The Top 10 Cookbooks to Give This Year

Santa's Top 10 Cookbooks
Recipe Collections That Don't Suck—And a Few That Do

via kottke

Edit --

Here are links to some previous Cookbook discussions:

Great Books

'Fast and Easy' Cookbooks

What's New (or old) and interesting on your shelf?

What's on your wishlist this year?

I'm looking forward to Alford/Duguid's "companion" volume to Hot, Sour, Salty, Sweet.

We gave a friend Hal McGee's new "On Food and Cooking" - okay, it's not exactly a cookbook, but it was very well received. Recipient must have a fair degree of geekiness, though.

50 ways to grill cheese! I don't know about that one (or the Bush family cookbook -- I just can't imagine), but the Shakespeare's receipts one sounds interesting (though I have vowed to buy no more cook books -- I hope I can get it through interlibrary loan).

Hammond

Here's what I just bought, the instant it was published about a week ago.

I think I'm about to have yet another new hobby.

Mike G wrote:Here's what I just bought, the instant it was published about a week ago.

I think I'm about to have yet another new hobby.

Huh. It's interesting to see Brian Polcyn, who made an appearance in Ruhlman's "The Soul of a Chef" reappear. He didn't come off all that well in that book (that is, like a good chef but kind of a type-A ass).

Looks like a fun read, but I can't see myself ever making any of 'em

What do you think you're going to tackle first, Mike?

Mike G wrote:Here's what I just bought, the instant it was published about a week ago.

I think I'm about to have yet another new hobby.

MikeG,

Sausage making is a notoriously messy, time-consuming process. I'd be very interested, though, in sharing work and costs (and, of course, the fruits) if you're looking for partners in this endeavor.

Hammond

Good question. Well, I think first I'm going to make bacon, since MAG has already proven it can be done, and done well. But no, you're right, that's not actually a sausage, so that's just sort of a warmup. Haven't decided yet, but I'm sure you'll read about it here...

Jamie Purviance, Weber's Art of the Grill Deck (Chronicle, 2002, paper, $14.95). For the truly brain-dead, instructional playing cards you can take with you to the grill.

Shamefully, these aren't playing cards but just recipe cards. If you could play hold-em with this, I could see getting a couple decks to give as gifts.

Does a strip steak flush beat chickens full over shrimp?

And a Bush family cookbook? Perhaps an irony gift.[/quote]

Now, I realize that I swore not to buy another cookbook, but I just snagged "Cooking for Cher" on Amazon (new, for 2.25 -- there are more left...for that special someone on your Xmas list).

Hammond

I am so psyched about the Polcyn/Ruhlman book. I have been dreaming of making charcuterie with it since I first read about it. Also I find the Jamie Oliver recipes tend to work well, so disagree with the voice list a bit.

Great to add another charcuterie book to the collection...thanks for the tip.

Used to make it sausage on a weekly basis at my second cooking job, back in '96 (oh, those were the days). We would make a ton of country sausage, loads of fatback, for inclusion in our cassoulet. After we made the sausage, we would confit it in a ton of duck fat -- they were juicy little monsters.

Sausage really isn't too hard to make...and once you start, you will want to make it all the time.

El Bulli: 1998-2002

In El Bulli 1998-2002, Adria and his collaborators have created a completely unique guide to cooking which raises the profession to an art form never captured before. This volume, filled with full color photographs, presents not only El Bulli's unparalleled recipes, but also an analysis of their development, philosophy, and technique. Visually stunning, El Bulli 1998-2002 is presented as a boxed set that includes the main volume, along with a detailed Users Guide and an interactive CD that contains each recipe, numbered and catalogued by year. El Bulli 1998-2002 is truly as awe-inspiring as the meals served at its namesake.

List Price: $350.00
Price: $220.50
You Save: $129.50 (37%)

So who's getting it for me for christmas?

Yup, my copy of _Charcuterie_ arrived the other day and I've been curled up with it ever since. There's some AWfully good-looking stuff therein. As soon as we get settled down in Montreal in a couple weeks, I'm pulling the ol' grinder-stuffer out of the packing and getting going. Just can't decide what's going to be first... probably a brat-style, just to toast bygone Wisconsin.

I'd recommend the book to anyone even remotely entertaining the idea of doing some charcuterie--the price is very reasonable, and the text is extremely helpful.

Geo