Favorite Things: Climate-Conscious Cookbooks

These five cookbooks are full of creative dishes to reduce food waste, align with the seasons, eat more plants, and more. Reconnect with your food and gain confidence in the kitchen — or consider this a gifting list!

The Vegetarian Flavor Bible: The Essential Guide to Culinary Creativity With Vegetables, Fruits, Legumes, Nuts, Seeds, and More by Karen Page

Karen Page wrote this useful resource for any at-home chef looking to expand their skillset. Instead of recipes, this book takes a different approach, listing hundreds of ingredients along with their flavor profiles, basic information, and how to use them. Karen also cues readers in on delicious flavor pairings and common dishes that use the ingredient, helping cooks of all levels use what they have wisely and reduce potential food waste – and plant-based dishes double the climate-fighting action. Shop on Amazon.

Flavour — Savouring the Seasons: Recipes From the Market Table by Pascale Beale

In Flavour, her latest cookbook, Santa Barbara–based chef Pascale Beale explores the beauty of seasonal cooking through nearly 150 Mediterranean-inspired recipes that are both ingredient-focused and plant-forward. The recipes are organized by key seasonal ingredients, making it easy and enjoyable to cook with the seasons year-round. This book is the fourth installment in Pascale’s Market Table series, a collection of cookbooks with creative recipes perfectly suited for farmers market enthusiasts who come home with an abundance of fruits and vegetables. Shop now.

The Oyster Book: A Chronicle of the World’s Most Fascinating Shellfish ― Past, Present, and Future by Dan Martino

Dan Martino and his brother, Greg, have been raising oysters in the clean, clear waters off Martha’s Vineyard for the last decade, growing “the best damn oysters that we can in the most environmentally positive way possible,” Dan writes. They’re also farming sugar kelp. Combined, these crops (along with the clams they raise) create a baseline of regenerative farming, improving the biodiversity and chemistry of the marine environment. In his spare time, Dan has written The Oyster Book, as “an exploration of the past, present, and future of humanity’s relationship with the oyster, highlighting how humans can learn from our mistakes and harness the oyster’s potential for a more sustainable future.” Shop on Amazon.

To the Last Bite: Recipes and Ideas for Making the Most of Your Ingredients by Alexis deBoschnek

In her cookbook To the Last Bite, Alexis deBoschnek encourages cooks to read it like a “choose your own adventure” book, where each recipe leads you to another. Traditional recipes often call for only a portion of ingredients, leaving you on your own to use up the rest. With recipes designed to use the entirety of each ingredient, you can make satisfying dishes that reduce food waste. If you buy a whole chicken for Alexis’s Spatchcock Paprika Chicken With Carrots, save the bones and make chicken stock to use in another waste-busting recipe. Shop on Amazon.

Warm Your Bones: 75 Cozy Recipes for Chilly Days and Winter Nights by Vanessa Seder

As a Los Angeles native living in Portland, Maine, Vanessa Seder has had to adjust to the East Coast’s unforgiving cold seasons. Armed with her talent as a cookbook author, recipe developer, and culinary instructor, Vanessa coped the best way she knows how — creating a collection of cozy recipes, which she worked on for over a decade. Warm Your Bones is a welcoming “guide to the art of cold-weather eating,” perfect for at-home cooks looking to gather over a warm meal. Vanessa’s latest release embraces nourishing seasonal produce and ingredients packed with iron, healthy fats, and vitamin C, so you won’t leave the kitchen table feeling sluggish. Shop on Amazon.

In Search of Classic Cookbooks?
Did your dog-eared Moosewood cookbook bring you and your children through many cooking sessions and now your kids need copies for their own homes? Or can you not believe your bestie doesn’t have your favorite Ottolenghi cookbook? Consider looking for a used copy! Shopping secondhand, even for books, is an effective way to practice mindful consumption. By thrifting, you can save perfectly good things from being thrown away and no resources need to be wasted on producing something that already exists. Plus, it’s easy on your wallet.

ThriftBooks boasts an enormous library of used books and other media at affordable prices. Founded in 2003, the company now says it is the world’s largest independent online used bookseller. They hand-grade books, label them clearly as New, Like New, Very Good, Good, or Acceptable, and price the books accordingly.

If your own library has grown excessive, you can also sell your books to ThriftBooks. According to its site, ThriftBooks has provided over $100 million to charity over the last decade through book and media purchases. The company also donates to schools, prisons, and national and international literacy projects. Shop now.