T. Susan Chang

Reviews by T. Susan Chang

• A Mouthful of Stars: A Constellation of Favorite Recipes from My World Travels by Kim Sunee

  ...a delicious package, invitingly designed and photographed. Sunee’s stories are laid out with jewel-box care, tempting you to follow along in her eclectic journey. Recipes are a hodgepodge...

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  • Crab and pork Spanish tortilla

    And the flavors – the crab, the pork, the ginger and garlic and condiments, all mingled together – were like something you’d find in your very favorite dumpling at your very favorite dim sum place.

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• Vegetarian for a New Generation: Seasonal Vegetable Dishes for Vegetarians, Vegans, and the Rest of Us by Liana Krissoff

  2013 Top Summer Cookbooks: ...there are some surprising, wickedly effective flavor combinations just waiting to be discovered...Kassoff never lets comfort devolve into boredom.

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  • Tamari-butter potato wedges

    ...infused with rosemary...garlic and that lingering, umami-filled...tamari, you could drape it over just about any roast vegetable and nobody would even remember there was anything else at dinner.

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• World Spice at Home: New Flavors for 75 Favorite Dishes by Amanda Bevill and Julie Kramis Hearne

  ... a fascinating journey, and like any traveler, I’m willing to put up with a little inconvenience as long as my appetite for wonder is sated in the end.

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  • Skillet prawns with poudre de Colombo

    Once the seasoning hits the warm butter, it’s magic – a huge, woodsy-spice-chest aroma blossoms into the air. And then – between their own natural pigment & turmeric – the shrimp turn a fiery coral..

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• Cooking Light Global Kitchen: The World's Most Delicious Food Made Easy by David Joachim

  ...an eye-popping smorgasbord of streamlined global classics, most, by the way, engineered to come in under 500 calories. That’s a pretty good value for some fairly decadent concoctions.

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  • Chocolate baklava

    I like baklava, but I’ve never been an addict. This recipe changed everything. The baklava looked perfectly OK when it went into the oven. But when it came out: Oh. My. God.

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• Fried & True: More Than 50 Recipes for America's Best Fried Chicken and Sides by Lee Brian Schrager and Adeena Sussman

  None of the recipes are Schrager’s own. They are the work of chefs from all over, big names like Yotam Ottolenghi and Thomas Keller, and proprietors of one-room chicken shacks across the South.

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  • Keralan fried chicken, Lowcountry cardamom waffles, and spicy maple syrup

    ... having eaten more fried chicken that any sane person would want to over the summer, I made it again for my birthday at the end of August, and made my friends eat it with me.

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• Fresh from the Farm: A Year of Recipes and Stories by Susie Middleton

  The book has everything, and is artfully constructed and written with heart. The recipes are so attentive to flavor that they break right through two of my kids’ current phobias (fish and squash).

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  • Roasted Parmesan-crusted cod with baby potatoes, bell peppers, onions & thyme

    There are two things I love about Susie Middleton recipes: 1) They always work. And 2) They have flavor in places other recipes don’t even have places.

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• The Banh Mi Handbook: Recipes for Crazy-Delicious Vietnamese Sandwiches by Andrea Nguyen

  Why make so many proteins? I’d hoped to have enough on hand to try several at once in the same sandwich, the way you’d get them at a banh mi shop. Alas, they were too delicious. We devoured them...

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  • Viet home-style doner kebab

    This slab of protein has all the things I love about meatloaf, all the things I love about pork, and all the things I love about gyros/shawarma/whatever you call it.

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• Simple Thai Food: Classic Recipes from the Thai Home Kitchen by Leela Punyaratabandhu

  ...what it says: unusually simple, and still really Thai. It’s written with grace, dedication, and humor, and there’s nothing like it on the market...if you want a single Thai book, this is it.

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  • Rice noodles "drunkard's style" with chicken (Kuai-tiao khi mao kai)

    The sauce! This. Is. The. Sauce. You know how you go to a noodle place, and ...you don’t think you can reproduce the sauce at home? Well, this was the Sauce of Freedom for me.

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• Bitter: A Taste of the World's Most Dangerous Flavor, with Recipes by Jennifer McLagan

  Overall, it’s a book with ambition and sometimes disconcerting scope, and it leaves a bitter taste in the mouth, which you may find you like more than you thought you would.

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  • Walnut cake

    Oranges and walnuts! a match made in heaven. That plus a faintly chewy, profoundly buttery crumb. It was like the darker and more glamorous cousin of a financier.

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• Keepers: Two Home Cooks Share Their Tried-and-True Weeknight Recipes and the Secrets to Happiness in the Kitchen by Kathy Brennan and Caroline Campion

  The two have a real gift for knocking out flavorful, family-friendly food quickly, and what these recipes may lack in newness, they make up for in shortcuts, tips, and sheer practicality.

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  • Skillet lasagna

    It’s a sloppy, beautiful one-pot mess that doesn’t look a lot like the architectural pan lasagna we know and love, but it tastes every bit as good.

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• Keys to the Kitchen: The Essential Reference for Becoming a More Accomplished, Adventurous Cook by Aida Mollenkamp

  In the end, “Keys to the Kitchen” may not be an essential addition to shelves already overstocked with cookbooks. But it’s a very good place to start.

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  • Gingered parsnips with toasted almonds

    Best of all are parsnips with toasted almonds, roasted with a maple glaze, buttered and gingered and strewn with nuts. They’re the kind of side dish that ends up stealing the supper table show.

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• Burma: Rivers of Flavor by Naomi Duguid

  ...Duguid’s thoughtful efforts to capture the taste of the country more than satisfy homebound, curious palates.

