Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    
I'm guessing because nuts are often sold in 16 oz. packages.
  

    
soukup is exactly correct.  Nuts typically come packed in 8oz or 16oz
bags, plus some people enjoy buying in bulk and it is easier to weigh
out a pound that to eyeball 3 cups.

rosebud - I hope you enjoy the white chili, that's one of my favorites
for lazy weekend entertaining.  People love to personalize their bowls
(cheese, olives, jalapenos), plus since we wrote the book I have found
a delicious low carb tortilla chip (brandname = RW Garcia, Lo Carb
Garcia Lo's - corn, soy and flax tortilla chips, 9 net carbs per
ounce).

FYI - if you do not own a kitchen scale, it is a worthwhile investment
especially with all the new low-carb snack foods coming out.  I always
find it best to weigh out my portion as to not over do it and eat too
many carbs.
  

    
Yes, I have a kitchen scale.   When you read the boxes or bags for
serving sizes and then weigh them, it is interesting to see how small a
serving size is.  
  

    
Kim... do you have a recommendation for a scale? I'm always leery
about the $8 Target job and yet don't really want to part with $30 or
$40 for digital...
  

    
I bought mine from Weight Watchers.  

The white chili was very good.  I can also see it as a spring board
recipe by adding all sorts of other goodness.  Good flavor.  
  

    
The kitchen scale that I use is a commercial manual kitchen scale.  I
have had it for 10 years.  It weighs up to 32 oz and the brand name is
pelouze.  You could definitely find it in a restaurant supply store or
perhaps on-line.  Try e-bay.  It is kind of retro looking and I use it
all the time (for recipe development) so it has a permanent place in my
kitchen.  You could also do a search on amazon for kitchen scales and
read the customer reviews.  Kitty might also have some insight here.
  

    
The process of writing a cookbook has to be interesting. Can you share
some of your highs and lows?

Did you have that one recipe you really wanted to work, but didn't? Or
what about recipes that didn't quite make the cut?
  

    
I just bought a kitchen scale a few months ago and I really like it.
The brand name is Salter and it's super easy to work, clean and read
(it's digital). I can't remember the exact price, but I found it in
Chef's catalog, and ended up buying it online from another place
cheaper...I want to say it was about $30. 
  

    
One of the high points of writing a cookbook is, of course, having all
that great food around for your family (and yourself). A lot point is
that the cost of ingredients is up to the author/s to bear...it's not
reimbursed or anything. So, if an expensive recipe needs more than a
few go-arounds, it really eats into your profits/advance, etc. 

Kim did most of the recipe developing for this book, and I'm sure has
lots of fond--and not so fond--memories of that experience. Working
together made it a lot of fun for us, as both of our households got fed
all last summer! 
  

    
(NOTE: Offside readers can email <inkwell-hosts@well.com> with their queries
or comments, and the hosts can add those remarks to this conversation)
  

    
Thanks, Kim, for the pointer to the berry sauce recipe. Yum! I look forward
to reaching "maintenance" stage of low-carbing so I can try it out.
  

    
Highs:
Working with Kitty was definitely a high point.  She is a great writer
and organizer.  She is also a very skilled recipe writer who is
extremely good at taming the creative chef in me.  We are both mothers
and can easily relate to what the other is going through.  It is truly
a wonderful collaboration.

Discovering how great slow cookers roast nuts.  I am a HUGE fan of
nuts, particularly almonds, and I just found the slow cooker such a
great, practically fail-proof appliance for cooking them.

Stuffed Cabbage Soup - My mom makes me stuffed cabbage every year for
my birthday.  It is honestly one of my favorite dishes in the whole
world.  I do not make it myself because I find all of the steps a bit
too tedious.  With two young children, a husband who works the
graveyard shift and a part-time job, there's no time to roll cabbage. 
My Russian grandmother is rolling her eyes ups up in heaven.  When my
mom tasted the stuffed cabbage soup, that was largely inspired from her
recipe, she proclaimed, "It tastes just like my stuffed cabbage."  I
smiled a huge grin and knew that we had succeeded.

Thanksgiving Anytime Turkey Breast -  I love the total simplicity of
this recipe.  I also love the leftovers.  We use them for sandwiches,
soup and turkey salad.

