Recommendations – KARACOOKS

This is an ongoing list of things I actually use, read, cook with, garden with, and love. It started as a way to point people toward the cookbooks and spices and tools that shape how I cook, and it’s growing into something broader — yoga, makers I follow, kitchen equipment, garden suppliers, books I keep recommending. Anything that takes my fancy and seems worth sharing.

A note on links: anything marked (affiliate) is an affiliate link, which means I get a small percentage at no extra cost to you if you order through it. Anything marked (referral) is a personal referral code that earns me a credit or discount when you sign up. Everything else is just a regular link. The vast majority of what’s on this page falls into that last category. I only put things here that I actually use and would recommend regardless.

Cookbooks & Food Writing

The Cooking Gene by Michael Twitty — The book that changed how I think about Southern food. I’ve read it twice. If you only read one cookbook-adjacent book this year, read this one.
High on the Hog: A Culinary Journey from Africa to America by Jessica B. Harris — The foundational text on African American foodways. Required reading.
Jubilee: Recipes from Two Centuries of African American Cooking by Toni Tipton-Martin — Two hundred years of Black American cooking, properly credited and properly celebrated.
Black Food: Stories, Art, and Recipes from Across the African Diaspora edited by Bryant Terry — A gorgeous anthology that goes beyond the American South.
Mosquito Supper Club: Cajun Recipes from a Disappearing Bayou by Melissa M. Martin — Cajun food, the bayou, climate change, family. All of it.
Ratio: The Simple Codes Behind the Craft of Everyday Cooking by Michael Ruhlman — The book that taught me to stop following recipes slavishly.
Appetites: A Cookbook by Anthony Bourdain — The Bourdain cookbook for actually cooking from, not the one for coffee tables.

Spices & Pantry

Penzey’s Spices — I won’t buy spices anywhere else. The quality is excellent and Bill Penzey is one of the few business owners using his platform to speak up. I have a whole post on why I’m a Penzey’s loyalist.
Equal Exchange Organic Baking Cocoa — Swapped this in for Hershey’s after I learned more about the chocolate supply chain. Fair trade, organic, and the cocoa itself is better.
True Nutrition — Unflavored, unsweetened protein powder. I’ve ordered from them for years. It dissolves completely and goes in everything from smoothies to baked goods.

Kitchen Equipment

The Mill food recycler (referral) — I lease the Mill (white model) and it has fundamentally changed our kitchen. Food scraps go in, dried grounds come out, no smell, no fruit flies, no rotting in the bin between trash days. The referral link saves you $150 on a purchase or gets me a $100 lease credit, depending on how you sign up.

More to come as I write up the things I actually use — the Kamado Joe, the cast iron, the camera, the sous vide setup.

Fitness & Wellbeing

Yoga with Adriene — My all-time favorite online yoga. Free on YouTube, deeper library on her membership site. Adriene is calm, her dog Benji is in every video, and she does not yell at you. After fifteen years of trying to find a yoga teacher who worked for me, I found her and stopped looking.

This page grows. If something I’ve mentioned in a post isn’t here yet, it will be. Last updated: May 11, 2026.