Last minute shopping? Grab a copy of the new cookbook Rook Cooks by Annie Gunn’s longtime chef Lou Rook. You can find it at The Smokehouse Market, Annie Gunn’s and Kitchen Conservatory.
For Rook, cookbooks haven’t influenced his cooking as much as they have inspired it. “As a chef, you use cookbooks when you don’t have time to go out to dinner or travel – in order to explore new cuisines,” he said. “You read through them to get your inspiration.” So when creating his own cookbook, he resisted the temptation to make something his peers could “ooh” and “aah” over and instead created a guide for you and me. “There’s not 10,000 ingredients needed, no crazy apparatuses. There are therapeutic aspects to cooking; it’s about wine and song. I tried to make this a fun book.” Here, a few of Rook’s favorite reads for getting his mind moving.
A Man and His Meatballs: The Hilarious But True Story of a Self-Taught Chef and Restaurateur by John LaFemina “This is a story of this gentleman in New York City who wanted to own a restaurant. The book is about his vision for it and the trials and tribulations in how he got there; it’s a great read – more of a for-fun one. For me, it’s both a memoir and a cookbook – he ends each chapter with great, basic recipes.”
Ducasse Flavors of France by Alain Ducasse with Linda Dannenberg “I was fortunate enough to eat at one of [Ducasse’s] restaurants in France. He takes a more modern approach, well, a little bit more modern approach to Old World cooking, while keeping the French basics still in mind. It has beautiful photos, too.”
The Inn at Little Washington Cookbook: A Consuming Passion by Patrick O’Connell “This comes from probably the No. 1 inn in the United States. When they first founded the restaurant, 30 years or so ago, all they did was fry chicken and people would drive in for it from Washington, D.C. Now, they own basically the whole town. The book has simple cooking techniques that use quality ingredients. They’re the best at making sure that food is still food. I love the pictures: this rural town in Virginia, the countryside, old barns, sheep, cows … the recipes are incredible, too.”
— photo by Greg Rannells
This article appears in December 2012.