Autumn’s new cookbooks are an admixture of new releases from heavy hitters and debut works from extremely personal restaurants in San Francisco and Paris. Some are optimal for weekend projects (charcuterie, anyone?), while others rely on a well-stocked pantry for turnkey meals.
‘Good Things: Recipes and Rituals to Share with People You Love’
Samin Nosrat’s first cookbook, the lauded “Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat,” was an anti-recipe manifesto that mostly elided recipes, providing instead blueprints, charts and thinkpieces to help the reader think like a cook. Nosrat’s long-anticipated sophomore book, “Good Things,” beats with the same teaching heart, but this go-round relies more on real-deal recipes. Across sections such as “Good Things to Welcome Others,” “Good Things to Keep Up Your Sleeve” and “Good Things Are Better Shared,” Nosrat lets her hospitable, knowing self shine so you can do the same. (out now, $45, various booksellers)
‘My Cambodia: A Khmer Cookbook’
Nite Yun first brought the flavors of Cambodia to the restaurant Nyum Bai in Oakland, California. Now Yun runs the restaurant Lunette in San Francisco’s Ferry Building, and her debut cookbook, “My Cambodia,” captures the flavors of her Khmer cooking. Yun’s famous pork noodle soup, a pomelo salad with shrimp and crispy shallot, and round mochi orbs filled with palm sugar and covered in loads of fresh coconut are some of the recipes starring in the book. (Sept. 23, $35, various booksellers)
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‘On Meat: Modern Recipes for the Home Kitchen’
It has been eight years since Los Angeles chef Jeremy Fox published his first cookbook, “On Vegetables.” He has teased the eventual release of his comprehensive take on carnivorousness. It has now arrived and with it a collection of Fox’s ways with cured and smoked meats, along with sausages like merguez. Oodles of the recipes are projects; plenty of them are less involved. The throughline is always Fox’s precise point of view and zero-waste inclinations. (Sept. 24, $49.95, Book Larder)
‘Mokonuts: The Cookbook’
Mokonuts, the Paris restaurant run by Moko Hirayama and Omar Koreitem, has no peer in that city. A little Japanese, a mite Lebanese, some Italian and, of course, a touch French, the menu at Mokonuts wanders the world but feels like it could also exist nowhere other than Paris. The restaurant’s namesake cookbook shows you how to make some of Mokonuts’ most beloved plates, including labneh toast, tomato soup with crispy mussels and those world-famous cookies. (Sept. 25, $49.95, Book Larder)
‘Six Seasons of Pasta: A New Way with Everyone's Favorite Food’
Joshua McFadden is back; let the home cooks rejoice! His debut cookbook, “Six Seasons,” showed vegetable-loving cooks how to prepare vitalizing, big-flavored salads, mains and sides according to his organization of produce based on which seasons it grows in — two extra shoulder seasons beyond the normal four. His newest book, “Six Seasons of Pasta,” applies the same principle to dried pasta. There are new ways with his famous — and famously simple — pureed kale sauce, plus three variations on pasta fagioli and an endless array of seasonal pasta dishes. His co-author, Martha Holmberg, is a recipe whiz. You can be sure every recipe in this book will sing. (Sept. 30, $40, various booksellers)
‘Baking and the Meaning of Life: How to Find Joy in 100 Recipes’
Helen Goh is a pastry chef and spent many years developing recipes for the Ottolenghi empire in London. Now, she is launching her debut cookbook, “Baking and the Meaning of Life.” The recipes are a footloose compendium of all types of baking-adjacent items: Dutch baby with berries and yogurt cream, potato-garlic focaccia, chocolate mousse tart with poached pears. Goh convinces the reader that baking for your people is an admirable act. (Oct. 21, $40, various booksellers)
‘Something from Nothing: A Cookbook’
Dill, anchovies, brown butter, olives, turmeric: These are a mere few signature flourishes from the Alison Roman recipe vault. In Roman’s new cookbook, “Something from Nothing,” she wields those anchovies in a romano-bean braise with wine, serves roasted squash with dates warmed in brown butter and gilds chicken with turmeric and crushed olives. This is a pantry-centric cookbook that counts the boundless ways you can do the very most with the very least. (Nov. 11, $38, various booksellers)
‘Turtle Island: Foods and Traditions of the Indigenous Peoples of North America’
Cookbooks can be complex beings. Some feature faultless recipes; others sing a historical song. Some do both. “Turtle Island,” the latest book from the Indigenous Minnesota chef Sean Sherman, is about “both paying homage to the past and positioning Indigenous foodways as a path for the future,” said Bettina Makalintal at Eater. Sherman was raised on South Dakota’s Pine Ridge Reservation, and “Turtle Island” honors his youth. But the book also shares the food stories and recipes of Indigenous people from across all of North America. “Turtle Island” is an essential work. (Nov. 11, $45, various booksellers)
