HarperCollins’ Harvest imprint has acquired Blue Food: Hope in the Water: Sustainable Eating from Oceans, Lakes, and Rivers, a seafood cookbook with guidance on responsible sourcing and 170 exciting recipes for fish, shellfish, seaweed, and sea vegetables. Written by Emmy and James Beard Award-winning TV personality, chef, and activist Andrew Zimmern and sustainability expert and educator Barton Seaver, the cookbook will tell stories from around the world showcasing modern and traditional fishing and aquaculture, demonstrating how both are key to our food and climate future. Featuring a foreword by actress Shailene Woodley and photography by Eric Wolfinger, the book will accompany the forthcoming PBS docuseries “Hope in the Water,” with both being produced in partnership with the nonprofit Fed By Blue.
Pooja Bavishi's Malai Cookbook Sold to Weldon Owen
Weldon Owen has acquired Pooja Bavishi’s Malai: Frozen Desserts with South Asian Flavors, a groundbreaking cookbook featuring 90 unique recipes such as Besan Burfi Ice Cream Pie, Nimbu Pani Frozen Lemonade, Ghughra Sticky Buns, and Chai Molasses Cookies. The cookbook’s title — a north Indian word that loosely translates to “cream of the crop” — is also the name of Bavashi’s Brooklyn-based artisanal ice cream company, which she launched in 2015 to celebrate the culture and traditions that she grew up with. In the same spirit of her now-beloved company, her forthcoming cookbook will showcase the first-generation experience and the richness and versatility of Indian spices, suffused in everything from ice creams, non-dairy treats, frozen desserts, baked goods, and toppings.
Asada Delivers Summer Buzz
Asada: The Art of Mexican-Style Grilling (Abrams), the new book from Oaxaca authors Bricia Lopez and Javier Cabral, has grabbed the spotlight as one of the most exciting cookbooks heading into summer. Covering the delectable and vibrant tradition of Mexican backyard grilling, the book was featured on “The Today Show” (with a live cooking demo on Rockefeller Plaza) and made a splash as the cover story for Food & Wine magazine’s June issue. Named one of Bon Appétit’s best cookbooks of the spring, Asada has also been covered by the BBC and the San Jose Mercury News, while Lopez and Cabral have been interviewed on “The Dave Chang Show” and NPR affiliate KCRW.
Scribe Publishes English Edition of Tatiana Salem Levy's Latest Novel
Tatiana Salem Levy’s latest novel, Vista Chinesa, has been published in English by Scribe. Translated from Portuguese by Alison Entrekin, the story follows an architect forced to grapple with the trauma of a rape and its aftermath while civil unrest haunts the backdrop of 2014 Rio de Janeiro. The New York Times has called Vista Chinesa “powerful” while Publishers Weekly has praised it as “vital.” Levy’s first novel, A Chave de Casa, won Brazil’s São Paulo Prize for Literature and was later published in English as The House in Smyrna, also by Scribe. A writer, essayist, and researcher at Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Levy lives in Lisbon, where she is also a columnist for the newspaper Valor Econômico.
Emily Meggett Passes Away at 90
South Carolina’s Edisto Island community and the larger culinary world lost a beloved keeper of historic African American foodways last week as Gullah Geechee elder Emily Meggett passed away at age 90. Carrying the lineage of Gullah Geechee culture, Meggett’s remarkable cooking contributions supported the preservation of the rich food traditions, language, and music of a recognized National Heritage Area. Meggett documented her amazing legacy last year with the publication of Gullah Geechee Home Cooking (Abrams), a New York Times best seller that was just nominated for a James Beard Award. She is survived by eight children and more than 65 grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and great-great grandchildren. She was a truly special woman and will be dearly missed.
Mark Eisner's Tina Modotti biography sold to Yale University Press
Yale University Press has acquired Mark Eisner’s Art as a Weapon: Tina Modotti and Her Years at the Heart of the Mexican Cultural Renaissance, the biography of a fascinating and influential photographer who in the 1920s collaborated with such artists and activists as Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera, José Clemente Orozco, and David Siqueiros to merge art and politics amid the intellectual ferment following the Mexican Revolution. A renegade and self-made revolutionary artist, Modotti immigrated from Italy to the U.S. in her late teens and became at various times a Hollywood silent film actress; the lover, model, and later protegée of famed photographer Edward Weston; and a communist activist and Soviet spy in Franco’s Spain. Author Mark Eisner is a scholar, editor, translator, and biographer whose Neruda: The Poet’s Calling (Ecco, 2018) was named a finalist for the PEN/Bograd Weld Prize for Biography.
Sarah DiGregorio's Taking Care Available for Preorder
Due out May 2 from HarperCollins, Sarah DiGregorio’s Taking Care: The Story of Nursing and Its Power to Change Our World has already been receiving enthusiastic praise and is now available for preordering. This major work documents the history of the vital and beloved profession while examining the state of nursing in a post-pandemic world and weighing its hope for the future. Kirkus declared Taking Care “a warm appreciation of the nursing profession” and “a well-informed consideration of the intimacy of care,” while Publishers Weekly proclaimed it “an enlightening study” that provides “an expert balance between the big picture and intimate portraits of individual caregivers.” Nurse Theresa Brown, the New York Times bestselling author of The Shift, called Taking Care “a revelation,” which “shows that nurses make the world a better place” and Deborah Burger, president of National Nurses United (the largest professional association of registered nurses in the U.S.) lauded it as “an important book.”
Kyle Paoletta Profiles Arthur Jemison for Boston Magazine
Kyle Paoletta’s longform feature on Arthur Jemison entitled “Can This Man Blow up City Development without Destroying Boston?” has been published in the January issue of Boston Magazine. Paoletta’s profile of Jemison — who studied urban planning in graduate school at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, tackled housing challenges around the country, and then returned to Boston to head its planning and development agency — offers a deep dive into the city’s ambitious efforts to provide environmentally friendly, affordable housing for a surging population while reforming planning and zoning processes and attending to social equity concerns.
Paoletta’s book American Oasis: How the Cities of the Southwest Forecast Our Sweltering, Multicultural Future will be published by Pantheon in 2024.
CBS Visits Molly Yeh for the Holidays
Molly Yeh welcomed CBS reporter Michelle Miller to East Grand Forks, Minnesota for a visit to her new restaurant, Bernie’s, and a tour of her husband’s 146-year-old family farm. With the segment airing on Christmas Eve and the seventh day of Hanukkah, Yeh introduced Miller to an array of holiday dishes, including halva buckeyes from her New York Times Best Seller Home Is Where the Eggs Are. The segment — which also delved into Molly’s childhood in the Chicago suburbs, her early training to be a professional musician, and her rise to culinary stardom — can be viewed online.
Djaimilia Pereira de Almeida Sells Pair of Books to FSG
Djaimilia Pereira de Almeida has accepted a two-book deal from Farrar, Straus and Giroux for publication of Zion and Luanda, Lisboa, Paradise. Zion is a “triptych” of novellas about the agony and guilt of men who must live with the legacy of slavery, colonialism, and the spoils of the Portuguese empire. Luanda, Lisboa, Paradise, which won the Oceanos Prize, probably the most prestigious in the Lusophone world, is a migration story that offers a vivid portrait of the Angolan community in Portugal.