While the ingredients are easy to find, the recipes read like they were written by a confident hand who's made the dishes a hundred times. Like a true kitchen veteran wrote these recipes and doesn't have time or patience for a beginner.

In preparation for this cookbook review, I watched “The Big Night”: the film that this book’s existence is largely credited to. The concept of a film centered around a struggling, fledgling restaurant, especially one where the star of the show is really just a giant meal centerpiece — a pastry-wrapped, baked pasta dish called a Timpano — was right up my alley. The drama of unveiling that dish alone had me on the edge of my seat, and the movie gave me a huge spike of energy going into my week.

The whole premise of this book is inspiring: Stanley uses his experience and time working on “Big Night” to not only document and encapsulate the recipes that his mother and grandmothers made living in southern Italy, but also to share the spotlight with a friend from the north of Italy and showcase some of what makes those regions so special.

With unbridled optimism, I walked into the kitchen that first day ready to make Stanley’s grandmother, Concetta’s stuffed artichokes and maybe learn a thing or two from a true Italian nonna. That optimism quickly deteriorated when I realized that the recipe was written as if said grandmother were guiding you over the phone — while the instructions were written with the confident hand of someone who'd made the dish a hundred times, there were very few details to be found that would help a newcomer to the dish. Needless to say, my artichokes did not turn out well.

I wish I could tell you that the artichokes were the only dish like this, but day after day, I kept getting this feeling that the recipes were missing something, or at the very least, that I needed a Tucci matron standing over my shoulder offering pearls of wisdom to help me reach my goal.

By day three, I abandoned Stanley's timing estimates altogether, and focused on any visual indicators offered (which weren’t a lot) and it didn’t help that photos are few and far between. Again, I kept getting the feeling that in my nonna-less condition, there was simply no way I could achieve the intended outcome.

By the end of my week, I was left questioning everything I thought I understood about cooking after so few wins. Seriously, of the whole week, the wine pairings were the best part.

I don’t think I’ll be opening "The Tucci Cookbook” up again anytime soon but, after a solid week with it, I can confidently say that if you are a particularly huge fan of Stanley’s work in “Big Night” — or just a member of the Tucci family — then I think you’d enjoy having this book on your shelf.

Amazon

The recipe layout for this book is simple and to the point. There are very few pictures to go along with the recipes, and serving sizes, wine pairing and any variations are all listed at the end of the recipe. 

If Stanley Tucci made me any of these dishes I would be so grateful. That being said, there wasn't one day when I didn't either have the urge to amend a time estimate or flavor profile. Especially those eggs in the Timpano. 

The Tucci Cookbook

If you are a member of the Tucci family or a massive fan of the movie "Big Night" which inspired this book, then I think you'd enjoy having this book on your shelf. However, because the audience is so narrow, I'm not sure that most home cooks would have the value they're looking for from "The Tucci Cookbook." 

Being a collection of Stanley Tucci family recipes, this book is riddled with anecdotes from his upbringing, and honestly this is one of the best parts of the book.

A handful of ingredients can be tricky to find locally, but everything was easily available online within a couple of days. The recipes are super approachable — even when they seem tricky, the steps are explained so clearly that they're easy to reproduce.

As someone who is decidedly not vegan (and carries a longstanding disdain for vegan butters), I can confirm that Mission Vegan is something entirely different and a book meant for flavor-lovers of all stripes.

Not only did Danny avoid most of the “alternatives” that are commonly found in vegan dishes; he managed to make his dishes stand out by adding colors and flavors that would make any carnivore question where that meaty flavor is coming from? (Spoiler: It's probably mushrooms.)

The directions keep the home cook in mind by breaking everything down into easy-to-follow steps. He doesn't always define every culinary term (and honestly, not every book should do that ad infinitum), but he's not using anything so complex that a quick Google wouldn't get you where you need to be.

Pro tip: don’t skip out on making a few of Danny’s kimchi recipes! He’s put a lot of thought into making these recipes approachable and safe for beginners and several of the recipes are super fun takes on classics that will impress your friends for very little effort. Definitely make the watermelon kimchi and be prepared to have your mind blown by how amazing that rind is. (Seriously, wtf Danny.)

Dishes like the Matcha Pho, Buckwheat Noodles with Dragonfruit Ice (the most interesting thing we've eaten in months), Tiger Salad, and the Smashed Cucumbers with Tingly Granola (easily the best example of its ever-popular category) will all be going into regular rotation for us. 

Several of these, we immediately turned around and served to friends and they were all shocked that A) they were vegan dishes, and B) that they were so damn interesting to eat. 

In fact, the only dishes that were a slight miss for us were the Chilled Tofu in Peanut Milk and the Pineapple Kimchi Fried Rice. But these dishes are so simple and minimal that it was easy to see which variables to tweak and bring them up to their full potential.

