“Now that I had started writing, I found cookbookery such fulfilling work that I intended to keep at it for years and years.” - Julia Child, My Life in France
Welcome friends!
Thanks for joining me at Cookbookery Collective, a gathering place for the cookbook community—authors, eaters, cooks, editors, publicists, publishers, agents, and aspiring authors alike. As a cookbook super-fan myself I love subscribing to authors’ newsletters, reading about books in the media, and learning about new volumes via cookbook clubs on Instagram. But, I found myself craving a platform with more focus, a place dedicated solely to culinary titles and the people who love them.
Cookbookery Collective is that place; my goal is for it to be a community center for cookbook fans and cookbook professionals. It’s a place to celebrate all cookbooks, new and old, blockbuster and under-the-radar. It’s a place to hear from your favorite authors and talk amongst ourselves in the comments section. It’s a place where everyone is welcome, whether you have just a handful of beloved books or a collection in the hundreds.
What You’ll Get
As a free subscriber you’ll receive a weekly newsletter that includes:
The Cookbookery Q&A with an author or other member of the cookbook community.
Cookbook round-ups like this and (most) seasonal previews like this
Links to other conversations about cookbooks on Substack, plus in the broader media
Updates and announcements from existing virtual and IRL cookbook clubs
Think of this as Cookbookery Collective’s bread and butter.
Cookbookery Trade (a.k.a. paid subscriptions)
Cookbookery Trade is a paid tier designed for people in the biz, like authors, aspiring authors, publicists, agents, editors, designers, and photographers. Paid subscribers will receive everything free subscribers do, plus:
Regular cookbook deal reports
All cookbook previews
Interviews with decision-makers, like Jenn Sit, editorial director at Clarkson Potter
Reported pieces on topics like co-writing, trends, and how authors are rethinking book tours
Deep dives into how interesting or buzzy cookbooks came to be.
Who I Am
There is an audio recording of me at age four saying that when I grew up I wanted to be a writer or a baker. After several detours along the way, it’s astonishing how close I am to that childhood aspiration (although I’d call myself more of a cook than a baker).
When I was younger and in the TV business, all I wanted to do was think about food all the time. I made a career change, attending culinary school at night and starting a personal chef business (that I still run today!). Eventually I found myself as the food editor at Parents magazine. Since then I’ve written five cookbooks, including Bare Minimum Dinners and the bestselling Baby-Led Feeding, all published by Harvest (Harper Collins). For the past five years I have been the food director at REAL SIMPLE, basically a dream job. My first novel The Foreign Correspondent’s Wife will be out in October 2026.
And one of the very best parts about my role is that I get sent any cookbook I want (and some I don’t, tbh) for editorial consideration. Not only does that fact feed my hunger for fantastic cookbooks, it also exposes me to the depth and breadth of the business. When a cookbook makes the journey from my office desk to my apartment, that’s a significant step forward in our relationship. It means I actually expect to cook from it, something that can’t be said for all books. My personal collection is nearly 200 books; if I had a bigger apartment it would include many, many more.
Why Cookbooks
Why even bother with cookbooks in our digital age, when you can get dinner inspo from TikTok or type the name of any dish into Google and find dozens of recipes to choose from? Here’s why: The best cookbooks, the ones worth a spot on our shelves, are more than just a collection of recipes. They also have a story to tell. One might be a distillation of someone’s life’s experience coming from a different culture and cooking in America. One might be so beautifully written the recipes almost seem incidental, but still work like a dream. Maybe the photos or illustrations are so evocative you practically want to lick the page. Or maybe it’s just a tight collection of killer recipes for weeknight dinners that actually lives up to its promise of 30-minute meals.
And, despite the fact that I’m writing a newsletter that will be delivered on your phone or computer, I adore print. A cookbook is tangible in a way that I’m missing in other parts of my life. Ideally it was put together by a team of talented and thoughtful people, the writer, editor, photographer or illustrator, stylists, designer and more. I want more of those types of beautiful physical products. (Btw, print magazines fall into this category too!)
Stay up-to-date
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