Recent Cookbooks on My Shelf was a regular feature of my newsletter, predominantly shared with my paid subscribers. Since I have taken a step back from writing my newsletter as regularly and no longer have a paid newsletter, I thought it was high time to bring more of my work back to my original internet home, this blog.
I have a little backlog of cookbooks to tell you about, August onwards seemed to bring many new titles to my shelves, so I will bring you another of these soon, along with the last instalment of Cookbooks Worth Waiting For, for 2026.
These four books are all a little different, though there is clearly a slightly Italian theme for a couple of them, and one isn’t a cookbook in the traditional sense! All but one are new releases, so I hope you enjoy hearing a little more about them.
Cookbooking: A Fan’s Guide by Debbie Berne (Hardie Grant) - Not a cookbook itself, but a book about cookbooks, their history, style and trends. Cookbooking has a very US focus so many of the books mentioned, especially the early ones, may not be familiar. It is still interesting to see the history, and understand why cookbooks came about, and how they have changed over time. I liked Debbie’s, categorisation that most cookbook lovers conversation about cookbooks falls into either “childhood nostalgia and early adulthood discovery, triumphs and failures, discovery and devotion”. I thought that was a nice succinct way to explain how cookbooks may fit into our lives, and what they can mean to us.
Debbie’s background was in design, and she worked on many cookbooks which is how she was able to look at them in this holistic way and create this cookbook centric book of her own. It’s also clear Debbie was a designer since this book has excellent design features of it’s own. I really like the photos of other people’s bookshelves, and then the focus on the cover or inner pages of individual books too. Very sadly, author and designer Debbie died late last year before this book was published. I found an interview with her publisher, which provided more insight into the making of this cookbook and how Debbie focused on this project until the end - you can read it here.
Weeknights with Alice by Alice Zaslavsky (Murdoch Books)* - Fun, colourful and veg forward, as we’ve come to expect from Alice, are top of the list features of the recently released Weeknights with Alice by Alice Zaslavsky. Alice is consistent in her enthusiasm for veg, making cooking as fuss free and fun as she can, all with organising this book (as she has in her previous books) in a visual and practical way for ease of use - all part of the fuss free weeknight mantra of Weeknights with Alice. While all recipes are veg forward, some recipes have meat or seafood in them, many utilise cheese, but all have veg/vegan options available so basically everyone could use this book to help solve their weeknight dinner dilemmas. A few recipes lean on Alice’s Georgian heritage which is great to see as Georgian cuisine isn’t widely known (yet) in Australia. Alice seems to be inspired by many cuisines around the world though, and the recipes in her latest book swing from Korean, Japanese, Cantonese, Italian inspirations, and more. So if you are interested in variety of flavours and options, all with the promise of helping make weeknights easier and tastier, this is one for you.
*Thank you to Murdoch Books for gifting me a copy of Alice’s new book.
Sicily, My Sweet by Victoria Granof (Hardie Grant) - Unlike the other books in this list, this is not a new release, just new to me. I found it on the sale tables at GleeBooks in Blackheath, and it caught my eye because it has such a bright cover. The knowledge that a book about the sweets of Sicily would likely contain many pistachio recipes encouraged me to buy it. Sicily, My Sweet is an exploration of Sicily and the sweets that make up the island influenced by the climate, traditions and the many occupiers over the centuries. It is also a personal reflection on the author’s ancestry, with a connection to Sicily dating back many many centuries, and the connection Victoria feels she has from this. Victoria’s career in food and this personal connection, culminate in many traditional Sicilian sweet recipes in this book, and some inspired by the flavours and ingredients of the island. Almond and to a slightly lesser extent, pistachio, feature heavily in this book, along with rosewater, orange blossom water, and many fresh and dried fruits.
While there isn’t a photo per recipe in Sicily, My Sweet the photography taken in Sicily itself that features in the book really helps bring the feel of the place to the book. I’ve already made the Blood Orange and Rosewater Marmalade (pp.196-197) as my acquisition of this book coincided with blood orange season here and my usual yearly intensive marmalade making endeavours. I have also bookmarked a lot of the pistachio based recipes to try. I also enjoyed seeing that Victoria included a cake recipe using bergamot (Lemon Bergamot Olive Oil Cake pp.140-142). I love bergamot, but it is very rare to find recipes in cookbooks using this still relatively unknown citrus, so it was nice to see another of my favourite flavours in one book - between the pistachio recipes, use of rosewater and then bergamot, so many of my favourites are covered in one cookbook!
Tramontana by Simon Bajada (Hardie Grant) - The thing I really enjoy from the books I have by Simon, is his ability to really showcase a particular location and it’s food. I always enjoy cookbooks that have a limited focus, with the author researching stories and recipes, that are tales that could only be told of that particular place. In Tramontana, Simon focuses on Northern Italy, specifically Liguria, Piedmont and Acosta Valley. While many of us might have a few Italian cookbooks already, those like this one that focus in on one area always bring out recipes we’ve never seen before, or might not even have thought were from Italy at all. We often hear of Italian food and cuisine as a monolith, however it does vary region by region, and books like Tramontana showcase this well. As with other cookbooks I have of Simon’s (Malta comes to mind first), the location photography in this cookbook is really stunning. It highlights the beauty of these places, and also showcases the differences between them. All while making me feel like I am doing a little cookbook related armchair travel.
Only a few recipes have stood out to me so far, not as many as I would have expected, but despite that I’m sure others will stand out to me when I pick this book up again another time (and maybe in a different season). If you are looking for a bit of food related travel via your kitchen, Tramontana could be a good place to start.
