Newsletter: 📚🥕A focus on Ivy Manning + French cooking for Bastille Day 🇨🇵🇨🇵

Our favorite cherry recipes 🍒

An Ivy Manning showcase: three books new to ckbk

We are delighted to bring to ckbk three more titles from Ivy Manning, to join her popular book Weeknight Vegetarian. Based in Portland, Oregon, food and travel writer Ivy is also a cookery teacher. And while she has experience working in many prestigious professional kitchens, her books display her expertise in imparting ease and practicality to the home cook.

Easy Soups from Scratch with Quick Breads to Match: 70 Recipes to Pair and Share is a perfect example. Great nutritious food that you will want to eat, very well explained, and with not the smallest compromise on fine quality.

Soup is a universally loved thing, there are soups within all cuisines, and the combination of soup and bread is a filling and fulfilling meal.

Across introductory tips and time-saving ideas, 45 soup recipes, and 25 breads to pair with them, Ivy brings everything you need to get started. Try Roasted Beet and Carrot Soup, perhaps paired with Corn Muffins. Or try a Creamy Wild Rice and Turkey Soup and a Bannock Bread with Browned Butter and Sage.

In Crackers & Dips: More than 50 Handmade Snacks Ivy demonstrates her mission to help make our everyday food, and the food that we share with others, the very best homemade version. Crackers & Dips takes on that most humble and popular of snacks and ups the ante. Try Wasabi Edamame Schmear with some Crispy Wonton Triangles. Serve a Molten Black Bean & Chorizo Dip with some Corn Bread Crisps.

For the home version of an Ivy Manning masterclass, take a look at Better from Scratch: Delicious DIY Food to Start Making at Home. The book is part recipe book, part how-to-make guide to 60 foods that we tend to buy. Why not make them at home, when you know they will be better tasting and better for you as a result? Try Sour Cream & Onion Potato Chips alongside homemade Ricotta Cheese. Find three versions of Granola, and a standout recipe for Graham Crackers.

And don’t forget the 90+ recipes in Weeknight Vegetarian: Simple, Healthy Meals for Every Night of the Week. Dine tonight on Sesame Noodles with Green Beans and Tofu!

Find all 82 recipes from Better from Scratch

Pictured above: Mussel Stew with Bacon, Cider, and Cream from Easy Soups from Scratch with Quick Breads to Match by Ivy Manning

Brown Sugar cooking from the Bay Area

Brown Sugar Kitchen is a soul-food outpost in West Oakland, just across the bay from San Francisco. And it is where chef-owner and broadcaster Tanya Holland cooks up an atmosphere of comfort and community like no other.

We are thrilled to have Brown Sugar Kitchen: New-Style Down-Home Recipes from Sweet West Oakland newly added to ckbk. The book is a document of the style, stories and food that make this destination venue such a richly textured and delicious place.

And what food! From Buttermilk Fried Chicken to Black-Eyed Pea Salad the recipes have unmistakeable appeal and identity. Don’t forget Beignets with Chocolate-Chicory Sauce for dessert.

A French culinary tour

The Fête Nationale Française – or Bastille Day – falls on July 14, a day when France celebrates its national day in memory of the storming of the Bastille in 1789. In France celebrations will be widespread, and it is also an opportunity for the French or Francophones worldwide to turn their thoughts to France. And what better way than through that tried and tested way to a Frenchman’s heart, food.

We have several recipe collections for you to explore. From a country of great gastronomy, Recipes from the Great Chefs of France are always worth indulging in. Try a Traditional Blanquette de Veau, or an Apple Tart.

Many of the great dishes of France are French Bistro Classics. Make a Cassoulet de Toulouse, with some Boulangère Potatoes, followed by one of these Classic French Desserts. How about a Crème Brûlée?

Another annual French event is the cycling institution that is the Tour de France. This year finishing in Nice on July 21. Mediterranean France has its own cuisine, formed by particular ingredients and traditions – think olive oil, rather than the pork fat and dairy of the north, seafood thanks to the extensive coastline, and vegetable-fruits such as tomatoes and courgettes; full-flavored and ripe from the sunshine.

Salade Niçoise is a glorious example; a combination of the best of the Côte D’Azur. It is interesting that the recipe differs a little depending on who you speak to. So here are two – a classic Salade Niçoise from the French Culinary Institute, and a Salade Niçoise from chef Alistair Little, who had more than a little experience in making them.

For more cycle-ready recipes take a look at Eat Bike Cook: Food Stories & Recipes from Female Cyclists.

And for more French inspiration explore the many books on our France Bookshelf.

Vive La France!

Ingredient focus: cherries

Cherries come from the prunus family, which includes plums, apricots, peaches, almonds and even rose. Sour cherries have their culinary place, particularly in meat dishes. But there are many varieties of sweet cherry that are a hugely popular fruit to eat raw or cooked in season, preserved, frozen or canned the rest of the year.

The raw fruit in season takes some beating, so indulge when you can. But the stoned fruit are a treat in many dishes.

Take a look at these 12 Ways with Cherries for some ideas. Try a classic Cherry Clafoutis, this Fruity Cherry Pie, or go fully summer seasonal with Cherry Ice Cream.

6 of the best summer soups

We think of soup as a warming bowl of comfort. But it can be chilled and fresh, or a light broth vibrant with spice, or packed with summer vegetables. Summer soups are a warm weather lunchtime treat.