I love cookbooks. Even if I don’t plan to use them often, they seem like such pieces of art. I remember going through my grandmother’s collection on a weekly basis, just looking at the photos and daydreaming about making such fancy things. After I earned my Master’s degree in publishing, my dream jobs were to either work in publicity for a romance imprint or for a cookbook imprint. Kissing and food are my favorite things in life.
I also happen to follow Chrissy Teigen on Twitter. I think she’s so smart and funny. Also…try not to drool over her food blog. So when I heard that she was coming out with a cookbook, Cravings, I knew I had to have it, which is a big deal because I haven’t experienced a “had to have it” book in a while.
The book came out toward the end of February and I remember texting the Cute Boy™ (we’d been dating about a month and a half at that point) if he wanted to get this cookbook with me, and then we’d cook something from it for dinner that night. Anything that involves food, he’s on board.
So I grabbed the book and we flipped through it before settling on one of the most intimidating recipes: Sweet Potato Gnocchi with Brown Butter and Sage, listed in an aptly named chapter: “Things That Intimidate People But Shouldn’t.”
Though the process seemed arduous, it was fun. And while my little pillows looked like they’d been heavily slept on, they were so delicious.
Since that recipe, making things from Cravings became a regular occurrence. We’ve made dinners and snacks and side dishes. Her cheesy guacamole recipe is one of my favorite things I’ve ever eaten. I’ve made it for parties, for dinner to put on her Capon’s Chrissy Burger, or just to devour on my own. To put it plainly, I’ve given this cookbook a very thorough test drive.
If you’re curious about the meat and potatoes (heh) of the book, the chapters are as follows:
Breakfast All Day
Soupmaster
Salads (For When You Need Them)
Noodles and Carbs
Thai Mom
Party Time
Sh*t On Toast
Vegetable Things
Things That Intimidate People But Shouldn’t
Supper
Plus there are the pre-recipe stuff like general cooking information and post-recipe stuff like the acknowledgments and index. (Sidenote: I love a nicely structured index.)
While so far, everything I’ve (or we, if the Cute Boy™ is involved) has been pretty tasty. We’ve fudged a couple things, but made notes how to alter the recipes for our own tastes – less pepper here or small burger patties because my stove is temperamental. But the main thing I love about this cookbook is its personality. It’s something I felt that is lacking in a lot of the cookbooks I’ve acquired.
While I adore my behemoth Good Housekeeping Illustrated cookbook, it’s pretty dry.
The introduction is funny and touching, as well as all of the photos inside with Chrissy and her family. Each recipe has a quick, entertaining paragraph. Take this one for Cauliflower Mash with Roasted Garlic and Ricotta:
Whenever anyone asks me what my diet secret is, I say one word: trickery. So much of my life is tricking myself into thinking I am getting that so-desired dish that I can’t actually have at the moment.
Potatoes are my heart and soul. I get a physical and emotional rush when potatoes are making their way down my gullet. Sometimes I can’t have potatoes and so I mash cauliflower instead. But dare I say I almost prefer these fake-ass mashed potatoes? Actually, you know what, they are different and I need them both. They are my sister wives. My creamy, garlic sister wives.
And I can vouch that this cauliflower mash is pretty similar to mashed potatoes, though Cute Boy™ almost ended our relationship because I am a chunky mash over creamy mash sort of girl. And well…he has no clue what he’s missing by daring to choose creamy mash.
This book isn’t perfect though, at least not for me. I don’t eat seafood and I have a huge sweet tooth. Unfortunately, there are quite a number of seafood dishes on account of Chrissy’s mother being Thai. And I was really disappointed by the lack of a desserts chapter, but if Chrissy were to ever put out a baking cookbook, I’d be all over it.
If you’re interested in a copy of Cravings for your very own (and I hope you are because it’s officially my favorite book in my cookbook collection), I have an extra one that I’d love to give away! And we will send you a very special Smart Bitchin’ in Your Kitchen apron, too!
Standard disclaimers apply: Void where prohibited. Open to international residents where permitted by applicable law. A sharp knife is a safe knife. Anything involving gnocchi is automatically 200% more awesome. Keep all your bits and bobs covered in case of any grease splatter. Comments will close at noon on Friday 17 June 2016 and winners will be announced shortly afterward.
Also, I will be traveling until the 24th, so the book and apron won’t be mailed until the week of the 27th!
Good luck and happy cooking!
ETA: 17 JUNE – We have a winner! Congratulations to Christina, keeper of the Eet Smakelijk cookbook, who has won our giveaway! Thank you to everyone who entered!
