My niece is getting married this fall and that has started me thinking about cookbooks that I might give her for a shower gift. She’s already been promised my extra Kitchenaid stand mixer (left over from Copperfield’s Coffee Café) and I thought perhaps a couple of cookbooks should go with the mixer.
I didn’t really learn to cook until I was in graduate school and was so tired of chicken pot pies and canned soup that I decided to learn to cook some of the foods I missed from home. Just by luck I happened to purchase a copy of “The Fannie Farmer Cookbook”, eleventh edition.
The first thing I made was lemon pudding cake and it was just like my mother and grandmother made. I started cooking other recipes from that cookbook and have never been disappointed with it. They are always simple and easy to follow with no complicated instructions. I've purchased later editions of the “The Fannie Farmer Cookbook” over the years but always go back to the eleventh edition. I love its good, old fashioned homey recipes.
Lately though I’ve been enjoying a newer version of the “Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook”. The recipes are also simple and easy to follow with a few updated ingredients. But mostly I like the nutrition information that comes with each recipe.
When I want to challenge myself I get out my two volume set of Julie Child’s “Mastering the Art of French Cooking”. When I was a kid we never missed Julie on the television and when I got my first real job and my first real apartment I invested in her cookbooks and a large enameled cast iron Dutch oven. I taught myself to make Hollandaise from Julia and a really good leg of lamb.
I miss “Gourmet” magazine, though I admit I rarely made any of their recipes. They were not always geared toward Midwest food availability or markets. But I loved reading the magazine. We were subscribers for over 40 years, right up until it quit publication.
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