Eight New Cookbooks That Inspire Culinary Creativity

From Sardinian to Slovenian recipes, and including everything from Korean cuisine to comfort food

Recipes, from all cuisines and of every level of complexity and thought, congest the Internet. It’s easy to Google and go. But cookbooks—with beautiful images, illustrations and life stories—counter the pellmell search engine experience with the narratives of the chefs and restaurants. These eight cookbooks are disparate, ranging from Sardinian and Slovenian recipes to Korean cuisine and American comfort foods, but every one is an …

POST’s “Bon Merde” House-Made Hot Sauce Collection

Powerful raw recipes with health benefits and impressive heat

After continuously selling out of the hot sauces they were procuring from a friend, POST owner Bobby Stackleather decided he needed to make his own. The restaurant’s new line of house-made hot sauces—called Bon Merde, French for “good shit”—reflect the creativity and attention you’ll find elsewhere on the Alphabet City restaurant’s menu. Stackleather explains, “Our recipe is totally different and raw. This was something I …

The Phoenicia Diner Cookbook: Dishes and Dispatches from the Catskill Mountains

The undeniably charming Phoenicia Diner was built on Long Island in 1962 and moved to the Catskills in the ’80s, but it was in 2011 that Mike Cioffi bought it and transformed it into a beloved institution. Now he (along with chef Chris Bradley and author and professor Sara B Franklin) is releasing a cookbook full of the restaurant’s comfort food. Drenched in Americana, the …