Your Favorite Cookbooks

[dermacie]

My Mom about 10 years ago gave me the Betty Crocker Picture Cookbook when it was re-released.

I was wondering what cookbooks some of you like, I love having cookbooks to page through especially since we are getting close to Thanksgiving.

 

[firedome]

We use Cooks Illustrated a lot.

 

[ea56]

I learned to cook using my Mom’s 1957 edition of the Betty Crocker Picture Cookbook. And I now have both the first edition from 1950 that belonged to my Aunt Virginia and the 1998 edition, which doesn’t differ a great deal from the first edition.

I think that anyone who can read and has basic comprehension ability can learn to be a competent and reasonably good cook using the BC Picture CB. This cookbook shows how to accomplish just about every kind of baking and cooking skill required to be a good cook. After the basics are mastered one can branch out and experiment, and become even better.

I also have at least 70 or more other cookbooks, all of which I will refer to from time to time, taking and leaving ideas to formulate my own recipes, which I write down and refer to again if I’m happy with the results.

To me the most overrated cookbook is “The Joy of Cooking”. I could never figure out what was the attraction of this cookbook, but if you like it, you like it, and should use it if it works for you.

One of my favorite cookbooks is the Westinghouse Electric Range 1939 cookbook. It was left behind by the previous tenant along with her 1939 Westy range when we moved into a duplex in 1983. Its a good, basis, nonsense cookbook. And that 1939 range was one of the very best stoves I’ve ever cooked or baked with.

Eddie[this post was last edited: 11/7/2019-13:03]

 

[luxflairguy]

Julia Child and Irma Rombauer! The "The Way to Cook" is my bible and the original "Joy of Cooking" follows close behind! I've been lucky enough to have cooked with Julia and boy was that fun! I do also have both my Grandmother and Mother's copies of the Better homes and Gardens cookbooks. Irna Garten follows...

 

[chachp]

Boxes of them.....

 

<span style="font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino; font-size: 14pt;">I don't know how many I have as I have collected them for 40 years.  I do have a shelf in the family room where some of my favorites reside.  My very favorites are two Silver Palate Cookbooks I bought years ago.  They are full of notes and pieces of paper about different things.  I have a Joy of Cooking as well and don't think I have ever really used it.  </span>

 

<span style="font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino; font-size: 14pt;">I will admit though these days I find myself going on line when I want a recipe just because its so fast and the variety is endless.  I have been building an online cookbook for a few years where I have family favorites and recipes I've collected from all over the place.</span>

 

<span style="font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino; font-size: large;">My Mom was an amazing cook.  I come from a long line of Italians who live to eat and love to cook.  I learned so much from her and miss her so much especially when I'm in the kitchen and realize I can't call her and ask how do you ......</span>

 

<span style="font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino; font-size: large;">I have a handwritten notebook that she started for me years ago with my favorite foods.  I cherish that book.  Thanks for this thread, brings forward some great memories.</span>

 

[ea56]

Yes, Julia Child, but not her cookbooks as much as her first cooking shows on PBS. I learned how to make a perfect omelet from watching her in about 1965, and to this day, every time I make an omelet I still can her here her voice in my head and visualize her making an omelet.

I have her “From Julia Child’s Kitchen”, and do refer to it from time to time, but it was her TV shows that I really benefited from.

Eddie

 

[paulg]

Our top three

Mastering the Art of French Cooking by Julia Child is far and away our favorite cookbook.
Second is America’s Test Kitchen cookbook.
And one of my favorites is Dinah Shore’s original cookbook. It is red and just says Dinah on the cover.
Other favorites are:
The Flavor Bible
and
Jamie Oliver’s Five Ingredients

 

[maytagbear]

Joy! Joy! Joy!

down in my tummy.......Joy Of Cooking was one of Ma's favorites, and is one of my favorites. I LOVE the chat, I love the "narrative" style of the recipes.

My favorite Joy is the 1962-'63, followed by the original (1931), anf then the recent 75th Anniversary edition.

