TOP 10 "KickAssCookBooks"

Famed chef Paul Bocuse once said that there were no totally original recipes - that all were derivations of what had come before. That's true, because cooking, in all forms, has deep tangled roots.

In the nineteenth century famed chef Carême was considered to be the artiste of French cuisine (in term of its presentation). Today he is considered old-fashioned and his pieces montés decadent. Of course his displays had little to do with cooking - just as today's most creative chefs' ability to make the presentation of the food spectacular has little to do with its taste. In fact, it sometimes has a negative effect.

Carême excelled in flights of fantasy - making his food look like rustic pavilions, ruins, cascades, temples, forts, windmills and other ornate creations…and he sometimes colored the food surrealistically. Despite this odd passion many of his basic recipes survive to this day and are continually re-developed by modern chefs.

He wrote many books, including his famed: Antonin Careme: L'Art de la Cuisine Francaise au Dix-Neuvieme Siecle, 1833. (French, English, German, Italian). A sixteen volume work that also exists in a two volume abridged form in French and English. Serious chefs consider this to be one of the most important cookbooks ever written.)

At www.powells.com you can find a less intimidating book about Carême: COOKING FOR KINGS: THE LIFE OF ANTONIN CAREME, THE FIRST CELEBRITY CHEF. http://www.powells.com/cgi-bin/biblio?inkey=62-0802714366-0

I recall many dinners in top restaurants where I had no idea how to approach eating the food on my imaginatively decorated plate. The minute I dug in the entire effect was ruined. Somewhere there is a line that should not be crossed in terms of presentation (or what chefs term "plating"). Many times it serves to impress us more than the taste of the food itself.

Further, I have found that famed chefs as a rule do not write the best cookbooks. Maybe they write a good first one but after that others take over and their input is limited to editorial comment rather than serious creative input. It becomes a business rather than a passion. I would say that the most important chef in the world is probably Alain Ducasse. His first book was no doubt a labor of love and a work of genius (unfortunately it only exists in French). Thereafter the many books "he wrote" were, in essence, mostly done by others, and they are (in my estimation) poor…as most cookbooks are poor (that includes the great majority of all of the thousands published each year).

Chefs like Charlie Trotter freely admit that it would most likely be difficult or impossible to re-create their recipes. In The French Laundry Cookbook (lovely to look at) you will see a photo of five chefs leaning over and working on the plating of one dish. There's no doubt that presentation counts; the food must be made to look attractive - but we're not all ikebana experts. When 3-star chef Roger Vergé (a mediocre cookbook writer but a superb chef) introduced his Salade Mikado, it was a young Japanese guy in the kitchen who taught all the chefs how to put it on the plate (the Japanese are geniuses in that area).

I read reviews of as many cookbooks as I can, and more often than not the reviewer admits having tried and failed to re-create the recipes - or if he or she did succeed, the results were second-rate or worse. So, what good are they? Nice as "coffee-table" books, but nothing more. It's like going to a museum to learn how to be a sculptor.

Finally, cookbooks serve two very different purposes: to teach you how to cook (methods and techniques) and to give you recipes. But remember: Learning a recipe will not teach you how to cook.

So, all that being said, here is my meager list (in no particular rating order).

1. LA RIVIERA D'ALAIN DUCASSE
2. CHEZ PANISSE PASTA, PIZZA, CALZONE: WALTERS ET. AL.
3. THE WOLFGANG PUCK COOKBOOK (1986)
4. JAPANESE COOKING, A SIMPLE ART: TSUJI
5. PEKING COOKING: KENNETH H.C. LO
6. COUSCOUS & OTHER FOOD FROM MOROCCO: PAULA WOLFORT
7. BLUE GINGER: MING TSAI
8. BOLD AMERICAN FOOD: BOBBY FLAY
9. SIMPLE FRENCH FOOD: RICHARD OLNEY
10. CLASSIC ITALIAN COOKBOOK(S): MARCELLA HAZAN

I have not included THE JOY OF COOKING (original, not the revised version),but every kitchen should have this valuable reference guide that gives you tons of basic information not found in any other single book.

If you have a favorite that may have escaped my attention click on the posting area and let me know about it. Eventually we'll list readers' favorites, along with comments, when we get enough of them.

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