Andy Baraghani started his professional cooking career as a teenager at Chez Panisse in Berkeley, California, and the acclaimed New York restaurant Estela. He then worked as a writer and test kitchen cook at Saveur and Tasting Table before joining Bon Appetit as a senior editor. Baraghani played a key role in building Bon Appetit's Healthyish vertical and popularising the brand's instructional videos on YouTube, including hosting his own series, Andy Explores. As the child of parents who emigrated to California from Iran in 1976, Andy grew up knowing that yogurt should always be within arm's reach.
The Cook You Want to Be is explosive, but maybe not in the way you'd think. Andy fills the pages with tiny changes, little tricks, tiny adjustments, small lessons that transform your cooking, from everyday home-cooking to really restaurant-level dazzle. -- Helen Rosner * The New Yorker Radio Hour podcast * Chef Andy Baraghani doesn't just want to inflame your taste buds, he wants to inflame your curiosity. The gay Iranian American's The Cook You Want to Be: Everyday Recipes to Impress is more than a simple cookbook. Baraghani wants you to learn something about cooking-and in the process, the world. -- Jacob Anderson-Minshall * The Advocate * I adore Baraghani's approach to cooking, which emphasizes using your intuition and senses, feeling the food in your hands and tasting as you go. -- G. Daniela Galarza * The Washington Post * Andy's new cookbook, The Cook You Want to Be, is a bright and lavish collection of recipes inspired by his travels, his Persian family, his restaurant experience, and his time in Bon Appétit's test kitchen. -- Alex Beggs * Bon Appétit * . . . one of the few people whose cooking I trust to be flawless every time. . . . Whichever recipes of his you make, it's guaranteed that they'll not only make you the cook you want to be, but also will possess all the flavors you'll ever want to eat. -- Ben Mims * Los Angeles Times *