Old Lady
Youth Lab

Café / The Cookbook Shelf

Behind the counter

The Cookbook Shelf

The cookbooks worth cooking from and keeping, the ones that live on the counter rather than the shelf. French and Vietnamese, Indian and Italian, the Parisian bakery and the New Orleans table. Read it in the Reading Room, live with it in The Big Books, cook from it here. The ones Annette actually opens.

Good Things: Recipes and Rituals to Share With People You Love Samin Nosrat

Good Things: Recipes and Rituals to Share With People You Love

Samin Nosrat on the recipes and small rituals you share with the people you love.

$45
Something from Nothing: A Cookbook Alison Roman

Something from Nothing: A Cookbook

Alison Roman cooks from the pantry, the dinner you make when you think there's nothing in the house.

$37.99
The Taste of Country Cooking Edna Lewis

The Taste of Country Cooking

The Virginia country year, the American seasonal book the rest are measured against.

$40
The Zuni Café Cookbook Judy Rodgers

The Zuni Café Cookbook

The San Francisco classic, the roast chicken and bread salad everyone has copied.

$45
Kismet: Bright, Fresh, Vegetable-Loving Recipes Sara Kramer & Sarah Hymanson

Kismet: Bright, Fresh, Vegetable-Loving Recipes

The LA kitchen everyone wants to eat in, vegetables bright and eastern-Mediterranean.

$35
An Everlasting Meal: Cooking with Economy and Grace Tamar Adler

An Everlasting Meal: Cooking with Economy and Grace

Cooking with economy and grace, food writing you read like a novel.

$18
Le Sud: Recipes from Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur Rebekah Peppler

Le Sud: Recipes from Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur

Rebekah Peppler down the Provençal coast, the food and the apéro of the South of France.

$35
Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Volume One Julia Child, Louisette Bertholle & Simone Beck

Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Volume One

The book that taught America to cook French, and still the one you reach for.

$50
Mokonuts: The Cookbook Moko Hirayama & Omar Koreitem

Mokonuts: The Cookbook

The Paris café everyone who bakes loves, from Dorie Greenspan to David Lebovitz.

$49.95
Mostly French: Recipes from a Kitchen in Provence Makenna Held

Mostly French: Recipes from a Kitchen in Provence

Cooking at La Pitchoune, Julia Child's own house in Provence, the French kitchen made unfussy.

$40
Monsoon: Delicious Indian Recipes for Every Day and Season Asma Khan

Monsoon: Delicious Indian Recipes for Every Day and Season

Asma Khan cooks India by the season, the everyday and the festival table both.

$30
Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking Marcella Hazan

Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking

The Italian canon, the one book that settles every argument about the real thing.

$40
Ottolenghi Comfort Yotam Ottolenghi with Helen Goh

Ottolenghi Comfort

Ottolenghi turns toward comfort, the food you actually want on a Tuesday.

$37.99
The 100 Greatest Dishes of Louisiana Cookery Roy F. Guste, Jr.

The 100 Greatest Dishes of Louisiana Cookery

A New Orleans chef's Creole hundred, from haute Creole to red beans and rice. A hometown book.

$16.95
Zaitoun: Recipes from the Palestinian Kitchen Yasmin Khan

Zaitoun: Recipes from the Palestinian Kitchen

Palestinian home cooking gathered kitchen by kitchen, olive oil and za'atar at its center.

$30
Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat Samin Nosrat

Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat

The four elements, the closest thing to learning to cook by feel from a page.

$37.50
Start Here: Instructions for Becoming a Better Cook Sohla El-Waylly

Start Here: Instructions for Becoming a Better Cook

Sohla El-Waylly teaches you to cook by understanding it, six hundred pages of the why.

$45
Near & Far: Recipes Inspired by Home and Travel Heidi Swanson

Near & Far: Recipes Inspired by Home and Travel

Heidi Swanson cooks between home and the road, vegetables first, the light always good.

$35
Super Natural Every Day Heidi Swanson

Super Natural Every Day

The whole-grain pantry made a pleasure rather than a penance, for every day.

$24.99
The Love and Lemons Cookbook Jeanine Donofrio

The Love and Lemons Cookbook

Vegetable-first cooking from the beloved blog, bright and green, organized A to Z.

$35
Vietnam: The Cookbook Anaïs Ca Dao van Manen

Vietnam: The Cookbook

Phaidon's flagship Vietnam, four hundred recipes across the whole country.

$54.95