The Art of Eating In: How I Learned to Stop Spending and Love the Stove

Though it covers the same time frame as Erway's “Not Eating in New York” blog, this isn't a repurposing of her posts—rather, it's a memoir with recipes, a rapidly growing genre. The premise is simple: adding up the money's she spent on repeatedly eating out for lunch and ordering takeout for dinner, the 20-something Brooklynite decides she'll start preparing all her meals at home, and sticks with it for two years. (All that saved money comes in handy when her boyfriend breaks up with her and she has to find her own apartment, but then there's a new dilemma; as her mother points out: what do you do for dates when you can't go out for dinner?) Erway is up for just about any food-related adventure, whether it's making inroads into New York's underground supper club scene, pulling discarded food out of trash bags, or testing the power of menudo (a Mexican stew) to cure hangovers. And the recipes—ranging from a simple asparagus salad to chipotle cornbread stuffing and a soy-sesame filet mignon with wasabi mashed potatoes—will have readers racing to their stoves. (Feb.)