That’s right. I resisted the urge to intro each of these books that I own and shamefully haven’t really used. I don’t have the right.  I need to regain their trust first.  Have any of you cooked out of these books? Let’s discuss. Maybe it will motivate me.

Warning: I may confess my remorse-fulness in the comments.

I’ve gotten a jump start on holiday shopping, and so should you. Actually, my wife’s birthday is in early December, so I’ve got no choice. But, it’s still a good strategy to cherry-pick the clearance bins now so you can kick back and relax on Black Friday. Now, why cookbooks? If you’re like me, the answer is an emphatic NO. Stop. You don’t use the ones you have. Why buy more? Maybe I shouldn’t, but I can still make some recommendations and live vicariously through you. It’s David Chang’s fault for luring me to The bookstore to find his Lucky Peach magazine ($12!?) and then got whiplash noticing a few interesting cookbook finds. Really, if ever there was a cookbook to actually merit its place in your home, this is the one – NO. Make that five! Let us begin…

Be Your Own Paprika Pusherman
I own this Spanish cookbook and I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw it in the bargain section at B&N, down from $50 to $15. It’s a telephone book of Spanish staples, the Joy of Spanish Cooking, if you will. Without a great Spanish restaurant in town, or tapas to write home about, your kitchen could easily crank out paprika dusted food that earns you an unrivaled reputation for Spanish fare.

Occupy the Kitchen
Though a little depressing, it was less surprising to find Mark Bittman’s book/movie tie-in cookbook remaindered for quick sale. I know that people don’t buy cookbooks so they can be guided towards more conscientious consuming. Or maybe they do. Diet books sell like crazy. People love to say they saw Food Inc. But, what are we doing about it in the kitchen? Mark Bitman’s prescription is all about attention to our ingredients. In a general sense, he’s reworking the proportions of our meals to revolve less around meat and dairy and more around everything else, especially the unprocessed stuff. I’ve got his How to Cook Everything Vegetarian. He knows what he’s doing. Only here, the food is a little more creative and enticing. Maybe you haven’t noticed, but Mark Bittman is the food world’s go-to source for updates on the Occupy Wall Street movement. The man is keeping it real when it comes to the civic obligations that are mandated by the qpolitics/economics of our industrialized food supply. That’s reason enough to buy his books, specifically this book. How bout this: 500 recipes for $10. That’s 20 cents per recipe. Go get it!

Molto Vegetable
Mario Batali is large. He contains multitudes. Hence, you should not replicate his diet. That was my thought after flipping through my wife’s copy of The Babbo Cookbook which seems to revolve around the most obscure collection of zoo animals and their most delicate body parts. I imagined he ate them with a nice Chianti. So, of course, I passed on his NASCAR themed grilling book too. And yet, improbably, the Iron Chef has reformed his ways. The wry but joyful television persona did an about face in terms of his diet. The result isn’t unlike Mark Bittman’s approach. With this Molto Batali book, the focus is on big family style food, but it’s relatively accessible and relatively healthy. It was his previous book (really the one I’m recommending here), Molto Gusto, that focuses on vegetables, and toning down the ridiculously disproportionate consumption of flesh (hence, you will probably see it in the bargain bin shortly). Be glad Mario’s cardiologist got to him before you had to make an appointment yourself.

Ratio-nalize This
I didn’t want to recommend a newly published full-price cookbook. The usual suspects are all lined up there, faced-out on the shelf, or getting the end-cap treatment, with their urgent message to the people that just so happens to coincide with the holiday season 6-7-8 years running (looking at you, Jamie). But, Michael Ruhlman’s latest caught my eye on its surface and again when I started looking at the contents. He’s teaching you 20 cooking techniques and 100 recipes associated with those techniques. Sign me up. I need the basics. Even if I already know some of this stuff, I’ll finally find out that my hunches were right or wrong. The pictures were particularly exciting. The processes that are mainstays in professional kitchens are clarified here for the novice. Its a gift that keeps on giving.

