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National Press Club Welcomes Food Authors

Posted by Erin Zimmer, November 2, 2007 at 10:30 AM

Last night, the National Press Club hosted what it calls one of its “biggest events of the year”: Book Fair. Crammed into the club's ballroom were about 80 authors, about ten of whom were of the food-writing persuasion. Conveniently, the organizers placed them all side-by-side, which meant a steady stream of people sampling their bite-sized creations. Must have made the guy who wrote Money Golf: 600 Years of Bettin' on Birdies across the room wish he brought bite-sized samples of cheese, too.

Here's a look at three of our favorite bookish bakers in attendance:

Washington Post culinary blogger Kim O'Donnel, known for her week-daily "A Mighty Appetite" column and "What's Cooking" web chat. Her secular cookbook A Mighty Appetite for the Holidays (hello, Chrismukkah) offers recipes ranging from tofu pumpkin pie (yes, she was equally skeptical) to the Dark and Stormy pear cobbler (which she had samples of ready at Book Fair). The book is a cute size, no bigger than a half-page. Very Metro ride-friendly, she agreed. On the cover, O'Donnel is laying joyously over an Autumn-happy pile of leaves, which she admitted were actually purchased at Michaels. Apparently, photo shoots for holiday books happen before the actual holidays themselves.

Bottom Line: A small, non-denominational holiday cookbook that packs in a lot of attention-grabber recipes.

Phoebe Damrosch is a former Per Se waitress, Sarah Lawrence MFA student and author of our recent cookbook giveaway, Service Included. Her Bill Buford-esque story documents 18 months as a server at Thomas Keller's cream-of-the-crop restaurant inside the Time Warner building. She overheard and observed plenty of juicy things, and though celeb chef culture was blowing up at the time, she noted that nobody was writing anything like this. Conveniently, the first hundred pages served as her Sarah Lawrence graduate thesis. She's also a frequent Serious Eats: Talk commenter.

Bottom Line: A female version of Buford's Heat, but replace Mario Batali with Thomas Keller, and Times fiction critic with Sarah Lawrence creative writing student.

Marcel Desaulniers, of Death by Chocolate fame, was handing out samples of Golly Polly, his scrumptious chocolate brownie nuggets, filled with peanut butter centers. Just about everyone who walked by took one, then proceeded to eye his new hardcover book, I'm Dreaming of a Chocolate Christmas. The executive chef and co-owner of Trellis restaurant in precious Williamsburg, Virginia, is no newcomer to cookbook authorship. When sampling the Golly Pollies—he was ready to doggy-bag them on command—my friend took one bite and released an emphatic “You've got it going on!”

Bottom Line: Cutest man with a mustache at the event, and very generous with his Golly Polly samples.

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Tags: books, Washington D.C.