When I was growing up, I thought in very simple terms: salads consisted of lettuce, pasta, or (super ick!) Jell-O. On any given night in my childhood, my mum would always have a salad to accompany supper which was composed of iceberg lettuce, sliced beefsteak tomato, and cucumbers (it also wasn’t a salad if it wasn’t topped with Kraft Zesty Italian salad dressing, it was the 1980s after all). One of the most important things about humans is our capacity to change and grow – so, as the decades went on, my mum graduated our salads to include all types of leafy greens and homemade dressings and now, as a parent in charge of supper, our salads are so much more. Maybe this is due in part to buying my first Hetty Lui McKinnon cookbook back in 2018. At the time, someone had recommended it to me, and I was deeply curious about her recipes because I had a little kid who I was introducing food to. It was Neighbourhood that became a crucial part of developing my daughter’s relationship with vegetables, she was born into a vegetarian family after all. What I had to say about that book still rings true for all of Lui McKinnon’s subsequent work: “Neighborhood (her second cookbook) focuses on taking the schematic version of a salad (think: leafy) and works to change the schema so that salads become something new. More hearty, less leafy. To be honest her salads are so out of the realm of what I’m used to where salads are concerned, I had to keep reminding myself that the basis of this book is, in fact, salads. Almost a dozen recipes in and I’m completely enamored with the way Hetty constructs a salad because what she does is make it into a true meal.” (review here). I love that while she is a vegetarian, her work is not about being a vegetarian or trying to stick a label on anything. Lui McKinnon’s work demonstrates how vegetables are so very cravable and how her life and experiences help her to develop recipes that are uniquely hers, not SEO fodder.
Linger is a culmination of things: personal essays, shared experiences and connection through food, delicious recipes, and, new for this book, QR codes linked to playlists created especially for the book by her daughter, Scout. The chapters are organized into twelve gatherings that she composed menus for and photographed in real time. As she says in the introduction, for her it began with salad and, “As [she] had done before during uncertain times, [she] turned to salad. After our years-long forced hiatus, [she] beckoned friends back to [her] table.” (8) Linger shows us that a good cookbook isn’t just about food but is rooted in something deeper, something more emotional.
When Linger arrived on my doorstep over a month ago I took an initial flip-through and saw recipes as familiar as a hug from a friend (Hetty’s recipes are like that for me and my family), and I was reminded that meals can offer times of fellowship too. And being so close to (Canadian) Thanksgiving, I drew up a modest little menu from the book for my husband and daughter to enjoy. Just a couple of salads and something sweet to finish led to us enjoying one of the best holiday meals in recent memory. It really hit home when I looked at the table: salads aren’t just sides; salads are a main attraction. Going a bit further, a Thanksgiving meal is whatever we want it to be – we all deserve a main attraction, not just sides. We enjoyed her recipes for French Onion Salad w/ Mustard-Thyme Vinaigrette and Roasted Baby Carrots w/ Butter Beans and Chimichurri for supper, and Spiced Pumpkin Nian Gao (mochi cake) for dessert. What I appreciate about the way she writes up her recipes is that she always offers substitutes (when possible) so that home cooks have flexibility. In this case, I opted to use butter beans in the salad because I was out of cannellini beans, and then I went for fresh parsley instead of carrot greens when making the chimichurri. Inspired by the Linger gatherings, I pulled out a special tablecloth and cutlery (inherited from my mum) – I even illustrated menus for each place setting. We enjoyed ourselves and ate our fill, with the leftovers finding their way into my daughter’s lunch the next day – she loved it all.
While her book is about gathering, I’ve found myself looking through Linger for recipes to enjoy in other situations. I happened to buy a punnet of fresh zucchini from the market earlier in the fall and I flipped through Linger to see what recipes would make good use of these gorgeous goodies. Her recipe for Potato Chip Salad was the winner: layers of quick-pickled fresh zucchini rounds, regular, salted potato chips, sliced red onion, mint leaves, and thinly sliced jalapeno topped with a lush, spiced yogurt dressing. It was truly delightful! While potato chips aren’t considered an elevated ingredient, here, Hetty created exactly what she set out to do. In the recipe notes she considers the chip and tells us she’s “long wondered how [she] could use potato chips to create a balanced salad that didn’t feel like [she] was eating junk food.” (171) They add their signature hard crunch alongside the softer vegetal crunch of the zucchini, red onion, and jalapeno. She harkens to the forever companion of the chip or veg – a creamy dip – and incorporates it into the salad in the form of the spiced yogurt dressing. When my husband and I took our first bites, his one-word question was given the same one-word answer: Hetty (he’s enjoyed enough of her recipes to recognize her food).
This might be a little late in the review to tell you about one of the best recipes in Linger: the Tofu Bread Rolls. Inspired by the tofu bread at her local Japanese grocery store, she created these pillowy rolls using silken tofu. It’s mind-blowing to me not only does silken tofu create such a light texture but these rolls were so easy to make. I’ve made this recipe a couple of times, and they’ve been utterly perfect each time. We’ve enjoyed them along side dinner, as the star of a packed lunch – even toasted with butter and jam for breakfast.
Almost eight years later, I’m still drawn to Lui McKinnon’s work because she is sincere about the recipes she creates. It’s not about which labels or hashtags the algorithm will gobble up but what rings true for her. Sure, on the surface her work is vegetarian with a salad focus but going deeper she’s offering us so much more than that. Hetty’s latest cookbook, Linger, continues to offer timeless produce-based recipes that urge us to find meaningful connections between who we are, what we serve, and who we enjoy it with.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank Penguin Random House Canada and Knopf for providing me with a free, review copy of this book. I did not receive monetary compensation for my post, and all thoughts and opinions expressed are my own. Also, thanks to Earlywood for the gorgeous flat spatulas that were included with my review copy of Linger.
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