A Late, Short, and Shameless Christmas Gift Guide
TLDR: please buy my books
Hello, fellow 24 hour pancake people, and season’s greetings. Christmas is now less than a week away, so in the off chance that you haven’t done all your shopping, here are some things I’ve enjoyed that people in your life might also enjoy. It’s actually probably too late now to get these things delivered on time, but like… maybe New Year’s presents are also a thing?! Or whatever, there’s always next Christmas, and birthdays and stuff!
1. Tim Anderson books that aren’t JapanEasy
Look, the JapanEasy books are a fine addition to any home kitchen library, especially if you’re new to Japanese cooking and want to learn the basics. I suppose that’s why they sell better than the others. But I’ve got three other titles that I think deserve more attention (and more sales): Your Home Izakaya, Hokkaido, and Microwave Meals.
The recipes in Your Home Izakaya are just as doable as those in the JapanEasy books, so it’s great for everyday cooking as well as entertaining. The flavors here are strong and punchy – dishes like steamed egg tofu with mapo sauce, stir-fried cabbage and bacon with curry butter, and and fish finger temaki are some of my all-time favorites. The book does assume familiarity with Japanese ingredients, but when it comes to unfamiliar ingredients, I’m a big fan of, you know, Google. And Your Home Izakaya makes a particularly festive Christmas gift because of its red, green, and off-white color scheme, with tinsel-y touches of gold foiling!
Hokkaido is my magnum opus. This is a book I dreamed about writing for years, and put more work into than any other project except for my restaurant. The recipes range from super simple to prohibitively difficult, but to be honest, I don’t care that much if you cook from Hokkaido. I just want you to read it, and to enjoy it as a visual object. Evi O has created outstanding designs for all of my books, but I think this one is the most beautiful, and Laura Edwards (who shot most of my books) captured the calm and rusticity of Hokkaido perfectly. I can almost feel a chill in the air when I look at her shot of Hakodate ramen.
We were all so excited about Microwave Meals. Honest to god, I daydreamed about selling a million copies and moving into a larger house, which I would call “Microwave Manor.” I was going to do for microwaves what Rukmini Iyer did for roasting tins. But alas, it was not to be – it’s an air fryer world now, and we’re all just living in it. Even though the sales figures are frankly pathetic, I’m still proud of my little microwave book, and I myself cook from it more than any of my others. Venison and bacon cottage pie, crab and artichoke gratin, miso walnut brownies, the easiest cheese sauce: with recipes like these, Microwave Meals spends more time on my countertop than it does on my shelf.
2. Books that aren’t Tim Anderson books at all
This “gift guide” may be a shameless plug, but it’s not just a shameless plug. These were some of my favorite books in 2025 (though not all of them actually came out in 2025), and you should buy them.
An A-Z of Chinese Food by Jenny Lau: An enlightening, thought-provoking, and incredibly fun series of essays on topics related to Chinese food from one of the greatest minds in British food writing.
Ducks by Kate Beaton: A contemplative look at what goes on in the insular world of Canadian oil sands, acting as a microcosm of society’s broader problems with capitalism, environmental destruction, and misogyny. But because it’s Kate Beaton, there’s humor and light along with the darkness, and even the most minor characters are drawn with depth and humanity.
How to Hide an Empire by Daniel Immerwahr: This book tells the story of the USA’s empire through rigorous research and a flair for absurd details, like how the US claimed dozens of tiny islands solely for guano, and how early American buildings in the Philippines rapidly decayed because colonial administrators insisted on building them out of American timber unsuitable for tropical humidity.
Ferment by Kenji Morimoto: Just a damn good book about fermented food by a damn good fermenting dude!
Jughead, Volume 2: My favorite kind of comedy: smart and so, so stupid at the same time. Jughead falls in love with a woman in a burger costume who turns out to be (spoiler!) Sabrina the teenage witch. I read these with my daughter but I think I like them more than she does.
The Snack Hacker by George Egg: I like things that seem to be cobbled together from a lifetime of accumulated cultural and pop-cultural detritus. This is like that, in a cookbook: recipes that are familiar yet bizarre at the same time, made with a fine mix of creativity, nostalgia, and heartfelt affection.
The Japanese Pantry by Emiko Davies: This book has done something very rare in Japanese cookbooks, which is to be serious and scholarly, but simple and straightforward at the same time. It’s excellent.
The Pit Magazine “eye-opening” bundle: Alright so these kind of are Tim Anderson books, except they’re not books, and I was only a contributor to them. The beans issue is, um, full of beans (delicious beans!); the MSG issue is full of fascinating, multicultural explorations of MSG and umami (and was guest edited by MSG evangelist MiMi Aye); and the USA issue is revelatory and inspiring, if I may say so. (It was guest edited by myself and Anna Ansari – whose beautiful Silk Roads also deserves a mention!)
3. Rook perfumes
Tired of smelling Santal 33 absolutely everywhere (including on your own body)? ME TOO. Also, I see dudes at the gym – grown-ass dudes – using Lynx body spray, a product that smells how pubescent boys think sexy men are supposed to smell. This is just not acceptable. Get a better scent!
I don’t know how I first came across Rook, but I’ve been buying their perfumes (or requesting them as gifts) for a few years now. They are totally unique – all of them are a little bit weird, evoking distinct but hard-to-place things like the smell of rain, old books, and Buddhist temples. My favorites are Forest, which smells strongly of cypress and pine but somehow doesn’t make you smell like a Christmas tree; Amber, which smells like really expensive Scotch but somehow doesn’t make you smell like an alcoholic; and Undergrowth, which is so earthy and petrichor-y that it actually makes me feel a little depressed when the weather’s bad (but I still love it). There are a few Rook scents I’m not that keen on (I think Thurible smells exactly like Old Spice) but you can get the little sampler sets and find the right one for you.
That’s it! Something for everyone I reckon. Merry Christmas, folks!
Late, short AND shameless! Easily my favourite gift guide and not just because it has Pit
I got samples of the Rook Jaffa and Faqqua Iris because their Palestinian fragrances donate a portion of proceeds. Absolutely gorgeous perfumes, but they have the worst longevity of any fragrance I can remember trying.