54 PUBLISHERS WEEKLY ■ NOVEMBER 4, 2019
Review_NONFICTION
ingredients risks feeling dated quickly.
(Mar.)From Freezer to Cooker:
Delicious Whole Foods Meals
for the Slow Cooker, Pressure
Cooker, and Instant Pot
Polly Conner and Rachel Tiemeyer. Rodale,
$22.99 (256p) ISBN 978-1-63565-312-0
Thriving Home bloggers Conner and
Tiemeyer follow up From Freezer to Table
with another family-friendly collection
of hearty fare that can be prepped ahead
of time, frozen, and reheated for meal-
times. The recipes include preparation
instructions for both slow cookers and
the Instant Pot, allowing readers to make
informed
choices
regarding how
and when
they’ll prepare
dishes, such as
cheesy chicken
taquitos, Asian
turkey meat-
balls, and a
weeknight marinara sauce made with
ground sausage and beef. Ease doesn’t
mean light on flavor, as evidenced by
honey bourbon chicken breasts and
Asian-style beef short ribs, which can
prepped in minutes in the Instant Pot
before dinner or cooked in the slow
cooker while gone for the day. Though
it may be tempting to race right to the
recipes, readers would do well to read the
authors’ tips on the various appliances,
noting, for example, that while the
Instant Pot can handle frozen food, slow
cookers cannot. The authors give solid
advice on proper freezing (place food in a
freezer bag in a circular shape) and
thawing techniques, and label each
recipe with icons indicating whether
they are dairy-free, kid-friendly, or
vegetarian. All of this adds up to a useful
collection for home cooks pressed for
time. (Jan.)Cape Mediteranean:
The Way We Love to Eat
Ilse van der Merwe. PRH South Africa
(Casemate, dist.), $26 trade paper (192p)
ISBN 978-1-4323-1022-6
In this solid debut cookbook, South
African Food Fox blogger Van der Merweare some breakfast options, including
blueberry cornmeal muffins and coconut-
peanut butter granola bars, as well as DIY
nut butters such as strawberry cashew
butter and white-chocolate-pretzel peanut
butter. Conners shares indispensable tips
throughout, such as how to make an easy
vegan egg substitute (“Mix 1 tablespoon
ground flax seed with 2½ tablespoons of
water”) or how to prepare cookie doughs
for make-ahead purposes (“They will keep
in the freezer for about 6 months”).
Whether readers have food sensitivities or
simply want to make healthier decisions,
they will find plenty of satisfying options
here. (Mar.)Open Kitchen: Inspired Food for
Casual Gatherings
Susan Spungen. Avery, $35 (336p) ISBN 978-
0-525-53667-3
Spungen, founding food editor for
Martha Stewart Living, serves up clever
ideas for casual entertaining in this
inspiring collection of guest-worthy rec-
ipes for food that doesn’t “seem like it’s
trying too hard.” Starters include baked
ricotta that puffs like a soufflé, and
breadsticks that incorporate dukkah, a
popular Egyptian spice and nut mix
(though Spungen insists that she’s “not
one to slavishly follow a trend”). Main
dishes are designed to make a sensory
impression: a whole chicken is soaked
overnight in kefir, then roasted with
shallots and basted with harissa, and a
lamb shoulder is coated in tangy pome-
granate molasses. There’s an Italian
flavor to many options, including an
eggplant parmigiana that incorporates
roasted vegetables and chunks of bread,
and pan pizza topped with broccoli rabe
and sausage in an otherwise vegetarian
“Centerpiece” chapter. Spungen’s
famous kale salad from 2011 (still one of
the most popular recipes on Epicurious)
appears here without the original’s
shaved brussels sprouts. The ginger
chocolate cookies she contributed to a
Martha Stewart Living cookie book that
earned a spot on the cover, and almond
tuiles with popped quinoa (“a very ‘now’
update”) are doable desserts, as are a
flexible fruit crisp and a rustic apple
galette with halvah. Spungen meets her
crowd-pleasing goal with style, though a
cookbook with so many of-the-momentnew topic to write about, or an old one
that can be written about in a new way.
To that end, Diehl suggests outlining the
book into chapters and figuring out
exactly what one wants to communicate
before beginning to write. In the editing
and refining stage, he advises cutting
anything that does not serve the book’s
purpose. When the finished book is
ready to be presented, its title, cover,
and synopsis are the first things readers
will see, so it is imperative, Diehl
writes, that they are enticing and free of
typos. Most helpfully, he urges aspiring
authors to pick the marketing plan that
will deliver the highest return for their
investment. Though lengthy, Diehl’s
book can be quickly read and is
crammed with practical ideas that
readers will want to highlight and refer
back to when they endeavor to write
their own book. (Self-published.)Lifestyle
Food & Drink
Bakerita: 100+ No-Fuss Gluten-
Free, Dairy-Free, and Refined
Sugar-Free Recipes for the
Modern Baker
Rachel Conners. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt,
$24.99 (288p) ISBN 978-0-358-11667-7
“I wrote this book because I want you
to know that eating dessert is a deli-
cious—and healthy—part of life,” writes
Bakerita blogger Conners in her acces-
sible debut cookbook, a collection of
dozens of gluten- and dairy-free desserts.
Conners instructs how to make popular
dessert staples—such as strawberry
shortcake, chocolate chip cookies, and
apple crumble pie—vegan and gluten-
free by replacing traditional ingredients
such as all-purpose flour, milk, and
white sugar with alternatives including
coconut flour, cashew milk, and pure
maple syrup. Some of the more inventive
recipes include
raspberry-
lavender scones,
peanut butter
and fig blondies,
and butternut
squash pie
with oat crust.
Beyond desserts