Compounding the problem of lost Christmas sales is the fact that they probably won’t be made up next Christmas. The publishing industry is a funny machine wherein timing is everything.  In order to make decent Christmas sales, you have to release a book a few months prior to Christmas (around September), but no earlier than that, to create the right “Hey, here’s a brand new book on the market” buzz. In other words, a book that comes out between January and August are already old by Christmas. That’s not to say that they won’t sell at all. After all, publishers and authors alike hope that a book will have a long shelf life and a nice cookbook can sell as gifts for years to come.

What I’m talking about is the BIG sales spike on a newly released book, which affects the rest of the life of the book. Within a year, a book—any book—is considered “backlist”; that is, books that are still in print and available but are no longer actively promoted or pushed by the publisher. It’s kind of like when you buy a new computer with the latest technology, but your old computer still works, so you put it in the basement or the guest room and every now and then you turn it on to do something. But for the most part, you’ve forgotten it. That old computer has been backlisted. Fortunately, unlike computers, which become completely obsolete after a few years, books can have a long, healthy life in Backlistland and continue to sell very well. But unless the author is famous or something occurs that draws unexpected attention to the book, chances are you’ll not get a sales spike quite like the one you got (hopefully) when the book was initially released.

At any rate, I’m going through the proof now and it’s taking a while. A cookbook is a complex thing with many different elements that have to come together a certain way. There are lots of little things that require correcting (I suppose that it doesn’t help that I’m extremely anal and a stickler for consistency). Cookbooks are very visual, which is why books with color photos sell better than others. But photos are very expensive to print and not all publishers can afford to do that. That’s where illustrations come in. They break up the text and help readers visualize the recipes and ingredients. But even illustrations are expensive. And because I originally self-published this book, cost was even more of a factor. I was also lucky to have a very good friend, Linda, who’s an artist and did my illustrations for free.

Layout for easy reading is important, too. People should be able to bring their eyes back and forth to a page in a cookbook and easily find where they last left off. And the instructions should be easy to read. I dislike books with “run-on recipes”—recipes that just follow one another on the same page—because it makes it confusing sometimes. However, paper costs money and I myself had to do some run-on recipes when I self-published this book. But cookbook designers try to avoid that, if possible. The only cookbook I own that has run-on recipes and very little in the way of illustrations is Marcella Hazan’s The Essentials of Italian Cooking. But Hazan is an Italian cooking legend and she could write a cookbook on a roll of toilet paper and it would sell.

Moving on to the next project, I FINALLY finished the testing on my second cookbook. Well, that’s not entirely accurate. There are still a few recipes that I decided need one more run in the test kitchen. But the bulk of the testing is done and I’m not on this bullet train of daily testing anymore. I felt like I was doing nothing else, day after day. Alicia Silverstone came out with a vegetarian cookbook recently called The Kind Diet: A Simple Guide to Feeling Great, Losing Weight, and Saving the Planet, and Vegetarian Times interviewed her about it. She said that she was basically on lockdown in her house for 12 days testing the recipes. Now, I don’t know how she did proper testing for an entire cookbook in just 12 days, but it illustrates my point just the same: Developing and testing recipes for a cookbook is a laborious, time-consuming task. I started this second book in 2002. Can you believe that? Eight years in the making, and who knows how many thousands of dollars for ingredients. Well, phase 1 is over. Now on to phase 2: Trying to sell it to a publisher. That’s going to be the hard part. I still have this whole “platform” problem. More on that another time.

For someone who doesn’t have a job, I seem to be awfully busy, which is a good thing but it makes me wonder how I got anything done when I was working. How does anyone get anything done when they’re working? I’m going to try really hard to get through a long list of things to do this weekend and, hopefully, get in some exercise. It’s going to be fairly nice before another winter storm moves in. Sigh.

By the way, did you check out the photo of that old cookbook above? It was printed in 1747 and written by Hannah Glasse, but is attributed to “A Lady.” I love old cookbooks. They really are an insight to what life was like for the common woman. And reading through some of the recipes in pre-Fannie Farmer cookbooks, it’s amazing they were able to follow any at all and get it right.

