Solo: A Modern Cookbook for a Party of One by Anita Lo
Chef Anita Lo’s warm, charming new cookbook Solo: A Modern Cookbook for a Party of One (Knopf $28.95) is a warm, charming testament to the pleasures of cooking (and dining) alone. Lo firmly believes that eating alone should be an act of self-love and a celebration of flavor and her recipes are uniformly inventive, elegant, and spare, influenced both by her Chinese heritage and her classical French culinary training. Perfectly accompanied by Julia Rothman’s playful illustrations, each recipe is streamlined for exactly one serving: there are no leftovers, no waste, just one complete, perfect serving. The imagining of desserts-for-one are particularly exceptional: from a caramelized banana with coconut to my favorite, the peanut-butter-and-chocolate pie, I found myself very grateful that I didn’t have to share.