Several things are true, for me at least, about being past the age where I could get away with saying I was “39 and holding” each birthday.

No matter how old I get and far from my roots as a newspaper reporter and copy editor, deep down, I still identify as a journalist* (though it’s been decades since I could truly claim that) and a food writer/reviewer (though it’s been well pre-Covid since I could claim that)—and somehow, despite being the mother of one kid who just finished grad school and another who just finished college, I still identify with my deeply impatient, hate-authority-but-not-actually-very-rebellious 20-something self who has both lots of confidence and ambition and total imposter syndrome.

I feel that in spades as I return to cookbook reviewing. I’m so excited, and confident as ever (!) in my opinions, but also curious about how much cookbooks, and I, have changed.

I know I’m drawn to the rare cookbooks published now with illustrations but few photos, because I actually want to imagine how the food should look and not feel tied to a specific image. Also, I’m just bored by the Instagram effect that demands rustic wood and long outdoor tables full of impossibly beautiful people untouched by sweat while they grilled the feast—or icky, color-saturated retro photos straight out of the Betty Crocker books. And possibly slightly envious, because I’ve never had the patience to fully absorb even the basics of how to photograph my food well.

I know I’m intensely irritated by cookbooks that, in 2024, don’t list ingredients by both cups and ounces or grams. If you’re interested enough to buy a cookbook or two, you’re probably able to spring for a cheap kitchen scale—and what a difference it makes in being able to produce the recipe as the author intended. Cookbook authors can easily maintain a list of their standard measurements, and with lists such as King Arthur’s, hardly need to start from scratch. I didn’t write recipes that way when I wrote my books—I knew no one who owned a kitchen scale then—but I will never write another that makes readers wonder just how fluffed my cup of flour was.

And I know that I’ll truly never understand why cooks still write “salt and pepper to taste” for raw or half-cooked dishes. Why must it be so tough—apparently—to give a baseline? Sure, add “or to taste” every time, but tell me I should start my meatball mixture with a teaspoon of coarse salt (and tell me which brand you use, so I know what a teaspoon means to you) and a half-teaspoon pepper, and then I’m happy to take it from there.

Also, I award bonus points to books that put the page numbers in the header or footer where they should be, not some odd spot, and go for a font and point size that my long-pitiful eyes can actually decipher, without looking cartoonishly “large print.” And double points for a well-crafted index—no small feat, it seems, for most books.

Finally (for now! did I mention I have opinions?), I know I’m on the lookout for books that take the ultraprocessed food crisis/obesity crisis/shameful food producers seriously, and try wherever possible to reduce sugar and go for whole grains, “alternative” flours, a reduced use of meat (but I’m definitely an omnivore), and moderation in all things. (I found the title “Sugar, I Love You” alarming—though that would make me the “sugar snob” the author writes about.) Not that I’m great about moderation (hello, strong opinions!) but my 20-something self, and my 39-year-old self, and my [ageless] current self all expect I’ll get there, someday.

*albeit one who, sorry AP Stylebook, loves the Oxford comma. I started out my career a diligent comma-dropper, brainwashed by the style guides, but ah, how the longing grew for the clarity of that serial mark. Also, semicolons rule.

The Spice of Life

Everything is better with Pepper

Pepper has opinions.

My food memories are a jumble of honest creations passed down by German ancestors—Mom’s special spätzle, the pork roast I’ve never been able to re-create, stollen, eirekuchen, and springerle rolled with Grandma’s carved pin—and less exalted but still delicious Americanized shortcakes (from Bisquick), rum cake (from Pillsbury golden cake mix), and “international” recipes she cooked for Gourmet Club themed dinners. Mom was an adventuresome cook who gave us space to experiment…not always a good choice when my recipe tests from children’s cookbooks were supposed to be supper.

Throughout junior high and high school, I babysat most weekends. And the Southern mothers across the road nearly always had collections of Junior League and Southern Living cookbooks, and since I prefer to read a book while watching TV, I spent many happy evenings getting paid to watch cable shows we didn’t get while copying recipes by Mrs. John Smith and Mrs. the Honorable Gov. James B. Hunt, or some such (the Mrs. Honorable is a lovely woman, but she does in fact have her own name).

When not copying, I was creating my own nonfiction writing—working at my high school paper, then at The Daily Tar Heel at UNC-Chapel Hill, working my way up from state and national reporter to desk editor to editorial writer to running for (! yes, like the student body president) editor-in-chief. (Still to this day the best college paper in the country.)

