Latest / Cookbook Love Podcast / Episode 399: Katherine Anderson and The London Plane: Preserving a Restaurant's Spirit Through a Cookbook

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Episode 399: Katherine Anderson and The London Plane: Preserving a Restaurant's Spirit Through a Cookbook · Cookbook Love Podcast

• 0:02
  Speaker: You're listening to the cookbook
• 0:03
  Speaker: Love Podcast with Maggie Greene,
• 0:05
  Speaker: episode number three ninety
• 0:08
  Speaker: nine.
• 0:11
  Speaker: Welcome to the Cookbook Love
• 0:12
  Speaker: Podcast, a podcast that
• 0:14
  Speaker: celebrates cookbook readers,
• 0:16
  Speaker: buyers, collectors, writers, and
• 0:18
  Speaker: clubs.
• 0:19
  Speaker: And now your host, cookbook
• 0:21
  Speaker: author, culinary dietitian, and
• 0:23
  Speaker: cookbook writing coach, Maggie
• 0:25
  Speaker: Greene.
• 0:31
  Speaker: Hi, everybody.
• 0:32
  Speaker: Welcome back to another episode of the Cookbook Love Podcast.
• 0:36
  Speaker: How are you all doing today?
• 0:38
  Speaker: I am doing well.
• 0:39
  Speaker: Today is a Friday, and I'm always excited on Friday because
• 0:45
  Speaker: I try to get my work done earlier in the morning and enjoy
• 0:49
  Speaker: some time in the afternoon.
• 0:51
  Speaker: And I think this evening Warren
• 0:53
  Speaker: and I and some friends are going
• 0:55
  Speaker: to go to a final Friday event at
• 1:00
  Speaker: a local arts centre, where the
• 1:02
  Speaker: artist opened up their lofts and
• 1:04
  Speaker: have time to meet them and
• 1:07
  Speaker: perhaps purchase some of their
• 1:08
  Speaker: art.
• 1:09
  Speaker: And looking forward to that.
• 1:11
  Speaker: So it's always a fun to have plans on a Friday night.
• 1:17
  Speaker: Uh, let's see where a week out from the Kentucky Derby.
• 1:20
  Speaker: That's a big deal here in our state, as you know.
• 1:24
  Speaker: Um, if you're planning a Kentucky Derby party or if
• 1:27
  Speaker: you're interested in foods about Kentucky, I would like to tell
• 1:32
  Speaker: you to head to Amazon and look up my two Kentucky cookbooks.
• 1:37
  Speaker: One is called Kentucky Fresh
• 1:39
  Speaker: Cookbook, and the other is
• 1:40
  Speaker: called Tasting Kentucky Favorite
• 1:42
  Speaker: Recipes from the Bluegrass
• 1:43
  Speaker: State.
• 1:44
  Speaker: Beautiful books, amazing
• 1:47
  Speaker: recipes, and both of them make
• 1:50
  Speaker: great gifts.
• 1:52
  Speaker: If you're going to a derby
• 1:53
  Speaker: party, or if you're interested
• 1:54
  Speaker: in learning more about the foods
• 1:56
  Speaker: of the beautiful Bluegrass state
• 1:59
  Speaker: for yourself.
• 2:01
  Speaker: So that's a little bit of a plug for the work that I've done two
• 2:05
  Speaker: of my cookbooks, and I'd love to share them with you, because I
• 2:08
  Speaker: know they will make a difference in your life.
• 2:11
  Speaker: Learning about Kentucky and the
• 2:12
  Speaker: foods that we love to cook and
• 2:15
  Speaker: eat.
• 2:16
  Speaker: The second thing, before I get started on today's interview
• 2:19
  Speaker: with Catherine Anderson, is I want to tell you that I have an
• 2:22
  Speaker: upcoming master class.
• 2:25
  Speaker: It is a free on demand masterclass for food, nutrition,
• 2:30
  Speaker: and culinary experts.
• 2:32
  Speaker: This is called How to Stop
• 2:34
  Speaker: Dreaming about Writing a
• 2:35
  Speaker: Cookbook and start with a clear
• 2:38
  Speaker: plan.
• 2:39
  Speaker: Tips and tricks to get your
• 2:41
  Speaker: cookbook published faster and
• 2:44
  Speaker: easier.
