Introductions!

Hi! cyderry invited me to join this group, and it looks like a yummy place to be. So I thought I would introduce myself and hope that you all do the same.

I am a busy mom, with 2 teenage girls and one 12 year old son. We live (plus my husband) in Utah. Right now I'm not working, but I do work at See's Candies during the holidays.

I am on a diet right now, and it's no fun, really. I've lost 5 pounds so far.

My favorite food is chocolate! Plus any Mexican food and Italian food. My most used cookbook is that red and white Better Homes and Gardens cookbook. My new favorite I just discovered is The New Moosewood Cookbook, which I don't own, but got from the library. But I totally want it now!

So that's a little about me.

I'm Cheli, the instigator of this enterprise. I live with my husband of 35 years in MD. I'm retired but he has enlisted me to fill in at his office for a young woman who will be out on maternity leave. That will cut into my reading time big time!

I love to cook but haven't done a lot of it lately since I have been on a diet for the last 9 months. I've lost 60 lbs. and still working on it. Cindy, I know it's hard but you just remember that if you cheat today it doesn't mean that you can't be good tomorrow. My favorite food is PASTA! Being of Italian heritage, that's understandable, my problem is that garlic bread and cannolis are not on my diet!

My favorite cookbook is really a set of 1000+ recipe cards that I got early in my marriage.I know that if I need a recipe for a special occasion or just a regular dinner, I can find it there. The one thing I have not been able to find a good recipe for is pumpkin soup. Anybody got one?

Oh, I do have one! My friend makes pumpkin soup. I'll have to look around for it.

Cindy,
I just finished visiting your blog. Boy, did that make me hungry.
I subscribed to the feed so that I could find out when you got another great recipe. I only looked 6 and had to copy 4!!

** as she leaves the room muttering... these are not on my diet...these are not on my diet...**

I'm a cookbook fanatic. :) Lately I've decided to accomodate my friends and start a recipe blog to share my recipes (at whim, of course ;)): http://foodgrrl.wordpress.com

My favorite cookbook right now is probably a tie between Feast of Soups and The Complete Asian Cookbook, though I've several different cookbooks on loan from the library right now spanning everything from American vegetarian cookery to Middle Eastern and Indian cookery.

I love soup! And I just picked up another cookbook from the library, I'm Just here for the Food. I like Alton Brown, so it should be fun.

I'm so excited so many are joining in!
Welcome, welcome!

**She thinks, this means more great recipes and food to talk about besides great books.
HMMMM... this could be tough on my diet... I will be good,I will be good...I will be good...**

cyderry, about cooking and losing weight, I highly recommend The Philosopher's Diet. Richard Watson suggests that the dieter throw themselves into the careful preparation of excellent food; then the dieter is to eat it but with severe calorie restrictions.

Best of luck,

Robert

@ #7 The ultimate tie-in? My mom gave me a copy of The Great Canadian Literary Cookbook. :) The best is Pierre Berton's murder mystery chowder. :D

Melissa,

Ohh! A murder mystery chowder, sounds wicke and deadly! I looked at the summary and clam chowder would be deadly for me because I am terribly allergic but I'm sure there are other great recipes!

Robert

Thanks for the advice - I've found for me that reduced portions is the way to go. Severe calorie restrictions wouldn't work for me.

Welcome to all our new members!

Hi everyone,
I'm Nan and I live in Key West, FL -- I'm on the board of the Key West Literary Seminar -- it's an annual event where we invite great writers to come and talk about their work -- despite being called a seminar it's not academic at all and is lots of fun. Anyway our topic for 2011 is food (sounds far away, I know, but the event is in January and takes a lot of advance planning) -- so I'm on the lookout for suggested writers to invite. If anyone's curious about the event you can find out more at www.kwls.org (and if you like poetry our 2010 session is going to have eight poets laureate and seven or eight Pulitzer winners; it's on American poetry and it honors Richard Wilbur, who lived in Key West for many years, on the occasion of his 90th birthday). Thanks for creating this group! And thanks for the diet advice, too -- I definitely need it :)

Keywestnan-

Sounds like you have a really fun job!
There are alot of authors that use food in their writing- that's one of the reasons why we started this group.

Yu might want to check out the Culinary mysteries thread. It will tell you a bunch a authors that might interest you.

Hi

I'm Jill living in London running a second hand charity bookshop which is sometimes a dream come true and sometimes a curse (and I spend all my wages on books I never would have come across anywhere else.) Books and Food are my favorite things before the bookshop I've always managed/cooked/waitressed in cafes and restaurants and pubs so this group is the perfect combination!

