East Village
Cookbook

The East Village Cookbook showcases 300 pages of recipes, illustrations, and everything else from more than 100 local chefs, artists, and residents in the East Village in New York City.

The cookbook was made to support Trinity’s Services and Food for the Homeless, a historic community hub calling for justice for asylum seekers, people of all genders, the unhoused, and—most especially—the food insecure.

It features hundreds of weirdo illustrations, unsolicited ads for local businesses, and a collection of seals referencing classic East Village restaurants, jazz clubs, murals, record labels, and magazines.

Design by Champions.

Illustration, Motion, Publication

Like every community cookbook, the East Village Cookbook was designed in a use-what’s-available, function-first style. It lives at the intersection of cookbook and zine.

The book is a collection of recipes submitted on the back of kitchen printer paper, in chef chicken-scratch, in drawings and poems, or via photos of mom’s old recipe cards, and at least one recipe submitted by text message.

The organizing principle of the book is the layout of the streets (starting at E 14th and walking south), complete with a custom map.

The map takes on the neighborhood’s unique brand of disorder, barely contained by the city’s grid.

It acts as a thousand foot view of all the creatures, characters, and cretins that make up this weird and vibrant chunk of Manhattan.

The seals littered throughout the book come from the visual landscape of the East Village too.

They all reference classic EV restaurants, clubs, jazz venues, gig poster extracts, weirdo stores from old St Marks, record labels, EV bands, underground magazines, art extracts and murals.

There’s also an evocative tip of the hat to various vanished institutions like CBGB’s, Electric Circus, the Filmore East, Scrubs in the Far East, as well as groups like The Velvet Underground, Talking Heads, Run DMC, and The Ramones.

The East Village Cookbook celebrates one thing above all… Community. This job was a rare opportunity to express our pride and admiration for the neighborhood that we’ve called home for more than a decade.

The book was conceived as a quick-print, staple-bound collection of recipes from locals to drum up funds for SAFH. It culminated in a expertly-edited, pain-stakingly crafted love letter to the East Village that amassed goodwill collaborators organically through the course of its creation.

TeamPartner: Jennifer Kinon
Creative Director: Michael McCaughley
Designer & Illustrator: Michael Penda
Strategist: Paulina Alvarado Serrano
Producer: Haley Kattner Allen
Cover Art: Marcellus Hall
Editors: Cassie Jones, Rachel Meyers
Printer: BindTech
Head Chef: Will Horowitz
Publisher: Trinity’s Services and Food for the Homeless