Melt: the Art of Macaroni and Cheese

I’d like to introduce you to Melt: the Art of Macaroni and Cheese, the best macaroni and cheese cookbook on the market.

Today is the day! Garrett and I are incredibly excited to announce the official release of our cookbook, Melt: the Art of Macaroni and Cheese (this is an affiliate link!). After two years of cooking, testing, writing, editing, pacing, and hand wringing, the day is finally here. We can hardly believe it. It’s finally out. You can find some of the gorgeous macaroni and cheese photos here.

Melt isn’t your average, down-home mac and cheese book. Instead we’ve explored the concept of cooking with small-production, artisan cheeses, using pasta as a canvas for the inspired flavor combinations we’ve developed. Our dishes span the culinary spectrum, ranging from fresh, cheesy salads and creamy stovetop macs to hearty casseroles to even a few decadent desserts. If you’d like to take a quick peek, you can find our cookbook trailer below for a more visual idea of what we’re doing.

We’re already seeing positive reviews roll in and we’re incredibly excited about the enthusiasm. Dorie Greenspan so sweetly mentioned that “Stephanie and Garrett have created modern, sophisticated, beautiful food that satisfies the way the old mac and cheese did. It’s almost a feat of magic.” Ree Drummond, of The Pioneer Woman Cooks, shared, “Melt…takes a dish as beloved and familiar as macaroni and cheese and turns it into something positively transcendental.” We are overjoyed to be receiving such a warm welcome from our colleagues and mentors.

And, we are eternally grateful for you, our readers, whose supports means more to us than anyone else’s. We have sold nearly a thousand preordered copies through Amazon, Barnes & Noble and other online booksellers. This is no small feat. If you have been waiting to get your copy of the book, now would be a good time. Follow this link to a listing of booksellers selling Melt: the Art of Macaroni and Cheese, which includes Amazon, Powell’s, Barnes & Noble, and other online retailers. You can also buy Melt at your choice of brick-and-mortar book shops.

Here’s something a lot of people don’t know: a book’s performance in its fledgling weeks are incredibly important. The next few weeks will set the tone for many months to come. With a deluge of cookbooks released every year, it’s getting much more difficult to gather attention from larger magazines and newspapers, which can make or break a book’s success. How do the big time reviewers select which books to review in their pages? Ironically, it’s you. Readers make all the difference, especially in the early days of a book’s trek out into the real world. The more enthusiasm our readers show Melt: the Art of Macaroni and Cheese during its first few weeks of life, the more attention it will receive from the media — which is very important for us.

For those of you who have bought a copy, we thank you humbly. For those of you who have not, we ask you to consider picking one up. It will make a world of difference to the book’s life, as well as our careers as food writers. If you would like a signed bookplate, we’ll be happy to provide you one free of charge. Just drop us a line at [email protected].

And now come the thanks: grazi to everyone who had a hand in creating Melt. Michael Sand, Michelle Aielli, Helen Tobin, and Lisa Erickson, our team at Little, Brown, took us in their capable hands and guided us to creating and publicizing a beautiful book that we’re immensely proud of. Janis Donnaud, our agent, has been a lifesaver on more than one occasion. Gary Tooth, Melt‘s designer, did an incredible job on creating a visual aesthetic that fit our style. Matt Armendariz and Adam Pearson worked magic with the photography. Thad, my boyfriend, ate his weight in macaroni and cheese several times over, and never once made me feel bad about his digestion during the process. And to Garrett, my f*cking adorable partner in crime, who carried half of this book and, on occasion, his nearly comatose coauthor as well.

Starting today, we’re officially kicking off our West Coast book tour with a few events in Sacramento and the Bay Area before we head off to Los Angeles, Seattle, and Portland. Hopefully we’ll be in New York and Chicago soon, as well as a few spots in the south. We look forward to meeting all of you, our wonderful readers. Please do come and say hello!

Also, we’d like to congratulate Christa Curtin for winning the $500 set of Le Creuset cookware. You go girl! :)