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I get like, way too excited for a well-written cookbook. I can’t get enough, and I am constantly searching for new gems. IMO, a great cookbook should have interesting blurbs about each recipe (love me a good blurb) that describes the recipe’s origin just enough to grab your attention without being too long-winded. A great cookbook should encourage me to head into the kitchen and whip up something new. A great cookbook should have many photos (I mean we eat with our eyes, don’t we??); preferably with a photo for every single recipe, or at least most of them. So, I have brought you here today to share the cookbook authors who inspire me every day to cook delicious meals and create my own recipes. I hope they inspire you too.
Graze & Truly Madly Pizza
By: Suzanne Lenzer
Suzanne Lenzer has two cookbooks (please write more!), and both deserve to be on this list. Graze is my absolute favourite cookbook of all time. Suzanne Lenzer is a dreamy writer, and reading her lovely stories is as much fun as cooking her delicious recipes. (I read it cover to cover like a mystery novel – I swear).
If you’ve ever felt that cooking is daunting, this book will help you realize that cooking doesn’t have to be super complicated or laborious to be absolutely delicious. In fact, you don’t even need to cook at all – you can throw ingredients together and call it dinner or lunch or simply, grazing.
There was a period of time in my life where I ate Suzanne’s Zucchini Ribbons with Herbed Goat Cheese every damn day – no lie. Her Communal Salade Niçoise is one of my favourite summer recipes and her various toasts and cracker recipes made me realize that, sure, a smear of tomato and garlic or a fancy can of sardines is in fact a meal, because you are the boss of your own dinner and it really can be that simple. What’s more beautiful than that?
Suzanne Lenzer’s other cookbook is Truly Madly Pizza. Again, her stories about each recipe are so dang inspiring, I’d highly recommend not skipping over them. If you thought pizza was limited to pepperoni, think again. After reading this cookbook I thought to myself, holy heck, you really can put anything on a pizza. Potatoes? Of course. Butternut squash? Absolutely. Pears? Why the heck not? If it’s in your fridge, just throw it on the pizza. You can’t go wrong, really.
Her Essential Pomodoro Sauce (for Pizza and for Life) is just that – absolutely essential. I am a red sauce lover, and it is the perfect red sauce. But pizza isn’t limited to red sauce, and all of her sauces/spreads/smears are divine, including the Repertoire-Worthy Pesto, Caramelized Onion Jam and the Roasted Garlic Sauce, Spread, Smear, or What-Have-You. This cookbook also has a lot of great tips for cooking pizza in a regular oven – no fancy equipment required here.
Run, don’t walk to your favourite bookstore for these beauties.
Click here to purchase Graze on Amazon
Click here to purchase Truly Madly Pizza on Amazon
Florentine
By: Emiko Davies
Confession: I am completely obsessed with Emiko Davies and her beautiful life in Italy. True story. And my love of her can’t really be narrowed down to just one cookbook.
Her cookbooks, blog, and Instagram are all undeniably gorgeous and her words are hella poetic. My husband and I have a dream to semi-retire in or around the Puglia province of Italy, open a small bed and breakfast and immerse ourselves in Italian food, language, and culture. So for this reason, I feel like I really relate to Emiko, who lives in Tuscany with her family and shares Italian culture from a expat’s view. Plus, her cookbooks are just dreamy and filled with the most stunning photos and stories of her Italian adventures. Can we be friends, Emiko?
Like I mentioned above, it was reeeeaaalllly hard to narrow down my favourite cookbook, but I think there was just something a little extra special about Florentine. Emiko is not only a brilliant recipe creator, but is also a talented photographer that makes me feel transported to Tuscany when I open this cookbook and see all her beautiful recipes and photos.
I can’t say enough about her amazing recipe, Sorbetto di Susine (pictured at the top of this blog post). I was lucky enough to receive fresh backyard plums from a kind friend to make this amazing plum sorbet. The full flavour is unbelievably complex and everyone who’s tried it falls in love.
Also, the colour. The sorbet has the most gorgeous fuchsia hue. I used the sorbet as a fancy mimosa-type cocktail by adding sparkling wine to a scoop of sorbet. O. M. G. Please, feel free to steal this idea for when you host your next brunch.
