2020 has been written off by many, because of all the reasons we all know and have experienced. Bushfires, the pandemic, multiple lockdown periods, travel restrictions, combined with being physically distance from family and friends - all reasons to will 2020 to a close so that we may start 2021 in earnest.
There are exceptions and silver linings to an otherwise meh time.
Cookbook fans (read: me) seem to be experiencing somewhat of a golden year. I’ve read (or heard on a podcast) that cookbook sales spiked following the 9/11 terrorist attacks when people retreated and found refuge from the unknown in their homes, and some regions have experienced similar sales trends during the pandemic. Housebound or otherwise, the cookbooks released this year stand on their own thanks to being truly excellent and full of wonderful stories, and of course, recipes.
Either fuelled by the niggling feeling to be a smidge more self-reliant, not spending as much time and money commuting, travelling, or eating out - I seem to have added a new cookbook a week to my shelf. Having started the year with around 70 titles, this is a very steep jump - and whilst it may seem boastful, I’m as surprised as you are. Surprised because over time, after multiple purges and trips to drop off stacks at the op shop, or giving books away to family and friends, I’ve put in place a vetting process to help determine whether or not to bring something home from the bookshop. I’d like to think my purchases are considered and disciplined. Without wanting to come across as a knob (if I haven’t already), here are some of the questions I ask myself before I take a book to the counter/shopping cart:
Will I cook from this book? If not;
Is it well written? i.e. will I enjoy the food writing?
How accessible are the ingredients if I do want to cook from the book? (this is a biggie, I ain’t dicking around sourcing hard-to-find ingredients)
Will I learn something new?
Is it well designed/formatted?
How quickly will this date? i.e. is it food or is it fashion? is this a food trend?
Am I familiar with this person’s work?
Is this just an impulsive purchase? i.e. am I using consumerism as a way to distract myself?
And sometimes I leave all that and buy the heck out of the book anyway, because despite how many books people write, despite how many books already exist, receiving a book deal - as I can only imagine - must be quite the milestone, and then having people bring home your book, read it and cook from it… metamorphic.
True, recipes are available on the internet for free, and still make up a large proportion of recipes I cook from, but you should probably know (or already know) I’m a romantic, and particularly fond of paper goods. Instead of trinkets and ornaments, my home is littered with books. Shelves in almost every living and sleeping space occupied by lines of books, dried king proteas, art prints, and photos. I often go to sleep with a stack of 2-3 cookbooks next to my pillow, knowing full well I’m likely to scroll Instagram until I fall asleep than leaf through the pages - but they’re there if I do decide I’ve had a little too much screen time. Books aren’t arranged by genre or author - I’m too basic for that (what? I know it, now you do too) and have opted for the Pinterest trend of colour coding - which works for someone who is highly visual and terrible at remembering names and titles of songs, movies, TV shows, actors, authors, and books.
Cookbooks, cooking, food writing - isn’t for everyone (if food and cooking is not for you, perhaps now is a good time to abort mission. I’m gonna be a while). So when asked for a favourite or recommended recipes, I often opt for recipes I know exist in both print and digital form - and if the recipient enjoys the recipe and wishes to explore more, I hope they find comfort in the everyday romance of cooking through a book, finding food-stained pages and handwritten notes in the margins over years to come, and one day, making a book recommendation to someone. For whatever reason, cookbooks and food writing have found me in this season of life - and I’m glad for their company.
Here’s my 2020 round-up (note: I don’t break down every book, else we’ll be here for too long and that would be very boring):
What a massive year for Australian cookbook authors! For me, it all started with Natalie Paull’s Beatrix Bakes cookbook. Long before the cookbook was announced, my cousin, Bridget, and I would obsessively tag each other in photos of the famous tiny cake cabinet, of the daily cake slices and sandwich combinations, and list all the products we’d try if we could get on a plane to Melbourne immediately and embark on a cake and pastry crawl across the city.
Publishing day finally rolled around in March, we pored over the book, text back and forth, and tag all the recipes we wanted to try. Natalie’s writing was warm and encouraging; her introduction to herself and her beautiful shop made me wish we were friends (truthfully, this is a common feeling when a cookbook author is able to convey all the love and nostalgia I have when it comes to cooking and eating - her book dedication spoke to me). Her anticipation that you will experience some baking failures is empathetic and her workarounds are encouraging.
Then Adelaide went into lockdown and the book was shelved, and a home office appeared on the dining room table.
My cookbook collection lay dormant… for all of 2 months before it felt safe to walk into my local bookstore again. I brought home Aran by Flora Shedden, and Tara Wigley and Sami Tamimi’s Falastin. The floodgates opened from there. I checked cookbook release updates from Eat Your Books, added my name to a stack of Substacks (Stained Page News is my go-to for cookbook related news), and compiled a list of publishing dates for the titles I wanted to buy.
