We Are Family

September 17, 2013 by
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Just as we saw with the words "table" and "kitchen" a while back, there's a battle going on for the soul of "family" in cookbook titles.  What is a family cookbook, exactly?  What, or who, counts as family, and what does a family cookbook need to accomplish? The what, or who, used to be easy. Family was family, by blood… read more

Line cooks

September 10, 2013 by
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When it comes to cookbook design, it's the Wild West out there! Maybe its because cookbooks, stalwart sellers in a digital age, have the luxury of experimentation as buyers hunt down increasingly charming and quirky gifts.  Maybe it has to do with our increasingly visual culture.   In any case, I've posted about some of these graphic innovations on earlier… read more

Rainy day cookbooks

September 3, 2013 by
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I've got them.  You've got them.  Pretty much anybody with over 100 cookbooks has a couple.  That's right - those books that we set aside for a rainy day, or a day when the kids have a field trip, or when we've already finished all the knitting projects. This year seems to have brought a whole bunch of them, with… read more

Pick a region, pick a diet, pick a subject…

August 27, 2013 by
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While attending to the (never-ending) task of culling and organizing the cookbook library today, it struck me that publishing output in a number of categories is shifting. There seem to be fewer big-ticket restaurant books this year (think Noma, Faviken, El Bulli). And for me at least, many trade reference single-subjects (the kind of book that's a glossary of 200… read more

What’s hot in Manhattan

August 20, 2013 by
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Actually, everything's hot in New York this week. It's in the upper 80's, and as usual the steaming sidewalks, midtown traffic, and ever-present faint smell of garbage makes it feel even hotter. Nevertheless, business is hopping at the Union Square Barnes & Noble, helped along by the farmer's market. I stop by the Cookbooks section to find out what's selling… read more

Can you really bake a doughnut?

August 14, 2013 by
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It's the end of summer, really, that makes you think you might even contemplate making doughnuts.  The weather's getting just a little cooler.  Your days of leisure are coming to an end.  You think to yourself, "I might - I just might - have time for one more cooking project before the year starts up again...even if it is a sweaty… read more

Recipe keepers, journals, and diaries

August 6, 2013 by
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It's the peaceful, slow part of the year. Let's step away from cookbooks for just a moment and look at an often-overlooked corner of the recipe market.  Did you know that there's a whole niche of publishing devoted to recipe journals and diaries? They come in all different shapes and sizes, and designed for all different levels of engagement. A… read more

What’s your number?

July 29, 2013 by
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Is it 5? 6? 8? 10? This summer's cookbooks are having a silent contest for the hearts of cooks who subscribe to the "quick and easy" school of cooking.  How many ingredients do we want to see in a recipe?  Salt and pepper don't count, by the way. America's Test Kitchen puts its bid right front and center with The… read more

Food-forward picture books

July 22, 2013 by
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A while ago, I did a feature on literary cookbooks for kids.  It wasn't that long ago, but in the months seen I've been seeing a special kind of book that doesn't even pretend to be a cookbook, really - the picture book that's all about food. Now, it's not as though kids' stories about food are anything new -… read more

Coastal features

July 16, 2013 by
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Summer's a slow time in cookbook publishing, but I notice one category of books has kept up a steady, diligent trickle: seafood books.  This isn't totally surprising, since summer's the time for beachgoers and weekend fishermen and fried shellfish.  We had a good crop of these books a couple of years ago, but last year was an off year.  Now… read more

Sugar & spice & everything nice

July 9, 2013 by
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Because I enjoy asking for trouble, I thought I'd share a question which arose in my mind the other day, when a new book dropped out its manila envelope and I caught the title: Stacie Bakes, it declared. I was suddenly struck by déjà vu. Why did this sound so familiar?  My thoughts went instantly to Joy the Baker and One Girl… read more

Is half a loaf better than one?

July 1, 2013 by
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By and large, I think food photography has only gotten better and better in the decades since its aspicky, orange 1960's lowpoint.  Digital cameras mean mistakes are cheap and easily fixed, and the food blogging revolution has made outstanding imagery pretty much the norm. The technically perfect photo - crisp, well-lit, large as life or larger - has been a… read more

Just how long should a recipe be?

