Nutrition scientist St-Onge, founder of Columbia University’s Center of Excellence for Sleep and Circadian Research, convincingly connects the dots between good food and good sleep, partnering with recipe developer Craddock to deliver meals designed to optimize one’s diet for better quality rest. Their approach calls for combining protein and complex carbohydrates throughout the day, along with micronutrients to “trigger the brain to synthesize two must-have sleep-supporting hormones: melatonin and serotonin.” After a deep dive into the science, the authors offer master lists of “sleep-supporting” ingredients (including clams and pumpkin seeds) and a four-week meal plan, followed by 75 recipes. The dishes leave room for flexibility: green spring gumbo calls for chicken andouille sausage but can easily be made vegan or pescatarian. Many have a Mediterranean vibe, including plentiful fish dishes (garlic shrimp, lemony baked trout) and two whole-grain pasta options. Breakfast options include overnight oats with ginger, dried fruit, and walnuts, and “sleep-better egg toast” with sautéed greens on high-fiber sunflower oat bread. The “Sweets for Sleep” section includes sesame shortbread cookies made with “tryptophan-rich tahini,” while the drinks chapter serves up a chamomile-ginger cordial. This well-researched and practical guide enlightens and empowers. (Jan.)

Reviewed on 12/13/2024 | Details & Permalink

For this wonderful collection, Millstein, cofounder of Fishwife Tinned Seafood Co., teams up with recipe developer Gonzalez to celebrate the versatility of tinned fish. Enticing recipes are organized by occasion: the chapter titled “In Front of the Fireplace,” for example, offers a foil dinner with chili crisp salmon perfect for a cold winter’s night, while “Summertime” features a refreshing heirloom tomato, nectarine, whipped ricotta, anchovy, and basil salad. Options for serving a crowd include sardine fritto misto with charred lemon and aioli, and a caramelized onion anchovy tart. Equally enticing are meals for one, such as a sardine and marinated zucchini sandwich. With potato, caramelized onion, and trout hash for breakfast and grilled cheese with pesto and anchovies for a late-night snack, Millstein and Gonzalez prove that tinned fish can hit the spot at any time of day. Most of the recipes come together quickly and easily, and the authors also share handy make-ahead tips (sardine tapenade can be stored in the fridge for up to a week and actually tastes better if made in advance). Gorgeous photography and adorable illustrations make this an ideal gift for home cooks who love seafood. Agent: Michele Crim, Miller Bowers Griffin Literary. (Feb.)

Reviewed on 12/13/2024 | Details & Permalink

Devi (Spice for Life) sets out “to make Indian food more accessible and less time-consuming” in this fresh and user-friendly cookbook. To that end, she encourages readers to take a faster, lighter approach to the cuisine, whether by creating “just one dish to enjoy on its own” as opposed to a spread, or by serving sides of salad instead the traditional rice and breads. Key to many of her 15-minute, one-pan recipes is a novel technique: boiling water is added to ingredients (often chopped smaller than usual) and the dish is cooked lid-on, then briefly reduced without the lid. She shows readers how to use this approach to create butter beans with carrots and yogurt, chili and garlic paneer, and five bean rice with tamarind. Also included are quick stir-fries, chutneys and pickles, and some intriguing quick breads, including beetroot and pomegranate molasses rotis. Though Devi streamlines where possible, sourcing spices may require some initial effort and expense for newbies to Indian cuisine, and stated prep times can be ambitious; the instructions for carrot, orange and chili flatbreads, for example, claim it will take just five minutes to peel and grate carrots, mince chili, and make the dough. Nonetheless, this collection is a gift to those wishing to expand their Indian repertoire. (Feb.)

