Brooke Williamson has worn many hats in the culinary world—Top Chef champion, Food Network titan, and the chef-owner behind Playa Provisions in Los Angeles. But before all of that, she was just a kid wandering through her mom’s backyard garden, waiting for the first mulberries of the season to ripen.

“I always knew what time of year it was based on the food we were eating,” she says. “The artichokes would start growing, the tangerines were almost ready—it was exciting to know what was coming next.”

That deep connection to seasonality and produce shaped her career in ways she didn’t fully realize until now. In her first cookbook, Sun-Kissed Cooking: Vegetables Front & Center, Williamson isn’t asking people to go vegetarian—she’s simply inviting them to see vegetables differently.

More Than a Side Dish

“I develop a dish in my head based around the vegetable, not the protein,” Williamson explains. “And I think that’s relatively unique.”

While most chefs build plates around a central protein, Williamson’s creative process starts with what’s fresh, what’s in season, and what excites her. It’s an approach rooted in her childhood, when she’d pick fruit from the garden to put in pancakes or anticipate which vegetables would appear on the dinner table.

That’s why Sun-Kissed Cooking isn’t a vegetarian cookbook—it’s a book about making vegetables the star in a way that feels organic, effortless, and exciting. Many of the recipes include meat, but as a supporting ingredient, not the focus. “Proteins in the book are used as flavor enhancers—to add umami, texture, or balance,” she says.

Food as Memory

For Williamson, flavors aren’t just about taste—they’re tied to memory. Some of the recipes in Sun-Kissed Cooking are directly inspired by her childhood, like the apple and endive salad, a dish that’s been on her family’s Thanksgiving table for generations.

Then there’s the miso maple roasted acorn squash, a recipe that brings her back to the sweet, buttery squash her mother made when she was growing up.

“It felt like we were eating dessert for dinner,” she laughs. “My mom was the type to give out raisins at Halloween and serve Grape Nuts for breakfast. So anything that tasted remotely indulgent was a treat.”

Other recipes reflect her later culinary discoveries—like okra, a vegetable she didn’t fully appreciate until adulthood. “I think okra is so underrated,” she says. “A lot of people don’t like it because of the texture, but if it’s prepared right, it’s amazing. The dish in my book is okra for beginners—let me make you fall in love with it.”

Helping Home Cooks See Vegetables Differently

At its core, Sun-Kissed Cooking isn’t about telling people how to cook—it’s about giving them new ways to think about ingredients.

“I think people eat in a very different way now than they did ten years ago,” Williamson says. “A vegetable-focused book doesn’t feel niche anymore—it feels natural.”

She hopes readers use the book to rediscover familiar ingredients in new ways, whether through a vinaigrette that brightens a dish or a garnish that adds texture. In fact, she dedicates an entire section of the book to explaining balance and layering flavors, showing how small adjustments can make vegetables more exciting.

“I’m not here to tell anyone what they like or how they should cook,” she says. “I just want to provide new, exciting journeys with food that already feels familiar—but might not be as exciting as they want it to be.”

A Different Kind of Cookbook

With Sun-Kissed Cooking, Williamson is offering something more than just recipes—she’s sharing a perspective, one that started in a backyard garden and evolved through years of cooking, experimenting, and creating.

Her goal? To give home cooks the tools to create their own food memories—one vegetable at a time.