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I still rely on “Joy of Cooking” for general stuff although I do enjoy looking at Essential Pepin and Alton Brown’s cookbooks (fun and informative).
My cookbook recommendation is Cooking Up Stories: Favorite Recipes from the Oregon Writers Network. Not because I’m a co-editor, but because all the proceeds go to Beach Bark, an Oregon Coast charity that pays for veterinary service for people who can’t afford it and for stray animals in need.
And there are some seriously tasty recipes in there, plus story blurbs and other fun writerly stuff. 🙂
https://www.amazon.com/Cooking-Up-Stories-Favorite-Recipes/dp/1939051916?ie=UTF8&*Version*=1&*entries*=0
You can’t go wrong with Julia Child et al. Mastering the Art of French Cooking. Both volumes are stained and battered – a sure sign they’ve been well-used.
Ohh I have this cookbook, but one thing I really love is how familiar Chrissy’s asian american childhood food memories feel to me (having your mom bring ethnic food to potlucks and being vaguely embarrassed is so real) especially since, like her, food is a large part of my culture for me. It warms my heart to see one of my fellow asian girls write about it without either disparaging it or exoticizing it.
I’ve been reading and cooking from Rachel Roddy’s blog for ages– interesting stories of her life in Rome, and wonderful everyday Italian comfort foods. I’ve made a lot of her recipes multiple (scores of!) times. Her recent book has a lot of my favourite recipes from the blog, and some new ones. It has both meat and vegetarian recipes, but enough of the latter to make it fairly worthwhile for non-meat-eaters like me. My Kitchen in Rome: Recipes and Notes on Italian Cooking.
I just read a cookbook by Justin Warner, “The Laws of Cooking,” he’s an entertaining writer, but I can’t see myself making more than one or two of the dishes in the book. I LOVE the way he has the recipes laid out with what you can pre-prep, even days before you will make the recipe. Then the actual putting together the dish, and then options for leftovers. It’s perfect for someone who doesn’t have time to do much pre-prep during the week. You can just do put together the dish when you get home from work. But like I said, his taste in food and mine are VERY different.
Out of Our League by the Baton Rouge Junior League. My copy is over 40 years old. It was recommended to me when my husband was in the Air Force and we were just out of college. I used it to bake my first cake from scratch.
I’m a determined fan of Joy of Cooking. I have a copy from the early 1950’s as well as a copy from the 1980’s and both are obviously used. Considering the major detail that I try hard to keep my books looking like new as long as possible, you get an idea that these have been go to books for years. The recipes are well written and easy to follow. The authors also provide a lot of information about ingredients, procedures, and substitutions that most other cookbooks neglect to provide.I find the reference material invaluable when I need to try to adapt a recipe for allergies or personal tastes.
My other favorite cookbook is the Better Homes and Gardens Heritage Cook Book (1975). The cover tagline says it best: “The exciting story of food in American life Featuring 705 recipes from our rich history including colonial, ethnic, and modern favorites”. I’ve tried a number of the recipes over the years and the only failure was my fault (overheated the yeast water in a bread recipe). There are number of pictures, including food porn, as well as some well-written historical blurbs to help put food in historical context.
Joy of Cooking. I have one of the editions that have instructions on skinning a squirrel, with illustrations. Even though I don’t think I could, there’s something I respect about that kind of information being there.
Cookbooks are my passion and, even after a massive weeding of my collection, I have gazillions in paper and digital. 😀
I LOVE Junior League cookbooks, the older the better, and one of my favorites is Charleston Receipts. First published in 1950, it’s still available new from Amazon. Another Southern favorite is Betty Feezor’s Best, which was finally reprinted last year (used copies had previously been going for sky-high prices) and is also available from Amazon.
For newer cookbooks, anything by Deborah Madison, Nathalie Dupree, Sara Foster, or the Lee Brothers. The Canal House cookbooks. Mario Batali’s Multo Gusto. Seriously, I could go on forever, but I’ll stop now. 🙂
My (current) favourite cookbook is The Greengrocer’s Kitchen by Pete Luckett. It’s not much to look at (very few pictures), but the chapters (3-5 pages each) are organized alphabetically by vegetable. Each chapter has an introduction to the vegetable (including the author’s personal experiences with it), followed by a couple of recipes. It is so much fun to use, especially after a trip to the farmer’s market or when I have vegetables in my fridge that need using up.
I gotta throw in Smitten Kitchen by Deb Perelman. Her sweets are wonderful!
