[Sca-cooks] Good Basic Cooking References

V A phoenissa at gmail.com
Tue Mar 18 13:05:08 PDT 2008


I often use Jacques Pepin's Complete Techniques, which is handy for
everything French but not so handy everything else (for example, he has
detailed instructions for several variations of puff pastry, but when I went
looking for a recipe for fresh pasta, I couldn't find one in there).

The amazing and wonderful and beautiful book that I never knew I needed but
now can't live without is Alice Waters' newest, The Art of Simple Food --
it's really designed as an introductory cookbook, so it's great for
beginners.

The book I routinely recommend and gift to friends is Mark Bittman's How to
Cook Everything (Bittman is a food columnist for the NY Times -- the
21st-century counterpart to Craig Claiborne, just to mention another great
foodie source, whose venerable NY Times cookbook was definitely a staple in
my family's kitchen).  Bittman's book is comprehensive and very accessible.
Ironically, I don't have my own copy of that one -- but I do have the other
two, and I'll bring them to the class for everyone to look at.


Vittoria

On Mon, Mar 17, 2008 at 5:59 PM, Lilinah <lilinah at earthlink.net> wrote:

> Thank you all for the BAD books.
>
> Now for something completely... err... at least rather different.
>
> Some of those new to historical cooking are just plain new to
> cooking. So i'd like to have some good basic cooking reference books
> to recommend. Please, something still available and not to expensive
> or obscure. I'm assuming these people will not be cooking a feast
> real soon, so i don't need books that give info on cooking for large
> numbers of people.
>
> I'm looking for these books because when working from a vague recipe,
> it can be helpful to check how long to boil or simmer a chicken to
> make broth; the proportions of some grain to water to cook and how
> long it will take; oven temperatures for "small cakes" or roasting
> meat; etc.
>
> I use my 1970s edition of "The Joy of Cooking". What do other people use?
> --
> Urtatim (that's err-tah-TEEM)
> the persona formerly known as Anahita
>
> My LibraryThing
> http://www.librarything.com/catalog/lilinah
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