The Brat Book

A cookbook about the humble bratwurst

My Roles

Recipe creation
Copywriting
Visual Design
Marketing & promotion

The Brat Book is a self-published cookbook focusing on the many uses of the humble bratwurst. Over two and a half years, my co-author Noel Benedetti and I developed 35+ recipes and combined them into a whimsically illustrated book.

Almost 100 copies have been sold to date!

ISBN: 978-0-615-33143-0

Photograph of the front and back covers of "The Brat Book." The book is spiral bound at the top edge and has pinup illustrations of a woman in Americana tattoo style.

Photo of "The Brat Book" with two copies open to recipe pages for "The Beer Brat" and "Sloppy Brats." The pages are pale green with black text and a black line illustration of a pinup girl.

Photo of the "About the Authors" page of "The Brat Book." The page is pale green with black text, and there is a black and white photo of the authors, Liz and Noel, on the page. They're wearing lacy dresses and holding cakes, smiling at the camera.

When we moved to Madison for school, we wanted to fully embrace the Wisconsin life style and culture: beer, brats, cheese and all. We declared that we would perfect the beer brat; we would find the perfect bratwurst, bun, beer, and condiment combination. Every Tuesday, the two of us cooked brats and documented the results in "The Brat Book." Friends, neighbors, and coworkers joined us, writing down thoughts and observations about that particular Brat Tuesday. We didn't set out to make a cookbook. We just wanted to eat bratwurst on a regular basis. The cookbook idea happened over a year into Brat Tuesdays, when we realized we could be working towards a goal, and all those brats we were eating could mean something more than countless dinners.

We wanted this cookbook to be as user-friendly as possible. A lot of the meals came about when we had no ideas, not much in the way of groceries, and access to only a small corner store to get ingredients. Most of what we use in the book is fairly common and easily attainable. We also encourage substitutions and creativity as needed. As often as possible, we tried to use fresh vegetables instead of canned, ideally from the farmers' market...

After a few months of beer brats, however, we got bored. This led to us "thinking outside the bun." Once we started using brats in creative ways, there was no turning back. We moved on, discarding the idea that brats could only be enjoyed in one particular way, and using the brat meat as ground meat, opened up an endless possibility of recipes. This book is the end result of a two and a half year labor of love. We hope you enjoy these brat recipes as much as we enjoyed creating them.

Liz Baranowicz & Noel Benedetti

Page updated

Google Sites

Report abuse