Do you know Ben Mims? He’s a James Beard Award-nominated cookbook author and food writer; he’s a former cooking columnist for the Los Angeles Times and has written for many other places you know, like Food & Wine and Saveur. He has written a handful of cookbooks, the most recent of which is one of the nerdiest books I’ve ever seen, and I mean that as a big compliment – I think I even told him that in the interview you’re about to hear.
It’s called Crumbs: Cookies and Sweets from Around the World. The book is organized geographically and is full of – 300 recipes in total – old-world and modern classics, plus local recipes from more than 100 countries. And some of the origin stories — which we get to — are so much fun. I’ve admired Ben’s writing for a while now, and we thought December would be a great time to talk cookies with, let’s face it, maybe the world’s most preeminent cookie scholar at this point. We had so much fun with Ben — we had to cut a lot from this interview to ensure it wasn’t hours long, but don’t worry, we saved the good stuff for you.
Get Ben’s recipes for Egyptian Stuffed Eid Cookies and Brown Sugar Cinnamon Cookies (Speculoos) here and here.
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