Lows:
Dishes, dishes and more dishes.  When you are using four slow cookers
at a time, there is ALWAYS something to wash and we do not have an
automatic dishwasher.  My poor husband did the vast majority of the
dishes, but we never felt like we were finished washing dishes.  When
Kitty and I finished the book, my husband cheerfully put away all of
the slow cookers and we grilled for a week straight. I have since given
one a permanent place in my kitchen.  I have to keep it handy for all
the almonds that I cook.

Chicken with Exotic Mushrooms - This dish is in the easy prep chapter,
but let me tell you.  Its development was not very easy.  At least six
attempts went into this dish before I was happy with it.  I think I
have some of the failures still in my freezer.

Food Costs - a tough part of the cookbook world is the fact that the
cookbook author is responsible for all of the food costs associated
with writing the recipes for the book.  With slow cookers, there is no
such thing as halving a recipe for testing purposes as one might do
when developing a salad dressing recipe.  Slow cooker recipe
development is all or nothing and boy does it add up.  Of course, you
consume the majority of the food, so do your neighbors, friends and
family, but it is still a huge chunk of change.

In general, writing this book was both humbling and gratifying at the
same time.  It really made me take stock in all of the fantastic people
who have supported and influenced me.  Writing a cookbook definitely
makes you feel proud.
  

    
What was the process of selling the book? Did you write it first and
then sell it? Sell it first and then write it? How did you go about
that? Did you use an agent? How hard is it to sell Yet Another
Cookbook? etc.
  

    
The selling of a book is always best one before one has put in the
time, effort and sweat into writing it. The same goes for cookbooks.
Usually one has an agent (they're not that hard to find, there are many
books that list agents and their specialties, etc.). The trick is
getting the agent to like your idea, and for that a proposal is usually
 needed. I've written book proposals before, and a good agent will
critique it and help shape it and guide you through the process so that
you have the best "package" to sell, otherwise neither of you will get
anywhere. 

This book that Kim and I did was unusual in that the editor at Marlowe
came up with the idea (a great one!) and was chatting with our agent
(whom I already knew, but had yet to sell a book with) and asked if she
knew of anyone who would be a good author for it. I was not the first
choice of my agent, but the person she contacted did recommend me for
the job, so after finding Kim to help me, we accepted the project.
Sometimes you get lucky. 

Now that we've done this book, our agent knows we work well together,
meet deadlines with no problems, and take it seriously, trying to
always put out the best product, so she has no qualms about suggesting
us for other projects that come across her desk. Our next book, with a
different publishing house, happened for us again because of a
conversation between our agent and the editor...again, no formal
proposal needed from us. Twice lucky that department! 

Once you've done something decent, you can also call up one of your
old editors (as long as they' liked your book and it sold pretty well,
that is), and suggest another idea. That's another way I've done it and
succeeded in selling a book idea with a formal proposal. This is
definitely NOT the norm for most authors, but it seems to be the way
that I get my books contracted. 

So, I guess the first lesson to be learned  here is to find an agent
you love, who likes you and your work, and who is well-regarded in the
area in which you write (cookbook, mystery, etc.)
  

    

FYI, I just bought a rival crockpot and tried one of the included recipies.
It was done in under 8 hours instead of 10-12 as indicated in the recipe.  I
called rival and was told that they have changed the heating element and for
some reason you now need to knock 2 hours off the recipies.  Sooooo, what
other brand of crockpot do you suggest?  Is it worth it to get a
programmable one?  The one I got (and will rpobably end up returning was a 6
qt oval programmable).
  

    
That's pretty much how I got my book contract as well.

So what's next? Did you say low carb dessert book?

