The Three Cookbooks I’m Reading

Six Seasons:I promise this is a cookbook you will actually cook from. It has become my canon when I have a pile of vegetables and little inspiration, both at Stomping Ground and at home. McFadden’s recipes have a welcome clarity of flavors with lovely twists. So next Saturday at the Farmer’s Market go crazy; grab turnips, parsnips, peppers you don’t know the names of, and whatever else you like. McFadden will help you learn a very basic technique and create layers of flavor you didn’t know were possible. My personal favorite is his spaghetti with swiss chard, pine nuts, raisins and chilies. A sweet, salty, spicy, earthy dish…and he recommends you fold leftovers into a frittata. It’s perfection.   Prune:Ah Gabrielle Hamilton. My culinary touchstone. She’s an incredible Chef and author (she has still been known to work the line at her first and only restaurant). Although she recently has received some controversial press, I still couldn’t love her more. If you have any curiosity about how Chef’s scale up recipes for their kitchens and give instructions to cooks, this is the book for you. It is written to Gabrielle's cooks in her distinctive voice, with as much instruction, encouragement, information, and scolding as you would find if you actually came to work at Prune as a line cook. Her work is deeply personal and gracious and highly original. I love love love this book. Her years of experience comes through in just about every recipe. She will tell you what to expect from a dish at every turn, making it very difficult to make mistakes along the way. Reading her recipe for an omelet will make you a pro! Side note: I also adore her gritty autobiography, Blood Bones and Butter, The Inadvertent Education of a Reluctant Chef. You can purchase both at Stomping Ground in our small retail area at the front.   The Food Lab:There are two different kinds of approaches to food. Prune, listed above, is highly romantic and ritualistic. In direct contrast, The Food Lab breaks down techniques scientifically; busting myths and providing context as to why food and recipes work and do not work. J. Kenji Lopez has a cult-like following for those that like to weigh, measure and time while cooking. If you like to bake and can’t cook, you may find The Food Lab the way to savory success. If you want to know the best way to boil an egg, The Food Lab has the answer. The New York Times credits Kenji as, “…reliable, personable and unpretentious. He is also a gifted explainer, making difficult concepts easy to grasp for those of us with a lifelong lack of aptitude for the sciences.” This is a great book to learn techniques, but not necessarily a great book for flavor combinations (Check out The Flavor Bible for that). 

Photo Credit: W. W. Norton & Company