That Sounds So Good - Nov 2021

Our November Cookbook of the Month is from an author we’ve already reviewed once before, That Sounds So Good by Carla Lalli Music. We enjoyed her first foray into cookbook writing while she was still at Bon Appetit-- Where Cooking Begins-- and she won a James Beard Award for the thing. I’ve gifted her first book to several family members first moving out on their own either during or after college as a flexible meal planning aid, and I hoped that That Sounds So Good will follow the same format.

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I was pleased to see that one of the ways that she writes recipes that I enjoyed so much, the Spin It sections in the ingredients, remained. They no longer appear beside the initial ingredient list but now at the bottom of the recipe. That’s okay. It’s still there, and it was a relief to find it again in her second outing. It’s perhaps the most identifiable Carla Lalli Music Thing in a cookbook, and it makes her style so accessible to everyone. No extra grocery store trips for one ingredient you forgot. Chances are, you’ve got something in your pantry to spin with when you’re cooking.

That Sounds So Good is broken down less by ingredient or meal type and more by ‘situation’. This is obvious just in the titles of these sections like ‘Monday through Thursday’. Week night meals for the days you can’t be bothered to waste too much time. Nothing celebratory, just good enough to get you through the week and still be tasty. This is a direct contrast to her previous book where the sections were demarcated largely by the ingredients with a large section at the front to teach you about different techniques. 

That huge portion of the first book dedicated to technique made it a great first cookbook for so many people. Even I learned things as a more practiced home cook, such as how to properly confit something. Cooking something over a longer length of time in animal fat isn’t something I often do. Really, the only time I ever actually did it was for a carnitas recipe that didn’t turn out quite so well. It was not a Lalli Music recipe, however. So that’s a story for another time.

As expected, Carla did not use the front portion of her cookbook to review the techniques that she would later employ within her recipes. Where Cooking Begins devoted such a large portion of the book to this endeavor that she likely didn’t feel the need to do it again nor consider it necessary. People like me will have both books-- so the references will exist if we need them either way. This is also a book about eating good with the effort a Wednesday evening requires, which should be little.

No special grocery store runs when you start a recipe because you forgot an extra special ingredient. You shouldn't have to get on Amazon six days ahead of time to order a spice that you've only ever heard of in this book and this book alone. It's a homey way to cook that lands perfectly in the type of thing we love around here, and its what made Carla's last book such a hit. I wanted more of it, and we finally got it.

We’ve waited for this book from the moment she announced it on her social media accounts. If you’d like a preview before buying in, there are pages available to look at on Amazon of some of her recipes. She also has videos available for free through her youtube channel while some are also available through her Patreon-- but that of course costs money via pledge. I’m prepared for a great month of cooking after our last foray into a Lalli Music cookbook, and I hope not to be disappointed.

This book just launched on October 19th, and you can still get it for a slight discount on Amazon if that’s your preferred book purchasing method. Otherwise, it is available at many bookstores. The way this book is broken down doesn’t allow for clearly demarcated individual section review quite as well as our last book, but we’ll figure something out to update you on our progress as we go. Starting with this book, you can find me cooking from it on Tiktok and see my actual progress, wins, and losses. Thanksgiving will get in the way slightly of cooking as much out of here as I might like, but we’ll do our best.

We have already started cooking from the book before the debut of this article, so enjoy this picture of the Spicy Seafood Stew out of the Lazy Lunches section. Isn’t it gorgeous? Most of the food in here is, so if nothing else, get the book to look at some amazing photographs of delicious food.

Thanks for joining me for yet another cookbook. I’m so proud to have kept up with this for two months, and look forward to making it to a full year streak.