Category: Cookbooks

Cookbooks, Historical

The Gilded Age Christmas Cookbook by Becky Libourel Diamond

Patricia McDonald Uttaro

Description

Although most Americans have heard of sugar plums thanks to the famous holiday poem A Visit from St. Nicholas by Clement Clarke Moore, many have likely never have had the pleasure of tasting one of these luxuries, or even know what they really are (hint: they are not sugar-dusted plums). This is because sugar plums are one of the Gilded Age era holiday sweets that got eclipsed as America moved into the twentieth century. But The Gilded Age Christmas Cookbook will bridge the past and present, bringing back sugar plums and other confections not typically found in modern cookbooks, while revisiting some beloved favorites. 

With origins that date back to the nineteenth century and even earlier, the recipes in The Gilded Age Christmas Cookbook have been adapted for today’s ingredients and appliances, allowing cooks to recreate them in their own modern kitchens. Each recipe will provide a colorful glimpse into the era, featuring the fascinating history behind each cookie, its ingredients and baking methods. There will also be sidebars throughout, offering tidbits of Christmas lore of the era. 

A perfect gift to bring sparkle to the holiday season for anyone who enjoys food, history, culture and Christmas traditions, The Gilded Age Christmas Cookbook is a unique way to revitalize any baker’s holiday repertoire while looking to past foodways for inspiration. With all the opulence and enchanting allure of the Victorian period, this nostalgic book is chock-full of delicious holiday treats.

My Thoughts

The author has done an admirable job of culling interesting, sometimes esoteric, facts about Christmas from an amazing array of sources and turning that dry history into a readable, very entertaining exposition of holiday traditions of the Gilded Age.

Digging deep into the roots of many of our current holiday traditions and giving the origin stories new life with short, well-crafted paragraphs complemented by lovely illustrations, The Gilded Age Christmas Cookbook is an absolute delight to read. I especially enjoyed the section on games and may use some of the old time games in modified versions for the always-dreaded ice-breaker games in the business world!

However, I think I’ll leave Snapdragon to history. What a time it was when children were allowed to play that game!

Also notable is the inclusion of Black Christmas traditions such as the work by the Ida B. Wells Women’s Club and the Christmas balls held by Philadelphia’s Crescent Club. Also included are Jewish Hanukkah traditions that were practiced during the Gilded Age, along with the recipes for things like sufganiyot.

While the recipes and their backstories are interesting and well-adapted for 21st century cooking, I didn’t find anything new, but I am an avid reader of Christmas recipes, so someone who is relatively new to Christmas cooking and baking will surely find many recipes that will become family favorites.

The lore appears to be well-researched and is presented in an interesting manner.

Publication Date: August 5, 2025
Published By: Globe Pequot
Thanks to Netgalley for the review copy

Cookbooks

The Christmas Baking Book

Patricia McDonald Uttaro

Description

It’s the most wonderful time of the year…to bake! Unleash the magic of baking this holiday season with 100 Christmas classics and unique indulgences.

’Tis the season for festive treats! Turn your kitchen into a haven of holiday cheer with The Christmas Baking Cookbook. From traditional gingerbread cookies to sweet innovations such as the eggnog-flavored cupcake, this cookbook is guaranteed to elevate your festive cookies and candies. Discover new favorites and expand your repertoire as you sit by the fireside this season with your favorite holiday goodies.

Inside you’ll find:

  • 100 deliciously simple recipes
  • Step-by-step instructions
  • Easy, festive decorating techniques

Gather around the Christmas tree and treat yourself, delight your friends, and (most importantly) impress your in-laws. It’s time to deck the halls with loads of icing with The Christmas Baking Cookbook!

My Thoughts

Taking a break from the mayhem of mystery novels to delve into a new book of Christmas baking!

I begin planning out my Christmas baking starting in August or September each year, poring over cookbooks and seasonal baking magazines from years past, looking for new recipes or new twists on old recipes. I will always reach for a cookbook that has the words “Christmas” and Baking” in its title.

