The Joy of Cookbooks

My daughter Lauren sent me a cookbook for Christmas, which has become somewhat of a tradition the past few years. Darren has sent some good ones my way too. They usually come from a place that carries some meaning for us. A restaurant we both enjoyed. A particular dish that stands out for us. A place we have visited or want to go.

At some point cookbooks shifted from merely instructional into stories and histories with insights into the food, or more broadly some regional cuisine. Some of them take a deep dive into a single dish or an ingredient. At the same time the images have transcended into something more artistic. Enhanced by food stylists, tricks of the trade and photoshop. They are just as likely to land on the coffee table than hide on a shelf in the pantry.

A gift of a cookbook says a lot about how another person thinks about you. It can signal some understanding they carry of you and your unique interests – or theirs. It’s hard not to read some deeper meaning into their choice. Do they think I need to embrace a Mediterranean diet? Are they encouraging a broadening of my culinary horizons? Have they discerned my secret crush on Nigella Lawson?

In no particular order, here are some that have a special place in our house.

The Joy of Cooking.

Forget everything I said about the evolution of the cookbook. This is the exact opposite. One-thousand small-type pages of step by step, ingredient by ingredient data. Indexed, organized and laid out like a twelve-course meal. The spine on ours has disintegrated from being flattened on the counter and the cover is more like a folder of loose-leaf pages. Pages that are stained and sticky. When I was riding my bike and startled a wild turkey who promptly glided into a tree and dropped dead, it was in these pages that I found the step-by-step path to drawing a turkey. We had a newer version but along the way surreptitiously swapped it for an earlier 1951 edition that had found a home at the cottage.

The Silver Palate.

When we moved in together this was one of the rare ones that we each had a copy of. Probably because she had bought my copy for me years ago. Reviewers have simultaneously credited this book that changed the way America cooks and claimed that it means to our generation what Joy of Cooking was to our mothers’. Published in 1982 it was certainly ahead of its time and has stood up well.

The Moosewood Cookbook.

My sister steered me to Mollie Katzen’s cookbook which encouraged simple, healthy and seasonal food. There’s good reason why it’s on the list of top ten best sellers after more than forty years. It was around this time my sister was living in Whitehorse in the Yukon, and I can recall a Christmas she came home for a visit. We went to the grocery store and when we went down the produce aisle, her eyes lit up. A head of lettuce is four times the price at home, she said. I put in under my coat, so it won’t freeze on the way home, and somehow it seems to end of black by the time I make a salad. Tough place to be a vegetarian.

The London Chop House.

When Lauren first started dating her future husband, we met for Sunday brunch at The London Chop House on Farringdon Road in London. Roast was the order of business as they are well known for their beef, having served it up for over 150 years. The Yorkshire puddings were a hit and so this was the first thing I tried when the cookbook landed under the tree that Christmas. It’s a simple mixture of eggs, flour and milk. But the key is a hot tin with beef drippings or oil. We judge them on their rising and lightness. The Royal Society of Chemistry suggested in 2008 that "A Yorkshire pudding isn't a Yorkshire pudding if it is less than four inches tall.”

Persiana.

British/Iranian chef, Sabrina Ghayour, brings Persian cooking recipes to life. This was one that Lauren and Ben’s family have used for a while, and I have been working my way through a few of their favourites. The roast leg of lamb with dipping salt and the basmati rice chelo have made a few appearances in our house on special occasions.

Knives and Needles. Tattoo Artists in the Kitchen.

Darren found this one for me. It was a perfect choice to reflect his interests in cooking and his collection of tattoos. Chefs with tattoos might seem a bit cliché, but they do seem to collect them. I had danced around the idea of a tattoo for a while. For my birthday Darren had an artist do up some designs of flies in an old-school style. The circumstance that eventually had me sit for a tattoo was in memory for my pal. I had a striper and a honeybee on my forearm in tribute of a great friendship.

Ivan Ramen. Love, Obsession and Recipes.

Darren is my ramen guru. He worked at Ishin Ramen in Toronto for a number of years while he went to school and learned to speak some Japanese. We travelled to Japan together one March break and then we visited him when he did an exchange in University to Tokyo. Our tour of ramen places was great. This book, and the story of its author always resonated after seeing his story on the TV series Chef’s Table.

Dishoom.

Founded in 2010 and now with 10 always-busy locations around the UK, it is reminiscent of the Irani cafés that were popular in Mumbai in the 1960s. I wouldn’t have said I was a big fan of Indian cuisine until I visited there and had an incredible dinner with Diana and her kids when we had a surprise rendezvous in London. It was the chicken ruby that sealed the deal. If the Joy of Cooking is one end of the spectrum, then this cookbook is about as far in the other direction as you can get.

In my professional career, I used to travel a lot a lot across Canada to visit cable operators from coast to coast. It meant I would be away from home probably once or twice a month. There were years where I would make 40 or 50 flights out of Toronto. Colleagues would stop at the airport gift shop and but little stuffed toys for their kids, but I never fell into that. I was so enamored with this country and the places I felt lucky to be able to visit that I wanted to share this with the kids. I started mailing postcards home from the road, even though I knew many times they wouldn’t arrive before I returned. If I had any questions about whether this meant anything to them, they were answered later when Lauren showed me an album where she had kept them, and even now as our roles have reversed and she is the one travelling more, I will get a postcard from her. Australia, Machu Pichu, Greece.

The other habit I developed was finding a local cookbook. When I came home, we would talk about the food and find something in it to make.

The Raincoast Cookbook. Coastal Cuisine.

Picked it up from the Museum in Campbell River. I can’t say I’ve ever cooked anything from it, but it’s full of archival photographs that I find fascinating.

Tide’s Table.

From the other coast, and the Inn that inspired it in Saint John’s. The blueberry grunt recipe still makes me laugh

The Fiddlehead Kitchen.

From Juneau Alaska. I bought it because it has two recipes for halibut chowder. I never ate there, but I have been searching for a chowder recipe after having the best bowl in my life in Skagway. I can’t remember the name of the restaurant, and this is so long ago now, that it doesn’t seem to still be there.

High Plains. The Joy of Alberta Cuisine.

You could be forgiven if thinking this is all about meat. Alberta does have a lot of great restaurants. Our head office was in Calgary and I oversaw a group in Edmonton as well, so I spent a lot of nights out in those cities. There’s a recipe dedicated to Spolumbo’s sausage, which was a favourite lunch spot for a no-fuss sausage on a bun.