Comments on: Cookbooks are letting me down

By: Stacey

Stacey — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 16:41:21 +0000

I have had good luck with Deborah Madison’s “Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone”, Madhur Jaffrey’s “World Vegetarian”, and Didi Emmons’ “Vegetarian Planet”, not to mention the Silver Palate and America’s Test Kitchen books. For baking, I trust Rose Levy Beranbaum, Carole Bloom, Alice Medrich, and Dorie Greenspan, among others. Don’t give up!

By: El

El — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 05:32:38 +0000

I completely agree with you. The more mass-marketed the chef – the worse the book is. This is why I love blogs. Someone actually tried the darn recipe and you can see how it turned out.

By: Jessica

Jessica — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 03:39:49 +0000

I think my biggest problem is finding a cookbook that actually is filled with interesting food that I would actually eat. So often I run across cookbooks that are full of food that my family wouldn’t eat or would be impossible to find the ingredients to do since I live in a small town.

I also agree that a lot of times chefs are turned into authors and made to fill pages and that leads to thrown together recipes with no quality control.

By: Casey

Casey — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 01:50:30 +0000

We have had the cookbook letdown, too. Unfortunately, I think when people publish cookbooks the pressure is on to have SO many recipes it is hard to have all great ones. I am currently waiting for Deborah Madison’s Vegetarian Cooking For Everyone. It should be here tomorrow or the next day, but so far everything I have tried from her, I love.

By: beastmomma

beastmomma — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 01:17:38 +0000

Since I am just starting to build my kitchen and cooking skills, I decided to put a lot of cookbooks on my wedding registry. When I was trying to decide which ones would be good, I looked at the blogs that I liked and saw what they recommended. If a blogger had a cookbook, I added that too. I have not used every single cookbook, but I have made some tasty food. My current favorites are Isa Chandra Moskowitz (she has a blog and has vegan cookbooks; I think that the blog is called post punk kitchen), Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Everything vegetarian, and Robertson who has one cookbook that is entirely comprised of one pot vegetarian meals. Additionally, I LOVE Lynn Rosetto Kasper. I subscribe to her weekly email and I also got her cookbook, Sunday Night Supper.

Also, I get a lot of recipes from blogs. The hardest part of cooking for me is the time. I find that it always takes me longer than what the recipe says to prepare a meal. That is tough because if I plan to spend an hour cooking by the time two hours is finished I am starving and a bit cranky!

By: AlmostVegetarian

AlmostVegetarian — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 00:53:58 +0000

You know, I’ve been thinking about what everyone has said and it occurs to me that it would be helpful to talk about the cookbook authors we like. I’ve talked before about cookbook authors I like a lot, such as Julia Child and British writer Nigel Slater (I desperately want to get my hands on his book “Appetite”).

And that’s just for starters! But what about you? What cookbook authors do you recommend?

By: Stacy

Stacy — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 00:25:24 +0000

I think it’s VERY subjective. For example, I love Mark Bittman’s recipes and many of the recipes from Gourmet and Alton Brown or Shirley Corriher are great. That being said, I have had some other awful experiences with cookbooks. I had to review a cookbook from a prominent chef for my externship and the best thing I could say about it was that the photography was gorgeous! And I tried like 5 recipes from that book!

By: Andrew Moor

Andrew Moor — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 00:14:06 +0000

Well, I have two minds of this…

Fist mind says: all right! You’ve got people who are preased for time eating broccoli! How many of them would have opted for fast food instead? As veggies are foreign to many the flavour would probably be enough as is. My aunt actually LIKES overcooked veggies. I seriously doubt “foodies” will ever be the target audience of a “meals in minutes” book!

Second mind: This chef obviously is only a shadow of his momma if that recipe was the best he can do! In fact I doubt he contributed more than his name to the book, which happens often. I love browsing cookbooks and just from reading that recipe alone I would have said “pass”.

By: Katerina

Katerina — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 16:46:55 +0000

Been there. Nothing worse then “trusting” that a cookbook author knows better only to ruin your meal.

I have actually made Marcella’s Orrechiette with Broccoli and it is delicious, all the parts are the same but it actually does come together.

By: Elle

Elle — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 16:05:25 +0000

I don’t understand this. I mean, I understand your point, and it’s happened to me many times, too(and many other people). What I don’t get, is how cookbook authors can publish recipes like this.

Don’t they have testers? If not, shouldn’t they? And if they do, are these people afraid to say “Hey, this has no flavor?” Recipes should be tested and retested before being published in a book. I don’t care who your mother is, or what your Food Network show is called.