This cookbook contains plenty of new-to-me recipes and ideas but also plenty of old favorites. The instructions are relatively clear and the photography depicts some luscious creations. My only issue with this book is that there are no introductions or words of wisdom with each recipe. You get the title, the ingredients, and the instructions. This makes it a completely serviceable book but somewhat disappointing for a cookbook reader like me. Bakers who prefer a no-nonsense approach to cookbooks will definitely appreciate the stripped down character of this book. I will definitely buy it for the recipes.

Publication Date: October 15, 2024
Published by: Cider Mill Press
Thanks to Netgalley for the review copy

Cookbooks, Ghosties

Food to Die For by Amy Bruni

Patricia McDonald Uttaro

Description

Discover tantalizing recipes, spine-tingling stories, and historic photos from the most notoriously haunted locations across America in this fun and fascinating cookbook. Paranormal investigator and Kindred Spirits co-host Amy Bruni leads you through eerie hotels, haunted homes, hellish hospitals, and spooky ghost towns, giving you stories and a recipe from each place.

Whether you’re in the mood for Lizzie Borden’s meatloaf or want to serve up spooky prison stories along with sugar cookies from Alcatraz, Food to Die For is your guide to ghoulish gastronomy.

One of America’s favorite ghost hunters, Amy Bruni takes you to mysterious hotels, eerie ghost towns, and possessed pubs in this delightfully sinister collection of stories and recipes. Each of the nearly 60 locations in Food to Die For includes:

  • Vintage photographs and charmingly creepy stories rooted in history
  • A noteworthy recipe associated with the people or place
  • Full-color, captivating, and hauntingly styled food photos to inspire a killer kitchen experience

This terrifyingly tasty cookbook will bewitch anyone who:

  • Has a taste for the paranormal and a hunger to try new foods
  • Loves history, travel, and culinary curiosities
  • Enjoys entertaining guests in unique and memorable ways
  • Would get goosebumps making a recipe written 300 years ago

History buffs, thrill-seekers, and foodies will all get shivers seeing the past come to life with every enchanted recipe and delicious tale from Food to Die For.

My Thoughts

Creepy and delicious – the best words I can think of to describe this highly unusual and well-written book. Amy Bruni brings years of experience exploring the paranormal together with historic recipes that represent some of the most haunted locations in the country to produce one of the most entertaining cookbooks I’ve read this year.

Bruni is a born storyteller and communicates the ghost stories associated with the chosen locations in a way that induces shivers and delight at the unusual details, such as Marilyn Monroe appearing in mirrors at the Hollywood Roosevelt in Los Angeles. The accompanying recipes are carefully chosen to complement the ghost story and include some really delicious offerings.

Fans of the paranormal will thoroughly enjoy this as will cooks and bakers who enjoy a little scare with their culinary experiences.

Advance Praise

“It turns out that Amy Bruni’s curiosity and creativity don’t just make for great TV, they make for a great meal as well… Food to Die For is the ultimate companion piece for anyone who has tuned in to her many incredible adventures. All others will just have to settle for an unbelievably great cookbook.” — chef Robert Irvine, host of Food Network’s Restaurant: Impossible.

“This deliciously stylish cookbook will have you longing for a dark and stormy night. Taking us on a culinary tour through America’s paranormal past, Amy sets a sumptuous table where more than the eggs are deviled. An indispensable collection of recipes for this life and the next.” —Josh Gates, explorer and host of Expedition Unknown

“Amy Bruni does something that almost feels like magic in this day and age: She pairs fascinating historical storytelling with real, visceral context. The results, I’m happy to report, are absolutely delicious!” —Aaron Mahnke, creator of the Lore podcast

Publication Date: July 30, 2024
Published By: Harper Celebrate
Thanks to Netgalley for the review copy

Cookbooks, Family, Historical

Praisesong for the Kitchen Ghosts by Crystal Wilkinson

Patricia McDonald Uttaro

Description

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A lyrical culinary journey that explores the hidden legacy of Black Appalachians, through powerful storytelling alongside nearly forty comforting recipes, from the former poet laureate of Kentucky.

