An unusual cookbook gets an index

April 8, 2016 by
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  When Prune by Gabrielle Hamilton emerged in late 2014, people quickly noticed that this was no ordinary cookbook. Hamilton, a James Beard Award-winning chef, decided that she wasn't going to write the usual recipe collection aimed at home cooks. Instead, she decided to write to the audience she knew best: restaurant line cooks. The result was a book that looks… read more

2016 IACP Cookbook Award Winners

April 3, 2016 by
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  The IACP has just announced the winners of its 2016 Cookbook Awards at its annual conference, held this year in Los Angeles, California. There were no real upsets; most of the winners were solid contenders from the beginning. It may have taken longer than he intended to write his opus, but it looks like all the work paid off… read more

Revisiting a cherished children’s classic

March 30, 2016 by
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Only a few cookbooks can stand the test of time. While many works fade away, there are a few that continue to inspire decades after they are published. One of these is  Australian Women's Weekly's Children's Birthday Cake Book. For decades, Australian children have chosen to celebrate with a cake from one of book's whimsical designs like the train or… read more

James Beard Foundation 2016 nominees

March 16, 2016 by
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  The James Beard Foundation has just announced the nominees for its 2016 cookbook awards. Compared to the recently published IACP list, the JBF award nominees seem to align better with the preferences of EYB Members. More Member favorites made the latter list than the former, including The New Sugar and Spice by Samantha Seneviratne, A Bird in the Hand by Diana Henry… read more

What it’s really like to write a cookbook

March 15, 2016 by
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If you've co-authored five cookbooks with five different chefs, writing your own cookbook should be a piece of cake, right? Not so, says Jessica Battilana. She has worked with temperamental chefs and tight deadlines before, but writing her own cookbook proved to be a much more difficult task. Writing a cookbook with chefs meant Battilana had to act as a… read more

IACP announces 2016 cookbook award nominees

March 8, 2016 by
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  Last night the IACP has announced its 2016 Cookbook Award nominees. The categories were revised again this year, with the Culinary History, Global Design and E-cookbook sections dropped and the former Beverage/Reference/Technical category losing its Beverage component.  Several of the nominations were expected, like The Food Lab: Better Home Cooking Through Science in the American category and Food52 Genius Recipes: 100 Recipes That Will Change… read more

Are there too many men in food writing?

March 2, 2016 by
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  Food writing, especially at the newspaper level, was once heavily weighted towards women. But over the past decade or so, food writing has shifted its focus and subsequently more men have become involved in the craft. Kathleen Purvis weighs in on this change, asking whether too many men are involved in food writing. Purvis notes that when she came… read more

Best selling cookbooks of 2015

January 28, 2016 by
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Last month our friends at cookbook stores around the world gave us their picks for their favorite books of 2015.  Now we asked them for their top sellers.  We thought it would be interesting to compare the lists from specialist stores in the USA to that for all US sales from the publishing industry data company, Nielsen.  They are very… read more

Sara Dickerman’s Kitchen Inventory

January 10, 2016 by
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Many people attempt new healthy eating regimes to start the new year. Often this is a short-lived effort, as the meal plans leave food lovers feeling deprived and unfulfilled. Chef and food writer Sara Dickerman attempted to rectify this situation, creating a popular healthy eating plan on the Bon Appétit website. What began as an interactive post-holiday plan that puts an emphasis on home… read more

Looking forward to celebrity cookbooks

January 8, 2016 by
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Celebrity cookbooks are often dismissed as little more than vanity projects by stars cashing in on their fame. But some celebrities can actually cook and that makes some people actually looking forward to cooking out of a few upcoming celebrity books. The first cookbook is from an unlikely source, musician Questlove. While some musician cookbooks are a bit campy (I'm looking at you, Coolio),… read more

The favorite cookbooks of 2015

December 22, 2015 by
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For the seventh year running we have searched the world for best cookbook lists.  And for the fourth time, Ottolenghi has the most loved cookbook in the world - Nopi. This time his co-author is Ramael Scully, the chef at Nopi.   Check out our Best of the Best page for all the other top choices including charts from the… read more

Cookbook writing advice from the experts

December 20, 2015 by
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What does it take to write a cookbook? Obviously it involves much more than simply compiling recipes. Cookbook writers Matt and Ted Lee, authors of The Lee Bros. Charleston Kitchen, share ten things they have learned from the process. Veteran author and food writer David Lebovitz also offers advice on how to write a cookbook. Both the Lee brothers and… read more

