Three is the Magic Number

There are little islands of books piled high in various corners of the apartment, our bookcases are full, there are cookbooks stashed away in closets waiting for shelf space so that they may one day see the light of day. My cookbook collection has grown by leaps and bounds and is reaching a most frightening number...yet, if I had to part with any one cookbook I would find it very hard to decide which one it would be, even the ones I think are enhh, I can't part with. I have this vision in which years from now the floor of our apartment collapses under the weight of all these books and we go from sitting comfortably surrounded by our books on the fourth floor to being crushed by them in the basement, ending up on the 6:00 news and the little girl so humiliated by this that she refuses to go to school ever again...

I cut my culinary teeth on Julia Child and the Joy of Cooking. Madhur Jaffrey and Julie Sahni showed me Indian cooking and food like I'd never had before. Giuliano Bugialli was the guy that got me passionate about pasta, Jaques Pepin was my first crush, (ok, maybe not, but you know what I mean) and James Beard, once I overcame my initial shyness with his books, got me interested in baking bread and food in general. Those books I consider my classic favorites, the books I owe much of my cooking skill, interest and passion to, but I also have current favorites, and international favorites, topic favorites and coffee table favorites and that got me thinking (see, you knew you smelled smoke) about other folks and their favorite cookbooks. Who did you learn to cook from, what book would you say is your least favorite, what book devoted to a single ingredient do you love? I thought it would be fun to take a little survey just to see what other folks consider must have cookbooks, or just what cookbooks you have in general. If you could narrow it down to just three books in each category which books would stay and which would be tossed? I invite you to leave your answers in the comments section and feel free to write as a long a comment as you like, let's have some fun with this.

Please don't feel you have to answer all the questions, this is not as easy as I thought and no worries if you can't name three in every category or even one in every category, I only suggested three because it was my favorite number yesterday.

1. Name 3 cookbooks in your collection that you consider good general cookbooks.

2. Name 3 cookbooks in your collection you consider all-time classic favorites.

3. Name 3 cookbooks in your collection you consider terrible now but not at the time you purchased them.

4. Name 3 cookbooks in your collection you consider current favorites, but not necessarily all-time favorites.

5. Name 3 cookbooks in your collection you consider great reference cookbooks/books.

6. Name 3 books in your collection you consider to be terrific (or not) food writing.

7. Name 3 cookbooks in your collection you consider the best of international cookbooks.

8. Name 3 cookbooks in your collection you consider terrific single subject cookbooks.

9. Name 3 cookbooks in your collection you consider must have baking cookbooks.

10. Name your 3 favorite cuisines and the cookbooks devoted to them that you can't part with.

11. Name three biographies or autobiographies you found fascinating, boring, influenced you or whatnot.

And Finally:

Name 3 favorite chefs or cookbook authors that had the most influence on your cooking and why.

Written by Deb on July 27, 2004 04:14 AM