If you’re looking for a thought-provoking read about preparing healthful, satisfying food for yourself and your family, consider The Anti-Cookbook: Easy, Thrifty Recipes for Food-Smart Living by Shelley Onderdonk and Rebecca Bloom. The authors learned to cook as college flatmates, forming a lasting friendship and an interest in cooking good food for themselves and later for their growing families.
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The best way for me to describe the premise of The Anti-Cookbook is to use the authors’ own words. Instead of writing a book with recipes to be rigorously followed, their intention is “to inspire readers to think creatively about making meals and independently about the deeper issues surrounding food and nourishment.” Their inspiration was their desire to share their lifetime of accumulated kitchen wisdom with their grown children who were moving out.
The Anti-Cookbook is not simply a collection of recipes presented in the standard ingredients-and-directions format. Rather, it’s more like a narrative with recipes sprinkled throughout, a personal account of how and why the authors select and prepare different foods, with guidelines and suggestions for meals and planning for leftovers. Most recipes don’t include exact amounts or even ingredients, leaving the reader to use what he or she judges correct or prefers. The book is written in the first person, which can be a bit confusing since it’s not always clear which of the two authors is the writer of any given passage, but the open and inviting style brings the reader right into their homes and lives.
The organic pescatarian and vegetarian recipes in the book (using ethically and locally sourced ingredients when possible, as recommended by the authors) certainly sound delicious, and the tips for procuring the ingredients to make them on a budget are helpful. However, I must confess that although I would love to be able to cook that way myself, my food budget simply doesn’t allow for it, except as a special extravagance. That being said, I have flagged many of the recipes to try, including these:
• Grated Carrot Salad
• Pasta al Pesto
• Tabbouleh
• Breakfast Sandwich
• Granola
There are only a few photos in the book, and those are small black-and-white pictures. My favorites are the photos of well-used recipe cards, showing the cross-outs, changes, and stains as the recipe evolved through being prepared over and over—I can relate to that!
For those of you who want to learn to cook or need to expand upon your cooking skills, you will want to check out a Culinarylab School. This type of school is for students of all levels from aspiring chefs to the gourmet home cook.
For more information about this unusual cookbook and its authors, visit their website. If you want even more inspiration, be sure to check them out on Instagram and Facebook, too.
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Disclaimer: A. Bailey received complimentary products for review purposes & feature on The Classy Chics blog. No monetary compensation was received. A. Bailey’s thoughts, opinions and words are 100% her own. Your thoughts may differ. This post may contain affiliate links. If you make a purchase through an affiliate link, we will receive a small commission which helps to support this site. Thanks!
This looks like an interesting book to read. It would show the development of different recipes.
It would be interesting to see how a recipe evolved over time. I do the same with my favorite and well used recipes – changing a little of this or that to suit my family.
It does sound like an interesting take on cookbooks. I wonder how well a beginner would do with it? I think anyone who cooks already could decide about ingredients and amounts most of the time. As for the idea of sourcing local foods, if you can great, but I’m not giving up any food I want or need for a recipe just because it isn’t grown locally, lol.
I am not sure I would do well with this kind of book. I am not a creative cook but I do cook every meal. I guess I could try to be more creative.
That looks like a book that would be fun to read. I like the title.