The winner of MasterChef season 5 shares her food philosophy, weaving nostalgia into recipes that bring both comfort and dazzle to the table.
 
The number-one prime-time summer program on FOX, MasterChef, is a nationwide competition to find the best home cook in the country. The judges are some of cooking’s biggest stars—award-winning chef Gordon Ramsay, restaurateur and winemaker Joe Bastianich, and acclaimed chef Graham Elliot. The prize? A chance to win $250,000—and a cookbook deal.
 
This book celebrates the food of Season 5 winner, Courtney Lapresi. Courtney came out as a firecracker, blowing the judges away time and again with her skills and confidence. She is a home cook who knows how to make decadence approachable, and that’s exactly what she’s done here. The book showcases the dishes that propelled Courtney to victory, such as her flawless honey cake with berry coulis and vanilla whipped cream; duck breast with sumac, faro, and morels; and her family recipe for pizza. The recipes are introduced by headnotes that offer anecdotes about Courtney’s childhood and insights into how she became the dazzling winner of MasterChef Season 5. The book will be a delight for home cooks and MasterChef fans everywhere.
 
“Courtney Lapresi cooks and dances to her own beat and as this book proves, it makes the food world a better place to live. Simple, elegant, and most importantly, delicious!”—Graham Elliot, MasterChef judge