Cookbooks today are like a passport to another world. Filled with beautiful photos and delicous recipes they transport us to the lifestyle of the cook or the region they are from. I used to think of cookbooks as simply a reference for recipes, and they were, generally. Now they combine facts, advice, and stories. Whether it is a traditional family recipe passed down through the generations that they have now modernized to suit our current culinary needs or advice on ingredients to change based on ones own health. I love that we can adapt and are not afraid to break with tradition to make a recipe work for the current trend. Food is always evolving, becoming more artistic in it's presentation but also attention to the quality of food is a great concern. I recently read Jeremy Fox's "On Vegetables", where he included in the beginning of his book testaments to the farmers he works with. This is where we are at in the food industry and I could not be happier. The partnership between how and where our food is grown and our chefs is going beyond farm to table. Chefs are getting involved in every aspect of the food they want to work with. There is a sensitivity to what is being prepared. We can flip through a cookbook today and enjoy the photographs, which are an art form, or we can slowly read each word and learn about a culture, a spice, a type of produce, a tradition, a farmer, a method of growing or simply how to make a great dish.