Sarah Owens is a horticulturalist first and a baker second, and Heirloom is what happens when someone who knows plants that well turns to the stove. One hundred and twenty recipes, arranged around ingredients rather than courses, each one written to bring out the specific flavour of the specific variety in front of you.

Underneath the recipes sits the older layer: the traditional preserving techniques that let a household eat well through a winter. Fermenting, curing, drying, potting, infusing. She explains the plants themselves, where the traditions came from, and why they still hold up in a modern kitchen.

This is a book for the cook who has moved past following recipes and wants to understand what the ingredient is capable of. Ngoc Minh Ngo photographed it, and it is stunning on a counter.