Keeper cookbooks in the age of the Google cooking school?

HALLIE EPHRON: A few weeks ago, I opened the cabinet where I keep my cookbooks and several of them fell out on my head -- nature's tactful way of telling me I had too many crammed in there. 

And why am I keeping them, anyway, because most recipes I need are out on the Internet along with endlessly entertaining reader reviews (about how this person left out the salt or sugar or cilantro, that person substituted kale for onions, or used organic almond milk instead of cream, and it came out great.)

I decided it was time to cull. These are some of what I kept, and you can see from their battered state they have been well used, their pages spattered and margins scribbled in:

• The Joy of Cooking (so well used that half of the index is missing and I had to re-cover it)
• Three cookbooks by Michael Fields, including The Michael Fields Cooking school which has a grilled, butterflied leg of lamb with egg lemon sauce to die for
• Several of Mollie Katzen's, including Moosewoods and Enchanted Broccolli Forest
• My mother's 2-volume massive set of Gourmet Cookbooks, not because I use them but because they were hers
• Several New York Times cookbooks by Craig Claiborne
• Marcella Hazan's Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking
• My booklet of Bisquick recipes that I sent away for in '75

I lugged two big bags of cookbooks to the library, and then posted the question to Facebook: What are your keeper cookbooks? Among the 70+ comments, here titles that rose to the top...

• #1: The Joy of Cooking (some mentioned the 70s edition specifically)
• Runner up: The Betty Crocker Cookbook ("that my mother/grandmother gave me when I was 18"... )
• Assorted cookbooks by Julia Child, especially Mastering the Art and Baking with Julia
• Assorted New York Times cookbooks by Craig Claiborne
• Fanny Farmer, of course
• Better Homes and Gardens ("with the red plaid cover," "for the chili, old-time beef stew, and shortbread cookie recipes")
• The Good Housekeeping Cookbook
• The Silver Palate
• Jeff Smith's The Frugal Gourmet
• Barefoot Contessa/Ina Garten cookbooks
• Nigella Lawson cookbooks

• Cooks Illustrated

Commenters mentioned more than 50 other books. Here are just a few that tickled me:

• The Mystery Chef's Own Cookbook
• Old West Baking Book by Lon Walters, 1996 ("interesting comments on chuck wagon cooking")
• The Star Wars Cook Books I & II ("simple recipes with a new twist, great for getting boys to help with cooking")
• New Karo [syrup] All American Cook Book," "The Special Collection" featuring Post cereal
• Weight Watchers
• The Hungry Girl cookbooks
• The Elvis cookbook "Are You Hungry Tonight?"
• The LooneySpoon Collection by Janet and Greta Podleski

Plus a there were some priceless comments from authors (including Lucy Burdette saying she's not giving up a single cookbook and I can't make her):

Tasha Alexander chimed in with: "I don't think anything could make me cull cookbooks. Favorites: Julia Child Mastering the Art v.1, The Pasta Book (Williams Sonoma), A Mediterranean Feast, David Lebovitz's Perfect Scoop and his Ready for Dessert, Joy of Cooking, Rick Bayless Mexican Everyday, Betty Crocker, Classical Turkish Cooking, Memories of a Cuban Kitchen, The Flavor of France, A Taste of Madras... I'm completely out of control."
Tasha adds, on cookbooks with Mom's notes in the margins: "Cookbook marginalia is essential!"

And this list of cookbooks and a tasty memory comes from author William Martin: "Silver Palate. Definitely. Craig Claiborne's NYTimes cookbook. And The Grand Central Oyster Bar Cookbook, published in 1977, the year of my first trip to NYC to talk to an editor, who gave me a copy of the book as I was leaving. I still have the book and use it whenever I buy a piece of fish. An easy and excellent recipe for bouillabaise. Oh... and he published my first novel."

So, gentle Reds, what are your keeper cookbooks? New ones? Old ones? Which have earned their keep on your shelf??

Character Building!

"Martin has a winning formula and it shines through again here. Readers follow the money and travel back in time to meet fascinating characters, while in the present, Fallon and Evangeline prove to be thoroughly compelling protagonists."
Booklist on City of Dreams


"Can I interest you in saving America?" That's what a Wall Street bigwig asks Peter Fallon. Before long, Peter and Evangeline are chasing a mahogany box containing $20,000 worth of Continental bonds from 1780--bonds that represent the unretired debt of the American Revolution. With interest, those bonds are now worth over a billion dollars.

Do you know Peter and Evangeline? To millions of readers, William Martin's creations are as familiar as Nick and Nora, as Tommy and Tuppence, as Tracy and Hepburn in Adam's Rib.

