“The Relation Between Us,” the latest book from the Danish chef Bo Bech, is a page-turner. With 368 pages of his photographs, mostly of food scenes from around the world, interspersed with compelling text, the book is hard to put down (and hard to lift up). He says it covers 15 years of travel and eating. The tone of his writing (in translation) is chatty yet serious, threaded here and there with wonderment at some of his encounters, like the man in New Delhi who told Mr. Bech he was eating at the wrong places and offered restaurant recommendations one day at a time. Reading what Mr. Bech has to say might make you a more confident cook. He gives advice like this: “Remember, you can always add things. It’s harder to remove things.” He’s particularly attached to his chopping board and his blender and to Espelette pepper. Most of the nearly 40 recipes, in blocks of text, are simple and tempting, but often unusual — and one of the reasons I couldn’t stop reading — like one for corn in a pan, with butter and egg. There’s a dressing for shellfish made with onions and mezcal, a four-ingredient barbecue sauce, and risotto rice that’s baked and rested.
“The Relation Between Us” by Bo Bech, translated by Susanne Madsen, (chefbobech.com, $58).
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