Your favorite cookbooks or manuals..

Maverick2272 · Feb 27, 2009

I thought we could share some of our favorite cookbooks or manuals we use and can't live without.
For manuals could be things like smoking techniques, knife sharpening manuals for the beginner, guides to outdoor cooking, etc.
For cookbooks anything from vegetarian to ethnic to regional cuisine to every day staple cooking to crockpot cooking to baking.

For me:
Fanny Farmer Cookbook
Bobby Flay's Grill it!
Cooking for Young Homemakers
Le Cordon Blu at Home
Lincoln Trail Heritage Cookbook
A Taste of the Country

I think I have a couple more around here, but not sure where they are right now. One should be on slow cookers, another on healthy eating, and another on quick and easy meals.

Next??

FryBoy · Feb 27, 2009

Way too many to list, but in a pinch, I usually turn to The Joy of Cooking, especially the older editions. I also look to anything by James Beard or Julia Child.

JoeV · Feb 27, 2009

Since I'm still a relative newbie to bread baking, I spend a lot of time in Peter Reinhart's The Bread Baker's Apprentice. It has taught me much about the science of bread baking and the interactions of ingredients.

I also have Artisan Breads in 5 Minutes a Day, but I'm disappointed in it. Aside from the Master Dough formula, it's nothing more than a recipe book and a refinement on the no-knead method made popular by Mark Bitman of the NY Times. I can't say I really learned much at all from that book.

We continue to use The Joy of Cooking that we got as a shower gift for our wedding back in 1972. It's a valuable resource that we think so much of, that we give it as wedding and shower gifts to this day. Each of our girls has a copy we bought for them when they set up their first households.

PanchoHambre · Feb 27, 2009

Not big on cookbooks..

I really like the Moosewood books for vegetarian cooking.. they were the first cookbooks I had.

The Silver Spoon because it covers so many bases and comes from traditional Italian household way of doing things is wonderful and it is nicely designed. It does not have enough description though so an accompanying google is required.

My Rick Bayless book

Any of the books from America's Test Kitchen because they explain things thoroughly and give you the why.

PieSusan · Feb 27, 2009

If someone asks me to recommend a baking book for a newbie, I always say any of Maida Heatter's books because she is reassuring and explains not only each step in the process but also what it should look like. Her recipes may be long but for someone new to baking, she is excellent. And, I really find that I like a lot of her recipes--not all but lots and lots.

bowlingshirt · Feb 27, 2009

Honestly, I've found myself using the internet more and more for a resource and looking at our cookbooks less and less.

JoeV · Feb 27, 2009

bowlingshirt said:
Honestly, I've found myself using the internet more and more for a resource and looking at our cookbooks less and less.

Ya know, I have to agree with you there. While the books are great tools, they don't change after you buy them. The Internet is constantly changing, adding more and more information for foodies to try and to experiment with. If it were not for the Internet, I don't think I would be as advanced in bread baking as I am today. It really shortens the learning curve when you learn how to search out information. Another arrow in the quiver.

jkath · Feb 27, 2009

I love Martha Stewart's Classics and her Updated Classics as well.
I also use a few good cookbooks from the 40's, including the BH&G one.
Oh! And, of course my grandma's & mom's handwritten recipes too.

Sass Muffin · Feb 27, 2009

These three, which are stuffed full of magazine clipped recipes and shared hand written ones from friends and family.

These days I use the net to find new recipes.

joec · Feb 27, 2009

I used to have about a dozen give or take of them but they got destroyed. Most of those where Martin Yan, Julia Child and Jeff Smith. I had a couple of others though don't remember by who any more. Now I only have 3 one on Chinese cooking out of print, Chad Ward's An Edge in the Kitchen and a Good Housekeeping notebook type that someone left in an empty storage space when they moved out. For the most part now if I want to know how to do a given procedure or looking for recipes the Internet is my first choice. I save all the recipes I like in text files that are easy to use regardless of the current computer system. I save them in simple files by subject.

buzzard767 · Feb 27, 2009

bowlingshirt said:
Honestly, I've found myself using the internet more and more for a resource and looking at our cookbooks less and less.

Me too. DW likes traditional cookbooks whereas I'm a seafood freak and have some local books I use.

1. Gulf Coast Seafood - Randy Wayne White. He used to be a fishing guide at Sanibel Island and then wrote a series of successful fiction novels based on a character named Doc Ford. I have them all.

2. Best Of The Best From Florida Cookbook - all types of food

3. Randy's Fishmarket Restaurant - Randy Essig - his shop is a couple miles from me - great eats.

4. The Stinking Rose Restaurant (San Francisco) Cookbook - Andrea Froncillo - all garlic recipes

joec · Feb 27, 2009

I was wondering if you have had Snook yet, Buzz? They are salt water fish that come into brackish water and get rather large. These have to be the only fish I would give up a steak and lobster dinner for if prepared right. It seems for some reason the only place they are caught is in the many canals in South Florida which I find a bit strange but I heard nothing about them being caught else where. Here is something on them http://www.fish4fun.com/snook.htm

buzzard767 · Feb 27, 2009

joec said:
I was wondering if you have had Snook yet, Buzz? They are salt water fish that come into brackish water and get rather large. These have to be the only fish I would give up a steak and lobster dinner for if prepared right. It seems for some reason the only place they are caught is in the many canals in South Florida which I find a bit strange but I heard nothing about them being caught else where. Here is something on them http://www.fish4fun.com/snook.htm

Absolutely. I target Snook any time I inshore fish. In fact, the season opens March 1st. Snook are the best eating fish on the planet and in the US you have to harvest them yourself, no purchases or sales allowed.

