Great cooking begins lots of places. So many that I hate to say "a good dish starts with ingredients," or "a good dish starts at the farmer's market," or "a great dinner begins with a good recipe," because the truth is, there are so many components to creating a great dish that it's hard to know which is the most important. No matter how much you read, you can't be a great cook if you don't get in the kitchen; on the other hand, as with anything, it is also difficult to be a great cook without studying.
Good dishes definitely begin with great ingredients, preferably in season, well-treated, and local. But they also begin with a solid base. It can be intimidating learning how to cook, how to treat ingredients well, how to match flavors. It certainly isn't an instant process. That is why it is important to know just a few basics which will give you great results to encourage you to keep cooking.
If you are new to cooking, I highly recommend that you start easy. Lots of people flippantly say "oh, I can't cook," but I find it hard to believe that some people just can't cook. However, lot of people don't like to cook and that's just fine. But if you would like to learn how to cook or would like to learn how to be a better cook, I thought I'd gather a few of my personal favorite books to get you started.
If you are a beginner, I highly recommend anything from Donna Hay. Donna Hay is the laid-back, Aussie version of Martha Stewart. The recipes rarely include more than 10 ingredients, the cookbooks are reasonably priced, the pictures are beautiful, and - my favorite - there are photos of every dish. One thing I really like about the Donna Hay cookbooks are the small sections which give base recipes with variations. This totally fits in with my long desire to have basic methods and recipes upon which I can build. Donna Hay books contain influences from many different cuisines, so they aren't boring. Some of the ingredients can be hard to find, but there are lots of Asian ingredients, so you'll be a step ahead if you shop in some of our great Asian grocery stores. I am particularly fond of the Modern Classics and Flavors books from Donna Hay.
For an education on tastes, flavor matching, and inspiration, I love Culinary Artistry by Andrew Dorenburg and Karen Page. This book contains lists of ingredients and what other flavors they pair well with; the book is alphabetical and cross-referenced, making it a pleasure to use. The book also contains quotes and wisdom from chefs, along with menus and recipes. The recipes are a little more advanced, but for every cook from beginner to advanced, the simple lists of flavor matches are a great place to start. The authors have a new book out, the Flavor Bible, which also looks great. I haven't yet seen a copy so I can only recommend it based upon my love of Culinary Artistry and What to Drink with What You Eat.
Another great cookbook author and celebrity chef is Ina Garten. Ina's cookbooks are large and filled with great photos, and her recipes are impeccable. Everything works. She might be one of the few chefs who truly give their best recipe for a dish and then tests it to be sure it will turn out for the home chef. Everything I've made from her recipes - especially baked goods - are just as good as she says they will be. One thing I love about the books is while many of the recipes are very simple, they produce great dishes. Her instructions are clear and there is frequently a nice anecdote to go along with each recipe. I really like the Barefoot Contessa cookbook.
For beginning cooks who want to learn lots of great information with a quick read, I highly recommend Michael Ruhlman's Elements of Cooking. Using his method to make stock changed my life. He also goes into great detail about foundational ingredients and how to treat them.
It was always a great distress to me that our city has never had a comprehensive food section in our newspaper, and I envy cities like New York their slew of food writers, taking up everything from the most simple to the most difficult cooking challenges. Fortunately for Columbus, a few of us foodbloggers have done our best to pick up the slack. Probably my favorite food section writer is Mark Bittman, who writes "The Minimalist" food column for the New York Times. Not only does Bittman produce enormous and comprehensive cookbooks, he also got the world making bread again when he paired up with baker Jim Lahey and taught us to make no-knead bread. One of his works I most loved, however, was a column which appeared during the summer of 2007, which listed 100 meal ideas for the summertime. This column should be laminated and placed in your farmers market shopping bag, because it is so easy to skim and it really sparks the idea machine when confronted with tons of great ingredients and it's hot and no one wants to cook. Bittman's cookbooks are some of the best currently being produced. They are chock full of useful information and each contains a dizzying number of recipes (but alas, no pictures).
For an introduction on why you should think twice about eating fast food, or really meat from any unknown origin, check out Fast Food Nation by investigative journalist Eric Schlosser. I recommend this over other, more recent books primarily because it is written for any audience, no matter what level they are on the eating-responsibly ladder. You will never look at a McDonald's commercial the same.
This, of course, is just a brief list, there are hundreds of great books out there. What are your favorites?
