Feed friends, feed family. Cook, gather, eat. That’s Sam Sifton’s mantra in his new cookbook, See You on Sunday. Part primer, part pep talk, See You on Sunday is altogether convincing, thanks to the voice of a man who is both home cook and culinary pro. In other words, Sam Sifton — The New York Times food editor and founding editor of NYT Cooking — has your back. Read on for a preview of the book — plus a recipe for fish tacos.
In The Cook and The Book, an ongoing series brought to you by Martha's Vineyard magazine's Cook the Vineyard, we put the spotlight on cookbook authors we love by taking a look at their latest book.
THE COOK
Sam Sifton
The food editor of The New York Times and the founding editor of NYT Cooking — the newspaper’s digital recipe collection and cooking site — also writes the wildly popular NYT Cooking email newsletter that drops into inboxes four times a week. Four times a week! In his spare time, the former chief restaurant critic and former national desk and culture desk editor for the Times writes “Eat” columns for The New York Times Magazine.
And Sam Sifton cooks. In fact, for years he’s been in the habit of cooking Sunday suppers — informal gatherings for friends and family — wherever (the parish hall, the roof, the backyard) needed.
“People are lonely,” he writes in the introduction to See You on Sunday, his second cookbook and third book. “They want to be a part of something, even when they can’t identify that longing as a need. They show up. Feed them. It isn’t much more complicated than that. The point of Sunday dinner is just to have it. Even if you don’t particularly like entertaining, there is great pleasure to be had in cooking for others, and great pleasure to be taken from the experience of gathering to eat with others. Sunday dinner isn’t a dinner party. It is not entertainment. It is just a fact, like a standing meeting or a regular touch football game in the park. It makes life a little better, almost every time.”
For Sam Sifton, cooking is an expression of gratitude and See You on Sunday is an invitation to share it.
Follow Sam on Instagram @samsifton
Follow Sam on Twitter @samsifton
Follow Sam on Facebook
THE BOOK
See You on Sunday
Random House, February, 2020
Hardcover $35
368 pp.
A Few Things We Love about See You on Sunday
- This is one for the bedside table. As pleasurable to read as to cook from. (Or from which to cook!)
- The recipes, in whole: From roast chicken and risotto to Bolognese and paella, the collected recipes could be all a person (say a young cook) might need to master a repertoire of dishes most satisfying to cook and most enjoyable to family and friends.
- The recipes, as individuals: A national food editor knows what people really like, and it isn’t fancy. We’ve got Sunday gravy and garlic bread here. Caesar salad and tacos and chowder. And meatloaf. And beef stroganoff. The endearing Mississippi Roast. But we've also got the popular Korean-Chinese-Italian mashup known as Mapo Ragu. And Mock Frites, and duck legs.
- Sidebars pop up all over the place, and we love them: How to Open Oysters, How to Tell if Fish is “Done,” How to Build a Fire.
- We especially love the sidebar on setting a table. Long live flowers and candles! (And mismatched dishes and cloth napkins.)
- The hardcover book is a handsome design, recipes have breathing room, David Malosh’s photos say “company,” and Simon Andrews’ food styling is casual and familiar.
THE RECIPES
On Cook the Vineyard:
Other recipes in the book that we love:
• Roasted Fish
• Another Roasted Fish
• Fish Cakes
• Crab Cakes
• Clam Chowder
• Roasted Cauliflower with Parmesan Bread Crumbs
• Peas with Bacon and Mint
• Baby Bok Choy with Ginger and Garlic
• Eggplant Parmesan
• Plain Pizza
• Pizza with Caramelized Onions, Bacon, Gorgonzola and Figs
• Chicken Shawarma
• Chicken in Milk
• Delaware Fried Chicken
THE ORGANIZATION
Chapters:
1 A Theory of Dinner
2 Birds
3 Big Meats
4 Big Pots
5 Rice and Beans
6 Pasta
7 Seafood
8 Taco Night
9 Vegetables
10 A Few Words about Salad
11 A Nice Party
12 Pizza
13 Just Us
14 Desserts
THE SOURCES
Whenever possible, it's always a good idea to purchase your cookbooks through an independent bookstore, like our local Bunch of Grapes bookstore in Vineyard Haven. Independent bookstores can always order a book for you if they don’t currently have it. If you need to find out where your nearest independent bookstore is, check out IndieBound.org’s Bookstore Finder.
See You on Sunday is also available online from:
IndieBound
Barnes and Noble
Amazon
OTHER BOOKS BY SAM SIFTON
Thanksgiving: How to Cook It Well
A Field Guide to the Yettie: America’s Young, Entrepreneurial Technocrats
