Sidetrack Cookbook Club - To Die For

* *Note: $5 registration fee can be used as a credit toward a purchase in-store. The credit expires the night of book club.**

Join us for Cookbook Club! Attendees will RSVP as they would for one of our other book clubs, and a week or two prior to the meeting date, we'll send out a sign-up link where you can indicate the recipe you'll be making and bringing from the book. The sign-up will help ensure we have a variety of recipes to taste test! Make enough to share as we have some good eats and chats. The featured cookbook will be available for sale at Sidetrack.

We will provide paper products (plates, cups, silverware). Please bring any necessary serving dishes and serving utensils for your chosen recipe. You can bring a small cooler or warming device for your recipe if needed. Please note that electrical hook-ups are VERY limited at the store so you should not count on access to electricity for your items.

House Rules

Sidetrack Bookshop is a mission-driven bookstore, which means (in part) that we are committed to providing a welcoming and inclusive space for people of all identities. In order to maintain our welcoming and inclusive space in the context of what we hope will be a lively and productive book club discussion, we have developed the following house rules.

By attending a book club meeting, you agree to the following:

1. Share the floor: Be sure to let everyone talk and express their thoughts on the book. If you feel like you're talking a lot, you probably are! Invite others to speak.
2. Be respectful: We'll no doubt have differing opinions. Seek to understand first, then to be understood. Check your privilege, and take special care with others who have lived experience differing from your own.
3. Comments or behavior that demean a specific person, identity, or culture will not be tolerated.

Book club hosts will keep these house rules in mind and will redirect you or the conversation as a whole if we feel they aren't being honored. We also reserve the right to ask an attendee to leave if we feel they're contributing to an unwelcome space.

About the Book

An inspiring collection of recipes preserved on gravestones, with fascinating interviews from the families, celebrating the beloved food legacies of their dearly departed.

For so many, food is a touching, nostalgic thing that brings us together. So much so that some families choose to remember their loved ones through the dishes they made and the food that brought comfort to those around them by immortalizing their recipes on their gravestones.

Rosie Grant, the creator behind @GhostlyArchive, has been searching out and documenting this interesting phenomenon. In To Die For, Rosie collects 40 recipes she’s found across the globe, carved into headstones or associated with a grave that has a story to share. Each recipe is accompanied by an interview with the remaining family, plus photography of the food, the gravestone, and any memorabilia the family wanted to share.

Recipes include:

• Spritz Cookies
• Homemade Fudge
• Chicken Soup
• French Silk Pie
• Guava Cobbler

…and more!

Thoughtfully and respectfully explored, Rosie has documented this connection between food, legacy, and family, remembering the deceased through the recipes they most loved, and giving their families a platform to share their loved one’s story and cherished dish with the world.

About the Author

Rosie Grant is the creator behind @GhostlyArchive on TikTok and Instagram, where she researches and re-creates recipes found on gravestones. She works at the Center for the Study of Women at UCLA and is currently working on a food studies certificate at the UCLA Extension School. She received her Masters in Library Science (MLIS) at the University of Maryland with a concentration in digital archives in 2022, where she got to combine her love of food writing, cemeteries, and archival work. The gravestone recipe project first began during her digital archives internship at Congressional Cemetery in Washington, DC.