<p>^^^^What a flash from the past! Anyone remember her Bird’s Eye commercials? </p>
<p>She was a hoot - I remember my mom tried her “Skid Row Stroganoff” recipe - she only made it once, though…too rich in a canned soup kind of way…</p>
<p>Over 40 years:
Fannie Farmer
Moosewood Cookbook
Julia Child, Mastering the Art…, vol. 1
Jane Brody, Good Food Book</p>
<p>Lately:
Alice Waters, The Art of Simple Food
Mark Bittman, mostly online and in the NYT (I don’t own any of his books yet)
recipes online!</p>
<p>Peg Bracken…omg…my mother who was really handy with a can opener and that’s about it had that cookbook. It reminds me of a goulash my baby sitter used to make for the kids and they loved it and would beg me to make it. I could never, ever remember what was in it although I recall it contained many cans of things and a box of pasta.</p>
<p>What a nice thread!</p>
<p>My early deep loves:
Settlement Cookbook, from my mother
Moosewood, the original</p>
<p>Slightly later loves added when I was wooing my DH and began to get serious about cooking:
Silver Palate
Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking
Marcella’s Classic Italian Cookbook</p>
<p>And now (empty nest has inspired me to learn new tricks):
The Professional Chef (Culinary Institute of America)
Ad Hoc at Home (Thomas Keller)
and most life changing recently:
Mark Bittman’s bread recipe online: <a href=“Recipe: No-Knead Bread - The New York Times”>Recipe: No-Knead Bread - The New York Times; for which I bought a new Le Creuset pot and am a happy baker!</p>
<p>I have many of the above. I love them all. One I’d like to recommend is An Everlasting Meal: Cooking with Economy and Grace, by Tamara Adler. It really encourages one to make tasty what one has already.</p>
<p>LOL @ cans and boxes. That was my mom’s way of cooking because she loathed the activity. My grandfather who lived with us was the family chef. His culinary creations were heavily influenced by his Ukrainian heritage: every dish contained lots of bacon and fried onions. Grandpa did not own any cookbooks; all of his recipes lived in his head, including the most elaborate ones, like the heavenly ox tail borscht. When I saw this thread, I decided to find an “official” recipe, and after some poking in the crevasses of the Internet I came across an interesting article. Apparently, something as simple as a cookbook can be used as a political propaganda tool: [The</a> history cook: The Book of Tasty and Healthy Food - FT.com](<a href=“The history cook: The Book of Tasty and Healthy Food | Financial Times”>The history cook: The Book of Tasty and Healthy Food | Financial Times)
Curiosity got the better of me, and I ordered the book (as a translated version of it) from Amazon.</p>
<p>Somehow The Tassajara Bread book came into my life at just the right time, followed by Tassajara Cooking a few years later. The point was not so much the recipes, though making bagels by hand at age 17 was a great bonding activity with friends. The philosophy of seeing the beauty of the process, appreciation of the process, and the good work of feeding people were etched into my brain from an early age. </p>
<p>Much of the food from the original Moosewood was wonderful, but didn’t own it at that time. What did come into my life was Recipes from Moosewood Restaurant. I still cook from that very fine book. </p>
<p>This thread is making me want to go find a Marcella Hazen cookbook. She was never on my radar. </p>
<p>Joy of Cooking, one of the old editions, I read seriously and intently at one early point. The detail in the introductions to each chapter is incredible.</p>
<p>Gosh, A lot of my favorite cookbooks have been mentioned starting with Joy of Cooking, Moosewood, Diet for a Small Planet and above the Tassajara Bread book. Now I really like the Cooks Illustrated Cookbooks. I’ve always been a big cookbook reader and I have several cookbooks where I’ve only cooked a few recipes but read many, many of them.</p>
<p>Cooks Illustrated is my new passion, maybe not life altering as I was originally thinking but definitely go to for now.</p>
<p>I enjoy the Cook’s Illustrated cookbooks and have an online subscription. It’s fun although occasionally exhausting to read the reasons why a recipe works or doesn’t work.</p>
<p>Yes, love Cooks Illustrated. Love the tips I learn. I have 4 Moosewood books and have to say I’ve never cooked from them. Beyond Gypsy Soup, anyone want to recommend some favorites?</p>
<p>My MIL was a fan of recipes that used canned soups- and did it well. Lots from magazines or swaps with friends. Maybe her secret was the sherry she added. I treasure her old recipe cards and old books.</p>
<p>I sort of liked Moosewood…but I really liked the Vegetarian Epicure. I have both books, bought in the early 70’s and they are look a little ragged around the edges. My favorite recipe is a Potato Cheese Soup using Gouda cheese. Delish.</p>
<p>I still have the “I Hate to Cookbook”.</p>
<p>Moosewood
Junior League San Francisco
Barefoot Contessa Foolproof</p>
<p>top 3 that have changed my cooking life</p>
<p>OK my first life lesson’s book was Diet for a small planet! but I did not use it after about 5 years. I have used the Junior League of San Francisco for at least 35 already!</p>
<p>I opened up my old copy of “The Classic Italian Cook Book: The Art of Italian Cooking and the Italian Art of Eating (1973)” and, for the first time, cooked her fresh tomato/onion/butter sauce. Wow. Saved it for later, as I had more tomatoes to cook.</p>
<p>I didn’t realize that it was her recipe for pork braised in milk that we have enjoyed for many years. That was truly life changing. We also bought and enjoyed her husband Victor’s wine book.</p>
<p>That LA Times book- did it have recipes from the C.u.p.s. articles? I really enjoyed those.</p>
<p>From the original Moosewood:
Best Split Pea Soup p 17 (I’ve been known to throw a ham bone in) 
Marinated Vegetables p 58
Lovely sesame sauce p 65
Apple chutney p 73
Baba ganouj p 92 (ubiquitous now, along with hummus but wasn’t then)
Vegetable Stroganoff p 96
Gado gado p 104
Cossack Pie p 138
Spaghetti Squash p 158</p>
<p>I agree that the two Vegi Epi books, especially the second one, probably had better and less time consuming recipes than the original Moosewood. But Moosewood was the life changing one. :)</p>
<p>All the joy has gone out of my cooking by this point, if it was ever there. But I do still enjoy reading cookbooks, so maybe I’ll find some inspiration in this thread. I love the Cook’s Illustrated affiliate TV show on PBS, America’s Test Kitchen. I especially like Bridget Lancaster and Julia Collin, who demonstrate the recipes so expertly and as if whatever they’re doing isn’t at all difficult.</p>
<p>My grandmother’s Modern Priscilla Cookbook, published in 1929, hasn’t changed my life but is one of my prized possessions. There are 1,000 recipes for the Depression-era cook, and it’s a history lesson to look through them. (I’ve never opened the sub-chapter under “Meats” entitled “Organs and Glands.”) Best of all for me, she cut hundreds of other recipes out of newspapers and magazines and stuck them in between the pages. It’s like a little visit with her to see that she thought about making scalloped lima beans. :)</p>