Author Jerrelle Guy Shares Cookbooks That Inspired Her Own

With her second cookbook, Jerrelle Guy teaches us how to make the everyday extraordinary. We Fancy: Simple Recipes to Make the Everyday Special (Simon Element), came as part of Guy’s own recovery after hitting an emotional low during and after the pandemic. She used a moment of burnout to pause and examine why she was pushing herself so hard and reframe how she could build a life centered around wellbeing. That started with what she was cooking for herself and finding ways to reignite her love for making herself a meal. “Being fancy is a lifestyle. It is a mindset, a way of interacting with and moving through the world,” she writes. The book is packed with recipes that are meant to bring a bit of whimsy and joy into an everyday meal plan—and nearly all of them are vegetable-forward with very little use of beef, pork, or chicken. The goal of the book, she says, “is to help you generate ideas, trust your intuition, and cook and eat with agency.” We checked in with Guy, who uses her cookbook library with intention, before her book’s launch to learn more about this latest project and which cookbooks have inspired her along the way.