Future Challenges
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This thread will be to discuss ideas for future challenges. I'm hoping to have a mixture of community-suggested challenges as well as publisher-sponsored challenges for interesting new books.
Currently, our challenge is Vij's: Elegant & Inspired Indian Cuisine. I'm a big fan of the restaurant, the book and of the publisher and I'm hoping we can get some reviews in for this excellent book.
Our next challenge will be in late October or early November and is slated to be a new cookbook "High Flavor, Low Labor" by J.M. Hirsch.
After that, we're open for suggestions. Ideally books which lots of our members own. In a previous thread some members suggested Ina Garten, and I'd be delighted to do a Garten cookbook or an all round Gartenfest for the holiday season. Then we do need to tackle a vegetarian cookbook. One suggestion was Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything Vegetarian, though given his output and popularity, I think we could probably hold a Bittmanfest too! -
I have heard the Zuni Cafe Cookbook mentioned before, and I second that.
Not only is it the cookbook in my bookshelf with the most other members (44), I also think it would be a good one for the challenge, as it has recipes that help you grow as a cook. They can teach you new ways of doing things while still being doable for a home cook. But they do take a bit of extra effort, and a challenge could be just that extra push needed to actually do that. -
I would also love to have a Zuni challenge.
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I would love to do a Lidia all rounder. I watch her show and have all her books. I think she is the best teacher out there and a real cook, not just a recipe developer, or someone who is hip for the camera.
I think a vegetarian book review is a good idea for the future. I will look at my shelf and browse the bookstores before I make a suggestion on a title however.
I think an Ina Garten fest is also a great idea. I have all her books as well.
Rick Bayless had two PBS series and accompanying cookbooks, Mexico One Plate at A Time and Everyday Mexican. Daisy Martinez had the PBS series "Daisy" and cookbook. You might consider them from the standpoint of trying a major alternate cuisine that is still North American mainstream.
I would also like to do a really good baking book-"Rose's Heavenly Cakes" Winner of the 2010 Cookbook of the Year Award, IACP seems like a good candidate. I tried to determine if you'd already had a challenge on that, but I couldn't find a tab, link or drop down menu on the challenges as a topic, to see archives. I did look up the book and saw that some members had offered a few reviews. Is there a link/menu item for the topic of challenge archives?
Good work on the site. -
I forgot-I would also like to do a challenge on middle eastern cuisine (The Arab Table: Arabesque; Cooking At The Kasbah:Recipes from My Moroccan Kitchen: Turkish Cookbook:Regional Recipes and Stories: The Book Of New Israeli Food: etc.)
and
Chinese cooking (The Seventh Daughter: My Culinary Journey From Beijing To San Francisco :The Breath of a Wok: The Shun Lee Cookbook: Recipes From A Chinese Restaurant Dynasty are my 3 favorites) -
I would like to suggest The Moosewood Cookbook as a vegetarian option, or Ottolenghi's Plenty! For Middle Eastern Cuisine, Claudia Roden's books seem to be a golden standard, either Arabesque or The Book of Jewish Food. And I second the Zuni Cafe Cookbook, too!
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@cadfael: Thanks for the suggestions. We haven't done Rose's Heavenly Cakes (I own it though; it's a lovely book) - I have also realized all of a sudden that we need a previous challenge page, and I'll have something up soon. Our first challenge was Peter Reinhart's "Artisan Breads Everyday" and our second was "Ad Hoc" so we're just getting started.
One thing I'm determined is to make sure that enough members own the book to make the challenge work; our current challenge is for a book I personally like a lot, but unfortunately is going rather slowly since most people don't own it. So keep that in mind when making suggestions.
Moosewood, for example, as @friederike mentioned, has over 104 members owning it, compared to the Zuni. Though of course, we won't go just by popularity. -
I would love to participate in the current challenge but don't own the cookbook. I don't know much about Indian cuisine which is probably why there are no Indian cookbooks on my shelf.
