I’ve been looking at lots of soon-to-be-released cookbooks and here are the one that are making me hungry (why do I always do this before lunch???):

As I may have mentioned one or two or 50 times, Cook’s Illustrated taught me how to cook and this book brings together 2,000 “landmark” recipes from the magazine’s 20-year history. It will almost certainly be added to my shelf.

Another retrospective collection, this one from a chef that even Anthony Bourdain calls “the master.” I adore Jacques because 1. he is French, 2. I met him once and he was delightful, 3. His memoir is one of my all-time favorites, and 4. his recipes tend to work.

This was such an influential book for so many people, including my bff Mo. She has been making the breadsticks from this book as long as I’ve known her (and that’s longer than I’ve known my spouse). This revision will introduce the book to a whole new audience and bring a welcome reminder to the rest of us to cook from it again.

If for no other reason, I want to buy this book to endorse a woman who handed the inflated Mario Batali his butt on a platter on Iron Chef. She also has some other distinctions including a little something called a Michelin star for her restaurant Annisa.

I am so drawn to this book despite the fact that I fear I would be signing up for a Thomas-Keller-style culinary beating. As in: this is a cookbook from the proprietor of a high-concept, impossible-to-get-into restaurant, who claims to have re-interpreted his recipes for the “home cook” but who has possibly never met a home cook and envisions her as someone who lives across the street from both Balducci’s and D’Artagnan and just completed a successful IPO. When Grant Achaz and Keller and Daniel Boloud endorse something you know you’re not in for 30-minute meals.

Which brings us to someone who does, more or less, promise 30-minute meals. I have never cooked a Jamie Oliver recipe and I’m always highly skeptical of a cuisine that is primarily defined by its speed. But I would try this book just because I so believe in and support Mr. Oliver’s crusade to upgrade the slop we feed to our children via the public school system. Plus how can you resist a muppet with a British accent?