业余美食家Adam Roberts's Favorite Cookbooks

Adam Roberts posts about his dinner party successes on业余美食家但他不隐藏失败。在一个品脱的世界erest-perfect sites that can make cooking feel even more intimidating, Adam shares the recipes he loves and the techniques he's learned, without making anyone feel bad for being a beginner cook or baker.

Running a food blog for more than a decade means that Adam has quite a cookbook collection: he's edited it down to around 150 titles. I asked him about his favorite books for beginners, his favorite sources for dinner inspiration, and the lesser-known cookbooks he loves. Here's what he had to say.

When did you start collecting cookbooks?I have a memory: I'm in college, senior year, and my then-boyfriend Michael and I are in a bookstore in the Phipps Mall, killing time before going to see a movie, and I spyThe Betty Crocker Cookbook. That was the first cookbook that I ever bought and I went home and made chili out of it, which was pretty good. The next ones that came along wereThe Barefoot Contessabooks; soon after I discovered theChez Panissebooks and the collection grew from there.

What lesser-known cookbooks do you think deserve more love?So I moved to L.A. three years ago, and one of the best things that's happened to me here is that I've discovered a treasure trove of cookbooks at used bookstores in both my old neighborhood (Franklin Village) and my new neighborhood (Atwater Village). In particular, I've picked up books likeThe Food of Campanileby Mark Peel and Nancy Silverton,Simple Pleasuresby Alfred Portale,The Lutece Cookbookby Andre Soltner,The Cooking of Southwest Franceby Paula Wolfert, and—most recently—Jacques Pepin Celebratesby Jacques Pepin.

These books harken back to a time that was less about the flash and dazzle of food TV, or the cult-like worship of influential food figures, and more about a deep, all-encompassing love and respect for food and all its possibilities. These cookbooks aren't easy—I've yet to cook from the Wolfert one—but I love their specificity and how carefully researched and tested they all are. The voices behind them are passionate and genuine, which is rarer and rarer in these days of InstaFoodCelebrity.

What cookbook would you recommend for beginner cooks?The Barefoot Contessa books are all good starter books because Ina (we're on a first-name basis) knows how to achieve maximum impact with a minimal amount of steps. I'm a firm believer that, when you're starting out cooking, you want to see big results; you want things to be so flavorful and so good, that you're immediately convinced it was worth all the time and energy it took to make dinner. Ina's books get you there, and that's saying a lot.

That said, a more quirky choice—and one that I've been cooking from quite a bit—isStaff Mealsby David Watluck. The recipes in there are all very straightforward: a good one for hummus (which I bloggedhere), a good one for black bean soup, etc. If you want to choose something more unconventional, I'd go with that.

What cookbook do you turn to for inspiration?The second shelf down from the top of my cookbook collection holds all my heavy hitters, the ones I turn to the most frequently for ideas: theOttolenghibooks,The Zuni Cafe Cookbook, Molly Stevens'sAll About Braising, Michael Symon'sLive to Cook(an underrated gem—everything in it is superb, especially thechili), mySuzanne Goinbooks, my Chez Panisse books, and the previously mentionedStaff Meals.

真正教你somethi食谱ng new?I'm madly in love with April Bloomfield'sA Girl and Her Pig; it's packed with so many good ideas. From it, I learned that you get a cleaner Caesar dressing if you use grapeseed oil instead of olive oil; thatcitrus in a curry works wonders; and that the secret ingredient to a superior panzanella salad is anchovy.

What's your favorite cookbook for Italian food?I most often turn to myLidia Bastianichbooks—her PBS show (which you can also watch on Hulu) taught me more about cooking, probably, than anything else. The dish that my partner Craig requests the most isCavatappi with Sun-Dried Tomatoes and Cannelini Beans, a Lidia dish.

That said, I also turn toMarcella Hazan(her simple tomato sauce is a favorite) and Mario Batali, whose books once provoked an argument with a friend who claimed that Mario didn't really write them, that he farmed them out. Nowadays, as his empire grows and grows, that actually may be true to some extent, but his early books—Simple Italian Food,The Babbo Cookbook,Molto Italiano—are all terrific.

What newer cookbooks impressed you recently?Suzanne Goin's newA.O.C. Cookbook从t是一个礼物吗he food gods, especially because her business partner and sommelier, Caroline Styne, pairs every dish with wine and writes about it in such a clear-cut, relatable way, even a troglodyte like me feels like Paul Giamatti's character in Sideways after I put the book down.

David Lebovitz'sMy Paris Kitchenis such a gorgeous book, I literally want to tear the pages out and nail them to my wall. Plus the recipes—includingthese caramel ribs—are just as extraordinary as you'd expect any David Lebovitz recipe to be. I've also been enjoying Lisa Fain's newHomesick Texan's Family Table, which captures a cuisine I don't know a lot about and that makes me hungry to know more.

What older cookbooks do you love?Well, in addition to all the gems I mentioned above, I have some quirkier books in my collection that I enjoy just for the novelty: Mary and Vincent Price'sCome Into the Kitchen, Robin Leach'sThe Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous Cookbook(it's hilarious, I love to show it off to dinner guests; you can see Kardashians in there in the '80s!), Uta Hagen'sLove for Cooking, Craig Claiborne'sVeal Cookery(a whole book of veal recipes which I may actually cook from some day),The Graham Kerr Cookbookfrom 1969, andBless This Food: The Anita Bryant Family Cookbook, which I own for camp value.