I loved cooking and baking since I was a child, but it wasn’t until I was an adult that I rediscovered the joy of the kitchen. Even though I may enjoy tossing off a batch of eclairs on a whim or experimenting with sous vide, I can get into a cooking rut of last-minute dinners and grab-and-go meals and forget why I enjoy it in the first place! These five books never fail to remind me of the figurative (and sometimes literal) magic of making delicious food with my own hands.
Turner’s snarky, laugh-out-loud funny rom-coms are always my top pick for a mood booster, and the addition of warring chefs forced to work together on a cooking show to advance one’s career and save the other’s makes this of my favorites.
While not as heavy on the luxurious food descriptions of some of my other picks, the sheer fun of this book always reminds me that food—like life—is best taken with a dose of whimsy and an adventurous spirit.
Celebrity chef Maxwell Cavanagh is known for many things: his multiple Michelin stars, his top-rated Culinary Channel show To the Max, and most of all his horrible temper. Hadley Beckett, host of the Culinary Channel's other top-rated show, At Home with Hadley, is beloved for her Southern charm and for making her viewers feel like family.
When Max experiences a very public temper tantrum, he's sent packing to get his life in order. When he returns, career in shambles, his only chance to get back on TV and in the public's good graces is to work alongside Hadley.
This modern retelling of Sense and Sensibility charms with its tea shop setting, complicated sisterly relationships, and seamless prose.
But the real appeal to this book is the obvious love and expertise with which Lodge describes food, tea, and all their accoutrements. The delicious recipes at the end of each chapter certainly don’t hurt either.
Need some baking inspiration? Just flip through and choose from recipes like Cranberry Vanilla Scones, Pear and Earl Gray Hand Pies, and Raspberry Cream Cheese Kolaches.
“Know your own happiness. You want nothing but patience - or give it a more fascinating name, call it hope.” ― Jane Austen, Sense and Sensibility
Just a few years after their father’s business scandal shatters their lives, Jane and Celia Woodward find themselves forced out of their San Francisco tea shop. The last thing Jane wants is to leave their beloved shop on Valencia Street, but when Celia insists on a move to Austin, Texas, the sisters pack up their kid sister Margot and Jane’s tea plants, determined to start over yet again.
This sweet romance might be short in length, but it’s long on culinary delights and the idea that food can bring people together.
The book’s main appeal is the internal journeys of the food blogger heroine and chef hero, but I can’t lie—the mere mention of things like blueberry-and-basil scones has me rushing to my baking supplies to figure out my own version…and the scene involving butternut squash lasagna with browned butter, sage, and apples has my mouth watering every time.
In fact, I might need to take a break from this book rec to whip up a dupe.
No can deny that pie is magic, but in this book, pies are literal magic: anyone who eats the fruit pies at the Blackbird Café will receive messages from their long-lost loved ones, thanks to the blackbirds who arrive at midnight and sing their dreams.
I adore the touch of magical realism in this gentle novel, and I can never read it without wanting a slice of pie and a glass of blackberry sweet tea. There’s something so quintessentially summery and wholesome about this book that you can practically taste it as you turn the pages.
THE USA TODAY BESTSELLER Heather Webber's Midnight at the Blackbird Cafe is a captivating blend of magical realism, heartwarming romance, and small-town Southern charm.
Nestled in the mountain shadows of Alabama lies the little town of Wicklow. It is here that Anna Kate has returned to bury her beloved Granny Zee, owner of the Blackbird Café.
It was supposed to be a quick trip to close the café and settle her grandmother’s estate, but despite her best intentions to avoid forming ties or even getting to know her father’s side of the family, Anna Kate finds herself inexplicably drawn to…
Yes, this is a cookbook, but 1) it’s by the inimitable Stella Parks of Serious Eats fame and 2) it’s absolutely dripping with American baking nostalgia.
With elevated takes on childhood favorites like fudge brownies and cinnamon rolls and homemade dupes of classics like Twinkies, Oreos, and Pop-Tarts, I defy you to flip through this book without marking a dozen recipes to try.
In my home, breakfast muffins made from her Top Shelf Muffin Mix are on permanent repeat, and the Choose-Your-Own-Adventure approach to chocolate chip cookies never disappoints. Just don’t read it if you’re watching your diet, because I can guarantee it will send you running to the kitchen within five minutes of opening the cover.
If you have ever marvelled at a flawless slice of cherry pie in a television bake-off and wondered if you could re-create it at home, BraveTart is for you. Here are recipes for one-bowl Devil's Food Layer Cake, Blueberry Muffins, Glossy Fudge Brownies and even Parks's own recipes for re-creating popular supermarket treats! These meticulously tested, crystal-clear and innovative recipes bring a pastry chef's expertise to your kitchen.
Along the way, BraveTart tells the surprising story of how these desserts came to be. With a foreword by The Food Lab's J. Kenji Lopez-Alt, vintage illustrations of historical desserts and breathtaking…
When Gemma left her hometown of Haven Ridge, Colorado, she swore she’d never return. But when her best friend asks her to stay with her daughter while she’s on a business trip, she doesn’t have the heart to say no. She’s just not prepared for the maelstrom of teenage heartbreak coming her way.
Gemma does the only thing she can: ply her honorary niece with baked goods and affirmation. Soon her place is ground zero for teenage girls seeking sugar and consolation—which the girls dub the Broken Hearts Bakery. Complicating matters is an unexpected reunion with Gemma's high school sweetheart, who is determined to make amends for the past. Because as it turns out, her niece isn't the only one nursing a broken heart…
I’m an OB/GYN, passionate about adventuring beyond what’s expected. This has led me to pivot multiple times in my career, now focusing on writing. I’ve written a play, The Post-Roe Monologues, to elevate women’s stories. I cherish the curiosity that drives outer and inner exploration, and I love memoirs that skillfully weave the two. The books on this list feature extraordinary women who took risks, left comfort and safety, and battled vulnerability to step into the unknown. These authors moved beyond the stories they’d believed about themselves–or that others told about them. They invite you to think about living fuller and bigger lives.
Tap Dancing on Everest, part coming-of-age memoir, part true-survival adventure story, is about a young medical student, the daughter of a Holocaust survivor raised in N.Y.C., who battles self-doubt to serve as the doctor—and only woman—on a remote Everest climb in Tibet.
The team attempts a new route up the East Face without the use of supplemental oxygen, Sherpa support, or chance for rescue. When three climbers disappear during their summit attempt, Zieman reaches the knife edge of her limits and digs deeply to fight for the climbers’ lives and to find her voice.
Tap Dancing on Everest: A Young Doctor's Unlikely Adventure
The plan was outrageous: A small team of four climbers would attempt a new route on the East Face of Mt. Everest, considered the most remote and dangerous side of the mountain, which had only been successfully climbed once before. Unlike the first large team, Mimi Zieman and her team would climb without using supplemental oxygen or porter support. While the unpredictable weather and high altitude of 29,035 feet make climbing Everest perilous in any condition, attempting a new route, with no idea of what obstacles lay ahead, was especially audacious. Team members were expected to push themselves to their…
