Cherry Bombe: The Cookbook ed. by Kerry Diamond and Claudia Wu | 2017 | Clarkson Potter | Hardcover $25
It’s the first-ever cookbook from the team behind Cherry Bombe, the hit indie magazine about women and food, and the Radio Cherry Bombe podcast. Inside are 100+ recipes from some of the most interesting chefs, bakers, food stylists, pastry chefs, and creatives on the food scene today.
The Cherry Bombe team asked these women and others for their most meaningful recipes. The result is a beautifully styled and photographed collection that you will turn to again and again in the kitchen.
After the absolutely bonkers year that was 2020, I felt an itch to start a new project. Something comfortingly domestic, but experimental. Something just a little challenging, but not overwhelming. Something delicious.
So, I decided to cook my way through one of the many, many, many cookbooks I own and have enjoyed reading but have somehow never gotten around to actually cooking out of.
I chose Cherry Bombe to start with because it contains an impressive variety of recipes from different global cuisines and at all levels of difficulty, and each recipe comes with its own charming personal story from the culinary professional who contributed it.
I started with the soup joumou recipe by Leah Penniman on January 1 — a traditional New Year’s dish in Haiti. Over the next 3 months I ended up trying 20 new recipes… pink gnocchi, green borscht, mirza ghasemi, maraq digaag, pasta e piselli, and even homemade ricotta among them.
I think that the editors did an EXCELLENT job with this book, because none of the recipes I tried were difficult to follow or offered unrealistic instructions (e.g. “caramelize the onions for 5 minutes”). I’m sure this was a huge feat, given that they had to collect recipes from over 100 different chefs, food journalists, restaurateurs (restaurateusses?), etc.
The photographs, by Alpha Smoot and Claudia Ficca, were also excellent. I think sometimes food glossies can get a little carried away with being “artsy” and leave a cook wondering what the heck the end result of a recipe is supposed to actually look like, but I think the photographer and food stylist did a fine job of making the images both engagingly fun and actually informative.
I would absolutely recommend this book to any home cook that is looking to experiment a little with something fun or unfamiliar, but not outrageously avant-garde or complicated.
If you would like to see some photos from my adventure through this book, or if you want to follow along in my continued culinary experiments, please feel free to visit my foodie Instagram:
Links:
- Cherry Bombe Magazine
- Radio Cherry Bombe on Spotify
- Review at Publishers Weekly
- Review at Vogue, including selected recipes
Publication information: Diamond, Kerry and Wu, Claudia (ed.). Cherry bombe: The cookbook. New York, NY: Clarkson Potter Publishers, 2017. Hardcover.
Source: Private library.
Disclaimer: I am not compensated, monetarily or otherwise, for reviews of books or other products.
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