Pizza for Everyone: A Church-style Cookbook for Our Lady of Abundant Squares
Since we started Crust Fund pizza (the royal we, I guess — it’s me in a kitchen) alley pizza has become A THING. Someone just paid $225 for a pizza. It’s been quite a ride. The best part is getting people to support organizations like The TRiiBE, Injustice Watch, and The Greater Chicago Legal Clinic. The one limiting factor to Crust Fund is that I’m only ever going to be able to make X amount of pizzas in a night (seriously, I start to stress at about a dozen over 3 hours). Which brings us to … church cookbooks. Indeed.
Those plastic-bound Kinko’s-printed tomes, often featuring sixteen different green bean casserole recipes (Edna R.’s is the best, Edna P.’s is just embarrassing), are my favorite things to read. My family reunion one (The Creative Coodes, Volumes I-III) was, at one point in my cooking life, the only cookbook I owned. They’re still a great read, and I’ll pick up almost any new one at a yard sale.
I can’t make sixty pizzas a night, but I can definitely wrangle a bunch of recipes and essays. I’ve trained as a professional bullshitter all my life for this.
So I did what I do most effectively — I started bothering people. Midwestern niceness being what it is, a murderer’s row of Chicago culinary, writing, and artistic talent stepped up. We’ve got pieces in layout from writers, cooks, and artists including Doug Sohn, Kate Bernot, Derrick Tung, Sarah Becan, Nick Kindelsperger, and more. Much, much more. There is one actual James Beard Award winner. Designer Zach Sherwood is making it all look amazing together, and he’s doing it for nothing because he’s a great guy. I can confidently say I am the least accomplished person in this collection. You are, however, stuck with me.
I want to run this book just like the pizzas — I don’t take any money. You give money directly to one of the phenomenal nonprofits I designate (We’ve got four set and more to come) and I’ll get a book into your hands. But to do that, we’re selling ads because printing costs a little more money than flour and tomatoes. We’ll handle the design, you just provide any copy and/or logos you want. Rates are as follows:
1/6 Page: $25
In-article (filling empty typography space — good placement, possibly cool irregular size): $30
Half page: $75
Full page: $150
Examples of everything are lovingly illustrated below. (I honestly hope Palermo’s wants the demo-only one Zach did). I am VERY excited for this project. Shoot an email here to reserve your space now! Editorial is moving to layout before December, and we’re eyeing early 2021 distribution.
Yours in squares,
John
