One of my favorite things about cookbook season is how it gives us a peek into what publishers think we, as a society, want in a given moment. How people cook reflects how they live, but when it comes to cookbooks, it would be more accurate to say that how people buy cookbooks reflects how they would like to live. The cookbooks we keep on our shelves always hold some level of aspirational value. And how do we want to live right now, according to the cookbook world?
One common thread is that we’re desperate for in-person community. This season sees the release of big party-focused cookbooks, like Dan Pelosi’s straight-to-the-point Let’s Party and Brie Larson and Courtney McBroom’s Party People, full of ambitious, themed spreads and tips for setting the mood through tablescapes. We also see books about how to throw less-formal gatherings, such as Hetty Lui McKinnon’s Linger, Chelsea Fagan’s Having People Over, and Samin Nosrat’s Good Things. These guides are more concerned with various ways of communing over food rather than maximizing the aesthetics and specifics of hosting. Either way, there seems to be a clear message: We want to cook for and eat with others. (That we want to do this at home: potential recession indicator?)
Of course, other books that piqued our interest this season were more idiosyncratic. These releases went deep into one region, like Michael W. Twitty’s foundational Recipes from the American South, or paid homage to one special restaurant, like Kathy and Peter Fang’s House of Nanking (or, in the case of Eric Wareheim and Gabe Ulla’s Steak House, a collection of special restaurants). With so many incredible releases this fall, it’s hard narrowing this list down (as always), but these are the 15 new cookbooks that have the Eater staff most excited this season. —Bettina Makalintal, senior reporter
Let’s Party: Recipes and Menus for Celebrating Every Day
Dan Pelosi
Union Square & Co., out now
If there’s one word to sum up food personality Dan Pelosi, it’s joy. The recipe developer, better known by his Instagram handle @grossypelosi, made a name for himself with crowd-pleasing recipes, such as his famous “vodka sawce” and ultra-thick chocolate chip cookies. His ebullient, approachable perspective on cooking gives just about anyone the confidence to invite others over for a homemade meal, paired with good wine and conversation. It’s only natural that the follow-up to his debut cookbook, Let’s Eat, is titled Let’s Party, and that it’s full of party menus for every season. The recipes are broken down with day-by-day prep and include plenty of entertaining tips.
While some of the parties might be a little more time-intensive (a holiday cookie party or Thanksgiving feast), others can be thrown together with spontaneity (dips by the pool, breakfast for dinner). Followers will recognize dishes and get-togethers inspired by those who show up frequently in Pelosi’s own celebrations, including his 103-year-old grandfather Bimpy and his boyfriend Gus, to whom the cookbook is dedicated. The recipes, many of which follow Pelosi’s signature of being straightforward in execution but impressive in flavor, leave plenty of room for additional adaptation — and the opportunity for every host to add their own creative flair and truly make the party their own. —Stephanie Wu, editor-in-chief
Let’s Party: Recipes and Menus for Celebrating Every Day
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Korean Temple Cooking: Lessons on Life and Buddhism, with Recipes, the Life and Work of Jeongkwan Snim
Hoo Nam Seelmann
Hardie Grant, out now
Korean Temple Cooking is a portal to the inner workings of South Korea’s Baekyangsa Temple, a Buddhist temple situated in Jeollanam-do, roughly 150 miles from Seoul. Written by South Korea-born journalist and author Hoo Nam Seelmann, the book opens an intimate window into the life, philosophy, and cooking of Jeongkwan Snim, who was featured on Chef’s Table. Korean Temple Cooking doesn’t set out to just be a list of recipes; instead, it traces Seelmann’s own journey to the temple and through its verdant wooded grounds, and her meeting with Snim. Snim describes her path to Buddhism, how she has handled the sudden interest in herself and temple cooking since her turn on Chef’s Table.
The recipe section begins with the history of temple food, moving through the meaning of base ingredients such as tofu, rice, noodles, and namul, which broadly encompasses vegetables, leaves, roots, tubers, and more. Each ingredient is contextualized within the country’s history and its place at the temple. Fermentations take the spotlight and recipes are presented by the season. Mirroring Snim’s cooking at the temple, all of the recipes in Korean Temple Cooking are vegan.
Véronique Hoegger’s photography brings the cookbook to life, transporting you into ephemeral moments at the temple like golden-leafed trees peeking through a foggy hillside and Snim, in earth-toned garments, preparing kimchi. Flipping through the book feels akin to sitting down for a meal at the monastery; the bright greens of a breaded zucchini or deep black of sesame porridge appear in such vivid detail it’s almost as if they were right in front of you.
As summer ends, Korean Temple Cooking reintroduces Buddhist traditions, such as traditional robes, temple architecture, and teachings. Finally, a glossary of ingredients acts as a quick guide to the rest of the book. As soon as I finished it, I went back to the beginning and started reading again while looking into Baekyangsa’s temple stay. —Rebecca Roland, deputy editor, Eater Southern California/Southwest
Korean Temple Cooking: Lessons on Life and Buddhism, with Recipes, the Life and Work of Jeongkwan Snim
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Good Things: Recipes and Rituals to Share with People You Love: A Cookbook
Samin Nosrat
Random House, out now
It’s a rare and special feat when someone writes a cookbook that feels like it inspires a paradigm shift in how the average person thinks about food. Samin Nosrat managed that with 2017’s Salt Fat Acid Heat, a book — then a show — that used those four basic principles to teach anyone to think like a chef. Fans were drawn to Nosrat’s generous, easy-to-parse style of teaching and her kind, welcoming nature. How do you follow that up? Enter Nosrat’s much-awaited second book, Good Things.
If Salt Fat Acid Heat is more about the theory behind cooking — Nosrat describes it as a “veritable manifesto” designed to free cooks from recipes — Good Things is somewhat more about the reality of cooking, which is that sometimes you just want someone to tell you what to make. Enter Good Things, so named because it’s full of Nosrat’s “treasures” collected over a lifetime of cooking. The book spans nearly 500 pages and it earns its space on the shelf, bursting with recipes as well as charts and formulas for understanding the foundations of great food. Nosrat writes that “usefulness” to the reader is her priority, and it shows.
If what you liked about Salt Fat Acid Heat was Nosrat’s humanity and humility, Good Things offers both in abundance. Nosrat writes not only of the joy of cooking but also of struggle; depression and loss in the years after Salt Fat Acid Heat forced her to “recalibrate [her] values,” she writes. “I began asking myself, ‘What is a good life?’” She advocates for the ritual of imperfect but routine communal dining over the meticulously curated dinner party. There’s a spiritual element throughout Good Things rooted in the idea that cooking brings meaning to our lives and can allow us to share what’s valuable to us with others. Nosrat has, once again, made a very good book. —BM
Good Things: Recipes and Rituals to Share with People You Love: A Cookbook
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