Joy of Cooking

Well, this isn't a book I've read, per se. But it is a book that I got recently and have been spending some time with. There was a groupon to get it at significantly less than it's standard listing price, and I figured that since I love cooking so much (see cooking blog), it would be good to have a classic like this on hand.

Joy of Cooking, 75th Edition
By Irma von Starkloff Rombauer, Marion Rombauer Becker, Ethan Becker

I have definitely used the internet much more than the couple of cookbooks I have, but I thought a standard like this should definitely have a place on my shelf. I've made a few cookie recipes, a pork shoulder roast, and a loaf of bread from it so far, and I do like it. I think the format is a bit different, what with the ingredients listed as you use them and amongst the direction text, but I'm adjusting to it. I'm excited to read more about different things and learn about food from it. It has pretty extensive descriptions at the beginning of each chapter about the food and how to identify different characteristics about it and work with it.

Excerpts from the book summary:

Seventy-five years ago, a St. Louis widow named Irma Rombauer took her life savings and self-published a book called The Joy of Cooking. Her daughter Marion tested recipes and made the illustrations, and they sold their mother-daughter project from Irma's apartment. 

Today, nine revisions later, the Joy of Cooking -- selected by The New York Public Library as one of the 150 most important and influential books of the twentieth century -- has taught tens of millions of people to cook, helped feed and delight millions beyond that, answered countless kitchen and food questions, and averted many a cooking crisis. 

It features a rediscovery of the witty, clear voices of Marion Becker and Irma Rombauer, whose first instructions to the cook were "stand facing the stove." 

JOY remains the greatest teaching cookbook ever written. Reference material gives cooks the precise information they need for success. New illustrations focus on techniques, including everything from knife skills to splitting cake layers, setting a table, and making tamales. This edition also brings back the encyclopedic chapter Know Your Ingredients. The chapter that novices and pros alike have consulted for over thirty years has been revised, expanded, and banded, making it a book within a book. Cooking Methods shows cooks how to braise, steam, roast, sauté, and deep-fry effortlessly, while an all-new Nutrition chapter has the latest thinking on healthy eating -- as well as a large dose of common sense.