I have the SPC, but I also have some other wonderful books from the 50's and 60's. One of the best is the Woman's Day Encyclopedia of Cooking, a 12 volume set that was sold in supermarkets, one book per week. Another is the leather bound Vincent Price Cookbook and the best selling community cookbook of all time, The Forum Feast, still being published. I also have several NY Times Cookbooks and my mother's Settlement Cookbook for the 1920's. There are too many to name.

Yes, I do have a whole bookcase of cookbooks, although I seldom use a recipe exactly as written except for baking. I use them for ideas and usually change ingredients. I love to cook and create my own recipes.

I have a very splattered copy of New Basics...never could get into SPC...but I agree with Rebecca. I love cream and butter as much as anyone but prefer dishes that use them more as condiments than the main ingredient. BTW the sesame noodes in New Basics made without the chicken are just as good and a good choice for a potluck...delicious at room temperature and a vegetarian (even vegan) can eat them. But the cookbook that is seriously stained and has been bound by duct tape is a two-volume copy of The Doubleday Cookbook that my mom got as part of a book club in the 70's. It does have some limitations...I cracked my sister up doing a dramatic reading of the "variety meats" recipe titles. Balmoral heart patties...mmmm.

Does anyone else have an entire bookcase with cookbooks?

...you probably can tell yourself from the others.

The have/have not dichotomy is going to get worse, especially when Bush finally crashes the economy. And (since I presume you're a rich yuppie who's afraid to be known, thus the lame "anonymous" tag) you'll be using your Silver Spoons cookbook as a shield when the poor and hungry finally break into your house.

It seems that a lot of you are making food to impress other people with your taste. It's probably a waste of time to suggest food that offers nutrition and flavor. And for the other "Anonymous," someone just as cowardly - the only difference between chocolate mousse and chocolate pudding is more air whipped in and less sugar. It tastes like chocolate-flavored whipped automobile paste wax. You prize that crap?

I have never tried a recipe from these books that did NOT work. The chicken chili with a hint of dark chocolate, the rissoto that my sister taught me and I then made for coworkers on an electric burner at work, Chicken Marbella...great for Ravinia and family dinners, the potato salad with fennel.

I love the Joy of Cooking for basics; practically a bible in my family. Need to know how to make perfect hard-boiled eggs? How to un-seize melted chocolate? How to clean and serve a crab? Joy of Cooking is your book.

Want to make killer, seductive chocolate mousse? Silver Palate!

PS Julia Child also rules. I have been famous for her Beef Burgundy since I was 12. Also, her biographies reveal a wealth of pithy comments, such as "If you're afraid of cream use butter!" and her advice on marriage (and hers was a happy one) "Feed them, F**k them and flatter them!" (Which can apply to either gender)

first of all the rich dont cook as she states. and the rich eat very little, especially in hollywood. how else maintain size 0. this is the kind of fantasy that i find funny and distasteful. the eighties as nostalgia. come on. there was gourmet magazine for the foodies with the same kinds of recipes. what women in their right minds would spend so much time cooking. my fat friends then loved this book then but i remained thin and never bought into this abundance vision. now we are stuck with this nonsence and we dont need their anniversary book either. silver palate - the title is so silly. caviar? and all the rest of it. getting tired of all these mommy kitchen memories lately. it was tiresome for them and it is tiresome today. and there is nothing wrong with shake and bake or any other labor saving stuff. look at sandra lee and see how wonderful she is and looks and then turn to the other gourmet fatsos male and female and weep.

This article struck a chord with me. Like Traister, as a pre-adolescent I was transported to other, mysterious worlds through cookbooks. I started early on with my mother's hefty Encyclopedia of Modern Cooking by Meta Givens, published in 1953, with its 1700+ pages and its advice on how to skin a squirrel and home-canning. But it also had photos of choux paste swans and a "foreign food" section which yielded my very first vichyssoise ever. However, I lusted after a cookbook that sat on the shelf in our small-town bookstore seemingly forever: The TimeLife Classic French Cooking by Craig Claiborne and Pierre Franey. The cover! Poularde à la Néva, medallions of chicken with truffles and chaud-froid sauce on a bed of glittering aspic. No, I never made it, but I did pore over the glamourous photos and learned the love of fine ingredients and precision that is the hallmark of fine French cuisine. Years later, I've been to Paris and eaten truffles. I've made my own puff pastry and turned mushrooms till my fingers cramped. But I've never eaten salsify or made a galantine of duck. I look upon cookbooks as I do travel books - I may never get there, but it still gives me pleasure to read about some exotic place. Good food (and cookbooks) can be appreciated in the imagination, unlike pornography which involves the participation of some nameless, perhaps unwilling human being as the object of lust and leaves one, ultimately, feeling hollow.

If you want to roast a duck or a goose, I recommend Paul Bertholli's recipe in Chez Panisse Cooking. The trick is to steam it first. You put it in a covered roasting pan on the stove with a little water in the bottom and you steam the fat out of the skin. When you've steamed enough fat out of the skin, you can roast it in the oven until the skin is brown and crispy and not have to worry about a greasy taste or the oven catching fire.

There's no advice that ingenious in the Silver Palate book.

Goose tastes really great when it's been cooked this way. It's actually a fairly lean meat if you can get the fat out of the skin prior to roasting.

I just had to share that, okay?