Cookbooks create towers of knowledge
I am surrounded by cookbooks. Literally. Every bookshelf I own is stuffed to the point of sagging with cookbooks.
At my office and at home, every surface has at least a tower or three of cookbooks.
And we won’t talk about what’s under my desk. (Shhh, I promised my editor I’d stop hoarding them there.)
And I love it.
In addition to their utilitarian purpose of teaching one how to prepare a specific dish in a particular way, cookbooks are guidebooks to our pasts and our futures.
One can travel the world. Or travel back to her childhood with recipes inspired by her favorite series of books. Or eat like a supermodel (if you believe supermodels eat). Or become a better baker. All without leaving the comfort of her favorite chair.
What I’m reading and cooking right now (in no particular order):
The Little House Cookbook: Frontier Food From Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Classic Stories by Barbara M. Walker. Originally published in 1979, a revised and updated edition was released last month. The 21st-century edition includes photographs and a handful of new recipes.
Tasty Ultimate: How to Cook Basically Anything from the editors of BuzzFeed (to be released Tuesday). If you’ve spent any time on Facebook, you’ve probably seen a Tasty video or two. This book has the same youthful style, but it isn’t only for beginners. Chock full of new ideas — cooking eggs flavored with bacon, cheese and green onions in a hollowed baguette — and a number of recipes that make just one or two servings, I’ve gotten more out of this book than I expected to.
Rose’s Baking Basics: 100 Essential Recipes, With More Than 600 Step-by-Step Photographs by Rose Levy Beranbaum. This book has everything — biscuits, yeast bread, fruit tarts, pizza, layer cakes, banana bread, whoopie pies, cream puffs, chocolate mousse ganache, babka, beer bread, chocolate meringue buttercream.
Cravings Hungry for More by
Chrissy Teigen. I admit I was skeptical about Teigen’s ability to write a cookbook and I tend to avoid celebrity cookbooks to begin with. In my experience if the book has more photos of the celebrity than one on each cover, it has too many photos of the celebrity. But I was able to get past prejudice and get into Cravings, both the food and Teigen’s plucky writing style.
Better Homes and Gardens New Cookbook 17th edition. A used 1953 edition of the Better Homes and Gardens New Cookbook was one of the first cookbooks I bought. I still use it to this day. This new one won’t replace that 1953 edition, but it has earned a spot on the shelf next to it.
Taco! Taco! Taco! Over 100 Recipes for Everybody by Sara Haas. I never get tired of eating tacos. I never get tired of reading about tacos — even tacos that are not remotely authentic. And knowing the recipes in this book were developed by a registered dietitian, I don’t feel guilty about it.
Rosa’s Thai Cafe: The Vegetarian
Cookbook by Saiphin Moore. Almost every recipe in this book makes just 2 servings, making it ideal for singles and couples or families like mine where only one member loves Thai food.
Quintessential Filipino Cooking: 75 Authentic and Classic Recipes of the Philippines by Liza Agbanlog. I know next to nothing about Filipino food. This book is helping change that.
My Modern Caribbean Kitchen: 70 Fresh Takes on Island Favorites by Julius “The Chef” Jackson. This book is not your usual tropical tourist fare. If you’re interested in understanding what the locals eat, this book is a good place to start. Boxing fans may recognize The Chef.
Bake Like a French Pastry Chef by Michel de Rovira and Agustin Paluel-Marmont. The photography and layout in this book are kind of awful — many photographs are blurry or badly lit and the doodles are distracting — but I keep reading it anyway. And I have learned a thing or two, perhaps because the book was written as a study guide for the official French pastry certification exam.