Anyway, that’s enough for me. Hope you all have a great week!

Anyway, on with the show.

This week,  I want to talk about appetizers. It’s a pretty broad subject, I know, but they’ve been a part of my daily existence for the past year. Allow me to explain.

My next cookbook is going to focus on appetizers, so almost every day I have been testing at least one appetizer. The thing is, when you’re testing a recipe, you have to test it exactly as it’s going to appear in the final recipe, including ingredients and quantities. In other words, if you’re developing a recipe for turkey chili with red beans and zucchini (yeah, zucchini.  so?), you can’t substitute pork and chick peas in the testing and then use cauliflower because they were out of zucchini at the market. Everything cooks up differently, at different times, with different results. You won’t know what your end product will be and that could cause dissatisfaction in your readers. Your recipes must work as written. Where quantities are concerned, again, you need to use the same quantities as stated in the ingredients list of the recipe, otherwise, you may end up with a different yield. So, your readers might be expecting 4 servings and end up with only 3, or 10. And not all recipes are amenable to being doubled or halved.

Why is this a problem for me? Because if I’m developing a recipe for appetizers, it’s going to be for at least 6 people. Appetizers can be fun and delicious, but I must say, one can only eat so many appetizers. It’s gotten so that I’m sick of my own food. I give away a lot of food. A lot. The other night, I asked a friend if he’d like to go get Chinese food. I couldn’t stand the thought of eating my own food again. I was already cooking a couple of things that night, mind you, but I just couldn’t bring myself to eat them. I finished cooking, packed it all up, and went out.

Don’t get me wrong. My food isn’t bad. In fact, if my family and friends are to be believed (not to mention my personal chef clients), I’m pretty good at this cooking thing. But sometimes I just need someone else’s food.

Anyway, back to appetizers. Appetizers have existed since ancient times. Here’s what I wrote about appetizers—or antipasti in Italian—in my cookbook, What, No Meat?:

One of the trademarks of an Italian meal is the antipasto (appetizers or hors d’oeuvres). Contrary to popular belief, antipasto does not mean “before the pasta.” It means “before the meal.” Pasto (meal) comes from the Latin word pastus, meaning “food.” The ancient Athenians actually invented the concept of appetizers; unfortunately for their guests, it was the only course they would serve. Other Greeks felt that this was a sign of cheapness because, as Lynceus put it, “such a layout as that may seem to offer variety, but is nothing at all to satisfy the belly.”

The ancient Romans began having true antipasto in the 3rd century B.C. and continued having this premeal course through the 4th century A.D. It included items that are still considered appetizers today, such as olives and a primitive pizza (think of the focaccia on the table at your favorite Italian restaurant).

During the Dark Ages, meals were more for sustenance than enjoyment, so antipasto had no place in it. During the Plague of the 14th century, one was lucky to get a meal at all, let alone appetizers. With the onset of the Renaissance, admiration for beauty and art was reborn and appreciation of food for its own sake reemerged. Appetizers came back in style and have remained with us to this day.

After I finish all this testing, I’m going on a diet. Maybe even a fast. Parties are fun, but parties every day become a bore (how does Paris Hilton do it, poor thing?). But I don’t want anyone to lose interest in the subject. Appetizers are creative little dishes that guests remember the next day and for days to come.

As Saki (writer H.H. Munro) wrote in “Reginald at the Carlton”:

Hors d’oeuvres…remind me of one’s childhood that one goes through considering what the next course is going to be like—and during the rest of the menu one wishes one had eaten more of the hors d’oeuvres.

Have a great week, everyone! And stay away from those viruses.

But, as shocked as I was, if any foodie magazine was going fall prey to economic hard times, I’m not really surprised that it was Gourmet.

And here’s why.

1. Gourmet is folding because of a drastic decline in ad revenue. That’s the official reason. Because of the magazine’s status, it’s probably more expensive to place an ad in there than in other food pubs, including its sister magazine, Bon Appétit. (I have no knowledge of ad prices for these pubs, so I’m only surmising.) And, of course, advertisers want as many people as possible to view their ads. According to Charles H. Townsend, a chief executive at Condé Nast, in a New York Times article, Gourmet has a circulation of about 978,000, whereas Bon Appétit has a circulation of 1.352 million, and the company made higher margins from the Bon Appétit circulation.

