Yesterday's question by wordnerdy about cookbooks got me thinking, both about what my faves might be, about which I'd recommend, and cookery books in general. One thing that I realized right off is that I tend to latch onto certain recipes in books and make them over and over and never get around to exploring the rest of the book. The upside of this is that explained by Robert Rodriguez in Five Minute Cooking School, if you focus on a couple of dishes that you really like and make them often, you'll get to be really good at making them. The downside, of course, is that you can find yourself stuck in a culinary rut and never trying anything new. Which is sorta how I'm feeling. I know it's a side-effect of feeling stressed out and all. Trying to think of something new to cook is just one more thing to worry about. So that's something I'd like to do over the next few months is pick a book and set myself a goal of reading (and making) more of the recipes.
Some of my faves include: the Art of Mexican Cooking by Diana Kennedy. There are three or four recipes in here that I make all the time. Plus it's a fascinating book to read. But Kennedy's pretty uncompromising. I think if I decide to work my way through a Mexican cuisine book this summer it'll probably be Rick Bayless's Mexican Kitchen. Bayless is as committed to the authentic flavors and techniques but his recipes just seem more user-friendly to me.
The two food books I most want to read more of this year are: Jacques Pépin's Complete Techniques and I'm Just Here for the Food by Alton Brown. While both contain recipes, they're really more about how to work in a kitchen (Jacques) and how things work in a kitchen (Alton). Complete Techniques covers everything from asparagus stew to cleaning sea urchins. Most of which I'll probably never need to know but it's fascinating. I'm Just Here for the Food really is summed up by its subtitle, food + heat = cooking. Again, I'm not sure I need to know all that much about the Maillard reaction but it's a great read. Plus a gorgeously designed book. It is very meat-centric in the recipes, but the recipes are really secondary to the explanations and the science (!) and general free-ranging inquisitiveness.
But if I had to pick just one book it'd be Think Like a Chef by Tom Colicchio. Colicchio is chef/owner of Craft in NYC but this isn't a collection of restaurant recipes. Instead it's his attempt to get across some of his creative process of working in a kitchen. So there are sections on techniques (roasting, blanching, sauce-making), on specific ingredients (roasted tomatoes) and how they can be used in a variety of recipes, on combinations of ingredients, and on seasonal vegetables ("if it grows together, it goes together"). Most of the techniques seem graspable. I've yet to come across something that I either couldn't pull off or couldn't imagine achieving (for recipes I haven't tried yet). Some sections do tend towards the spend-y (lobsters, morels) or hard-to-find (ramps, sweetbreads) but he's also got roasted chicken, corn chowder and braised cabbage. I think what draws me to this book is the idea that creativity in the kitchen can be expressed not by creating odd unexpected new combinations (foie gras souffle) or elaborate and fussy constructions on the plate but by taking great ingredients and turning them into food that's simple and direct.