Say what you will about the many celebrity deaths and vitriolic tone of the presidential election, 2016 was a good year ... for cookbooks.
There isn't space to list all of my favorites, or go into many details, but these are the titles I enjoyed the most this year, whether to cook from or simply read and learn.
If you're still looking for a Christmas gift idea for the cook or cookbook lover on your list, I'm sure you'll find one here.
Breaking Breads: A New World of Israeli Baking by Uri Scheft with Raquel Pelzel (Artisan, $35). I have literally spent hours perusing this book, planning and fantasizing about baking. The book is beautiful, the writing is engaging and the recipes ... well they're ambitious but approachable.
Cake Magic: Mix & Match Your Way to 100 Amazing Combinations by Caroline Wright (Workman, $17.95). The concept behind this book is simple: pick a cake, a syrup and a frosting. Wright's 100 combinations are only the beginning. Vegan and gluten-free bakers will be pleased to see options for them, too.
Cooking With Loula: Greek Recipes From My Family to Yours by Alexandra Stratou (Artisan, $29.95). The Mediterranean diet gets lots of attention for being nutritionally good for us. This is not that kind of Mediterranean cookbook. Sure, there are lots of fresh vegetable dishes, fish and olive oil, but there are also recipes for meatballs, roasted lamb, baklava and butter cookies.
Dandelion and Quince: Exploring the Wide World of Unusual Vegetables, Fruits and Herbs by Michelle McKenzie (Roost Books, $35). From Buddah's Hand (a type of citrus that looks like a yellow octopus) and burdock (a fibrous root) to fig leaves and ground cherries, this book opened up a whole new edible world to me. But not all of the foods featured are so obscure. There are recipes for celeriac, dates, persimmons and squash blossoms, too.
Dinner Made Simple: 35 Everyday Ingredients, 350 Easy Recipes by the editors of Real Simple (Oxmoor House, $24.95). As much as I like reading about food, this book is for those days when I want to skip the prose and get straight to the recipes. Each recipe is accompanied by a color photo of the finished dish, but no descriptive text. (Market Math: 50 Ingredients x 4 Recipes = 200 Simple, Creative Dishes from the editors of Food and Wine [Oxmoor House, $29.95] follows the same format, but with fewer photographs.)
Dorie's Cookies by Dorie Greenspan (Rux Martin/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, $35). Cookie
cookbooks are ubiquitous and so are the recipes, but Greenspan goes beyond the expected chocolate chip and oatmeal raisin to include hundreds of cookie (and brownie) recipes. Each recipe -- all 300 (!) of them -- is accompanied by a substantial introduction -- some personal and some informative -- and a photograph.
My Halal Kitchen by Yvonne Maffei (Surrey, $29.95). I'll be honest. I picked up this book simply out of curiosity. What I learned is halal isn't nearly as restrictive as I assumed. And the recipes Maffei includes are quite good, regardless of your dietary preferences. My Halal Kitchen will likely appeal to most anyone looking to avoid alcohol and pork, and wishing to find tasty adaptions of dishes traditionally prepared with these ingredients.
Mexican Today: New and Rediscovered Recipes for Contemporary Kitchens by Pati Jinich (Rux Martin/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, $30). This book features fresh, flavorful Mexican food -- a whole different cuisine than what you find in so many Mexican restaurants.
Milk. Made. A Book About Cheese. How to Choose It, Serve It and Eat It by Nick Haddow (Hardie Grant, $39.99). This book makes the cheese-lover in me swoon.
Polska: New Polish Cooking by Zuza Zak (Quadrill, $35). From the cover and the photographs to the writing and the recipes, everything about Polska is inviting and appetizing.
Posh Eggs: Over 70 Recipes for Wonderful Eggy Things recipes by Lucy O'Reilly (Quadrille, $19.95). The egg is probably the most versatile ingredient in the kitchen and Posh Eggs features recipes to take you through every meal of the day, plus cocktail hour and dessert, with beautiful photography to match the top-notch recipes.
The Rye Baker: Classic Breads From Europe and America by Stanley Ginsburg (W.W. Norton, $35). This book is as much baking manual as it is encyclopedia about rye and all of the breads that can be made with the distinctive-flavored grain.
Simple: Effortless Food, Big Flavors by Diana Henry (Mitchell Beazley, $33). I've yet to pick up a Diana Henry cookbook I didn't love, and Simple is no different.
Vegetables: The Essential Reference from EatingWell (Hougton Mifflin Harcourt, $35). This is a stunningly photographed book that makes even the most unappealing vegetables look appetizing. If you're looking to incorporate more vegetables into your diet, you're sure to find inspiration in this tome.
Food on 12/14/2016