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Yahoo
28-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Spring's best new cookbooks, from pizza to pastries
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. This season's batch of new cookbooks are wanderers. You could head to Pakistan, the Caribbean (two times) or bop from one friend's dinner party to another's with the optimal dish in hand for sharing. Marie Mitchell is the child of Jamaican immigrants and lives in the United Kingdom. Her debut cookbook is a collection of recipes that celebrate the flavors of her ancestral Caribbean and the diaspora it has influenced. That means honey-shellacked jerk wings with cassava fries, tomato curry and coconut buns. (out now, $35, W.W. Norton) One impactful aspect of the best cookbooks is their ability to overturn your thinking. With this new book, Maryam Jillani shows the complexity of Pakistan, a country too often in the West lumped with its neighbor to the southwest, India. "Pakistan" is part travelogue, part cultural study and a compendium of Pakistani recipes that showcase the singular diversity of the country's cooking. (out now, $40, Bookshop) "It's about the delicious places that live in between American and Chinese traditions," said chef Brandon Jew of Mister Jiu's in San Francisco about Calvin Eng's cooking in "Salt Sugar MSG." The chef at Bonnie's in Brooklyn, named for his mother, Eng plays well with both classic Cantonese and American dishes. Taro steps in for potatoes in diner-style hash browns. Pork schnitzel is seasoned with salt and pepper and served with ranch. "Some chef-authored cookbooks feel fussy in a way that's ultimately unfriendly to cooking at home, but 'Salt Sugar MSG' feels cheffy in a more accessible way," said Bettina Makalintal at Eater. (out now, $40, Clarkson Potter) The world needs another pizza cookbook like — well, most everyone loves pizza, so bring it on. This debut cookbook from Scarr Pimentel, the mind behind the beloved Manhattan pizzeria Scarr's, celebrates New York-style pizza, with an emphasis on natural and organic ingredients. The results are both classic and modern; now you can achieve the same at home. (out now, $30, 4 Color Books) One great cookbook: 'Snacking Cakes' One great cookbook: 'Solo' One great cookbook: 'The Zuni Café Cookbook' Nina Compton has had a peripatetic cooking journey. Born in Saint Lucia, she lived in Jamaica and Miami before settling in New Orleans. In the Crescent City, she opened Compère Lapin and Bywater American Bistro, restaurants that sing the pleasures of her distinctive Caribbean-centered cuisine. The book, coauthored with Osayi Endolyn, is organized around those four locations — Saint Lucia, Jamaica, Miami, New Orleans — to show how the quartet shaped Compton. (April 1, $37.50, Clarkson Potter) Zaynab Issa, a recent member of the lauded Bon Appétit food team, is known for her smart, big-flavored cooking. In her first cookbook, her style is dubbed "third culture cooking" — not wholly that of her Tanzanian-Indian beginnings, not strictly American but a hybrid and reconsideration of all of it. French onion ramen, udon carbonara, tandoori tacos, baklava granola: "Issa's recipes are mashups of everything you'd want to eat," said Jaya Saxena at Eater. (April 1, $35, Abrams) Nicole Rucker, owner of the Los Angeles bakeries Fat + Flour, is the rare pastry person who is beloved by both other pastry people and the baked-goods consuming public. Any cookbook from Rucker is cause for clanging together your measuring cups with glee. In her latest, she walks you through how to make superb pies and cookies, and does so with clear, lighthearted instructions. (April 8, $35, Knopf) If you have ever been invited to someone's house and felt exhausted at the notion of meekly proffering yet another bottle of wine when you arrive, this book by Casey Elsass aims to revitalize your guest obligations. The book is divided into eight sections, and each tackles a different occasion, including tailgates and brunch. The recipes are accessible but will still impress every kind of host — and the other guests in attendance. (May 20, $30, Union Square & Co)
Yahoo
22-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
‘Happier hour,' anyone? WA sisters write cocktail book that's also a gardener's dream