#14 wow. Have you listed your bookshop in the Local section of LT. I'm not oftne in london, but I'll try and pass by next time I am there.

I'm in Manchester and coming from foodie parents tend to do most of the cooking. My OtherHalf is allergic to onions and potatos which means that we can eat very little premade food. I cook almost everythign from scratch everyday, and almost every recipe needs a certain amount of adapting before I can use it.

My favourite cookbook is probably food: the definitive guide which is remarkably useful in covering a huge range of raw ingrediants.

Hi everybody
I'm from Denmark, but I live and work in Greenland, which means I eat alot of....really anything from the sea.
I don't cook everyday, but when I do, I love to try out new ways of cooking and eating seafood

We've gone International!

Welcome to everyone.
I hope that everyone will tell us about their favorite "food" books and their favorite foods as well.

I am Linda P and I'm from the Chicago area. I am a Polish American (grandparents were born in Poland) but I am not very fond of Polish food--just once in awhile.

I am not much of a cook but I sure do love to eat. I also love to read mysteries featuring culinary themes.

My favorite food is pizza and my favorite restaurants are either (1) good breakfast spots (I can eat breakfast anytime), (2) restaurants featuring Italian food, or (3) restaurants featuring Mexican food.

Hi I'm Kim from the Chicago area too. I love to cook and eat! I have a cookbook fetish. I love to just sit and read them.
A book on food I really enjoyed was In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan.

I'm considering adding a food category for my category challenge next year and the Pollan book is one I definitely want to have on my list.

I have a question about cookbooks....is reading a cookbook like drooling over the pictures and think about what ingredients you're missing so that you know you can't make this recipe, but you'd like to taste it? So you go on to the next recipe and do the same thing? I'm not sure how to read a cookbook.

I'm usually thinking about how it will taste and if my family will eat it - and of course how many calories it has!
I like to make at least one thing from any cookbook I own, even if I have to shop for the ingredients!

Greetings all. This is definitely a group made for me. If I'm not reading mysteries, I'm reading about food...in NF or cookbooks.

I live in the Bay Area of California (work in Oakland, live near Napa) and am surrounded by an amazing variety of food cultures.

My favorite non-fiction food book right now is The Man Who Ate Everything...with Heat: an amateur's adventures as kitchen slave, line cook, pasta-maker, and apprentice to a Dante-quoting butcher in Tuscany a very close second.

My favorite fiction book having to do with food is Crescent. If you haven't read it, RUN to your library.

And I love to read cookbooks. Some, like The Splendid Table is a wonderful read, but the recipes are not to my taste. Others, are fantastic for cooking, but boring reads Monastery Salads.

Welcome! I've never heard of any of those books, so thanks for sharing.

I found this group while doing a search on Isak Dinesen. I have about 150 cookbooks, whittled down from around 200 two years ago. I'm single and live in New York.

The two authors who got me interested in food and cooking are Laurie Colwin and Elizabeth David.

Welcome to our group!

I promised myself I wouldn't join another group, but my pile of food books tbr keeps growing. Today I won the $64 Tomato in a blog contest and after reading that email, the UPS guy knocked on the door and delivered me a 'trade' The School of Essential Ingredients. And yesterday I got an ARC of the The Christmas Cookie Club: A Novel due out in Oct so there's no touchstone yetwhich looks fantastic. I've got so many now that it's more than a 999 category, and I figured this might be a better place to discuss them.

I'll also be blogging about them on Tutu's Two Cents.

Hello All, I'm Bons, 47 from Atlanta, GA area. I was raised on a farm in western KY and love food and friends, books and pets. Love to cook and try things. Soups are my favorite. Having a crock/pot of soup on weekly would be my liking. I can't tell you the times I read a character was drinking tea and it just put the thought in my mind that wouldn't a bit of chamomille be nice. Then a Debbie Macomber Cedar Cove Series character would have pot pie and I'd be making that the next night!

Well Hi! How long has this been going on? I've been over at the cookbookers group for ages and now I've found heaps more posts to read.

I'm Jim, and as I live by myself, if I don't cook*, I don't eat!

My favourite cookbook would have to be The Cook's Companion by Stephanie Alexander. The book is known to many Australian cooks as simply, "Stephanie". As in "I'm not sure, I'll have to look it up in Stephanie".

*I'm pretty good at it though.

Welcome, Jim! I've never heard of Stephanie Alexander but I'll look for her now.

So, I introduced myself and I introduced Stephanie. Now let me introduce my new bestest friend.



This is Saussure and he arrived at my house a couple of days ago. He is both very useful, being hefty, comfortable and wickedly sharp, and absolutely gorgeous. Click on the picture for more information.

