Novelty Cookbook Round-Up: Presidents and Rock Stars

Politics & Pot Roast by Sarah Hood Salomon
I Like Food, Food Tastes Good: In the Kitchen With Your Favorite Bands by Kara Zuaro

With either of these two fun little cookbooks, you would expect interesting stories and factual tidbits, though perhaps not the tastiest of cuisine. However, both offer a surprisingly well-rounded collection of recipes one might actually make, despite a few stomach-churners (a la Death Cab for Cutie's Vegetarian Sausage with Peanut Butter, which they swear is good).

Salomon's is composed of brief entries for each of the 43 Presidents, including a little detail about the entertaining and family dining style of each First Family, as well as a handful of favorite dishes served in the White House during the administration.

As I read through the book, I found myself assigning Presidents to one of three groups:

Presidents with whom I would drink:

James Madison (Whiskey Sours)
James K. Polk (Bishop, Archbishop, or Pope; port, claret, or Burgandy w/ cloves and citrus)
William McKinley (a fan of the booze-soaked watermelon, which I thought was favored only by frat boys)
George Washington (mint juleps, of course)

Presidents with whom I would sup:

Andrew Jackson (Rachel Jackson's Famed Grape Salad and the adorably named Hedgehog Cookies)
William Henry Harrison (Pork Chops with Spiced Apples - Harrison was particular about his cuts of meat, and enjoyed doing his own marketing)
Zachary Taylor (Jambalaya, Corn Friters, Hominy Cheese Grits)
Theodore Roosevelt (Squash or Pumpkin Biscuits)

Presidents with questionable diets:

Grover Cleveland (his favorite dish was Bubble and Squeak, a corned beef and cabbage dish named both for the sounds it makes when you eat it, and the sounds your guts make after you eat it)
Martin Van Buren (a lover of stewed beets)
FDR (enjoyed moose w/ grape jelly; martinis with scrambled eggs)

I also found myself noticing patterns that would be described in today's media as elitism in the kitchen. To judge them only by their larders, James Buchanan was an elitist, as were the Grants, the Arthurs, the Wilsons, the Kennedys, and the Fords.

On the other hand, the Eisenhowers appeared to consume nothing but red meat and fudge, the Truman kitchen was delightfully down-to-earth, and the Carters and Clintons ate like it was Sunday dinner at grandma's house.

The rock stars were far better cooks than I would have imagined, although to be fair, most of them are indie rockers, who strike me as more likely to dice and sautee than say, Fred Durst.

Many of the recipes included in I Like Food, Food Tastes Good are surprisingly fancy-pants, though. I am very keen to try out The Rosebuds's recipe, Zucchini Slippers (a cheese, herb, and bread crumb-stuffed baked zucchini boat), as well as Camera Obscura's Vegetarian Paella.

If you're veggie or vegan, there are a lot of options for you here. But then, of course, there's The Hold Steady, bringin' it like the Midwestern rockers they are with a recipe for a Wisconsin staple, the beer brat.

And Gwen will be pleased to know that not only are the Drive-By Truckers included in this collection, but their recipe is for none other than banana pudding.

Don't worry, Gwen, as soon as I post this, I am emailing you the recipe.

Cookbook Round-up

Larry just sent me a link from the NTY blog, The Moment, featuring a list of the favorite cookbooks of cooking professionals.

Of course, Julia Child is well-represented, as is Irma Rombauer (The Joy of Cooking, but I was also happy to see the original Boston Cooking-School Cook Book and the New York Times Cookbook on the list.

As for the former, I've been lucky enough to hold a copy of the first edition in my hands.

And as for the latter, I just got up to check, and the pages for Lee's cold sesame noodles and Katherine Hepburn's brownies fall open by themselves, I've made them so many times.

But no Pomiane? Uncle Pommy's the best.

Since my last favorite cookbook round-up, I've added a few new favorites. The 1952 Memphis Junior League Cookbook is terrific reading, though I'm too scared of all the raw eggs involved with an icebox cake to attempt one. And for Christmas this year, my little sis got me the 1959 Milwaukee Junior League cookbook, Be Milwaukee's Guest. It is a little hope of mine to obtain a Junior League cookbook from all 50 states (do they even HAVE the Junior League in Alaska?). So far, I'm doing well with southern states, but need to branch out a little more.

My birthday is in a couple of months... just so you know.

