Nov. 24, 2025 – The holiday season is here, and that means a season of cooking, sharing meals, and celebrating with loved ones. So we decided to highlight 10 cookbooks that came out this year to help you find a little inspiration. They might not all feature traditional holiday recipes, but they all celebrate the joy to be found in gathering around a table and tasting something delicious.
Browse the books below, and put them on hold in our catalog by clicking on their covers.
"Let's Party: Recipes and Menus for Celebrating Every Day" by Dan Pelosi (2025)
Dan Pelosi believes every day can be a celebration – and wherever there’s a celebration, there’s a menu waiting to be planned. In his second cookbook, the New York Times bestselling author dishes out more than 100 of his larger-than-life recipes, organized into sixteen distinct dinner parties designed to take the guesswork out of what to serve when and what goes with what.
Whether you follow a menu as is or mix and match recipes, Dan helps you find the joy in every part of hosting, from setting the guest list to politely letting your company know when it’s time to go home, sharing his favorite family tidbits along the way. For seasoned hosts and first-timers alike, this book is your manual. Save the date, dress up the table, and choose your outfit ... now let's party!
"Vegan Soulicious: Plant-Based Island Cooking" by Charlise Rookwood (2025)
Whether you are new to vegan cooking, simply want to reduce the amount of meat and dairy you are consuming, or are an experienced plant-based cook, "Vegan Soulicious" has a fresh and delicious point of view, offering an exciting approach to cooking that is irresistibly soulful and centered on wellness and joy.
In her debut cookbook, Charlise Rookwood shares her favorite vegan dishes, as well as recipes that showcase African and Caribbean flavors that will make your tastebuds sing. In the process, she proves that plant-based food can be boldly flavorful, vibrantly beautiful, easy to make, and a reflection of cultural roots. Inspired by her Jamaican and Mauritian heritage, Rookwood wants to help readers fall in love with their favorite childhood dishes all over again with a new, healthy approach, and spice up everyone's cooking with exciting flavor profiles and new techniques. Her cooking focuses on dishes that are naturally satisfying without meat and dairy, due to both the way they have always traditionally been enjoyed and thanks to clever innovations Rookwood has developed.
"Family Thai: Bringing the Flavors of Thailand Home" by Arnold Myint (2025)
In "Family Thai," Myint breaks down an often-intimidating cuisine into accessible building blocks for every home cook, beginning with pantry staples – what's fish sauce? what are the differences between soy sauces? – and moving on to teaching readers essential skills like how to steam the perfect sticky rice or how to make their own noodles if they can't find them stocked nearby.
Myint also shares what he likes to cook at home and adaptations of Thai cuisine that have been inspired by his hometown of Nashville and his travels around the world. From there, he takes us into the vibrant and colorful world of Thai street food, including shumai, shrimp toast, curry puffs, and more, classic noodle dishes, his own original creations, and, of course, his mother's classic recipes.
"Breaking the Rules: A Fresh Take on Italian Classics" by Joe Sasto (2025)
It's time to ditch the same boring recipes and get creative in the kitchen. Known for his signature curled mustache and dynamic presence on shows like Bravo's "Top Chef" and Food Network's "Tournament of Champions," Joe Sasto brings his culinary expertise and passion for pasta to your kitchen. "Breaking the Rules" is a celebration of Italian cuisine, reimagined with Joe's unique flair, playfulness, and creativity.
Dive into a world of pasta with step-by-step techniques that guide you through creating dishes in all forms, shapes, and sizes. From classic Italian recipes like meatballs and focaccia to innovative creations such as Corn Cacio e Pepe, Marinated Tomato "Amatriciana," and Pesto Pinwheel Pull-Apart Bread, Joe's recipes are designed to inspire both novice and experienced cooks. Each recipe begins with a simple version, perfect for beginners, and offers variations to elevate the dish for those ready to "break the rules" and take their skills to the next level.
"Baking and the Meaning of Life: How to Find Joy in 100 Recipes" by Helen Goh (2025)
Drawing on her upbringing in Malaysia and Australia, her acclaimed work with Ottolenghi where she specialized in Mediterranean and Middle Eastern flavors, and even her active psychotherapy practice, Goh not only shares her favorite baking recipes, but also reflections on life, sharing how baking can bring us together and add meaning and joy to both significant and everyday moments.
With recipes like Chocolate Tahini Cake with Sesame Brittle, Plum and Pistachio Bars, and Pandan and Coconut Chiffon Cake, and more shareable treats that offer both tried-and-true and creative flavors, this book is a celebration of community and pleasure through baking. All of her desserts are impressively sweet ways to celebrate milestones reached and connect with family and friends. With inventive flavor combinations that showcase Goh's creativity, a wealth of time-tested bakes, and her philosophies on living and baking well, "Baking and the Meaning of Life" is a one-of-kind companion bakers will return to again and again to spread joy, one cookie, cake, or cheese puff at a time.