The hardest part of the week was in tracking down a couple of less-common ingredients like pink peppercorns, Sichuan peppercorn oil, and freeze-dried dragon fruit powder in stores. Pro tip: they're super easy to find online. If in question, start there.

If you’re a cook who expects your finished dish to turn out exactly like the photos, you may need to add some edible flowers to your shopping cart too. Most of our dishes turned out pretty damn close to the super vibe-y inspirational photos, but he definitely does touch up his photos with a couple of embellishments. We left the week extremely jealous of his translucent dish collection.

So, who is this for? If you're even a little interested in getting into some moderately experimental Korean- and Chinese-inspired food (vegan or otherwise), and you don’t mind throwing together a handful of simple prep ingredients from scratch like his Whipped Garlic Sauce or Umami Salt + Pepper, then I think you’ll really love this book.

Not doing a ton creatively here, but the photos are gorgeous, accurate to the finished dishes, and the information is laid out cleanly and logically.

Our biggest issue was the number of dependencies that maybe didn't need to be included ("Umami Salt + Pepper" for example). Sure they were additive and we can't argue with the outcomes, but it seemed to be optimized for avoiding repetition in the book at the expense of cooking ergonomics.

Danny's flavors blew us away. We weren't too optimistic going in because we've had so many vegan versions of dishes that were lacking, but we were so damn wrong.

Several times we called out dishes as being the best thing we've eaten all year.

Mission Vegan

Absolutely. No book has been more worth its cover price so far this year.

Don't hesitate on this one. It's a complete gem.

The writing is super smooth: flowing from idea to idea clearly and really focusing on the recipes and why they're present in the book.

Every recipe intro was worth reading and blended personal anecdote with pro tips on how to get the best out of the recipe that followed.

All of the ingredients in this book are easily found at a local grocery store. The recipes are short, sweet and to the point, and they even offer QR codes so if you're new to cooking or need a refresher on how to slice fennel, Molly's got you covered. However, we dropped some points for the suggested 2.5-3hours cook time on the Piri-Piri(ish) chicken recipe. That's just too long.

This is one of the more personality-forward cookbooks I’ve reviewed, and I think you definitely have to be into Molly’s whole shtick to fully appreciate it. Abbrevs abound with “k-bas” standing in for “kielbasa”, “potato c’s” replacing “potato chips” (Editor’s note: this does not reduce the number of syllables), and, of course, the obligatory “cae sal”. Et tu, Bru?

The book is meant to provide “techniques that teach and recipes to repeat”, and I think this book has a lot of good qualities about it. Her direction on how to re-balance a dish that’s too salty, sweet, or sour is great advice (we'll get back to the irony of this shortly)! I also agree whole-heartedly with her golden rules — especially tips like cooking to the visual indicator. That kind of advice firmly plants this book into the “Beginner Cookbook” category for us, so we turned off our intuition and cooked it explicitly as-written (like a beginner would) and judged it within that context.

One great trick is the clever QR codes sprinkled through the intro to help if it’s your first time slicing a fennel bulb or making mayonnaise. That thoughtful detail set my expectations high with this book — I was honestly hoping to see more of those little tricks sprinkled throughout, but what I got from the recipes themselves was underwhelming and mostly focused on plating aesthetics.

Most of the recipes were middling, but some just flat out didn’t work as written. The Piri Piri(-ish) Chicken sounded great in theory, but due to its lack of internal seasoning and extremely long recommended cook time was dry and mostly flavorless. Dishes like the Grapefruit and Burrata Salad with Chili Crisp also leaned too much on a single flavor profile (in this case, bitter) or non-complementary textures in the case of Shrimp with 20 Cloves of Garlic which made them a little tiring to eat.

We did have some hits alongside the misses though, and there were a few little touches we loved, such as Molly's use of sambal oelek in the Linguine and Clams recipe and the heavenly Master Beans to add ferment-y depth and a little bit of kick where things could otherwise be boring. That was where this book really excelled for us — making tiny, thoughtful improvements to basic dishes.

After 5 intensive days with this book, I can confidently say that if you are someone who loves Molly Baz (and aren't afraid of a little salt) you’ll really enjoy this cookbook.

Molly has really invested in photos for almost every recipe, ingredients broken down into sections, and cooking steps laid out for efficiency.

There were a couple of dishes that simply fell flat for us out of this week. The grapefruit and burrata salad and Piri Piri(ish) chicken being the big two. Aside from those dishes, the rest were decent weeknight meals.

Cook This Book

There is some great advice in this book that I think a beginner to cooking would get value from, but I deducted points because the actual recipes fail to call back to the lessons taught in the beginning of the book.

Everything but the recipes in this book are written well. Molly's advice to cook to the visual indicator or how to re-balance a dish that's too salty, sweet or sour is great advice. However, she fails to revisit that information within the recipes. If she wanted a beginner friendly cookbook, I would have expected more of a call-back to some of those pearls of wisdom. 

