One great cookbook: Joshua McFadden’s ‘Six Seasons of Pasta’

A classic cookbook is often formed in the forges of time. Years of kitchen use and page-flipping transform a book into a genre fixture. Every now and again, a brand-new book waves its knowing hand. People look in its direction, tow it into the kitchen, cook from it once, then again. And again. They ask themselves, “Is this text an instant classic?”

“Six Seasons of Pasta: A New Way with Everyone’s Favorite Food,” released in October 2025, is one such cookbook.

Division as greatness

“Six Seasons of Pasta” was, in many ways, fated to be a triumph. Its chef-author, Joshua McFadden, had been known for years as a vegetable soothsayer. His debut cookbook, “Six Seasons: A New Way with Vegetables,” showed how to bring vegetables to glorious life. His co-author, Martha Holmberg, translated McFadden’s restaurant-minded technique into unimpeachable recipes for the home cook.

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McFadden is as impassioned about pasta as he is about the garden, so he and Holmberg replicated their winning formula. As with their debut cookbook, “Six Seasons of Pasta” is anchored by six chapters that divide the year into six rather than four seasons: spring, early summer, midsummer, late summer, fall and winter. Artichokes star in five pastas for spring, including in radiatore with chicken and lemon-flavored ricotta. Eggplant appears with linguine, tomato and almond pesto, or nestled with capers and golden raisins between ribbons of mafaldine. You get the idea.

Boil, boil, toil and (no) trouble

The book opens its aperture to the amplest of wide angles, too. “Six Seasons of Pasta” begins with a series of treatises on the fundamentals of McFadden’s pasta-cooking style. “Cooking pasta is simple in the way writing a haiku is simple,” he writes.

He clarifies how much salt is the right amount to add to your boiling water. He reveals the effortlessness of building your sauce in the skillet as the pasta boils. He tells you why you should add any cheese while you finish cooking the pasta in said skillet: so the cheese has an opportunity to melt and emulsify the sauce. Richness is goodness, and McFadden’s 50/50 mix of pecorino and Parmigiano-Reggiano is a pantry godsend.

For the make-ahead, ragu-obsessed there is a chapter on long-cooked sauces, including a white chicken ragu woodsy with thyme and rosemary, a black peppercorn-laden short rib ragu and even a vegan nut ragu with five kinds of nuts. Faultless recipes for now, impeccable recipes for your future self, exhilarating recipes and guidance that upends how you cook: All the makings of a classic.