Sun-Kissed Cooking: Vegetables Front and Center

In her much-anticipated first cookbook, the culinary superstar and Top Chef winner reimagines the role produce plays in everyday meals, moving it from side to center in enticing easy recipes that add fun and complex flavor to veggie-forward eating—the kind of food we want to enjoy today.

A prodigy who started cooking as a teenager, master chef Brooke Williamson has already carved out a résumé full of leading roles and professional achievements in her young career. She won Bravo’s Top Chef Season 14, and on Food Network, was crowned the first winner of Tournament of Champions, and debuted as one of the three titans on the new cut-throat hit competition, Bobby’s Triple Threat.

Sun-Kissed Cooking is her much-anticipated first cookbook—a remarkably fresh look at produce-forward, seasonal cooking that combines a deep love of ingredients, a respect for seasonality—which also incorporates preserved and canned vegetables—and an unexpected flair that makes cooking with produce inventive, fun, and incredibly delicious. Williamson inspires home cooks to follow their imagination and build dishes from whatever vegetables or fruits capture their fancy in the moment. With over 100 fresh and unexpected recipes, arranged by the ingredient at the center, from mushrooms and tomatoes to peas and pods to starch and greens—accompanied by sixty enticing photos—she shows how to get the most out of items from the farmer’s market or the produce aisle.

Though vegetarians will find plenty of recipes to love, Sun-Kissed Cooking is for everyone who wants to eat better without compromising flavor or skimping on ingredients they love—many dishes feature meat, poultry, and seafood. Williamson’s cooking style is wonderfully original without being fussy or complicated, and following her helpful guidance home cooks of every level can adopt her joyful attitude in the kitchen at the dinner table.

Inside this essential guide to veggie-forward eating, you’ll discover:

• How to Cook Vegetables: Master techniques that make produce the star of every meal, moving it from a simple side to the center of the plate.
• Farmer’s Market Recipes: Explore over 100 creative dishes organized by ingredient, showing you how to transform fresh finds into unforgettable meals.
• Flexible for All Diets: While vegetarians will find dozens of new favorites, many recipes also feature meat, poultry, and seafood for the perfect balanced dish.
• A Top Chef Winner Cookbook: Learn the secrets behind Brooke Williamson’s joyful, flavor-packed approach that made her a Food Network champion.

Born and raised in Los Angeles, California, Brooke Williamson has been the youngest female chef to ever cook at the James Beard House, winning Bravo's Top Chef Season 14 and placing as runner up Season 10, and most recently, being crowned the first winner of Food Network's Tournament of Champions. Today, she and her partner run Playa Provisions in Los Angeles, a food collective with two restaurants, an artisanal ice cream shop, and retail store. When she finds time outside of her many ventures, Brooke stays active by running, bike riding, and hanging in and out of the kitchen with her and teenage son, Hudson.