the gift of cookbooks

Is anyone else in a last-minute gift-getting panic? Or is it just me?

Every year, I say that I’m going to get a jump on the gift buying – you know, before Thanksgiving – and each year, the only gifts I manage to get done in advance are the jams, jellies, and dried herbs that I canned and dried way back in August and September. Ahhh, well, I guess that should count for something.

Fortunately for us – you and me, we last-minute shoppers – there are some very lovely cookbooks out this year that will make for thoughtful gifts. Even if you are buying them on Christmas Eve (not that we’d ever cut it that close. Right?).

For the beach or shore lover, there is Karen Covey’s The Coastal Table. Karen is a good friend who happens to have excellent taste in both food and design, which translates into a book full of delicious, Southeastern Massachusetts and Rhode Island-inspired recipes, along with gorgeous photographs, and interesting essays about this area’s farmers and artisans, ranging from Blackbird Farm (whose beef and pork is fantastic) to Narragansett Creamery (fresh ricotta worth seeking out), to Westport Vineyards. Karen has the whole area covered, and has also included recipes from favorite local chefs like Matt Jennings of Farmstead/La Laiterie, Champe Speidel of Persimmon, and Barbara Lynch of…well, the whole Gruppo Barbara Lynch – No. 9 Park, Sportello, B&G Oysters, The Butcher Shop, Menton. You know. If you’re from Massachusetts or Rhode Island, you should get this book. For a friend, of for yourself. If you aren’t from here, but you love the coastal lifestyle, you should still get this book. The recipes are creative and appealing, and Karen knows that there’s more to living on the coast than simply seafood. We Southcoast people like our hearty, meaty winter dishes, too.

Two vegetable-centric cookbooks really spoke to me this year. Both are written by friends, both of whom are very talented recipe developers and writers. Tara Mataraza Desmond’s Choosing Sides is not only cleverly named, it is full of fantastic options for side dishes (including starchy ones – not just veggies) for weeknights, Sunday dinners, holidays, dinner parties, casual gatherings – really, any time you’re going to eat and need a side dish, Tara’s covered it. Tara’s range of cuisines is really impressive, including Indian, Mexican (or Tex-Mex), and Kenyan-inspired dishes (to name but a few), yet there are plenty of all-American favorites to insure you won’t be at a loss when barbecue time arrives with options like Timeless Macaroni Salad, Classic Creamy Coleslaw, and Heritage Cornbread. Though I’d wager no one would complain if you were to show up at your next bbq with her chèvre, potato, and asparagus pie. Tara’s creativity never ceases to amaze me, and, as an incredibly funny and intelligent human, her essays, interspersed throughout the book are entertaining and informative. If there’s a recent college grad or newlywed on your list, this would be a great book to get them started making interesting and delicious sides. If there’s someone on your list who feels like he’s in a side dish rut – yep, this book is for him. If there’s someone on your list who needs inspiration for holiday dinner accompaniments, you know what to do. Snag this book and put a bow on it.

Domenica Marchetti’s The Glorious Vegetables of Italy has been lauded by no less an authority than the New York Times as one of the best cookbooks of the year. Me and the NYT, we are totally in agreement on this one. First, it’s not just vegetables. Domenica is an expert on Italian cuisine, and she calls on her memories (long ago and recent ones, too) of summers spent in Abruzzo, shopping at local markets to inform the recipes here. She provides recipes for homemade pasta, crostini, focaccia, pizza, vegetarian main dishes like eggplant “meatballs”, and a very rich and decadent potato and mushroom gatto (a la gateau), as well as a few recipes that include meat. But you won’t be missing meat – that’s the beauty (ahem, the gloriousness) of the Italian way with vegetables. Oh, also, the layout of this book is gorgeous – nice and clean – and the photography is also stunning. All Italophiles, vegetarians, and vegetable lovers on your list need this book. STAT.

