Make a bee-line for this cookbook

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

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

  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

  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’

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

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?

 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

  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

Fundraiser to save the Kitchen Witch

Kitchen Witch Cook Book Shop has been serving cookbook lovers for over 18 years in New Orleans. Their shop located in the historic Bayou Road/Broad Street corridor is struggling to keep their doors open. The good news is that in the next year many high profile businesses and entertainment venues are set to open. The bad news is that with… read more

IACP Cookbook Award winners

  Jenny and Jane attended the International Association of Culinary Professionals (IACP) annual meeting in New York City. That means they were able to see the winners of the 2018 IACP Cookbook Awards  in person! The rest of us had to follow along on Twitter - and now we know the winners. We've updated our IACP 2018 community page to note… read more

Food52’s ‘The Piglet’ cookbook competition returns for 2018

  Indexed website Food52 has just announced the competitors for its cookbook competition called The Piglet. Now in its ninth year, the contest pits sixteen books against one another in a bracketed tournament competition. Over the course of several weeks, each of the judges (who are top food writers, chefs, and celebrities) make dishes from two books and announce which… read more

California fire relief effort aims to replace cookbooks

  Last year's wildfires in California devastated entire communities. Thousands of people lost their homes and belongings as the firestorm swept through several towns. For some people the losses were absolute, where nothing remained in the ashes of what they once called home. Cherished cookbooks were among the items people lost. I'm sure that EYB Members would be heartbroken to… read more

Two cookbook awards nominee lists announced

Cookbook awards season seems to creep up earlier and earlier each year. No sooner than we finish compiling our "best of" lists here at EYB, than announcements for various awards start popping up in our news feeds. Today we learned about two organizations that have released their nominees for the 2018 cookbook awards.  The first of these is from The… read more

Best selling cookbooks of 2017

Last month our friends at cookbook stores around the world gave us their picks for their favorite books of 2017. 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.   The unstoppable… read more

Your cookbook collection could be worth more than you think

  When you think of collectible cookbooks, you probably consider volumes like a first edition of Joy of Cooking or a signed copy of Mastering the Art of French Cooking, both of which are highly sought after books. But these aren't the only cookbooks that are worth collecting. According to Food & Wine, many other volumes may be valuable as well.… read more

The Year in Review – 2017

The sun is fading outside my window as the minutes tick away what is left of 2017.  Our friends on the other side of the world have already welcomed 2018, while we are making plans to celebrate New Years Eve. To be honest, I don't believe I've ushered in a new year since the birth of my youngest child in… read more

Best of the Best Cookbook List 2017

Each year, Jane collects the "best cookbooks" lists from a wide variety of sources, ranging from television to radio to bloggers to newspapers - over 300 lists in total. After aggregating and ranking 815 books, Jane compiled the winners into EYB's "Best of the Best" cookbooks of 2017. This year Yotam Ottolenghi is back in the top cookbook spot for… read more

The best cookbooks of 2017 by the experts

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, think about supporting your… read more

How to choose the ‘keeper’ cookbooks

  Whenever you face cookbook overload - the shelves are bulging, and there is hardly any room left for even one volume - naturally, that means you will see several new 'must have' books. How do you decide which books are worth buying and taking up that precious real estate, or which of your current collection can be passed on… read more

Australia’s best bakers weigh in on their favorite baking books

When you walk into a bakery and see the rows of glistening pastries or perfectly browned breads, you might not think that the master bakers who created these lovely treats might have pored over the same baking books that sit on your cookbook shelves. But everyone has to start somewhere, and for many pastry chefs, that start came in the… read more

The lasting legacy of Joy of Cooking

  We have frequently posted about legacy items on the EYB blog: things like cherished hand-me-down cookbooks, recipes, and kitchen tools we have inherited from family and dear friends. In these posts, Joy of Cooking frequently comes up in conversation. It is difficult to overstate the lasting legacy of this work. Recently Charles Roberts, owner of the used bookstore WonderBook,… read more

Blog ‘Great British Chefs’ is publishing a cookbook

  Indexed blog Great British Chefs has only been around for a few years, but it has made a big impact. Now the popular website is putting together cookbook featuring recipes from the blog as well as new recipes. There is one catch - it is only available via Kickstarter, and the campaign ends in just 21 days.  The website… read more

600 years of cookbook history

We are living in a golden age of cookbooks, one where almost everyone can find a book filled with recipes for a reasonable price. It wasn't always like this - centuries ago, only the wealthiest people had cookbooks, which were seen as a status symbol. Henry Notaker traces the history of cookbooks for seven centuries in his book A History of… read more

What do you do when you have 30,000 cookbooks?

  Many EYB Members have impressive cookbook collections numbering in the hundreds and a few have thousands of cookbooks on their shelves. One man in Berlin puts us all to shame. He has collected over 30,000 cookbooks and did what anyone with that many books would do: he opened a cookbook store.   In the article, we only learn the collector's… read more

These cookbooks stand the test of time

Cookbooks that sell into the hundreds of thousands are not as rare today as they once were. Fewer cookbooks were published years ago, and there were no Instagram feeds or food blogs saturated with gorgeous photographs to spark a sensation. Nevertheless, a handful of books managed to become huge hits, selling millions of copies over the years. How well have… read more
Seen anything interesting? Let us know & we'll share it!