A Season for Kitchen Reading

Hey friends,

At our holiday table this past week, the question came up from one of the members of the oldest of the three generations gathered:

“Does anyone still use cookbooks?”

The dishes on that particular day – like spinach soufflé, sweet potato casserole, cranberry brie bites, dry-brined turkey grilled outside, and pecan pie were from passed on family recipes, most of which we just know how to do. A last-minute entry of oyster stuffing came from an online search yielding a New York Times recipe from Jimmy Buffett’s restauranteur sister Lucy Buffett (we’ll make this again next year). I keep a Thanksgiving folder of printed recipes and lists and ideas.

But the surprise (to some) answer is that all three of the generations are still using cookbooks, both our tried and true (“The Silver Palate” was mentioned) and new books. Our 22-year-old daughter and I are both big Alison Roman fans, loving her “Nothing Fancy” book and her new “Something From Nothing.” My daughter also pre-ordered Meredith Hayden’s “The Wishbone Kitchen” and cooked from it for us on a recent vacation.

Many of the new food books to enter our house have had to do with pickling, canning, bread-making and fermenting, because, as you know if you’ve experimented with these, there’s an extra science requirement for it or it just won’t work. But my two most recent cookbooks are also just beautiful books that are fun to read on a snowy day and choose a recipe or two to try out on friends or family. I have followed Ivy Odom on Instagram and through her work as an editor at Southern Living Magazine. Her first book, “My Southern Kitchen” is full of her humor and coffee cakes, pimiento cheese grits and some things I never will make, like guacamole with pork rinds. Still, I love Southern food and how Odom brings her family members into the recipes like recurring characters.

My other newest cookbook though it’s not her latest is Erin Gleeson’s “The Forest Feast: Mediterranean.” Madison friends – Erin is our neighbor!  I met her recently at our indie bookstore Ink & Ivy. She moved recently to Wisconsin from California, and she creates the most beautiful books with recipes and artwork. Her original “The Forest Feast” is a vegetarian delight, and I’m now exploring dishes through Spain, France, Italy and Portugal through this book. Bowls of dressed-up olives, colorful caponata, and carrot-pistachio cous cous will brighten Midwest winter days. I’ll try Erin’s fig and goat cheese appetizer for Christmas week. Are you inspired these days by cookbooks - classic, new, or new classics? Also – Ivy Odom says every kitchen has a house seasoning – even if the cook doesn’t realize it. Mine is similar to hers- salt, paprika, garlic powder, pepper, oregano (she uses smoked paprika and dried Italian seasoning). I keep some house seasoning in a glass jar in my kitchen. What’s yours?

–   Shannon