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  • Shrimp salad

    Cool, crisp, and a flash to put together. The shrimp slices have plenty of exposed surface area to pick up flavors, and I never tire of the endless spectrum of ways fish sauce and lime...go together.

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• Asian Tofu: Discover the Best, Make Your Own, and Cook It at Home by Andrea Nguyen

  ...welcome to the world of bean curd, ever so much more savory and varied than you thought.

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  • Panfried tofu with mushroom and spicy sesame sauce (Dubu jeon)

    I don’t know how it is that those predictable ingredients – soy, sesame, garlic, scallions – can constantly offer flavorful surprises. Yet they do.

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• The Fresh Egg Cookbook: From Chicken to Kitchen, Recipes for Using Eggs from Farmers' Markets, Local Farms, and Your Own Backyard by Jennifer Trainer Thompson

  I call them "chicken romances." Part memoirs, part cookbooks, they're the stories of backyard chickens raised by amateurs like you and me. This year's is an easy one to love...

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  • Scrambled eggs, Indian-style

    It’s full of interesting, complementary flavors that keep bouncing off each other from the first bite to the last. In fact, the whole experience is over all too soon.

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• Comfort & Spice: Recipes for Modern Living by Niamh Shields

  • Crispy pomegranate molasses chicken wings

    Do not Skip the Dip. When the crisp, sweet, spiced wing meets the cool, tart, creamy dip, sparks fly.

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• Sweet Cream and Sugar Cones: 90 Recipes for Making Your Own Ice Cream and Frozen Treats from Bi-Rite Creamery by Kris Hoogerhyde and Anne Walker and Dabney Gough

  There is no bacon ice cream here, no beer or vodka ice cream, no celery sorbet. So thrill-seekers, seek elsewhere. Everybody else, jump right in.

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  • Buttermilk ice cream

    This is ultra-premium, private-jet-class velvet–caused by the protein-disassembling acids of buttermilk...It lingers in a soft cool mass on your tongue for a moment, and then it’s gone.

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• The Fresh & Green Table: Delicious Ideas for Bringing Vegetables into Every Meal by Susie Middleton

  ...the point is that these recipes work beautifully as written. That they can tolerate a bit of variation and common sense is a feature rather than a fault.

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  • Crispy red potato patties with warm Asian slaw and limey sauce

    The slaw is great, and it makes you feel good about yourself. But it was the crispy little bits of potato, perfect for dipping in limey sauce, that we were all fighting over in the end.

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• Cindy's Supper Club: Meals from Around the World to Share with Family and Friends by Cindy Pawlcyn

  A few of the dishes introduced me to new geographies of taste, allowing me to share in Pawlcyn’s enthusiastic open-mindedness about the world’s many flavors. Isn’t that worth a little extra chopping?

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  • Classic Georgian "pressed" chicken with walnut and beet sauces

    ...it was the sauces that really lit my chandelier. I kept going back and forth between the two, trying one, and then the other, and then both, in a glorious state of indecision.

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• Wild About Greens: 125 Delectable Vegan Recipes for Kale, Collards, Arugula, Bok Choy, and Other Leafy Veggies Everyone Loves by Nava Atlas

  I was persuaded that there really is something new to be said about greens. Atlas’s bold, liberal way with vegan ingredients ensures that even the most jaded palate can find something to like.

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  • Asian-flavored kale and napa cabbage slaw

    ...one of those salads that pretty much goes with anything, and it’s super-fast to make. The carrots and the sprouts and the seeds keep it crunchy and textural, and there’s none of the bitter taste..

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• Susan Feniger's Street Food: Irresistibly Crispy, Creamy, Crunchy, Spicy, Sticky, Sweet Recipes by Susan Feniger and Kajsa Alger and Liz Lachman

  • Matzo candy with caramel, chocolate, and halva

    It’s just about the easiest dessert I know how to make, too, a making-the-best-of-what-you-have-on-hand kind of dessert – which seems somehow to true to matzo’s Exodus roots.

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• Grain Mains: 101 Surprising and Satisfying Whole Grain Recipes for Every Meal of the Day by Bruce Weinstein and Mark Scarbrough

  ...may not...be the whole-grains cookbook that will change your life, assure your longevity, and hand you the keys to the heaven of righteous eaters. But at the moment, I can’t think of a better one.

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  • Roasted corn and shrimp "ceviche"

    ...totally unprepared for the blast of flavor the shrimp picked up from what are...some pretty predictable ingredients: lime, red onion, cilantro. The radish & jalapeño contributed a lively bite...

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• The Sprouted Kitchen: A Tastier Take on Whole Foods by Sara Forte

  For the Fortes... eating naturally has a style and a gentle hedonism unanticipated by the oat-eaters of 50 years ago. You could almost forget that it’s good for you.

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  • Brussels leaf and baby spinach sauté

    ...the leaves are both tender and substantial enough to hold their shape a bit, a counterpoint to the wilty spinach. And best of all, there are Marcona almonds.

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• The River Cottage Meat Book by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall

  Review in Best cookbooks of 2007 article.

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• Mediterranean Clay Pot Cooking: Traditional and Modern Recipes to Savor and Share by Paula Wolfert

  Best cookbooks of 2009

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• The Art of Simple Food: Notes, Lessons, and Recipes from a Delicious Revolution by Alice Waters

  ...she reintroduces people to simple ingredients as if they're treasures hidden in plain sight — and at the end, there's always a meal that turns out to be more than the sum of its parsnips.

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• The Splendid Table's How to Eat Supper: Recipes, Stories, and Opinions from Public Radio's Award-Winning Food Show by Lynne Rossetto Kasper and Sally Swift

  Best Cookbooks of 2008: ...the most user-friendly general cookbook currently on the shelves. Streamlined but never austere, a generous number of these recipes became instant classics in our household.

