Shelf love
Phones are fine, but real cookbooks bring more to the table
“Is that an actual book?”
It was a line out of an early episode of “Star Trek: Discovery,” which I’ve only just started watching. The main character pulls a copy of “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” from her belongings and her new roommate is rapt.
The series is set in the year 2255, but it feels like something I might hear from a passerby noting my beach read.
I love “actual” books. I have many. I keep acquiring more. I bought my mom a Kindle for Mother’s Day many years ago, but I still kick it old school. I read articles on my laptop and phone, sure, but it’s not the same.
Much like LPs, which I lament as a lost art form to anyone who’ll listen — a new record was an intimate experience; an afternoon spent examining cover art, liner notes, lyrics, as the musical story unfolded from start to finish — cookbooks are a way to really know a recipe, region or cooking style via beautiful photography and art direction, blurbs detailing notable or interesting ingredients, and even the authors if the recipe comes with a backstory.
Or not. You can simply hit the index for “Green Thai Curry” (or whatever) and get cooking.
Yes, the internet’s endless world of recipes is my oyster, too, tiny envelopes of potential deliciousness to be researched anywhere, but I always fall back into my books — marking new pages with my kids, jotting or pasting recipes into an old journal that’s full of papers and chicken scratch now, some of it more than 20 years old.
Turns out the same goes for my predecessors, two of whom have beloved books, recipes and kitchen war stories of their own. As October is National Cookbook Month, I thought I’d mine their knowledge on the topic — and get a few suggestions from the giants on whose shoulders I currently stand.
“Cookbooks are a great archive of time,” says Heather McPherson, who spent 28 years as the Orlando Sentinel’s food editor. “Just thumb through cookbooks from the ’50s, ’60s, ’70s up to today and it’s a fascinating study in history and culture.”
McPherson, whose recipes readers still request years after her departure, grew into food journalism quite organically.
“I grew up in the Midwest in what I affectionately call the ‘Becky HomeEcky Generation.’ Two years of home economics was mandatory, and it was approached like it should be — as a life skill.”
Seems hard to believe, but McPherson struggled to find her writing voice at the Sentinel. When longtime food editor Dorothy Chapman fell ill, she stepped in to lend a hand to her mentor.
“I helped find her replacement,” she recalls, “but the whole time I kept thinking ‘I really want this job.’ ”
When it opened again, McPherson spoke up.
The rest is history, of course, much of it written in the form of precise measurements and tasting notes. She couldn’t pick a favorite, but likes “cookbooks that instruct,” such as Julia Child’s “Mastering the Art of French Cooking” and Shirley Corriher’s “BakeWise” and “CookWise.”
“I still have my parents’ ‘The Joy of Cooking’ and my own edition — a gift from my dad decades later. I am obsessed with the America’s Test Kitchen and Cook’s Country television series on PBS and the companion cookbooks.
The success of the home cook is paramount to
“Cookbooks are a great archive of time. Just thumb through cookbooks from the ’50s, ’60s, ’70s up to today and it’s a fascinating study in history and culture.”
— Heather McPherson, who spent 28 years as the Orlando Sentinel’s food editor
everything they do. What was intimidating is now: Hey, I can do that!”
It’s precisely how she wanted readers to react to every recipe or food story in the paper.
Scott Joseph, senior restaurant critic for the Sentinel from 1988 to 2008, currently publishes Scott Joseph’s Orlando Restaurant Guide (ScottJoseph Orlando.com). He’s been at it for quite some time now, but it’s a comparative departure from his days at the paper.
“One of the frustrating things about being a fulltime restaurant critic was that I had few chances to cook at home,” he says. “Staying in on a Saturday night and cooking a long, involved recipe — preferably something with a lot of chopping — was a treat.”
The website has allowed Joseph to broaden those horizons; his “Scott’s
Kitchen” cooking segments afford him time to work on his knife skills while local chefs take him through the steps to a signature recipe. He’s happy for the practice. Cooking wasn’t a big part of his life until he’d conquered grad school.
“I was living in Galesburg, Illinois, my first apartment with a real kitchen, and decided I was going to learn how to cook. I found a recipe for linguine with white clam sauce that sounded easy…. The recipe called for five garlic cloves.”
Joseph, however, didn’t know the difference between a clove of garlic and a head.
“I used two heads and figured five would be too much,” he says. “My coworkers wouldn’t get close or talk to me for days. And I should note that Galesburg did not have a vampire sighting the entire time I
lived there.”
Joseph’s skills have improved, but like all of us, he still has kitchen fails. “I’ve learned that a cook has control and is usually able to right the ship and keep things from being a disaster.”
Of the many cookbooks he’s found influential over the years, Marcella Hazan’s “Classic Italian Cookbook” is a standout, in part because he had a chance to interview Hazan at her Venice apartment.
“Julia Child was her friend and Child was in Venice at the same time,” says Joseph. “When [Julia] called to ask her out for lunch, Hazan said she couldn’t because she was having lunch with me. I have relished telling that story for years...”
Child’s cookbooks, too, are among his favorites, “but I used ‘The Joy of Cooking’ more than any other.” Joseph appreciates the straightforwardness of its recipes.
I rather enjoy prose with personality, and so I’ll throw in a quick favorite from vegan chef Isa Chandra Moskowitz into the mix.
“Veganomicon” isn’t just the most wonderfully titled vegan cookbook of all time (oh, hey, fellow “Evil Dead” fans!), it’s chock full of information that breaks down plant-based cooking, schools readers on the staples of the vegan pantry and teaches them the valuable lesson that vegan food is — get this — just normal food. And hella delicious, too. One of my super-sim
ple standout faves is the miso-tahini dressing, divine with lentils, chickpeas and roasted cauliflower over soba noodles. Add fresh garlic and spook those vampires. It’s October, after all.
“I really like cookbooks that tell a story about each recipe or spotlight ingredients,” says McPherson. “That makes a real connection and offers a sense of place.”
Hear, hear! I say. (And have at it.)