Grand Central Publishing Acquires Harold Dieterle Book Project Based on Toqueland Posts

Harold Dieterle (photo courtesy Perilla restaurant)

I haven’t even met Amanda Englander and she’s already made a liar out of me.

After two recent posts about the book concept Harold Dieterle and I had devised for a forthcoming project, Harold Dieterle’s Kitchen Notebook, I promised to keep you all posted on the proposal process. But that won’t be happening because Amanda, an editor at Grand Central Publishing, swooped in and bought the project, sans proposal, based on the idea, the blog posts, and on her and the company’s enthusiasm for Harold and what he does. We couldn’t be happier: while it’s always a useful exercise to write a proposal, the notion that we get to jump right in and start writing the book is incredibly appealing.

The way this all came together, with a series of phone calls and emails between Amanda and our agent, David Black, brought up a little fact of publishing life that I always find amusing: It’s very common to sell projects to an editor without having met her or him. Every once in a while you engage in a series of face-to-face meetings with editors or perhaps entire conference-rooms full of publishing and marketing executives at various houses, but it’s just as, if not more, common to sell the book to somebody you’ve never actually met, which is kind of funny when you think about how intimate the editorial process is. Amanda and I spoke for the first time just a few minutes ago (we hit if off – whew!) and she, Harold, and I will meet over coffee some time in the coming weeks.

Herewith, the publisher’s announcement:

Grand Central Publishing is delighted to announce that it has acquired world rights to HAROLD DIETERLE’S KITCHEN NOTEBOOK by Harold Dieterle and Andrew Friedman. The book, tentatively scheduled to be published in Fall 2014, was acquired by Amanda Englander from David Black at David Black Literary.

HAROLD DIETERLE’S KITCHEN NOTEBOOK will feature approximately 100 recipes based on the new American influences found in Dieterle’s food, each with one “star” ingredient or preparation highlighted on a notebook page that shares an essay on that component and more recipes and tips for using it.

Harold Dieterle is the chef-owner of Kin Shop and Perilla restaurants in New York City. Dieterle was the winner of season 1 of Top Chef. Andrew Friedman  is a prolific cookbook collaborator who has worked with chefs such as Alfred Portale, Laurent Tourondel, and Michelle Bernstein. He is also the founder and chief contributor to Toqueland.com.

As I’ve mentioned before, this is the first collaboration I’ve set up with a publisher since launching Toqueland; Harold and I look forward to giving readers a glimpse into the entire writing and production process, from now through the book’s publication in 2014.

- Andrew

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