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• Spice: Flavors of The Eastern Mediterranean by Ana Sortun

  ...compelling and elegant enough to make the price of innovation -- a splattered, oily, floury workspace covered with discarded pans, measuring cups, gadgets, and peelings -- seem pretty reasonable.

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• Wintersweet: Seasonal Desserts to Warm the Home by Tammy Donroe Inman

  Top 10 cookbooks of 2013: ...transforms the dried fruits and citruses of the coldest season into soul-warming confections.

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• 1080 Recipes by Simone Ortega and Inés Ortega

  ...has an adventurous spirit that makes you willing to put up with some of its foibles. Just keep your wits about you - and your "Joy" handy - in case something doesn't work out.

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• Gourmet Today: More than 1,000 All-New Recipes for the Contemporary Kitchen by Ruth Reichl

  Best 2009 cookbooks: ...one of the things Gourmet did best can be found in what turns out to be the magazine's valedictory cookbook: weeknight dishes with an international flair.

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• Raising The Salad Bar Beyond Leafy Greens: Inventive Salads With Beans, Whole Grains, Pasta, Chicken, And More by Catherine Walthers

  Best summer cookbooks of 2008: ...it carries a grand repertoire of dressings — one tailored for each recipe and a generous glossary with more in the back.

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• Beyond the Great Wall: Recipes and Travels in the Other China by Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Duguid

  Best cookbooks of 2008: ...for armchair adventurers, their exotic narrative is impossible to resist.

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• Clean Food: A Seasonal Guide to Eating Close to the Source with More Than 200 Recipes for a Healthy and Sustainable You by Terry Walters

  10 Best Cookbooks of 2009 - Despite its name (which may have you wondering, with a frown, what you've been eating up until now), Clean Food is a gateway book for the vegan lifestyle, not a hard sell.

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• My Perfect Pantry: 150 Easy Recipes from 50 Essential Ingredients by Geoffrey Zakarian and Amy Stevenson and Margaret Zakarian

  Geoffrey Zakarian is one of those chefs that seems to be at the center of everything [but] you'd think this was another weeknight dinner blog book with some surprisingly thoughtful flavor exchanges.

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• The Messy Baker: More Than 75 Delicious Recipes from a Real Kitchen by Charmian Christie

  Perhaps for the very reason that Christie doesn't get worked up over the small stuff, my results rarely turned out looking like the photographs. They went down easily all the same...

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• Milk Bar Life: Recipes and Stories by Christina Tosi

  It’s hard not to be captivated by Tosi’s lack of pretense...The book’s voice is disarming, and no one could accuse Tosi of not being an original.

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• 1,000 Spanish Recipes by Penelope Casas

  ...a generous vault of dishes and a good kitchen companion if you keep your wits about you. It's a fitting farewell from a writer who remained a fervent ambassador for...an underappreciated cuisine.

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• Baking with Less Sugar: Recipes for Desserts Using Natural Sweeteners and Little-to-No White Sugar by Joanne Chang

  ...recipes that won me over with their taste and understated efficacy; a little less sweetener allowed other flavors to emerge and blossom.

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• Real Sweet: More Than 80 Crave-Worthy Treats Made with Natural Sugars by Shauna Sever

  ...a crash course in the splendidly diverse world or natural sweeteners, but its looser technique leads to the kind of compromises you might enjoy at a bake sale without seeking them out again.

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• Ovenly: Sweet and Salty Recipes from New York's Most Creative Bakery by Agatha Kulaga and Erin Patinkin

  ...nontraditional flavors that are attainable without access to rarefied ingredients or equipment. It isn’t the first or last of its kind, but none of that matters when you’re reaching for seconds.

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• Brown Eggs and Jam Jars: Family Recipes from the Kitchen of Simple Bites by Aimée Wimbush-Bourque

  ...unlikely to make you pull up stakes, quit your job, and grow your own produce...You’ll probably just end up with a few more good, easy weeknight meals...Who doesn’t need more of those?

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• Root to Leaf: A Southern Chef Cooks Through the Seasons by Steven Satterfield

  ...might not be as thrifty and resourceful as the nose-to-tail recipes they emulate. But they’re still full of craft and reverence, and they make good companions for the harvest in any season.

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• Chinatown Kitchen: From Noodles to Nuoc Cham. Delicious Dishes from Southeast Asian Ingredients. by Lizzie Mabbott

  Enough of its recipes are throw-together simple, and even so, they’re an easy sell for the most jaded palate. I, for one, will be eager to see what future surprises Mabbott has in store.

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• Brassicas: Cooking the World's Healthiest Vegetables: Kale, Cauliflower, Broccoli, Brussels Sprouts and More by Laura B. Russell

  There’s one for every table and every occasion, and this book goes a long way toward easing these healthful greens onto the menu throughout the year.

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• Home: Recipes to Cook with Family and Friends by Bryan Voltaggio

  ...knockout flavors realized through instructions that are, well, not foolproof. In some cases you can use your judgment...with the baking recipes, the solution might not be as obvious.

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• Mandarin Food and Cooking: 75 Regional Recipes from Beijing and Northern China by Terry Tan

  ...we’re all still waiting for the regional Chinese cookbook to end all cookbooks. For now, this mixed but well-meant volume remains a welcome contribution.

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• Bold: A Cookbook of Big Flavors by Susanna Hoffman and Victoria (Jenanyan) Wise

  I’m always on the lookout for truly innovative flavor combinations, the unfussy yet deft marriage of old ingredients in new ways. [This] is just that: page after page of recipes...each one a winner.

