Near & Far: Recipes Inspired by Home and Travel
Heidi Swanson
Heidi Swanson is a mainstay of my wife’s blog feed, and I often end up reading her posts as well. She is probably the most consistent source of recipes (or, to put it more broadly, meal ideas) that have ended up being a hit with us. She, along with Tamar Adler, is probably the food writer whose tastes and sensibilities we most identify with. So it’s no surprise that I liked this book. True, there are a lot of pretty pictures, which is not my favorite way for a cookbook to be. But there is a ton of stuff that looks great. We already made one recipe out of it, the Moroccan harira soup, which is great. (We had already made it or a version of it based on a blog post of hers before.) But by far the most appealing section of the book for me was the Japan section. I really wanted to make everything in it, especially the savory breakfasts. I also want to find the guy that she bought togarashi shichimi from when we go to Kyoto!