My Top 5 Cookbooks

Cookbooks make fantastic holiday gifts. Talk about the gift that keeps on giving!

Yet choosing a cookbook from the multitude available in the bookstore can feel like a daunting task. Here are five of the cookbooks I use most often or plan to add to my Christmas list:

First, the staple: the Joy of Cooking by Irma S. Rombauer, Marion Rombauer Becker, and Ethan Becker (Scribner, $35.00). But here’s an interesting twist: instead of buying the newest version, which was released in 2006, visit your nearest thrift store and pick up a copy from the 1970s or earlier. In the older cookbooks you’ll find the occasional gem of a recipe or tip, such as how to trap, butcher and prepare a possum or a beaver. Plus, having used both books, I like the recipes from the older version better.

The baker in your life needs Bernard Clayton’s New Complete Book of Bread by Bernard Clayton (Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, $22.00). This may be the greatest and most frequently used cookbook in my collection. Clayton has an engaging writing style and an incredible knowledge of baking. The book containers recipes for every type of bread you can imagine – yeast breads, sourdough breads, quick breads and muffins, breads from holiday traditions around the world, even a recipe for homemade hamburger buns. Recipes advise you on how to make most loaves by hand, in a mixer, or in a food processor, and offers great advice for the novice and the experienced baker.

Do you know someone who refuses to follow recipes? Do you ever find yourself staring at an avocado and thinking, “What can I do with this thing besides make guacamole?” The Flavor Bible: The Essential Guide to Culinary Creativity, Based on the Wisdom of America’s Most Imaginative Chefs by Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg (Little, Brown, $35.00) may be just what you need. Instead of providing recipes, it provides charts for hundreds of meats, fruits, vegetables, herbs, and spices. Each chart tells you what foods pair best with tha ingredient, what season the food is available, its taste (sweet, sour, etc.), and the best cooking technique. That avocado, for example, will pair well with citrus and bitter greens (particularly frisee and Belgium endive), and kosher or sea salt will best bring out the flavor.

Vegetarians will love The New Moosewood Cookbook by Mollie Katzen (Ten Speed Press, $19.99). The Moosewood Cookbook originally came out in 1978, when vegetarianism was fairly rare. It is one of the 10 best-selling cookbooks of all time, according to the New York Times, and is in the James Beard Foundation’s Cookbook Hall of Fame. The cookbook contains delicious recipes like homemade Falafel, Hungarian Mushroom Soup, and Zuccanoes (Stuffed Zucchini). Even meat-eaters will be willing to dig into most of these dishes.

To be honest, most of my favorite recipes don’t come from cookbooks. They come from cooking magazines. For years I’ve subscribed to Taste of Home magazine and its sister publication, Healthy Cooking. Each magazine has a beautiful pictures as well as seasonal ideas for cooking and decorating, healthy living tips, and stories from other cooks around the country. The Taste of Home family also includes a magazine called Simple & Delicious for people who enjoy cooking with convenience foods. Subscription information is available online, or pick up a copy of one of the magazines in the grocery store. When giving a magazine subscription as a gift I enjoy buying the most recent copy and wrapping it with a note telling the person they will get a new gift from me every other month of the year.