NY Times Bestselling Author Book Helps People Cook Without Pressure

According to a statement, “Leanne Brown’s IACP award-winning, New York Times bestselling cookbook Good and Cheap: Eat Well on $4/Day showed that kitchen skill, not budget, is the key to great food. Helping those with limited funds—particularly those living on the US food stamp allotment of $4.00 a day—eat whole, unprocessed foods while discovering the joys of a homecooked meal, the accessible and adaptable content changed the notion of what a cookbook could be and how it could make a difference.

“Now, Brown is back with a new message in GOOD ENOUGH: A Cookbook (Workman Publishing; $19.95; January 4, 2022), a groundbreaking cookbook that approaches food and cooking through the lens of self-care, mental health, and self-forgiveness. Virtually everyone has been there: eating handfuls of nuts over the sink and cold pizza for breakfast, lacking the motivation to pull together a meal even when there are groceries in the refrigerator. After publishing Good and Cheap, Brown found herself in that exact tailspin. The joy she had once found in cooking evaporated, the kitchen became a place of stress, and Leanne fell into a pattern of using guilt and fear to get herself to face the day. Something had to change. What changed, and how, is the journey of Good Enough.

“Whereas Good and Cheap tackles budget as an obstacle to eating well, Good Enough tackles the emotional barriers. Brown aptly observes that one huge hurdle to feeding ourselves can be believing we are not worth the effort it takes to cook. But Brown maintains that we all deserve to eat well every day (even if that means having a cheese plate for dinner), and she shows us how.

“A deeply personal cookbook, Good Enough is filled with essays that delve into the feelings that surround food—anxiety, self-doubt, guilt—all with Brown’s overarching message that ‘if you cook with self-compassion, you can enjoy the experience, appreciate the great meals, laugh at the not-so-great ones, and generally live your cooking life with way less fear.’

“Along with these heartfelt essays are 100 flexible, soul-satisfying recipes that are exercises in culinary self-compassion, from Citrus Refresher Pasta to Jalapeño Honey Biscuits to Cozy Cold-Weather Bolognese and Lemon Poppyseed Drizzle Cakes. Ever mindful of reducing the reader’s stress, each recipe features an ingenious little TL;DR—too long; didn’t read—summary at the top. And “Feeling Adventurous?” suggestions will inspire cooks to change things up or toss in ingredients they may have on hand.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

“A master’s thesis gone viral? That’s exactly what happened to Leanne Brown’s final project in food studies at New York University. After it went viral online as a PDF (that has by now been downloaded millions of times) Leanne launched a Kickstarter campaign and raised an amazing $144,681, making her self-published edition of Good and Cheap the most successful cookbook project ever recorded by Kickstarter. Workman’s expanded second edition of the book is a New York Times bestseller that has sold 320,000 copies and counting. Her second book is Good Enough: A Cookbook, to be published in January 2022.

“Leanne was named on Forbes 30 Under 30 list, won the prestigious IACP Judge’s Choice Award, and was listed among the Most Innovative Women in Food and Drink by Food & Wine and Fortune magazines, an honor that recognizes visionaries who are working to change how we look at food. She has given talks to packed audiences at universities, food banks, farmers’ markets, and community events in more than 40 cities throughout the country, including SXSW. She delivered the keynote address at BlogHer Food 2015, the world’s largest celebration of women content creators across social media and the web. Along the way, she has drawn praise from luminaries including Michael Pollan, Marion Nestle, and Jamie Oliver. The Canadian-born author now lives in New York with her husband and daughter.”