I probably did more cooking, for more people (and for more of a social media audience for that matter) in 2019 than in any year prior. It was a year of branching out from my typical cooking style and repertoire of faithful recipes. Surprisingly, I did not have much of a learning curve with this, which I would attribute partially to experience in cooking, but more-so to the high quality of cookbooks I had to guide me this year. I thought I would share those with you here since I get many requests for recipes and cookbook recommendations. These books were not necessarily published this year, they are just the books that defined my personal cooking and baking year.
Since I’m a baker by trade, I feel like I have to mention first the baking book that I enjoyed the most this year.
The Tivoli Road Baker I’ve only had since the spring and it is already showing signs of wear due to how much I have used it as a reference. It’s almost like 4 books as it has so many recipes and so much utilitarian advice in it. I’ve made sprouted buckwheat sourdough, spelt plum galettes, perfectly spiced gingerbread, and lemon curd filled doughnuts from this book as you might expect from a high quality baking book. Perhaps surprisingly, I’ve also made roasted garlic mayonnaise, pickled carrots, curry chicken, a variety of salads and salad dressings, meat pies, and Cornish pasties. I can’t more highly recommend this book, not just for leveling up your baking and all the small notes of valuable advice tacked into the margins, but the sheer volume of quality recipes in every category. This book never quite makes it back into my bookshelf before I want to look at it again. I wish I had this book when I first started cooking and baking, I have learned so much from it this year.
I started out the year planning to working on my Japanese cooking. Our family has a sustained interest in Japanese food since my husband is half Japanese. I was also inspired because my friend Yukimi, a baker from Japan, planned to come visit us in the summer. I picked out this book:
I mostly wanted to try to understand the type of cooking possibly made at home or as street food. By the time my friend Yukimi returned for a 2nd visit from Japan we had made: ramen, okonomiyaki, tempura, soba, oyakadon, takoyaki, donburi, tonkatsu, udon, and so many more recipes with this book as my guide. I found the recipes thorough, informative, fun, and approachable. Even things that I wasn’t quite sure how it should taste (squid pancake balls? savory cabbage pancakes?) came out beautifully thanks to the explicit instructions. I really enjoyed this book and how it opened the door to talk with my friend in the kitchen somewhat confidently, in spite of our language barrier. Food can really open the door for so much more.
As many of you know, I went to Paris for the first time this year, which was an incredible experience, When I came home I definitely wanted to recreate in my kitchen some of the things I loved to eat there. I brought home a cookbook from Paris that was in French and used my google translate app to interpret the recipes which was a fun exercise, but I definitely needed a little more guidance in my native language. I found this book secondhand in a bookshop and I was so glad that I did.
I had followed David Lebovitz online for a very long time, and I felt that buying this book was extremely overdue on my part. I was correct. I have cooked 3-4 meals per week out of this book consistently since I bought it. Possibly since David originally hails from Northern California a little bit near where I live, his take on french cooking feels somewhat familiar and very attainable to me. I like the breadth of this book a lot, there are plenty of simple recipes as well as more “project” type recipes that are fun to tackle and the desserts are fantastic as well. Get this book.
Finally, we have a book that I received at the end of the year as a gift from a dear friend.
I have only had this book about a month, but I am so excited to use it as a reference throughout the coming year. It is laid out seasonally which is very useful as a newbie to having a small garden. It’s extremely visual in nature which is great for showing recipes to my kids. We do like to cook with a lot of produce, so this is a nice book for our family. I have only made a handful of recipes from it so far and they have all been delicious and helpful for me since I cook a lot but don’t always feel the most inspired and creative when I see a carrot!
Here’s to a new year filled with plenty of good cooking! I hope perhaps you will like one of these books as much as I have.