Beautifully bound, full of straightforward recipes bursting with flavor, containing all kinds of actual vegetables in delicious preparations rather than soy-gluten-fake-meat-protein, augmented with recipe text that contextualizes the dish and its inspiration -- this is a great vegetable cookbook. The recipes are astoundingly delicious and professional, and though the instructions do err on the side of "pretty", it is straightforward to turn the dial closer to "easy" if you wish. As a result, the recipes are not necessarily complicated, though they do assume a stocked kitchen with a depth of spices, a spice grinder, and access to a variety of markets or gardens to source ingredients that are less common in major grocery stores. This is a cookbook for advanced cooks who are looking for interesting vegetable preparations, or for folks who enjoy reading beautiful cookbooks.

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Lemongrass boiled peanuts (snack): Having never cooked with fresh lemongrass nor eaten Southern-style boiled peanuts, I was curious and not at all sure what to expect. It turns out that boiled peanuts are deliberately very salty, with a soft potato-like texture. I quite liked the lemongrass flavor and the way some of the whole peanuts were left with a brine inside that "popped" when eaten, and I suspect people who like boiled peanuts might appreciate this variant. I think I'll keep this recipe in mind for themed parties, but it was on the whole much too salty for me to make again myself.

Blackened cauliflower and tomato sauce (main): The blackened seasoning is delectable, and the tomato sauce is quite easy and gives just the right balance to the cauliflower. Some variant of this is going into my regular rotation -- though maybe as blackened sweet potato rounds, tempeh, or roasted cauliflower florets more frequently than the recipe's suggestion of finicky blanched-baked-seared cauliflower steaks.

Spinach and hominy in tomato garlic broth (soup starter): The tomato garlic broth was fantastic, despite my initial bafflement at starting with stock to make stock. The hominy and spinach were a nice stir-in for the brothy star, and the bit of parsley elevated the whole dish. (But deep frying hominy for a garnish? Total failure -- I got soggy soft oily hominy and massive explosions of oil -- though to be fair, I don't know how to deep fry and I substituted canned hominy, either of which could have led to my exciting cleaning experience.)

Spinach-peanut sauce (side): The origin story captured me, but this variant on Cameroon's national dish ndolé didn't work for me. Mine turned out to be just vegan creamed spinach, using peanut cream instead of the traditional vegan milk substitute of cashew cream. I don't particularly like creamed spinach (but someone who does might appreciate the variant), and I was looking for peanut flavor that my peanuts didn't deliver.

Amy Ashwood (cocktail) and mango nectar (drink): A delicious mango-lime-ginger-cayenne cocktail dedicated to Marcus Garvey's first wife. The mango nectar would have been easier (and likely more delicious) if made from frozen mango chunks or one of those thick imported European juices, but the combination of mango, ginger, lime and a bit of cayenne garnish was indeed quite tasty. The mango nectar with a bit of ginger and lime seltzer was quite refreshing as well. ( )

I was sent a copy of the book for review though Net Galley, as always, all opinions are my own.

I’ve been trying to cut back on the amount of meat my family consumes so I’ve been drawing inspiration from vegetarian and vegan cookbooks to achieve my goals. This book initially caught my eye because I love incorporating ethnic meals into our weekly rotation. While I loved the layout of this book I wasn’t nearly as thrilled with the recipes, the ingredient lists of many of the recipes were incredibly long and oftentimes the recipes were were much too labor intensive for a quick weeknight meal. This won’t be a book that I will turn to often, but I did find the spice blend recipes incredibly useful for adding a different sort of flare to some of the meals I already prepare. ( )