10 New England Cookbooks to Read (and Cook From) Now

As a judge for The Readable Feast Awards, an annual salute to New England’s best culinary books, I’m always looking for new titles from local authors. And I can tell you right now: It’s been a great year for New England cookbooks. Here are some of my favorite releases from the past 12 months, alongside a few eagerly anticipated books scheduled to hit the shelves in May. Happy reading!

The Blue Food Cookbook: Delicious Seafood Recipes for a Sustainable Future
By Andrew Zimmern and Barton Seaver

Cooking with seafood can be confusing: Farmed fish, or wild? What about mercury? This book offers clear answers, along with a useful guide to seafood species, information on what to buy, and more than 145 tempting recipes, including several chowders and stews. Note on the title: “Blue food” refers to anything harvested from aquatic environments, including kelp and other sea veggies. $45 (Harper Collins/Harvest, October 2025)

Braided Heritage: Recipes and Stories on the Origin of American Cuisine
By Jessica B. Harris

Culinary historian Harris, a longtime Martha’s Vineyard resident, tells the foundational story of American food by exploring the interplay among Indigenous, European, and African culinary traditions, a narrative fleshed out in recipes like Huguenot Torte and Wampanoag Clam Fritters. Rarely is the story of our nation’s cooking told so prismatically. $35 (Clarkson Potter, June 2025)

Dorie’s Anytime Cakes
By Dorie Greenspan

This beloved cookbook author describes anytime cakes as “the cakes that can have frosting, but don’t need it … the cakes we pack for picnics and school lunches; the cakes that come together easily.” From sheet-pan carrot cakes to French spice cakes (nonnettes) to the BFF Brownie Cake, Greenspan gives you more than 100 good reasons to get baking. $35 (Harper Collins/Harvest, October 2025)

Everyday Chef: Simple Dishes for Family and Friends
By Jeremy Sewall and Erin Byers Murray

After decades in professional kitchens, Sewall found himself making daily dinners at home during the pandemic and became inspired by a whole new approach to food. “Restaurant cooking and home cooking are really different—both of them are a skill set that you develop over time,” he says. His book is full of familiar comfort foods, like banana bread and mac and cheese, but also offers easy ways to jazz up the daily repertoire (try the Brioche French Toast with Brown Butter Bananas). $40 (Rizzoli, September 2025)

In Season: 125+ Sweet and Savory Recipes Celebrating Simple, Fresh Ingredients
By Lisa Steele

In her second cookbook, Maine egg farmer and food writer Steele makes a fresh argument for eating in season: Not only is it delicious, but it’s also more economical. Recipes like Three Cheese Tomato Tarts and Warm Molten Lemon Soufflé Cakes make the most of what’s fresh. The recipes are accessible but sophisticated enough to feel special. $34.99 (Harper Celebrate, May 2026)

Jacques Pépin Complete Techniques: 50th Anniversary Edition
By Jacques Pépin

The two books that Pépin ranks among his greatest achievements, La Technique and La Methode, are combined in this new release, making it the perfect capstone for the legendary French chef’s 90th birthday celebration last year. Step-by-step photos show you how to bone a chicken, shuck an oyster, make pastry cream—600 techniques and 1,000 images in all, plus 160 recipes you can make with your new skills. $60 (Hachette/Black Dog & Leventhal, April 2026)

A Kitchen On Goose Cove: Recipes from the Heart of Maine
By Devin Finigan

At the Deer Isle restaurant Aragosta, guests experience Maine in its distilled form: plates of pristine seafood, seasonal fruits, homemade pasta, and fresh vegetables served with a view of sea and islands, spruce and pine. Chef-owner Finigan’s first cookbook captures the special feel of this place with such recipes as Duck Breast with Peach Sauce, Mussel Chowder, Whoopie Pies, and her signature lobster pasta. $35 (Artisan, May 2026)

The Martha’s Vineyard Cookbook: 100 Recipes from the Island’s Restaurants, Farmers, Fishermen & Food Artisans
By Julia Blanter

Year-round Vineyard resident Blanter calls her cookbook “a love letter to the island,” and that love shines through in its gorgeous photos of the landscapes, people, and food that make this place unique. With a foreword by Wampanoag leader Juli Vanderhoop, owner of the Orange Peel Bakery in Aquinnah, the book showcases 100 recipes—Brown Butter Lobster Rolls, Striped Bass and Clam Chowder, Fig and Honey Tart, and more—from Blanter’s friends and food lovers around the island as well as her own kitchen. $45 (Rizzoli, March 2025)

My Harvest Kitchen: 100+ Recipes to Savor the Seasons
By Gesine Bullock-Prado

In her seventh cookbook, the celebrated pastry guru takes readers through the seasons in her Vermont kitchen, garden, and baking school. A great storyteller and a crackerjack recipe developer, Bullock-Prado serves up gems like Cheddar and Chive Biscuits; Chicken, Leek, and Mushroom Pie; and Sour Cherry Pie. $35 (Countryman Press, October 2025)

New England Brunch: Seasonal Midday Meals for Leisurely Weekends
By Tammy Donroe Inman

Using brunch as her organizing principle, Inman weaves New England-y ingredients (blueberries, maple, apples, pumpkins, seafood) and cultural influences (British, Portuguese, Indigenous, Italian) to craft more than 100 sweet and savory recipes such as Boston Cream Doughnuts, Portuguese Sweet Rolls, and Three Sisters Succotash. $35 (Globe Pequot Press, April 2025)

This feature was originally published as “Shelf Life” in the March/April 2026 issue of Yankee.

Amy Traverso

Amy Traverso is the senior food editor at Yankee and cohost of the public television series Weekends with Yankee, a coproduction with GBH. Previously, she was food editor at Boston magazine and an associate food editor at Sunset magazine. Her work has also been published in The Boston Globe, Saveur, and Travel & Leisure, and she has appeared on Hallmark Home & Family, The Martha Stewart Show, Throwdown with Bobby Flay, and Gordon Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares. Amy is the author of The Apple Lover’s Cookbook, which was a finalist for the Julia Child Award for best first-time author and won an IACP Cookbook Award in the “American” category.

More by Amy Traverso