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• The Complete Indian Regional Cookbook: 300 Classic Recipes from the Great Regions of India by Mridula Baljekar

  ...you’ll have to make some judgment calls, and some frustration may ensue. But this slightly uneven, generous volume amply rewards the extra effort.

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• The B.T.C. Old-Fashioned Grocery Cookbook: Recipes and Stories from a Southern Revival by Alexe Van Beuren and Dixie Grimes

  All in all, I’d hoped for more...I still feel a real affection for the cookbook, even though I probably won’t use it again. I guess that’s the power of a good story.

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• Down South: Bourbon, Pork, Gulf Shrimp & Second Helpings of Everything by Donald Link and Paula Disbrowe

  You may find yourself crying over some recipes because it’s hard to get the country ham, the Creole mustard.... But there are plenty of dishes that won’t put up a struggle no matter where you live.

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• Caribbean Potluck: Modern Recipes from Our Family Kitchen by Suzanne Rousseau and Michelle Rousseau

  My children’s spice tolerance, already rather high for their age, has been inched up another notch by daily applications of habanero. Altogether, I count it a win.

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• Silk Road Vegetarian: Vegan, Vegetarian and Gluten Free Recipes for the Mindful Cook by Dahlia Abraham-Klein

  ...may not distinguish itself for its newness or uniqueness. And the recipe style is on the vague side. But the Middle Eastern fare and the vegetarian pantry are capably woven together here...

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• Eat: The Little Book of Fast Food by Nigel Slater

  ...some recipes can turn out to seem hasty, when quick was what was intended. Still, as an idea book, it’s revolutionary. And most of these ensembles have the potential to turn into ravishing dishes..

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• Shroom: Mind-Bendingly Good Recipes for Cultivated and Wild Mushrooms by Becky Selengut

  Every once in a while, a cookbook comes along that you realize you’ve needed for years....[Selengut] has a clear and disarming style. Her passion for woodsy treasures underfoot is infectious.

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• Recipes From My French Grandmother: Authentic Dishes from a Classic Cuisine, with Over 200 Delicious Recipes by Carole Clements and Elizabeth Wolf-Cohen

  While we cooked from the book, we ate very well (although we did tear through cream and butter at a terrifying rate). This is familiar fare, versions of which you’ll have seen in cooking magazines...

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• Baking Chez Moi: Recipes from My Paris Home to Your Home Anywhere by Dorie Greenspan

  Greenspan’s style is to test exhaustively: terribly hard on herself, but a boon to others. She offers meticulous instructions on what to watch, listen and smell for....

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• The Backyard Bartender: 55 Cool Summer Cocktails by Nicole Aloni

  The Backyard Bartender also takes the trouble to offer a selection of non-alcoholic drinks, as well as crowd-pleasers like sangrias and punches.

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• Flour: Spectacular Recipes from Boston's Flour Bakery + Cafe by Joanne Chang and Christie Matheson

  It's hard to believe that Flour is Chang's first book, because the level of mastery, precision and experience in it make it feel like the work of someone who's been showing new bakers the light...

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• The Better Bean Cookbook: More Than 160 Modern Recipes for Beans, Chickpeas, and Lentils to Tempt Meat-Eaters and Vegetarians Alike by Jenny Chandler

  2013 Top Summer Cookbooks: Here at last is a bean book that's more tempting than earnest, brimming with cosmopolitan flavors and vivid photography. Forget about your hippie-era three-bean dip...

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• The Beekman 1802 Heirloom Vegetable Cookbook: 100 Delicious Heritage Recipes from the Farm and Garden by Brent Ridge and Josh Kilmer-Purcell and Sandy Gluck

  2013 Top Summer Cookbooks: It's not vegetarian and heirloom vegetables are not actually required — for Beekman 1802 is all about the joys of the harvest, minus the backache from weeding...

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• Fruitful: Four Seasons of Fresh Fruit Recipes by Brian Nicholson and Sarah Huck

  2013 Top Summer Cookbooks: ...no seasonal table is complete without the sweetest offerings of vine and tree and bush — ripe and full of promise, and passing all too fast.

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• The Family Cooks: 100+ Recipes Guaranteed to Get Your Family Craving Food That's Simple, Tasty, and Incredibly Good for You by Laurie David and Kirstin Uhrenholdt

  2013 Top Summer Cookbooks: ...keeps a close eye on the kid-friendly spectrum: Its recipes are either a little familiar (peanut butter and grape wraps), tasty but not outright challenging...

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• The Soda Fountain: Floats, Sundaes, Egg Creams & More -- Stories and Flavors of an American Original by Gia Giasullo and Peter Freeman

  2013 Top Summer Cookbooks: Along with some pure Brooklyn farming-hipster style...fascinating historical tidbits, postwar snapshots and a treasure chest of easy syrups and blends to get you started.

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• Marinades: The Quick-Fix Way to Turn Everyday Food into Exceptional Fare, with 400 Recipes by Lucy Vaserfirer

  2013 Top Summer Cookbooks: Lucy knows that for all the fire and flair at the end, the success of a grilling adventure often starts hours before, with the silent, humble art of wet baths and dry rubs.

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• Isa Does It: Amazingly Easy, Wildly Delicious Vegan Recipes for Every Day of the Week by Isa Chandra Moskowitz

  ...will it cause you to forsake forever the joys of bacon and butter? Probably not. But for those who consider veganism a creed of abstinence...these joyous, vivid recipes are a persuasive argument...

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• Smashing Plates: Greek Flavours Redefined by Maria Elia

  ...she never seems to run out of ideas. So if culinary improvisation and Greek-influenced fare don’t appeal to you, her next book might well. She is bound to bring something new to the table.

