Who wants to bring an e-reader into the kitchen, anyway? I mean, I’m sure some

Copyright: Williams-Sonoma

people do, but then you run the risk of getting food on it, of equipment getting tossed on it, and you don’t have those beautiful glossy photos looking up at you. It’s not the same giving someone an e-cookbook for Christmas (“Here, sweetie. Here’s the link to download your very own version of Mastering the Art of French Cooking. Merry Christmas! And someone’s birthday is coming up. Be on the lookout for Anthony Bourdain’s LeHalles Cookbook in your inbox!”). Frankly, it’s hard to get excited about a recipe when it’s coming off a flat, boring screen. The most beautiful part of a cookbook is the book itself.

Regardless of your opinion on the matter, the fact is that cookbooks are still going strong in the print market, especially with the growing trend of paper-over-board covers, which is a hardcover book with a photo printed right on the cover, rather than a dustjacket. Read a Publisher’s Weekly article for more information. And I’d love to know what you all think.

Viva la cookbook!

What, No Meat? Traditional Italian Cooking the Vegetarian Way

It was a lot of work but it’s finally done. Now comes the task of marketing. It’s not a task I’m fond of, but it’s a necessary evil.

Anyway, if you’re interested in a copy, it’s available from the publisher HERE or at any online (and possibly a few brick-and-mortar) booksellers. Of those, I personally recommend Barnes & Noble, not Amazon (they’re the evil empire).  BUT, if you order from Bedazzled’s bookstore, Book Peddler, you can get 5% off the order. Just put the code NOMEAT in the Redemption Code box at checkout. E-books are 10% off.

Okay, off to celebrate. Have a wonderful week!

Part of my problem is that I only know the basics of InDesign. When I was working at Travel Agent Magazine, I had to use it, but only for content edits and minor formatting changes. I learned as I went, and there wasn’t any time to learn more than I absolutely had to. Plus, it’s been over a year since I’ve done even that much in InDesign. I had to first re-acquaint myself with the program and figure other things out. Fortunately, I’m skilled in QuarkXPress, so it’s not like I don’t know anything about layout programs at all. But Quark is different from InDesign.

Anyway, it’s taking me forever because I’m doing everything–checking layout, proofing content, correcting layout, correcting content, then I have to redo the Index, table of contents, and check all cross-referenced material throughout the book. I’m totally experiencing deja vu because I already did all of this. But here I am, doing it all again. I’m so grateful that I have someone helping me proof the copy. That’s taking plenty off my plate.

In the meantime, everything else is on hold. Work on my second cookbook, work on my novel and short stories, and the floor needs a good sweeping. I did, however, manage to do a few loads of laundry. I had no choice. I’m going  to be on the road starting Sunday and I need clean clothes.

So, I’m going back to the task at hand. I’m hoping that by next week, I’ll be able to tell you that everything went fabulously and my beautiful new cookbook will be available soon.

I’m sick of the snow, and I’m sure you are, too. So, I’m going to wish you all an end to winter, a quick leap into spring, and a wonderful week ahead.

Hang loose.

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!

Actually, to make Christmas sales, it should have been out by now. My publisher, which has a very small staff, had some set-backs in their schedule and they’re struggling to catch up. And, unfortunately, that’s the way it goes in publishing sometimes. People get inundated, schedules go off-track, and unanticipated problems arise. There’s not much to be done about it except to make the best of the circumstances. Although, I’m not really sure what that means right now.

I’m determined to finish the testing of my second cookbook by the end of the year. Or, at least most of it. I’m sure I’ll have few remaining recipes after January 1, but I can deal with that. I’ve spent so many years working on this one that I’m sick of it. I want it done. I think it’s going to be a really good book, but, seriously, enough is enough!

I have a couple more book ideas on the back burner, so I’m anxious to get on those, too. I’d be happy if I could spend my life developing recipes and writing cookbooks, but I’m not Julia Child so I don’t foresee being able to pay by bills like that. So, I’m focusing this weekend on some resumes and cover letters. Doing those always depresses me because I know that each job I apply for will have hundreds of others vying for that same position. And I always end up wondering, “What the hell are they looking for? What do those other people have that I don’t?”

Resumes and cover letters are not easy. Each one has to be tailored to each specific job and it sometimes takes me a couple of hours to tweak them for a particular job. And I get the sense that I’m doing it all for nothing. I always feel that my resume will just end up on the reject pile along with the others. Over and over and over. At the end of a “resume day,” I always end up depressed and, sometimes, crying. Then, I dread doing it again. I mean, it becomes like torture to sit down and do them. So, I put it off. I’ve put it off for a while now. Mind you, there hasn’t been much available, which depresses me even more.

But a couple of job openings came up that I can handle, so I’m going to spend some time applying. I have to. Because when the question “Have you been looking?”  invariably comes up, I have to be able to honestly say “yes.” Certainly, nothing will happen if I do nothing.

On a more pleasant note, I made gluten-free chocolate-hazelnut cake and chocolate chip-hazelnut cookies, and even people who are put off by the term “gluten-free” had to admit that they were damn good. Alas, I neglected to take pictures of them.   I decorated the edge of the cake with mini nonpareils and put edible holly in the center. It was really pretty. Oh, well.

So, that’s where I am right now. I hope you all have a great weekend and coming week. See you next time.

Nonpareil photo: www.Dylanscandybar.com

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.