books

Cookbook lovers not only read, collect, and cook from cookbooks, they also love to share their passion with others by giving cookbook gifts. Whether the gift is for a holiday, wedding, graduation, or other important life event, a cookbook is not only useful and thoughtful, it can become a cherished reminder of someone's love. Over at indexed blog The Kitchn, Tami Weiser writes about starting a cookbook library for her children to take with him as they become more independent.

Weiser provides a list of ten cookbooks that she gave each of her children. She found it difficult to whittle down a list of favorites to a mere ten volumes, so she applied criteria such as only professional-style or encyclopedic books (Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything), books with clear directions - important for beginning cooks (Dorie Greenspan's Baking with Julia), and books that were well-edited.

If I were to come up with a "cookbook starter library," it would look vastly different than Ms. Weiser's list, although I would include The Food Lab. I would add a bread book (The Bread Baker's Apprentice), and would also choose one unique volume that might be more aspirational than practical. For that, I'd consider a Thomas Keller book. I'd also think about adding Michael Ruhlman's The Elements of Cooking, because if one didn't have a kitchen mentor to learn from, that book would be helpful in understanding basic cooking concepts, and it isn't quite as lengthy as other technique/principle works. (Cal Peternell's Twelve Recipes might fit the bill here too.)

What would your "starter library" look like?