Glorious Grits from Termite Hall

We've written about this book before, but now that we've had time to try out a few recipes it seemed like a good time to revisit it. Termite Hall is full of the author's signature wit and charm - and it's a heckuva read for a cookbook - but we'd hate to mistake the garnish for the main course.

Though we've only made a handful of dishes to date, each has been a winner. Granted, we've studiously avoided some of the more esoteric dishes - I'm pretty sure I can die happy having never tasted aspic - but the more gelatinous courses are definitely in the minority.

Of the recipes we've tried, my favorite by far is the first one we made: grits and corn pudding. We followed Eugene's advice and fried up some sausage and pears (with a little brown sugar added), and then served them over the pudding. It was nineteen kinds of awesome. And better still, the next morning we hauled out the cast-iron skillet and made fried grits with the leftovers. And that, friends, was good eatin'.

So, we thought we'd share - bon appétit!

Grits and Corn Pudding from Eugene Walter's Delectable Dishes from Termite Hall.

Cook 1 cup grits in 4 cups water, 1 tsp. salt, stirring constantly. When grits come away from side of pan, remove from fire, let cool awhile. Add 1/2 cup milk, tin of creamed corn, tablespoon unsalted butter, pinch of salt, dash of cayenne as well as freshly-ground black pepper. Add one cup grated sharp cheese. Fold in thoroughly 3 beaten eggs, pour into buttered casserole, dot top with pea sized dabs of butter. Bake in moderate oven 30 or 40 minutes or until knife comes out clean. Good with pork sausage and fried hard pears for Sunday brunch.

Dang. Now I'm hungry.

Shall We Sup, Shall We Soup?: Two More from the Inimitable Eugene Walter

Jennie the Watercress Girl: A Fable for Mobilians and a Few Choice Others

Delectable Dishes from Termite Hall: Rare and Unusual Recipes

If Everette Maddox is the unofficial poet laureate of the blog, Eugene Walter is its resident Puck. We're big fans, and when Brady returned from his research trip to the Gulf Coast, he brought me back two hard-to-find Eugene Walter reprints.

Walter's first book, Jennie the Watercress Girl was an effort to revive the lost art of pamphleteering. After returning to Mobile from Alaska, where he worked as a cryptographer during World War II (well-documented in Milking the Moon: A Southerner's Story of Life on This Planet), he discovered the city had much changed in his absence. And not for the better.

This playfully illustrated little fable begins when Jenny Heynonny's family is ruined by the 1929 stock market crash, and little Jennie resolves to support them by selling watercress. And so, she departs for Bienville Square singing the refrain:

"Watercress, watercress, who'll buy my watercress?
Watercress sweet and shy,
Watercress wet and dry,
Oh, who'll of my watercress, watercress buy?"

Here, she befriends all the town characters, talking critters, too, and discovers her true calling as a ballet dancer. After years on tour, she returns to Mobile to find that the city has embarked on a course of PROGRESS. The trees are gone, the architecture is bad, and the pretty corners of the city are now littered with parking lots and filling stations.

And Jennie's heart is utterly, irreparably broken.

Of course, no city plots its course by broken-hearted ballerinas, or by the druthers of Eugene Walter; however, even today, Mobile has an interesting relationship with its quirky side. Though surrounded by suburban wasteland and industrial sprawl, in the core of the city you'll find cars sporting "Keep Mobile Funky" bumper stickers, independently owned shops, and historic preservationists who laugh in the face of termites and hurricanes. Starbucks only came to Mobile recently, and even its walls are plastered with local art.

So, maybe Eugene accomplished a little something after all.

A good bit giddier than the fate of poor Jennie is Delectable Dishes from Termite Hall, perhaps the most charming cookbook ever to grace my shelves.

Termite Hall, another marvel of Mobilian historic preservation, still stands despite its name. And Eugene wrote of it, "The Hall has always been a place where people came for a week's visit and stayed a year, where everybody read and ate, ate and read, and listened to music and danced and painted pictures and climbed trees and ate and gardened and read and ate. Naturally, it is haunted, delightfully so."

And so the cookbook begins with a ghost story, which is worth the price of admission alone.

Then, the recipes. It's rare to read a cookbook by a writer, and there probably has never been one by a writer who was so much fun to read as Eugene Walter. He manages a kind of playful 19th century elegance, with a healthy dose of southern vernacular thrown in as well. One recipe calls for "8 big fat sassy ripe tomatoes," but I fell in love on the first page, a recipe for a "Clear Soup of Greens." After his instructions for the broth, Eugene writes:

"Into this you can toss shredded lettuce, or young cabbage, or watercress, or baby collards, or baby mustard greends, or baby radish leaves (Yes, I did say radish!) or spinach or half spinach and half young sorrel leaves or whatever greens you fancy... Pretty and Very Good. With croutons or dumplings such a dish takes on resonance."