Hear me out. The ingredients are hard to find for those of us who are new to Sichuan food. BUT, Fuchsia goes above and beyond describing techniques and offering photos of ingredients that may be tough to find.

I knew I wanted to review a Chinese cookbook this year, and Bryn's been in love with this book for years now (full disclosure: our 

 are both inspired by dishes we first tried making from this book). While I've eaten a ton of excellent Chinese food, I haven’t cooked much Chinese food at all — let alone specific regional cuisines like those from the famous Sichuan province.

I cracked this book open and started reading about Fuchsia’s journey into Sichuanese cuisine. Her passion for the food and culture of the region jumped out of the page and instantly got me hooked. 

The next thing I knew I was ordering chile bean paste (

), and learning the difference between light soy sauce (

). I dove into prep for this review by producing enough beef and chicken stock to last a year and failing in an attempt to make a fermented glutinous rice wine (though I think my rice wine was doomed from the beginning due to an intense heat wave). 

With my pantry stocked, I was ready for Monday, and rolled up my sleeves to fry some pork belly. Unfortunately, I was unable to find the ideal cut (skin-on pork rump) and used one of the backup recommendations (skin-on pork belly) which made the end result similar to the texture of bacon with a tire wrapped around it. Not great.

The hard thing about writing recipes — 

 — is that measurements are usually correlated to something that the author is experiencing. A recipe might say "Carefully pour off all but 3 tbsp oil from the wok", but what they often mean is "leave enough to cover the bottom" which is sometimes not specific enough for new cooks. Recipes are often at their best when the reader can infer what the author meant, rather than following a recipe to the letter (which, let me tell you, makes reviewing cookbooks... interesting).

The flavors in these recipes are complex, spicy, rich, and inviting. Nearly every dish we made was perfectly balanced between spicy and numbing or sour and sweet. The only recipe that needed a little adjustment was the hot pot: it called for 75 grams of dried chilies and 200 grams of beef tallow (making oil nearly 10% of the contents of the pot). 

Again, I think this comes down to inference. We've had Sichuanese hot pot many times, but I've never encountered one with that much oil — and it made consuming the dish quite difficult at first. After doing a little math and introducing some extra broth and skimming about 120g of oil off the top, that hot pot was to die for.

With my first week of Sichuanese cookery under my belt thanks to "The Food of Sichuan", I can honestly say that if you’re interested in getting started with Sichuanese cuisine (or learning about Chinese regional cuisines in general), I highly recommend getting this book for your shelf. Not only does Fuchsia take the time to break down everything from common tools to pantry staples found in traditional Sichuanese cooking, she also includes unique and entertaining anecdotes about each recipe. I highly recommend reading the sidebars before starting to cook. Fuchsia usually peppers in tips and tricks for the recipe that I have found very helpful, but are easily missed.

I'm a big fan of books that offer photo representations wherever possible. This is most important as someone who is new to Sichuan cooking. Not only did Fuchsia make it easy to follow her directions, but the photos she includes for each dish helped me better match my outcome.

95% of the dishes I made were balanced, and delightful. The only serious issue we had was with the Hot Pot recipe, but after we skimmed off some oil and diluted the chilies it was killer.

The Food of Sichuan

Fuchsia's passion for Chinese food shines through in this book. Between her expert advice for western cooks, and the brilliantly detailed anecdotes from her time living in Sichuan, this book is perfect for anyone interested in cooking or learning about Chinese regional cuisines in general.

Fuchsia will transport you to the Land of Plenty with her anecdotes and experiences living in the Sichuan region. 

With a quick google search, you can easily find anything you need for this cookbook. The only things you may need to make to be successful with this book are schmaltz and whey. 

When I first opened the Modern Larder, Michelle immediately drew me in with her stunning photos and no-nonsense cooking approach. She — like me — prefers to bypass the lengthy building processes of many contemporary cookbooks and instead deploys the hardworking ingredients in her larder to get maximum impact for minimal effort.

With optimism high, I whipped up her labneh, chili infused vinegar, and preserved lemon oil in preparation for the review ahead and jumped in ready to sauté carrots in schmaltz, infuse dried limes into a pot of simmering beans, and expand our spice drawer with some new blends.

That initial excitement took a drastic dive after the first day, when I made her "Job’s Tears "Stonepot" with Crispy Mushrooms and Jammy Eggs". The dish looked excellent, but the flavor was like eating the color beige. Don’t get me wrong, the chili vinegar was a welcome addition, but the spice and acid just couldn’t cut through the other bland flavors without overpowering everything else in the dish.

That trend carried through the rest of my week and by the time it was over, I was feeling like the author was tossing a preserved lemon in a boring pot of chickpeas just to say it was in there, rather than to create a compelling dish.

