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Collectors Issue 2008: Tasty Titles |
Tasty Titles
The essential Adirondack kitchen bookshelf
By Annette Nielsen
Considering there are nearly 2,000 cookbooks published in the United States each year, finding the ones worthy of space on your shelves can be a challenge. A great recipe collection provides inspiration for fresh finds at the farmers' market or new ideas for your pantry's bounty. Even a cookbook that may be in your collection, unopened, has a presence that inspires, reminding you of possibilities yet undiscovered. Here are more than a dozen titles that will keep you happily in the kitchen throughout the seasons, encouraging you to create great dishes to share with family and friends.
Whether your home overlooks Mount Marcy or Manhattan monoliths, build your food library with a reliable general cookbook like the new edition of Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything: Simple Recipes for Great Food (Wiley, 2008). You'll find 2,000 well-tested recipes, a vast glossary of tips and techniques, plus an extensive index in this indispensable volume written by the author of the weekly New York Times column "The Minimalist" (1056 pages, $35, hardcover, 877-762-2974, www.wiley.com).
A must-have in the North Country, where hunting and gathering are ways of life, is the L. L. Bean Game & Fish Cookbook by Angus Cameron and Judith Jones (Random House, 1983). If you're looking for a venison variation or a riff on a chicken standard using wildfowl, turn to this time-tested cookbook that celebrates the bounty of the land with nearly 500 recipes (496 pages, $26.95, hardcover, 800-793-2665, www.randomhouse.com).
And to preserve your quarry, Wilbur F. Eastman Jr. offers A Guide to Canning, Freezing, Curing & Smoking Meat, Fish & Game (Storey Publishing, 2002). Refer to this book for basic processing information, including details about smokehouses and smokers "built, bought or improvised." There are recipes for homemade beef jerky and pemmican, venison mincemeat, and various types of smoked fish (192 pages, $16.95, paperback, 800-441-5700, www.storey.com).
The Art of Simple Food (Clarkson Potter, 2007) by Alice Waters gives 200 easy-to-use recipes using local, organic and sustainable ingredients. Waters, the founder of the 37-year-old Chez Panisse restaurant in Berkeley, California, shares her passion for eating well by employing the tastiest ingredients. You'll be convinced by her "delicious revolution" and its underlying principles of eating locally, seasonally and sustainably (416 pages, $35, hardcover,www.chezpanisse.com).
To stock a local-foods pantry in the North Country, check out the Adirondack Harvest Recipes cookbook (Otis Mountain Press, 2005). It includes "What's in Season in the Adirondacks," a valuable guide for visits to farmers' markets or farm stands (88 pages, $5, hardcover, 518-962-4810, www.adirondackharvest.com).
For those gardeners who like to cook (or cooks who like to garden), look to the duo Serving Up the Harvest: Celebrating the Goodness of Fresh Vegetables by Andrea Chesman (Storey Publishing, 2007) and The Big Book of Preserving the Harvest: 150 Recipes for Freezing, Canning, Drying, and Pickling Fruits and Vegetables by Carol W. Costenbader (Storey Publishing, 2002). Chesman—who lives in a Zone 4 gardening region, similar to climatic conditions found in much of the Adirondacks—presents an edible tour of the seasons plus growing, sowing, cultivating and harvesting notes. Here you'll find creative recipes for spring peas, winter squash and everything in between (512 pages, $16.95, paperback). Partnered with Costenbader's book, you can preserve the taste of the harvest throughout the year (352 pages, $18.95, paperback).
New York State, the country's second-largest producer of apples, harvests approximately 25 million bushels annually. Olwen Woodier's Apple Cookbook (Storey Publishing, 2001) celebrates the fruit's versatility through finely tuned recipes both savory and sweet, such as sausage-and-apple stuffing, grilled tuna with apple chutney, and apple sorbet (192 pages, $10.95, paperback).
If you prefer apples in a refreshing drink, check out Cider: Making, Using & Enjoying Sweet & Hard Cider by Annie Proulx and Lew Nichols (Storey Publishing, 2003). Learn how to plan and plant a home orchard, build your own apple press and make fresh ciders (including blended and sparkling ciders). Proulx and Nichols supply great ways to create aromatic vinegars, applejack and brandy (224 pages, $14.95, paperback).
Outdoor cooking is synonymous with spending time in the Adirondacks and The Great American Camping Cookbook by Scott Cookman (Broadway Books, 2007) offers hikers, campers, canoeists and others who cook outside plenty of practical advice, plus 100 tasty, traditional recipes. Cookman's experience as a writer for Field & Stream lends credibility to his compilation of fresh foods that last longest without refrigeration, energy-rich dishes for trekkers who require a light load, as well as grocery and supply lists (288 pages, $17.95, paperback, 800-793-2665, www.broadwaybooks.com).
In colder weather we all look forward to comfort food. The Ski House Cookbook: Warm Winter Dishes for Cold Weather Fun by Tina Anderson and Sarah Pinneo (Clarkson Potter, 2007) provides recipes for hearty breakfasts, après-ski snacks, slow-cooking soups, stews and one-pot meals, as well as sweets and hand-warming beverages to sip in front of the fire. Whether you're a year-round resident or a weekender, visit the book's "Stocking the Pantry, Refrigerator and Freezer" section for expert guidance on preparing satisfying midwinter meals (192 pages, $30, hardcover, 800-793-2665, www.clarksonpotter.com).
William Rubel's The Magic of Fire: Hearth Cooking: One Hundred Recipes for the Fireplace or Campfire (Ten Speed Press, 2002) emphasizes the extraordinary textures and stronger, richer and more striking flavors of fire-cooked food. Rubel's book takes you on a culinary journey to a time when open-hearth cookery relied on basic pots and pans, a couple of bricks, and the shovel and tongs from a fireplace set. Beautiful illustrations by artist Ian Everard grace the pages with antique culinary implements and instructional diagrams. Rubel's prose links quotations from Homer, Shakespeare and Dickens to recipes featuring roasted red peppers, ash- or ember-baked breads, simmering soups, steamed desserts, mulled wine, savory stews, poultry suspended by string over a low fire and elaborate roasts—even recipes for an entire Thanksgiving feast made with embers and flames (296 pages, $40, hardcover, 800-841-2665, www.tenspeed.com).
If you've enjoyed dining out in the region and want to recreate some of those special meals, The Cool Mountain Cookbook: A Gourmet Guide to Winter Retreats by Gwen Ashley Walters (Pen & Fork Communications, 2001) has many delightful recipes direct from snow country, including favorites from Adirondack hot spots. Learn the secrets behind Lake Placid Lodge's brioche French toast and roast spiced quail, or prepare a Mirror Lake Inn menu featuring savory three-onion tart and pork tenderloin saddleback with apple cranberry chutney. All this, without reservations (240 pages, $19.95, paperback, 480-488-2202, www.penandfork.com).
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