Pulp: A Practical Guide to Cooking with Fruit

"This is by Abra Berens, who is a chef I really like. She has written two other books: Ruffage , about vegetables; and Grist , about grains. This is the third in the series, and it focuses on fruit. What I love about her books is that they are cookbooks, and her recipes are very appealing and achievable, but they are also great reference books. These are the books that I keep at my desk when I want to learn about an ingredient. She has tips on how to store fruit, how to prepare fruit, and how to preserve it. If you’re just looking for that kind of practical advice, this is a great source. If you want to learn about the people who make food or who produce it, she sheds a spotlight on that. She does profiles of producers. These are the unsung heroes who help make our food possible, and they often don’t get the attention they deserve. I appreciate that she talks about them. She will let you pair different recipes together. She starts out the book with things to pair with fruit, like crackers and breads and batters and crusts, so that when you get to each individual fruit, you know what you can do with them as well. If you want to make a pie with this type of fruit, or you want to put this type of fruit over pudding—she helps you do that. Also, and I think this is common throughout all these books, she’s a very strong writer. I love the way she writes. It feels like you’re standing with her at the farmers’ market and she’s telling you what to do. She says that blueberries are “the golden retriever of the fruit world,” that they’re just all-round pleasant company—which I think is great. You know exactly what she means when she says that. Another thing I like is that she tucks variations into her recipes. If you read the introduction of the recipe, which is usually a few sentences, she will say: this also works with this fruit; if you don’t have this, use that. I appreciate that she takes fruit seriously for the valuable commodity it is. It’s not just something you have to eat out of hand. People pigeonhole fruit. They think you just eat it on its own or it’s just for desserts, and she really shows that there’s so much more to it than that."