In the late 2010s, as sisters Belinda Kelly and Venise Cunningham planted their drink-syrup business in the fertile lands of the north foothills of Mount Rainier, they struggled to find resources that spoke to their growing vision. Beyond the boundless edification of trial and error, they read books — about farming and gardening, bitters and shrubs, cocktails and cooking and the art of the dinner party. It might seem incontrovertible that these earthly tasks go hand-in-hand, yet in the dense ether of cottagecore and tradwife TikToks, enlightening-to-disconcerting Instagram DIY reels, cookbooks and shows with seemingly any famous person who eats, recalled Kelly in March, 'There wasn't a book that did all of the things we wanted to learn.' So, amid getting dirt under their fingernails — much to the chagrin of their Enumclaw-based photographer and friend Rylea Foehl — and ice in their shakers, they poured over shared Google docs night after night. 'Drink Your Garden: Recipes, Stories, and Tips from the Simple Goodness Cocktail Farm' from Countryman Press, an imprint of W.W. Norton, hits shelves this spring. At 250 pages, it's the compendium of garden-to-glass literacy they wished they'd had. 'We want garden to glass to be as big as farm to table,' said Kelly. 'Are you drinking intentionally and with a purpose?' asked Cunningham. The book aims to give anyone, from home bartenders and gardeners to professionals and everyone in-between, the confidence to maximize everything you buy or grow. It's as much a cocktail and bartender's resource as it is a gardening and preservation guide. 'Hopefully it can be your jumping-off point,' said Cunningham. It begins with the sun-kissed star of the garden-to-glass universe, or 'homesteading, light' — the cocktail garden — and moves through how to squeeze every ounce of goodness from that labor. There are recipes for syrups and cordials with fruits, spruce tips and flowers; shrubs (or drinking vinegars) of figs, ginger and beets; tinctures, liqueurs and infused spirits like fennelcello and veggie garden vodka; juices, teas and botanical waters; and garnishes, from candying citrus wheels to braiding chive flower stems and quick-pickling asparagus. 'Growers cannot bear to throw out or waste what they've spent months carefully tending, and so they must create something, anything,' Kelly writes in the book's introduction. 'The same plant that gives you a crisp and refreshing salad this month can give you a pickle, a sauce, or a cocktail syrup next winter, when the garden is frozen over.' Added Cunningham in a March interview, 'High-quality ingredients are expensive for people, and there are thin margins at bars, but people don't necessarily translate that into their own home.' Each recipe reveals a personal snapshot of the authors and their families, whether through endearing anecdotes or lessons learned. They also highlight multiple uses, with corresponding page numbers, in 50 cocktails and 13 nonalcoholic sippers. Add it to your collection for the garden planning, including 13 edible flowers for showstopping flair and a fanciful infusion chart, alone. The tips in this chapter and throughout the book are incredibly detailed but not overbearing. They 'give you permission' to skip the growing part if you hate dirt; outsourcing is dandy, too, although they encourage supporting local farmers markets whenever possible, especially to keep with the seasons. Maybe you have a whole yard you've dreamed of turning into a cottage garden or you have one small garden box. Turn to page 43 for Cunningham's 4-by-4-foot cocktail garden map, replete with lavender, chamomile and rosemary, prolific nasturtium, tomatoes and chives, hot peppers, basil and cilantro, marigolds and buzz buttons. After reading the sisters' description, you'll immediately want to plant the latter flower, also called toothache plant or electric daisy. Used in Chinese medicine and known for their 'popping or buzzing' sensation when chewed, they likely entered the drink sphere via a bartender in Las Vegas. They are, Kelly writes, 'a gimmick that just keeps giving … found stuffed in Venise's cheeks like a hippie's chewing tobacco in late summer.' Other reminders — to not touch your eyes after handling jalapenos to avoid 'peppery eyeballs,' to embrace your 'weird like tarragon,' to be content with sharing half-eaten bags of nuts and crackers so long as they're arranged nicely on a serving board — bring an irreverence to a lifestyle that, with the Simple Goodness Sisters as your unfussy chaperones, feels attainable. Calling it cottagecore 'all feels a bit more folksy — we're not that,' said Kelly. 'We're busy people.' Inspired by accomplished recipe developers and food celebrities like Alison Roman, whose signature 'Home Movies' style catapulted her to fame, and the dinner party queen Ina Garten, they wanted the book to tell the stories they couldn't tell in Instagram posts. 