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• Eat Your Vegetables: Bold Recipes for the Single Cook by Joe Yonan

  Although his ingredients are global, he rarely crafts a dish in a single ethnic idiom, preferring to mix and match until he arrives at his own world-on-a-plate version.

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• Cooking Slow: Recipes for Slowing Down and Cooking More: Braising, Simmering, Roasting, Slow-Grilling, and More by Andrew Schloss

  ...takes a new approach in “Cooking Slow,” one which explores low-temperature methods of every kind and for every appliance: dry heat, wet heat, oven, stove top, grill, sous-vide, and so forth.

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• Seriously Bitter Sweet: The Ultimate Dessert Maker's Guide to Chocolate by Alice Medrich

  Given Medrich’s meticulous ways, it came as no surprise that nearly every recipe worked exactly as written.

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• Stir: Mixing it Up in the Italian Tradition by Barbara Lynch

  So often [chef's first cookbooks) are flashy, ambitious and about as useful to your home cook as, say, a biplane, which is why so few of them end up on my top 10 lists. But [this one did].

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• The French Market Cookbook: Vegetarian Recipes from My Parisian Kitchen by Clotilde Dusoulier

  ...as a resident of Paris...she loves vegetables in that romantic, no-holds-barred way that’s not surprising to encounter among those who live around well-stocked urban farmers’ markets.

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• The New Midwestern Table: 200 Heartland Recipes by Amy Thielen

  It’s not every dish that can be spiffed up, repointed, and made new again... But this ardent homage should put to rest some misconceptions and ignite new passion for the heartland’s culinary heritage.

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• Old-School Comfort Food: The Way I Learned to Cook by Alex Guarnaschelli

  If anyone would like a technical primer on how to construct a good mid-size cookbook, take a look here. Design-wise, this book does everything right....Headnotes are helpful and personal...

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• Vietnamese Home Cooking by Charles Phan

  ...the book was battered and splattered, its minuscule, hard-to-read type flecked with oil droplets, like a thousand tiny badges of courage....But I can’t stop thinking about that lemongrass shrimp.

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• Breakfast for Dinner: Recipes for Frittata Florentine, Huevos Rancheros, Sunny-Side-Up Burgers, and More! by Lindsay Landis and Taylor Hackbarth

  Taken as a whole, “Breakfast...” does more than it has to, offering extra-clear instructions, issuing warnings about pitfalls during prep, adding the extra ingredient you’d skip if you were lazy.

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• Friends at My Table: A Year of Eating, Drinking and Making Merry by Alice Hart

  ...many recipes veer toward the autumnal: steamy, hot cooking. The approach teeters between the lyrical and the technical, and you’ll have to hunt a bit to ferret out the more approachable recipes.

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• Indian Cooking Unfolded: A Master Class in Indian Cooking, Featuring 100 Easy Recipes Using 10 Ingredients or Less by Raghavan Iyer

  In a kitchen bookcase, I keep the 50 or so books I cook from regularly. It’s full. But “Indian Cooking Unfolded” is so genial and persuasive, I’ll have to make room for one more.

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• Best Lunch Box Ever: Ideas and Recipes for School Lunches Kids by Katie Sullivan Morford

  ...I wish the type were twice as large (it’s so tiny it’s hard to cook from). The book is also small, but well-curated and thoughtful, with photos that somehow inspire confidence even at 6:45 a.m.

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• The Dinnertime Survival Cookbook: Delicious, Inspiring Meals for Busy Families by Debra Ponzek and Mary Goodbody

  Overall, this is a good, well-organized book, maybe even one of the better ones of its kind. But, as Ponzek freely admits, her approach is more easy than quick.

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• Everyday Thai Cooking: Quick and Easy Family Style Recipes by Katie Chin

  In the final analysis, these dishes seem like sketches, sure-footed in the balance of salt and sweet, but willing to leave behind a good deal of complexity for convenience.

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• Modern Mediterranean: Easy, Flavorful Home Cooking by Melia Marden

  ...although the recipes seem vaguely familiar, it’s as though someone took a list of the usual ingredients and techniques and hit “shuffle.”

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• Balaboosta: Bold Mediterranean Recipes to Feed the People You Love by Einat Admony

  On balance, the finds in “Balaboosta” are good enough to make up for the book’s erratic performance. What I’d really like to see would be comprehensive testing for every recipe in the book...

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• The New Persian Kitchen by Louisa Shafia

  Shafia uses traditional ingredients — saffron, pistachios, pomegranates, dried limes — to powerful effect, but freely reinvents techniques for quicker, equally flavorful, results

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• The Yogurt Cookbook by Arto der Haroutunian

  ...a great many good ideas, a number of recipes that need a bit of reading between the lines, and a few happy hours of reading. Is it a book worth coming home with 4 quarts of yogurt for? Maybe.

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• Orient Express: Fast Food from the Eastern Mediterranean by Silvena Rowe

  Once you get past...the imprecision of the recipe prose, there are some truly innovative, progressive, and - yes - fairly swift riffs on classic Middle Eastern flavor combinations.

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• Full of Flavour: 120 Versatile Recipes for the Imaginative Cook by Maria Elia

  In the end, despite Elia’s earnest urging, maybe her approach doesn’t add up to a crash course in culinary improvisation. But it does make a provocative and interesting book.

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• Vegetable Literacy: Cooking and Gardening with Twelve Families from the Edible Plant Kingdom, with Over 300 Deliciously Simple Recipes by Deborah Madison

  ...a physically spectacular book and a passionate one, and it makes a fine gift...a thoughtful vegetable book is always a welcome addition to the world, and this meets and exceeds that expectation.

