793: Best Cookbooks of the Year So Far. Plus, a Very Early Fall Preview with Maggie Hoffman.

24:31Aliza:Great voice. I feel like you're channeling a very specific person who will remain unnamed, but that's cool. But I started feeling like, you know, that thing of like put on your own oxygen mask first as a cook. Like, are you feeling rushed? Is there something you can do to feel less rushed? And so I always ask people just like, how do you feel better in the kitchen? And that I think is just like a reminder. And, you know, we're there. You can like turn it on while you're cooking. Yeah. And, yeah, lately I've been pouring myself, like, a big non-alcoholic beer when I cook. Ooh. Sometimes with a little ice in it, like, total refreshment.

25:10Aliza:Ooh, what are you drinking in A-Wise right now? I mean, so many. I'm trying them all. I will tell you the secret. Yeah. We drink a lot of athletic. I like the athletic light. I do a Rattler with athletic light and that Yuzuko and a little maple syrup. Delicious. That's—we love Yuzuko here. They're, like, our buddies. So good. But the other beer that is shockingly good that my dad was like, you have to try this. And I was like, no. Stella N-A-0-0. No shit. I've never actually had it. It would not occur to you. No. It is. I mean, I got to do a blind side by side. But it, you know, it doesn't have that taste of like unfermented wort.

25:47It's actually a 0-0. So I don't know how they make it. It is legitimately what that beer should be. And this summer, that's it.

25:53Aliza:Love that. I just had a Hirachino's Nest's Yuzu Ginger from Japan. 0.5, but NA. Delicious. Delicious. And I love adding like a Rambler as a one too. Do that. So good. So good. We could talk about NA all day. Let's get back to the program. So this 99 dinners idea, it's a lot of work that you put into that. And you're updating it, I think, with some frequency. How does that work? Because for our listeners who don't know you, I think it's a pretty good reason to subscribe to Maggie's Substack, to just get this guide. Because I think it really is well-written and useful. Thanks. Yeah. So it started with Substack has, you know, sort of like a Twitter-like feed of notes.

26:38Yeah. And I started just posting my real dinner plan. What number did I post today? Like 194. Yeah. I have been doing this for a while. I don't do it every single day. Sometimes we're eating leftovers. but I post my actual like not fancy real deal actual dinner and I thought you could like scroll back forever but it turns out like that doesn't actually work we know that you can't actually scroll back 200 of these and so I started putting those in one place and I was like well I'm going to curate it I'm going to include the best ones and then those sort of inspired other ones and And it really is the kind of thing where the problem with cooking isn't cooking.

27:19Like actually cooking can feel fun. If you have enough time, 30 minutes, 40 minutes, an hour, it's not the cooking that's the problem. It's the thinking. And so if you can just sort of like read this list and something sparks something in you, that's what you need. You could literally like close your eyes and point. And so printing on this list and having it on your fridge is super handy.

27:42Aliza:Yep. And it came from initially, you know, something I've always done is kept sort of like a notes list of like these recipes sound good. Maybe not for that specific day. Like just like, oh, I want to try that. I want to try this. So some of it comes from that. Some of it will come from just sort of like a seasonal idea. So, yeah, there's a winter list. There's a spring list. This 99 list I actually wrote in the summer. So it's due for an update. But, yeah, that is like the one thing that I keep paywalled. and the other thing that I keep paywalled is the list of every single cookbook recommended by every single guest on the show so far.

28:19Aliza:Yeah, yeah, I love that. It's like a bit of a chain of recommendations and you have great voices on there. I just see a lot of your serious eats DNA here, which is so cool. Like you're a really, really great home cook, probably more, and you are grinding in the best way possible and that's a weird word for some, but it really means that like if you're subscribing to your sub stack, you're getting a lot. and a lot of times in the sub-stack world, you know, people aren't updating that much. I have my own sub-stack. I'm going to shout that out. You can even LinkedIn your thing. But I try to, like, jump in once a week, but that's hard.

28:51The other thing I've added in is a new series called Good Advice. Yeah. That is totally the kind of thing we would have done on Series Eats. But what I do is, you know, I'm talking to all these cookbook authors all the time, and I have kind of this access. I've been talking to cookbook authors for a million years now. Like, we've been doing this a long time now. And so I decided to like really push them to answer some questions sort of like if you really were talking to a friend and they really said to you, gosh, like groceries are so expensive. What should I do? Or like I just like don't really host.

