Blog - Cranberry & Rose

Mother Tongue: Flavours of a Second Generation by Gurdeep Loyal

Tue, 10 Feb 2026 21:49:00 GMT

Loyal is British and Indian, and when creating recipes, he takes the incredibly deep flavors of Indian cooking and combines them with globally inspired dishes. Later in the volume, you’ll find entrées like Juniper-Spiced Bavette Steak with Corn Ribs and Coconut Zhoug; Gingery Roasted Squash with Ajwain-Hazelnut Chimichurri; and desserts including Lychee, Coconut & Dark Chocolate Muffins.

People who pick up the book will immediately notice the fresh, modern food photography, as well as the creative recipes. And if you like pink, you’ll love the cute paisley cover.

The Nordic Cook Book by Magnus Nilsson

Tue, 16 Dec 2025 18:11:00 GMT

Part of what I love about the book is that some of the recipes are utterly quotidian boiled cabbage, for instance while others (to many Americans) may be shocking. In the latter category, one might place the recipe for Elaine’s Sami Blood Pancakes with Smoked Reindeer Fat, or Finnish Liver Casserole with pork liver, golden syrup and sugared lingonberries.

In recent years, I’ve tended to purchase cookbooks that have a slightly narrower focus, and consequently, are shorter. Regional cuisines are so varied that it seems impossible to capture the “food of Italy” or “American cuisine” in a single volume. That said, as I snacked on this volume at a bookstore, I realized that it would expand my knowledge so significantly that it was worth the splurge.

I probably won’t be preparing rendered kidney fat or seal soup during the holidays, but there’s a good chance that a Roasted Goose with Apple Compote and Kale Salad, or a Norwegian Christmas Cake might end up on my table. And, since I missed St. Lucia’s day this year, when I celebrate with my family, I’ll flip to page 544 and make a batch of St. Lucy’s Day Saffron Buns.

Cookbook of the Week: Turtle Island by Sean Sherman

Wed, 19 Nov 2025 17:24:00 GMT

What you will find instead are dishes that center corn, squash, legumes, nuts and seeds, foraged plants and game meats. To those of us who are accustomed to “American cuisine” that focuses primarily on European ingredients, these recipes hold revelations. Cedar-Maple Baked Beans, for instance, are simmered with a piece of wood in the pot, which is removed before serving. There are also recipes for preparing beaver and moose, and for cooking things we walk by daily in warm weather without realizing that they’re edible. For instance, milkweed pods, which are blistered in a bit of sunflower oil, and sumac, a plant with red cones composed of fuzzy sour fruits, which grows alongside hundreds of miles of New England highways.

To begin the section on New England, Sherman deals with the more brutal aspects of the circumstances surrounding the holiday we refer to as Thanksgiving. It should be required reading for all of us. Following that, he shares recipes for Quahog and Corn Chowder seasoned with powdered wild leeks, Wild Mustard and Root Veggie Salad with Sunflower Dressing, and Blueberry Leather.

In the five years that I owned a small, 22-seat restaurant in Montpelier, Vermont, we offered 100 different, deeply researched menus. In the decade since, I’ve grown and cooked with flour corn, heirloom squash and dozens of types of beans in my garden, and foraged for wild leeks, mushrooms, roots and flowers to use in my kitchen. The history and current reality of native foods is so rich that in all that time cooking and eating, I’ve never made nor encountered any dishes like the ones Sherman shares.

I mention that only to point out that this book is so rich and diverse and deep that the most accomplished scholars and cooks will nevertheless find many new things herein. Nobody should hesitate to add it to their collection.

Cookbook of the Week: New England Heritage Cookbook by Jean Hewitt

Wed, 05 Nov 2025 21:49:00 GMT

As a Brooklyn-born “flatlander” child in a rugged Northeastern Vermont, this book helped me to begin getting a grasp on what set the various New England states apart from one another, at least culinarily. From it, I learned that a Curried Flan Appetizer made with jellied chicken broth and mayonnaise was purported to represent Connecticut, while Ham Mousse made with chicken broth, ground ham, green olives and mayonnaise could be said to stand for Vermont.

It’s possible that this didn’t constitute a thorough culinary education, and didn’t ingratiate me to anybody, but as a child, how was I to know which items had fallen out of favor since the book was published? All I knew was that there were geographical lines, and somehow, these mountain ranges, rivers and roads contained within them something about culture, and not just features of landscape.

One true fact that I gleaned from the book is that Maine and Massachusetts are renowned for their seafood dishes, and Vermont is not. Maine boasted Baked Haddock and Creamed Lobster, for instance, and Mass offered New England Fish Stew and Lobster Thermidore. I’m genuinely unclear on how the distinctions were made.

