Trap Kitchen: Bangin’ Recipes from Compton

Jenkins and Smith, who once belonged to rival L.A. gangs, became friends and started a catering business marketed solely on Instagram. Media outlets took notice, as did Snoop Dogg and Martha Stewart, paving the way for their debut cookbook, an underwhelming volume of three dozen recipes written in obscenity-riddled slang. They begin with two gravy recipes—one with apple, the other with cranberry—before moving on to side dishes featuring chicken, turkey, seafood, steak, and pork. The directions are entertaining but can be tricky to follow, not just because they are all set in italics. The apple cinnamon corn bread is just sautéed apples stirred into a store-bought mix, but the instructions fail to mention what to do with the cinnamon or why there is sour cream in the list of ingredients. The Chicken Curry in a Pot, Boy calls for potatoes, Jamaican curry powder, and bottled scotch bonnet; as for the accompanying rice, “y’all should know how to cook that shit if you’re already using a cookbook.” Having found a winning formula on Instagram, the authors lean heavily on eye-catching photographs by Teddy Wolff to fill out a book more notable for its novelty than its utility. [em](Jan.) [/em]