Cara Nicoletti's credentials are on-point. She used to be a pastry chef, and now she's a butcher at The Meat Hook in Brooklyn. In 2010, friends convinced Nicoletti to found the Yummy Books blog — an outgrowth of a book club she started two years earlier — featuring literature-inspired recipes and personal essays. Now, the Yummy Books blogger has written a literature-inspired cookbook, filled with bookish recipes.
Like Yummy Books, Voracious: A Hungry Reader Cooks Her Way through Great Books pairs favorite books with recipes and essays from the author. Nicoletti says she doesn't have any real method of choosing which recipe to write next. "I’m reading a book and I see a food scene and I want to recreate it," she says. "[Or] I’ll be in the market and I’ll see a food that will remind me of a book, so I’ll go back and find it."
Nicoletti selected the recipes for Voracious so that anyone can pick it up and find something to cook, from a Nancy Drew ice cream sundae to a Lord of the Flies pig's head porchetta. Other recipe-lending titles include Gone Girl, In the Night Kitchen, To Kill a Mockingbird, and The Catcher in the Rye. Regarding how daunting making a porchetta could be for rookie chefs, Nicoletti says she hopes readers will take the plunge and attempt it, "because it’s actually really delicious."
Nicoletti kicked off a 9-stop book tour on Tuesday. Voracious is available in hardcover and e-book formats from your favorite retailer.
Image: gstockstudio/Fotolia
