smitten kitchen

Where To Buy | Signed Books | Tell Me More | Press | Tips & Errata

where to buy

The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook was released in October 2012 in the U.S. and Canada and in February 2013 in the UK and Australia. You should be able to buy it at your local bookstore of choice in the U.S. and Canada (and holler at us if you can’t find it and would like to) and in many stores in the UK and Australia, plus online, from a variety of booksellers:

order signed books

Did the book tour not come to your town? Signed copies are available order through McNally-Jackson, a bookstore in SoHo. When you order, you will have the option of requesting a word-for-word personalized inscription when Deb signs the book.

McNally-Jackson Custom Signed Books

book tour

The 2012 and 2013 book tours were a blast! Book Tour I hit Manhattan and Brooklyn, Los Angeles, Napa Valley, Santa Cruz, San Francisco, Portland, Vancouver, Seattle, Washington DC, Toronto, Chicago, Connecticut, Boston, Austin, Houston, Philadelphia and parts of New Jersey in late 2012. Book Tour II landed in Montreal, Raleigh-Durham, Chapel Hill, Denver, Salt Lake City, Atlanta, St. Louis, Minneapolis and Louisville in February and March 2013. Book Tour III crossed the Atlantic Ocean to Wales, Cambridgeshire, Bath and, of course, London in September 2013.

Thank you so much for coming out and being part of the three most fun book tours, ever. While there are no more official book tours planned, the Events page lists other public or ticketed gatherings where Deb might be speaking or signing books these days.

tell me more!

Who wrote it? Yours truly.
Who took the photos? Ditto.
Who publishes it? In the U.S., Knopf. In Canada, Appetite, an of Random House Canada. In the UK and Australia, Square Peg, an imprint of Random House UK.
When was the book be released? October 30, 2012 in the US and Canada. It will be out in the UK and Australia in late February 2013.
What can you tell us about it? 105-plus recipes. 300+ full-color photos. Each recipe has a story and there are cooking tips interspersed throughout. The book is 85 percent new material and 15 percent favorites from the site that have been retested, reworked and streamlined for modern times. The recipes in the U.S. and Canadian editions have measurement in cups and spoons, and also weights; the UK edition will be fully Anglicized (with alternate suggestions given for harder-to-find ingredients). Hooray!
Was there a book tour? Yes! The 2012 book tour was a blast! Sad because I couldn’t make it to your city? Me too! Stay tuned, as we are already making plans for a few additional stops in 2013.
Are there be photos of Jacob in the book? Oh yes. It’s be a surprise, or, you know, as suspenseful as playing hide-and-seek with a (then) 2-year old can be.
How many recipes are vegetarian? 85 of the 105-plus recipes are vegetarian (given, some of these are cocktails which feels like kind of a cop-out in the meatless department, but I wanted to give an official count). Among the 20 recipes that do contain meat, 2 are fish (one fish, one seafood) and 6 use something like crisped pancetta or crumbled bacon as one ingredient among many, more of an accent — i.e. in those 6 recipes, I’ve often made them without this crispy/salty accent and they remain balanced, excellent, and slightly less indulgent dishes. I hope that helps.
I want a preview! As you wish! Last spring, I shared the recipe for Cinnamon Toast French Toast, from the sweet side of the breakfast section. Buttery, caramelized cinnamon toast (lots of it) meet French toast in a casserole format that’s perfect for lazy weekend mornings and brunches because you can assemble the whole thing the night before. In October, I shared the book’s Pancetta, White Bean and Swiss Chard Pot Pies. And when the book came out, I shared beloved Apple Cider Caramels.