The reason you don't see them outside of South FL and places South of there is that they can only live in temperatures down to 65 degrees F. Even way down here, the Gulf can get down to the high 50's in winter so the Snook head into the estuaries and up the rivers. They can live in fresh water indefinitely if need be.

joec · Feb 27, 2009

My kid brother had a real knack for catching them as a kid. My grandfather who flat hated fish though would eat it, even ate one he caught and raved about it. Of course my grandmother never told him that my brother caught in the lake near us (behind Miami International Airport) or he would of never touched it. She told him it was a mackerel she picked up at the store.

buzzard767 · Feb 27, 2009

Joe - in the "show us your picture" thread I put up one of me throwing a cast net for scaled sardines down at the beach. These particular sardines are Mr. Snook's favorite food. At high tide the snook feed within 15 feet of the shoreline so I sight fish them many times every year. I also catch a lot of them off friends' docks in the back waters. I used to fish them from a kayak in Estero Bay but I sold it.

BamsBBQ · Feb 27, 2009

bowlingshirt said:
Honestly, I've found myself using the internet more and more for a resource and looking at our cookbooks less and less.

joec · Feb 27, 2009

We had a canoe that we fished out of as kids, later we both worked at the Old Wooden Bridge fishing camp on Big Pine Key. My father was part owner there until just after Donna wiped out the keys. He later retired at Lake Placid and bought into a fishing camp on lake Istokpoga. That is where where he died at. He really was the consummate fisherman his whole life. He worked for Pan Am as a mechanic till the folded when he retired, and married 9 differnt women in his life, two in the last year.

bigjim · Feb 27, 2009

I'm with the internet people. I generally pull up a number of recipes and then develop mine from there. I do have a collection of cookbooks, Jeff Smith, Pierre Franey, and a lot of specialty books. Nowdays I generally buy cookbooks to read, not use for cooking.

joec · Feb 27, 2009

Chad Ward's book An Edge in the Kitchen covers mostly knives, cutting boards etc but does have some recipes. He is someone I know and I actually got him to sign a copy for me and my one daughter in law that cooks. He is an excellent writer and has some stuff on eGullet as well as a few mags though not all cooking related. He posts in a couple of other cooking forums I belong too.

Keltin · Feb 27, 2009

I like "How To Cook Everything" by Mark Bittman. Its a 960 page tome that covers everything from picking a suitable pan to breaking down a chicken and how to cook it. I always suggest it to someone new to cooking.

Ralphanator · Feb 27, 2009

I don't use cook books to often these day but what I'm am buying is American Test Kitchen,Cooks,Cooks Country and Cuisine at Home!

I also watch the Food Network to see what they are cooking!When I want to cook something I haven't made before I usually have a Ideal how I want to prepare it!

So I'll search the Food Network and other internet sources and find the closet two or three recipe that follow my ideal and take the best from the three and go from there!

joec · Feb 27, 2009

Another source is Gourmet and bon appetit magazines both of which I got a free subscription for buying a couple of pans.

Ralphanator · Feb 27, 2009

joec said:
Another source is Gourmet and bon appetit magazines both of which I got a free subscription for buying a couple of pans.

Gourmet and Bon Appetit have great recipe but what don't like about them is that they are filled with advertisements. the four magazines I mention have none! Also I like that Cooks,A T k and C C redo a recipe over and over to get out all that is wrong with a recipe so it comes out the best it can be!

joec · Feb 27, 2009

I've never read the others you listed as magazines are high on my list as a rule. I usually just get my inspirations from the net about the same as you though Food Network has been even farther down my list since they really went to more entertainment than informative cooking shows.

Maverick2272 · Feb 27, 2009

For those of you using the Internet, feel free to name some of your favorite spots and sites. I also use Google and several recipe websites such as Allrecipes, SouthernFood/Crockpot, crockpot, FN, bread-maker(.net one), big oven, to name a few. Magazines you like are also cool!

buzzard767 · Feb 27, 2009

Maverick2272 said:
For those of you using the Internet, feel free to name some of your favorite spots and sites. I also use Google and several recipe websites such as Allrecipes, SouthernFood/Crockpot, crockpot, FN, bread-maker(.net one), big oven, to name a few. Magazines you like are also cool!

Big Oven - oh ya. I post favs and then have them on my iPhone when in the kitchen.

I also use cooks.com among others.

Buzz

FryBoy · Feb 27, 2009

I take a somewhat different view from what has been expressed by some here. Although I use the Internet to find recipes now and then (e.g., this one), I rely most heavily on my cookbooks and the recipes my wife and I have collected over the last 40 years.

Cookbooks are more than just a collection of recipes; they're an avenue into both the past and to exotic foreign lands. Once you learn to trust a particular author, such as Madhur Jaffrey for Indian cuisine, or Marcella Hazan for Italian, or Julia Child (American and French) or Irma Rombauer (American) or James Peterson (French) John Folse (Cajun and Creole), the Internet seems lacking. And the history of food provided by James Beard (American and French) and Edna Lewis (all things Southern) is invaluable. That sort of stuff just isn't easily found on the Internet.

I've been collecting cookbooks for 40 years, and have over 1000, including my mother's and my MIL's, so I have a leg up in this regard. I'm very adept at using the Internet, having been into computers for nearly 30 years, but I would no more give up my cookbooks in favor of the Internet than I would abandon my daily newspaper. Here's a glimpse:

Maverick2272 · Feb 27, 2009

Holy Cow!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

joec · Feb 27, 2009

Damned you like books don't you? Who dusts them there books? Impressive collection there guy.

Ralphanator · Feb 27, 2009

WOW!! Very Nice Collection!

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