After a high-grossing movie charmed Julia Child’s name back into the public conscious, a new season of Top Chef Masters kicked off on Bravo and activities continue to bubble in food blog-land ““ it seems that cooking is getting more attention by the hour.
And why shouldn’t it? After all, we all need food. And luckily, eating is something we have little to complain about having to do.
Out of the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books’ 15-year-long history so far, the Cooking Stage has been around for almost all of it ““ 14 years.
Michael Weisberg, who has been producing the Cooking Stage since its second year, said he believes the popularity of cookbooks, which led to the creation of the stage, owes to the rise of celebrity chefs.
“At that time, it was really the explosion of the celebrity chef, and the celebrity chef was coming out with cookbooks,” Weisberg said. “So it was a really big thing for people to meet their favorite chef and be able to get their cookbooks signed.”
Chef Emeril Lagasse of the popular Food Network show “Emeril Live” graced the stage in its inaugural year. Since then, there’s been no shortage of big names, and this year is no exception.
Most notably, chef and founder of restaurant Chez Panisse and advocate for locally grown, sustainable food Alice Waters (“In the Green Kitchen”) will make an appearance.
Also in the lineup are Alicia Silverstone (“The Kind Diet”), most known for her lead role in the movie “Clueless,” and Grammy award-winning country singer Trisha Yearwood (“Home Cooking With Trisha Yearwood”).
Beyond celebrity chefs, the stage has also continued its support of local chefs and authors. Among the many is Mark Peel of the award-winning Campanile restaurant, The Tar Pit and La Brea Bakery.
This year, a diverse host of chefs and cookbook authors also seems to be reflecting an expanding readership.
New York City-based Dave Martin (“Flavor Quest”), who was a contestant on season one of Top Chef, brings his style of “upscale comfort” food to the stage.
Betty Fraser, who will compete live in a Quickfire Challenge with fellow past Top Chef contestants, runs Los Angeles’ Grub Restaurant and As You Like It Catering, while Hungry Girl website’s Lisa Lillien (“Hungry Girl 1-2-3″) is devoted to seeking good food with low calories. And Anne Byrn (“The Cake Mix Doctor Returns!”) guides the busy working generation to making better cakes using cake mixes.
Even in the downtrodden economy we’re in now, cookbook sales show that people are still embracing the format.
“People are still finding comfort in cookbooks,” Weisberg said.
With copious information floating around on the web, and not much green in their pockets to spare, readers might just be more careful when making their choice of purchase.
Byrn said people have approached her to inquire which book to buy if they had to buy just one, while Martin self-published his book without visuals in order to keep the retail price below $20.
It’s no secret, however, that people have been turning toward television, Internet blogs, videos and electronic book formats to digest their food entertainment and instruction.
Martin said he believes that in the future, food literature will be more interactive, citing as an example the Ideal Chef website that collects together cooking videos from professional chefs around the world.
Weisberg envisioned an even closer union with technology, where people might one day be able to input their ingredients at hand into a system and receive a suitable recipe in response.
In the case of Hungry Girl, Lillien’s books in fact came out of demand by fans for the recipes featured on her website to be collected in book form.
Like Julie Powell (“Julie & Julia: 365 Days, 524 Recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen”), Lillien’s activity on the Web actually developed and led to her cookbook.
“Cookbooks may be the last book standing,” Lillien said. “Because it’s just fun to have cookbooks in your kitchen.”
With the help of cookbooks, cooking can turn from being a necessary chore into a small luxury.
“It’s a community builder,” Byrn said, “It’s like keeping a garden, like painting ““ it’s like this wonderful skill.”
In an era where people are increasingly aware of where their food comes from and how to prepare it, now, more than ever, it seems food literature is supplying the knowledge to satisfy a diverse array of lifestyles (and palates).