I am beyond cookbooks. I spend my money on good ingredients.

The Icelander: Ratio sounds fantastic, but I'll wait until I can get the ebooks before adding them to my wishlist.

Ratio is THE cookbook period. The rest of the cook books you'll read focus on getting the amounts right, or focus on the procedure of the cooking mother (which is important don't get me wrong)

But in Ratio, it assume you really already know how to make a gravy for instance and goes into the application of knowing that ratio and how it can be applied across a broad spectrum of dishes creating new and inventive ideas.

It basically throws out the idea that there is Italian, Greek, Japanese, or whatever food. Sure they all use distinctive ingredients and some use distinctive procedures... but they all use the same ratios and often in the same methodology.

Essentially showing you that all dishes use these same basic ratios and so long as you know those ratios... its pretty hard to fark up any dish.

If you love to cook, hate following a recipe book its the cook book for you.

wee: Only other one I'd suggest is Eat Me my Kenny Shopsin. The food is really easy to make and reading about his philosophy regarding food gave me some good insight. (And he goes in breaking down a dish to its essence, which is something that Rulhman talks a lot about in his book about the CIA.) And the food it good.

I read that after seeing "I Like Killing Flies". When I make it out to NY, Shopsin's is the first place I plan on going to.

oldebayer: I am beyond cookbooks. I spend my money on good ingredients.

you must be a shiatty cook then.

In the first, as-yet-unaired episode of Iron Chef America, Alton Brown single-handedly defeated an all-star team of Bobby Flay, Cat Cora, and Hiroyuki Sakai. The secret ingredient was 'whimsy'.

/one of the many not so widely known facts about Alton Brown.

gopher321: OK, stupid question. I guess it would be nice to pick up The Frugal Gourmet...any recommendations?

i have it. it's find. his immigrants one is good, too.

frankly, these days i just toss an ingredient into epicurious.com and see what recipes come up. it's the best

gopher321: I guess it would be nice to pick up The Frugal Gourmet...any recommendations?

Since he died in 2004, I'd recommend looking in a cemetery.

sigdiamond2000: 2. The Frugal Gourmet

I hear there's a great recipe for Cream of Sum Yung Guy in there.

Didn't take long for that!

On my 2nd copy of Joy of Cooking!

The 1st one on his list is my go to for the last 20 years...

Joy of Sex with the Frugal Gourmet

oldebayer: I am beyond cookbooks. I spend my money on good ingredients.

Hookers count as an ingredient now?

LeafyGreens: sigdiamond2000: 2. The Frugal Gourmet

I hear there's a great recipe for Cream of Sum Yung Guy in there.

Didn't take long for that!

I always thought he liked Elmo a little too much.

Where is the Justin Wilson cookbook? Specifically Justin Wilson's Outdoor Cooking with Inside Help.

Paris1127: That Italian cookbook looks good.

It's brilliant--I should really use it more often. But I agree with tnpir: Mastering the Art of French Cooking should be on the list...I'd put it slightly ahead of Hazan.

I also would have put something by Nigel Slater on there, but only because Nigel is a Genius.

I once heard Alton Brown describe his show as a mixture of Julia Child, Mr. Wizard, and Monty Python. That about sums it up, I think.

/my boyfriend thinks Alton Brown is indeed a nerd god
//LOVE having a boyfriend who knows how to cook

Ratio's good, but make sure you have a scale to go with it.

I dug the Frugal Gourmet's show. Used to be on PBS right before Burt Wolf. The guy was a little too church-y for me, but his approach was friendly, simple, and unpretentious.

I use cookbooks because not every recipe has been transcribed to the intertubes, and it helps me to know *which* quality ingredients to procure, and in what quantity...

I love to garden. I love to cook. I love to eat. I love to cook what I grow, and I love to eat what I cook. Me loving food is damn near recursive.

The number one cookbook you should own is the one that has all of your favorite recipes in it.

Mark Bittman taught me everything I need to know.

He didn't mention On Food and Cooking, which is fair because it's not a cookbook.

But if you're comfortable with high school chemistry, READ THIS BOOK. I'm reading it now -- it goes into amazing depth (65 pages on milk?!) and it's not afraid to go down to the molecular level to explain a given reaction.

This book is the Rosetta Stone of culinary science -- with it, I can analyze a recipe and figure out what the worthless organic operative meant when they used their worthless organic words, and I can synthesize dishes from multiple recipes because I finally know what the individual parts of each were meant to do.

This year for Christmas, my wife got me (and herself) meet and greet tickets to an event he's hosting in a couple weeks. I'm pretty excited about it. I have his 2 cookbooks, which I consider textbooks more than recipe books. Between that and his shows I concider myself a fairly knowledgable home cook.

I can figure out what I did wrong when something doesn't turn out, and I can invent new dishes without having to refer to a recipe.

Here's a link that works. (new window)

sigdiamond2000: oldebayer: I am beyond cookbooks. I spend my money on good ingredients.

Do you own a television?

I think I just loled all over the floor.

Alegria: I once heard Alton Brown describe his show as a mixture of Julia Child, Mr. Wizard, and Monty Python. That about sums it up, I think.

THIS.

#6.

Some god of nerds for leaving that out.

AB is the man... will have to pick these up.

A must have for everyone.

I Know How to Cook should be on there. It's the best!

http://www.amazon.com/Know-How-Cook-Ginette-Mathiot/dp/071485736X

NOVanHelsing: My father taught me how to skin a squirrel.

He also taught me how to skin a rabbit, clean fowl (quail, pheasant, etc.) and field dress deer. My mother taught me the art of baking bread. Grew up in Iowa.

RIP Mom & Dad I miss you both...

/A year younger than Alton
//Love his show and lectures..

So you were raised on a lot of bunny and squirrel sandwiches, then??

Too bad Alton Brown is causing the extinction of the critically endangered Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus with his arboreal calamari recipe.