Sadly, there’s no index that breaks down all of the recipes from a given state. However, among the Vermont ones I’ve noticed are Cheese Soup, Kettle Stock (basically, bone broth before it was cool), Meat Balls with Brown Beans, and Barbecued Ribs with Maple Syrup.

My understanding of New England and its cuisine was incomplete after my youthful perusals, but nevertheless, this book gave me a hint at the flavors of the regions, and eventually, helped lead me to other books that would continue to illuminate my way.

Cookbook of the Week: Splendid Soups by James Peterson

Wed, 29 Oct 2025 18:57:00 GMT

One such book is Splendid Soups by James Peterson, originally published in 1993, and updated in 2000. Peterson, who lived in France for a time and spent a few years teaching at the French Culinary Institute, is a prolific author (and additionally, is a professional perfumer), and I love every one of his books.

I’m not sure which I bought first, Splendid Soups, or Peterson’s early work, Sauces, but both were crucially important as I taught myself to cook. Now that the ground is frosty when I awake, and it gets dark as I stand at the cutting board, soups and stews are regularly on. the menu.

A reason that I loved this book in my twenties is that it contains recipes for simple, comforting fare such as Red Pepper Soup, Greek Lemon Soup and Tuscan-Style Minestrone, but it also pushed the edges of my culinary imagination with offerings like South American Shrimp Chowder, Mussel and Shiitake Mushroom Dashi and Smoke Scented Broth with Ravioli.

If you are in need of a steaming bowl of homemade soup or a whole winter’s worth this book will be a perfect companion in the kitchen.

Cookbook of the Week: Greenfeast: autumn, winter by Nigel Slater

Thu, 09 Oct 2025 19:54:00 GMT

If you’re not sure where to start with items like cauliflower, mushrooms, beans, Brussels sprouts and squash, this book would be a good one to have on the shelf.

Cookbook of the Week: All About Braising by Molly Stevens

Thu, 02 Oct 2025 11:49:00 GMT

In All About Braising, Molly first breaks down the crucial steps in this age-old cooking process, and helps the reader understand the purpose of each one without ever sounding dry or technical. Then, she moves on to the recipes.

The first chapter deals with vegetables. Braising meat is a common way to make tough cuts melt into tenderness, and plenty of people generally follow the steps without knowing that what they’re doing is taught in culinary school. However, it may be less common for home cooks to apply these principles to produce. Molly’s first few recipes are for potatoes, drawing a line back to her earlier book. She then offers recipes for braised eggplant, broccolini, cabbage, fennel and celery, among other vegetables. Each one stands out, surprises, and makes me want to run down to the garden to harvest the vegetable in question.

She then proceeds to seafood, various types of meats and wraps up with some suggestions for pantry items to keep in the house, and sources for ingredients.

Each year, as soon as the weather turns cool, and I crave the opportunity to turn on the oven for a bit of extra warmth, this is the first book I reach for.

Cookbook of the Week: Vegetarian Planet by Didi Emmons

Wed, 27 Aug 2025 19:36:00 GMT

In any case, while this was my work life, my home life was filled with low-cost cooking explorations that fit within the budget of the newly employed. One of the cookbooks that was critical to me in that period of my life was Vegetarian Planet by Didi Emmons, a Boston chef who through this volume introduced to me the idea that meat-free meals could look like “normal” food, rather than be made with textured vegetable protein crumbles or some sort of sad, dry “loaf.”

The first recipe in the book is for Dried Cranberry-Pecan Coffeecake, which gets things off to a nice start. Beginning with breads and their cousins is clever, because most of the baked goods we know and love are naturally vegetarian, so a skeptic might be converted within the first few pages. What caught my attention, on page 15, was a recipe for Paximade, a Greek bread flavored with. anise, and of which I’d never heard. This discovery propelled me to read further, in the hope of finding other items I’d never before encountered.

And I did. There’s a recipe for Cranberry Ketchup in Chapter 2, and another for Peach and Five-Spice Chutney. Having grown up on classics of various world cuisines, plus tomes like the New York Times and the Joy of Cooking, both of which rounded up staple dishes and codified their making, these kind of freewheeling, inventive cooking was new to me. I ate it up. In later chapters, I got my first imaginary taste of Pad Thai and Papusas, alongside some of Emmons’ wild creations.

I read it, I cooked from it, and I still have it. To this day, no matter how many cookbooks I buy, I still get excited to open Vegetarian Planet.

