Weekly thread: Your favorite cookbooks & cooking blogs
I’ll be honest, over the past three months I haven’t done much cooking. It’s usually an important part of my life, but teaching this semester has consumed my time and brain, so I’ve been relying a lot on take-out and Trader Joe’s stir-fries. (I mean, they are life-saving.)
But the semester ends in a few weeks, and I’m eager to pick up my apron again. So I’d love to hear about your favorite cookbooks and cooking blogs / newsletters.
Here are my recommendations: On Substack, my good friend and neighbor Nicki Sizemore writes the wonderful
, which is chock full of delicious gluten-free recipes (I am not gluten-free, but they’re so good you don’t even notice). I also adore Caroline Chambers’s .Cookbook-wise, I have a bunch of favorites. For simple weeknight cooking, I love Bare Minimum Dinners (I make her extremely easy baked rigatoni at least twice a month). Nicki Sizemore’s Fresh Flavors for the Slow Cooker is fantastic if you love your slow cooker but aren’t always wowed by slow cooker meals. Because I am obsessed with Indian food, my most beloved (and most used) cookbook ever is Curried Favors: Family Recipes from South India. (FYI, I just set up affiliate links.)
What are your favorites? Share in the comments!
I love https://smittenkitchen.com/. Deb Perelman's three Smitten Kitchen cookbooks are all excellent. Her recipes are full of strong, bright flavors and lots of veggies. She is a perfectionist who tests her recipes repeatedly, eliminating steps until she's sure that every step and ingredient is necessary for flavor. You know she'll never make you do a step that's not absolutely necessary for the dish. Not all of her recipes are quick, easy weeknight meals, but many of them are, and she's up front about how long things actually take (no saying you can caramelize onions in 15 minutes, for example). She's a home cook in a tiny New York City apartment with a tiny kitchen, with no space for single-use appliances. So none of her recipes require fancy tools or equipment. I go back to her recipes over and over again.
I love What to Cook When You Don't Feel Like Cooking!