On the blogs: The keeper of culinary records -- Cooked Books

by Julie Tilsner, Posted Mar 18th 2008 @ 8:05PM

If you had to come up with your dream job, what would it be? Philanthropist? Rock Star diva? Four-Star chef?

Readers of this blog might be hard pressed to come up with one to beat this job description: Keeper of all things culinary for the New York Public Library, main branch. It's a gig that combines academia, literature, history, urban legend, folklore, whimsy AND food.

And the lucky woman who actually holds this job writes a blog, too. Rebecca Federman, whose official title is Social Sciences Bibliographer, is the wit behind the always fascinating Cooked Books. In her travels as "keeper of all things culinary" for the library, she helps maintain the library's culinary studies, culinary history and cookbook collections, as well as the library's 30,000 restaurant menus (and you thought those all ended up in your lobby). The result is a blog you don't dare approach unless you have at least several hours of reading time at the ready.

A fun example: on President's Day she trotted out George Washington's own recipe for making beer. This from his own notes, part of the library's manuscript division.

Because her blog has given us hours of delight, we couldn't help but email her with a few questions. We were graciously indulged.

As the Keeper of "all things Culinary at the NY Public Library," can you possibly have a favorite food blog?

"There are many of them. I'm partial to 101 Cookbooks, as it was the first food blog I started to read and I was hooked within minutes. Syllabub is beautifully written and a joy to read. Her entries are essays that blend the historical with the personal. Not the usual blog fare and I appreciate that. I also am a big fan of Urban Feed, Eat Drink One Woman, and Writing with my Mouth Full."

And of course Slashfood.

"That goes without saying!"

You've no doubt seen them all, but what's your favorite cookbook?

"My favorite cookbook has got to be Marcella Hazan's Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking. I cook from it at
least once a week and the book has the stains the prove it. I also love The Basque Kitchen by Gerald Hirigoyen: it's filled with familiar Basque comfort food. Most recently Suzanne Goin's Sunday Suppers at Lucques has been a source of inspiration. The recipes we've made at home have been outstanding -- time consuming, for sure -- but creative, and new, and mouth-watering. Her puff pastry with bacon, onion and Gruyere was the most recent hit, along with the Kabocha squash soup."

And of course we need to ask you your favorite books

"My favorites at the moment are Another Country by James Baldwin, Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami, and I'm a big fan of all of Geoff Dyer's books."

Source

Filed Under: On the Blogs, Books
Tags: Cooked Books, CookedBooks, food blogs, FoodBlogs, Rebecca Federman, RebeccaFederman