Thoughts are turning to soups, casseroles and roast veggies. Pumpkins, squashes, root vegetables, baked potatoes, onions and lots of Toulouse Lautrec garlic (the violet one).
Time to get the cook books out again. These are 6 of my favourites. I gave The Cookery Year to DH all of 30 years ago. I couldn't cook then, but he could so he got the first prize! Now I refer to it at least once a week. The others are presents given to me over the years, apart from French Provincial Cooking which was my "We"re moving to France" present to myself. I suppose the Delia one should be her Winter Collection which I also have. Nigel Slater's Real Food is a real winter cook book - yummy scrummy soups!
What are your favourite cook books? Are you like me and have a cupboard full, or just a few favourites?
8 comments:
I too have lots of cookbooks, many from thrift stores. My favorites are vegetarian even though we are not vegetarians (tried that but couldn't give up bacon). Reading cookbooks gets a person inspired to cook even if you don't use the recipes from the book. Fresh figs! Wow, I love the dried ones but haven't even tasted fresh ones. I may have to drop in one day!
I suppose my favorites are THE JOY OF COOKING and my old version of THE BETTY CROCKER COOKBOOK. I have a collection of some odds & ends but I always refer back to these. Since I love really nice pastries so much I'm giving thought to getting a quality cookbook dedicated to them and giving it a whirl. We do not have shopping access to really good ones locally so perhaps it's time to learn to make my own. But it sounds so time-consuming and also difficult...not the kind of cooking I usually enjoy.
My favorite poem! I did a post on autumn poetry a few weeks back.
Having lived as a bachelor for 15 years before marrying, my cooking is of the "What food substance would require the minimum time investment and yet still sustain life?" school. On the rare occasions I feel like "getting fancy," I consult the well-worn, dog-eared copy of Enchanted Broccoli Forest I've been dragging around for 20 years, or my little index card box of recipes that worked well at least once sometimes in the past. And no, I do not share my oatmeal-almond-chocolate chip cookie recipe.
I have lots of recipe books but probably only cook one or two recipes from each one - bit like my quilting books really!
I have so many cookbooks, but the ones I return to time and again are by Julie Sahni (Moghul Microwave seems like a contradiction in terms, but wow, is this a great book!), Martha Rose Schulman, Lorna Sass, Deborah Madison. I clip recipes, too, and some of my favorites come from the most unlikely places. I always note where a recipe came from, and I love remembering old friends who have moved away or restaurants that have now closed.
Your fresh figs have me envious. My sister used to have them in her yard in California, but they are hard to come by where I live.
I have over 450 cookbooks. Most are dessert cookbooks and were published from the 1920s to the present. My favorite is the Farm Journal Complete Pie Cookbook. Baking with Julia is another favorite. I don't cook as much as I used to but can't stop reading cookbooks. I agree that when autumn arrives its so much fun to get a hot drink and look at them. My most prized book is an autographed copy of Duncan Hines' food treatise. Yes, he was a real person. He was a critic for a Chicago newspaper in the 1920s and died in the 1960s.
I also have a massive collection of cookery books dating back to the 60's, having always loved cooking so, but I have to day, like you Delia and Nigel are certainly two of my favourites and get referred to on a regular basis. I also love Rick Stein and Jamie Oliver.
We too are overloaded with white figs and walnuts. You can only eat so many. lol Have made fig chutney though so we will see how that comes along.
oh squished figs on the soles of your shoes after they have plopped heavily onto the ground, give me a large black juicy slug anyday !!
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