Food Book Fair Authors Share Their Favorite Cookbooks
Megan Paska, Beekeeper, Farmer, Blogger
Author of Rooftop Beekeeper: A Scrappy Guide to Keeping Urban Honeybees
Tell us about your favorite classic cookbook or food-related book and how it transformed your relationship with food or informed your style of cooking.
The Moosewood Restaurant Cooks at Home by Moosewood Collective was the first cookbook that I owned that I felt approached home cooking from both a healthful perspective, but also seemed keen to make sure the readers were totally sated, stimulated and comforted by the food they were making. I was a vegetarian and an avid gardener when I bought the book and it got me really excited to get into the kitchen and put all of the veggies I was growing to delicious use.
Tell us about your favorite modern cookbook and like above, how it transformed your relationship with food or informed your style of cooking.
I really love both Masala Farm by Suvir Saran and Whole Larder Love by Rohan Anderson. As a new farmer delving into a lot of new facets of agriculture, I found these two books to be completely inspiring. When I had an abundance of eggs, I’d make Karala Egg Curry from Masala Farm. After a rabbit harvest, Rohan’s Spanish Rabbit Leg recipe was a welcome change from the standard confit I was used to. And, of course, there’s The Roberta’s Cookbook. Goddamn, do I love that book. It’s a treasure. So simple, but those guys really know what’s good.
Favorite Brooklyn-based restaurant and why.
It’s not fair to have to pick just one! Whenever I’m back in the neighborhood, I love getting a meatloaf sandwich and a impeccably made Old Fashioned at Rye. Or a burger and a beer at Roberta’s. Or a fried chicken sandwich and a shandy at Allswell. Always sidled up to the bar, chatting with the bartender. You can never go wrong with a good sandwich, some salty potatoes, a stiff drink and some good conversation.
Megan will be at the Food Book Farm at Smorgasburg on Saturday, April 26 from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.