Anyone who knows me already understands that I’m better off in a kitchen with two microwaves, rather than two ovens. Yes, I did learn to cook. As the youngest of eight kids, I regularly whipped up excessive quantities of everything from pasta sauce to hotdish (I’m originally from the midwest). However, I never really wanted to cook. I wanted to travel, explore and experience the world. No wonder I left most of my cookbooks behind when we moved from the Twin Cities to Southern California a couple of years ago.
Enter the pandemic.
In the past three months I have not traveled at all. Instead, I have baked Kalamata bread and raisin bread. I’ve made beef stew, gourmet grilled-cheese sandwiches, wild-rice dressing and apple sauce. Plus cookies and brownies. These are my current comfort foods, which explains why I have gained seven pandemic pounds.
I haven’t loved cooking, but I have started to become more curious about what I can accomplish by using an oven, now that I have more time at home. Maybe, I thought, it’s time to buy a new cookbook.
So, the timing was perfect for the email I received yesterday from PureWow. It included a story called 21 Cookbooks by Black Authors You Should Add to Your Shelf. They all looked intriguing, and I bought four of them. I can’t wait to try some of the recipes from The New Way to Cake by Benjamina Ebuehi, Son of a Southern Chef by Lazarus Lynch, A Real Southern Cookbook by Dora Charles, and Cooking Solo: The Fun of Cooking for Yourself by Klancy Miller.
If any of you have experienced one of these cookbooks, leave a comment on The Trend Curve‘s blog or message me on LinkedIn to tell me which recipes you like the best. If you opted for a book by of the other authors, let me know which cookbook should be on my next shopping list.
