.

Rick Bayless's Mexican Everyday. Simple, tasty Mexican dishes, most of which are either quite speedy to prepare, or will bubble along in a slow cooker or braising pot while you get on with something else.

Do you own any of the cookbooks on The Observer's list? What are your favorite cookbooks?

Comments

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Mostly I don't cook from cookbooks. Mostly I don't cook from recipes at all, but when I do, it's from the internet or from things I scribbled down out of the paper or cookbooks I got from the library and returned. I do use Crescent Dragonwagon's soup and bread one for the soup, not the bread, though. I mean, I mess with it, but you're meant to mess with things, that's what cooking is for.

[wshaffer.livejournal.com]

A lot of my cooking isn't from recipes either, or is from recipes that have gotten so familiar and comfortable that they've become templates that can be tweaked and messed with. Nevertheless, I can't resist a good cookbook. (Occasionally, I can't resist a bad one either, which is why I now try to get them from the library to test them out before I buy.)

[orichalcum.livejournal.com]

I surprisingly own none of them, though I should totally buy Bayless's Mexican Everyday, as I love his food. (When we lived in Chicago we lived about a 5 minute walk away from his two flagship restaurants and a 15 minute walk from his food-court fast-food place; all were ridiculously good. I miss those margaritas...and his mole sauce.

Currently, my favorite cookbooks are probably the Moosewood Everyday Food (though it's a bit hit and miss), Nigella's _Domestic Goddess_ cookbook, the King Arthur Flour Cookie Book (specialized, obviously), and the Food Channel site.