An outsized jar of fabulous pickled shrimp — and the cookbook it came from — would be the Mother’s Day gift that keeps on giving this year.
The recipe comes from Jubilee: Recipes from Two Centuries of African American Cooking, which was just nominated for a James Beard Award for Best Cookbook in the American category.
In this weird-ass season otherwise known as The Great Confinement, buying gifts and commemorating special occasions can be incredibly challenging. But I have an idea for you — based on what I’d like, if I were a mom. (Which I am.) Make your mom (or your partner whose mom-ness you’re celebrating) a big jar of of this pickled shrimp (here’s the recipe):
You can enjoy it together for Mother’s Day brunch or dinner, and tell her you bought her the wonderful cookbook, which she’ll soon receive. Do this part today; here’s a link to Jubilee on Bookshop. If you buy it there, you’ll be helping to support independent booksellers.
The book really is special; in fact, I’m working on a review of it, which we’ll publish soon, but I thought I’d offer a sneak preview with this recipe. And back to the recipe: Your mom will probably have quite a bit of pickled shrimp left over — which is actually great news, as it’ll keep her supplied in nibbles that’ll result in Zoom happy hour happiness for days.
The shrimp needs to pickle overnight in the fridge, so you’ll have to make it today (Saturday) or tonight in time for tomorrow. And a jarful of this happens to be gorgeous. You could tie a big bow around it.
Your Mother’s Day dish-plus-cookbook doesn’t have to be shrimp-plus-Jubilee. It could be any dish (maybe as part of a meal) that would be nice on Mother’s Day, plus a cookbook-on-the-way.
Maybe it could be Quinoa, Pea and Mint Tabbouleh, and Zahav: A World of Israeli Cooking (the cookbook it comes from). One of my favorite dishes, from one of my favorite cookbooks, it’s absolutely perfect for this time of year (I made a double-batch last weekend, and fell in love with it all over again.)
You get the idea. We are in process of expanding and updating our cookbook coverage, and I wish our Cookbooks We Love department were a little more filled in. At least you can get some ideas there, and I promise to have it expanded and developed soon.
To add to that, here are a few of my all-time favorite cookbooks that will soon be added to that collection:
The Zuni Cafe Cookbook by Judy Rodgers
Plenty by Yotam Ottolenghi
Marcella Hazan’s Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking
Chez Panisse Desserts by Lindsey R. Shere
The Food of Morocco by Paula Wolfert
Mastering the Art of French Cooking, by Julia Child
Every Grain of Rice: Simple Chinese Home Cooking by Fuchsia Dunlop
Daniel Boulud’s Café Boulud Cookbook
The New Spanish Table by Anya von Bremzen
That’s just a few — need to run, so you have time to cook up Mom’s gift! Happy Mother’s Day, everyone!