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• Make Your Own Soda: 75 Recipes for Fresh, All-Natural Pop, Floats, Cocktails, and More by Anton Nocito and Lynn Marie Hulsman

  ...an elegant little production with great interior design, a surfeit of interesting soda facts, and pictures so evocative you can almost hear the ice clinking on the rim of the glass.

  Full review

• Cookies & Cream by Tessa Arias

  Tessa Arias’ charming little book is a psychedelic tour both of ice cream...and of cookies... Arias’ suggested combinations...are pretty hard to refuse. But it’s easy enough to mix and match.

  Full review

• Bakeless Sweets: Pudding, Panna Cotta, Fluff, Icebox Cake, and More No-bake Desserts by Faith Durand

  ...a curiously comprehensive look at the custardy, the creamy, the gelled and the chilled. ...its fresh-faced design makes for good hammock reading too.

  Full review

• Vinaigrettes & Other Dressings: 60 Sensational Recipes to Liven Up Greens, Grains, Slaws, and Every Kind of Salad by Michele Anna Jordan

  The world seems to have a permanent shortage of salad dressing books, which is part of what makes this minuscule gem from veteran cookbook author Michele Anna Jordan so welcome.

  Full review

• The Animal Farm Buttermilk Cookbook: Recipes and Reflections from a Small Vermont Dairy by Diane St. Clair

  ...a comprehensive tour of the buttermilk landscape and its many culinary delights... their backstories are often fascinating (and photographable) and their love for what they make is palpable.

  Full review

• The Four Season Farm Gardener's Cookbook by Barbara Damrosch and Eliot Coleman

  Despite the name, you need be neither a farmer nor a four-season gardener to profit from this book, whose principal attraction is its bone-deep appreciation of how our food is grown...

  Full review

• The Adobo Road Cookbook: A Filipino Food Journey by Marvin Gapultos

  ...a comprehensive, visual ingredient glossary, equipment index, personal and cultural notes, and dozens of drool-worthy iterations of pork, lemongrass, papaya, mango, adobo flavors, crab and so on.

  Full review

• Smoke & Pickles: Recipes and Stories from a New Southern Kitchen by Edward Lee

  His food is tirelessly inventive and refreshingly free of attitude and each recipe comes with practical, non-judgmental cooking tips. Even better are Lee’s own stories of living and learning food...

  Full review

• Wicked Good Burgers: Fearless Recipes and Uncompromising Techniques for the Ultimate Patty by Andy Husbands and Chris Hart and Andrea Pyenson

  We have here not only the beef burger, but the bison, the pork, the salmon, the turkey, even the oyster burger – not to mention the beefy portobello. There’s even a “$100 burger”...

  Full review

• Every Grain of Rice: Simple Chinese Home Cooking by Fuchsia Dunlop

  ...a workhorse of a book for everyday Chinese cooking...And with a few exceptions (dan dan noodles, for example)...there’s very little overlap with her previous publications.

  Full review

• Kitchen & Co: Colourful Home Cooking Through The Seasons by Rosie French and Ellie Grace

  Most of the recipes are not-quite-finished sketches of some very good ideas, which is fine if you’re the kind of cook who reads a recipe and then shuts the book and takes off running.

  Full review

• How to Boil an Egg: Poach One, Scramble One, Fry One, Bake One, Steam One by Rose Carrarini

  Like many Phaidon titles, this is an arty, stylish sort of book that you might consider giving as a gift as the spring egg season comes along. Just make sure you don’t give it to your rookie friends.

  Full review

• Making Artisan Chocolates: Flavor-Infused Chocolates, Truffles, and Confections by Andrew Garrison Shotts

  ...we think of chocolate craftsmen as painstaking lab technicians...Despite this intimidating aura, Shotts's book...emboldened me to make the attempt in the distinctly unscientific setting of my home.

  Full review

• Nigellissima: Instant Italian Inspiration by Nigella Lawson

  Photos are gorgeous, evoking the unhurried enjoyment of food that has always been part of Lawson’s message. But the recipes themselves could benefit from more of that slow care.

  Full review

• The Little Paris Kitchen: Classic French Recipes with a Fresh and Simple Approach by Rachel Khoo

  There may not be much that’s new in this book, when you come right down to it, but it does have nicely curated and fairly reliable recipes, winsome photographs, a charming voice, whimsical endpapers..

  Full review

• The Food52 Cookbook, Volume 2: Seasonal Recipes from Our Kitchens to Yours by Amanda Hesser and Merrill Stubbs

  ... It’s the kind that food lovers will alternately treasure and argue over. Like life, this book is sometimes inspired, sometimes messy, a bit imperfect, but full of heart.

  Full review

• The Science of Good Cooking: Master 50 Simple Concepts to Enjoy a Lifetime of Success in the Kitchen by Cook's Illustrated Magazine

  ...you could hardly do better if you’re looking for consistent results and abundant flavor in recipes you may already know. And answers to that eternal culinary question: why?

  Full review

• Mastering the Art of Southern Cooking by Nathalie Dupree and Cynthia Graubart

  For what it lacks in focus, “Mastering the Art of Southern Cooking” makes up for in passion, talent, and versatility.

  Full review

• Barefoot Contessa Back to Basics: Fabulous Flavor from Simple Ingredients by Ina Garten

  I like this book. New cooks will learn helpful techniques...while seasoned cooks might glean inspiration from the more unusual entries.

  Full review

• Jerusalem by Yotam Ottolenghi and Sami Tamimi

  I learned something almost every day, whether it was a new technique or a new combination of ingredients or flavors... And in this case, almost every lesson was a winner.

