Christmas Presents of Cookbooks (IBRCookBooks)

Lots of Healthy Options, but Don’t Forget Dessert!


CreditOlimpia Zagnoli

Where else to start, but with the San Francisco chef Chris Cosentino and his co-author, Michael Harlan Turkell, whose inclusion of cow udders sets them apart, as does their book’s title: OFFAL GOOD: Cooking From the Heart, With Guts (Clarkson Potter, $40).Maybe it appeals to me because I have more than a passing familiarity with the cow udder — even if not as an ingredient. My ignorance of its culinary potential, and yours, can be forgiven. As Cosentino notes, outside Argentina, Uruguay and Brazil, udders have never been given their due, on menus or in cookbooks. But Cosentino’s enticing description (“fatty like bacon and loaded with protein”) makes me wonder why the udder remains a ghost in the nose-to-tail wars. (Sure, anyone who has eaten a hot dog has eaten processed udder, but I wanted one in its pristine state.)

Determined as I was to taste his Milk-Braised Cow’s Udder and Spicy Broccoli Rabe, maybe it’s just as well that I failed. The prospect of cleaning a lactating udder by “pressing firmly until it’s empty” while taking care to “do this in a pan so the milk doesn’t squirt everywhere” would be a macabre repetition of the twice-daily milking of cows that was one of my chores as a kid. Why does it not surprise me that prepping testicles is a cinch in comparison? Simply blanch (twice) to remove the double-membrane and poach until “just firm,” at which point they can be “sliced, seared, breaded, and/or fried.”

My effort to locate cockscombs also met with failure. I want to experience the gummy-bear-like appearance and texture in Cosentino’s Candied Cockscombs, Rice Pudding and Pomegranate. Next time I have a real dinner party, I’m determined to source well in advance. I’m thinking of a menu that starts with his Lamb Brain on Toast with Creamed Nettles and Morels followed by a main course of Duck Brodo, Unformed Eggs, Duck Fries and Masutake, a dish he calls “sex soup: man, woman and child, all in one dish.” For dessert, I’ll be sure to locate those cockscombs.

Cosentino’s writing and recipes are playful, irreverent and inspired. I want to cook them all — and I don’t even worship offal, especially the subtleties of fries versus stones. But the disparity did get me wondering: Could the inequality of male and female organs in culinary history offer a clue to the gender divide between savory and sweet food? To stretch the argument a bit, if testicles are the main course then udders are, at best, dessert. Sure, Gaston Lenôtre was one of many legendary French bakers, and two of this year’s big baking books are by men, both of whom learned their trade in Europe: Jim Lahey’s SULLIVAN STREET BAKERY COOKBOOK (Norton, $35), written with his wife, Maya Joseph, and Eric Kayser’s MAISON KAYSER’S FRENCH PASTRY WORKSHOP (Black Dog & Leventhal, $29.99), translated by Zachary R. Townsend. Professional baking of the kind that creates Kayser’s Tarte aux Abricots et Crème Amande-Pistache (Apricot-Almond-Pistachio Tart) and Mille-Feuille aux Fruits Rouge (Layered Cream-Filled Pastry With Berries) has long been presided over by men in white chef’s coats, just as bread, as in the case of Lahey at Sullivan Street Bakery, has long leaned toward the masculine sphere. As this fall’s crop of books testify, women, particularly in America, are often relegated to the realm of popular “homemade” sweets.

In THE FEARLESS BAKER: Simple Secrets for Baking Like a Pro (Rux Martin / Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, $30), Erin Jeanne McDowell tries to crack a few of the barriers that keep this sort of activity in a feminized category by debunking the idea that baking is rigid and unforgiving — as if female bakers need plenty of rules to succeed, even at such a modest level. As most cooks regularly do, she asks, why not when baking “add a pinch of this, a splash of that,” like it’s nothing? I couldn’t agree more. She vows to emancipate home bakers by explaining why to do something, not simply how. To this end, she follows her recipes with explanations of “Why It Works” and “Pro Tips.” As a lover of science in the kitchen à la Harold McGee, I only wish McDowell’s explanations of recipes were driven by chemistry rather than general logic, as in the advice for her Blueberry Cream Roulade: “If you overwork the batter at any stage, you’ll end up with a tough cake that will likely tear when you roll it up.”

If liberating yourself to bake the way most of us cook savory food isn’t your goal, the volume of what I’ll call home baking books will not leave you staring listlessly at your “Joy of Cooking” amid the holiday baking flurry. Choose from Jessica Siskin’s TREAT YOURSELF: How to Make 93 Ridiculously Fun No-Bake Rice Crispy Treats (Workman, paper, $14.95); America’s Test Kitchen’s THE PERFECT COOKIE: Your Ultimate Guide to Foolproof Cookies, Brownies & Bars (America’s Test Kitchen, $35); Stella Parks’s BRAVETART: Iconic American Desserts (Norton, $35);Naomi Robinson’s BAKER’S ROYALE: 75 Twists on All Your Favorite Sweets (Running Press, $28); Roxanne Wyss and Kathy Moore’s DELICIOUS POKE CAKES (St. Martin’s Griffin, paper, $19.99) and Jocelyn Brubaker’s CHEESECAKE LOVE: Inventive, Irresistible, and Super-Easy Cheesecake Desserts for Every Day (Thomas Dunne / St. Martin’s Griffin, $27.99). This is far from an exhaustive list. The book you like best will depend on your skill, ambition and taste. If cheesecake is your obsession, Brubaker’s single-minded preoccupation with that rich custard will leap right out at you.

