On vegetables Modern recipes for the home kitchen

ANYONE WHO LIKES TO COOK probably walks around the kitchen accompanied by a chorus of instructions gleaned from years of standing stove-side with Grandma or sitting couch-side with Ina. The best cookbooks play a role too - and the measure of a successful one comes down to this: How long does it stay with you? How long do you walk around with the author's voice in your head? This spring, more than a few pass that test, needling us not only to, say, use more salt, but reminding us about the meaning and value of home-cooked meals. One thing is very clear when it comes to the kitchen spirit sitting on your shoulder: You want that spirit to speak with authority. Joe Beddia, owner of Philadelphia's Pizzeria Beddia, a perennial entry in whatever "Best Pizza in America" story is showing up in your Facebook feed, has no problem on that front. It takes a certain kind of confidence to open a pizzeria with no phone, no seating, no bythe- slice ordering and no employees except the guy behind the cash register. The recipe offerings in Beddia's cookbook manifesto PIZZA CAMP: Recipes From Pizzeria Beddia (Abrams, $29.95), like the items on the menu at his pizzeria, are simple and targeted. His no-cook sauce (uncooked is crucial, he argues, since a concentrated ragu or tomato sauce will overwhelm everything) calls for four ingredients, and one of them is garlic, listed with the command not to buy the pre-peeled kind from China, "for crying out loud!" Beddia isn't afraid to be opinionated about your kitchen state of mind either: "Turn offyour phone," he writes in his dough recipe. "Making dough should be a calming meditative process and a great time to think of new ideas about pizza, or about life in general." Or about his stunning asparagus, onion and lemon white pizza made with a fennel-herb spring cream. Or that dough, which takes 24-plus hours to ferment and proof, but yields a yeasty never-fail crust that will be the only one you'll need from this point forward. PRINCESS PAMELA'S SOUL FOOD COOKBOOK: A Mouth- Watering Treasury of Afro-American Recipes (Rizzoli, $30) reminds us of an important lesson on every one of its pages: Cooking for people, feeding people, being proud of what you're feeding people, can be a powerful antidote to the ills of the world. Pamela Strobel's book, first published by Signet in a bare-bones paperback almost 50 years ago and now reissued with an introduction by the Southern food historians and cookbook authors Matt Lee and Ted Lee, represents a definitive collection of African-American cooking from the 1920s and '30s - hoe cake, cracklins, smothered pork chops, scrapple that calls for pig's feet, "Sauce Beautiful," made from a base of peach preserves and recommended alongside fried chicken. The recipes are short and written conversationally, often with minimal specifics about oven temperatures or cooking times. More important, though, the recipes offer a springboard from which the author can share a progressive worldview shaped by a lifetime of adversity. Strobel was on her own from age 10, after her mother died. As a teenager, she migrated north from Spartanville, S.C., to New York by way of North Carolina, using the only skill she had, cooking, to earn a living. It was a considerable skill, though, and when paired with a personality as magnetic as hers, it turned her into a New York institution. Her first restaurant, the Little Kitchen, opened in 1966. The place was devoted to Southern home cooking and an evening at the restaurant "ended in either rapture . . . or in ruin," according to the celebrities and insiders lucky enough to gain entrance. A whiffof entitlement from any guest was enough reason to be kicked out, and that was part of the allure. "Strobel had rules of decorum," the Lees write, "which protected her primacy in her restaurant and allowed her to construct evenings for people that were personal and special." Opposite each recipe in her book - first published three years after she opened the Little Kitchen - she offers a poem or remark that captures what it must've felt like to find herself in this position, thriving among the fanciest people in the toughest city in the world. Opposite two pie recipes, Angel and Molasses, she offers: "A woman runnin' a business got no business lettin' a man run her. It become a hand-to-mouth existence, with her hand to his mouth." Opposite the recipes for hash browns and oven fries: "This social type of woman she asked me if I read Ess-ko-fee-yay, and I told her I'd catch it when they made a movie out of it." What do you picture when you think of dinner at home? Those of us whose