Every Leaf, Every Stem

EVERY LEAF, EVERY STEM

There’s something satisfying about being surprised by something you didn’t expect to like.

Sometimes a book, recipe, restaurant, or even a person catches you off guard and completely wins you over. That surprise is part of the fun, especially when you went into it with low expectations.

But every once in a while, the opposite happens.

You come across something you’re almost certain you’re going to love, only to discover that it doesn’t quite live up to what you had hoped.

That’s where this week’s edition of By the Book lands.

Associate editor Robin Babb takes a look at Every Leaf, Every Stem: Craveable, Creative Vegetables All Year Round by Pierce Abernathy, a cookbook author she first discovered through his popular YouTube cooking videos.

And while Abernathy’s personality, creativity, and cooking philosophy work extremely well on video, the transition to a full cookbook doesn’t always land the same way.

BIG EXPECTATIONS FROM A POPULAR ONLINE COOK

Abernathy comes into his first cookbook with an impressive background.

He built a following through his vegetable-focused YouTube content and previously worked for several years in digital food media, including time at Tasty, BuzzFeed’s cooking brand.

He also has one very recognizable name supporting the book: Alice Waters, one of the best-known voices associated with America’s Slow Food movement, wrote the foreword.

The philosophy behind Abernathy’s cooking is easy to appreciate.

He encourages people to use local and seasonal produce whenever possible, waste less food, and get creative with ingredients that might otherwise end up forgotten in the refrigerator.

His online videos include practical tips, such as matching different salad dressings with the greens sturdy enough to handle them.

He also regularly encourages people to eat more beans, preserve vegetables before they spoil, and treat meat more like an accent than the center of every meal.

In fact, meat is almost nonexistent in the cookbook, outside of a few anchovies used in a dressing.

CREATIVE FOOD WITH A LOT OF PERSONALITY

Some of Abernathy’s ideas sound genuinely interesting.

Recipes include seared sweet potatoes served with a mole-inspired dukkah and pear labneh, along with plenty of pickled vegetables, dips, greens, beans, eggplant, tahini, and other vegetable-centered dishes.

There is also a noticeable Middle Eastern influence throughout the book.

Abernathy references Yotam Ottolenghi’s Jerusalem early on, and that influence becomes easy to recognize as the recipes unfold.

Ingredients such as eggplant, tahini, and labneh show up frequently, while Abernathy’s Armenian heritage also plays a role in the direction of many dishes.

The problem isn’t necessarily the creativity.

The problem is that some of the food feels more suited for an impressive dinner party, a restaurant menu, or a social media post than an average Tuesday night at home.

NOT ALWAYS AS ACCESSIBLE AS IT SOUNDS

The book presents many of these recipes as approachable dishes that everyday cooks can make with ingredients from their local grocery store.

That may be where the biggest disconnect appears.

Fresh fava beans, ramps, sunchokes, and other ingredients show up throughout the book.

Depending on where you live, those ingredients may be expensive, difficult to find, seasonal, or simply unavailable.

For someone shopping at a specialty market or a large farmers market in a major city, that might not be a problem.

For many other home cooks, it could turn a simple recipe into a scavenger hunt.

The dishes themselves also often require a noticeable amount of time, effort, and preparation.

That isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

Complicated food can be fun.

Showpiece recipes can be great.

But it helps when a cookbook is clear about what it is.

If the goal is ambitious food for passionate cooks, say that.

Calling those same recipes casual weeknight cooking can feel like a stretch.

SOME RECIPES DON’T QUITE COME TOGETHER

There are also dishes where the finished result doesn’t justify all the work.

One example is the Stuffed Collard Green Yalanchi Sarma, or dolma.

The collard greens are only lightly blanched, leaving their strong, earthy flavor front and center.

Instead of supporting the filling, the greens can overpower it.

The Spanish Tortilla also feels more complicated than necessary.

There are simpler approaches to the same dish that can produce results that are just as satisfying without adding so many extra steps.

And those examples begin to reveal a larger issue with the cookbook.

There are good ideas here.

There are thoughtful ideas here.

But sometimes the execution gets buried underneath the effort to make the dish feel fresh, unexpected, or visually impressive.

THE PHILOSOPHY MAY BE STRONGER THAN THE RECIPES

That makes the book difficult to completely dismiss.

Abernathy’s overall approach to food is admirable.

Using more vegetables makes sense.

Buying seasonal ingredients when possible makes sense.

Reducing food waste makes sense.

Finding ways to use produce before it spoils makes sense.

Those ideas fit comfortably within a modern revival of the Slow Food movement while still allowing room for new ingredients and changing tastes.

The philosophy works.

The question is whether the recipes always make that philosophy easier for home cooks to actually follow.

WHERE ABERNATHY REALLY SHINES

Interestingly, Abernathy’s strongest platform may still be the one where many people first discovered him.

His YouTube videos are short, polished, accessible, and visually engaging.

The format gives him room to show his personality while also demonstrating cooking techniques quickly and clearly.

That personality is harder to capture on the printed page.

Watching someone prepare an unusual vegetable dish in a fast, well-produced video can make it feel exciting and manageable.

Reading several pages of instructions involving specialty ingredients may create a very different impression.

And that may ultimately be the biggest takeaway from Every Leaf, Every Stem.

Pierce Abernathy has interesting things to say about food.

He has strong ideas about vegetables, sustainability, seasonality, and waste.

He also clearly knows how to make food look exciting.

But what works perfectly in a short cooking video doesn’t always translate perfectly into a cookbook.

For someone planning an impressive holiday cocktail party or looking for a culinary project, there are probably plenty of ideas worth exploring here.

For someone simply looking for reliable, easy vegetable recipes for everyday meals, following Abernathy online may still be the better option.

And for now, this may be one cookbook that spends a little more time on the shelf.