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APRIL COOKBOOK of the Month - Run-Off Voting

Okay, so I've tallied as best I could given that there was LOTS of chatting going on about this book or that. Here are the tallies.

Vote for ONE and I'll count the votes and announce the COTM for April on Wednesday, March 26th.

I have set out for voting only the top vote getters. Lots of books got 2 or 3 votes and I'll mention them, but they obviously aren't going to win unless many folks have a change of heart. Here are the votes in order:




BISTRO COOKING (P. Wells): 4 votes


Several times I was unclear whether a poster was voting for a certain book or just mentioning it. Some mentioned books (mainly Deborah Madison and other Veg. cookbooks that they said would be best in summer months when produce was plentiful).

These got no more than 3 votes:


So vote and make it snappy! I want to post the final on Wednesday.

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  1. Out of those - FLEXITARIAN TABLE

    EDIT: I just found out I am losing my copy from the library (too many requests to renew another month), and I don't love the book enough to buy it, so cancel that vote. I will just let the cards fall where they may and then see if I can do the cookbook.

    11 Replies
    1. re: jsaimd

      Okay, jsaimd. I won't count your Flex vote.

      1. re: jsaimd

        This voting thing is REALLY WEIRD! Batali and Flex got quite a lot of votes more than the next books- I mean "a lot" in terms of our small community. Now, all of a sudden, Roast Chicken and Think Like a Chef have the most votes. Batali has 2 and Flex only 1.

        What gives? Did all those who voted for those books go on vacation to Bermuda yesterday? Was there a scathing article about Batali and Flex in The National Enquirer?

        1. re: oakjoan

          I thought it was odd, too! Maybe it is about availability. Once you put out this thread with the final list to choose from, I checked to see which ones I could actually get. Maybe people can't access the ones they originally picked? Either that, or they realized a different book had more recipes that appealed to them for this time of year? I was going to vote against the one I ended voting for, except that I went and checked, and it did have stuff for me to make in it for our current season.

          1. re: saltwater

            I thought Batali was much more popular too, but in reading through the suggestion thread, a lot of people mentioned Batali listed with other book suggestions. I even jumped the gun and made Risotto al Barolo from "Molto Italiano" last night (soooo good BTW), and bought Sardinian couscous to make the saffron fregola with clams. Oh well. Ha - my husband was so excited we might be doing Italian after all the Sichuan cooking.

            I'm torn because I'm REALLY trying to limit my obsessive cookbook-buying, and so I'm voting for what I already own. Hmmm, but I also have "Think Like a Chef", and "Pleasures of the Vietnamese Table"...or should I just convince myself to buy "Roast Chicken"....and "Sweet Myrtle and Bitter Honey" sounds great ...but then I've always wanted to do a "Moro" book too. ; )

            Looking forward to seeing where this vote goes.

            1. re: Rubee

              Rubee - I'm trying to limit my obsessive cookbook buying too - but it's not really working at the moment! And I don't think taking part in COTM is going to help!

              *looks at Amazon wishlist again*

              1. re: Rubee

                Rubee - that recipe sounds similar to one in Sweet Myrtle (which makes sense since it's Sardinian):

                http://www.chowhound.com/topics/46013... - there's a photo in the first post

                1. re: MMRuth

                  Darn it MMRuth. All that link did is make me want to buy the book now ; ) Those pictures look fantastic.

                2. re: Rubee

                  Eeek! I almost missed this thread altogether. When I'm busy I don't check in every day, or I only check the threads I'm already active on.
                  Maybe you could leave a close-out notice and trail of breadcrumbs from the suggestions/negotiations thread to the actual voting.

                  I count only 7 votes for Batali in the negotiations thread (love that, TDQ), from many of us who mention other books as well. I think the 16 votes must be from multiple mentions or something, as we discussed which Batali books.
                  I just returned Roast Chicken to the library, but wouldn't mind seeing it as com. And one of these days, I'd love the hive to descend on Batali. Now, I'm just confused. And excited that more than one other person wants Pleasures of the Vietnamese Table.
                  BATALI : MOLTO ITALIANO + BABBO

                  1. re: Rubee

                    This message appears several messages below the one to which I'm responding.

                    Re: Rubie's post on March 25th . I ONLY counted capitalized votes and ignored discussions or mentions of books. If people capitalized 2 books, I counted both since I didn't want to be sending clarification messages to those folks.

                    It may be that folks voted on a whim and now haven't come back to vote in the run-off.

                3. re: oakjoan

                  These last two months (I don't know if this is always the case...), the "nomination" thread has seemed more like a "negotiation" thread to me...I was one of the early supporters of Flex Table in the nomination thread, but, by the end of the thread, it seemed like there were a lot of people who found the book uninspiring. I think part of what made the Dunlop books so fun is that we had a high level of participation and I would hope for a similar level of participation this month. Roast Chicken emerged late in the nomination process and one thing that I learned in the nomination thread is that our UK 'hounds and North America 'hounds don't have access to all the same cookbooks. I like that Roast Chicken is more inclusive since it's available more widely.

