Giving the Gift of Cooking
Posted by Chris Perrin on Paper Palate
Christmas is just a week away, but are you done shopping? Be honest! (It’s okay, most of us aren’t.) In fact, if you are like most people in my family, you will not be done until December 24th…
Are you perhaps procrastinating because you do not know what to get some people on your list? Are any of them gourmets, gourmands, chefs, cooks, or foodies? If so, give them something that fires their passion: give them a cookbook.
Even though the internet has a number of really great recipe sites, food blogs, and cooking demonstrations, a good cookbook is a completely unique food experience. Most cookbooks have recipes for all experience levels and they go into more depth about specific techniques and ingredients than most websites can. Sometimes the little tips and hints scattered throughout are the difference between kitchen brilliance and disaster.
So when looking for the perfect gift for your food loving friends, check out these picks:
Martha Stewart’s Cooking School: Lessons and Recipes for the Home Cook by Martha Stewart
Martha Stewart’s Cooking School may be the most gorgeous cookbook I have ever seen. Totaling 512 pages, this cookbook also doubles as a stool and heavy bludgeoning instrument. However, using it as something other than a cooking reference is not advisable… there is just too much good stuff in the book. After all, this is a Martha Stewart product. She does not do anything halfway.
In this book, she starts with the basics (knife skills, seasonings, cooking techniques, etc.) and takes the readers through advanced dishes. The recipes start simple and work their way into the type of masterpiece you thought only Martha Stewart could create. Find it online for about $30.
How to Cook Everything (Completely Revised 10th Anniversary Edition): 2,000 Simple Recipes for Great Food by Mark Bittman
If Martha Stewart’s Cooking School is a stool, How to Cook Everything is a tower. Coming in at just under 1,000 pages, Bittman has so much information crammed into his food tome that he has a section called “The 102 Essential Recipes in This Book.” It also has sections for the 100 Best Fast, Make-Ahead, and Vegetarian recipes in the book as well.
The great thing about How to Cook Everything is that, like Martha Stewart’s Cooking School, it starts with the basics and lets students advance at their own pace. However, whereas Martha Stewart’s book grounds readers in the fundamentals of technique, How to Cook Everything grounds readers in the fundamentals of ingredients. From beans to dairy to poultry, Bittman offers insights into how to cook, well, everything. This book goes for $21 online.
Diners, Drive-ins and Dives: An All-American Road Trip . . . with Recipes! by Guy Fieri
Guy Fieri kicks off the final three books, all by your favorite Food Network stars. This book is given the same title as his successful television show in which he drives across the country eating at diners, drive-ins, and dives. The main focus of the show is to get away from the fancy restaurants and pay homage to those who have been serving up hearty chow in less rarified establishments.
Still, where the book really shines over the show is in its recipes. The show will say that a certain dish has certain ingredients, but with Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives, the home cook has everything measured out so that you can recreate such meals as Mike’s Main Crab Cakes and the Triple D Burger. Also, there is no shortage of Guyisms and stories from Guy’s adventures on the road. This book is $12 online.
Barefoot Contessa Back to Basics: Fabulous Flavor from Simple Ingredients by Ina Garten
The Barefoot Contessa Back to Basics is another cookbook coming from a celebrity chef. Ina Garten is synonymous with culinary excellence from cocktail parties to delicious candlelight meals and this book carries on her good name. Back to Basics is 272 pages long and like the first two books on the list, focuses on starting readers at the beginning with basic techniques and recipes and works towards more complex dishes.
This is a great book for fans of The Barefoot Contessa and for those who may not be introduced to her yet because it does encompass different skill levels. If there has ever been a knock on Ina Garten, it is sometimes her recipes can be fairly involved. Not all of them, sometimes she works magic with just a handful of ingredients. However, Back to Basics provides big Barefoot Contessa flavors without all of the big Barefoot Contessa effort. This book can be found for around $20 online.
Rachael Ray is back with another trove of 30-minute meals in her latest volume which has a title as that seems fitting for the energetic food megastar. Ray, whose energy is legendary in the food business, has put together a 360 page collection of recipes covering every topic included in the books voluminous title and more in between.
What remains truly impressive about Ray is her commitment to the 30 minute meal concept. Despite being at it for ten years, she still manages to find unique twists on old classics and manages to create a few new legendary dishes along the way. Of all the books listed, this one is perhaps the most unique. Most of the other books start with the basics and work up, but Ray’s book provides simple recipes that anyone can make in thirty minutes or less. This book can be found online for $15.
