There are so many new cookbooks out this week I can barely catch up! I’m snooping around on Amazon and other booksellers’ websites, making my Christmas list (both for cookbooks I want to gift people and cookbooks I want to beg Santa for!) Take a look at some of the best new offerings.
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American Girl Holiday Baking, by American Girl, Weldon Owen, November 5, 2019. This is at the top of my holiday gifting book for several pre-teen nieces. It’s colorful, it features seasonal recipes for cakes and cookies, and presents recipes in easy-to-follow formats. I would have loved to get a cookbook gift like this for Christmas, except I’m so old, I missed out on the whole American Girl doll phenomenon.
Cooking with Mary Berry, by Mary Berry, DK Publishing, November 5, 2019. This book of classic dishes and baking favorites is a reprint for the US market. My American readers probably know this iconic British cookbook author from The Great British Baking Show. This cookbook is very thorough, providing you with Mary Berry’s recipes for Breakfasts and Brunches; Soups, Salads and Appetizers; Main Dishes; Sides; Breads and Baked Goods; and Desserts. Looking at the Desserts chapter, I see recipes for familiar, easy things like baked apples and chocolate cake, plus more complicated items like Crepe Suzette and tiramisu. I’m tempted to add this to the limited amount of space left on my cookbook bookshelf because it’s so complete and covers so much ground, and I trust Mary Berry to have easy to follow recipes to produce delicious dishes.
Keto Baking Made Easy, by Caroline Taylor, self-published, November 2, 2019. Keto baking isn’t a topic I’ve put much thought into, since I don’t eat keto style. Makes sense that this would be an intriguing topic for keto cooks and bakers! The beginning of this 181 page book is a somewhat unnecessary dive into what keto is and the history of the ketogenic movement – topics people interested in keto baking likely are already familiar with. It’s a shame that the Look Inside Amazon preview doesn’t show the table of contents or the recipes. I honestly can’t recommend this book based on this limited info, but check it out for yourself if you’re interested in keto baking.
The Adventurous Eaters Club – Misha Collins, HarperOne, November 5, 2019. Mastering the Art of Family Mealtime. I really could have used a book like this when I was raising picky-eating nephews!
The Side Dish Bible, by America’s Test Kitchen, November 5, 2019. 1001 Perfect Recipes for Every Vegetable, Rice, Grain, and Bean Dish You Will Ever Need. I am really tempted to grab a copy of this to help me with my autumn and Thanksgiving side dishes so I don’t just make broccoli and rice or cheesey cauliflower or mashed potatoes every night!
Vegan Everything, by Nadine Horn and Jorg Mayer, The Experiment, November 1, 2019. I wasn’t sure the world needed yet another vegan cookbook, but this one’s unique approach is helping you satisfy cravings for things like bagels, burgers, tacos, ramen, pizza, and jambalaya, all with vegan ingredients. It’s so hard to find vegetarian ramen even here in Asian-centric Seattle, so I’m excited to learn how to make my own. (I’m not vegan though, so I might throw in an egg!)
Pastry Love, by Joanne Chang, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, November 5, 2019. A Baker’s Journal of Favorite Recipes. This clocks in at a massive 464 pages. Chapters are divided into Breakfast; Breads; Pies; Cakes; Time to Show Off; I Made This For You; and Master of Your Pastry Domain. Some of the recipes inside I’m most intrigued by include Persian Love cookies, Fresh Peach Crostatas, Japanese Cotton Cheesecake, and Matcha Cream Puffs. There are quite a few vegan baked goods recipes here too.
Cookies for Everyone, by Mimi Council, Da Capo Lifelong Books, November 5, 2019. This cookie book presents “100 customizable bakeshop recipes” for cookies, presented in a “baking 101” style. Chapters include “Soft and Chewy Cookies,” “Sandwich Cookies,” “Vegan Cookies,” “Florentines,” “French Macarons,” “Biscotti,” “Butter Cookies” and “Cookie Necessities.”
The New Way to Cake, by former Great British Bake Off contestant Benjamina Ebeuhi, Page Street Publishing, November 5, 2019. This cookbook presents sixty easy, stylish cakes, promising “Simple recipes with exceptional flavor.” Her cake chapters are divided into sections for Nuts & Caramel; Spices; Chocolate; Citrus; Floral; and Fruit. The recipes I’m most intrigued by in this cookbook are Pistachio, Cardamom & Lemon Drizzle Cake; Hibiscus Buttermilk Cake; Plum & Black Pepper Cake; and Rhubarb, Rose & Almond Cake.
Jubilee: Recipes from Two Centuries of African American Cooking, by Toni Tipton-Martin, Clarkson Potter, November 5, 2019. Chapters include Appetizers: Food for Company; Beverages: Liquified Soul; Breads: The Staff of Life; Soups and Salads: For the Welcome Table; Sides and Vegetables: A Little Bit of This, a Little Bit of That; Main Dishes: Comfort in Dining; and Desserts: The Sweet Life.
