For the proud American
Tanya Holland’s book about her Oakland restaurant, Brown Sugar Kitchen, isn’t just a collection of outstanding recipes—like her famous fried chicken and feather-light, crunchy waffles. It’s a window into a wonderful, welcoming place where people of all backgrounds and persuasions sit together, eat, and become a community.
Gift to go with: A Round Belgian wafflemaker (amazon.com) will help you get those waffles right.
For the timid bread baker
At last, a bread-baking book that combines technical expertise with conversational warmth! Della Fattoria Bread brings baker Kathleen Weber right into readers’ kitchens, guiding them with friendly, clear instruction (including “Courage in the Kitchen” sidebars to underscore vital techniques) and how-to photos. This is no terrifying textbook.
Gift to go with: A kitchen scale (myweigh.com) will make those fussy measurements a piece of…pumpernickel.
For the taco hound
Food writer Sara Desaran wears a second hat: She’s co-owner of the Bay Area’s wildly popular Tacolicious restaurants. With Tacolicious the book, readers everywhere can make drippy, spicy, tasty tacos of every type, plus salsas, cocktails, salads, and a lot more.
Gift to go with: A bag of dried chiles. (Any Mexican grocery store, or mexgrocer.com.) Cascabel, guajillo, and ancho are our favorite varieties.
For the sandwich seeker
An entire cookbook devoted to Vietnamese sandwiches—the banh mi—may seem a bit extreme, but these recipes are so terrific and well-tested that a cooking voyage to banh mi land is worth the trip. Plus, The Banh Mi Handbook includes dozens of fillings that could stand alone as main courses (like delectable crispy roast pork).
Gift to go with: Chinese five-spice powder (you can find it at spicely.com, or any well-stocked grocery store).
For the pasta perfectionist
So obsessed with homemade pasta perfection is Thomas McNaughton, chef at San Francisco’s Flour+Water, that he keeps chickens on the roof of the restaurant, feeding them carrots to produce the proper deep-orange yolks. Flour +Water: Pasta has step-by-step photos and a phalanx of wonderful, authentic seasonal recipes that will get readers kneading in no time.
Gift to go with: Fluted wheel cutter from williams-sonoma.com. It’s ideal for neatly cutting fresh pasta sheets.
For the farm-to-table dreamer
Colorado chef Eric Skokan raises everything from Highland cattle to Toulouse geese on his farm near Boulder, plus 250 types of fruits and vegetables, and distills it all in his book Farm Fork Food. The recipes are often surprisingly simple, yet adventurous: try his heirloom carrot soup with coconut mousse, or Chinese-spiced beef pot au feu.
For the breakfast queen
Santa Monica pastry chef Zoe Nathan’s first cookbook, Huckleberry, brims with the specialties responsible for the long line leading into her bakery-café. The brioche recipe alone is worth the price of this book.
Gift to go with: A 5-by-9-inch loaf pan, available almost anywhere kitchenware is sold.
For anyone bored by vegetables
L.A. author Martha Rose Shulman created the Recipes for Health column for The New York Times, and writes for the home cook better than just about anyone else; her recipes are a breeze to make and always inspiring. The Simple Art of Vegetarian Cooking gives readers techniques for basic dishes like stir-fries or risotto, and then offers easy, tempting variations.
Gift to go with: Unusual dried beans such as can be found at ranchogordo.com. Eye of the Goat, Marcella, or Mayocoba, anyone?
For the Pacific Northwest fan
Washed in the moody, bluish light of Seattle in the rain, A Boat, a Whale & a Walrus is like a poem to a place. Chef Renee Erickson’s recipes are anything but cool, though—they’re gusty and luscious and doable for the home cook. An unusually personable and beautiful book.
Gift to go with: Just about anything from Boat Street Pickles, the briny side-hustle Erickson also runs.
For the newbie cook
Actually, Chez Panisse chef Cal Peternell’s Twelve Recipes is a brilliant refresher course for cooks of any level, and delves deep into the nooks and crannies of technique, from toast to roasted chicken. Readers who work their way through this book will be happier, better cooks.
Gift to go with: A salad spinner.
For the edible gardener
The L.A.-based founders of the blog whiteonricecouple.com have created a lovely, homey collection, Bountiful: Recipes Inspired by Our Garden, filled with affection for growing, cooking, party giving—and each other.
