Recently, I was trying to think of something to make for dinner and perused my food book stacks looking for inspiration. As I flipped through my cookbooks, I thought through all of my options. Overwhelmed with so many choices, I ended up making a three-cheese pasta in red sauce, chicken parmesan, and roasted broccoli and cauliflower in olive oil.
I think I’m at the point where I have to accept that I don’t read food books for recipes. I read them to challenge myself to think of cooking in new ways. Why do we salt meat before cooking it? Or, why do we salt pasta water? I found the answers to these questions and so many more in my favorite food writing and cookbooks. So today, we’re looking at a couple of my favorite books for foodies, but first, bookish goods!
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Bookish Goods
You Were Here Bookmark by AngelicaZunigaArt
I love a quirky bookmark, and this one is perfect. It’s good to know exactly where you left off! $5
New Releases
Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder by Salman Rushdie
In his new memoir, Salman Rushdie writes about how he was attacked at a book event, an act of violence that almost took his life. He also delves deeper into his experience of having a fatwa ordered against him 30 years ago, and how he survived and kept writing.
Committed: On Meaning and Madwomen by Suzanne Scanlon
After a suicide attempt, Suzanne Scanlon enters the New York State Psychiatric Institute. But that is just the beginning. For years, she struggled with her mental health, eventually finding solace in the pages and pages of literature written by women who have shared her experiences.
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Riot Recommendations
Burn the Place: A Memoir by Iliana Regan
Iliana Regan grew up on a small farm in Indiana, going out on foraging expeditions with her family members and learning how to live with the land around her. As she grew older and began to realize she was queer, she tried to bury that knowledge with alcoholism and an intense amount of work in the food industry. As she worked her way up through the restaurant world, she discovered her calling, the thing that gave her purpose. She began to focus more on ingredients, remembering her childhood spent searching for ingredients with her family. Regan writes about her complex inner world, struggling to stay sober and create a better world for herself where she accepts who she is and becomes her best self.
Bottom of the Pot: Persian Recipes and Stories by Naz Deravian
I’ve had my eye on this cookbook for years, so you can imagine how excited I was to receive it as a gift. Bottom of the Pot is the winner of the IACP 2019 First Book Award, presented by The Julia Child Foundation. It combines essays and recipes to create that unique pairing of cooking from a very personal place. Deravian gives us a diverse collection of Persian recipes, adding sections about how to treat individual ingredients so we get the best results.
You can find me over on my substack Winchester Ave, over on Instagram @kdwinchester, on TikTok @kendrawinchester, or on my podcast Read Appalachia. As always, feel free to drop me a line at kendra.d.winchester@gmail.com. For even MORE bookish content, you can find my articles over on Book Riot.
Happy reading, Friends!
~ Kendra