I gravitated toward “Baker’s Royale” for its delicate and very pretty Chocolate Affogato Mousse Cake and for the Banana Upside-Down Cake. Why is Robinson’s perfectly caramelized cake not a classic? (And how did the abominable pineapple find its way to the bottom of a cake pan in the first place?) For the more ambitious, you can impress yourself with Raspberry Eclairs with Vanilla Bean Cream — finished with edible gold leaf, no less.

The autumn baking book I most admire is Parks’s “BraveTart.” While I’m not sure if I like it in spite of or because of the title, the book’s layout, photographs and scope pulled me in. I stayed and kept reading because Parks has done her homework as earnestly as a grad student, having spent five years in the primary-source trenches, with pages of source notes to prove it. If this sort of scholarly effort puts you off, don’t let it. You’ll find tasty homemade takes on the Girl Scouts’ Thin Mint cookies, as well as Twinkies and Wonder Bread, each accompanied by the product’s back story, right next to classics like Magic Key Lime Pie and One-Bowl Devil’s Food Layer Cake With Milk Chocolate Frosting. By taking the evolution of American baking’s cultural and commercial history seriously, Parks challenges those who might consider it dowdy when compared with serious European pastry. Fair enough. But it takes a book as smart, thorough and creative as “BraveTart” to persuade me to put women’s work and the goods they produce in proper perspective — and I consider myself an ardent-feminist home baker. I promise not to call this kind of baking dowdy again.

Having had my dessert before my meal, I’ll press beyond the gluttony of butter and sugar. If you’re aiming for virtuous good health, you’ll certainly find a book to fuel your preoccupation. Choose from Pearl Barrett and Serene Allison’s TRIM HEALTHY MAMA TRIM HEALTHY TABLE: More Than 300 All-New Healthy and Delicious Recipes From Our Homes to Yours (Harmony, paper, $32.50); Dr. Mehmet Oz’s FOOD CAN FIX IT: The Superfood Switch to Fight Fat, Defy Aging, and Eat Your Way Healthy (Scribner, $29.99); Jennifer Esposito and Eve Adamson’s JENNIFER’S WAY KITCHEN: Easy Allergen-Free, Anti-Inflammatory Recipes for a Delicious Life (Grand Central, $30); MAYO CLINIC: The Integrative Guide to Good Health (Oxmoor, paper, $26.99), by Brent A. Bauer, M.D., Cindy A. Kermott, M.D., and Martha P. Millman, M.D.; Marie W. Lawrence’s THE ORGANIC LUNCHBOX: 125 Yummy, Quick, and Healthy Recipes for Kids (Skyhorse, $22.99); THE TURMERIC COOKBOOK (Aster, $12.99); Ella Mills’s NATURAL FEASTS: 100+ Healthy, Plant-Based Recipes to Share and Enjoy With Friends and Family (Scribner, $24); Amanda Hamilton and Hannah Ebelthite’s THE GUT PLAN DIET: The Revolutionary Diet for Gut-Healthy Weight Loss (Aster, paper, $16.99);FOOD, HEALTH AND HAPPINESS: 115 On-Point Recipes for Great Meals and a Better Life (Flatiron, $35), by Oprah Winfrey, with Lisa Kogan; THE KETO RESET DIET: Reboot Your Metabolism in 21 Days and Burn Fat Forever (Harmony, $27.99), by Mark Sisson, with Brad Kearns — O.K., I’ll stop. But not before I mention my favorite, Dr. Michael Greger and Gene Stone’s THE HOW NOT TO DIE COOKBOOK (Flatiron, $29.99), with recipes by Robin Robertson. Although, if forced to eat their Mac and Cheese again, I might. It contains no cheese — only broccoli, miso paste, almond butter and a list of unmentionables that have never had any right to attach themselves to the dish we’ve collectively agreed to call macaroni and cheese.

Perhaps I should forgive Dr. Greger. As Vir Sanghvi observed in his 2004 collection “Rude Food,” “the food world is nothing if not trendy. Once a cuisine catches on then everybody is doing it: Sichuan one year, Thai the next and Mediterranean after that. It’s much the same with ingredients — from foie gras to rocket.” And, I would add, it’s much the same with health trends and cooking methods. We once had low-fat, then we had low-carb and now we have “clean” food and gut books and oh so many remedies for inflammation. Where once there was the microwave so came the pressure cooker, wok and hot pot.