2. The demographic for Gourmet is well-to-do people who think nothing of taking a trip to Europe and seeking out a 5-star restaurant that was mentioned in the magazine. Well, this demographic is shrinking. Fewer and fewer people can afford high-end restaurants or high-end products. Which brings me to my next point…

3. The recipes in Gourmet, while fabulous, often call for expensive ingredients, and sometimes they’re just too frou-frou for the average person to want to try. I, personally, have been known to indulge in the occasional frou-frou dish, but am I going to pay for a year’s worth of frou-frou recipes? No. But Gourmet is not just about the recipes, you say? True. They talk about restaurants, food trends, and “lifestyle” issues. But here, again, they’re targeting the luxury market. Most of the restaurants they tout, I’ll be visiting only in my dreams. (Imagine my despair at being a foodie, living in New York, where some of the finest restaurants are at my fingertips, and all I can do is walk by them with the hope of getting just a whiff of something fabulous as a patron opens the door.) And, again, the number of people with that kind of disposable income is dwindling. Overall, Gourmet is simply not as accessible to the masses as other food magazines.

4. Statistics show that ever since 9/11, people have been cooking more. People began what experts referred to as “cocooning.” That is, they began staying at home and spending more time with their families, and cooking became a big part of that. Comfort food, in particular, became popular again on a wide scale. As a practical cooking guide, Gourmet falls short. If you were looking for a menu for a special occasion, it was fine. But for people who were eating out a lot and/or were just learning how to cook, Gourmet simply was not in a position to be the go-to guide.

5. For numerous reasons (weight loss, fear of food-borne illnesses, the desire to eat more healthily), people have also become interested over the past decade in cooking real, honest food. Local food. Traditional ingredients and methods. Regional recipes. And while Gourmet did offer some of this, it still existed on a plane higher than what people were now reaching for. This newfound interest in cooking is what sparked what’s known in the travel industry as “culinary tourism.” People will go someplace to learn to cook regional cuisine with local products, whether it’s in Maine, Tuscany, or Singapore. (I wrote an article about that for Travel Agent magazine, which can be found HERE.)

So, for all those reasons, I was never a big Gourmet reader. I have always preferred other food magazines, such as Saveur, Fine Cooking, Cook’s Illustrated, and even Bon Appétit. But I’m still very sad to see Gourmet go. While I felt it was targeted to a group of people I was never a part of, I still always respected it for its quality, its classiness, and its dedication to the food world.

On a personal level, this turn of events bums me out because not only does it not bode well for print magazines, but it also narrows down the job market. All those people who worked at Gourmet are going to be scouring the job market, just like me. And if and when jobs open up at the other food magazines (or any magazines), who’s going to hire me over someone who worked at Gourmet? No one, that’s who.

I see which way the wind is blowing. I’m just not sure if I should go with it, or run in some other direction.

Next week, I’ll be talking about Mountain Pies. I can see the eyebrows raising out there, so come back next week if you want to put your mind at ease. It’s not as bad as it sounds.

Have a great week, everybody.

What, No Meat? Traditional Italian Cooking, The Vegetarian Way is more that just a cookbook. It is a compendium of fascinating information about food, incorporating history and folklore, stories of origin, and the evolution of food and recipe names. Food has its own history and background and is an integral part of human existence. It inhabits a world of its own, and What, No Meat? invites readers to enter this amazing world, exploring the role of food in historical events, religious rituals, and healing.

Which Roman goddess was the inspiration for tortellini? What do bay leaves have to do with the term poet laureate? What herb, mixed with ginger and cool spearmint, do Scandinavians believe cures women of frigidity? Why did Romans drink saffron before a night of debauchery and sleep on it afterwards? The stories are all here.

