nothing like a fresh crop of cookbooks to capture the promise of spring: With all those new foods to make and new ideas to absorb comes the realization that creation and innovation are a constant, no matter what the world is doing. The following 12 titles, chosen from a very bounteous roster, deliver on that promise, and then some. Most of them have little in common, save the verve with which they explore their subjects and their implicit message that every day is worthy of at least a little celebration. You’re here and you’re able to feed yourself, they all seem to say. Why not make something great?
In these books, kosher cooking gets an update, yogurt helps to sustain an Iranian immigrant family, fruit finds its full expression, a beloved pastry chef makes her debut, vegetables continue to inspire chefs and cookbook authors to new heights, Japanese American home cooking gets its due in Brooklyn. There is matzo ball ramen and whey-brined Thanksgiving turkey; there is a choy sum galette with feta and there are Flamin’ Hot Doritos fried mozzarella sticks. Family is everywhere; no matter what’s being cooked, the importance of community and connectivity is palpable in these pages. As it should be: Lord knows we could all use it right now, as we watch another season begin to bloom, and wonder, as ever, what to cook tonight.
Even though spring is practically here, Nigel Slater’s A Cook’s Book feels delightfully cozy. Its 150 recipes — described as Slater’s essentials — are built on childhood memories and the promise of meals that are simple to prepare but look and taste incredible. Slater, a beloved food columnist and BBC presenter in the U.K., is quick to point out that he doesn’t consider himself a chef, and that’s evident in recipes like “a soup of bread and cheese,” which includes only a handful more ingredients than the two listed in the title.
Originally published in the U.K. (and now being reissued by Ten Speed Press), A Cook’s Book urges the reader to slow down a bit, to find some simple joy in the melding of beans, aromatics, and pancetta into a perfect, low-simmered soup. Almost every recipe is accompanied by a personal story about its inspiration, like how Slater’s time as a culinary student in France shaped his perspective on buying chickens. Their resolute simplicity, along with their occasional pedantry (Slater has strong, intermittently crotchety, opinions on everything from the pitfalls of chicken drumsticks to unnecessary kitchen gadgets) effectively make the book a manifesto of sorts, a pure distillation of Slater’s cooking philosophy.
Though perfectly explicit, Slater’s recipes read like prose, which means that you’ll want to curl up in your favorite chair and read through each one slowly until you just can’t take it any longer and have to get up to make your own za’atar-spiked chicken cutlets or a bowl of orecchiette tossed with basil and zucchini. There’s even a mildly existential mediation on the “stillness” of the perfect cheesecake. With writing that’s just as satisfying as the recipes it describes, it all adds up to a book that feels like whatever the British equivalent of hygge might be called.
