Charitable Gift Giving

The pandemic has had a big impact on many industries, but perhaps none as much as the restaurant business. It’s not just the restaurant owner that’s impacted when they’re forced to close their doors due to lockdowns. It’s managers, hosts, wait staff, busboys, cooks, back office workers, maintenance staff, and everyone we take for granted that keeps a restaurant going.

Family Meal: Recipes from our Community was conceived as an idea in March 2020 when New York’s restaurants were ordered closed. In an impressive turnaround, it was published as the pandemic was hitting its worst point in May of 2020. Published by Penguin Random House, it collects 50 recipes never published anywhere else from some of the industry’s top chefs, including Ina Garten, Samin Nosrat, Hugh Acheson, Dan Barber, Bobby Flay, Alison Roman, Christina Tosi, Kwame Onwuachi, Ruth Reichl, Claire Saffitz, and Danny Trejo.

Not only are these “secret recipes” from some of the top culinary minds in the world, they’re also easy to make–a criteria that became important during the lockdown. You’ll find basics like stovetop mac and cheese from Deb Perelman (which just uses 7 ingredients–salt, store-bought pasta, butter, flour, milk, black pepper, and cheese)

Based on the Amazon reviews, some recipes are “easier” than others, maybe because some of these celebrity chefs are a little more out of touch than others on how “easy” it is to find certain ingredients. And the audience of the book is decidedly the “New York” audience for obvious reasons–Penguin Random House is based in New York so a lot of their employees probably faced the prospect of having to turn on their stoves and ovens for the first time in their lives.

Because it was produced in the throes of the pandemic the book is available on Kindle only. It costs only $5.99 and 100% of proceeds will help New York’s Restaurant Workers’ Covid-19 Emergency Relief Fund.