Quarantine Cookbook Recommendations

I don’t know about you guys, but I have been cooking a ton during quarantine. It’s been refreshing (excluding the mountain of dishes…). It’s like my art project for the day. It’s also given me the opportunity to go through my not-so-small collection of cookbooks and try things I’ve never done before. In case you’ve been looking for some solid new ones to purchase, here are some recommendations from chez Spencer.

Chrissy Teigen’s Cravings and Cravings: Hungry For More

It’s easy to dismiss celebrity cookbooks—most are shameless cash grabs—but these are not. Well, they might be, but they’re worth buying. Don’t believe me? Ask chef Brian Moxey. He’ll tell you the same thing. Both of these cookbooks are full of ‘craveable’ dishes, which is fitting considering their titles. Almost every dish in the book sounds like something I’d want to make, and very few of them are a long time commitment. Her chunky creamy mushroom soup (with no dairy) is a winter favorite of mine. I just opened the cookbook to John’s fried chicken wings with spicy honey butter and BRB going to eat some wings.

Ivan Orkin’s The Gaijin Cookbook

I love Japanese food. So much. When I discovered takoyaki (basically pancake balls filled with octopus, ginger, crispy bits, scallions, etc.), my whole life changed. Then I met takoyaki’s larger, more impressive brother, the okonomiyaki. And now, thanks to Ivan, I have nearly perfected the cabbage and meat filled pancake, smothered in okonomi sauce, Kewpie mayo, and dancing flecks of bonito. Okonomiyaki has become almost a weekly addition to my menus. Life is good. Besides okonomiyaki, this cookbook is a great intro to making Japanese food at home and developing a sense for the flavors of Japan without being overwhelmed with new techniques and ingredients.

Michael Solomonov’s Zahav and Israeli Soul

Things I am planning on doing in the near future: going to Philadelphia and eating (almost) all my meals at Michael Solomonov’s restaurants. He has completely redefined my views on the Jewish cooking I more or less grew up with. So many dishes in both of these cookbooks are amazing—make Zahav’s lamb shoulder for a dinner party and drink up the accolades—but my absolute favorite is his falafel. I’ve never had a better falafel than the ones I’ve made using his recipe. The flavor is incredible, the texture is perfect. That recipe is in Israeli Soul and I think you should make it as soon as you possibly can. Here’s a video of him making it so you can see how easy it is.

Bonnie Frumkin Morales’ Kachka

Unlike Solomonov, I’m an Ashkenazi Jew, meaning my family comes mostly from Eastern Europe & Russia, rather than the Middle East or Mediterranean. Instead of getting to grow up falafel, pita, and kibbeh, we had stuff like noodle kugel, borscht, and gefilte fish. Bummer. In my head, Eastern European food was boring and plain, mostly made up of root vegetables, potatoes, and cabbage. Then I went to Kachka in Portland. Good god. That single meal completely shifted my thoughts on Russian cuisine. It’s delicate and thoughtful, taking mostly simple ingredients and combining them into something bursting with flavor—not unlike what Balkan Treat Box does. I was embarrassed for generalizing and putting down an entire cuisine. I’ve yet to make the Russian dumplings (pelmeni) that my dad and I absolutely demolished in Portland, but that will be changed shortly.

Jim Lahey’s Sullivan Street Bakery Cookbook and My Bread

Before there was Ted Wilson, there was Jim Lahey. And there still is Jim Lahey. You can probably find him at his NYC bakery, baking loaves of bread that are at least 10 times better than anything you or I have made at home during quarantine. My Bread is a great intro to bread making; I’m particularly fond of it because of how many no-knead recipes there are in it. I hate kneading. I am a lazy baker. If I can set it and forget it for 18 hours, I’d rather do that. Sullivan Street Bakery Cookbook includes more savory dishes that the bakery sells, so it’s not just bread. He also has My Pizza, which is nice, but not as useful as these two.

Melissa Martin’s Mosquito Supper Club

A few weeks back, I was complaining to my friend Mary that I didn’t have so many of my grandma’s recipes from when we were growing up. She lost a majority of her recipes years ago during a move, and being that she’s 90 years old, she doesn’t do much cooking these days. Mary, knowing that my grandma is from New Orleans, recommended a cookbook I’d never heard of: Mosquito Supper Club. I didn’t know who Melissa Martin was, I didn’t know that Mosquito Supper Club was the name of a restaurant in New Orleans. I knew nothing, but I went ahead and bought it anyway and I couldn’t be more glad that I did. This book is killer. Proof: I surprised my grandma with Martin’s shrimp stew recipe last week and, while she gave me a few tips for next time, it got 98% of her approval. And my grandma isn’t one to mince words about food.

George Calombaris’ Greek

I think Masterchef USA is incredibly dumb and overproduced, but Masterchef Australia is great. It’s just talented home cooks pushing themselves, not unlike The Great British Bake Off. After watching a few episodes where one of the judges, George Calombaris, showed off some of his Greek restaurant’s dishes, I was intrigued. In St. Louis, we have very limited Greek options, and outside of Bourdain and Andrew Zimmern shows, I really had no frame of reference for what modern Greek food could be. This cookbook is it. There are some wild dishes in here, mixing the traditional with the modern—like lamb brain ‘chicken nuggets’. But most of all, it’s just fun, out of the box dishes you might expect at a place like Taste Bar.