Our picks for reading your way out of a cooking rut.
Grand Dishes: Recipes and Stories from Grandmothers of the World
Inspired by their own grandmothers, journalist Anastasia Miari and creative director Iska Lupton traveled the world collecting the stories and recipes for other grannies’ time-perfected dishes. They started with Miari’s yiayia (Greek for “granny”), who shares her recipe for grilled fish from her tiny kitchen on the Greek island of Corfu. Over the course of four years, the duo traversed Europe, journeyed to Russia, Cuba and Mexico, and took a road trip through the United States. Along the way, they cooked with sweet grandmas and abuelas, learning their cooking secrets, favorite regional flavors and other sorts of wisdom. It’s all preserved for future generations in Grand Dishes, featuring a diverse collection of recipes from 70 grandmothers alongside their portraits.
(June 22, Unbound)
Weekly Provisions: How to Eat Seasonally and Love What’s Left Over
Kim Duke wants you to love your leftovers. In Weekly Provisions, she offers 12 seasonal menus that include a starter, main, side dish and dessert, with more than 60 ideas for how to transform them into other meals and snacks. A roast chicken dinner evolves into a bowl of noodles in ginger broth. Slow-cooked roasts become the filling for Chinese-inspired dumplings. Honey roast ham gets repurposed in fried rice. Not only will Duke’s meal plans help you fight food waste, you’ll never have to worry about growing bored of eating the same thing again.
(June 29, DK)
The Art of Preserving: Ancient Techniques and Modern Inventions to Capture Every Season in a Jar
You know how to pickle cucumbers and carrots, but how about preserving meat and fish? In this cookbook, British chef Emma Macdonald offers comprehensive instructions for preserving foods by curing, drying, pickling, bottling, canning, crystallizing and jellying. Preserve the summer’s bounty and put your new skills to use with more than 100 inspired recipes, including strawberry jam, onion marmalade, banana and date chutney and cucumber relish, as well as a Scandinavian-inspired beetroot gravlax.
(July 20, Nourish)
Tofu Tasty: Imaginative Tofu Recipes for Every Day
With recipes organized by tofu type—crispy, soft and chunky, mashed, silken, fermented, dried and fried, as well as sweet—this cookbook offers 60 vibrant takes that will change the way you think of the soy-based protein. With dishes such as Mapo tofu, triple tofu banh mi and fermented tofu cauliflower steaks, author Bonnie Chung celebrates tofu’s place at the table. She also explores its history and heritage, health benefits and importance in Asian cuisines. Want to learn how to make and store your own? Chung has instructions for that, too.
(August 3, Pavilion)
The Weekday Vegetarians: 100 Recipes and a Real-Life Plan for Eating Less Meat
For health reasons and for the planet, food writer Jenny Rosenstrach wanted to reduce her meat consumption without cutting it out completely. So she challenged her family to consume fish and meat only on the weekends, effectively becoming weekday vegetarians. Rosenstrach shares more than 100 dinner recipes—such as bean bakes, cauliflower cutlets and fried tofu tacos—that make it easy and appealing to swap the animal protein anchoring your plant for something plant-based instead.
(August 31, Clarkson Potter)