a must stop in nyc is the store “kitchen arts and letters” in the upper east side. they have a nice collection of hard to find cookbooks.

Siopao, no apologies needed at all and that’s why I did not like the fruit volume.

And Millet, wow! a deluxe edition ran into thousands of dollars a few years ago.

My apologies. When I said “Larousse for dummies” I meant that it was easier to follow than the Larousse Gastronomique because of the photographs. But really, my bad for making a terrible simile :-)

I buy cookbooks mostly for the technique than the recipes. and most of the techniques in “The Good Cook” are classical French and can be applied to any cuisine including Filipino… except the way they peel a mango (with a fork!!?)

I tend to browse through my cookbooks. When I need a recipe I only rely on a few books. The truth is I have piles upon piles of unread cookbooks and food related books unread not for lack of interest but for lack of time.

I grew up borrowing copies of Time Life’s the Good Cook series. Later on I was fortunate enough to purchase all 28 volumes from Ebay. I find this series as important as my collection of Cook’s Illustrated. Incidentally the author of (the late Richard Olney) this series has two other cookbooks available in manila The French Menu Cookbook and Lulu’s Provencal Table.

I also was able to purchase an entire collection of Time Life’s Foods of the World (the american edition had 27 volumes much more than the collection sold in the Philippines) and the Life Picture Cookbook (a large orange cookbook)on Ebay also. These were cookbooks that a lot of Filipinos grew up with, I didn’t really use them for their recipes but they were great for browsing.