Tacopalooza
You probably don’t know who Mark Miller is (these books were offered at Crate and Barrel, by the way). Neither do I. Except that an old roommate worked at a Southwestern place in Georgia, and the head chef had studied under Mark Miller, whom he couldn’t say enough about. So, she hipped me to the guy which led to me buying his salsa book. In fact, I found it in the Barnes and Noble bargain bin the day after hearing of Mark Miller. It’s an amazing listing of salsas, ranging from tame to ingenious to kinda bonkers. Many of his other cookbooks, I haven’t seen in person yet, but they seem to revolve around his New Mexican restaurant the Coyote Cafe. People of Virginia, from all I’ve read, we could only hope for such a restaurant. Anywho, imagine my excitement to see that the dude has written a book about tacos. I’ve worked my way through the stellar Nates Taco Truck offerings, the saucy Boka Truck “takos”, and my own silly assembly line dinners at home. This book has the potential to turn all of that on its head. I’m sorry Nate and Parick and my own wife, but it’s true. There are always better tacos out there. And with this book, we have the roadmap to make them ourselves.

UPDATE: this list largely came from one impromptu visit to B&N. Since I’ve rediscovered my cookbook obsession, I’ll probably be adding to this entry over the next month.

- – - – - – - – - -

While at Marshalls recently, I grabbed a couple cookbooks to show to my wife. They were each $5.99. But, I had a bunch of stuff in the cart even though I had left my wallet at home. I had to scale back to a moderate total if I was going to ask Karen to pay for it. Now that I’m in feverish cookbook craving mode, I wish I’d bought them. Maybe another visit is in order. Here they are for your consideration. Keep in mind, they were mostly curiosities to me and not recommendations, per se.

California Italian

I’ve tinkered with making infused oils and I’m starting to accumulate enough vinegars to take up a whole shelf in my cupboard. So, this book intrigued me. But, the real reason I picked it up was Michael Chiarello. I’d seen him on Top Chef, ruffling feathers. And on Top Chef Masters, giving the Saveur editor a hard time. He seems to put a lot of himself into his cooking, he fully commits to being a prick when he wants to. From what I’ve seen on TV, Chiarello is rigid and methodical, steely, and confident. And those attributes may be the reason I put that cookbook back on the shelf. Now, I’m kicking myself. I watched an episode of The Next Iron Chef tonight, admired the dishes he presented, and wished I had a book of his to flip through. His rustic Italian food always sounds amazing. So, here’s one that got away. Maybe I’ll decide differently next time.

Picturesque Mise En Place

Speaking of Italian food, I knew I didn’t need this cookbook… until I opened it. An Italian basics book isn’t for me. But, what does “from above” mean? I’d never seen this line of books. The aerial view of the ingredients and the steps could really make a difference to the right visual learner type person. Is that me? I dunno. Karen? Maybe. She’d at least appreciate it from a graphic design perspective. But, we own too many cookbooks to simply add novelties for the heck of it. But, I kinda wish I had brought it home. Have any of you used one of these “from above” books?

Beguiling Packaging

Is it a book, or is it a box? Actually, the box contained 14 mini-books, each focusing on two different vegetables. The top features place-holders shaped like the veggies in question, sticking up out of the green ground colored book spines. What a regal treatment for the most important food group. It’s about time. It’s also about time somone actually bought this book and cooked from it. Hence, I found it at Olie’s bargain/salvage store for $9.99. If that’s too much, Amazon offers it for $14.99 with free shipping. It’s a perfect novelty gift. I’ve got one from a yard sale. Have I cooked from it? No. Maybe this item should be listed in its companion post about cookbooks that I’m neglecting. By the way, Ollie’s also has Bittman’s How to Cook Everything (and the Vegetarian version, for about $15.

