A new way to test cookbooks

Cookbook clubs (along with our EYBD Previews) offer an opportunity to “test drive” cookbooks. Making recipes that you find online or in a library copy of the cookbook, along with hearing how others fared with specific recipes, allows you to get to know the book without committing to a purchase right away. There’s another way to vet a cookbook, and it involves less work but more money – check out an author’s collaboration with a restaurant.

This growing trend features cookbook authors teaming up with chefs in one or more restaurants to make tasting events based on recipes in a new cookbook. It’s especially poplar with chef-written books, as the collaboration is a natural extension of the ways chefs share ideas with one another. The menus can feature dishes from a cookbook paired with ones offered by the hosting chef, or be strictly derived from the book.

Restaurant collaborations are quickly becoming a standard part of author book tours. For both parties, “the cookbook dinner is a strategic play toward networking and cross-promotion,” and the benefits for diners are also a win-win – getting to eat dinner and evaluate a cookbook at the same time. However, there can be drawbacks. Sometimes chefs can’t resist putting their own twists on a dish, so you can’t be sure it’s going to turn out the same way in your own kitchen. For some authors, this is actually a feature, not a bug. Author Renee Erickson says that for her, “writing a cookbook isn’t to say, you do it this way…It’s to give an idea to the world and hope people can be inspired to adapt it into their life.”