First downtown Naperville cookbook sale starts Friday

Want to know how Naperville Mayor George Pradel cooks his chicken? How Catch 35 makes its shrimp cocktail with Asian cocktail sauce? Or what the staff at Roseland Draperies & Interiors eats for breakfast?

There’s an app, er, a cookbook, for that.

Downtown Naperville Alliance is selling a cookbook for the first time this holiday season featuring favorite recipes from the likes of Pradel as well as downtown merchants, restaurateurs and city council members.

“Downtown Naperville: Dishes & Delights” looks festive with a gingerbread man and a tree-shaped sugar cookie on the cover, but Katie Wood, executive director of Downtown Naperville Alliance, says the recipes aren’t only for the winter season.

“It’s not only a holiday cookbook,” she said. “It’s recipes for the whole year.”

Printed by Minuteman Press, the cookbook’s colorful pages feature photos of those who submitted recipes, along with the usual lists of ingredients, cooking techniques and pictures of the finished food.

Cookbooks go on sale Friday for $20 at 11 locations throughout downtown, including the offices of the Naperville Area Chamber of Commerce, Country Curtains, Couture Vision, Elan Boutique, Little Luxuries, Naperville General Store, Naperville Bank & Trust, Naperville Running Company, Occasions, Serendipity, Twisted Olive Imports and Two Bostons. They also can be ordered by email while supplies last at downtown@naperville.net.

More than 250 recipes are listed, including Pradel’s Chicken Divan, Thanksgiving Soup by SaraBoo Creek, Spicy Brussels Sprouts by Q-BBQ, Chirico’s Champion Chili by city council member Steve Chirico, Red Tea Spiced Chicken by Adagio Tea and Upside-Down Apple French Toast by Roseland Draperies & Interiors.

Proceeds from sales will benefit Little Friends, a Naperville-based nonprofit group founded in 1965 that serves about 800 children and adults with autism or other developmental disabilities each year. Little Friends is hosting the Holiday Parade of Lights at 5 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 1, followed by holiday singing performances by high school soloists and duos and a visit from Santa and Mrs. Claus on the parade stage at Main Street and Van Buren Avenue.

Cookbook sales will begin as downtown Naperville plans to launch its celebrations of the holiday season early this year, illuminating the area with more than 300,000 lights and unveiling 25 painted gingerbread man sculptures at 6 p.m. Friday, Nov. 8.