Julia Busuttil Nishimura is a constant companion in the kitchen since the release of Ostro in 2017, and remains a firm favourite - I was ecstatic when A Year Of Simple Family Food was announced and it doesn’t disappoint. If you’re not convinced, Julia is a columnist for ABC Life, The Design Files, and Country Style magazine - so you can sample before welcoming her into your kitchen (AYSFF has already been reprinted, what more is there to say?).
Then there was Hetty Lui McKinnon’s To Asia with Love, which is, in Hetty’s own words:
“…a deep dive into the ways food can connect us to our heritage and help us understand our cultural identity.”
I bought Community in 2014 after stumbling upon a tweet from writer, Benjamin Law, and it (Hetty, Arthur Street Kitchen, the recipes) changed my life. The recipes broke down many food and cooking barriers, introduced ingredients, challenges, and concepts, and granted me the title of ‘fancy salad’ bringer at events. I kept Community a secret - Hetty’s recipes were my culinary armour. I downloaded digital copies so I could plan shopping lists and menus during lunch breaks. Neighbourhood, Family and every issue of Peddler Journal* sit proudly in the ‘heavily referred’ section of the cookbook shelf. *(except Dumplings! - if anyone is willing to part with their copy, I’d love to buy it off you)
To Asia with Love - is a love letter, in a way, written by Hetty on behalf of all third-generation kids who straddle the confusing line of identity and those searching for a way home, or a new one. And much like their predecessors, I am challenged and delighted by flavour combinations, the melding of new and old ingredients, and the comfort that so many of Hetty’s food stories bestow. Hetty’s Linktree is filled with numerous contributions she’s made to the likes of Washington Post, Bon Appetit, Basically, ABC Life, Goodfood and many more. I no longer keep Hetty to myself - I’m the weirdo who lines up at Dymocks in Rundle Mall and buys multiple copies on publishing day before the team has managed to unpack them - as gifts for me and my loved ones. I encourage you to do the same.
There is so much to celebrate in this category - any and all titles listed above have become firm favourites in my library and I cannot wait to cook from them.
For those familiar with Sami Tamimi and Yotam Ottolenghi’s Jerusalem, Falastin would have been an easy addition to one’s cookbook library. Coupled with Yotam and Ixta Belfrage’s Flavour - there is no doubt many of us will be experiencing an Ottolenghi holiday feast.
My beloved Somekind Supers got me onto Nik Sharma’s The Flavor Equation, and this book is a revelation. If you enjoy popular science and want to better understand how your senses play a part in unlocking flavour, The Flavor Equation is your book. Nik’s writing is approachable and relatable, and combined with his background in science and experience in food writing means cooks (and readers, in general) won’t feel alienated by terminology or academic style writing - it’s digestible and welcoming. His enthusiasm: permeable.
Nigella. Oh, Nigella. I held out for a month after the Australian publishing day before I brought home Cook, Eat, Repeat, and now she comes to work with me, sits with me during stolen lunch breaks, on the couch most evenings, and on my bedside table before I fall asleep. Nigella’s writing is a soothing balm to an unkind year. Her prose revels in the all forgotten romance of ingredients (anchovies, yes please), of ‘brown food’, and the joys of inviting people over for dinner.
Much like ‘How to Eat’, Nigella’s food writing prowess is unleashed - it’s bright, funny and engaging. She reminds us to eat and the pleasure of eating - first by meandering through her signature stream of consciousness; sometimes via a memory, a meal, a suggested recipe and its potential adaptations, before delivering a ‘proper’ recipe. You can easily purchase this as a reading book, not just to cook from. A gift that gives in many ways. Thank you, Nigella. You can say ‘microwave’ any which way you like.
If you love food writing, food diaries, and simple everyday home cooking, I hope you’re ready to bring home Nigel Slater, if you haven’t already. I will save the rambling but check out his weekly Guardian column (now 20+ years strong) and any/all of his writing, including his occasional check-ins on Twitter and Instagram. Greenfeast, Spring, Summer, has been out for a year now, I was reminded of great food writing in the form of The Kitchen Diaries II and quickly snapped up the last copy of Greenfeast at my local bookstore. No doubt it will be referenced as we approach summer in Australia.
How many times have I pointed out my ‘surprise’ at this year in general and observations of myself in this newsletter? I’m going to add another point of surprise in the number of books that have made it into this category. From the solitary title of ‘Sweet’ from Yotam Ottolenghi and Helen Goh used mainly for reference, baking wasn’t the done thing in a tiny kitchen with a temperamental and now, faulty gas oven.