• 2:45
  Speaker: In this class, you will discover
• 2:48
  Speaker: how to turn what you know into a
• 2:50
  Speaker: cookbook that positions you as a
• 2:52
  Speaker: standout authority in your
• 2:54
  Speaker: field.
• 2:55
  Speaker: You'll discover four decisions that take your cookbook from
• 2:58
  Speaker: stuck to written and published.
• 3:01
  Speaker: We're going to talk about a publishing framework designed to
• 3:04
  Speaker: get your book into the world and help you get paid, as well as a
• 3:09
  Speaker: path to get out of the cycle of collecting ideas and into
• 3:13
  Speaker: building a cookbook that comes together faster and easier.
• 3:19
  Speaker: So if you are interested in
• 3:21
  Speaker: writing a cookbook of your own
• 3:22
  Speaker: and learning about cookbook
• 3:24
  Speaker: publishing, this masterclass is
• 3:26
  Speaker: for you.
• 3:27
  Speaker: You can head on over to w w w
• 3:29
  Speaker: dot Cookbook Writers academy dot
• 3:31
  Speaker: com.
• 3:34
  Speaker: And sign up for the masterclass,
• 3:36
  Speaker: and we will email you when class
• 3:38
  Speaker: begins, which is on Tuesday, May
• 3:42
  Speaker: the fifth.
• 3:43
  Speaker: This is a three part free on demand masterclass, so you do
• 3:48
  Speaker: not need to show up live to come to this class.
• 3:52
  Speaker: This is just like Netflix.
• 3:54
  Speaker: There will be three episodes and
• 3:56
  Speaker: I cannot wait to share it with
• 3:58
  Speaker: you.
• 3:59
  Speaker: One of the things that I hope I've done in my three hundred
• 4:04
  Speaker: and ninety nine episodes of the podcast and something that I'm
• 4:08
  Speaker: going to do today.
• 4:09
  Speaker: Also, again, when I share my
• 4:11
  Speaker: interview with Catherine is to
• 4:13
  Speaker: show you many different paths to
• 4:17
  Speaker: cookbook publishing.
• 4:19
  Speaker: I personally have loved traditional publishing for four
• 4:24
  Speaker: of my books.
• 4:25
  Speaker: I taught myself how to self publish a Christmas cookie book.
• 4:29
  Speaker: In the midst of teaching many other food, nutrition, and
• 4:33
  Speaker: culinary experts how to self publish their own book.
• 4:36
  Speaker: And I also have talked to
• 4:38
  Speaker: authors on the podcast who did
• 4:39
  Speaker: hybrid publishing.
• 4:41
  Speaker: So in my opinion, there is no
• 4:44
  Speaker: right or wrong method of getting
• 4:46
  Speaker: published.
• 4:46
  Speaker: And that's exactly what I want
• 4:48
  Speaker: to talk about in this
• 4:50
  Speaker: masterclass is that there are
• 4:52
  Speaker: different paths.
• 4:54
  Speaker: There is no right or wrong.
• 4:57
  Speaker: We need to just make some
• 4:59
  Speaker: decisions and get on the path
• 5:00
  Speaker: that we want to be on, so that
• 5:03
  Speaker: we can get the book published to
• 5:06
  Speaker: share what we know with the
• 5:08
  Speaker: world.
• 5:09
  Speaker: Maybe it's even sharing what you know with your family.
• 5:12
  Speaker: And if that's the case, there is a path also for you.
• 5:16
  Speaker: So I really hope everyone who's listening to this podcast will
• 5:21
  Speaker: either come to the class or share with someone that, you
• 5:24
  Speaker: know, if you've ever heard anybody say that they dream of
• 5:28
  Speaker: writing a cookbook, or if you think they should write a
• 5:33
  Speaker: cookbook, or they would be a great person to share their
• 5:37
  Speaker: recipes and stories with the world because you've experienced
• 5:40
  Speaker: their cooking and food in a way that has also touched you.
• 5:44
  Speaker: So, um, tell them about the class, tell them about the
• 5:47
  Speaker: podcast, uh, share what we have going on here, and that would be
• 5:52
  Speaker: great for them to become involved in this community and
• 5:58
  Speaker: write the cookbook that they are meant to write.
• 6:01
  Speaker: Okay, so episode three ninety nine.
• 6:05
  Speaker: I am just in awe of, first of all, myself, my producer Scott,
• 6:12
  Speaker: my v a l Luisa.
