The Homemade Kitchen

Praise

“Alana Chernila takes a realistic approach to cooking with pleasure… The fact that the photography is stunning, the layout elegant, and the recipes themselves somehow modern and rustic at the same time doesn’t hurt… THE TAKEAWAY: Hearty, flavorful, and occassionally healthy recipes in gorgeous packaging that will put some pleasure back in your kitchen.”
—Epicurious.com

Publishers Weekly
08/03/2015
Paging through Chernila’s comforting and satisfying book feels like having a cup of tea with a good friend. Equal parts narrative and recipes, her offering is as much a philosophy of life as it is a collection of dishes. She puts the reader at ease from the beginning with her brand of doable domesticity: “Homemade food is the opposite of perfection. It holds the stamp of its maker.” Chapters are organized according to a collection of phrases she has taped to her fridge. “Be a Beginner” encourages readers to try anything once, even jam-making, with a versatile master recipe that adapts to any seasonal fruit. A chapter called “Use Your Scraps” proves the endless virtue of stale bread with recipes for stuffed tomatoes, panzanella, and broccoli rabe and sausage bread pudding. “Slow Down” emphasizes the importance of finding a pocket of time each day for yourself, with recipes for cold-brew concentrate and a rhubarb snacking cake. Although Chernila strives to eat local, sustainably sourced food when she can, in a chapter entitled “Do Your Best, and Then Let Go,” she acknowledges how her family really eats: “Organicish. Locenough. Homemade when I can. Fresh. Good. Mine.” This honest and beautifully told account of one family’s way of life will inspire readers to forge an equally delicious path. (Oct.)
 
Library Journal
★ 08/01/2015
Massachusetts-based writer Chernila (The Homemade Pantry) approaches home cooking with a can-do attitude, and under her tutelage, tasks such as baking bread, making tofu, culturing kefir, and rolling sushi become approachable and entertaining. Her latest includes a balance of recipes for seasonal pantry staples and meals, which readers can use to prepare minimally processed foods every day of the week. Even though they’re simple, these dishes are special. Queen garlic with chèvre and tomatoes, spicy pumpkin hot chocolate, platter salads, and easy coq au vin with buttermilk spaetzle are just a few of many recipes you’ll reach for when you want to impress. VERDICT Never preachy or prescriptive, Chernila’s most recent offering is sure to please anyone who loves unfussy, from-scratch cooking.
 
 “Alana Chernila has crafted a truly contemporary guidebook to the food she loves, written from the refreshingly authentic perspective of a voracious learner. If any book will make you want to rearrange your schedule to get cooking from scratch again, The Homemade Kitchen is the one.”
—HUGH ACHESON, chef and author of The Broad Fork and A New Turn in the South
 
 “Nobody does a better job at merging the romance and the realities of everyday cooking than Alana Chernila. To leaf through the gorgeous recipes in her book is to be reminded that preparing good, simple food for the people you love is what it’s all about.”
—JENNY ROSENSTRACH, author of Dinner: The Playbook and Dinner: A Love Story
 
“This is so much more than a cookbook full of unforgettable recipes (though it is that, too). Alana Chernila has written an intimate portrait of a cook in her kitchen, one who celebrates the surprise windfalls and the mundane, everyday moments with equal fervor. Irrepressible, flavor-seeking, and always curious, she makes the best case ever for daily home cooking: happiness!”
—AMY THIELEN, author of The New Midwestern Table and host of Food Network’s Heartland Table
 
“There is a tender-hearted quality to everything about Alana, extending to her beautiful sense of what a cookbook should be. She nails it with this one—it is so compelling! As soon as you look at these pages, you’ll want to dive into the recipes, and everything culinary will feel fresh and new. You’ll also feel you have a wise and passionate new friend to guide you through.” 
 —MOLLIE KATZEN, author of Moosewood Cookbook and The Heart of the Plate
 
“Alana’s way with everything from cultured butter and fried eggs to flavorful pastas and warm pot pies makes the kitchen seem more welcoming, and the world as a whole a more hopeful place. This is more than a cookbook—it’s a treasure.”
—CHERYL STERNMAN RULE, author of Yogurt Culture and Ripe
 
 “The Homemade Kitchen has the art, spirit, and sensibility of Laurie Colwin’s Home Cooking. Alana’s stories and recipes are inviting, practical, and imperfect in the way only family life can be. This is one of those cookbooks that you’ll carry from countertop to nightstand and back again.” 
—MARISA MCLELLAN, author of Preserving by the Pine and Food in Jars

“If you want to discover—or be reminded of—why cooking is so pleasurable, if you want to be inspired to think of food as more than the lightening rod topic it has become…this is the book for you.  Read Alana’s roast chicken recipe, and be assured that there are many right ways to do things and that there is a great joy in that.  Both Alana Chernila’s food and her writing are honest and beguiling, and in The Homemade Kitchen she’s more than generous with her talents and her wisdom. ”
—KATIE WORKMAN, author of Dinner Solved! and The Mom 100 Cookbook
 
“I love how The Homemade Kitchen is much more than just a cookbook and actually teaches you how to cook. There is so much value in using ingredients you have on hand or adjusting a recipe based on your preferences and Alana uses her sensible approach to show you how to do just that.”
—LISA LEAKE, #1 New York Times Best Selling Author of 100 Days of Real Food
 
“In The Homemade Kitchen, Alana Chernila shows us that as home cooks, we have endless choices—to use homemade roasted tomatoes instead of canned, to throw together a rough and tumble minestrone with whatever ingredients are on hand—and that the decisions we make every day about what, and how, to cook help us define where we stand in the world.”
—MERRILL STUBBS, Co-founder and President of Food 52
 
“Alana’s is an intimate, connected way to cook, eat and live, infused with joy, layered with pleasure, and finished with a generous pinch of forgiveness as needed.”
—MARGARET ROACH, author of The Backyard Parables: Lessons on Gardening, and Life

“Alana Chernila has pulled off something that, up until now, seemed impossible: she has created a contemporary culinary primer for home cooks of all stripes. It’s generalist without being generic, comprehensive without being daunting, and basic without being bland….This is the cookbook I’d give to anyone who wants to cook more at home, total beginner, chronic entertainer, or weeknight feeder. Chernila is a generous, considerate teacher, her technical range far-reaching, and her diverse pantry simultaneously up-to-date and timeless.”
—CHARLOTTE DRUCKMAN, author of Skirt Steak: Women Chefs on Standing the Heat and Staying in the Kitchen