Leave Me Alone with the Recipes: The Life, Art, and Cookbook of Cipe Pineles

by Cipé Pineles, Sarah Rich (Editor), Wendy MacNaughton (Editor)

Saveur “Best New Cookbooks of the Year"
Finalist for the Gourmand Award for Cookbook Design

The newly discovered illustrated recipes of wildly influential yet unsung designer Cipe Pineles, introducing her delectable work in food and art to a new generation.

Not long ago, Sarah Rich and Wendy MacNaughton discovered a painted manuscript at an antiquarian book fair that drew them in like magnets: it displayed a vibrant painting of hot pink beets and a hand-lettered recipe for borscht written in script so full of life, it was hard to believe it was more than sixty-five years old.

It was the work of one of the most influential graphic designers of the twentieth century--Cipe (pronounced “C. P.”) Pineles, the first female art director at Condé Nast, whose impact lives on in the work of Maira Kalman, Julia Rothman, and many others. Completed in 1945, it was a keepsake of her connection to her childhood’s Eastern European food--she called it Leave Me Alone with the Recipes. For Wendy and Sarah, it was a talisman of a woman they had not known was their idol: a strong, independent spirit whose rich archive--of drawings, recipes, diaries, and letters to family and friends--led them into a dazzling history of mid-century design, art, food, New York City society, and culture.

They teamed up with Maria Popova of Brain Pickings and Debbie Millman of Design Matters, along with contributors Mimi Sheraton, Steven Heller, Paula Scher, and Maira Kalman, to present Cipe Pineles’s life and work as it should be presented--in glorious color. With Pineles’s illustrated cookbook and a section of updated recipes as its centerpiece, this gorgeous volume will delight foodies and design devotees alike.

Genres: Cookbooks, Food, Nonfiction, Art, Cooking, Design, Biography

144 pages, Hardcover

First published October 17, 2017

About the author

Cipé Pineles attended high school in Brooklyn, and went to Pratt Institute, where she won a Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Scholarship. After graduation, and what she calls an "adventurous" year in the still-life painting business, she became assistant in 1932 to M.F. Agha, then art director of Conde Nast publications. She stayed at Conde Nast long enough to become a 10-year-test-case of The Art Directors Club's admission policy toward women, and did in fact become its first woman member.

In 1947, she moved to Seventeen as art director, introducing there the commissioning of leading painters to do fiction illustration (on the theory that young readers would have few barriers in accepting fine art).

In 1950, Miss Pineles was named art director of Street & Smith's Charm, where she and editor Helen Valentine redirected the publication to a then new consumer audience—women who work. She moved to another Street & Smith publication, Mademoiselle, leaving in 1961 to work as an independent designer and illustrator. Cipé Pineles became design consultant to Lincoln Center in 1967, with the entire graphics program of the Center, from stationery to annual reports, under her supervision. Her communication assignments there also included the corporate symbol design and the monthly Journal and Calendar of Events.

In 1970 she joined the faculty of the Parsons School of Design, becoming as well director of publication design. The Parsons Bread Book, produced as a class project, was republished by Harper & Row in 1974, and the original student version, Bread, was included in the 1974 American Institute of Graphic Arts' prestigious "50 Books Of The Year" show.

She was married to William Golden for 20 years. Several years after his death, in 1959, she married Will Burtin.

Reviews

[Julie Ehlers · Rating 2 out of 5]

I seem to be in one of those phases where I write detailed reviews of books I didn't like and neglect all the ones I loved. I will remedy that soon, but for now I'm going to be the angel of death again. In my defense, I won this in a Goodreads giveaway so I feel it's incumbent upon me to share my thoughts, even though in this case the publisher would probably rather I didn't.

The story of how Leave Me Alone with the Recipes came into being is an interesting one that I won't spoil entirely, but suffice to say it involved the serendipitous discovery of a hand-drawn cookbook written in 1945 by a well-regarded and trailblazing graphic designer named Cipé Pineles, one of the few women to have had success in that field in her day (the 1930s and '40s). It's a cool story and I can see why there was desire to turn it into a traditionally published book.

