Bookshelf
These are some of the cookbooks we use the most and like the best:
Mark Bittman – How to Cook Everything Vegetarian
Jack Bishop and Richard Jung – A Year in a Vegetarian Kitchen
Christine Ingram – Vegetarian and Vegetable Cooking
Moosewood Collective – Moosewood Restaurant Low-Fat Favorites
Joy Pierson and Bart Potenza – Candle Cafe Cookbook
*Alice Waters – The Art of Simple Food: Notes, Lessons and Recipes from a Delicious Revolution
*We don’t have this one, but I just read it and highly recommend it (I’m definitely asking for it for Christmas).
30 Bucks a Week 
Another nice one, which is a great read and is full of very simple (and tasty) recipes is Helen Nearing’s Simple Food for the Good Life.
The Alice Walters book looks interesting. Is it strictly recipes or is there more “theory” and narrative?
Have you read “In Defense of Food” by Michael Pollan? I highly recommend it. For me, it is a very good theoretical and generically practical read.
On the very practical side, I reference “World’s Healthiest Foods” by George Mateljan daily. It has transformed the way I cook.
I’ll toss in the not-so-well-known cookbooks I used when I first started cooking vegetarian:
Follow Your Heart’s Vegetarian Soup Cookbook
Bean Banquets (the recipes are arranged by cuisine)
Hey Mike,
I haven’t read In Defense of Food, but did read The Omnivore’s Dilemma. I had somehow gotten the idea that the former was sort of a condensed version of the latter, but this may really not be the case.
Have you read both?
“How It All Vegan” and “The Garden of Vegan” by Tanya Barnard and Sarah Kramer. These were who I turned to when I discovered my dairy and egg allergy.
I’d include Barbara Kingsolver’s “Animal Vegetable Miracle”. It’s mostly the story of her family’s move to Appalachia to live off their farm for one year, but it includes some great vegetarian recipes and tips for canning/freezing fresh produce.
“Veganomicon” is a fantastic vegan cookbook. We haven’t tried a recipe in it yet that we haven’t loved!
Just found your blog. I am a mom of seven children (plus the husband, so you can decide how he fits in to this – lol). One of my kids is a vegetarian, but because she is still young (16) I insist she eats fish in order to make it a tad bit easier on me to fit her in to the rest of the family’s food. I was just given Alice Water’s book by my best friend, and I have to say, I love it. I love cookbooks in general and often just READ them more than cook from them, but this one has been very inspiring. We are making the change to more organic and whole food eating, and I am finding it expensive. I am renewed by your ideas. Thank you for posting, I know how hard it can be to keep it up.
Do you have any favorite novel with a storyline that includes the joy of good food, food prep, food-related historical events or dining in good company?
My favorite novel that discusses food prep and all that that you mentioned is September, by Rosamunde Pilcher. Food isn’t the main theme by any means, but any time it is mentioned, it is done in such a way that I want to re-read. 🙂
“Laurel’s Kitchen” is awesome!
Clean Food by Terry Walters is arranged by what foods are in season locally (for North America). It’s vegetarian and most recipes are gluten-free.