Chef’s cookbooks that actually help us cook

Today we’re presenting our final holiday list (apart of course from our Best of the Best which will go up early next week) – which hopefully still leaves some time to actually find and buy the item. And, of course, we had to have a list of cookbooks. Of the various lists we’ve seen, this one from the Los Angeles Times is probably our favorite. 12 Cookbooks from Chefs that Can Make Us Better Cooks  tells us which chef’s cookbooks actually work in a home kitchen.

The L.A. Times does emphasize that they are talking about  restaurant chefs, who wrote the books while they were actively cooking: “First of all, a “chef” is not someone who is a good cook or a good recipe writer – it is someone who runs a restaurant. Julia Child may have had a television show called “The French Chef,” but she was not one and never claimed to be . Nor was I asking about people who had once been chefs and later became writers.”

So without further ado, here they are (please link to the article to read the explanation as to why they were chosen as well as a further list of those who almost made the cut):

• The Zuni Café Cookbook by Judy Rodgers 
• Happy in the Kitchen by Michel Richard
• Authentic Mexican by Rick Bayless 
• Bouchon by Thomas Keller
• Paul Prudhomme’s Louisiana Kitchen
• Chez Panisse Desserts by Lindsey Remolif Shere
• Simply French by Joël Robuchon and Patricia Wells
• Simple to Spectacular by Jean-Georges Vongerichten and Mark Bittman
• Plenty by Yotam Ottolenghi
• Cafe Boulud Cookbook by Daniel Boulud and Dorie Greenspan
• Greens Cookbook by Deborah Madison
• Sunday Suppers at Lucques by Suzanne Goin with Teri Gelber

Photo by Quentin Bacon of Warm, soft chocolate cake; recipe by Jean-Georges Vongerichten and Mark Bittman