5 Cookbook Picks From Karen and Quinn Hatfield

The Chef's Library is a series in which we ask chefs around town to tell us about their favorite cookbooks. Today, we talk to Karen and Quinn Hatfield, chefs/owners of Hatfield's and Sycamore Kitchen.

(From Karen & Quinn) Cooking My Way Back Home by Mitchell Rosenthall: “Our dear friend Mitchell Rosenthall wrote a beautiful book last year called Cooking My Way Back Home. Mitch and his wife tested all the recipes in their home kitchen. It was a labor of love and it shows. The images are amazing.

(From Karen) The Fanny Farmer Cookbook by Marion Cunningham: “The copy I own I basically stole from my mother when I first moved away from home. This book has pages stuck together and handwritten notes along the borders which to me is the marker of a really valuable cookbook. This is my bible.”

(From Karen) Chez Panisse Cooking by Alice Waters and Paul Bertolli: “The copy I have is 25 years old. This book covers everything from breads to fish to vegetables, a little bit of everything. Some of the restaurant's old menus with wine pairings that they served back in the 80's, like an old dinner for Rothschild and a white truffle dinner — it's a little piece of history. I've always had pretty great success out of whatever I've done with this book.”

(From Quinn) A Treasury of Great Recipes by Mary & Vincent Prince: “I have a copy from my mother that is fifty or sixty years old that was actually her first cookbook. It looks like an encyclopedia! There's a recipe for Yorkshire pudding that she used to make me when I was growing up.”

(From Karen & Quinn) Any of The River Cafe's Cookbooks: “We have all three of these. Although they are almost 20 years old, they still seem very current and always serve us well for inspiration, especially for home cooking.”

See also: The Chef's Library archives.

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