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Newest Cookbook Promotional Vehicle: Food Trucks and Pop-Ups
Pop-up restaurants and gourmet food trucks have become ubiquitous in many American cities, drawing in customers who follow trends, enjoy food, and don't mind waiting outside in extreme temperatures for schnitzel, grilled cheese, or fancy slushies (and actually might tweet about the whole experience to all their followers). So it's no wonder cookbook authors and publishers are using pop-ups and food trucks to promote their books, either by actively selling the books via those venues, or in more subtle ways.
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Recipe Report: Herb & Mustard-Coated Lamb Rack and Sweet & Sour Leeks with Ricotta
I tested two recipes from James Tanner's Take 5 Ingredients: 100 Delicious Dishes Using Just Five Ingredients (Kyle Books) but unfortunately, they were both semi-disasters. It's a real pet peeve of mine when recipes are vague in terms of amounts, and these recipes just aren't detailed enough for a normal home cook to follow through to good results.
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Short Order: March 21, 2011
The James Beard Foundation and IACP have both announced the finalists for their 2011 cookbook awards; America's Test Kitchen heats up a third printing for its Slow Cooker Revolution; Ikea's cookbook, Homemade Is Best, wins a Brit Insurance Design Award, given out by London's Design Museum; Denise Vivaldo explains why famous people (who aren’t famous for anything related to food) write cookbooks; and a philanthropist expands on the $1.5 million in seed money she gave New York’s Green Cart with a cookbook.
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Spring Cookbook Apps
Aside from children’s books, cookbooks seem to offer some of the greatest opportunities for books-to-apps. Later this year and in 2012, developers are planning to unveil a slew of new cookbook apps from a range of authors big and small. Here are some of this spring’s new apps and newly updated apps based on cookbooks.
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The Latest Old-Fashioned Treat Makeover? Ice Pops
Last summer, food carts and shops selling fancy versions of old-fashioned ice pops opened around the country, offering tasters flavors ranging from mango-chile to raspberry-basil pops. It didn’t take long for publishers to jump on the trend, and this spring and summer bring at least five titles on the subject.
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Cooking the Books with Maile Carpenter
Talk about synergy: TV powerhouse Food Network has had unprecedented success with its magazine, Food Network Magazine--and now the magazine based on the TV shows has spawned a book. Hyperion just released Food Network Magazine Great Easy Meals: 250 Fun & Fast Recipes, and as you’d expect, the book was created based on feedback the network has received both from its viewers and from its magazine readers. We talked to Maile Carpenter, the magazine’s editor-in-chief.
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Short Order: March 7, 2011
The Paris Cookbook Fair and its annual Gourmand Awards, which fete cookbooks and, this year, Cooking the Books; Marvin Taylor on NYU’s Culinary Collection; Judge Says Seinfeld Can Mock Lapine.
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Recipe Report: Creamy Farro with Honey-Roasted Grapes
Creamy Farro with Honey-Roasted Grapes from Ancient Grains for Modern Meals: Mediterranean Whole Grain Recipes for Barley, Farro, Kamut, Polenta, Wheat Berries & More by Maria Speck (Ten Speed, Apr.) was absolutely delicious. I never would’ve thought to eat farro for breakfast, but why not?
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Cooking the Books with Isa Chandra Moskowitz
Anthony Bourdain may have called veganism a “Hezbollah-like offshoot of vegetarianism,” but the diet is gaining in popularity, thanks in no small part to “occasional” vegans like Oprah Winfrey and Mark Bittman. But Isa Chandra Moskowitz has been writing vegan cookbooks for six years. She talked to us about her new book and veganism’s rising profile.
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Publishers Jump On City Homesteading Trend Despite Controversy
Books on homesteading have chugged along for years, finding readers in small towns, rural communities, and big cities who want to learn how to become self-reliant. But it’s the “little farm in the big city” trend that publishers are cashing in on this season. Come spring, a range of books about living sustainably in an urban environment will flood the shelves, some even despite potential controversy.