Where this book stands out is in the detail she gives to each larder ingredient which I could definitely see being helpful from a technical perspective. She also suggests some unique and practical tips to get you using these ingredients like adding whey to scrambled eggs for a little extra fluff, sprinkling dried shrimp powder on popcorn to bump up the umami, or tossing a little pomegranate molasses in pasta sauce for a unique zing.

I also appreciated that the author provided alternatives to ingredients not available in many locations. The crispy-skinned fish can be made with anything from trout to branzino. If you can’t find Job’s tears (like me), farro or barley will work just fine.

If you’re the type of cook who enjoys playing around with interesting flavor combinations and you cook several meals per week you may enjoy the introduction to this book — detailing how she thinks about adding her 58 larder ingredients to boost flavor in everyday dishes. Do yourself a favor and skim the recipes for context, but don't rely on them verbatim.

At the very least this book and its gorgeous photos would make a great addition to your coffee table.

The design of this book is stunning. The photos alone are a work of art, but I also enjoy the charts Michelle incorporates to describe different ways to cook dishes with different ingredients like with her fried rice or meatballs.

While the dishes looked very similar to the photo representations, the flavors were lacking. Even with extra salt and acid, dishes like "Job's Tears "Stonepot" with Crispy Mushrooms and Jammy Eggs" couldn't be fixed without completely changing the dish.

The Modern Larder

I was drawn to the idea of using unique ingredients that pack a punch to get more flavor impact for minimal effort. As I dug into book however, I quickly got the feeling that there may need to be a little more editing effort up front to keep the everyday home cook motivated. 

If you're looking for stress-free recipes that deliver on quality, look no further. While some of the recipes take a little extra time, like the personal pan pep-pep, the actual directions are easy to follow and expertly edited.

I think Eric and I would be friends if our paths ever crossed. 

I say that because we have a similar love of simple and comforting "grandma foods", we had the same first job as a sandwich artist at Subway, and we have a shared nostalgia for Pizza Hut personal pan pizzas. 

But most importantly, because we both like to take things a little less seriously.

Eric doesn't claim to be a professional chef. He's just talented and loves eating, cooking, and sharing what he knows with the world. Better yet, his charisma so clearly comes through in the writing — which is increasingly rare in cookbooks. There is zero stress in this book and that's a downright miracle.

With the exception of fig leaves, most of the ingredients in these dishes are readily available at any grocery store or supermarket, and the recipes themselves come together in a little under 2 hours. Easy-peasy!

The only thing I would have adjusted in his recipes is timing. Giving a little extra time to marinate or simmer would have resulted in a more developed flavor in dishes like the green globe curry and in the mushroom sauce for those "bonk" (his words, not mine) chicken frites.

Between the tasty pizzas, smashburgers, simple pastas, and crunchy fried chicken, this book is super kid-friendly. What kid doesn’t want their own personal pan pizza!? I can almost taste the graveyard soda fountain concoction my brothers and I would make from the Pizza Hut down the street as I type.

This book is great for crowds too! Eric’s got tips and recipes devoted to building the ultimate snack plate, hosting caviar and shrimp parties, and even throwing a raclette party (think fondue but fancier). Even his simple recipes throw in crowd-pleasing add-ons like pairing champagne with your fried chicken to elevate it from delicious to showstopper.

Lastly, I love that Eric shares his inspirations with you. He'll name the places he first encountered a dish — from LA to Sicily to Thailand — and you better believe those are all going on my list of places I one day want to eat.

Overall, I really enjoyed reading and cooking out of this book. If you are a beginner to cooking, and the idea of trying your hand at an overnight pizza dough or a roast chicken and fries sounds exciting to you, I think you’ll also really like this book.

Not only are photos available for almost every recipe in this book, but the representation actually matches the outcome of someone who follows the recipe verbatim. 

The only thing I would adjust in a dish or two is the amount of time dedicated to simmering or marinating. If the green globe curry for example had 20 more minutes to meld those flavors I think it would have been "bonk!"

Foodheim

If you're a beginner to cooking, but like the idea of fried chicken and champagne, personal pan pizza, fresh pasta, and maybe throwing a party and need a place to start - Foodheim is a fun way to begin your culinary journey.

Maybe I'm just a sucker for comedy, but the writing in this book is entertaining as hell to read. I found myself on more than one occasion chuckling to myself while reading an overview of a recipe, and I hope you do to.

If you have a couple of years' experience with cooking, you'll have no trouble at all with this book. The flavors and sauces in this book are incredible, and if you can endure 1-2 dependent recipes to make a dish, you'll be well rewarded.

The unexpected hero of this book is the sauce.

Even if you have an overcooked lamb chop or prawn, that intense, punchy sauce will still turn it into the best damn version you’ve ever had.

The bread directions were also impeccable. They were written with intention and were super easy to follow for a home cook with a basic grasp of shaping dough. As long as you can fold and flip in 90° angles, you’ll have no problem.

