August 1, 2023
Chef and TV personality Alex Guarnaschelli joins forces with teen daughter Ava Clark to offer unpretentious recipes for every meal that will keep families busy in the kitchen. "You'll usually find my mom flipping through old cookbooks and thinking about Julia Child, while I watch cool cooking videos on my phone," writes Ava, explaining the generation gap evident in their distinct approaches to harvesting culinary inspiration. They bridge the gap by respecting and learning from one other: Ava adapts recipes like gnocchi macaroni and cheese that she learned growing up in her mom's restaurant, Butter, while Alex marvels at how Ava, lacking any formal training, turned into a home cook. Recipes stick closely to quintessential American comfort foods--think quiche, burgers, shallot-garlic bread, baked chicken wings, mozzarella sticks, and cupcakes--with occasional Asian-inspired fare like dan dan noodles and kimchi pancakes. This is an appealing offering for fans of the Chopped presenter who seek to engage kids in meal preparation while encouraging them to trust their own cooking instincts.
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September 18, 2023
Iron Chef star Guarnaschelli (Cook with Me) and debut author Clark, her 15-year-old daughter, collaborate on this bighearted and wide-ranging collection of their favorite family recipes. “Whereas I learned to cook in school,” Guarnaschelli writes, “Ava just cooks—always with curiosity and with so much confidence.” While not limiting itself to a readership of young chefs, the collection is partly designed to inspire other teenagers to follow suit. The recipes in each section are arranged from least to most challenging, accumulating cooking techniques along the way. The breakfast chapter, for example, starts with tortillas and scrambled eggs (a recipe from Ava, inspired by a TikTok video), then offers instructions for perfect poached eggs (tip: add apple cider vinegar to the water) and quiche, while the chapter on pasta opens with 10-minute buttery egg noodles and ends with pasta carbonara. Seafood dishes encourage cooks to practice their knife skills with tuna carpaccio (but first with tomatoes) while the section on meat includes a whole roasted chicken with potatoes (“My mom says this chicken tastes like being in Paris (eye roll),” writes Ava.) Family influences are clear throughout—the burger with onion jam and thousand island dressing, for example, has “at least two generations of Guarnaschellis behind it”—and add a cozy, genuine feeling to the proceedings. Chefs of all ages will be inspired.