Cake Picnic
Sunga, an amateur baker and UX program manager at Google, launched Cake Picnic in San Francisco in 2024, inviting friends to each bring a whole cake to a park. Nearly 200 people showed up, and the event has since gone global, spreading to Mexico City, Dubai, Sydney, and beyond. Sunga’s 50 recipes include torched rosemary caramel cake, guava cream cheese bundt cake, and pretzel s’mores cake, and complement her invitation “to create your own celebrations, to gather friends around cake-filled tables, to spark creativity and wonder in your community.”
Cooking from Scratch
Conceived in the aftermath of Boudy’s divorce, her mother’s stroke and subsequent multiple brain surgeries, and a big move, her sophomore effort (after Cook Like a New Orleanian) was inspired by Malinda Russell’s A Domestic Cook Book (1866), the oldest-known published cookbook written by a Black woman. Boudy gathered 70 family recipes and 20 natural remedies that aim to cultivate joy, rejuvenation, and renewal: mini crawfish pies and caramel apple pie nourish; garlic and ginger cough syrup and a detox bath soak heal.
One Plate at a Time
“Learning how to feed myself has saved my life,” singer, songwriter, and actor Lovato writes, explaining that she began cooking in her 30s as part of her recovery from anorexia and bulimia. “I found freedom with food in the kitchen, of all places.” She groups her straightforward, accessible dishes, including pantry chili, spice pumpkin waffles, and curried chicken salad, into five-recipe capsules—“Sturdy Salads,” “Winner-Winner Chicken Dinners”—so as not to overwhelm the reader with choices.
Pasta Therapy
Self-taught cook and food writer Barbato discovered the healing power of pasta making after an unmooring 2018 diagnosis, and launched “pasta therapy” workshops for Future Dreams, a London nonprofit that provides support to those affected by breast cancer. The book’s chapters are titled to evoke emotions: “The Therapy of Tradition,” or family recipes, include orecchiette with turnip greens and zesty pangrattato; beet-filled ravioli with poppy seed and butter involves “Mindful Preparation”; and “Recipes for a Lazy Day” include creamy spinach and lemon bucatini.
Will This Make You Happy
Pastry chef and Cake Zine founder Bush chronicles the “surprising and tumultuous” year she decided to become a baker, she writes. Organized by season, each section leads with a series of reflections about a particular activity, e.g., assembling the kitchen (winter), or a baked good—panna cotta in spring, snickerdoodles for fall—followed by corresponding recipes. Bush encourages readers to experiment and be messy: “If it fails, make something else.”