Jerusalem, by Yotam Ottolenghi and Sami Tamimi is gorgeous, delicious, and gets to the soul of an old and diverse culinary city.
I have forced myself to stop buying cookbooks because I just don’t have the time to cook or space to store (surely *winning* one is ok though, right?), but I still have kept a core collection. One of my favorites is Around my French Table by Dorie Greenspan. I love hearing her stories about French life and food culture. I haven’t made tons of the recipes but the 10 or so I’ve made have been lovely. It’s definitely a sophisticated but still light hearted cookbook.
My go to cookbook when I first was married is good ole Betty Crocker. She is worn, stained, falling apart but one I will never get rid of!!
I love cookbooks and have soooo many. From Larousse to Better Homes to all things Cooks Illustrated. But for sheer personality, you must try Thug Kitchen: eat like you give a fuck. It’s from a vegan food truck and it’s full of bad words and good food. Also Make the Bread, Buy the Butter is a worthwhile read. It is part memoir and part recipes. Very funny stories about a woman trying to make everything from scratch after she was laid off. She’s a magazine writer, so she has a good voice. The adventures with raising chickens are great and I actually enjoy brewing my own ginger ale!
If someone wants one basic has pretty much all the info you need for standard European-American food with maybe a few dishes from other cultures, I recommend The Joy of Cooking. It is still absolutely my go-to cookbook.
For something with a little more personality, I’ve lately been really loving The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook. Mostly, I’ve been making the desserts, sometimes seriously modified because I am more or less incapable of leaving a recipe alone. But seriously, I have to do a lot of baking and I love her bar cookie recipes. (also her apple cider caramels, but those are a lot more trouble. Worth it, but trouble.)
I have several of the Pioneer Woman’s cookbooks and I really enjoy them because they are picture-heavy to show every step and often include recipes I associate with things my grandmother and great-grandmother cooked during my childhood.
My favourite is the PWMU Centenary Cookbook. (PWMU stands for Presbyterian Women’s Missionary Union of Victoria.) It has some good recipes (I quite like the beef stroganoff, and golden syrup dumplings) but it also has a whole bunch of handy cooking hints (e.g. what “moderate” and other oven temperatures actually _are_ in degrees; explanation of cooking terminology, and how to work out how long to cook that roast leg of lamb for).
I’m a fairly new Chrissy fan, but basically I love her now. I heard about this book and got super excited! I’m happy to hear that the recipes have all worked out!
My fav recipe books, cause I can’t pick just one:
Well Fed I & II by Mel Joulwan – Yes they are paleo, BUT she talks a lot about meal prep/planning and has great ways to incorporate more veg. Also she has stories about her recipes, and has a thing at the end where you can “Change it up”. Basically swap some ingredients to create a new flavour.
I am a HUGE believer in The Joy of Cooking. Great for that moment of “What do I do with this artichoke I just bought?!?!”
BUT, now, I find myself relying on The Food Lab by J. Kenji López-Alt. He’s over on the site Serious Eats, and this book is amazing because it is talking about the science behind food and he does amazing experiments to figure out the best method.
I love Rachel Khoo’s cookbooks! She gives old favourites a new twist.
I’ve had The I Hate to Cook Book on my wishlist for awhile because it looks fun, even though I DON’T hate to cook.
I am currently loving Zucchini and Chocolate by Clotilde Dusolier. The recipes are pretty easy, very tasty, and just a little different from what I usually cook. Even though I am making them with ingredients from a massive US supermarket instead of a Paris street market, they still taste really good!
I would like to recommend “Pampille’s Table: Recipes & Writings from the French Countryside from Marthe Daudet’s Les Bons Plats de France,” translated and adapted by Shirley King. I have made one or two of the recipes but return to it to read the world-weary but maniacally dedicated commentary. On Pot-au-Feu, which Daudet terms one of the “four poetic soups”: “You have to be at least 30 years old to enjoy Pot-au-Feu. Before reaching this prophetic age, you cannot appreciate good things.”
If you want a great baking book, get Alton Brown’s I’m Just Here for More Food. It doesn’t just have great recipes–it is also brilliantly organized. Rather than cakes/cookies/etc., it is arranged by mixing method. So every chapter has a flap with the mixing method that you fold over the recipe itself.
Since it’s Alton Brown, you also get great explainers on “Hardware” (ovens, mixing utensils, etc.) and “Software” (the role of leaveners, etc.). You learn, you bake, your brain gets happy and so does your mouth.
