Every year around the winter holiday season, we turn to Celia Sack, owner of Omnivore Books in San Francisco, to get her recommendations for cookbooks she loved over the past 12 months. Keep your eyes peeled for a forthcoming expanded list of Good Food's favorite cookbooks of 2023.
Evan Kleiman: I've lost track of how many years we've done this. Instead of getting straight to it, can you share how Omnivore started? What prompted you to open a store dedicated to cookery and drink books?
Celia Sack: This month is the 15th anniversary of the store, so it's a good time to ask. I was a rare book specialist for many years at an auction house. My specialty was all sorts of things. I was the rare golf book expert. I was in charge of modern lit. But my collecting interest became books on food because I felt like those books tell me the most about a time, a place, a culture. It's anthropology, it's archaeology, it tells the whole story of a people through their food. It is also what brings people together around the world. That's why I opened [the store]. I wanted to share my passion with everyone.
In "Made in Taiwan," Clarissa Wei breaks down recipes into different waves of colonization and their culinary influence. Photo courtesy of Simon Element
Let's talk about new books that came out this year. Was there a category of cooking that seemed to dominate the shelves this year?
It takes books a little while to catch up with what the passion is, so books might not have caught up yet to the fact that we're ending this year with two wars and a lot of people are really looking for comfort and security in their food. I think that there's a big need for comfort foods in all categories. This year, people were really buying books that have an emphasis on bringing people together, making you feel warm and cozy.
I was so happy to see that there were a lot of Asian and Asian American and also some African cookbooks that came out [this year]. When I first started, those types of cookbooks just covered the entire continent. They didn't go into regions or specific areas. Now, finally, we're starting to see one from Sierra Leone, one from Nigeria, one from Senegal. Same with the Asian [cookbooks]. Made in Taiwan is all Taiwanese. There is a big interest in getting more specific, and I'm really happy about that.
Books featuring comfort food, like Molly Baz's "More is More" and Alison Roman's "Sweet Enough," were popular in 2023. Photos courtesy of Clarkson Potter
Going back to the comfort books that you talked about, is there one you would pick?
I'm gonna give you two. Molly Baz's More is More is about using everything you have. She calls for you to use an entire head of garlic instead of one clove or an entire thing of basil to make your pesto instead of one or two sprigs. So her book is definitely "more is more," use all the butter. Very comforting.
The other one that came out this spring is Alison Roman's Sweet Enough. That's her first baking book and it's really fun. It's not like her past books, which sort of challenge you on flavor combinations or ingredients that you haven't tried before. This is what you love to have in a desert — gooey, chewy, sweet, and wonderful.
"Growing up in a Nonya Kitchen" by Sharon Wee has been reprinted in a new edition. Photo courtesy of Marshall Cavendish Cuisine
What books do you think both nail wanderlust but also contain great recipes?
Well, I think the ones that I was mentioning that came out this year and that are Asian, like Made in Taiwan. There's one that we just go in that I'm so excited about by Sharon Wee called Growing up in a Nonya Kitchen. It's Singaporean. I don't know if you remember but a couple of years back, her book had gone out of print and a woman who is not from Singapore plagiarized the entire book, basically. It had to be withdrawn and destroyed. The publisher had to have everybody return their copies. That was so frustrating because everyone wanted to go ahead and buy [Sharon's] cookbook to support her, and it was out of print. It [had been put out by] a very small Australian publisher. They just got it back out in a beautiful hardcover edition. I really encourage people to buy it. It's such a great book. This woman even plagiarized Sharon's personal memories of growing up in Singapore. It's so nice to have the real thing and be able to support her with it.
"Kung Food" by John Kung has proven to be extremely popular. Photo courtesy of Clarkson Potter
Was there a sleeper hit of the year this year?
There was this book that we got over 400 pre-orders for from around the country and none of us had ever heard of the author. His name is John Kung, and it's called Kung Food. He's really popular on TikTok. He came and gave a talk. He is so charming. He's gay. He's gorgeous. He's totally into what he's cooking. These orders were from Indiana, Alabama. We were shipping it all over the country for this sort of Chinese and Chinese American home cooking. He lives in Detroit. He's just a Midwestern boy, and I love him. I was so happy that his book was the sleeper hit this year for us.
These two baking books might inspire you to turn on your oven. Photo courtesy of Harvest and Countryman Press
Now we're gonna go on to the speed round. Give me a gift for the following people or needs. For the baker…
Bread and Roses by Rose Wilde. I went to a demo she did. It was the best cake I've ever had, and I'm 54 so I've had a lot of cake. It's lovely. It's about using all sorts of alternative grains in baking and she does a really masterful job with it.
