Favorite Cookbook

[FoodieNerd]

What’s your favorite cookbook? You know the one that has been dog-eared, book marked, written in, and stained over time. As a person who is still learning a lot of the basics I have to say that I am constantly turning to “The All New Joy of Cooking” for basic information and tips and tricks. But my new favorites are “The Daily Soup Cookbook” by Leslie Kaul (I love making soup) and the new “Kitchen Sense” (Try the Ultimate Mac n’ Cheese recipe- it’s the best) by Mitchell Davis. I would love to know what you turn to so that I can maybe add that book to my collection.

[johnsmith45678]

Yeah, I think The Joy of Cooking would be near the top of my list. I also currently really like the America's Test Kitchen/Cooks Illustrated cookbooks. My Alton Brown cookbooks are gathering dust.

[shellfishfiend]

I highly recommend James Peterson's Fish & Shellfish. I use this book at least once a week. I love the fact that for each recipe, he gives alternate fish to use if the one called for is not available. There are photographs demostrating how to cut up or shell different types of seafood.

For just plain ol' good food, I love The Cotton Country Collection. It was put out by the Jr. League of Monroe , LA and is full of terrific Southern recipes. It has the best ever recipe for roasting a turkey.

I also have one of the Cooking Light Annual cookbooks and use it all the time. The recipes are healthy, full of great ingredients and they don't tend to go overboard in cutting out fat. I really like the fact that these are arranged by month and take advantage of seasonal products.

[Ross.ucf]

I highly recommend James Peterson's Fish & Shellfish. I use this book at least once a week. I love the fact that for each recipe, he gives alternate fish to use if the one called for is not available. There are photographs demostrating how to cut up or shell different types of seafood.

For just plain ol' good food, I love The Cotton Country Collection. It was put out by the Jr. League of Monroe , LA and is full of terrific Southern recipes. It has the best ever recipe for roasting a turkey.

I also have one of the Cooking Light Annual cookbooks and use it all the time. The recipes are healthy, full of great ingredients and they don't tend to go overboard in cutting out fat. I really like the fact that these are arranged by month and take advantage of seasonal products.

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I really like some of the older, 87-89, Revel cookbooks as well. Allthough The Cotton Country Collection is great, I still use River Road a lot more.

Also, another great book that I love to use for reference is OnCooking. It's more instructional that most cook books and is actully used as a text book in a lot of classes. I reccomend this if you want to learn a lot of technique as well as recipes.

[Toliver]

Similar previous discussions:

"What cookbook do you return to..., time & time again?"

"Your Favorite (Can't Do Without) Cookbook"

"Cookbooks, Whats your favorite"

"Worlds best cookbooks, Enlist your favourite cookbook"

"The Bestest Ever Cookbook reBFL"

[peony]

my favourite cookbook is written by our former 1st PM's mother,

Mrs. Lee's cookbook by Mrs. Lee Chin Koon.

It is a cookbook on straits-born Chinese food- sometimes known as Nonya food. This book has been my companion when I want to cook Nonya dishes. The instruction is simple and easy to follow.

my former PM is Lee Kuan Yew.

[chiantiglace]

If you want an answer to this question more easily you should just do a search. Many different sections of egullet have threads completely devoted to this. Many people probably wont even respond because it is something that has come up repeatedly, almost to the point of it being annoying.

[ludja]

my favourite cookbook is written by our former 1st PM's mother,

Mrs. Lee's cookbook by Mrs. Lee Chin Koon.

It is a cookbook on straits-born Chinese food- sometimes known as Nonya food. This book has been my companion when I want to cook Nonya dishes. The instruction is simple and easy to follow.

my former PM is Lee Kuan Yew.

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Is this book written in Chinese or is it also available in English?

(welcome to eGullet, by they way, peony!)

[highchef]

Sometimes it's not easy to get results when you do a search on this site. So please be nice when someone has posted and just give the links....I have had some terrible times with the search here, and it does need a bit of tweeking. Be Nice.....

edit: has, have...

the site search is a bit difficult, and would it be that hard to put up a spell check?

Edited October 19, 2006 by highchef (log)

[peony]

my favourite cookbook is written by our former 1st PM's mother,

Mrs. Lee's cookbook by Mrs. Lee Chin Koon.

It is a cookbook on straits-born Chinese food- sometimes known as Nonya food. This book has been my companion when I want to cook Nonya dishes. The instruction is simple and easy to follow.

my former PM is Lee Kuan Yew.

←

Is this book written in Chinese or is it also available in English?

(welcome to eGullet, by they way, peony!)

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thanks ludja...

the book is written in English....

[Mikeb19]

My favourite cookbook, without a doubt,

"Encyclopédie culinaire du XXIe siècle", by Marc Veyrat.

In my opinion, it really does live up to its name, the techniques are all cutting edge, it contains every base recipe and technique you need, as well as many original recipes, both rustic and avant-garde.... It's a book I can read out of for hours just for enjoyment, as well as a book I can refer to when making just about any food....

Worth every penny, without a doubt (and it cost me ALOT of them...).

[FoodieNerd]

Sometimes it's not easy to get results when you do a search on this site. So please be nice when someone has posted and just give the links....I have had some terrible times with the search here, and it does need a bit of tweeking. Be Nice.....

edit: has, have...

the site search is a bit difficult, and would it be that hard to put up a spell check?

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Thanks highchef! It is hard to do a search and find exactly what you are looking for. I am new to eGullet and I didn't see the topic. I did realize that it had probably already been covered but I thought it would be fun to put it out there anyways. Thanks everyone for your responses. They all sound like great books, many of which I am sure I'll be adding to my collection.

[ludja]

Sometimes it's not easy to get results when you do a search on this site. So please be nice when someone has posted and just give the links....I have had some terrible times with the search here, and it does need a bit of tweeking. Be Nice.....

edit: has, have...

the site search is a bit difficult, and would it be that hard to put up a spell check?

←

Thanks highchef! It is hard to do a search and find exactly what you are looking for. I am new to eGullet and I didn't see the topic. I did realize that it had probably already been covered but I thought it would be fun to put it out there anyways. Thanks everyone for your responses. They all sound like great books, many of which I am sure I'll be adding to my collection.

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As an aside, the best way to search the site is to use the "search" feature located by scrolling all the way to the top of each page. The word "search" is in dark blue text. This search function is a lot more powerful than than the two boxes below the eGulllet banner that say "site search" and "google search". You can specify the search quite a bit more tightly and only really need to get creative if major search word is three letters or less. Search words need to be four or more letters.

For finding threads on favorite cookbooks, I would search,

cookbook*

and

select the search for all sub-forums and for the word 'cookbook*' to be in the title. Choose the searches to be reported as 'threads'. There are lots of great "best" cookbook threads in some of the different regional forums as well such as for Italian or Indian cookbooks.

It is great to pop up these existing threads as there are always new people and opinions!

Edited October 19, 2006 by ludja (log)