Linger (Salads, Sweets and Stories to Savor: A Cookbook)

“My culinary life began with salad. A charred broccoli salad, to be specific. Crispy florets tossed with chickpeas and cooling mint, flecked with red chilli pepper and zested lemon peel, bathed in a garlicky caper oil. That salad inspired me to consider possibilities. It ultimately led me here.”

From her salad-delivery days in Sydney to her current career as a food writer and bestselling cookbook author in New York, Hetty Lui McKinnon has long known the power of salads to connect and create community. Salads are meant to be shared; they are what you bring to a gathering of friends or family, the ultimate comfort food.

With Linger, Hetty has come full circle. Rather than delivering salads to members of her community, this time, she has invited friends into her home, to share salads, sweets and stories around her dining room table. Linger documents these intimate gatherings, with vegetable-laden, loosely seasonal menus enjoyed and photographed in real time.

These salads are not just piles of leafy greens—they are beautiful, rich creations. In fact, one of Hetty’s salad rules is that salads don’t always need to have leaves. Another salad rule? Anything can be a salad.

With over 100 inventive recipes for meal-worthy salads, smaller bites and simple sweets, Hetty invites you to become a part of an unforgettable shared experience of community, food and friendship.

Recipes include:

• Caprese Salad with Grilled Pineapple

• Bimbimbap-style Gnocchi with Gochujang Vinaigrette

• Rice Paper Spring Roll Salad

• Sunchoke and Cannellini Beans with Never-ending Tahini Sauce

• Peaches and Cream with Chili Crisp

• Mushroom, Seaweed and White Bean Burger Salad