Reviewed on 12/13/2024 | Details & Permalink

“Macramé is yoga for the mind,” according to this soothing manual. Strambio (Macramé Christmas) describes how the repetitive knotting involved in macramé helps her focus and “connects me to myself,” and she provides 17 projects aimed at fostering that meditative state of mind. They’re organized according to the amount of time required to complete them, with the bulky necklace made from lark’s head knots and the trivet created from double half hitch knots estimated to take less than 30 minutes. Intermediate projects that require less than an hour include a coaster, place mat, and plant hanger, while the most complex projects, which take more than an hour, include a coiled wall hanging, another hanging resembling a large feather, and a stout basket. Each project features reflection prompts encouraging readers to ponder such questions as “what colour do you feel today” and “what are you anxious or feeling negative about.” Breathing exercises urge readers to envision moonlight “wrapping you up in a warm and safe hug,” a butterfly “gently breaking” out of its cocoon, and roots sprouting from one’s feet and reaching into the earth. The prompts and exercises add a meditative spin on what would otherwise be a fairly straightforward macramé guide. This will help crafters unwind. (Jan.)

Reviewed on 12/13/2024 | Details & Permalink

In this inspired debut guide, Schmidt-Kohl describes how to make convincing faux ceramics by applying varnish to modeling or air-hardening clay. Outlining the pros and cons of both, she notes that modeling clay is easy to shape, but can warp as it dries, while air-hardening clay can be reworked if wetted, but dries to a gray finish. The projects share seasonal themes, with herb markers and a flowerpot included among spring items and holiday gift tags and hanging ornaments among the winter articles. Schmidt-Kohl serves up a bounty of clever decorating techniques. For instance, she details how to create strawberry jam jar tags by using decoupage glue to apply cutouts from paper napkins decorated with strawberries onto circular clay pieces. Other creative methods include soaking floral temporary tattoos onto clay ovals for “tropical” gift tags, or pressing leaves onto a clay square, removing them, and then painting the imprint green for a decorative “plant print.” Schmidt-Kohl provides photo illustrations and simple written instructions for each step, and the kiln-free projects make it easy to create attractive pieces on the cheap. Crafters will want to add this to their library. (Feb.)

Reviewed on 12/13/2024 | Details & Permalink

Craswell (Reclaimed), the former editor of Artichoke magazine, delivers an arresting coffee-table book highlighting the environmentally friendly features of homes around the world. Several of the houses incorporate sustainable alternatives for standard building materials, including an Australian home constructed from hempcrete, a concrete substitute that “absorb[s] carbon from the atmosphere for the life of the building,” and an Indonesian mansion built almost entirely from bamboo, which grows much faster than most other timber. Other abodes take advantage of innovative structural components, such as the Catskills Mountain home with a wraparound, solid layer of insulation that enhances heat conservation by eliminating the need for joists and studs, which create drafts. Elsewhere, Craswell describes how a modernist home in India collects over 3,000 gallons of rainwater a year for reuse in its gardens, how an Australian farmhouse utilizes a massive solar-powered battery to stay off the electrical grid, and how a New Zealand abode incorporates reclaimed black maire timber for its floorboards. In addition to being eco-friendly, the houses are also uniformly sleek and striking, featuring creative juxtapositions of modern box-style edifices with curved facades or arched windows. Going green has rarely looked this stylish. (Jan.)

Reviewed on 12/13/2024 | Details & Permalink

Loewen encourages readers to throw out the quilting rule book in this creative take on the craft. The projects start out relatively structured, limiting improvisation to color selection. For instance, Loewen shares how to make an Irish chain quilt by cutting 125 fabric squares of various colors and feeling out where to place each of them in the chain design. Next, she incorporates the “ruler-cut piecing” technique, showing how to construct a ramshackle sawtooth star quilt by sewing half-square triangles at imperfect angles and trimming the lopsided edges against a ruler. Additional techniques are even more distinctive, including “wonky log cabin” blocks made from irregularly sized rectangles and half-square triangles with curved lines instead of straight diagonals. The quilts become more impressive the farther they stray from the neat geometry of traditional quilts. The “scrap-bin cleanout” quilt involves assembling bits of leftover fabric in an elaborate collage of rectangles, while the “rainbow arcs” project juxtaposes deliberately lopsided arcs of color with sawtooth blocks that resemble the jagged shapes used to emphasize comic book punches. The asymmetrical designs offer a refreshing departure from standard quilting fare, and an extensive section on color theory will aid readers in creating harmonious compositions from their fabric scraps. This is sure to get quilters’ creative juices flowing. (Jan.)

