After studying at Le Cordon Bleu in London, Eden Grinshpan ultimately found her calling in food by traveling the world and eating her way through different cities. Her father is Israeli, so while she already had a connection to Israel, her love of tahini came while she was living in Israel after culinary school. Growing up in a close-knit family who sat down at the table together each night, Eden embraces family meals. But those meals don’t have to be formal — she encourages “dunking, picking, dipping, dribbling, schmearing, and getting all up in with your hands.”
If you follow Eden on Instagram (@edeneats), you’ll sense a similar vibe to her cookbook. Eating Out Loud: Bold Middle Eastern Flavors for All Day, Every Day is casual, playful, and accessible. This is not a cookbook filled with recipes that are extremely complicated or labor-intensive with out-there ingredients that you can’t find in most stores. The recipes are approachable and perfect to make on any given day. If you have or take care of kids, these dishes would be great for the nights when they want to be involved in the kitchen.
“If there’s any chapter in this book that drives home the sense of play that I want you to feel when you look in your cabinet, and your fridge, it’s definitely this one,” she writes about her dessert chapter. It’s filled with her take on baklava, halvah, honey cake and cheesecake.
The cookbook consists of many vegetarian dishes but also takes meat and fish eaters into consideration. She provides recipes for traditional Israeli dishes, and often adds her own spin on them. There’s a classic hummus alongside her sunchoke hummus option. And while you likely know garlic tahini, she also provides a recipe for a green tahini with parsley.
The first sixty pages of the book cover some essentials — dips, sauces, spreads, appetizers to eat with your hands. Throughout the book, you’ll find beautiful photos of her recipes — entrees, side dishes and dips all meant to share. Eden’s husband, Ido, and daughter, Ayv, as well as her parents show up throughout the book, too. She’s made it a priority to incorporate them into her cooking life, not just for them to eat her food.
At the top of most of the pages with recipes, Eden writes about why she loves the ingredients included in the dish so much. It’s often a reminder of her time in Israel and the different tastes and smells she has experienced in her life.
If you haven’t been to Israel and eaten all of the amazing, spice-enriched foods served there, this cookbook will certainly get you to book a flight … or, especially right now, even just dreaming about one.
Harper Spero is a business coach who specializes in working with service-based newbie solopreneurs and small business owners. Harper is also the host of Made Visible, a podcast dedicated to people living with or affected by invisible illness. She is a writer who focuses on chronicling her rare immunodeficiency that you’ve likely never heard of. She is based in New York City and spends her winters in Tel Aviv. When she’s not in Tel Aviv, she spends her time scouring the world for the next best Israeli restaurant.