A peek into my library

I got this off of Baking Sheet, (see link on side bar) one of my favorite blogs. I’d seen these meme things floating around but never really felt compelled to answer any until now. Could someone tell me once and for all exactly how to pronounce that word?! Anyway, the directions are to ‘post a picture of your cookbooks and answer the following questions.’ So! To break away from the rhythm of my blog, here goes!

By the way, if you read this and have a blog, consider yourself invited to join this meme.

1. Rationale behind what we’re seeing?
My library is my most favorite room in the house. Obviously, this is where I keep my cookbooks, all 200+ of them. More than half of those books are about baking, because that’s the heart of my food obsession. The books are arranged by subject: bread, chocolate, cakes, cookies, pies, and general baking. I’ll think twice about plopping P5,000 for anything, but for baking books, it’ll be mine in a heartbeat.

2. Most recommended?
Chocolate, American Style by Lora Brody, the two “Luscious” books by Lori Longbotham, Baking by Flavor by Lisa Yockelson, and anything by Elinor Klivans.

3. Cookbook that made you what you were?
Baking Illustrated by the Editors of Cook’s Illustrated Magazine and How Baking Works by Paula Figoni. Understanding the science behind baking has made me a better baker and helped me to understand my craft more deeply. It’s also given me the ability to look at recipes and do away with ones that won’t work or give me the product I’m looking for (i.e. why waste my time on a recipe for chewy chocolate chip cookies when what I want are crunchy?).

4. Porniest cookbook?
Intercourses (An Aphrodisiac Cookbook) by Martha Hopkins and Randall Lockridge. I don’t cook from this book, don’t see any reason why I should, but it IS food porn at its truest: pictures of a woman’s torso covered seductively in peanuts, a hand dripping in honey, a man’s well-chiseled chest serving as a table for freshly-shucked oysters… you get the picture.

5. Sophie’s Choice cookbook?
The tall yellow spiral notebook over by the Venetian mask. It’s a bit hidden from view. The notebook is where I detail all my baking experiments and how they turned out. I even have a star system for the recipes, similar to what food critics use for restaurants: three stars for a keeper, and one or (no) star for never again!

6. If you were a cookbook, which cookbook would you be?
The one with the glossiest paper and the most drool-inducing pictures. Ha! In this case, Marcel Desaulniers’ Chocolate Cakes. That man is chocolate-evil incarnate. His recipes are way too involved for my taste, but his pictures make me want to lick the pages.

7. If your cookbook were extremely valuable, so valuable you might hide it with other valuables, where would that place be?
My cookbooks are valuable, no doubt about it. They’ll stay in my library.