A Cookbook Resource List

Until the right words come, some authors worth your time

I’ve drafted a post multiple times now speaking to the ongoing horrors in Israel and Palestine, and honestly haven’t been satisfied with a single word. As David Foster Wallace suggested in his address at my alma mater, “the most important realities are often the ones that are hardest to see and talk about.” And I’d rather hold my thoughts and words until they speak with the full grace and intelligence required of the moment—and that’s going to take a bit of time.

So until the words come, I thought I’d use this week’s post to round up a number of smarter-than-I folks in the food world who have written about this corner of the world in the rich format of the cookbook. Every one of the brilliant authors below are deeply informed by history, and as thoughtful with the stories they tell as they are creative with the recipes they generate. By going back to the culinary texts that taught me, I’m taking a page from the journalist Osayi Endolyn, who said, “if food unites then there is considerable work to be done and everyone who eats has a response-ability to get informed and get engaged.” All of the writers below deserve your readership, your stovetops, and your engagement as we navigate through this terrifying time. I am honored to yield my time so that their voices might reach you. I’ll be back next week, writing more about food media, history, and culture in all its forms. Until then, hope you cook, eat, and take care of each other.

• Einat Admony and Janna Gur, Shuk

• Reem Assil, Arabiyya

• Laila El-Haddad, The Gaza Kitchen

• Janna Gur, The Book of New Israeli Food

• Joudie Kalla, Baladi

• Reem Kassis, The Palestinian Table and The Arabesque Table (and her recent children’s book release, We Are Palestinian)

• Yasmin Khan, Zaitoun

• Heifa Odeh, Dine in Palestine

• Yotam Ottolenghi and Sami Tamimi, Jerusalem

• Alon Shaya, Shaya

• Michael Solomov, Zahav and Israeli Soul

• Adeena Sussman, Sababa and Shabbat

• Sami Tamimi, Falastin