Happy New Year, everyone! I hope your 2024 is off to a good start.
It's been so long that I've posted a roundup of recent books I worked on that I'm just going to pick a few here and ignore the rest—and hope to do better in 2024.
This first one, Perfectly Good Food, was one of my favorite books I edited last year. Margaret Li and Irene Li are Boston-based restaurateurs, known especially for Mei Mei Dumplings. But this book is really geared for anyone who buys, cooks, and eats food. It's all about how to stop wasting food you spent good money on and also how to be more creative in the kitchen with what you do have. You'll learn how to use up stuff that is a little past its prime (wilted spinach, limp celery), how to use the parts of stuff you usually throw away (carrot tops, broccoli stems), how to make a great meal out of whatever is hanging out in your fridge (not just soup, either!), how to store food so it lasts longer, and more. And it's got delightful drawings throughout. I just love this book. [I also love the shout-out I got in the Acknowledgements: "To Karen Wise, thank you for your detailed, thoughtful copyediting and generally making this book so much better (especially the life-changing lemon tip)." That tip would be, of course, that you can freeze whole lemons and limes!]
Next, another book from Michael Ruhlman—I forget how many of his books I've edited over the years, but in fact I'm working on another one right now! This time he takes his genius system of ratios for cooking (from his book Ratio) out of the kitchen and onto the bar cart for The Book of Cocktail Ratios. The idea is, if you know how to make a Manhattan (2 parts whiskey, 1 part sweet vermouth, plus bitters), you know how to make a Rob Roy (2 parts Scotch, 1 part sweet vermouth, plus bitters)—just switch out the booze. If you know how to make a Daiquiri, you know how to make a Whiskey Sour; if you know how to make a Margarita, you know how to make a Cosmopolitan; you get the idea! There are lovely illustrations throughout, of both the finished drinks and the formulas to make 'em.
And if you've had a few too many cocktails? Maybe take a look at The Complete Guide to Healthy Drinks (this one I proofread). Make your own kombucha? Why not! Or smoothies. Or teas, juices, seltzers, and more. You can never go wrong with the recipes from the knowledgeable folks at ATK, and the photos are luscious.
And finally, not a cookbook, but a positively gorgeous photo memoir from Melissa Newman, the daughter of Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward. It's called Head Over Heels, and it documents the lives of this very public but also very private couple. Clearly theirs was a love for the ages. (For this one I edited the captions and did some fact-checking; talk about a labor of love to get first peek at all the photos—some never before seen!)
That Healthy Drinks book was fun. How cool that you got to work on the Newman book!! Happy new year!
Posted by: Beth F | January 16, 2024 at 08:12 AM