“He was part reporter, part prophet, and part therapist,” Hesser writes. As Amanda Hesser writes in The Essential New York Times Cookbook: Classic Recipes for a New Century (Norton, $40)-which I can’t help but refer to, as I’m sure many others will, as The “New” New York Times Cookbook-readers “developed an intimate relationship” with Claiborne from the moment he started working for the Times’s food pages in 1957. My circle of intimates and I are not alone in our easy familiarity. Heavily tilted toward French cuisine, as all cutting-edge American dining was in those years, it was referred to in my family’s home, and later in the homes of friends, as it is now and will be forevermore in mine, simply as “Craig Claiborne.” Never mind that unlike the works of Julia Child, that other towering figure of midcentury cookery whose books were known more readily by their author’s name than by their cumbersome titles, The New York Times Cookbook (1961) was a compilation of other people’s recipes, culled from the Times between 19, rather than the author’s (the editor’s, really) own.

By then, Claiborne’s venerable tome was more than thirty years old-when I was growing up, its simple navy-blue cover with the gilded spine, long stripped of the dust jacket, was a regular sight in my mother’s kitchen. The creamy, mussel-studded concoction “may well be the most elegant and delicious soup ever created,” according to 1950s food guru Craig Claiborne, and one taste of it in a friend’s kitchen is what sent me to a bookstore some fifteen years ago in search of a copy of The New York Times Cookbook. As Saveur declared, this is a 'tremendously appealing collection of recipes that tells the story of American cooking.It all began with Billi Bi. Hesser has tested and adapted each of the 1,000-plus recipes and she highlights her go-to favourites from more than a century's-worth of cooking tradition with wit and warmth. Also included are fifty new but instantly iconic recipes, including Samin Nosrat's Herbed Rice with Tahdig, Melissa Clark's Simple Roast Turkey and Alison Roman's one-pot Spiced Chickpea Stew. Devoted Times subscribers as well as newcomers to the paper's culinary mother lode will find dozens of recipes to treasure: Purple Plum Torte, David Eyre's Pancake, Pamela Sherrid's Summer Pasta and a host of other classics, from 1940s Caesar Salad and 1960s flourless chocolate cake (Evelyn Sharpe's French Chocolate Cake) to today's No-Knead Bread and Giant Crinkled Chocolate Chip Cookies. Ten years after the phenomenal success of her once-in-a-generation cookbook, former The New York Times food editor Amanda Hesser returns with an updated edition for a new wave of home cooks.

The essential new york times cookbook