Anything by Jean Anderson is well researched, and excellent. She has a new one coming out this year, about North Carolina pottery and food. Amazing, since she was born in 1929.

I love all of the Cook's Illustrated/America's Test Kitchen/Cook's Country titles. Their Diabetes book is very good, as is their Cooking For Two.

King Arthur Flour's books, especially the Cookie Companion are wide ranging, and bulletproof.

I really do not care for most of the Food Network crew. Giada is OK, but I do not care for Flay, Garten, Brown, Lagasse, Drummond...............(Oh Maria, you are not anywhere close to being a pioneer. You are, at most, a farm/ranch wife. You always had running water, electricity, gas, and a car.)

I have grown to like Dorie Greenspan's books quite well, even though she herself can act a little smug at times.

I ADORE Mary Berry, and have read all of her books which are available here in the States. Her recipes are also very reliable. That is BIG with me.

For pressure cooking.......said it before, saying it again: Pressure Perfect by Lorna Sass.

Lawrence/Maytagbear

 

[jamiel]

I've mentioned this book before...Stand Facing the Stove is about 20 years old now. It's the story of the making of Joy of Cooking. Ree Drummond is an interesting paradox...California girl at USC who was swept off her feet by Drummond (idk his first name) who is BIG rich in Oklahoma. My mom's family predates statehood in Oklahoma and was politically prominent in Tulsa, but the Drummond have been around since the 1870s.

 

[lordkenmore]

Hard to say... Many years ago, when I was first cooking, I probably most heavily used a 1960s edition of FANNIE FARMER my mother had (and which had been her basic cookbook for years). Back then, I went through other cookbooks as well, in search of new recipes. And sometimes even ideas that were applicable past a recipe.

Like others, I have a lot of respect for Julia Child--both MASTERING THE ART OF FRENCH COOKING, and also her FRENCH CHEF TV show. Indeed, I only got the DVD set of that TV show at the library because of some commentary here. I thought I'd probably watch a chunk to get a sense of the show and then return it. I ended up watching the whole thing, more or less. I liked the way she taught more than just a recipe, and she was endlessly interesting. I was inspired to make onion soup for my Thanksgiving dinner that year. (I was alone, like usual, and so that was as much of a special dinner as I was willing to do.)

I still look at cookbooks sometimes. But I no longer do much that's ambitious. I live alone, have limited kitchen, and even more limited budget. So, day to day, it's mostly my cooking is kept simple. Mostly stuff I know, and stuff that allows for safe improvising. When I do need additional information, I generally just look on-line for a recipe or other information.

 

[lordkenmore]

>I've been lucky enough to have cooked with Julia and boy was that fun!

You were lucky! And I can imagine it was fun--and also a very memorable experience.

 

[lordkenmore]

One other cookbook that I value is one that my mother assembled over the years--a mix of recipes from my paternal grandmother (stuff that my father had liked), maternal grandmother (a cookie recipe that I remember my mother making often), newspaper clippings of interesting recipes (which she'd saved for entertaining--and at least one had been a well-loved recipe, which, years later, became a special occasion dish for us).

 

[wayupnorth]

My mothers 1929 "The International Cookbook" given to my mother as a wedding gift in 1929, dedicated to the "Homemakers of the world". Menu suggestions, how to set an oven as quick, slow. But alot of that can be adapted to todays world and I get ideas.

 

[frigilux]

My cookbooks went to the local library in 2017 when I sold the house and moved to an apartment. To be honest, my “cookbooks” are websites these days. Allrecipes.com is a go-to for general cooking.

I’ve adopted a low-carb diet lately in order to bring down A1C/blood sugar numbers, so am spending time at sites like KetoConnect, Gnom-Gnom, Low Carb Yum, I Breathe I’m Hungry, Big Man’s World, Serious Keto, Sugar Free Mom, Fluffy Chix Cook, Ditch The Carbs, Butter Together Kitchen, Green & Keto, and Headbanger’s Kitchen.

Recipes are entered into an app called Pepperplate on my iPad.[this post was last edited: 11/7/2019-22:06]

 

[norgeway]

I have about a thousand or so.