The problem? Well, there are a few, but a big one is that the original hand-drawn cookbook was quite short—25 complete recipes with a few unfinished ones at the back. So this traditionally published version has been padded out. Padded out a lot. As in, it has nine separate introductions, and some of them are a bit ridiculous. There's the first one, where the editors of this volume talk about "discovering" Pineles. This is a bit self-aggrandizing on their part given that a biography of Pineles was published 18 years ago, so clearly she wasn't totally unknown. But like I said, cool story.

There's another introduction that talks about how Pineles was the first woman to really "brand" herself and therefore set the stage for people like Martha Stewart and Heidi Klum (?). Who cares? Will the people who pick up this book looking for recipes and food illustrations care about "branding"? (Well, apparently the NYU School of Visual Arts now offers a "Masters in Branding," so maybe so.)

Then there's an introduction by Mimi Sheraton, a woman with a similar background to Pineles as well as similar interests in food and illustration. Although Sheraton was about 20 years younger than Pineles, the two women worked together for a while, and I guess the editors of this volume felt she was an obvious person to tap for an intro. Unfortunately for them, but fortunately for my entertainment, Sheraton throws a massive amount of shade at Pineles, talking about how difficult she was to work with, how she would "sulk" and have to be treated "tenderly." She also makes fun of Pineles's poor spelling skills, which was mean because English was Pineles's second or third language. I have no idea why this introduction wasn't cut from the volume, but it was an interesting change of pace that I personally was grateful for.

Then there's the illustrated introduction by Maira Kalman, who was apparently invited to contribute because her style is similar to Pineles's. Unfortunately Kalman (whose work I love) clearly knew nothing about Pineles before being asked to do this, and it shows in her painfully vague contribution.

There's an introduction from Wendy MacNaughton that claims illustrated cookbooks are superior to cookbooks that use photography. This is false, but I can see why MacNaughton, an illustrator herself, would want to advance this viewpoint.

There's the introduction that talks about Pineles's stint working for the extremely short-lived magazine Food & Drink. Sarah Rich, who wrote this section, makes much of the fact that it was a food magazine directed mainly at men. Her tone distinctly implies that this made the magazine much cooler and more interesting than the food magazines directed at women, which is troubling. Women did most of the cooking back then (as they probably still do now), and holding up Food & Drink magazine as groundbreaking and superior seems to reinforce the whole "women are cooks, men are chefs" idea that still pervades fancy cooking. But it seems like the magazine died a very quick death, so, who cares.

As for the rest of the introductions (are you weary of hearing about the introductions? Imagine how weary I was of reading them!), they all recount the story of Pineles's career success, which made them quite repetitive. Pineles started off working as an art teacher but eventually became an influential graphic designer for Vogue, Vanity Fair, Glamour, Seventeen, and a magazine for young working women called Charm, which sounded fascinating. But don't expect to see examples of any of this work in this book, because you won't at all. Thus, by the time the intros are over and the illustrated recipe section (finally!) rolls around, you will be super stoked to experience this woman's superlative genius for yourself.

Then, eh. I mean, yes, the illustrations are very nice, and, as is pointed out several times in the introductions, they really are reminiscent of a lot of artists working today, including Wendy MacNaughton and Maira Kalman, which is undoubtedly why Pineles's work resonated with them. But the fact that the style is now so familiar made the actual work seem less remarkable. I tried my hardest to recognize these illustrations as groundbreaking and be amazed by them, but I couldn't quite manage it. They were nice. That's about all I feel moved to say.

The recipes themselves are unusable. They are actually Pineles's mother's recipes and have that feel of someone handing a dish down to you by showing you how to make it, improvisations, instinct and all. This might work if you're watching a dish being demonstrated, but it doesn't work at all if you write it down. I read the first recipe, for chicken soup, and was completely bewildered, and it didn't improve much from there. The editors of this volume seem to realize this, because they padded the book out even further with updated versions of all of the recipes, some of which stray far enough from the originals that you wonder what the point is. In any case, these are all old-fashioned dishes, including many for unremarkable vegetable soups and stuff hardly anyone eats anymore, like veal or meat loaf (if you still eat meat loaf, my sympathies). So you're not going to get any new meal ideas here either.

