Favorite cookbooks

[BNB]

So mine are :

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my dad's best friend growing up

Some My mom gave me that she cooked out of:
Flavors - Junior League San Antonio
Junior League of Austin
Hellen Corbit's Cookbook

 

[LonghornGirlie]

Barefoot Contessa cookbooks, all four of them. Have yet to make anything that sucks out of them. Very accessible recipes written in plain language.

Williams-Sonoma "Steak and Chops" has been great for us. I got their "Hors Douerves" cookbook this spring and it has been equally good.

In about a year, the "First Annual HornFans Cookbook"... it'll be a classic.

 

[Woland]

I love my Food & Wine annuals.

 

[numbereleven]

This taught me how to make beef, other than grilling. And I love her writing -- she is hilarious and snobby in a funny way. She describes the acceptable ways of cooking beef as "medium-rare, rare, or Saxon pillage".

Oh, and I recommend every single yearly Cooking Light cookbook. Great magazine, and the yearly books collect every recipe in one place.

 

[Idahorn2]

Julia Child's first "Mastering the Art of French Cooking", Paul Prudhomme's "Louisiana Kitchen", Henry Chung's "Hunan Cookbook", Linda Eckhardt's "The Only Texas Cookbook", Robb Walsh's recent works on Tex Mex and Texas BBQ, Paul Bocuse's "In Your Kitchen" and a couple of others from Bocuse. Wagner and Marquez "Texas Style Cooking", Marcella Hazan's two works on Italian Cooking, Legal Seafood's Seafood Cookbook. With these I could easily maintain my considerable girth.

 

[DeadHeadHorn]

Alton Brown's "I'm Just Here For the Food" has some good recipes, but it's also just a great reference and full of great info on all things food. Like his show "Good Eats", he breaks down how and why he uses certain techniques and goes into meticulous (but easy to understand) detail.

I also love the cookbook from the Moosewood Restaurant, called "Simple Suppers: Fresh Ideas For the Weeknight Table". It's all vegetarian and/or pescetarian, so it's great for light meals with tons of flavor.

 

[Brisketexan]

Everyone needs a good "basic" cookbook -- I have both the Better Homes and Gardens cookbook (2000 edition, and an older, like 1970, edition -- not as healthy, but also better on the fundamentals), and the "America's Test Kitchen" cookbook (got it as a gift last year). I use both of them for foundation recipe ideas -- how long do I need to cook item X, what methods work best for certain cuts of meat, etc. I then freelance from there.

For BBQ -- Walsh's "Legends of Texas Barbecue." It is an absolute essential if you are into cue at all.

For my coonass side -- "Talk About Good -- the Lafayette Junior League cookbook" -- if you want to cook cajun, start and finish here. Most of my cajun recipes -- my gumbo, red beans and rice, etc., have their foundation in recipes from this book (again, I freelanced after that).

Really, most junior league cookbooks are good, and are great ways to get a slice of regional cuisines -- I have the Austin one, the Annapolis one, the Houston one, and the Phoenix one as well, and I use them all.

 

[stay off my farm]

I agree with having a basic cookbook, and I really like "How to cook Everything" as it gives a very good starting place for recipes, and then you can build upon it very easily.

For gifts, the Williams-Sonoma books are great, very good photos.
There are also older cookbooks that they always had at Barnes & Noble that you good get cheap, and woud have simple titles, "Fish" "Thai", etc. which were great because they had great introduction sections that went through the ingredients of the different recipes and gave you a good description of what you needed.

 

[Wooderson]

The Tex-Mex Cookbook: A History in Recipes and Photos, by Robb Walsh

Legends of Texas Barbecue Cookbook, Robb Walsh

The San Antonio TEX-MEX Cookbook, by Elizabeth Blakely

How to Cook Meat, by Christopher Schlesinger and John Willoughby

The Thrill of the Grill: Techniques, Recipes, & Down-Home Barbecue, by Christopher Schlesinger and John Willoughby

Marinades, Rubs, Brines, Cures, & Glazes: Revised And Expanded, by Jim Tarantino

 

[washparkhorn]

I have never been a fan of the show - Barefoot Contessa - there is just something about the way she handles the food and feeds her husband that gives me the creeps.

BUT, I had her crabcakes at a NYE dinner and they were excellent.

My shortribs from Cooks Illustrated/America's Test Kitchen were better however, so I cannot recommend that magazine and cookbook series more highly.

Cooks Illustrated/America's Test Kitchen is Alton Brown knowledge with very good recipes.

 

[Wooderson]

Washpark:

Cook's Illustrated is a fine publication and they do convey a lot of knowledge on technique and ingredients. There is something slightly ridiculous about the humorless way they approach their comparisons and "how to" articles, however, that leaves me a little cold. Especially when compared to Alton Brown. Perhaps it is the fact that it is published by earnest New Englanders.

 

[bularry]

lots of good suggestions.

I would add Rick Bayless two books Mexico One Plate at a Time and Mexican Kitchen.

These books both use a lot of the flavors we're familiar with in some ways we have probably not used before. I like 'em.

 

[washparkhorn]

I agree Wooderson - Alton is entertaining; America's Test Kitchen (PBS) is like a star trek convention -- a lot of geekiness.

But, their recipes are spot on. Alton, on the other hand, teaches food science (which is interesting to me, but isn't the most handy way of creating a menu for a Easter dinner).