“Better Than Eating Out”

Caron Melamed, a brilliant and passionate woman with a dream to publish her own cookbook, approached our Chief Imagination Officer, Sivan Portal, to make this dream a reality. We spent the better half of two years making this happen – and met our Wonder Wordsmith, Kim Wainer, in the process.

Inspired by the minimalist, clean style of top French recipe books, where the food is always the star, the design uses a generous helping of white space to ensure that the food pops on every page. Sivan worked closely with the food stylist and photographers, accessorizing each shot with Provence-style cutlery, crockery and decor in wood, silver and shades of blue to create a subtle thread throughout the book. The headline font used for recipe titles is Aire, a soft, feminine font with a modern feel and a large set of glyphs, which allowed craft work in each unique recipe title.

We knew that it would be too difficult to select just one food shot for the cover, because there are too many great shots in this book and it covers various food genres. The solution: something completely different. The concept was to shoot Caron’s great grandmother’s salt and pepper cellars atop some of the exquisite crockery used in the book. The different patterns and textures create a rich, layered shot, and a raised spot gloss added extra finesse for the finishing touch.

A Pinch Of was launched in May 2014 and an impressive 600 copies were sold in one morning. In just two short months, almost 2000 copies flew off the shelves. The book is an exquisite collection of traditional and contemporary recipes for everyone. We are now busy converting the book to an e-book for sale online.