Sunlight & Breadcrumbs: Making Food with Creativity & Curiosity (Renee Erickson, Sara Dickerman)

After more than 25 years running award-winning restaurants, acclaimed chef Renee Erickson realized that she had started to lose touch with her creative side, which she had nurtured in art school and had always considered as key to her approach to cooking. She decided to reconnect with her creativity by painting, taking photographs, making ceramics, and, of course, cooking.

Sunlight and Breadcrumbs highlights the beauty and creativity in making everyday food at home. To accomplish this, recipes are the jumping-off point—and there are more than 100 of Renee’s best here. But there are also essays that connect the dots between creative practices and the food she cooks. “Work in Progress” sidebars zoom in on the creative decisions made when cooking—the seasonal ingredients, textures, shapes, and colors that help make each meal a more thoughtful expression of life at that moment.

As this book shows, cooking can provide an outlet for meaningful personal expression, even when making decidedly straightforward preparations. Renee highlights the little, easy things that take a simple dish from nice to memorable—like the rich crunch of olive oil–toasted breadcrumbs on top of a hearty escarole salad—and persuades us to seek out and celebrate these details.

While offering a joyful look at creative expression, at its heart this is an approachable cookbook, filled with ideas for weeknight dinners, as well as more leisurely weekend meals. There are also celebratory snacks, including dips and go-to crostini toppings, and easy desserts.

For anyone who has felt bored by the grind of weeknight cooking, is looking for simple-but-exciting food to make for friends and family, or wants to encourage more creativity in their day to day, this book provides an inspiring reset, full of prompts to continue exploring our kitchens and lives with curiosity, an eye for detail, and joy.