The best cookbooks that prove eating locally, seasonally, and healthfully is also delicious

Wild Flavors follows Chef Didi Emmons over a year on farmer Eva Sommaripa’s farm 80 miles southeast of Boston.

Working as a line cook at Prune, Chef Gabrielle Hamilton gave me unforgettably simple advice as I struggled week after week to prepare a family meal on the fly: “you learn to cook by following recipes.” Duh! Five years later I followed recipes and learned to cook. I enrolled in herbal study at Commonwealth Holistic Herbalism in Brookline, MA.

I cooked out of Wild Flavors throughout my apprenticeship. Many of the plants we studied that year appeared in Wild Flavors in thoughtful, seasonal recipes that brought medicinal plants out of the classroom and into my kitchen, where they came to life.

Recipes like Chickweed Cheddar Grilled Cheese Sandwiches, sound familiar but feature unconventional, medicinal plant ingredients hiding in plain site in the fields and forests surrounding Eva’s Garden.

Who doesn’t love a cookbook that includes A Thermos of Hot Virginia Country-Style Beef Consommé as the first item on a picnic list?

The Taste of Country Cooking is a cookbook and narrative of life in Freetown, Virginia where Lewis grew up. I feel comforted and assured reading Lewis’ stories and recipes. Here is an expert relating a way of life where eating is seasonal, healthful, and communal.

Recipes are directions on how to prepare and serve food, sure, they’re also medicinal formulas (lemonade is technically medicinal!), ethnobotanical records, and historical documents intimately tied to how humans all over the world live lives. I am a sucker for cookbooks tied to seasons, foodways, and history.

Lewis’ recipes are presented seasonally and organized into menus linked to events: Emancipation Day Dinner, A Cool Evening Supper, Morning-After-Hog-Butchering Breakfast. Food is what we eat but also who we are.

Dr. Annie Fenn is a board-certified ob-gyn and chef who focused her work on degenerative brain disease after her mother’s dementia diagnosis.

I worked as part of the food styling team on this book in Idaho and Wyoming cooking and eating from Annie’s garden and local farmer’s markets. Her Italian-American heritage shines throughout her book, organized by foods with neuroprotective properties, most of them plants. Each of the 100 recipes are brain healthy, flavorful, and deeply satiating.

The book is educational and hopeful: she sites study after study that found the number one dementia-reducing behavior is a brain-healthy dietary pattern. As an herbalist and someone who recently lost a loved one to Alzheimer’s, I know compliance is key.

We are all more likely to eat a brain health diet if it’s flavorful, satiating, and adaptable to our social lives and familial traditions. Annie is truly awesome, and so are her recipes. 

I believe 2 things without a shred of doubt: all humans are creative and anyone can cook. Samin Nosrat adds the critical finale: “…and make it delicious.”

Everyone can benefit from this book, especially those who appreciate good, well-executed dishes but don’t quite understand what makes them so irresistible. As someone who didn’t do much better than fail at high school and college science, Nosrat makes incredibly complex concepts simple and doable! Not to mention, it’s delightfully illustrated.

The infographics, tables, and flowcharts make the content engaging and accessible. It is a cookbook, indispensable kitchen reference, and testament to the power of creative collaboration. Here is evidence that cooking is an art and a science. 

Amy is a friend and phenomenal vegetarian chef who defined vegan food as the executive chef of one of my favorite NYC restaurants: Angelica Kitchen (RIP).

At Angelica Kitchen, Amy used food to create a space for deeply nourishing solace and retreat from the intense demands of living in a wonderfully hectic city. At Home in the Whole Food Kitchen gave each us the skills, knowledge, and recipes to bring that space into our homes. It is not only a cookbook but a guide to building a kitchen that sustains and nourishes the body and mind.

I’ve referenced this book so many times that the pages have separated from the binding. Once you master these recipes, ways to adapt them to the seasons, local produce, and your tastes reveal themselves. After nearly 10 years I still make the Coconut & Quinoa pancakes weekly.