My favorite cookbook is...

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6 Comments

Comment by Lisa R on April 15, 2008 at 3:14pm

Hey Mimi, I've never heard of either of those cookbooks. Would love if you would share some of your favorite recipes!

Comment by Mimi on April 10, 2008 at 3:22pm

Excellent discussion! I have a cookbook compulsion, and more often than not, the one cookbook I HAVE TO HAVE ends up collecting dust.
The last cookbook I bought has been a real treasure, however. I actually bought two: Alice Waters' "Chez Panisse Vegetables" and "The Art of Simple Food." The veggie cookbook has great recipes, but I also use it as a reference book on how to prepare veggies I've never worked with, or information about veggies. "The Art of Simple Food" is great because it has lots of basic recipes or techniques that you can apply to whatever combination of ingredients you happen to have. For instance, it has a braising recipe that will work for just about any cut of meat. I highly recommend Ms. Waters' cookbooks, and I'm always on the lookout for others she has written. I have lots of books I would gladly swap for any of her stuff.

Comment by Zelda Manners on April 10, 2008 at 11:52am

Hi. The other day my Mum gave me the (very dog-eared) copy of the cookbook she used from the time when she was first married until she went back to work after my brother and I started school. It's a 'Good Housekeeping' publication called 'Cooking Is Fun' and includes such gems as how to host a 'record party' with two girls preparing the food. It even says the order in which to wash up dishes. If you follow its advice on how to cook cabbage you will have your leaves in the pan for about twenty minutes (with bicarbonate of soda) and it reminds all of us ladies to make sure we send our men off to the office with a nutritional breakfast inside them before we pick up our knitting! But all this aside, I love it. For within it's pages I find recipes for all the food I grew up on. I'm a vegetarian now but I have been able to adapt some of them. I have many, many cookery books but I pick this one up again and again.

Comment by Jill McKeever on April 10, 2008 at 7:51am

I agree, Lisa S.
When we go antique shopping, I love to sit in the book corners and flip through old cookbooks. The retro artwork: housewives in lace aprons and A-cut dresses, fondue pots, Dad outside grilling brontosaurus burgers the size of your head....it's all fun!
It's take an incredible amount of self control and filtering to buy a cookbook I can really use over and over.

Comment by Rosie on April 8, 2008 at 1:45pm

This is a great idea !!

Comment by Jill McKeever on April 8, 2008 at 6:35am

This is a great idea for a group!
Thanks for starting it, Lisa.