Cookbooks

Which Cookbooks have you found invaluable? For me, I love the BonAppetit series and the New York Times cookbook.
Regarding magazines, I enjoy "Fine Cooking" and "Southern Living".

Andrea

Joy of Cooking is still our bible. The format can be clunky with references to other sections (please read About Water on p....), but it covers huge ground. I almost exclusively use their roasting technique, and they provide a good number of tricks to help the novice overcome cooking fear. Even where their recipes are a bit dated they are a good starting point for adaptation.

We still get Gourmet, but there's rarely a recipe we'd make any more. We are absolutely committed to Cooks Illustrated. They do the research to explain why they choose certain ingredients or techniques, and their recipes always come out as promised.

I'm quite certain this has been covered but I got weary looking through 24 pages of the froum where I thought it would be.

To stay on topic though, an interesting book out by NPR called "Kitchen Sisters, Hidden Kitchens". I wouldn't call it a MUST READ, but it was pretty good. Mostly stories but recipes as well.
My "use all" book is my 1960 something Better Homes and Gardens.

Try this----- http://www.roadfood.com/Forums/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=201&SearchTerms=cookbooks

My 1970s Fanny Farmer cookbook. They offered it in paperback in an ad in the Sunday paper for $1.00 and I got one. It had the authentic recipe for French chocolate mousse and a lot of others I still use. The book is falling apart now but there is always Scotch tape. (Must be a pound of that on the book by now!) Along with Julia Child's French cooking and Paul Prudhomme's groundbreaking books, that is how I became a good cook. Boy, I miss Julia.

Usually, for me, "invaluable" implies a broad scope, but I have a number of cookbooks I love with a narrower focus. A recent one is "All About Braising" by Molly Stevens. The recipes are all yummy. An older one is Paul Prudhomme's original "Louisiana Kitchen". If you try shrimp creole made his way (warning--it takes several days if you make your shrimp stock as you should), you'll never be satisfied with another version again. I also still use my Frugal Gourmet books for a lot of their little tips like making stock overnight in the oven rather than on the stove top in the traditional way (which I rarely have time to do). And, finally, since I love Asian food (especially noodles), I use Bruce Cost's "Big Bowl Cookbook" a lot.

Betty Crocker Cookbook.
Joy of Cooking.
Mastering the Art of French Cooking.
Julia Child and Jacques Pepin Cooking at Home.
Cooking with Master Chefs.

Before Mamaw Smith severely broke her arm last July, we had ask her to assemble all the recipes she had used since she was a child. She is now 84. She completed it a month before she fell and broke most every bone in her right arm. As you can guess, that severely put a stop to her writing. Her computer skills are zero.

My brother is in the process of putting this cook book in print form along with some trivia about the rural area around Cumberland Gap where she grew up.

Paul E. Smith
Knoxville, TN

Paul, my great-nona never wrote any recipes down. My great-aunt Sally decided one day to go over to great-nona's house and start writing things down. The ravioli recipe goes on for three pages. Apparently great-nona was BIG on cooking the long way around.

If you get that cook book of Mamaw's in print, could you puuuuhhhhlllleeeese offer it to us Roadfooders??? I would LOVE to have some of Mamaw's recipes!

You beat me to it Chef. I'd dearly like a compilation of Mamaw Smith's recipes.

The Good Housekeeping Illustrated Guide to Cooking, from the mid 80's.

Erma Rombauer Becker's The Joy of Cooking, from the late 40's

The Joy of Cooking
Madame Wong's Long Life Chinese Cookbook
Thailand-The Beautiful Cookbook
Just about every issue of Cook's Magazine

I am currently trying to figure out how to archive my grandmother(s), my mother's, and also my mother's two sisters recipes that are hand written on scraps of paper and index cards. Converting them to computer based datii is going to take some time. Maybe I will & maybe I won't be able to do so. I have noticed that some of my maternal grandparents have recipes dated to the early 1900's. Perhaps I will be able to scan some of these in the future. I will share with all when/if this comes about.

Of course, all of same is related to true Southern cooking. Most of you people know how I feel 'bout that...