Reporting and copy editing/editing stints followed, but then I took a leap of faith and headed to New York for cooking school at what was then Peter Kump’s New York Cooking School (now the Institute of Culinary Education). I chose it because it included food writing as an option for the required internship. I interned with Mark Bittman (at the time editor of Cook’s Illustrated), freelanced for Cook’s and other magazines and newspapers, wrote regular food columns for two papers, and fell in love with using herbs to spice up my baking, leading to the publication of two cookbooks. I had a one-woman baking catering company as well, to keep my skills at quantity baking up and to enhance my chances of getting published, in the days before writers needed “platforms.”

I birthed the first of those cookbooks six weeks after birthing our first child…and the second not long after. I kept writing, but always late at night after the kid, whose infant brain believed in a 9 p.m. bedtime, finally dropped into sleep. Too often, I’d look the next morning at what I wrote and see it for the terrible, sleep-addled product it was. So with baby number two, I took a writing pause, which somehow turned into nearly a decade—during which many publications folded, and pay rates plummeted. So I took another writing and editing job that’s been interesting. But still, food = fun, and I’ve missed it.

I did, in that overall food writing pause, find an outlet for cookbook reviewing, and while it wasn’t the quickest writing I could conjure up—given the need for testing as well as careful reading—it scratched several itches: to cook, eat, and be my (overly) opinionated self (the one who long ago aspired to change the world through editorial writing. Yes, the blessed innocence of youth).

After far too long of letting the rest of life take over, I’m delighted to have found my way back to it. Here’s hoping this brings you occasional delight as well!

Who do I think I am, reviewing others’ cookbooks?

Fair question. I’m the author of two cookbooks of my own, published by St. Martin’s Press, a former food writer, columnist, and reviewer, graduate of what’s now called the Institute of Culinary Education, and former owner of a one-woman baking catering company. I started out as a reporter, editor, and copy editor before focusing on food, then took a detour into editing and writing for a K–12 education firm to pay the bills, but I’ve never stopped missing writing about recipes and the stories behind them.

Moreover, I’m a cookbook user. Some people love to talk about how they read cookbooks like novels. I do, too—so much so that I joined a book club to force myself to read actual novels—but I don’t just peruse them. I cook from them, and I believe in cooking from cookbooks. Of course you can get a recipe for nearly anything online (and I’ll publish some here myself!), but a cookbook’s mere existence suggests a level of reliability for the recipes within. Somebody—somebodies—found it interesting enough, believable enough, trustworthy enough to back it with cash (even if often not much).

So when I put down my own cash, I expect some stuff: clear, lyrical or snappy writing, a good index, readable type for my crummy vision, solid copy editing, and of course, recipes that create food that serenades my palate and my stomach. And streamlined recipes that don’t waste my time with extra steps or a boatload of bowls to wash up.

Some other stuff I want now—though I didn’t always: measurements in cups and grams, because truly every cook should go by weight for precision and ease, especially in baking; as many whole grains and unprocessed ingredients as possible; and recipes constructed with the least amount of sugar required for success.

Some stuff I almost couldn’t care less about: recipe photos (controversial, I know!); celebrity authors—whether of the long-term or 15-minutes-of-TikTok-fame variety; and the trendy ingredient/appliance of the day.

Even without fancy photos, my wants can add up to a tall order. So I keep to my few basic rules of reviewing: test at least two, preferably three, recipes per book; test only from published books, not proofs—because I don’t want to downgrade a book based on a recipe typo that gets fixed before publication; and only punch up. That is, if I test-cook a book by a new or unknown author, and I can’t find much good to say, I’ll let the book go unreviewed. But I won’t shy away from a negative review for established or celebrity authors, or for chefs who put out sloppy tomes.

How do I decide what to review? I have a bias toward baking books, since I’m a much better baker than cook; I find it hard to resist books about pie (the pinnacle of baking and eating!), Southern U.S., Scandinavian, German, Italian, or French cuisine; and I approach books on other regions warily, aware of how little expertise I can claim. I’m not a food purist by any stretch, but I do look for books focused on cooking from scratch, within time and wallet constraints. And while I have cooking school training and professional cooking and writing experience, I still feel like a home cook, albeit one with more than the usual kitchen kit. So I focus on books that speak to home cooks, with the occasional slightly bonkers books for mad/macho/masochistic cooks.

Finally, sometimes I’ll take a look back with a “Cookbook Flashback”—columns about cookbooks I have known and loved, in which I’ll make up for a lack of official recipe testing with my years of unofficial eating.

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The Spice of Life

Everything is better with Pepper

Is she mad or is she glad? Yes.