Kristin and Kate welcome the food director of Real Simple, Jenna Helwig, to discuss her newsletter, The Cookbookery Collective, and her thoughts on the current cookbook landscape. Jenna shares her career path, why she fell in love with food and how she paired writing cookbooks with working as a private chef. She talks about covering food at Real Simple, the role magazines play in our current food media climate and her thoughts on building a social media presence and how that led to starting her newsletter. After talking about assembling the massive list of Fall 2025 titles she shares some thoughts on marketing copy, subtitles, influencer cookbooks and the upcoming trends she's excited (or not so excited) to see. Finally she extends some advice and reveals her level of interest in writing another book.

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

Editor: Abby Cerquitella

Mentions

Jenna Helwig

• Website
• Cookbookery Collective Substack
• Fall 2025 Cookbook list

Real Simple Magazine

Join The Local Palate Cookbook Club

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

• Bare Minimum Dinners by Jenna Helwig
• Baby-Led Feeding by Jenna Helwig
• Baking and the Meaning of Life by Helen Goh
• Dorie's Anytime Cakes by Dorie Greenspan
• Six Seasons of Pasta by Josh McFadden
• Recipes from the American South by Michael Twitty
• Good Things by Samin Nosrat
• Hot Date by Rawaan Alkhatib
• Chesnok by Polina Chesnakova

Kate and Kristin get into all things food photography with Eva Kolenko, the photographer of over 50 cookbooks. Eva talks about her new studio setup, how she got her start as a photographer after a wandering path as an artist and how she made the jump to actually making a living with her talent. She shares what she wished she knew before starting this line of work, how she approaches each new project and the essential tools of the task that make it run smoothly. Finally she discusses what she'd like authors to know about the photography experience, what she wishes they would do and consider while on set and the advice (and pet peeves!) she has for aspiring photographers.

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

Editor: Abby Cerquitella

Mentions

Eva Kolenko

• Website
• Substack: Inside the Food Studio

Join The Local Palate Cookbook Club

106: Caroline Chambers on Building a Substack Platform

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

• Yogurt by Janet Fletcher, photos by Eva Kolenko
• Shaq's Family Style photos by Eva Kolenko
• What to Cook When You Don't Feel Like Cooking by Caroline Chambers, photos by Eva Kolenko

Kate and Molly speak with both an author and an agent about their collaboration process. We talk to Peter J. Kim about his debut cookbook, The Instant Ramen Kitchen, and to David Black about working as a literary agent and why this project caught his attention. David shares his thoughts about cookbook proposal revisions, speciality stores and what agents and publishers look for in a book while Peter shares why this particular food was so important to him, why he settled on 'recipe templates to show off ramen's potential, how his background in music and museum work influenced the end result and what he is working on next.

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

Editor: Abby Cerquitella

Mentions

Peter J. Kim

David Black Literary Agency

Counterjam podcast

137: Being a Cookbook Editor with Sarah Billingsley of Chronicle Books

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

• The Instant Ramen Kitchen by Peter J. Kim