TAGGED!

Amy, from Cooking with Amy, has tagged me with the Cookbook meme.  We had a fun lunch together today at Red Door when she asked me if I would mind being tagged.  Sounded like a good excuse to give my cookbook collection a critical perusal.  Here goes:

1. Total number of cookbooks I've owned:  over 500 stare at me from the bookshelves as I type.
2. Last book I bought:  Will Write for Food by Dianne Jacob.  This is a frank look at the food writing business.  Also a great 'how-to'
3. Last book I read: same
4. Five cookbooks that mean a lot to me:
Life Magazine's Picture Cook Book, 1958: What little girl in San Leandro in the 60s wouldn't have fallen in love with all that gorgeous food and all those glamorous people?
Maida Heatter's Book of Great Chocolate Desserts: My friend, Tom Peccoraro, was the assistant to Joe Fox at Random House in the early 80's. Tom sent me every cookbook that he could.  This was my favorite.
Patricia Well's Food Lover's Guide to Paris: DUH!
The Loaves and Fishes Cookbook by Anna Pump:  This is where certain other East Hampton types who write cookbooks get a lot of their inspiration.  A brilliant book.  The best chicken potpie recipe ever.
The SOHO Charcuterie Cookbook by Francine Scherer & Madeline Poley:  Where are these folks now that we really need them?  Who needed celebrity chefs when you had this kind of brilliance in the kitchen?

5. Which 5 people would you most like to see fill this out in their blog?  At the risk of breaking the chain, I am going to ask readers to send me their five favorite cookbooks and why.  The last time I passed along a tag I felt as though I was trying to sell used Mary Kay cosmetics.

Comments

[Nancy]

I used and lost the Life Magazine Picture Cookbook, with so many recipes my babies now 48 and 51)loved,and it was lost in a basement flood while I was in India from 1978-1981. I don't even care about the recipe cards. I'm just going crazy trying to get another copy of the 1958 (it was orange and gold I think) version.

[Rosie]

I recently stumbled upon your blog..thanks for providing such a pleasurable diversion. While I have more than 5 cookbooks, I don't have quite the selection you have and therefore may not be able to come up with 5 favorites. I do have a few that my husband and I refer to on a fairly regular basis:
1)Joy of Cooking: always learn more about the dish and/or food I am cooking than just the recipe itself. I am always guaranteed to find 'classic' recipes in this tome.
2)Tastes of Aloha: it was a gift from a coworker/friend after her most recent trip to Hawaii. It is my husbands favorite as he always likes to do over the top dishes w/fish and other seafood on the weekends.
3)Biba Caggiano's, "Italy al Dente": Biba is a local (I live in Sacramento) and widely celebrated restauranteur. While she has half a dozen or so cookbooks in print, this one is my favorite as it focuses on just soups, pasta, and risotto.

Thanks again for the wonderful blog.

[Karletta]

David, did you know that there is a recipe box that accompanies the book? I was able to score one at a garage sale about 5 years ago. I am sure no one else had any idea what it was.
Thanks for the compliment!

[David Lebovitz]

Karletta: You are the only person I know that loves the LIFE Picture Cookbook as much as I do. The old pictures of the classic restaurants in America and France, as well as the great 'at-home' photos are a true culinary snapshot of that era.
Love your blog.
David