We always love a book that makes it possible for a home cook to make a dish look just like the photo representation. This book does an excellent job of showing you exactly how your dish should look at the end, and I don’t think there was one dish that turned out with more than a sprig of parsley out of place.

Where I deducted points for this book was in the use of flower waters, and to be fair, that may just be personal preference — but I don't entirely think it was. When a recipe asks for 2 tablespoons of orange blossom or rose water, you know you're in for a flavor that'll drown out everything in its vicinity. If you’re someone who is sensitive to overpowering flavors like those, I recommend skipping out on these altogether, especially if you plan to make the turmeric chicken. The orange blossom water in that recipe made it almost impossible to taste any other flavor.

All other deductions in my scoring went to measurements because after 3 days of multiple recipes asking for "2 tablespoons plus 2.5 teaspoons" of turmeric or whatever, I was seriously losing my patience. That kind of measurement clearly comes from translating from weights to volume measurements. Please, for the love of god, stop doing that. Kitchen scales are easy.

I developed a falafel recipe a few months ago alongside a flatbread recipe I’d had rolling around in my head. I cracked open every book we had that referenced falafels. Bavel happened to be one of them.

I have to admit that when I tried to make the Bavel falafel from the book I failed miserably, and while I ended up going down a different route for the final version, I couldn’t stop flipping through the Bavel cookbook.

I was intimidated by it because it meant making yogurt, pickles, breads, and all those sauces from scratch — but this series isn’t about playing it safe. It’s about trying to make something new from a different cook's perspective, and that's when I knew I had to give this book an honest try.

I was pleasantly surprised by the amount of flavor in the sides and starters, but a bit disappointed by the main dishes in this book — and at the restaurant. If they didn’t rely so heavily on the pickles and sauces, I’d be thrilled. But most of the mains are too bland on their own to give my whole-hearted recommendation.

That being said, those Turkish eggs have become a staple breakfast since this review, the baba ganoush — while high effort — was amazing, and I will definitely be attempting to make those harissa prawns again.

I won't deny that this book takes a lot of time, and asks you to make a lot of things from scratch. If you’re not a fan of blending and grinding spices, making yogurt from scratch, or baking bread, this may not be for you. If you are the type who finds making everything from scratch therapeutic however, I'd highly recommend this book. 

With the warning that the orange blossom water and rose water measurements should be converted from tbsp to drops. As usual, taste along the way, and you'll do just fine.

If you find yourself in the LA area, I highly recommend trying to grab a table at the Bavel restaurant. When you get there, skip the mains but enjoy as many of the incredibly flavorful sides, starters, and cocktails as you can. If you like seafood, order at least two orders of the prawns for the table. You won’t regret it.

The photos for these dishes are stunning, and the recipes are clearly and efficiently documented.

If you are sensitive to orange blossom or rose water, use less than what they recommend in the book. All the dishes made with both of these waters were overpoweringly orange blossom or rose water flavored.

Bavel

The Bavel cookbook is definitely not beginner friendly, but the sauce recipes alone make this book well worth the price.

This is the first restaurant cookbook that I thought actually did a good job translating a professional kitchen's style and technique to a home kitchen. The recipes may ask the home cook to make 1-2 recipes before getting to the main event, but it's worth it.

Overall this is the easiest cookbook I've worked from thus far. The only issue I've had is a common issue among cookbook and that is in the estimated cook times. Cooking to the visual indicator is much more reliable.

This has quickly become one of my favorite books to cook from. Not only did I get to learn about these various cultures and their amazing food, but I also got to read some of the most heartwarming stories from grandmothers who view cooking as a way to show love to their families and community.

Really the only area that I struggled in was a common one in cookbooks: many recipes underestimate the time required to do a task properly. This often happens due to a writer's desire to make something sound as easy as possible. That being said, if you’re cool taking 10 extra minutes to brown some meat or caramelize some onions, you’ll have no trouble at all.

As someone who is brand new to African cooking, I can say with confidence that this book is a delicious first step.

African food is a group of cuisines I am embarrassingly unfamiliar with. These cuisines haven't been commoditized in the way that so many other cuisines have in America, so any time I've eaten food from Ethiopia or Kenya or Nigeria, it's carried such a strong tie to cultural identity that it felt off limits for me to cook myself.

 back in early 2021, I immediately got sucked into the stories of these incredible grandmothers how they think about sharing their heritage and nostalgia with others. The next thing I knew, I was planning out how I would make mukimo, kicha, kunde, and the other dishes that represent and celebrate these cultures.

I noticed something throughout my week with this book: the dishes tasted familiar. Not in flavors so much, but in the way only food a loving grandmother could make for her family. You can feel the genuine love in every bite and Hawa and Julia did an amazing job translating ingredients so that anyone can cook these dishes. Don't even get me started on the photography! Khadija M. Farah shot in a way that the women and their food featured in this book were beyond beautiful.