Perhaps you don’t have much time to cook, so you’ve turned to the one-pot method, making it possible to arrive home after a long day to a ready meal. A worthy and necessary goal. But, given all the flavor-gilding browning before the ingredients go in the pot, I prefer the sheet pan. So if you’re determined to save time and eat well, have a look at Raquel Pelzel’s SHEET PAN SUPPERS MEATLESS: 100 Surprising Vegetarian Meals Straight From the Oven(Workman, paper, $16.95). Pelzel offers recipes that call for no advance work other than a bit of chopping and mixing. By extracting flavor through browning rather than stewing, her recipes allow for distinctive flavors while rescuing the one pot’s dearest sacrifice to method: texture. Whether chewy, crispy or crunchy, her unassuming recipes appeal. She even manages to make a tasty No-Boil Mac and Cheese on a sheet pan. Her Moroccan Couscous Salad With Olives, Chickpeas and Roasted Tomatoes takes all of half an hour — most of it oven time. It’s fresh and lively, thanks to the finishing touch of feta and chopped fresh mint. Her Lentil-and-Spinach-Stuffed Squash Halves, hearty and filling, are brought to the table with ribbons of Parmigiano-Reggiano and a squeeze of lemon juice.

I don’t buy cookbooks to not-die, nor do I buy them to save myself from really cooking at all — if that’s what the one-pot promise is selling. What do I want to find on the glossy pages of a newly acquired collection of recipes? Sometimes it’s inspired reinventions of classics with novel twists. For this I’ll take Christopher Kimball’s MILK STREET: The New Home Cooking (Little, Brown, $40), written with Matthew Card, J. M. Hirsch, Michelle Locke and Jennifer Baldino Cox. Why? For the Skillet-Braised Brussels Sprouts With Garlic, Anchovy and Chili and the Apple, Celery Root and Fennel Salad With Hazel Nuts.

When I want full-gloss photo spreads that almost convince me I’m chopping shallots on a rough-hewed farm table while sporting rosy cheeks and barnyard-mucked Wellies, I’ll take Brent Ridge and Josh Kilmer-Purcell’s A SEAT AT THE TABLE: Recipes to Nourish Your Family, Friends, and Community (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, $30), written with Rose Marie Trapani. I choose it for the lifestyle fantasy, not for the recipes, which are pretty standard farm-to-table fare: Tomato, Olive and Caper Sauce; Bacon-Wrapped Stuffed Dates and Grilled Summer Vegetables.

If I want a new book of the aspirational recipes I’ll cook when the queen shows up for dinner (otherwise known as intimidating recipes to remind me what a lazy cook I am) I’ll hold onto Stuart Brioza and Nicole Krasinski’s STATE BIRD PROVISIONS (Ten Speed, $40), written with JJ Goode. Did I adore their daunting Cast-Iron Quail Eggs With Summer Vegetable Condiments and Garlic Chips? Unquestionably. (Almost as much as I adored the lush photograph of the dish with its tiny glistening yolks, dots of vinaigrette, sunny cherry tomatoes still on their vines and scattered precious microgreens, microherbs and edible flowers.) As self-congratulatory as I felt delivering the food to the table, I was certain I didn’t need the two separate vinaigrettes, the garlic chips and the fussy little creoja — a sort of micro pickled vegetable condiment. My real reward? A neat trick they do cooking the quail eggs in the cast-iron pan that I’ll take for a spin of my own — maybe even with a handful of microgreens. Whatever I do will be derivative, which is how cooking works.

As Jonathan Meades writes in his irreverent cookbook, THE PLAGIARIST IN THE KITCHEN: A Lifetime’s Culinary Thefts(Random House U.K., $29.95), “in the kitchen there is nothing new and nor can there be anything new. It’s all theft. Anyone who claims to have ‘invented’ a dish is dishonest, or delusional or foaming.” It’s not originality we seek. The greatest pleasure of acquiring a new cookbook is simple: surprise. Maybe it’s the idea of udder braised in milk that’s new to me but surely not original. Maybe it’s the discovery of the advertising history of Wonder Bread. Or a reminder of the underappreciated utility of a single sheet pan.

I adore Meades’s book, but not because I’ll be doing much cooking from it. I love it because I want more of his rule-breaking irreverence in my kitchen. We’ve become painfully earnest about what we eat — at least when we’re not being cheekily ironic. In the spirit of keeping it all in good, honest fun, I’ll end with Meades’s “original” recipe for Fig and Ham Tart. The result of this “wreck of a dish” pleases me more than any recipe I’ve read in quite some time: “Bake at 200° C for 20 minutes. Leave to cool. Taste. Chuck in bin.”
Cooking With The Times

Readers of The Times’s Food section will recognize some familiar names on bookstore shelves this season. Which means that it might be a good time to throw out that bulging clip file and find your favorite recipes preserved between the covers of three new books. In DINNER IN AN INSTANT (Clarkson Potter, $22), Melissa Clark delivers just what the cover promises, “75 modern recipes for your pressure cooker, multicooker and instant pot.” DAVID TANIS MARKET COOKING (Artisan, $40) showcases the City Kitchen columnist’s “recipes and revelations ingredient by ingredient.” And what better way to finish up than with Yotam Ottolenghi and Helen Goh’s SWEET (Ten Speed, $35), a wide-ranging celebration of baking and desserts?