The Vegetable Butcher: How to Select, Prep, Slice, Dice, and Masterfully Cook Vegetables from Artichokes to Zucchini

A root-to-leaf guide to vegetable butchery, with 150 recipes. Winner, IACP Cookbook Awards for Single Subject and People's Choice.

Applying the skills of butchery to the unique anatomy of vegetables—leafy, lumpy, stalky, gnarly, thin-skinned, or softly yielding—Cara Mangini shows, slice by slice, how to break down more than 100 vegetables for their very best use in the kitchen. Here's how to peel a tomato, butcher a butternut squash, cut cauliflower steaks, and chiffonade kale. How to find the tender, meaty heart of an artichoke and transform satellite-shaped kohlrabi into paper-thin rounds, to be served as a refreshing carpaccio.

And then, more than 150 recipes that will forever change the dutiful notion of "eat your veggies"—Grilled Asparagus, Taleggio, and Fried Egg Panini in the spring; summery Zucchini, Sweet Corn, and Basil Penne with Pine Nuts and Mozzarella; and Parsnip-Ginger Layer Cake with Browned Buttercream Frosting to sweeten a winter meal. Plus everything else you need to know to enjoy modern, sexy, and extraordinarily delicious vegetables—and make the the center of the meal.

Cara Mangini was Eataly's first official Vegetable Butcher; she is now the executive chef and owner of littleEATERY and littleEATER salads in Columbus, OH, and writes the "Vegetable Butcher" column for TheKitchn.com. Cara has a culinary arts degree from the National Gourmet Institute in New York City, and has partnered with acclaimed chefs and cookbook authors, working at the James Beard House and as a sous chef at New York's Culinary Loft. Before her pursuits in food, Cara attended the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University, and wrote about fashion for the Chicago Tribune and travel for Conde Nast Traveler. She spent nearly 10 years as an executive in the New York beauty and fashion industry.