There are gifts that say, “I remembered you exist,” and then there are gifts that say, “I believe your future contains roasted vegetables, glossy pie crust, and possibly one heroic Sunday spent pretending your kitchen is a tiny Scandinavian restaurant.” A well-chosen cookbook belongs firmly in the second category.
The Remodelista Gift Guide 2020: Cookbooks to Give (and Cook From) This Winter arrived at exactly the right moment. Winter cooking in 2020 was not just about dinner. It was therapy, entertainment, travel, comfort, and occasionally a science experiment involving flour. The best cookbooks of that year offered more than recipes. They offered stories, skill-building, beautiful photography, cultural discovery, and a reason to preheat the oven when the world outside felt uncertain.
This guide revisits the spirit of Remodelista’s 2020 cookbook picks and expands it into a practical, gift-ready winter reading and cooking list. Whether you are shopping for a serious baker, a vegetable obsessive, a design-minded host, or someone whose current signature dish is “toast, but anxious,” these cookbooks still feel warm, useful, and beautifully giftable.
Why Cookbooks Made the Perfect Winter Gift in 2020
In 2020, the home kitchen became the center of everything. It was the restaurant, office cafeteria, date-night bistro, bakery, school lunch counter, and emotional support station. As people spent more time indoors, cookbooks became a way to turn repetition into ritual. The right cookbook could make Tuesday dinner feel like a small event instead of a reheated negotiation with leftovers.
Remodelista’s approach to gifting has always favored objects that are both useful and beautiful. A cookbook fits that philosophy perfectly. It can sit on a shelf like a design object, open flat beside a bowl of apples, or become splattered with butter and tomato sauce, which is the culinary equivalent of a book earning its battle scars.
The 2020 selection leaned into comfort, creativity, plant-forward cooking, baking projects, pantry-friendly meals, and books that tell meaningful stories. In other words, these were not just books to admire. They were books to cook from when winter asked, “So, what now?”
The Best Cookbooks to Give and Cook From This Winter
1. “Pie for Everyone” by Petra Paredez
Few winter gifts are as persuasive as pie. Pie for Everyone: Recipes and Stories from Petee’s Pie, New York’s Best Pie Shop by Petra Paredez is a joyful deep dive into crusts, fillings, fruit pies, custard pies, cream pies, and savory pies. It is ideal for the baker who already owns a rolling pin but still treats pie dough like a suspicious woodland creature.
What makes this book special is its democratic spirit. It does not treat pie as a fussy museum piece. It treats pie as food for birthdays, holidays, snowy afternoons, and “I bought too many apples” emergencies. Paredez’s background with Petee’s Pie Company gives the book professional authority, but the tone remains friendly and encouraging.
Best for: bakers, dessert lovers, holiday hosts, and anyone who believes flaky crust is a personality trait.
2. “Ottolenghi Flavor” by Yotam Ottolenghi and Ixta Belfrage
Ottolenghi Flavor is the cookbook equivalent of opening your spice cabinet and discovering it has been quietly studying abroad. Written by Yotam Ottolenghi and Ixta Belfrage, with Tara Wigley, the book explores how vegetables can become deeply exciting through charring, infusing, browning, aging, and layering bold ingredients.
This is not a bland “eat your vegetables” book. It is a “what if cabbage had a dramatic second act?” book. The recipes are plant-forward, visually striking, and often ambitious enough to make a weekend cook feel like a culinary wizard with a very organized grocery list.
Best for: adventurous vegetarians, flexitarians, dinner-party cooks, and anyone who owns za’atar and knows where it is.
3. “A Good Bake” by Melissa Weller
For the baker who wants precision without losing pleasure, A Good Bake: The Art and Science of Making Perfect Pastries, Cakes, Cookies, Pies, and Breads at Home is a winter treasure. Melissa Weller, a former chemical engineer turned acclaimed baker, brings serious technical knowledge to sweet and savory baking.
The beauty of this book lies in its explanations. It does not simply say, “Do this.” It helps readers understand why dough behaves the way it does, why butter temperature matters, and why baking sometimes feels like a negotiation with invisible forces. Spoiler: the invisible forces are usually gluten, steam, and impatience.
Best for: detail-oriented bakers, science-minded cooks, pastry fans, and anyone who wants fewer kitchen mysteries and more excellent cake.
4. “Serving New York” by Kristin Tice Studeman and Bryan Fountain
Serving New York captured a very specific moment in food culture. Created during the early days of New York City’s lockdowns, the cookbook gathered pantry-friendly recipes from beloved restaurants and directed proceeds toward restaurant relief. It was part cookbook, part love letter, and part community rescue mission.
The book’s appeal is emotional as much as practical. It reminded readers that restaurants are not just places where people eat; they are places where neighborhoods gather, celebrations unfold, and someone else kindly handles the dishes. In winter, when many people missed the hum of dining rooms, this cookbook brought a little restaurant spirit home.