29:23What should I do? And so I'm asking a group of authors, like 15 authors every month for their advice. And that has become a new sort of column. And those are really fun.

29:33Aliza:I love that. So how do you write the newsletter? I want to know like and do you use like AI? like agentic search prepping that way? I mean, big topic in media. I just had to ask that like media question. So, I mean, the core of the newsletter is the recipe. So the first thing I'm doing is, you know, I pick the books of the people I want to talk to. I read them. I read the head notes. I'm looking for the hook. I'm also just looking at what I want to cook, right? And like, what are the recipes that really stand out to me? And the core of the newsletter is like the conversation is on the podcast.

30:07the recipe is in the newsletter. So I identify that recipe. I talk to the person in the conversation about that recipe. So sometimes I'm sort of just setting up the recipe. But I also want the newsletter to feel like a good read, even if you're not listening to the show right then. And so I'm like truly a one woman show. So I record in a studio. I get the files. I listen to it and do edits three or four times. And when I'm doing that, I pull. So the part that is the software is like it does pull a transcript. And I will think about like, what is the one take home that I want to tease here? What is the one thing that like feels like the point and sort of how can I connect it to the recipe too?

30:54So as I am listening, I mean, it's not good to write and listen in the same time, but as I am listening, I pull these quotes and then, I mean, it's the Same as like fifth grade essays. I weave the quotes together and it's not a long feature. It's like this person is going to give you like some pieces of good advice. The whole conversation is only over there if you listen. But like here's what you should. And sometimes these people, I'm interviewing so many people in the UK right now. And so sometimes these people are big names elsewhere, but an American audience won't have heard of them. So sometimes it's like you should know this person.

31:27Yeah, right.

31:28Aliza:I love UK publishers. They come in like they may be huge there, but unknown here. but they're obviously huge for a reason. And not enough of these people come on tour. No, definitely not. Oh, cool. But no AI. I mean, you're like writing it. I'm writing it. I'm not. Like no judge because I think AI is like the future obviously for journalism in many ways and flavors. I think it would be a dream if I could use AI to do the building of the thing. I have not gotten that to work yet. You mostly can't. You can't, but I have not gotten it to work yet. So I'm also always including in these newsletters the, like, here is everything that got mentioned.

32:05So, like, oh, I did an old recipe for this. And I would link to that. And, oh, like, here was my previous books. And here are the three books I love. And here's the oat miso that I'm using or whatever. And I'm linking to all that stuff. And that takes time. And that is where, like, bigger teams can get this stuff done.

32:21Aliza:No doubt. I just, like, Alex Heath came out as a tech reporter about his workflow. and he uses a lot of AI and uses Whisper and does a lot of dictation. And I'm just like, I want to talk about our show because there's a lot of people in our industry who are like, I'll never use AI. I don't know if that's the correct take. We will see in the future. But for like a one-person show and or a small team like Taste, it's like kind of foundational in like doing the work and making it really good. Yeah. I don't think there's like one answer about AI. I think the space for it is I don't want an AI to write for me.

32:54Of course not. I want an AI to do the linking. Yeah, yeah. The affiliate links and the building and the resizing of photos. No doubt. And that stuff takes a day.

33:04Aliza:It does. It does. It takes so much time. I had to bring it up because like Substack Tech, AI, journalism, we're doing our own weave here. Well, let's talk about some books. I think that this is a great opportunity. We came prepared. I think we're each covering five spring, possibly summer books. and I think we're just going to go one by one through our spring look back. Do you want to start? Sure. And like I could have chosen so many other books. They were great books this spring. Yeah. But I wanted to flag a few just in case people hadn't seen them yet. And you had a couple that I really loved on your list and I'm sure I had the same.

33:42Aliza:So just to be said, absolutely. So if we had to pick best of 2026 so far, here are a few I would nominate. Yeah. Do one. Let's do one by one because I think we can give them each their, like, little moment on the show. So Istanbul by Oza Morin. This is a beautiful book. Illustrated cover, both, you know, gorgeous photos. But this book is organized by all the different places in Istanbul that you could go to eat. So, like, the bakeries and all-day breakfast cafes and grill restaurants, these sort of, like, home-style buffet restaurants. street food. So you're guided through the different experiences that you would have in the city.

