Author Elizabeth Sims with the Tupelo Honey Cookbook

Tupelo Honey Café Cookbook benefits Appalachian Sustainable Agriculture Project (ASAP) and MANNA FoodBank to Benefit

See bottom of page for recipe for Chicken Apple Meatloaf!

Tupelo Honey Café is now selling their much-anticipated cookbook, Tupelo Honey Café: Spirited Recipes from Asheville’s New South Kitchen. It's a great souvenir from Asheville since it showcases the restaurant’s unique cuisine and the “Foodtopian Society” of Asheville. The book will also be sold online, at the two Tupelo restaurants in Asheville and at the Asheville Convention and Visitors Bureau, where Chef Sonoskus and his staff will be serving up samples of Tupelo Honey fare each Friday and Saturday from April through October 2011.

Each cookbook sold through the Tupelo Honey website or in the restaurants will donate $1 to ASAP and $1 to MANNA FoodBank.

Authored by local writer Elizabeth Sims with collaboration from Executive Chef Brian Sonoskus, the book was published in Spring 2011 as a full–color, hardbound edition of 240 pages with 125 recipes and 75 photographs.

As much a tribute to Asheville as it is to its restaurant namesake, the cookbook pays homage to sustainability, local farms and breweries, as well as the overall history of the region.

“I’m honored to be part of this project,” said Sims, formerly an executive with The Biltmore Company and past president of the Southern Foodways Alliance. “Asheville needed a book about its vibrant food scene and how it reflects the creativity and energy of our community. In many ways, Tupelo Honey Café, with its independent spirit, is a microcosm of our town.”

Founded in 2000, Tupelo Honey Cafe offers locals and tourists healthy, innovative indredients combined in unique recipes sure to please. Their vision is to integrate Tupelo Honey Cafe into the very fabric of Asheville life. Tupelo Honey Cafe is deeply involved in the community and supports our local farmers, suppliers and artists.

Tupelo Honey Café has received glowing reviews and recognition from the New York Times, Southern Living Magazine, The Food Network, Turner South Television, UNC-TV, Our State Magazine, Hemisphere Magazine and the Asheville Citizen Times. Brian Sonoskus has been the Executive Chef at Tupelo Honey since November of 2001. Read more about Tupelo Honey Café!

For online cookbook orders, please visit the restaurant website.

Reviews
“There are worlds of restaurant cookbooks but this one stands out because its sense of place is intense – Asheville, NC where the Smokies meet the Blue Ridge. There’s a sense of time, too – the New South, the new generation of farmers, the quality of their produce, and what innovative chefs like Brian Sonoskus can do with it. But most of all, Tupelo Honey’s recipes will appeal to the home cook because they’re oh, so approach-able. How many restaurant cookbooks can make that claim? Precious few!”
—Jean Anderson, author, A Love Affair with Southern Cooking

“This book is full of deliciously innovative and eclectic ‘classic’ recipes that give a fresh take on Southern food. The inviting photography is a love song to the restaurant and Asheville.”
—Nathalie Dupree, author of New Southern Cooking

"Elizabeth Sims has written a treatise on Asheville as Foodtopia, disguised as a cookbook from one of the city's leading restaurants. From country ham saltimbocca to benne-coated asparagus, she showcases the promise of the New South."
—John T Edge, Coeditor of the Southern Foodways Alliance Community Cookbook

“Something about the look and feel of this book makes me salivate. Half dreaming, I imagine hearing my ‘shoo-mercy’ breakfast order sizzling on the grill. Then I turn a page and I smell beef tenderloin coming off medium-rare, sporting a tangy gorgonzola cap drizzled with a peppery bordelaise sauce. And then I close my eyes and it’s as if I’m actually tasting candied ginger crème brulee, right there in the New South kitchen of the Tupelo Honey Café in Asheville. Ah, if wishes were horses . . . But thank heaven, the choice words of Elizabeth Sims, the crisp photography of Brie Williams, and the inspired recipe creations of Chef Brian Sonoskus are combined in this great cookbook to make my dreams come true."
—John Egerton, author of Southern Food: At Home, On the Road, in History

“Flip through this book, and you’ll want to get cooking or packing. One way or another, you’re going to want to eat this food. Personally, I can’t decide whether to dive into dishes so Southern you’ll swear someone’s been channeling your grandma, or the fresh, new takes on homegrown favorites. I rest easy in the knowledge that whatever choice I make will be a delicious one.”
 —Donna Florio, Senior Writer, Southern Living Magazine.

“More than a simple restaurant cookbook, Tupelo Honey Cafe offers not only tastes from its distinctive kitchen, but the full delicious flavor of Asheville’s fresh, artisanal food scene. The result is an unequivocal “yum!”
 —Ronni Lundy, author of Shuck Beans, Stack Cakes and Honest Fried Chicken and Butter Beans to Blackberries.

For online orders please visit the restaurant website.

Sample Recipe from Cookbook

Chicken Apple Meatloaf With Tarragon Tomato Gravy
Makes 4 servings
Why settle for a traditional boring meat loaf when you can make this piquant, flavorful masterpiece? Dried apples, poblano peppers and the tarragon tomato flavors unite in a joyful composition of tartness, sweetness and spiciness. Goodness gracious.

• 1 cup diced celery
• 1 cup diced sweet onion
• 1 tablespoon canola oil
• 1 egg
• 1 cup panko bread crumbs
• 1 pound ground chicken or turkey
• 1 cup diced dried apples
• 1/2 cup diced poblano pepper
• 1 1/2 teaspoons sea salt
• 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• 3 tablespoons Pick-a-Peppa sauce

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Sauté celery and onion in oil over medium heat for 5 minutes or until just tender. In a mixing bowl, combine chicken, egg, panko crumbs, apple, poblano peppers, sautéed vegetables, salt and pepper. Form mixture into loaf shape and put in a 9 x 13 loaf pan. Cover top of meatloaf with Pick-a-Peppa sauce and bake, uncovered, for 1 hour. Serve with warm Tarragon Tomato Gravy.

Tarragon Tomato Gravy
Makes 2 cups

• 1 tablespoon chopped fresh tarragon
• 1/2 cup demi-glace
• 14-ounce can stewed tomatoes
• 1/4 teaspoon sea salt
• 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

While meatloaf is baking, make the gravy. In a heavy sauce pan, combine tarragon, demi-glace, tomatoes and salt. Bring to a boil over high heat and immediately reduce heat to low to simmer for 20 minutes. Add pepper the last minute of cooking time. Serve immediately.