Cook with a surprise ingredient, understand modern-day manners and build an herbal arsenal with the help of these three engaging reads.

★ The Duke’s Mayonnaise Cookbook

My first thought upon discovering The Duke’s Mayonnaise Cookbook was: an entire cookbook devoted to . . . mayonnaise? Risky business. My second thought was: But . .  . it’s Duke’s, a brand with a cult following—especially in the American South, where I live. And when you’ve got a following like Duke’s, you do what you want—like show up in a recipe for peppermint fudge brownies. Ashley Strickland Freeman makes a strong case that Duke’s belongs in brownies, as well as in many other seemingly unlikely recipes, because mayo is “a beautiful emulsification of eggs and oil and a touch of vinegar for acidity, all ingredients vital to cooking and baking.” Her cookbook makes my mouth water, with crowd-pleasers such as bananas Foster bread with browned butter-rum glaze, pimento cheese grits and firecracker shrimp tacos. And of course, there’s elote—delicious Mexican street corn slathered in mayonnaise.

Minding Miss Manners

In Minding Miss Manners, Judith Martin’s arch, acid wit laces every lesson on behaving with propriety in a culture where monstrous jerks are, more than ever, on parade and in power. “A new era of freedom to be loutish, pushy, vicious, and hateful is upon us,” she writes. “That an etiquette-free society would be a joyous, or even livable, one must be the biggest social hoax since it was declared that Americans’ basic problem was sexual puritanism, and if all were acting freely on their desires, everyone would be happy, and there would be no more sex crimes. We are now forced to see how that has played out.” Ahem! This book is bracingly funny and full of pitch-perfect truth bombs for our very weird and wooly times. 

Plant Magic

For Christine Buckley, herbalism is more than just the process of using plants for their beneficial properties. It’s a way of being in the world—more in tune with the earth and mindful of one’s own interconnected mind, body and spirit. In Plant Magic, Buckley takes us deep into the practice of herbalism, showing us how to cultivate a meaningful relationship with the plant life around us. Her “herbal arsenal” details 21 of the most useful and accessible plants, such as cinnamon, thyme, lemon balm and ginger. Roost makes gorgeous books, and this one is no exception