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St-Henri’s Elena has released a cookbook featuring some of the restaurant’s favourite recipes — and all proceeds will go towards helping Montreal restaurant workers laid off due to the coronavirus crisis.
Named Elena: Remember Skin Contact?, it’s a digital only book (“germ free”, notes the restaurant), and is a team effort between chef Janice Tiefenbach, writer Stephanie Mercier Voyer, photographer Dominique Lafond, and Elena co-owner Marley Sniatowsky.
It’s quite the tidy little book (and well-designed to boot) — a page of Tiefenbach’s tips for high-quality pantry staples from canned tomatoes to cured products kicks off the book. Then, the 18 recipes are split up into sections in-line with Elena’s menu: antipasti, salads, pasta, pizza, desserts, and a small aperitivi section for drinks.
You don’t need access to a commercial kitchen to make use of the e-book: the recipes were selected to be friendly to home cooks and kitchens. Menu items like a kale caesar and a springy pizza dough make appearances (with several recipes for a range of toppings), or house-made tagliatelle for those with a pasta-maker (serve it with a rosemary sugo — another recipe included in the book).
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The book has already racked up some praise from Queer Eye star (and Montrealer) Antoni Porowski, and Bon Appetit drinks editor Alex Delany, both on Instagram — the Elena team note that it’s raised over $11,000 so far.
The book is for sale online for $15 (a matching t-shirt, printed at St-Henri gallery the Letter Bet, is also available for $30) — every cent of that goes straight to the Montreal Restaurant Workers Relief Fund.
Remember Skin Contact isn’t the only fundraising cookbook coming out of Montreal right — last week, Gazette food writer Amie Watson put out an e-book focusing on pantry staples.
