This will be a fantastic cookbook for some, and leave others wanting. It’s a beautiful cookbook for people who want to learn to cook gourmet, plant focused, gorgeous dishes. There are photos of every dish and these are generally show off recipes. There are really creative flavors and you are likely to seriously elevate your cooking game.

Descriptions keep calling it a plant based cookbook and that typically means vegan. This is not a vegan or even vegetarian cookbook, though vegetables do take center stage. There’s a lot of use of wheat and no nutritional information, two reasons it wouldn’t work in my kitchen. Recipes won’t necessarily be cheap either, but they are likely to be healthy and fun.

I read a temporary digital ARC of this book via NetGalley.

The vibrant cover drew me into this book, and the introduction caught me with this phrase: "cooking is sensorial, eating is intuitive, be responsible in your sourcing, and adventure is essential." I really could not love this book more. There is a focus on whole food ingredients with delicious and practical applications. The photos feel as though they were taken right in the author's kitchen. The use of quart container lids to display spices is both heart warming and genius. I have added this to my wishlist!

The premise of Bright Cooking is that food should look beautiful and make you feel good/nourished and it does just that.

The book is broken down into two sections: Elements and Dishes. The Elements section contains Mother Sauces; Pickles, Ferments, and Cures; Stocks, Broths, and Dashis; Flavor Pastes, Fruit Sauces and Tonics; and Finishings. The Dishes section contains Fruits & Cereals, Baked, Snacks, Salads, Vegetables, Grains, and Seafood. The author says that cooking is sensorial and eating is intuitive. She advises that you should be responsible in your sourcing and that adventure is essential. (I found the book to be pretty serious, especially considering some of the whimsical ways it had been described.)

The photographs are beautiful, but limited and often more mood photos than anything else.
Some of the recipes you’ll find are Savory Lemon Focaccia, Corn and Chickpea Fritters with Ginger-Garlic Mojo, Turkish Eggs with Crispy Honey Chili Oil, Dal Fritters with Leche de Tigre, Chilled Noodles with Peanut-Ginger Sauce, Clams and Brothy Rice. (There are ten or so fish recipes.)

There are also sections on building toast, fruit, and dragon bowls, how/why to sprout, forgotten vegetables, making crudo, steaming fish, and more.

Most of the recipes have easy-to-find ingredients although some of the preparations will likely be new to someone who doesn’t do a lot of Farmer’s Market-style cooking.

Bright Cooking would be good for someone new to plant-based/pescatarian cooking who wants to build a solid foundation of elements (sauces, Dashis, pastes, etc.) It’d also be useful for someone who wants to level up their commitment to a plant-based way of life.

A lovely creative cookbook beautifully illustrated book. I enjoyed reading the authors journey to this book. It’s educational, delicious and the recipes are easy to follow. I tried a few dressings and sauces and have a few others earmarked. This would be a lovely addition to anyones library. I'd have rated 3.5 if half avail so upped to 4.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for a copy to review. I love reading cookbooks, not just for the recipes but also for the stories of the author and how they came to write recipes and to cooking. I loved the writing, pictures, and how plant based it is. I don't often buy cookbooks because I have so many but this one will definitely be on the list when it comes out.

I love when recipe books give actual instructions and the reasons behind the ingredients. I tried a couple of the sauces and a yogurt recipe and loved them all. Great pictures and clear recipes.

I am sure that this cookbook is for someone but it just wasn't for me. Beautiful but just not for the home cook.

Wow this may be the best cookbook I’ve checked out in ages. Fun layout, beautiful photos, and great recipes. I loved how easy it was to read through. So many good tips and ideas. I’m in dire need of a physical copy of this book asap. Can’t wait to make all the things.

This is a gorgeous, colorful, unique cookbook!

The foundation of the book is based on various sauces- yogurt based, herb based, butter based, etc. There are also a few recipes for pickles, ferments, and vegetarian/pescatarian based broths/stocks. Each recipe comes with several ideas for how to use them, which is great!! These components are also then incorporated into mostly simple recipes (such as salads, grain bowls, pescatarian mains) with unique ingredients for some very interesting flavor combinations.

I can see myself trying some of the sauces when it’s farmer’s market season, and I can more easily locate fresh ingredients. Some recipes would be very hard to find the ingredients any time of year here in the Midwest U.S. I wasn’t especially interested in the recipes that included the sauces, but I can see myself using them with my own recipes.

Overall I would recommend it for people looking for a bright, colorful cookbook with creative ideas to add to their shelves!