Best for: city lovers, restaurant devotees, charitable gift-givers, and home cooks who miss the magic of a great menu.
5. “In Bibi’s Kitchen” by Hawa Hassan with Julia Turshen
In Bibi’s Kitchen is one of the most meaningful cookbooks of 2020. Hawa Hassan, with Julia Turshen, shares recipes and stories from grandmothers from eight African countries that touch the Indian Ocean: South Africa, Mozambique, Madagascar, Comoros, Tanzania, Kenya, Somalia, and Eritrea.
The book is rich with home cooking, memory, migration, spice, and matriarchal wisdom. It gives readers more than instructions for preparing food; it introduces them to women whose recipes carry family histories and cultural knowledge. It is warm, generous, and deeply human.
Best for: thoughtful cooks, cultural explorers, family recipe collectors, and anyone who knows grandmothers are the original executive chefs.
6. “Coconut & Sambal” by Lara Lee
Lara Lee’s Coconut & Sambal: Recipes from My Indonesian Kitchen is vibrant, fragrant, and full of movement. The book explores Indonesian cooking through family history, regional dishes, sambals, spice pastes, rice, noodles, coconut, and the kind of flavors that make a quiet kitchen suddenly feel like it has better lighting.
For winter cooking, this book is a gift because it offers warmth in every sense. It brings heat, brightness, texture, and color to the table. It also gives readers a useful entry point into Indonesian ingredients and techniques without making the cuisine feel unreachable.
Best for: spice lovers, noodle enthusiasts, travelers-at-heart, and cooks ready to move beyond the usual weeknight rotation.
7. “East” by Meera Sodha
Meera Sodha’s East: 120 Vegan and Vegetarian Recipes from Bangalore to Beijing is a modern classic for vegetable-centered cooking. The U.S. edition adapted the book for American measurements, making it easier for stateside cooks to use without pausing mid-recipe to consult the internet like a confused math student.
The recipes draw inspiration from Asian cuisines and offer practical, flavorful meals that work for everyday cooking. Sodha has a gift for creating food that feels lively but not intimidating. Her dishes are the kind of meals that convince even skeptical eaters that vegetables are not a punishment.
Best for: vegetarians, vegans, busy home cooks, and anyone who wants weeknight dinners with more sparkle.
8. “Vegetable Kingdom” by Bryant Terry
Vegetable Kingdom: The Abundant World of Vegan Recipes by Bryant Terry celebrates plants with intelligence, soul, and style. Terry’s recipes are rooted in the African diaspora and organized in a way that helps readers think more deeply about ingredients. This is vegan cooking with history, rhythm, and confidence.
One of the book’s most memorable touches is its connection between food and music, with suggested songs paired to recipes. That detail turns cooking into a fuller sensory experience. Suddenly dinner prep is not just chopping onions; it is chopping onions with a soundtrack, which is objectively more glamorous.
Best for: vegan cooks, vegetable lovers, culturally curious readers, and anyone who believes dinner should have a playlist.
9. “Open Kitchen” by Susan Spungen
Susan Spungen’s Open Kitchen: Inspired Food for Casual Gatherings is exactly the sort of book people needed during a season when gathering looked different. It focuses on food that feels special without becoming theatrical. The recipes are relaxed, elegant, and designed for the kind of hosting that says, “Come over, I made something,” not “Please admire my stress spiral.”
Even when cooking only for the people already under your roof, this book helps make meals feel intentional. It is filled with dishes that turn ordinary evenings into softer, warmer occasions.
Best for: hosts, design-minded cooks, relaxed entertainers, and people who like their food beautiful but not bossy.
10. “Fäviken: 4015 Days, Beginning to End” by Magnus Nilsson
Fäviken: 4015 Days, Beginning to End is not a typical weeknight cookbook. It is a beautifully produced record of Magnus Nilsson’s acclaimed restaurant in northern Sweden, which closed after a remarkable run. The book includes essays, photographs, reflections on hospitality and craft, a chronological list of dishes, and 100 recipes.
This is the book for someone who reads cookbooks like literature. It is atmospheric, thoughtful, and visually powerful. You may not cook from it on a random Wednesday, unless your random Wednesday includes foraging and a philosophical relationship with moss. But as an object and story, it is unforgettable.
Best for: chefs, restaurant lovers, Nordic design fans, and readers who enjoy cookbooks as art books.
How to Choose the Right Cookbook Gift
Match the Book to the Cook’s Real Life
A cookbook gift works best when it fits the recipient’s actual cooking rhythm. A new parent may appreciate quick, flexible meals from East more than a multi-day pastry project. A confident weekend baker may adore A Good Bake. A design lover may want Fäviken simply to leave it open on a coffee table and look mysterious.