People are always surprised that Black people reside in the hills of Appalachia. Those not surprised that we were there, are surprised that we stayed.

Years ago, when O. Henry Prize-winning writer Crystal Wilkinson was baking a jam cake, she felt her late grandmother’s presence. She soon realized that she was not the only cook in her kitchen; there were her ancestors, too, stirring, measuring, and braising alongside her. These are her kitchen ghosts, five generations of Black women who settled in Appalachia and made a life, a legacy, and a cuisine.

An expert cook, Wilkinson shares nearly forty family recipes rooted deep in the past, full of flavor—delicious favorites including Corn Pudding, Chicken and Dumplings, Granny Christine’s Jam Cake, and Praisesong Biscuits, brought to vivid life through stunning photography. Together, Praisesong for the Kitchen Ghosts honors the mothers who came before, the land that provided for generations of her family, and the untold heritage of Black Appalachia.

As the keeper of her family’s stories and treasured dishes, Wilkinson shares her inheritance in Praisesong for the Kitchen Ghosts. She found their stories in her apron pockets, floating inside the steam of hot mustard greens and tucked into the sweet scent of clove and cinnamon in her kitchen. Part memoir, part cookbook, Praisesong for the Kitchen Ghosts weaves those stories together with recipes, family photos, and a lyrical imagination to present a culinary portrait of a family that has lived and worked the earth of the mountains for over a century.

My Thoughts

It’s not often I find a cookbook that is as much a story as a collection of recipes. Praisesong for the Kitchen Ghosts is such a book. Crystal Wilkinson writes a lovely, flowing memoir of her family as seen through the food they grew and consumed. Blending elements of a family scrapbook (snapshots of Wilkinson’s people likely taken with an old Kodak or Polaroid camera) are interspersed with fancier photos of the current finished recipes.

Some recipes are presented as they have been prepared in Wilkinson’s family for generations; others have been updated to include new ingredients and to accommodate new ways of eating for Wilkinson and her family. Each recipe is connected in specific ways to her family, ways which are communicated through gently told tales of her “kitchen ghosts” or all the women who came before her and inhabit her kitchen when she cooks.

Wilkinson’s earliest ancestors settled in Kentucky – those who were enslaved and those who were free. They grew up and worked the land on Indian Creek and reveled in the bounty that the land provided. Wilkinson provides a rare insight to the black folks who inhabited parts of Appalachia, especially the women who influenced her.

While the folkways and stories are unique to Wilkinson’s family, I recognized much of the food she writes about from stories told by my mother-in-law, a white woman who grew up in the hills of West Virginia. I read the section on poke to my husband, who educated me about the beautiful but poisonous plant last summer. Turns out his mother planted it on her farmland in western NY because it reminded her of home in West Virginia. The steps Wilkinson shares on how to safely handle and consume poke are identical to the process my mother-in-law used. Same thing for how to wash and cook greens.

General observation not really related to the book: As I’ve learned more about race in the last few years, I’ve observed that when it comes to food, we are very alike in our traditions and approaches to fixing things to eat. Wilkinson’s Chicken & Dumplings may be the closest I’ll come to replicating my MIL’s food. She, like Granny Christine, rarely cooked from recipes.

This is one of the most enjoyable, readable cookbooks I’ve read in years and I’ll be buying a copy for myself. I’m definitely making Jam Cake and caramel icing, although there are plenty of wonderful recipes to try.

“With Praisesong for the Kitchen Ghosts, Crystal Wilkinson cements herself as one of the most dynamic book makers in our generation and a literary giant. Utter genius tastes like this.”—Kiese Laymon, author of the Carnegie Medal-winning Heavy.

