Your New Cookbook Might Be at the Bottom of the Ocean

Last year, Americans learned to get used to the long delays from backed up ports and that time a ship wedged itself into the Suez Canal for a week, but this year brought a different challenge for a few cookbook authors when an accident knocked the containers carrying their new releases into the middle of the Atlantic.

The first copies of Turkey and the Wolf: Flavor Trippin' in New Orleans by Mason Hereford and Dinner in One by Melissa Clark were on the Madrid Bridge when the ship got caught in a storm south of the Azores on Jan. 7 and lost 65 containers, with 89 more damaged.

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“I like to think that if the books are at the bottom of the ocean, they’re teaching whole schools of fish some very tasty recipes,” Clark posted on Instagram this week, noting that pre-orders meant to arrive for the March release should not be expected until September.

Hereford’s book is now expected to be released in late June, and he takes an optimistic view of the accident, saying that everyone has sent him “sorry” notes. “But I’ll be fine,” he said. “I'm sorry people have to wait so long for their order and I’m so glad no one was injured.” He noted that he hopes this gives him a chance to fix the part where he misspelled his friend Leo’s name in the book, and that the new release date means he won’t miss so much of Mardi Gras this year.

He's making the best of it and plans on auctioning off the now-rare single copy that he currently has to raise money for an environmental cause—with details yet to be announced—and just chalks it up to yet another thing the last couple years have thrown at everyone. “We'll just have to throw this story on the pile of good reasons to go grab a margarita. 2022 is going to be full of them.”