Torey, Allysa

PERSONAL:

Hobbies and other interests: Gardening.

ADDRESSES:

Home—NY.

CAREER:

Magnolia Bakery, New York, NY, co-owner, 1996—; The Allysa Torey Swing Band, singer.

WRITINGS:

(With Jennifer Appel) The Magnolia Bakery Cookbook: Old-Fashioned Recipes from New York's Sweetest Bakery, photographs by Rita Maas, Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 1999.

More from Magnolia: Recipes from the World-Famous Bakery and Allysa Torey's Home Kitchen, Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 2004.

At Home with Magnolia: Classic American Recipes from the Owner of the Magnolia Bakery, John Wiley (Hoboken, NJ), 2006.

SIDELIGHTS:

Allysa Torey, along with partner Jennifer Appel, opened the Magnolia Bakery in 1996. Located in New York's Greenwich Village, it quickly became a popular spot. The bakery's main focus was on old-fashioned, homey desserts, rather than more complicated, gourmet confections, and as a result it was a natural leap for Torey to produce a cookbook that allowed home bakers to produce their own versions of the treats found at Magnolia. The Magnolia Bakery Cookbook: Old-Fashioned Recipes from New York's Sweetest Bakery, written with Appel, provides a collection of recipes, along with helpful hints for first-time bakers or anyone looking to improve on their skills. Irene Sax remarked on the Epicurious Web site: "You won't find a lot of surprises, and that's the whole point. These are the baked goods you ate when you were a child—at a diner if you were lucky, and at home if you were very lucky."

Although Torey and Appel ended their partnership when Appel moved on to open a separate bakery uptown, the Magnolia Bakery continues to thrive, and Torey has released additional cookbooks. More from Magnolia: Recipes from the World-Famous Bakery and Allysa Torey's Home Kitchen provides readers with an additional seventy-five recipes based on treats created at the bakery. Booklist critic Barbara Jacobs stated: "Recipes rarely take up more than one page; directions are eminently understandable." Torey's follow-up effort, At Home with Magnolia: Classic American Recipes from the Owner of the Magnolia Bakery, branches out, offering not only a small collection of dessert recipes, but also an assortment of main dishes and sides based on classic recipes such as Chicken Kiev. There is a strong emphasis on planning menus based on seasonally appropriate ingredients. In a review for Publishers Weekly, one contributor remarked: "These are straightforward recipes to follow, and the result is a tasty blend of nostalgia and innovation."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, September 15, 2004, Barbara Jacobs, review of More from Magnolia: Recipes from the World-Famous Bakery and Allysa Torey's Home Kitchen, p. 190.

Library Journal, September 15, 2006, Judith Sutton, "Buttercup Bakes at Home," review of At Home with Magnolia: Classic American Recipes from the Owner of the Magnolia Bakery, p. 82.

Publishers Weekly, June 19, 2006, review of At Home with Magnolia, p. 58.

ONLINE

Epicurious,http://www.epicurious.com/ (January 14, 2000), Irene Sax, review of The Magnolia Bakery Cookbook: Old-Fashioned Recipes from New York's Sweetest Bakery.