What's Your Party Trick?

On the cookbooks we use.

Hi friends.

The holidays have overtaken us. What can we do but eat?

So let us all admire the lasagna I made for a holiday party I went to this week.

Lasagnas are basically the only thing I know how to make. A few days ago I was telling a younger friend of mine—who also isn’t much of a homemaker in the conventional sense—that everyone needs to know how to make one thing as a party trick/offering. Lasagna is mine.

Those of you who have made lasagna know it is not actually hard to make, just time-consuming. But once you understand that pertinent detail, you will be happy to make it whenever you have a little time. And then you can feed a bunch of people at once and everyone will be so satisfied. (Especially if you bring extra sauce, which I did.)

I learned the basics of making lasagna from this book by my friend Anna Hezel. People always ask me what my favorite books of all-time are whenever I do events and honestly I should add this to the list. I know the audience wants me to say it’s like, Crime and Punishment or some such but actually the lasagna book is much more well-loved and used in this house.

I bought my young friend a copy of the book of course.

I have also just ordered Fat & Flour: The Art of A Simple Bake by another friend, Nicole Rucker. This book has made it on a zillion end-of-year lists (I am very proud of her) and looks like it will help me perfect one or two more party tricks. I will report back, of course.

So today’s prompt for you is just to share your absolute favorite cookbooks. (If you don’t have a favorite, at least say something nice about my lasagna.)

See you next week with some thoughts on editing. Also, coming in early January: a bunch of prompts! Get ready, friends.

Hope you’re eating well.

Jami

You are reading Craft Talk, the home of #1000wordsofsummer and also a weekly newsletter about writing from Jami Attenberg. I’m also on bluesky and instagram.