FUSAO

Belfrage's follow-up to Mezcla turns toward Brazil, the country of her mother's birth, and the book is explicit that it isn't attempting to be a comprehensive primer on Brazilian cuisine. Instead it's structured as a series of regional deep-dives built from her own repeated visits, which lets her include dishes, like a clam moqueca finished with a coriander-lime vinaigrette and served alongside whole roasted plaice, that read as personal reinterpretations rather than claims to authenticity. Reviewers have consistently singled out the produce-forward brightness of the recipes and the way Belfrage uses headnotes and family anecdotes to explain why she's changed a classic rather than simply presenting the change. It's a cookbook about partial belonging as much as it is about food.