Julia Busuttil Nishimura’s debut cookbook, Ostro, was the balm to the resentment I would feel towards said oven. With a bit of coaxing, and many hours spent sitting next to the dial to switch the oven back on after the thermostat would give up, I baked Julia’s banana bread; oat cookies; ricciarelli; plum, lemon olive oil, and spiced honey cakes; orange and hazelnut shortbread, and cardamom buns.
I tried a handful of lockdown food trends: Dalgona coffee, banana bread, no-knead bread (couldn’t get my head around when my starter was ready, and why did it smell so funky?), and focaccia, but ultimately found solace in pie and pastry dough.
Flora Shedden’s Aran includes a recipe for Anja’s Appletaart, and I do believe this will be my go-to apple pie recipe for many years to come. It’s the right level of sweetness (note: I used Pink Lady apples having not been able to track down the prescribed Bramley’s), and the crust is the perfect biscuity texture.
Buoyed by my success, and 6 apple pies later, I pre-ordered Petra Paradez’s Pie for Everyone and The Book on Pie by my newest obsession, I mean, BFF, Erin Jean McDowell. Both books, as expected, are focused on pie: pie dough, pie filling, pie finishes, savoury and sweet pies. What I hadn’t accounted for was the generosity of spirit that both authors - the anticipatory nature of inevitable pie failures, the pivots, the eventual excitement when you nail the perfect crust. Erin released some hefty YouTube content in conjunction with Food52 to support the promotion of The Book on Pie, and if this doesn’t convince you, I don’t know what will.
Somekind Press was launched during COVID-19 by Vaughan Mossop and Simon Davis “as a way to keep Australia hospitality venues alive and creatives busy”. And boy, have they managed to deliver. In the short time Somekind has been operating, this team has raised over $300K for Australian businesses - an absolute feat for a publisher who puts community first. They use the crowdfunding model to raise funds, and pay authors and contributors fairly - like, 50% to authors, 40% to contributors and 10% to Somekind kind of fair. It’s ballsy, it’s community-led, and it’s an important platform for creatives across industries to publish work (like a book) that would typically take months or years to become a reality.
The titles listed above are only the titles I’ve ordered so far, but there are so many titles and genres to explore over at Somekind. I’m also extremely biased having the absolute privilege of having an essay selected by Lee Tran Lam for New Voices on Food. Regardless, the power of Somekind and its community has some serious momentum behind it. This is support by the launch of the Somekind USA cohort in October with the incredible crew at Now Serving LA curating. Watch this space.
I worked full-time through the lockdown and 2020, and acknowledge how different this may be for others and their situation. I don’t take that position for granted and oftentimes worked longer hours than I should’ve - out of guilt and confusion for what was happening around me. So this category brings me much joy - to see some of the incredible work produced by people during lockdown (granted some projects were birthed prior to lockdown, but that’s not the point).
Alice Oehr’s Cooking with Friends is a project 5 years in the making, and an absolute triumph for someone like me who has attempted (albeit, a poor attempt) to collect and document family recipes. There are hundreds of contributions - Alice has hundreds of kind and generous pals - and each and every page includes an illustration from Alice. It’s the lo-fi, trip down memory lane that we all needed, and a wonderful reminder that perhaps we too should come together, and document recipes to be passed down for family and friends.
Speaking of triumphs, enter Rosheen Kaul and Joanna Hu, who released the beautiful Isol(Asian) Cookbooks (volumes 1, 2 and a vegan edition), and collected a bounty of mentions and awards. The books are no longer for sale as both creatives have moved onto a new project, but it was pretty darn magical seeing these two weave words and paint together.
Clementine Day is the mastermind behind Some Things I Like to Cook, and a patient soul who regularly puts up with my fangirling ways. Her recipes, serving ware, and aesthetics are delicious and dreamy - which is why I didn’t hesitate when she released ‘Coming together’ for pre-order. I don’t know when the book will be available for sale again but her website is a treasure chest of lunch, dinner, and sweets ideas that have appeared on the rare gathering this year.
Not cookbooks, but still worth mentioning these projects:
All the iterations of The Dave Chang show podcast, including Recipe Club
Still here (still life drawing)
Jessica Nguyen’s career pivot (epic)
And last, but not least, a list of books I dusted off and perused. For the comfort of tried and true recipes, of words, and memories of when I could plan what I would bring as part of pot luck night, to Christmas lunch, to share at lunch.
I hope cooking and eating have brought you comfort this year. In its rhythms and routines. I hope you’ve learned some new dishes, ordered takeout, supported your local(s), enjoyed a really good meal, reconnected with someone, read a book, doodled in a notebook, taken a walk. Whatever it is, I hope it’s been good, and that you’re good. And thanks for making it this far (outrageous, honestly - Substack keeps telling me I’ve neared the word limit lol). OK BYE.