• 6:14
  Speaker: Uh, the three of us have been
• 6:16
  Speaker: working on this podcast together
• 6:19
  Speaker: for almost eight years this fall
• 6:24
  Speaker: and four hundred episodes is
• 6:26
  Speaker: nothing to sneeze at, as they
• 6:30
  Speaker: say.
• 6:30
  Speaker: But I think that what it just
• 6:32
  Speaker: continues to show me is that
• 6:35
  Speaker: beginning something that you
• 6:37
  Speaker: want to start and continuing and
• 6:39
  Speaker: committing to it is really all
• 6:42
  Speaker: you have to do to make something
• 6:45
  Speaker: happen.
• 6:45
  Speaker: And I've committed to recording
• 6:47
  Speaker: this podcast through ups and
• 6:50
  Speaker: downs, twists and turns, and am
• 6:53
  Speaker: so excited that we have three
• 6:55
  Speaker: hundred and ninety nine episodes
• 6:57
  Speaker: with amazing authors about
• 7:00
  Speaker: mindset topics.
• 7:02
  Speaker: Um, some of the shows after I recorded them, I thought, oh my
• 7:06
  Speaker: gosh, that was like the most, uh, crazy episode.
• 7:09
  Speaker: I don't know why I even talked about that.
• 7:11
  Speaker: Sometimes I finish them and I relisten and I'm so happy that I
• 7:15
  Speaker: said what I did.
• 7:16
  Speaker: But I think the secret is, is that we just have to start.
• 7:21
  Speaker: We have to be willing for things to be imperfect, and we have to
• 7:24
  Speaker: be willing to keep going if we want to commit to it.
• 7:27
  Speaker: I know one of my superpowers has always been commitment.
• 7:31
  Speaker: It's always been deep belief in
• 7:34
  Speaker: the things that I give my life
• 7:35
  Speaker: to, um, my family, my friends,
• 7:40
  Speaker: my business, my serving, uh,
• 7:43
  Speaker: cookbook authors, this podcast,
• 7:46
  Speaker: writing cookbooks.
• 7:47
  Speaker: My faith.
• 7:50
  Speaker: I'm just one of those people that if I'm in, I'm in.
• 7:55
  Speaker: And I'll stick with it as long as I can and as long as I need
• 7:59
  Speaker: to, to get the job done.
• 8:01
  Speaker: So it's, um, I actually think it's been a, a great thing.
• 8:05
  Speaker: I'm looking forward to continuing.
• 8:07
  Speaker: I have no idea how long or how many episodes I'll ultimately
• 8:10
  Speaker: do, but I'm very excited to have episode three ninety nine here
• 8:14
  Speaker: for you today.
• 8:16
  Speaker: And again, like I mentioned in
• 8:17
  Speaker: the beginning, this is with
• 8:18
  Speaker: Catherine Anderson.
• 8:19
  Speaker: Catherine is the author of The
• 8:21
  Speaker: London Plane A Flower and
• 8:25
  Speaker: Cookbook.
• 8:26
  Speaker: She is the former owner of The
• 8:29
  Speaker: London Plane, a restaurant,
• 8:31
  Speaker: flower shop and bakery that
• 8:33
  Speaker: became a meaningful community
• 8:35
  Speaker: and gathering space in Seattle,
• 8:37
  Speaker: Washington.
• 8:38
  Speaker: When the London plane closed in
• 8:40
  Speaker: twenty twenty three, Catherine
• 8:41
  Speaker: chose not to let the story end
• 8:43
  Speaker: there.
• 8:44
  Speaker: In today's conversation, we talk all about her vision behind her
• 8:48
  Speaker: book, The Vision that was behind the London Plane Restaurant, and
• 8:53
  Speaker: how she intended to capture the spirit of the space and preserve
• 8:57
  Speaker: what the London plane meant to so many people in her book.
• 9:01
  Speaker: So this is a neat episode
• 9:03
  Speaker: because the London plane was a
• 9:05
  Speaker: restaurant, flower shop and
• 9:06
  Speaker: bakery collaborative effort
• 9:09
  Speaker: between cooks and her as the
• 9:11
  Speaker: flower shop owner and then
• 9:13
  Speaker: pastry chefs.
• 9:14
  Speaker: So really neat to hear about this collaborative experience as
• 9:18
  Speaker: a physical space in Seattle.
• 9:20
  Speaker: Talk about her decision to document and carry forward the
• 9:23
  Speaker: space in the book after its closure in twenty twenty three.
