cookbooks

On a chilly October morning, a stroll through my favorite farmers market yielded a large sack of winter squash from a lone man in the last row, his cheeks cherry red from the harsh wind. Unsure what to do with these odd-shaped ugly ducklings, I knew I was yearning for comfort food, seeking solace from a constant internal roar brought on by a chaotic job. Winter squash were not part of my cooking routine, but I sank into a rhythm as I peeled away the sandy brown rind of a butternut squash. As I revealed its gorgeous burnt-orange flesh, appreciation for the beauty of this squash struck me. 

If you love cookbooks as much as I do, you’re always looking for more to add to your (already abundant) collection. As summer draws to a close, I’ve rounded up a few of the most exciting cookbooks from the season, which I’ve been cooking from (and just reading) all summer and all of which I’m super happy to add to my shelves.

For your cookbook-perusing pleasure, I’ve given each book a likely fan category, but many of the books include a wide variety of recipes. Here are the first five; check out the second batch in Part II. (Even the most ardent cookbook fans can experience cookbook overload, after all.)

When our fearless editor, Lee, sent out an email to the SGT writers asking if anyone was interested in reviewing a raw food cookbook, I jumped at the chance. I didn’t know much about raw food, aside from the obvious, and envisioned myself learning how to carve flowers out of carrots and arrange basil leaves around a plate, just so. I figured raw food was, you know, pretty. I soon learned that there are more than aesthetic reasons for eating raw foods, and Susan Powers does a great job of explaining the health and environmental benefits on her website, Rawmazing. In short, cooking food destroys or alters valuable enzymes, vitamins, minerals, and phytonutrients that we need for our health, so preparing foods without cooking them gives our bodies what they need “to thrive, not just survive.”

Pumpkins and other squash have been accumulating in my house since early October, so with Thanksgiving approaching, I decided to put them to the use they were intended for: delicious baked goods.

The first recipe below is so easy a child could make it (all right, maybe not a small child) -- I've been making it since I was in middle school, when I found a fast, easy pumpkin-pie recipe that didn't even bother with a crust (which I viewed as an annoying impediment to the pumpkin custard filling). I've been making it ever since.

Back then, I made the pie with canned ingredients. Nowadays the process is a little more involved, but a lot more tasty. A few years back I decided to experiment. I roasted a pumpkin from the Eastside Food Co-op and made my usual pie recipe. I expected it to be less good than one made with canned pumpkin. Turns out I was wrong. I'll never go back.