34:29And Ozem is a real pro. She's written a bunch of cookbooks. And she's highlighting these iconic dishes, but also is extremely practical about what's possible for people at home and what is really going to get people to cook. And when I was talking to her, she mentioned that her daughter was home from university and they were doing some of the shortcut recipes. So it's not a book of shortcuts, but there are shortcuts throughout. Like, there's like a cheater's Monty, which is sort of that like viral Turkish pasta thing. But that's like actually a traditional thing where instead of making Monty, she is using shell pasta, garlic yogurt, spiced oil, dried mint.

35:09And, you know, there's recipes that her mother used to make. There's like a zucchini pasta bake. And then instead of a bechamel, she's using yogurt. So, you know, there's this really like she is in touch with what it means to be a home cook and she wants people to taste these flavors in a way that's going to fit in real life.

35:28Aliza:I was unfamiliar with this book and terrific choice. She first came on my radar years ago, but I remembered her recently because Hedy Lou McKinnon mentioned her previous book as a favorite. And that's sort of part of this. You were mentioning sort of this cycle. People come on my show and they say, oh, I love this book. And I'm like, oh, man, I got to talk to that person. and there's kind of this like looping through. Yeah, and when you go through these lists, I'll mention if we've had a previous conversation for your listeners, and they can check it back on this stage for those convos. My first is Hello Home Cooking by Ham El-Whaley, a major, major, major debut for one of our, for me, like one of my favorite people in food.

36:08Aliza:I think, you know, Ham is a working chef and it was cool to see some of these big chef ideas articulated for the home cook. I think he worked extremely hard to make the recipes really accessible. He was like, he didn't, like there's a quote, he didn't want the ingredient list to make people feel scared, which I think is like a real truth for a chef writing their debut cookbook. It can't be a book where they're using like obscure products and, you know, three different types of finishing salts. And I think Ham really achieves that with this. And, you know, this is a book that channels his cuisines, the cuisines of his background.

36:46Aliza:He lived in Qatar. He's got Bolivian heritage, Brazilian and Egyptian heritage. So these are like places that he's lived and part of his family's story. And I just love the way he's organized this book. And to me, it's one of my faves. And then on the art program side, too, I think he worked really hard with the editors at Potter to make a book that's very unique visually. and just like I think Ham had seen a lot of cookbooks over time. He's a huge cookbook fan and I think what he wanted to do was just offer like a unique point of view with the visuals but also roll it out in a unique way. So his like rollout marketing gets the like gold medal for the spring season.

37:28Aliza:Go back and check out some of his reels during that period. It was just really fun to follow him and kind of a little bit of satire, a little bit of comedy, really hyper creative stuff from Ham. I'm excited to see. I was so excited to see this book because it fits into a theme I think we've seen. Like there used to be that chefs would put out restaurant books. And there are still a handful of restaurant books. But I think sort of when a lot of chefs found themselves at home in the early pandemic, they were like, whoa, actually home cooking is totally different. And if I want to sell a cookbook to home cooks, I need to rethink what we're including here.

38:06And this book is really for home cooks.

38:08Aliza:Yeah. What's your next one? I loved so many books, but I got to say Everyone Hot Pot by Natasha Pickwitz. I love the writing in this book. I think Natasha is just like the coolest person around. I love that this was a family collaboration. Her mom did the illustrations. Her dad wrote some essays in it. And, you know, I think this cookbook is really a celebration of gathering that is needed in a time where so many of our connections are like DMs and on the phone. And this is showing us another way to entertain. It's a totally different style from a lot of other like dinner party cookbooks. But she breaks it down.

38:52There's a schedule of what you can do ahead. There's a lot of freedom in how much you would do by hand. and take on fun projects or totally purchase everything. And so there's a lot of flexibility in there. But also she really brings to life like the traditions around like toasting during hot pot and a bunch of different menus for different seasons. And it's just I'm proud of her for totally pivoting. I think people expected Natasha, who's a pastry chef, to do another baking book. Exactly. And she wanted to do something totally different. And it is delightful.

39:26Aliza:I love the book, too. She's been on the show. Check out that episode with Eliza. I think it's really cool when a cookbook can kind of demystify and break down something that we really connect with restaurants. You know, Szechuan Hot Pot from Chengdu and beyond is really a restaurant staple here in the city and the West Coast and kind of around the country. I was in Madison, Wisconsin last year, and there was a couple of hot pot restaurants right in the main drag. And when I was in college there 25 years ago, it was like pizza and Qdoba. So it's interesting to see hot pot proliferate as a restaurant, you know, category.