Publication Date: January 23, 2024
Published By: Clarkson Potter/Ten Speed Press
Thanks to Netgalley for the review copy

Cookbooks

Summer Foodie Books

Patricia McDonald Uttaro

Acquacotta by Emiko Davis
Publication Date: March 2023

Discover the cuisine of a secret part of southernmost Tuscany, known as La Costa D’Argento — the silver coast, in the second edition of Acquacotta. In this cookbook, Tuscan-based, Australian-born writer and photographer Emiko Davies has compiled and adapted her Italian family’s best-loved recipes from Capalbio, Monte Argentario, Giglio Island and inland to the hot springs of Saturnia and the ancient Pitigliano.

These are hearty, sometimes complicated recipes that rely heavily on fresh ingredients and plenty of time to cook. The book is divided into sections based on where the main ingredient is sourced, and includes delicious things like Crostini di Polenta con i Funghi (mushrooms on top of crispy polenta planks), Acquacotta Maremmana (a casserole rich with summer vegetables, bread and eggs), and Sformato di Cipolloti (a spring onion gratin). While the recipes are blended with some useful cooking tips and lovely photos, this is not a book for the beginning cook. This experienced cook found some new favorites!

The Herb Gardening Handbook by Andrew Perry
Publication Date: March 2023

The Herb Gardening Handbook gives you the know-how of what herbs to buy, what to plant them with, how to use them and even how to make herbs look good, no matter the space available. Beginning with a simple guide of how to get started and the best growing conditions for herbs, The Herb Gardening Handbook is a stylish guide to 12 herb projects that will suit everything from indoor window ledges to balconies and gardens. From the cocktail herb garden, which focuses on the botanicals that will make summer cocktails and drinks all the more fragrant to the Pizza Pantry Garden where readers will grow everything needed to create delicious pizza toppings.

This handy little book takes some of the mystery out of growing herbs by grouping types of plants together based on how you want to use them. Looking for herbs to make your pizzas tastier or wondering how to infuse herbs into your adult beverages? All that is here and more. Includes tips and advice on how to grow in multiple places – pots vs. in-ground, how much sun, how much water, when to prune and so on. It’s all here in one handy guide.

One-Pot Healthy by Sabrina Fauda-Role
Publication Date: March 2023

Bringing together classic dishes and fresh recipe ideas, One-Pot Healthy teaches you how to cook 80 delicious and hearty meals in just one pot. From weeknight essentials to gatherings and celebrations, there’s something for every occasion. Start your day with a Tomato and Herb Omelette, try your hand at a speedy Chicken and Butternut Broth, ready in just 15 minutes and cook up a rather impressive Eggplant and Fig Casserole. Filled with inspiration for simple, healthy and delicious meals, One-Pot Healthy contains a wide variety of ingenious recipes, perfect for any night of the week.

This is a downright beautiful book! I love a cookbook that includes luscious, full-color, glossy photos of the finished dishes, and this book more than delivers on that front. You eat with your eyes, right? The photos in this book will encourage you to try new recipes using ingredients you might not otherwise pick up. The cooking techniques used here, from knife cuts to the whole “one-pot” method are suitable for all levels of cooks. Give this one a try if you’re looking for new ideas.

All books published by Hardie Grant Books
Thanks to the Publisher for review copies

Cookbooks, Non Fiction

National Dish by Anya von Bremzen

Patricia McDonald Uttaro

Description

In this engrossing and timely journey to the crossroads of food and identity award-winning writer Anya von Bremzen explores six of the world’s most fascinating and iconic culinary cultures—France, Italy, Japan, Spain, Mexico, and Turkey—brilliantly weaving cuisine, history, and politics into a work of scintillating connoisseurship and charm

We all have an idea in our heads about what French food is—or Italian, or Japanese, or Mexican, or . . .  But where did those ideas come from? Who decides what makes a national food canon? Recipient of three James Beard awards, Anya von Bremzen has written definitive cookbooks on Russian, Spanish, and Latin American cuisines, as well as her internationally acclaimed memoir Mastering the Art of Soviet Cooking. Now in National Dish, she sets out to investigate the truth behind the eternal cliché—“we are what we eat”—traveling to six storied food capitals, going high and low, from world-famous chefs to scholars to strangers in bars, in search of how cuisine became connected to place and identity.

