Aparita Bhandari on 3 cookbooks you should devour this season
Columnist Aparita Bhandari likes to bake, and here are three books she looks to for culinary inspiration. This interview originally aired on Dec. 4, 2017.
Sweet by Yotam Ottolenghi and Helen Goh
"Yotam Ottolenghi is probably best known for his vegetarian savoury books, but he started out as a pastry chef. Sweet: Desserts from London's Ottolenghi, co-authored with Helen Goh, is his return to sugar. The ingredients are different and it has international influences. Flipping through this book was such a treat because I saw pavlova, a meringue dessert from Australia, where I grew up. This cookbook has quite the range!"
Duchess Bake Shop by Giselle Corteau
"I got into baking when I was a kid, much like Edmonton's Giselle Corteau. I loved those treats in the shop, but they were never bought for me, so I started making them. Similarly, Corteau's mother would not let her buy treats and told her to instead bake them at home. During a trip to Japan, she discovered macaroons and tried to recreate it in a small toaster oven. From baking in her kitchen, she has now graduated to a proper pastry shop in Edmonton where there is always a lineup. She is a self-taught baker and I like Duchess Bake Shop because it gave me permission to try things I don't traditionally bake, like éclairs."
Handmade: stories of strength shared through recipes from the women of Sri Lanka
"Handmade is an atypical cookbook. It is full of Sri Lankan recipes which in a way were lost because of wartime displacement. An organization out of Australia called Palmera spoke to women in Sri Lanka and collected these recipes that would have been passed down through generations. Younger Sri Lankans living in the diaspora have gravitated towards this book. Being from northern India, the sweets I tried from this book tasted familiar, yet their ingredients were foreign to me. It perfumed my kitchen in a whole different way and I quite enjoyed it!"
Aparita Bhandari's comments have been edited and condensed.