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About Jellypress

Jellypress is about Nancy and Laura having fun with what they love:  old recipes, art, and ideas--as we find them in our modern lives.  We met when Nancy was assigned to review Laura’s first book years ago.  Friendship followed based on work--coaching one another through book writing and painting--and the daily struggles of holding our families together… and, oh yes, lots of jokes about Anthony Bourdain, which we don’t care to share here.

What’s a jelly press? Click [here] to find out.

Laura

I’m a writer who happens to be writing about food for the last ten years.  I never planned this.  It just sort of happened when I was living in a rented farmhouse.  I planted a big garden and began thinking about food in a different way.

I think both of my books deal with my love of food - the beauty and value and history that it brings--but also my underlying conflict in wanting to rebel from traditional female roles and be free of domesticity.

My first book A Thousand Years Over a Hot Stove: A History of Amercan Women Told Through Food, Recipes, and Remembrances won a James Beard Award in 2004.

My book is The Lost Ravioli Recipes of Hoboken: A Search for Food and Family. It’s the story of my search for a long-lost family recipe, which I chase down on both sides of the Atlantic:  a combination of a culinary detective story, travelogue, and family memoir.   

I grew up in New Jersey where there weren’t a load of books in the house but a lot of jazz and music.  My mother invested in a small collection of "Signet Classics" and also made sure I got to the library.  Her plan worked.

I eventually found a guy who loves to read as much as I do.  We’ve got two sons at home, and an Irish lurcher dog named Lily.

You can buy my books and find out more at www.lauraschenone.com

And you can contact me at: 

Nancy

I am a painter and author of the critically acclaimed culinary memoir, Walking On Walnuts (Bantam Books, 1996, national media, regional bestseller) filled with thirteen of my illustrations. It was my great pleasure to create all the art for Jellypress as someone who is passionate about any subject with a long thread into the past, such as old foodways and realism in art.

I supported my painting after college by waiting tables, my handed-down baking skills untapped. With an ad seeking a pastry cook, one of New York City’s most famous chefs (well, everyone else knew he was famous but me) launched my pastry career in Manhattan’s two and three-star restaurants. I got quite an education in food, enough material for Walking On Walnuts, and my entry into food writing.

My work has appeared in the New York Times Magazine, Newsday, Fine Cooking, and Pastry Art & Design among others. I was a regular contributor of feature food articles with recipes for the Newark Star Ledger from 1996 – 2004, and was their food history columnist. At the formerly named Peter Kump’s Cooking School (now I.C.E.) in Manhattan, I studied and later taught adult baking classes (1996 – 1998).

Currently, my painting practice includes making art with children, discovering with some joy that you can teach six-year-olds an appreciation for the art of making puff pastry from scratch as well as the leap of imagination required for the designing and building of earthworks.

I have been the recipient of numerous grants and awards for my fine art, such as a Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation/NEA Fellowship Award, and a New York Foundation for the Arts Artists’ Fellowship Award. My paintings and drawings have been sold and shown nationally. A transplanted Manhattanite, I live in northern New Jersey with my twelve-year-old son.

To purchase a print of any image you see on this website, visit the Jellypress art page.

You can buy my art and book and find out more at: www.vintage.nancygailring.com

Contact me at

What’s a Jelly Press?