If I have one industry hint for your holiday season, it’s this: buy a copy—or three—of Alison Roman’s entertaining-focused cookbook, Nothing Fancy (Clarkson Potter, $32.50), wrap it up, and leave it in your car for any emergency gift-giving. If you have children between the ages of twenty and forty, they will want this book, I promise you. Dining In, the first bestselling cookbook by Bon Appétit and New York Times food writer Alison Roman, lives in every millennial kitchen—right next to the CBD gummies—and while many people grasp for Alison Roman’s casual but precisely modulated mood, only she gets it exactly right. The Ina Garten for the fiddle-leaf fig set, Roman immediately explains Nothing Fancy’s mantra and her unfussy recipes follow: It’s not “entertaining,” it’s having people over. And don’t worry, even if friends aren't millennials, this gorgeously photographed, welcoming cookbook will inspire them and help them understand the new pulse of entertaining.
