First of all, I have to say that I am a Junior League/Service League cookbook collector junkie. They are all great and I have not found a bad one yet. Anytime we travel, I try to pick up a memento cookbook from that city. So far, I have collected books from Little Rock, New Orleans, Denver, Birmingham, Houston, Dallas (this is an antique one that I LOVE), Kansas City, Watlerloo/Cedar Falls, Tulsa, Reno, Wilmington (NC), St. Louis, Springfield (MO), Enid (OK), and Stillwater (OK). Stir Ups (from Enid) and Jambalaya (from New Orleans) are my two favorites.
I have included ALL of my “go to” books here. You will notice a couple of antiques among the list from my grandmother’s collection.
| Best Recipes from the Cook Book Guild. Ed. Patricia Fink. New York: Doubleday, 1972. |
| Betty Crocker’s Cookbook (New and Revised). New York: Golden Press, 1986. |
| Gourmet Cookbook, The. Ed. Ruth Reichl. New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2004. |
| Household Searchlight Recipe Book, The. Topeka: Household Magazine, 1942. |
| Junior League of New Orleans. Jambalaya (15th Anniversary Edition). Memphis: Wimmer, 1983. |
| Junior Welfare League, Enid, OK. Stir Ups. Memphis: S.C. Toof and Company, 1982. |
| Kelley, Jeanne. Blue Eggs and Yellow Tomatoes. Philadelphia: Running Press, 2008. |
| Lawson, Nigella. Nigella Bites. New York: Hyperion, 2002. |
| Leone, Gene. Leone’s Italian Cookbook. New York: Harper & Row, 1967 |
| Rombauer, Irma S., Marion Rombauer Becker, and Ethan Becker. The Joy of Cooking 75th Anniversary Edition. New York: Scribner, 2006. |
| *Wilbur, Todd. Top Secret Restaurant Recipes. New York: Plume, 1997. |
| Wood, Margaret. A Painter’s Kitchen: Recipes from the Kitchen of Georgia O’Keefe. Santa Fe: Museum of New Mexico Press, 2009. |
*I am a bit embarrassed to include this one, but it has an awesome French toast recipe and a great BBQ sauce recipe!
If you have a cookbook that you can’t live without, pleast post a comment.