Back-To-Basics Cooking & Kitchen Holiday Gift Guide: Books, Booze & Tools

The theme of HuffPost Food's 2010 holiday gift guide: Back to Basics.* The cooking and kitchen supply market is replete with expensive single-purpose toys & gadgetry, but this holiday season calls for a simpler approach. As everything from the economy to food awareness and food safety concerns pushes more & more Americans back into their kitchens, here are some holiday gift ideas to make their 2011 -- and yours -- even more delicious.

Check back on HuffPost Food soon for another round of gift recommendations for the food-inclined.

* Except for the sous vide stuff.

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Cookbooks

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We've got you covered: we'd recommend anything from our Best Cookbooks of 2010 list and Liquor.com's Best Cocktails-and-Spirits Books, but if we had to narrow them down, these three stand out to us as exceptional Holiday Gifts that will look great on their recipient's coffee table even if they don't end up cooking from them: Noma: Time and Place in Nordic Cuisine The Essential New York Times Cookbook The Frankies Spuntino Kitchen Companion & Cooking Manual More cookbook ideas: The Best Cookbooks of 2010 The Best Cocktails-and-Spirits Books of 2010 (and a couple from 2009) Chefs' Favorite Classic Cookbooks Le Bernardin Pastry Chef Michael Laiskonis' Favorite Cookbooks The Best Meat Cookbooks for Carnivores and Locavores

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We've got you covered: we'd recommend anything from our Best Cookbooks of 2010 list and Liquor.com's Best Cocktails-and-Spirits Books, but if we had to narrow them down, these three stand out to us as exceptional Holiday Gifts that will look great on their recipient's coffee table even if they don't end up cooking from them:

Noma: Time and Place in Nordic Cuisine
The Essential New York Times Cookbook
The Frankies Spuntino Kitchen Companion & Cooking Manual

More cookbook ideas:

The Best Cookbooks of 2010
The Best Cocktails-and-Spirits Books of 2010 (and a couple from 2009)
Chefs' Favorite Classic Cookbooks
Le Bernardin Pastry Chef Michael Laiskonis' Favorite Cookbooks
The Best Meat Cookbooks for Carnivores and Locavores

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Comments

[DavidMG]

11:31 AM on 12/23/2010

Many call it "the vegetarian Joy of Cooking" and rightly so. "American Wholefoods Cuisine' has been making people happy for 25 years. See the amazing reader comments on amazon.com

[chaapai]

02:27 AM on 12/17/2010

Love my thermapen thermometer. I am a personal chef and I use mine all the time. As for magazine subscriptions, just give me Cooks Illustrated and Cooks Country. The others are full of nonsense and ads and although some are fun to look at, if I want a true recipe I know I can count on, I pull out the CI or the CC every time. They have NEVER let me down and are by far the best at what they do.

[Treehuggindirtworshiper]

09:30 AM on 12/13/2010

Dear Santa,
I've been very good this year. I would like a Cuisinart Stand mixer with all the attachments.

[The Wanderspoon]

12:17 PM on 12/12/2010

Another sweet read is A Homemade Life by Molly Wizenberg, stories from her life and great recipes at the end of each chapter - perfect for kitchen and/or holiday.

[deweydecimal]

09:04 PM on 12/11/2010

My personal favourite gadget is an immersion blender. Quick no mess smoothies and soups. Mortar and pestle comes a close second though, nothing beats the smell of aromatics as you beat your stress away making dinner.

[VOTER]

08:26 AM on 12/12/2010

We are cooking soul mates.
: )

Also, I advise bread makers to try kneading bread dough instead of going the 
no-kneading route. Kneading dough is easy to do and a very relaxing part 
of the process. Why skip the fun part?

[VOTER]

08:30 AM on 12/12/2010

I just read some of your comment regarding the no-knead method. I love to knead bread dough
and can't imagine not doing so. Where there is yeast, there is the fun of kneading...........
Guess we are cooking soul mates when it comes to the immersion blender and 
using a mortar and pestle but not break making techniques.
: )

[Paula Oandasan]

08:11 PM on 12/10/2010

I recommend "There's not a healthy recipe in this whole damn book, a guide to southern comfort food" available at Barnes&Noble.com. Full of great observations on life, love and children. Recipes you won't find anywhere else and some that are tweaked by the author. A fun read, a memoir of a varied and sometimes bizare life PLUS the great recipes.
great gift for friends or for yourself.

