So I know yesterday I said that cookbooks do not necessarily make the best presents since a lot of them are bad. I stand by that statement but I also know not many (any?) people care what the heck I think and are going to go right ahead and buy cookbooks anyways.
If you're going to buy some, might as well buy the best. To find out which cookbooks top chefs and food authorities use, I called up several that are in our local area and asked them what cookbook they'd recommend.
The first person I called was restaurant magnate Rob Dalzell was working at his restaurant 1924 Main. "A good book for home and a good reference book is Culinary Artistry by
Dorenenburg," Dalzell said after taking a second to remember the
author. "It lists all of the components that go with an ingredient like
say, apples. It will list 20 things that go with apples. A lot of
people don't have that education and know what is what...Because the
restaurant is always trying out new dishes I'll check it out if I say,
have turnips to see what it recommends."
Colby Garrelts of Bluestem also named Culinary Artistry as a book he uses and mentioned another reference book, perhaps the most famous one amongst serious chefs, Larousse Gastronomique.
"Hands down it's the most important cookbook." Garrelts said. "It's got
the basic info and recipes and I use it as a reference. I consult it
constantly. If I'm going to put cassoulet on the menu I'm going to
check first to see how Larousse made his."
When I asked Justus Drugstore's Jonathan Justus his favorite cookbook he immediately said Alinea,
a cookbook from the Chicago restaurant of the same name. "You know
Alinea right?" Justus asked me. "Grant Achatz's restaurant in Chicago.
Amazing. They put out this cookbook and it's great. It's got serious
photos and is beautiful...it could have easily been one of those $400
coffee-table cookbooks but they didn't do that. The publisher Ten Speed
Press put it out and its readable and its got these great recipes and
it's only like $30."
I would just like to add that not only
did Justus know the publisher off the top of his head but he didn't
even have to slow down to think who it was. Another note on Alinea, I mentioned the blogger who yesterday cooked her way through entire French Laundry cookbook, well now she's tackling Alinea and all 600-plus of its recipes on her new blog Alinea at Home.
Need
something to drink with all this food I e-mailed Doug Frost and asked
him if he had any recommendations for books on wine. Frost himself has
published two great wine books, On Wine and Uncorking Wine. Frost wrote back, "the books that I typically recommend are Sotheby's World Wine
Encyclopedia, edited by Tom Stevenson and The Oxford Companion to Wine,
edited by Jancis Robinson...as well as The annual Wine Report (current
edition is 2009) edited by Tom Stevenson."
Out of those choices there should be one to satisfy the true gourmand in your life.
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