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Recipes in Back Matter by Tina Cho with Help from Melissa Stoller and Pooja Makhijani
My next picture book, The Kimchi Fridge, illustrated by Cindy Kang, just published from Little Bee Books on October 6th. One commonality with most of my books is that they include back matter. However, this book has something my other books don’t—a recipe! And that got me thinking—I’ve never seen a blog post about recipes in back matter. Oh, I’ve seen plenty of recipes included in back matter, especially picture books, but how does one go about writing a recipe for publication? And do you submit it initially with your story?
So I consulted two other authors whose recent picture books included recipes—Melissa Stoller and her book Stella’s Special Recipe, illustrated by Valerya Milovanova and Pooja Makhijani’s Bread Is Love, illustrated by Lavanya Naidu. But first, book summaries:
The
Kimchi Fridge is
about a little girl who wants to eat kimchi stew, but when she looks in the
kimchi fridge, it’s empty. So, the whole family does the tradition of kimjang,
getting together to make big batches of kimchi to store for winter. “…A joyful,
laugh-out-loud kimchi adventure filled with Korean food, k-pop dances, a great
recipe, and a loving reminder that good things come to those who wait.”
–blurb from Amazon This book includes a traditional
kimchi recipe.
Bread is many things. Bread is simple. The dough can be made with just flour, salt, starter, and water. Bread is science. With the right ingredients, in the right amounts, the dough grows and changes. Bread can be unpredictable. Sometimes it rises, like a soft pillow. Sometimes it’s flat and crunchy. But bread is always delicious, especially when it is made with love. --blurb from Amazon This book includes a bread recipe. |
| Pooja's Herby Fougasse |
1. Did you already have a recipe, or did you come up with one for this book?
Tina: I didn’t have one, so with my husband’s memories of his mother’s kimchi, plus my research online, I wrote a recipe that I’ve made numerous times with hubby’s stamp of approval.
Melissa: First, thank you for including STELLA’S SPECIAL RECIPE: A ROSH HASHANAH STORY in this post! I’m so happy this special story, illustrated by Valerya Milovanova, released from Kar-Ben Publishing on August 4, 2026. I love books that include recipes! With this project, I already had a treasured family recipe for stuffed cabbage rolls, and I built the story around sharing heritage, rituals, and family through the generations. The story is about a little girl who is finally able to help cook her family’s holiday meal using a recipe card passed down from her great-grandmother, to her nana, to her mother, and finally to her, and she wants to add her special touch and a little bit of love as she cooks. My own nana and mother shared their recipe with me, and I knew that I wanted to write a story that captures food, recipes, and love through the generations.
Pooja: I’d been a food writer and recipe developer for years, so I had a few recipes up my sleeve! Bread Is Love is a story about a family who bakes a sourdough loaf every week, using wild yeast. But a recipe for naturally leavened bread would have required so many pages, starting with instructions for growing, feeding, and maintaining a sourdough starter. It can take up to 10 days to make a starter from scratch. Instead, I suggested including a simple bread recipe made with commercial baker’s yeast. It takes far less time to make a loaf this way, the process is more predictable, and the flavor is milder. I wanted readers to fall in love with bread baking as much as I have, and a simpler recipe gives first-time bakers a much better chance of success. There’s plenty of time to tackle sourdough once you’re hooked.