January 2008
I am constantly retesting recipes that I’ve developed for the book. I want to make sure the weights and measurements are correct and that the recipes are reproducible. I also need to make sure they taste as great as I remember when I first developed them. Sometimes that’s not always the case.
After developing recipes all day long, day in and day out for up to 18 hours a day, my taste buds sometimes trick me or I can’t read my own notes. And let me tell you, I hate it when that happens because then the development process starts all over again.
That’s happened already twice this week. Two simple recipes turned into a nightmare until I got them right. Making the red cabbage coleslaw and zucchini soup over again was like something out of a bad movie. I had grated red cabbage and carrots everywhere and let me tell you those anthocyanins (the purple color of the cabbage) and beta-carotenes (orange color of the carrots) stain if you don’t clean up the mess soon enough. I’m not thinking about the benefits of their vitamin content at a time like that! Before long, I was up to my elbows in zucchini puree and covered with red cabbage coleslaw all because the recipes didn’t taste quite like I remembered. I made batch after batch until I finally got the taste right – a small victory for me!
Monday, March 2, 2009
Monday, February 9, 2009
What did I get myself into?
January 2008
I’ve decided to join the ranks of bloggers. I need to keep a record of my life right now to get me through the meltdowns and keep my sanity intact while I work day and night on this book I’ve been writing and will be self-publishing.
I’m a 55 year old woman who has spent the past thirty plus years of her life in the food industry as an educator, entrepreneur, consultant, researcher and self proclaimed foodie. For the past three years, I’ve been working on my book FitDelicious: Lose the Pounds, Not the Taste. I’ve calculated that I’ve probably spent more than twelve thousand hours on research and development to date. I have a mission – to put the tools of my trade and personal weight loss experience in writing so that others can lose weight and be healthy, too.
In 2005, on the suggestion of some friends, I wrote a book proposal and sent it to some publishers and agents. Although I had a lot of knowledge about food and the food industry, they weren’t interested. Ever persistent, I sent it around again. I had business writing and teaching experience, but that wasn't enough; I wasn’t a celebrity so they didn’t think it would sell. For a while, I put it aside and focused on my consulting business but that was slow and the population kept gaining weight and I knew my book could help. Finally in frustration, the entrepreneur in me decided it was time to take the risk to fund and publish the book myself.
Then today, the idea of writing a blog about the experience and including some of the things I wish I could have included in the book, seemed like a great idea. In this blog, I will share the process of writing this book, including developing and retesting recipes, taking pictures, designing and formatting, hiring people to help me with the project, computer glitches, accumulating and reviewing research, and carefully editing everything. The blog will be about the trials and tribulations of losing weight, self-publishing, and being a self-employed, woman entrepreneur. I figure it should be compelling if you've ever tried to lose weight OR tried to do something on your own OR believed in yourself even when it felt like no one else did OR ran a business OR written a book OR been frustrated (does that cover everyone?).
I’m a 55 year old woman who has spent the past thirty plus years of her life in the food industry as an educator, entrepreneur, consultant, researcher and self proclaimed foodie. For the past three years, I’ve been working on my book FitDelicious: Lose the Pounds, Not the Taste. I’ve calculated that I’ve probably spent more than twelve thousand hours on research and development to date. I have a mission – to put the tools of my trade and personal weight loss experience in writing so that others can lose weight and be healthy, too.
In 2005, on the suggestion of some friends, I wrote a book proposal and sent it to some publishers and agents. Although I had a lot of knowledge about food and the food industry, they weren’t interested. Ever persistent, I sent it around again. I had business writing and teaching experience, but that wasn't enough; I wasn’t a celebrity so they didn’t think it would sell. For a while, I put it aside and focused on my consulting business but that was slow and the population kept gaining weight and I knew my book could help. Finally in frustration, the entrepreneur in me decided it was time to take the risk to fund and publish the book myself.
Then today, the idea of writing a blog about the experience and including some of the things I wish I could have included in the book, seemed like a great idea. In this blog, I will share the process of writing this book, including developing and retesting recipes, taking pictures, designing and formatting, hiring people to help me with the project, computer glitches, accumulating and reviewing research, and carefully editing everything. The blog will be about the trials and tribulations of losing weight, self-publishing, and being a self-employed, woman entrepreneur. I figure it should be compelling if you've ever tried to lose weight OR tried to do something on your own OR believed in yourself even when it felt like no one else did OR ran a business OR written a book OR been frustrated (does that cover everyone?).
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