Have any further questions about an edition or book tour? In the U.S. Sara Eagle (seagle@randomhouse.com) knows all. In Canada, Sheila Kay (skay@randomhouse.com) can help. And in the UK or Australia, Fiona Murphy (fmurphy@randomhouse.co.uk) is the person to speak to. Is your question about none of the above? Shoot me an email (thesmitten@gmail.com) and I will do my best to help.

kind words, press, & other tasteless braggery

The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook was chosen among Cooking Light’s Top 100 Cookbooks of the Last 25 Years, May 2013.
The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook won the 2013 IACP First Book: The Julia Child Award.
Amazon chose The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook as one of its top 10 cookbooks of 2012.
“Perelman’s no-fuss yet inspiring recipes appeal to people with modest kitchens, little counter space and an affinity for a no-nonsense approach to good eats. Sound like anyone you know? — USA Today 1/21/12.
Fox News/The Daily Meal chose The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook as one of its top 25 cookbooks of 2012.
“She gets technical enough for novices while still maintaining a light voice, providing readers with homey family recipes like mom’s apple cake, and inventive sides like wild rice gratin with kale, caramelized onions and Swiss cheese.” — SFGate 11/23/12
The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook hit the New York Times Bestseller List at #2 on 11/18/12, and spent over 10 weeks on it.
The Boston Globe calls The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook “worth the wait.”
The Los Angeles Times calls The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook “a joy to read.”
Booklist gives The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook a starred review, saying “wildly popular food blogger and self-proclaimed ‘obsessive’ self-taught cook and photographer [Deb] Perelman’s exhaustive research in her tiny NYC kitchen yields some—lucky for us!—spectacular results in beautiful full color.”
Publisher’s Weekly gives The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook a starred review and says, “This fearless home cook’s humorous anecdotes and delectable photos make for a food blog–gone–book that translates beautifully into any kitchen and fulfills Perelman’s promise to help cooks prepare food that both ‘she and you will love.”
Deb Perelman was on The Diane Rehm show on 11/12/12.
NPR’s Morning Edition visits the Smitten Kitchen!
Apartment Therapy’s The Kitchn gives you a behind-the-scenes tour of the tiny Smitten Kitchen. And shares The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook’s recipe for Chocolate Chip Brioche Pretzels!
Williams-Sonoma’s Blender blog say The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook is “all about approachable, uncompromised home cooking.”
BlogHer calls The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook “a solid collection of interesting and useful recipes.”
GOOP includes The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook in its fall reading roundup, “more of Deb’s indulgent and meticulously developed recipes — both with all-new recipes.”
Very Short List calls The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook “an ideal mix of artful and approachable, written in Perelman’s anecdotal prose.”
The Montreal Gazette calls The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook “a lovely book to hold, to read — and to cook from.”
Serious Eats says “it’s about time [Deb Perelman] published a cookbook!” and cooks the book.
Deb Perelman was on Let’s Talk Live (WJLA-TV, Washington DC).
Metro New York chats with Deb Perelman, 11/8/12
The Forward says of The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook, “not only are the dishes good, Perelman is a deft, funny, and vivid mentor.”
SF Weekly says they’ve been “been admirers of Deb Perelman and her cooking blog Smitten Kitchen for years, and are stoked that her simple, elegant recipes and gorgeous photos have finally made their way into a cookbook.”
The Washingtonian interviews Deb Perelman, calls her “sort of the Barefoot Contessa to urban hosts and hostesses, a self-taught home cook making magic happen in a small New York City kitchen.”
The Santa Cruz Sentinel talks to Deb Perelman.
The Daily visits the Smitten Kitchen and makes The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook’s Harvest Roast Chicken with Olives and Grapes with Deb
The Bergen Record says “Perelman is the queen of food bloggers,” and makes The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook’s Harvest Roast Chicken with Olives and Grapes.
The Washington Post adapted The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook’s Linguine with Cauliflower Pesto.
Food52 selects The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook’s (and site’s) Mushroom Bourguignon as a Genius Recipe, calling it “a version that will do everything a bourguignon needs to do, and will do it in time for dinner tonight. There is no beef in it. You won’t care,” 10/31/12
Deb Perelman gets to hang out with Dave Venable on QVC for a Smitten Kitchen Cookbook presale.
The National Post rounds up The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook among the best new fall cookbooks, 10/31/12
Indigo Canada kicked off their #bakecation with the Big Cluster Maple Granola from The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook and says, “Make this recipe. It’s some kind of wonderful. Bag it. Jar it. Give it this holiday season,” 10/29/12
“What good news, then, that The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook… is finally available. It’s a lovely book to hold, to read — and to cook from,” says The Montreal Gazette, 10/30/12