The other one that I would say is Bake Smart by Samantha Seneviratne. She likes to use a lot of interesting spices in her flavors. There's a saffron and cardamom crème caramel that sounds fabulous in the book. It's great for beginners and pros. Dorie Greenspan, queen of baking, loves her. There are all these core recipes followed by specific ones. It's great because you can do the core ones and keep them in your pantry and have them to go for when you want to use certain recipes.
"Portico" by Leah Koenig explores Jewish Roman cuisine. Photo courtesy of W. W. Norton & Company
Give us a book for our next cookbook club dinner.
I'm gonna go with Portico by Leah Koenig. Jewish Roman cuisine. There's not an unlikable recipe in there. Everything is wonderful. There are a lot of vegetable recipes like the Roman artichokes, the Jewish artichokes. And, of course, there's plenty of pasta.
"Ever-Green Vietnamese" by Andrea Nguyen, "Vegetable Revelations" by Steven Satterfield and "The Vegan Baker" by Zacchary Bird all make plants the star of the meal. Photo courtesy of Ten Speed Press
For our vegans and plant-based eaters.
We've got Ever-Green Vietnamese by Andrea Nguyen. She's an excellent professional cookbook writer. I love Andrea and everything she does. That is a great book.
I would also go with Steven Satterfield's Vegetable Revelations. He owns a restaurant in Atlanta called Miller Union. I've been there, it's wonderful. He's got tasty and beautiful Southern twists on global dishes like grilled okra with chipotle mayo. I find them really delicious.
Another book that looks really beautiful and large, that I haven't tackled myself, but it's called The Vegan Baker by Zacchary Bird. I'm really happy to see some of these vegan books, especially baking books finally come out in hardcover and be comprehensive rather than these thin, little ignored books by small presses that they used to be relegated to.
"Mussels" by Sergio Herman is a love letter to the mollusk. Photo courtesy of Tra Publishing
A coffee table book.
There is this gorgeous one that I love. If you haven't seen it yet, I highly recommend you get it. It's called Mussels by Sergio Herman. It's this large, gray tome with a shiny mussel on the cover. It's got recipes inside that are really good. I've sold it to anyone who I've pointed it out to, especially professional chefs. It's high-end mussels recipes. It's also such a love letter to mussels and where they come from — the beach, the rocks, the seaside. Absolutely gorgeous book
Fuchsia Dunlop's memoir invites you to join her at a metaphorical banquet. Photo courtesy of W. W. Norton & Company
Now a chef memoir or a food history.
We've got to go with the book of the season because there's really no comparison to it. It's Fuchsia Dunlop's Invitation to a Banquet, the Story of Chinese Food. It could go in food history, it could go in food writing. She is someone who has so much experience and mastery of not just Chinese cooking but the whole idea of Chinese food, and she translates it to people who are not familiar with that cuisine in a way that is so respectful and interesting, it just draws you in. This book doesn't have any recipes but she has written numerous cookbooks. The best, most renowned books on Sichuan food, on general Chinese cooking, on Hunan are all by her.
She was the first Westerner allowed into this cooking school in Sichuan province, and she wrote a great memoir about that called Shark's Fin and Sichuan Pepper, a number of years ago. Invitation to a Banquet made the front cover of the New York Times Book Review. It's gotten reviewed in the Wall Street Journal. It's just getting all the accolades that it should.
These four books, about alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages, make good gifts. Photos courtesy of Clarkson Potter, Ten Speed Press, Countryman Press and Smith Street Books
How about beverages, alcoholic or otherwise?
Okay, so I am only talking about alcoholic [drinks] although I will tell you that the otherwise has gotten to be a big and popular area — how to make infusions, how to make bitters, how to make sodas and your own drinks that are non-alcoholic. It's great because a lot of bartenders are getting really creative with that. There is a new one called Nixology, and that's a really nice non-alcoholic beverage book. There are also some great coffee books that have come out this year. So look out for those.
For cocktails, one of my favorite authors who really does a lot of work studying cocktails is Robert Simonson. He has done a book that's the Encyclopedia of Cocktails. It's got a few recipes in there, but mostly it's an encyclopedia of where cocktails got their start or their name, different mixologists and bartenders through time, who they are and what they've created, and different bars. It's an encyclopedia of all sorts of cocktail things. I love that for reference.
Then, there's a great book called Tropical Standard, a tiki book that takes itself very seriously, as it should. It has some excellent recipes in it for tropical drinks.
Lastly, of course, Toni Tipton-Martin, who has been so important in cataloging the work of African American cooks and chefs, did a book called Juke Joints, Jazz Clubs, and Juice. I am really excited that she made [this book]. It's all sorts of historic recipes from different African American bartenders and cocktail writers.
What great recommendations. Thank you so much, Celia.
My pleasure. It's always so fun to talk to you, Evan.