Nerds Rule the Cookbook Charts to Our Geeky Delight
It’s cooler than ever to be a smart kid, a fact eminently clear in today’s food world. It’s fitting, then, that two geeky book titles cracked the top 10 on Amazon’s list of best-selling cookbooks in November: The Food Lab: Better Home Cooking Through Science and The Nerdy Nummies Cookbook: Sweet Treats for the Geek in All of Us.
Related: Classic Sage and Sausage Stuffing from ‘The Food Lab’
The Food Lab, in particular, is a food nerd’s dream. Written by J. Kenji López-Alt, the managing culinary director of Serious Eats, it’s the summation of wisdom gleaned from his popular science-driven column, the Food Lab. The nearly 1,000-page tome breaks down familiar dishes in astonishing detail — think ultra fluffy mashed potatoes and an upgraded green bean casserole — using science to create the platonic ideal of old favorites.
“For avid home cooks who came of age in the digital era, there may be few voices more authoritative than that of J. Kenji López-Alt, the nerd king of Internet cooking,” cooed the New York Times in a review from this past September. “The book is a strong addition to shelves — especially for cooks obsessed by the question ‘why’ rather than those seeking inspiration in unfamiliar dishes — but it is Mr. López-Alt’s original living body of work online that to many may seem like his even greater achievement. This is merely the big book to mark it.”
Related: 11 Cooking Shows on YouTube You Should Be Watching
On the pop culture end of the dork spectrum is The Nerdy Nummies Cookbook by beloved YouTube personality Rosanna Pansino, who reigns as the site’s most popular baker with more than 5 million subscribers. If you’ve ever wanted to make flying saucer-shaped cake pops or Dungeons & Dragons–inspired cookies shaped like 20-sided dice, this is the book for you.
Check out the rest of November’s best-selling cookbooks on Amazon below:
1. The Pioneer Woman Cooks: Dinnertime: Comfort Classics, Freezer Food, 16-Minute Meals, and Other Delicious Ways to Solve Supper!by Ree Drummond
2. The Food Lab: Better Home Cooking Through Science by J. Kenji López-Alt
3. Great Food Fast: Bob Warden’s Ultimate Pressure Cooker Recipes by Bob Warden
4. Thug Kitchen: The Official Cookbook: Eat Like You Give a F*ck by Thug Kitchen
5. Trim Healthy Mama Cookbook: Eat Up and Slim Down with More Than 350 Healthy Recipes by Pearl Barrett and Serene Allison
6. Inspiralized: Turn Vegetables into Healthy, Creative, Satisfying Meals by Ali Maffucci
7. The Nerdy Nummies Cookbook: Sweet Treats for the Geek in All of Us by Rosanna Pansino
8. Cooking Class: 57 Fun Recipes Kids Will Love to Make (and Eat!) by Deanna F. Cook
9. The Whole30: The 30-Day Guide to Total Health and Food Freedomby
Melissa Hartwig and Dallas Hartwig
10. Trim Healthy Mama Plan: The Easy-Does-It Approach to Vibrant Health and a Slim Waistline by Pearl Barrett and Serene Allison
Click here for Amazon’s hour-by-hour best seller list.
More of our favorite cookbooks:
This Israeli Cookbook Is Racing Up the Best-Sellers List
For Its First Cookbook, ‘Lucky Peach’ Trades Authenticity for Ease
‘Simply Nigella’ Offers Recipes to Soothe Rather than Stress