When he gave me the books, Brady pointed out the title of the second chapter, "Shall We Sup, Shall We Soup?" and said, "I saw that, and I thought that you and Eugene probably would have been great friends."

This may be the best compliment I have ever received.

Cookbooks for Music Lovers

It's time for another fresh-baked batch of cookbook gift ideas. While each of these books include a few sad bachelor/strung out junkie/demented 50s housewife recipes, you'll be surprised who pulls their weight in the kitchen. Pearl Jam and Young MC can cook for me anytime. Annette Funicello, not so much

Rappers' Delights: African-American Cookin' With Soul by Al Pereira

It's my belief that any cookbook that contains Flavor Flav's recipe for Rice Pilaf is worth checking out. Especially when the instructions end, "Then it's ready for Flav, I'm tryin' to tell you right now!"

Other drool-inducing soul food entries include Queen Latifah's Royal Turkey Cutlets, Kool Moe Dee's Shrimp Scampi, and Just-Ice's Hot Curried Goat.

The Country Music Cookbook by Dick and Sandy St. John

The St. Johns have compiled two music cookbooks, both of which attempt to mash the title of a hit song by the musician in with the name of the recipe. As a result, you wind up cooking stuff like "Achy Breaky Garlic Bread Sticks" and "The Devil Goes Down to Georgia for Charlie's Diet Chili."

Silly, yes. However, their hearts were in the right places, as all proceeds from the book went to the National Music Foundation. And they got a really nice turnout, with all the big country stars submitting in force. So, if you've ever wondered what Loretta Lynn and Dolly Parton make for dessert, now you can know.

The Rock and Roll Cookbook by Dick and Sandy St. John

And I've saved the wackiest for last. Following the same format as the Country Music Cookbook, Dick and Dee Dee have assembled a truly bizarre assortment of musicians for this collection (which includes a forward and recipe by Pamela Des Barres).

The contributors include a large number of doo-wop and R&B groups and 60s teen heartthrobs, but then you'll turn the page and find a cornbread recipe from Fred Schneider of The B-52s or Kurt Cobain's recipe for squash soup or Steve Jones of the Sex Pistols instructing you to eat his recipe with your fingers. And then there's some artists who would only be included in a cookbook published in 1993: The Spin Doctors, Soul Asylum, and yes, Hammer (as in, please don't hurt 'em with your barbecued ribs).

And again, the recipe titles are great. A couple of choice ones include: "All I Really Want to Do Is Make You Salade Nicoise" and "My Boyfriend's Back 'Cause He Loves My Mocha Cheesecake."

Hey la, hey la.

Cookbooks for Eccentric Friends and Family

Cookbooks make holiday great gifts, especially if they're selected with the personality of the recipient in mind. A Food Network cookbook can appeal to anyone, and is hence, a lousy gift, while something like The Official Three Stooges Cookbook or The Ethnic Vegetarian will win you major thoughtfulness points. Here are a few hand-picked goodies -- perhaps one will be perfect for the oddball in your life.

For the historical re-enactor:
Festive Feasts Cookbook by Michelle Berriedale-Johnson

Everything you need to craft ten themed period dinner parties, including a meal at the court of Lucrezia Borgia, a banquet with the Mughal Emperor, or dinner with Queen Elizabeth I. Published by the British Museum, the illustrations are exquisite.

For the surrealist:
The Futurist Cookbook by F.T. Marinetti

At once a manifesto and an epic joke, the meals formulated by "Futurist Aeropoet" Marinetti lean more towards revolutionizing pre-Fascist Italy than the table. At least 2/3 of the introduction is a rant against pasta, but the menus themselves are something to see: the Extremist Banquet, the Heroic Winter Dinner, and the Declaration of Love Dinner, in which the courses are named for the stages of a seduction. Hot stuff.

