Favorite cookbooks

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My favorites have all been listed, so I'm gonna add Jaques Pepin's New Complete Technique to the mix. There isn't as much depth and ancillary information as something like The Professional Chef, but it's a fantastic pictoral guide for a multitude of techniques. Very straightforward with "here's what this is, follow these steps and pictures."

Also, Sandor Katz "The Art of Fermentation" is a wonderful in depth resource for getting into fermentation, the history, culture, and multitude of varieties. It's an invaluable text on the subject, where as Noma is an incredible "cook book" that gives a bit of history and info, but is geared towards pushing you to think outside the box with what they've done. I love how it's set up to push you into thinking about what you can do differently using the base techniques that they've used as opposed to just giving a recipe to use with what the focus is. Together they're unparalleled for the subject
 
To pick just a couple: I'm also a huge fan of Roden's The Food of Spain.

And Lulu's Provencal Table is a stone-cold classic. A beautiful evocation of time and place, and a fitting tribute to one of the great wine domaines of France, and its charismatic matriarch. OFM’s classic cookbooks: Lulu’s Provençal Table by Richard Olney

(Who by the way is still alive at the respectable age of 102. Unfortunately I forgot my copy of the book when visiting Tempier last year, but she did graciously sign a bottle of the 2017 vintage for us, which was labelled specially for her 100th birthday.)
 
somehow all my planned fermentation projects fail, now unwanted fermentation does work...perhaps sterilizing jars before the fact needs some improvement.
 
cotedupy said:
To pick just a couple: I'm also a huge fan of Roden's The Food of Spain.

And Lulu's Provencal Table is a stone-cold classic. A beautiful evocation of time and place, and a fitting tribute to one of the great wine domaines of France, and its charismatic matriarch. OFM’s classic cookbooks: Lulu’s Provençal Table by Richard Olney

(Who by the way is still alive at the respectable age of 102. Unfortunately I forgot my copy of the book when visiting Tempier last year, but she did graciously sign a bottle of the 2017 vintage for us, which was labelled specially for her 100th birthday.)
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Thanks for the tip on the Olney book! I'll buy this :)
 
If I could have only one, it would be this, without question:
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I love this book so much I have two copies. I am definitely not a professional chef, but by following the instructions carefully I have NEVER been led astray by the recipes in Bouchon. Some people will say it's too much effort, not for beginners, etc. and I disagree. Follow the instructions and get good results; it's much easier to me than even other nice bistro cookbooks (e.g. The Balthazar Cookbook).

If I may be offered a second choice, I would flip a coin to choose between Atelier Crenn and Alinea. Not food I would (or could) necessarily cook myself, but just stunning works of art.
 
redisburning said:
If I could have only one, it would be this, without question:
View attachment 99369

I love this book so much I have two copies. I am definitely not a professional chef, but by following the instructions carefully I have NEVER been led astray by the recipes in Bouchon. Some people will say it's too much effort, not for beginners, etc. and I disagree. Follow the instructions and get good results; it's much easier to me than even other nice bistro cookbooks (e.g. The Balthazar Cookbook).

If I may be offered a second choice, I would flip a coin to choose between Atelier Crenn and Alinea. Not food I would (or could) necessarily cook myself, but just stunning works of art.
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I don't own Alinea but have flipped through it, and it is absolutely beautiful.

I only had like 10 minutes to flip through (a volume) the one time I was around it, but Modernist Cuisine is the most stunningly beautiful "cook book" (feels wrong to call it that) that I've ever had the joy of cracking open.
 
My favorite Italian cookbook lately is actually this website, Memories di Angelina.

I think it's one of the most underrated resources on the 'net. His recipes feel super authentic, not Italian-American at all. I made the pasta fagioli a few days ago, it was spectacular. Simple and perfect.

I'm linking to his "index" rather than the home page, it will give you a better idea of the scope of what he's put together.

https://memoriediangelina.com/index/
 
rickbern said:
My favorite Italian cookbook lately is actually this website, Memories di Angelina.

I think it's one of the most underrated resources on the 'net. His recipes feel super authentic, not Italian-American at all. I made the pasta fagioli a few days ago, it was spectacular. Simple and perfect.

I'm linking to his "index" rather than the home page, it will give you a better idea of the scope of what he's put together.

https://memoriediangelina.com/index/
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Wow, great minds think alike.. This has been my favourite source for Italian recipes for a few years now. The guy really knows food, cooking, and the history of Italian recipes. Completely agree with him being underrated.
 
ethompson said:
For home recipes, I really like Heritage, The Food Lab, The Silver Spoon, Six Seasons, Tu Casa Mi Casa, and Ad Hoc at Home. I’d really like to add a Vietnamese and Chinese (esp Sichuan) book to the mix.
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The Six Seasons is excellent for eating a seasonally fresh, veg-forward diet without being preachy or exclusively vegetarian.

