Cooking

Part cookbook, part science manual, this book explains the “why” behind great cooking. Breaks down classic recipes and techniques with clear, evidence-based explanations, showing how small changes in method can transform what you’re cooking. It’s a must-have for anyone who wants to cook better by understanding the underlying principles, not just following instructions. Lopez-Alt’s Serious Eats articles are great references for deep dives on how to get just about anything right, from ribs to burgers. 

This one is more of a source of background understanding and basic science than a how-to. Pollan goes through the four elemental transformations of food (fire, water, air, and earth) through cooking. He shows how these processes shaped human culture, health, and community. It’s a treatise on the value of making things from scratch and the deeper connections forged when we do.

Our favorite go-to cookbook with recipes that have become regular mainstays. Craig has given this book away so many times that Amazon sends him weekly reminders about it. The recipes in here are (mostly) healthy and rooted in whole foods, but that’s not the purpose of the book. Roman isn’t a nutrition nerd, she’s a chef who wants people to make good food for their friends and family without making a big deal of it. Try the sticky chicken and the coconut stew.

Quick, weeknight-friendly recipes with a Mediterranean slant. Like Roman’s books, these are healthy as a byproduct of a focus on good, whole food.

Gerard is prolific and her blog is a good source of recipes in a pinch and her other books are also good. She skews a little more toward comfort food but most of what’s in here is still solid nutritionally and easy to work with. Provides good ideas for great tasting meals that aren’t a pain to cook. 

Similar to her other book, Roman focuses on simple ingredients and clever techniques that will help you step up your cooking game pretty easily. Another good standby that will provide you with some weekly favorites.

Not a cookbook so much as a background education that helps you understand which flavors work together and why. Gives you a solid understanding of the principles behind flavor profiles from around the world and how to use them.

Nosrat breaks cooking down into four essential forces, salt, fat, acid, and heat, and shows how they shape flavor and texture. Like J. Kenji López-Alt’s The Food Lab, this book is less about memorizing recipes and more about building a mental framework for why food works the way it does. Where Pollan’s Cooked explores the cultural and historical role of cooking, Nosrat’s focus is on giving you the instincts to improvise confidently in your own kitchen. It pairs naturally with The Flavor Bible, since both push you to move beyond step-by-step instructions into understanding principles, but Nosrat makes those principles approachable through vivid explanations and illustrations. If Roman, Kimball, and Gerard give you a roster of reliable weeknight meals, this will teach you how to take those same ingredients and make them taste better every time.