Read how some foods were once shunned because of fear of illness, death, or madness. Become acquainted with people throughout history, like Caterina di’Medici, Thomas Jefferson, and other kings, queens and rulers, who were directly responsible for the acceptance of many foods by the masses. How about taking a soup-eating quiz? This quiz has profiles for different psychological types based on how people eat their soup. You could be a “cautious connoisseur” or perhaps a “free-spirited enthusiast,” depending on the utensil you use and whether or not you slurp. Ask yourself, “What kind of soup eater am I?” and read on.

What, No Meat? delivers over 180 recipes, some simple, some more complex. Some are quick to prepare, some are not, but all of them are delicious and bursting with the flavors and aromas of Italy. Sprinkled with a few advanced recipes that can pique the interest of more experienced cooks, they are perfect for weeknight meals and special occasions, for large families and dinner for two. The book is peppered with the author’s anecdotes and some of her own personal philosophies on cooking, practical tips, and other useful information that will guarantee you the freshest, tastiest culinary results.

How does it work? Simply leave a comment letting me know you’d like to be entered into the drawing. You do NOT have to put your e-mail address in the comment—I will be able to view your e-mail address on my end. I’ll have someone pull a name out of a hat, and I’ll notify the winner next week.

For an excerpt, table of contents, and sample recipes from the book, click HERE. You’ll also get a better image of the cover HERE, which doesn’t seem to want to cooperate for me in this blog.

The tentative publication date by Rogue Books is November. Publishing schedules get fiddled with sometimes (the original pub date in this case was October), but, hopefully, it will be out in time for Christmas shopping.

I’m very excited about being picked up by a traditional publisher. I wrote about the sequence of events (the condensed version) for Writers Weekly HERE. My concern when I submitted that piece for their “Success Stories” column was that people wouldn’t get the whole picture. After all, I only had a couple of hundred words in which to tell my story, so I couldn’t go into all the details of what went into that book. And I knew that some people would get the impression that I wrote the book, self-published it, and BAM, a traditional publisher picked it up. Overnight success, right?

Noooooooo. No way. Far from it. I put a lot of sweat, tears, energy, and money into that book, and it took years. I went through two agents, a publisher who turned out to be a nut job and a crook (and who subsequently was investigated by the North Carolina Department of Justice for her actions), numerous proposals, dozens of rejections, and hundreds of hours of researching, writing, revising, typesetting, cover designing, and crying. I endured an agent pitch slam at a Writer’s Digest conference (those things are BRUTAL, man) and the humiliation of being told that I would never get this book published because the book was not unique or I was nobody in the food world. I tested recipes for years, fed many, many people, and endured many negative critiques. There were people who I’d given enormous amounts of food to over the course of years, who raved about my food and got so excited over the idea of me writing a cookbook, and when the time came, couldn’t have given a rotten fig less that my book was actually out.

But, in the end, I believed in my book. I knew I had a good product and I just forged ahead. I started working on it in 1997; I self-published it in 2008; Rogue Books picked it up in 2009. Hardly an overnight success. But what that proved is that if you really believe in what you’re doing, you can make it work.

I don’t really know if the book will be any more successful with Rogue Books than it was with Booklocker. I hope it will. I’ll do my best to get it out there.

But in the meantime, enter to win a copy, make some food, and enjoy. That, in the end, is what a cookbook is for.

Have a great week, all. Ciao.

I have to say that although not having a job really bites in terms of finances, it’s afforded me the opportunity to do things I never would have been able to do if I’d been working. For instance, I never would have been able to go on a two-week road trip or spend three weeks in Colorado (very inexpensive trip). This has been a cathartic year for me, in both good and bad ways, and the ability to travel (cheaply—I emphasis the word cheaply) has been a blessing.

But the other thing I’ve been able to do is plow through the 200-some-odd recipes that I’ve been testing for my second cookbook. I’ve been working on this book since 2002. That’s seven years! I want to be done with it. But testing recipes is difficult when you have a full-time job. It’s not like “regular” cooking, where you can just reach into the fridge or pantry and throw some things together. When you’re recipe testing, you can’t go to the market and just pick out whatever strikes your fancy. You can do that to a certain degree (because sometimes the best recipes come from a whim), but, generally, you have to go with a list of ingredients for your intended recipes. Then you have to prepare the recipes methodically, in a certain order, keeping track of everything you do. It’s like a science project, really.

