Brookline Book News: September 2023

The temperature is dropping, meaning it’s starting to truly feel like fall at our office. But as we break out our sweaters and cardigans, and kick off debates between the superior fall flavors of pumpkin vs apple, the presses are warming up to print our fall season of books!

Read on below to learn more about our next book, A. Cook’s Perspective, where you can catch our authors this month and next, and how you can order the next book in our list, a biography on the Bergdoll family written by renown Philadelphia journalist Timothy Lake.

A Food Feud Left Simmering for Centuries…

“She steals from ev’ry Author to her Book / Infamously branding the pillag’d Cook…
This Teacher has no Connection with the true Art of Cookery.”

— A. Cook in Professed Cookery

Officially out this month and available for order now at our website, A. Cook’s Perspective is an examination and overview of an 18th century spat between two female cooks. Initially written off as petty lambasting, a modern evaluation offers new perspective and insight into who might have been proven right by history.

Historical reenactors who know a thing or two about cookery veracity themselves, dynamic author duo Clarissa Dillon and Deborah Peterson dive into what fueled the grudge match between Professed Cookery‘s author, Ann Cook, and the more renown The Art of Cookery‘s, Hannah Glasse, all while going over the receipts of the time.

Meet the Authors

Clarissa F. Dillon received a doctorate in History from Bryn Mawr College in 1986. She has been active in living history since 1973 and has produced a number of self-published books as well as a cookbook, So Serve It Up.

Deborah J. Peterson began her living history activities with military re-enactments in 1982. She has toiled as a camp-follower on many Revolutionary war sites.

Both women are well established in the historical community of Delaware County, providing cooking demonstrations and volunteering efforts.