When Benjamina Ebuehi spoke these simple words – “just for the fun of it”– during a recent online talk hosted by The Book Larder (watch here), she summed up the reason to bake from her books. To be grateful for and take joy from the act of baking and creating moments for yourself and for others. In her latest book, A Good Day to Bake, Ebuehi offers Continue reading “Book Club Tuesday: A Good Day to Bake”
Grist by Abra Berens is a welcome addition to my kitchen cookbook shelf because it is such a useful guide to cooking with legumes, seeds, grains, and beans. I think Grist can be considered a companion to her earlier book Ruffage (published in 2019; review here), and just as Ruffage is part memoir, part cookbook, so is Grist. Here the home cook is invited to follow along with Berens as she demonstrates, through her recipes, how crucial Continue reading “Book Club Tuesday: Grist”
What does it take to get people home cooking again? Well, if we look at 2020, it was the situation that brought people back into their kitchens to bake and make, fostering their starters along the way. For some of us home cooking is Continue reading “Book Club Tuesday: Ottolenghi Test Kitchen — Shelf Love”
As we ate this meal together, I was reminded of why we were really gathered here. The food, the laughter, and the tears were for my mother. She had just passed away. And this meal tasted as if my mum had made it. Tears flooded my eyes as a lifetime of memories, triggered by this food, rushed to my head and heart. Fourteen years ago, I had no way of knowing this was just the start of my food journey. (11)
Reading these words from the introduction to Amisha Dodhia Gurbani‘s Mumbai Modern: Vegetarian Recipes Inspired by Indian Roots and California Cuisine, it shows how deep the connection to food can be. It brings us together to nourish us and, food ties us to so many things — the crucial one being our memories. Continue reading “Book Club Tuesday: Mumbai Modern”
My most distinct food memory of pesto begins in my early twenties when I travelled off to attend school in Eastern Ontario. By then, I knew basic recipes and cooking techniques I learned from my mom and, thanks to the Continue reading “Book Club Tuesday: Pesto”
Rarely does a cookbook convey such a sense of place and people as well as Aran by Flora Shedden does. Since receiving a copy to review in early spring, I have lingered with the recipes, stories, and Continue reading “Book Club Tuesday: Aran”
There are some days that get away on me so that it is mealtime and, I am without any concrete plans for supper. I’ve learned to steer myself away from complicated, multi-ingredient recipes and towards recipes that Continue reading “Book Club Tuesday: Keeping it Simple”
Food is intertwined with personal journeys and life stories. It can create a bridge that connects us across borders, languages, and cultural differences. When I cook the recipes in this book — making borș, grilling peppers, crushing garlic for mujdei, making pickles — the fragrances remind me of how Romanian cooking is part of the collective European heritage and landscape. (10)
In my heart, I’ve always seen cookbooks as a way to vicariously travel and experience the world, and since the early spring, when all of the quarantine, lockdowns, and sheltering in place occurred, this method of travel has become even more practical. Upon opening the cover of Irina Georgescu‘s new cookbook, Carpathia, the reader is met with Continue reading “Book Club Tuesday: Carpathia”
Hey everyone! I know what you are probably all thinking — how can you have a book club without books? Well, since being at home for the past number of weeks (frankly, I’ve stopped counting at this point because I’m tired of looking back) I’ve been thinking about people and cooking. While I have had the Continue reading “The “No Book” Book Club Edition”
I start each day in the quiet of my kitchen, waiting for the kettle to finish boiling water for my coffee, staring at the pile of cookbooks on the counter, and I meditate through the meal possibilities for the day. Some days, I come to the answer of what to cook immediately and, some days I feel as though Continue reading “Book Club Tuesday: Five Ingredient Vegan”
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