The Joy of Cooking Podcast

Episode: Rosie Grant: A Casual Culinary Chat About Our Cookbooks That Have Given Up The Ghost

Date: October 29, 2025
Host: The Joy of Creation Production House
Guests: Rosie Grant, Sarah Marshall, Megan Scott, John Becker

Episode Overview

This week’s episode is a warm celebration of family, food, and memory—centered on the unique work of special guest Rosie Grant, archivist and author of To Die For: A Cookbook of Gravestone Recipes. The hosts (John Becker and Megan Scott, fourth-generation Joy of Cooking authors, alongside Sarah Marshall) dive into food’s role in commemoration—literally carved in stone—and reflect on cookbooks that have nourished generations, both in the kitchen and in the heart.

Table of Contents

• Kitchen Catch-up & Comfort Food
• Introducing Rosie Grant and Her Gravestone Recipe Project
• Food, Memory, and Grief
• Documenting & Archiving Family Recipes
• Secrets, Surprises, and Recipe Reconstruction
• The Mystery of How Gravestone Recipes Are Discovered
• Why So Many Baked Goods?
• If You Had a Gravestone Recipe…
• Joy of Cooking & Cookbook Nostalgia
• Listeners’ Cookbook Stories: Books That Have “Given Up the Ghost”
• Favorite Cookbooks: The Well-Loved and Well-Worn
• Recipe of the Week: Mushroom Confit
• Closing: What’s Cooking Next?
• Where to Find Rosie & Book Recommendations

Kitchen Catch-up & Comfort Food

Hosts trade stories of recent meals, kitchen mishaps, and “leftover heroics”:

• Sarah Marshall reminisces about post-fancy-dinner fried chicken and JoJo’s (a PNW potato wedge snack):

  “Gas station JoJo’s, they’re kind of like my savior sometimes.” (02:02, Sarah)

  • JoJo’s are explained as chunky, seasoned, deep-fried potato wedges—an iconic Pacific Northwest treat, typically eaten with ranch rather than ketchup.

• Megan and John discuss their “chicken and rice” streak, exploring different comfort recipes from many cultures, including Kazakhstan-inspired roast chicken with rice:

  “You cook the whole chicken in a Dutch oven with the rice around it, so the rice absorbs all the juices. It’s just really comforting.” (05:02, Megan)

• Sarah praises the power of pickled veggies as “meal prep hacks”:

  “Pickled onions and pickled green beans is sort of my cheat for having meal stuff prepped… I just open up onions or pickles or green beans and throw them in the pan!” (08:43, Sarah)

Introducing Rosie Grant and Her Gravestone Recipe Project

[10:00]

John introduces Rosie Grant:

• Creator of the viral Ghostly Archive account (TikTok, Instagram)
• Researches and recreates gravestone recipes—actual favorite recipes engraved on headstones.
• Newly published author: To Die For, A Cookbook of Gravestone Recipes.

“I was so struck... You can put a recipe on a gravestone. And I just thought it was so lovely. I was curious what the cookies tasted like, so I tried them and posted the process. That started it all.” (12:16, Rosie)

Pub day excitement: Rosie shares it’s her official book release day, and she hasn’t yet been to the store to see it.

“Possibly after this recording, I might run to a Barnes and Noble in the flesh.” (10:49, Rosie)

Food, Memory, and Grief

[13:01–17:26]

• Rosie describes the surprising online enthusiasm for both cemetery culture and food memorialization.
• Deep connections between cooking, grief, and family:

“It was so personalized—all these strangers... fully sharing about them using food to connect with someone that they were missing. Food is this really powerful memory tool.” (13:22, Rosie)

• Ratatouille effect:

“It’s like that movie, Ratatouille... when the villain eats that dish and is immediately back in his childhood home.” (15:47, Rosie)

• Megan draws parallels to recent podcast guests, showing this food-memory link is universal.

Documenting & Archiving Family Recipes

[17:26–20:01]

• Rosie urges listeners to document food stories and recipes now, before it’s too late.

• Shares practical tips:

  • Interview family members, even informally.
  • Record conversations or write down stories and recipes.
  • Share copies so the knowledge isn’t lost (“losing a library” when someone passes).

  “I have [in the book] 21 questions to ask your family members to document your food history.” (17:52, Rosie)

• Emily’s personal story: She interviewed her grandmother for a genealogy class; her grandma passed away two weeks later, but she preserved precious stories and recipes.