(edited to make the photo a little wider)

Saussure is made by Jay Fisher in Clovis, New Mexico, USA. You Americans should have him listed as a National Treasure!

31 justjim:

That is notably impressive. As the picture unfolded I thought it would be a musical instrument. What a gorgeous thing. Incidentally, I've often wondered why some knives have holes in them. What function do they serve?

The milled holes in the blade serve two functions. They reduce weight (this is 4mm steel after all!) and they allow food to release from the blade better after cutting.

Thanks justjim. Makes a lot of sense. A beautiful piece of engineering and art.

Oh well, I just have to join. If it's good enough for Jim! (That knife is a work of art, for sure!)

I'm actually Christine, I'm Mrs dajashby and the owner of the cookbook collection. Being Australian I of course worship the divine Stephanie. I have a somewhat eclectic library collected over a period in excess of 30 years, many going back before EVO and microwaves. By now I've got a menu repertoire and don't really feel the need of instruction, but I'm always on the lookout for inspiration and historical background. I'm a fan of the great food writers like Elizabeth David and M F K Fisher.

Hi there! *waves*

I'm Sophie, from Dunoon in the west of Scotland (lots of lovely seafood and deep-fried pizza!), although I spent most of my life in Manchester. Love food, especially if it includes lots of garlic ...

A book I can highly recommend is Taste by Kate Colquhoun - an absolutely riveting read!

Welcome! I've only heard of deep fried pizza once- a little British restaurant in New York does it (along with the Mars bars).

#37 - my ex (also Scottish) genuinely didn't realise that pizza could be eaten any other way than deep-fried until he was about 15! Sad but true ...

My husband has an unfortunate amount of influence over a local restaurant owner. He has gotten Monte Cristo sandwiches added to the menu and the cook is now experimenting with batters for deep fried Twinkies.

I had to look up Monte Cristo Sandwiches. This is not healthy eating folks. Seriously. If you have influence over a restaurant owner or chef, get them to use fresh, seasonal, local produce, not experiment with batters to deep fry what is already crap. Deep fried crap is crap!

Oh, I wish IHOP would get those.

Robert

<40- Who said anything about health food? It's a sandwich, not a salad. I don't think your rant was in keeping with the conversation.

Ah, Monte Cristo sandwiches have long been a favorite of mine. Haven't seen any on a menu in far too long of a time. Might have to try to give it a go myself.

<40-Who said anything about health food? It's a battered and fried sandwich, which has nothing to do with health food.

Hello,
I see this thread has been dormant for a while! :-))
I just found this group, and am very happy I did.
My name is Paola, I am Italian and live in NY. I have been here for a long time, since 1985, to be precise.
As you can imagine, the bulk of my cooking is Italian, but I am very interested in all other cuisines as well.
My latest acquisition, bookwise, is La Cucina: The Regional Cooking of Italy, published by The Italian Academy of Cuisine. It is a marvelous book, and the recipes are authentic (no manicotti or veal marsala there!).
I really hope I do not offend anybody if I say that, when I first arrived in this country, I was quite taken aback by the fact that most people think that kind of food is really Italian.
Anyway, I am glad to be here, and I hope I shall learn many new things.
Thank you for starting this marvelous group! :-))

I hadn't noticed this group before justjim posted about it over at Cookbookers. Very glad to find it as always interested in books about anything to do with food - cookbooks (I own over 800) but also food history and food memoirs. My tbr piles are ridiculously large and growing rather than shrinking.

I live outside Boston with my two teenagers. I have a website, www.eatyourbooks.com which is an online index of recipes in your own cookbooks.

In the sixties a friend of mine of Greek ancestry and living in Brooklyn took me to an out of the way informal restaurant where the waitress took the orders in English and spoke them to the cook in Italian. One of the three entrees I had was manicotti, and it was superb.

Authenticity is interesting, but it is not the whole story of good eating.

Robert

I never said manicotti could not be good, only that they are not authentic Italian food.
I see that my post came across as challenging, if not offensive, and that is just what I wanted to avoid. Apologies.

I just noticed this thread.

I really only get to cook once a week, when I and my lodgers have a meal together. We love spicy food, so its often Thai, Indian or Chinese inspired. But every so often I make a 'proper British meal' such as roast beef, yorkshire puddings and roast potatoes, or kedgeree, or shepherd's pie.

I have numerous cookery books, very few of which I have ever cooked from! I tend to read them to get ideas, then do my own interpretation depending on what I have available.

We are currently looking forward with great excitement to having a couchsurfer* from India, who has promised to give an Indian cookery masterclass!

