Tuesday, May 5, 2009

Let's get this blog started!

Since I’m starting this blog already hip-deep in the book-writing process, let’s catch up.

It’s been just over a year since I started seriously working on my cookbook. The first thing I did was test all the recipes I wanted to include—about half are the recipes I submitted to the contests, the other half are recipes I’ve come up with over the years, just because I love to do it. As I re-tested the recipes, I was surprised by how different some of the contest recipes were from what I remembered. Some of them just needed a little fine-tuning, but a couple were downright bad, like the Black-Bottom Strawberry-Cream Cheese Pie. I didn’t know how I could have been so wrong about that one. I wouldn’t have submitted it to the contest if I didn’t think it was delicious, but when I tested it for this book it was terrible. What a let-down! No wonder it wasn’t a finalist. That recipe has changed the most of all of them. Now it’s awesome.

The next step was having other people test the recipes. I wanted at least three people to test each one; just because I can make them doesn’t mean other people will be able to make them. I recruited everyone I could think of, relatives of every stripe, ladies from church, friends, even friends of friends. My testers have been invaluable. They’ve given praise, advice, suggestions, criticisms, and encouragement, and all of it has made the recipes better. The testing is almost done, and I’m so happy!

This book wouldn’t be happening without my helpers extraordinaire, Emily and Kyla. Emily is my book formatter. Emily and I started talking about the format last summer. Her enthusiasm for my project has kept me going during the times I didn’t think I could pull it off. After months of what-about-this’ing and what-about-that’ing through emails, we’re almost there, and it is super cute. And Kyla is my book editor. Kyla and I have known each other for almost 10 years, and she didn’t hesitate when I asked her if she would help me edit my book. Between the three of us, we are going to put out an awesome cookbook!

Along the way I’ve been learning how to photograph food. Yours truly is taking all the pictures for the book with my little Canon PowerShot G7. It has been quite the learning process; taking pictures of food is not as easy as one might think.

This blog will follow the rest of my adventure, so check back soon! Before we know it, the book will be finished and available! Until then, I’ve got some super cute Bake-Off Flunkie gear for sale on zazzle.com (click on the ad on the left).

4 comments:

  1. Way to go Tiffiny! I'm happy to help you out :)

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  2. You are amazing! Enough said. I'm super excited for you!

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  3. You have to hurry up and write more entries..I am smitten:)

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