Where and What to Eat
Eat & Tell: What Is a Great Beginner's Cookbook?
Where to go and what to eat, courtesy of our fabulous food and dining editors.
Q: My niece is moving into her first apartment and is very excited to begin cooking for herself. Could you recommend a good cookbook that I could give her? She’s definitely a beginner, but understands good food and comes from a family that cooks.
A: There are two books that I religiously give to people who want to start the cooking journey. The first is
Starting With Ingredients by Aliza Green, which is an amazing encyclopedic resource that covers almost anything you can ask about an ingredient. The second book is
Nigel Slater’s Appetite which is a conversational and instructive book that helps you learn how to cook without books. And then there is this: never underestimate the power of
Joy of Cooking.