Cookbooks

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Do they count as fiction or reference in your house? I don't buy so many of them, but used to have a few that I'd look through every week, waiting for something nice to appear. A bit like opening the fridge door a hundred times a day, even though you know just what's in it.

Some of them look fabulous but there's very little that would be used on a daily basis, they're almost in the realm of fantasy!

The cookbooks I actually cook from are usually the more basic ones, with an occasional bit of input from a recipe in a magazine.

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When I was young I loved the coffee table type ones. I only have a couple in reality though. I remember K-mart is good for those type of books.

I bought quite a few Women's Weekly ones many years ago, now we only get them through that bookclub or fundraiser one they have in offices, like the school or the doctors, hairdressers etc. I don't look at them enough, sometimes I go back and find gems in there. The most recent was a small Family Circle one I think, and loved looking at the picture of rock cakes. What a treat my kids are missing out on. I wish I would just make some.

Magazines are great, but I am getting frustrated with them. They get their stuff off the net. One day I did a thread only to find a magazine editor looked at exactly the same websites as I did. I think it was to do with apples. I do give them credit as they do a little more cooking before they publish it. Although we have tried out lots of recipes from the net.

I was really excited to see a recipe for Fejoida once. I had already worked out how to do it myself with help from a message board. They asked a lady who had lived there. I didn't like the sound of hers to be honest, but will only know if I make it.

To be fair, I have devoured all the arugula or rocket recipes with relish and have recently gone through some older ones and found some more interesting things. We made one the other day, meatballs with sweet and sour sauce and holkein noodles. I think we wrecked it to be honest, and thought the meatballs would have been better in our case squashed out into rissoles, that part we enjoyed.

Do you fry or boil holkein noodles, are they worth perservering with? My Mum said the meatballs would have been nice in the oven like the recipe suggested.

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Interesting about the recipes coming from websites, Br. The www. is such a huge resource that I suppose even food editors can get inspiration from there!

As for your noodles, I'm hopeless with Asian cuisine. Don't know why, I follow the directions etc. but they never quite work. I think owning a wok would be a help - I don't have one. Perhaps someone has a brilliant cookbook filled with instructions on Asian cooking. Actually, didn't the highly respected Kylie Kwong publish one recently?

I actually go to the library for the really big, expensive cookbooks. One day ..... I shall hunt for the Stephanie Alexander book, also the Elizabeth David one. There's a terrific Jewish cookbook at the library (by an American, forget her name) with lots of wonderfully comforting recipes.

Wonder if the Marie Clare magazine-sized cookbooks are as popular in the States as they are over here? The food looks fabulous, but a family would probably starve if that's all they ate!

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I haven't borrowed a cookbook for years. So I followed your lead and borrowed a very new Maggie Beer book, and also a Maggie Beer and Stephanie Alexander Tuscan book.

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I found Kylie's recipe for the noodles and put in on another thread. Still a little confused. I love her jelly cakes and that is how I found her site in the first place, but I haven't checked out the jelly cakes irl yet.

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Oooh, I'd forgotten about Maggie Beer, Br. There's a gourmet supermarket not far from us that sells her products. I've seen her pate around, but she also does pasta sauces and other wonderful (and expensive) condiments.

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My daughter just came back from the library with these books, and a country style magazine and a fiction book, just when I had run out of reading material. Will let you all know what I think.