Secrets, Surprises, and Recipe Reconstruction

[20:01–26:28]

• Some families treat recipes as closely-guarded secrets, only to be revealed at the end of life or even after, sometimes opting to engrave only the ingredients (not instructions) on a tombstone:

  “She did keep a little bit of her secret … the gravestone only has the ingredients. There’s no instructions.” (21:14, Rosie, re: Naomi’s spritz cookies)

• Rosie details the challenge and fun of figuring out incomplete recipes, sometimes in “Great British Bake Off technical challenge” style (23:33), and sometimes needing to research traditional techniques or interview relatives.

  “I failed it when I first did it. I didn’t know what a spritz cookie [was]… I made it kind of like a sugar cookie… I now own four cookie presses.” (23:45–24:15, Rosie)

The Mystery of How Gravestone Recipes Are Discovered

[26:28–29:30]

• Early finds: Internet sleuthing—searching blogs, Reddit, news, and even accidental hashtag misspellings.
• Now: Families often reach out themselves as the project has grown. None found “organically” while walking through cemeteries yet.
• Researching and verifying: Rosie digs through obituaries, “Find a Grave” databases, and messages family members via social media.
• The power of online legacy—sometimes old Facebook profiles are the digital equivalent of abandoned graves:

  “Great Aunt Joe has been dead for years. We never took down her Facebook… That’s why she hasn’t written you back.” (28:35, Rosie)

• Modern memorials now must consider social media:

  “That’s like an important part of death planning now—what do you do with your social media accounts?” (29:30, Megan)

Why So Many Baked Goods?

[30:10–31:29]

• Gravestone recipes are most often cookies, cakes, or other baked goods.
• “Special occasion” or holiday foods are what families remember (and what fit on a tombstone).
• Baked recipes tend to be short enough to fit and visually resemble poems.

  “With a lot of cookies and that sort of thing, it’s a little more forgiving with less text. In some cases, they picked a recipe because it looked like a poem.” (30:15, Rosie)

If You Had a Gravestone Recipe…

[31:29–33:10]

Panelists ponder what food they’d want immortalized on their own headstones:

• Rosie: “Clam linguine… very nostalgic.”
• Megan: “My southern cornbread recipe—one I’ve worked on a lot and perfected.”
• Sarah: “My green tomato enchilada sauce recipe from my canning book, since it’s useful to Oregonians.”
• John (after much thought): “I’d have to spend at least a year thinking about this.”
  (31:29–33:10)

“For the other sauce, you could have a little jar to reference it or something.” (32:57, Rosie, to Sarah)

Joy of Cooking & Cookbook Nostalgia

[34:05–36:06]

Rosie’s relationship to Joy of Cooking:

• Owns several vintage copies, picked up during her gravestone research travels.
• Fascinated by handwritten notes, marginalia, and little scraps tucked inside old books ("the comment section in the olden days").
• Her own cookbook was physically inspired by these classic books.

  “I have three different copies of Joy of Cooking from different years… families would also have a Joy of Cooking or a Betty Crocker. They would pull them out during interviews, and they’d have handwritten notes in the corners from their loved ones.” (34:09, Rosie)

Megan:

“I love seeing what people have written inside… It's so cool to get a little glimpse into someone else’s life.” (35:31, Megan)

Listeners’ Cookbook Stories: Books That Have “Given Up the Ghost”

[38:21–41:24]

A listener shares a treasured 1964 Joy of Cooking copy given at graduation, now “held together with a Velcro strap… after all these years.” (38:21, Caller Sam)

Hosts reminisce about battered old cookbooks found at beach houses, in family collections or sent in the mail—stories of resilience through floods, fires, and moves:

“It’s been through two floods and one home fire... a paperback edition… We have it in a Ziploc—it's no longer a single book.” (41:16, John)

Favorite Cookbooks: The Well-Loved and Well-Worn

[41:49–48:59]

Panelists share cookbooks that have become “kitchen companions”—dish-stained, falling apart, and deeply loved:

• Truly Mexican by Roberto Santibañes (John): For staple salsas and delicious sauces.
• Platter of Figs by David Tanis (Megan): “My introduction to California cuisine… took it to France and back.”
• 660 Curries by Raghavan Iyer (John): For homemade spice blends. “He passed away a few years ago… every time I pull it out I think of him.” (45:00, John)
• Tangy, Tart, Hot and Sweet by Padma Lakshmi (Sarah): The start of her homemade sauce journey.
• Saving the Season by Kevin West (Sarah): Canning classic.
• Soups from Scratch and Quick Breads to Match by Ivy Manning (Sarah): “I pull that book out all the time.”
• Rosie's picks:
  • Food to Die For by Amy Bruni (“Classic spooky-season comfort food”).
  • Midnight Chicken and Recipes Worth Living For by Ella Risbridger (cooking through grief).

