12 Days of Cookbooks (!!!) — Chatting About The Season’s New Books with Margaret Roach
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♬♬♬ It’s the most wonderful time of the year… ♬♬♬
I hum this to myself a lot: When my first CSA arrives in June. When the first good tomatoes all but fall of the vine in early September. When snowflakes the size of golf balls drop from the sky. AND, most of all, when it’s time to talk about cookbooks with my friend Margaret Roach, the master gardener behind A Way to Garden
Last year, we talked about all-time favorites, the first books we ever owned, and the ones with the most besmirched pages. This year, we’ve kept our chat to the latest crop: the fall and winter 2018 cookbooks, and we hope our chat might give you some ideas for gift giving this season. Rest assured, there is something for everyone — the bakers, the boozers, the pie lovers, the pizza lovers, the Ina fans, the Dorie fans, the gadget collectors, and more.
Read the transcript or listen here.
I have not had a chance to cook from all of the books we discussed, and there are many others I haven’t even had a chance to page through yet, namely Emily: The Cookbook, which is #1 on my Christmas wishlist—Santa, hope you’re reading. That said, I have cooked from a number of the season’s new books, and I’ve included some notes below.
ALSO, Margaret and I are each giving away 12 cookbooks (!!!). To enter, leave a comment below: tell me what your favorite cookbook is for gifting (or just your favorite) and a little bit about why. Now, go double your chances to win by copying your comment into the comment box over at Margaret’s website.
Starting Monday Dec. 3, 2018, we’ll each draw one random winner a day through Dec. 14th. Here’s the order of the 12 Days of giveaways. The list will be updated daily to reflect the winner.
- Season: UPDATE: Winner is Cara Priddy
- Everyday Dorie UPDATE: Winner is Frank Wilk
- Israeli Soul: UPDATE: Winner is KARA P.
- Cooking with Scraps: UPDATE: Winner is Katherine Hubbard
- Sister Pie: UPDATE: Winner is Renee D
- Cook Like a Pro: UPDATE: Winner is Jo Kurdzeil
- Genius Desserts: UPDATE: Winner is Susan Rode
- Skinny Taste One and Done: UPDATE: Winner is Amy Olmsted
- All About Cake: UPDATE: Winner is Marie Guiles
- Milk Street Tuesday Nights: UPDATE: Winner is Sarah Bach
- Comfort in an Instant: UPDATE: WINNER is Michelle Swift
- Now and Again: UPDATE: WINNER is Paulina Muratore
One entry per person. Entries end at midnight Thursday, Dec. 13, before the final drawing. U.S. only. Good luck to all.
Category #1: Weeknight-ish/Everyday Cooking
Cook90: On January 1st 2016, David Tamarkin of Epicurious resolved to cook more — to cook 3 meals a day for an entire month — an experiment he called “Cook90”. In the end, he emerged a better, faster, and healthier cook, and he has since inspired hundreds of thousands of others to take the challenge. His cookbook, Cook90, outlines exactly how to do it: recipes, strategies, meal plans, and more.
Category #2: Global Flavors
Category #3: Baking
Category #4: Nose-to-Tail
Waste Not: Learned about this one through Margaret and her podcast with Top Chef star Tiffany Derry. Waste Not is a new cookbook from the James Beard Foundation and a campaign of anti-food waste advocacy spearheaded by that organization.
Now and Again: The latest from Julia Turshen, who believes a complete meal doesn’t have to be difficult or expensive, that leftovers can lead to inventive/fun cooking, and that gathering people around the table for a meal is a good thing. Organize both by season and menu — a brunch or an easy Thanksgiving. Helpful tips about what can be made ahead of time. Each menu is followed by a section called “It’s Me Again,” which offers a few recipes for using the leftovers.
And last but not least:
Rebekah Peppler’s Apéritif: For Francophiles and beyond, Apèritif offers recipes for both classic and modern French cocktails, along with French-inspired bites and hors d’oeuvres.
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740 Comments on “12 Days of Cookbooks (!!!) — Chatting About The Season’s New Books with Margaret Roach”
I’d have to say Dishing Up the Dirt by Farmer Andrea Bemis. Her book and her blog are beautiful, simple, raw and real. Her book is open on my kitchen counter right now. I’m going to make the pizza dough recipe in her book to freeze a few balls of dough to have on hand for quick homemade pizza nights. She’s a vegetable farmer, so her book is based on seasonal vegetables. i too am a vegetable farmer so I feel like we’re talking the same language!
My faorite cookbook for giving was the one our church published.
Small Victories is my favorite for gifting. Fun, delicious recipes that both seasoned home cooks and reluctant newbies can execute. Her twists for each recipe,lists, and sample menus triple the value!!!!
I’m just starting to actually cook again, ad, after having such good meals in Italy, am starting thru Marlena De Blasi’s Regional Foods of Northern Italy.
My fav is The Silver Palette I received it as a shower gift in 1981. Many things were beyond my 20 year old self’s cooking experience, but I forged ahead. OThere are several recipes I still make and my sons do as well (they’re 27,25 and 24). I’m most likely to gift a man with one of Ted Allen’s cookbook (I love them) and they’re fairly non intimidating. Although, Heidi Swanson’s Supernatural makes appearances too. It just depends on the recipient.
