Biggest challenges

[FoodMan]

Robb-

What would you say were the biggest challenges you encountered while researchig and writing your latest book? How did you get over them?

Thanks,

Elie

[Robb Walsh]

The biggest problem was getting restaurant owners to talk to me.

There are a lot of hustlers in the niche publishing business.

Some guy in Dallas is currently putting together a Tex-Mex cookbook and charging restaurants for the right to be in it. Restaurant owners are constantly being approached with these schemes. So when I called them up, they tended to blow me off. Of they'd ask how much I was charging.

Even restaurants I knew refused to give me recipes. Why should they provide a how-to guide for competitors?

I had the same problem writing Legends of Texas Barbecue Cookbook. After the barbecue book came out and I used it to convince Tex-Mex restaurants that I was on the level.

And as for the recipes, I would simply show them MY recipe and tell them it was better than theirs. That would inevitably stimulate a discussion. But in the end, when you write a cookbook and test the recipes in a home kitchen, you have to redo every recipe anyway.