'Everything we've done in the Simple Goodness world lends itself very well to a book,' explained Kelly. What started as a garlic farm in Buckley morphed into a dynamic cocktail garden, but Cunningham, the farmer, was defining that idea in real time. She and Kelly, the bartender, looked to incorporate homegrown herbs and flowers into packaged syrups to make restaurant-worthy drinks, both with alcohol and without, at any kind of bar or in any kind of kitchen. That, too, was an exercise in experimentation — in the inevitable failures and unplanned victories of both farming and small business ownership. They gleaned more on-the-ground insights in the teeny town of Wilkeson, where they opened a family-friendly bar and restaurant in 2021. That steady stream of locals and Mount Rainier National Park visitors became 'our little focus group,' said Kelly, who has also crafted three cocktail recipes every month for their Cocktail Farm Club. (Members receive shipments of syrups, including limited seasonals and one-offs, with exclusive recipes.) All the while, they have continued to find time for family — it's why they both left their corporate jobs more than a decade ago. 'Drink Your Garden' also serves as a much-needed reminder to breathe, to call your friend for a drink last-minute, to include your kids in what the sisters call 'happier hour,' a lesson they learned from their grandmother, Nancy. In her homage, a whiskey sour prepared with lavender-honey syrup and lemon, they write: 'She has taught us to listen more than we talk (we're still learning that one), slow down at the end of each day for a little ritual with yourself, and don't let it be a big deal to invite people over — do it frequently and without too much thought. After all, it's just a drink.' Upcoming book signings and events: ▪ March 25, 5-8 p.m. at Northlight Interiors, 1119 Main St., Sumner — $40 ticket includes author talk, drinks and signed book ▪ March 27, 6:30-8 p.m. at Book Larder, 4252 Fremont Ave. N., Seattle — $39.50 ticket includes demo, sample and signed book ▪ April 6, 3-5 p.m. at Simple Goodness Soda Shop, 533 Church St., Willkeson — $20 ticket includes samples and author talk, book for sale ▪ April 27, 5-6:30 p.m. at Village Books, 1200 11th St., Bellingham — $5 ticket or $38.15 for ticket and signed book ▪ May 10, 10 a.m.-12 p.m. at Fable Bloom + Books, 115 S Wenatchee Ave., Wenatchee — free, mocktails and signing ▪ May 10, 4-7 p.m. at Blue Spirits Distilling, 1310 Hwy 2, Leavenworth — free, drink specials, garnish bar, demo and signing Planned for local sale also at: Sweet Pea's Mercantile in Enumclaw, Salish Lodge & Spa in Snoqualmie, Cattle Drive Leather in Deer Park, Basecamp Books in Roslyn, A Good Book in Sumner, King's Books in Tacoma
Japan Times
10-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Japan Times
The Marquis de Sade's guide to cancel culture
In theology, being condemned to perdition may sound a lot like going to hell, but it's much worse than spending eternity amid fire and brimstone. Those who believe in the survival of the soul after death shudder at the gravity of perdition: the total dissolution of one's existence even in spiritual form. In our increasingly soulless secular age, there's an attempt at a similar punishment: We call it cancellation. The concept derives from television — that which befalls series and shows with bad ratings, yanked by broadcast networks, never to be seen again. Its first use in popular culture in that sense may have been in the lyrics of "Your Love Is Canceled," by the disco-funk group Chic ("Well I saw it on TV 'bout someone like me'). The song's from 1981, but cancellation as we know it really got going this century. Today, it's a pile-on of blaming and shaming in our social media public squares that often leads to the target's commercial or career oblivion. The courts can also get involved to mete out justice. The vitriol makes it much more hellish than old-fashioned consumer boycotts. Some of the most spectacular examples involve fans turning against their idols. The most recent is graphic novel icon Neil Gaiman, who has received massive condemnation after lurid stories emerged alleging sexual assault and harassment on his part. He has denied the allegations and there are no criminal charges filed against him. Nevertheless, the furor has convinced publishers to avoid or drop Gaiman, who has become a multimillionaire from his oeuvre of close to 50 novels and comic books. HarperCollins and W.W. Norton, which have successfully published his books before, said they have no plans with the British author. In late January, Dark Horse Comics announced it wouldn't release the last volume of its illustrated version of his 2005 fantasy novel "Anansi Boys." A test of how many fans remain will come later this year when Netflix debuts its second season of "The Sandman," which is based on Gaiman's bestselling comic books.
