Live from Cookbook Week

Written By Abigail Cerquitella

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This is a live conversation recorded in April 2026 during the first Cookbook Week in San Francisco, a week long city wide event co-founded by Brian Hogan Stewart of the Salt + Spine podcast, Jodi Liano, and Leslie Jonath. Here Leslie leads the conversation with Jenny Wapner, a publisher, and Kate Leahy, an author, to discuss all things cookbooks. Jenny and Kate share how they got their start, what their day to day tasks look like and the recent projects that have most resonated with them. They all speak about the frantic, trend focused nature of publishing, how the current political climate can affect a book and those glorious instances of unexpected success that keep them excited about the industry. The panelists highlight a few of their recent favorite projects and end by taking a few questions from the audience.

Hosts: Kate Leahy + Molly Stevens + Kristin Donnelly + Andrea Nguyen

Editor: Abby Cerquitella

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Brian Hogan Stewart

Cookbook Week

Episode 65: Podcasting about Cookbooks with Brian Hogan Stewart

Episode 145: Eva Kolenko on Photographing Cookbooks

Visit the Everything Cookbooks Bookshop to purchase a copy of any books mentioned in the show

 
Abigail Cerquitella
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179: Answering Your Cookbook Questions