On Food and Cooking by Harold McGee is such a special and unique book. I wish there was a book like it for every one of my hobbies! It's an explanation of what happens during cooking at a molecular level, which gives so much insight into how and why cooking techniques and ingredients work well together. In addition to that it blends in hlthr history of cooking (ancient recipes) and literature. It's such a wonderful book! I can't recommend it enough.

I also like Jeffrey Steingarten's writing. His two books The Man Who Ate Everything and It Must Have Been Something I Ate are a joy to read. He is a good columnist for Vogue, which gives him time and money to do all kinds of elaborate cooking projects and travel. The essays are such a pleasure, full of passion and enthusiasm. and humor. Just as an example, the conceit of the eponymous essay of his first book is that a food columnist should eat all foods -- after all, a film critic wouldn't be allowed to hate whole genres of film. So in the essay he tries to get himself to enjoy all the foods he doesn't like.

I love cooking and experimenting with different food combinations to make my own recipes, so I tend to gravitate to books about food nutrition value vs traditional cookbooks, though I do have a lot of those around. The one book I still have as a go to in my kitchen is the one below. Highly recommend it, as well as subscribing to their Wellness Letter since there is a huge amount of information on diet and nutrition under one roof, including cookbook recommendations, along with other evidence based health research articles. Good stuff! 😊

Can you tell me more about Koji Alchemy? I do a lot of Japanese cooking, and I enjoy fermentation, pickling, sourdough, etc. This book sounds like it's be up my alley.

I also heard that store bought koji is generally subpar in quality. What does this book have to say about that?

We go back to Jerusalem by Yotam Ottolenghi a lot. Also latley The Flavor Equation by Nik Sharma.