5 Cookbooks that make you look like great chef...even if you aren't

"These store bought dill pickles don't taste as good now that I've made homemade pickles," I said yesterday as I officially entered the world of food snobbery.  Hide the Velveeta, pass the well aged balsamic, because I'm a real foodie chef now...At least, I like to think that I am.

I want you to believe that I'm an experienced chef rather than a home cook saying "Yes, you Can...Pun," as I work on preserving pickles for the first time. To prove my point, I will be proudly displaying my five most pretentious cookbooks where all guests can see them. After all, I do have homemade pickles.

1. A Cookbook To Show Vintage Foodie Love:

Every good foodie ought to be well-versed in European cuisine and have a love of all things vintage.  After all, vintage is haute, French Women Don't get Fat, Europeans don't eat GMOs and Julia Child has made Mastering the Art of French Cooking easy. Never mind that in her famous tome, the shortest ingredient list includes 18 items and the average recipe length is three pages, and the fact that I've never attempted a single recipe from this classic.  I'm a chef now, and Mastering the Art of French Cooking, 50th Anniversary Edition (Affiliate) is on my coffee table.

I usually have enormous fish in my kitchen. Don't you?

Runner up: Cooking with Bon Viveur: The first Bon Viveur cookery book (affiliate) by Fanny Cradock. Fanny Cradock was the consumate British chef, who was dripping with personality and skill.  Her recipes and her make up were famously high fashion and dramatic. However, her cookbook is supposedly not nearly as difficult to follow as Child's, and this book is hard to come by, so I don't own a copy.

2. A Cookbook to show my Scenester Side:

Real foodies like to get out on the town and try the most wild and crazy dishes. Momofuku Cookbook (affiliate), named after Chef David Chang's Momofuku restaurants in California is a behind the scenes look at some of the most incredibly hip food in the country today. The cookbook isn't so much a recipe collection as it is a memoir and replete with beautiful photography.  But just because chef Chang manages to make these delicious dishes in bulk every day, doesn't mean that I can. Most of the recipes require several hours of cooking, not to mention some crazy ingredients like boar's head.

This face does not say, "I'll show you something easy to cook." Neither does then entire pig in his arms.

Runner up: Alinea by Grant Achatz. Alinea is prix fixe restaurant in Chicago that utilizes some of the most techy of all cooking techniques, and his restaurant is always sold out. There is no doubt that I will never attempt any of these recipes, but the sheer size of the book and the beauty of the photography make it obvious that this is a coffee table book rather than a cook book for cooking.

3. A cookbook to prove that I've mastered all the Techniques:

If you're a poser chef like me, then one thing that will be really important to you is pretending you've mastered a wide variety of food preparation techniques. Braising, Roasting, and Fricasseeing child's play for A Girl and Her Pig: Recipes and Stories (affiliate) author, April Bloomfield. Her anecdotes, folksy tips and tricks, and the down to earth explanation of complex techniques tricked me into thinking that I might be able to execute these recipes after all. Don't be fooled, these recipes are difficult to execute, but the fact that I've tried must count for some amount of hipster foodie cred.

I've explained everything on this board. Why don't you get it?

Runner up: Jerusalem: A Cookbook (affiliate) by Yotam Ottolenghi is a visual feast filled with scrumptious recipes.  Initially, I thought the techniques used in this book were overly complex, but I think it was the long ingredient lists that were actually intimidating. This is one book that I can use to increase my chef cred and put dinner on the table.

4. A cookbook to show that true chefs embrace the contradictory:

One thing that posers like me love to do is pretend like we understand something deep, when in fact we are just confused.  Displaying complex cookbooks is the culinary equivalent to nodding during a conversation that you definitely don't understand.  Both of which I do proudly.  For example, David Kinch is nothing if not meticulous, but in his cookbook Manresa: An Edible Reflection (affiliate) he states, "To cook simply, to cook well, is really hard to do with a recipe." What? So the same guy who is recommending weighing everything on a digital scale is recommending that I forgo a recipe. Kinch goes on to explain that cooking is a highly personal activity, and that differences can be celebrated. Basically, I think he was giving me a consolation prize for not being quite as good of a chef as him.

Photo: Eric Wolfinger: Kinch in the Kitchen, showing off his meticulous artistry

5. A Cookbook to show that I'm just a superior chef:

Thomas Keller is supposedly a chef genius. A man who eats with his eyes and thinks with his stomach.  Could there be any higher compliment for a chef's chef? I doubt it. Of course, you will have to believe this all second hand.  I've never made a single recipe of his, nor have I been to his restaurants. His recipes in The French Laundry Cookbook(affiliate) are the stuff of pretentious foodie's dreams. Oysters and caviar with tapioca? Check. Anyone who is willing to buy the ingredients required to make these dishes must think very highly of their culinary talent, and those who manage to put in the several hours required to make the dish have ascended above the status of us mere mortals. This cookbook will definitely be out, and if you ask me any questions, I will be sure to regale you with tales of learning from Keller's genius.

Definitely had these at my last dinner party...or not.