I Love NY is worth owning. Butis worth owning.

The cookbook is organized by ingredients — specifically Humm and Guidara's 55 favorite New York ingredients — with short essays dedicated to the local farmers that cultivate them best. Through the farmers' personal histories, the book seeks to define a culinary identity for New York City. Preceding a recipe for Fish and Chips, for example, the book tells the story of Long Island's Lester family, who work to preserve a gentle, sustainable small-capacity fluke fishing business.

The authors really want you to cook this food, which they've dumbed down from their first cookbook, the James-Beard nominated Eleven Madison Park. Unfortunately, it's not quite simplified enough: a few pages after that fish and chips, you'll find yourself looking at a recipe for Milk and Honey, for which "Milk Ice" and "Dehydrated Milk Foam" are only two of the four sub recipes. The authors are perhaps a little optimistic about the average American cook.

That said, it's undeniably useful to home cooks when a chef like Humm reveals the techniques and flavor combinations behind his food. Because eventually those approaches — for example, his infused vinegars that appear again and again in I Love NY — will find their way into food magazines, morning shows, and eventually influence grocery store trends.

It's equally important to pay attention to the way a chef like Humm does the basics — roast chicken, grilled cheese, tuna salad — because he understands process and ingredients better than the average American cook.