What would be your top ten cookbooks of all time? See link>

For me, this is impossible to declare...my foodie life has gone through stages

Young married couple, and then kids, then kids go away, now we are two again and retired. I had my favorite cookbooks with each cycle. The red and white plaid of Better Homes and Gardens was my first and I have many faves in that one. Sunset cookbooks became a fave when raising the kids, then I went through the gourmet stage, and have many cookbooks from great wineries, and small cookbooks from Junior League of Palo Alto, or another from Mamie and Ike Eisenhower, Cookbooks from hospital volunteers, and great chefs, all have special recipes for me. I published a cookbook when working for Redding Police Dept. All recipes from the officers, support staff, even the K-9's and kids contributed! Great stuff in there.

Now I have three massive binders full of tried and true recipes from sites like this, favorite bloggers, and TV cooking shows. More and more I am looking for fast, easy, yet excellent and healthy recipes using in-season ingredients. So, you see, I cannot name any top ten cookbooks. Last winter I cooked from Jerusalem, The Portuguese Table, Ina Garten, old favorites from long ago, many new recipes, and so much more. So many recipes to try and such a short time left to do it. Do angels in heaven cook? I sure hope so...

 
I think top ten may be too much, faves maybe? I know some of you are big cookbook collectors...

While I have some, I'm not big into them (no room!), so wondered what everyone's top picks would be (I too had the plaid BH&G cookbook as my first, it was the one mom had).

 
Like this answer because it so defines our lives. My first was Julia's Mastering the Art of French

Cooking because I visited my closest friend shortly after her marriage making the most complicated desert from this book for company. Her idea was that if the desert was great, it was what would be remembered.
The Settlement House cookbook, the New York Times cookbook with Craig Claibourne, The NY Cookbook by Molly O'Neill, the Moosewood and the Enchanted Broccoli Forest and so many others followed. Then came the internet. I too have several looseleaf books
divided into categories full of recipes. And piles of those I need to try.

Today a question might be - What is your go to site when looking for a recipe. (Which doesn't mean I am not still in love with cookbooks)

 
I would include Moosewood Cookbook (which made the article) as one. It was

the first time I was introduced to vegetarian food and taught me a lot about trying "vegetables" that I normally wouldn't touch before.

Although my mom had a series of thin recipes books (one for each topic: beef, cakes, appetizers, seafood, etc) hole-punched so you could add to the entire series to a thick binder, I not sure I EVER saw her use it. I, on the other hand, read the cakes, desserts, breads and candy books like they were Grimm's Fairy Tales.

But as for preparing "dinner food" it was watch & learn from my mom...which meant I only ever learned what my mom knew. And with as many kids as there were in my family, vegetarian meals were as unexpected/unwanted as Beef Wellington (which I attempted one Christmas to the chagrin of my siblings).

I still have my original Moosewood, held together with a thick rubber band. Thank you, Molly Katzen, for introducing me to cauliflower soup & stir-fried vegetables and gently adding spaghetti squash into my life.

 
By the way, I also owned almost all of the older classics and have donated all away, with

the exception of Fanny Farmer (held together with a rubber band) and Joy of Cooking.

 
I'm pretty sure I must have made this at some point: Phyllis Diller's Garbage Soup

I think I want her caftan as my burial shroud.





 
Marcella Hazan's "The Classic Italian Cookbook", Julia's "How to Cook Everything" and

a dark horse, "The New York Times Bread and Soup Cookbook", (1972) and a newish one, Virginia Willis "Bon Appetit, Y'all"

 
what Karen said, so beautifully! I still pull out my BHG or Betty C for basics. would never part

with those 2.

 
can I mention here that one of our recipes, the fire roasted tomato salmon chowder, made it into my

church's cookbook! I wasn't even part of that committee, but I had made a big vat of that for some women's function a few years back and I guess they really liked it to include it.

 
My "go to" sites when looking for a recipe is Eat.At first, The Italian Dish,

Bewitching Kitchen, Food Network, Pioneer Woman, Ina Garten, and a new one I am enjoying, Natasha's Kitchen. Of course, since I have so many recipes on What's Cooking America, I cruise over there to find ones I cooked and have forgotten about. There are lots of others I have bookmarked, but these are the ones I seem to visit the most. There are always outstanding recipes...you just have to look for them, and for the ones that fit your lifestyle.

 
My list right now, I never seem to put these books away.

1. Joy of Cooking (my first book)
2. Mastering the Art of French Cooking
3. Cafe Beaujolais, Margaret Fox
4. The Little Greek Cookbook (Chronicle Books) - it's tiny but I love it
5. Suppers and Midnight Snacks, George Bradshaw
6. Once Upon a Tart
7. Julia Child's Kitchen Wisdom
8. Silver Palate
9. Zuni Cafe Cookbook
10. Urban Italian, Andrew Carmellini (thanks Traca)

I have so many others but these I return to over and over.

 
Top 10 ckbks

Your post hit it on the nose for me. Husband & I are retired also and went through similar culinary stages . I cook differently now than when a newlywed, or as a parent and now a grandparent, and even more so as health concerns arise. But, alas, love of good food in general remains !

 
What have you made out of Cafe Beaujolais? I love reading that book and the

coffee cake is my go to recipe. Sadly, I haven't cooked much beyond that. In the early edition of her book she's incredibly opinionated. Would love to meet her sometime.

 
In Willis' book, I make her pecan crusted baked chicken all the time. A regular on the rotation.

 
Oh wow, where to begin? the coffee cake is good, her black bean chili is amazing,

the braised beef with oranges, the potato goop (thanks to Silpat I can make this), zucchini muffins, I used to OD on her herbed cream cheese, CONGO BARS (honestly I bought this book just for this recipe because I had one in Mendocino and swooned in happiness), the chocolate cake!! I used to make her lemon curd, which is a ridiculous recipe, for Christmas for everyone for years and years, and it's one of the things I just mourn the hardest from not being able to eat eggs. The chicken stuffed under the skin might be from this book too, I'm making this soon (again, for like the 30th time). I think it was one of the first culinary books I bought on my own and read it like a novel, and made me wish I worked in food service (despite how hard it is and unglamorous). I liked visiting the restaurant, I went there about a dozen times over the years much to the horror of my father who thought it was way too expensive, but he was the epitome of a cheap Scot. She also used to see panforte in the bakery, and her turkey spices, I sure do miss that stuff..

 
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