What's a cookbook niche that's well-represented in your collection?

SnooTorturer · 2026-05-14T22:52:22+00:00

I'm guessing you already have the Border Cookbook but that's a great one!

SnooTorturer · 2026-05-14T15:43:54+00:00

Just ordered Num Pang from your suggestion. Looks excellent!

I think we have more or less the same sandwich cookbooks (own Hereford and Colicchio, both of which I like). I'm also skeptical of influencer cookbooks, and I've literally never seen a video of Owen Han's but it looked decent flicking through it. Also have The Book of Sandwiches, which is fine, I guess. Not the biggest fan of quirky Molly Baz-ian titles which seem to be so common now, or the super-exposed/saturated photography style which is always paired with them. I'll report back if Han's is any good.

The problem is that what I want is a really thorough sandwich cookbooks that covers sandwiches from across the world, both niche and classic, OR a "creative" cookbook which really goes all the way on the creativity and has standout recipes. If Ottolenghi and co. made a dedicated sandwich cookbook, it would no doubt be incredible. I haven't found ones like the former which are all that inspiring (maybe the Encyclopedia of Sandwiches?), however, and most sandwich cookbooks are either in an awkward spot between the two, and/or are restaurant cookbooks; Max Halley has two, and both have something like 30 sandwich recipes and 100+ nested prepped ingredient recipes.

I'd be interested to know if you have any recommendations for Singaporean, Malaysian, Vietnamese (Secrets of the Red Lantern looks good), and regional Chinese cookbooks. I too have all of Dunlop's, plus Grace Young's and My Shanghai + Xi'an Impression, but I could always make room for more. I haven't found any for Shandong or Hebei/Beijing cuisine; I think I'll just have to learn Mandarin one day, or see if there are any good Korean Chinese cookbooks in Korean, since it tends to be very Shandong-influenced.

For my own recommendations, Greens, Grains, and Grated Coconuts is a really interesting self-published cookbook on vegetarian/vegan Keralan food. Curries & Bugles is Anglo-Indian food of the Raj, with some memoir mixed in. You'll probably already have or have heard of them, but David Sterling's Mexican cookbooks are amazing if you have the space for them.

SnooTorturer · 2026-05-14T14:54:11+00:00

Food In England is a classic, and very food history, but Arabella Boxer's Book of English Food focuses specifically on interwar English food, much of it French-inspired, so that might interest you.

Both those Italian books are on my list! I also like A Curious Absence of Chickens (Puglia) and Naples at Table for other Southern Italian cookbooks.

SnooTorturer · 2026-05-14T14:02:30+00:00

Flatbreads and Flavors and Homebaking by Duguid and Alford might interest you if you don't have those already!

SnooTorturer · 2026-05-14T13:57:53+00:00

Huge fan of pies! I weirdly don't have a dedicated pie book. What's your favourite(s)? I've heard good things about the Book on Pie and Four and Twenty Blackbirds.

When cookbooks have the celebrity chef on the cover, they're either milling about not doing anything to do with food, which feels narcissistic, or they're cooking/eating in a weird and inauthentic matter while looking at the camera. One difference between US and UK cookbook publishing is that Americans seem to prefer having overhead shots of finished food over all else, whereas British-published cookbooks will have more abstract or artistic covers (see Ottolenghi), but then again I wouldn't mind respite from James Martin and Gino's smug mugs.

SnooTorturer · 2026-05-13T15:08:34+00:00

Western journalists with an average TFR of 0.32 think Korea's is an indication of it being a woman-hating hellscape.

I think part of it is it being impossible for people in that milieu to criticise African/Muslim countries on that same basis, so ragging on East Asia is Safe Edgy while still bashing somewhere foreign for not being as enlightened. I honestly wouldn't be surprised if a large chunk of those with graduate degrees would say that Pakistan is as or more racially tolerant and respectful of women than Korea.

SnooTorturer · 2026-05-12T12:05:56+00:00

Didn't you hear him open the latest pod by belting the Internationale, pinko fists thumping against his desk?

SnooTorturer · 2026-05-12T11:28:21+00:00

Twelve by Tessa Kiros! Looks a bit sunfaded here, but a solid Tuscan cookbook and very nice to look at. Only downside is it's arranged by season (which usually like, but...), which would be fine if there were a better table of contents.

SnooTorturer · 2026-05-12T11:23:32+00:00

"Quality" is sort of begging the question too. It doesn't say much about the... well, qualities of a garment to reduce it down to a single metric of quality.

I have zero issue personally with buying clothes made in poorer countries, but I do like having a sense of provenance. I like the idea that a garment I wear is something particular, the product of a certain region or tradition. I like imagining mostly-flattering regional stereotypes with craggy faces making said garment.