40:02Aliza:So like having this book as a real tribute to do it at home, but also educate diners who are going out to restaurants, which I think is a beautiful thing about cookbooks is, yes, like your, you know, your subsec is really dedicated to doing the cooking. A lot of times for many, it's not about the cooking. In fact, it's about learning about culture. And Natasha's book has really given the hot pot its tribute. Next, I would say, I mean, it's just such a hard choice, but Med-esque by Georgina Hayden. Georgina Hayden has written a bunch of books. Some of them are more traditional. This one is looser.

40:38It's very sort of like cravings driven. Again, like real time limitations. She's inspired by dishes she's had all over the Mediterranean, but also ingredients from all over. And it's just, there's a lot of smart techniques in it too. Last night I made, she has this like pasta salad, orzo salad, where you're basically just throwing all of the things that you have in jars in your fridge, like, you know, artichoke hearts, roasted peppers, sun-dried tomatoes, olives, capers, like all of those things. And then instead of pouring that very expensive olive oil from your jar, you are using the olive oil in the sun-dried tomatoes.

41:17And I did it last night and I had a couple of like pickled, like spicy peppers and we used a little oil from that too. And that was delightful. So these things are so simple. Yeah. And if you're kind of like craving that sort of like sunny food, I think that one's it.

41:34Aliza:Love it. Well, my next one is Obsessed with the Best by Ella Quitner. Ella and I had a great conversation in our feed. this book that came out in February, I'd been watching it for a while. I think it was pushed to season, so I thought it was coming out in fall. And I was so overjoyed when I got the actual book. You know, this is a book written by a writer, first and foremost, I think, and a reporter. You know, Ella's premise is very, very simple. It's finding the absolute best version of recipes. And I think there's like over, there's 24 of them in the book. things like biscuits and meatballs and chocolate chip cookies but each of these 24 recipes has a really strong narrative around it she's extremely fun and funny on the page and you read her in the times and your bag and she's one of my favorite writers it's a very readable book i mean give her the goddamn beard already like i mean if i was if we were in that world and we're not to like handicap the beards for 27 or 26 it's like this is an award-winning book it's just so well conceived and photographed.

42:43Aliza:And I just it was such a joy to speak with her about it. And I just enjoy a journalist who jumps into the cookbook world with with extreme passion that she did. So I love this book. It is such a good read. And I have made her malted cookie dough bars, I think, three times at this point, which is not a thing I really have time to do. But they are so, So, so good. Super duper easy. Elle and I did a book dinner where she cooked a bunch of things from this book and everything was so delicious. There's this like spicy cabbage braise that's really awesome. Yeah, I love that book. It's cool. I'd love to attend a dinner party at Elle's house, you know, shouts.

43:29Aliza:But so just to be clear, too, there's 24 categories, but there's like variations in each of the recipes, too. She told me she tested something like a thousand. She did a thousand recipe tests. So, so wild. This one was really like one of those like years of work and true just like obsession. Right. Well, what's your next one? Hillary Sterling's Amatsa. Yeah. You know, I mean, I was talking before about like restaurant cookbooks. Maybe I'm just like not in a time in my life where I really want like a restaurant cookbook. But chefs sharing advice and kitchen technique where we're really learning something really gets me.

44:12And Hilary Sterling from Chisiamo really does this. She is giving you so much education and technique and also her memories. And it's like there's just like beautiful all these crazy vinaigrettes. You know, she is thinking about like how to treat a vegetable well. And you're going to find even if you don't cook the full dish, you're going to be like, oh, I want to make this like mint vinaigrette or whatever it is. So, again, a wonderful book to have around for summer, for like simple seasonal.

44:45Aliza:I love that you're like leaning into her vins. I mean, vinaigrettes. And I mean, that's rad that like that's the one thing that you pull out to talk about. Because that means shows that this book is extremely tested. And I've spoken to Hillary many times and like she's just such a great, you know, mind in food and GCMO. Remain is one of my favorite restaurants. We go there a lot, actually. It's just like very comfortable and very, very consistent. And she has some of her Jewish heritage in there, too. Yeah. That's cool about it. She came on the dinner plan and was so honest, which I love. Just like really talking about what she really feeds her kid.

