Cookbook MEME

Well. It looks like I've been tagged by Stennie to do Flipsycab's cookbook meme. I'll skip the travel log today and fulfill my duty!

Total number of cookbooks I own: an even 20.

Last cookbook(s) I've bought: Last weekend I went to Milwaukee's German Fest and purchased a copy of this year's cookbook "Guten Appetit: Kochen und Kutur Traditional German Recipies." While this cookbook is full of useless meat recipies, it does include some very important recipies such as Fashingskrapfen, (a kind of donuts eaten on fat Tuesday), Fränkische Kartoffel Klösse (Potato Dumplings), and Linzer Torte - actually an Austrian confection that is out of this world.

Last (food) book(s) I read: Do magazines count? Because I do subscribe to Vegetarian Times. I don't know that I've ever sat and read a whole book about food. Oh wait.. you know, I did read Diet for a New America by John Robbins. that might count. But that was a long time ago.

Five cookbooks that mean a lot to me:

1. Austrian Cooking Specialties - given to me in 1998 by the class of third graders I had the pleasure of teaching. This book was translated into "English", and the kids thought that was just great. They all circled their favorite recipes and made comments in the book. Otherwise, it is a pretty useless waste of paper. The measurements are all off and the translations are really awful.

2. Enchanted Broccoli Forrest by Mollie Katzen. I love this book. I think I've had it for 15 years. I've made most of the recipies in it at one time or another. It was the first cookbook I ever bought myself.

3. Better Homes and Gardens New Cookbook (1956) - This was my mother's. Bless her, she was a godawful cook, but she did have a few tricks up her sleeve. Years of notations are in this one, as are food stains and cigarette burns. This book is useful for learning how to light your new gas range, how to set a table, how to make pleasing sandwiches for game night that your husband will rave over, how to make an attractive napkin display, and how to freshen up after spending a day in the kitchen.

4. Tassajara Cooking - given to me by my sister when I started college, it is written by Buddhist monks. It is a book that doesn't so much give recipes as it does explaining what goes together and what doesn't, how to cut things and how to spice them up. It is the reason I make some pretty kick-ass soups.

5. This last cookbook isn't really a book but a card file. It is full of things like mandelbrodt, challah, latkes, and mock chopped liver (made with green beans) - all kinds of things that I either got directly from my grandmother or that I got by jotting things down while watching her cook. It also has some things that I've pieced together myself, like vegan oatmeal cookies and the Perfect Smoothie.
   

Which people would you most like to see fill this out in their blog? Lauren, who can be reached via Everythink. If Alexis would like to put her answers here, I'd love to see them (she's blogless), and if Nyssa is paying attention, I'd like to see her answers too!