Weekend Cooking: A Look at My Cookbook Shelves 2

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It's been a long time since I showed you my bookshelves, so thought I give you a peek (click to enlarge). This (bad) photo shows part of one of my walls of cookbooks. Yes, I have two walls of cookbooks, cookbooks on the floor, cookbooks in several rooms. I keep telling myself to cull them, but I guess it ain't gonna happen.

So what do we have on these shelves? A mishmash of old and new--some I use a lot and some I hardly ever look at.

I'll give you a quick overview of the books that I particularly like in case you want to find a copy for yourself. Many of these deserve their very own Weekend Cooking post, and I hope to feature them in the coming weeks and months. If you click on the photos, you'll be able to read the spines.

Upper shelf:This seems to be a shelf of heavy-hitters. There are a couple of books by Bert Greene (including a memoir with recipes), two by Simone Beck, the first M. F. K. Fisher book I read, two by Waverly Root, and an Edna Lewis. I see a couple on the foods of Britain and even one called Time for Tea.

Upper middle shelf:
Another shelf with some famous names, such as James Beard, Michael Field, Diana Kennedy, more Bert Greene, Guiliano Bugialli, and Elizabeth David. Featured flavors are South America, Russian, Southern USA, and a variety of vegetarian and vegetable books. There is also the original paperback edition of On Food and Cooking, which was updated and re-released last fall.

Bottom middle shelf:
This shelf seems to hold some media giants, like Nigella Lawson, Bobby Flay, Sara Moulton, and Lynne Rossetto Kasper (from The Splendid Table). You can also see some of my Moosewood cookbooks and a number of bread cookbooks.

Bottom shelf:
You can barely see these books, I know! On this shelf you'll find Madhur Jaffrey and Ruth Reichl plus books on Thai, Italian, Brazilian, Southern, West Coast, and vegetarian cooking. Oh, and that little brown paperback next to the Segram's book is Laurel's Kitchen. A vegetarian cookbook from the mid-1970s, and one that everyone in those days cooked out of at one time or another. It's kind of a hippie classic.

As I said, looking over just these partial shelves has given me ideas for future Weekend Cooking posts and has reminded me of what fun it can be to browse one's own cookbook collection.