A new thing has happened in my household that I never could have predicted: my 14-year-old daughter has become a foodie. This is hilarious for so many reasons, not least of which is that she has been a picky eater for her entire life. Her meal interests up until now have been bread, pasta, strawberries, pizza, and burgers. No vegetables. Never touched salad. Only ate fish if it was fried. Wouldn’t even try something if it looked spicy. In short, she was the last person I ever expected to be interested in eating various types of food, much less cooking it.
Suddenly she’s adventurous and apparently an expert in healthy food. She asked me the other day what the nutritional value of cauliflower is. (No clue.) This week she declared that her favorite type of shopping is grocery—going to Trader Joes or Sprouts. My child is looking at the ingredients on packages and sending me short videos with extremely young people filming themselves making Buddha bowls. She even made her own granola cereal for breakfast! (Note: it was incredibly good.)
So now we cook together most nights, which is wonderful and special, and, also, a little nerve wracking. This level of activity takes actual meal planning which I’m not used to doing on a constant basis. Left to my own devices, I’m more like my Grandma June, who used to make the same recipes every week on a rotation. It’s Tuesday everyone: pot roast and potatoes!
In other words, I’ve had to step up my game. Hence, the re-sparked interest in cookbooks, food blogs, and cooking shows. Right now, we’re binging the Stanley Tucci show “Searching for Italy” on Discovery+ and we’ve decided to move to Tuscany, grow tomatoes, and make our own gnocchi. (I’ll let you know how that goes.) Until then, these are the cookbooks that we’re experimenting with and loving. Enjoy.
The Complete Mediterranean Cookbook: 500 Vibrant, Kitchen-Tested Recipes for Living and Eating Well Every Day by America’s Test Kitchen
We just purchased this book a few weeks ago, but it has been on constant rotation ever since. I chose this because it was a bestseller on Amazon and had pictures for everything, which my daughter likes. This is our first America’s Test Kitchen book, but we’re so impressed with how they take the time to really explain all the techniques and why one ingredient is better than another. We’ve taken to reading all the details in the sidebars and it has the most tabs of recipes we want to try of any cookbook so far. Our first recipe was “Chickpeas with Spinach, Chorizo and Smoked Paprika” which sounds boring but isn’t. We had the leftovers, happily, for two days. This tome has it all: history of spices and dishes, detailed techniques to use, and really interesting flavor combinations.
Magnolia Table by Joanna Gaines
This cookbook is a classic for our home, as I’m sure it is for many of yours. I love that these recipes are filling and straightforward with common ingredients that your husband can go to the store for without seven “where-do-I-find-that” phone calls for clarification. Joanna’s “After-School Banana Bread” is BY FAR one of our favorite things to make, even though, as my daughter says in a slightly judgmental tone: “it’s more like dessert than bread.” No matter how we make it or what we add—nuts, chocolate chips, seeds—this bread always turns out delicious and is gone within 24 hours. Some of the recipes in this book seem to take a lot of time, but we just ignore those and head to bang-for-your-buck flavor bombs like “Gaines Family Chili.”
Season: Big Flavors, Beautiful Food by Nik Sharma
This is quite possibly the most beautiful cookbook I’ve ever seen. My husband is a big fan of Indian food, so I bought this for him without really delving into the author’s background too much. I’ve been blown away by how innovative and flavorful this food is. I would describe the recipes as kind of Indian-fusion with focus on California-friendly vegetarian recipes.
Nik Sharma is the talent behind the blog Nik Sharma Cooks (formerly A Brown Table) and describes himself as “a molecular biologist turned two-time James Beard finalist, best-selling cookbook author, photographer, and columnist.” Usually, I’m more of an intuitive cook and don’t pay a ton of attention to measurements, but I’ve found that these ingredient combinations are very precise, so I actually follow the directions in Season.
This food is fresh and soulful, quite unlike anything I’ve cooked before. The current family favorite is the “Ginger-Lentil Millet Bowl” which works perfectly as a light lunch or a yummy side dish. The only drawback with this book is that many of the ingredients are hard to find in your average grocery store, which definitely makes the gathering stage more involved. So far, though, I’ve found everything to be worth the work.
Feast: Food to Celebrate Life by Nigella Lawson
This cookbook is a throwback for sure, but it’s a lovely resource for when you’ve got to cook for a crowd. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve cooked her “One-Pan Sage-and-Onion Chicken and Sausage” recipe for my family get-togethers. Not only is it easy to put together, every single person will devour it without complaint. It’s incredibly hard to screw up and, like the title says, it’s all bunged together in one pan, so it leaves time and space for the actual hosting portion of the gathering.
Nigella was the first “celebrity” cook whose style I resonated with. Some people probably find her recipes challenging because the volumes of everything aren’t precise, but I think reacting to how your food is cooking on your stove on that day is more important than trying to be formulaic. I relate to her earthy approach to feeding the people you love and have always been vastly entertained by her quirky British approach to being a “domestic goddess.”
100 Cookies: The Baking Book for Every Kitchen, with Classic Cookies, Novel Treats, Brownies, Bars, and More by Sarah Kieffer
I’ve always found cooking to be easier than baking, probably because in baking there seems to a lot of chemistry involved and if you screw up, you can’t just add in more salt or garlic which is my usual fix. Of course, my daughter adores baking and is an absolute dictator when it comes to following recipes and measurements. I suspect she likes bossing me around when we’re baking and rolling her eyes whenever I say something dumb like “let’s add more vanilla.”
Regardless of my failings, we’ve enjoyed this book of sweet stuff by Sarah Kieffer of The Vanilla Bean Blog. Apparently, she’s famous for a cookie recipe that calls for banging the dough & baking sheet on the countertop to make wonderful ripples. We haven’t done that yet, probably because it seems like a lot of effort and if I do it wrong, I’ll get “the look” from my daughter. But we have cooked many other things and love the “Brown Butter Blondies” which are gooey, rich, and 100% worth the effort.
Salt & Lavender blog
Finally, is this recipe from the Salt & Lavender blog that we have cooked every single week for two months straight: “Brie Pasta with Pancetta.” It’s rich and warming but very simple to make. Don’t forget to add the bit of lemon or lime—it really needs that hint of brightness.
Head photo by Ella Olsson from Unsplash.com.
