Joy and Cooking: The Cookbooks of 2022

There’s something undeniably attention-grabbing about a “Best of” list. 2022 is ending and, people want to know about the noteworthy cookbooks. This year I’m going to try something a little different – not quite a gift guide, yet not a “Best of” list either. Where I want to go with this post is simple – help home cooks find a little joy in their kitchens. Joy is what moves me forward and, it’s never steered me wrong when I’m talking about cookbooks (it was one of the favourite parts of my conversation I had with Lindsay Cameron Wilson on her The Food Podcast this year (link here). However, my joy may not necessarily be someone else’s joy because we all have our own personal set of criteria concerning joyful kitchen experiences. So, through the next 8 sections, I’ll briefly discuss some of the books that stood out to me this year. For any books that I’ve already reviewed, I’ll add a link so that you can visit that review for more information. There will be books I haven’t reviewed yet but still deserve a mention. Continue reading “Joy and Cooking: The Cookbooks of 2022”

Book Club Tuesday: Pierogi

For me it’s a core memory: on those wintery November mornings, waiting at the window for the first sight of my aunt’s car. She would be making the drive into the city with my cousins from their farm so that she could make pyrohy with my mom. Us kids would be bundled up and shooed outside and they would get to work. Mum would already have a giant Tupperware vat of potato filling on the kitchen table – filling which would then make its way into Continue reading “Book Club Tuesday: Pierogi”

Book Club Tuesday: Tomato

Processed with VSCO with f2 presetWhen I first received Claire Thomson‘s Tomato, it was the beginning of summer and, I was worried that if I didn’t take full advantage of tomato season then my review would be poorer for it. However, what Thomson says in her introduction, “This was always going to be a book of two halves — fresh tomatoes and processed tomatoes — giving plenty of opportunity for both to really shine.”(7), reminded me that Continue reading “Book Club Tuesday: Tomato”

Book Club Tuesday: Green Kitchen – Quick + Slow

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If David Frenkiel and Luise Vindahl at Green Kitchen Stories have a cookbook coming out, then I’m always here for it! From the beginning of my site, I started sharing my experiences with cooking and feeding my family because, there are no better conversations than the ones about cookbooks. Cookbooks feed us, sure, but they also tell stories and connect us to Continue reading “Book Club Tuesday: Green Kitchen – Quick + Slow”

Book Club Tuesday: The Miller’s Daughter

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There is something both fascinating and dynamic in the way Emma Zimmerman describes how she and her father resurrected the historic Hayden Flour Mills in Tempe, Arizona in her cookbook, The Miller’s Daughter. From her father’s original yearning to restart the mill, which called her home from her PhD studies at McGill, to all of the people in their community (chefs, farmers, Native Seeds/SEARCH), Hayden Mills came from the Continue reading “Book Club Tuesday: The Miller’s Daughter”

Book Club Tuesday: Grist

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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”

Book Club Tuesday: Baking with Dorie

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This is my fourteenth cookbook, and it arrives exactly thirty years after my first. A lot has changed over those decades, but not the joy I get from baking. That’s constant and unfailing. If you’re a baker, you know exactly how I feel. If you’re not, the sweetest thing I can wish you is that you become one. Bake something and share it. It might change your life. It changed mine. (3)

People who adore Dorie Greenspan have a favourite Dorie book. I came to my favourite Dorie book when my (then) baby daughter was becoming acquainted with food. The mealtimes Katie enjoyed the most were the ones when I made pancakes or waffles. This is where Dorie comes in: Dorie’s fourth book, Waffles: From Morning to Night, is full of flavourful and beautiful waffle recipes Continue reading “Book Club Tuesday: Baking with Dorie”