Just a thought -- Maybe the current cookbook's author would agree to allowing you to post a few recipes at this site so some of us who don't currently own the book could participate in the challenge. And if people make and like those dishes, it could sell more books and be a win-win all-around.. -
@aj12754 - actually, there are four free recipes on the site from the book, including the famous 'lamb popsicles'. Look here: http://www.cookbooker.com/title/1109/vijs-elegant-and-inspired-indian-cuisine?samples=all
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Thanks Andrew -- I don't know how I missed these.
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I missed those recipes too! I found them by hitting the link in your last comment. I just tried to print them off and to do so it prints all the side bars etc on the (4) pages. If you can, it would be great to have a print option which would give the recipe/s only, saving a lot of paper. However, I'm thankful just to have the recipes. I can try them, and if they turn out, I'll buy the book.
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@cadfael - you could copy & paste the recipes to a Word document and then print. One step extra, admittedly, but that works too.
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how about a cooking around the world challenge? Pick a country and then a book on the said place? I'd love that, as it would be a great way of expanding your cooking repatior. I havn't joined in the challenge yet as in the first one i wasn't eligable to win a prize as i live in britian. : (
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During the Football (Soccer) World Cup I thought about a world challenge too, or rather about a Playing Team-Challenge: Cook one course per country of the playing teams and then let your fancy decide who won the dinner match... :o) Don't know how practical this idea would be, though...
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Or we could have a recipe challenge where we're not doing most recipes of a single cookbook, but different versions of the same recipe. There must be loads of different versions of bouillabaisse, or spaghetti carbonara, or chocolate ice cream. It could be fun to compare.
And it's not so dependent on people owning a particular cookbook. -
Great ideas all! For around the world you could also have a chef from each country (though I could see arguments about who'd represent which one).
I particularly like the idea from @wester with different versions of the same recipe. I did something like that when I did a big chocolate chip cookie cook-off earlier this year. I've also had multiple versions of a recipe from other cookbooks and wondered which one was best.
Other than 'official' challenges, there are other ways we could do this too, if people wanted an informal challenge - we could use the forum here to coordinate. Since the big challenges take 4-6 weeks each, we'll only be able to do 10 or so per year. Maybe there's a place for mini-challenges also? -
I like your suggestion Andrew to use the forum to coordinate an unofficial challenge on versions of the same recipe. I'd participate gladly. However I was attracted to Cookbooker because of your original premise of exploring one cookbook indepth together. It might also work with focusing on one author too, I'm not sure. One book might be laid out quite differently than another. It depends if you are going just for the recipe/s or the book in it's entirety.
I like the idea that a cookbook that is recognized by the N.A. cooking community at large (professional reviewers, the IACP, the James Beard Foundation, Canadian Culinary Book Awards,etc) as being very good, is selected by you (with lots suggestions from us) for a "good going over" by home cooks. It keeps us current and by the end of it we will have a good idea as to whether or not we wish to purchase it. Having a few recipes to play with, borrowing it from a library or friend etc. is good enough for most of us in the interim. For instance, your current challenge inspired me to give the cookbook another look, as I had just skimmed it and rejected it as a possible purchase when it first came out. I have several recipes under my belt now and will probably purchase the book. I looked up the reviews on your site and then some of the professional reviews. It was really good. So I felt I had been challenged by your challenge-if you know what I mean-and that's what I'd hoped for when I initially joined. So thanks. This format works for me.
The forum is a good place for a wide variety of smaller challenges and many digressions can be made for fun.
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I love the idea of an barefoot contessa book to cook from as a challenge. I have her newest on pre-order and can't wait for it to arrive. I have the Zuni book but haven't cooked from it yet, maybe that as a challenge would kick start me into trying some of the recipes. I think any of the Moosewood books would be great as a vegetarian pick. A couple others are Madhur Jaffery's World Vegetarian (good way to fit in cooking around the world too) and Crescent Dragonwagon's Passionate Vegetarian (it's a huge one though but lots of great recipes).
Informal challenges sound like fun too. -
How about a challenge for a classic cookbook or cookbook author, such as Julia Child, Marcella Hazan, Richard Olney, Elizabeth David or Diane Kennedy? For a more contemporary challenge, Rick Bayless would be a good choice as his food is good and challenging to make.
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I like the suggestions for Madhur Jaffery's World Vegetarian, Zuni and Moosewood. They are all good ideas for a vegetarian option.
