Weekend Cooking: 9 Books for Food & Drink Lovers

Hello friends! It’s been a hot minute since I connected with my very favorite blogging group—all of you at Weekend Cooking. Part my absence was just needing a break and part is my lack of desire to learn the new Blogger interface. (And at this point I’m not really interested in paying someone to move everything over to WordPress.)

I’ll get the hang of it and all will be fine again.

Today’s post is a round-up of 9 food and cooking books I’ve been exploring since the beginning of the summer. Hope you find something you like here. All these books should be available at your local independent bookstore or library; note that publishing dates are from Edelweiss+ and may not be accurate.

• Modern Cast Iron by Ashley L. Jones (Red Lighting Books; Aug. 18): This book lives up to its subtitle; it is indeed a “complete guide” to cast iron and includes good information on how to buy pans, season and clean them, and even how to turn that crusty flea market find into something you’ll be happy to use. Jones includes a handful of recipes that will take you from breakfast through to dinner (we made the chocolate chip cookie skillet cake--see my Instagram for a photo). The recipes are easy and doable, but the worth of this book is in the excellent advice for incorporating cast iron into your modern kitchen.
• Dirt by Bill Buford (Knopf; May 5): I’ve been a fan of Buford’s since I first listened to his book Heat in 2006. In his newest cooking memoir he shares his journey to learn all there is to know about French cooking; never mind that he didn't really speak the language. His self-directed humor and conversational tone mixed with a natural talent for storytelling, makes Dirt a don’t-miss read. A six-month stay in Lyon, with his wife and toddler twin boys, turned into a years-long learning opportunity. You’ll be craving all things wonderful on your plate, even as you discover the strict rules and techniques that are de rigueur for French chefs.
• The Truth about Baked Beans by Meg Muckenhoupt (NYU Press, Aug. 25): This well-researched look into the culinary world of New England dissects the myths and reveals the truths of the region’s signature dishes. From Native Americans to the Pilgrims and through every wave of immigrants thereafter, every group has made its mark on household New England cooking, and—spoiler alert—most of those dishes are different from those that have gained legendary status. Firsthand accounts reveal the cultural biases, fear of the unfamiliar, and more that shaped the region’s culinary reputation. Well worth your time.

• Beautiful Booze by Natalie Migliarini and James Stevenson (Countryman Press; Aug. 25): I’m usually a wine (and sometimes beer) kind of woman, but other times I’m all about the cocktail. In these days of self-isolation, there’s something fun about coming up with the perfect afternoon, evening, or weekend drink to brighten your day and make you dream about a future when you can invite your friends and family into your house again. The “beautiful” part of the title of this cocktail recipe book isn’t a lie: the photos and the drinks themselves are simply gorgeous. I’m not kidding. The book includes all the expected information about stocking your bar, picking glassware, learning mixing techniques, and making homemade syrups. The drinks look heavenly.
• Six Seasons by Joshua McFadden with Martha Holmberg (Artisan; May 2): This wonderful vegetable-forward cookbook is just what you want to guide you through your year of veggies. I can’t wait until I can go to the farmer’s market again and explore all the freshest produce of the season; when that day happens, this is the cookbook I want by my side. In the meantime, I can use the recipes to make the most of grocery store curbside pickup. Although the recipes are centered on seasonal vegetables, this is not a fully vegetarian cookbook, so if you don’t eat meat, you’ll want to look through this before you buy it. Wondering about the six seasons? Summer is divided up into early, mid, and late harvests.
• The Ultimate Pasta Machine Cookbook by Lucy Vaserfirer (Harvard Common Press; Aug 4): I’m inspired by this down-to-earth, easy-to-follow guide to making homemade noodles. The techniques sections cover all kinds of pasta makers, from sheeters to cutters to extruders, including stand-alone electric machines, hand-cranked machines, and attachments to a mixer. The recipes look easy and fun, and Vaserfirer provides directions for gluten-free pasta too. I’m waiting for cooler weather to give these recipes a try, although now that I think about it, quarantine is the perfect time to perfect your pasta-making skills. Great photos and clear directions throughout.

• Unvarnished by Eric Alperin and Deborah Stoll (Harper Wave; June 23): This memoir has been billed as the Kitchen Confidential of the bartending world. That alone would get me to read this, but the book has also won tons of praise for its candid perspective of life on the other side of the bar. Alperin extolls the professional side of his chosen career, dispelling the notion that a good mixologist is somehow in limbo waiting for his or her "real" job opportunities to appear. I haven’t read this yet, but it’s currently at the top of my fall reading stack.
• Searching for Family and Traditions at the French Table by Carole Bumpus (She Writes Press; Aug. 18): In this second travelogue, food adventure, memoir mashup, Bumpus takes us to Normandy, Brittany, Loire, and Auvergne, where she met local families, learning about their foods, recipes, and traditions while cooking and talking at the kitchen table. If you’re interested in authentic French foods and wines, have a love of travel, and understand the importance of family, you’ll love Bumpus’s books. I’m reading this slowly, savoring every (tasty) word.
• Women in the Kitchen by Anne Willan (Scribner; Aug. 11): Willan’s books have a permanent place in my personal cookbook collection. Her latest is a look at a dozen women who lived and cooked at some point during the last 300 years and who (as the subtitle suggests) had a major influence on the way we eat and cook. I just received my review copy of this book (as in yesterday!), and I can’t wait to dive in. The book consists of short biographies and then a sampling of each woman’s recipes. I might not make Hannah Woolley’s seventeenth-century recipes, but I’ve already cooked from books written by Edna Lewis, Irma Rombauer, and many of the others. I’m looking forward to learning more!

Thanks to the publishers for providing review copies of these titles. Fuller reviews will be available on Goodreads or Instagram sometime during the following weeks.

Shared with Weekend Cooking, hosted by Marg at The Intrepid Reader (and Baker)