Click the cover to view a sneak peak of the cookbook. Once inside, you can grab and pull the images to see more pages.
From Volt ink. by Bryan and Michael Voltaggio reprinted with permission from Weldon Owen, in stores October 2011, photos Ed Anderson, copyright 2011
It was announced today that Weldon Owen Publishing, which produces the Williams-Sonoma brand of cookbooks, is launching a yet-to-be-titled series with the San Francisco-based food-retail company. The first release will be VOLT ink. from brothers and Top Chef contestants Bryan and Michael Voltaggio. (Michael took top honors on the show; Bryan was runner-up.) The publish date is set for October.
The cookbook's name is a combination of Michael's forthcoming omakase-style restaurant in Los Angeles, ink., and VOLT, Bryan's place in Frederick. The book is constructed around types of ingredients, but not the ones you'd typically find on a shopping list: avian, parsley, legumes, nightshade, and mammal are all categories. Once inside the 300-plus-page volume, the brothers have separate dishes within each category, and they share stories about the ingredients and conception. The artful photographs and multi-part recipes—not to mention the occasional need for space-age-like cooking tools—may relegate VOLT ink. to the coffeetables of less-ambitious cooks or the "special occasion" section of home chefs' shelves. But recipes such as Bryan's sockeye salmon with "flavors of everything bagel" or Michael's young beets with crispy chicken skin, yogurt, and pomegranate look like they're worth the time in the kitchen.
With this deal, the Voltaggios join a growing group of local chefs and food writers who have recently become cookbook authors. In March, the Washington Post's food and travel editor, Joe Yonan, released a celebration of solo cookery, Serve Yourself: Nightly Adventures in Cooking for One. Local writer Domenica Marchetti just released her third cookbook, The Glorious Pasta of Italy, with more than 100 recipes. Top Chef vet Mike Isabella—formerly of Zaytinya and chef/owner of the forthcoming Graffiato—recently announced a deal with Da Capo Lifelong Books for Flavors From a Jersey Italian, a compilation of recipes from his Garden State upbringing, set to publish in fall 2012. And chef Todd Gray of Equinox and Watershed announced last month that he's also working on a book with his wife and the restaurants' co-owner, Ellen.
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Anna Spiegel covers the dining and drinking scene in her native DC. Prior to joining Washingtonian in 2010, she attended the French Culinary Institute and Columbia University’s MFA program in New York, and held various cooking and writing positions in NYC and in St. John, US Virgin Islands.
