To make the content available to those unable to attend, ten panels on Friday and Saturday, February 10-11, 9 am-6 pm, will be webcast. Anyone can tune in, watch the panels, and tweet questions.  In addition, all 28 panels will be filmed and will be up on the same website a week or two after the conference. The broadcast schedule  is available on the conference website:
www.cookbookconf.com <http://www.cookbookconf.com>

The url for it is:

http://cookbookconf.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/FINALFINALSCHEDULE.pdf

The meeting is taking place at the Roger Smith Hotel in NYC is the site. This is a small hotel near Grand Central Station. It is a  welcoming and quite inexpensive place to stay. I like it a lot.

In the last semester one fellow said he just wants to ride his Harley and write about food. He’s landed a column at a biking magazine!

This is the first day of the new class at the CIA. It is an elective and 27 students have enrolled.  This is what I’m planning to say:

May I begin by asking you to look at the person seated next to you. And to the person seated in front and behind you?

Immediately you’ll see there is nobody in the world who looks like you, thinks like you or has had the same experiences you have had. You are unique. And special. And as Christopher Robin said to Winnie the Pooh:

Promise me you’ll always remember you’re braver than you believe, and stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think.  So to echo President Obama: Yes you can!

This should get us ALL FIRED UP AND READY TO GO!

Teaching this class is what I love to do.

At first I was hesitant, thinking this was a huge imposition, but every single person responded immediately and enthusiastically: Nach Waxman owner of my favorite store contributed an essay about his life at Kitchen Arts & Letters, so did Barbara Haber who laid the foundation of the cookbook collection at the Schlessenger Library and literary agent Lisa Ekus and Delores Custer the Queen of food styling. Betty Fussell, Darra Goldstein (Gastronomica) and Anne Willan and David Robinson described their work as did dozens of others who provided wonderful insights and really useful information for the readers.

They say it is lonely being a writer. What rubbish! When I look at my network of cherished friends, I realize I am part of a lovely, celebratory, constantly hungry crowd of food lovers. This makes me rich beyond my wildest dreams.

For if I do, my health I’ll spoil

I’d spread my bread with gobs of butter

But that would set my doc aflutter.

Don’t serve me poultry, pork or beef

Or I will surely come to grief,

And that fine fish just from the sea

Would, fried, become the death of me.

At breakfast I must never poke

My fork at any golden yolk,

And salt, to which I was a slave

Now lures me to an early grave.

Sugar, friend of shildhood, sweet,

Is now a rare, forbidden treat.

A shot of gin, a glass of wine,

Add up to sins times nine,

For Julia is no more my guide

‘Tis to Nathan Pritikins’ rules I must abide

Farewell to all the eats I love

Farewell, so long, to all the above.

But as I chomp through fields of green

And shrink each day to sinewy lean,

Teach me, dear Lord,

Not to wish each course

Was rare roast beef

With béarnaise sauce…

While capturing our  imagination, Joe Baum elevated the act of dining into a fine art. Long before it became fashionable to embrace farm to table concepts, this legendary restaurateur extraordinare, changed the way America eats.

• He was the first restaurateur to commission farmers to grow vegetables and fruits specifically for his restaurants
• The first to have salt water and fresh water fish tanks in his restaurant
• The first to introduce fine art in the form of paintings, sculptures, carved wood and blown glass into restaurants
• His table top designs are included in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art
• He was the first to undertake scholarly research to authenticate the details of his restaurants
• The first to engage professional theatrical designers to produce custom-fitted staff uniforms
• The first to create restaurants as entertainments
• The first to offer a formalized seasonal menu and create a distinctively American menu — written in English
• The first to launch major advertising and public relations campaigns for restaurants

How To Be Your Own Best Friend

Several years ago there was a book written by psychologist Mildred Newman with the title, How To Be Your Own Best Friend.  If I were your best friend, I would advise you not to write a cookbook.

I don’t want to be entirely negative about it, but I cannot, in all candor, think of any other way to be these days.  Unfortunately, for many authors, the best news they receive is that they are going to get a contract.  After that, it is all downhill.

The sad truth is that very few cookbooks earn back their advance, and even fewer go on to achieve anything approaching lasting success.

Most cookbooks have a shelf life somewhere between milk and yogurt. The two biggest sellers are desserts (dessert books best sellers 2011) and diet books (163 on Amazon in 2011).  One tells you how to cook the food and the other offers advice on how to avoid eating it.

And, The Winner Is…

If we made a list of the books that have survived for more than a year, let alone five or 10 years, there would be only a handful; heading the list are: Mastering The Art of French Cooking by Julia Child and The Silver Palate Cookbook by Julee Rosso and Sheila Lukins.  Both have had multi-million copy sales but they had forces other than good recipes and good writing that made them into successes.

Let’s take a look at Mastering The Art of French Cooking as a case study because there is a lot to be learned from this book. First, you should know that it was rejected by 11 publishers before being accepted by Judith Jones at Alfred A. Knopf publishers (now Knopf), who offered an advance of only $250 for three people!

The authors not only accepted this paltry sum with gratitude, they went out and celebrated.

