Published in 2024
272 pages
Camille Becerra is a chef, food stylist, and recipe developer. With close to fifteen years of restaurant experience at Paloma, her first restaurant; Navy, a small space in SoHo; Café Henrie on the Lower East Side; and DeMaria in Nolita, her menus display her commitment to healthful, seasonal, and local ingredients and her affection for approachable yet refined New American cuisine. She is a food contributor at Domino magazine and often partners with brands that fit her travel and food aesthetic. She lives in New York City.
What is this book about?
From celebrated chef and tastemaker Camille Becerra: a uniquely beautiful primer that teaches home cooks new ways of cooking and thinking about nourishing, flavorful foods.
Great food should look beautiful, taste special, and make you feel good.
In Bright Cooking, her highly anticipated first cookbook, Camille Becerra, acclaimed chef at the Ace Hotel’s As You Are, offers 140+ fresh, natural dishes to boost one’s body and mood with plant-based, healthful ingredients. More than 90 foundational pantry basics—mother sauces, broths, dusts, finishing oils, and more—are combined in uncommon and uncomplicated ways to create 50+ eat-anytime dishes.
Say you went to the farmers’ market and bought some beautiful chicories. From there, you could add some Chili Mushroom Pickle and swirl on some Crispy Honey Chile Oil from your pantry to create Maple Chicories with Chile Honey. Maybe you’re not in the mood to put together an involved meal, but you picked up some squash at the market—you could char it and nestle it in a cloud of Fennel Pollen Yogurt with a dusting of pistachios for a thrown-together treat, or add Coconut-Ginger Broth and curry paste to create a warming, brothy bowl.
Bright Cooking inspires you to create based on what you have in your kitchen, what you hunger for, and what your body is asking for. With advice throughout on adding big flavor and playfulness to your repertoire, Bright Cooking is a uniquely beautiful primer that teaches home cooks new ways of cooking and thinking about nourishing, flavorful food. After you work your way through the book, you’ll only be a smear of this, a few sprinkles of that, and a pinch of flourish away from confidence and creative freedom in the kitchen—and you’ll feel amazing, inside and out.
CELEBRATED CHEF & TASTEMAKER WITH DEDICATED FOLLOWING: Camille Becerra is an “it” girl in the food world, both for her dishes and her style in and out of the kitchen. Featured in the New York Times Style Magazine, Bon Appetit, Vogue, Refinery 29, Elle, Condé Nast Traveler, Martha Stewart Living, Kinfolk, and on the cover of Cherry Bombe, to name just a few, her cooking and food styling are iconic—instantly recognizable, covetable, gorgeous, and packed with nutrients.
HEALTHY RECIPES DONE RIGHT: As a pioneer of the healthy chic food movement, Becerra represents her ideals through the plant-based and pescatarian recipes in this book. Her philosophy is that food should look beautiful, have dimensions of flavor, and make one feel good after eating it, all while nurturing one’s immune system with superfoods to maximize nutrients.
EASY, SUSTAINABLE WELLNESS: Becerra’s crafted approach to cooking comes from the many styles of restaurants in which she has experience: macrobiotic, vegetarian, local, organic, and sustainable. Recipes utilize every component of each ingredient, resulting in well-rounded flavors and no food waste.
Perfect for:
- Inspired gift-giving for birthday, wedding shower, or housewarming
- Skilled and beginner home cooks
- People looking to dip their toes into a plant-based diet for health and/or environmental reasons
- Fans of publications such as Cherry Bombe, Kinfolk, and Domino
- Well-rounded foodies with an interest in fashion and design
