If you love cookbooks, come see us at the L.A. Times Festival of Books (2024)

Food lovers and cooks will have plenty to explore at this year’s Los Angeles Times Festival of Books April 20 and 21 on the USC campus. Here’s what we have cooking:

Panels and Interviews

Saturday, April 20

4 p.m.: Food Memoir: Cooks with Books. Storyteller, historian and Jewish recipe collector Joan Nathan (“My Life in Recipes: Food, Family, and Memories”), France-based cooking teacher and guide Rosa Jackson (“Niçoise: Market-Inspired Cooking from France’s Sunniest City”) and chef, writer and magazine founder Klancy Miller (“For The Culture: Phenomenal Black Women and Femmes in Food: Interviews, Inspiration, and Recipes”) discuss how food can be a main character in our interactions with the world. Free. At USC’s Ray Stark Family Theatre.

Sunday, April 21

José Andrés on Nov. 17, 2022, in the Ukrainian city of Kherson, where the chef’s World Central Kitchen was giving away 6,000 food packages a day.

(Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times)

12:30 p.m.: Ideas Exchange: José Andrés. A conversation with the humanitarian, chef and founder of World Central Kitchen about his work feeding people in disaster and war zones, including the recent tragedy in Gaza, as well as his many restaurants and cookbooks, including his latest, “Zaytinya: Delicious Mediterranean Dishes from Greece, Turkey, and Lebanon.” Hosted by L.A. Times Food General Manager Laurie Ochoa. At USC’s Bovard Auditorium. Tickets required. $75 orchestra seating with copy of “Zaytinya,” $35 balcony general admission.

Ask me anything about ... cookbooks

At the L.A. Times Food x Now Serving Booth

L.A.’s world-famous cookbook store Now Serving is joining with L.A. Times Food for meet-ups and signings with chefs and authors of recent and forthcoming cookbooks. We’ll also have L.A. Times Food merch, including a new apron from Hedley & Bennett and a new batch of our . Meet L.A. Times Food staff writers and editors too!

Saturday, April 20

Sara Kramer, left, and Sarah Hymanson outside Kramer’s Echo Park home.

(Catherine Dzilenski / For The Times)

10 a.m. to 11 a.m.: Ask chefs and authors Sara Kramer and Sarah Hymanson anything about their “vegetable-intensive” restaurant (on the L.A. Times 101) and forthcoming book “Kismet: Bright, Fresh, Vegetable-Loving Recipes.”

“The SalviSoul Cookbook” author Karla Vasquez in the Times Test Kitchen.

(Katrina Frederick / For The Times)

11 a.m. to noon: Ask author Karla Tatiana Vasquez anything about Salvadoran food and her forthcoming book “The SalviSoul Cookbook: Salvadoran Recipes and the Women Who Preserve Them.”

Noon to 1 p.m.: Ask vegan recipe developer and Veggiekins website founder Remy Morimoto Park anything about her book “Sesame, Soy, Spice: 90 Asian-ish Vegan and Gluten-free Recipes to Reconnect, Root, and Restore.”

1 to 2 p.m.: Ask cooking video host Rie McClenny anything about cooking on camera and her book “Make It Japanese: Simple Recipes for Everyone.”

2. to 3 p.m.: Ask “Ranch to Table” Magnolia network host and lifestyle pro Elizabeth Poett anything about cattle ranching and her book “The Ranch Table.”

Sunday, April 21

11 a.m. to noon: Ask recipe developer, food stylist and “Salad Freak” author Jess Damuck anything about working with Martha Stewart and about her new book “Health Nut.”

Noon to 1 p.m.: Ask Rose Wilde anything about baking with whole grains, her Red Bread bakery or her cookbook “Bread and Roses.”

1 to 2 p.m.: As food editor and Netflix TV cooking host Alyse Whitney anything about her career and new cookbook “Big Dip Energy: 88 Parties in a Bowl for Snacking, Dinner, Dessert, and Beyond!”

2 to 3 p.m.: Ask culinary historian and author Michael Twitty anything about his Afroculinaria website, winning the James Beard Book of the Award for “The Cooking Gene” or his subsequent book “Koshersoul: The Faith and Food Journey of an African American Jew.”

3 to 4 p.m.: Ask Michelin-star chef Iliana Regan about running a restaurant in the Michigan forest or her latest memoir “Fieldwork.”

Author and former restaurant critic and magazine editor Ruth Reichl

( Michael Singer)

4 to 5 p.m.: Ask Ruth Reichl anything about being a restaurant critic, editor of Gourmet, and writing memoirs and fiction. Plus, get bookplates signed for her forthcoming “The Paris Novel.”

On the L.A. Times Cooking Stage

Saturday, April 20

TikTok star and now cookbook author Jenny Martinez making birria tacos at her home kitchen in Norwalk.

(Mariah Tauger / Los Angeles Times)

11 a.m.: Cooking demo with Jeff and Jordan Kim, “Cooking With the CrunchBros”

12:30 p.m.: Cooking demo with Jenny Martinez, “My Mexican Mesa, y Listo!”

2 p.m.: Cooking demo with Josh Scherer, “Rhett & Link Present: The Mythical Cookbook”

3:30 p.m.: Cooking demo with Gianluca Conte, “Italian/American: It’s a QCP Cookbook, Betch!”

Sunday, April 21

11 a.m.: Cooking demo by Jing Gao, “The Book of Sichuan Chili Crisp”

12:20 p.m.: Cooking demo by Radhi Devlukia, “JoyFull”

2 p.m.: Cooking demo by Tiffani Thiessen, “Here We Go Again”

3:30 p.m.: Cooking demo by Nancy Silverton, “The Cookie That Changed My Life: And More Than 100 Other Classic Cakes, Cookies, Muffins and Pies That Will Change Yours”