Open Kitchen: Inspired Food for Casual Gatherings

Spungen, founding food editor for Martha Stewart Living, serves up clever ideas for casual entertaining in this inspiring collection of guest-worthy recipes for food that doesn’t “seem like it’s trying too hard.” Starters include baked ricotta that puffs like a soufflé, and breadsticks that incorporate dukkah, a popular Egyptian spice and nut mix (though Spungen insists that she’s “not one to slavishly follow a trend”). Main dishes are designed to make a sensory impression: a whole chicken is soaked overnight in kefir, then roasted with shallots and basted with harissa, and a lamb shoulder is coated in tangy pomegranate molasses. There’s an Italian flavor to many options, including an eggplant parmigiana that incorporates roasted vegetables and chunks of bread, and pan pizza topped with broccoli rabe and sausage in an otherwise vegetarian “Centerpiece” chapter. Spungen’s famous kale salad from 2011 (still one of the most popular recipes on Epicurious) appears here without the original’s shaved brussels sprouts. The ginger chocolate cookies she contributed to a Martha Stewart Living cookie book that earned a spot on the cover, and almond tuiles with popped quinoa (“a very ‘now’ update”) are doable desserts, as are a flexible fruit crisp and a rustic apple galette with halvah. Spungen meets her crowd-pleasing goal with style, though a cookbook with so many of-the-moment ingredients risks feeling dated quickly. (Mar.)