The New Midwestern Table: 200 Heartland Recipes

"If you’ve grown up with certain ideas — maybe certain bland, beige ideas — about Midwestern food, think again. Food Network host Amy Thielen’s big, generous book shares the stories of the modern-day hunters, foragers and farmers who have brought the heartland’s foodways back to life. She has a free hand with the salt pork, bacon and butter, but we can argue about that after you’ve tried the fancy meatloaf with the mushrooms and the pistachios. (Thielen and I went to cooking school together a long time ago, but I can wholeheartedly recommend this book without regard to that acquaintance.)"