And I’m a sucker for cookbooks. My favorites are the ones with personal touches, personal stories, and family recipes. In all of those veins, some of my “go-to” volumes are Nigella, Jennifer Brennan, Jamie Oliver, M.F.K Fisher, and Julia Child. In addition, when I’m visiting foreign climes, and if at all possible, I like to bring a local cookbook home with me. Here’s my rack. (Men of Ricochet, those of you whose minds live in the gutter, rise above!) Click to embiggen if you would like to read the spines. It’s the result of over half-a-century of collecting, and of occasional heartrending refinement, because I only have so much room:
Do you have favorite chefs? Favorite cookbook authors? Favorite sorts of cookbooks? Favorite food themes? Please share. (Room, schmoom. Convince me, and I’ll find a spot for it.)
P.S. Um, yes, any old-timers from Pittsburgh, that is an actual Isaly’s skyscraper ice cream scoop up top there on the left.
Collecting cook books must be hereditary. Carluccio – I wept when he died, who wouldn’t love a man who had a dachshund named ‘Baci’ (kisses). He taught me to make a excellent risotto (as attested to by an Italian). Delia – for no other reason that it was a gift from Dad. Ken Forkish – the god of bread. Ben and Jerry’s ice cream cookbook… My vintage treasures above the shelf? A treasured funnel cake pourer (bought in an auction c. 1994) and a vintage radio held together with surgical and electrical tape.
I had a wonderful meal at Carluccio’s in London, many years ago.