Donna Hay’s cookbooks feature (relatively) simple, creative
dishes with incredible pictures of every single one. My biggest pet peeve with
cookbooks is the low picture-to-recipe ratios. How are you supposed to be inspired
to cook a dish without a picture? Her bi-monthly magazine is a slightly smaller
version packed with recipes and gorgeous food photography for a third of the
cost!

In college I worked at a bookstore and spent hours thumbing through
cookbooks when I was bored (sorry boss) and there were very few that broke the
25% mark on trial-worthy recipes, my second pet peeve. They’re usually either
too unrealistic for the home cook, too specific (who’s really going to try 40
pasta recipes?), or too boring and uninspired. Cooking magazines tend to be
even worse. That is not the case here. There’s a great mix of different types of realistic recipes that are sophisticated but simple enough that they’re not intimidating.

The recipe-to-fluff ratio is also incredibly high. It’s a straightforward, seasonal recipe booklet with
short articles about foodie-centric topics like wine and cooking gadgets. The
pages aren’t taken up with topics that you might
be interested in like beauty tips and crafty how-tos. It cuts to the chase. Personally, I
see food mags like guys see Playboy – we don’t read them for the articles.

Like most things in life though, there is a slight catch.
It’s an Australian magazine so you have to do conversions for the measurements,
or get a kitchen scale. It’s quick and easy to do it online or even with iPhone
apps though, and completely worth it!

Check it out online – they have an iPad app where you can
watch videos for some recipes and you can get a digital subscription, though I
prefer the print version.

Tonight I made her Maple & Ginger Cheesecake (fantastic), the Crumbed Eggs with Garlic Kale Toasts & Caneles de Bordeaux are next!