Pascale Beale’s Latest Book Favors Flavour

Even 11 cookbooks in, chef-writer Pascale Beale can still surprise herself. While working on her just published Flavour: Savouring the Seasons: Recipes from the Market Table, she returned home from a spring visit to the Santa Barbara Farmers’ Market, one of her favorite sources of inspiration. Hoping to develop a recipe for stuffed zucchini blossoms — despite dreading the mess of the frying process — she ended up with a bit more stuffing than she needed and an extra, tinier blossom. “I wondered,” she recalls, “what would it taste like raw?” So, she stuffed the smaller flower and discovered a deliciousness that amazed her. That led to the oil-free recipe you can find in the new collection.

Those familiar with Beale’s previous books will find Flavour a kind of culmination — seasonally driven, largely plant-based, lavishly photographed, each dish meticulously styled. Its almost 150 all-new recipes continue to be “absolutely influenced by all the countries around the Mediterranean,” as Beale puts it, “but French with a Provencal tilt — less cream and butter and more olive oil, fruit, and veg.” That leads to dishes with names to drool over, from summer’s Chive, Tarragon, and Asparagus Dutch Baby to winter’s Roasted Celeriac “Steaks” with Sauté of Wild Mushrooms (and here’s to a chanterelle season as abundant as the last).

Since the book features seasonal recipes, it took the Santa Barbara–based Beale a full year to develop, test, and shoot each section. This is her first print book for which she did all the photography, too, as her longtime lensman Mike Verbois moved from Santa Barbara. In the past, with Verbois, she could shoot six or seven dishes a day. On her own, on a good day: three, tops. That meant chasing the perfect natural light — a chore in the winter months — and continuing her typical meticulous styling of each shot. For example, you might not guess how many ways that lovely, red-striped tablecloth appeared in one photo.

Flavour immediately follows the release of Beale’s food memoir, 9′ x 12′: Culinary Adventures in a Small Kitchen: Recipes for Stirring Times, a subscription-based, multimedia work available on Substack. Beale came to Substack, following other food content creators over from Instagram — where she kept her Market Table brand alive during COVID by offering cooking videos for 100 straight days. She says, “I realized I could release a book in steps, like Charles Dickens, a chapter a month.” The book 9′ x 12′ is in two parts — the first telling the tale of how she became a cookbook maven after the field of property management brought her to the States 34 years ago, and the second relating what it took to create the book Flavour.

And all that work is far from done — 9′ x 12′ ends with a daunting slog of the ways a writer flogs a book after its publication. Still, Beale is a pro at promotion, with a full schedule of appearances, classes, and demos on the books. “Once done with the creation part, all the grunt work begins,” she says. “They take very different skills. And it’s not necessarily as much fun — you don’t get to eat the product.”

Pascale Beale will do a book talk and signing of Flavour at Chaucer’s Books (3321 State St.) on Tuesday, November 12, at 6 p.m. See bit.ly/4dOoqFE. On Wednesday, November 13, 6-8:30 p.m., Santa Barbara Women’s Literary Voices will host a special salon and live cooking demonstration called Savouring Her Words, an evening with Pascale Beale, at A to Z Cooking School (2300 Garden St.). Tickets are $40. See bit.ly/4dRbWx3 for purchase and details. For more information about Pascale Beale and to purchase books, see pascaleskitchen.com.