Eat Well: WWW's Guide to Must-Have Cookbooks

The following post was written by my mom, WWW. Thanks, mom!

Borscht recipe originally posted here

A couple of months ago, a reader asked me if I would write a post about my favorite cookbooks. This is kind of a tough task since my tastes have changed over the years, and although I do have a small bookshelf filled with cookbooks, I am not one of those people who has dozens and dozens of them. But I am going to give you a short history of my 35 years of cookbook gathering and hopefully it will be of some help to those of you starting out.

When I got married in 1977, I was thirsty to learn how to cook well. I gathered recipes from family and friends and kept them organized in a file box (I am NOT an organized person and unfortunately, 30+ years later, these recipes reside in a pile in a pencil box). My grandmother gave me a couple of Sunset Magazine cookbooks (I especially loved the casserole book) and I bought myself The Joy of Cooking because it was (and still is) the best all-around everything cookbook. I subscribed to the Time/Life Good Cook and Recipe Series which had recipes from all over the world and included wonderful tutorials (these books are now collectors items) and to Bon Appetít magazine. When my Time/Life books or Bon Appetít would come in the mail I would savor them, marking any new recipes I wanted to try. Soon after we got married, I bought The Moosewood Cookbook, and it was love at first sight. The recipes were so delicious and healthy, and elevated vegetarian cooking to a new height.

A few years later, The Silver Palate cookbooks came out and I was equally smitten with them. Much of my cooking in the ‘80’s and ‘90’s centered around recipes from both The Silver Palate and The Silver Palate Good Times Cookbooks. About this time, I got a Romertopf unglazed clay cooking pot (a fad in the 80’s) which I used at least once a week because of the wonderful cookbook I got with it: The Clay-pot Cookbook by Georgia and Grover Sales (This was during our meat-eating days—the cookbook is extremely meat-centric).

In the early ‘00’s I discovered Ina Garten and bought all of the Barefoot Contessa cookbooks as they came out. They are wonderful—easy homey recipes—but many are high in fat and meat is definitely presented as the main course.

Larry and I became vegetarians about 5 years ago (Rebecca has been a vegetarian since age 12) and since then, my whole way of thinking about cooking has changed. I have bought some great cookbooks to inspire me, but also use some of my old stand-bys on a regular basis. And then there is the Internet. I feel lucky to be living at a time when I can find any recipe I want at the drop of a finger, literally.

Here are my suggestions from 35 years of gathering recipes for anyone who is starting out collecting recipes or would like to beef up (beet up?) what they already have.

GETTING STARTED;

1. Buy one all-around everything cookbook. Joy of Cooking is my hands-down favorite.
2. Subscribe to one magazine that has recipes aligned to your type of cooking. When I first got married it was Bon Apetit. Then came Sunset Magazine. Now I love Vegetarian Times (thanks, David and Alyssa!!). Make sure you cut out recipes that you make and love so you don’t lose them.
3. Figure out a filing system that works for you for recipes received from friends and family (and magazines, newspapers, or the Internet ).
4. Go to book stores and look at cookbooks. Then jot down names that seem interesting to you and look them up on the Internet. You can then read reviews before you invest your money. Or…
5. Gather good book reviews from the Internet, magazines or newspapers and then go look at the book in the bookstore.

SOME OF MY FAVORITE COOKBOOKS AND AUTHORS (Vegetarian)
1. Moosewood cookbooks (including the original, Moosewood Restaurant Cooking for Health and Moosewood Restaurant Cooks at Home).
2. Anything by Deborah Madison (Vegetarian Suppers, Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone)
3. Love Soup by Anna Thomas
4. Cooking With the Seasons at Rancho La Puerta
5. The Art of Simple Food by Alice Waters (this book is great for new cooks…lots of easy instruction for learning basics)
6. Vegetarian Traditions by George Vutetakis
7. Clean Food by Terry Walters
(I don’t have it, but everyone raves about How to Cook Everything Vegetarian by Mark Bittman. This one is going on my wish list).

ETHNIC COOKBOOKS

1. Indian Home Cooking by Suvir Saran and Stephanie Lyness

2. Six Spices by Neeta Sulaja (Indian)

3. Cooking at the Kasbah by Kitty Morse (Morrocan)

4. The Complete Italian Vegetarian Cookbook by Jack Bishop

OTHER COOKBOOKS

1. Eating Local by Janet Fletcher

2. Barefoot Contessa cookbooks

My list is by no way complete… it's a work in progress and the result of my random meanderings through bookstore aisles. I'm sure there are many great cookbooks that aren’t on my list. What are some of yours?

Love,

WWW