Cook Books
 

I went shopping for some cook books the other day and was pretty surprised by the huge selection. I'm sure most of them are pretty bad (I was looking in the Thai, Chinese and Indian sections), but there must be good ones too. So I was wondering if fellow GFFers had any books that they absolutely adored and would recommend to others?

I bought a Gordan Ramsay book once, I can't recall the name of it, but it was quite good. A little too fancy and Western European for my tastes, but it seemed to be a good choice for people that like that kind of food.

So, got a book to recommend?

Totally not what you want, but the only cookbook I use is one that my grandmother and mother created over many decades. It's got most or all of our sekrit famlee resipeez inside. Everything from savory dishes to baking and international recipes. I plan on adding to it myself when I move out.

(On a side note, I suggested a "GFF Cookbook" a while ago. Someone should totally head that up.)

Older Betty Crocker cookbooks are fantastic. They're old-fashioned types of meals your mom probably knows how to make, not too difficult, and hardly ever require exotic ingredients. There's usually also lots of big pictures so you can see what you're going to be making, too (I have a 1982 edition that I liked better than one I had from the early 60s since the food was a bit more in line with what I like, had microwaves, and understood that its users weren't going to be stay-at-home moms cooking all day).

Another classic book is Joy of Cooking, and though I have both an original and one of the new revised ones, the recipes tend to be a bit more involved than Betty Crocker and the sheer volume of the books makes it difficult to just find what you want to make for dinner. A magnificent reference, though, and whenever I want ideas for something to make I can flip through and come up with a simpler hybrid off of what I see in the pages.

My most used book right now is the one published by America's Test Kitchen since every recipe I've tried has been delicious, every recipe has pictures, and it's in a 3-ring binder so you can remove a page when you want to use the recipe off of it. There's also reviews and tips/tricks for how and why you use certain techniques. A perfect book for anyone.

Which test kitchen book is that? A quick search on Amazon.ca shows me a bunch of different ones.

Slightly off topic, but I was in the university bookstore and noticed this book in the food section about the grossest foods people eat. I flipped it open and there was an article about people slurping up partial duck embryos...haha yeah...

I might do the GFF Cookbook this summer. I'll make a thread to see if there's enough interest in it, and then if there is I'll get it going. I like to cook.

Sorry about that, this one looks to be the one I own (though maybe a year or two newer): http://www.amazon.com/Americas-Kitch...9430857&sr=8-1

GF Cookbook? =OOO

I've never fucked with them. I'd probably get one that has a weightlifting lifestyle in mind. Oddly enough the ones women make are a lot better than the mens. I WONDER WHY.

Thai cookbook sounds fun.

I never really relied much on cook books; Mom's usually always been the best resource for what I would want to cook/eat, anyhow.

I do look up receipes once in a while online, though I end up not following it all the way through sometimes due to me not having the required ingredients or just my personal taste/concern of amount of sugar/salt being used.

I've borrowed this one before because the pictures looked pretty and tried a couple of the receipes, but again I found some stuff either putting too much salt in them so I altered/improvised my way through some of them.