More Thoughts On Cookbooks

I am shamelessly sharing this good advice with everyone. A friend of Belle writes to say:

If Julia Child's Mastering is like a very good undergrad course in French cooking, then Paula Wolfert's The Cooking of Southwest France is a wonderful graduate education in a particular region. For a simpler and easier approach to French cooking at home, why not try Anthony Bourdain's cookbook or one of Julie Child's simpler cookbooks? I've generally had good luck with recipes from the Bourdain cookbook, especially the onion soup recipe.

Fergus Henderson's two cookbooks are wonderful to read and have some interesting recipes, especially if you like offal. I roasted a suckling pig this weekend, taking some suggestions from recipes in Child's and Henderson's cookbooks, and I was quite pleased with the result.

For other baking cookbooks, have you ever seen any Francois Payard or
Pierre Herme' cookbooks? Herme's recipe for chocolate macarons is definitely worth trying.

For Cajun and Creole cooking, books by Paul Prudhomme and John Folse are worth a look. I've found both of them to be helpful, even in law classes: my only book award came about because of a seminar paper in which I set the Hart/Fuller debate in the context of gumbo.

I don't find Ina Garten's cookbooks to be worth the price, especially since you can often find her recipes on line. They make nice coffee table books and the recipes aren't bad, but there are so many more interesting books out on the market.

Thank you, Friend of Belle!

Building a Cook's Library

I don't have enough "real" cookbooks besides the Better Homes and Garden one, which sucks because it's full of bland, uninspiring recipes that are a little too 1950s casseroley for me.

But you do need classic, "bible" type cookbooks. I only have thin, not-as-useful ones that I got as gifts, like a tapas cookbook, an Asian vegetables cookbook, a "best-ever chicken" cookbook and some random international cookbook. I also have two dessert bibles (Great Desserts From Great Chefs; Dessert Circus), and those are very good. But I need more bible-like ones for other foods and other types of baking. Cooking is a religion, and you need textual inspiration and affirmation.

Books for which I intend to scour Liberal College City's used bookstores or get on my next book budget or birthday, which I also suggest to you in order of importance (e.g get the high-ranked ones first, the Chez Panisse ones are not as necessary to building your store of skills and ideas):

How to Cook Everything by Mark Bittman (this is like the New Testament)

Barefoot Contessa at Home by Ina Garten (I like books for home cooks; too fancy and you'll never make them)

Jacques Pepin's Table (out of print, but a good book!)

The Tartine Bakery Cookbook (the best bakery in America)

Mastering the Art of French Cooking by Julia Child (low ranked only because the above are more versatile and cross-cuisine)

The Chez Panisse Cafe Cookbook (the slow foods movement: a good idea, hard to keep up, hard to sustain in less agricultural parts of the country)

Chez Panisse Desserts (the Tartine book is better)