On Another Cookbook Chronicle

Installment three!

Welcome to the Friday UnRecipe post for paid subscribers: the third in our cookbook chronicles series! On Tuesday, all subscribers will receive a behind-the-scenes look into a cookbook shoot from this summer. As always, check out my past posts here and learn more about my day job here. Thanks for reading!

Welcome to the third installment of the cookbook chronicles! Every week, I’m choosing a cookbook from the shelf and cooking from it. I’m following the recipe (mostly! seasonally!), and I’m telling you about it. Ta-dah! Catch up on the first and second editions here.

I love browsing the shelves of my local library for new cookbooks. In the same way that I stumble upon new fiction books, I find things I wasn’t looking for in that magical manner that only happens when you’re browsing a physical space. Recently, I came home with a backpack full of cookbooks that I hadn’t been expecting to find, including the newest release from the Yotam Ottolenghi universe: Ottolenghi Comfort.

Though I’ve never eaten at any of his restaurants,

Ottolenghi

(who just joined Substack!) has been a huge influence on my cooking. Since the moment I flipped open Plenty, which was the first of his books I received, I was dazzled. I remember being in awe of the way that vegetables were made into the hero of each dish—I had never seen a cookbook that pushed, as far and as hard as it could, past what my idea of a ‘square meal’ was. As a junior in college experimenting with eliminating meat from my diet, my mind was blown wide open.

Ottolenghi the man has, at this point, created an entire universe around the food for which he has become so beloved. Beyond the nine hospitality concepts he co-owns, his published works have also been a team effort, including the Ottolenghi Test Kitchen series (which feature some of my favorite recipes ever!) and, most recently, with Ottolenghi Comfort, which he co-wrote with Helen Goh, Verena Lochmuller & Tara Wigley.

Ottolenghi Comfort by Yotam Ottolenghi, Helen Goh, Verena Lochmuller & Tara Wigley