Le Sud: Recipes from Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur

As with the previous cookbooks by James Beard Award–nominated Peppler (A Table: Recipes for Cooking and Eating the French Way), French cuisine is the focus in her latest tome, which highlights the food and drink found in the south of France. The book offers a highly stylized and evocatively designed layout, with tantalizing photos of Provençal food and scenery. Depending on their skill level, home cooks (particularly those who yearn to visit France) might find this book more aspirational than designed to get food on the table quickly. That being said, while some of the ingredients will require some work to find in the United States, the majority of them are readily available. There are also substitutions suggested for some of the more difficult-to-find or regional ingredients. Peppler does, however, overestimate the average U.S. cook’s access to a specialized fishmonger or a butcher/charcutier who will freshly slice cured meats on demand.