Let’s take a look at the new crop of cookbooks!
(Disclosure: Some of the links in this post are affiliate links. This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, we will receive an affiliate commission at no extra cost to you)
Food Illusions, by Ben Churchill (Srl Publishing; February 2020) features inventive, quirky creations such as a carrot-shaped carrot cake, an edible washing-up sponge, panna cotta Scotch eggs, a pizza cake and a chocolate throne. While I probably wouldn’t actually bake any of these, I’m intrigued and want to check this cookbook out!
I’m probably going to add Hollywood Cocktails (Cider Mill Press, February 2020) to the little area on my bookshelf for cocktail and bartending books. (I love movies and especially Old Hollywood ones!) The book features 95 recipes celebrating films from Paramount Pictures, beginning with silent films from the 1920s. The book includes standard cocktails like the Tom Collins, Hot Buttered Rum and Original French 75, and drinks created to celebrate Hollywood and its films such as the Sunset Strip, True Romance and The Godfather. If you’re throwing an Oscar or Golden Globes party next year, this will come in handy.
Speaking of cocktails, here’s another newly released cocktail book I’m probably going to pick up. Camp Cocktails presents “Easy, Fun & Delicious Drinks for the Great Outdoors.” (Harvard Common Press, February 2020). The only way you’re going to get me out going hiking or camping is bribing me with strong cocktails, and lots of them, so this might come in handy.
Here’s a great gift for the … ahem.. older people in your life. Aunts, great-aunts, grandmothers? The Aunt Bee’s Mayberry Cookbook celebrates the sixtieth anniversary of The Andy Griffith Show. The 300 recipes herein are presented as being from the characters – Aunt Bee’s Canton Palace Plate; Lunch with Leon; Morelli’s Pounded Steak Dinner, and Barney’s Steak Out, for example. There’s a lot of Southern cooking recipes in here, and this cookbook looks quite useful, not just kitschy.
Just the Good Stuff, by Rachel Mansfield (Clarkson Potter; February 2020) offers “100 guilt-free recipes to satisfy all your cravings.” The recipes include gluten-free, paleo and plant-based options for snacks, desserts, meals and sweets. I love that there are both chapters for Solo Meals and for Gatherings.
Simple Fruit is a cookbook from Laurie Pfalzer, who lives in my hometown. (I’ve taken a couple baking classes from her!) It features seasonal recipes for baking, sauteing, roasting and poaching fruits. I’ll probably skip the rhubarb chapter (I’m not personally a fan of the flavor, which is a shame since so much of it grows in my backyard) and go straight to the cherries chapter!
Which of these new cookbooks are you most intrigued to check out? Let me know in the comments below!
-Carrie