Think about time, skill level, diet, curiosity, and kitchen space. The best cookbook is not always the most impressive one. It is the one that gets opened, cooked from, and eventually decorated with a tiny constellation of olive oil stains.
Consider the Emotional Flavor
Some cookbooks comfort. Some teach. Some transport. Some challenge. Pie for Everyone says warmth and nostalgia. In Bibi’s Kitchen says story and heritage. Ottolenghi Flavor says adventure. Serving New York says solidarity and restaurant love. Choosing a cookbook is a little like choosing a message in edible form.
Look for Beauty and Usefulness
Because this is a Remodelista-inspired gift guide, aesthetics matter. A winter cookbook should feel good in the hand, look good on the counter, and still be practical enough to survive actual use. Beautiful photography, clear instructions, strong paper, and thoughtful organization all matter. A gorgeous cookbook that cannot help you make dinner is just a decorative rectangle with ambition.
Why These 2020 Cookbooks Still Matter
The strongest cookbooks age well because they capture more than trends. The titles in this winter gift guide still feel relevant because they speak to lasting needs: comfort, skill, nourishment, culture, gathering, beauty, and curiosity.
Plant-based cooking has only grown more mainstream. Baking remains a beloved home ritual. Regional and heritage cooking continues to receive the wider attention it deserves. Restaurant culture, after a difficult period, is still cherished as part of community life. And many people still want books that make their homes feel richer, calmer, and more delicious.
That is why a cookbook is never just a cookbook. It is a promise: one day soon, there will be soup. There will be pie. There will be a table cleared of mail. There will be something fragrant in the oven and someone asking, “Is it ready yet?” with the urgency of a person who has forgotten snacks exist.
Personal Experiences: Cooking Through a Winter Cookbook Stack
There is a particular pleasure in receiving a cookbook in winter. Unlike a gadget, it does not require charging, updating, syncing, or finding the one cable that has vanished into the household cable swamp. A cookbook waits quietly. Then one cold afternoon, when the sky looks like wet cement and dinner inspiration has left the building, it becomes a map.
Cooking from a winter cookbook stack usually begins with optimism. You sit down with sticky notes and imagine yourself becoming the sort of person who casually makes pastry on a Sunday. You mark a vegetable dish from Ottolenghi Flavor, a pie from Pie for Everyone, a cozy dinner from East, and perhaps something wildly ambitious from Fäviken, because apparently your fantasy self owns tweezers for plating herbs.
The first real success often comes from choosing a recipe that fits the day instead of the fantasy. On a busy weeknight, a Meera Sodha-style vegetable dinner feels like a small miracle: pantry ingredients, big flavor, and no need to explain to anyone why dinner contains eighteen separate components. The reward is immediate. You get warmth, spice, and the smug satisfaction of eating something nourishing without making the kitchen look like a cooking show exploded.
Baking books create a different kind of experience. With A Good Bake or Pie for Everyone, the kitchen becomes slower and more deliberate. You measure, chill, fold, roll, wait, and occasionally whisper encouragement to butter. The lesson is not only how to bake; it is how to pay attention. Pie especially teaches humility. One day the crust is perfect. Another day it looks like it has been through a minor weather event. Either way, people still eat it, because pie is forgiving in the way humans should aspire to be.
Story-driven cookbooks such as In Bibi’s Kitchen change the experience again. They remind you that recipes come from people, places, memory, and survival. Cooking from such a book can make an ordinary dinner feel connected to a much larger world. You are not just following steps; you are learning how food carries care across generations.
Then there are the books you cook from less often but return to for inspiration. Fäviken may not become a sauce-splattered weeknight manual, but it can shift how you think about craft, hospitality, and attention to place. Some cookbooks feed dinner. Others feed imagination. The best winter shelf has both.
The real gift of these cookbooks is not perfection. It is momentum. They help you try one new sauce, one better crust, one vegetable you previously ignored at the grocery store because it looked judgmental. They turn winter cooking into a series of small adventures. And in a season when comfort matters, that is no small thing.
Conclusion: The Best Cookbook Gift Is the One That Gets Used
The Remodelista Gift Guide 2020: Cookbooks to Give (and Cook From) This Winter remains a thoughtful blueprint for giving books that are beautiful, practical, and full of life. From Petra Paredez’s pies to Bryant Terry’s vegetable kingdom, from Hawa Hassan’s grandmother-led stories to Ottolenghi’s bold flavor architecture, these cookbooks invite readers to cook with more curiosity and joy.
For holiday gifting, birthdays, hostess presents, or a personal winter reset, a cookbook is still one of the smartest gifts around. It does not expire. It does not require assembly. It can be read in bed, used in the kitchen, or displayed on a shelf until courage and butter align. Most importantly, it offers the recipient something wonderfully simple: a delicious reason to begin.
