- Two
cookbooks due to be released soon have sunk in the Atlantic during shipping. - NYT columnist Melissa Clark and Mason Hereford's books will now be released later this year.
The release of two highly-anticipated cookbooks from an award-winning New Orleans restaurant, Turkey and the Wolf, and New York Times columnist Melissa Clark, has been set back by months after copies were lost in a shipping container collapse.
Mason Hereford, owner of Turkey and the Wolf and author of the unreleased cookbook, took to Instagram on Tuesday to announce the news to his followers, apologizing that the release of "Turkey and the Wolf: Flavor Trippin' in New Orleans" has been pushed back from February 15 to June 21, following the unfortunate event.
Clark also took to Instagram yesterday, sharing that her book, "Dinner in One: Exceptional & Easy One-Pan Meals," which had an initial release date of March 22, has been postponed until September.
Both Instagram posts sent readers in the direction of news reports that detailed the container collapse, which happened on January 15. The ship containing copies of the books was on its way to the US at the time of the accident after departing from Taiwan, as reported by Eater on Wednesday.
The Loadstar reported that the ship encountered a period of "heavy weather" while idling near to the Azores, west of Portugal, in order to delay arrival at the Port of New York. The storm resulted in 60 containers falling overboard, with an additional 80 containers damaged, it added.
Hereford added in his Instagram post that this was "perhaps the most hilariously 2022 thing to ever happen."
"I like to think that if the books are at the bottom of the ocean, they're teaching whole schools of fish some very tasty recipes," Clark wrote in her Instagram post.
Hereford told Eater's Clair Lorell that he's unsure whether his books were within the containers that had fallen overboard or those that had been damaged, but "it would be a long time before we knew if the books would be salvageable, so at that point, it was just time to find a new date."
Turkey and the Wolf, which first opened in August 2016, has been widely revered by fans and critics alike, with Bon Appetit naming it the best new restaurant in America the following year.
After announcing its release in December of last year, Turkey and Wolf's cookbook quickly became one of 2022's most awaited releases, with Delish naming it one as one of its 12 most anticipated cookbooks of the year. The release of Clark's newest book was also anticipated, as two of her previous cookbooks earned James Beard Foundation awards in 2001 and 2018.
While an unfortunate event, Hereford added that "we're still gonna party, and we hope you will too," when his book is released later this year.
Mason Hereford and Melissa Clark did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.