I have a cookbook problem. There, I said it.
While everyone was preaching minimalism and purging their home of extraneous items during the pandemic, I ran in the opposite direction. While I had a decent collection, due to my proclivity for home cooking and the occasional dinner parties, lockdown accelerated its growth. When restaurants were shut down, I dreamt of going out, and my longing manifested as aspirational cookbook buying, masked grocery store runs, and food exchanges. Cookbooks felt like the way to travel from my couch. I read them at night in front of the TV, doggedly earmarking recipes.
I’m sure there’s plenty of psychology to this, and I’m not asking for any formal diagnosis, but instead, I’m here to (ahem) get on my soapbox and tell you: We should all be buying cookbooks. Eating is its own joy, but making is another, and cooking is an actually shareable hobby that can have positive reverberations in life. I’m not cooking as much as I’d like these days, but each cookbook I bring into my home serves as inspiration. It keeps me learning about new cultures and new-to-me foods, and in turn, it makes me more adventurous in my restaurant outings. Even more so, my forays into local cookbooks help me feel like I have a written record of the restaurants in my time as a food writer, something I hope to carry on with me until … well, until my shelves give or I can no longer hold a wooden spoon in my hand.
This year’s slate of Bay Area cookbooks is an exciting one, and I wanted to take a moment to shout out the ones I have earmarked for purchase. My main supplier is Omnivore Books, a San Francisco treasure. I’ve included links to their store for each book (keep it local, folks!). And if you’re inspired enough to buy a new cookbook, check out Omnivore’s events page, as it’s likely they’re having an event for that author at the shop.
A Feather and a Fork: 125 Intertribal Dishes from an Indigenous Food Warrior
Crystal Wahpepah and Amy Condon | Penguin Random House, out now
Crystal Wahpepah, the chef behind Wahpepah’s Kitchen in Oakland, dives into the world of Indigenous cooking and the powerful history behind it in this collection. The book also serves as a record of Oakland’s backstory, as both Ohlone land and one of the hubs for American Indian relocation, and takes a close look at Indigenous foodways. The cookbook is organized by type of ingredients, and, as Wahpepah writes, “are modern interpretations of a precolonial Native American diet,” and it’s a well-written entry point into an underrepresented cuisine.
Bake Sum: Asian American Pastries, Breads, and Other Treats
Joyce Tang and Soleil Ho | Hardie Grant Books, September 1
Any Bay Area pastry fiend worth their weight in flour should be familiar with Bake Sum, the Asian American bakery on Grand Avenue in Oakland. Joyce Tang’s baked goods captured familiar flavors in new forms, and now she’s sharing the recipes and stories behind some of those items. Think black sesame snickerdoodles, brown butter mochi bites, fresh fruit sandos, and even a breakdown of her popular croissubi, the love child of a croissant and a Spam musubi.
Lion Dance Cafe: Authentic, Not Traditional
C-Y Chia and Shane Stanbridge | Self-published, out now
I won’t bore you all with the story behind my (brief) dalliance into vegan-dom in my 20s, but suffice to say, if I had an exciting Italo-Singaporean cookbook like this one to learn from, I might not have been as quick to abandon it. The cookbook from chefs C-Y Chia and Shane Stanbridge is not only a snapshot of their popular, now-closed Oakland restaurant, but it’s also a guide to creating dishes that soar — without meat. Get granular and make your own sambals and pickles, or dive into a project like the laksa soup. This vegan cookbook offers something other than just salads.
Caribbean Cocktails: Drinks and Bites from the Afro-Latino Diaspora
Nelson German and Andréa Lawson Gray | Ten Speed Press, June 2
As someone who both dabbles in home cocktails and is a fan of Sobre Mesa in Oakland, this is a specific intersection of my interests. My knowledge of mixing rum-based cocktails is woefully limited, so I’m hoping this will not only improve my understanding of that drink space, but also take me beyond the rum overtones into other Caribbean liquors. The book also thankfully has some nonalcoholic variations on the drinks, as well as some small plates recipes, which should come in handy for any upcoming dinner parties. (Not that I’m already planning or anything!).
P.S. I don’t have enough space to write up everyone, so here’s the rest of my list for the year from local authors and chefs:
Scandinavian Everyday: Vibrant, Simple Meals from Northern Europe, Nichole Accettola (May 19)
Ukraïne: Recipes and Stories from Kyiv to the Black Sea, Anna Voloshyna (October 13)
Cooking Thai: Heritage and Modern Recipes from My Kitchen Notebooks, Pim Techamuanvivit and Andrea Nguyen (August 25)
The New Cafe Beaujolais Cookbook: Recipes from the Iconic Mendocino Restaurant, Julian Lopez (Out now)
Fully Belly: Recipes and Stories from a Family Farm, Amon Muller and Jenna Muller (Out now)
