DESCRIPTION

In her follow-up to the James Beard award-winning cookbok Tenderheart, Hetty Lui McKinnon returns with Linger, a cookbook for those looking to up their salad game. These colorful main-meal salads are inventive and hearty, packed with vegetables and globally-inspired flavors. Linger proves that salads are the most versatile dish, perfect for weeknight dinners, not-sad-desk-lunches, and as a show-stopping celebration meal.

From her salad-delivery days in Sydney to her current career as a food writer and bestselling cookbook author in New York, Hetty has long known the power of salads to connect and create community. In Linger, Hetty presents her salads, sweets and stories in twelve vibrant, loosely-seasonal menus -- each of which have their own playlist -- that are the perfect blueprint for gathering and entertaining.

Over 100 recipes, including:

• Caprese Salad with Grilled Pineapple • Mapo Tofu salad
• Cauliflower Larb • French Onion Salad
• Curry Potato-and-Pea Dumpling Salad • Potato Salad Tartine
• Vegan Dan Dan salad
• Roasted Spiced Carrots and Crispy Tofu with Agrodolce
•Tomato and Kimchi Pasta Salad • Butternut with Lentils, Olives, and Pickle Sauce
• Plus sweets like Hong Kong Milk Tea Tres Leches and Matcha and Ginger Custard Tart!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

HETTY LUI McKINNON is a Chinese Australian cook and food writer. She is the author of five bestselling cookbooks, including her genre-defining Community; Neighborhood; Family; To Asia,With Love; and, most recently, Tenderheart, which won a James Beard Award and an IACP Award in 2024. Hetty is a regular contributor to New York Times Cooking and ABC Lifestyle and writes the popular weekly newsletter To Vegetables, With Love. Born and raised in Sydney, she now resides in Brooklyn, New York.

REVIEWS

“A new cookbook that is as much a call to arms for connecting with our communities as it is a collection of riotously gorgeous salads. Yes, salads. After the pandemic, Hetty started hosting a series of lunch gatherings, setting out an array of colorful capreses and larbs and grain-based, noodle-based, tofu-based dishes that brought people together in a relaxed, low-key way. (‘Salads are meant to be shared.’) She photographed the book in real time — not in a studio — and it feels that way: authentic, informal, and extremely motivating.”
—Jenny Rosenstrach, Dinner: A Love Story (Substack)

“Come for the approachable (and as always, quietly vegetarian, though also usually adaptable to vegan) recipes; stay for McKinnon’s ruminations on self, family, and community. In Linger, McKinnon once again proves that she’s one of the most well-rounded food writers working today. She photographed the entire book, too, in real time during gatherings with friends in her home. At least in my kitchen, Tenderheart now has some real competition.”
—Bettina Makalintal, Eater

“When I heard the vegetable whisperer Hetty Lui McKinnon was coming out with another vegetarian cookbook, this time focused on salads (and sweets), I got my hands on it as fast as I could. Sifting through the pages of Linger, I quickly learned that this was not just a cookbook, but a wondrous collection of McKinnon’s heartfelt essays and composed menus, as well as playlists curated by none other than her daughter, Scout. The inspiration for this book came from a past career, when McKinnon prepared salads and delivered them by pedal (biking, that is) in Sydney, a project under the name of Arthur Street Kitchen. The simple exchange of salad was a way for McKinnon to develop a kinship with her community. The recipes that follow encourage that intimate connection, as well as draw inspiration from McKinnon’s Chinese Australian background. McKinnon’s opinions are tenacious and specific, offering nuggets of wisdom like, ‘salads don’t always have leaves;’ ‘think of fruit as a vegetable;’ and ‘anything can be a salad.’ I, for one, couldn’t agree more.”
—Nina Moskowitz, Bon Appetit