Food Artisans of Japan: Recipes and Stories, by Nancy Singleton Hachisu, Hardie Grant, November 5, 2019. For quite some time now, I’ve been fascinated by Japanese cooking (although I skip over the seafood and meat dishes in Japanese cookbooks, being a vegetarian). I’d love to read about the backstories of the seven chefs and twenty four food artisans featured here. The book includes 120 recipes.
Sushi Modoki: The Japanese Art of Vegan Sushi, by iina, The Experiment, November 1, 2019. Aah, I’ve been looking for a vegan sushi cookbook (for my vegan stepsister – I eat eggs and I’d miss my tamago dearly!) Modoki means “to mimic.” The cookbook teaches us how to make nigiri, maki, chirashi, inari, and oshi. I am really eager to get this in my hands and start experimenting!
The Pacific Northwest Seafood Cookbook, by Naomi Tomky, Countryman Press, November 5, 2019. This seafood cookbook is a really big deal right now here in my hometown of Seattle. I don’t eat seafood, so I won’t be adding this to my collection, but you might enjoy the recipes for salmon, crab, oysters, halibut, albacore, cod, trout, mussels, and of course our infamous local geoduck.
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Feast of the Seven Fishes, by Daniel Paterna, PowerHouse Books, November 5, 2019. A Brooklyn Italian’s Recipes Celebrating Food & Family. This cookbook is packed full of meat and seafood recipes, so I won’t personally be adding it to my mostly-vegetarian home cookbook library. But I’m intrigued by the names of the dishes here – exotic sounding things I don’t usually see on even high-end Italian restaurant menus here in the Seattle area: Spezzatino di Polpette; Bistecca di Manzo alla Pizzaiola, Taralli al Limone cookies; and Gamberi fra Diavolo.
Signature Dishes that Matter, by multiple contributors, Phaidon Press, November 6, 2019. This is a food history book, not a cookbook. It is a “global celebration of the iconic restaurant dishes that defined the course of culinary history over the past 300 years.” Some of the dishes examined here include the iconic club sandwich, carpaccio, chimichangas, peach melba, and the horrible-sounding Nitro-Poached Green Tea and Lime Mousse.
Lateral Cooking, by Niki Segnit, Bloomsbury Publishing, November 5, 2019. This book teaches you basic ingredients (such as soda bread and yeasted bread) that you can build upon to make other items. For example, you can use soda bread for one meal, then slice it thinly and bake it the next to make crackers. You can then use crackers in tortilla soup or as quesadillas, etc. I love the idea of baking once and building in new ways to use things I’ve already made.
Supernatural: The Official Cookbook, by Julie Tremaine and photographer Jessica Torres, is a pop-culture television show cookbook. It features “Burgers, Pies, and Other Bites from the Road.” You can see a preview of this cookbook over at ScreenRant.
Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge: The Official Black Spire Outpost Cookbook, by Chelsea Monroe-Cassel and Mark Sumerak, Insight Editions, November 5, 2019. I thought I was a geeky Star Wars fan, but I have fallen behind on the Star Wars universe, large as it is, and I’m not sure what the Black Spire Outpost is! Recipes include Rings of Hudalla, Gurreck Gravy, Emulsauce (eww?) Polystarch Portion Bread (double eww?) and Chadian Dressing. Whatever all that means!
Bake Australia Great, by Sydney cake artist Katherine Sabbath, Murdoch Books, November 5, 2019. This quirky baking book from the land down under features Koala Crunch Pops, a giant pineapple-shaped cake, a Dame Edna Koala cake, Fairy Bread Cake, a Mining Magnet cake, a Jaws shark cake, and hideous Redback Spider Cakes (hopefully for Halloween).
Fire Islands: Recipes from Indonesia, by Eleanor Ford, Apollo Publishers, November 5, 2019. I love international cookbooks, and come to think of it, I don’t think I’ve tried Indonesian foods before. I wonder if they are very vegetarian-friendly. Let’s peek at the contents: Chapters are divided into Crunchy Snacks & Street Food; Rich & Creamy; Dry & Aromatic; Fragrant Broths & Tangy Sauces; Salad & Dressed Vegetables; Rice & Noodles; Awakening the Senses; Sweet & Sticky; and Drinks. As with most international cookbooks, there’s a section on pantry ingredients you’ll need, like kaffir limes, tamarind, bitter melon, and papaya flowers (yikes, can I get those on Amazon?)
Under the Mediterranean Sun, by Nadia Zerouali and Merijn Tol, Smith Street Books, November 5, 2019. My very favorite type of cookbook is the Mediterranean cookbook, so I’m likely to allocate precious shelf space to this one. Recipes in this cookbook are from southern Europe, the Middle East and North Africa. Chapters are organized by region, and include Mahgreb (Morocco, Tunisia, Libya, Algeria); The Middle East & Levant (Lebanon & Syria; Palestine & Israel; Turkey) and Southern Europe (Sicily; Andalusia; Sardinia; Catalonia). I’m intrigued by recipes like Puglian Chicory with Chickpea Puree. The cookbook is full of stunningly beautiful photos of sights from the regions, as well as lovely food photographs of the dishes made from these recipes.
Happy cookbook looking,
-Carrie
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