Anyway, at the beginning of this year, I still had a long, long way to go to finish the testing and finalize my recipe list. In the last nine or so months, I’ve made a concentrated effort to test at least one recipe per day, more if possible. It doesn’t always work out that way. Some days, I just have too many other things to do to shop and cook. How can you be busy? you ask. You have no job. I’ve been busy with writing and editing projects, sick cats, housecleaning (and by that, I mean going through years’ worth of stuff and trying to thin out the useless crap), and family responsibilities. So, yes, even without a job, one can be very busy.

I have had more global cuisine this past year than probably any other time in my life. I’ve had Indian, Chinese, Turkish, Thai, Indonesian, Malaysian, Armenian, Korean, Macedonian, Greek, Hungarian, Russian, Finnish, Swedish, Norwegian, Irish, French, Japanese, Nigerian, Kenyan, Brazilian, Chilean, Mexican, Honduran, Peruvian, Puerto Rican, Polynesian, Moroccan, and more. (I’m trying to figure out how to say “from the Ivory Coast.” Ivory Coastan??)

I’ve made quite a dent, and while I’m still not close to being done, I’m way closer than I would have been if I had a job. So, as tough as things have been financially, I am grateful for the opportunities I’ve gotten and am taking full advantage of them while I can. And that actually has taught me a valuable lesson. Some opportunities only knock once, so always answer the door.

It’s pretty rainy and windy here in NY today. Hope it’s better wherever you are. Have a great week, all. Ciao.

Photo credit: Mrs. Yandle Cooking on Coal Stove by Alfred Eisenstaedt

What that means in the publishing world is that I didn’t have a built-in fan base. How does one get a built-in fan base? Well, in the case of food writing, it could mean owning a restaurant or other food-related business, being a celebrity chef, having a regular food column in a widely read newspaper or magazine, or being famous for some other reason. The last reason is a pet peeve of mine. It seems that every celebrity who gets a bug up their butt about it puts out a cookbook. I’d venture to guess that half the celebrity cookbooks on the market are “written” by people who probably don’t even know how to boil water. Or, even if they do, what are the chances that they wrote the book themselves? Don’t get me started on this!

Anyway, having a personal chef business simply wasn’t enough and getting an article published here and there wasn’t doing it either. But I had put years of work into this book. Years of researching, writing, revising, studying the market, putting together proposals, and bad experiences with unscrupulous publishers and agents. I couldn’t give up. I couldn’t just let it die. So, what’s a frustrated girl with a good, well-written cookbook to do? Self-publish. I chose Booklocker as my publisher and embarked on the journey.

Since then, I’ve been networking and trying to market my book in every way I can, but when you self-publish, it’s very difficult to to make the industry connections that a publisher can. It can also get expensive. Furthermore, in querying agents for my cookbook-in-progress, I haven’t been able to mention that I already have a published cookbook because there’s a stigma attached to self-publishing. Mentioning something like that can actually work against you (although the perception is changing).

The press that has picked me up is Rogue Books, an imprint of Bedazzled Ink. They’re an eclectic bunch and they have a great reputation for treating their authors with respect and for actually putting in marketing efforts, something that the average author doesn’t get much of.

I was approached by them with the offer of being picked up. The head editor there said that she (a vegetarian) and another editor (a vegan) had been wanting to publish a vegetarian cookbook and that mine looked promising. I didn’t take long to make my decision. Having a traditional publisher behind me is going to be a very good thing.

So my book is going to be temporarily unavailable, as Booklocker has already deactivated my book page. The nice thing is that the owner of Booklocker (and the writer’s ezine WritersWeekly), to her credit, is actually happy when one of her authors gets a traditional publishing contract. I’ve had a good experience with Booklocker and I’m glad I went with them. But this is the next step for me. (If anyone wants a copy of the book in its current incarnation—for lower than the retail cost)—leave me a comment and I’ll contact you.)

