In 2017, a good cookbook is a great gift. Why? This year’s line up—from chefs and bloggers alike—is defined by home cooking and vegetable-forward fare. And cookbooks are packaged better than ever with plenty of color and bold graphics. Here are our favorites from the year.
Please note that we’re fans of local bookstores, but for the sake of convenience, we’ve linked to Amazon here.
Above: We’ve been following Julia Sherman’s idiosyncratic blog Salad for Presidentso when she did a cookbook of the same name, we couldn’t wait to get cooking. Each salad recipe (of which there are 75) is presented by a different artist/creative/thinker; everyone from Tauba Auerbach to Alice Waters; $21.41. Above: David Tanis Market Cooking: Recipes and Revelations ($23.11), the latest cookbook from chef David Tanis (Chez Panisse alum), is all about “how to be more discerning in the market and freer in the kitchen.” See our visit to his own kitchen in Chef David Tanis’s Low-Tech, Economical, and Beautifully Soulful Kitchen in the East Village.
Above: Athena Calderone of EyeSwoon expertly pairs prep with presentation in the 100 seasonal recipes in Cook Beautiful; $19.91. For Athena’s Brooklyn kitchen, see our post Kitchen of the Week: A Low-Cost Before/After Kitchen in Brooklyn. Above: Annie, our resident Mainer, has had The Lost Kitchen: Recipes and a Good Life Found in Freedom, Maine ($19.44) by chef Erin French on her radar for “the simple, from-the-earth-and-sea recipes she serves on mismatched plates at her cult-favorite restaurant in a historic mill in a tiny Maine town,” says Annie. “It’s a perfect solution for those of us who can’t get in for dinner. The season’s reservations book up within hours when the phone lines open every April 1.” Above: Jeremy Fox’s On Vegetables: Modern Recipes for the Home Kitchen is comprised of 160 vegetable recipes (good for vegetarians and nonvegetarians alike); $30.56. Above: In Downtime: Deliciousness at Home ($23.40), chef Nadine Levy Redzepi (wife of Noma cofounder René Redzepi) deconstructs an ideal dinner party with laid-back recipes and the mantra “pair the very best ingredients with restaurant-inflected techniques that make the most out of their inherent flavors.” For more on Nadine, see Expert Advice: Nadine Redzepi’s Secrets to a Well-Ordered Home Kitchen. Above: The The Family Meal: Home Cooking with Ferran Adrià is the El Bulli chef’s easy-to-prepare recipes for family dining at home; $20.57. Above: Yotam Ottolenghi Sweet: Desserts from London’s Ottolenghi ($21.49) is the chef’s latest collection of recipes, 110 of them in the sweets/baked goods category. It’s Meredith’s pick of the year: “I’ve made a handful of Ottolenghi baking recipes from his other [non-baking] books, and they’ve all been great, so I’m really excited for an all-baking book from him.” Above: Sunday Suppers founder Karen Mordechai released a two-volume cookbook set (Simple Fare: Spring and Summer & Simple Fare: Fall and Winter) this year. Mordechai, known for her artful table settings, offers some 60 recipes with variations in each volume. For more on Mordechai, pick up a copy of our latest book The Organized Home, where she reveals her top secrets for organizing the refrigerator (artfully, no less). Above: San Francisco mainstay Tartine refocuses on the home-cooked meal in Tartine All Day: Modern Recipes for the Home Cook ($27.19). The 200 recipes on offer are more straightforward and approachable than the Tartine cookbooks of the past (though we love those too). See last year’s line up in The Best Cookbooks for Holiday Gifts in 2016.
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