For gifting, I really love Martha Stewart’s Pies (with a pieplate/weights/pie crust cover), or Cookies (with a cookie sheet/cookie cutters/silpat/scoops), or Cakes (with….you get the idea). Perfect for weddings or showers, or just because!
For an everyday cookbook, I love Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution. Simple, easy, down to earth recipes for every night.
‘What Can I Bring?” by Elizabeth Heiskell, Southern Food For Any Occasion Life Serves Up. It’s a lovely book that just puts you in the mood to make something for someone. Even if you don’t get around to it, it makes you feel like you’re the kind of person that would.
Favorite gifting cookbook? Any Ina Garten cookbook! The recipes are so easy to follow and the outcome makes you feel like a “pro”! ????
So many good cookbooks, so little time…..I love cookbooks by Alana Chernila, Ina Garten, also Love Soup and Lost Kitchen cookbooks. Thanks for another great review of new cookbooks!
Julie Sahni Indian cookbooks are books I go to a lot for the delicious & simple to follow recipes. Classic Indian Cooking is a gift she gave us & I would happily gift it to anyone wanting to learn Indian cooking!
The Lost Kitchen by Erin French…because I’ve been lucky enough to dine there 3 times, including opening day…because the book is beautiful…but mostly because the recipes are delicious. Lovely gift.
Any of the Smitten Kitchen cookbooks are faves to give as gifts. Also any Ottenlenghi books make great gifts.
December 2, 2018 at 11:25 am
Hi. Well this isn’t a published book so I don’t know if it will count, but I put together a book of my grandmother’s recipes and give them out to nieces and nephews as part of the family heritage. As for published books Breakfast by the editors of Extra Crispy is a fun and informative one
Just printed the recipe you posted from SISTER PIE which sounds decadent and luscious. Thanks for the reviews of all.
I love all cook books! I am hard pressed to chose just one and it would really depend upon the recipient! In general, probably The Joy of Cooking. An old stand by!
I have been immersed with Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat by Samin Nosrat. Love her enthusiasm for food!
Lately, I’ve been surfing the internet for recipes but my old school favorite is the Joy of Cooking. You can find a recipe for almost any ingredient! My copy is well-loved: cover tattered, back broken and pages stained.
I love to give cocktail books, recipes are always fun to have for perfect mixology. But Ina-anything is a favorite, as is Nigella-anything. But a real favorite is “Beat That”. Oldie but goodie.
The Food Lab is my most recent favorite, but I learned to cook from Julia’s Mastering the Art when it was first published. I made either her chopped broccoli gratineed with cheese sauce or her creamed spinach for my mom’s Thanksgiving and Christmas family dinner every year I was home from my college and Army years until I hosted the family myself after my parents were gone. I added her tomatoes provencal to those later menus. I also always check James Beard’s American Cookery for comfort food recipes. Marcella’s volume one was an eye opener to Italian 45 years ago or so, and I have cooked dishes from most of Jacques Pepin’s books as well.
Any book by Crissy Teigen is a favorite – especially LOVEher book Cravings.
Love cookbooks! Count me in.
I have given Dinner in an Instant by Melissa Clark to a few friends when they have ordered an Instant Pot. Every recipe I have tried has been amazing! They are all fit for company as well!
I love gifting River Cottage Veg. The photography is lovely, and it’s a vegetable cookbook without weird vegetarian meat substitutes or even tofu or tempeh (which I like but don’t expect others to want to cook).
Hi Alexandra,
Thanks for this opportunity! My favorite book to give, usually when family members head off to college or their first apartments is the America’s Test Kitchen cookbook, or Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Everything for the vegetarians. My favorite go to’s are Ina’s, but with my first new kitchen almost finished, I am looking forward to branching out. Merry Christmas and thanks again!
My favorite: Truely Italien (quick and simple vegetarian cooking) by Ursula Ferrigno.
For gifts: Patricia Wells at Home in Provence (Recipes Inspired by her farm house in France). The book has lovely photographs and nice anecdotes.
Martha Stewart’s early books. Martha’s recipes always work!
It’s Simple, Ottolenghi, but I repeat myself .
I love cookbooks and would love to add to my collection. BTW, found your site via Margaret Roach’s site and am so glad I did.
Thanks to your great website, Ali, I am using my beloved cookbooks less and less these days. I use my cookbooks more for inspiration and as books to read. . One of my recent favorites is Six Seasons. But when it comes to cookbooks as gifts, I have to say that my standard are the oldies but goodies by the late, great Laurie Colwin, Home Cooking and More Home Cooking. I love the way cooking was a way of life for her, and her recipes for winter squash tian and gingerbread are go-tos for me.
I love Classic Home Desserts by the late Richard Sax—wonderful variety of desserts with great historic context. I also love to gift Deb Perelman’s two cookbooks. Her recipes are easy to follow and the results are always spot on.
I have lots of favorites, The New Basics and Fannie Farmer for some classics, Mesa Mexican for Mexican flavors, just made the Thai Coconut broth from Clean Soups that was amazing. Can’t pick a favorite, depends on what I am cooking.
Small Victories by Julia Turshen. This book has helped me to become much more comfortable and confident in the kitchen, good recipes but also so many valuable little tips.