is it possible to have a crush on a cookbook?

Because I do. We made eye contact on instagram like, a month ago, and I don't even remember how we started talking but there were a lot of butterflies and then all of a sudden I was holding it in my hand...okay this is getting weird.

But for real, I am in love with Julia Turshen's new cookbook. And also maybe with Julia. 

If you are looking for a gift for someone, buy them this book! Why, you may ask?

                                                              Here's why!

• Look at that pretty cover! There's a blue and white picnic cloth on the binding for Christ sake! And don't you just want to take a swan dive into that bowl of chicken soup?? I do.
• Um, Ina Garten wrote the foreward.. So....yeah....Julia's KIND OF A BIG DEAL.
• Turshen has already co-written cookbooks with Mario Batali, Jody Williams and the one and only Goopy GWenny P Paltrow. Yes, Turshen is GOOP approved, everybody. (I've never tried to be GOOP approved myself but I imagine it's not an easy feat.)
• Also, Turshen's 14. Just kidding, I think she's 32 or something, but this woman has had a pretty amazing career already at a very young age. She is a badass prodigy and basically the LeBron James of cookbooking.
• Okay, fine, I'll talk about the actual cookbook now. Turshen is also a writer, not just a chef, and the writing in this cookbook is top notch. By this is I mean I find her directions incredibly easy to understand (which is not a given in cookbooks and/or for me) and she's funny and warm and witty without being TOO funny/warm/witty (is that a thing? probably not.) But I do find that there's this overly ironic, coy, we-all-live-in-Brooklyn voice that's been a part of a lot of food blogs/publications for years now (cough Bon Appetit cough), and Turshen's style is so freshingly not like that. Don't get me wrong, she is clearly cool and cooler than all us (I mean she married the founder of Design Sponge and has an awesome  house in upstate new york and makes clambakes for company on baking sheets and then eats it all on her vintage rugs) but she's not, like, annoying about it. Her style is down-to-earth in a way that feels genuine and welcoming. 
• Um, the recipes are fantastic! Doy. I am literally writing this post right now because I made her turkey meatballs a couple weeks ago and then I HAD A DREAM ABOUT THEM LAST NIGHT. The dream consisted of me eating her turkey meatballs. That was it. And it was an amazing dream. There's also a really easy oven-baked flounder recipe that I love. And I can't wait to make the chocolate cake, and I don't even like baking! What is happening?!?!
• The book is a bang for your buck. Seriously. All of her recipes include spin-offs. She's like "oh you liked this Law & Order recipe for chicken so much why don't you add some feta and replace the almonds with pine nuts and now it's a Law & Order SUV version of that recipe!" Or, something like that. But Turshen does show you how to make a dish a bunch of different ways. It's refreshing and I sort of imagine how actual cooks learn to cook?
• That may have been an alternate title: actual cooks learning to cook.

Them's the turkey meatballs!

In conclusion, the book is full of TONS of recipes that are easy-to-follow and delicious and actually fun (and not scary) to make, Turshen is a dream of an imaginery friend/chef mentor, and it's been a month and this cookbook and I are still in the honeymoon phase.

I hope you enjoy it as much as I do! Thank you Julia! (Waaaaait, should I make every recipe in this book and then make a movie about it where it cuts between me spilling half a bottle of olive oil in my oven and almost lighting my apartment on fire and then back to Julia drinking PBR in her cool house with her cool wife eating leftover roasted chicken and laughing??? Definitely!)

​#smallvictoriescookbook
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