"Food for Sharing: Love and Spices from an Immigrant Kitchen" by Ashia Ismail-Singer (2025)
Inspired by the melded cultures that make up Ashia’s extended family, "Food for Sharing" will take you on a journey full of flavors from India to Africa, the Middle East, Europe, the Americas, and New Zealand, where she now lives.
These are recipes for sharing, each infused with the spices and flavors of Ashia’s Memon Indian heritage, and the influences picked up through her family’s journey. With recipes for breakfast and brunch, summer picnics, festive feasts, sunset snacks and sweet and spiced desserts, interspersed with personal stories of Ashia’s immigrant family, this book shares all the ingredients to elevate your entertaining, all throughout the year.
"The Choi of Cooking: Flavor-Packed, Rule-Breaking Recipes for a Delicious Life" by Roy Choi (2025)
When Choi realized that falling victim to his greasy cravings was not sustainable, he began to eat more nutritious foods – but he did it his way, to build a more realistic lifestyle not based on extreme dieting or deprivation. This equates to vegetable-forward recipes, with plenty of pit stops of comfort along the way, and tons of flavors layered in every single bite. "The Choi of Cooking" focuses on foods that fuel your body, and Choi meets readers wherever they are, recognizing that eating healthy isn't all or nothing.
Reaching for healthier foods is like flexing a muscle, and the work begins with having the confidence to cook at all. To encourage readers to take those first steps in the kitchen, Choi shares his culinary philosophy, including bits of wisdom and stories that expand on his approach to food. "The Choi of Cooking" is more than a collection of recipes; it's a guide to creating a more balanced life.
"Athens: Food, Stories, Love" by Diane Kochilas (2025)
Diane has lived in Athens for thirty years and has been witness to the enormous social and culinary changes all around her. To navigate the city's gastronomic scene today is to discover a city overflowing with new creative energy in its kitchens and myriad of international ingredients in its markets. These new global influences on the Athenian table live side by side with Greece's great gastronomic traditions. Souvlaki, hand pies, and the classic pasta casserole pastitsio are included here along with Athenian "fancy" dishes like Noua, a classic Athenian pot roast, and Chicken Milanese, combining chicken, rice, and a velvety cream sauce.
Giving readers a taste of the ways in which the culinary traditions of other countries are shaping the way Athens eats today, Diane offers a recipe for a French-influenced cross between a croissant and spanakopita, shares an Italian twist on a Greek classic with Shrimp Saganaki Risotto, updates a Greek bean dish with a Grec-Mex twist on gigantes, and much more.
"The Modern Navajo Kitchen: Homestyle Recipes that Celebrate the Flavors and Traditions of the Diné" by Alana Yazzie (2025)
This beautifully photographed cookbook ties together traditional Navajo recipes as well as global recipes with a Navajo spin, creating a truly unique culinary experience. Incorporating traditional and modern ingredients, some of the deliciously nourishing and comforting recipes include: Navajo Boba Milk Tea (Abe’ Boba Dééhk’azí), Fry Bread (Dah Díníilghaazh), Navajo Burgers (Atsį’ Yik’ą́ Náneeskadí Bił Ałch’į’ Át’éhí), Sumac and Strawberry Greek Yogurt Ice Pops (Chiiłchin Yogurt Tiní), and more.
This comprehensive cookbook also includes instructions for how to make such things as juniper ash, roasted cornmeal, and roasted chiles. A short history of Navajo culinary traditions is provided to provide cultural context, and sample meal plans will help you put together the perfect menus.
"Good Things: Recipes and Rituals to Share with the People You Love" by Samin Nosrat (2025)
Samin Nosrat has always had a complicated relationship with recipes. How, she wondered, can a recipe be anything more than a snapshot-an attempt to define the undefinable? How can ever it capture the feeling of experiencing something in person? In Good Things, she makes peace with this paradox, offering more than 125 of her favorite recipes – simply put, the things she most loves to cook for herself and for friends – and infusing them with all the beauty and care you would expect from Samin Nosrat. As she says, "Once I hand them off to you, they are no longer mine. They're yours, to do with as you please. And maybe, in the act of receiving, a little thread of connection will be woven between me and each of you."
"Good Things" is an essential, joyful guide to cooking and living, whether you're looking for a comforting, creamy tomato soup to console a struggling friend, seeking a deeper sense of connection in your life, or hosting a dinner for ten in your too-small dining room. Here you'll find go-to recipes for ricotta custard pancakes, chicken braised with apricots and harissa, a crunch, tingly Calabrian chili crisp, super-chewy sky-high focaccia, and a decades-in-the-making, childhood-evoking yellow cake.