By The Book

I'm on a mission to find some new cookbooks and expand my culinary horizons. Right now I get most of my recipes off Pioneer Woman or I frankenstein recipes out of Better Homes and Gardens. I also have the Top Chef cookbook, which frankly is a joke. My eyes glaze over at the directions in there. The food, however, is amazing.

I sent out a call to friends (thanks, Facebook) and I got two recommendations:


The Secrets of Jesuit Soup Making and Moosewood Cookbook.

I don't trust the Amazon reviews. Taking food suggestions is like taking movie suggestions. You really have to make sure people know their shit when they advice you on such topics. For instance, one person was complaining about a book I looked up, saying that the recipes had too many ingredients in them and the soup took too long to cook. WTF? Soup cooks all freaking day when you make it from scratch. You can't make a soup from the stock up in 30 minutes. It's just not going to happen. Another reviewer was complaining about the obscurity of ingredients that Julia Child uses. Do I even need to explain how stupid that is?

These are not issues with the quality of the books, these are issues with the quality of people's patients. And those are definitely not people that I want to take food advice from. I have my quick and easy recipes and I make meals that come out of boxes. Sure. But when I want something yummy and soulful, I look for a complicated recipe with 87 ingredients and I enjoy myself. After all, that's what cookbooks are for.

In addition to the two books above, I'm also looking for a really good Jewish-American cookbook. I want old school NYC deli food. "Old people food" if you will. Unfortunately, I don't know anyone who is knowledgeable about that genre of food, so it's just me and Amazon on these ones:


2nd Avenue Deli, Molly Goldberg Jewish Cookbook, Junior's

Anyone else have any cookbook recommendations?