Question of the Day: What's your desert-island cookbook?
You know—the one cookbook you can't live without? The one you'd want with you if things got all Robinson Crusoe?
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14 Comments:
I think The Joy of Cooking would be my one selection, for purely utilitarian purposes. There's a basic recipe for nearly everything in that tome.
EJ at 9:23AM on 01/16/07
The San Marino Ladies auxillary club cook book. It has all authentic Italian recipes right from all the nonna's and aunties in my extended family. This book is like gold to me!
ThatGirl153 at 9:45AM on 01/16/07
Hopefully one that had a lot of fish and coconut recipes in it. Like the Gilligan's Island cookbook. Cause again you are stranded on a deserted island. Don't think they are going to have tomatoes and ricotta cheese there.
nelson5757 at 12:23PM on 01/16/07
:)
nelson5757 at 12:24PM on 01/16/07
Heh. I thought of that, too, Nelson. But I guess I'd pick The Joy of Cooking, since, like EJ says, it's purely utilitarian.
Adam Kuban at 12:34PM on 01/16/07
It would be a toss-up between "How to Be a Desert Island Goddess" (because I'd want to look super organized and together when the Today show tapes a segment of my rescue) and that cook book made famous on the Twilight Zone Episode, "How to Serve Mankind" (for when I decide that my fellow shipwreck crewmates would make a tasty rotisserie.
Okay, maybe I'd just carry my "Sunday Suppers at Lucques" and decide to make best use of the freshest seasonal coconut and bananas available to me. Does anyone know of a good book on making your own tequila from native island agave?
Acme Instant Food at 12:42PM on 01/16/07
Tie between the professional chef and the bouchon cookbook.
mjw at 1:57PM on 01/16/07
Definitely "Amy Vanderbilt's Complete Cookbook ".
LindaD at 2:17PM on 01/16/07
Ok If given a choice I would take NOBU's cookbook. Lotsa tasty fish dishes.
nelson5757 at 4:10PM on 01/16/07
Since we've already established that a cookbook would be pretty useless on a desert island, and as I rarely cook out of books anyway, I would choose 'Home Cooking' by Laurie Colwin. I think her narrative voice would provide some solace as I sat under a palm tree, frustrated and lonely, with my clothing full of sand.
caley at 5:03PM on 01/16/07
"The Minimalist Cooks at Home," by Mark Bittman. Alternatively, there must be a raw food or sushi cookbook that would be helpful.
djacobs at 11:08PM on 01/16/07
Who needs a cookbook this is my chance to go native.
JerzeeTomato at 1:40AM on 01/17/07
I'm in The Joy of Cooking camp. Proper ingredients or not, there is a recipe for almost anything one can imagine in there. It would be more "comfort reading" than anything, but that's enough. I'll sit in the shade and suck on a mango pit while reading about chateaubriand and New York cheesecake.
Calichef at 7:41AM on 01/17/07
1950s Betty Crocker cookbook - though I love Joy of Cooking, old-school Betty is way more practical.
christine at 5:53PM on 01/21/07