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The New York Times Cookbook was our favorite cookbook when I was a child. Of course, Julia Child's The French Chef, The James Beard Cookbook and The Joy of Cooking was on our bookshelves also. We also loved watching Julia Child cook on PBS.
Right now, I love Kylie Kwong's cooking show and also Dinner: Impossible with Robert Irvine on tv. Also Mark Bittman's World's Best Recipes show. I don't read cookbooks much anymore. I sort of go to the grocery store, get inspired by some ingredients and just throw something impromptu together. With good ingredients, you just can't go wrong. My mom is like that too, she had a Chinese word for her style of cooking which basically meant "thrown together in a crazy haphazard fashion".
I love to browse the photo section of the book. There are step-by-step photo instructions for all sorts of food prep, from baking bread to preparing a roast to canning fruit, and the woman modeling the steps is dressed in a starched apron and a long-sleeved dress with perfect little cuffs and buttons. Then there are the photos of how to set a table for breakfast, for a bridge luncheon, for afternoon tea and for a formal dinner... Oh, my. I can't imagine what the authors would have thought to see our usual table setting!
My Better Homes & Garden cookbook (1973) has those types of pictures as well. I remembering learning about types of place settings in home ec. thinking do "real people" do this daily? I have section on how to fold cloth napkins into shapes too. I am thrilled if my kids even use paper napkins around here!
Found mine today while purging through some cookbooks. I bought it in grade school from those Scholastic book fairs. It was .50!
Arrow Book of Easy Cooking (Let's Cook Without Cooking) by Esther Rudomin.
Once in high school our freshman year we had to buy Better Homes and Gardens New Cook Book. The one with the red and white squares trimmed in navy blue.
I don't use the Easy Cooking one but I do still use the Better Homes & Gardens on occassion.
I have the same Better Homes and Gardens New Cook Book with the red and white squares trimmed in navy blue. It's so old the pages are falling apart but I still refer to it from time to time!
My wondrous, magical grandmother gave me her 1905 copy of The Settlement Cookbook -- The Way To A Man's Heart by Mrs. Simon Kander. My grandmother was Irish, yet!
This book taught the old-fashioned ways to make soups, biscuits, stews, baked goods and recipes for the sick from scratch, dress and butcher venison, and drain the blood from the bodies of chickens newly dispatched to Chicken Heaven, lots of European cooking and lots of Jewish cooking.
An amazing read for the sensitive teenage girl I was
I think my very first was "Cookbook for One" by Pegeen and Sean O'Neil. I still have it. Shortly afterwards I acquired the 70's edition of "The Joy of Cooking" for use; mama has one dating from shortly after World War II which I get stuff from. She also has one from the 30's or 40's, something like the American Homemaker's Cookbook. Other early acquisitions that were favorites were "The New York Times Cookbook" by Craig Claiborne, "White Trash Cooking" Ernest Matthew Mickler, "Square Meals" by Jand and Michael Stern, "Beard on Bread" and "Beard on Pasta" by James Beard, several of the Silver Palate series of books, and a whole slew of books published by junior leagues, churchs, and community groups.
Fannie Farmer, ca. 1965. It is a thick paperback cookbook that has the most basic recipes. It was perfect for the new cook. I still use it for the basic apple pie, or basic timing for a roast, etc.
Even though I replaced it once, this one is held together with tape.
Quote:
Originally Posted by buckhead
and a whole slew of books published by junior leagues, churchs, and community groups.
I love those the most because those books have all the potluck recipes that everyone loves so much.
Me too plus my Amish cookbooks are used mainly in my house. All those cookbooks with their fru-fru foods & ingredients won't get my dollars. I don't need to be a galloping gourmet I just need to get semi-healthy, filling grub on my table. Getting into routines of always cooking the same meals leads me to those treasures buried inside them.
"Brush clusters of grapes with slightly beaten egg whites. Dip in granulated sugar, turning to coat all sides. Dry on cake rack."
They aren't to be eaten, necessarily. It is the same as sugaring fresh, organically grown (pesticide-free) violets and pansies. They are used as a garnish, usually on elaborate cakes. Hope that helps.
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I remembering learning about types of place settings in home ec. thinking do "real people" do this daily? 
I have section on how to fold cloth napkins into shapes too. I am thrilled if my kids even use paper napkins around here! 
Ready? 
