Writing a Cookbook is no Laughing Matter!

 

Writing a cookbook is hard work! I'll never look at a cookbook again without deep respect for the cooks that took the time and energy to put their thoughts and recipes together. One thing I've learned is you have to be able to laugh at yourself. It will keep you amused for hours. There's bound to be mistakes and that's part of the process.

You would think writing about food all day would make me hungry. Well, it does. Funny thing is, I'm losing weight instead of gaining it. Go figure! I've cooked for years, but I've never thought about cooking and food like I do now. I used to cringe when someone mentioned cooking from scratch. Now I not only embrace it, I cook almost everything from scratch. Sure, it takes a lot more time and cleanup, but it's worth every minute. Knowing what goes into what we eat is priceless.

Since our cookbook Till Meat Do Us Part is all about cooking with a partner, that's another thing we have to get used to. Ron and I have cooked together since we met almost six years ago, but now we have to decide which person is doing it right and which method we will put in our recipe. Coming up with the recipes is no easy task. Most of them come from things we have made as a couple that we have stored in a three ring binder, listing our favorite recipes by category. We've left the original recipes on whatever type of paper it was written on when we received it. Scrap paper, index cards, computer print outs, backs of pasta packages, honey-do lists, napkins, lined paper, you name it, we've got it. One thing they have in common is something scribbled in the margins, where we added something or omitted something to make it suit our needs.

Testing the recipes is the fun part. We find ourselves asking each other why we do something a particular way. It reminds me of a story I heard when I was first beginning to cook. Three generations of women were in the kitchen and the youngest woman was preparing to put the ham in the oven. She cut off both ends of the ham. Her grandmother was watching and asked her why she did that. "That's the way Mom always did it," she replied. Her mom said in a defensive tone, "that's the way you always did it, mom." The grandma laughed and said, "I only cut the ends off the ham because it wouldn't fit in the pan!" We laugh, but many things we do in the kitchen are because it's the way we've always seen it done.

Salmon Patties from Shirlee's mom's recipe

Taking pictures of the food has been a learning experience and I am still learning. I try to find natural light and often take the food out to the lanai to capture the light. Sometimes it's hard not to dig in before we've gotten just the right shot. We learned the hard way not to take pictures while garlic bread is in the oven.

I hope you are enjoying our recipes as much as we are. Cooking for an omnivore and a vegetarian is not as easy as you would think and our recipes should help you take the guesswork out of preparing your meals. We are open for ideas and appreciate the comments you have left on our blog and encourage you to write as often as you can. Meanwhile, we will continue writing our cookbook, trying new recipes and posting them on our blog. Thanks for following us.

Shirlee and Ron

Don't try this at home!