However, when it comes down to it - these are the best. The favourites with sauce spatters, smears of chocolate and well turned pages. These are the classics that will endure and will be passed on.

My favourite cookbooks

1. The Cook's Companion: The Complete Book of Ingredients and Recipes for the Australian Kitchen by Stephanie Alexander

My younger sister was horrified to see that there aren't any recipe pictures but this book focuses squarely on the basics, fundamentals and classic recipes with little time for frou frou. It is an excellent resource on almost every food one can imagine, a seasonal guide, buying guide and more all in one.

This is the one I always recommend as a starter book for those moving out of home for the first time. This is the solid foundation to build a lifetime of cooking upon.

2. David Thompson's Thai Food

Fabulous, inspiring, challenging, aromatic. David starts with the basics and hammers you with them - stressing freshness and a thorough understanding of Thai food. This is another fabulous resource book with detailed explanations of thai ingredients and methods. If you're looking for pretty cupcake pictures you won't find them here. The text and sheer volume of information is the star.

3. Gourmet Traveller magazines and website

Besides the useful news and events (even though they are solidly eastern-states focussed) they share a great collection of recipes from the very basic to the challenging.

Different to the more pedestrian and commercial offerings from some other cooking magazines, Gourmet Traveller offers an inspired menu and reviews of great places to eat out.

4. My grandmother's index card recipe collection

A family heirloom, childhood memory and guide to a dizzying array of mostly sweet treats all in one.

I've previously written about cooking and eating as a child and I can't stress enough how amazing the gift of cooking and enjoying food is. My grandmother's recipe collection includes jewelled jam drop biscuits, home-made chutneys, casseroles, puddings and more.

While these are the most used sources of recipe ideas in my house, I don't restrict myself. I also happily browse the web and my bookshelves for inspiration and recipes.

I tend to particularly seek out recipes from Claudia Roden, Georgio Locatelli, Bill Granger, Maggie Beer and the venerable Stephanie Alexander.

While I have serious respect for the work he's done to encourage kids (and adults) to eat "real food" I'm not Jamie Oliver's biggest fan and I can usually happily ignore Nigella Lawson's (particularly savoury) options.

For more great suggestions on how to build your cookbook library, you can also check out the wonderful tips from Cake and Commerce.

I'd love to hear which cookbooks are your favourites - share them in the comments below or catch me on twitter.

Related posts:

1. Recipe round up:3 recipes I’m trying next week
2. Speedy mini post: Vietnamese Prawn Salad
3. Recipes that have me drooling this week

photo credit: The Modern Homemaker

Unless you get untied from the sink so that you can trot off in a wool suit to your box on the terrace for every daylight hour and more besides, after which you will glamorously engage in up-to-the-minute witty banter with 40 of your nearest and dearest colleagues who you are dining with again.

You then of course go home, ring your mother and actually listen to what she says, clean the toilet, put the bin out (you're a liberated woman after all), read the paper and a few novels (see the witty banter point above), bake something nice to take to work tomorrow and save at least 15 children from starvation or tractor accidents or something, all while looking hopelessly alluring.

If you're managing all that and vodka isn't a part of your daily routine then I hate you and there is nothing for you here.

Perhaps feminism should go away and focus on the serious stuff, like stopping honour killing and human trafficking and schoolgirls wearing their boyfriends' trackpants. I don't want to be "empowered" to do anything else!

photo credit: Little Sweetie

One of my guilty indulgences is to imagine that I'm a 1950's housewife and I don't need to juggle at all - I would just need to raise perfect kids and keep a spotless house while wearing lovely sticky-outy poofy skirts with poodles on them.

Unfortunately I'm not that great at housekeeping really and if the behaviour of our cats is any indication I'd be a pretty awful parent. I think I could handle the poodles though.

So what has feminism done for me? It has allowed me to do a whole multitude of things all at once and justify being pretty ordinary at all of them.

I have a life full of chaos, contrast and craziness and I wouldn't have it any other way.

Related posts:

1. One relationship, two careers – how to cope
2. Keeping it balanced