On The Hairpin, Deb did a Q&A with her friend and former coworker Jenni Miller, which was exactly as much fun as it sounded, 10/30/12
“Here’s one way to rate cookbooks: by IQ, a measure not of their intelligence but of their Irresistibility Quotient, the ratio of irresistible to less tempting recipes. On that scale, Deb Perelman’s Smitten Kitchen Cookbook scores at the Mensa level,” reviews The Christian Science Monitor, 10/30/12
Blogher called The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook “a solid collection of interesting and useful recipes,” 10/29/12
Williams-Sonoma says that The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook is “all about approachable, uncompromised home cooking” on their Blender blog, 10/24/12
The Saturday Evening Post called The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook “a winner!” 10/24/12
“Perelman is the queen of food bloggers,” says The Bergen Record in a review that includes The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook’s Harvest Roast Chicken with Olives and Grapes, 10/17/12
Better Homes and Gardens rounded up The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook in their Read It and It feature in their November 2012 issue.
Time Magazine rounded up The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook as one of its best fall books of 2012, 10/15/12.
“[Deb] writes like a good friend who just happens to be a whiz in the kitchen. Smitten is exactly what you’ll be by this book.” — The Forward, 10/22/12
“With an efficient approach to gourmandise and a giddily iconoclastic take on traditional recipes, such as replacing beef with mushrooms in a facile bourguignon and making a classic lemon cake with grapefruit instead, Perelman only includes the fussier versions of ingredients or techniques when she’s proven that they will make the end results that much better.” — Booklist Online
“She approaches each cooking challenge with aplomb, breaking the mold while inspiring readers to work with whatever challenges a tiny kitchen, limited budget, equipment, or untried recipes present.” — Publishers Weekly, 10/1/12
In the October O Magazine from Oprah, Deb gives advice for using up leftover ingredients and shares an adaptation of a recipe from the book for a Red Wine Velvet Cake — a birthday cake for grown-ups. (In the book, it has a different frosting and filling.)
In HGTV Magazine (PDF), Deb shares her odd assortment of pantry staples.
The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook was awarded the title of “Most Anticipated Cookbook” from the staff of Food52 as part of their Summer Food Fights, August 1, 2012.
In a Q&A in the Sept/Oct issue of Imbibe Magazine (PDF), Deb talk about neighborhood baristas, food dye disasters and favorite fall flavors. A recipe preview from the book is on the Imbibe website.
“Witty foodblog goddess shares simply luscious recipes, resplendent photos.” — Amazon selects The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook as one of their top Fall 2012 picks, July 2012
A New York Times article about what to do when you’re overwhelmed with summer produce included a recipe adapted from The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook recipe for Leek-Vegetable Fritters with Lemon Cream. — 7/17/12
“Two years ago I started reading (and devouring) the Smitten Kitchen blog. I have since made more than thirty of her recipes and have been waiting for her forthcoming first cookbook.” — “What We’re Loving,” The Paris Review, 5/4/12
“If you’re a follower of her hilarious, recipe-driven blog, (and if you’re not, you should be), you’ll soon be able to keep her recipe collection constantly open for easy reference and inspiration on your counter.” — “For Your Library: The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook,” Food52, 5/4/12
“Perelman’s supremely helpful, visually stunning, wittily worded food blog really did deserve to be named one of 2011’s best blogs… Perelman’s recipes are accessible but not Betty Crocker plain; this is fun, energized eating. Get it!” — Library Journal Reviews, 5/2/12
“My other personal most anticipated fall cookbook is by a newcomer on the cookbook scene, although if you follow food blogs you almost certainly know her recipes. Yep, I’m talking about Deb Perelman of The Smitten Kitchen… Perelman’s recipes are also oh-so-tasty, and her food photography is gorgeous.” — “Two Fall Cookbooks Worth Waiting For,” The Book Page, 4/26/12
“In the world of blog-to-book deals, often the source material seems a stretch to bring to the printed page; not so with The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook, based on Deb Perelman’s blog of the same name. Featuring ‘recipes for elegant and approachable homemade food,’ the book, which was picked up by Knopf, is sure to be as delightfully simple, elegant and full of gorgeous photography as her website. Publishers, we implore you: there are not many websites out there like Perelman’s, but we’d much rather see them in print than gimmicks or blogs that are basically serialized book proposals. As for Perelman, we say: about time.” — Eat Me Daily, 5/3/10

Recipe tips & errata

Knopf cookbooks go through approximately nine layers of editing/copyediting/proofing/fact-checking before they make it to the printers and then set out into the world to meet you. Recipes in The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook had a few extra layers too, several rounds in my own kitchen and more by hired recipe testers and friends. You probably imagine that this would guarantee that The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook is error-free. You probably don’t share publishing’s dark sense of humor.

