cooking
Cookbooks for Special Cooks
Cooking is an art, but it is also, and mainly, common sense. You can make a delicious, attractive meal without exotic ingredients or years of apprenticeship in a Paris restaurant kitchen. Most of the world's classic dishes, in fact, originated in home cookery. The practice of combining a half-dozen unlikely ingredients into a dish that looks like a painting on the plate is recent, and it's not much use for home cooks anyway. Here are five cookbooks which combine practical advice with ease of use and availability of ingredients. One is vegetarian, but it is not for vegetarians; it is for anyone who likes good food. The others are more general. With one exception, all give a great deal of general advice about cooking, ingredients, and meal planning. Buy these five books and you will need few others—or use them to branch out into the fascinating world of good food.
James A. Beard
James Beard's American Cookery
$16.99
By general consensus, this was James Beard's masterpiece. Hundreds of first-class recipes, fascinating food scholarship, and beautiful illustrations make it a treat to use. Not intended as an introductory cookbook, it gives little or no general cooking advice. But for an experienced cook, it is a must-have.
Lidia Bastianich
$18.20
Beautifully produced and creative Italian cookbook. There are a lot of good Italian cookbooks, but this one is special.
Julia Child
$28.00
Julia Child's compendium of cooking knowledge is an excellent summation for her extraordinary career. The instructions are clear, the book beautifully produced, and the approach very accessible to cooks who don't have all day and lack newly renovated kitchens.
Marion Cunningham
$21.00
Fannie Farmer was many people's first cookbook—including mine. Marion Cunningham's revision some years ago brought it up to date and improved it with more detailed discussion of cooking basics, better recipes, and an easier-to-use arrangement. Still the cookbook to have if you can only afford one.
Rose Elliot
The Complete Vegetarian Cuisine
$23.96
An excellent introduction to vegetarian cookery for vegetarians and non-vegetarians alike. Includes a complete and very enlightening discussion of nutrition aimed at vegetarians, but helpful for all.