If you’re like me and want to take that first step into cooking African food, I highly recommend adding this book to your shelf.

Most of the recipes in this book have stunning and accurate photos to match. The recipes themselves are written in a way that you would expect from a classic cookbook recipe. 

The flavors overall by and large are warming, spicy, and rich. I needed very little adjustment to any dish aside from an extra pinch of salt here and there.

In Bibi's Kitchen

I think everyone should own this book. If for no other reason than to make some amazing rice dishes. But more importantly these recipes deserve to be preserved, and what better way to do that than in the form of a cookbook?

The stories are captivating, and research well done. Not only did I learn about staple foods of the African coast, but I also learned how those foods came to be in the first place.

This is book is definitely not beginner friendly, but if you're willing to make 2-3 recipes before the main dish, you'll have a flavor packed meal.

Long story short: I think this book was under-edited. Some of the ingredients were listed at the bottoms of the pages in light blue or purple which — don't get me wrong, looks cool — but makes it pretty easy to forget those items when creating a grocery list.

The photos often depicted significant variation from the recipe which made it hard to know what to expect. The format also required a lot of flipping back and forth between recipes for a single dish, which can make it easy to miss a step.

That being said, when the dishes finally came together they were packed with flavor and absolutely delicious. Not exactly what you would get at the restaurant, but pretty damn close and Kris usually offers a unique wine pairing suggestion to go with your meal.

Between the long drive, our belongings still in transit, and having spotty electricity we needed to figure out meals on the fly. It was the perfect opportunity to try some new restaurants.

I'd been eyeing the Night + Market cookbook for this series for a few months — drawn in initially by the bright colors and vibrant photography. So, when we arrived in LA, the first place on my "Must-Eat" list was Night + Market.

One taste of the khao soi and I went home needing to cook more of their dishes pronto. Within the first week of our things arriving I cracked open this book and started mapping out the dishes I would make.

Khao soi and tom khar gai were top priorities and took a little extra time, but turned out just as I'd hoped: spicy, warming, and packed with flavor.

The hiccups that I experienced during my week (aside from those induced by spiciness) boiled down to recipe formatting issues. Missing ingredients that weren’t clearly visible, having to navigate multiple recipes at once to make the sauces, and an inconsistent level of detail throughout made some meals trickier than others.

The book does a good job of explaining why the restaurant exists, what the intention is behind the food, and how it evolved over the years... but where it struggles is accessibility to home cooks.

Therefore, I ultimately think that if you’re a fan of Night + Market's restaurants and you're up for a culinary adventure well worth the effort, add this book to your shelf. 

If you’ve never been to the Night + Market restaurant... 

2. Order a spicy margarita, a bowl of khao soi, and some coconut rice.

3. See above, because it's damn near impossible to not leave the restaurant as a fan.

The photos in this book are beautiful, but I had to deduct points for the light blue an light purple text at the bottom of recipes. While this is a creative treatment, it did cause me to overlook these sections, only later realizing that they actually were necessary for the dish.

The flavors in these dishes are spicy, warming and vibrant! Even if a dish didn't look like the photo representation, they all tasted spicy and amazing.  

Night + Market

If you've been to the Night + Market restaurant, and want to make your favorite dish at home, I think you'd enjoy having this book on your shelf. I myself crack this book open at least once a year to make that Khao Soi.

I think the story for this book is strong. Kris is on a mission to take traditional Thai food and spin it to make great party food. That being said, I think this book caters a bit more to professional chefs than it does to home cooks, and it quite the ask for those folks who have to then wash the dishes they use.

The ingredients are not hard to find, but the techniques, and time needed to make these dishes is a bit on the difficult end for a home cook.

These meals are fun to make and genuine crowd pleasers, but most of these dishes are extremely time-intensive. The ramen alone required 7 different recipes throughout the book, and a lot of them had to be done between 6 and 24 hours in advance. I definitely considered making a Gantt chart more than once just to make everything happen on time.

This book isn't beginner-friendly because a lot of the techniques are written for someone who's in the kitchen regularily and knows how to julienne carrots. However, if you have some experience cooking Asian dishes, I think you'll find this book challenging in the best ways. 

Either way, if you're a fan of Chang's work, you should have this on your shelf.

Confession time: I don't love ramen. I don't hate it, but I'm not the type to go out of my way to get my hands on a bowl either. Then this winter happened and our little farmhouse in rural California was freezing. All I wanted to eat was soup. So I opened Momofuku, saw the ramen and the kimchi stew and that was it. It was time to brave the unknown and finally make my first batch of ramen.

I'll go on the record after cooking through this book saying that ramen — when you have the time — is delightful and I will probably be making that again. I say probably because this book has you going through a lot of hoops to get ramen in your belly. Of course, once I took the time to make ramen, I suddenly had the majority of the ingredients I needed to make kimchi stew, ssam, and most of the rest of the book. 

