I like to read cookbooks. Cookbooks with a story (Beard, Bourdain, White, Chang, Ripert) are wonderful. Last year I bought Plenty by Ottolenghi and am actually cooking from it a good bit. Ditto for White Heat. I read the other day that the popularity of cooking from The French Laundry is on the rise. I gave a copy to my brother a few years ago. It is, indeed, gorgeous. Anybody here enjoy cooking from it?
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Have you read The Seventh Daughter by Cecilia Chiang? It’s out of print but good used copies are available on Amazon. The first time I read it I got it from my library. She had a remarkable life.
I’ve only made one of her recipes, for Chicken Broth; made several times. I add extra chicken wings, have never added feet.
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I shall look for it.
I have a copy of TFL cookbook that I purchased as a memento after my meal there, but have never cooked from it.
Bouchon and Ad Hoc have more usable recipes.
There’s a Thomas Keller thread if you want to peruse, or add what you make.
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There are a few (older) blogs which cook whole cookbooks, including one covering French Laundry (and quite good written)
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So do I. They’re hopefully like history/sociology/science books. I love a story. The recipes are less important to me than the history and the context.
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I just gave away a bunch of cookbooks to fire victims (there was a drive in my hood). It didn’t free up any space on my shelves because I have more books than shelves, but it did motive me from buying a few I felt were missing from my too big collection. I bought Ina’s Barefoot in Paris and Barefoot at Home.
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2 excellent books
Been trying very hard not to buy more cookbooks, but I just can’t pass up a sale on used books:
The Vanilla Bean Baking Books
The Fearless Baker
The Food and Wine of Greece by Diane Kochilas
Live To Eat by Michael Psilakis
A Passion For Potatoes by Lydie Marshall
Narrowed to ONLY 5 books.
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For the first time, I made Moussaka. Next up: Pastitsio; I’ve never eaten it, I know I’ll love it. The # 2 Bucatini was impossible to find even though I live in a big city, SF. Had to order from Amazon, should arrive today! (I know, I could have just used Penne instead. I had to order 5 1-lb packages but that’s ok.)
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You could also use “regular” bucatini (doesn’t make any difference) and you can find it at Gus’s Community Market or Andronico’s (not sure where you live in SF)
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“Regular” bucatini is pretty available at lots of stores.
Yes, I bought one regular bucatini from Andronico/Safeway before I looked on Amazon. One comment said the instructions were only in Greek, she boiled for only 5 minutes but dish turned out mushy.
Hard to believe, 5 minutes isn’t very long.
Others liked the product a lot.
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My copy of Wild Sweetness arrived today. I have been coveting it forever and finally found a reasonably priced copy. Cannot wait to bake my way through it. Anyone own this one??
The Greek Misko brand pastitsio #2/ bucatini #2 is usually cheaper than Italian pasta, and often cheaper than Canadian pasta, up here in Canada. I’m posting Misko recipe for pastitsio.
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For our wedding anniversary some months ago my wife bought me Cordon Bleu’s Chocolate Bible. It’s a thick tome with techniques and some interesting-looking recipes. One curious thing is that they use medium eggs, which I like as much as I like Ina Garten’s use of extra-large eggs (i.e. not at all). I haven’t made anything from it yet.
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Enjoy! 
By the way, that Misko website’s recipe mentions to undercook the pasta by 3 minutes before using it in their pastitsio recipe.
It’s possible to the cook who called the pastitsio result mushy in the recipe you mentioned didn’t do that.
She said she cooked it only 5 minutes! Others praised this bucatini.
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