* www.couchsurfing.org - an excellent way to travel!

>45 aluvalibri: and 48

Don't go away aluvalibri. You did your best to make it clear that you meant no offence. As we all know it's easy for these messages to be misinterpreted (no tone of voice, body language, etc.). And Mr.Durick may not have been offended at all!

I wasn't offended and didn't mean to give offense. I just wanted to make a point clear that I think is sometimes missed, as for example somebody's telling us that bell peppers don't come up to their standard of hotness.

Robert

I find myself wondering what is meant by "authentic" anyway. Cuisines change and adapt, incorporating new ingredients. Aluvalibri will surely agree that there are numerous Italian dishes involving tomatoes that are nothing if not authentic, but 500 years ago there were none.

Perhaps there is a difference between dishes that are a development - sweet potato gnocchi, say - and dishes that are a degradation or a travesty of a traditional cuisine.

I am not going away. I think there is a lot to learn from other people's opinions and experiences.

Yes, dajashby, 500 years ago nobody in Europe knew what a tomato was! Luckily, we now do!! :-)

Hi, I'm Dawn and I just saw a link to this group from the Cookbookers group. I'm so excited to read the posts here - there's nothing better than reading food-related books and gorgeous cookbooks!

Welcome aluvalibri and DFED

>53 dajashby: dajashby.... I too have been thinking about "authentic" cuisines, and wonder whether those dishes we think of as authentic to their country of origin are those which were "invented" there and which have become commonly prepared by large numbers of people in that country, there obviously being variations on the original recipe.

Yet I do think of dishes prepared, for example, by an Italian chef here in Australia from ingredients commonly used in "authentic" Italian cooking but with variations based on the cook's imagination and the locally available ingredients, as "Italian" too, and suppose I usually don't know whether the dish is "authentic" in my previous paragraph's sense or not.

Edited to add: I deleted my paragraph asking what dish you think might have slipped over the line into dajashby's "travesty of a traditional cuisine" because it's the sort of thing they are probably talking about over in the "Which cuisine are you blaspheming today" thread rather than here.

kevmalone here, I was looking for a group where cooking was discussed and am glad to find y'all.
I cook a lot. Favorite cookbook: French Provincial Cooking.
I'm currently slowly working through Charcuterie - which is excellent.
I see that aluvalibri is a member, hope we get to hear of some authentic Italian recipes, I spent some time in Italy and it's difficult to get good Italian food in the South.
Also looking forward to hearing about JonathanGorman's adventures in sausage-making - I went through that a while back and Ruhlman's book makes me want to start again!

If there's enough interest I'll spin off another thread. I've been getting pretty good results with my sausage, although so far I've needed to tinker with every single recipe that I've tried from a cookbook. So far Charcuterie is pretty good and the recipes from Bruce Aidells's Complete Sausage Book has needed the least amount of tinkering. (Lots of typos in the book though, so I suspect I'll run across something sooner or later). My favorite sausage recipe though is based off of the one in Rick Bayless's Authentic Mexican

I haven't done anything in a few months though. Central Illinois has been pretty steady and warm and some issues with the AC made sausage-making less attractive ;). I'm hoping to revive the sausage making and also try my hand at some more brewing in the fall.

>57 kevmalone: kevmalone

I see your favourite cookbook is French Provincial Cooking. You might be interested in seeking out Simple French Cuisine: From Provence and Languedoc by Jenny Baker (If you don't already have it.). It's one of my own favourites. The recipes are uncomplicated and reliable.

Hello. I'm relatively new to library thing but am already addicted and now that I have found this group I can see the addiction will take over my life. I love reading, cooking and eating so I think I'll be as happy as a pig in clover. I should be on a diet but the weather here in Scotland has been so cold, grey and driech that I'm comforting myself with wonderful rich stews and very ripe and runny French cheese and a glass or two of red wine. Mmm. Winter is lasting too long.
I find it difficult to resist buying cookbooks but I do try to curb my excesses.

Monican, welcome! I should be on a diet as well, but I am not and do not even feel guilty about it.
Now I have to go and make lentil soup, ideal on this cold and windy day.

Thank you for your message - lentil soup is 1 of my favourite winter soups, especially when made with a ham hough. It's a cold, grey day here but now toasty with the shutters closed and the fire on.

Monican and aluvalibri..... I am envious of your wintery gourmandising. Can't wait for our summer (here in Australia) to end. We've had a few cooler days, and lots of rain, so I'm kidding myself it's nearly autumn and have been making a couple of what I call my 'summer soups': a simple but delicious broccoli one which even people who say they dislike broccoli seem to enjoy, and a carrot and orange one which might sound a bit odd but is nice if you like citrus. Lentils must wait!

