Cookbook

For as long as anyone could remember, Angela DiMedio Carlino wanted to put down the recipes that built Carlino's Market into a suburban institution. The holiday soup, the wedding peaches, the meatballs. "She always said, 'I'm-a-write a cook-a-book and I call it Wanna Taste? ' " said Jill Santoro, who has worked at Carlino's for 15 years, lovingly mimicking "Mama" Carlino's thick accent. Mama Carlino died Nov. 4, 2007, on her 70th birthday - two days after her family opened a second store.

There were 25,000 copies initially printed, but Marc Vetri's new cookbook, Rustic Italian Food , went into its second printing before the Nov. 1 release date. Compare that to Il Viaggio Di Vetri , his first book, which sold 25,000 copies after three years. "I just got a $420 royalty check. . . . my first one, three years later," says the chef, sitting on a broken-in brown leather sofa in his newly renovated home kitchen. After two years of recipe testing, writing, and waiting, Vetri is ready to show the world his latest collection.

Zelinda LeBoutillier, 76, of Exton, the chief executive officer of Waterloo Gardens and the founder of a cooking school and author of a cookbook, died of cancer Friday, Oct. 7, at her home. Known for her generous heart and philanthropic ways, she was affectionately called "Mama Linda" by many employees, customers, and friends. "She was always out there helping people," recalled her son, Roberts D., known as Bobby. "When she met you, she'd ask all about you, and the next time she saw you, she'd remember your name and everything about your family.

Ivy Olesh left her full-time job at the Center City District when she became a mother eight months ago. But the former residential and retail outreach manager has kept a hand in at the office. Actually, both hands. All summer, Olesh, 28, has been holed up in her southwest Center City home two days a week, testing recipes for a free online cookbook that the district and partner Philly Homegrown will unveil Monday to coincide with Center City District Restaurant Week, which runs Sept.

You want to eat more fish. Ironically for the conscientious consumer, that has become more difficult to do, thanks to a wave of confusing information. Modern seafood cookbooks must explain and enlighten as well as offer accessible recipes; some have risen to this challenge better than others. Barton Seaver has hit the right notes with his first cookbook For Cod and Country (Sterling Epicure, $30; 175 recipes). For the Washington, D.C. chef, preparing seafood remains a personal enterprise.

MY 18-YEAR-OLD nephew, John Armstrong, gasped when I told him that the star of the Food Network's "Big Daddy's House" would be coming to my house to cook us dinner. "He's coming to your house?" "That's right. Big Daddy's coming to our house," I repeated, pausing for emphasis. Yeah, I was name-dropping. But it's not every day that McCargo cooks a meal in somebody's home. Maybe back in the day, but not since 2008, when he became the last man standing on "The Next Food Network Star" and wound up snagging the grand prize - his own TV show.

SEATTLE - Nathan Myhrvold didn't just go to school; he worked on the quantum theory of gravity with Stephen Hawking. He didn't just get a job; he became Microsoft's first chief technology officer. As a hobbyist, he didn't just get into grilling; he copped several top prizes in the World Championship of Barbecue. So it's unsurprising that when Myhrvold decided to write a cookbook, he didn't just write a cookbook. He outfitted his kitchen laboratory in Bellevue, Wash., with hundreds of thousands of dollars' worth of whiz-bang equipment, including a centrifuge, freeze-driers, humidity-controlled smokers, and special evaporators.

MIAMI - Michael Schwartz devotees know the names by heart, and they're almost all there: the crispy, sweet-and-sour pork belly with kimchi and crushed peanuts; the shrimp and chorizo pizza; the onions stuffed with ground lamb; the milk-chocolate cremoso with espresso parfait. Schwartz - the game-changing, Northeast Philly-raised chef who staked an early claim in Miami's Design District, who helped free South Florida cuisine from the ubiquitous mango, who last year won a James Beard Award and who is putting his notoriety to work on behalf of farmers, schoolchildren and inner-city food shoppers - has shared fan favorites in his first cookbook.

During a dinner of dishes that might have been at home on a Southern plantation where ingredients were cultivated, cooked, and served by Africans enslaved and transplanted against their will, Jessica B. Harris spoke of what it means to live high on the hog. "Eating not the pig's feet, but the ham. That's higher on the hog, right?" Harris said to an assemblage of food enthusiasts on a recent wintry night at Mount Airy's Geechee Girl Rice Cafe. More than a dozen had paid $55 each to dine with Harris, a food historian who has 11 cookbooks to her credit, and now, a nonfiction narrative, High on the Hog: A Culinary Journey From Africa to America (Bloomsbury, January 2011)

For years, Cindy Lopez's mother filled her dessert empanadas with pineapple or pumpkin, but when Cindy met outfielder Ben Francisco, her mother switched to filling the empanadas with his favorite: sweet potatoes. The couple married just a few weeks ago, on Nov. 20, and the recipe for Mama Lopez's Sweet Potato Empanadas is among the 25 dishes in a new charity cookbook. From Our Home to Yours: A Collection of Phillies Recipes is a project of the Phillies Wives group and Phillies Charities Inc. It will be available only at the Majestic Clubhouse Store at Citizens Bank Park and online at phillies.