[plazma]

12:07 PM on 12/10/2010

I would say the OXO scale is a better unit... its highly rated also.... I have it and it works like a charm... especially when weighing things out in small gram portions when using things for Molecular Gastronomy type things.

[sierraseven]

12:36 AM on 12/10/2010

The no-knead bread recipe looks good, but really the "steamykitchen" post about it is a bit silly. It's hardly "revolutionary" - my mother's homemaker's club cookbook from the mid-40s has no-knead bread recipes that are pretty much the same as this one. And kneaded bread is characterized as requiring "intricate measuring" (what?), "complicated kneading" (how complicated can kneading dough be?), plus the baffling comment that "all that kneading and loaf-shaping business is best left to pros". My mother taught me to bake bread when I was a little girl. Honestly, folks, it's not that hard.

But the no-knead recipe, as I said, looks fine, and if it gets more people baking their own, it's all good.

[Waiting for Something]

07:07 AM on 12/11/2010

True that. I was baking with my grandmother as a child and it didn't seem like exact science but sure was delicious. I will admit, though, I fear any recipe that requires me to 'let the dough rise'. I run away, and instead go for quick breads. My newest obsession is making scones - sweet, savory, round, angular....I don't care! They are awesome. Vegan Brunch has some great recipes.

[deweydecimal]

09:02 PM on 12/11/2010

You should very much try the no knead recipe, I think you will be very pleasantly surprised.

[sierraseven]

12:17 AM on 12/10/2010

Sous vide equipment, digital scales and thermometers, a topless taco cookbook - these are "back to basics"? It's an interesting list, but hardly basics.

[plazma]

02:53 PM on 12/09/2010

Frankies is a good book... but i would also add on to that list of books.... Momofuku, Ad Hoc At Home, The Fat Duck Cookbook

The Thermapen is a must if you cook a lot of meat, its accurate and works like a charm, plus its fast. You can even stick it into hot oil to see the temp... I have the new splashproof model, the one they showed here is the old discontinued model. Got it for $85 with s&h at King Arthur Flour (need to find a coupon to get that price).

[cinemaven]

02:03 PM on 12/09/2010

I have the Le Creuset dutch oven, which is truly one of my favorite things in my kitchen and it's held up for 30 years, looking as good as it did the day I got it as a wedding present despite how often it's used and abused so I think I'll give the bread recipe a try.

[deweydecimal]

02:29 PM on 12/09/2010

You can use any heavy pot for it. Works like a charm. You can also use regular loaf pans to make sandwich breads in the same way without the need to knead.

[plazma]

02:47 PM on 12/09/2010

Not all cast iron is the same... some have hot spots and dont hold the heat as well, plus the enamel that is used can come off or chip easily... La Crueset is the choice to have.. you can find good deals on this stuff around this time of year and its built to last like Cinemaven proved and many other people also. Its great for everything, not just making bread.

[HappyMarsden]

06:11 PM on 12/09/2010

Just so people know, you don't need a dutch oven for this recipe. I do no-knead bread all the time, without any. Just need a large bowl to let the bread rise in (I use my Good Grips salad spinner, because it,s transparent).

[DavidMG]

01:44 PM on 12/09/2010

Vegetarians will love you forever for gifting "American Wholefoods Cuisine" dubbed 'the veg Joy of Cooking." Don't believe me - check out 42 reviews on amazon. Happy Holidays

[Waiting for Something]

07:09 AM on 12/11/2010

cool - I'll check it out.

[Robert Nix]

01:13 PM on 12/09/2010

Sous Vide supreme sounds cool if I could do it without cooking in plastic.

[plazma]

02:49 PM on 12/09/2010

Its heat proof plastic that is made specifically for cooking... you wont have a problem at all.. but the thing is, you have to know what works and what doesn't work with Sous Vede, some things come out really horrible.

[Kathy8185]

12:28 PM on 12/09/2010

Excellent suggestions. My favorite gift to give is this mini crock pot. It has so many uses. Everyone I have ever given it to loves it and tells me again and again all the ways they make use of it
http://www.chili-everyway.com/rival-crock-pots.html

[NourishingCook]

12:08 PM on 12/09/2010

I would add to the cookbooks: Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon and Mary Enig. This is a cookbook you can actually read through like a book, and it has almost 800 recipes. It is for old fashioned (but coming back into style) cooking that your grandmother or great grandmother did, but simpler than you remember. It is also in the top 500 bestsellers of ALL books on Amazon. I'm surprised that I don't hear more about it in the media.