  “I have been revisiting Amy Bruni’s Food to Die For… classic spooky season. And… Midnight Chicken… about tragedy and loss, then cooking through that” (47:43, Rosie)

Megan also shouts out Wild Fermentation by Sandor Katz, her formative book on fermentation (“my kimchi stunk up the whole dorm…”).

Memorable moment:

“You could walk in the dorm and smell my kimchi from the front door… I did not intend for this to happen.” (50:27, Megan)

Recipe of the Week: Mushroom Confit

[50:54–52:50]

The recipe of the week is mushroom confit (2019 Joy, p. 252), inspired by Thomas Keller’s Ad Hoc at Home and a traditional Spanish tapa.

• John details the modifications: more flavor from prolonged herb and garlic infusion, draining and salting the mushrooms for texture.

  “It just has a really nice kind of meaty texture to it.” (52:21, John)

• Ideal for wild mushrooms and the start of mushroom-hunting season.

• Use ideas: on crusty bread, polenta, or risotto.

Listeners invited to tag their creations @thejoyofcooking.

Closing: What’s Cooking Next?

• Sarah is developing a delicata squash and lentil soup for a farmer’s market.
• Rosie is baking “a bunch of gravestone recipe cookies” for her book launch: Jennifer’s chocolate chip, Naomi’s spritz, Texas sheet cake, and snickerdoodles.

  “Lots of cookies this week… I can eat that for dinner, right?” (54:50, Rosie)

• John and Megan: Looking forward to apple dishes from an upcoming harvest festival, and Hetty McKinnon’s vegetarian tomato mapo tofu with cucumber salad from their own “cucumber glut.”

Where to Find Rosie & Book Recommendations

• Rosie’s online:
  • @ghostlyarchive on TikTok and Instagram (56:11, Rosie)
  • To Die For: A Cookbook of Gravestone Recipes now available everywhere books are sold.
• Megan and John will list Rosie’s book in their Bookshop.org storefront.
• Resources for archiving your family’s food memories: Rosie has “21 questions to ask your family” and simple archiving how-to’s on her accounts.

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “Food is this really powerful memory tool… it’s like losing a library when someone passes away and the recipes aren’t written down.” (13:22–17:52, Rosie)
• “The comment section in the olden days” — On handwritten notes in vintage Joy cookbooks. (36:42, Rosie)
• “If you don’t document it, there’s no time like the present… do it now.” (17:52, Rosie)
• “You could put a recipe on a tombstone? I was like, oh my god!” (15:59, Megan)
• “Some people say it looks like a poem—their recipe chosen for the gravestone.” (30:15, Rosie)

Important Timestamps

• 00:38 – Introductions & Fried Chicken/JoJo’s
• 04:43 – Recent Comfort Cooking Adventures
• 08:43 – Pickled Veggies as Kitchen Hacks
• 10:34 – Introducing Rosie Grant & Gravestone Recipes
• 13:01 – Food, Grief, and Memory
• 17:26 – Documenting Family Food Stories
• 20:01 – Recipe Secrets & Spritz Cookies Mystery
• 23:33 – Making Recipes from Only Ingredients
• 26:28 – How Rosie Finds Gravestone Recipes
• 30:10 – Why Baked Goods Dominate Gravestones
• 31:29 – What Would Be On Your Gravestone Recipe?
• 34:05 – Relationships with Joy of Cooking, Cookbook Nostalgia
• 38:21 – Listener’s Cookbook Story: Given Up the Ghost
• 41:49 – Favorite, Most-used Cookbooks
• 50:54 – Recipe of the Week: Mushroom Confit
• 54:02 – What’s Cooking Next
• 56:11 – Where to Find Rosie Online & Book Details

Episode Tone

The episode is cozy, curious, and inviting—full of wit, warmth, and genuine care for the connections food creates across time. The hosts and guest maintain a conversational and slightly irreverent tone, balancing humor and deep sentiment throughout.

For more, visit @ghostlyarchive and follow the hosts at @thejoyofcooking.