Thanksgiving Cookbooks in Your Library

It never hurts to have a little extra advice and guidance as you prepare for another holiday feast. Even if you don't celebrate Thanksgiving, the recipes in these materials are still wonderful as they take advantage of easy-to-get and inexpensive harvest-time produce.

All of the following can be found on the shelves of Tigard Public Library and can be requested from other Washington County cooperating libraries should you be unlucky enough to find that someone has gotten to the goods before you. This list isn't exhaustive by any means. We have a bunch of other great cookbooks in the WCCLS system, just conduct a subject search for Thanksgiving Cookery in the WCCLS catalog to see our county's current collection of culinary compendia.

Tigard Public Library's Current Thanksgiving Recipe Holdings (by popularity):

1. Jacques Pepin's Thanksgiving celebration [DVD]
Jacques Pepin, his daughter Claudine and his wife Gloria fix a Thanksgiving dinner which includes home cured salmon, salmon tartare with cucumber salad and salmon caviar, and salmon gravlax with cucumber, sweet onion and rye bread, turkey with apple cider glaze and bread and mushroom stuffing, brussels sprouts, gratin of butternut squash, a spicy cherry ginger chutney, and finishing with chocolate-bourbon-prune cake, and pears poached in citrus juice.

2. Betty Crocker Complete Thanksgiving cookbook: all you need to cook a foolproof dinner.
Betty Crocker comes to the rescue with this complete do-it-yourself guide to making a delicious Thanksgiving dinner with all the trimmings-and none of the headaches. Perfect for beginners and Thanksgiving "first-timers" as well as more experienced cooks, it includes 130 of Betty Crocker's most popular and time-tested Thanksgiving recipes. The book covers a range of recipes, from traditional roasting to new and interesting cooking variations like brining, grilling, and even deep-frying turkeys, plus lots of great ideas for sides, desserts, and more. Twelve count-down menus cover every aspect of the meal-such as when to set the table and how to time the gravy so it's ready to serve at just the right time. The menus suit a whole range of lifestyles and situations, from dinner for two to dinner for twenty, from vegetarian and low-fat menus to a super-simple, low-stress menu for first-time cooks.

3. Giving thanks: Thanksgiving recipes and history from pilgrims to pumpkin pie
Perfect for parents, kids, teachers, history buffs, and of course Thanksgiving cooks, Giving Thanks is a true keepsake cookbook, meant to be shared and enjoyed year after year. Thanksgiving specialists Kathleen Curtin and Sandra L. Oliver and the world-famous Plimoth Plantation trace the colorful history of the holiday, from the story of “The First Thanksgiving” to twenty-first-century customs. Then the real fun begins—a delicious assortment of more than eighty recipes, from appetizers to desserts, old-fashioned mincemeat pies to modern pumpkin cheesecake, generously seasoned with plenty of fascinating trivia.

4. Thanksgiving Fun
This activity book offers a cornucopia of ideas for parents and kids, featuring decorations, cards, costume, and gift instructions. The book includes recipes for gingerbread turkeys and pumpkin pie, games and a section on historical information as well as similar international harvest festivals.

5. The Thanksgiving table: recipes and ideas to create your own holiday tradition
Sometimes the only thing Thanksgiving hosts have to be thankful for is putting their feet up at the end of the day. For novices, orchestrating The Feast is no easy task. And even for old pros it's a bit of a challenge. Enter The Thanksgiving Table: the lowdown on the how to. Everything from the foolproof secret to a moist bird and how to truss and carve it to menu suggestions and simple, elegant table settings. Plus, recipes for classics like cranberry relish as well as more innovative dishes--and a whole section devoted to vegetarians. And maybe best of all, do-ahead tips and plenty of food and technique photographs to make planning in advance a breeze.

6. Chuck Williams' Thanksgiving & Christmas
Wouldn't you know it? There isn't a description to be found anywhere. If you have any experience with this popular title from the Williams-Sonoma kitchen library, we'd love to hear about it in the comments.

7. Thanksgiving: festive recipes for the holiday table
Whether your tastes run to the traditional or more adventurous, this Thanksgiving can be the tastiest one ever with the help of this Williams-Sonoma cookbook. From first course to last, cooks will find everything they need for a delicious holiday gathering.

8. Making Thanksgiving special [videotape]
Celebrate Thanksgiving with TV hostess Sharon Anderson and her guests. You'll find dozens of fresh, new ways to add to your family's Thanksgiving tradition.

9. Thanksgiving dinner
Valuable for veteran feastmakers and first-timers alike, this thorough and engaging examination of that most American meal is, like the dinner itself, traditional and satisfying. While the husband-and-wife authors confess, "We think about Thanksgiving all year," they suggest that "normal" people should start planning during the first week of November. In chapters for each course, from soup to leftovers, straightforward recipes with plenty of do-ahead steps transform fresh ingredients into Ojai Valley carrot soup, winter white pureeno accent...or pumpkin praline pie. (via Publishers Weekly)

Descriptions of these materials, with slight modifications for clarity, are provided from our public access catalog and/or the publisher unless otherwise noted.

~Darren Heiber