Did you know Ruth Reichl, the former restaurant critic for the Los Angeles Times and New York Times, and editor of of Gourmet Magazine, had a cranky husband just like mine who hated going on reviews with her? She referred to him in print as “The Reluctant Gourmet.”
Along with relating wild episodes of his life cooking in the kitchens of New York’s best restaurants, Anthony Bourdain recommended Global kitchen knives in his groundbreaking take about what really goes on in the industry, “Kitchen Confidential.” I bought them on his say-so, and have been satisfied with them ever since.
Mimi Sheraton, one of America’s best-known restaurant critics and food writers, had a mother an awful lot like mine. “You call that a chicken?” she recounts being admonished in “Eating My Words.” My mother threw a batch of freshly made croissants into the garbage because they weren’t perfect.
In “Hotbox,” Matt Lee and Ted Lee go undercover in New York’s high-end catering business to spotlight the efforts of underrecognized food workers. They create fine cuisine for black-tie fundraisers and Hamptons cookouts, often from the back of a truck. Now that was a good read.
The Swedish chef and owner of Aquavit, the high-end Scandinavian restaurant on Park Avenue in New York, who also helmed White House state dinners, was born in Ethiopia. Marcus Samuelsson and his sister were adopted as young children by a middle-class Swedish family and gained a new grandmother. She sparked his lifelong passion for food.
These stories are all in my house, on paper, in my collection of books about food. Most are cookbooks, many are not.
There are seminal books: “Mastering the Art of French Cooking” by Julia Child; “The Fannie Farmer Cookbook” by Marion Cunningham; Craig Claiborne’s “The New York Times Cook Book.”
My go-to guides are “The Joy of Cooking” by Irma Rombauer and Marion Rombauer Becker, and the “Good Housekeeping Illustrated Cookbook.” Both are older editions I see no need to update.
There are less-used, visually dazzling books, such as the Williams-Sonoma series, a souvenir we carried home from Fortnum & Mason in London one winter: “Christmas & Other Winter Feasts” by Tom Parker Bowles. Also, lots of books about Paris bistros.
We love reference books in this house, too. There are two editions of the “Larousse Gastronomique,” a glossy-paged, photo-filled encyclopedia of French cooking. Russ Parsons, the longtime food editor for the Los Angeles Times, writes about cooking science in “How to Read a French Fry.” I learned a ton.
The “Food Lover’s Companion” is a small, fat dictionary of food, drink and culinary terms whose spine is curved from use. It doesn’t get opened so often now; it’s quicker to Google terms, but I’ll never get rid of it.
Who else is here? Alice Waters, in at least four books. I have the chef and food activist’s groundbreaking slow food manifesto “We Are What We Eat.”
Jacques Pepin is a culinary educator and television personality even my mother liked. I have his “Simple and Healthy Cooking.” Martha Stewart is at her best with flawless and camera-ready appetizers. It’s just fun to leaf through any of her books. I like her slim, photo-filled paperback but don’t know the title — I can’t find it. Needle in a haystack.
There are the school books, published by Wiley, written by the incomparable Wayne Gisslin. “Professional Cooking,” eighth edition, is bristling with scraps of paper keeping places for sauces, soups, potatoes. His “Professional Baking,” sixth edition, is marked up with green, blue, pink and purple ink, the better to help me study. Escoffier’s almost incomprehensible “Le Guide Culinary” is in this category.
Wine books: I read all 995 pages of Karen MacNeil’s “The Wine Bible.” First, the methods for making wines and sparkling wines, then all the wines of all regions of the whole world. She taught me that the flavors of the foods of each region helped develop the flavors of their wines. I didn’t make it through the appendix on wine laws by country, though. Snooze city.
Husband Eric has ancient copies of “Wines of the World,” edited by André L. Simon, and Frank Schoonmaker’s “Encyclopedia of Wine,” which I haven’t cracked yet.
There are short stories: The New Yorker’s best-of food writing, two editions, though the first is better; and several anthologies of the best food writing essays of the year.
I tried educating myself with slim volumes focused on specific cuisines, which was sort of helpful. So there is a stack covering Japan, Scandinavia, Vietnam, Asia in general, France and Italy.
“Mrs. Beeton’s Book of Cookery and Household Management” is a British classic, first published by Isabella Beeton in 1861. It’s a fun read. In addition to being a respectable comprehensive cookbook, it covers health care (A to Z of common ailments), the law (legal preliminaries to marriage), plumbing, household repairs, nutrition and more.
Oh boy, could I go on. There are books I bought and haven’t read, like the magnificently titled “Chefs, Drugs and Rock & Roll” by Andrew Friedman.
The baking books live in their own bookcase, along with small paper cookbooks, the kind you could buy in the supermarket at the checkout. Most are about cookies.
They are side-by-side with years of Cook’s Illustrated magazines, which Eric always wants to renew though he won’t get rid of a single one. They are full of tips and often explain the science behind a recipe.
Perhaps the most treasured is my mom’s copy of “Betty Crocker’s Baking Classics.” Many of our family’s favorite baked goods came from this, like the caramel pecan rolls. Her notes are still there, paper-clipped to the pages. She bought each of her three daughters a copy many years ago. When she died, I kept hers and passed mine on to my niece.
Once I dive into my shelves, I find old dependable recipes and dig up lots of happy cooking memories.
Our house is full of books — and some of the best stories are found in the kitchen.