Some of my favourite cookbooks by bloggers

One of the things I love about the web, and about twitter and food blogs in particular, is the vicarious friends you make. I get to know people so well through their writing and the little details of their lives, that when they do something big, like publish a cookbook, I want to buy it just to show my support. I’ve found myself doing this more and more in recent years. It started with Clotilde and Chocolate & Zucchini. The came Molly from Orangette and her book ‘A Homemade Life‘. The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook is probably my favourite of the year so far, and were it not for  blogs, I wouldn’t have discovered Jenny Rosenstrach and Dinner: A Love Story (not to mention her transformative pork Ragu recipe).

Jennifer Perillo and Shauna James Ahern, a.k.a. In Jennie’s Kitchen and Gluten Free Girl, are writers I only discovered in the last couple of years, although both have been writing for much longer.

Jennifer I found, like many others, when the food blogging world reached out after the sudden death of her husband Mikey. Her writing at that time was utterly compelling, full of exposed emotions and tenderness. She has written ‘Homemade with Love‘ about their family and the food they love.

Shauna I had heard of many times – she is so well-loved by other food bloggers – but I think I had assumed (wrongly) that because she was writing gluten-free recipes, it wasn’t for me. How completely wrong I was. Her latest book is ‘Gluten-Free Girl Every Day‘, about cooking for and with her family too – her chef husband and her daughter.

Both have recently written about their books and had friends make a short video as a book trailer. And both videos really convey a sense of what you expect these people to be like if you read them regularly: Jennifer, the strong, proud mama who surfaces what’s on her mind, no matter how emotional, and who is there for her girls. Someone who will tell you the story of the recipe and make you care about it. Shauna, the happy, capable mum who just wants things to taste delicious and wants to enjoy the simple things. I love that these videos give me a chance to ‘meet’ both of these writers, and figure out a little more about them.

Check out both of these posts – and see if you don’t want to cheer them both on too. Both of these books are now on my wishlist.

http://glutenfreegirl.com/2013/04/here-it-is/

http://www.injennieskitchen.com/2013/04/why-we-cook-food-curate/