No. 1: Welcome to Smorgasbord!
Let's get this party started.
Welcome to Smorgasbord, a twice-monthly newsletter featuring a bevy of food and lifestyle recommendations from yours truly. Thanks for being here and for subscribing if you choose to.
Also, hi! I’m Claire, a San Francisco-based book editor. I work on the food & lifestyle team at a publishing house where I edit cookbooks, baking books, and cocktail books; as well as lifestyle books on the topics of wellness, self-help, nature, gardening, home decor, style, and more.
In my work life, I’m constantly talking, thinking, and reading about all things food and lifestyle. A big part of my job is simply being knowledgeable about these spaces and scouting future trends (is seaweed the next kale? Is minimalist decor on its way out? Is abundance mindset the answer to all our problems?). As a way to synthesize and share some of the most interesting parts of my work, and to hopefully bring together a community of people who similarly love to read, cook, travel, and dress up, (and talk about said books, recipes, trips, and ‘fits), I’m launching this two-part project in 2023.
A Project in Two Parts: Books to Cook
Back in 2020, when we were all sheltering in place and unsure what to do with our newfound free time, I, like many other folks, found myself in the kitchen. I began cooking and baking a lot more than I had been pre-pandemic, and also mixing up a lot of cocktails. Initially, it was just something to do, but over time, it became a source of joy and comfort—both the act of cooking and of enjoying a meal, leisurely, with nowhere to be.
In subsequent years, as the world started to reopen, I stopped baking bagels every weekend and drinking margaritas on weeknights, but otherwise my husband Andrew and I pretty much kept up with our cooking routine. We both love food and cooking and like doing it together. Most weeknights you can find us making dinner at home, and most Sundays, I’m baking something sweet. Occasionally, I also test recipes for work.
More recently, as I slowly got on board with TikTok and then quickly became obsessed with cooking videos by creators like @BakedbyMelissa, @Justine_Snacks, and @BromaBakery, I started to wonder if I should share all the cooking I was doing at home with more people. I figured I was doing it anyway, why not post it?!
This thought was rolling around my head for a few months until the turn of the year—that promising season when lofty resolutions seem oh-so-doable. I decided to take the plunge in the form of a yearlong project that I dubbed “Books to Cook.” Every month, I will cook (or bake or drink) my way through a different cookbook and share those kitchen adventures on Instagram and TikTok, where you can follow along. (Check me out @books.to.cook !) At the end of the month, I’ll send a full recap of the experience and a detailed book review here, in my newsletter.
(You could say that my 2023 resolution is to be more online than ever before, lol. You don’t hear that too often!)
Besides the simple “why not?”, I also wanted to start this Books to Cook project as a way to share my love for cookbooks. When I tell people I edit cookbooks for a living, the most common questions I get are: “Do people still buy cookbooks?” and “Don't most people just look for recipes online since they're free?" The answer, in both cases, is: yes.
In the gift book market, cookbooks are still some of the bestselling books. There is a core audience of people who buy cookbooks, collect them, use them regularly, gift them to friends. These diehard fans likely consume (haha) food media such as Bon Appetit and Eater on a regular basis, subscribe to newsletters like Cherry Bombe and Stained Page, await forthcoming books from their favorite non-celebrity chefs, and own piles of cookbooks with floury, dog-eared pages.
But cookbooks have also become less widespread and less oft-used than in pre-internet times, as most people do look for recipes online. (No shame in that! The NYT Cooking app gets frequent use in our house.) This is where the second, much bigger audience of cookbook consumers comes in. These home cooks generally aren’t deep in food media, and they probably own four or five cookbooks—maybe a Half Baked Harvest, Barefoot Contessa, Alison Roman, or Smitten Kitchen. They enjoy these cookbooks and display them in their kitchen, pulling them off the shelf from time to time and for special occasions.
When I conceived of this project, I primarily had this latter audience in mind. So if that sounds like you, stay! Subscribe! Follow along! And even if not, stay! Subscribe! Follow along! Anyone is welcome here, and I’m excited to see how this community evolves. Ultimately, through my cooking adventures and, no doubt, mishaps, I hope to introduce you to some of my favorite cooks, books, and dishes; to underscore the value of cookbooks; and to demonstrate how much fun and how easy it is to use them regularly.
A Project in Two Parts: Smorgasbord
Because cookbooks comprise only half of my work, I’m giving myself space to grow this project in a lifestyle direction as well. The mid-month edition of this newsletter (sent every month on the 15th) will offer a selection of my choicest recs for novels, podcasts, clothing brands, home decor, and more. It might also include musings on topics ranging from the publishing industry to tablescaping, overseas travel to planting a vegetable bed. It will be an assortment of everything I love and anything I’m interested in. Inevitably, a smorgasbord.
So without further ado, here is January’s smörgåsbord (l’édition première!):
👗 This gorgeous apron. Really anything from Casa Velasquez, a trove of home decor and “hostingware” in the prettiest colors and patterns, founded by Mariana Velasquez, food stylist, author of the cookbook Colombiana, and all-around tastemaker.
📚 Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow, by Gabrielle Zevin: Ugh, I know, this book has been recommended everywhere. I wish I was more original, but this is a solid rec. It’s a story about love, but not in a stereotypical sense, and about work, but in this case, work is gaming. I put off reading this book because I’m not interested in video games. But, actually, it was fascinating to get a peek into the world of gamers, and the story isn’t really about video games. The two main characters, Sadie and Sam, are so well-drawn they feel real, and the plot moves quickly. I was sad when I finished this.
🎾 Pickleball: As in, the sport that’s sweeping the nation. Andrew and I started playing pickleball this past fall and it’s the most fun game/workout I’ve ever participated in. In fact, after playing just two games, we loved it so much that Andrew joined a league called Pickleboys, (or it might be spelled Picklebois, which, yikes). After just four games, Andrew got me pickleball paddles for Christmas, which I thought was a kickass gift. (Ah, love.) If you have not yet hit the courts, as they say (just kidding, no one says that), let this serve as your inspiration. It really is the best!
📚 The Heart’s Invisible Furies, by John Boyne: An epic novel tracing the life of one Cyril Avery, a gay Irishman born in 1945 to an unwed girl and adopted by an eccentric well-to-do couple. This isn’t a new novel, but I finally got around to reading it after having it on my TBR list for nearly two years. I’ve always romanticized Ireland, perhaps because I have some Irish blood myself. But this book, by Irish author John Boyne of The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, paints a realistic picture of a stoic, unforgiving country whose recent history is rife with widespread prejudice. Cyril is an odd and charming character whose life is full of twists and turns that take the reader from Ireland to Amsterdam to New York and back. Exploring themes of identity and love—romantic, platonic, patriotic—this story is heartbreaking, funny, and ultimately profound.
📺 Bad Sisters: I was on a bit of an Irish kick this past month! After finishing The Heart’s Invisible Furies, I finally watched this drama series on Apple TV, and OMG! It wasn’t exactly what I expected, but I loved it. The very deep, very real sisterly bonds; the beauty shots of Irish countryside and coastline; the suspense—ah! So, so good.
Thanks for reading! You can subscribe and/or share this with a friend using the buttons below. If you subscribe (it’s free!), I’ll see you on January 31 for a discussion of food, cooking adventures, and To Asia With Love by Hetty McKinnon. And I'll be back on February 15 with another smorgasbord!
xo,
Claire
Love that you’ve curated this clip on All things current👏🏻