Inevitably, some mistakes made it into print, and I fear, not just in the first or second editions. Why did it take us so long to find them? Because by time the book came out on 10/30, your enthusiasm for it was so great (thank you) that it was already in its third printing. It went into its fourth printing just a couple weeks later. Below are the known errors to date, and the editions after which they have been corrected.

p.x Chicken and Egg Salad Toasts with Lemon Aioli and Fennel: I ask you to hard-boil eggs and then never tell you to add them, but never mention peeling and chopping them first. You should do both or you might not like the salad very much at all.
p.149 Wild Rice Gratin with Kale, Caramelized Onions, and Baby Swiss: [Fixed: 3rd Ed.] “5 cups cooked wild rice” should be “5 cups cooked wild rice blend” as the photos indicate. This does work either way — i.e. with straight wild rice — but it’s much more tender with a blend. I hope everyone makes this recipe, anyway; it’s a favorite.
p.159 Seared Halibut and Gazpacho Salsa with Tomato Vinaigrette: [Fixed: 4th Ed.] “Four 6-to-8-ounce (70-to-225-gram) halibut fillets” should be “Four 6-to-8-ounce (170-to-225-gram) halibut fillets”
p. 168 Sesame-Spiced Turkey Meatballs and Smashed Chickpea Salad: [Fixed: 4th Ed.] Under Cook meatballs, where the meatballs are browned in an ovenproof sauté pan, no lid is needed.
p.199 Rhubarb Hamantaschen: [Fixed: 4th Ed.] “1 pound (905 grams) rhubarb stalks” should be “1 pound (455 grams) rhubarb stalks”
p. 280 Coffee Toffee: [Fixed: 4th Ed.] “8 tablespoons (225 grams or 2 sticks) butter” should be “16 tablespoons (225 grams or 2 sticks) unsalted butter.” Thank you to all who emailed me about this. I am incredibly relieved that the recipe wasn’t a disaster with half the butter, but hope you will love it even more with the correct amount.
p. 306 Useful Conversions: [Fixed: 3rd Ed.] All four “Volume Equivalents” are incorrect. “1/2 teaspoon = 1/8 fluid ounce” should read “1/2 teaspoon = 1/12 fluid ounce,” “1 teaspoon = 1/4 fluid ounce” should read “1 teaspoon = 1/6 fluid ounce,” “2 teaspoons = 1/2 fluid ounce” should read “2 teaspoons = 1/3 fluid ounce” and “1 tablespoon = 3 teaspoons = 3/4 fluid ounce” should read “1 tablespoon = 3 teaspoons = 1/2 fluid ounce.” If this set of corrections had a hashtag, it would be #facepalm.

One of my favorite things about this website is that I can occasionally update recipes with additional tips as we find they are helpful. Alas, this isn’t the case with printed books. Below are places where I hope you’ll find the recipe even easier to pull off with additional suggestions:

p. 224 Marbled Pumpkin Gingersnap Tart: Some are finding the cheesecake swirl batter a little thick and the pumpkin tart batter a little thin and I have the perfect solution, which is to reduce the cream in the pumpkin batter by 2 tablespoons and add it to the cheesecake batter instead. Fortunately, the recipe works either way, but I think you’ll find the texture of the topping easier to marble with this adjustment.
p. 278 Apple Cider Caramels: If you chill the pan in the fridge as it sets for a bit — until they are firm, but not rock-hard — before cutting the caramels, they are much, much easier to cut cleanly with a sharp, oiled knife. I am eternally grateful to Vancouver food stylist Lawren Moneta for providing this a-ha moment at an event.