Food recipes and photos by Tracey Kusiewicz, margarita recipe by Tim Cole.

The year was 1987. Dirty Dancing topped the box office, The Joshua Tree topped the charts… and WL put out our first—and so far only—cookbook. Cracking it open again seemed like a great way to celebrate the fact we’ve now been publishing recipes for over five decades—though we were a little fearful of it being woefully out of date as seen through our 2021 eyes. As it turns out, the dishes still looked damn good, so we asked recipe developer Tracey Kusiewicz (and bartender Tim Cole) to take a peek, too, and give everything a little update for our 21st-century palates. We’re loving the blend of nostalgia and contemporary, and we hope you will too.

Find the original recipes here, and our new takes below.

1. Turkey Kefta Kebabs with a Quick Yogurt Sauce

Kefta is typically made with lamb or beef in Moroccan cuisine; here, we’ve opted to use ground turkey as a more sustainable choice. The milder flavour of the turkey allows the spices to shine through and the quick cooking time makes for a light, easy, no-fuss dinner.

2. Oat Pecan Seed Bites

If you’re looking for a bite-sized snack on the go, these low-sugar oat seed bites make for a healthier substitute to an indulgent cookie. The cocoa nibs are better suited for an adult palate, but you can always swap them out for chocolate chips for the kids.

3. Mushroom Bolognese on Spaghetti Squash with Oven-Roasted Tomatoes

We’ve spruced up a homely outdated side dish of squash, mushrooms and sun-dried tomatoes into a plant-based take on the classic Italian pasta Bolognese. Using both portobello and dried porcini mushrooms imparts a deep umami flavour redolent of the meat you would traditionally find in this dish. The supermarket sun-dried tomatoes popular in the era are replaced here with a homemade, oven-roasted rendition. Be sure to give it a sprinkling of this easy vegan “cheese” for a punchy finish.

4. Classic Margarita

The WL cookbook recipe was classic ’80s, when everyone became obsessed with the texture provided by egg whites. The original recipe from the ’30s would more likely have had a splash of soda instead of the egg white.