Isn't everyone always supposed to be on a diet? I figure as long as I read more than I eat, I may be okay.

I really hope I do not offend anybody if I say that, when I first arrived in this country, I was quite taken aback by the fact that most people think that kind of food is really Italian.

I know exactly what you mean, Paola. My mother-in-law moved to Canada from Italy in 1961, and she still just about has a stroke every time she sees what North Americans call lasagne. I've given up trying to explain that even though it is nothing like lasagne in Italy, it can still be quite tasty. But alas, this falls on deaf ears.

Anyway, I'll introduce myself. My name is Joyce and I live with my husband and two daughters (11 & 14) in Vancouver. I don't have a favourite cookbook, but at the moment I am very fond of Vij's Elegant and Inspired Indian Food.

A few weeks ago my husband and I decided that a lot of things we cook would taste just as good if we left the meat out, so I'm currently on an experiment of cooking my go-to recipes meatless. The other night I made my lamb curry without the lamb, and it was fabulous. I've also done pad thai and yakisoba.

And I'm currently reading What to Eat, by Marion Nestle, which so far is very interesting.

Nice seeing you here, Joyce!!

The older I get, the less am I attracted to meat, so I totally understand what you are saying.
I love Indian food, and when we go for it (we have a very good restaurant not far from home) I feast on veggies and all those very tasty fried appetizers. The only non veg dish I eat is chicken tikka masala.

I am new to this group. Usually a reader of fiction and memoir, I find myself picking up books about food more and more often. I have always loved to cook and being of Italian descent, food has always played a big part in my life experience...growing it, cooking it, sharing it, savoring it. Recently I have been on the journey of learning about where my food comes from...a journey started by reading Michael Pollan's "The Omnivore's Dilemma," followed by Barbara Kingsolver's "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle." I look forward to sharing thoughts about books referencing food with this group.

Welcome, SignoraEdie! The group seems to have been dormant for a while, but perhaps your appearance will revive it :-)

There are so many books being written right now that I would welcome other's recommendations and reviews!

#69 - yes, me too! I loved Omnivore's Dilemma and also really liked Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. I have a bunch of food books waiting on my TBR pile.

Another great one I read was Old McDonald's Factory Farm--no touchstone. It was back in the 90s, so it's probably out of print.

I have not heard of that one...will check at my library. One thing that these books have done for me is make me go back to my Italian heritage and cook more with simple whole ingredients. I also find we are eating more vegetables and less meat...which should be good for us.

#71 - The author is C. David Coats. If you read the book, you will certainly feel like eating more vegetables and less meat!

Hello!

I'm glad I saw this thread because it is interesting to see a little more about the usernames I've been seeing. I also didn't realize LibraryThing had such a significant international presence (which might reveal my ignorance, as I am new to LT and know very little about it).

I also love that so many other people have blogs! I also have one: www.idratherbeinfrance.com that was initially created to feature French cuisine and other bits of French culture and travel. Since then, I have left my previous job as a litigation attorney at a large law firm in New York City and am now relocating to Santa Cruz, California where I will be opening my own bakery. That is the overwhelming topic on my blog right now, but eventually it'll shift back to covering foodie stuff.

I love all cookbooks and could spend hours sitting on the floor of bookstores, flea markets and libraries looking at them. Right now I am endeavoring to collect a history of "traditional" American baking (cakes, pies, cookies, etc.) and am starting with cookbooks from the 50s and 60s than appear to solidify what traditional American baking is today. I hope to work backwards to discover what the biggest influences were and where they came from.

I still love books about French cuisine (although I loath references to the movie Julie & Julia... so trite). I also like "Southern" cuisine and I think it is really interesting that soul food is becoming somewhat vogue right now (at least that is the case in New York City).

Outside of actual cookbooks, I like books about small farms and organic farming. When I can manage to stop thinking about food, I read a lot of small business and business management books, since I am setting up my own small business. I noticed some of you are also small business owners, so please share any resources you find helpful!

That's me in a nutshell. If the whole corporate-attorney-turned-Californian-baker strikes your interest, please do check out my blog and subscribe to my erratic posts. It's an adventure if nothing else.

Happy Reading!
Rachel
www.idratherbeinfrance.com

Welcome Rachel!
WOW!! Your decision denotes a lot of courage but, if I had to choose and were qualified for both, I'd rather be a baker than a lawyer :-))
I will definitely take a look at your blog, and thanks for sharing.

Paola