This cookbook is interesting because it was written with the purpose of documenting the hypergrowth that Chang experienced while opening Noodle Bar, Ssam Bar and Ko in the early 2000s. The recipes reflect that purpose and read like they're written more as a biography of a restaurant's opening rather than to be a guide for home cooks. So, if you're new to cooking, this book might be tough to get into for that very reason. If you're a superfan of Chang's and you want to know more about how he got started in his food journey or want to challenge yourself and try cooking like he does, then picking up a copy of 

This cookbook was written with the purpose of documenting the hypergrowth that Chang experienced while opening Noodle Bar, Ssam Bar and Ko in the early 2000s. The recipes reflect that purpose and read like they're written more as a biography of a restaurant's opening rather than to be a guide for home cooks.

The flavors are salty, but balanced. The only issue we had with flavor and texture was with the 48-hour short rib.

Momofuku

If you're a superfan of Chang's and you want to know more about how he got started in his food journey or want to challenge yourself and try cooking like he does, then picking up a copy of 

The story of David's journey into starting three restaurants is well written, and flows smoothly. The sprinkling of recipes between events is a clever way to move the story forward, but the attention to the recipes leans more on the professional kitchen's end of cooking vs. the home kitchen.

The ingredients for this book are easy to come by at a local grocery store, however they do ask the home cook to make 2-3 additional recipes from the book to accomplish a recipe.

Sandwiches are incredible. If you disagree with me, do us all a favor and move on. Obviously this review is on a sandwich cookbook and if you don’t like sandwiches what are you even doing wasting your time reading this?

This cookbook is not meant for anyone who wants a recipe for a basic BLT or for someone who wants to shut their brain off and follow a recipe to the letter. This cookbook is meant for the explorers of sandwich possibility.

If you are someone who likes making literally every part of the sandwich from scratch (aside from the cheese and maybe the bread) then you will love this cookbook.

Not only is it entertaining as hell to read, but the recipes ask you to push the boundaries of sandwich construction, and all Tyler asks of you is to include something within the following category: Salty, Fatty, Acidic, Sweet & Crunchy.

Why not try making that leftover turkey into a sandwich with bacon, fermented pickle, carrot and potato chips? The sky is the limit here and as long as you can modify a recipe to fit what you want out of your sandwich, you’ll love this book.

The recipes themselves are not complex and they are easy to follow, but you need to be able to taste for the flavors you want in a sandwich and modify for missing elements.

I deducted some points on flavor only because the recipes in my opinion were a 50/50 chance of success. Some were amazing as is, while others needed a lot of help to get them where I wanted to go.

Long story short, if you’re interested in making every part of your sandwich from scratch, and that might mean making your own Canadian bacon; then I think A Super Upsetting Cookbook About Sandwiches would be an incredible addition to your shelf.

The recipes are simple, but have some creative writing flare sprinkled throughout. Here's a good example from the Lazaro's Revenge recipe: 

"Stop. This is spicy, and eating spicy foods before bed makes my dreams super crazy."

It was a 50/50 split this week. Half of the recipes we made nailed it on the first go, while others needed more than salt to meet expectations.

A Super Upsetting Cookbook About Sandwiches

If you the idea of throwing caution to the wind and mixing fried oyster mushrooms with peaches and mayo, you'll love this book. I know I did, and I turn to the Sandwich Construction chart in the back of the book regularly for sandwich flavor inspiration.

On more than one occasion I found myself reading this book as if it were a novel. Chuckling to myself during random rants about chicken-fried steak being made from beef and not in fact chicken, and his strong opinions about lobster on a hot dog bun.

These recipes are difficult for beginners, and some of the ingredients can be tough to find. However, we're giving it extra points because the author and editor go above and beyond to give the home cook a photos, timelines, guides and ingredient alternatives in every recipe of the book.

I have a fascination with what the staff at restaurants eat for dinner before service — what's known in the biz as "Family Meal". So when I read that The Family Meal is a compilation of the 31 staff favorite meals from the kitchen at El Bulli, you better believe I had to do a review of this book.

By 31 meals, I don’t just mean leftovers with a side of bread. No, these recipes include a custom side, main course and dessert that the staff at this restaurant ate together every night before dinner service started.

The book was written so that no matter the experience, anyone can make a recipe out of this book. To test the theory I approached a group of food that I have very little experience with: fish.

Listen, it’s not that I’ve never cooked fish before, but I grew up in a landlocked state and good fish wasn’t something you could just go out and buy. Where I hailed from, you had to catch your own fish and that restricted your options to sunfish, crappie, walleye, or perch. The default method of cooking them being just a big vat of oil, a lot of heat, and a mysterious spice blend called "lemon pepper".

Upbringing aside, I chose a lot of fish dishes to work with out of this book. Aside from some of the varieties being common in Northern Spain but completely unavailable to me in Northern California — and unlocking a new fear in gutting a fish — I found the writing to be fairly straightforward.