June 25, 2013 by
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For some years I've been an advocate of more explicit recipes - you know, recipes that tell you not just time and temperature ("3-5 minutes over a medium flame"), but what to look, listen, smell, and taste for - the telltale blistering of the skin, the moment when the spice releases its aromatic oils, the squeaking sound the dough makes… read more

Married with cookbooks

June 17, 2013 by
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A couple of years ago, a book called Just Married and Cooking was published. The couple was cute and camera-ready, though I thought the recipes were nothing special and I didn't keep the book.  But it seemed like a milestone in the blog phenomenon - husbands and wives blogging and publishing together. Since then that trend has only accelerated.  Perhaps… read more

Sweet without the heat

June 10, 2013 by
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Before Saturday, I had never once made panna cotta, I'm embarrassed to admit.  I'm not sure why, since I basically can't say no to a custard of any kind.  Maybe it's because I'm never quite sure the gelatin will set, or I'm afraid there will be rubbery lumps. At any rate, the recipe caught my eye because of the buttermilk… read more

Is DIY turning into FIY (Forage It Yourself)?

June 3, 2013 by
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If there's one kind of a cookbook I can't resist (and goodness knows there's more like a dozen kinds I can't resist),  it's a book about weeds.  Every time I try to put a book about weeds on the Give Away pile, it's like an invisible force tugs my hand back and puts the book back on the shelf.  It's… read more

The “good enough” cookbook (or, the “A with B and C” cookbook)

May 28, 2013 by
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The "good enough" cookbook is a concept that's come to me over my years of reviewing cookbooks.  It sounds a little churlish (think of Obama's "likeable enough" comment and the uprorar that caused..), but it's not.  In fact, a few of my favorite cookbooks started out as "good enough" cookbooks.  It's an idea that's helped me make sense of why… read more

Return of the single-subject cookbook

May 23, 2013 by
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I'm a bit late with this week's post, mostly because I've been up to my ears in the summer cookbook roundup.  It was an exciting batch of books, but what struck me especially forcefully this time round was the predominance of outstanding single-subject books (both in the top 10 and the shortlist). It's not that single-subject books have been scarce over… read more

Here come the kids…

May 14, 2013 by
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With Mother's Day fast receding into the rear-view mirror, I thought it would be interesting to look more closely at a phenomenon which seems to be especially noticeable this year:  cookbooks by those whose parents are better-known than they are. April brought Old-School Comfort Food, by Alex Guarnaschelli - the daughter of Maria Guarnaschelli, the cookbook editor (most famously of… read more

About those menus…

May 7, 2013 by
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You know those "suggested menus" offered by many cookbooks?  Where they tell you what goes with what, from starters to salads to mains to sides to sweets, and what wine you should serve with what?  And often they have a picture to go with it - of the whole beautiful spread, sometimes being elegantly nibbled by an octet of attractive… read more

Cookbooks for Mother’s Day!

April 30, 2013 by
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Less than two weeks till Mother's Day, and we're entering the "spring bump" - next to the year-end holidays, it's the second-busiest time of year for cookbook publishing and cookbook sales. (Which is why my developer timed the launch of my cookbook-rating app, CookShelf - just out! - for now.) And that makes me think...if, like so many people, you're… read more

Who’s easy now?

April 22, 2013 by
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Here's the quote that caused the trouble, from a recent story I wrote about preserved lemons: "Preserved lemons can take a month - certainly not less than two weeks. By that time, I've put aside my North African cookbooks and I'm on to an easy French or Hunan cookbook, or a book that's all about ice cream or pickles." [emphases… read more

Local and localer

April 16, 2013 by
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In the days before I had my own vegetable garden, I could hardly wait for the farmstands to fill up with local color and variety each year.  What's better than a fresh carrot?  A purple carrot grown five miles away.  What's better than a cool new radish?  a bunch of Easter Egg radishes, ovoid and pastel.  What's better than a… read more

The mainstreaming of the global pantry

April 9, 2013 by
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When I was first learning to cook, the 80's had just swept past, leaving in their big-haired, big-shouldered wake a trove of newly-popularized ingredients that had once been exotic: raspberry and balsamic vinegars, arugula, sun-dried tomatoes. And because shiitakes were becoming affordable and mainstream, it was now possible to make recipes with "wild mushrooms" any night you wanted to without… read more

All About Branding

April 2, 2013 by
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Let's talk for a moment about "branding," a term one hears a great deal of in cookbook publishing these days.  Everybody does it: The TV chef who sells a line of cookware, the market gardener who starts a blog, the Barefoot Contessa, the Naked Chef, Chris Kimball with his bowtie.  Even me, with my cookbook-rating app. "Branding," with respect to… read more
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