In Tara Westover’s acclaimed memoir Educated, she recalls her Grandma-over-in-town baking Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Cookies, and she shares her grandmother’s recipe for book clubs and readers to enjoy. I was spending the afternoon with Grandma-over-in-town. I’d had a bath that morning, even though it wasn’t Sunday, and I’d put on special clothes with no holes or stains so that, […]
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That’s What She Said Kleinur (Icelandic Pastries) recipe
Iceland is the No. 1 country in the world for gender equality, and while researching That’s What She Said: What Men Need to Know (and Women Need to Tell Them) About Working Together in Iceland, I quickly became addicted to kleinur, a traditional Icleandic confection. Flavored with cardamom, they are similar to crullers or twisted doughnuts, and […]
THE WEIGHT OF INK Menu and Jumbal Cakes Recipe from Rachel Kadish
Shortly after I finished writing The Weight of Ink, a friend surprised me with a meal made up of foods that related to the different parts of the novel. It was a supremely thoughtful gift, and of course a fun way to savor finishing the book. In the spirit of my friend’s gift — and […]
Jewell Parker Rhodes’s Pistachio Baklava
Towers Falling, my novel for middle grade readers focuses on three friends: Sabeen, a Turkish American Muslim girl, Ben, a booklover and soldier’s son, and Dèja, a homeless girl who doesn’t know her father’s damaged lungs and her family’s subsequent poverty are because of his 9/11 heroism. When Dèja and Ben cut school to […]
Historical Dutch Apple Pie recipe from author Dominic Smith
Life is weather. Life is meals. I always recall this James Salter quote from Light Years whenever I think about food in fiction. Meals are also a signifier in novels and stories. What a character eats—and how they eat it, and with whom—tells us a lot about their background and worldview. In The Last Painting of […]
Ona Vitkus’ Tomato Soup Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting
Hello, readers. If you’re reading The One-in-a-Million Boy for your book club, here is a cupcake version of my main character Ona’s tomato soup cake. I know, they sound awful. But don’t leave before trying one! My publisher also puts out cookbooks, so the recipe went through their test kitchen. I got the idea for tomato […]
Emma Donoghue: Jack’s Sixth-Birthday Cake from ROOM
The following recipe and introduction are re-printed from THE BOOK CLUB COOKBOOK by Judy Gelman and Vicki Levy Krupp (Penguin, 2012). The narrator of Emma Donoghue’s novel is a five-year-old boy who leads a busy life. Jack and his mother’s days are filled with imagination, love for each other, and “thousands of things to do,” […]
Adella’s Rescue Road Bacon Brownies Recipe
Greg Mahle drives more than 8,000 miles every month transporting lost, neglected and abandoned dogs to new “forever” homes. His remarkable story is at the center of Rescue Road: One Man, Thirty Thousand Dogs and a Million Miles on the Last Hope Highway (Sourcebooks, 2015). Every other Monday he kisses his wife Adella goodbye on the […]
Juicy Wine Cakes from A CONFEDERACY OF DUNCES COOKBOOK
In the novel A Confederacy of Dunces, Ignatius Reilly and the wannabe stripper, Darlene, both have an affection for wine cakes, smallish yellow cakes soaked in wine and topped with whipped cream and cherries. This dessert goes all the way back to Creole Louisiana’s antebellum days, when cakes such as savarin, a French pastry doused […]
Torte, Ollie’s Birthday
Eileen Goudge: Ollie’s Birthday Torte ONCE IN A BLUE MOON In my latest novel, Once in a Blue Moon, café barista Ollie has a deft touch with baked goods. This is a version of the birthday torte he made for Kerrie Ann’s 30th, using walnuts instead of hazelnuts. It’s a bit labor-intensive, but the end result […]