The Best Cookbooks Are Love Letters, Says Sami Tamimi

Plus, a glorious tomato salad recipe from Boustany

At the risk of letting another Substacker write my introduction this week, I want to share what Lina wrote about Sami Tamimi’s lush, colorful new cookbook Boustany: A Celebration of Vegetables From My Palestine (Bookshop/Amazon). She said, “This is a book filled with feelings.”

As most people reading this newsletter (a.k.a. cookbook fans) probably know, Sami Tamimi grew up in Jerusalem and is the co-founder of the Ottolenghi restaurant empire in London, best known for its creative way with salads and other vegetable dishes. This is his fourth cookbook, and his first solo project.

Paging through Boustany, Lina’s observation resonated strongly with me. This is a deeply personal book, laced with longing and a loving nostalgia. If I close my eyes, I can picture Sami’s grandparents’ boustan, or garden, and feel the joy Sami experienced spending time there as a child. He shares cherished family recipes, offers up dishes from the various ethnic communities in Palestine, and expresses enormous pride in his people’s culinary heritage.

With this book, Sami is offering himself up as a cultural ambassador in a fraught, frightening time: “The responsibility of writing these recipes and stories has weighed heavily on my shoulders. I hope and wish that many of you try the recipes, read the stories and want to know more about Palestine—the place, its people, its culture and its food—this wonderful place I call home.”

And the recipes, you ask? They are unfussy and home-y, not garnished to death or deflating when you look at the length of the ingredient list. They aren’t meant to go viral, but to satisfy and sustain. There’s a pantry section full of spice blends, pickles, and sauces, and then chapters for salads, soups, weeknight meals, special occasion dishes, and desserts, among others. While I’m sure this is a book I’ll cook from all year long, there’s a simplicity and abundance to it that makes it ideal for summer. On that note, Sami graciously shared his recipe for Tomato, Za’atar, and Sumac Salad; scroll on down to see it.

The Easy Pickled Baby Eggplant in the works in my kitchen:

Previously, Sami wrote Ottolenghi (Bookshop/Amazon) and the juggernaut Jerusalem (Bookshop/Amazon) with Yotam Ottolenghi, and Falastin (Bookshop/Amazon) with Tara Wigley. Thank you for chatting cookbooks Sami, and congratulations on Boustany!

Photo: Jenny Zarins

The Cookbookery Q&A with Sami Tamimi

About how many cookbooks do you own?

ST: Oh, far too many to count at this point! They’re all stacked on bookshelves in my living room. I’d say, easily a few hundred. Some are worn and beloved, others are new and waiting to be explored.

How do you organize them?

ST: In no order, a loose system I would say.

What would you say to someone who questions why cookbooks still matter in our “digital age”?

ST: Cookbooks are more than recipes. They’re tactile, intimate, and they carry voices, generations, memories, stories. Online recipes can give you technique. A cookbook gives you context, a connection to people and places. That matters deeply.

How did Boustany come to be?

ST: Boustany was born from a longing to preserve and celebrate a Palestinian identity that is often overshadowed or misunderstood. I wanted to dig deeper into Palestinian food through a specific lens—mine, my family’s, the places I grew up in and those I returned to. It’s deeply personal, layered with memory, emotion and dishes that I grew up on having.

What’s one thing you wish were different about the book?

ST: Only that there were more pages! So many stories and dishes couldn’t fit. Editing it down was painful. I had to let go of recipes and stories. But I suppose that’s what the next book is for.

What are you most proud of when it comes to Boustany?

ST: As a Palestinian chef and author, I’m proud to have the opportunity to share dishes and stories that are deeply rooted in me and in so many other Palestinians. What moves me most is that it resonates: readers are connecting with the narrative just as much as with the food.

What is the first cookbook you remember cooking out of?

ST: I’m not entirely sure what the first cookbook I used was, but it was most likely an Arabic one I found at the library.

What kind of cookbook reader/user are you?

ST: Definitely a magpie, I dip in and out, draw inspiration rather than follow recipes to the letter.

What do you find boring in a cookbook?

ST: When it feels soulless and too polished. If I can’t hear the author’s voice, if the recipes feel disconnected from a personal story, I lose interest.

What is a cookbook that totally transports you?

