The Title of My Next Book!

plus an exclusive excerpt and a recipe <3

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In this newsletter:

The title of Book Three, which I seriously almost called Book Three for real

For the first time: what this book is about

I’m throwing an in-person party to unveil the cover, and you’re invited!

A never-before-seen excerpt, and an exclusive new recipe from the book

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Hello to My Beloved Book Nerds!

Yay to this day: I am announcing the title of my new book, and publishing one of the essays and another recipe (it joins Banana Bread with Dark Cocoa and Peanuts, and Toasted Sesame Cake, which I leaked last year).

This book is a departure from my previous titles. In addition to dozens of very achievable recipes, I wrote 30 personal essays about my life and career in food, as well as my separation and divorce. The written parts set up the recipes, because in my real life, what I was making was a mirror of how I was feeling. The connection between what I experienced and what I made anchors this book.

I have jokingly said that if it wasn’t for my divorce, there would never have been a Book Three. Maybe a weird hook (and a very hard sell to my publisher), but the experience—highs and lows—reconnected me to cooking and eating as an act of self-care, and to feeding others as an expression of love. It led me to define what “comfort food” means to me (Personal Pot of Beans and Greens, for example), and all along the way, I felt absolutely fantastic about eating my feelings and satisfying my cravings. I did not expect this transitional moment in my life to do all that, but then again, food has always been about more than sustenance to me.

As if you didn’t already scroll down to see this, here’s the title, and a peek at the cover (more about that, below).

Food is a Feeling (aka FIAF) will be out on September 8, 2026. If you want to preorder it now, you definitely can!

And no, that’s not a typo: I’m taking my family name, Carla Lalli, which I’ve never used professionally before (I got married at 26, long before my first byline). Amelia, my maternal great grandmother’s name, is now my middle name, because: matriarchy.

So: About That Cover!

Food is a Feeling is very much about being and eating together, which made the idea of simply posting the cover image online seem pretty underwhelming. Instead, I’m throwing an intimate, in-person party in N.Y.C. on February 11, complete with live entertainment, drinks and snacks from the book, and a reading by me.

This isn’t a press event or an influencer event: it’s a YOU event.

I’m setting aside 40 (free) tickets for the cover party, available exclusively to paid subscribers of Food Processing, on a first-come, first-served basis.

Make sure to check your inboxes this Sunday, Feb 1, for another post with the link to RSVP.

This is just the start: I have lots of plans for other parties, more exclusive content, and a big tour coming in the fall. All book news will be posted here before it appears anywhere else, including a new recipe every month till pub date.

I am excited/terrified to share so much of myself in Food is a Feeling, but I also can’t imagine having written anything else. Thank you for supporting me by sticking around when I was busy working on the manuscript, and for being with me now.

xoCarla

Here’s a snippet from the book, plus the recipe for Coconut Chipotle Chicken.

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Introduction

About the Recipes (and Other Stuff)

Hi ♥

As a cookbook author, former magazine editor, and current food writer, I’ve been taught that recipe style—the voice, structure, and technical language used to write a recipe—should stay consistent over time. Regardless of where my previously published recipes have appeared or when they were written, I’m supposed to mimic their language when I come up with new ones.

Welp, that’s not what’s happening here. With due respect to my former self and to anyone who has cooked my dishes before, it didn’t feel right that my recipe voice should stay the same, because I am not the same.

I wrote this book during a tumultuous, pensive, painful, joyful, transformative, celebratory, solitary, and exciting time in my life. The precipitating event was the dissolution of my twenty-four-year marriage; while I was experiencing the feelings and phases that followed the separation,