Cookbook of the Week: An Invitation to Indian Cooking by Madhur Jaffrey

Thu, 21 Aug 2025 13:29:00 GMT

Since my mom passed away in 2020, I now own that original copy. The cover is stained and missing a corner, and the pages are brittle and browned. Although there are some charming floral illustrations throughout, there aren’t any pictures of the food. However, I find the book stunning. Given when it was published, and the state of American cuisine at the time, it’s delightful to find that the book calls for asafetida, cilantro (referred to as Chinese parsley!), fresh ginger, and whole cardamom pods.

In my tiny Vermont town, I wasn’t likely to find all of these ingredients, but I read hungrily nonetheless. When I was old enough to cook sans supervision, Jaffrey’s potato samosas were one of the dishes I learned how to make. The recipes are adapted for Americans, but are nevertheless complex in flavor, and ask the reader to do the work of learning about potentially unfamiliar foods and sourcing them, and trying new techniques.

Today, as I opened the book, trying not to knock pages loose from the spine, I found a bookmark that I hadn’t placed next to a recipe for beef or lamb kheema with fried onions. Beside it are small notations in my mom’s handwriting, indicating that she liked to use half of the amount of cumin and coriander called for. I may not agree, but I’m glad I found it.

Cookbook of the Week: Intuitive Sourdough Baking by Richard Hart & Laurie Woolever

Wed, 06 Aug 2025 19:35:00 GMT

I’d much rather spend my time on creating soups, stews, salads and side dishes than baked goods, and my approach to sourdough is more utilitarian. Twice per week, I make a 12-hour starter before bed. The following day, I grind a bunch of whole grains, including emmer, spelt, rye, buckwheat, oats, and Khorasan wheat, and turn out dense and hearty loaves, two each time, packed with nuts, seeds and dried fruits.

This summer, I’m working on developing and improving my sourdough skills, so I bought Richard Hart Bread: Intuitive Sourdough Baking . I don’t have room to list the author’s whole, exceptional resume, but it’s impressive. For those who are in the know about dough, Hart did a stint at Tartine in San Francisco, and spent years running his own bakery in Copenhagen, with Noma’s René Redzepi as his business partner.

Although the volume initially focuses on turning out sourdough loaves in the classic boule shape, with variations in the flours used and the fermentation strategies, it also dives into other styles of bread from around the world. There are recipes for naan, tortillas, pita, focaccia, bagels and English muffins.

On my first foray into using techniques I’d learned from Hart’s book, I found the texture of my loaves were much improved. I can’t wait to see what will happen next week.

Cookbook of the Week: Insane in the Brine by Danny Berke

Thu, 31 Jul 2025 12:00:00 GMT

Fermenting, on the other hand, makes use of salt, and sometimes a salty brine, to protect food from pathogens while allowing beneficial bacteria to thrive. Sauerkraut, kimchi and classic kosher dills that you’d find at a deli are made using fermentation, rather than pickling. The process is also called lacto-fermenting, because the human-friendly bacteria we’re hoping to cultivate are called lactic acid bacteria (sometimes abbreviated as LAB), with the most common being a little guy known as lactobacillus.

I’m an inveterate experimenter, but food preservation is a place for starting with the tried and true until you become deeply familiar with safe practices. On Facebook, I’m part of a group called “ Insane in the Brine ,” which is all about food preservation, and the group’s founder, Danny Berke, collecting a bunch of his recipes into a book of the same name.

I used his recipe to make the classic pickles pictured above, and can’t wait to try more recipes as the season wends on. Some that I’m extra excited about: Pho Spiced Cherry Tomatoes; Spiced Melon Pickles; Indian Lime Pickles; and Cinnamon-Ginger German Mustard Pickles.

Why bother fermenting? Because the resulting foods are great for your gut microbiome! Plus, the foods you’ll create will taste wonderful. And, of course, it’s an interesting scientific experiment.

Cookbook of the Week: Tenderheart by Hetty Liu McKinnon

Wed, 23 Jul 2025 17:07:00 GMT

I also noticed that the first recipe in the cookbook is for Umami Crisp, which is similar to chili crisp. Reading the recipe, I instantly wanted to make a batch.

Organizing chapters by vegetable is helpful to newer cooks, because it allows them to see the breadth of the ingredient’s possibilities. For instance, mushrooms might be turned into a rich Thai curry soup, or dipped in batter and “Southern Fried.” On the other hand, you could cook them into a tomato ragu and serve them over baked polenta.

However, this cookbook is excellent for more experienced cooks, too. I’ve been eating potatoes all my life, and had never thought to lace them with black sesame seed aioli, nor have I combined frozen shelled peas, fresh sugar snaps and pea shoots into one dish.

If you spy this bright cookbook on a shelf and you will, because McKinnon wins awards for her work and is a contributor to the New York Times Food Section make sure to grab it.