                  As for Mario, it was never my very first choice, but so many people seemed interested in it last month AND this month, that I was happy to go for it, too if it was many people's first choice.

                  Also, to address something you said above in your OP oakjoan, I might have been one of the votes that was discussing Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone in the nomination thread, but only in lowercase so not to be counted as a vote. I really, really want to do that book, but not until July, ideally, or June at the earliest. The ground has been frozen in the Upper Midwest since November and will stay so until mid to late April. Our vegetables look tired and pathetic (or are shipped green from afar) until about June, when we get about four weeks of baby greens. In July, we have a vegetable explosion and I'm so overflowing with veggies from my CSA that I am actually stressed out at the prospect of not knowing how to use it all! Anyway, my apologies if my lower case discussion of that cookbook made it difficult for you to count the votes.

                  Finally, I too have a cookbook addiction. I really want to buy Roast Chicken, but, do I need it? For me, "need" means, will I cook from it after COTM comes and goes? Bad/good news: I had a mishap with my Dunlop library books (bad), so they are mine now, too (good). http://www.chowhound.com/topics/49628...

                  Sorry for the long post.


                  1. re: The Dairy Queen

                    Actually, just had a quick browse through Amazon and a some of the American books do seem to be available here, albeit with just one copy, and quite pricy. I'm pretty sure I won't be able to get them in the library though. :-)

                    On the other hand, you can get Roast Chicken on t'internet here for £3. A bargain even at the current exchange rate!

              2. My vote is for ROAST CHICKEN AND OTHER STORIES. I'm not sure I'll be able to get hold of the American ones in the library - or at a reasonable price over here in Blighty. And I've been meaning to cook more from this book anyway....

                1. THINK LIKE A CHEF I've already ordered it from the library based on comments I read in the previous thread.

                  1. ROAST CHICKEN AND OTHER STORIES gets my vote (what a surprise - grin). Thanks oakjoan - sorry for all the chat!!

                    1. My vote goes to SWEET MYRTLE & BITTER HONEY. It just looks so interesting and we haven't done a Mediterranean book -- and Sardinia no less. It's like Italian w/ a lively new twist! Who's ever cooked that cuisine?? It seems perfect for COTM.

                      Mario, so old already, and we've done Italian; I can do Italian in my sleep. Won't object if Ruth's Roast Chicken wins. Why not Flexitarian for me? I *do* want it to be COTM, but it's by season and in the northeast April is barely Spring and winter vegetables are so old.
                      Chat we did!! and it was fun!

                      6 Replies
                      1. re: NYchowcook

                        ROAST CHICKEN AND OTHER STORIES.

                        Note to NYchowcook.... It was a tossup for me between Sweet Myrtle and Roast Chicken. I've already added RC&OS to my cookbook library and am going to get the SSM&BH this week... we can do our own mini-cotm as MMR does. LOL

                        1. re: Gio

                          "we can do our own mini-cotm as MMR does"

                          Just to clarify - this refers to a little joke I made on another thread about when I start a thread about a cookbook I've been cooking from and post about the recipes I've tried - I referred to it as "my mini COTM" in reply to Gio's query about whether or not a book had been a COTM. It's not meant to take away from COTM in any way.

                          1. re: MMRuth

                            Oh goodness... I didn't mean to take anything away from COTM!!! Which ever book wins for April that's the book I'll cook from. We cook from the Main book extensively, but like to break it up, so to speak, during the month with other recipes.....

                            Sorry for the interruption oakjoan!!!

                            1. re: Gio

                              I know you didn't - just wanted to clarify for others ;-).

                            2. re: MMRuth

                              I try to do that too, MMRuth, but I think of it as my personal COTM.

                              I'm really torn as to which book to vote for. I think I would be happy with any of them. My library doesn't have Think Like a Chef and Roast Chicken is checked out. I have the others on hold. I actually don't think Flex Table is that vegetable intensive--I think more of the creativity is around the starch and the protein-- and, frankly, would rather do Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone than Flex Table in mid summer, say, July, once the CSAs and Farmers Markets start hopping in the Upper Midwest. (The frozen ground doesn't even thaw here until mid-April, which means June is the earliest we see anything local and fresh and, even then, it's mostly baby greens. July is when we start to get some real variety...) So, if we're going to do Flex Table, I'd rather do it now, just to get it out of the way, then do a truly-vegetable focused cookbook in mid-summer.

                              Anyway, I will come back and vote later today once I agonize over my choices.


                          2. re: NYchowcook


                            Actually, we've done a Mediterranean book in the past couple of months: Slow Mediterranean by Paula Wolfert. Just to put the record straight.