These cookbooks helped me rediscover my love for cooking in the past year.

Anyone who knows me in real life knows that I am in love with food. I see food as a medium to examine history through, and food anthropology has been something that I’m way too into.

At one point, I was even interviewing with Whetstone and Stephen Satterfield to potentially work there part-time in the marketing department. I didn’t get the job then, which really worked out in my favor for other opportunities, but I think that I was having such a blast meeting an idol of mine in that interview.

Anyways, I spend a lot of time pouring through cookbooks as well. One of my hobbies, as someone who runs a book, movie, and lifestyle blog, is going to the library and picking out books and DVDs to get through each week.

The cookbook section I’ve come to know like the back of my hand, and I spend a lot of time marinating in the books there in search of new recipes, stories, and histories that I haven’t heard of before. It’s kind of one of my passions, and maybe one day I’ll be writing my own cookbook! Who knows.

These are some cookbooks that I loved in the past year from the bottom of my heart.

Food of Life: Ancient Persian and Modern Iranian Cooking and Ceremonies by Najmieh Batmanglij

I’m Iranian, and grew up eating this kind of food every week for dinners, lunches, and leftovers. I know what good Iranian food tastes like when it’s homemade, and I asked for this book last Christmas in an attempt to get a guidebook to all of my favorite eats. That said, this is a book that truly has everything. I call it an encyclopedia of sorts when it comes to the basics of Iranian food, as the author also goes into detail about the history and poetry behind these foods.

I haven’t gotten through all of the recipes, especially considering I don’t cook with lamb, but of the ones I’ve tried they’ve been pretty incredible. I made the koobideh recipe for my family one event, and everyone was raving about it. No one had realized I made it, too, until my mother said something, spurring some surprise when people found out.

Taste Tibet: Family Recipes from the Himalayas by Julie Kleeman and Yeshi Jampa

I love learning about Tibet, and Nepalese food has become one of my favorites in the past two years. As I was doing a research project on nationalism in Tibet and what the people face there, I’ve come to learn that I wanted to try the food from the region, or it would seem like a disservice to some of these stories I was consuming. So I checked out Taste Tibet from the library, and was impressed by what was contained within its pages.

Some of the highlight recipes for me have been the thukpa recipe, which is a Tibetan noodle soup that’s spicy and reinvigorating for the soul, the recipe for momos, and the simple stories that are scattered throughout the pages of this gorgeous cookbook. I ended up asking for a copy for Christmas this year so I can have my favorite recipes at arms length whenever I need them.

For The Culture: Phenomenal Black Women and Femmes in Food: Interviews, Inspiration, and Recipes by Klancy Miller

I originally saw this is on a list over at Bon Appetit, as I was poking through their shopping section in search of something new to look for at the library, and I was really interested just by the total alone. This isn’t a traditional cookbook, but instead a good mixture of not only recipes, but interviews and profiles on Black women active in the food scene throughout the United States. I really appreciated how there wasn’t a specific regional focus; it could become easily a list of women working in New York City, which would lock out entire groups of people in the end.

All of this said, I loved this book and plan on buying a copy for my personal collection once I have the money. It was so inspiring reading these women’s words and stories, and although I didn’t test out any of the recipes, I think having this can truly be an inspiration for anyone looking to make it in food. I’m not a Black woman myself, as I’m Iranian American, but I try to seek out these perspectives whenever possible. I’m grateful for these books existing. Truly.

The Vegan Chinese Kitchen: Recipes and Modern Stories from a Thousand-Year-Old Tradition: A Cookbook by Hannah Che

This is another cookbook I ended up asking for from my family for Christmas this year, as I thought some of the recipes in here were just so good. I originally checked this book out of the library on a whim, but balked when I saw how big the book was when I finally had it in my hands. I knew I wasn’t going to get through many recipes in the time I had with my library hold, but I genuinely enjoyed some of the cabbage and tofu recipes I had made during my time with the hold.

So when my aunt asked me what I wanted, I decided to ask for this book. There’s also an overview of Buddhist and Daoist influences on vegetarian cuisine in China, making this a little history lesson in the middle of reading it. Coming from an approach where I had studied the Korean vegetarian Buddhist perspective, I really appreciated reading more from the Chinese perspective overall. As the title implies, every recipe in this book is vegan, making it the perfect book for vegetarians and vegans alike.

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