Gift to go with: Baby citrus tree (fourwindsgrowers.com). This may sound extravagant, but you’d be surprised how small they come.
For the locavore
Manresa: An Edible Reflection is a stunning first cookbook—almost an art object—from the Northern California restaurant known for its use of local ingredients, many from its own farm. The recipes are complex but very clearly written and easy to follow, and you’ll definitely want to.
Gift to go with: Avocado oil from bellavado.com–it’s one of the healthier and tastier oils.
For the bread baker
A stunning new book from San Francisco’s most famous breadmaker, Tartine Book No. 3 opens up the possibilities for whole-grain baking like no other book before it—from dark, seed- and berry-studded Danish-style rye bread to ethereally beautiful kamut crispbread, inlaid with herbs and flowers. Bonuses: A concisely edited master method for Tartine Bakery’s iconic country loaf, and pastry recipes from Robertson’s wife and bakery partner, Liz.
Gift to go with: A bag of freshly milled wheat flour from bluebirdgrainfarms.com. You can really taste the difference when the grain is just-milled.
For the pairings pursuer
In Cheese & Beer, veteran cookbook author and San Francisco Chronicle cheese columnist Janet Fletcher taps two delightful trends—the surge in craft beer and the steady swell of great artisanal cheese—and unites them. You’ll learn fundamentals of pairing but also get an overview of major beer styles and a primer on storing and serving both beer and cheese.
Gift to go with: A pairing from the book, naturally; one of our favorites: Alaskan Amber Ale and Beecher’s Flagship Reserve.
For the East Coast transplant
With The Artisan Jewish Deli at Home, learn to make your own bagels, pastrami, challah, babka, and more! You’ll get generous sides of history and lore too, like a wonderful ode to the deli by food historian and bookseller Nach Waxman. And not all the recipes are traditional. Backyard barbecue pastrami—why not? A few lively pages and you’ll be swept up in deliphilia.
Gift to go with: A handsome jar of applesauce for the latkes on page 36. (Even better, buy your own copy and make Chunky Ginger Applesauce, page 38.)
For the would-be chef
Coi: Stories and Recipes is an unorthodox book from the chef and owner of Coi, a two-Michelin-star restaurant in San Francisco. Daniel Patterson is a wonderful, insightful, humble writer, and in these pages he describes the evolution of his restaurant and his approach to cooking in California. You probably won’t be making these recipes—they’re supremely cheffy and, as Patterson says, “more of an oral history than a factual accounting of a process”—but they are fascinating to read.
Gift to go with: A digital scale, available at most cookware emporiums and even some hardware stores.
For the history buff
Taking us back to when fresh herbs were unknown, Inside the California Food Revolution: Thirty Years That Changed Our Culinary Consciousness is a terrific tale of how California shaped the way America eats today. Everyone from Julia Child to Thomas Keller shows up in its funny, revealing interviews.
Gift to go with: California artichokes–Pezzini Farms sells particularly good ones, but it’s hard to go wrong with one purchased from anywhere in the Golden State.
For the thoughtful cook
Goin’s first cookbook, Sunday Suppers at Lucques, was that rare book from a chef—a thoughtful, gorgeous compilation of delicious recipes that actually worked in a home kitchen. The A.O.C. Cookbook, named for her small-plates restaurant in Los Angeles, is just as considerate and tempting as its predecessor. Goin is a wonderful teacher, explaining how she layers flavors, chooses ingredients, and more, so that every recipe is like a small, enjoyable class with the master. With wine notes from A.O.C.’s wine director Caroline Styne.
Gift to go with: A trio of Mediterranean staples: excellent olives, salt-packed anchovies, and salt-packed capers.
For the Alice Waters devotee
After more than 40 years, Chez Panisse remains a defining cultural force, and Alice Waters’ The Art of Simple Food II: Recipes, Flavor, and Inspiration from the New Kitchen Garden adds to the aura. Certainly garden-to-table cooking has been written about many times before, but Alice Waters has an irresistible persuasiveness like no one else and a passion more deeply rooted than most. “There is nothing more transformational than the experience of being in nature,” she writes. “We have been separated from it, but as soon as we dig our hands into the soil and start watching things grow, we fall in love effortlessly—we realize we are a part of nature … [and it] can be awakened in all of us.” The 300-some recipes are beautifully simple and intelligent, and you can practically taste their freshness as you scan the pages.
