We published a cookbook. Sacramento Bee food and drink reporter discusses the project
Benjy Egel, Sacramento Bee food and drink reporter, spent the better part of 2023 curating and writing a cookbook that celebrates the region’s emerging restaurant scene and can serve as your guide to great local food.
“Sacramento Eats: Recipes from the Capital Region’s Favorite Restaurants” offers a collection of 60 recipes from local institutions such as Frank Fat’s, Localis and Freeport Bakery and features eye-catching photos from The Sacramento Bee’s visuals team.
The cookbook officially comes out on Nov. 17. It can be ordered online from Pediment Publishing and is available for purchase at a variety of local bookstores — see the full list at the end of this Q&A.
Here is a conversation with Egel about the process of creating this cookbook.
Q: In the introduction of your cookbook, you write about childhood summers spent “running around” the now-defunct Downtown Plaza while your parents went to their state jobs. Were there any dishes from that era of your life that figure into this project?
A: The only food I remember from Downtown Plaza was Orange Julius between hours at the Brookstone store, trying out the massage chairs, pretending my sister and I might buy them. But there were local restaurants that did play a role in my life at that time as well.
I grew up mostly in Davis about a mile from the original Dos Coyotes, which now has several locations throughout the Sacramento region. That became a weeknight staple for my family, getting the paella burrito or the steak and rice plate, and now they’ve contributed the crab and asparagus quesadilla recipe to the cookbook.
On special occasions, we would go to Tower Cafe. That’s a place where as a kid it felt like everyone could get something that they wanted. My dad could get the Texasia Thai steak, and I could get some burger with the fat fries. We always enjoyed sitting under their lush outdoor canopy that they have protecting us from the Sacramento summer heat. Their menu really goes all around the world, and they chose to contribute an East African lentil soup to “Sacramento Eats.”
After that, it was the Freeport Bakery for birthday cakes and celebrations. They contributed an almond horn recipe to the cookbook, but most of my experience with their desserts was either watermelon sugar cookies during the summer, or the Seville Marnier cake that they made over the years.
Q: You write about having your first alcoholic drink at Zocalo restaurant. How does drink figure into the region’s farm-to-fork ethos?
A: It seems like in the last 15 years there’s been a big surge in creativity as far as drinks. We have a lot of cocktail bars that have sprouted up doing really interesting, innovative drinks.
The Sacramento region grows a lot of ingredients that get turned into alcoholic beverages. Wine grapes are the number one grossing crop in Sacramento County. Historically a lot of those have gone to the Napa region, but now more of the crops are staying local and helping spur the wine scene in places like Clarksburg.
Ruhstaller grows their own hops in Dixon. They use the hops for beer they sell at the farm and at their downtown Sacramento taproom.
And now Woodland farmers are starting to grow agave and make spirits similar to tequila or mezcal. So maybe we’ll see more of that in the future as well.
Q: In the book’s foreword, Bobbin and Patrick Mulvaney write about your relationship with the food and drink community. They write, “This timely collection of recipes in ‘Sacramento Eats: Recipes from the Capital Region’s Favorite Restaurants’ is a reflection of our trust.” How have you experienced that trust in terms of putting together this book?
A: When I set out to write this cookbook, I expected to be met with a lot of rejection. I thought a lot of chefs would have issues giving away the recipes, but time and again I was touched and shocked by how willing they were to tell the world basically how to cook what they make.
Yes, the chefs receive a little attention for their name is out there in the book, but they didn’t have to do this. I think that if I hadn’t been talking to the chefs for the past five or six years, they probably wouldn’t have done it. I’d spoken with them for stories. I celebrated with them. I talked to them through the tough times of COVID. They knew my connection to the community, and they were willing to trust me with their recipes. I feel really honored.
Q: This is your first time putting together a book. How did the idea for this book start?
A: I had reached a point after five or six years covering the Sacramento restaurant scene where I felt I wanted to showcase it, and I wanted to show people that it’s not just an inexpensive alternative to the Bay Area. This is a pretty exciting dining scene that can stand on its own two feet.
I felt like the cookbook could be a good avenue to not only show people how to make those dishes at home but give them a guide for where to eat. I tried to capture all the things that make Sacramento’s restaurant scene special from the diversity to the hidden gems in the suburbs to some of the higher-end, Michelin-starred concepts we have around here.
Q: What has been the greatest challenge of writing this book?
A: By far, it was getting the full recipes from the chefs. I had a lot of chefs who were interested in participating in this project; they were just unable to write out the recipe. A lot of the time they’re making these recipes for big batches.
One that I remember was Bacon & Butter’s hollandaise sauce. Their recipe is for 200 people, and we’re making an effort to now shrink everything down and take into account the appliances that you use.
