Huckleberry: Stories, Secrets, and Recipes From Our Kitchen

Browsing through the pictures and recipes in this cookbook from Santa Monica’s famed Huckleberry Bakery and Café for the first time is sure to elicit “oohs” and “ahhs,” and the stomach-growling and the drooling won’t recede on subsequent perusals. With close to 115 recipes ranging from the immediately captivating blueberry brioche on the cover to a pesto riff on eggs Benedict—aptly named Green Eggs and Ham—there’s no shortage of delicious breakfast and brunch fare. Because of its reliance on chemical reactions, baking is a notoriously precise and often finicky endeavor, but author and Huckleberry owner Zoe Nathan approaches the tasks with a rare and delightful mix of finesse and down-home casualness. Under Nathan’s guidance, strawberry galettes, maple bacon biscuits and lemon kumquat poppy teacakes seem less like insurmountable recipes better left to a bakery and more akin to new home-kitchen standards. Even if it weren’t for Nathan’s mouthwatering simple but elegant dishes, Matt Armendariz’s photography would be good enough to eat on its own. Together (along with contributors Laurel Almerinda and Josh Loeb), Nathan and Armendariz inspire and empower home cooks to become home bakers.