Food and Wine editors on the top cookbooks of the season

If you would like to practice using the new EYB Wishlist feature, I have another enabling post for your consideration. This time it is the picks for top cookbooks of fall 2021 from the editors at Food and Wine. Get ready to click the Wishlist icon frequently – F&W has listed twenty-three essential books.

I have a few of these books either already in my greedy little cookbook loving hands or on my wishlist, including Flavors of the Sun by Christine Sahadi Whelan, which is fantastic, and Baking with Dorie: Sweet, Salty & Simple because, well, Dorie! However, The Kitchen Whisperers: Cooking with the Wisdom of Our Friends by Dorothy Kalins almost slipped by me. Kalins is a founding editor of Saveur magazine, which once saved my job so I have a special fondness for it. That alone caught my attention, but reading the story of what a good mentor Kalins was to the F&W editor writing the recommendation made it sound even more appealing.

Other books that were not high on my list but which I will give a second look include Foodheim: A Culinary Adventure by Eric Wareheim and Emily Timberlake, which sounds quirky and funny, two characteristics I appreciate. Another is Rachael Ray’s This Must Be the Place. It sounds like this book truly comes from the heart. I may have rolled my eyes more than once at Ray’s perkiness during her past television appearances, but you have to admire someone who can roll with a 1-2-3 punch of dealing with COVID lockdown, losing her house to a fire, and losing a cherished pet and still come out optimistic and thankful.