I'll Go First

Subjecting myself to the absolutely blistering Cookbookery Q&A

Hello! Welcome to the first official Cookbookery Collective newsletter. I’m so happy you’re here, and I’m so happy I’m here and writing about cookbooks! You can read more about why I wanted to launch Cookbookery Collective here. The tl;dr is that I’m kind of obsessed with them, and I wanted to talk to other people who were obsessed with them too.

After today, in each regular newsletter we’ll hear from an author or other member of the cookbook community. The meat of each issue will be the Cookbookery Q&A, my version of the New York Times Book Review’s By the Book column.

I’ll go first to kick things off. Aside from being your enthusiastic host here at Cookbookery Collective, I’m the food director at Real Simple and the author of five cookbooks.

Without further ado, here is my interview with myself.

Hi!

About how many cookbooks do you own?

JH: Around 200, and they’re at max capacity in my Brooklyn apartment. I receive new cookbooks from publishers all the time, so I’m constantly curating. I organize them by color, which is probably controversial.

What kind of cookbook reader/user are you?

Voracious and streaky. I’ll latch onto a book for a few weeks and make several things out of it. Then I’m on to the next. There aren’t enough meals for all of the books I want to cook out of.

What is the first cookbook you remember cooking out of?

JH: It was a cooking or baking cookbook for kids, and I think Better Homes and Gardens. Possibly this one? I wouldn’t swear to it.

What is one cookbook you read, but don’t cook from?

JH: Japanese Farm Food (Bookshop/Amazon) by Nancy Singleton Hachisu, an American who married a Japanese farmer decades ago and had three sons. She writes about her family’s life on the farm and shares traditional and not-so-traditional Japanese recipes. There is just so much knowledge in this book.

When is a cookbook boring?

JH: When I’m not learning something and/or when its voice is generic.

What is a cookbook that totally transports you?

JH: Amy Thielen’s latest Company (Bookshop/Amazon). I have cooked out of it, but I’m more likely to just curl up and read it. My favorite chapters are the holiday ones. I feel like I’m in Amy’s home with all her friends in the remote woods of Minnesota. The photos of people feel real in a way that they don’t in most books; almost documentary style. (Now that I think about it, Japanese Farm Food has a similar visual vibe.)

What’s a cookbook that you think didn’t get enough attention?

JH: Masala: Recipes from India, the Land of Spices (Bookshop/Amazon) by Anita Jaisinghani pubbed in 2022. Not only are the recipes I’ve tried fantastic, it’s an incredible primer Ayurvedic cooking, balancing flavors, and cooking with spices.

What’s a cover you’re obsessed with?

JH: Roast Figs and Sugar Snow (Bookshop/Amazon). This is one of the few cookbooks I paid for with my own dollars because I had to have it immediately.

What is the last recipe you made from a cookbook?

JH: The Banana Buttermilk Bread from The Violet Bakery Cookbook (Bookshop/Amazon) by Claire Ptak. I have made many a banana bread in my day, but this one takes the cake (so to speak). It’s rich, moist, and banana-y; the single teaspoon of dark rum adds a whisper of mystery.

What’s one book you’re sheepish to admit you’ve never cooked out of?

JH: Up until a week ago I would have said Mastering the Art of French Cooking (Bookshop/Amazon). But, I made the vichysoisse for my cookbook club last weekend. Whew! Just in the nick of time. Because that would have really been embarrassing.

What is one thing you would change about your most recent book?

JH: The cover of Bare Minimum Dinners (Bookshop/Amazon) is very pretty, but it always felt too quiet to me.

You’re only allowed to cook from three books for the rest of your life. What are they?

JH: Six Seasons (Bookshop/Amazon); I return to it over and over. Baking with Dorie (Bookshop/Amazon) because I have a sweet tooth, and I feel like Dorie is my friend when I bake from it. For the third… Mastering the Art of French Cooking, I guess. One recipe down, many to go.

Why cookbooks?

JH: At their best, they’re portals to other ways of life, distillations of deep experience, and beautiful physical artifacts—all things I value. And they help me make really delicious food.

More to Nibble On

• Speaking of Six Seasons, I am SO excited for this.

• Samin Nosrat’s next book, out in September.

• And this one will help me eat my way through Paris next fall (if I can wait that long).

• Eater’s 20 Best Cookbooks of Spring 2025

• On the topic of Best Lists, did you see my list of best cookbooks of 2024? I narrowed it down to 19 for the WHOLE YEAR. Well, plus a few honorable mentions.

• This conversation between David Lebovitz and Kate Leahy, two seasoned cookbook authors about making books and cookbook trends, including re-releasing backlist books, which I strongly approve of. You?

Next week: Time for a hot date

Thank you for being here and for talking about cookbooks with me! Please like this post and let me know what cookbook you’ve cooked from most recently. Of course, I’d also love to hear your controversial opinions on cookbooks or (almost) anything else. xx