The Butter Book
Everyone loves butter—and now there’s finally a book that celebrates the staple ingredient in all its rich, creamy glory. The Butter Book (Chronicle Books, March 17, 2026) is the most comprehensive butter guide out there: packed with history, reliable kitchen wisdom, and irresistible recipes. Not to mention, it’s designed to look like an actual stick of butter with the classic vellum wrapper, blue typography and velvety yellow pages.
Drawing on years spent in test kitchens, the book’s author Anna Stockwell guides readers through the processes of buying, making and transforming butter—how to whip it, clarify it, brown it, emulsify it—into something magical. Whether butter is the star of the dish or the finishing touch that brings everything together, the recipes and techniques in this book reveal its remarkable power to elevate everyday cooking.
From turning a humble pot of rice into something revelatory to bringing richness to dishes like Butter-Basted Scallops with Beurre Blanc, Butter Roast Chicken, and Butterscotch Pudding, The Butter Book shows why butter is the ingredient cooks return to again and again. Compound butter recipes in flavors like Seaweed, Hot Honey, and Raspberry-Thyme offer fresh inspiration, while step-by-step instructions for crafting butter boards and sculptures add a touch of artistry that blends food, design, and creative entertaining.
This book isn’t just about cooking—it’s about delight. Through twenty irresistible full-color photographs, Stockwell presents a world of collectible butter accessories, clever kitchen ideas, and buttery trivia that link this everyday ingredient to centuries of food culture and craft. Each page brims with the warm, generous spirit of butter itself. From butter boards on TikTok and restaurants serving towering “butter mountains,” to butter-yellow having its moment in fashion and home décor – The Butter Book continues the ingredient’s enduring—and ever-expanding—cultural moment, both inside and outside the kitchen.
Published by Chronicle, March 2026 with photographs by Kate Jordan and book design by Lizzie Vaughan. Available for pre-order now!
For The Table
Hosting a dinner party is a special kind of occasion. You welcome old and new friends into your home and gather around the table. You put out platters of food prepared just for that table of people, passing them around until everyone’s had their fill. This sense of sharing and togetherness feeds more than just bellies. It is what helps us stay connected, form new relationships, and build lasting bonds with our chosen families. During socially distanced times, the perfect dinner party might have felt like a lost art, but in For the Table, Anna provides all the tools needed for bringing back the ritual of hosting memorable yet modern dinner parties.
Anna has written a cookbook for a new way of entertaining that’s simpler, better, healthier, and more fun. Organized by season and full of helpful hosting advice, Anna provides accessible and modern menus; each is built around two large platters to pass around the table and includes suggestions for no-recipe side dishes. Dinner parties don't have to be formal or fussy, or even a lot of work, to be celebratory and gratifying. This book teaches you how to plan and prepare great-tasting and impressive-looking menus that are easy to pull off, as well as offers expert advice on toasts, prep-ahead strategies, and tips on handling guest lists and dietary restrictions. With its mix of innovative food presentation and old-fashioned, homestyle technique, For the Table is a testament to the art of the dinner party and looks forward to the festive dinner gatherings of the future.
Published by Abrams, April 2022, with photographs by Chelsea Kyle and book design by Lizzie Allen.
