Kevin West is eager to offer a taste of his newest cookbook. And for the former magazine editor, there’s no better place than one of his old New York haunts.

“As a habit, I always check in on markets when I’m traveling, just to see what’s going on,” says West, standing on the periphery of the Union Square Greenmarket with a carton of blackberries in hand. A crusty baguette juts out of his tote bag, which will accompany him back to his home in the Berkshires later that afternoon. 

West has already done a quick walkthrough of the market, and has his sights set on a few vendors stocked with the sort of seasonal produce that defines his new book, “The Cook’s Garden: A Gardener’s Guide to Selecting, Growing, and Savoring the Tastiest Vegetables of Each Season.” The book, crafted over several years, began as a “COVID project” when the editor of West’s previous book, “Saving the Season,” called and asked if he was interested in writing a book about cooking with garden-grown food. 

“And I said, there’s nothing I would be more interested in,” says West, who was spending most of his days gardening and cooking. The concept was inspired by Marian Morash’s 1982 bestseller, “The Victory Garden Cookbook.” “The Cook’s Garden” builds upon the legacy of the Victory Garden movement, which began during World War I and continued through World War II as an initiative to support food self-sufficiency. 

“ It’s not been that long ago that growing some of your food, some summertime food, it’s just sort of a normal thing to do,” says West. “And that has kind of petered out over time. With the cookbook, part of the idea is to reclaim that sense of independence, that sense of growing what you like. But also there’s a certain kind of self-reliance that comes with that — which I find very heartening.”

What was supposed to be a “slimmer” book turned into a 496-page tome, which spans all four seasons. The book offers a primer on the ingredients needed to establish a garden — soil, sunlight — as well as a guide to season-defining produce and what to make with them. The book’s 125+ recipes are rooted in simplicity, with an eye toward inspiring cooks to explore their own culinary creativity. In tandem with the theme of self-reliance, West photographed all the imagery in the book himself, which mostly features produce grown from his own garden.

“ It kind of became two books in one: how to grow what you love to eat, and then how to cook what you grow,” West says of the book. “ It’s not about urban homesteading; it’s not about growing everything you eat. It’s not about self-sufficiency. It’s for a curious cook, who already does some of this and thinks, wow, it would be awesome to grow a little basil in the backyard. And it’s for the thoughtful gardener who already is growing some of this stuff, and maybe needs some more inspiration about what to do with seasonal food.”

It’s a pleasant day in early August; a hint of fall is already in the air, although the farmer’s market is still firmly in its prime summer season. West wanders into one market stall packed with fragrant herbs: basil, dill, shiso, lemon verbena. He leans in to smell the citrusy herb, breaking off a small piece. The author describes herbs as directional, cuisine-defining ingredients, and he begins to list off the various options in a market display before him: there’s thyme, which speaks French cuisine; shiso as an entryway to a Japanese palette; epazote for Mexican, tarragon for Italy and Southern France. “ So you can really make the garden a portrait of your own style of cooking,” he says. “And herbs are really so much at the forefront of that.”

Nearby, he turns his attention to garlic scapes, which touches on the “root to flower” theme within his book, which advocates for using the entire plant. “We grow garlic for the bulbs, obviously. But then you have this thing which is actually delicious, and you snap it and blanch it like green beans. There’s an extra vegetable that you get out of the garden.”

Continuing to another stall, West points out blooming arugula and nearby dandelion greens. “There’s a very artificial distinction we make between crops and weeds,” he says. “I spent a lot of effort growing various kinds of edible greens. If you’re growing arugula, and this comes up among the arugula, you should be eating this too. Because it’s food.”

He fires off the specific names of different produce varietals, honoring the granular quality of each category: the okra is Hill Country Red okra, peppers are Jimmy Ardello peppers, green beans are Romano beans. “There’s a tomato over there I wanted to see,” he says, pivoting focus to a display of strawberry tomatoes, named for their distinctive shape “ and really fantastic flavor.” Neighboring tomatoes include the heirloom Brandywine with its pronounced ridges and the green zebra, which leads West to offer a historical primer on tomatoes, dating back to the 16th century. 

It quickly becomes clear that West is not only passionate about produce, he could talk about it for hours with a level of specificity gleaned not only from experience, but also a research informed by his decades working as a journalist. West established his career as a longtime editor for W magazine, and released his first cookbook in 2013, which led him further into the food space. A few years later, he relocated to the Berkshires and pivoted his focus to gardening and cooking. But his magazine career still serves as a bedrock.

“ I was having a conversation yesterday with Ruth Reichl about potatoes,” says West, who was readying for a public conversation with the editor in the Berkshires later that month. “We are both huge fans of potatoes. And she said something that I wrote in my book as well, which is: if you’ve never had a potato 15 minutes out of the ground, you’ve never had a potato,” he says. “Because a fresh potato totally changes the way you think about it.”

But for urban-dwellers without a plot of land at their disposal, all hope is not lost. 

“ Growing some herbs on a window sill, it’s a really amazing way to take a step towards home grown food and to bring all of these amazing flavors of the season into home cooking,” West says. “A can of white beans warmed up with some beautiful green olive oil over the top, and whichever chopped herbs you have: that’s now a homemade dish.”