minds don't immediately default to Fresh Direct's prepared menu section might see the same thing our parents' generation saw: namely, the holy trinity of meat, vegetable, starch. According to DINNER: Changing the Game (Clarkson Potter, $35), by Melissa Clark, this is a problem. The way we're cooking for ourselves at home has yet to catch up with the way we order in restaurants (sharing entrees, combining small plates) and is only minimally taking advantage of ingredients once considered exotic, like preserved lemons and pomegranate molasses, that are now readily accessible in our hyper-evolved food culture. On the new frontier, Clark argues, we should ditch the idea of a composed plate with three distinct elements. Why not start with a bowl of grains, maybe topped with corn, black beans and avocado or fried tofu and kimchi? What's wrong with a baguette and an assortment of spreads like walnut-ty carrot muhammara, beet labneh or pea guacamole? Let me tell you: Absolutely nothing. Clark's book - shot by Eric Wolfinger, the LeBron James of food photography - seems to solve every dinner problem from the rote "It's 6:00 - what do I make for the kids?" to the headscratching "What do I make for my fancy friends?" Here's the crazy thing, though: Often the answer to both questions is the same recipe. This is because Clark, a natural teacher who writes the popular "A Good Appetite" column for this newspaper and is the author or co-author of over three dozen cookbooks, can elevate the simplest recipe with an ingredient or technique that ever-so-slightly broadens your horizons. Before you realize it, you're oneclicking harissa on Amazon and wondering why you never saw the halloumi sitting right there next to the feta in the supermarket. Another notable entry in the Everyday genre is TARTINE ALL DAY: Modern Recipes for the Home Cook (Lorena Jones/Ten Speed, $40), by Elisabeth Prueitt, who, alongside her husband, Chad Robertson, makes up the team behind San Francisco's legendary Tartine bakery and food empire. In this book - the first from the Robertson-Prueitt world to include all-purpose cooking along with the rustic breads and pastries Tartine fans would expect - Prueitt traffics in the simple-but-sophisticated culinary vocabulary we're used to seeing in the Chef Cooks at Home category. The difference here is that Prueitt comes at it from the glutenfree angle, and in a way that doesn't feel upending or intrusive. Maybe this is because she discovered her intolerance long before gluten-free eating was trendy and while she was running one of the most beloved baking institutions in the country, forcing her to dive deep into the ever widening world of non-wheat flours and starches. Her search for fluffy gluten-free cornbread led her to a combination of millet flour and masa harina, the cornmeal that has undergone "nixtamalization," a process that makes corn softer and more nutritious. Her banana bread is made with a mixture of three alt-flours (oat, almond and brown rice) as well as chia seeds in order to take advantage of their moisture- lending properties. Wheat-free buckwheat shows up in chocolate madeleines and crepes, more authentically known as galettes in Brittany, where they provide the foundation of a simple meal when paired with sautéed mushrooms and an egg. In other words, for anyone interested in exploring the modern baker's pantry - whether glutenfree or merely adventurous - Prueitt is the one you want holding your hand. After reading DINNER CHEZ MOI: 50 French Secrets to Joyful Eating and Entertaining (Little, Brown, $25), by Elizabeth Bard, you might wonder why you never thought of betweenmeal hunger as foreplay, which, according to Bard, an American living in Provence, is how the French manage to eat all those croque monsieurs and stay so trim. Though the French-Do-It-Better premise of this book is nothing new, its structure - 50 French secrets to joyful eating, accompanied by fresh, simple recipes with lots of chatty sidebars - is refreshing and ridiculously readable. In addition to that foreplay secret (Secret No. 38: "Enjoy Being Hungry. . . . Fifty percent of pleasure is anticipation"), there's a very basic one: "Shop well, cook simple" ("If you concentrate your energy . . . on buying high-quality meat, fish and vegetables, you won't need to cover them up"). Secret No. 26 recommends cooking a whole fish, not fillets, as the ultimate quick weeknight dinner ("the protective skin makes high-heat methods, like broiling or grilling, a real option"). Perhaps most logical, Secrets Nos. 34, 35, 36 respectively: "Sit down," "Eat together," "Put it on a plate." In the hands of someone less likable, the