Paris is where the whole idea of food as national heritage was first invented, and so it is where Anya must begin. With an inquisitive eye and unmistakable wit, she ponders the codification of French food and the current tension between locavorism and globalization. From France, she’s off to Naples, to probe the myth and reality of pizza, pasta, and Italian-ness. Next up, Tokyo, where Anya and her partner Barry explore ramen, rice, and the distance between Japan’s future and its past. From there they move to Seville, to search for the community-based essence of Spain’s tapas traditions, and then Oaxaca, where debates over postcolonial cultural integration find expression in maize and mole. In Istanbul, a traditional Ottoman potluck becomes a lens on how a former multicultural empire defines its food heritage. Finally, they land back in their beloved home in Queens, for a dinner centered on Ukrainian borsch, a meal that has never felt more loaded, or more precious and poignant.

A unique and magical cook’s tour of the world, National Dish brings us to a deep appreciation of how the country makes the food, and the food the country.

My Thoughts

It’s not often you run across a book about cooking and food that is truly a non-fiction exploration of food history, mores, and national identity. National Dish is all that and more.

Anya von Bremzen brings to the table her own form of sarcastic, witty, and irreverent assessment of the foods considered part of the identity of certain countries. She begins in Paris, a city she really, really dislikes (and she let’s you know it), where she chases down the meaning and national importance of pot-au-feu by talking to giants in the French food industry and then by making her own.

This format continues through five other cities where she explores dishes intrinsic to the city, nation, and culture of those particular locations. I learned quite a bit about those cities/countries and their foods.

Serious foodies and those in the industry will enjoy this, but the average reader like me, who has an interest in food but not a deep knowledge of world cuisine, will end up skimming a lot of the text or will alternate between the text and the internet looking up names, dates, and dishes.

This is less of a cookbook and more of a non-fiction dive into the food that makes a culture a culture, and that makes for fascinating reading.

Publication Date: June 20, 2023
Published By: Penguin Group; The Penguin Press
Thanks to Netgalley for the review copy

Cookbooks

Anna Olson’s Baking Wisdom by Anna Olson

Patricia McDonald Uttaro

Description

Inside Baking Wisdom lies the answer to every baking question you’ve ever had (and many you haven’t yet), plus over 150 perfected recipes—both savoury and sweet—for bakers of all skill  levels. Get inside Anna’s baking brain, as she shares a career’s worth of experience to build a true masterclass in baking. In this incredible baking compendium, you will learn the hows and whys of baking through her flawless techniques, patient advice and literally hundreds of photos. This is an all-encompassing guide, guaranteed to make you a better baker.

Whether you want to perfect your pie dough or dedicate your weekend to assembling a masterpiece Torta Setteveli, there is a recipe in Baking Wisdom for you. Within each chapter, Anna’s triple-tested recipes are grouped together by commonly shared technique or principle, so you can see how one foundation recipe can be built upon to create many more complex creations. In every one of her perfected recipes, Anna leads the way with notes of baking wisdom directly included in each recipe’s method. And she does this all with one goal in mind: to help you achieve the very best baking results every time.

Also included is extensive advice on topics such as baking ingredients, tools and actions, as well as numerous step-by-step how-to guides for all types of baking techniques. If you’ve ever wondered how to separate an egg, or frost a cake, or temper chocolate, the answers are here. And if you’re interested in a deeper understanding of how and why ingredients behave the way they do in baking, or the impacts of altitude, or even how to calculate butterfat content, there’s a whole section dedicated to the science of baking, too.

