From bread to booze to sustainability, here are some of our favorites:
30 Breads to Bake Before You Die
Allyson Reedy
In 2022, local food writer Allyson Reedy released her first cookbook, 50 Things to Bake Before You Die, which includes several recipes with local ties such as Alon Shaya’s pita from Safta, Carolyn Glover’s English muffins, Bakery Four’s baguettes and Rebel Bread’s Marble Rye Sourdough.
This year, she launched the followup 30 Breads to Bake Before You Die, which recently landed on the Food Network's list of the Ten Best Baking Cookbooks of the year. “I love bread, I love carbs so much,” confesses Reedy. “The first book was dessert, which is probably my first love, and it just makes sense. Because breads are probably my second love.”
The recipes have been tested here at altitude, and Reedy stands behind them. “I am not a professional baker at all, and so I feel like if I can make these recipes and they turn out well for me, then anyone can," she notes. They're professional recipes from these really accomplished bakers and chefs, but they're written in a way that they've obviously been tested by the bakers. They actually turn out and they're easy to follow. And so I really feel like anyone can do it if I can.”
30 Breads is available at bookstores and online now. Reedy's next offering, The Phone Eats First: 50 of Social Media's Best Recipes to Feed Your Feed…and Then Yourself, comes out in March and is available for pre-order now.
Cocina Libre: Immigrant Resistance Recipes
Dr. Julia Roncoroni and Dr. Delio Figueroa
Combining recipes with poignant first-person stories, this cookbook shares the challenges that Colorado's immigrants have faced along with instructions on how they re-create the flavors they left behind. Cocina Libre is the work of Dr. Julia Roncoroni, a licensed psychologist and associate professor at the University of Denver who is originally from Argentina, and her partner, Dr. Delio Figueroa, a music anthropologist and educator originally from Puerto Rico.
The book contains 35 recipes and stories from immigrants who have come to Colorado from around the globe, including Ukraine, Afghanistan, Peru and Guatemala, to name a few, along with powerful accounts of immigrants' journeys and their struggles both along the way and after arrival.
Proceeds from the book go to the Colorado Immigrant Rights Coalition (CIRC), a statewide coalition founded in 2002 to build a unified voice to improve the lives of immigrants and refugees in Colorado and the United States. To learn more about CIRC, visit coloradoimmigrant.org.
The cocktail recipes in this book are based on ones created via the flavor wheel at Bar Max.
Devvon Simpson
Marshall Smith
Bar Max owner Marshall Smith is all in on custom cocktails, creating a flavor wheel that helps guests make suggestions for their individually crafted sips at this cozy spot on East Colfax. He's compiled eighty of his customer's choose-your-own-cocktail-adventure favorites in this volume, which is available for pre-order online and will soon be on offer at the bar.
The author of The Blue Plate is a research affiliate at the Natural Resource Ecology Laboratory at CSU.
Patagonia
Mark J. Easter
Can we eat our way out of the climate crisis? Ecologist Mark Easter says the answer is "maybe" and breaks down the science of how the foods we enjoy affect the environment and contribute to climate change. Easter is now a research affiliate at the Natural Resource Ecology Laboratory at Colorado State University, having spent more than two decades as a senior research associate and “greenhouse gas accountant” there. In Blue Plate, he outlines how simple changes in food production can reduce its footprint from carbon contributor to carbon sink, while creating healthy food that's healthier for the planet. The book offers low-carbon, in-season alternatives that make your favorite foods not only more climate-friendly, but also more delicious. The book is available to purchase online at patagonia.com.
Bold Beginnings: The Condiment Secrets of Bloom & Grow Kitchen
Kyle Britton
Bacon jam, anyone? Recipes for that porkily piquant spread and many other delicious sauces and condiments are the stars of Bloom & Grow chef Kyle Britton's first cookbook, Bold Beginnings.
Britton grew up in Colorado, returning to the Centennial State with his wife and first child during the pandemic. “The baby's first birthday was the pandemic shutdown lockdown,” he remembers. “We always wanted to raise our kids back in Colorado, and my family is here. I built the [food] truck in my parents' driveway while everything was locked down.” After running food trucks and operating several kitchens, he opened Bloom & Grow Kitchen inside Max Taps in Centennial — and the beer lovers there couldn’t get enough of his charred salsa, avocado crema and garlic lime aioli.
“People love the sauces,” says Britton. “And I thought maybe that could be a beneficial product to have in the world, like restaurant-quality sauces that you can make at home. A lot of times we opt for these easy bottles that are already on the shelves in the supermarket, and they're packed full of garbage. This is like a combination of family and community and do-it-yourself simple at home. It's more than just a cookbook. It's about community — and happiness, I think.”
The book is available on Amazon.