45:18And like straight up, like sometimes it's a sliced hot dog in a tortilla with an avocado and everybody's happy. And like real people need to hear this. Like chefs are not always producing perfect food. What chefs want. She was like, you know what's great? Like passing plates around the table. Like that's what we're here for. And like that just I was so glad to hear that from her.

45:41Aliza:On a recent episode of This Is Taste, we visited Colorado, a state that has quietly and then not so quietly been building one of the most exciting culinary scenes in America. From Denver's Michelin-starred restaurant boom to the peach orchards and wine country of the Grand Valley, we visited to find out why Colorado is a serious food destination and came back convinced. Check out Taste Travels Colorado, episode 786 on the This Is Taste feed. This episode is brought to you by Quince. This time of year, I'm keeping things simpler in the kitchen. Lighter meals cooked with produce from the farmer's market, more last-minute dinners with friends, and it really makes me notice how much better everything feels when you love what you're cooking with.

46:21Aliza:That's why I've been reaching for Quince. Quince has beautiful cookware, glassware, and tableware that's seriously well-made and looks great on the table, all priced 50 to 80 % less than comparable brands. They cut out the middleman and work directly with top manufacturers, so you're paying for quality, not markup. Elevate your kitchen this summer. Go to quince.com slash taste for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. That's Q-U-I-N-C-E dot com slash taste. Free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince.com slash taste. This episode is brought to you by Rula. Finding a great therapist is hard.

47:01Aliza:Finding one who actually takes your insurance, that's where most online platforms fall short. Rula does things differently. They work with over 100 insurance plans, so the average copay is just$15 a session. Real therapy from licensed professionals at a price that makes sense. They match you based on your goals, preferences, and background with appointments available as soon as tomorrow. No wait list, no runaround, just therapy that fits your personal needs. Rula patients typically pay$15 per session when using insurance. Connect with quality therapists and mental health experts who specialize in you at rula.com slash taste.

47:38Aliza:That's r-u-l-a dot com slash taste. Well, I have two more. The first is a book that I know you probably have some backstory on having written drinks books in that world. It's Solid Wiggles by Jenna Derman and Jack Schramm. Super, super cool book. We just had them on the show. And they are quite the duo. And, you know, Solid Wiggles are not jello shots, to be clear. And I think they make a very strong case for that, to remind everyone. They're behind this really like fast-growing CPG company that does basically solid cocktails by mail order. They're also in some of New York's finer restaurants like Tatiana, Milady's, Porch Light.

48:27Aliza:Those are bars and Jungle Bird. So bars and a few restaurants. So you can order solid wiggles around New York and other spots and L.A. as well. But I like the premise. There's like different tiers here. There's obviously like the Dave Arnold like buy a bunch of gear section. and Jack worked with Dave for a long time. And that's for a professional point of view. And I think some books are for professionals. So if you have a bar and you want to pick up some moves, Solid Wiggles is there. But of course, there's like some more novice-oriented solid cocktails. And there's also a lot of NA cocktails too.

49:00Aliza:So even with kids, you could do some NAs and have some fun activities. Making these drinks that are, these solid drinks, these solid cocktails, I refuse to say the JS term. I respect their point of view. And I just think that there's like really nice use of acidity. There's like, you know, like mojitos and margarita variations, things that you can like pick up at the farmer's market, things that you can pick up at specialty food stores. And I think it's great project cooking for all ages, which is always fun. And that book is the design is awesome. Yeah. It is a beautiful book. It's just like visually so exciting.

49:39Aliza:For a book, too, that you just want to have around, like, on your coffee table, that has, like, a really cool aesthetic that, like, you know, just, like, paging through here and there. I think it's really fun. There's a lot of cool places that book can be placed in your home. Yeah. I have one more. So do I. You start. Which is I feel like Joe Woodhouse is one of those people that, like, chefs and food writers love and not enough home cooks know about. His new book is called Weeknight Vegetarian. He's a vegetarian chef and food photographer. And this book just like pops with color. He's into like really sort of like bright flavors, acidity driven.

50:18I made like a hot sauce from the book that had pineapple in it. It was really lovely.

50:23Aliza:Oh, you're in the, is that like lacto-fermented? No, no, no. It was like just like a blended, like you made pickled chilies, which you can use all over the book. And then he was like, you could also blend them with like a canned fruit situation. So delicious. And this is just a book where I bookmarked all these recipes. They're really varied in flavor and texture. And I just love his sensibility. There's like, you know, one of the things is like a big platter of crispy potatoes and raw tomatoes with like a spicy green sauce. Like that's kind of his vibe. He does oven baked onion bodgies, like crispy and like, but also just like rice bowl, pickled shiitakes, shredded crunchy vegetables.