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captaincaed said:
The Six Seasons is excellent for eating a seasonally fresh, veg-forward diet without being preachy or exclusively vegetarian.

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I enjoy McFadden's book as well. If you like Six Seasons you'd probably also enjoy the cookbooks by David Tanis, Market Cooking especially. Like McFadden they tend to be simple recipes that rely on good quality fresh ingredients and skew vegetarian although not exclusively so.
 
Just bought French Country Cooking. Out of print but got a good deal at 20 euro. Haven’t received it yet but pretty psyched, if only because of the gorgeous cover! :)
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)
 
Not every recipe is a stunner, but most are either quite good (flavorful and well spiced), or a solid base to build on with a little know-how. Some of the ingredients are a little precious, but if you live in a city it's a good cookbook, and the recipes come together quickly for a family (hence the title).

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captaincaed said:
Holy buckets. You cooked out of all of them?
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Nope, lol.

I really like the fine dining ones but the recipes in Alinea, TFL and Atelier Crenn are simply beyond my skill level right now. Im making way through them, and will try to get to some of the fun stuff in those at some point. Also some of these are brand new, so I havent gotten a chance yet. Next weekend I will probably try something from Kinfolk Table and Bitter Honey, which I both got a few days ago.
 
They can probably include recipes for some still available favorites without hurting business, too. Oysters and Pearls is still on the menu at the French Laundry, even though the recipe’s been out for years now. Also, even with a recipe available, you still have to make the damn food, which is probably very hard to do as well as they do. Plus many of the dishes probably include multiple multipurpose components that they have on hand in the restaurant, so that if you really wanted to make just this one Per Se dish it would take you like 5 days to do it from scratch. That’s assuming the recipes in the books are even completely accurate, rather than slightly altered for the home audience.

In any case, there's always new stuff on the menu, so it's not like you're going to be bored going to one of these places because a couple of the great dishes are in a cookbook.

That’s at least my uneducated take on it.

Edit: hmm, maybe this was @captaincaed's whole point. I admit I didn't really read his message and just read @M1k3's. Mike just says so many good things that I basically only read his messages nowadays. Sorry. ;)
 
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Having a manual doesn't get you very far, in truth.

I could write a book on how to do ml doesnt mean you're going to start pushing models to prod any time soon. I put in a decade to get to where I have the experience to do it properly, with my job on the line if things gets ****ed instead of the person above. a lot of kids right out school know the math but would drown in about a week.

a book can never teach you enough of the creativity and experience of the person who wrote it has. whether it's my job, cooking, painting, etc. only some.

I like cookbooks a lot. I have cobbled together some of the fancy recipes in some of the books, and theyve turned out great, because I have a pretty good sense when a book is going to have enough information to get me to a good result. But I have no delusion that it means I have any real skill. Only the ability to follow directions.
 
I really like Madhur Jaffrey's Ultimate Curry Bible. I haven't made a lot from it, but everything so far has been excellent. The green coriander chicken recipe was especially tasty.

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Jubilee is definitely my favorite cookbook of the year and is up there with other favorites. Everything I have made has been above average with the BBQ shrimp as the star of the book with everyone who eats this addicted to the sauce. Most of the recipes are very approachable and not too time consuming or complicated.
 
rstl87 said:
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Jubilee is definitely my favorite cookbook of the year and is up there with other favorites. Everything I have made has been above average with the BBQ shrimp as the star of the book with everyone who eats this addicted to the sauce. Most of the recipes are very approachable and not too time consuming or complicated.
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Jubilee is now 5 dollars on amazon kindle.
 
Just bought Nigella Lawson's first book "How to Eat" on Kindle for 1.99. Can't help but quoting this opening paragraph from the chapter entitled "One and Two"

“Don’t knock masturbation,” Woody Allen once said: “it’s sex with someone I love.” Most people can’t help finding something embarrassingly onanistic about taking pleasure in eating alone. Even those who claim to love food think that cooking just for yourself is either extravagantly self-indulgent or a plain waste of time and effort. But you don’t have to belong to the drearily narcissistic learn-to-love-yourself school of thought to grasp that it might be a good thing to consider yourself worth cooking for. And the sort of food you cook for yourself will be different from the food you might lay on for tablefuls of people: it will be better."

How to Eat (p. 120). Hachette Books. Kindle Edition.

Don't know if the recipes are any good, but she's a witty writer.
 
rstl87 said:
View attachment 103948

Jubilee is definitely my favorite cookbook of the year and is up there with other favorites. Everything I have made has been above average with the BBQ shrimp as the star of the book with everyone who eats this addicted to the sauce. Most of the recipes are very approachable and not too time consuming or complicated.
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Thanks for the heads up, just bought it.
 
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