Before Lindsay-Jean Hard joined the staff of Zingerman’s— the famed, Ann Arbor community of businesses that includes a deli, bakery, mail order company, and many more offshoots—she was Food52’s OG community editor. She created the Food52 Cookbook Club and Baking Club, sparked conversation in the comments and on the Hotline, and applied her background in urban planning and sustainability to Cooking With Scraps, a Food52 column focused on food waste that she turned into an IACP Award-nominated cookbook of the same name.
Knowing her affinity for making the most of every ingredient, it’s easy to trace the lineage of the Oh So A-Peeling Banana Bread in the new cookbook that she co-authored, Zingerman’s Bakehouse Celebrate Every Day: A Year’s Worth of Favorite Recipes for Festive Occasions, Big and Small, back to Lindsay-Jean. This riff on her Genius Banana Peel Cake is a personal favorite, she said, “in part, because it is a solid version of a classic that is ready for any tweak you want to throw at it. But also because I’m proud of the fact that I helped reduce food waste at the Bakehouse with a tweak to their original recipe—it now uses the whole banana, peel and all!”
Recently, Lindsay-Jean stopped by the Food52 HQ while visiting New York for the launch of the book, which took shape during the pandemic. Throughout COVID, customers continued to come to Zingerman’s for cakes and baked goods to celebrate birthdays, anniversaries, and other milestones. It was a reminder of the ways that food punctuates the moments of our lives, and Zingerman’s set out to create a cookbook honoring that tradition—by pairing big holidays and small occasions with recipes. Unlike the first Zingerman’s cookbook, Zingerman’s Bakehouse, which is geared toward experienced bakers, Celebrate Every Day is meant for all skill levels and is filled with easy bakes like cookies, rolls, and cakes, along with seasonal soups and stews.
The cookbook pairs the recipe I asked Lindsay-Jean to make for us, Moroccan Harira Soup, with World Kindness Day, celebrated on November 13. I lived on this soup while traveling throughout Morocco in my twenties, but instead of the lamb-based broth sprinkled with vermicelli noodles that I slurped on, the Zingerman’s recipe is vegan and gluten-free, loaded with lentils, chickpeas, and vegetables, and spiced with cumin and harissa, for a substantial, fall soup that packs a little heat. Watch her make it here—and if you want to try your hands at a quick baking project, the za’atar-spiced flatbreads from the cookbook would be the perfect thing to dunk in it.
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