2 new books are worthy kitchen companions

“The Lost Kitchen: Recipes and a Good Life Found in Freedom, Maine” by Erin French (Clarkson Potter, $32.50)

Sometimes we have to lose everything before we get it right.

Erin French grew up in the village of Freedom, Maine, flipping burgers at her father’s 50-seat greasy spoon, never planning on being a chef. (She doesn’t even like the word.)

Late in her 20s, married with a young son, she started feeding people at “secret suppers” in her apartment. Eventually, she got the nerve to open a restaurant, only to see it all go down the drain in a messy divorce.

In a classic comeback tale, she found a second chance in a restored 1834 gristmill in her hometown of Freedom. Today the restaurant she runs in that space, the Lost Kitchen, is a culinary destination: Apparently it’s impossible to snag a reservation without months of planning.

But you can get a taste of French’s simple seasonal style in her new cookbook, which romances the heck out of her isolated New England home, where summer means “salt, sun & fireflies.” Not to mention lobster, clams, elderflowers, tomatoes, peaches.

I’ve got my eye on French’s Chilled Golden Beet & Buttermilk Soup and maybe her Peach & Ginger Cobbler. When I’m feeling thirsty, I might mix up a Sea Rose & Cucumber Gin and Tonic (made with rose water and garnished with rose petals).

Having recently published a story on lavender, I realize how many uses I’ve yet to discover. French surprises me with her Lavender Frites; Skillet Mussels with Rosemary, Lime & Lavender — even a Lavender Sink Scrub. (Grind 1/2 cup of dried lavender into a fine powder. Mix with a 14-ounce box of baking soda. Then give that basin some lavender love.)

Looking ahead to cold weather, I’m dreaming about French’s Apple Cider-Glazed Duck; Chowder of Sweet Clams; and Caramelized Pear & Cornmeal Skillet Cake.

As a person who’s made a good number of mistakes in the kitchen (as in life), I have to smile at French’s philosophy of cooking (which could also apply to matters of the heart): “Learn to trust your instincts, discover through play, and if all else fails, remember that there are few ails that butter and salt can’t cure.”

“Peppers of the Americas: The Remarkable Capsicums that Forever Changed Flavor” by Maricel E. Presilla (Lorena Jones Books/Ten Speed Press, $35)

Of all the foods that the Americas gave the world — from corn and quinoa to cacao and peanuts — peppers are among the most vivid, varied, prolific and peripatetic.

Maricel E. Presilla, the Cubanborn chef who has won James Beard Awards for both her cooking (at Cucharamama in Hoboken, N.J.) and her writing (the masterful “Gran Cocina Latina: The Food of Latin America”), now applies her scholarly rigor, and considerable cooking skills, to capsicum.

Starting around 2009, Presilla began to cultivate peppers in her New Jersey garden. This exquisite new volume is the result of her personal journey in the piquant.

About 180 cultivars are cataloged in the “Gallery of Fresh Peppers” (with photographs by Romulo Yanes). There are essays on the history, heat factor, nomenclature, agriculture and global spread of the prickly and powerful pepper.

Whether carried by birds or Spanish explorers, peppers, which are believed to have originated some 15 or 20 millennia ago in central Bolivia, have traveled the Earth, from the Americas to Europe, Africa and Asia.

As an authority on Latin American cuisines, Presilla naturally stays focused on her sphere of expertise, which is formidable.

Her recipes are pretty fabulous, too.

From simple peppers in vinegar to salsas, pickles, ceviches, paellas, omelets, stews, soups, moles, tamales and so on, peppers bring smoke, spice, heat and mystery to food.

Among the more beguiling recipes here: Slab Bacon in Hibiscus Hot Pepper Adobo with Chocolate; Chile Rajas with Epazote, Milk, and Cheese; and simple spikes of fresh fruit with Guatemalan Chile Coban and Cacao Condiment.

If this woman can grow more than 500 kinds of peppers at her Northeastern home, imagine what you, reader, can do in the long growing season of the American South?

Presilla’s account of her early, pre-capsicum gardening efforts — which resulted in “my own little shop of horrors, an aromatic menace with mint, lemon balm and epazote dominating every inch of my yard” — reminds me of my own gardening hazards.

And her pursuit of pepper inspires me: to grow more types of capsicums, and to preserve and cook with them. Like Betty Fussell’s “The Story of Corn,” Presilla’s work is essential to our understanding of an ingredient that’s native to the Americas. It’s also absorbing and just plain fun: a hot summertime read for pepper people everywhere.