I also wanted to give a shout out to her Crostini di Fegatini recipe. This was my first experiment with chicken liver pâté, and I must admit I was a wee bit nervous about getting the right flavour. Well, I had no reason to be worried, because the recipe instructions are so simple and easy to follow and the pâté was the bomb dot com. The flavour and texture were sublime, and I think I ate my weight in pâté for dinner that evening.
Moral of the story? Read Emiko’s books. Get lost in her stories and photography. Cook the recipes. Life is good. Bellissimo.
Click here to purchase Florentine on AmazonOther cookbooks by Emiko Davies:
Torta della Nonna – Click here to purchase on Amazon Acquacotta – Click here to purchase on Amazon Tortellini at Midnight – Click here to purchase on Amazon Cinnamon and Salt – Click here to purchase on AmazonNothing Fancy
By: Alison Roman
If you think you don’t like anchovies, think again. Alison Roman is one of the amazing food writers that make me want to try new ingredients and techniques. At the same time, she manages to be an unapologetic food comedienne and makes me LOL when reading her sassy newsletters and watching her cooking videos, Home Movies. It’s called A Newsletter and you need to sign up for it.) This is also where you’re notified of her new
I also love her style; her cookbooks are gorgeous and a joy to peruse. Her recipes have a classy feel and are always, always delish. Plus, she makes vegetables exciting. Which isn’t always an easy thing to do. Thanks to her advice, I now feel like I can perfectly dress a salad, and that’s pretty cool.
My favourite cookbook is her second, called Nothing Fancy. I regularly cook recipes from Nothing Fancy, and some of my favourites are the Creamy Cauliflower and Onion Gratin (omg insanely good), Tomatoes Dressed in Toasted Fennel and Anchovy (so simple, so flavourful), Overnight Focaccia, Tonight (is there anything better than fresh focaccia with dinner? No, there is not), and the simple Baked Potato Bar (baked potatoes are the best potatoes and I will fight anyone on that).
As you may have noticed, I really enjoy Alison Roman’s passion for food and perspective on cooking. Plus, she made a food career in NYC, which is basically the coolest thing ever.
You know that question, “Who’s someone famous you want to have over for dinner?” Well, one of my top choices would be Alison Roman.
Click here to purchase Nothing Fancy on AmazonOther cookbooks by Alison Roman:
Lemons – Click here to purchase on Amazon Dining In – Click here to purchase on AmazonChinese Soul Food
By: Hsiao-Ching Chou
Ok, adore this cookbook. Not only are the recipes freaking delish, but the educational content of this book is killer. I learned so much about Chinese cuisine, including it’s rich history, fresh and flavourful ingredients, and special techniques and equipment.
Hsiao-Ching Chou’s story of growing up in a Chinese restaurant owned by her family is beautiful, and I can feel her passion for Chinese food bursting from the pages of her book. From noodles and rice, and soy sauce varieties to Chinese vegetables, this book lays out the pillars of Chinese ingredients.
Thanks to the detailed instructions, I made dumplings completely from scratch for the first time using this cookbook. I hosted a Dumpling Party™ and let me just say, everyone left very happy. I used Chou’s Dumpling Dough to make the Pork and Chinese Cabbage Dumplings and her Spinach, Egg, and Shiitake Dumplings for my party, and both were tasty, especially alongside a few of her dipping sauces.
My favourite sauce was the Soy-Ginger Dipping Sauce which is the perfect punch of salty-savoury-tangy-spicy goodness. And since I have a true love for Chinese greens, the dumplings were accompanied with Simple Stir-Fried Greens, which I could eat pounds of, honestly.
I flipped through the cookbook again while writing this post, and I feel inspired to cook these recipes all over again. If you’re on the hunt for a beautiful cookbook about authentic Chinese cooking, then look no further.
P.S. Chinese green veggies are my favourite veggies. Hands down. I need to eat more of them.