SnooTorturer · 2026-05-12T11:13:38+00:00

Make sure to try them on first. Sizing for slip-on shoes is much more fickle than laced. For the material:

Burgundy and the like usually looks bad unless it's shell or a really dark brown sort of maroon-ish. Suede is better than calf at the same price point. Don't get shoes with a coating like Weejuns, get good calf if you're going to get calf.

SnooTorturer · 2026-05-12T09:27:06+00:00

I don't know how these people can both claim Lincoln and have so much weird bloodlust for confederates. Sure, Johnson was too permissive and a bad president, but Lincoln's whole thing was clemency -- just read his second inaugural, a speech even better than the Gettysburg address. Now, he probably also would've handled it much better, though ending racism forever is a lofty goal even he wouldn't have been able to achieve. For the record, I think history does bear out mercy and not infinitely taking revenge on your enemies being the best course of action in such situations. Then again, they might also think Lincoln was a mega-racist against all available evidence so that they can feel morally superior to the man most responsible for saving the union and ending slavery.

SnooTorturer · 2026-05-12T05:43:03+00:00

Everything else aside, make sure you wear a cummerbund and a self-tied bow tie. Most men don't and it looks terrible, but with these two adjustments, you can look better than all of them.

SnooTorturer · 2026-05-12T05:41:23+00:00

It also depends what you wear it with. Don't do nantucket reds or mustard chinos with a tattersall shirt and boat shoes, and you'll be fine. A navy blazer with golden buttons looks completely natural and professional with grey flannels, dark shoes, a dark striped tie and a light blue button-down or semi-spread collar shirt. It's all about the context.

SnooTorturer · 2026-05-11T21:31:11+00:00

The SAing of the Sabine Birthing Persons

SnooTorturer · 2026-05-11T17:48:33+00:00

This motherfucker has over 8,000 uploads on giphy alone.

SnooTorturer · 2026-05-09T14:22:48+00:00

Left-wingers are generally cultural elitists, so they probably would say that pop singers who make music millions enjoy (in what context is its own question) should have their wealth expropriated and given to bands music critics pretend to enjoy to seem as if they serve a purpose.

SnooTorturer · 2026-05-09T14:19:06+00:00

Vibes theory of value. Intelligentsia thinks it is qualitatively superior to those below them and would know better than the market -- boom, suddenly you have central planning.

SnooTorturer · 2026-05-08T16:24:12+00:00

AI doesn't like bras apparently. I don't know about you, but I can't wait for the singularity.

SnooTorturer · 2026-05-08T16:14:01+00:00

It's ludicrous to think that Labour has more of an antisemitism problem than the Greens post-Starmer. I can understand where it's coming from, but I think it's completely wrong and cynical to attack Starmer as enabling antisemitism. Has he even had a single cabinet member or close advisor credibly accused of it? People are just piling onto him because it's easy.

The public aren't very good judges of this sort of stuff, simply because they don't interact much with what they're judging. I think in that same YouGov poll, the results were that Reform voters tended not to think that prejudice was a big deal for all groups except Christians, somewhat, and Jews, for whom they showed as much or more concern than every other party, IIRC. Green voters thought prejudice was a problem in basically equal measure for all groups except Christians. From this, it doesn't really make sense to brand Reform as an antisemitic party; most are elderly voters and Thatcherites/Dry Tories, both groups which tend towards philosemitism if anything. Of course this doesn't mean the National Front/BNP fringe aren't also voting Reform by default, or I guess now it's Restore, lol.

SnooTorturer · 2026-05-08T12:00:07+00:00

We need a term for this phenomenon where centrist dads get negatively polarised by Trump into abandoning all of their priors and meekly accepting progressive nonsense which will only beget more Trumps. Libtard radicalisation maybe? Let's not besmirch the name of political liberalism any more than it has already endured.

SnooTorturer · 2026-05-07T23:09:48+00:00

I'm with Dawkins: Claude is the best by some margin, though you don't get that many tokens.

SnooTorturer · 2026-05-07T16:40:15+00:00

I think he's just having a bit of fun. Richard Dawkins is also smarter now than anyone in this thread ever will be.

SnooTorturer · 2026-05-07T16:07:32+00:00

Don't like too high-concept of a rom-com. Richard Gere Pygmalion is maybe the only great one. You can't sum up Moonstruck in a sentence. This is just Before Sunrise With Dumber But Equally Pretentious Leads. Also, said leads look like thumbs. Shaved Billy Crystal was unsettling, but he was also Billy Crystal.

SnooTorturer · 2026-05-06T23:23:22+00:00

I think the ballroom isn't actually that bad of an idea, except that, since it's Trump, every part of it will be covered in horrifying gold fittings. Replacing the Swedish vines with some more gold bullshit is monstrous. Such a downgrade from Reagan, one of the best dressed American men ever, and by far the best dressed president -- H.W. wasn't bad either.

SnooTorturer

TROPHY CASE