How do you get the ideas for recipes to begin with?
  

    
ssak - Very interesting information on Rival.  Just out of curiosity
does it tell you in the instruction manual to "knock two hours off of
the cooking time?"  I find this info somewhat alarming.  Regarding
other brands of slow cookers,I know a family that regularly uses a West
Bend Slow Cooker and another friend who uses Faberware.  In addition
to my Rival crock pots, I also use a generic slow cooker that Kitty
found at a local discount store for $15.  It is pretty and white and
works great.  Good Luck.  

slf - Recipe ideas come from so many directions.  When we sign on a
write a book, we spend a lot of time brainstorming and them we go from
there.  Many of our initial ideas change as we move forward.  It is a
very fluid process.  Kitty and I connect weekly to review what we've
been working on for the past week.  We also might find a new
ingredient, like cubanelle peppers(aka Italian peppers) which are
really delicious, different and low carb.  We might taste something at
a restaurant and try to duplicate it.  Friends and family give us many
great ideas.  Sometimes classic dishes are updated or varied.  I also
look at trends.  Hispanic foods and ingredients are growing in
popularity, so I try to figure out how to incorporate this into my
recipe development.  Sofrito is a Hispanic seasoning sauce that I had
heard of but never used.  I found some while working on the slow cooker
book and discovered it to be a useful, flavorful ingredient.  Writing
a cookbook is a detailed process that involves a lot of organization,
trial and error and documentation. 
  

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duplicate post - Sorry!
  

    

No it doesn't indicate that in the manual that came with the unit (model
5860) although some other manuals online have been changed to read 8 hours
cooking time.  The customer support rep from rival passed this on to me.  In
any case 10 hours works better with my schedule during the workweek.  Is
there and substantive difference in  how the dishes themselves turn out with
the faster (and presumably hotter) cooking?

P.S. The cookbook is sold out on Amazon currently.  Congrats.
  

    
Hotter cooking temps won't necessarily change the quality of the food,
as long as the time is decreased. For example, in the front of our
book we say that we chose to use longer cook times on lower setting
because we thought those cook times would be more convenient (as you
say), however we also say that most things can be turned to a higher
setting and just cooked faster and will still come out fine. Soups,
stews, roasts and other meats should all turn out ok at higher
temp/shorter times. What do you think, Kim?
  

    
Very interesting about the new heating elements on the Rivals.  The
one I just bought is the 38551-W (5.5 Qt Stoneware Oval Smart Pot). 
I'm planning to be home for its maiden voyage on Sunday reacquainting
myself with my couch and TV after a long past few weeks.  I'll just
have to make sure I keep an eye on the ribs.

And tell Amazon to get more of your books!
  

    
>>they have changed the heating element and for
some reason you now need to knock 2 hours off the recipies.

Aiee!  Sure would have been nice to have that mentioned in the
documentation.

It's a particularly annoying problem because I got the one with the
pre-set cooking times, and now that feature won't be as useful.   Come
to think of it, it's really not all that useful because recipe times
aren't ALL 4 or 6 hours on High, 8 or 10 hours on Low.  But the *truly*
programmable pots, of course, are more expensive.

Still on the fence about whether to return my Smart Pot.  I haven't
tried to contact Rival myself yet; wonder if I'll get the same answer?
  

    
Most slow cooker recipes are quite forgiving regarding time and temp. 
The only recipes that might suffer from higher temps for too long are
the egg, nut and seafood dishes.

Amazon does appear to be out of stock on our books.  This happened
early last week and they should be back in stock tomorrow.  Thanks for
the compliments and the heads up.
  

    
What are the approximate temps for high and low settings on a slow
cooker?  Also, I wonder how far the new heating element Rivals differ
from these more standard (?) temps.

This sounds like discussion one hears when talking BBQ, where
conventional low and slow wisdom usually suggests low 200* temps (maybe
225ish) for long periods of time.  I've heard lots of pros say that,
if it is hard to maintain that low of a temp on your cooker without the
fire going out, or if you simply want to speed things up a bit, that
it is fine to go up to 250-275* for a bit shorter.  I guess the idea is
to take the meat slowly up towards the desired target internal temp
allowing for fat to render and connective tissues and such to break
down and get the meat nice and tender.  As long as it's not too fast,
many say that there is not too big of an appreciable difference in the
end products.  I guess that is the same idea between the high/low
settings for slow cookers (or between the higher than low and higher
than high settings on the new heating element Rivals).

Sorry if I'm butchering this a little or if I'm playing Captain
Obvious here (a role unfortunately too often forced upon me due to my
very superficial degree of understanding of many topics!).  All of this
discussion has been very interesting and helpful for me.