Click here to purchase Chinese Soul Food on AmazonOther cookbooks by Hsiao-Ching Chou:
Vegetarian Chinese Soul Food – Click here to purchase on Amazon
Half Baked Harvest Super Simple
By: Tieghan Gerard
Oh, Tieghan Gerard. How I love you. I am pretty sure that at least 50% of the recipes that I make are from her Half-Baked Harvest blog. I enjoyed both of her cookbooks, but I must say, her second cookbook is my favourite. Her recipes are easy to follow and feature accessible ingredients. And in her own words, they are simply, SO GOOD. She’s not lying.
Her second cookbook, Half Baked Harvest Super Simple, is divine. It has so many staple recipes that I love. The No Knead Bread and Pizza Dough is one of my main go-to recipes and makes one heck of a tasty, crispy pizza that you also need it in your life. I always have a few frozen balls of this dough in my freezer at all times.
Also, please make Tieghan’s Extra-Smooth Hummus. I guarantee you will never ever purchase hummus from a store again after you realize how simple and insanely delicious it is. It is pure velvet.
I also LOVE her cocktail recipes and serve them at all my partays. Sometimes those parties are only attended by my husband and I, but they are parties if they have HBH cocktails, baby!
Click here to purchase Half Baked Harvest Super Simple on AmazonOther cookbooks by Tieghan Gerard:
Half Baked Harvest Cookbook – Click here to purchase on Amazon Half Baked Harvest Every Day – Click here to purchase on Amazon100 Cookies
By: Sarah Kieffer
Since we’ve been heavy on the savoury, it’s time for a bit of sweetness. And what better cookbook author to feature than Sarah Kieffer, who makes some of the best sweets.
Her recipes are those perfect tried and true sweets that have been fully tested and perfected before being published. Her Chocolate Cake recipe from The Vanilla Bean Baking Book is the only chocolate cake recipe you will ever need. It is adapted from the OG Hershey’s recipe, which has been adapted by many different people over the years. But Sarah’s version has extra deep chocolatey-good-ness that tastes so decadent.
Her newest cookbook 100 Cookies, is a must for your baking cookbook collection. It has all the classic cookie recipes you need, plus all the fun recipes you didn’t know you needed. While the title implies that you’ll only find cookie recipes, I love that she considers brownies, blondies, and bars to be types of cookies as well (which I do too).
I can’t wait to make her Brown Butter Blondies because, well, brown butter makes everything better. Her most iconic recipes are the Pan-Banging Cookies, and 100 Cookies has an entire chapter devoted to these thin, crinkly, crispy, chewy, delights that involve banging your cookie tray several times during the baking process to create the famous ripples of delight. Plus, you get to make lots of noise in your kitchen, which is fun and exciting.
I definitely also love that there is a photo for nearly every single recipe in 100 Cookies which, as you may remember, is something I consider very important in a good cookbook.
Click here to purchase 100 Cookies on AmazonOther cookbooks by Sarah Kieffer:
Baking for the Holidays – Click here to purchase on Amazon The Vanilla Bean Baking Book – Click here to purchase on AmazonPure Vanilla
By: Shauna Sever
Shauna Sever is another baking qween that I greatly admire. All of her cookbooks are wonderful. Since I am a prairie-born gal, I personally connected with her cookbook Mid West Made and absolutely love her stories about growing up in this area of North America. Although I am Canadian, I travelled many times to the US Mid West and experienced those same gruelling winters every year.
Although I love the cookbook Mid West Made so much, there is something so very special and inspiring about her cookbook Pure Vanilla. Let me ask you a question: How do you feel about vanilla-flavoured recipes? Kinda… bland? Or dare I say, vanilla? THINK AGAIN. The recipes in Pure Vanilla are beautiful and delicious, and the vanilla facts and tips are fascinating.
I recently made the Gazed Vanilla Bean Doughnuts and I honestly don’t think words can do them justice. They were the most beautiful pillowy doughnuts I have ever put in my mouth. And the star of the show was the elegant vanilla bean speckles throughout the dough and glaze. I think most people would agree that splurging on vanilla beans makes you feel fancy, and who doesn’t like to feel fancy? So, let’s all be fancy together.
Click here to purchase Pure Vanilla on Amazon
