Cookbook Book Club
September 16, 2026
5:00 PM
Mason Hall, Cornish, NH
Join us for an evening of good food, good conversation, and recipes worth sharing!
This month’s cookbook:
The Essential New York Times Cookbook: The Recipes of Record
by Amanda Hesser
The James Beard Award–winning and New York Times best-selling compendium of the paper’s best recipes, revised and updated.
Ten years after the phenomenal success of her once-in-a-generation cookbook, former New York Times food editor Amanda Hesser returns with an updated edition for a new wave of home cooks. She has added 120 new but instantly iconic dishes to her mother lode of more than a thousand recipes, including Samin Nosrat’s Sabzi Polo (Herbed Rice with Tahdig), Todd Richards’s Fried Catfish with Hot Sauce, and J. Kenji López-Alt’s Cheesy Hasselback Potato Gratin. Devoted Times subscribers as well as newcomers to the paper’s culinary trove will also find scores of timeless gems such as Purple Plum Torte, David Eyre’s Pancake, Pamela Sherrid’s Summer Pasta, and classics ranging from 1940s Caesar Salad to modern No-Knead Bread. Hesser has tested and adapted each of the recipes, and she highlights her go-to favorites with wit and warmth. As Saveur declared, this is a “tremendously appealing collection of recipes that tells the story of American cooking.”
Choose a recipe from the cookbook to prepare and bring along to share. We’ll sample dishes, talk about our favorites, and discuss the cookbook as a whole.
With more than 1,000 recipes drawn from the history of The New York Times, there’s plenty to choose from—from appetizers and soups to breads, desserts, and everything in between.
Come hungry—and bring a dish to share!
Hosted by Plainfield & Cornish Public Libraries