conceit could come across as gimmicky at best, arrogant at worst, but Bard's recipes are both approachable and presented in context - this classic yogurt cake is the first cake most French kids learn to make; these orange-and-anise-flavored lamb shanks are her never-fail dinner party main course; this croque monsieur is her favorite family dinner - which helps keep it real. So do the references to Bruce Springsteen and frosting in a can. Also in the read cover-to-cover department, SALAD FOR PRESIDENT: A Cookbook Inspired by Artists (Abrams, $35), by Julia Sherman, which earns its kitchen shelf real estate as much for the artist interviews as for the salads she's made a career of curating for her blog and, occasionally, museum rooftop gardens. One thing is for sure: You won't find many cookbooks that address the behavior of William Wegman's famously photographed Weimaraners preceding a recipe for his charoset; or Tauba Auerbach discussing font design as a lead-in to her shredded brussels sprout salad with lemony almonds and shaved apple. If the leap seems large, Sherman would like us to think about it this way: Curating a salad is just another form of expressing oneself. So she encourages us to "think like an artist: to steal ideas, break rules and find something spectacular in the everyday." Hence: little gems with crispy pancetta and green Caesar dressing, flank steak with bean sprouts and kimchi-miso dressing. If everyday spectacular is a genre, she's nailed it. SHAKE SHACK: Recipes and Stories (Clarkson Potter, $26), by Randy Garutti and Mark Rosati, is what you might call onbrand. I.e., it's exactly the book you want it to be. Yes, you'll find at-home instructions for replicating all your favorite orders - from their craggy-edged smashed Californiastyle burger to the vanilla custard Concretes - but, in typical Shack fashion, you'll also come away feeling like (a) you want to apply for a job there; (b) now is the time to join the "Maker" revolution . . . mustard, relish, jam, anything; (c) you're somehow part of something way bigger than burgers and fries. Inspired by the drive-ins of his St. Louis youth, the restaurateur Danny Meyer started this blockbuster burger chain with a hot dog cart in Madison Square Park in 2001 in order to create "community wealth," and he succeeded, overseeing a company that made people unspeakably happy with his "fine casual" burger-and-shakes fare. Garutti, the Shake Shack chain's C.E.O., and its culinary director, Rosati (with an assist from the veteran editor Dorothy Kalins), tell the whole story, highlighting the do-gooder staff, the adoring Instagramming customers and a recurring "local hero" sidebar that pays tribute to the suppliers who make it all taste so good. Though cooks should know that translating the Shack experience at home is going to be a bit elusive (unless you have easy access to all those local heroes), there are enough legitimate tricks of the trade to up your game at the griddle: Use Martin's potato rolls; toast and butter them with a brush; grind muscle meat, not economy cuts; invert a strainer over your frying burger to control fat splatter; American cheese takes exactly 45 seconds to melt on a patty; add baking soda to your fried chicken dredge; invest in a Ushaped crinkle cutter; and on and on. And, it has to be said, no lines. Samin Nosrat's SALT, FAT, ACID, HEAT: Mastering the Elements of Good Cooking (Simon & Schuster, $35) is an exhaustively researched treatise on the four pillars of successful cooking. If you can train yourself to recognize the proper balance between salt, fat and acid, then apply the right kind of heat, you'll churn out simple, sophisticated fare in the spirit of Berkeley's Chez Panisse, where Nosrat started out. The recipes come almost as an afterthought to the teaching portion of the program - they officially begin on page 224 - and that's the point. Above all, Nosrat wants you to learn to trust yourself, to pay attention to sensory cues and not rely on the oven dial or the recipe's cooking time to decide when your food is ready. Better to use your own palate to measure the balance of flavors in a tomato sauce than a recipe written by someone using different tomatoes from a different farm. There are no photos accompanying her recipes, but the illustrations by Wendy MacNaughton further the mission, with wheels like "The World of Acid," a cheat sheet for matching the typical cooking and garnishing acids for over two dozen international cuisines. There's a huge amount of technical information crammed into this book, but the lessons that come straight from the Chez Panisse kitchen tend to be the ones you hold