Next up in my list of favorite cookbooks for entertaining and everyday living is Thomas Keller’s Ad Hoc at Home. I love the concept for Keller’s restaurant, Ad Hoc. Simple, four-course dinner menus changing daily — making it feel like you are dropping in to someone’s home for dinner. The cookbook reflects that concept.

The design and layout of the cookbook make it a fun read. Recipes appear with lots of white space, the pages peppered with helpful kitchen tips.

Interspersed between the recipes are more helpful tips from Keller, like key salad combinations, how to break down a chicken, and creating a classic tapenade.

We recently made Keller’s chicken pot pie, which took no less than five hours throughout the day to make, but was the best pot pie we’ve ever tasted. The peppercorn-crusted beef tenderloin was also worth it and was really easy to make.

Ad Hoc at Home makes for a beautiful engagement, birthday, or Christmas gift (in fact ours was a Christmas gift from dear friends).

Stay tuned for more highlights from my cookbook collection as we work our way through some of the books in my new kitchen cookbook shelves!