Reviewed on 11/29/2024 | Details & Permalink

This empathetic debut manual from Fogel, host of the Whole Parent podcast and a father of four, warns against using fear-based parenting strategies. He contends that punishment is counterproductive because it incentivizes children to care more about whether they’ll get caught than about the problematic behavior itself. Instead, parents should strive to understand why their child acts out, because misbehavior usually stems from unmet needs. For example, Fogel describes how his toddler refused to follow their morning routine until his wife realized the tantrums stemmed from hunger (despite the child’s protestations that he didn’t want to eat) and were resolved by serving breakfast earlier. No punishment doesn’t mean no consequences, Fogel asserts, adding that they should be directly related to the offense and the reasons for them clearly communicated. To illustrate, he recounts how after he discovered one of his sons drawing with a Sharpie on their new deck, he clarified the rules for proper Sharpie usage and enlisted his son’s help in sandpapering the marker off the deck. The guidance is compassionate, and Fogel’s exhortation “to extend to ourselves the same grace and forgiveness that we aspire to extend to our children” will help readers work through their own emotional baggage. Parents will find this a balm. Agent: Kathleen Kerr, Alive Literary. (Jan.)

Reviewed on 11/29/2024 | Details & Permalink

Food blogger Goldstein (The Happy Sandwich) offers a mixed-bag collection of cooking hacks that promises to save readers dishes, money, and time, but delivers advice that is alternately helpful and confusing. Some ideas will appeal to college students without full kitchens (including a microwavable recipe for mac and cheese in a mug) or young adults learning to cook on a budget (for example, the tip to stretch ground meat by adding finely chopped mushrooms), though the audience for others, such as pressing ravioli with the bottom of a wine bottle, is unclear (it’s hard to imagine the cook who makes filled pasta from scratch but is unwilling to “dirty a pasta cutter”). The advice in the time-saving section seems willing to sacrifice quality, such as a burger recipe for a crowd instructing readers to bake ground beef in a sheet pan before cutting into squares, or a “lasagna” made with frozen ravioli. Some of the better tips, such as freezing vegetable peels and parmesan rinds for broth, are hardly secrets, though they may be unfamiliar to novice cooks. Readers who value efficiency above all and who don’t mind relying on single-use products (common in the dish-avoiding section) may find value, but others should feel free to skip this. (Jan.)

Reviewed on 11/29/2024 | Details & Permalink

Mexican Food Memories blogger Zazueta explores the unique flavors of northern Mexico in this heartfelt celebration of her culinary roots. Now living in the U.K., Zazueta sprinkles in childhood memories, historical tidbits, and regional variations, and highlights classic recipes originating in the region, including Caesar salad, Baja fish tacos, and margaritas. An opening chapter on “The Essentials” kicks things off with recipes for tortillas and salsas, and succeeding chapters reflect the connection between geography and food. In “From the Garden,” Zazueta offers stuffed Anaheim peppers and recalls in the introduction to a recipe for cactus salad that her father tended their family’s cactus patch “as if they were another one of his children.” Reflecting the region’s extensive coastline, “From the Sea” features shrimp ceviche, fried lobster from Puerto Nuevo, and skate wing soup. “From the Ranch” includes recipes for shredded beef brisket empanadas, a hearty wakabaki beef and bone marrow stew from the indigenous Yaqui tribe, and oven-cooked kid goat. Dogos Estilo Sonora, hot dogs with a norteño twist that are “almost as popular as tacos,” according to Zazueta, are wrapped in bacon before frying, then garnished with salsa and fried onions. Rounding things out are sweets, drinks, and sample menu plans, especially useful to those new to Mexican cooking. This vibrant collection brings a rich culinary tradition to life. (Dec.)

Reviewed on 11/29/2024 | Details & Permalink