Our number-one book is one that over several months, I kept trying to nail down a perfect time and place to mention, so this is gonna be it, which is perfect:



There's been a wave of "healthful" plant-based cookbooks over the past few years from the cardiologists and biochemists at The China Study, Forks Over Knives, Plant Pure Nation and such. But Mark Reinfeld has raised the bar on the genre with his latest, bringing together his training as a chef with a masters degree in holistic nutrition for a cookbook that's about more than health and more than cooking.



That's easy to see from the many intro chapters that lay out the health benefits of a Whole Foods Plant-Based diet, including both explications and testimonials from most of the top experts in the scientific subject area. Even the recipes and meal plans, Reinfeld pointed out in an email correspondence, were vetted by Dr. Hans Diehl, founder of the CHIP program, and "all are relatively low in sodium, have oil-free variations for those on an oil-free diet, and contain more wholesome sweeteners than their conventional alternatives. I also introduce the idea of a template recipe and show how one recipe can transform into hundreds or thousands of variations." Reinfeld ends the book with charts and appendices listing "which nutrients are important for each body system, what the nutrients do, and what are the plant based sources."



All of this would be academic, of course, if Reinfeld didn't know his way around a kitchen. And he sure does: Somehow he's approached the spectrum where more tasty is on one end and more healthful is on the other and collapsed the scale into one perfect blend that maximizes both. I can say this as a multiyear attendee of Vegetarian Summerfest, where Reinfeld has for the past few years designed all the meals we eat. I asked him whether he'd been forcing good health on us by implementing these recipes there: "There are some Summerfest recipes I introduced last year with recipes from the book," he replied, "and I plan on including several more this year. So yes...you have been eating healthy without knowing it (unless you only ate at the pizza station!)"



One of his skills is in healthifying well-loved junk food staples. Reinfeld cited the book's tempeh-based Sloppy Joe made and Cauliflower Mushroom Tacos with cashew sour cream as examples of reconceiving less healthful dishes in a healing direction. Whatever ones you choose to try, Healing the Vegan Way offers not just recipes to heal but to inform, educate and delight the palates of everybody who's willing to eat vegan food. A welcome contribution to any kitchen bookshelf.



* The Superfun Times Vegan Holiday Cookbook by Isa Chandra Moskowitz (Little, Brown)

As mentioned in my recent column on vegan holiday cookies, this book is an overstuffed party tray of sassy, snazzy vegan creations from Moskowitz, who managed to put this together while running two locations (Omaha, Brooklyn) of her restaurant Modern Love. The theme is celebrations, but that covers a lot of fun stuff, from Spaghetti and Eyeballs to Green Falafel to Cheeseburger Pizza, all delivered with eye-poppingly colorful photos and prose.



* 100 Best Vegan Recipes by Robin Robertson (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)