I think this book needed to be much more fleshed out, with fewer introductions but a significantly longer biography of Pineles and many more samples of her work, and then the illustrated cookbook could have been just one item among a trove of artwork and information about a pioneering graphic designer. Centering everything around a skimpy set of recipes, unfortunately, just doesn't work. I received a black-and-white cheaply made ARC of this book; I'm sure the final hardcover, full-color version will be beautiful. Thus, if you're someone who likes books that are beautiful but otherwise not of much use, you'll like this. If you have a strong interest in cooking, illustration, or graphic design, you will probably find Leave Me Alone with the Recipes as frustrating as I did.

[Aaron · Rating 5 out of 5]

Unique and interesting! This "recipe" book is really an adventure into the life and achievements of Cipe Pineles, a glass ceiling shattering woman most people have never even heard of. Her life is explored through the viewpoints of respected and accomplished people familiar with her work or knew her personally and professionally.
Struggling in a male dominated marketplace, Cipe persisted with her art and creativity to become a pioneer and role model for women. Unless you are in the industry, her name is probably unknown to you. Yet she was a driving force behind such magazines as Seventeen & Conde Nast and her life should be more widely known considering the achievements she made.
Despite this being a biography and celebration of Cipe, it is also a recipe book presented first as she penned and illustrated it with a follow up of updates and clarification to make the recipes accessible to today's chefs.
I would recommend this book for all ages and feel it may resonate best with young women.

* I received an Advance Reader's copy from Goodreads giveaways *

[LAPL Reads · Rating 4 out of 5]

The story of how this manuscript was found, and eventually published, is a serendipitous adventure, with many discoveries about the woman who created it, and connections with some of the people who knew her. In 2013 Sarah Rich was at an exhibition of the California International Antiquarian Book Fair in San Francisco. It was a chilly, somewhat gloomy day, and the books on display seemed to mirror that atmosphere. All the book jackets were in muted, dull color tones until, “The climactic moment of our visit to the fair could only be captured in the most brilliant hues, for the work we found that morning felt as new and bright as if the paint had been laid down yesterday. We were stopped in our tracks by a woman we’d never heard of and would never be lucky enough to meet, but would spend the next three years getting to know.” The eye-catching work was in a glass display case. It was a set of original paintings illustrating a compilation of recipes for traditional Jewish foods, in the East European style, but nothing else about the book, dated 1945, was traditional. The book had full-page, vibrant illustrations, brilliantly worked in gouache (opaque watercolor paints), accompanied by hand-written instructions in the most meticulous typeface. The layout of every page was different so that each one grabbed your attention with a glorious surprise and delight. The book’s title can be interpreted in at least two ways. Don’t bother me with recipes because I don’t need any--I know how to cook! Or, don’t bother me because I want to cook, paint, write–create! So began a quest, by Sarah Rich, Wendy McNaughton, Maria Popova and Debbie Millman to find out more about the book's creator and to get the book published.

As they would learn, she was Cipe Pineles (1908-1991), aka C. P. Pineles, the first female art director at Condé Nast Incorporated; the first independent female graphic designer in America; the first female member of the Art Directors Club; and the first woman inducted into the Art Directors Club Hall of Fame. She was posthumously awarded the lifetime achievement medal from the American Institute of Graphic Arts, known as the Nobel Prize of design. She was an innovator and pioneer in art and media, and an immigrant to the United States. Born in Vienna, Austria in 1908, and the fourth of five children, she immigrated to the United States in 1915. She was a student at Bay Ridge High School in Brooklyn and won a Tiffany Foundation Scholarship to the Pratt Institute. Beyond being a “first female” or a trailblazer in the predominantly male world of advertising, design, publishing and illustration, Cipe was an innovator in the visual and written presentation of advertising. The discovered book was evidence of her originality and unique perspective. And the four women learned that Cipe Pineles was generous in helping others--a true mentor to many who were or would become well known.

The book is arranged in chapters. The introduction and first eight chapters are written by people who worked in various professions, and shared their experiences and thoughts about the most remarkable Cipe. The ninth chapter, “Leave Me Alone with the Recipes," is the original book. The tenth chapter, “Cipe’s Recipes Revisited,” is by Sarah Rich who adds, “I’ve attempted to repair what may be broken, update what’s no longer feasible or appropriate to our culinary moment, yet at the same time preserve the intention and integrity of the original dish.” She adds that the recipes were probably recited to Cipe by her mother. I will add that this is part of the oral tradition of food preparation, among home cooks and/or experienced chefs, who know by experience about quantities, methods of cooking and taste.

