NPR staff recommend cookbooks from our annual Books We Love list

VPM | By Debbie Elliott, Milton Guevara, Nicolette Khan and Melissa Kuypers

Published December 28, 2024 at 1:10 PM EST

SCOTT SIMON, HOST:

For many of us, winter means avoiding the great outdoors, the cold, icy roads, keeping ourselves inside, safe, warm, all tucked in. Well, indoors is also a good place to be cuddled up with a good book, maybe even a great cookbook. Books We Love – NPR’s list of best reads has a list of recommendations that our colleagues say are utterly worth your time, whether or not you actually cook.

(SOUNDBITE OF RENAUD GARCIA-FONS’ “EASY AS PIE”)

DEBBIE ELLIOTT, BYLINE: Hi, it’s NPR national correspondent Debbie Elliott. My book pick is “When Southern Women Cook.” It’s edited by Toni Tipton-Martin and Morgan Bolling. Admittedly, I’m a cookbook geek and a longtime Southern cook and eater, so this bible of Southern cuisine is just a real treat. It weaves recipes along with the stories of remarkable women from the diverse cultures that make up the American South.

Think chefs, farmers, seed savers, shrimpers, pit masters, canning pioneers and even a little story about the queen of bootleggers. I have just loved reading about the roots of Southern classics like hoecakes, shrimp and grits, beef yakamein and tamale pie. I’ve already tried the pickled shrimp recipe. It was a huge hit on my game day table. Next up, lemon chess pie, and sweet potato cornbread with ginger honey butter.

(SOUNDBITE OF RENAUD GARCIA-FONS’ “EASY AS PIE”)

MILTON GUEVARA, BYLINE: My name is Milton Guevara. I’m a producer with Morning Edition and Up First. A book I loved this year is “The SalviSoul Cookbook” by Karla Tatiana Vasquez. And can I be honest here? I don’t actually have a physical copy on my shelf right now because every time I get one, I end up giving it away to someone I love. I’m excited by this book because it’s the first Salvadoran cookbook from a major U.S. publisher.

It’s got recipes for all my favorite Salvi classics like pupusas, tamales and Salvadoran-style porchetta, which, if you haven’t tried it, you really should. The author, Karla Tatiana Vasquez, was born in El Salvador, but her family fled to Los Angeles because of war. Food became a way for her to stay connected to her culture, so she began documenting recipes and stories of the women who preserve them. “The SalviSoul Cookbook” is her tribute to El Salvador and its diaspora.

(SOUNDBITE OF BLUE WEDNESDAY’S “MIDDLE SCHOOL (FEAT. MAGNUS KLAUSEN)”)

MELISSA KUYPERS, BYLINE: The book I’m recommending today is “Sandwiches Of History: The Cookbook.” My name is Melissa Kuypers, and I am the audio engineering and operations manager at NPR West. It’s written by Barry Enderwick, whose social media handle is @sandwichesofhistory, where he tries all sorts of unexpected sandwiches from the past. This cookbook reads like a friend is nerding out to you about their favorite niche topic and also telling you how to put together a sandwich you probably wouldn’t have come up with on your own.

There’s a really big variety of recipes, and he keeps them all very accessible. Like, you can find these ingredients. You probably already have the right kitchen gear. You can make these sandwiches, no problem. For each recipe, he offers some light history, as well as his signature plus ups, which are ways to elevate or modernize the sandwich. It’s a really fun cookbook, and to borrow a phrase from Barry himself, I hope you give it a go.

NICOLETTE KHAN, BYLINE: I’m Nicolette Khan, and I work with NPR’s research, archives and data strategy team. And I have still not returned my sister’s copy of “Amrikan” by Khushbu Shah. Shah’s cooking is a celebration of Indian American culture and works to dispel the myth that Indian food is super complicated to make or requires hard-to-source ingredients. You’ll find recipes that represent American influences on Indian food, Indian influences on American food, and some untouched Indian classics. I cooked a few dishes one night to share with friends, and they were all a hit.

