(Serious) New Cook - by Leah Su Quiroga & Cammie Kim Lin (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

• Winner of the 2023 Best Cookbook Award in the children, youth, and family category by the International Association of Culinary Professionals (IACP)
• An NPR Best Book of 2022
• A Parade Magazine Great Gift for Foodies

Inspiration and stellar instruction in a groundbreaking resource for new(ish) cooks ready to level up. Perfect for teens and college students, twenty-somethings cooking in their own first kitchens, or folks of any age who are ready to get serious about making great food.

"Learning how to cook--simply, seasonally, and organically, for family and friends--is one of the most fulfilling things you can do in life. This book is the essential (and delicious!) roadmap you need: friendly, approachable, and perfectly ready to inspire new cooks to fall in love." --Alice Waters, chef, restaurateur, author, and American culinary icon

Filled with recipes for impressive, craveable food--with all the guidance needed to make it--(Serious) New Cook is perfect for young adults or any new(ish) cooks who have ever found themselves salivating at cooking TikToks or drooling over gorgeous cookbooks, only to believe they aren't skilled enough to attempt the recipes themselves. Here, the clear, detailed instruction and stunning step-by-step photography will have readers wowing their friends and families from their very first dish. Along with recipes that are at once aspirational and totally doable, authors Leah Su Quiroga and Cammie Kim Lin use their experience as a chef from one of America's top restaurants and an award-winning teacher and writer to deftly share knowledge, stories, and brilliant tips with humor and insight.

It's an homage to their own multicultural families and to the countless young adults they've taught and cooked with--their own kids, Cammie's high school and college students, the new cooks who came up under Leah in the Chez Panisse kitchen. (Serious) New Cook hits all the right notes, packed with inspired takes on familiar favorites, as well as new flavors to build an expansive repertoire: crepes with compote, handmade arepas, "broken" Caesar salad, mushroom pot pie, Korean bulgogi meatballs, classic cupcakes, dalgona milkshakes, and more. With stunning step-by-step photography by Molly DeCoudreaux, the recipes are presented in trios organized around a core technique or concept. Learn one recipe and readers will be well on their way to mastering all three. Also included are guest recipes from acclaimed chefs and authors Alice Waters, Bryant Terry, Sean Sherman, Sohui Kim, Russell Moore, Claire Ptak, Scott Peacock and Edna Lewis, ushering a new generation of (serious) new cooks into the fold. More than just a collection of recipes, (Serious) New Cook is an indispensable resource and an inspiring guide.

Review Quotes

"Fall Cookbook Round-up: A question I get a lot is: okay, I have learned the basics. I can boil pasta and cut an onion and make a salad. What book will get me to the next level? And there are a few I recommend regularly (chief among them Martha Stewart's Cooking School) BUT most of them are kind of stuffy and kind of boring. (Serious) New Cook by sisters Leah Su Quiroga and Cammie Kim Lin, on the other hand, is aimed at a younger audience and takes inspiration from around the world. Get this one for your cousin who just moved into her first apartment." --STAINED PAGE NEWSLETTER

"Inexperienced cooks are often faced with choosing between beginner books teaching mundane recipes or standard cookbooks that are more enticing but also overwhelming for newcomers. Into the mix comes this book written by chefs who are sisters, based on the food they learned to cook in their mother's multicultural kitchen, with recipes designed to teach and inspire. The opening chapter is a cooking class in itself. It offers definitions of ingredients, processes, and equipment with excellent informative pictures illustrating things like stiff peaks vs. soft peaks in egg whites, colors and kinds of Asian hot sauces, and types of salt. The recipes themselves are grouped in threes: a core recipe and two variations with invitations for making versions of one's own. The content is not overwhelming, and starters, mains, and sweets cover the standard meal. The cookbook has a definite Asian influence, but the dishes are wide-ranging: chicken potpie sits next to a sushi party; arepas coexist with egg drop soup and vinaigrettes. VERDICT Sure to be a winner, with lovely pictures, clear and cheerful prose, and the promise of tasty food." LIBRARY JOURNAL

"25 Great Gifts for Foodies. Parade's food editors pick the top gifts for foodies. (Serious) New Cook by Leah Su Quiroga and Cammie Kim Lin takes a global-cuisine approach to teaching kitchen newbies the basics with recipes for arepas, sushi and egg drop soup alongside old-school standards like waffles and pot pie." --PARADE MAGAZINE

"The chefs at Chez Panisse are known for doing beautiful things with seasonal ingredients, but by now the restaurant's former chefs should be also known for something else--putting out phenomenal cookbooks (see Cal Peternell and Samin Nosrat, for example). This book is no exception. Former head chef Leah Su Quiroga and her sister, writer and teacher Cammie Kim Lin, have created a book that is both gorgeous and informative. The book is designed for beginner cooks who want to improve their skills without getting stuck making only basic, boring recipes, and their format makes learning easy. The instructions are clear--many recipes have beautiful step-by-step photos--there are tons of helpful tips, and when you see an underlined term, you know you can flip to the Extra Credit section of the book to get extra info. (This last part is just genius.) To my mind, the best part of this book is, of course, that the food looks amazing. While I don't need a beginner book for myself, I'm definitely still going to cook these recipes, especially things like the crispy smashed potatoes with fried herbs, green tortilla soup, pie crust-topped salteña pot pie, and the flash-fried cutlet sandwich with pickled onions and a fried egg. (Hopefully the budding cook in my house will also start to use this book to make these things, too!)" -THE CALIFORNIA TABLE

"NPR's Best Books of the Year. Sisters Leah Su Quiroga (ex-head chef at Chez Panisse) and Cammie Kim Lin (Brooklyn-based food writer) have some serious kitchen chops, but this book was written for the next generation: one that loves cooking, but not always cookbooks. These recipes attend to texture and flavor with chef-like finesse and eclecticism (Bulgogi meatballs! Handmade arepas! Biscuit-topped chicken pot pie!) while also including painstaking process photos and taking no skills or steps for granted. It's a delicate balance to pull off cringe-free. This one's well worth gifting to your 20-something, along with their first good knife." -National Public Radio

"(Serious) New Cook is a great pick for those looking for a variety of easy, yet flavor-packed recipes perfect for both beginner and more experienced cooks (especially older teens who have aged out of kids' cookbooks). The instructions are incredibly well-written to help take your skills to the next level." -Tara's Multicultural Table

"When I hear 'new cook' I imagine some pretty basic stuff, like how to boil pasta or roast chicken. But the authors of this book don't undersell the novice and instead choose a robust catalog of recipes include sushi, fish sandwiches, steamed pork dumplings, and chocolate cake. A lot of the dishes are the sort of thing one might order out at a restaurant, but not make at home. And here they are, broken down in easy-to-follow recipes!" -Amanda Kay Oakes, blogger and writer

"Leah is the chef, and Cammie is the educator and writer, and together, you couldn't put two greater talents... They're just the perfect pair for this cookbook!" -Ann Haigh, food writer and co-host of the podcast On the Menu

About the Author

Leah Su Quiroga cooked for over a decade at Alice Waters's renowned California restaurant, Chez Panisse, where she started out as an intern and quickly worked her way up to head chef. She currently lives in Sebastopol, California, where she's raising a family. Cammie Kim Lin, Leah's sister, is a serious home cook who got her start in commercial kitchens before becoming a professor and writer. She teaches at New York University and lives in Brooklyn, New York with her family, which includes the two teenaged (serious) new cooks featured throughout the book. Cal Peternell, also a former head chef at Chez Panisse, is the New York Times best-selling author of numerous cookbooks, including Twelve Recipes and Burnt Toast and Other Disasters.