The secrets to some of Chicago’s finest Italian food are tucked into chef Sarah Grueneberg’s new cookbook

When chef Sarah Grueneberg sat down to write her cookbook, she knew vegetables had to be the star.

Growing up in Houston and cooking with her grandparents on their ranch, she got to know produce from an early age. She shares those conversations in her new book, “Listen to Your Vegetables” (Harvest, $45), and includes well-written recipes for everything from humble oven-roasted tomato sauce to a fancy salad of shaved mushroom and celery with truffle vinaigrette.

Her casual, approachable treatment of vegetables might surprise fans who know her accolades. The former executive chef of Chicago’s Michelin-starred Spiaggia opened Monteverde Restaurant & Pastificio in 2015, and has stacked up dozens of awards and TV appearances over the years. But fame has not spoiled her down-to-earth charm.

“I love to cook at home, and I realized that not all chefs cook at home,” Grueneberg said. “I’m not fulfilled if I can’t cook professionally and for friends and family at home.”

Naturally, many of the recipes in “Listen to Your Vegetables” skew Italian, as Grueneberg shares the innate love and respect for vegetables that characterize Italian cooking. While vegetable focused, it’s not a vegetarian cookbook, and she and co-author Kate Heddings made sure to include a chapter on the fresh handmade pasta Grueneberg made her name on. The book is packed with lush and instructive photos by Stephen Hamilton and engaging drawings of anthropomorphized vegetables by Chicago illustrator Andrew Jesernig like the eggplant Queen Aubergine, and a “groovy” group of mushrooms that really do look like “fun-guys.”

We met up at Chicago’s Green City Market late in the summer, where she said, “Every vegetable has something that it wants. I like to think about the personality of the vegetable.” Salt, for example, “is eggplant’s best friend … you kind of surrender yourself to that fact.”

Cauliflower, broccoli and cabbage make up what she calls “the hearty bunch. They’re fridge warriors you can keep for weeks.” “Shelling peas and cranberry beans, just open them up and put them in the freezer.” That way, you’ll have them on hand when you want to make her chilled summer bean salad with chile garlic oil. Cooking beans, she writes “can be a wild ride,” but Grueneberg is here to help you master the technique.

At the market, she spots the Tropea onions. (“The little torpedo; they roast really nicely because they turn into petals … we do these on our steak at the restaurant.”) Then come piles of chile peppers, and the secret of the dark leafy greens. “I love the Tuscan kale because of the texture, and spigarello, but they are all really interchangeable.”

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Grueneberg loves to share the useful techniques she’s collected over the years. She insists on simple, traditional tricks like hand-grating tomatoes for her bruschetta. Her dry grilling method of cooking vegetables like asparagus, peppers, eggplant, onions and zucchini is a revelation. As she writes in the notes that accompany her grilled asparagus recipe, “when you douse your vegetables in oil and put them on a hot grill, the result is burned oil and not nicely charred veggies. Instead, putting dry veggies on a hot clean grill avoids flare-ups, and allows them first to char and develop an intense flavor.”

Her breezy, humble, market-driven style of cooking fits the useful weeknight profile and still leaves room for some showstopper recipes like carrot and lamb merguez sausage lasagna.

“I think there’s some people who are going to open the book and say, ‘I want to cook this afternoon’ — like a big project. I tried to balance project recipes with simple ones like the roasted rapini. That’s because as Chicagoans, we all know in the wintertime our Sundays are involving a Dutch oven and lots of wine and some jazz.”

Grueneberg’s engaging, encouraging tone comes right off the page, as if she’s right there, talking you through a recipe. Her sophisticated dishes like pumpkin pesto gnocchi share page retail with a take on her mom’s skillet chicken thighs with artichokes, adapted from the “Louisville Junior League Cookbook.” She explains the differences between “twirling” versus “stabbing” pasta shapes, and how to match them with vegetable cuts and sauces.

Anyone who has ever visited the local green market and brought home more fresh produce than they can carry will enjoy Grueneberg’s expert guidance and vegetable wisdom. One simply has to know how to tune in and listen up.

Lisa Futterman is a freelance writer.

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