Heheheee…. I just received an e-mail from Sassy that she’s answered the Cookbook Meme and she guilted me into answering the questions — I’ve had this in a draft and just had to finish it, so here they are!

# Total number of cookbooks I own: In my cooking lifetime I’ve probably owned about 150 or so, but every year, I buy a few more AND try to whittle down to 100. It would be great if I could get it down to 50. It’s SOOO hard esp. with all the great cookbooks out there! And I go for mostly classics instead of the trendy ones so most of them are keepers. My parents bought a condo last year and inherited the previous’ tenants cookbooks, about 1000+. So whenever I visit them in St. Louis, I bring some of the ones I don’t want in my shelves and exchange those for some of theirs.

# Last cookbook I bought:

Cooking with the Saints by Ernst Schuegraf

# Last food/cook book I read:

Back to the Table by Art Smith

# Five (cook) books that mean a lot to me:

This is a hard one, because it has changed through the years. When I was a newbie cook, you couldn’t part me with Fannie Farmer and Betty Crocker. These days I probably wouldn’t be caught dead in the kitchen without:

– The Ball Blue Book of Preserving, because it’s almost the end of summer here.

– Japanese Cooking: A Simple Art (the classic Japanese cookbook)

– Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone

– The Bread Baker’s Apprentice, which I’ve been drooling over for the past two months that my oven has been dead. I’m preparing myself mentally for when I get the new one and I can start on experimenting with biga and poolish starters again.

– Larousse Gastronomique, another classic. I don’t cook from it much but just having it in the kitchen comforts me LOL.

Rationale behind what we’re seeing?

The books on the shelf are the ones I’m currently doing research on — consequently there are books here on nutrition and allergy-free cooking, a lot of Asian cuisine, Spanish and Latin American, religious cookbooks, and “literature” cookbooks (cookbooks based on Narnia, Nancy Drew, Redwall, etc.) I’m currently reorganizing the library and it’s taking longer than I had hoped so the books are still in the box. I promise to post pics as soon as I get them out!!! It looks like I have to buy a new bookshelf first for the dining room:(

Most recommended?

Oh my gosh. Too many. It just depends on what you’re looking for.

If you’re a beginner cook, The Way to Cook by Julia Child is awesome. The tone is very friendly and yet you learn so much and build on your skills as you go. If you’re into breads, then Peter Reinhart’s books and Rose Levy Beranbaum’s are musts. If you’re into artisanal baking, then you NEED to have Ed Wood’s Sourdough books, as well as Alan Scott of Bread Builders’ and Ovencrafters’ fame. If you’re into Asian cooking, get a hold of Hot Sour Salty Sweet. It doesn’t include all Asian countries, but it will introduce you to Asian cuisine like no other book can do — it’s unbelievably well done considering non-Asians wrote it, and I can get really picky about this and for years refused to buy any Asian cookbook that wasn’t written by someone from that country. I’d go into individual ones by country but those should really be a separate post — I’ve got a long list and it’s growing! Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Duguid completely changed my mind. If you’re into chocolate, Marcel Desaulniers’, Alice Medrich’s, Dorie Greenspan’s, David Lebovitz, Nick Malgieri. Just so many people have written awesome things about chocolate and they each have their different angles that it’s hard to pick just one. If you’re into vegetarian cooking, my picks would be Deborah Madison’s, the classics by Mollie Katzen and the folks at Moosewood, and Laurel’s Kitchen. If you suffer from allergies and don’t want to eat icky stuff, wait 5 years for my book LOL.

Cookbook that made you what you were?

I’d say my mom’s Betty Crocker cookbook. Though I never cooked from it, that cookbook haunted me ever since I first saw it as a child. I should have KNOWN I was going to be a foodie; the images from that book are firmly planted in my brain, I must have read it from cover to cover a hundred times. When I finally got serious about cooking I was still going through the picture in my head and remembering the things I wanted to create.

Porniest cookbook?

Has to be Martha Hopkins’ Intercourses. I don’t own this book but was amused to see it at the library along with The Seduction Cookbook and The Erotic Cookbook — what’s funny is people actually buy these books! I thought they were rather “rebadged recipes” — you know, classic ones that were given an erotic name, or a “romantic function”, etc. No thanks.

Sophie’s Choice cookbook?

Not really a cookbook, esp. since most cookbooks are now very affordable, like the ones I’ve bought at half-price or less. It will have to be my box of 1000+ Filipino recipes. I’ve been working on this for the past 8-9 years and if there was a fire at my house (heaven forbid!) this is one of the first things I’ll rescue, after my kids and hubby of course.

If you were a cookbook, which cookbook would you be?

I’d have to be The Joy of Cooking or one of those catch-all tomes. Not all the recipes are perfect, but there’s an endless selection, usually international, lots of classics and some nouvelle cuisine, but all in all can provide a great meal when called upon to do it.