Cookbook Love Podcast

February 21, 2019 by
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Sometimes I get tired of reading cookbooks. That's when I turn to podcasts so I can listen to cookbook authors and others talking about cookbooks! Lucky for me, there's another great podcast to add to my queue, as Jenny is returning to Maggie Green's Cookbook Love podcast. (You may remember that last Fall Jenny was a guest on the podcast discussing… read more

Inside L.A.’s only cookbook store

February 18, 2019 by
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Despite being the second most populous city in the United States and home to what some would argue is the finest food culture in the country, Los Angeles suffered for years from a drought of cookbook stores. The beloved Cook's Library closed its doors in 2009, and it took almost a decade for another cookbook store to emerge. That store,… read more

A limited edition Joy of Cooking goes luxe

February 1, 2019 by
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Joy of Cooking was the 'gateway drug' for many cookbook collectors, myself included. Before cookbook publishing exploded, it stood alone as a paragon of the genre, teaching multiple generations how to cook for their families. Plenty of people hang on to their grease-splattered and dog-eared copies of Joy, passing them down to their children and grandchildren. New editions continue to… read more

Amazon’s list of 100 best food books

January 31, 2019 by
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I am a sucker for lists and have been since a very young age. When I was little I used to type up lists of things to do during my summer vacation, banging out a new list nearly every day on my mom's old manual typewriter. Any time I see a "must-have" list of books to read, foods to eat,… read more

The best selling cookbooks of 2018

January 26, 2019 by
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Last month our friends at cookbook stores around the world gave us their picks for their favorite books of 2018. Now we asked them for their top sellers. In past years we have compared the lists from specialist stores in the USA to that for all US sales from the publishing industry data company, Nielsen.  Unfortunately Publishers Weekly has not… read more

‘The Naked Chef’ turns 20

January 22, 2019 by
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Can you believe that Jamie Oliver's first cookbook is 20 years old? That's right, The Naked Chef premiered two decades ago when Oliver burst onto the scenic as fresh-faced, exuberant young chef with something to say. He hasn't stopped since, building a veritable empire of restaurants, cookbooks, and television programs. To celebrate this milestone, Penguin are re-releasing Jamie's first five… read more

Best of the best cookbooks 2018

December 21, 2018 by
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It's hard to believe, but this is the tenth year that Jane has sifted through hundreds of 'best cookbook' lists from all over the world to determine which book is the #1 book of the year. And it's also difficult to believe, but the same author has had the top book six out of the ten years we've been putting… read more

The best cookbooks of 2018 by the experts

December 21, 2018 by
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Who knows cookbooks better than the owners of specialist cookbook stores? They stock and sell thousands of cookbooks and because their stores are focused on food and drink books, they are true experts. They read the books, cook from them and then share their knowledge with their customers. When shopping for cookbook gifts this holiday season, please think about supporting… read more

Epicurious breaks the mold with new cookbook awards

December 20, 2018 by
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Readers of this blog are no strangers to cookbook awards. Each year, we provide full coverage of prestigious awards from the JBF and IACP, plus report on Food52's The Piglet and other awards from across the globe. One entity that has heretofore not assembled any cookbook awards is the culinary website Epicurious. This December, that changed, with the announcement of… read more

Leaving a cookbook legacy

December 4, 2018 by
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If you have a significant number of cookbooks, you may have thought about what will happen to your collection when you are no longer around or able to keep it. You might have a plan for some or even all of your books, perhaps bequeathing them to friends, family, or the local library. But what would you do if you… read more

This cookbook sets the mood with color

November 19, 2018 by
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Gorgeous, color-saturated photographs of food are a given on Instagram and in most modern cookbooks. One of 2018's new cookbooks takes this concept to the extreme: Pantone Foodmood. Yes, you read that correctly, this is from the color company Pantone, which produces exacting color specifications for corporations, graphic designers, and everyone interested in the world of color. It's often said… read more

Indexing a masterpiece – The Escoffier Cookbook

November 14, 2018 by
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The average cookbook contains about 175 recipes. Indexing a book with that many recipes takes some time, as Members who have volunteered to index a book well know. Some books fall well below this average and a few books exceed it by a significant number of recipes. Even the most prolific cookbook authors, however, generally do not exceed a few… read more

Omnivore Books celebrates ten years

October 24, 2018 by
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In the last couple of years, we have brought you plenty of bad news about cookbook stores closing down or facing a precarious financial situation. That's why we are excited to share some good news: San Francisco's Omnivore Books is celebrating its tenth anniversary! Eater interviewed owner Celia Sack on how her store has not only survived, but has thrived… read more

