Join Northshire Bookstore and the Saratoga Book Festival Online, for a special event and cooking demonstration with Anna Francese Gass, author of the Northshire Staff Favorite Heirloom Kitchen: Heritage Recipes and Family Stories from the Tables of Immigrant Women. Cook along with chef & cookbook author Anna Francese Gass. Gass will explain and demonstrate the recipe for pierogies that appears in the book - order your copy early, and if you like you can have the ingredients on hand to cook during the event.
Purchase a copy of the book from Northshire Bookstore to receive the zoom link for this event. If you order the book online, we will automatically register you. If you have already purchased the book from us in the past, or buy a copy in the store, please e-mail us at events@northshire.com to be added to the list.
Join us for this celebration of the culinary traditions of strong, empowering immigrant women and the remarkable diversity that is American food, a warm and inspiring reminder that the story of immigrant food is, at its core, a story of America.
Born in Italy, Anna Francese Gass came to the United States as a young child and grew up eating her mother’s Italian cooking. But when this professional cook realized she did not know how to make her family’s beloved meatballs—a recipe that existed only in her mother’s memory—Anna embarked on a project to record and preserve her mother’s recipes for generations to come.
In addition to her recipes, Anna’s mother shared stories from her life in Italy that her daughter had never heard before, fascinating tales that whetted Anna’s appetite to learn more. So, Anna began reaching out to her friends whose mothers were also immigrants, and soon she was cooking with dozens of women who were eager to share their unique memories and the foods of their homelands.
In Heirloom Kitchen, Anna brings together the stories and dishes of forty strong, exceptional women, all immigrants to the United States, whose heirloom recipes have helped shape the landscape of American food.
Anna Francese Gass is a graduate of the French Culinary Institute. After a stint in corporate sales, she traded the boardroom for the test kitchen, and has since worked for Whole Foods, Mad Hungry, and Martha Stewart Living Ominmedia. Currently, she is a regular contributing editor and recipe tester at Food52 and contributing writer for msn.com. She lives in Connecticut with her husband and three children. Follow her on Instagram @annafgass and website www.annasheirloomkitchen.com.