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A Meat-Eater's Vegetarian: Yotam Ottolenghi
Israeli-born Yotam Ottolenghi owns four restaurant/cafes in London that serve pear cakes and bean salads. He writes a column called "The New Vegetarian." This month, Chronicle will publish his book Plenty, which is filled recipes for making eggplant, artichokes, fava beans, and other vegetables. Oh, and one more thing: Ottolenghi himself isn't a vegetarian.
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Recipe Report: Empanadas
I was pretty impressed with these empanadas from Food Trucks: Dispatches and Recipes from the Best Kitchens on Wheels by Heather Shouse (Ten Speed, Apr.), the recipe coming from an Argentinian family that parks its “slightly ramshackle truck” at Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco.
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Short Order: February 22, 2011
Molly O’Neill, author of One Big Table: 600 Recipes From the Nation's Best Home Cooks, Farmers, Fishermen, Pit-Masters, and Chefs, will participate in a Beard on Books event at the James Beard House in New York tomorrow; and on Thursday, the Washington, D.C., chapter of the Women’s National Book Association (WNBA) is sponsoring a panel discussion on cooking and eating for good health.
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Cooking the Books with Wayt Gibbs
Modernist Cuisine, the 2,438-page, $625 cookbook on avant-garde cooking that comes out next month, is in a league of its own when it comes to recipe. But the book also breaks many traditional publishing rules. PW talked with Wayt Gibbs, editor-in-chief, about the process.
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Andrea Reusing, a Chef Who Puts Craft Ahead of Art
The rabid national interest in all things culinary--on TV, the Web, and pretty much everywhere--is “a good thing” by many measures. But for North Carolina chef and cookbook author Andrea Reusing, there is one downside to “rarefied foodie-ism,” as she calls it: “it’s made people feel they need to be experts” in order to just cook dinner. Intimidated by Iron Chefs and paralyzed by the magnitude of options in the supermarket, everyday Americans may be feeling overwhelmed with the prospect of cooking dinner, Reusing says. It doesn’t have to be that way, though, and Reusing has written Cooking in the Moment: A Year of Seasonal Recipes (Clarkson Potter, Apr.) to remind people that dinner can be as simple as fried chicken (three ingredients, plus salt and pepper, and oil for frying) and green beans with tomatoes (ingredients: beans, tomato, bread, garlic, salt, pepper, olive oil).
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Cookbooks Surge to Top Category at Libraries
Though cookbook publishers are usually quick to seek out special sales channels from Williams-Sonoma to the Culinary Institute of America, one venue may not be at the forefront of their minds: libraries. And while health and medicine titles used to be the most popular nonfiction titles checked out of America’s libraries, cookbooks have lately overtaken them to hold the number-one spot.
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A World of Recipes: The International Cookbook Market
As the Paris Cookbook Fair gets underway next month, cookbook publishers are getting ready to do some shopping--and not just the sort that involves stocking up on Dijon mustard and bonbons from Fauchon.
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Recipe Report: Faludhaj
The faludhaj from The Sweets of Araby is indeed very, very sweet, like concentrated honey, which is essentially what it is. The sesame oil and toasted ground almonds contribute a nice roasted flavor, which adds dimension; still, I couldn’t imagine eating more than a couple small spoonfuls of this.
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Celebrating Chinese New Year with Cheryl Lu-Lien Tan
It seems like most of the subway car empties at the Grand Street stop in the heart of New York City’s Chinatown. Just as the last person makes it off, the conductor announces, “Stand clear of the closing doors, and Gong Hey Fat Choy! Happy New Year!” It’s the first day of Chinese New Year and I’m on my way to meet Cheryl Lu-Lien Tan, author of A Tiger in the Kitchen: A Memoir of Food and Family, for lunch.
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Short Order: February 7, 2011
A round-up of news from the world of cookbooks: New Cookbook from Vook; Apps from Martha and Moskowitz; Singla Signs in Chicago.
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