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The hard part's going to be choosing one book each time! From a practical standpoint, Moosewood has the most members (over 100), while Zuni is at 35 and Madhur Jaffery's is at about 30. When I first was testing Cookbooker out and while I was building it, I used the Moosewood as the first book, so I have a sentimental attachment to it. But they all sound good...
And I agree with @sturlington that it would be good to look at classic cookbooks too. So many cookbooks, so little time... -
Andrew, how about Veganomicon for a challenge? 52 members own that one and I would like to explore it more. I looked up the Zuni Cafe book you have been referring to but it's not vegetarian.
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Canadian Living recently came out with "Vegetarian Collection"-I just purchased it so I can't comment on the recipes yet.
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I like the idea of cooking around the world and/or looking at a particular recipe in multiple cookbooks. I am not super interested in purchasing too many more cookbooks because I still haven't cooked from all of the books I currently have. So I find challenges that would allow me to use books off of my own shelves more appealing.
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I just saw aj12754's suggestion for a smitten kitchen challenge. I would love that too. It's got 94 "owners" already, and as it's a website anyone can add it easily.
BTW, if it's that important to have many members owning a cookbook, why the current challenge? 11 owners now, and I'm pretty sure that's more than it was at the start of the challenge. -
@wester - it's going to depend a lot on the cookbook, obviously. With some books, I have been hoping we'll draw people to the book, and draw people to Cookbooker too, so when publishers or authors I'm interested in have approached me, I've been willing to give it a shot. It's nice also to get publisher support for prizes.
However, I also agree that using books that lots of our members own is a great way to encourage them to go back to those books and rediscover them; it's also more likely to be more useful for more site members. So for the most part, going forward, our challenges will be drawing from books with a healthy amount of ownership on Cookbooker. Where possible, I'll try to get publisher support for some prizes too. And it would be great to have cooperation from the authors as well.
Smitten Kitchen is a great idea - as are other food blogs/websites. Deb from Smitten Kitchen is working on a cookbook, so I was thinking of trying to coordinate with its publication, but that's not until 2012, so maybe we'll have to do something earlier. I know also that Heidi from 101 Cookbooks has a new book coming out this April, so that might be a closer target for a website challenge with a publisher component.
I'm working this week on settling on the next challenge. I'll announce when I've settled it. Definitely if we don't do a vegetarian book next, we'll do one in January/February. So many cookbooks, so little time... -
You could also do an ingredient-challenge: Pick one ingredient, or a combination of several, and ask everyone to review dishes containing these ingredients as main/dominating ingredient...
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Another suggestion on selecting cookbooks for challenges - is it possible to see how many libraries have a given cookbook? I was able to check out, from my local library, "high flavor low labor". Using libraries for the cookbooks helps to minimize the financial burden (and save $$ for ingredients).
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@LazyLurker - it's not easy to tell in advance how many libraries have a cookbook, however if the book has been out for a while and was fairly popular, then you can be pretty sure libraries will have it. Brand new books, not so much.
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Okay, I've decided on the next challenge. Serendipity brought me to it. I was in a used bookstore the other day looking for some Harry Potter for my daughter, and they had a beautiful copy of the Zuni Cafe Cookbook. I had a look through it, was immediately intrigued, and bought it. It didn't take long to see why so many of our dedicated members have this in their bookshelves. So Zuni it is. And this one is guaranteed to be in any Library worth its salt - it was published 8 or 9 years ago now (and won numerous awards when it was).
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I know I am a little biased as this one of my favorite cookbooks in the world, but I am so pleased with this choice! This is one of those books I read for inspiration and have not cooked nearly enough from it. And I think there are so many recipes that will be a good fit for this time of year. Color me happy. As soon as the holiday is over (not very creative as my family likes the exact same things every Thanksgiving), I am rolling up my sleeves and setting to work!
I do think this has been a really influential cookbook so a lot of libraries should have it. -
My library does indeed have a copy of the Zuni Cafe Cookbook, and I've already put it on hold. It looks like such a different cookbook from high flavor-low labor - a great contrast. I look forward to some challenging cooking, and to learning some interesting cooking fundamentals.