Bright Cooking by Camille Becerra, a New York-based chef entering her third decade of professional cooking, is really two books in one. On one level, it’s kind of a woo-woo experience with the stated goal of “demystify[ing] the practice of listening to your body and honing your instincts in a healthy and intuitive way.” Unfortunately, my body believes I need more chocolate and cheesecake, so it didn’t work for me. But, for a lot of people, I’m sure that would be a draw. On the other hand, a recommendation to buy organic and sustainable food is always a good idea.

The other part of this book are the recipes, most of them vegetarian, although a few include fish. She has a recipe on making your own butter, pickled things, broths, powders, oils jams and more, most of them pretty exotic. This would be a great book for someone with a definite Brooklyn hipster vibe. That’s not throwing shade on this very beautiful cookbook; it’s just a realization that this book isn’t for me. Nearly all of the recipes are like these: Maple Chicories with Chile-Mushroom Pickle Toast; Endive and Parsnip Salad with Pistachio, Blue Cheese and Citronelle; Salt-Baked Vegetables with Cacao Seed Mix, Dressed Rice with Shiso and Summer Gomasio, and Kombu-Cured Fish with Quinoa-Potato Crisp. If that’s up your alley, this would be a five-star find for you.

In the interest of full disclosure, I received this book from NetGalley and Chronicle Books in exchange for an honest review.

Wow, what an informative book! There are so many delicious recipes in this book.. I’m excited to implement the recipes in the future.

Loved the photos. So beautiful and vibrant! There are a couple of recipes I'd definitely make (particularly the sauces) so definitely well worth a read!

Bright cooking is one of those beautiful, aspirational types of cookbooks. One where you page through it and think to yourself, this is what I would do and cook if I had more time. The pictures were beautiful and I loved the smallest details of making everything from scratch and being very aware of all of your food and culinary choices. Thanks so much to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC!

The pics in this cookbook put such twinkle in my eyes as I salivated again and again as I turned each page. These recipes explored the ingredients truly, allowing each item to shine in each whole hearted dish. I was in awe one after another, and honestly, so intimidated by almost all of the dishes. This was one of those cookbooks that you would flip through its entirety first, stimulated by so many colors and ingredients and possibilities, then you would go back again to see if you could truly make any of the dishes. I celebrated this cookbook for its creativity and beauty in food, but I was a bit hesitant if this would be a go-to cookbook for an evening meal. Sure, a chef would want to read a cookbook that was at their level, but for the common cook at home, this became a poster version of what we would want to make. The salads are truly sinful and looked delicious, but when would I truly make any of these, I wasn't so sure, but wow, bravo for such a beauty.

Thank you to NetGalley and publisher for an eARC copy in exchange for my honest review.

Thank you NetGalley for the early preview of this cookbook. I love cookbooks of all kinds, I collect them and browsing through a cookbook is the same as browsing through a magazine for me. It brings me joy. This cookbook has BEAUTIFUL photography! I really enjoyed seeing the photos included. Overall, being from the Midwest, the recipes did not appeal to me. Also, some of the ingredients would be very hard to find where I am located. While I enjoyed perusing this book, I would not purchase for my own collection. Thank you again for the preview!

I received an arc of this title from NetGalley for an honest review. I found a few recipes I would like to try, but not as many as I had hoped.

I'm married to a vegan and, though I still enjoy dairy and fish, I am trying to incorporate more plants and variety into my cooking. This was the ideal read for accomplishing that! While most recipes in this book are plant based, there are still some vegetarian and even pescatarian options. What I love the most about this book is its versatility. Becerra provides base recipes (sauces, seasonings, broths) to be used in conjunction with other recipes in the book, but also makes suggestions for other ways each could be used. Her suggestions allow the reader to see more possibilities for use of each recipe so that individual preferences and creativity can be honored. I also appreciate how she lists how long a recipe will keep and how to store it. Most all ingredients listed in her recipes are items I'm able to find in my rural town grocery though a few I will need to travel into the larger city or order online. We are looking forward to exploring more of her recipes and mixing some of them into new combinations. For a combined diet household, this is an excellent book!

Really enjoyed this cookbook! Gorgeous pictures, and an interesting, holistic approach to cooking and nutrition. Different recipes than you find in many plant based books.

Thank you Netgalley and Chronicle Books for the ARC!

This book is very gorgeous. The recipes are well written and easy to understand and the photography is stunning! Although I don’t think I will find myself reaching for this cookbook often, I do believe that it’s a great addition to my cookbook collection. There are many, many recipes that I have not seen anywhere else and I love that! It would be beautiful displayed as a coffee table book or placed prominently on a kitchen shelf.

I salivated by only looking at the pictures.
2024 is gonna be my cooking year, and this book will become my Bible.

Thanks to Chronicle Books and NetGalley, who provided me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest opinion.