For the lover of kitsch:
Liberace Cooks!: Hundreds of Delicious Recipes for You from His Seven Dining Rooms as told to Carol Truax

When Carol Truax asked Liberace, "What do you do with seven dining rooms?" Liberace replied, "Come to Hollywood, and I'll show you." The book is divided into sections, each including recipes that would be appropriately served in one of Lee's dining rooms: the club room, the terrace, the formal dining room, or even in the television room. The recipes will make you wish you could have been a fly on the serving dish at one of Liberace's cookouts on the loggia or heaping a plate at one of his Vegas-style buffet dinners. However, my favorite is the "Do It Yourself and Eat It Yourself" chapter, which is bachelor cooking at its most refined. We mere mortals would consider these dishes the makings of a fine brunch, while Liberace probably just whipped them up for himself and ate them over the stove.

Bon appetit! More to follow...

Bits and Pieces

From Judith Freeman's excellent-looking The Long Embrace: Raymond Chandler and the Woman He Loved, a map of Chandler's 35 homes, 24 of which were in Los Angeles, and one of which I recently visited.
(Via LAist)

And from today's recipe round-up:

Christmas Cookies from Around the World: Food Blogga's diabolically clever scheme to acquire cookie recipes. I feel strangely compelled to make Finnish Christmas Tarts.
Sweet Potato Scones
Shrimp and Grits (and they're cheese grits, too!)

nobody, not even the rain has such small hands

I couldn't suggest a finer accompaniment to your turkey coma tomorrow than Hannah and Her Sisters, one of Woody Allen's best and perhaps the greatest Thanksgiving movie ever made (granted, there's probably not a large pool of those).

In one of the most inept flirtations in screen history, Elliot (played by Michael Caine) buys Lee (the luminous Barbara Hershey) a collection of ee cummings poetry, saying that "I read a poem of you the other day and thought of him." Then tells her to read "somewhere i have never travelled". Smooth.

The film also contains one of my all-time favorite movie lines: "If Jesus came back and saw what's going on in his name, he'd never stop throwing up."

In the holiday recipe round-up today: no-knead dinner rolls and a pumpkin praline cheesecake that may just be the prettiest dessert I've ever seen.

Happy Thanksgiving, everybody!

UPDATE: Hannah and Her Sisters may be the post-dinner Thanksgiving movie, but the best Thanksgiving movie to put on while you're cooking is definitely The Last Waltz.

Owen Brennan, Elephant Feet, and a Mynah Bird

Love and Dishes by Niccolo de Quattrociocchi

Quattrociocchi's memoir/cookbook is eccentric, flamboyant, and utterly hilarious. In the first half, he recounts the story of how a young Sicilian man found himself rather at loose ends at the end of World War I, and made his way to Hollywood, romanced his way to New York, and started El Borracho, one of the city's most beloved restaurants.

In one of the best bits, he's preparing for El Borracho's opening and decides that the place needs a mynah bird. "The notion of opening a restaurant without one was repulsive to me -- almost un-American. I at once set forth to inquire about one."

Of course, the bird turns out to be a foul-mouthed letch that says inappropriate things to dining society women. It is a big hit with the waiters.

But the recipe section is truly something to behold. Quattrociocchi hit up all his celebrity chef buddies for recipes from the swingingest joints in the U.S. during the 1940s, complete with classy old restaurant logos. Cocktails from Trader Vic's, cheese blintzes from Dinty Moore's, shrimp remoulade from Owen Brennan's, and Chicken Portolla from the Pump Room in Chicago, to name a few.

Quattrociocchi narrates the proceedings with a delightfully cosmopolitan zaniness, and does indeed provide a recipe for roasting an elephant's foot. However, he also includes useful hints about discreet tipping, table etiquette, and determining the freshness of fish: "If the eyes are clouded and sunken, have nothing to do with the fish. It has probably lived a loose life."

The perfect gift for aficionados of old-school dining out, particularly if they enjoy dishes like Beefsteak Milanese, Bordelaise Chicken, and Lobster Thermidor.

Can She Make a Cherry Pie, Charming Billy?

Between the approaching holidays, and finally getting a working refrigerator in the apartment (after three long weeks of Healthy Choice frozen dinners), I've had food on the brain.

For the next few weeks, I'm going to write about interesting and unusual cookbooks, perfect for gifts (no, I'm not dropping hints) or for tracking down novel things to bring to office potlucks. In the spirit of things, I've added a few new folks to the sidebar.

Today's recipe-blogger highlights: Smoked Beer Can Turkey, Carrot-Herb Rolls, and Pecan, Walnut, and Golden Syrup Tartlettes.

