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Melissa Clark and Deb Perelman on Cookbook Writing

Thursday March 28 2024 • 9:26pm - 9:26pm ET

Food writer and blogger Deb Perelman (smittenkitchen.com) live in The Greene Space with Leonard Lopate

Writing a successful cookbook might sound glamorous, but there’s a lot of testing and spilling and splattering—and testing again—that most people don’t realize go into creating those pages of recipes.

For the final installment of his fifth annual Lopate and Locavores food series, WNYC’s Leonard Lopate sat down with bestselling cookbook authors Melissa Clark (Cook This Now) and Deb Perelman (The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook) to learn the tricks of the trade. They shared some of their own kitchen secrets and gave us the scoop on how they built their following and created their cookbooks—from research and recipe writing to photography and publication.

They also demonstrated some of their delicious recipes live on stage. Perelman shared her recipe for kale-pecorino popcorn and Clark showed us how to make chocolate bark with pomegranate seeds and bacon.

Watch the entire conversation below:

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