Cute little graphic novel about Rose, a young Canadian waitress who loves baking but can’t afford culinary school. One day a food critic tastes her baking and invites her to a reality show baking competition; of course she jumps right in. The book is definitely for younger folk; Rose’s sweetness is always rewarded, her antagonist is cartoonishly evil, any argument she has with her partner is swiftly resolved, and it’s amusing to think of how many lawsuits would be filed against the producers of the baking competition in the real world. A generally adorable read, interspersed with cheerfully illustrated recipes. I might even try to make some of the maple-infused desserts someday.
Tag: genre-cookbook
In Bibi’s Kitchen: The Recipes and Stories of Grandmothers from the Eight African Countries That Touch the Indian Ocean, by Hawa Hassan with Julia Turshen
Each chapter of this cookbook opens with a quick rundown of the particular African country, followed by profiles of grandmothers (bibis) from that country, and those little interviews are the heart of this book. Their stories help the food come to life not just as recipes, but as parts of their lives and their cultures. My favorite question in the interviews was always “Why did you choose to make ____ to share with us?” because the answers were always so adorable: usually because it was a traditional food, but also “because it’s an easy weeknight meal and my kids love it,” or “everyone always compliments me when I make this dish for gatherings.” It adds so much more context to the recipe to imagine it as a weekday staple for a big family, or as an often-anticipated party dish. There aren’t a lot of African cookbooks out there in the Western world, much less African home cooking from specific countries, so this book definitely stands out in the genre; also, the bibi angle made it just incredibly sweet to read. I loved also that the authors found bibis to interview not just in their native countries, but also women whose journeys took them to foreign countries where they still found ways to cook the food of their people. The book is also written with a Western audience in mind; ingredient substitutions are helpfully offered in multiple places in the book, as well as very practical cooking and serving suggestions. My favorite bit in one recipe was clearly an adorable interjection by a worried bibi: a caution to be careful when handling hot things; in her country they have “kitchen hands” but Westerners should use oven mitts. Adding this to my list of books to get hardcopies of when we finally settle down.
Like Water for Chocolate, by Laura Esquivel
In the opening scene, main character Tita begins crying when her mother is chopping onions, and she is born on a tide of tears that, upon evaporating, leaves enough salt to fill a ten-pound sack. That is when you realize that you are reading a fairy tale, albeit one in which each chapter is centered around a specific recipe, and thus you forgive the one-dimensional wicked mother, the uncaring sister, the frankly unlikeable love interest, Tita’s questionable life choices, and the magical cooking in which every dish transmits the emotion of the cook to the diner (and there are oh so many emotions). I liked how cooking framed the story and many of the scenes were quite sweet, but in general so many of the characters’ decisions were so ridiculous and eye-rolling that it was hard for me to suspend disbelief and enjoy the story completely.
Tequila Mockingbird: Cocktails with a Literary Twist, by Tim Federle
This delightful book is a bunch of recipes for cocktails (and some mocktails and snacks), each preceded by a witty, entertaining paragraph that ties the recipe to the book or character that inspired it. The pun-filled names are probably the best part; in addition to the titular tequila, my favorites included “Remembrance of Things Pabst,” “One Hundred Beers of Solitude,” and a mushroom toast recipe called “Alice’s Adventures in Wonder Bread.”
Cooking at Home, by David Chang and Priya Krishna
Honestly probably the most fun and practical cookbook I’ve read in a while. I love Priya’s asides as she tries to condense David’s ramblings into printed form, and how both of them talk the reader through the process of cooking, teaching that it’s more about adapting recipes to your taste than recreating them exactly, and along the way you learn how their separate backgrounds shaped their differing and evolving tastes in food. I am a pretty confident home cook and I still learned a lot of great shortcuts from this book – David and Priya are professional chefs but reading this was like just hanging out with other home cooks, swapping tips you’ve picked up along the way, and sharing recipes you learned from your moms.