51:06It's just like it's all speaking to me. I would love to go to dinner at their house. You know, his wife is Ole Hercules, who's also a cookbook author. So we have two cookbook authors in one household. Kids help cook. They get two CSA boxes so that they can just, like, eat a ton of vegetables. And so they're really, like, thinking about processing vegetables and pickling vegetables. But this stuff, it's not a project. It's just really colorful, beautiful food.

51:32Aliza:I love two cookbook authors sharing a home like that. That's pretty cool. Yeah. I don't know him, so this is really helpful for me. And I'll have to check the interview you did with him. Yeah. Yeah. Well, my last one is Zariz by Adina Sussman. This is the third book in her trilogy. I had her on the show recently. And while she wrote about Sababa, which was her debut, which was like the food of Israel and the surrounding region. And the second book was Shabbat, which is about the, you know, the Jewish ceremony on Friday and the traditions around Shabbat food. This is a reason. And it kind of translates to fast, quick, easy.

52:13Aliza:And I think she did a really good job with the recipe development. Like Adina has written so many books and it is one of the strongest developed books I saw all year. We don't publish here at Crown. She's from Penguin Random House, but not Crown. and she's a friend of mine so I've gotten to know her I've hung out with her in Israel and we vibe but I've always gone back to her books to cook because I think they're very well done I love her spice drawer schnitzel the idea that you can take your spice drawer and take a schnitzel in many directions she also does a sheet pan shakshuka I think that's really clever and hadn't seen that and like Adina just is always writing about her life And her, you know, I think it's just a really great summary of how to get these flavors that we all crave onto the table quickly.

53:05All right. So that is best of 2026 so far.

53:10Aliza:Yeah, yeah, yeah. What are you excited about as we look ahead? Oh, my gosh. I have so much I'm excited about. And things that have been announced, things that have not been announced. It's part about working here is we see these things years or two in advance. So I got to say there's a lot of cool things coming. Hard for me to designate two. So my logic was I'm just going straight friends, like friends of mine. So Maggie, your listeners can take this all with a grain of salt, a grain of kosher salt. I love it. I'm heavily biased, but I just like love the books, both of them. So the first one is the number one best Indian cookbook in the world by Marijuana Rani with Jamie Feldmar.

53:53Aliza:Marwan, this is his debut cookbook. Marwan is a chef and restaurant operator. Chaipani, Boti Wallar, his restaurants of great acclaim in the Southeast. He won the James Beard Award for Outstanding Restaurant, which is like the best picture equivalent several years ago. And I thought he was on his way to just doing restaurants and being that kind of chef. But he clearly wanted to write a book. We've been talking about it for about 12 years, about doing his book. and he's taken his time. And this book is such a joy. It's full of lots of opinions about naan, should it exist or not, which is crazy and amazing.

54:34Aliza:There's lots of fried foods from throughout India. I think he really, really, really places an emphasis on his Parsi heritage, which is important to his story. but it's really about Indian street food and the way it's articulated for the home cook. I was in India July of 24 while they were shooting the book and wrote a feature for Food and Wine that's coming out this fall. So I was there while they were working on it so I'd love to see that. And I think like for me there's a lot of great Indian cookbooks and authors in the world and this is a new perspective which is kind of cheap for me to say because he's a friend but I think it's like very, very marijuana and very graphic and very different.

55:18Aliza:There's nothing quiet about this book, and I love it. I started reading it the other night and, like, could not put it down. I love that. Stayed up way too late. Yeah, I love that. And I hope you can chat with Marwan on your show because he's a really fun interview. We're going back and forth and back and forth. It's going to happen. We'll make it happen. Great. What's your first one? Oh, Cooking Thai. So this is Pim Techenmuan-Vivit. Apologies if I haven't pronounced that correctly. It's written with Andrea Wen, who is an absolute pro, one of our greats. I love Pim's food. She has great restaurants in San Francisco, and I miss them now that I don't live in San Francisco anymore.

55:55And so I knew the food would be beautiful. And I was delighted to see there are some dishes from the restaurants in this book. But also there are a lot that are adapted to be easier. Like they give instructions. So if you want to make the kin cow wings, how to bake them instead of fry them, you could do either way, which is awesome. If you want to make, there's like a duck red curry. And they're like, yeah, just like pick up a duck from like a Chinese barbecue shop. That's your first step. Yeah. Which I love that because that means I'm going to make it. Yeah, exactly.