Q: Were there recipes that made it into the book that you had to convince a chef to share? Want to tell us which one?
A: This was a fully voluntary project for chefs and restaurants to participate. So you know, I was really trying to incentivize them along the way and make things as easy for them as possible.
Occasionally we would have a chef get really excited to submit, say a birria recipe. And I would have to say, well, you know, Chando’s Tacos already submitted their birria recipe so maybe we could do another one and gently steer them back towards the recipe that I was really looking for them to do. I think oftentimes we did get there.
I remember for Origami (Asian Grill), I was looking for another salad and they posted this cold noodle salad on their Instagram that they were running as a special. I caught up with the chef and owner over there and I said, “I want you to be in the book and I want that recipe in particular.”
And they said, “OK, I guess you know if that’s what you want.”
Q: What did you learn from the process?
A: I will often hear chefs who have cooked in other places besides Sacramento talk about how surprised and happy they are at how collaborative the scene is. That’s because it’s still a dining scene on the rise. Everyone is pretty supportive of each other. There’s less jockeying for space than there was in San Francisco. People will say that it’s less everyone’s trying to be the best and more everyone’s trying to compete in their own way.
As far as my own personal lessons, I learned a lot about recipe development. I really had to go through with a fine-tooth comb and not only try and make everything uniform with the right style, but also look for steps that needed to be clearer or were missing.
I remember for the mole negro recipe that we have, I was looking through it and there’s something like 30 ingredients. And I got to a point where I said, “Wait! There’s no chocolate, and that’s a really essential part of it.”
I had to follow up and see, “Do we use it?”
“Yes.”
“How much?”
I had to try to catch things like that throughout the process.
Q: What is your hope for how readers interact with the book?
A: My hope is that people will make the dishes at home. I’ve already had some folks say that they’re going to try and cook through every dish in the cookbook, even the duck liver mousse with caramelized Siberian pine cones from Restaurant Josephine.
But I really hope that people make these dishes at home and then go out to the restaurants and explore what more is out there. That they trust the restaurant that composed this amazing dish to compose another amazing dish.
Q: Anything we didn’t discuss that you want to say?
A: You know the one thing that we didn’t talk about that really sets the book apart are all the photos taken by the Sacramento Bee photographers. I am so grateful to have worked with them on it and really appreciate their contributions that made the book more than words and numbers.
Want to attend cookbook signing?
Nov. 15: Masullo Pizza at 7 p.m., ticketed event
Location: 2711 Riverside Blvd., Sacramento
Family style dinner and Q&A with Benjy Egel, featuring Chris Barnum-Dann (Localis) and Toki Sawada (Binchoyaki). Registration ($75) includes dinner and a book. Purchase tickets at www.masullomarket.com
Nov. 17: Wild Sisters Book Co. at 7 p.m., free event
Location: 3325 Folsom Blvd., Sacramento
Book signing and Q&A with Benjy Egel, featuring a guest chef TBD.
Nov. 19: A Seat at the Table at 3 p.m., free event
Location: 9257 Laguna Springs Drive, Suite 130, Elk Grove
Book signing and Q&A with Benjy Egel, featuring Chris Mai and Mara Som (S.E.A. Hut). Register online at http://bit.ly/sea-hut
Nov. 29: There & Back Again Cafe at 6:30 p.m., ticketed event
Location: 1020 11th St., Suite 100, Sacramento
Book signing and Q&A with Benjy Egel, featuring Oliver Ridgeway (Camden Spit & Larder) and Cecil Rhodes II (Nash & Proper). Register online at thereandback.cafe
Where is ‘Sacramento Eats’ available for purchase?
“Sacramento Eats: Recipes from the Capital Region’s Favorite Restaurants” can be ordered online from Pediment Publishing and is available for purchase at the following local stores:
Sacramento
▪ Capital Books, 1011 K St., capitalbooksonk.com
▪ Corti Brothers, 5810 Folsom Blvd., cortibrothers.com
▪ Strapping Store, various locations, strappingstore.com
▪ Wild Sisters Book Co., 3325 Folsom Blvd., wildsistersbookco.com
Elsewhere
▪ A Seat at the Table Books, 9257 Laguna Springs Drive, Suite 130, Elk Grove, aseatatthetablebooks.org
▪ Barnes & Noble, locations throughout the region
▪ Face in a Book, 4359 Town Center Blvd., El Dorado Hills, getyourfaceinabook.com
▪ Ruby’s Books, 724 Sutter St., Folsom, rubysfolsom.com
If you operate a local bookstore that would like to sell the book, please email Benjy Egel directly at begel@sacbee.com.
