Best/Favorite Cook Book?

For a long time it has been and remains Julia Child's How to Cook. I own her French chef books also but have not gotten to them yet. I also love Eric Copage's Kwanzaa " An African American Celebration of Culture and Cooking, it details various recipes from throughout the diaspora. Yankee Magazine is pretty good for a New England cookbook and The Ultimate Gullah Cookbook By Veronica Davis Gerald and Jesse Edward Gantt, Jr. is really good for those who enjoy coastal South Carolinian food. Anyone have a recommendation for a really good chocolate desset cookbook?

My personal favorite is Cooking by James Peterson. I also like The Professional Chef by the CIA. For Vietnamese cookbooks, my go-to guide is Andrea Nguyen's Into the Vietnamese Kitchen. For Chinese, The Breath of a Wok by Grace Young and Alan Richardson. I actually do not have Julia Child's book, but I do want to get it eventually. There're probably 20 cookbooks that I would buy immediately right now, if space permitted. But, until I move into a larger house with its own library, my half dozen of well-thumbed books, and the interweb, will have to serve as my cooking guides.

Originally Posted by DarkNWorn

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My personal favorite is Cooking by James Peterson. I also like The Professional Chef by the CIA. For Vietnamese cookbooks, my go-to guide is Andrea Nguyen's Into the Vietnamese Kitchen. For Chinese, The Breath of a Wok by Grace Young and Alan Richardson. I actually do not have Julia Child's book, but I do want to get it eventually. There're probably 20 cookbooks that I would buy immediately right now, if space permitted. But, until I move into a larger house with its own library, my half dozen of well-thumbed books, and the interweb, will have to serve as my cooking guides.

How hard would it be to get ingredients for Vietnamese or Chinese food in a place like Connecticut.

Not necessarily a cookbook, but one book about food that I haven't gone more than 24 hours without reading in the last 18 months is Harold McGee's On Food and Cooking.

For Cooking:

The Professional Chef
Cookwise (Shirley O Corriher)
The elements of tast (Kunz)

For reading:
Anything co-authored by Michael Ruhlmann .. especially the FL cookbook.

I like Keller's Bouchon book

Alinea is my most recent cookbook purchase, and a great coffee table book and good reading if you've been. I doubt it will ever come in handy, though. Honestly, the book that has served me the best over the past few years and pleased the most people (I feel there is a HUGE disconnect between recipes and the recipes that people actually enjoy and want to eat again) is Food Network's Making it Easy. It's all stuff you can throw together pretty quickly (but don't sneer, the ingredients are still not easy to pick up) and just about every recipe reveals a good enough winner for American palates. It cab be bought extremely cheaply on Amazon so give it a shot.

Originally Posted by jpeirpont

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How hard would it be to get ingredients for Vietnamese or Chinese food in a place like Connecticut.

Not difficult. Most typical spices, condiments and veggies can be found at an Asian grocery store (there're plenty of those around, just look at Yelp or Google them). Once you're stocked with basic Asian ingredients such as fish sauce, soy sauce (thick & light), oyster sauce, mirin, chilies, xiaoxing wine (Chinese cooking wine), you can recreate many of the dishes in these cookbooks with just a couple of things bought from a regular supermarket. If you want a list of specific recommendations, PM me.

Originally Posted by kwilkinson

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Not necessarily a cookbook, but one book about food that I haven't gone more than 24 hours without reading in the last 18 months is Harold McGee's On Food and Cooking.

I have this book. It's dense! It's not something I'd read casually, but as reference material, it's indispensable.

Originally Posted by gdl203

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I like Keller's Bouchon book
Yeah.. and that falls under the "you can actually cook from it" category. RE: Alinea... it's mostly pr0n, but you can also follow the advice from the forward and dramatically simplify the recipes

I have always loved "Cooking at Home" by Jacques Pepin and Julia Child.

It will always be special for me because it's really the book that launched my interest in more serious cooking, but I really enjoy it because of the technique and tips that are interspersed through the book, and because of the almost conversational tone that it takes on because of the two-chef approach. Many recipes are given two versions - a Jacques version and a Julia version, highlighting different approaches to take and with a lot of detailed background and explanation. The recipes are uniformly good, and run from basic to relatively complex, and the book is illustrated wonderfully.

Of course, I am nothing as a chef compared to most of you fancy guys who are into the sous vide and the more molecular stuff. I'm just a hack with an expensive knife and encouraging but unrefined friends.

Joy of Cooking - Irma Rombaur
Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking - Marcella Hazan

Originally Posted by HORNS

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Joy of Cooking - Irma Rombaur
Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking - Marcella Hazan

A very strong +1 to Hazan. Awesome, awesome book. You really don't need another Italian book.

Originally Posted by Douglas

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A very strong +1 to Hazan. Awesome, awesome book. You really don't need another Italian book.
i'll add my +1.

also, any book by Elizabeth David, to read as well as to cook from. French Provincial Cooking, for instance. And her book on bread is fascinating.

Originally Posted by gdl203

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I like Keller's Bouchon book

+1 TFL is very time-intensive but the recipes in Bouchon are uniformly excellent, they all work, and they're relatively "simple." There's also a good amount of cooking tricks throughout the book. I cook out of Bouchon more than any other cookbook I own.

Originally Posted by Douglas

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A very strong +1 to Hazan. Awesome, awesome book. You really don't need another Italian book.

Yep, +1 on that one too. It's my one and only italian book.