September Reads

Vivienne Culinary Books is Portland, Oregon's dedicated cookbook store, owned and operated by Robin Wheelright. She's a former chef and expert book curator featuring a collection of the best new cookbooks, food memoirs and magazines, alongside timeless used and antiquarian titles. All that mixed with a robust selection of consigned kitchenwares and the best new table linens and aprons, and you have Vivienne the retail store. With a mission for building community around food sovereignty the shop also hosts authors, classes, and pop-up events.

So without further ado Robin's Reading List! 

New Favorite: Mastering the Art of Plant Based Cooking by Joe Yonan

This book is a must have in my decidedly not vegan, or even vegetarian kitchen. I'm an omnivore, but don't eat much meat. The spotlight in my kitchen in recent years has been on vegetables as it has for many others. This book is a complete reference for how to cook delicious vegan dishes across cuisines with input from cultural authorities across the globe. I used it to imagine plant based aguachile for a party I was hosting, and found three different examples to set me on course. 

Recent Favorites

Bethlehem by Fadi Kattan: A beautiful and timely collection of recipes, photos, and stories that help document and preserve a culture under assault. 

Bright Cooking by Camille Becerra: Just the right amount of information to set you on a flavorful journey of beautiful food. This book is great for your chef friends without being complicated. Aside from smart, inventive flavor ways, the photography, styling, and graphics in the book make it a timeless work of art. 

Group Living by Lola Milholland: From the founder of Umi Organic ramen noodles, a memoir with recipes for living in our current economic culture without being chained to it. A story of building community and family around food and creating connections in a time to isolation, I love this book. 

Upcoming New Releases

Chinese Enough by Kristina Cho: Kristina Cho is one of my favorites. She is smart and stylish, and thinks like a designer in the kitchen. She won our hearts with Mooncakes and Milk Bread and I'm ready for the evolution of her experiences as a cookbook author and first generations Chinese American. 

A Thousand Feasts by Nigel Slater: The British way of cookbook writing is to weave beautiful seasonal recipes into a story of good food writing. Nigel Salter is one of the first and the best. I always delight in his stories and point of view and can't wait to read and cook from this memoir of sorts. 

Easy Wins by Anna Jones: Anna Jones has a simplicity and ease in the kitchen while still minding the seasons and keeping everything healthy, whole foods, and pretty. Easy Wins looks like a reference for the ages and her take on a comprehensive guide to recipes and easy good meals through the course of the year.