56:27Aliza:It's always you're going to make it. I love King Cao, by the way. What a great restaurant. So great. So good. And really smart. You can tell this was carefully tested. You know, they're thinking about like, oh, like really fresh jackfruit is the best choice. And what should you substitute? And their answer actually isn't canned jackfruit. It's frozen artichoke hearts, which that's really easy to get. And there's these really great charts for like scaling up. You know, if you're going to make curry paste, you should actually make a lot of it, mostly because if you're going to do it in a blender, you need enough liquid to get it going.

56:59So they have these charts for like a smaller batch or a batch that's going to be big enough for a blender. There's so much knowledge in here, so much advice. This is, I just love it.

57:08Aliza:I love it. And any shortcuts for Thai cooking is appreciated from a professional point of view, of course. I think that the food is so delicious and we always want to make it. But for some, if you're doing it with some books and some chefs leading the way, it can be a lot of steps because it's such a detailed style of cooking, particularly with all of the sauces and the curries that are part of it. But I can't wait to check that one out. It's lovely. What's next? My last fall book, and again, I have so many, but this one was an easy pick because it's just really, really, really special. It's called The Perfect Pizza by Mauricio Leo.

57:45Aliza:Mauricio is a friend. We co-host culinary tours in Italy. We've done a couple of them. We're actually planning one for next year in Sicily. So we've spent a lot of time on the road, and we've also eaten a lot of pizza together on the road. As a reminder, Mauricio is the author of The Perfect Loaf, which is truly the Bible for sourdough bread baking. I mean, there is the sourdough Bible, too. So, like, and Ken Forks may have something to say. But, like, I think it's the modern, I think, text of choice for would-be sourdough bakers, even those with more advance. It's such an incredible book, and it's sold many, many copies.

58:24Aliza:And some of our listeners may have it in their shelf. he has decided for book two to do something that's like highly personal for Mauricio. He grew up working and living in a pizzeria family. His father ran and owned a pizzeria for over 30 years in New Mexico. And he worked shifts at the pizza shop. And I think when this book comes out, it'll really be clear how Mauricio is not just doing a pizza book. He's telling the story of his family and bringing it into his world of sourdough and naturally leavened bread. and offering a way to articulate sourdough pizza baking and making for the home cook.

59:02Aliza:I see a lot of sourdough pizza shops popping up and they're becoming more and more frequent. I think it's an amazing way to make pizza. It's also so labor intensive and it takes a lot more time, but that's okay. And like this book is over 400 pages. It's a real text. for those who may have a sourdough bread baking program and want to extend it to the pizza world. Maybe they have an uni or maybe they just have an oven. He gives many reasons that you can use both in this book. And there's plenty of recipes that are non-pizza as well, like calzones. I know we worked on that for a long time. We were in Rome after one of our tours and we spent three days just like eating tonda all day.

59:47Aliza:and so I think he has a real appreciation for regional pizza styles like pan or Roman style, etc. I think it's going to surprise a lot of people. I've gotten an early look at it and it's just an amazing book. Now I want to go to Sicily with you guys. Come on. It'll be September 2027. We're putting that on sale in a few months. Sweet. Alright, I have two more. You have two more, cool. Because they're very different. But I think one thing we saw in 2026 Like you were talking about Ella's book and there's been other examples like Will This Make You Happy of books that are really leaning into the narrative writing.

1:00:28And another in that vein is Carla Lawley's Food is a Feeling. Honestly, I love that it's kind of messy. It's her like brutally honest series of essays about what she was feeling and cooking and eating at the end of her marriage and in the year that follows. and I know this is going to speak to people who are in my audience who you know life isn't always perfect and you still have to feed yourself there are other books in this vein as well you know Margaret Eby's You Gotta Eat and others but you know you get as she starts to tell this unfolding of the story you also get the flashbacks of her time cooking at Montrachet and this food in here that sits alongside these essays is really driven by cravings and some of it is really really simple that is just like the minimal assembly of like you're gonna get plums or you're gonna get watermelon this is how you're gonna put it together um and that's kind of all you can manage sometimes and it's nice to have someone sort of tell you like here are some things that you could do that are truly simple and then there's also you know more elaborate meals and she does throw a party in the end and there's this beautiful menu for that um yeah so i'd say like it's a slightly more chefy accompaniment to margaret ebay's book um with this personal story around it and you know i'm interested in this side of what cookbooks can be that this is not for seo this is not gonna necessarily like grab your eyes on an instagram scroll this is for like you as a human, connecting to another human, about what we really eat in real life when your life feels like it's unraveling and you're alone in a weird sublet apartment or, you know, whatever your version of that is.

