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Hello Friends,
I’ve got a slightly strange favor to ask you today.
Fundamentals of Flavor comes out on September 22, which means that in just a week, you’ll be able to walk into a bookstore, pick up a copy, take it home, and cook with it in your kitchen. You’ll actually be able to use it.
So why on earth would I ask you to buy it now, when you won’t have it in your hands yet?
ONE LAST PREORDER THANK-YOU
This is also the final week to receive my free bonus chapter when you preorder Fundamentals of Flavor. If you preorder by September 21, you can submit your receipt below and I’ll send the bonus chapter straight to your inbox.
I used to think preorders were a little silly for exactly this reason. If you’re going to buy a book anyway, what difference could a week possibly make? Why not wait until it comes out?
It turns out that from the book’s point of view, when you order it actually does matter quite a bit!
Before a book comes out, almost everyone involved in getting it into your hands is trying to answer some version of the same question:
Does anybody want this book?
Bookstores and retailers need to decide how many copies to stock. Publishers are trying to gauge and understand where interest is building. Booksellers have thousands of new books competing for a finite amount of shelf space. And all of this happens well before publication day.
A preorder sends a tangible signal to bookstores, retailers, and publishers.
It says: Yes, someone wants this book. Please make sure there is a copy for them.
And when enough people say that at the same time, it creates momentum.
Then the book comes out, and another clock starts ticking.
The publishing world pays close attention to how quickly a new book sells. Early sales can encourage booksellers to reorder it and keep it on their shelves. Strong sales can make a book more visible online and in stores, introducing it to people who haven’t encountered my work. They give the publisher another reason to invest time and resources after publication day instead of immediately moving on to the next release.
Preorders can also contribute to the early sales story. How they’re counted varies between retailers and different systems that measure book sales, which is why I don’t want to pretend there is some magical number everyone needs to reach.
There isn’t one.
But there is a window of time when a purchase can send a particularly useful signal,
And we’re in it now.
This is the strange thing about being an author that I didn’t fully understand until I started writing books.
You can spend years making one.
You write and rewrite every chapter. Test a recipe to the max until you’re completely sick of smelling and eating it, and then run back and test it one more time because something still isn’t quite right. You worry about where a scientific explanation is understandable, whether measurements were precise, whether the photograph captured what you wanted to convey or saw when you looked at the food.
And then one day, you must stop.
For years,Fundamentals of Flavor was something I could work on. If something wasn’t right, I could fix it.
Now I can’t.
It left my desk. The presses have run. Copies are making their way into warehouses and bookstores, and very soon into your kitchens.
The question now isn’t: Did I make the book I wanted?
I know the answer to that. I did.
The question is whether it will find its readers. This is the vulnerable part.
The book contains 100 recipes, but there’s also an enormous amount of my life in it. The scientist I once thought I would become and the cook and writer I eventually became. The memories of growing up in Bombay, questions I’ve carried around for years, and everything I’ve learned from looking at cooking through the lens of science.
Fire. Air. Earth. Water.
I wanted to understand what these things do to our food and how understanding them could make us better, smarter, and more intuitive cooks.
More importantly, I wanted to make a book that didn’t tell you that science was something complicated happening somewhere else. It happens every time you brown butter, dissolve salt in water, ferment a batter, whip air into cream, or put a pan over a flame.
Now, I have let all that go and see what happens.
So here is my ask.
If you already know that you want a copy of Fundamentals of Flavor, please consider ordering it before September 22.
I’m not asking you to buy a book you were planning to buy. And if buying a book isn’t in your budget right now, please don’t feel you need to.
Libraries matter. Independent bookstores matter. Reading these newsletters matters. Cooking my recipes and telling somebody about them matters.
But if you were planning to get the book, placing an order now rather than waiting until next week is one small thing that gives the book a stronger start.
It’s a peculiar thing to ask another person to buy something they cannot have yet.
Now at least you know why authors keep doing it.
And because I’ve just spent an entire newsletter asking you to believe in a book you can’t quite hold yet, I thought I should give you something from it you can cook today.
I chose this recipe because it is particularly close to my heart. These meatballs are based on my late grandmother’s recipe, one of the dishes from my childhood that found its way into Fundamentals of Flavor. Of all the recipes I could share with you today, this one felt right.
And to those of you who have already preordered Fundamentals of Flavor, thank you. I see those orders not as numbers, but as people who decided to make room for something I created in their homes and kitchens.
And congrats to Emily from Parma, Ohio who is the winner of the Staub giveaway contest! I hope you enjoy it.
After spending years with this book mostly by myself, it’s an extraordinary privilege and honor for me to be invited into your homes and kitchens.
Next week, it won’t really be mine anymore.
It will be yours.
xx
Nik
Fundamentals of Flavor - Book Tour 2026
COME SEE ME ON TOUR
I’m taking Fundamentals of Flavor on the road! I’d love to see you at one of the events. Next week I kick-off with events in New York and Washington DC.
