Tinker, Baker, BBQer, Reheater

It is easy to find a book for your specific kitchen interest. There are cookbooks instructing a cook in the ways of French, Italian, Californian, Crockpots, Chinese, Thai, Indian, vegetarian, baking, baking galore – cookies, pies, cakes, muffins. There are books about 30 minute meals or if time isn’t a constraint but shopping lists are you can consult books on how to make meals with 5 or fewer ingredients. The fire builders can purchase textbooks from BBQ-U, while at the other end of the spectrum vegans can get instructions from their own kind. There are endless titles for cooking from farmers markets or for those more brand specific: Both Trader Joe's and Whole Foods have branded titles to help you cook after shopping, fortunately the Safeway cookbook is still a ways away.

The hard part isn’t finding instruction and advice for your specific interests, the trouble comes finding one title for all the bits of cooking that you do infrequently. What cookbook is going to reliably walk you through the biannual cookie baking, the occasional lasagna and offer practical advice on artichokes, trout or vinaigrette? For everyone who grew up in a house with a kitchen there was THAT cookbook – Fannie Farmer, Betty Crocker, Joy of Cooking or growing up in the Saucyhome it was Better Homes and Gardens in the convenient 3 ring binder that answered all or your questions reasonably if not spectacularly.

Now in the age of hyper-specialization, it is a little bit harder to find a title that guides a cook through the basics – both recipes and techniques. It is like the library only checking out books on Frank Geary when you need to know how to build a foundation. So what is the best basic cookbook for the modern cook?

Before endorsing the primary culinary reference for the neophyte cook, there are two upstarts worth looking at - The Best Recipe from the editors of Cook’s Illustrated and Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Everything.

The Best Recipe offers 700 recipes for $35. Chris Kimball et al's. painstaking, exhaustive approach produces nearly foolproof recipes maybe at the cost of being pedantic but do you want charisma from a plumber or car mechanic? Nope, you want accuracy. Cook’s Illustrated Consumer Reports mentality to testing and recommending equipment, recipes and products isn’t going to ever be the trendiest method but it does make for trustworthy endorsements.

Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Everything, also $35. In the second expanded and revised edition of Everything Bittman offers 2000 recipes and 400 illustrations for people who want to cook in the modern world not recreate questionable dishes their parents and grandparents made. The recipes are straightforward, reductionist, user-friendly and bolster people with the confidence to get up and do it. Bittman’s How to Cook Everything Vegetarian is the book for people who abstain from meat: Please no Katzen – Broccoli Forests are not enchanted and Moosewood doesn’t teach people how to cook, only how to cover food in feta cheese or yogurt.

Either of the above titles is a good solid kitchen reference but the Joy of Cooking wins the Saucyman gift endorsement. I have a love/hate relationship with the Joy but it is a book I can always find a traditional recipe and sound advice. It is a culinary resource The NY Times calls “The Swiss Army Knife of cookbooks”, but when has anyone ever used a Swiss Army knife when they can use the real version of the tool instead? The volume is like a pair of sensible shoes unfussy, practical and will undoubtedly get you from point a to point b. The problem with the Joy is it is like a pair of sensible shoes, occasionally you want to look nice and have people notice.

Also listed at $35, Joy is a solid albeit unspectacular gift choice - the book/gift equivalent of socks and underwear but eventually everyone needs both.

Keeping in the seasonal spirit, Saucyman closes out the week with two gift recommendations that every cook or part time baker needs.