Wednesday, August 17, 2011

The one cookbook you can't live without?



One of my favorite blogs, Food52, recently posed the question:

If you could cook from one cookbook and one only...which would it be and why?

I'm totally stumped! Is it really possible to sift through my totally disorganized but sacred bookshelf, pick one cookbook, and just forget about all the others?

The cookbook I can't live without depends on my mood. If I have a whole lazy day at home I'm going to grab Jeffrey Hamelman's "Bread" book and make a few loaves to keep in the freezer so I can avoid store bought bread for a while. If I have time in the morning and want to make dinner, I am going to grab my Crock Pot cookbook published by Rival and pick a meal that will be waiting for us when we get home.

Not to mention my beloved binder filled with recipes I have clipped from cooking magazines over the years. That is one collection of recipes I couldn't live without, but in this case I am not sure it counts.

If I was forced to grab one cookbook from my shelves and toss aside all the rest I think it would have to be "The New Jewish Holiday Cookbook" by Gloria Kaufer Greene.






This cookbook has won me years of praise at family holiday dinners. It's filled with wonderful recipes from around the world. My picky mother who avoids anything "ethnic" because she thinks its spicy doesn't know it, but every Rosh Hashanah she raves about a Moroccan dish (chicken braised in honey and tomatoes) that I make from this cookbook. I love this book because I love cooking for the holidays and having our entire extended family gathered around the dinner table.

So now I ask you the same question: If you could pick one cookbook to cook from- and only one - what would it be and why?



1 comment:

  1. Oh boy, how do I choose? Mastering the Art of French Cooking, which my parents gave me for my 12th Christmas (and which I cooked my way through long before Julie Powell)?
    The Silver Palate Cookbooks (the "white one" and the "red one"), well-used sources of inspiration and recipes for my restaurant and catering business in the 1990s? Or Julee Rosso's weighty New Basics?
    No, while all of these are important to me, if I had to pick just ONE, it would have to be Fanny Farmer by Marion Cunningham - because it has the basics, nutrition and substitution charts, and both classic and contemporary recipes.
    Phew ... that was hard ...

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