Cookbook Club Profile: JONI

For a few years now, I have attended meetings of a monthly cookbook club, and Joni is our able facilitator. She is so soft-spoken, but also good-humored, diplomatic and easily directive, that she is a great person to have in that role. She does not often exert her opinion on the group, even when invited to by us. She lets whoever wants to be assertive any given month to sway the group into getting whichever book that person wants, and then she jumps right on board with the selection.

Her food is always fabulous. She roasts meats to perfection, her scones are, bar-none, the best, and all of her baked goods have the most perfect texture and balance of flavors. Joni tries out chocolate chip cookie recipes when she runs across a new one, ever on the quest for fine examples of that beguiling sweet.

Little did I know until last year that Joni is also a cookbook collector. She, Ann and I went to Kansas for what was my third trip down there to get books from my widowed friend's collection. What a fun time we had. With three of us on that third trip, we were able to really straighten up the boxes that were remaining there.

In the middle of our day there, as I was just opening a box I had not gone through before, Joni said, "Hey, if either of you finds Colorado Cache, I really want that one." It was unreal--just as she was saying that I stumbled upon it! Too funny. Her lucky day.

I asked Joni to answer the same questions I asked Ann, and here's what she said:

Sue: Why cookbooks, Joni? What about them makes you want to own a collection of them?

Joni: It was never intentional, I never thought "I'm going to collect cookbooks." One thing is that I never remember not cooking. I started cooking dinner at a young age. When the Time-Life Foods of the World series came out, I became fascinated by those books and foods from other cultures. I liked the Sunset cookbooks from back then, too. Then, my husband and I started to go to auctions and people would be auctioning off boxes of grandma's handwritten recipes and I would wonder, how could someone give them up? From collecting recipe boxes, I have been fascinated to see how recipes have changed over the 20th century.

Then, I went to work at Lee Booksellers in the early '90s and was around good cookbooks all the time. I started to pick them up here and there. The Joy of Cooking was an early one that I got, and the Smith and Hawken Gardeners' Community Cookbook, and Country Home Stay for Supper. Other early favorites were Weber's Art of the Grill. I much prefer cooking meat on the grill rather in the house. Also, I had the galley of the CIA's The Professional Chef and I like Marcel Desaulniers' Death by Chocolate. There's a chocolate-date cake recipe in there that is to die for.

Sue: How do you decide you have found a book that you'd like to own? What about a book makes you want to have it?

Joni: I have always been a book person. I like to own books, I like to have books in my hand. I like the technical part of baking, the science of baking, so technical explanations draw me to a book. Really, science draws me to a cookbook. I like Harold McGee's On Food and Cooking. I like to read about what goes well with other things. I like Shirley Corriher's BakeWise and I like Hervé This, Kitchen Mysteries.

Sue: Do you have favorites? Who are your favorite authors?

Joni: I like Rose Levy Beranbaum, Abigail Johnson Dodge, Shirley Corriher, Dorie Greenspan, Ina Garten, Marcel Desaulniers, Sherry Yard, Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything, Sheila Lukins and Julee Rosso. I also like Recipes by Susan Spungen, Big Sky Cooking, the Gourmet Cookbook, the Bon Appétit Cookbook, Elements of Cooking by Michael Ruhlman.

Sue: If you could have just one book, which one would it be?


Joni: That is a difficult one. What I have chosen is brand new. It's Ratio by Michael Ruhlman. The whole thing about it is, if you know your ratios, you can cook without recipes.