Gift to go with: Chez Panisse fruit or vegetable notecards by the book’s illustrator, artist Patricia Curtan.
For the duck lover
The man behind Hunter Angler Gardener Cook, an endearingly honest (and James Beard award–winning) blog, is passionate about duck and other wild fowl. Once you start reading (and cooking from) Duck, Duck, Goose: Recipes and Techniques for Cooking Duck and Geese, Both Wild and Domesticated—part field guide, part excellent recipe collection—you will be too. You may even end up echoing Shaw’s rallying cry: “Free yourself from the Tyranny of the Chicken”! P.S. Should you be gun-shy, you can make the recipes with domesticated birds too.
Gift to go with: A gorgeous ceramic pâté crock.
For the urbanite
The second in the Big City Food Biographies series (the first is on New Orleans), San Francisco: A Food Biography delves into the history, people, neighborhoods, restaurants, and iconic dishes that have made San Francisco one of the finest places to eat in the world. Peters, the director and cofounder of the Culinary Historians of Northern California, knows her subject thoroughly, but the text is anything but professorial. Instead, it’s zippy and enlightening, a complete pleasure to read.
Gift to go with: Sourdough bread.
For the carnivore
Can a cookbook be an act of generosity? Yes, in the case of In the Charcuterie: The Fatted Calf’s Guide to Making Sausage, Salumi, Pâtés, Roasts, Confits, and Other Meaty Goods. The Fatted Calf’s two shops in the San Francisco Bay Area sell cured meats of unsurpassed deliciousness, and its owners have very thoroughly and enticingly created this invitation to pick up the cleaver and join them. The DIY butcher section is particularly well thought out and demystifying.
Gift to go with: A trio of salts used in charcuterie: fine-grained sea salt, coarse sea salt, and curing salt no. 1 (for bacon and ham, among other preserved meats).
For the sweet tooth
The smart, elegant dessert book Sweet, by the owner of L.A.’s Valerie Confections is organized by how you eat your sweets: The cleverly named chapters include Pedestal (ta-da desserts), Box (chocolates and candies), Jar (cookies), and Hand (treats on the go).
Gift to go with: A fancy cake stand.
For the veggie aficionado
Root to Stalk Cooking: The Art of Using the Whole Vegetable is a lively invitation to get in on a trend that’s been busting out all over restaurant menus for the past few years. You’ll never look at a carrot quite the same way again.
Gift to go with: A local CSA membership.
For the entertainer
Who knew crackers could be this exciting? Just in time for New Year’s, Crackers & Dips: More Than 50 Handmade Snacks is full of surprises—Japanese rice crackers, seeded quinoa crackers, Vietnamese shrimp chips, fresh artichoke dip—plus the classics like tangy cheddar crackers.
Gift to go with: A rolling pin and rolling-pin guides, for perfectly even crackers.
For the ultimate recipe collector
Now there’s a stylish place to stash all those recipes you’ve clipped from magazines and newspapers: Celia Sack’s The Omnivore’s Recipe Keeper. Embellished with food images culled from Celia’s personal collection of vintage cookbooks (she owns Omnivore Books, in San Francisco), it’s as beautiful as it is handy.
For the from-scratch cook
Make the Bread, Buy the Butter by Jennifer Reese describes the author’s often funny attempts to make everything she and her family eat, from scratch. She tells you which foods are worth it—and which aren’t.
For the home brewer
Make six-packs from scratch with the beautifully designed, effortlessly readable Beer Craft. This little guide that streamlines a complex task so that anyone can follow. Ideal for the first-time brewer but smart enough for the veteran, too.
For the sustainability-minded parent
For the cult food trend follower
It’s practically impossible to get a seat at San Francisco’s widly popular Mission Chinese Food, but the restaurant’s cookbook, Mission Street Food: Recipes and Ideas from an Improbable Restaurant gives a way to satisfy the craving. Lots of quirky restaurant-biz reflections, with fun comic-book illustrations.
For the mushroom lover
For the would-be pizzaiolo
Finally, the genius behind Pizzeria Mozza and Osteria Mozza—venerated in Los Angeles for killer pizza and great Italian food—has published a cookbook. In it, Nancy Silverton takes the best recipes from both restaurants and brings them all to you, along with expert tips and techniques for making gelato, pasta, pizza, and more.