Five cookbooks meme

My blogging friend Obachan tagged me with this meme. It’s a natural because I love books even more than I love cooking.

1. Total number of cookbooks I've owned

An easy question for someone who keeps a book database and whose cooking infatuation is recent enough that I have yet to do a book purge. 42.

2. Last cookbook I bought

Three of them: Quick and Easy Thai and Real Thai by Nancie McDermott, and Growing Up in a Korean Kitchen by Hi Soo Shin Hepinstall.

3. Last food book I read

Real Thai by Nancie McDermott.

4. Five cookbooks that mean a lot to me

(in semi-chronological order)

The Frugal Gourmet by Jeff Smith was the first cookbook I read for fun. It gave me recipes back when I was just learning how to cook for myself, and many of those recipes remain favorites.

Japanese Family-Style Recipes by Hiroko Urakami showed me that I didn’t have to depend on restaurants for good Japanese food; I could cook it myself! This basic lesson surely emboldened me to try cooking other “exotic” cuisines later on.

Asian Ingredients by Bruce Cost gave me a buyer’s guide to my local Asian supermarket, and it introduced me to many foods I never knew existed. Some of them I even came to love.

Everyday Asian by Marnie Henricksson gave me accessible recipes from a host of Asian countries, and presented them in such a simple, friendly and fail-safe fashion that successful results were almost guaranteed. This book gave me a culinary tour beyond Japan and China and encouraged me to explore further.

The Bountiful Container by Rose Marie Nichols McGee and Maggie Stuckey is a bit of a cheating pick (though it does include recipes). This book showed me that I could grow my own produce and eat it, and that the best way of getting some obscure ingredients was to plant them myself.

5. Which five people would you most like to see fill this out in their blog

This meme has already made the rounds, so finding someone who hasn’t been tagged yet is a challenge. pumpkin pie bungalow’s history of the meme was invaluable in trying to come up with a short list.

bacon press
Cuisine Capers
FoodNerd!
OsloFoodie
words to eat by

Not that I’m exactly sure how one tags someone. Leaving a random comment on someone’s blog takes a little more gumption than I usually have. Hmm. Maybe I’ll just post this now and get up the gumption for tomorrow. Besides, I have another Thai dinner to blog.