Betty Feezors cookbooks as well as Nancy Welches are my go to for about anything, Then the Betty Furness Westinghouse cookbook, The Betty Crocker 1950 version, and many Church cook books, I also like the Mary Macs Tea Room book, How I Cook It by McDonalds Tea Room in Gallatin Missouri, "Best corn muffins on earth!", Eudora Garrisons cook book, Cooking at Greystone which was a Tennessee TV station that had a cooking show similar to Betty Feezors, I could go ON and ON.

 

[vacerator]

Well, you asked ! "Cooking light",

though most of their recipies are not that light, but delicious. Several others which were either bought or given to us, including one titled "The best recipe". It has good basic fundamnetal insttructions for many baking and cooking procedures.
Grahm Kerr's revised book "Skinny versions", One of all of all BBQ, one of all Christmas, Mexican, Healthy (sort of), and grilling from Time-Life, etc., bought from a travelling vendor at one of Hubby's former jobs, Emerill LaGasse's Creole Christmas, that I found at a resale store, and one from My sister recently by A kentucky born gal, Sophie Dahl, who now resides in England. It has farm to table, vegan, and healthy eats.
As well as the books that came with my vintage Cusinart by James Beard, Kitchen Aid mixer, and the newer food processor accessory, hubby compiled a large binder full of plastic sleeved of mainly "Food network", Ina Gartin, Rachel Ray, etc., etc. recipies. One of our favorites, is called Polo Rafano, from a former restaurant called "Ernesto's in Plymouth, Mi. It has of course chickem breast, San Marzano plum tomatoes, bell pepper, and scalion, in a light cream horseradish sauce over pasta.
We rarley make many from the books as of late since eating healthier to lose weight and gain more muscle.
The holidays are not far off though, and I have a freezer full of Itlaian sausage I got one sale back in summer. So, I'm going to make them with meatballs, and a Bolognese sugo "sauce" for our Christmas eve gathering, etc. with pasta and maybe bell pepper and onion/sugo hoagie's. Maybe pasta Fagioli bean soup, and I already got currants, and raisins to bake a sour cream/rum raisin/nut coffee cake.
We also bake garlic bread sticks, and I may make some Nieman Marcus "Everything" chocolate chip/nut cookies. I also enjoy figs, etc, so I usually bake Hamantaschen" from "Cooking Light" cream cheese refrigerator dough cookies, though I know they are meant for Prurim, but they are so tasty for Christams, and or Chanuka as well. Hubby may bake his famous death by chocolate pumpkin cheesecake, or chocolate transportation flourless cake with genache' frosting depending on what the others are making.
A Mexican cheesecake topped with chooped peppers, tomatoes, and scalion makes a great appetiser dish.

 

[firedome]

One interesting tidbit...

about Julia Child that I like to relate to folks starting to get a tad hoity-toity about gourmet cooking (which I love btw) is that one of Julia's favorite foods was a McDonald's Quarter Pounder!

 

[ea56]

Julia Child also liked Mickey D’s fries too, because the were still fried in fat that contained beef suet. Since she has passed away I believe that they discontinued that practice.

Julia wasn’t a food snob, thats what lead to her appeal. She believed in using the best ingredients and cooking with time honored practices, without making things any more difficult than necessary.

I learned so much from watching her. And the main thing I learned was that everyone makes mistakes, thats how we all learn how to be better cooks. And I learned that using good common sense in the kitchen is an indispensable skill.

A good cook can come up with a delicious meal using what ever ingredients and tools are available at the time. The secret is to adapt to the situation at hand, and you just may discover something wonderful in the process, or not, but either way its not the end of the world.

Eddie

 

[lordkenmore]

>Mickey D’s fries too, because the were still fried in fat that contained beef suet. Since she has passed away I believe that they discontinued that practice.

Yes, I think, too, that they use some other fat. I also wonder what other changes have been made to the various items she liked on the menu. I have to wonder if she'd like the McDonalds of 2019.