ST: Caroline Eden’s Red Sands. It’s so much more than a collection of recipes. It’s a journey through Central Asia, blending food with vivid storytelling, history, and strong sense of place.

What’s a cookbook cover you’re obsessed with?

ST: Boustany! Ha! It is everything I wanted it to be for my first solo cookbook. I worked closely with talented designer Claire Rochford whose work has both warmth and elegance. I wanted the cover to be bold, colourful and different from my previous book covers.

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

ST: Istanbul & Beyond (Bookshop/Amazon¹) by Robyn Eckhardt. It deserved more light. It quietly and respectfully paints Turkish cuisine with such heart.

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

ST: Probably Modernist Cuisine (Bookshop/Amazon). It’s fascinating, a feat of science and design, but I’ve never actually made a thing from it.

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

ST: How to Eat by Nigella Lawson, Lebanese Cuisine (Bookshop/Amazon) by Anissa Helou, and The Food of Italy by Claudia Roden

Anything else you’d like to add about cookbooks in general or Boustany in particular?

ST: Cookbooks, at their best, are love letters—to a place, a time, a people. Boustany is mine. I hope it encourages others to tell their stories through food—imperfect, honest full of life.

Interview has been lightly edited. If you purchase a book through one of these links, I may receive a small commission.

More to Nibble On

• Want more from Boustany? Sami was a guest on The Dinner Plan and Leslie Brenner shared his Fridge-Raid Fattoush.

• Lukas Volger reviewed two new narrative food books, What is Queer Food? and Dining Out, for the NY Times (gift link)

• A really interesting post from Leah Koenig about where cookbooks are shelved in bookstores, Where Do Jewish Cookbooks Belong?

• If you missed my video interview with Victoria Granof last week, you can catch it here. It was Cookbookery Collective’s first…but probably not last…live video.

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Recipe from Boustany: Tomato, Za’atar, and Sumac Salad

(Salatet Za’atar w Banadoura bil Sumac)

Photo: Ola O. Smit

On the final day of my visits to Jerusalem, I often make sure to pass by Bab al-Amoud (the Damascus Gate) to get a few ingredients to take back with me to London. One of these is always fresh za’atar, which I buy from the falahat (village women) who sell seasonal produce on the side of the road, down by the market in the old city.

Fresh za’atar, onion and sumac make a classic Palestinian salad, one which a few of the surrounding countries share. The star is the fresh, velvety za’atar leaves, with their distinctive taste. They are aromatic, with a fragrant and earthy aroma that’s both herbal and slightly floral, similar to the flavors of thyme and oregano, with a subtle peppery tinge. It’s the perfect salad to have in the summer, when tomatoes and herbs are at their best.

• 3 large ripe tomatoes, cut into 1⁄4-inch / ½cm wedges (14 oz / 400g)

• 14 oz / 400g cherry tomatoes, cut in half

• ½ red onion, finely chopped (½ cup / 70g)

• ¾ cup / 15g fresh parsley, finely chopped

• 1 tbsp sumac, plus more for sprinkling²

• 3 tbsp olive oil

• ½ tsp lemon zest 2½ tbsp lemon juice

• 1 tbsp pomegranate molasses salt

• ¾ cup / 15g fresh za’atar or oregano leaves, roughly chopped

• 3 tbsp pomegranate seeds³

Put the tomatoes, red onion, parsley and sumac into a large bowl. In a smaller bowl, whisk the olive oil, lemon zest, lemon juice, pomegranate molasses and 11⁄4 teaspoons of salt.

Pour the dressing over the salad, add the za’atar or oregano leaves and give it a good stir. Pile the salad onto a serving platter, and sprinkle with the pomegranate seeds and more sumac.

Reprinted with permission from Boustany: A Celebration of Vegetables from my Palestine by Sami Tamimi, copyright © 2025. Published by Ten Speed Press, an imprint of Penguin Random House.

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1. Note that at Bookshop it’s only available as an e-book.

2. Suggestion! If anyone you’re feeding is sour sensitive, start with half of the sumac and add more to taste.

3. When I made this recipe, I couldn’t find pomegranate seeds, so I swapped in pine nuts. They didn’t provide the arils’ pop of sourness, but did add a similar crunch.