Cooking the Books with Rosie Percival and Ruth Friedlander

Australians Rosie Percival and Ruth Friedlander's cookbook, Martha Goes Green, is a vegetarian cookbook printed on recycled paper with vegetable-based inks--and a happy success story from the world of self-publishing. After printing 70 copies as a trial run in late 2008 to give to friends and family, Percival, 24, and Friedlander, 25, went on to sell almost 3,000 more.

Pan de Muerto

Frankenfeet

Bewitching Caramel Apples

Tricks, Treats from New Cookbooks

While everyone else is caught up in what they're going to wear for Halloween, we here at Cooking the Books are more concerned with what we're going to eat. We've already been tempted by the Jack-o'-Lantern pops from Cake Pops, but there are a few more Halloween-themed recipes from some recent and forthcoming cookbooks that look (sorry!) frighteningly good.

Short Order: October 25, 2010

Diana Kennedy talks in Texas; Borders starts a cooking blog; Colicchio celebrates new Beard book; Clarkson Potter buys two books from Peacock.

Seaside Has High Hopes for 'Cookielicious'

Seaside Publishing in St. Petersburg, Florida, is known for its basic-looking, regionally-focused books, like One-Tank Trips, a series of guides to offbeat Florida adventures and attractions; and books on Cuban cooking and "easy, breezy Florida" cooking. But this fall, it is publishing a cookbook that could help the house get some national attention.

Cooking the Books with Keebe Fitch

McIntyre's Books is one of those bookstores that's impossible to leave empty-handed. Owner Keebe Fitch likes to say that even sales reps--people with access to as many free books as they can read--who visit her store wind up buying books. McIntyre's is situated in a bucolic village near Chapel Hill, North Carolina, called Fearrington, which is also the site of the Fearrington House Country Inn, a Relais & Chateau property that's one of the area's finest hotels.

Recipe Report: Cauliflower Souffle

Of the 1,000 recipes in Francoise Bernard's La Cuisine: Everyday French Home Cooking (Rizzoli), I picked the Cauliflower Souffle because it seemed quintessentially French, because I'd just bought a huge head of cauliflower at the farmer's market, and because I'd never made anything like it before.

Review: 'India Cookbook'

With a quarter-century of culinary study and travel under his belt, Pushpesh Pant offers up a mammoth work that encompasses every region of the country and provides 1,000 recipes. Fifteen pages of the introduction are given over to the 10 major culinary food locales of India, and it makes for an enlightening read. However, the presentation of the recipes is another matter.

As 'Throwdown' Book Pubs, Flay Challenges a Tribeca Chef

One morning last week, Chef Frank Maldonado of Sazon, a Puerto Rican restaurant in New York City, gathered his friends and restaurant staff in the dining room, ostensibly to show them how to make his famous empanadas. Before long, though, a man strode across the stage and tapped Maldonado on the shoulder. The man was Bobby Flay. It was time for a throwdown.

Short Order: October 12, 2010

Viking buys Joe Bastianich's memoir; a party for The New Brooklyn Cookbook, a new HTCE app, a book deal for the illustrated recipe blog They Draw and Cook, and a Lauren family affair for Dylan's candy book.

Random House Hires Ruth Reichl

Former Gourmet editor-in-chief and author Ruth Reichl is taking a job at Random House as editor-at-large. Reichl will have a dual role as author and editor at Random, and will acquire books and work with writers.

Bourdain and Batali Drool Over Gabrielle Hamilton's Memoir

Anthony Bourdain isn't exactly stingy when it comes to giving blurbs, but his endorsement of Prune chef and owner Gabrielle Hamilton's forthcoming memoir, Blood, Bones, and Butter is flat-out over the top. He calls it "Simply the best memoir by a chef ever. EVER."

Recipe Report: Jack-o'-Lantern Cake Pops

I'm pretty sure these Jack-o'-Lantern Cake Pops from Bakerella's Cake Pops: Tips, Tricks, and Recipes for More Than 40 Irresistible Mini Treats (Chronicle) have made me a cake pop convert. Her exhaustively detailed instructions and advice turned what could've been an intimidating project into something easy, fun and adorable.

Gourmand Awards Receive Record Number of Cookbook Entries

Last year, some 8,000 cookbooks and wine books, in 40 languages from 136 countries, entered the Gourmand World Cookbook Fair Awards, and some 60 of them won awards. Winning means international recognition--and, occasionally, international rights and translation deals. And this year, the number of submissions is up at least 25%.

Review: 'One Big Table'

Former New York Times Magazine food writer Molly O'Neill has compiled an informative and heartwarming refutation of the demise of American home cooking. Ten years and many miles in the making, this collection celebrates the nation's culinary diversity, both ethnically and agriculturally, and offers a uniquely intimate look at what home cooking in America is truly like today.

Cooking the Books with Harold McGee

Short Order: September 27, 2010

Colman Andrews to Head The Daily Meal; MasterChefs Give Lessons in L.A.; 'Modernist Cuisine' Delayed; Malgieri Visits Stewart; Portland Chefs Talk Cookbooks.

Review: 'Speakeasy'

Jason Kosmas and Dushan Zaric, owners of Employees Only, a not-so-hidden take on a Manhattan speakeasy, offer instruction on recreating classic drinks and stirring up some modern variations. Fresh ingredients are their mainstay, but since the focus is on old-school cocktails, fewer intense flavor combinations arise than what might be found in a more contemporary collection of artisanal concoctions. Not that there's anything wrong with that.