Every other Wednesday, Bon Appétit executive editor Sonia Chopra shares what’s going on at BA—the stories she’s loved reading, the recipes she’s been making, and more. If you sign up for our newsletter, you’ll get her letter before everyone else.
This week I interviewed cookbook author Yasmin Khan, whose recipes grace the cover of our May issue. Her newest book, Ripe Figs, is out this month and paints a compassionate and beautiful story about communities across the Eastern Mediterranean—in Turkey, Cyprus, and Greece—and the foods they cooked.
This book is so special, in part thanks to the short travel essays Khan writes, which evoke the beauty and bounty of the region but also talk about important social and community work, like the Greek women’s network Melissa in Athens, and community center One Happy Family in Lesbos. I love that she introduces these organizations and the people she meets and cooks with in these essays, and then those same names pop up in headnotes for recipes throughout the book.
This Halloumi saganaki recipe from Ripe Figs is on bonappetit.com now.
Photo by Alex LauIn the grid below, find a few great recipes from Ripe Figs, which Khan tied together with an essay about climate migration (subscribe for future issues here). If you’re curious, Khan also shared last night that her favorite kitchen tool is the Microplane (what isn’t improved by a little zesting!) and the ingredient she thinks is most underappreciated in American kitchens is dried mint, which Yasmin writes about here for Epicurious.
And I’m curious: What’s the last cookbook you read from cover to cover? Are there any upcoming ones you’re excited to get? Let me know; I’m at sonia@bonappetit.com.
