Linger: Salads, Sweets and Stories to Savor: A Cookbook cover image
Linger: Salads, Sweets and Stories to Savor: A Cookbook cover image

Linger: Salads, Sweets and Stories to Savor: A Cookbook

by Hetty Lui McKinnon
Publication date: October 7, 2025
Hardcover
Regular price $40.00 USD
Sale price $40.00 USD Regular price
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Product description

“My culinary life began with salad. A charred broccoli salad, to be specific. Crispy florets tossed with chickpeas and cooling mint, flecked with red chilli pepper and zested lemon peel, bathed in a garlicky caper oil. That salad inspired me to consider possibilities. It ultimately led me here.”

From her salad-delivery days in Sydney to her current career as a food writer and bestselling cookbook author in New York, Hetty Lui McKinnon has long known the power of salads to connect and create community. Salads are meant to be shared; they are what you bring to a gathering of friends or family, the ultimate comfort food.

With Linger, Hetty has come full circle. Rather than delivering salads to members of her community, this time, she has invited friends into her home, to share salads, sweets and stories around her dining room table. Linger documents these intimate gatherings, with vegetable-laden, loosely seasonal menus enjoyed and photographed in real time.

These salads are not just piles of leafy greens—they are beautiful, rich creations. In fact, one of Hetty’s salad rules is that salads don’t always need to have leaves. Another salad rule? Anything can be a salad.

With over 100 inventive recipes for meal-worthy salads, smaller bites and simple sweets, Hetty invites you to become a part of an unforgettable shared experience of community, food and friendship.

* Caprese Salad with Grilled Pineapple
* Bibimbap-style Gnocchi with Gochujang Vinaigrette
* Rice Paper Spring Roll Salad
* Sunchoke and Cannellini Beans with Never-ending Tahini Sauce
* Peaches and Cream with Chili Crisp
* Mushroom, Seaweed and White Bean Burger Salad

Physical Info: 2.79 cms H x 25.65 cms L x 20.83 cms W (1.32 kgs) 312 pages

ONE OF THE BEST COOKBOOKS OF 2025:The Washington Post, The Strategist,Bon Appétit, The Boston Globe,Slate, Serious Eats,andSaveur"Hetty McKinnon doesn't write great vegetarian recipes, she just writes great recipes."

--Nigella Lawson In her follow-up to the James Beard award-winning cookbookTender heart, Hetty Lui McKinnon returns withLinger, a cookbook for those looking to up their salad game. These colorful main-meal salads are inventive and hearty, packed with vegetables and globally-inspired flavors. Linger proves that salads are the most versatile dish, perfect for weeknight dinners, not-sad-desk-lunches, and as a show-stopping celebration meal.

From her salad-delivery days in Sydney to her current career as a food writer and bestselling cookbook author in New York, Hetty has long known the power of salads to connect and create community. InLinger, Hetty presents her salads, sweets and stories in twelve vibrant, loosely-seasonal menus -- each of which have their own playlist -- that are the perfect blueprint for gathering and entertaining.

Over 100 recipes, including:- Caprese Salad with Grilled Pineapple
- Mapo Tofu salad
- Cauliflower Larb
- French Onion Salad
- Curry Potato-and-Pea Dumpling Salad
- Potato Salad Tartine
- Vegan Dan Dan salad
- Roasted Spiced Carrots and Crispy Tofu with Agrodolce- Tomato and Kimchi Pasta Salad - Butternut with Lentils, Olives, and Pickle Sauce
- Plus sweets like Hong Kong Milk Tea Tres Leches and Matcha and Ginger Custard Tart!

HETTY LUI McKINNON is a Chinese Australian cook and food writer. She is the author of five bestselling cookbooks, including her genre-defining Community; Neighborhood; Family; To Asia, With Love; and, most recently, Tender heart, which won a James Beard Award and an IACP Award in 2024. Hetty is a regular contributor to New York Times Cooking and ABC Lifestyle and writes the popular weekly newsletter To Vegetables, With Love. Born and raised in Sydney, she now resides in Brooklyn, New York.