This season, there's no lack of cookbooks vying for a spot on the cook's kitchen (or library) shelf. Some are of the traditional kind, gamely slugging it out with standard-bearers; others are seeking novelty status. Or perhaps not so novel, if your palate is accustomed to real blood pudding. Bon appetit! Click here for an extended roundup of upcoming cookbooks.
No Ciao to Chow
Do we really need another Italian cookbook? The folks at Phaidon Press are banking on it. The house is publishing its first cookbook ever, The Silver Spoon (Nov.), by going Italian in a huge way: 1,280 pages, 2,000-plus recipes, an index listing ingredients as well as recipes. The Silver Spoon is a collection of recipes from home cooks scattered from the Piedmont to Sicily, gathered over more than 50 years. It was first published in Italy in 1950; it has since gone through six different editions. "This is the first time it's been in English, but I know it very well," says Emilia Terragni, editorial director for architecture, design and cooking at Phaidon. "It was in my mother's kitchen, my grandmother's kitchen." With a buyer-friendly $39.95 cover price, The Silver Spoon—translated, adapted and tested for the American market—just saw its 150,000 first printing bumped up to 200,000.
Brand New
Clarkson Potter exerts a vise-like grip on nonfiction bestseller lists with its branded cookbook stars. Those with the largest first printings on its fall list are Rachael Ray's 30-Minute Meals, 365: No Repeats: A Year of Deliciously Different Dinners (Oct., 600,000 trade paper copies), Martha Stewart's Baking Handbook(Nov., 300,000 copies in cloth) and Moosewood Restaurant Simple Suppers: Fresh Ideas for the Weeknight Table (Oct., 75,000 copies in cloth). Pam Krauss, CP editorial director, says that Ray's book is "her most monumental achievement. It almost killed her writing it." As for Martha Stewart, "Baking is her first love," says Krauss, reminding us that Martha Stewart's Pies & Tarts, published exactly 20 years ago, was one of her early bestsellers. For the first time, CP publishes a Moosewood cookbook exclusively in hardcover, with color photos.
Kafka's Back
It's been eight years since Barbara Kafka's last book, Soup, which is now up to 250,000 copies in print for Artisan. So it's a no-brainer that the house is planning a 100,000 first printing for Vegetable Love(Dec.), a generous serving of 750 recipes that will be supported with a $75,000 marketing and publicity campaign. "It's massive," says publisher Ann Bramson. "It's bursting at the seams, and we're having a hard time keeping it within 720 pages." All courses of a meal are included (Golden Pepper Ice Cream, anyone?), as are just about all vegetables under the sun. "It's a book full of quiet scholarship," says Bramson. "It's also an event."
Mable's Still Here
It's now 30 years since Mable Hoffman created a big stir for crock pots with her breakthrough Crockery Cookery. Never out of print at HP since 1975, the Tastemaker Award—winner's sales have reached well over five million copies. The three-decade milestone is just the time for HP to reissue it in September, along with Hoffman's 1998 effort, Healthy Crockery Cookery, both with spiffed-up covers. ""The books themselves don't need updating," says publisher John Duff, "but new covers give us a nice excuse to bring them back to people's attention."
Chinese with a French Accent
Despite her elevated status among foodies, James Beard Award—winning chef Susanna Foo is no snob. Rux Martin, Houghton Mifflin executive editor for cookbooks, says, "She told me, 'I want to write a book for housewives.' " Taking her high profile in Philadelphia's culinary circles and replicating it in Atlantic City, Foo opened a new restaurant in the Borgata Hotel Casino & Spa in that gambling mecca last year. As a follow-up, her second book, Susanna Foo Fresh Inspiration, is due from HM in September. "She's not interested in preserving some sort of rigid tradition. The trend today," says Martin, "is toward the absolute simplest recipes, but we're still looking for perfection."
The Latina Patina
No glass ceiling for Daisy Martinez. She once handled prep work for chefs like Lidia Bastianich. Now she has her own cooking show, and her own cookbook, Daisy Cooks: Latin Flavors that Will Rock Your World (Hyperion, Sept.). Brooklyn-born to Puerto Rican parents, Daisy, says editor-in-chief Will Schwalbe, "shows how to bring Latin flavors into the cooking you do every day." He describes Daisy, who sings and dances on her show, as "beyond effervescent." Latino food is everywhere, enthuses Schwalbe, noting that more salsa is sold these days than ketchup.
Country Comes Home
It's a case of many chefs not spoiling the broth. Several years ago, Reader's Digest acquired Reiman Publications, which includes among its properties Taste of Home, self-described as "the Magazine Edited by a Thousand Country Cooks." Using only reader-based material from all over the country and taking no advertising, the magazine is now the source for The Complete Guide to Country Cooking (Reader's Digest Books, Oct.). "We're seeing a resurgence of interest in down-home cooking," remarks Dolores York, executive editor of RD's trade books. "These aren't trendy dishes we're talking about. These are comfort foods that are simple and honest."
PB&J Redux
The return to basics in American cooking is in full swing, and publishers are paying heed. How else to explain the retro appearance of books on peanut butter and jelly? Bruce Weinstein and Mark Scarbrough offer The Ultimate Peanut Butter Book (Morrow, Sept.), with recipes on everything from Peanut Butter Fudge to Cold Peanut Noodles and Pad Thai. From the popular sandwich shop in New York's Greenwich Village comes The Peanut Butter & Co. Cookbook (Quirk Books, Oct.) by Lee Zalben; from Sterling/Chapelle comes The Magic of Peanut Butter: 100 New & Favorite Recipes by Skippy and The Magic of Jelly: 100 New & Favorite Recipes by Welch's, both illustrated with vintage photos and memorabilia.
Addams at Table
Potted Woodland Squirrel. Mushrooms Fester. Black Puddings (made, of course, with blood). These are some of the macabre meals found in Chas Addams Half-Baked Cookbook: Culinary Cartoons for the Humorously Famished (S&S, Oct.) by Charles Addams. Addams, he of the famously dark funny bone, died in 1988, but he was very fond of food, as his cartoons for the New Yorker revealed. Who else would have thought of cannibals wearing bibs decorated with pictures of missionaries in lieu of lobsters? "He never finished this project before he died," says executive editor Geoffrey Kloske, "so these are drawn from his archives." And yes, says Kloske, the recipes are indeed makeable. "But we don't go out of our way to be helpful," he says, ghoulishly.
Bullish
It's a cookbook for weight lifters. (It weighs 10 pounds.) It's a cookbook for spendthrifts. (It costs $350.) It's a cookbook and an art book rolled into one. It's El Bulli by Spanish chef Ferran Adria, and it's due from Ecco in August. Publisher Dan Halpern concedes, "This is the most expensive cookbook I've ever seen." But he has two reasons for publishing it: 1) so that he could get a reservation at Adria's El Bulli restaurant in Roses, Spain; and 2) because "This guy is The Guy. He has altered the culinary landscape more than anyone else." El Bulli is boxed with a a detailed user's guide and an interactive CD-ROM with all the recipes. "If you want to buy someone an expensive gift and you're looking for a cookbook, this is the only one in the category," says Halpern, who has committed to selling 1,000 copies.