Mark Hix adores this classic cookbook

August 26, 2018 by
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Mark Hix is a celebrated food writer and renowned restaurateur. He has five acclaimed restaurants, pens a weekly column in the Independent on Saturday magazine, and has written several award-winning cookbooks. Hix has an impressive 2,500+ volume cookbook collection, but he admits he really only reads a few of these with any regularity. One of those is Anna del Conte's… read more

For the love of cookbooks

August 12, 2018 by
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In July 2017, Debbie Vanni lost almost every one of her cookbooks from fifty years of collecting due to a flood. Vanni, who runs the website theculinarycellar.com, was devastated. Many of the books held special meaning to her, like her grandmother's 1914 Fannie Farmer cookbook. Says Vanni, "Inside she had written her name and address of where she lived while in… read more

Anthony Bourdain’s recommended reading

August 5, 2018 by
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Die-hard fans of Anthony Bourdain loved reading his books nearly as much as they loved watching his entertaining travel programs. It's sad to know that we'll never enjoy another Kitchen Confidential or Medium Raw. The next best thing might be to read books that he recommended. Now we can do just that, because the New York Public Library has compiled a list of… read more

Another cookbook store closes its door

July 6, 2018 by
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It's always disheartening to learn of a cookbook store that has closed. This time it's Good Egg in Toronto, Canada. The store closed last month following unsuccessful lease negotiations. "We couldn't come to a mutually beneficial agreement with our landlord, so we've decided to close," owner Mika Bareket says. Bareket would like to reopen Good Egg, but can only do so… read more

Make a bee-line for this cookbook

June 4, 2018 by
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If you have never visited Asheville, North Carolina, you should do so at your earliest convenience. Nestled in the Blue Ridge Mountains, the city is surrounded by stunning scenery and is home to the always-impressive Biltmore, the magnificent "country home" of George Vanderbilt. The celebrated mountain town is currently being recognized for "the two Bs": beer and bees. It's home… read more

The world’s largest cookbook collection

May 24, 2018 by
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Longtime Members of EYB may recall our interview in mid-2013 of EYB Member Sue Jimenez, who was at the time attempting to claim the world record for largest cookbook collection. In July 2013 she got the record, with an official tally of 2,970 (which shot up to 3,693 by that November). Sue remains the Guinness World Record holder for largest cookbook… read more

Pastry chefs choose the best baking cookbooks

May 18, 2018 by
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  I don't know about you, but I'm a sucker for lists - especially lists about cookbooks. That's why I honed in on The Strategist's article about the best baking books as selected by pastry chefs. Nine top U.S. pastry chefs and professional bakers were asked to give their opinions on which books were the best in several categories. Some… read more

Winners of the JBF Cookbook Awards

April 27, 2018 by
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  Jane and Jenny are at the James Beard Foundation awards ceremony in New York City, and live-tweeted the winners of the JBF Cookbook Awards. The first announcement was in the American category, where The Sioux Chef's Indigenous Kitchen by Sean Sherman and Beth Dooley edged out Homegrown and The Lost Kitchen.  It's no surprise that the comprehensive Modernist Bread: The Art… read more

The winner of Food52’s ‘The Piglet’

April 10, 2018 by
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2018's The Piglet cookbook competition may have been the best one yet. Sixteen amazing cookbooks (you can find the complete list here) went head-to-head in a bracketed contest, with the winners advancing to the next round. There were some tough calls along the way, and the usual criticism about the way the judges approached each book.  The Piglet is different than… read more

These classic books are being overlooked by new cooks

April 9, 2018 by
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For many of us, learning to cook meant spending time with classic cookbooks like Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Joy of Cooking, The Fannie Farmer Cookbook, and others published between in the last 60+ years. All of these books share one trait: they are not lavishly illustrated. A few line drawings appear here and there to demonstrate a technique,… read more

Is this the world’s most expensive cookbook?

April 7, 2018 by
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 It is not unusual for old and rare cookbooks to fetch handsome prices. Even some new cookbooks, like the multi-volume set of Modernist Cuisine, cost several hundred dollars. However, a recently released tome about pizza may be setting a record for the most expensive new cookbook. The extremely limited edition Pizza from Scratch (available through the NYC bookstore Kitchen Arts & Letters)… read more

JBF Cookbook Award nominees announced

March 14, 2018 by
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  Today the James Beard Foundation announced the nominees for its 2018 Cookbook Awards and other food writing/media awards. It is always interesting to compare the JBF list to the IACP list to see how many books overlap between them. If a book has made both lists, it has to be one of the best of the year. In 2018,… read more
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