Sopranos Family Cookbook

As follow up to a series of Best 5 cookbooks in various cookbook collecting specialization categories, Cookbook Village is sharing the Best 5 TV Show Themed Cookbooks as the newest topic. In terms of collecting, these books are a fun, nostalgic find. Generally, as you will see from the final auction prices below, TV-theme cookbooks don't tend to be valued very high. In fact, they usually sell high at retail but have little resell value. Still, they are a personal favorite and always a great read. One of the most popular of current times is the Sopranos Family Cookbook (pictured above). There is a sequel to that book as well that is more recent and equally as popular.

1. Aunt Bee Desserts Cookbook - Andy Griffith Show

Format: Softcover Spiral-Bound
Copyright: 1996
Author: Ken Beck and Jim Clark
Publisher: Rutledge Hill Final Auction Price: $10.50
From the jacket cover: Aunt Bee did more than warm the hearts of Andy, Opie, Barney, and Goober on The Andy Griffith Show - She filled their lives with good advice--and good food! And the hands-down favorites from Aunt Bee's kitchen were her desserts. From pies to cakes, from cookies to homemade ice cream, there is an abundance of recipes in Aunt Bee's Delightful Desserts to satisfy every sweet tooth.

Sprinkled among these mouthwatering treats are dialogue from the show, photos, including some never before published, and trivia quizzes.

Who is better than Aunt Bee at baking after-school treats for Opie or topping a pie in case Helen and Andy have coffee after the picture show? So slow down and stop by the Taylors' for a bite of something sweet. Go around to the kitchen. Aunt Bee is expecting you.

2. Sopranos Family Cookbook - Sopranos

Format: Hardcover and dust jacket, 200 pages
Copyright: 2002
Compiled by: Artie Bucco
Publisher: Warner Books
Final Auction Price: $10.50
From the jacket cover: Nuovo Vesuvio. The "family" restaurant, redefined. Home to the finest in Napolitan' cuisine and Essex County's best kept secret. Now Artie Bucco, la cucina's master chef and your personal host, invites you to a special feast... with a little help from his friends. From arancini to zabaglione, from baccala to Quail Sinatra-style, Artie Bucco and his guests, the Sopranos and their associates, offer food lovers one hundred Avellinese-style recipes and valuable preparation tips. But that's not all! Artie also brings you a cornucopia of precious Sopranos artifacts that includes photos from the old country; the first Bucco's Vesuvio's menu from 1926; AJ's school essay on "Why I Like Food"; Bobby Bacala's style tips for big eaters, and much, much more. So share the big table with:

  • Tony Soprano, waste management executive "Most people soak a bagful of discount briquettes with lighter fluid and cook a pork chop until it's shoe leather and think they're Wolfgang Puck." Enjoy his tender Grilled Sausages sizzling with fennel or cheese. Warning: Piercing the skin is a fire hazard.
  • Corrado "Junior" Soprano, Tony's uncle "Mama always cooked. No one died of too much cholesterol or some such crap." Savor his Pasta Fazool, a toothsome marriage of cannellini beans and ditalini pasta, or Giambott, a grand-operatic vegetable medley.
  • Carmela Soprano, Tony's wife "If someone were sick, my inclination would be to send over a pastina and ricotta. It's healing food." Try her Baked Ziti, sinfully enriched with three cheeses, and her earthy 'Shcarole with Garlic.
  • Peter Paul "Paulie Walnuts" Gualtieri, associate of Tony Soprano "I have heard that Eskimos have fifty words for snow. We have five hundred words for food." Sink your teeth into his Eggs in Purgatory--eight eggs, bubbling tomato sauce, and an experience that's pure heaven.

As Artie says, "Enjoy, with a thousand meals and a thousand laughs. Buon'appetito!"

3. The Little House Cookbook - Little House on the Prairie

Format: Softcover, 240 pages
Copyright: 1979
Author: Babara M. Walker
Publisher: Harper Collins Publishing
Final Auction Price: $8.00
From the jacket cover: There are over 100 unique recipes of classic pioneer food--dishes. Laura Ingalls Wilder and her family shared throughout their lives on the frontier. From pancake men to vanity cakes, recreate the very foods described in the beloved Little House books, all of which have been adapted for a modern kitchen. Even more than a cookbook, this collection is a social history of frontier life.

For the Ingallses, and many pioneers, feeding the family was a task that involved everyone. Pa hunted and farmed for food, Ma prepared and preserved it, and the children helped in both activities. This book celebrates the rich communion of a pioneer family working, cooking, and eating together, in a time when putting food on the table meant more than just a meal--it meant survival.

4. Cooking with Friends - Friends

Format: Hardcover and dust jacket, 134 pages
Copyright: 1995
Author: Amy Lyles Wilson with Jack Bishop
Publisher: Rutledge Hill Press
Final Auction Price: $5.00
From the jacket cover: Cooking with Friends invites you to bring Friends from your living room into your kitchen. Even if you and your friends don't hang out at a neighborhood coffee house, Cooking with Friends will inspire you with hundreds of excellent culinary ideas for practically every occasion in your life.

There are Comfort Foods for when "it hasn't been your day, your week, your month, or even your year"--perfect food for imperfect times. Blown a job interview? Enjoy garlic infused Stay at Home Pasta. Haven't had a decent date in who knows how long? Eat a slice of Misery Meatloaf. Sent your monkey to live in a zoo? Savor Marcel's Splits with Rum-Toffee Sauce in his memory.

And when you've thrown all caution to the wind and let your friend give you a really bad haircut, bite into some Italian Almond Biscotti. And for those times when things are going your way, you can sample enticing Vegetarian Delights, follow complete menus from Festive and Holiday Selections, and sip on gourmet coffee drinks found in Central Perks.

Along with the book's lighter side, you will also uncover some practical advice for brewing coffee, stocking your pantry, and using a pizza stone.

Combining the camaraderie and wit of the hit television series Friends with contemporary cuisine and familiar favorites, Cooking with Friends serves up good food and good fun, from appetizers to desserts, accompanied by a generous serving of Friends dialogue and photos.

5. Mary Ann's Gilligan's Island Cookbook - Gilligan's Island

Format: Softcover spiral bound, 240 pages
Copyright: 1993
Author: Ken Beck and Jim Clark
Publisher: Rutledge Hill Press
Final Auction Price: $5.25
From the jacket cover: For three adventurous seasons in the 1960s (and ever since in reruns), the seven Castaways stranded on Gilligan's Island were never without good food. It seemed that whatever they gave Mary Ann - from lobsters and coconuts to papaya and seaweed - in a matter of minutes she could whip up a delicious South Seas banquet.

More than 300 recipes from Mary Ann and other cast members, photographs and stories from the set, trivia questions and answers, dialogue, biographies of the Castaways and others, and an episode guide make Mary Ann's Gilligan's Island Cookbook the perfect souvenir of one of the most watched shows in the history of television.