Cookaholics Bulletin Board

Lisa,

Grape nuts!

No wonder I don't like that cereal!

--Lisa

Two good ones this week, courtesy of the San Francisco Public Library's terrific collection of cookbooks:

Corsican Cuisine by Arthur Meyer is a low-production-value cookbook, one step up from self-published. But what matters about a cookbook is the contents, and Meyer both writes clear instructions, and makes a serious effort to fill the book with recipes which are not common to either French or Italian cuisine -- foods which would be found only in Corsica. I haven't cooked from it yet, but I look forward to doing so. Recommended for anyone into Mediterranean food.

Kris got the Nordic Bakery Cookbook (named after London's Nordic Bakery) in order to get recipes for some of the Finnish foods she'd enjoyed. So far we've had the oven pancake, which was good and different from a Dutch Baby. Recipes are clear and accompanied by beautiful pictures, and the book has almost everything Kris wanted to know how to make. However, the conversions from metric to American measurements are often sloppy, so you should be prepared to check the cookbook's conversions. Recommended; after trying it, we bought a copy.

I borrowed Eating Cuban from the library because it's summer, and it looked like an intriguing Carribbean cookbook. The sections of the book show its range of coverage: Creole Classics, Street Food, and New Wave Cuban (plus Drinks). As much as I wanted to like it, though, I got tripped up by the amount of meat in the cookbook; not that unexpected for Cuban food, but there really wasn't a lot in the cookbook for me. The couple of seafood recipes I tried were pretty good but not great, and the empanada recipe was overly fussy. So, an OK-but-not-great cookbook, better if you eat pork.

I would not have recommended that one. Of all the Cuban cookbooks out there, I find this one to be the most authentic. Believe or not, the Estefan Cookbook is pretty decent as well.

Cubans don't eat a lot of hot vegetables, but we do eat a lot of legumes in the form of Spanish potages, and lots of seafood. Fridays, and lent were always meat free (we ate seafood, pasta or egg dishes usually), so a good Cookbook should have many non-meat alternatives.

Alina,

Oh, yeah, I borrowed Memories from the Library earlier; I could swear I reviewed it but I guess not. I copied a couple recipes from it, it was good.

If you like cookbooks with funny, sarcastic writing, then Sweet & Vicious is for you. The cover design is also a hoot. Mostly, though, this is a fun baking book to read, mostly for the recipe descriptions:



Despite the name, only half the cookbook is sweet baking. The other half is breads and stuffed savory things.

Fuzzy, I really like the Robicelli's cookbook for the same reason.

Another must-miss is Pancakes by Adrianna Adarme. Most of the recipes aren't that interesting unless you've never made pancakes before. The ones which look interesting aren't at all tested, and need expert adjustment.

Andy Ricker's Pok Pok, on the other hand, might be the new recommend for "best Thai cookbook", for both beginners and the moderately experienced. For beginners, he offers very explicit instructions divided into easy-to-read sections, and most of the recipes in the book are on the simpler side of Thai cuisine, requiring only 5-10 ingredients. For experts, the cookbook offers a strong flavor of Northern Thailand which you don't get out of your general Thai cookbook. And 10-Speed has filled the book with truly stunning photos of every single one of the recipes, an invaluable addition for those new to the dishes.

There are a couple of drawbacks to the cookbook, though. First, being Chang Mai cuisine, it's not vegetarian-friendly; 65% of the recipes have meat, and 85% have meat and/or seafood. Ricker also says in the beginning of the book that he's not going to try to cope with substitutions for major Thai ingredients, and he doesn't, so if you live somewhere you can't buy galangal, lemongrass, and thai peppers, you might want to give it a miss.

Regardless, if I had to buy a first Thai cookbook for a meat-eater, it would be this one. And if it had a few more veggie or seafood-only recipes, I'd buy a copy for myself.