Throughout almost all of the book, including the end papers, the book is generously accompanied by the illustrations of Cipe Pineles.Those illustrations have the color and vibrancy that are reminiscent of the works of Feodor Rojankovsky, who illustrated and wrote numerous children’s books. And of the work of Eszter Haraszty, who was also an innovative woman, known for her use of vibrant colors and bold designs, as documented in the Knoll archive. The Los Angeles Public Library owns one biography: Cipe Pineles: a life of design, which is excellent, but I think the work and contributions of Cipe Pineles deserves further research--perhaps another biography.

Reviewed by Sheryn Morris, Librarian, Literature & Fiction

[Martha Foster · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really wanted to love this book, because the story behind it was intriguing (Cipe Pineles is a forgotten artist and designer, and the editor of this book found a collection of her art and recipes at an antiquarian book sale). Cipe was definitely talented and a pioneer, and like many accomplished women ignored by history. And her art in this book is delightful.
However, the format of this book - a collection of essays/tributes from various contributors, rather than a straightforward biography - results in a lot of repetition, and boredom. Ah well. I loved the illustrations by Cipe, though, and I'm looking forward to trying out some recipes!

[Debby · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love this beautiful book! Thanks, Meredith...

[Rayna (Poindextrix) · Rating 3 out of 5]

Charming, but a little flat for me.

[Bo · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not recipes I would try, but the stories behind the recipes were the "meat" of the book for me.

[Joel · Rating 5 out of 5]

I received my copy of this book via Goodreads giveaway, which in no way influences my opinion.

Probably the most unique cookbook I've encountered. Instead of the more common food-porn photoshoots accompanying recipes designed based on presentation as much as taste, this book is as much a love letter to traditional European dishes as it is to an immigrant woman who, despite being the first female art director for Condé Nast and a leader in graphic design was often excluded from recognition in favor of her male contemporaries.

The story begins with how a group of friends came into possession of Cipe Pineles 1940s era hand-drawn and lettered cookbook/sketchbook (which is replicated in the central section of the book) and takes the reader along their path of finding out more about Cipe and her life, and encountering people who knew her (and who also contribute to the book).

The recipes are simple foods that were widely prepared in Central Europe. Soups and stews are in abundance, but there are some recipes for the carnivores among us as well.

In the latter portion of the book, Cipe's recipes have been updated for modern cooks, while still remaining faithful to the original.

I found this to be a very interesting and informative read, with illustrations that first appear devastatingly simplistic, but are very detailed upon further examination.

[Diana · Rating 3 out of 5]

I loved some of the recipes in this book. They’re now in rotation with some of my families long time favorites. What made the book for me is that the author did their own illustrations for the cookbook

[Cameron · Rating 4 out of 5]

*This was a Goodreads giveaway*

I love to cook, so of course this book immediately caught my interest. I was a bit surprised when I started reading, because I was anticipating a traditional cookbook with a bit of information/history with every recipe. It actually has just a handful of very simple recipes that bring me right back to my grandmother's kitchen. Cabbage soup, lentil soup, stuffed peppers, etc.
From a recipe/cookbook perspective, I wasn't too interested because I just don't like this type of food, and the recipes were almost overly simplistic. From a historical/art appreciation perspective, I really enjoyed the book. The writing and stories sucked me right in. The images (both photography and art) were beautiful. The spelling was beautiful and maybe purposefully incorrect (flower instead of flour, tomatoe instead of tomato, etc.). The addition of gingersnaps to soup just brought me right back to a time-period where spices and money were scarce, but housewives did what they needed to do.
As a side note, my husband picked up the book a few days ago and said every recipe looked amazing. He likes to cook this way (simplistic, old fashioned cooking) and will likely try every recipe before he puts the book down.

[Relyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've just spent a morning in the company of Cipe (pronounced CP) and her admirers. I've read essays from design titans like Steven Heller and my own favorite author, Maira Kalman. I've written pages and pages in my journal, including a half a page that was directly from the book. I've been inspired, expanded, impressed, and made hungry. I feel as though I've made a new friend and found a new hero. Read this book. Just read this book.

I discovered Leave Me Alone with the Recipes through Wendy MacNaughton, author and illustrator of the last book I read, Meanwhile in San Francisco. Wendy discovered a hand-drawn, hand-created cookbook by the amazing Cipe Pineles. Along with three other design and art minded friends, she purchased this amazing cookbook-art-book-design-tome-memoir. Had I discovered it, I would also have done an awful lot to own it. But, how lucky we are that these savvy women were generous (and connected) enough to find a way to share Cipe with the world - again; to share her work with a new audience.

As I said, I've found in Cipe another amazing woman to admire. More than one woman, really. Thank you, Sarah, Wendy, Maria and Debbie.

[Marshaferz · Rating 4 out of 5]

So wonderful! Beautiful to look at, and a fascinating look at both an interesting woman and her history with food. I love the vibrancy of the illustrations, the evocative text of the recipes, and the beautiful essays about Cipe, who I sort of feel like I know now.

I only downgraded this to 4 stars because of the "modernized" recipes at the back. Cipe provided recipes that clearly came from someone who kept kosher, and yet the "modernized" recipes often don't respect this, including both dairy and meat. (And not just a teaspoon of butter that can easily be replaced with margarine. I was looking for the authors to provide modern instructions to making what Cipe and her mother would have recognized, and the authors instead chose to adapt for modern palates, ignoring some of the things that made it Cipe's family's food.

That said, anyone interested in design or food should grab this - well worth reading and having.

[Christa Van · Rating 4 out of 5]

Who is Cipe Pineles? A glass ceiling shattering artist and graphic designer who worked as the first female art director at several magazines including Seventeen, Charm, and Mademoiselle . She was the first female member of the Art Director's Club of New York in 1943 and was the first woman inducted into its Hall of Fame. This book is based on the discovery of a sketchbook of recipes that Pineles had started based on her mother's Eastern European Jewish heritage. The recipes are hand written and illustrated and feature her mother as a steel-haired grandmotherly woman on several pages. The discovery of this manuscript prompted the editors to learn more about Cipe and to update the recipes for more modern cooking methods and ingredients. I thoroughly enjoyed reading about the fascinating woman and also liked the history behind the food.

[Liz · Rating 5 out of 5]

Love this book. I just came back from vacation and found this in my mailbox. Thank you Good Reads and Bloomsbury Publishing for this contest winner book and winner it is! I would love to see a more developed book on Cipe Pineles and the generation she grew up in and worked in. It would be a fascinating read. This was a lovely glimpse into her life. I can only imagine what a treat it will be for the final edition with more pages in color. The recipes take me back to my mom's old cookbooks, many that were listed in the book I own with the hand drawn illustrations. While a huge fan of step by step online instructional recipes, I do miss the hand drawn, not perfect, you can make this style of cookbook!

[Lorry Chwazik · Rating 4 out of 5]

A scrapbook of beautifully illustrated recipes found at an antiquarian book fair sent its discoverers on a search to learn about its creator. Lucky for us, as now we can learn about Cipe Pineles and her ground-breaking career as an art director at Condé Nast, as well as enjoy her charming gouache illustrations of the Eastern European recipes of her heritage. How intriguing to discover that ginger snaps dissolved in water was a common binder and flavor booster in stuffed cabbages? For those not brave enough to try the original recipes, like soup made with caraway seeds and little else, the authors have updated them all for modern tastes. And the illustrations somehow so evocative of childhood? They are like Little Golden Book pictures for adults. Definitely worth a loving perusal.

[Mary · Rating 5 out of 5]

If I could draw or paint, this is exactly the sort of "cookbook" I would love to make.
The art and recipes are humbly elegant.
Not SIMPLE, because when you really look at the pictures, there's more detail than first meets the eye. And the recipes can be quite laborious, so "simple" is not a word I would use to describe them.
According to the compilers of this collection, Cipe Pineles made very modern food when she was entertaining, but these are the recipes of her mother, of her childhood and heritage. They're hearty, adaptable, sometimes quite basic in their ingredients, but all the same....elegant. You could serve them on a farm table or in a trendy restaurant.
It's an amazing book, full of history, design, and of course, great recipes!

[robyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is made of a handful of old, old family recipes; hand-illustrated and -lettered pages found by chance and published along with reflections and essays on Cipe Pineles, the woman who designed and drew them and then just... put them away,

It actually makes for a very slim cookbook, there aren't many recipes, and the art is just not as astonishing, despite its size, in a reproduction as it undoubtedly was when first seen in that shop window. BUT it's a lovely homage to Cipe Pineles, a strong creative woman in a time when women were fighting to be seen and heard at all, and to the family history represented by the recipes she was capturing on paper. They're updated for modern cooks in the back, but still very simple and I'm curious to try them.

[Lizzy · Rating 4 out of 5]

*This was a Bloomsbury ARC Goodreads Giveaway!*

I'm only sad I don't have the final version with full color! I appreciated learning about Cipe's life and her legacy as I had never heard of her. As for the recipes, I've been into a lot of old school Jewish recipes lately so this fit right in. Reading her cookbook, I noted regional differences and dishes I hadn't heard of. I SO appreciated the milk and meat versions for the soup recipes. Admittedly, I was pissed when the updated recipes encouraged breaking Kashrut because I felt that took away from the essence of the dishes. This book will be the perfect gift for a family member who loves art and Jewish cooking!

[Sara Leigh · Rating 4 out of 5]

I confess to having read this strictly for the recipes and the art. I will go back someday (maybe) to read all the prefatory text. But I don't know that I need to. It's a beautiful hand-painted and hand-lettered collection of recipes from the mid-20th century, steeped in the Jewish tradition. There's a section at the end that gives updates for the recipes (some ingredients just aren't in stores these days). I don't know that I'll ever use one of the recipes, but I'll look through the book to enjoy its visual presentation.

[Bridgette Guerzon Mills · Rating 4 out of 5]

I feel like this is more of a design book/biography than a cookbook - which was fine by me! Enjoyed learning about this talented woman's successful career in a male dominated world and the design and illustrations of the recipes are inspiring. If you are a creative person, chances are you'll enjoy this book for the eye candy and for reading about her career. The illustrated recipes are so great to look at.

[Zack · Rating 5 out of 5]

Goodreads Giveaway - I love this book. The recipes are a fascinating mix of the familiar and the unique. The unique recipes are usually part of the "so old that they're new" variety, which are some of my favorite types. The stories and anecdotes by and about Cipé Pineles are fascinating and the art work is amazing. This is truly an original collection. If you collect food and/or recipe books you need this in your collection.

[Cait · Rating 2 out of 5]

Love the illustrations, enjoyed the life history; didn't care much about the recipes (which are very mid-century New York City Jewish home cooking- which I didn't realize was a genre I could recognize from a dozen paces.)

I was not inspired to cook any of the recipes, but I was inspired to pull out my gouache.

[Stephanie Dargusch Borders · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is not a sensible cookbook. It is, however, the most gorgeous cookbook I’ve ever read. I love that it was discovered decades later at an antique book fair. I love Cipe Pineles’s story. Just a wonderful book. I hope to make some of the recipes.

[Reading with Cats · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5 stars

[Danielle · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not sure I’ll be attempting many of these dishes (potted liver with a soft boiled egg anyone?), but the artwork is lovely.

[Lorraine Sulick-Morecraft · Rating 5 out of 5]

You may not read this cookbook for the recipes, but the illustrations are worth appreciating.

[Gail · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a wonderful book of an unsung woman who was influential and prominent in her time. Beautifully illustrated recipes and a story of a pioneering woman who is currently unackcknowleged.

[Gretchen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent annotated and fleshed out publication of a personal cookbook.

[Nicole Chilton · Rating 3 out of 5]

Beautiful and inspiring. The multiple intros on Cipe, while educational, lacked depth, and the true wonders of this are in the illustrations and re-creations of the recipes. A great collaboration!

[Janet · Rating 3 out of 5]

A delightful book, part history, part art, part food.