Perusing cookbooks

These about-to-be-roasted peppers eventually found their way into a panini (or would that be panino?).

Spring brings the promise of new foods at the farmer's market, and that means cooking, and perusing cookbooks.  I've bought several new ones recently, but once I start looking, I look at the old ones, too.  

Last week it was Hot Sour Salty Sweet by Alford and Duguid.  Among other things, I discovered an easy and inexpensive stir fry cabbage dish that adds a couple of slices of bacon, some peppers, and piece or two of ginger, and a dash of soy sauce.  That's basically the recipe right there.  But for many of the recipes, I kept running into yummy-sounding ingredients that I couldn't get in my own neighborhood, which has two Japanese groceries, but no Thai one.  So I've put Hot Sour on the back burner, so to speak, until I can squeeze in a trip to Chinatown.

Food prep for Stir-fried Cabbage with Chilies and Ginger, from Hot Sour Salty Sweet

This week I've been reading an old favorite, Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone, and a new/old favorite, Unplugged Kitchen by Viana La Place.  La Place has several new cookbooks available at Amazon and other outlets, and I'll probably get one of them eventually, but this out of print book is the first one of hers that I've owned.  I can't figure out for the life of me why this book would go out of print, unless it's because she suggests pitching your food processor and prepping most foods by hand or in a food mill.  I probably won't pitch mine, but I never used it that much anyway, and reading her commentary does make me want to go get a good mortar and pestle. (Presently I use the detached wooden handle of a knife sharpener, and a regular cereal bowl.)  

Someone reviewed Unplugged Kitchen by contrasting it with Martha Stewart. That's probably because La Place's recipes and text seem spare and laid back compared to the elaborate, all-out party food that everyone associates with Martha.  Would Martha ever have a cookbook entry like the following one from Unplugged Kitchen?

What we call "rustic food" these days doesn't adequately represent the elemental, earthy quality of real rustic cooking. For a dish to be truly cucina povera, literally "poor cooking," it must express both the struggle to survive and the triumph over that pain through a profound and direct sensory exprience of the most basic foods.

To savor this dish [dried fava beans with oregano] to its fullest, you must eat the fava beans one by one, squeezing out the soft cream inside into your mouth, then sucking the skins until they are completely empty.  The final picture is dark, chalk-brown fava skins emptied of flesh, lying in small heaps in bowls that have been wiped clean with honest bread.

Overblown?  I don't think so.  Don't you remember the way you felt about eating treats as a kid?  This book is all about a high "joy to food" ratio, to paraphrase Your Money or Your Life.  And that's a pretty healthy attitude towards food, if you ask me.  And she's got me making all kinds of panini, which is a real burst of inspiration, because it's getting too hot for soups and I don't much care for conventional deli sandwiches.

Besides which, I can't resist a book with a page heading that reads, "Poor little kiwi." I have a strong, strong inclination to pull for the under-fruit.  It's almost a Down Under fruit.

And then there's Deborah Madison.  During the past three years of CSA produce, I've pulled out Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone more than any other cookbook to find an introduction to some strange new vegetable that comes in my share.  So all the basic pages on vegetables in my copy are lovingly water-spotted as I learned what varieties of a vegetable were good for what and how to cook each root and leaf. I also frequent the pasta and soup sections.

But Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone is as dense (though not elaborate) a text as Unplugged Kitchen is spare.  I have a neighbor friend who concentrates more on the galette and gratin sections, and when I visit her kitchen, it seems almost like she owns a different cookbook than I do.  And C.Z. always reminds me that she turns to the back of a cookbook first, to discover what breads and desserts it includes. So every now and then I leaf through it and challenge myself to discover new sections.

Of course, all these books are Susan's favorites, too, but that almost goes without saying, since whenever I've visited her, I end up reading all of her books, those for cooking and those not. But whenever you get a cookbook home, it becomes something a little different in each kitchen.  So enjoy whatever cookbooks you happen to have on your shelves, and happy cooking!  What are your favorites?