Comments for Cookbooker: Articles and Explorations

Comment on The Best Cookbooks of 2011: a Roundup by Cooksbakesbooks

Cooksbakesbooks — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 06:38:39 +0000

How wonderful to see all of these lists, one after the other! It’s great to see Jacques Pepin get recognized over and over. His palate is exquisite and he is a thoughtful recipe writer. You can hear him talking as you read his recipes.

Comment on The Best Cookbooks of 2011: a Roundup by Susie

Susie — Sat, 17 Dec 2011 22:15:33 +0000

Andrew, that’s it exactly. It’s just harder to absorb the information from the layout when I’m speed-testing and going back and forth from stove to countertop. But on those occasions when I’m using a scale, I’m just grateful the information is there however it’s laid out. Indeed, Heidi Swanson’s book is a favorite of mine, multiple measures and all–made the summer roundup this year I believe.

I also appreciate the way the Rose Levy Beranbaum books are laid out. It’s a good solution, even if you do sometimes feel like you’re reading a science textbook!

Thanks for the shout-out to the blog,

Susie.

Comment on The Best Cookbooks of 2011: a Roundup by Andrew

Andrew — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 16:08:22 +0000

Oh, and PS to our readers, Susie has been listing her favorite recipes from 2011 on her blog, so have a look here: http://tsusanchang.wordpress.com/

Comment on The Best Cookbooks of 2011: a Roundup by Andrew

Andrew — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 16:05:10 +0000

Hi Susie! Delighted to see you here on Cookbooker. We just had a discussion about weights in cookbooks on our Forums after I posted an article that called them “the dirty secret of recipe publishing”. http://www.cookbooker.com/forum/discussion/62/weights-vs-volume-in-cookbooks/

Is your aesthetic reaction because it is harder to lay out recipes with the extra detail? I know that in a book like Heidi Swanson’s recent “Super Natural Every Day”, the layout is a little awkward because she puts in volume, imperial and metric, all on the same line in the ingredients list. But then there are Rose Levy Beranbaum’s books, which have very well composed tables of ingredients, and are simple to follow and easy on the eye…

Comment on The Best Cookbooks of 2011: a Roundup by Susie

Susie — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 15:02:56 +0000

Aha! Andrew and Queezle_Sister: You’ve picked up on the multiple-measurement thing! I wondered when someone would. Let me emphasize that it’s included in my “unreasonable biases” section, and that by “unreasonable” I mean, I recognize its absurdity and counterweight my judgment accordingly. It’s an aesthetic reaction only. I would never eliminate a cookbook from consideration because of it, and I myself am an avid scale user.

Thank you for reading so closely! and fostering lively discussion on the lists.

Comment on The Best Cookbooks of 2011: a Roundup by Andrew

Andrew — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 18:31:34 +0000

Thanks, QS! I’ll be adding to it regularly, and if anyone finds a list that I have overlooked, please let me know and I can put it in. I also gasp, at least metaphorically at Susie’s dislike of multiple measurements, as I am delighted when I find a cookbook where the author has taken the time (and the publisher has bucked the North American norm) to measure and weigh everything. If you have a kitchen scale, it makes recipes so much more predictable (and quick).

Comment on The Best Cookbooks of 2011: a Roundup by Queezle_Sister

Queezle_Sister — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 08:06:05 +0000

Oh, I should add – Suzie reviews cookbooks for NPR and the Boston Globe, and is included above.

Comment on The Best Cookbooks of 2011: a Roundup by Queezle_Sister

Queezle_Sister — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 08:04:01 +0000

Great round up of lists, Andrew. I thought that this description of how Susie (T. Susan Chang) makes her decision very interesting. I was surprised that she doesn’t like cookbooks with multiple ways to measure (gasp – as a recent convert to weighing my ingredients I was dismayed). Whether you agree with the approach or not, Suzie’s transparent selection method was very interesting, and led me to wonder about other people’s lists.

Comment on Fall Cookbooks 2011 by Leslie (AKA Queezle Sister)

Leslie (AKA Queezle Sister) — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 13:44:40 +0000

What a wonderful bunch of cookbooks! Having visited Korea last year, those titles are especially interesting to me. And that link to the pancake site – amazing! It had 12 daughter (now 13 daugher) saying “OMG” over and over again. Also, I think I saw Essential Pepin at costco – that one is very appealing to me.
LS/QS

Comment on Fall Cookbooks 2011 by Joan

Joan — Sun, 23 Oct 2011 07:38:21 +0000

Andrew, thanks for the intriguing list of fall cookbooks. I enjoyed seeing what your favorites for fall are. My daughter has been watching The Kimchi Cronicles and we we have that book on our ever growing wish list. I hadn’t heard of the other new Korean one but it sounds interesting as well. There are several others on your picks as well as Publishers Weekly’s picks that I’m interesting in taking a look at. Thanks for a very interesting article.
Joan aka southerncooker