I’m currently a big fan of The Complete Book of Turkish Cooking, bu Gillie Basan. I’m not sure that’s what you would call a book with personality, but it’s very complete, it has all sorts of information on traditional Turkish ingredients and culinary traditions, AND! it’s an absolutery great book if you want to find fancy, mouth-watering, extremely appetising, vegetarian dishes (with no tofu and no paltry hamburger substitutes–with apologies to tofu lovers ;)). As far as I’m concerned, you haven’t tasted life until you’ve tried pumpkin stuffed with saffron pilaf, herbs, dried apricots and pistachios. Who would want meat after that?
I am huge fan of the Smitten Kitchen Cookbook by Deb Perelman. This is the book that introduced me too, and hooked me on, chaat masala (read the popcorn story that accompanies the lamb chop recipe to understand the versatility of this spice blend). As for desserts… Brown Butter Rice Krispies. Coffee Toffee. You’re welcome.
I love all of the Pioneer Woman’s cookbooks! Such easy to follow recipes and such delicious comfort foods! She also has lots of notes and stories about her ranch life and family and makes it feel like you are reading an actual book and not just a cookbook.
The cookbook I use most often is “The Pioneer Woman Cooks”. Her cookbook is like her show, really sweet and nice with great pictures of ranching. I’m not going to lie, I pretty much only use it for the desserts. They all have so much butter in them.
I luuurve Smitten Kitchen!
The ones I like the most from my collection are Jamie’s Food Revolution and America Test Kitchen Cooking for two.
I love Jamie Oliver show. He makes cooking so much fun and healthy and his personality really comes through in the book.
I hate downsizing recipes so when I moved in with my partner finding a recipe book for just two people was hard but the Test Kitchen book is a life saver. I love how for every recipe it gives you options on what to do with leftover ingredients that you will have to get too much of to make one recipe.
Ruth Reichl’s “My Kitchen Year: 136 Recipes that Saved My Life.” Written as a result of her experiences the year after Gourmet magazine was shuttered. It’s a meditative expression of how cooking can heal, but seriously, the food is amazing. Grilled, brined chicken dunked in vinaigrette, amazing Thai recipes, sublime fricassee.
I love Barefoot Contessa’s Foolproof. The recipes are very good but Ina is not really a barrel of laughs.
Thai Food by David Thompson – an enormous bright pink book of my fav cuisine in all the world that includes a huge amount of history about traditional cookbooks (sorta) of the Thai royal family. His massaman curry is incredibly nom!
I love anything by Jane and Michael Stern, including all the various Roadfood books. However, if I could only name one title, it would be Square Meals (1985), a delightful culinary tour of memory lane focusing on the twentieth century. This cookbook is for readers who are as interested in the culture and history surrounding food as they are in good (and hilariously bad) recipes.
I’ve just started getting into cookbooks and one I’ve loved is Thug Kitchen. It’s vulgar, drunk-craving food and it is all so delicious. Try the nachos! Laugh at the weird illustrations! It’s amazing.
My favorite cookbooks are Katie Workman’s The Mom 100 Cookbook and Dinner Solved. They have a friendly, conversational style and practical (but sooo tasty) recipes for the home cook. The pancakes and pasts dishes have become staples of our family cooking.
Also on my cookbook shelf? Cookin’ With Coolio. It’s a soul food cookbook written as if Coolio is standing in your kitchen with you guiding you through the recipes. It’s pretty hilarious and fun.
Love love love Chrissy Teigen’s Scrambled eggs!
Being French and European-based, I tend to gravitate towards the BBC’s Good Food, Delia Smith’s Complete Cookery Course or Clotilde Dusoulier’s reworking of Ginette Mathiot’s The Art of French Baking for the basics, (Je Sais Cuisiner is a Ginette Mathiot household classic for the ‘mature’ generation!)
I bake with Signe Johansen’s Scandilicious Baking and anything Mary Berry!
Lorraine Pascale’s books make everything sound easy and ‘make-able’ and I feel quite adventurous when I attempt any American recipes I find through Deb Perelman’s Smitten Kitchen or Mollie Katzen’s books -though I’m still finding the ‘cups’ business quite frustrating!
La Tartine Gourmand is one of my favorites. The pictures are beautiful and there is a story behind most of the recipes. It transports me to another world.
I love Thug Kitchen. It’s funny and profane, and the recipes are great. Neither my husband nor I are vegetarians, and he normally gets a little grumpy if there’s no animal protein on his plate, but these recipes are so tasty, he doesn’t complain at all.