Cooks' Books by Lisa Messinger

"The Food52 Cookbook: 140 Winning Recipes From Exceptional Home Cooks" by Amanda Hesser and Merrill Stubbs and the Food52 Community (William Morrow, $35).

It's home cooks who fuel the thriving cookbook market. They're the buyers and decision-makers when it comes to what's hot and what's not. Until the Internet came along, though, many home cooks probably didn't realize just how awesome a lot of their peers were.

With the birth of websites such as Food52.com, which features more than 12,000 recipes from contributors nationwide and brings in 500,000 visitors a month, that all changed. Food52 was founded by former star New York Times food writer and best-selling cookbook author Amanda Hesser and her fellow food-writing chum, Merrill Stubbs. Soon it was named "Best of the Web" by Saveur Magazine.

Hesser and Stubbs thought it would be even better if they ran a yearlong weekly contest in which participants competed with submissions in various categories. Those topics now make up the seasonally divided sections of "The Food52 Cookbook: 140 Winning Recipes From Exceptional Home Cooks," the first cookbook published from an online community.

"Community" is apropos, especially for a site like Food52, where recipes, tips, stories and comments fly back and forth nonstop. Hesser and Stubbs note that they've found the best recipes and techniques of their long careers by clicking around Food52.

"We love spending time in the kitchen," they write, "and we believe, like many cooks out there — both professional and amateur — that memorable cooking doesn't have to be complicated or precious. It's about discovering that frying an egg in olive oil over high heat gives the white a great crackly texture, that slashing the legs of a chicken before roasting allows the dark and white meat to cook evenly, that maple syrup adds not only sweetness but depth to an otherwise ho-hum vinaigrette."

Other finds reflective of some of the winning recipes:

— Chickpeas are amazing when smoky and fried.

— Hazelnuts shine when they are honeyed and salted.

— Lavender is a wonderful addition to biscuits that are then halved and served filled with strawberries and creme fraiche and garnished with more lavender and fresh mint.

— Toasted coconut makes gelato sing.

Color photographs in the 400-plus-page tome, many featuring shots of step-by-step techniques, are helpful, as are the written tips after each recipe.

Each cook also gets a small bio with the recipe and thumbnail photo in the back of the book. It may not make them quite as famous as TV chefs or acclaimed restaurateurs, but this book proves their dishes to be more than worthy.

SMOKY FRIED CHICKPEAS

— 2 one-pound, 13-ounce cans chickpeas (see note)

— 1 cup olive oil

— 1 tablespoon lemon zest, in thin strips

— 1 fresh thyme sprig

— 4 garlic cloves, sliced

— 1 tablespoon smoked paprika (sweet or hot)

— Coarse salt, to taste

Yields four appetizer-size servings.

Drain chickpeas and set on paper towels in a colander to dry thoroughly.

Heat the oil in a large pan (preferably cast iron) to 350 degrees F, or until the oil makes bubbles around a single chickpea when you drop it in. (See Note.)

Add the lemon zest, thyme sprig and chickpeas in batches so the pan doesn't crowd. Fry each batch for about 5 minutes, until the chickpeas darken and are crunchy.

Carefully remove the chickpeas, zest and thyme from the oil with a slotted spoon and drain well over a colander or sieve. After you've fried the last batch, add the garlic to the oil and fry briefly until golden. Remove and drain.

Toss the chickpeas and garlic with the smoked paprika and salt, adding more to taste. Serve it right away while still warm and crisp.

Note: Make sure the chickpeas are as dry as you can get them, and do be careful while frying (use a splatter screen in you have one). It's worth a little experimenting to find a brand of chickpeas that spit the least while frying but still stay tender in the middle.

HONEYED, SALTED HAZELNUTS

— 1/2 cup hazelnuts

— 1 teaspoon extra-virgin olive oil

— 1 teaspoon (preferably sea) salt

— 2 teaspoons honey

Yields two snack-size servings (or, roughly chopped, can be used in recipes with four to six servings).

Heat oven to 350 degrees F.

Place hazelnuts in a small mixing bowl and toss with olive oil and sea salt. Add honey and toss once more to coat.

Transfer the nuts to a baking sheet lined with parchment paper and toast, stirring at least once, until the nuts are golden, about 10 minutes. Remove from the oven, let cool completely. Eat as-is as snack or roughly chop, if necessary, for recipes.

Lisa Messinger is a first-place winner in food writing from the Association of Food Journalists and the author of seven food books, including "Mrs. Cubbison's Best Stuffing Cookbook" and "The Sourdough Bread Bowl Cookbook." She also writes the Creators News Service "After-Work Gourmet" column. To find out more about Lisa Messinger and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

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