Creative Simplicity for Vegetarians

So, besides Bittman’s, there are some crappy cookbooks at Ollie’s. Most of’em, actually. But, I enjoy the hunt, even with my nagging children in tow. When I saw the words, Greens, Everyday on the spine of this one, I immediately thought it would be great to eat greens everyday. Actually, this one is from from a restaurant called Greens (they’ve got a few cookbooks). It’s one of the most respected vegetarian restaurants in San Francisco, if not the country. The food is creative, accessible, and generally heathy. On my recent visit to the Bay Area, I went to Millennium and had stellar food. But, it seems I should have visited the more affordable and understated, Greens. Although, this book came out in 2003, and the veggie section of the bookstore has quadrupled since then, the food ideas aren’t painfully dated (like Moosewood, everything Deborah Madison, etc). Sure, the restaurant is connected to the local Buddist community, the cookbook isn’t all woo-woo, or hippy dippy. And, the bottom line is, it’s listed at $45. Amazon sells it for $29.99. And I got mine for $3.99.

Music to My Stomach

Somehow, more than two months since it came out, I’ve just heard that two Richmond natives put out a musical cookbook featuring a who’s who of celebrity chefs (Mario Batali, David Chang, Tom Coliccio, John Besh, Isa Chandra, and more). The band is One Ring Zero, once a Richmond mainstay, now mostly Brooklyn based, I think. Is this why Richmond media has neglected this foodie pop-culture news story? It reminds me of Richmonder, Amir Sadollah. He migrated to Brooklyn too, but not until after he’d won an entire MMA competition on a nationally broadcasted reality show. But, not a shred of Richmond media coverage for Amir either. Obviously, I’d love to get this critically acclaimed cookbook/CD combo for Xmas (it’s getting talked up all over the food news outlets, so you should be able to find it at locally owned shops). But there’s clearly a larger story to tell here. I’m going to let our local media outlets rifle through their round file for The Recipe Project’s neglected press release. If we don’t see any coverage, I’ll try to put something together proper in time for last minute gifts.

By now, you’ve probably heard that Richmond has given birth to a foodie movie: Pimento Cheese, Please! A piece of cinema that follows a unique, but traditional dish through its native Southern habitat, out on the town at restaurants, in the limelight with celebrity chefs, and into your grocer’s refrigerated section. After a Kickstarter fundraising effort, Nicole Lang Key produced the movie with help from friends, and the premier is now scheduled for November 9th at the Hippodrome (cheese samples from various local chefs included in the price of admission).

I don’t know about you, but the anticipation is making me hungry for pimento cheese. Not just any pimento cheese, but EVERY pimento cheese that Richmond has to offer.  As I see it, if you like something, or even if you’re just curious about it, you should try it EVERYWHERE in town (and attempt making it yourself, of course).  And then you should get into the minutia of how each place does theirs differently, spicy or mild, cheap ingredients or gourmet, old fashioned or heavily embellished.  And then,  returning to the root question of, “Why has [insert food tradition here] become gospel in the local cuisine?”  Well, that’s my idea of fun, stereo-typical “foodie” though it may be.

• Mosaic
• Parkside Cafe (with a blackened green tomato)
  
• Black Sheep
• Comfort
• The Roosevelt
• Hill Cafe (in a blt)
• Chez Foushee
  
• Ms. Marshalls
• Sally Bell’s
• Lemaire
• The Citizen (topped with jerk seasoned greens)

An Ordering Tip

Excuse me, I don’t know if I want the pimento cheese sandwich until I hear someone here say the P word. [awkward pause while server obliges] Hahahaha. Hilarious. You dropped a syllable.  My “-menta” sandwich is gonna taste that much better. Bring on the cheese salad!

We’ve been canning like mad this year. There’s pizza sauce, sofrito, tomato-basil jam, peach salsa… But, it’s not enough. We want more.
So, we’ll be bringing a can or two of each of our stockpiled goodies to this weekend’s Yes We CAN event and see what we can get in exchange.

Here’s a blog post with details from the event hosts at Richmond Food Collective. Hope to see you there.