Cooking 101 by the book

March 5, 3:42 PMOrlando Cooking ExaminerDawn Viola

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No matter your culinary level of expertise, following are a few must-have cooking basics for your pantry library.

What's a Cook to Do?: An Illustrated Guide to 484 Essential Tips, Techniques, and Tricks
James Peterson (Author)
What's a Cook to Do? is one of my favorite reads, just for the fun of it. Novice cooks will find it inspiring. Experienced cooks will find it surprisingly useful and voyeuristicly addictive to read Peterson's step by step guides into everything from seasoning a cast iron pan, keeping shells from sticking to hard cooked eggs or carving a turkey. Peterson also explains how to chop, slice, beat, broil, braise, or boil any ingredient you’re likely to encounter. Information on seasoning, saucing, and determining doneness (by internal temperatures, timings, touch, and sight) boasts a guarantee that "you’ve eaten your last bland and overcooked meal." And I have to agree. It's a must-have for your cookbook collection.

Basics: The Foundations of Modern Cooking
Filip Verheyden (Author), Tony Le Duc (Photographer)
Basics has been described as an elegant pocket road map that perfectly explains basic techniques. It's this and so much more. Filip Veheyden has a wonderful way of deftly getting right to the point, telling readers "why" instead of just "do." Though small in size, it's mighty in content. The photography is stunning and overall book design, tasteful and decadent.(FYI if you go looking for this book, keep in mind it's very tiny and hard to spot. In addition, the cover reads "The Basics" but is listed as "Basics" in the computer systems)

And when you think you've got the hang of this cooking thing, you'll want to add The Flavor Bible: The Essential Guide to Culinary Creativity, Based on the Wisdom of America's Most Imaginative Chefs - cited as one of the best books of 2008 - by Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg. Karen and Andrew are the brilliant husband and wife team who masterfully open the door to deconstructed, behind-the-scenes culinary experiences. And The Flavor Bible is no exception. An alphabetical index of flavors and ingredients, the book allows readers to search complimentary combinations for a particular ingredient. The listings, combinations and short essays from various chefs on different matches are meant to inspire rather than dictate. I compare it to the equivalent of a Pantone swatch book for the fellow graphic designers out there.