  Full review

• Baked Elements: The Importance of Being Baked in 10 Favorite Ingredients by Matt Lewis and Renato Poliafito

  A few of the flavors - lemon, chocolate, cinnamon, caramel - are as essential to the baker as flour and butter. Others such as cheese and peanut butter are a little more offbeat.

  Full review

• Modern Sauces: More Than 150 Recipes for Every Cook, Every Day by Martha Holmberg

  ...the sauces often outshine the proteins and carbs that deliver them. But using surefire flavor combinations and optimal tweaks, Holmberg makes sure each sauce is delicious and worth your while.

  Full review

• Roots: The Definitive Compendium with More Than 225 Recipes by Diane Morgan

  Root vegetables don’t call out to everyone’s soul in the way that bacon, say, or chocolate does...But given the book’s generous trove of information...it’s an awfully good value.

  Full review

• The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook: Recipes and Wisdom from an Obsessive Home Cook by Deb Perelman

  ...Perelman describes her approach: “A lot of comfort foods stepped up a bit.” These reinventions may not be the last word in novelty..but a way of embracing interesting shortcuts and substitutions.

  Full review

• 660 Curries: Plus Biryanis, Breads, Pilafs, Raitas, and More by Raghavan Iyer

  In 10 Best Cookbooks of 2008: I never open this book without being struck by the diversity, comprehensiveness and sheer size, which led me to call it "the best 3-pound paperback of the year"...

  Full review

• The New Middle Eastern Vegetarian: Modern Recipes from Veggiestan by Sally Butcher

  ...translating these delicacies into your own kitchen may take a little patience, a little imagination, and perhaps a sense of adventure as strong as Butcher’s own.

  Full review

• The Vegan Cook's Bible by Pat Crocker

  ...after working so hard and soiling so many pots, I want to be a little delighted. The book won’t convert you, but if you’re already vegan, there’s plenty here you’ll like.

  Full review

• A Girl and Her Pig: Recipes and Stories by April Bloomfield

  "A Girl and Her Pig" is simple food, prepared with a high degree of attention and artfulness. Or you could say it’s comfort food, for those who find swooning comfortable.

  Full review

• The Pioneer Woman Cooks: Food from My Frontier by Ree Drummond

  The first thing you should know about this book is that there’s nothing "frontier" about it. The second thing is that there’s not much that is new...many of the recipes can be found on the blog.

  Full review

• Pasta Italiana: 100 Recipes From Fettuccine to Conchiglie by Gino D'Acampo

  With its bold colors and process photos, Pasta Italiana is a joy to look at and use, and it's full of accessible recipes that are nevertheless not overly familiar.

  Full review

• Humphry Slocombe Ice Cream Book by Jake Godby and Sean Vahey and Paolo Lucchesi

  ... billing itself as "the ice cream counterculture revolution" - is for the jaded palate in search of fresh adventure...

  Full review

• United States of Pie: Regional Favorites from East to West and North to South by Adrienne Kane

  ...understated, practical charm that will make it easy to figure out what to do with summer's bounty...You could eat a pie every day this summer - not that you should - and still not finish this book.

  Full review

• Herbivoracious: A Flavor Revolution with 150 Vibrant and Original Vegetarian Recipes by Michael Natkin

  ...if you embrace a certain globe-trotting ethos of meatlessness this is an easy choice...photographs are colorful, the headnotes informative, and the attitude more flavor-forward than right-minded.

  Full review

• Ripe: A Fresh, Colorful Approach to Fruits and Vegetables by Cheryl Sternman Rule

  The recipes are well-chosen representatives that make the most of their featured ingredient, and most...deliver high flavor with an absolute minimum of stress.

  Full review

• Ripe: A Cook in the Orchard by Nigel Slater

  Not every fruit can be easily found on these shores - white currants, gooseberries, damsons and sloes among them. But Slater is so vivid and surefooted in his manner...you can almost taste them anyway

  Full review

• The Sunset Edible Garden Cookbook: Fresh, Healthy Flavor from Garden to Table by Sunset Magazine

  What this book offers is an abundance of crop-specific recipes that will help you make the most of what's in season. It's less anecdotal than many recent eat-local cookbooks and more informational...

  Full review

• Modern Spice: Inspired Indian Flavors for the Contemporary Kitchen by Monica Bhide

  I think of Indian cooking as summer food, when there’s time to track down curry leaves and chickpea flour...But with dishes like these, my Indian summer may just have to last all year.

  Full review

• The Gastrokid Cookbook: Feeding a Foodie Family in a Fast-Food World by Hugh Garvey and Matthew Yeomans

  ...these are not pretentious, not condescending, simple recipes for weeknights that look very much like my regular rotation of dinner standbys...Just plain food, and pretty good food at that.

  Full review

• The Asian Grandmothers Cookbook: Home Cooking from Asian American Kitchens by Patricia Tanumihardja

  If you missed out sitting by your grandmother’s stove, or your family ethnicity doesn’t happen to match the food you know you were born to eat, this book goes a long way toward addressing that need.

  Full review

• Golden Door Cooks at Home: Favorite Recipes from the Celebrated Spa by Dean Rucker and Marah Stets

  ... portion sizes are close to normal, requiring a little upward adjustment to feed a ravenous family...Practically speaking, though, the recipes offer what can only be described as mixed results.

  Full review

• The Brazilian Kitchen: 100 Classic and Contemporary Recipes for the Home Cook by Leticia Moreinos Schwartz

  Even though most Brazilians would probably say their food is too diverse to pigeonhole, "The Brazilian Kitchen" is a solid first step toward codifying the national cuisine.