I’ve got numerous projects bubbling on the stove, which is keeping me busy during this period of unemployment. Now, if only I could figure out a way to make some money. Frankly, I don’t think the mortgage company is going to be impressed with my publishing achievements. I’ve posted another recipe from my book on the recipe page. If anyone makes anything out of my book, I’d love to hear how it turned out, so leave a comment!

Have a great week, everyone.

Many people believe that writing a cookbook is a cinch. After all, what is there involved? Writing down some ingredients, scratching out a few instructions, and slapping it together neatly for a publisher, right? Wrong. Very, very wrong. Writing a cookbook is a very specific process.

What to find out more about it?

Let’s assume you are creating all your own new recipes (and let’s take this one recipe at a time). First, you must decide on what you want the dish to be like/taste like. What ingredients would you like it to contain? Write them down, and write down the approximate method of cooking. Then, you must test the recipe to see if what you conjured up works. As you go along, you must make notes about what’s working and what isn’t, what you’ve changed, and what you would like to change. Then, you must test it again to see if your changes improve the recipe. Even if you feel it was perfect the first time, you must test it again to make sure it wasn’t a fluke. Ideally, you should test a recipe at least three times–more, if you made substantial changes all three times.

Once you’re satisfied with the recipe, you must format it properly. Now, styles will vary, depending on the publishing house you submit to, but there is one strict rule: Always list the ingredients in order of use. If your method calls for first sauteing onion in olive oil, then adding spinach and salt, don’t start  your list with green peppers, mushrooms, and cinnamon. And you have to make sure that your method is clear and concise. You don’t want to confuse or overwhelm your readers with convoluted instructions.

(Incidentally, if you’re writing individual recipes for magazines, format it according to the magazine’s style. For example, if they use the “1.2.3.” method, then that’s how you should set up your recipes.)

The process can be expensive. Unless you have an advance from your publisher or the sponsorship of a company, the cost for all the ingredients (and whatever specialty equipment you might need) comes out of your pocket. The upside of this is that you can deduct these items on your tax return. That’s right. If you earn an income from your book (i.e., royalties), you can write these things off.

All of this is time-consuming, too. Just to give you an idea of just how much, according to my files, I started my current cookbook-in-progress in 2002. Yep, you read correctly. Why so long? Because when you have a full-time job, coming home at night anywhere between 6:30 and 8:00, recipe testing is relegated to the weekends. And, of course, even the weekend are time-constrained. We all (or, most of us, anyway) have lives and responsibilities and things to do, places to go, people to see. Many weekends came and went when I just had to say, “I can’t do any cooking this weekend.” And when you have to test 100 or 200 recipes two, three, even four times, well, that makes a project drag on a mighty long time.

Having said all that, when you have your finished product, that is something to be immensely proud of. I put a hell of a lot of work into my first cookbook, What, No Meat?, and I am very proud it. I’ll be sharing some of the recipes from that book on the Recipes page, starting with an antipasto (of course, what else?), Insalata Caprese. And I’m going to be chronicling the progress of my current project, too, so keep checking in for updates–especially if you want a good laugh (sometimes things turn out…um…not so great).

I hope this helps all you aspiring recipe/cookbook writers out there. Let me know if I can help out in some way.

Peace,
Roberta

For example, the same orange can produce two completely different responses in two people. It might repulse one person, maybe because they got violently ill one day after eating an orange and now s/he can’t stand looking at one. For the other person, maybe it triggers memories of fragrant orange groves in Seville during a honeymoon or a stint as a bright-eyed exchange student. When I think of oranges, I think back to when I was 9 years old and on a trip with my mother and aunt to visit famiily in Venezuela. I have a vivid memory of looking out at the mountains at night and seeing all these orange lights glowing, and, to my 9-year-old eyes, it looked like a giant orange grove.

But one thing remains true: No matter how different our languages, clothing, customs, culture, religions, etc., the one thing every person on the planet has in common is that we must eat. That is why dining is a communal affair, to be shared with friends and loved ones. Even our pets get a little something special from our plates, don’t they?

So, with this blog, I hope to share my views on food and our relationship with it. I’ll be sharing recipes, tips, links, and all kinds of goodies. Hope you like it.