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Yes! I have Zuni Cafe and will pull it off my shelf to see what I can cook. I hoped to participate in the High Flavor Low Labor challenge but my library couldn't find it for me through interlibrary loan. They thought they had but then the library who had it said it was to new to loan out to another library. Oh well.
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Thanks Andrew for the Best Cook Books Lists. Very helpful. Since Around My French Table showed on so many lists and won awards it would be a logical and interesting choice for an upcoming challenge. Thanks again.
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@cadfael - don't mention it! I'm going to be updating it soon too, as a couple more lists have been published today, but I think I'll just start linking to them now rather than showing the whole list, as the page will become enormous!
Friday or Saturday I'm publishing a list of bookstore owner's recommendations.
And yes, Around My French Table is looking like this year's Ad Hoc At Home, and might be a good challenge for later in 2011 once people get their copies. -
Couple of new "best of" lists -- posted here in case you want to look at them for future challenge consideration:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/08/dining/08books.html?hpw
http://www.davidlebovitz.com/2010/12/favorite-cookbooks-of-2010/
Zuni is going to be fun! -
The contrast between high flavor-low labor and zuni (high labor!) is striking, so its a good contrast. I'm enjoying the challenge of zuni, it was a good choice.
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I'm anxiously awaiting to hear which veggie cookbook we will be doing for the next challenge! I have a gift certificate left over from Christmas I can put to good use if it's one I don't already own.
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Waiting also for the next challenge, and would like to throw in the idea of a Nigella Lawson challenge, she's got plenty of books, always a new one, and has such a warm and inviting style.
For veggie, Madhur Jaffrey's World Vegetarian? Great combo of veggie and ethnic.
No matter what, I'm going to take it up! -
Hi all:
We'll be picking a veggie cookbook imminently. Madhur Jaffrey is a great writer/cook, but we did do an Indian cookbook challenge recently; maybe later in the year.
I have to say, I'm leaning towards the Moosewood Cookbook at the moment. It is not new, but it was groundbreaking at the time, and I also see that many of our active members have it in their bookshelves. Not only that, but for such a major vegetarian book, it really should have more reviews on Cookbooker. It was also the first book I used to test out the database when I was making Cookbooker. What do you all think?
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I love the idea of using Moosewood for the challenge. It is a true classic, and my copy (which I've had for more than 15 years) is sadly without much kitchen splatter! I would enjoy seriously digging into it.
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Moosewood is lovely; I'm all for it. Or maybe Moosewood/Enchanted Broccoli Forest both? (and for later, Jaffrey's World Vegetarian gives an excellent overview of the world (east/west/south, anyway. She likes well-seasoned food so not a lot of scandinavian fare....).
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I love having an excuse to buy Moosewood -- not sure why it never made it onto my shelves before since so many of my friends cook from it and love it.
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P.S. Welcome Iw8tablZ -- love your moniker!
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I appreciate the welcome and community! So glad I found this site!
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I have both the Moosewood and the updated version. Like LL I too would enjoy digging into it. i've cooked from several of the Moosewood books but not sure I've cooked from Moosewood itself.
Iw8tablZ I'd like to add a welcome and look forward to reading your reviews. -
The Moosewood cookbook has so many variations of recipes, it would be difficult to cook them all and fun to read how others interprete them. I would love to delve further into its recipes myself.
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Sounds good! I want to keep challenges to one book, so we wouldn't include Molly's other fine titles, but we certainly would include all editions, including the New Moosewood. I'll get cracking on setting things up and we can launch the challenge in a couple of days.
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Darn, I would have loved Madhur Jaffrey's World Vegetarian. I'll get the Moosewood from the library and hope that it's not too dairy heavy. I've been so looking forward to participating in a challenge.
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The good thing is that Moosewood should be in every library. I'm curious about the new edition - my copy was a gift from my husband in 1989 - 22 years ago! I understand that the new version has some modified recipes. It will be interesting to see if ratings depend on the edition/recipe version.
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I have the original from 1977 and the updated version from 1992 that says it contains healthier versions of the original recipes and several new recipes. I noticed the page numbers in the two are not the same. Was wondering if this will that affect people using two different versions when doing reviews or will the reviews be posted in the separate versions?
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