OK – so you know why I love cookbooks as much as I do. Let me know tell you how I “judge” a cookbook and can tell you whether or not it has merit.
Yeah, that last sentence just made me sound way cooler than I truly am. I couldn’t tell you if a cookbook is a good one or not, because they all bring something (literally) to the table. For instance, people go ga-ga over “The Joy of Cooking.” Well, Ryan has a copy and I really don’t like it. I can see where it’s valuable to people who aren’t very experienced with cooking, but if I’m going to make homemade mac and cheese, give me the recipe in its entirety, don’t direct me to a separate section so I can learn to make a roux. On the other hand, my beloved orange “Betty Crocker” book? Is it sad that I think I’d take my copy to the grave with me?
Needless to say, I love cookbooks. And when I get a new one, I go through the book in its entirety and either earmark pages or I use pieces of paper to mark particular recipes that I think will be a good bet. I’ve recently fell in love with using those Post-It flags or bookmarks. That way they actually stick to the page and don’t fall out of the book if you happen to throw it at your cat. (That only happened once and he was creeping toward a freshly baked chicken. And it was a wee paperback. What would you do?)
I will fully admit that between my cookbooks, my cooking magazines, the recipes that I’ve torn for newspapers over the years and my latest addiction to food blogs, I’m probably never going to make every single recipe that I’ve marked and saved.
But part of the fun is trying.
2 comments:
I love the Joy, because there is not one recipe from that book that has not turned out delish. So many other books you have to toy with to get it really good.
I agree with you though - I think preference to cookbooks have everything to do with what you were introduced to first. My friend Erin is the same way about Joy. He loves it, is mad about it, etc., but I am just partial to Betty. She's my book. :)
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