“Salt Fat Acid Heat: Mastering The Elements of Good Cooking” by Samin Nosrat and art by Wendy MacNaughton

Great minds think a like. This Christmas my step-daughter Ellie gave me this book as a present, and coincidentally I gave it to her as well. We didn’t plan to do that, but we both just fell in love with this book’s companion piece – the four-part Netflix series of the same title. We both watched the series on our phones while we were traveling over Thanksgiving, and were sad to see it end. “Salt Fat Acid Heat” by Samin Nosrat is a fascinating journey into what she describes as the four most important elements of well-executed cooking: salt, fat, acid and heat. She travels to different countries to illuminate her hypothesis. I have read a lot of cookbooks, but this one is fascinating and unusual in its approach, because it can be enjoyed by sophisticated cooks, or those learning the basic skills. Nosrat worked for many years at Chez Panisse in Berkeley with the great Alice Waters. About this book, Waters wrote, “This beautiful, approachable book not only teaches you how to cook, but captures how it should feel to cook; full of exploration, spontaneity, and joy.” In the Netflix series you can see the book’s illustrator, Wendy MacNaughton, drawing pictures of vegetables for this book while Nosrat makes them salad for lunch. A salad sounds like such a simple dish, but in the hands of Nosrat it becomes a delicious masterpiece infused with happiness.