First cookbook for college kid's first apartment

TimeCruncher
Mon, 17 Mar 2008 06:28:42 +0000

Cooking bores me, so I stick to the basics. I rarely use cookbooks, but when I do, I prefer to use old cookbooks with simple recipes. I have found most of the few cookbooks I own (including the first three listed below) at thrift shops and yard sales. I recommend the following:

*Better Homes and Gardens Cook Book/i This is the spiral-bound cookbook with the red plaid cover found in many American households from 1941 onward. It has been reprinted and revised many times. I recommend the older (pre-1960) editions, which provide information about cooking basics, and are loaded with easy-to-use recipes. Indexed.

The James Beard Cookbook by James Beard with Isabel E. Callvert (1959) No, this is not a “gourmet” cookbook; this is actually an “introduction to cooking” book. (Beard teaches readers how to boil an egg!) Beard first defines basic cooking terms, and then explains how to efficiently (and affordably) stock and equip a kitchen. He provides about 500 pages of basic recipes (and simple variations on those recipes) for major food categories. Beard also describes foods, and explains how to recognize and select the best quality foods when grocery shopping. Indexed.

Cooking with 5 Ingredients or Less by Susan Kosoff and Teresa Kennedy (1984) This book contains hundreds of simple recipes for everything from appetizers to desserts. Every recipe uses five or fewer easy-to-find ingredients. There is a special section entitled “Cooking for One or Two,” and a concluding chapter with basic cooking tips. Indexed.

*Eat Dangerously: The "Blow Health Out Your **!!!" Cookbook by Benjamin Lewis and Rodrigo Velloso; edited by Stacy Schulist (1999) This book is very politically incorrect, and is also hilarious. Lewis and Velloso thumb their noses at “health food” and urge readers to “Dig In!” Recipes are a step up from basic with regard to preparation, but most use relatively easy-to-find ingredients. The authors’ website (eatdangerously.com) is a wealth of food and recipe information, and it includes a portal to an online version of larger-than-life English journalist George Augustus Henry Sala’s The Thorough Good Cook, first published in 1896, a year after Sala’s death.

“… roast pork with red cabbage and German potato salad…” I’m drooling, mafool.