After a week with this book, I can confidently say that if you’re just getting into cooking and want to have a few fine dining recipes at the ready to impress a significant other; I think this would be an excellent book to add to your shelf.

The book is very readable. Each recipe has pictures and a timeline that helps to keep the project moving along. However, while most of the dishes are not complex, they do make bold claims such as browning whole turkey legs and braising veal shanks only taking 10-20 minutes. Either they were working with a magic stove, they used a huge pan, or the meat I purchased for this review was particularly stubborn. In both cases, I doubled the amount of time it took to get a color and texture that I expected. All this to say, if you're new to cooking you might need to spend a little extra time reviewing their photos or googling your way through a task or a preparation to understand what the author is asking you to do vs following the timed guidelines to the letter.

The ingredient rundowns, timelines and photo directions for every recipe is what every beginner home cook deserves.

The majority of dishes for this week were spot on. That being said we did run across a few textural difficulties in the Mandarins with Cointreau and the Bread with Chocolate and Olive Oil. We also ran into a couple of estimated timing issues with our meat dishes in particular.

The Family Meal

I think every beginner should own this cookbook. The photo guides and timelines alone are a masterclass in cooking at home. Save yourself from forming bad habits right away and read the section on "The elBulli system" at the front of the book. A lot of my organization strategy for these reviews came from that chapter.

The book isn't complex but it does still read like a professional chef is trying to teach home cooks a thing or two. Some of the directions make a lot of assumptions of a home cook's skill, like understanding what "thin" means in terms of pork tenderloin and if you don't own a hand-held blender, roasting pan, or mandoline you may want to get those before working with this book.

The ingredients are easy to come by at local grocery stores and online. The recipes are easy to make and most come together within an hour.

If you cook daily, already have (or are willing to get) classic Middle Eastern ingredients like barberries, preserved lemon, rose harissa, sumac, urfa chile flakes, and za’atar. If you know the basics of cooking fish, chicken and steak, and have a little time to prep; then this is an excellent book to have on your shelf.

I met another Sarah at a barbecue. Honestly, if you were born between 1985 and 1990 there’s a good chance you could throw a stick and hit a Sarah K, Sarah H, Sarah M, or — god forbid — a Sara.

Sorry to all Sara’s without the “H” out there. It’s nothing personal and I’m sure you’re a delightful human being, but your parents were monsters for leaving that last letter out and you can’t convince me otherwise.

Anyway, I met another Sarah and started talking about this project and she suggested Yotam Ottolenghi’s work. I’d had “Simple” on my shelf for years and never opened it because it always looked too gimmicky to be any good, but I took her recommendation and 14 dishes later, here we are.

These dishes aren’t super complex, the recipes are mega easy to follow and with a little bit of time and the correct ingredients you’ll be eating like royalty and loving all of these meals. (unless you’re feeding a kid who exclusively eats buttered noodles or you’re an adult who hates flavor, then you should just get a rice cooker and call it a day).

If you’re brand new to cooking, this book might be challenging, but who doesn’t like a good challenge? Just do a little research on properly cooking your chicken, fish, and steak and you should be well on your way. Even a mediocre chicken still tastes awesome, so just go for it already and even if it’s a little dry or overcooked, congratulations! You’re a master chef now, who can do anything and you should ride that high by cooking more things.

The photos are stunning and match very closely to my outcomes. I thought the idea of having labels for recipes that are "short on time" "10 ingredients or less" "make ahead" and "pantry" dishes was a clever idea in theory but ultimately I ended up choosing dishes that I thought would go well together.

Ottolenghi goes big on flavor for this book. If a dish needed anything it could be salted at the table. Hands down one of the best flavor experiences I've had so far.

Ottolenghi Simple

As a beginner to cooking full meals, I greatly appreciated the consideration for time and had very little trouble balancing a dish with Ottolenghi's guidance. The only thing I wish I'd had more of was in some meat preparation tips.

The only thing I wished this book had was an index of all the "S" "I" "M" "P" "L" "M" recipes, but aside from that I thought the editing was what you could expect of a classically written recipe.

The ingredients are easy to find a local grocery store or online. If you're not familiar with the 70s recipe style, this may be challenging. No pictures to guide you, just the writing of an experienced hand.

If you're someone who likes to explore classic cooking techniques and make spicy, warming foods available to guests when you entertain, then this cookbook is for you.

I found my way into this book because I wanted to make paneer from scratch one night. No reason — I just thought it would be fun to try. Anyway, I started rifling through a few cookbooks to see what the overall strategy was to making this dense and glorious cheese (spoiler: it's lemon juice).

While reading Madhur's paneer recipe, I quickly found myself down a rabbit hole and an hour later I was working out how to make her parathas, potatoes, and lamb. All I wanted to do in that moment was read more of her recipes; the paneer would have to wait.

Latest books…