 Baking Wisdom is a must-have collection of baking recipes, techniques and advice, and is Anna’s most comprehensive cookbook yet.

My Thoughts

This is the book to buy for the serious baker in your life, as well as for anyone thinking about a career in baking. Olson has produced one of the most complete and detailed baking books I’ve read in a long time. The accompanying illustrations are incredibly useful – e.g. what the three stages of beaten egg whites actually look like – and the “how to save” advice for things like seized chocolate and overwhipped cream are gold for new bakers.

It seems this was written for a Canadian audience, but American bakers will have no trouble using the book. Highly recommended.

The #1 bestselling cookbook! And the baking bible every baking enthusiast needs to own—from Anna Olson, Canada’s most celebrated baker.

“Canada’s dessert doyenne’s much-anticipated opus on flour, sugar, butter and eggs is out now – 450 pages covering everything you could possibly want to know about baking”—The Globe and Mail

Publication Date: March 14, 2023
Published By: Penguin Random House Canada
Thanks to Netgalley for the review copy

Cookbooks

Savory Dinner Pies by Ken Haedrich

Patricia McDonald Uttaro

Description

Author and savory pie expert Ken Haedrich takes you on a global tour of dinner pies from food cultures across the world.

Dinner pies have become a favorite go-to for one-dish recipes. Perfect your own crust or, dare we say, buy a pre-made crust and the variations are endless. Learn how to make Classic Americana Chicken Pot Pie, British Steak and Ale Pies, Swedish Meat Pies, Italian Easter Pie, and many more crust and no-crust versions of one of the world’s most prolific go-to dinners. Recipes for a range of crusts and make-ahead ideas are included along with how to use the almighty leftover to create pie masterpieces that are all your own!

With 75 recipes and amazing four-color photography, this is both a cookbook and an around-the-world tour of culinary traditions that can be incorporated into your own home kitchen weekly menu. Great for parties, families, Sunday night dinners, neighborly welcomes, holidays, and any-old-night-of-the-week dinners, and breakfasts and lunches—Savory Pies from Around the Globe offer something for every kitchen.

My Thoughts

Pies seem to be the trendy form of baking these days, and Ken Haedrich offers dozens of recipes for a savory version of pie that will turn heads at dinner parties. His recipes for savory pies are mostly delicious (there are some odd ones, but I’m sure they are just odd for me). The traditional Steak and Ale pies, pot pies, Easter pies, and my personal favorite – hand pies – are nicely balanced and accompanied by generally clear instructions.

The basic recipes for pastry dough are fairly simple even for beginning cooks and the ones I tried were quite tasty. This will make a solid addition to library shelves everywhere.

Published By: Quarto Publishing/Harvard Common Press
Publication Date: 1/18/2022

Thanks to Edelweiss & Netgalley for the review copy

Cookbooks

Baking with Dorie by Dorie Greenspan

Patricia McDonald Uttaro

Description

From James Beard Award-winning and NYT best-selling author Dorie Greenspan, a baking book of more than 150 exciting recipes

Say “Dorie Greenspan” and think baking. The renowned author of thirteen cookbooks and winner of five James Beard and two IACP awards offers a collection that celebrates the sweet, the savory, and the simple. Every recipe is signature Dorie: easy—beginners can ace every technique in this book—and accessible, made with everyday ingredients. Are there surprises? Of course! You’ll find ingenious twists like Berry Biscuits. Footlong cheese sticks made with cream puff dough. Apple pie with browned butter spiced like warm mulled cider. A s’mores ice cream cake with velvety chocolate sauce, salty peanuts, and toasted marshmallows. It’s a book of simple yet sophisticated baking. The chapters are classic: Breakfast Stuff • Cakes • Cookies • Pies, Tarts, Cobblers and Crisps • Two Perfect Little Pastries • Salty Side Up. The recipes are unexpected. And there are “Sweethearts” throughout, mini collections of Dorie’s all-time favorites. Don’t miss the meringue Little Marvels or the Double-Decker Caramel Cake. Like all of Dorie’s recipes, they lend themselves to being remade, refashioned, and riffed on.

