A Grateful Dead cookbook turning into a live set May 16

NORTHERN CALIFORNIA — One of the most common paraphrased sentiments attributed to Jerry Garcia is about dropping predictions and expectations and going where the music goes. Go with it, as Garcia might say.

In the same spirit a cookbook event shaped by the improvisational ethos of the Grateful Dead is set to unfold lon May 16. Less like a traditional reading, it is more like a gathering rooted in the culture that inspired it.

On May 16 in Guerneville, food writer Gabi Moskowitz will host a signing and tasting for Dead in the Kitchen: The Official Grateful Dead Cookbook, but she’s leaving the usual format behind.

Instead, the author plans what she describes as a celebration—part dinner party, part concert echo—at Piknik Town Market, with dishes from the book, live music, and a crowd steeped in the enduring orbit of the Grateful Dead.

The work arrives ahead of the band’s 60th anniversary and reframes a familiar cookbook structure into something closer to a live set with an unmistakable Grateful Dead aesthetic.

Designed with skulls, lightning bolts, and psychedelic swirls of color, the book reflects the Dead's style, including the packaging and marketing. The chapters in the book move like a show—parking lot to encore—mirroring the ritual flow that defined decades of Dead performances and their fan culture.

Moskowitz built the project around vegetarian and vegan food traditions that followed the band from city to city: grilled cheese sandwiches, falafel, kind veggie burritos, quesadillas, etc., with a focus on burritos and other portable staples that fueled hours of dancing.

The Novato resident connects those foods to a broader 1970s counterculture kitchen shaped by whole grains, plant-based cooking, and communal living. "Kind broccoli soup," for example, is vegan and kind to Mother Earth (as well as food budgets) by using stems that would otherwise be cast off.

Though not a self-described hardcore Dead Head, Moskowitz said she grew up in Santa Rosa (Santa Rosa High Class of 2000) adjacent the cultural ingredients that embodied the band, fans, and food — including being fortified by her mother with tofu, brown rice, and alfalfa sprouts.

At Camp Tawonga near Groveland, she first heard Dead songs sung by other kids, woven into a summer songbook alongside Peter, Paul and Mary, Simon and Garfunkel, and other counterculture favorites. Later, she found deeper meaning in the band’s ethos—especially Jerry Garcia’s emphasis on preparation paired with improvisation.

That philosophy shaped her cooking. The founder of BrokeAssGourmet.com, which inspired a cookbook and an ABC sitcom, "Young & Hungry," Moskowitz said she designed recipes for "Dead in the Kitchen" with strong technique and a well-stocked pantry, then left room for variation—what she describes as “riffing,” a method she ties directly to the band’s evolving live sound.

The cookbook’s structure also reflects that thinking. Unable to use song titles due to licensing restrictions, Moskowitz organized the book as an experiential arc, an idea suggested by longtime Dead archivist David Lemieux. The result replaces conventional categories like “appetizers” and “desserts” with stages of a show, reinforcing the sense of movement and community.

Lemieux, who has spent decades cataloging every recorded Dead performance, praised the project as both practical and personal. He traced his own cooking roots to the same touring culture, where fans searched for nutritious, sustaining meals between shows and later brought those habits home.

Moskowitz also enlisted Mollie Katzen—whose Moosewood Cookbook helped define the era’s vegetarian movement and who had her own culinary connection with Jerry Garcia — to write the foreword. The two first connected on social media more than a decade ago and maintained a relationship that now closes a generational loop.

Some recipes in the book lean heavily into symbolism. A carrot cake, adapted from a Brazilian recipe that uses the carrots raw and purees them. This rendition is intended to intensify flavor by roasting the carrots until deeply caramelized, echoing the band’s famed “Wall of Sound”—a towering audio system that transformed live concerts into immersive experiences.

The garlicky grilled cheese recipe riffs on a staple with three variations that could meet a powerful bout of munchies and the demands of a finicky 2nd grader.

Moskowitz wrote the book while listening to albums like "American Beauty" and "Workingman’s Dead," folding the music into her testing process. She describes the project as a return after years focused on raising her children.

The Guerneville event extends that spirit outward. Guests will eat, listen, and gather—recreating, in a small-town setting, the communal atmosphere that once filled parking lots across the country. The goal is simple: channel a legacy that continues to resonate and serve it warm, improvised, and shared.

Event Details:

7-9 p.m. on May 16 (Doors open at 6:40 p.m.)

Piknik Town Market, 16228 Main Street, Guerneville

Ticket Link and Event Info