Wholly Unrelated to Literature

We're saving up all the good stuff for the Blogathon this weekend, so I'm stretching a bit for topics here...okay, I'm stretching a lot...but what the heck. When thanks are in order, thanks are in order.

1. Thank you, little boll weevil, for decimating the cotton crop in Alabama so often. In gratitude, we gave you this statue.

2. Thank you, George Washington Carver, for suggesting peanuts as a spiffy, useful, and tasty alternative to cotton. You were apparently invited to speak at the dedication of the statue in 1919, but were delayed because rain had washed out the tracks. I'm guessing you didn't miss much. It is, after all, a statue of a lady holding a giant bug.

3. Thank you, Mary, for bringing home raw peanuts from the farmer's market yesterday and helping me boil them in a salty, salty brine for five hours.

Nothing makes a final editorial pass at a manuscript before sending it back for its second review more pleasant and less soul-killing than a big ol' pile of boiled peanuts, is all I'm sayin. I bet if the editors and translators of The Protestant Ethic had procured a bag of boiled peanuts, they wouldn't have flubbed the "shell as hard as steel" bit and substituted "iron cage" like they did.

See how I did that? Brought it back to books.

Man, I'm good.

A Bunch of Parsley the Size of a Bouquet of Violets

Cooking With Pomiane by Edouard de Pomiane

I know you're always hearing about the French cookbook that changes everything, but really, this one does. It did in the 1930s, and it's just as good today, even if I can't even imagine how I'd follow Pomiane's instructions to buy mussels from a fishmonger I trust. I don't trust anything that comes out of the water around here.

Pomiane offers instruction in the art of entertaining that impresses without busting your wallet or your gut (really, do you need a fish course and a meat course?). He espouses making simple foods, but making them perfectly with a few well-chosen side dishes. And he does so in a quirky, lyrical style that's part Romantic poet, and part Shel Silverstein. I like to think of him as "Uncle Pommy."

Uncle Pommy doesn't care if you've never fasted a snail to make escargot before. In fact, he warns you, "Let the snails fast for 48 hours. Lift the lid. It is a horrid sight. The volume of excrement seems almost as big as that of the snails." And he has a sense of humor devilish enough to know how much you'll enjoy murdering the vile brutes: "The liquid boils. Throw in the snails. Poor things. They will do no more damage to the vegetation."

Uncle Pommy concludes each of his recipes with an endearing little finish like, "I simply can't go on. It makes me too hungry," or "Serve it as it comes from the oven, golden-brown and steaming, with a glass of white wine which should not be too dry. And don't forget to drink to my health."

We wouldn't dream of it, Uncle Pommy. Thanks to Sheryn at LAPL for putting me on to this charmer.

A Bottle of Your Best $9 Champagne, Please

Step back to a simpler time when you could get an old fashioned and a lobster with drawn butter for about $3 and beautiful girls would dance for you while you ate, but not in a gross lunch buffet at the strip club kind of way.

I love historic menu collections. While San Francisco's has a prettier webpage, I must say the Los Angeles Public Library's is nothing to sneeze at. Check out the 1930s wine list from the Biltmore Hotel - stains included.

Southern Living, New York-Style

I Like You: Hospitality Under the Influence by Amy Sedaris

In the first of this book's three increasingly loopy introductions, Amy Sedaris writes, "This is not a joke cookbook. I don't like joke cookbooks because I can't take them seriously." This is at once true and not true of I Like You. Turn to any page in this book, and you're sure to encounter an image or a line that makes you shoot Scotch out of your nose*. But at the same time, almost every recipe, craft idea, or entertaining tip that appears here is pure gold.

The food sections contain an appealing mix of traditional Greek cooking, comfort food, and accessible haute cuisine, as well as a collection of recipes from Sedaris's lucrative side job -- selling cupcakes and cheese balls out of her apartment. I've got a zillion index cards sticking out of the book right now, and two dishes on the menu for this week (Brady's making Dimpleton's Pan-Fried Steak and I'm making the simply-named, but delicious-sounding Chicken on the Stove).

But more than that, this is a book that will make you want to throw a dinner party. I've always been a better party guest than host**, but after reading this book, I feel that the deepest, mistiest secrets of throwing a good party have been made known to me, and that I could maybe pull it off.