This book was my introduction to rajma, a truly transformative approach to kidney beans that you probably shouldn’t be living without. I served it alongside Shah’s perfectly simple cabbage nu shaak with some rice and yogurt for a low-effort, high-reward meal. Her recipes are easy to follow, and everything is suited for mixing and matching, making this an inviting collection, whether you are cooking a lazy meal for one or a dinner party for 10.

(SOUNDBITE OF KOLOTO’S “FOX TALES”)

SIMON: Those cookbook recommendations again – “Amrikan,” “Sandwiches Of History: The Cookbook,” “The SalviSoul Cookbook” and “When Southern Women Cook.” And for the full list of books we loved in 2024, you can head to npr.org/bestbooks.

(SOUNDBITE OF KOLOTO’S “FOX TALES”) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.

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Debbie Elliott

NPR National Correspondent Debbie Elliott can be heard telling stories from her native South. She covers the latest news and politics, and is attuned to the region's rich culture and history.

For more than two decades, Elliott has been one of NPR's top breaking news reporters. She's covered dozens of natural disasters – including hurricanes Andrew, Katrina and Harvey. She reported on the aftermath of the 2010 Haiti earthquake, introducing NPR listeners to teenage boys orphaned in the disaster, struggling to survive on their own.

Elliott spent months covering the nation's worst man-made environmental disaster, the 2010 BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, documenting its lingering impact on Gulf coast communities and the complex legal battles that ensued. She launched the series "The Disappearing Coast," which examines the oil spill's lasting imprint on a fragile coastline.

She was honored with a 2018 Gracie Award from the Alliance for Women in Media Foundation for crisis coverage, in part for her work covering the deadly white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, and the mass murder of worshippers at a church in Sutherland Springs, Texas. She was part of NPR's teams covering the mass shootings at Charleston's Emanuel AME Church and the Pulse Nightclub in Orlando.

Elliott has followed national debates over immigration, healthcare, abortion, tobacco, voting rights, welfare reform, same-sex marriage, Confederate monuments, criminal justice and policing in America. She examined the obesity epidemic in Mississippi, a shortage of public defenders in Louisiana, a rise in the incarceration of girls in Florida and chronic inhumane conditions at state prisons in Alabama and Mississippi.

A particular focus for Elliott has been exploring how Americans live through the prism of race, culture and history. Her coverage links lessons from the past to the movement for racial justice in America today.

She's looked at the legacy of landmark civil rights events, including the integration of Little Rock's Central High, the assassination of Mississippi NAACP leader Medgar Evers, the Montgomery bus boycott and the voting rights march in Selma, Alabama. She contributed a four-part series on the 1968 assassination of the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. in Memphis, Tennessee, which earned a 2019 Gracie Award for documentary.

She was present for the re-opening of civil rights era murder cases, covering trials in the 16^th Street Church bombing in Birmingham, the murder of Hattiesburg, Miss., NAACP leader Vernon Dahmer and the killings of three civil rights workers in Neshoba County, Miss.

Elliott has profiled key figures in politics and the arts, including former Attorney General Jeff Sessions, historian John Hope Franklin, Congressman John Lewis, children's book author Eric Carle, musician Trombone Shorty and former Louisiana Governor Edwin Edwards. She covered the funerals of the Queen of Soul Aretha Franklin, and the King of the Blues BB King, and she took listeners along for the second line jazz procession in memory of Fats Domino in New Orleans.

Her stories give a taste of southern culture, from the Nashville hot chicken craze to the traditions of Mardi Gras to the roots of American music at Mississippi's new Grammy Museum. She's highlighted little-known treasures such as North Carolina artist Freeman Vines and his hanging tree guitars, the magical House of Dance and Feathers in New Orleans' Lower 9th ward, a remote Coon Dog Cemetery in north Alabama and the Cajun Christmas tradition of lighting bonfires on the levees of the Mississippi River.

Elliott is a former host of NPR's newsmagazine All Things Considered on the weekends, and is a former Capitol Hill Correspondent. She's an occasional guest host of NPR's news programs and is a contributor to podcasts and live programming.

Elliott was born in Atlanta, grew up in the Memphis area, and is a graduate of the University of Alabama. She lives in south Alabama with her husband, two children and a pet beagle.

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