100 books like The Homesick Texan Cookbook

Josef Centeno honors the food he grew up with in San Antonio. The book is named for his great-grandmother, “Ama´” and the influence of both his family, and his life as the chef of Los Angeles’s Bar Ama permeate the book. “Reimagined” is the word Josef uses to describe his recipes, and I think it’s a perfect descriptor for his particular vision.

Chef Centeno’s taste leans towards acidic, with lots of citrus and vinegars. Words like pickled and vinaigrette appear often in recipe titles and there is no shortage of chiles and salsas. I learn something every time I make a new recipe from this book, which is something I aspire to have my own cookbooks to do for others.

I owe a huge debt of gratitude to the Flores family for hiring me on as a busier/bartender shortly after I moved to Tucson from Ohio in 1993. Carne Seca, albondigas and topopo were all new words to me that have since become embedded in my daily experience.

Carlotta Flores published a cookbook of recipes from the restaurant in 1998 and I reference it often in my own cookbook, Taste of Tucson. It’s a must-have book for anyone interested in learning more about Sonoran style Mexican food.

The Border Cookbook will teach you just about everything you need to know about the many different styles of Southwestern cuisine from the southern border regions. Trailing from northern Mexico to southern California, across Arizona and up through northern New Mexico, the book is organized by recipe instead of region so you can see how ingredients are uniquely utilized. Headers explain the history and regional significance of each dish.

Can a cookbook change the course of your life? Perhaps. I attended art school in the late 1980’s. A favorite Sunday morning diversion was wandering through the aisles of the nearby Book Loft in Columbus, Ohio. One day I came across the Coyote Cafe Cookbook and my life was subtly changed forever. It put the seed of what would grow into a passion for Southwestern cuisine into my being, and it may have been part of the catalyst for me moving to this region. The recipes are intriguing and a little fancy. Cooking from this book is a treat.

Until 2000, What Mrs. Fisher Knows About Old Southern Cooking (1881) was considered the first cookbook authored by a Black American. It was then that historians chanced upon an incredibly lucky finding: a copy of A Domestic Cookbook at the bottom of a box. As far as we know, there’s only ONE copy left of this little 39-page collection of recipes, which was first published in 1866.

Historians and researchers have delved deep into the mystery of author Malinda Russell, but we barely know more than she tells us in her introduction -- a life story laid out in stark, gripping first-person over just two short pages. As a business owner who specialized in pastry, Russell’s book has upended assumptions about 19th-century Black women and African American cuisine. In such a slim volume, she still includes 70+ kinds of cake and comments that “a great many ladies have wished to… show more.

I would be remiss if I didn't have a "food" book from my list. While I have read and liked many such books, Adler's is the top gem. 

As I read her book, I pictured us in my kitchen conversing about how we had modified a recipe to save time, money, or both. We compared notes on the lost art of thrift in the kitchen; how to turn bread heels, beans, and bones into tasty components of a meal. 

Adler shows us that we can be cooks on our terms, in our own kitchens, delightfully free of pretense and convention. May this book free your mind and inspire you to get creative in the kitchen to discover what's possible!

Everything this reality TV personality Lisa Vanderpump does looks beautiful, elegant, and expensive on TV. Of course, I wanted to see how she does that, that’s why I purchased this book.

I was pleasantly surprised by how honestly she described so many things she does as “smoke and mirrors” in her words. From owning many restaurants in different countries, she has a wide variety of knowledge on hosting people. She shared many tips on how to make beautiful presentations of food and table settings effortlessly such as decorating store-bought plain cake to make it look like a custom-ordered cake from a high-end cake shop.

Her dry sense of British humor really adds fun to reading this book as well. The recipes in this book are mainly from chefs who worked for her restaurants, I was really impressed when I tested them out but easy enough for home cooks like me… show more.

Athena Calderone welcomes you into her casual, cool, and elegant world in Cook Beautiful.

Recipes are listed by season, using simple and healthy ingredients at their peak of freshness. The recipes are simple and straightforward and include gorgeous and “swoon-worthy” photos and tips explaining how to style and plate your meal for maximum impact and little effort.

The recipes in Cook Beautiful are equally impressive for an intimate dinner party, yet simple enough to serve on a Tuesday night. Many of the seasonal dishes have made it into my own dinner rotation.

I know, I know, this one isn’t a “story” book, but it IS a picture book! In fact, it’s the first recipe-in-picture book my family has come across. Accessible, even to our toddler, this inviting book has big, bright pictures so the pre-readers in your family can fully participate in kitchen adventures.

Our favorite recipe in this one? It’s hard to pick, but the very first one is a go-to because the easy-peasy Froothie is a win for our smoothie-loving household!

When I first read Tamar's original book, An Everlasting Meal, I knew I had found a kindred home-cook spirit in her. And to be honest with you, I thought that book couldn't be topped. But then she wrote The Everlasting Meal Cookbook!

This cookbook is the definitive guide on how to use up every imaginable leftover in your kitchen so that almost nothing will go to waste. Chances are, when you begin to implement Tamar's leftover recipes, you will see very little going into your kitchen garbage can. You'll gaze upon every scrap, every crumb in your kitchen in a new light.

Next thing you know, you will be taking the heel of a loaf of bread, a sliver of a parmesan rind, and a few vegetables from your crisper (that look a bit past their prime) and turning it all into a dinner that friends and family alike will… show more.