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The making of my own cookbook


gfron1

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So tomorrow I'm going to dig back through old pics and online reviews to jog my memory.

 

 

 

 

I thought that I was the only one who does this. I have a few written recipes, but photos of everything. If I can see the dish, I can remember how I made it.

 

I know, I know, this isn't how its done. But it works most of the time and, lazy sod that I am, I'm not good at keeping this sort of thing organized.

 

I do save recipes that look good in magazines/online and annotate them. And I have trusted cookbooks with annotated post-its. But most of what I cook isn't through following a written recipe.

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That was from our May shoot and its cattails.  If I remember right the day ended with stinging nettle, watercress, monkey flower and a bit of early currant.

 

Well, from where I am sitting it looks like a cymbidium plant in that bag.  I also wouldn't have thought that cymbidiums grew wild in New Mexico.

 

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I am another who thinks that copious numbers of glossy photographs in a cookbook is...excessive...and renders it a "coffee table book".  Concentrate on the recipes.

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Today we talked timeline.  My editor, who is quickly becoming content coordinator, had it in her mind that we wanted the book out for this year's Christmas.  She kept saying how there was no way and we should have had everything done months ago.  I kept saying Christmas of 2015.  She kept freaking.  Finally I sent her a message with no distracting content of other topics and said, I need to make sure we're on the same page here.  I am talking 15 months from now - Christmas of 2015, NOT 2014 in 3 months.  She just sent this reply:

 

 

 

OMFG. You meant NEXT Christmas? I've been in a cold panic about getting stuff done and being behind. I, need, a, drink.

I do to!  I'll update you all here after she and I regroup on our timeline because she had some great info about book expos and such.

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So it wasn't an official recipe test, but I made Rob's peanut butter pie this past weekend. It's every bit as tasty as I remembered it being. I actually made 2 of them and both are already gone. I included Rob's update to drop the butter and it hurt it not at all. So, unofficial though it was, I'll vouch once again for that particular recipe being a winner if you like peanut butter. I think it's better by a large margin than the peanut butter pie recipes that use a cream cheese base. I'm really looking forward to this book.

It's kinda like wrestling a gorilla... you don't stop when you're tired, you stop when the gorilla is tired.

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Thanks Larry.  I think you'll enjoy seeing the growth from when i was last highly active on eG to now.  I went through that hydrocolloid phase and now my food is very modern but not showy.  I'm really enjoying my work right now and putting it in a book is a blast - painful, but a blast.

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My photographer just uploaded 100+ photos - many of them BRoll stuff like the one below.  We've been using DropBox as our storage so we can all have access to edit and move.  Today I labeled all of the photos and created folders designating the 3 sections of the book plus front and back matter, and moved all the completed content and photos into the proper folder.  Good organizing work that will make my designer very happy.

knivesa.jpg

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That photo has good quality in terms of grey balance and clarity. What is the activity? Knife sharpening?

Nancy Smith, aka "Smithy"
HosteG Forumsnsmith@egstaff.org

Follow us on social media! Facebook; instagram.com/egulletx; twitter.com/egullet

"Every day should be filled with something delicious, because life is too short not to spoil yourself. " -- Ling (with permission)
"There comes a time in every project when you have to shoot the engineer and start production." -- author unknown

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I have no idea what pics will make it in but this one makes me really happy.  I have a recipe for a wild grass seed risotto that we top with a cattail ash brulee.  Here's one of the pics that Jay Hemphill captured.

grassbrulee.jpg

Edited by gfron1 (log)
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I have no idea what pics will make it in but this one makes me really happy.  I have a recipe for a wild grass seed risotto that we top with a cattail ash brulee.  Here's one of the pics that Jay Hemphill captured.

Hello- I am curious: What part(s) of the cattail did you use?

"As life's pleasures go, food is second only to sex.Except for salami and eggs...Now that's better than sex, but only if the salami is thickly sliced"--Alan King (1927-2004)

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That shell is cauliflower? What part, or what did you do?

Nancy Smith, aka "Smithy"
HosteG Forumsnsmith@egstaff.org

Follow us on social media! Facebook; instagram.com/egulletx; twitter.com/egullet

"Every day should be filled with something delicious, because life is too short not to spoil yourself. " -- Ling (with permission)
"There comes a time in every project when you have to shoot the engineer and start production." -- author unknown

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Hello- I am curious: What part(s) of the cattail did you use?

I use all parts of the cattail throughout the year.  For that pic, the ash comes from the woody fronds - a byproduct of when I use the tender centers.  But in early June I gather the pollen, and right now I'm heading into the time when I use the root and corm.

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The shell is a sweet potato sheet made with my Japanese peeler.  The cauli is inside. 

Interesting! Would my mandoline work like your Japanese peeler?

"As life's pleasures go, food is second only to sex.Except for salami and eggs...Now that's better than sex, but only if the salami is thickly sliced"--Alan King (1927-2004)

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It could work if you did your cuts lengthwise.  With the rotary peeler I get a 15-20 foot strip off of one potato.  All you need is enough to go around which would be maybe 6-8".  Of course that's just for fancy plating...its not necessary.

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