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Favorite cookbook?

UglyCasanova

UglyCasanova

Lifer
What's your favorite cookbook? The one with the most food stains on the pages..

For me, Bon Apetit, Y'all by Virginia Willis.

Southern cooking at its absolute finest. Everything I've ever cooked out of here has tasted amazing.
 
I don't use cookbooks at all now. I get recipes from aggregating sites like AllRecipes and similar. With a cookbook you never know if a recipe is decent or whether the author is an idiot who happens to like it. When a recipe has been made and reviewed by thousands of people it's a lot easier to separate the wheat from the chaff.
 
I have a large collection of cookbooks and really don't have a favorite but, I am sentimental about old church cookbooks. I love the ones that ask for a "nickels worth" of some ingredient.
 
My go to is the first American edition of Larousse Gastronomique. It's more like an encyclopedia than a cookbook. It does have tons of recipes, but they are in a condensed, basic form. For recipes this book expects that you know the techniques involved, though it also explains the techniques involved; you just have to look those up as well. What is most amazing about this book is that even if some talking head on a Food Network show pronounces a dish as some new, amazing creation never before seen, you will probably find the recipe or a mention of the very same dish in this book (except for some crazy molecular gastronomy stuff)...and the first American edition was printed in 1961. The French version is actually much older. It's not something you'd want to read front-to-back, but as a reference it is comprehensive and outstanding.
 
Currently "Well Fed 2", courtesy of my super-awesome Secret Santa 😉

http://www.theclothesmakethegirl.com/about-well-fed-2/

I do get most of my recipes online, but I do love quality cookbooks with great photography & explanations behind the foods & the reasoning for the recipes. In fact, I just made Olive Oil Mayo from that book tonight & made a tuna salad wrap! A+. I do like Yummly as a meta-search engine for all of the food sites:

http://www.yummly.com/

Pinterest is also the bomb for finding recipes, since I am very visually-oriented - I love giant pictures of delicious-looking food! Beyond that, I'm planning on putting an HP Slate 21 in my kitchen on a swing-arm at some point (it's basically a 21" Android tablet, aka a touchscreen monitor with an Android board stuffed in there). That way I can listen to music or throw something on Netflix & have the recipe up & available on Evernote or a webpage.

http://www8.hp.com/us/en/ads/aio-products/slate21-pro.html
 
25-cookbook-video.jpg
 
Better Homes and Gardens New Cook Book.

1953 edition.

and a few newer BHG cook books made in the 60's.

why? Simple but tasty recipes with ingredients I can find easily.
 
Kaido said:
I was wondering if that one was any good. Have anything in particular you'd recommend from it?
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I do like the variety in rubs and marinades in there. Some of the side dishes are really good too.
If you are looking for brisket recipes you will be disappointed (he says to let the meat speak for itself).
Good poultry and rib recipes.

Worth the money in my opinion.
 
Uppsala9496 said:
I do like the variety in rubs and marinades in there. Some of the side dishes are really good too.
If you are looking for brisket recipes you will be disappointed (he says to let the meat speak for itself).
Good poultry and rib recipes.

Worth the money in my opinion.
Click to expand...

Never had a brisket that I liked, but I won't rule it out because I had never had beef short ribs that I liked until I went to a new local BBQ place where they only serve beef ribs...and they were amazing. So I think I just haven't had good brisket yet.
 
Williz said:
This magical thing called the internet, it's got every recipe for every food I ever wanted. ALL FOR FREE
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as much as I love the internet (and do lookup recipes regularly), it's not without problems.

namely, potentially bad recipes (and even relying on reviews... a lot of times you'll read a review to the effect of "this is great, but you really need to change these 20 things to make it edible"), and to an extent, it requires knowing what you're looking for.

I like cookbooks for casually browsing and reading recipes that I might not have otherwise thought to make. (and while cookbooks can be awful too, I've managed to find my favorite authors/publishers who always seem to put out great books)
 
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I always check this first before looking on the internet. Usually the Better Homes recipes require less steps and taste better.
 
loki8481 said:
as much as I love the internet (and do lookup recipes regularly), it's not without problems.

namely, potentially bad recipes (and even relying on reviews... a lot of times you'll read a review to the effect of "this is great, but you really need to change these 20 things to make it edible"), and to an extent, it requires knowing what you're looking for.

I like cookbooks for casually browsing and reading recipes that I might not have otherwise thought to make. (and while cookbooks can be awful too, I've managed to find my favorite authors/publishers who always seem to put out great books)
Click to expand...

Yeah, I've seen this effect too. What I've gotten into lately is finding cookbooks by food bloggers. People who blog about cooking usually have a comments section, and comments promote feedback, modifications, and discussion. That way the recipes can kind of go through a "refiner's fire" by being tested on a bunch of random people instead of just the cookbook author's friends, so you usually end up with a pretty well-rounded recipe. A couple great examples:

RideFree's Famous Bread Recipe

Chickpea cookies

Both of those recipes have been well-discussed and have pretty much been nailed down to a science, to the point where if you follow the recipe exactly as written, you will get excellent results because they've tried it so many different ways. Here's a few of my more recently-acquired cookbooks that I really like:

http://www.theclothesmakethegirl.com/about-well-fed-2/

http://www.inspiralized.com/cookbook/

http://againstallgrain.com/buy-it-now/

And a few on my upcoming list:

http://ohsheglows.com/the-book/

http://www.amazon.com/Protein-Pow-d-er-Cookbook/dp/0957356706/

http://www.amazon.com/Nom-Paleo-Food.../dp/1449450334
 
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