Cookbooks Panel at LitFest Pasadena

Cookbooks have long faced competition from magazines and newspapers. But now, it's the Internet Age. Print publications are putting their recipes online, and websites such as Epicurious and Food help you find instructions for virtually any dish with just a few clicks. Meanwhile, blogs are offering their own perspectives and kitchen tips. Many of these websites are beautifully designed. (Just check out the tomatoes at Gilt Taste.) Still, cookbooks persist with their hard covers, thick pages and glossy photos.

Saturday, LitFest Pasadena will host a panel on “Cookbooks in the Age of Epicurious” from 3:10 – 4 p.m. with several L.A. food writers. Jeanne Kelley will moderate with Jenn Garbee, Matt Armendariz, Joseph Shuldiner and Squid Ink editor Amy Scattergood as panelists. (We've just gotten word that Shuldiner is unable to attend.)

Kelley is a Squid Ink contributor whose books include Blue Eggs and Yellow Tomatoes, Holiday Baking and Salad for Dinner. Garbee reviews cookbooks for Squid Ink and covers history, artisan foods and baking. She is also the author of Secret Suppers: Rogue Chefs and Underground Restaurants in Warehouses, Townhouses, Open Fields, and Everywhere in Between, and is working on a baking book. Armendariz, a photographer, wrote On a Stick!: 80 Party-Perfect Recipes and blogs at Matt Bites. Pure Vegan is forthcoming from graphic designer Joseph Shuldiner. Scattergood co-authored Good to the Grain, and is writing a cookbook for kids.

LitFest Pasadena, the first of what's planned to be an annual event, was organized by Pasadena Star News public editor Larry Wilson, novelist and USC creative writing professor Jervey Tervalon, and Light Bringer Project president Tom Coston. Panel topics include poetry, graphic novels, and L.A. noir. As well, book critic David Kipen will interview food critic Jonathan Gold. The event runs 9:30 a.m. – 5 p.m. at Central Park. And we hear there will be food trucks.

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