Series characters are our entry into each new mystery world. Our guides and our pals through each adventure. We root for them, and wonder what will happen in their relationship. William Martin's latest adventure with his series characters might be called a treasure hunt through time. The story drops into Manhattan history at the end of three centuries, in the midst of three financial crises, as three September disasters loom for the City of Dreams.

Listening to eloquent and compelling historian William Martin is always mesmerizing--go hear him if you get a chance! But today--he's all about his characters.

***************

Two Lovers and a Series That Spans Thirty Years

On Tuesday, Peter Fallon and his girlfriend, Evangeline Carrington, will be back for their fourth adventure in City of Dreams.

They met thirty years ago in Back Bay.

Peter was a graduate student writing his dissertation on the life of an old Yankee shipper named Horace Taylor Pratt. Evangeline was a Pratt descendant living on a trust fund that the old shipper had built over century before.

They both had what you’d call issues. Peter’s father thought his son had wasted his time earning a history PhD. instead of a law degree. So Peter was out to prove something to pa. Evangeline thought Horace and her other male ancestors had made money the old fashioned way, amorally, and she didn’t want any part of their tradition.

They got together, got into trouble, and got me onto the New York Times Best Seller list at the age of twenty-nine.

I never intended to revisit them. I went on to write five other books, only one of which, Cape Cod, was at all like Back Bay – a lost treasure, modern characters hunting for it, and in alternating chapters, the story of the treasure’s passage through history to the present.

But about twenty years later, my agent and I were brainstorming over lunch: How about a novel on the history of Harvard? Written like Back Bay. Contemporary suspense-thriller meets historical novel. The treasure? A lost Shakespeare manuscript from John Harvard’s collection of books. And maybe it’s time to revisit the protagonist of Back Bay in midlife? Make him a guy who hunts for rare books and documents, or as his ex-wife calls him, “Indiana Jones in a monogrammed shirt.”

About a quarter of the way into the book, Evangeline appeared in Peter’s office. She hadn’t seen him for fifteen years, and they started cracking wise right away.

I knew then that I had a series, with a smartass couple who argue a lot but take care of each other, too. Think Nick and Nora Charles for the twenty-first century. In some ways they’re opposites that attract, but they’re very similar, too, just like the best couples.

Harvard did so well that I gave them a wider scope in the next book – locations in all six New England states. The Lost Constitution made the Times list, too. Then I wanted to write something completely different. But the pubs said, “You’re on a roll. Two more Peter and Evangeline books, please.”

And when your publisher says that, don’t complain. Write. And realize that a series can give you all the freedom you want and a kind of liberating discipline, too.

You don’t have to worry so much about the main characters, because they are already there, already alive, already doing what they’ve done in other books – investigating, treasure hunting, whatever. Just make sure they do it well. That’s the discipline part.

Make them like old friends to your readers. But don’t let them go static as human beings. In each story, add something new, some bit of tension. Make them evolve.

In Back Bay, Peter and Evangeline meet. In Harvard, they re-connect after twenty years. In Constitution, they are split up and must re-connect. In their latest, City of Dreams, Peter’s old girlfriend shows up and it’s… big trouble.

At the end of Constitution, Peter and Evangeline had decided to get married. As this novel begins, Evangeline is in New York, her city of dreams, in a rare book store. She’s shopping for a wedding present for Peter. She’s advancing their relationship, to use the writing-class term, when something larger intervenes: she overhears a conversation about a box of ancient bonds that may still be accruing interest.

She calls Peter, and the story takes off into the history of New York. Readers return for the familiarity in a series, but they stay for the new complications. The love relationship between Peter and Evangeline is the glue that holds the books together.

Hitchcock made the greatest thrillers, but they were always about the love relationship. Remember Cary Grant and Eva Marie Saint?

I’ll only tell you that at the end of City of Dreams, Peter and Evangeline haven’t gotten married yet. My editor likes it that way. He thinks it gives more tension to their relationship. (What, Mr. Editor, sir? You don’t think there can be tension in a marriage?) Not sure what will happen. I’ll just have to wait till their next adventure to see. But that’s the fun of it.

HANK: Thanks, Bill! And now, Jungle Red will give away a signed copy of City of Dreams to a lucky commenter! Just tell us your favorite series character! (Peter and Evangeline count of course! And so do Charlie McNally and Josh, Rebecca, Cassie Burdette, Peter Zak and Annie, Hallie Aherne, Lady Georgie, Molly, Paula Holliday...) But tell us your choice!