Pathetic as this is to admit for someone who's hoping to drive a lot of traffic to her site, I don't use the internet all that much for cooking. When presented with a particular culinary quandry (such as last week's: how best to grill a 5 1/2 pound red snapper), I do like to turn to the internets (and its many tubes) but somehow I don't find the internet as generally inspirational as I do a really good cookbook.
For a while after we moved into our house, our cookbooks had no home in our new kitchen and perched rather perilously on the corner of the kitchen counter - and while this was not a great time for home organization, I think Donovan would agree that it was a particularly golden period in my cooking, where I was almost constantly reading, re-reading and reviewing the contents of my stack.
Now better organized, but no less inspirational, they are as follows:
- Appetite, by Nigel Slater. Donovan finds Nigel's rather slap-dash ingredient lists infuriating, but I think he's got a intriuging approach to home cooking; the book really is about learning to listen to your senses in the kitchen and, especially, at the market. Also, the food photography is possibly the wierdest, and therefore awesomest, I have ever seen in a cookbook. If most food photography is Playboy Magazine, Appetite's is underground hardcore.
- How to Be a Domestic Goddess, by Nigella Lawson. Given, right? But Nigella is so chatty, so self-depricating, and so constistantly right on with her recipes, I almost never bake without her. Her sugar cookie recipe alone is worth the price of admission.
- The Silver Palate Good Times Cook Book, by Julee Rosso and Sheila Lukins. "Pesto is the quiche of the eighties." Word up - and this cookbook is total eighties, but I love it. It has the recipes that my mom was crazed for when I was in my tween years - lots of sugary/savory, big flavors, and a certain preciousness that was very right for the time. It's also a photography-free cookbook - nothing but sketches - which is ridiculously charming.
- The New Cook, by Donna Hay. From what I understand, Donna Hey is like a religion in her native Australia. Very clean and crisp recipes.
- Anthony Bourdain's Les Halles Cookbook. I read Kitchen Confidential first, and was in Bourdain's pocket from there out. The cookbook is, as can be expected, dictatorial, technique-heavy, and classically French - but with lots of cursing, drinking, and an odd Simpson's reference. His particular style is not for everyone, and the complexity of some of the recipes makes this really more restaurant cooking than home cooking - but he encouraged me to try making moules, and that's enough to earn him a place of honor forever.
- Home Cooking, by Silvana Franco. The Italian diaspora in Britain really knows their stuff. This is a lovely, bright, charming cookbook with a cheerful mix of Continental flavors.
- Many Friends Cooking. This is the UNICEF cookbook for kids that I had when I was a little girl... and the simplified international recipes aren't brilliant, but the illustrations are absolutely amazing. Each one features an element of the recipe, and an element of the country of origin - for example, a group of Pakistani on horseback, one brandishing a frying pan, to illustrate deram fiti, or wheat sprout pancakes. I still use the Snickerdoodle recipe.
- I Like You, by Amy Sedaris. Ms. Sedaris would probably come after me with knives if I suggested that this wasn't a "real" cookbook, and it's not like it isn't packed with recipes, suggestions, and ideas for entertaining - it is a highly useful book in many ways. That said, I take I Like You mostly as a brilliant reminder that entertaining has to be personal - a reflection of who you are, not someone else's idea of what makes a dinner party. And if that means you're inviting lumberjacks for lunch, or making up a big mess of chicken wings for some alcoholics... so be it.
