These days, an uncommonly large number of people are cooking every meal, and while recipes are not in short supply, inspiration might be. Cookbooks are still one of the best ways to pull yourself out of meal-planning fatigue and find an idea — a pasta sauce, a flavor combination, a technique — that can change your cooking forever.
Book publishing, like so many other businesses, has been upended by the coronavirus pandemic. But now, when we truly need them, some wonderful new cookbooks are queued up and ready for order. Our staff made these selections with the limits of quarantine in mind, but also knowing that some people read cookbooks for the same reasons they would any other literature: learning, exploration, escape.
‘Beyond the North Wind: Russia in Recipes and Lore’
Darra Goldstein, a scholar and cookbook author, takes us far beyond the usual borscht and pickled-herring clichés of Russian cuisine in “Beyond the North Wind” (Ten Speed Press, $37.50). Her table is striking and unexpected, overflowing with vodka spiked with birch buds and golden dandelion blossom syrup stirred into tea. There are crisp mushroom hand pies flavored with caraway, veal stew sweetened with cherries and blinis for days, including Pushkin’s favorite, dyed pink with beet juice and slathered with gooseberry preserves. Ms. Goldstein writes eloquently about Russian culinary history and traditions, all brought to life with photographs by Stefan Wettainen. MELISSA CLARK
‘Bitter Honey: Recipes and Stories From the Island of Sardinia’
Before she moved to Sardinia, the chef Letitia Clark worked in London restaurants, where she grew tired of cheffy cooking. Cooking was no longer joyous. Her first cookbook, “Bitter Honey” (Hardie Grant, $40) tells the story of her journey, as she says, learning to cook again with pleasure in place of stress. The recipes rely on high-quality ingredients, reflecting both a dreamy Sardinian lifestyle (four-hour lunches and handmade pasta) and approachable simplicity (roast chicken with a lemon-anchovy butter). VAUGHN VREELAND
‘Dimes Times: Emotional Eating’
Dimes is an all-day cafe on the Lower East Side of Manhattan known for big grain bowls and vivid smoothies that feel more California than New York. Its first cookbook, “Dimes Times: Emotional Eating” (Karma Books, $40), leans into that reputation with trippy, brightly colored illustrations and charts, like “The Five Elements for a Cosmic Salad Creation.” The cafe’s founders, Alissa Wagner and Sabrina De Sousa, organized the book, written with Toniann Fernandez, by hour and emotion (8 a.m. Determined, 6 p.m. Homesick) and offer a multitude of solid, simple recipes — an endlessly adaptable lemony kale-almond pesto, a zippy green smoothie — that will subtly elevate your everyday cooking. SARA BONISTEEL
‘Everyone Can Bake: Simple Recipes to Master and Mix’
This is not a book that will teach you how to make a Cronut, and really, why would you? It is a book that will help you take next steps as a baker when you’re tired of banana bread and chocolate-chip cookies. (It could happen.) The thesis of “Everyone Can Bake” (Simon & Schuster, $37.50) by Dominique Ansel, creator of the Cronut, is that most desserts can be broken down into elements: bases (like vanilla shortbread or almond cake), fillings (like lemon curd or soft caramel) and finishings (like chocolate glaze or caramelized bananas). Choose your own adventure, guided by Mr. Ansel’s experience and lively voice, and you might arrive at a basic chocolate layer cake, or at a passion-fruit tart on a puffed-rice crust with matcha cream. For hand-holding, there is detailed photography showing how to put the elements together. JULIA MOSKIN
‘Keeping It Simple: Easy Weeknight One-Pot Recipes’
Even if you love to cook, doing so night after night can be a drag. Cleanup alone is reason to grow weary. With “Keeping It Simple” (Hardie Grant, $24.99), Yasmin Fahr has dedicated an entire book to the one-pot meal, so you can enjoy a well-rounded dinner without having to pull out every cooking vessel in your kitchen. Her miso-ghee roast chicken with radishes is a sophisticated take on the sheet-pan meal, and her baked eggs with barley, peppers and goat cheese is a hearty twist on shakshuka that would make an equally great weekend breakfast or weeknight dinner. MARGAUX LASKEY
‘Meals, Music, and Muses: Recipes From My African American Kitchen’
‘My Korea: Traditional Flavors, Modern Recipes’
Since New York City restaurants closed for regular dining-room service, the chef Hooni Kim hasn’t stopped cooking. He’s been packing up the most comforting, family-style Korean meals he can for people, delivered from his Flatiron restaurant, Hanjan. Reassuring bowls of kimchi jjigae and galbijjim. Rainbows of banchan and tubs of rice. The range and finesse of Korean home cooking are at the heart of his precise, illuminating new cookbook “My Korea” (W.W. Norton & Company, $40), written with Aki Kamozawa, which moves just as easily from jjajangmyeon — the everyday noodles dressed in a shimmering, meaty black-bean sauce — to more delicate, complex dishes like homemade tofu with perilla soy sauce. TEJAL RAO
‘Open Kitchen: Inspired Food for Casual Gatherings’
Susan Spungen, a Hollywood food stylist, the founding food editor of Martha Stewart Living and an occasional NYT Cooking contributor, who styled and photographed the recipes for this article, describes her entertaining philosophy as studied nonchalance, “like a messy bun on a beautiful girl.” This stuck with me as I cooked my way through her new cookbook, “Open Kitchen” (Avery, $35). While nothing I made looked as imperfectly perfect as in her photos, Ms. Spungen’s meticulously written recipes produced magnificent dishes that could stand on their flavors alone. From her simple oven-dried tomatoes, to shrimp and chickpeas with chermoula, to a spicy parsnip cake with homemade candied ginger, all of her food is modern, clever and, in our house, instantly devoured. MELISSA CLARK
‘Procrastibaking: 100 Recipes for Getting Nothing Done in the Most Delicious Way Possible’
‘Vegan JapanEasy: Classic and Modern Vegan Japanese Recipes to Cook at Home’
While all of these titles were independently chosen by editors of The New York Times, The Times may earn a commission on purchases through these links.