  Full review

• The Commonsense Kitchen: 500 Recipes Plus Lessons for a Hand-Crafted Life by Tom Hudgens

  ...common-sense way of coaxing flavor into and from ingredients, which gives his book something of an edge over many similar basic cookbooks...I found myself warming to his slightly offbeat techniques

  Full review

• In the Kitchen with a Good Appetite: 150 Recipes and Stories about the Food You Love by Melissa Clark

  ...whatever your tastes, you can be certain that every recipe in this book works as it was meant to. And because of that, someone is bound to love each one.

  Full review

• Chicken and Egg: A Memoir of Suburban Homesteading with 125 Recipes by Janice Cole

  ..after eating from this book for a week and never once having to hunt down a difficult ingredient, I found it reassuring that raising chickens is also, and probably always will be, strictly optional.

  Full review

• At Elizabeth David's Table: Classic Recipes and Timeless Kitchen Wisdom by Elizabeth David

  Reissuing recipes that are decades old and making no apology for it is a risky move...As it is, this curious, elegant hybrid of old-school and new-school recipes would be a shame to overlook.

  Full review

• Fresh & Fast Vegetarian: Recipes That Make a Meal by Marie Simmons

  ...then there are books like "Fresh & Fast Vegetarian", practical, un-showy volumes with a lot of good recipes. Guess which ones actually make it into the kitchen?

  Full review

• The Kitchen Garden Cookbook: More Than 200 Recipes, Picking and Cooking Tips, Preserving Ideas by Caroline Bretherton

  I have nothing against the team approach to cookbook publishing. It means that you can have info-packed design, terrific visuals,...a few should have been spared for recipe-testing.

  Full review

• The Food of Spain by Claudia Roden

  There are not many cookbook writers who can pull off a book as ambitious, thoughtful, and deeply nourishing as "The Food of Spain".

  Full review

• For Cod and Country: Simple, Delicious, Sustainable Cooking by Barton Seaver

  ...has a little of that translated-from-restaurantese quality that one often sees in chefs’ first books. Recipes evince a bias toward plating/presentation, a certain disregard for the number of pots..

  Full review

• Ching's Everyday Easy Chinese: More Than 100 Quick & Healthy Chinese Recipes by Ching-He Huang

  ...a title like Ching’s Everyday Easy Chinese makes you wonder what you can learn if you know how to stir-fry, have a great Hunan cookbook, and go out for dim sum. The answer is: more than you think.

  Full review

• The Food of Morocco by Paula Wolfert

  I don’t advise you to turn to it for a quick weeknight supper...Yet every layer of complication corresponded to greater depth of flavor, and I finished testing a slightly better and more patient cook.

  Full review

• The Lee Bros. Simple Fresh Southern: Knockout Dishes with Down-Home Flavor by Matt Lee and Ted Lee

  Susie finds the Lee Brothers new book "picks up the pieces (okra, collards, shrimp, bourbon) and puts them back together in astutely reimagined ways."

  Full review

• Jamie at Home: Cook Your Way to the Good Life by Jamie Oliver

  "Oliver's pace may be dizzying, but his joie de vivre is contagious. So it's hard to hold it against him when, as is bound to happen, his boisterous recipes show signs of some overly speedy testing. "

  Full review

• Bean by Bean: A Cookbook: More Than 200 Recipes for Fresh Beans, Dried Beans, Cool Beans, Hot Beans, Savory Beans...Even Sweet Beans! by Crescent Dragonwagon

  ...in my experience a diet of beans is more likely to pall within two days. I viewed the delay in uprisings as a genuine endorsement of this food.

  Full review

• Notes From A Kitchen: A Journey Inside Culinary Obsession (Signed Special Edition) by Jeff Scott and Blake Beshore

  ...billed as "the re-envisioning of the modern American cookbook." Yet the one thing this book is not is a cookbook. It’s a portrait, a travelogue, a gallery, and an immersive analog experience.

  Full review

• The French Slow Cooker by Michele Scicolone

  There are a few reasons to turn to Scicolone’s book rather than to the many other slow-cooker technique books on the market. It’s well-designed, accessible, and the recipes work.

  Full review

• All About Roasting: A New Approach to a Classic Art by Molly Stevens

  Stevens’s book clearly shows that with just a little ingenuity and a handful of ingredients, you can end up with vegetables that are even better, dishes that routinely steal the show.

  Full review

• Ruhlman's Twenty: 20 Techniques, 100 Recipes, A Cook's Manifesto: The Ideas and Techniques That Will Make You a Better Cook by Michael Ruhlman

  No one could accuse Ruhlman of being an ascetic. Neither is he an innovator...But that’s exactly its charm. If "Ratio’" appealed to the food geek, "Twenty’" appeals to the perfectionist.

  Full review

• Cook This Now: 120 Easy and Delectable Dishes You Can't Wait to Make by Melissa Clark

  The book’s subtitle is "120 Easy and Delectable Dishes You Can’t Wait to Make". But it could just as well be "Now Why Didn’t I Think of That?"...the highest praise anyone who cooks can give another.

  Full review

• The Flexitarian Table: Inspired, Flexible Meals for Vegetarians, Meat Lovers, and Everyone in Between by Peter Berley

  Full review

• A Southerly Course: Recipes and Stories from Close to Home by Martha Hall Foose

  Foose writes storybooks. In a typical cookbook, headnotes on recipes offer vital information...Foose’s headnotes and subtitles are so wildly creative they are practically a genre of their own.

  Full review

• Planet Barbecue!: 309 Recipes, 60 Countries by Steven Raichlen

  Susie's review is in her round-up of the best summer 2010 cookbooks.

  Full review

• Ratio: The Simple Codes Behind the Craft of Everyday Cooking by Michael Ruhlman

  Susie included this book in her round-up of the best 2009 cookbooks.

  Full review