A number of fall cookbooks highlight recipes developed at restaurants and other food purveyors across the Northeast. In September, Philadelphia-based Running Press will release Magpie: Sweets and Savories from Philadelphia’s Favorite Pie Boutique by Holly Ricciardi with Miriam Harris, which showcases sweet and savory pies, quiches, pie shakes, and more—think ham, leek, and Dijon potpie; sour cherry almond strudel; and bourbon-infused butterscotch pie.
Kristen Wiewora, senior editor at Running Press, says that copies will be sold not only in bookstores but also “alongside slices of pie at Magpie’s bricks-and-mortar shop,” which opened in 2012.
Some 66 years before Magpie opened, Vrest and Ellen Orton started the Vermont Country Store in Weston, Vt.; today, millions receive its catalogue, which offers everything from checked blankets and jelly glasses to pantry staples like maple syrup, pancake mix, and preserves. Grand Central Life & Style’s The Vermont Country Store Cookbook: Recipes, History and Lore from the Classic American General Store by Ellen Ecker Ogden and Andrea Diehl, with the Orton Family (Sept.), could benefit from name recognition among a surprising demographic.
“The New York Times has written about how the store’s catalogue is the escape catalogue for hipsters in New York and elsewhere,” says editorial director Karen Murgolo. “So the cookbook may appeal to all the Millennials preserving and making candies from scratch.”
Even if the clichéd New York hipster is canning vegetables and brewing up sourdough starter, restaurant culture remains ingrained in the fabric of New York City life. In September, Rizzoli is releasing City Harvest: 100 Recipes from New York’s Best Restaurants by Florence Fabricant, a cookbook author and food critic for the New York Times. Proceeds benefit the local food distribution charity City Harvest.
Fabricant adapted for the home cook recipes from big names on the N.Y.C. food scene, among them Dominique Ansel, Tom Colicchio, Anita Lo, François Payard, Ivy Stark, and Jean-Georges Vongerichten.
More Northeast Cookbooks for Fall
50 Great Bed & Breakfasts and Inns: New England by Susan Sulich (Running Press, Aug.). More than 100 recipes—Block Island baked bluefish and wild Maine blueberry strata, to name two—showcase the kitchens of B&Bs and inns in Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont.
Asian-American: Proudly Inauthentic Recipes from the Philippines to Brooklyn by Dale Talde, with J.J. Goode (Grand Central Life & Style, Sept.). Talde, a Top Chef alum and owner of the eponymous Park Slope restaurant, puts a signature spin on Asian dishes, whether adding bacon and oysters to pad thai or wrapping pork dumplings in pretzel dough.
The Hot Bread Kitchen Cookbook: Artisanal Baking from Around the World by Jessamyn Waldman Rodriguez and Julia Turshen (Clarkson Potter, Oct.). Rodriguez founded the N.Y.C. bakery in 2007 with a mission to train foreign-born and low-income women and men for careers in the specialty food industry.
Battersby: Extraordinary Food from an Ordinary Kitchen by Joseph Ogrodnek and Walker Stern (Grand Central Life & Style, Oct.). From the small (4’ x 6’) kitchen of this Brooklyn restaurant emerge dishes such as crispy kale salad with Brussels sprouts and kohlrabi, and duck breast with quince and radishes.
Sarabeth’s Good Morning Cookbook: Breakfast, Brunch, and Baking by Sarabeth Levine (Rizzoli, Oct.). Levine, who founded the first Sarabeth’s location on N.Y.C.’s Upper West Side in 1982, offers a collection of more than 130 recipes for dishes that still command lines around the block.
Tacos: Recipes and Provocations by Alex Stupak and Jordana Rothman (Clarkson Potter, Oct.). Stupak, owner of New York City’s Empellón Taqueria, showcases traditional and innovative versions of the Mexican staple, from pineapple-topped al pastor to a pastrami with mustard seeds version.
Women Chefs of New York by Nadia Arumugam (Bloomsbury, Nov.). April Bloomfield, Gabrielle Hamilton, and Christina Tosi are among the 25 N.Y.C. chefs who each contribute four signature recipes, interior shots of their restaurants, and more.
