And my answers:
What was the first cookbook you bought?
The Frugal Gourmet Cooks Three Ancient Cuisines: China, Greece and Rome I've even bought three copies over the years.
Why?
I've liked food and cooking things early on in life. The Frugal Gourmet quickly became a favorite program in the 80s because he had a lot of energy and excitement about what he was doing. Cooking made him happy and his happyness was palpable. Those kinds of people have always interested me. Anyway, once I land my first real job and my first real place of my own, I have to feed myself. My favorite foods at that time were Chinese and Greek. And I liked Jeff Smith's work. So I picked up this book in paperback.
What is your favorite cookbook? Very difficult question and probably for everyone to limit it to one. At this moment i think it is Steven Raichlen's How to Grill
Why?
I learned a lot from this book. Great presentation of information and how to do it as well as hints for personalization and extending the dish. And he knows his flavor profiles.
What is your most used cookbook?
Probably the Joy of Cooking, the evil 1997 edition.
Why do you use it the most? I've recently picked up the later edition as this book's spine is broken. While it might not measure up to earlier and later editions, JoC is probably the backbone of any home cook's library. You might not cook its recipes, but it will tell you all about the food item and a good way to cook it. Lots of technique info as well. Very useful. When I'm going to try something new, I almost always look at JoC to get a basic understanding of what's going on with the dish.
What is your most recently purchased cookbook? Real and Healthy Chinese Food Recipes This is an electronic cookbook, a PDF.
What is the cookbook you would most like to have? This is a really odd one I got from the library early on in my cooking career. I don't remember the title or author It was to teach a young college male how to run a kitchen for himself(equpping, stocking cleaning cooking). it including chaining dishes through the week like buying a whole chicken, cutting it into parts. making stock from the bones, using the cuts for different meals and a soup during the week. Very simple, very basic, very on the cheap. I don't remember what it was called but it was a really well thought out book for its target. I'm sure it's out of print now but it would be ideal to give to nieces and nephews, even some newlyweds.
What cookbook are you most embarrassed to have bought? Real and Healthy Chinese Food Recipes. It was through clickbank, who do a lot of vanity press and self-publish books at stupid prices and lots of their authors spam left and right about it. But I got a good discount as well as some "free" chinese reference books (ingredients and cooking theory). Not super high quality, somewhat inconsistent, but not too bad. And I was able to hack it into text format which is much friendlier on my PDA than the PDF format.
Phil
more than taste fine
me eat it all the time