1:02:25And that's sort of like this central question that I am always thinking about, which is like, how are we, how can we feel good? How can cooking help us feel good? And this one does.

1:02:36Aliza:And not feel like just a list of ingredients and confusion. Yeah. So I think like those who connect with home cooking see that right away or it takes time. I mean, it's both. I mean, I can't wait to talk to Carla about this. We're publishing here at Potter. I've been a huge fan of her previous cookbooks. I think she's got incredible chops. She was a food director at BA for a long time and really knows editorial well, but also just a talented writer. Is on Substack as well. And I know probably a lot of crossover followers of yourself and Carla. and I can't wait to actually hear the story because I think like Tanya's book, which I loved earlier this year, telling a great story through recipes is kind of the future of these books.

1:03:19Aliza:And I think that when you can connect with an audience through a narrative arc, you've done something that's very special and unique because a lot of cookbooks are essentially just head notes and recipes and maybe an opening essay. And that's all good. We've mentioned many already on the show, but I think when you can show real literary talent within the pages of a cookbook, you really, really are doing something special. Yeah. So my last one is like a totally different concept, which is Nick Sharma's Fundamentals of Flavor. This is a book for people who want the science behind cooking. I see this as being like a big gift book for this year.

1:03:57Like if you know someone who's like into like why does this happen and really wants to get into like what's going on physically, chemically in the kitchen, plus like really fun flavor combinations. Nick is your guy. And, you know, he just has this analytic mind and then really exciting flavors. And there's a lot here that I just like I want to cook. Like I feel like I'm going to study and cook. There's like a grilled cabbage with Calabrian chili, kimchi, and maple vinaigrette. Like, yes, for sure. He does a baking soda brine on pork tenderloin, which he like explains that the pH helps the proteins hold onto water.

1:04:42So you're not getting that like dry pork tenderloin. But then it's like in this spiced date syrup tamarind mustard glaze. Love that. I think there's going to be fun things to look in here. It's such a good one. So I'm looking forward to really digging into that one.

1:04:57Aliza:It's cool. I think a lot of publishers and authors have been chasing the success of the Flavor Bible and the Food Lab to like massive sellers, perennial sellers. And you've seen a lot come out and salt, fat, acid, heat in some ways. And to see Nick do his version of that, it seems, just from what you told me, I haven't seen the book yet, is very cool. I think Nick's a terrific writer and has a long history of writing like more literary books. and he's written for Taste early on and early days wrote a number of amazing stories about travel. And I want to pick up like these new tips all the time.

1:05:32Aliza:I'm always searching out for new ways to brine or new ways to do vinaigrette. And it sounds like this is the type of book for that. Yeah, but man, there are so many exciting books coming out this fall. We're going to do double shows. I know you guys do a ton of shows. There's going to be a lot of interviews because this is a big one. And, you know, that's the beauty of both of our shows, I think, is you can get a little taste and see which books are right for you. Because you're going to want to buy some books this fall. Definitely. There's gonna be a lot of buying and you can buy them wherever you find your books online or, you know, at Wild Sorrel, brand new cookbook shop on 13th Street, which I think is so good.

1:06:09Aliza:Or all the great indie cookbook stores, which I love going to because they obviously have put in the work like I think we have today and have made these tables really full of the new releases of the season. So love what you're doing, Maggie. Love the love the sub second podcast. Thanks for like sharing the mic. This was so fun.

1:06:35Aliza:This is Taste is hosted and produced by Eliza Abarbanal and me, Matt Rodbar. The show is edited by lead producer Clayton Gumbert and supervised by Pat Stango, director of media production and development at Penguin Random House. Thanks to Shalia Harris and the production team at Penguin Random House. Theme music by Steve Rydell. Episode portraits by Louise Zergon Pomeroy. Logo design by Ellie Skirzat and Ian Dingham. Visit Taste Online at tastecooking.com and make sure to subscribe to our newsletter to keep updated on all cool things in the world of taste.