I’ve been internet stalking Anna Tasca Lanza’s cooking school, Case Vecchie, in Sicily for at least a decade. At least a decade. And one day, I will go there. Anna Tasca Lanza passed away in 2010, though not before her daughter, Fabrizia Lanza came home to Sicily, leaving life on the mainland behind to assist her mother with the cooking school. The introduction to Coming Home to Sicily is a heartfelt account of the changes in both Fabrizia Lanza and Anna Tasca Lanza’s life as the operation of the school was transitioning from mother to daughter, and Fabrizia Lanza doesn’t shy away from discussing her own emotions about returning home. She quickly assimilates back in, the foods, smells, and routines of the island becoming familiar once more, and it is from that vantage point that she shares recipes for the dishes of Sicily, from seafood (there is an amazing looking roasted swordfish dish – like, not steak, a whole cross-section of the fish that is roasted. Envision standing rib roast, only it’s swordfish), to the characteristic vegetables of Sicily (and Italy) – tomatoes, eggplant, artichokes; to dishes for a festa, like Cassata, as well as other Sicilian sweets, and stories about each ingredient that make one feel as though she is in Sicily, meeting the foragers, cannoli masters, and home cooks who keep Sicilian food traditions alive. This book is perfect for the friend who has been discussing her dream of attending cooking school at an agriturismo in Italy or Sicily, or for anyone who is interested in learning the fundamentals of Sicilian cooking – an intensely flavorful cuisine. I highly recommend.

My good friend Lori is one of the editors of the Cook’s Illustrated Baking Book, and wow, am I in awe of the work they do there. This book, like most America’s Test Kitchen efforts, is comprehensive. There are 450 recipes, covering a world of baked goods, from popovers to cookies to cakes, and, as we should expect, the team at Cook’s Illustrated tells us what they did differently and why it works, which I find endlessly fascinating, particularly when it comes to baking. I did not mention the popovers in my list of baked goods above by accident. They double the batter to make one batch of giant, fluffy popovers (one of my childhood favorites), which caused my eyes to widen just upon reading. The book is illustrated with Cooks Illustrated’s signature black and white line drawings, and those are complemented with gorgeous black and white photographs throughout the book. The Baking Book is perfect for everyone from the passionate home baker to the friend who’s just starting to see success with her homemade breads and wants to know more and do more. It is, of course, a no-brainer for any fan of America’s Test Kitchen.

Speaking of Cook’s Illustrated and America’s Test Kitchen, Tammy Donroe Inman, an alum of both, a very talented writer and recipe developer, an advocate for eating locally and seasonally (as much as possible, of course – Tammy likes citrus, and she lives in Massachusetts, where nary an orange shall grow), and all-around funny person, has released a stunner of a winter dessert book, called Wintersweet. By “stunner”, I mean gorgeous. The cover image (hello, there is a chocolate-pomegranate pavlova on the cover!), and the book title font (I’m totally serious – the font is even sweet. I want that font.) keep dancing around in my brain, as do Tammy’s engaging recipe headnotes – like the one about her great-grandmother from Appalachia and her whiskey applesauce cake – and the easy-to-use, very smart breakdown of chapters by ingredient – from apples, to nuts and chocolate, to roots, tubers, and gourds, Tammy has got us covered with a bevy of sweets to beat the winter doldrums. Anyone with a sweet tooth who loves winter will love this book, and anyone with a sweet tooth who hates winter will love this book. It will help the winter-lover feel as though she’s extending the season, and it will help the winter-hater make it more bearable: by making at least one treat per week, spring will be here before we know it.

*in the event that it wasn’t clear: I am friends/friendly with all but one author (Fabrizia Lanza only knows me as the possibly insane lady at the book signing in Providence who blurted out that she’s been stalking her cooking school), I am friends with an editor at Cook’s Illustrated, and, Cook’s Illustrated provided me a copy of the Baking Book free of charge. I did buy all of the other books, however, and all opinions are my own, as always.