My Top 4 Cookbooks

Graham and I have moved across the country a couple of times. He’s a minimalist to the core and doesn’t need a whole lot of stuff to be happy. But I have no trouble easily filling a towering stack of boxes with kitchen tools and equipment, beautiful ceramic plates, and no small number of fragile glasses. For my work, I also happen to need a robust collection of cookbooks. I reference them when I can’t remember how to properly make a particular dish, and most importantly, I look to them for inspiration. My collection of cookbooks has grown steadily over the years. I love each one of them for different reasons, but I also have some favorites. If pressed to put together just one small box of books, I know exactly the four I would choose. 

I’d pick The Zuni Café Cookbook by Judy Rodgers because it has always been my north star; Vegetable Literacy by Deborah Madison for the seemingly endless breadth of knowledge it contains; The Taste of Country Cooking by Edna Lewis for the way it profoundly links food to place; and The Chez Panisse Menu Cookbook by Alice Waters with illustrations by David Lance Goines because their collaboration never fails to inspire me and Graham in our work together.