Welcome to nominations for our June 2022 Cookbook of the Month. For those of you new to this post series, here is how it works: Each month we choose a book to cook from as a group. We start by nominating books we’re interested in, and we’ll later choose from the books with the most nominations.
You may nominate as many books as you wish. Please nominate with the intention of joining us in cooking from the book and reporting on the dishes you make, should your nominee be selected. In order to nominate, please put the name of the book in ALL CAPS in the comments below. Only titles in all caps will be counted as nominations.
Nominations will end TUESDAY, MAY 17 at 11 PM GMT/7 PM EDT/4 PM PDT, and the books with the most nominations will move on to a vote. The book that receives the most votes will be our June COTM. A reporting thread will be posted on June 1.
Don’t forget, there is still plenty of time to participate in our April COTM, The New Midwestern Table, and you can always add reports to past COTMs, which are archived here.
THE WOK
L.A. SON by Roy Choi
REAL HAWAII by Sheldon Simeons
EVERYDAY KOREAN by Kim Sunee
BUTTERMILK GRAFITTI by Edward Lee
I’m really feeling an Asian Fusion/American Asian vibe this month. Fresh produce coming into the markets, Spring in the air, and all that. Plus, I think American does some of the best food around. I know people are all it’s not authentic. Umm, yeah, whatevs.
So, I’m feeling the fusion as well… it works so well, especially here in the U.S. south, as we (OK, I) get a bunch of local produce coming in. I’ve read both L.A. Son and Buttermilk Graffiti. While both are interesting books, the latter doesn’t really have enough recipes to be a viable COTM, imho. L.A. Son maybe, but I think it’s still a stretch. I love, love, loved Edward Lee’s first book, Smoke & Pickles, which was a past COTM over on CH. We have a bit of a new crowd here, and I wouldn’t mind doing a revisit of that + Buttermilk Graffiti as an Edward Lee month. Oh, what the hell…
EDWARD LEE MONTH (Smoke & Pickles + Buttermilk Graffiti).
I’ve been cooking from this book quite a bit recently, and the food is a mix of traditional and fusion. I have commented elsewhere that the recipe writing is not as sharp as I would like to see. I nominate it with the advice that when cooking from it, one should follow their own intuition on cook times and temperatures, and if not well-versed in Korean cooking, seek the wisdom of the group as far as some ingredients go. But I think, given those caveats, it could be a successful book in the COTM setting, where we all share our tips and experience.
You make a lot of sense. Okay. I’m down. I cook from Smoke and Pickles ALOT. In fact, I just used his recipe for braised brisket a few weeks back. And that meatloaf sandwich is just food porn and a party in my mouth.
EDWARD LEE MONTH (Smoke & Pickles + Buttermilk Graffiti)
Caitlin, pull my nomination for Buttermilk Graffiti by itself, please. And TY for doing this month COTM!
Replying to my own message,I’m not sure what happened and I don’t know what “strong text” means. I was trying to also nominate
BLACK FOOD
FLAVORS OF THE SUN
as MelMM did.
I understood, but I’ll disregard your first post. It’s easier to keep track if you don’t mention the same books in more than one post in all caps when clarifying, though, for future reference.
I’ve been browsing through the ebook of Smoke & Pickles. There’s a touching story of how he became engaged to his non-Korean girlfriend. Would I be allowed to post that little part here?
