My 5 favorite cookbooks of 2010

2010.12.21

2010 marked my foray into the magical & mysterious land of New Year's Resolutions. It was my personal mission to this year A) learn how to cook, and B) explore vegetarianism for health reasons. And also curiosity. It's now December 2010 & I'm happy to report I knocked both of them out of the park! Couldn't be prouder.

I cooked my little pants off this year and learned how to make a million things (thanks to the help of my knowledgeable, healthy, fantastic, food-loving friends including Shawn, Leslie, Chandra, Shea, Marcus, Matt, Sarah & a huge cast of other amazing people who patiently listened to, and answered, all my noob questions). I also became 100% vegetarian which was a bit of a surprise, but a happy one nonetheless.

Along the way I've learned a metric f*ton about food & cooking, so in these final moments of our year I thought I'd share some of my most favorite, now worn & tattered & stained & deeply loved, cookbooks and food-related books.

1. "Super Natural Cooking" by Heidi Swanson. This is hands down my most favorite cookbook of the year. Maybe the decade! Not only did it teach me an incredible, mind-blowing amount of information about beans, fruits, vegetables, flour, gluten, shopping, sauces, nuts, and other things I didn't know existed until this year, but I tried counting how many of these recipes have become a staple @ Chez Sopheava and kept losing track. The pine nut pesto, the roasted tomato & paprika soup, the winter gratin, & the banana [chocolate] espresso muffins...all so delicious, and perfect, and now hold a special place in my heart. Amen.

2. "Eating Animals" by Jonathan Safran Foer. This is not a cookbook. If you are vaguely interested about the process of how your meat, poultry, & fish go from being on a farm to your dinner table, and you have a strong stomach (I cannot express this part enough), this is the book for you. I was already pescetarian when this book came into my life (THANKYOU! friend who gifted this) but this was the book that made me 100% vegetarian. I learned a lot about the farmers my money supports & what I'm comfortable putting in my body.

3. "Cook with Jamie" and "Jamie's Food Revolution" by Jamie Oliver. Jamie Oliver wins the award for Most Beautifully Designed books. I don't know how he surrounded himself with a harem of ridiculously talented photographers, food stylists, and graphic designers but his books are probably bound with unicorn-glue and sprinkled in fairy dust. "Cook with Jamie" is a great primer on the basics of food & running your kitchen, and it spent a good month on my bedside table because of the sheer quantity & detail of information.

4. "The Joy of Cooking." This book needs no introduction right? If you need a pancake recipe, there it is. Crepes, omelettes, roasted eggplant, broiled chicken, cupcakes, and basically everything you can conjure is in this book. It's the perfect reference for, well, everything. Several pages are already stained & crusty with kitchen love.

5. "A Homemade Life" by Molly Wizenberg. You may know her as the brilliant, approachable, always-has-fantastic-photos, food blogger Orangette, but she wrote this book too which is basically a huge love story to her family & food. Each chapter is a beautifully written story about her mom & dad (and all the other special people in her life) followed with the recipes that pull chapters together, like punctuation marks rather than main courses. It's so touching & happy that basically I want her life now. This one stayed on my bedside table for a good 2 months and sent me to sleep with so many happy dreams I can't even tell you. I might have even become misty eyed a few times but that's just a rumor...

Ok this last one is cheating because I got it as a Christmas pressie from Leslie just tonight!, but she gave me "The New York Times Cookbook" and I predict it'll be really big in 2011. It's going on the bedside table already!

Next up: 2011 New Year's Resolutions! ... and the awkward realization I just confessed to keeping cookbooks on my bedside table.