Reading this book also made me think about the great dinner parties I've been to, and how, while the basic tenets of hospitality were the same, it was the unique quirks in party-hosting styles that made things memorable and reflected the hosts' personalities. That said, if you ever find yourself in Madison, Wisconsin for an extended period of time, you should make it a point to endear yourselves to Nathan and Abby, and get asked to their house. Hosts with the most, 'nuff said.
_____________________
* for example, the sheet cake with "Come Home Dad" written in chocolate sprinkles or the instructions for making a cat toy our of a tampon
** Mary's Tips for Being a Good Party Guest (and Getting Asked Back)
1. Bring booze or a pumpkin log.
2. Take your turn engaging the party guest who a) has had too many drinks and wants to talk at great length about Pancho Villa, b) has not had a conversation with anyone except their children in a month, or c) is smoking outside, alone.
3. If the host leaves the party to do dishes, relieve him/her of these duties, or at least help clear and scrape plates.
4. Use a coaster.
5. Always stay one drink behind the host.
6. Know when to leave, and say 'thank you.'

Margaritaville

Liquor by Poppy Z. Brite

In The Value of X, Poppy Z. Brite shifted away from her usual horror turf, and introduced Rickey and G-Man, two New Orleans teenagers crazy in love with each other and with cooking.

In Liquor, the Lower Ninth Ward boys are all grown up, but still working as lowly line cooks in tourist traps and old man bars until they run into Lenny Duveteaux, a thinly veiled Emeril-type who wants to give them a shot. Rickey wants to start a restaurant where everything on the menu contains alcohol, a perfect fit for NoLa diners, and Lenny smells profit.

Improbable as it may be, watching Rickey and G-Man work up their menu, lease a space, and fool around in the test kitchen is addictive reading and a foodie's fantasy. Brite throws in a few side plots involving a gangland killing, a vengeful ex-boss, and a curmudgeon trying to stop the restaurant, but honestly, a few more pages spent the describing the prosciutto-wrapped figs marinated in Calvados would have been okay by me.

There is one big problem with Liquor, the problem being that Rickey and G-Man seem more like very good friends than lovers. Sure, they've been together for ten years and a life in the restaurant business doesn't exactly lend itself to quiet evenings snuggling on the sofa, but their relationship is virtually passionless. Even the Dewey subject heading in the book's library catalog record reads "Male Friendship - Fiction."

Brite has written two more books in this series, Prime and Soul Kitchen, the latter having been completed the night before Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast. I'm looking forward to catching up in time for the next installment, and hope that I pick up Prime to find that the restaurant has done really well, and that Rickey and G-Man saved up some money and run off to Cabo for a couple weeks to rediscover their love.

If you like...: novels about New Orleans, liquor, and food, this book is for you. Total no-brainer.

A Lunchtime Poll About... Lunch

Wanting to beef up my culinary arsenal, I checked out a few Food Network books from the library today. Yeah, I don't know what I was thinking either. Page after page of recipes like Seared Scallops with Bacon, Tarragon, and Lemon, Panini with Bresaola, Endive, and Provolone, and Pork Rib Roast with Cranberry-Apricot Stuffing.

As a rule of thumb, if you can't describe it in less than five words, it's going to taste like something you get at one of those mediocre, blandly hip bistros you wander into when you and your sweetie can't agree where you want to go out, and then you wind up spending too much money on wine and wishing you'd stayed home and gotten corn dogs instead. The more different the recipe names sound, the more they taste alike.

Really, everything I know about cooking I learned from about five really good cookbooks.

New York Cookbook by Molly O'Neill
Why It's Aces: High-brow and low-brow cooking co-exist in perfect harmony; pre-recipe notes that contain both interesting stories and helpful tips; charming photos
Stand-out Recipes: Katherine Hepburn's Brownies; Lee's Cold Sesame Noodles; Angela Palladino's Meatballs

Bay Tables
Cooking with the Junior League of Mobile, AL, you can have your lunch and drink it, too. Not only do southern women know how to cook, they know how to have fun doing it. Simple, elegant recipes that you can throw together in about two seconds.
Stand-out Recipes: Mixed Berry French Toast; Jambalaya; Banana Cake

The Ethnic Vegetarian by Angela Shelf Medearis
Why It's Aces: Ahem, can you say low-fat, flavorful soul food? Also includes great African, Cajun, and Caribbean recipes.
Stand-out Recipes: Hoppin' John; Muffaletta

My other favorites that you can't actually buy anymore include Outer Banks Recipes from the Blue Point Bar and Grill, otherwise known as the cookbook that single-handedly introduced recreational bread-baking to the Potts/McCoy household. Rosemary Foccacia to die for, not to mention a fine New Brunswick stew. And then there's the Madison Public Library staff cookbook. Leave it to a bunch of hippie librarians to put together a cookbook that makes Moosewood look like McDonald's.