onto. A chef changes the way Nosrat thinks about acid when he tastes a perfect velvety carrot soup and tells her to add a transformative teaspoon of vinegar. ("While salt enhances flavors, acid balances them.") Nosrat recalls learning how to make a simple polenta in her early years, when Cal Peternell (another Chez Panisse chef-turnedcookbook- author) keeps insisting she add more salt, finally coming over to the pot to throw three palmfuls in himself. Three palmfuls. Try getting that image out of your head every time you're stove-side, hovering over a pot of virtually anything. This spring brought the usual crop of vegetable-focused collections, one of which might have the potential to rearrange your culinary worldview. SCRAPS, WILT AND WEEDS: Turning Wasted Food Into Plenty (Grand Central Life & Style, $35) is written by Tama Matsuoka Wong and the Noma co-founder Mads Refslund, who is on the forefront of the movement to raise awareness about the environmentally devastating amount of food that goes to waste every year. (Globally, we're talking an estimated $750 billion.) The book is organized by ingredient, making it easy to search for ideas to repurpose whatever vegetable is close to liquefying in the crisper. Refslund challenges readers to honor not just the imperfect but the scraps and the pulp. "Instead of slimy fish skin, see crispy umami. Instead of mushy fruit, see succulent fermented glaze." That's how you'll end up telling your children to save their lunchbox apple cores - to be boiled into a stock that will be used in apple scrap cake. Or why you will think twice before discarding the core of a cauliflower - instead of just spiralizing it into noodles, then tossing with pecorino, butter, crème fraÎche and spices for a reimagined cacio e pepe. There are plenty of cheffy moments - he loves grinding dehydrated vegetable pulp into powders to be used just about everywhere - but they're balanced by more approachable solutions, including a chapter on classic recipes that stretch out scraps, which in other cookbooks would simply be categorized as peasant food. As he acknowledges, "This is the way people have lived frugally - to survive - from the beginning of humanity." But it sure is nice to have a Michelin-starred chef giving his take this time around. "If you're looking for 10 Easy Weeknight Dinners for Vegetarians," writes Jeremy Fox in ON VEGETABLES: Modern Recipes for the Home Kitchen (Phaidon, $49.95), "this book will not be of much use to you." Who would it be of use to? Serious cooks who revere produce; adventurers; foragers; design nerds - purely as an object, the book is stunning; and, well, definitely Mads Refslund, with whom Fox shares more than the usual chef's disdain for waste. "Throwing away food embarrasses me," Fox writes. "It makes me feel like a hack chef." Fox, who may be the furthest thing from a hack, punched the clock at a handful of famous kitchens in California, most notably Manresa in Los Angeles, before becoming the chef at the vegetarian mecca Ubuntu in Napa. His mission there wasn't unusual - as much as possible, cook with the food you grow - but the dishes were. (Arguably his most famous: a salad of peas with white chocolate.) David Chang, René Redzepi, Thomas Keller and all the right people flocked to Napa, the reviewers gushed and the awards piled up, but this only exacerbated Fox's lifelong battle with anxiety, leading to an early flameout and a few years of rock-bottom darkness when he almost stopped cooking. ("A turnip looked like a stranger.") The book is populated with dishes that contain time-consuming sub-recipes (for, say, sea moss tapenade or cured egg yolk), and it goes without saying that most of the recipes are only worth it if you're working with the best possible produce, but this collection isn't pretending to be anything else. Fox's ultimate goal is to give readers the confidence to expand their idea of what can be done with produce you might have written off- and also to leave us with this truth, whether we're making Fox's caramel black olive paste or Kraftmacaroni and cheese: "Food from a happy kitchen tastes better than food from an unhappy one." Amen. 0 What's your go-to summer cookbook? "In Sweden, most land is public land, so you can cook outside - in the forest or by the water. Niklas Ekstedt explores that phenomenon well in 'Food From the Fire: The Scandinavian Flavours of Open-Fire Cooking.' " - MARCUS SAMUELSSON ONLINE: Don't mind the heat and can't bear to leave the kitchen? For a quick look at 15 more cookbooks, visit nytimes.com/books. JENNY ROSENSTRACH is the author of three cookbooks and writes the blog "Dinner: A Love Story."