Recent Cookbooks on My Shelf - September - October 2024

More Cookbooks! Including Love Crumbs + Salad for Days - Extra Food Chat with Kath

Welcome to another edition of Extra Food Chat with Kath!

As I mentioned last week, there are enough new cookbooks on my shelves lately to do two of these cookbook review posts in quick succession.

If you missed last week’s Extra Food Chat instalment, you can catch up here.

The theme of these reviews lately is ‘I probably don’t need any more baking books, but somehow got new ones anyway’ (in a good way!). I hope you enjoy the strong baking theme and the ability to hear more about some very exciting new releases.

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Love Crumbs by Nadine Ingram (Simon & Schuster)* - I think this cookbook has been very highly anticipated by baking lovers, and those who love Nadine’s first book and bakery, Flour & Stone. Love Crumbs takes a slightly different tact from Nadine’s first cookbook, where the reader can find themselves immersed in all things cake, as well as poetry, symbolism and a deep connection to nature through ingredients.

To me, it feels like Nadine had a clear vision for Love Crumbs. Taking the reader into an almost ethereal place, yet keeping that detailed nature of the recipes we know from her first book. As Annie Smithers says in the introduction, the real delight of this book is that even if you are low on time and can’t bake anything right now, you can still be immersed in the sweet baking world Nadine has created. Time is definitely something you will need to bake the creations shared in Love Crumbs, many are very much ‘occasion’ bakes in terms of how much time they will take and the variety of elements per recipe. This will of course depend on what kind of baking you like to do, and if you like a good weekend baking project or something to completely immerse yourself in, Love Crumbs is definitely for you.

If time is not on your side often, I would still say Love Crumbs has so much value. The photography is lovely, and in combination with the illustrations dotted throughout the book, and Nadine’s writing/poetry there is a real calm feel to it. When this book first arrived on a particularly bad day for me, I felt the gentle guide of this book take me to a nicer place whilst I was reading and enjoying the book as a whole. Even knowing I may not bake from it regularly, I know I will take Love Crumbs off my shelf many times for recipe and ingredient inspiration, and pure baking escapism.

When I do bake from Love Crumbs, my first picks are the Ode The John Olsen, a layered pistachio, rhubarb and ginger cake (p.197-8) and once we are again graced with quince, the Our Friendship Cake, a chiffon of quince and rose (p.201–3). Both these cakes are from the Meadow chapter, which I think is my favourite of the cookbook.

Salad for Days by Alice Zaslavsky (Murdoch Books)* - With her trademark humour, joy and sense of fun, Alice brings us tasty encouragement to make friends with salad. A self confessed vegelante, Alice believes we can increase our veg intake, in a fun and tasty way no matter the time of year. The book is divided into salads for warmer day and those for cooler days, with some being capable of being the main event with others the side we all know salad can be.

The recipes in this book are inspired by many cuisines around the world, with everything looking like you’ll never be searching for flavour. I personally have an issue with salads, I like eating them but don’t always like making them. They often feel like so much fuss and effort for a side dish or ‘just a salad’. Maybe I have the wrong idea, and salads are never ‘just a salad’ (and they certainly don’t seem to be under Alice’s watch!), and I’m hoping Salad for Days will reinvigorate my enthusiasm for salad. I think with Alice I am in very good hands.

A feature I particularly like in Salad for Days is the section at the end of the book called ‘What to make when you’ve got…’. This section lists out all the vegetables and fruits that feature in the book, and lists which recipes you could make underneath if you have that particular ingredient. As someone who regularly scans the index of my cookbooks to work out if there is something I can make based on what I have, this section is so welcome, and I think will be much used.

All in all, you love In Praise of Veg and The Joy of Better Cooking or vegetable forward cooking generally, I think you’ll love this new exploration of veg forward eating by Alice.

Wild Sweetness by Thalia Ho (Harper Design) - This cookbook has been out for a few years, however it is new to me. I found it in a bookshop a few weeks ago, and the use of flavour immediately grabbed my attention. Thalia uses a lot of rose and other flavours drawn from nature, so to me this book felt a bit different to everything else on my shelves. At first glance I think there are similarities to Wild Sweetness and Love Crumbs. The almost ethereal connection to nature through food, and the use of prose to bind the books together.

At a deeper look, yes, there are some similarities in the connection between the authors, nature and how it influences their recipes, however this connection and the expression of it are quite different. Thalia’s connection to nature feels darker, more wild, like she is wholeheartedly at the mercy of it. I find her writing a little hard to relate to, as I think I am a much more practical person and see things as I think they are, without a poetic lens. I feel Thalia see’s what I am most likely to miss, and has an almost indescribable connection to nature and the seasons that transcends merely what produce is available at that time.

The recipes in this book are what convinced me to buy it, and while there are many chocolate recipes, there are also many that use my favourite flavours of rose, almond, rhubarb and berries. I am keen to try the White Rose Cake (p.76-7), White Peach and Ginger Cake (p.154) and the Rhubarb and Pink Peppercorn Tart (p.66). The photography in Wild Sweetness is minimally styled, often focusing on the texture created by the final dish rather than the finished recipe as a whole. There isn’t a photo per recipe, and based on how interesting the recipes sound, I would have liked to see a few more images of the recipes. I personally find seeing an image of the final product influences me more to make it than just the recipe alone.

Overall, if you are looking for a baking book that is a little different and has a range of recipes I would recommend Wild Sweetness. Unlike Love Crumbs, I would consider the recipes in this book a bit less of a massive baking project. There is more nuance in the style and type of recipes in Wild Sweetness, in terms of how much time you will need to make them. But equally a lovely book to peruse when time to bake is lacking.

*Many thanks to Simon & Schuster Australia + Nadine Ingram, and Murdoch Books for gifting me copies of Love Crumbs and Salad for Days respectively.

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I’ll see you again on Friday for more food chat!