Despite all the rejections, Julia and her collaborators, Simone Beck and Louisette Bertholie kept on trying because they believed in their work. It was passion that drove them on — not the money.

Incidentally, did you know that Mastering the Art of French Cooking has not been translated into French or Japanese. Maybe this is something you could do?

Among my very favorite books spanning many lands and cultures are:

• French Provincial Cooking by Elizabeth David
• Simple French Food by Richard Olney
• The Essentials of Classic Italian Cookery by Marcella Hazan
• The Art of Mexican Cooking by Diana Kennedy
• Madhur Jaffrey’s Indian Cookery by Madhur Jaffrey
• The Georgian Feast by Darra Goldstein
• The Splendid Table by Lynne Rosseto Kasper
• Jewish Cooking in America by Joan Nathan and her many books on Jewish food

There are the science-based, know how it works inspired cook books of which the perpetually curious Harold McGee and incomparable Shirley Corriher must definitely be included.

Among the best of the restaurant books are The Zuni Cafe Cookbook by Judy Rodgers and The New Moosewood Cookbook by Mollie Katzen.

And, writings about food into which category I’d place at the top, Epitaph for a Peach by David Maas Masimoto and Good Things by Jane Grigson.

I’d also include the literary and gustatory cookbooks:

• The Cook and the Gardener by Amanda Hesser
• Roast Chicken and Other Stories by Simon Hopkinson
• Uncommon Fruits and Vegetables & The Essential Reference: Vegetables From A – Z by Elizabeth Schneider
• How to Cook Everything by Mark Bittman

This brings me to writing about food and in this category I’d include:

• Cod: A Biography and indeed, all Mark Kurlansky’s books
• The Story of Corn by Betty Fussell
• History of the World in Six Glasses by Tom Standage
• Honey from a Weed by Patience Grey

Fortunately there is always room for more, many more, great books. What is your favorite?

Chef Mario Batali

There’s no denying the fact that Mario Batali is a clever dude. He could have written a cookbook for folks who enjoy tailgate picnics. Instead he looked around and discovered, (perhaps by reading Wikipedia):

“NASCAR is one of the most viewed professional sports in terms of television ratings in the United States. In fact, professional football is the only sport in the United States to hold more viewers than NASCAR. Internationally, NASCAR races are broadcast in over 150 countries. NASCAR holds 17 of the top 20 attended single-day sporting events in the world, and claims 75 million fans who purchase over $3 billion in annual licensed product sales.”

Armed with this important information, the ‘Clogged One‘ put together a new publication, Mario Tailgates NASCAR Style — The Essential Cookbook for NASCAR Fans by Chef Mario Batali. By focusing on one segment for his book, he narrowed the market at the same time he widened it. V*E*R*Y C*L*E*V*E*R!

Next time you go to a bookstore, or to Amazon or ecookbooks.com, see how many new bride’s cookbooks have been published lately. Maybe it is not politically correct to use this title, but the National Census Bureau reported the number of marriages in the U.S. annually is: 2,077,000. Over two million! This is a lovely big number. A Beginner’s Cookbook couldn’t hope to sell as many copies as a Bride’s Cookbook that can be given as a gift at every bridal shower or as a gift.

Pam Parseghian, Food Person Profiler

If you read Nation’s Restaurant News (NRN), you’ve been treated to my friend, Pamela “Pam” Parseghian’s marvelously thorough, well researched chronicles of the food industry. But it is her spot on profiles of legendary food figures I want to tell you about.

You see, Pam practices a lost art. When she profiles a famous foodie for publication – which she does often – she follows a detective’s path of inquiry. She does her homework before the interview, and then, once with the subject, listens attentively. Such careful listening is essential to capturing someone’s voice and meaning.

Pam decided early on that she she wanted to be a cook. She enrolled at the Culinary Institute of America (CIA) and then worked at a restaurant in Switzerland for a year. “Gradually,” she revealed, “I began to think about finding a job that was less physically demanding. I became interested in journalism.”

Cook's Illustrated magazine, 2011

She called several publications after she returned to the United States and ended up writing an article for Cook’s Illustrated magazine. The article was such a hit that Pam was invited to apply for a food editor’s job there that was open at the time. Pam adds that then-editor Judith Hill “interested in me because I had trained in an European restaurant and I had a degree from the CIA”

Eventually Pam applied for a job at NRN. With this job, she was able to travel to many exotic locations to cover the subject of food. However, this wasn’t often the case when profiling famous foodies:

“I don’t usually make a special journey to visit the person who is being profiled. Instead I try to arrange a meeting when they are in New York or we on the phone,” reports Pam. “I spend about a quarter of my time doing research and another quarter doing the interview; the remaining half of the time is spent actually writing and editing. Other people may allocate their time differently. Writing on deadline is the hardest part of the job. Even a seemingly straightforward interview requires more of the writer than the surface result would indicate.”

I, for one, applaud Pam’s career changing decision to put down the mighty wisk for the pen (and the laptop). May she write (and edit) evermore, evermore.

Many writers succeed by developing expertise and then writing about it. If you are an expert on Turkish food or table manners or food in the news for example, you’d do well to follow that path as a writer.