My kitchen is my pride and joy. Since we moved to the country I’ve been able to live out a fantasy with our large eat-in kitchen. It’s the inviting entrance of our home, framed by our front porch. It’s a place where we work, make, and of course, eat. The black and white checkered tiles are a pain to clean but the charm is well worth the effort. The original wainscotting makes the room warm and friendly, and my blue kitchen table and mixed-matched red chairs delight me every day. But most important is the sweet little built-in shelving unit beside the fridge that houses my collection of cookbooks. I can’t take credit for the display as my mother had the genius idea of mixing in my dutch ovens and some prized bowls and vessels. The shelf and the collection it holds bring me great comfort and inspiration. Most obviously it provides material to flip through when I’m stumped on what to make or I’m in a cooking rut, it helps me come up with creative meal ideas and recipes for clients, it gives me endless amounts of kitchen projects if I need one, and supplies me with ernest reading material - there’s nothing more soothing to me than reading about food and its preparation - clearly I could go on!
I’ve had the idea to share my favourites for some time, but it was hard to choose between my dear friends. I thought I would break it up into categories so this way I can tell you why I love pretty much all of what my collection holds right now. I’ll start with the books that I turn to most, a mix of old and new classics with sticky pages and weathered spines. These are the books and authors that have informed my style, established my repertoire, and the ones that keep making their way back to my bedside table.
My Go-To Cookbooks
The Kitchen Diaries by Nigel Slater
This book encapsulates all I love about cooking. It is my favourite cookbook of all time, and it also holds place in the group of my favourite books of all time; I have always loved a diary format. This book is sentimental to me since my mom very lovingly gave me her copy. Our shared love of food and cooking is one of the many hobbies that bond us. She is a Nigel superfan who got me onto his work in my teens, we love his bold but realistic attitude about home cooking and his writing inspires you to see that the
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