What cookery books do you recommend?

[batoutofhell]

Love to snuggle up in bed with a mug of hot chocolate and a good cookery book to read.

I know quite sad.

What cookery books can anyone recommend as a good and informative read?

hana, I quite like Tana Ramsay's book. Her recipe for Morocan Chicken and Prunes is a favourite in our house.

Oh you will enjoy Feast I think if you like How to Eat. I don't have that one but do have Nigella Bites which I have used a lot too.
My classic 'Anything you could possibly need is in here' recipe book is my Good Housekeeping step by step Cookbook, but Nigella is a far superior read!

Echo all of these recommendations. I also love Diner Desserts by Tish Boyle, it's the one Nigella refers to in her choc fudge cake recipe in "Bites" and it's fabulous, lots of cream and butter-laden extravaganzas - the Devil's Food Cake was amazing! It's a good read, there are anecdotes with every recipe, not many photos of food but lots of b&w diner pics.

Do you know that libraries stock lots of cookery books? I have started getting hem for me when I take the kids, and then typing up the recipes I want to try out

Love Bill Granger's stuff and also the Moro cookbook is great.

I love delia for her christmas one.

TBH I use the bbc website more than anything!

A rubbish one is that river cottage cafe one. Utter garbage.

Leith's Vegetarian Bible is always open in my kitchen. There is a non vego one.

River Cottage Meat Book is fab.

I have just done a quick count of cookery books and we have 39.

I second the River Cottage Meat book. Not only does it have great recipes but great advice on where meat comes from and the best ways to buy it.

We have too many (unused) cookery books. I have just bought another from The Book People - it's th Abel and Cole one about seasonal eating. Will try to find link - something like "out of the box" - looks like a good read as well as recipes.

The actual recipes I like usually come from a Sainsbury's book they did a couple of years back calle "Family" or else "The Dinner Lady" by Jeanette Orrey is good but her portions are HUGE (even if you only do the 4 person not the 96 person portions!!)

I have a 1950's copy of the Good Housekeeping book - it's great, particularly when it tells you that good servants are hard to find, and you could manage nowadays with just hiring one girl for dinner parties but you had to keep the menu simple! Saying that, it has the best recipes I have found for my cookie press and waffle machine.

\link{http://www.thebookpeople.co.uk/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/productSearch_10001_10051_50088_100___10_SimpleSearch_2_1_2__basicSearch_\Abel and Cole Cooking outside the Box]

Abel and cole Cooking outside the box

Bill Granger and Donna Hay as well as jamie, nigela

I have donna hay too, they are beautifully illustrated.
I also use cranks books for cakes or biscuits
jamie oliver - excellent - I find him irritating though. There is an excellent party cake recipe in the return if the naked chef. it is a v rich chocolate cake recipe which i have made on several occasions. would love some more recommendations.
marguerete patten is also very good
I also use some of the recipe cards from waitrose which I often modify quite alot - I miss out or substitute any ingredient I don't like the sound of
Delia - use some of her meat and casserole recipes

Leiths Baking Bible is fab.
Also Leiths Vegetarian Bible.
I also like the River Cafe books.

Agree with paula about the Good Housekeeping books. They're for plain and simple stuff. Mine is my mum's from the 70s and it has a recipe for biscuits called nignogs.

Hana - I think the Tara Ramsey book would be good if you don't have any other cook books or you are a beginner in the kiychen. I dont think i've done even one recipe from it and it just sits on my shelf.
In fact, would anyone like to buy it?????

Batoutofhell - The River Cottage family cookbook makes a good read I think and is quite inspirational.

FioFio - I have a copy of the Dairy Book too! I was given my first one for my 18th birthday but the one I use now is a tad more up to date.

Anthony Bourdain - Kitchen Confidential and The Nasty Bits and Les Halles, only the last one is a cook book in terms of giving recipes but the others are fabulous

Try Julian Barnes' "The Pedant in the Kitchen" and anything by Edouard de Pomiane ("Cooking in Ten Minutes" or "Cooking with Pomiane") - superb reads

Califrau, what's that about Sunchowder's Emporia with MN recipes? Is it a book?

Fio, there were two of those and I quite agree, they are fantastic . We use them all the time.
Also we love Elizabeth David, Nigel Slater and Katie Stewart for fool-proof basics like sauces and batters.
We are also rediscovering lovely, sensible Simon Hopkinson with the reissue of Roast Chicken and Other Stories.
But the book we use most of all is Josceline Dimbleby's Cook's Companion. Whatever repulsive knobbly thing turns up in our organic veg box, she will be able to tell you what it is and something nice you can do with it. She is an unsung hero of British cookery - too shy to do TV properly but what a genius she is.

I have a 1978 edition of the Dairy Cookbook - which we still use regularly for the basics.

Also have several Delias, 2 fat ladies, Jamie Oliver, a set of M&S books and loads of other modern stuff.