My Thoughts

There seem to be a lot of baking books coming out this year. Fortunately, Dorie Greenspan never disappoints. My kids gave me one of her baking books for Christmas a few years ago and it’s one of the first books I turn to when I need a solid, reliable recipe for a delicious treat.

I enjoy Greenspan’s books because she writes in a way that gives the reader confidence to try these recipes. She includes all the information you need to replicate the luscious treats pictured throughout the book so even beginning bakers can be successful. Little touches like “don’t worry of the batter looks curdled – it will even out” lend a certain sense of comfort to bakers following her recipes. Her descriptions of what the dough or batter is supposed to look like provides a sense of safety and calm for less experienced bakers.

Here, Greenspan offers fresh takes on some familiar recipes, as well as plenty of new and creative baking ideas. I’ve stopped using Pinterest and food blogs for recipes because they invariably suck. We are lucky that bakers like Greenspan, her peers, and her publishers continue to provide cookbooks full of well-tested recipes that you pretty much can’t screw up as long as you follow the instructions. Any baker worth her rolling pin will want to take a look at this.

Recommended.

Publication Date: October 19, 2021
Published By: Mariner Books
Thanks to Netgalley for the review copy

Cookbooks

Treasures of the Mexican Table by Pati Jinich

Patricia McDonald Uttaro

Description*

The “buoyant and brainy Mexican cooking authority” (New York Times) and star of the three-time James Beard Award-winning PBS series Pati’s Mexican Table brings together more than 150 iconic dishes that define the country’s cuisine.

Although many of us can rattle off our favorite authentic Mexican dishes, we might be hard pressed to name more than ten. Which is preposterous, given that Mexico has a rich culinary history stretching back thousands of years. For the last decade, Pati Jinich has sought out the culinary treasures of her home country, from birria, to salsa macha, to coyotas, to carne asada. 

Many of these dishes are local specialties, heirlooms passed down through generations, unknown outside of their original regions. Others have become national sensations. Each recipe is a classic. Each one comes with a story told in Pati’s warm, relatable style. And each has been tested in Pati’s American kitchen to ensure it is the best of its kind. Together, these essential recipes paint a vivid picture of the richness of Mexico. 

Review

It’s a rare cookbook that I recommend for LibraryReads, but Treasures of the Mexican Table is so charming, chatty, and informative that I had to do so.

Pati Jinich writes to you as though you are her best friend and she’s teaching you how to make Mole or Carne Asada or any one of the delicioso recipes in this comprehensive book. For the first time ever, I feel like I am beginning to understand the subtle but powerful differences among chiles. Jinich also clearly demonstrates and communicates the depths and differences in cooking throughout the Mexican states. Her stories, included with every recipe, add a delightful charm to this book, making it very readable as well as utilitarian.

Some of the recipes use ingredients that are not readily available in my little corner of the world, so some cooks may be disappointed, but Jinich often offers alternatives that will give a similar flavor. Many recipes are also somewhat complicated, making this a book for the experienced cook. The variety of recipes is outstanding, with some of the most intriguing being Grilled Oaxacan Air-Dried Beef, Carne Con Chile, Wedding Stew (Asado De Boda), and Mole Poblano with Chicken (which has a whopping 26 ingredients just for the Mole sauce) which looks and sounds amazing.

If you watch Jinich on PBS, you will hear her voice in your head as you read. She wraps you in her enthusiasm and joy in her cooking and sharing her Mexican heritage with the world.

Highly recommended.

Publication Date: November 2, 2021
Published By: Mariner Books
Thanks to *Netgalley for the review copy