But who am I kidding? Without the red and white checked Betty Crocker cookbook in my mom's kitchen, I never would have baked my first snickerdoodle.

What are the cookbooks you're lost without?

Roman à Chef

The Perfectionist: Life and Death in Haute Cuisine by Rudolph Chelminski

I used to think about going to culinary school, until I realized that being a chef requires not only that you love cooking, but also that you love the manic, testosterone-fueled world of restaurant kitchens, insane work hours, and the psychotic segment of the human race drawn to professional kitchen culture.

After two days working in the kitchen of the Peabody Hotel in Memphis, I learned that I don't love it. But I sure love reading about people who do.

The Perfectionist is ostensibly about the life and tragic death of master French chef Bernard Loiseau, who, plagued by debt, mental illness, and an obsessive fear of losing his Michelin stars, committed suicide in 2003. However, it's also about the grueling apprenticeship system through which French chefs were traditionally trained, the history of the Michelin Guide Rouge, and the transformation of French cuisine in the 20th century from haute to nouvelle to terroir.

Despite the difficulty of watching Loiseau's downward spiral for the last 100 pages, it's also the kind of book that makes you want to save up your money and spend a month eating and drinking your way through the French countryside with gluttonous abandon.

If you like...: Anthony Bourdain's books (the food ones, not the mystery ones) or The Making of a Chef: Mastering Heat at the Culinary Institute by Michael Ruhlman, this book is for you.

Cooking! To the Death!

Iron Wok Jan by Shinji Saijyo

The Goods: In this so-ludicrous-it's-awesome comic, a group of teenage Japanese chefs perfect the art of Chinese cookery and battle one another in one cooking competition after another for... hmmm... actually, it's never made entirely clear what they're battling for. Maybe glory or something. Our anti-hero, Jan, is the biggest douche you'd ever hope to meet. He's merciless to his rivals, worse to his friends, and isn't above poisoning the occasional judge. And each book includes recipes.

Thoughts: Actually, I loathe manga. I find it skeevy. However, knowing how much I love cooking and foodie stuff in general, a friend promised me I'd love this one, and she was not wrong. Saijyo throws enough twists into each contest to keep the bake-off premise fresh, the plots are goofily fun, and the female characters don't have that manga-Lolita thing going on.

If you like...: watching Iron Chef, this book is for you.

Do Women Like To Cook?

Something from the Oven: Reinventing Dinner in 1950s America by Laura Shapiro

The Goods: The post-war marketing campaigns that attempted to groom the American palette to embrace prepackaged foods took it on faith that the answer was, "no." Shapiro examines what started off as an attempt to unload a surplus of field rations onto American kitchens and led to the rise of such odious dishes as the Snow Ball Sandwich and Gourmet Crab*, and the American love/hate affair with convenience foods.

Thoughts: This is an odd book, in the respect that its too-broad focus actually contributes to its charm. It contains, to name a few things:

1. a brief history of the Pillsbury bake-off (someone needs to write a comprehensive history of this event... it's a great story)
2. short biographies and discussion of the contributions of foodie celebrities ranging from Alice B. Toklas to Poppy Cannon (the Half-Assed Gourmet of her day, but very famous) to Julia Child
3. a look at housewifery in the 50s, including the rise of the domestic chaos memoir and the impact of women in the workplace
4. the strange, but eventually not-so-crazy assertion that Julia Child and Betty Friedan could be described as parallel forces in the feminist movement

Some of the discussions are oversimplified, but that doesn't stop this from being one of the most fun and interesting books about the 50s that I've read.

If you liked...: Books that examine popular assumptions about the post-war era, like The Way We Never Were: American Families and the Nostalgia Trap by Stephanie Coontz and The Fifties: A Women's Oral History by Brett Harvey, or fun foodie books about the 50s, like The Gallery of Regrettable Food: Highlights from Classic American Recipe Books by James Lileks, this book is for you.
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* Snow Ball Sandwich: "two-layer circular sandwiches, one layer of tuna fish and the other of crushed pineapple mixed with whipped cream, the whole frosted with cream cheese and garnished with a cherry" (223)
Gourmet Crab: canned crabmeat, Cheez Whiz, cream of mushroom soup, and frozen spinach (67)