Chef Risa Magid Boyer’s debut cookbook encourages diners to adopt her approach to hospitality in the comfort of your own home. Her Montclair restaurant, Vanillamore, takes a three pronged approach to inviting people to her table: she focuses on the sweet, the savory, and the social elements of a meal. The cookbook is composed to reflect those tenets, not only in the recipes, but in the way Chef Risa tells her story.
Boyer’s touches are consistent throughout every inch of this cookbook, from the branding elements that have clearly been carefully considered, the photos of the food as well as the space, and the overarching emphasis on sharing meals with the people you love. Present throughout is the ingredient and it’s pairings that connects her personal brand to her business brand: Vanilla.
I initially thought this book was going to be heavily dessert focused, which is clearly the section of a menu where Boyer thrives. When I looked more closely at the savory and social parts of the book, she’s put a lot of thought into translating savory dishes in a way that compliments her cooking style, and ultimately this book is an excellent source of inspiration for entertaining. Putting together a meal for guests from start to finish at home can be an intimidating project, as anyone who has ever hosted people is familiar with, but the recipes in this book include ‘do ahead’ options that make that process less intimidating and – dare I say – more fun.
In a time when the future of restaurants is uncertain, it’s becoming more prudent of entrepreneurs like Risa to expand their horizons in a way that touches the lives of their guests outside of the walls of the restaurants they have worked painstakingly to build. Sweet, Savory, Social gives her clientele the opportunity to recreate the ambiance she’s worked to offer in the restaurant at home.