Save 30% on Workman & Artisan books

December 9, 2015 by
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If you are interested in expanding your cookbook collection (and we know you are), you will love our new partnership with Workman Publishing and Artisan Books. For the next 30 days, you can save 30% off the cover price of any book available at workman.com. The special is limited to the US only. The Workman/Artisan cookbook catalog features several hundred volumes,… read more

‘Tis the season for “best of” cookbook lists

November 28, 2015 by
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As the year draws to a close, it's human nature to take a look back and reminisce on the best things of the year. Plenty of experts will be weighing in on which cookbooks were tops in various categories. Jane assesses hundreds of these lists (last year she waded through over 300) and tallies the results to make an ultimate… read more

The archive of eating

October 30, 2015 by
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  Cookbooks have been around for centuries, and no matter how many of them are published, we clamor for more. The idea of cataloging these cookbook recipes has also been around for a long time. As The New York Times reports, food historian Barbara Ketcham Wheaton has been working on such a database for over five decades. The article takes… read more

Start your own cookbook club

October 20, 2015 by
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  Does the following scenario sound familiar? Your new cookbook has arrived, and you eagerly crack open the cover to begin perusing the recipes. You want to try several of the dishes but the time investment (not to mention the cost) is daunting. One solution to this conundrum: start (or join) a cookbook club, and you can begin by using this primer… read more

Which cookbook is the best of all time?

October 19, 2015 by
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  There is no way to achieve consensus on which cookbook is the best of all time. Nevertheless, The LA Times reports that a poll asked that very question of 400 food professionals in Britain, the United States, Australia and New Zealand. The overall winner was Nose to Tail Eating by Fergus Henderson (published as The Whole Beast in the US).… read more

A chance to buy some of Amanda Hesser’s cookbooks

October 17, 2015 by
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Amanda Hesser of Food52 and author of the popular cookbook The Essential New York Times Cookbook is selling off her excess cookbooks from her stoop in Brooklyn. All proceeds will go to a food charity.  Amanda is also giving away home-baked cookies.  If you are in the Brooklyn area on Sunday afternoon (Oct 18) from 3 to 4:30pm, drop by. Further… read more

What your cookbook organization says about you

October 2, 2015 by
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  How do you organize your cookbooks? The answer to that question can say a lot about your personality, according to the cookbook personality test at The Kitchn. They provide 10 different personality types that correspond to how you organize the cookbooks on your bookshelves. If your bookshelves are color-coordinated, for instance, you probably "have a joyful, illustrious soul. You… read more

Bowdoin College obtains historic cookbook collection

September 15, 2015 by
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  As cookbook collections go, Bowdoin College's recently acquried 700 volumes isn't extremely large. It is, however, rich in history, as the Portland Press Herald notes. The college obtained its collection of books, published from 1772 to 1960, from a private collector in New York who worked with Biddeford, Maine-based bookseller Rabelais Inc. to place the collection. "The breadth is… read more

Diana Henry on how to write a cookbook

September 7, 2015 by
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If you have ever wondered how a cookbook comes to life, you can get a fascinating glimpse into the creative process as told by Diana Henry to The Telegraph. Henry explains that for her, cookbooks never come out of nowhere, rather they grow out of her life experiences. She adds, "It sounds a bit pretentious to say that books develop… read more

The best cookbooks according to the experts

August 30, 2015 by
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Making a list of the best cookbooks might be a recipe for starting an argument, but in a recent article from The Guardian, a few intrepid chefs and food writers responded to the challenge. The listing of essential cookbooks was a response to the Prue Leith cookbook controversy - one of several such responses. Leith's dismissal of modern cookbooks led… read more

Me & my cookbooks – Elizabeth Winslow

August 27, 2015 by
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We're pleased to present another installment of the "Me and my cookbooks" series. Many EYB members have told us they enjoy meeting members and special guests through this feature. We'd love to introduce more people, so if you'd like to be featured, just email us at [email protected]. EYB Member Elizabeth Winslow is a food writer, a successful entrepreneur, and a cookbook… read more

Cookbook store profile – Kitchen Witch

August 25, 2015 by
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This is the latest installment of the EYB feature highlighting independent cookbook stores. We hope you will discover (or get reacquainted with) a store near your home - or plan a new target destination when you travel. We keep an ongoing list of cookbook stores but we'd love to learn about more - especially those treasured by our members. So… read more

Does it matter how we use our cookbooks?

August 24, 2015 by
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Last week we posted about Prue Leith's disappointment with modern cookbooks. She was dismissive of books that she believe contained gorgeous photographs at the expense of quality recipes. Cookbook authors Yotam Ottolenghi and Tim Hayward have now weighed in with their thoughts on the controversy.  Both authors agreed with Leith up to a point, with Hayward noting that a modern food… read more
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