Weekly Geeks – What’s Cookin’

What shall we cook today? It seems that for most of us, a bit of our book obsession would carry over to the cookbook genre, so this week for Weekly Geeks, let’s talk cookbooks! Here are some ideas to get you started:

–Describe your cookbook collection. How many cookbooks do you own? A lot? Just a few? None at all?

I own about two dozen, including hardbacks, paperbacks and spiral bound books.

–Do you like to collect certain types of cookbooks? Say, from certain chefs? From places you visit? From a particular food group or style?

I tend to get interested it learning about foods from different regions.  These regions change over time.  Right now I’m interested in Middle Eastern/Mediterranean food.  I am working my way back to being vegetarian.  Not vegan, I love cheese too much.

–When buying cookbooks, what do you look for? Does it need to have pictures? Spiral binding? A specific type of font?

I try hard not to buy cookbooks, often borrowing books from the library or from friends.  Once in a while I get seduced into having to own a book, usually by the text or the photos.  This is the lastest one:

The New Book of Middle Eastern Food by Claudia Roden. This book is filled with the history of food in the Middle East as well as wonderful folktales and stories related to different foods and different countries.

Another book I am intrigued by is A Mediterranean Feast:The Story of the Birth of Celebrated Cuisines by Clifford A. Wright. It is packed with history, economics, geography and cultural.  I’m trying to find a used copy.

--What is your favorite cookbook?

I don’t really have a favorite.  I enjoy reading about food and cooking and have recently discovered the writings of Elizabeth David and of M.F. K.Fisher and am loving both of them.

–Share a recipe from one of your favorite cookbooks. Include a picture if you can.

One of my most loved  and oldest cookbooks is Tassajara Cooking by Edward Espe Brown. I learned the basics from this one and also learned to trust my own instincts when cooking.  There is a wonderful documentary about Brown’s philosophy of  food and cooking called How to Cook Your Life.

Pumpkin Soup

Pumpkin, onion, salt, oil, water, cinnamon. nutmeg.

Cut the pumpkin open and remove the seeds and stringy portion of the interior.  Cut the pumpkin into one inch cubes.  Slice the onion, and saute for a couple of minutes, then add the pumpkin.  Saute for about five minutes, stirring , then add a cup of water, put on a lid and simmer for forty to fifty minutes until pumpkin is quite tender.  At this point the pumpkin, or a portion of it, can be mashed to thicken the broth.  Add more water to the onion-pumpkin mixture to make it soupy.  Heat and season with salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg.

I plan on making this soup with squash tomorrow night and if I remember I will add a photo!

How to Cook a Wolf by MFK Fisher

I read this book because I had heard so many good things about Fisher’s writing.  Little did I know that it would fit right into the World War II challenge.  How to cook a Wolf was first published in 1942, shortly after the United States had entered the war.  Written to inspire during wartime shortages it reminds cooks that it takes more then a foodstuffs to provide nourishment for loved ones.

Fisher knew that  telling people to cut back on this or substitute that was no way to get through tough times.  She believed that people should follow their own instincts instead of some nutritional chart.  Experiment, dream, add an “expensive” ingredient to bring  joy to a meal.  These suggestions work just as well today as they did it WWII.   I truly enjoyed reading this and fully prepared  to greet the wolf at the door.