Cookbooks

In keeping with our Turkish theme of the past week or two, Simon sent me an email (thanks!) pointing to an interesting cookbook, The Ottoman Kitchen. As befitted an empire, the Ottoman kitchen had a diverse and complex cuisine encompassing the large number of countries in the Ottoman Empire. This book explores the food of this empire and includes history, pictures and recipes from the modern day countries that were part of the Ottoman Empire (e.g.

Seductions of Rice is an essential cookbook for every rice lover! Check out our review for more details.

During the holidays, Roland bought us a copy of Jacques Pépin's Complete Techniques. I have always admired Pépin's cooking style and skills.

I am amazed by the hundreds of techniques explained and illustrated in this book. It inspires me to "relearn" some of my usable but poor techniques and to try out new ones.

A while ago we featured a news item about community kitchens. At work we recently purchased "Many Hands: Community Kitchens Share Their Best," a compilation of well tested recipes used by community kitchen groups in Vancouver.

How it all Vegan is a fun vegan cook book published in Vancouver in 1999 (here's how to get a copy) that we leafed through tonight at our friend Gretchen's birthday dinner. It explains alot about vegan cooking and is written in a fun, casual style. Definitely worth checking out!

James Peterson's cookbook, Essentials of Cooking: The 100 Indispensable Skills That Spell the Difference Between Merely Cooking and Knowing How to Cook, as featured in January's Atlantic, looks like a great cookbook because it shows the details of cooking with photographs.

For Christmas, Roland got an inspiring cookbook (from my brother, upon my suggestion!): The Minimalist Cooks at Home by Mark Bittman, author of How to Cook Everything. One of the philosophies of this book is "less is more". Bittman gives very basic, bare minimum lists of ingredients, then gives suggestions to elaborate and fortify each recipe.