• 9:27
  Speaker: We're going to talk about what
• 9:28
  Speaker: it looks like to include
• 9:29
  Speaker: seasonal recipes in a seasonal
• 9:31
  Speaker: rhythm to a book such as this
• 9:34
  Speaker: that includes dishes inspired by
• 9:36
  Speaker: flowers, along with the
• 9:39
  Speaker: contributed recipes of her
• 9:41
  Speaker: restaurant chefs.
• 9:42
  Speaker: And we're going to talk about Catherine's self-publishing
• 9:45
  Speaker: journey through a book packager in Seattle and her perspective
• 9:49
  Speaker: about this type of publishing for aspiring cookbook authors.
• 9:54
  Speaker: So if you're interested in a reminder that a cookbook is a
• 9:57
  Speaker: lasting expression of a place such as a restaurant, it can
• 10:01
  Speaker: hold its spirit, its creativity, and its community.
• 10:05
  Speaker: This episode is for you.
• 10:08
  Speaker: So without further further
• 10:10
  Speaker: delay, let's dive into this
• 10:11
  Speaker: interview with Catherine
• 10:13
  Speaker: Anderson.
• 10:15
  Speaker: Hi, Catherine.
• 10:16
  Speaker: Welcome to the Cookbook Love Podcast.
• 10:18
  Speaker: Thank you.
• 10:18
  Speaker: I'm so happy to be here.
• 10:20
  Speaker: Yes, very excited to have you.
• 10:22
  Speaker: Can't wait to talk about your beautiful new book, The London
• 10:25
  Speaker: Plain Flour and Cookbook.
• 10:27
  Speaker: But before we get started, why don't you tell everybody a
• 10:30
  Speaker: little bit about who you are and what you do?
• 10:32
  Speaker: Sure.
• 10:33
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 10:33
  Speaker: I, um, was raised.
• 10:36
  Speaker: I'm from Seattle.
• 10:37
  Speaker: I'm based in Seattle.
• 10:39
  Speaker: I, uh, was away for college and
• 10:42
  Speaker: ten years of working, but came
• 10:44
  Speaker: back here in two thousand and
• 10:47
  Speaker: five.
• 10:48
  Speaker: Um, shortly after that, I started a flower farm.
• 10:51
  Speaker: So I have two acres growing.
• 10:54
  Speaker: Um, anything I could grow in the Seattle, Washington State dirt.
• 10:59
  Speaker: Then I opened a flower shop.
• 11:01
  Speaker: Then I partnered with a chef and
• 11:02
  Speaker: opened a flower shop and a
• 11:04
  Speaker: restaurant.
• 11:04
  Speaker: All blended into one big space.
• 11:06
  Speaker: Had a bakery in it too.
• 11:08
  Speaker: We ran that for ten, uh, ten years.
• 11:11
  Speaker: Lots of highs and lots of lows.
• 11:13
  Speaker: That place was called the London Plane.
• 11:15
  Speaker: And then after it closed, I knew there was a book in it and I, I
• 11:22
  Speaker: knew I wanted to share, you know, the London plane with the
• 11:27
  Speaker: people who had loved it so much.
• 11:28
  Speaker: So people were really sad when we closed.
• 11:30
  Speaker: It was very bittersweet.
• 11:31
  Speaker: So yeah, hence the book was born
• 11:33
  Speaker: and I spent about a year working
• 11:35
  Speaker: on that.
• 11:36
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 11:37
  Speaker: So let's talk about the London plane first.
• 11:39
  Speaker: Sure.
• 11:40
  Speaker: Um, a flower shop and a restaurant together.
• 11:44
  Speaker: I have to say that that is a unique combination.
• 11:47
  Speaker: Yeah, and it made it hard for
• 11:49
  Speaker: raising money, let me tell you,
• 11:51
  Speaker: because nobody quite got the
• 11:53
  Speaker: concept.
• 11:54
  Speaker: But it came about because I, um, had a tiny flower shop less than
• 12:00
  Speaker: three hundred square feet in an indoor market, and it was called
• 12:04
  Speaker: marigold and Mint.
• 12:05
  Speaker: That's the name of my farm as well.
• 12:07
  Speaker: And across the hall from me in the market was a guy who became
• 12:11
  Speaker: a James Beard Award winning chef, Matt Dillon.
• 12:14
  Speaker: And he had a restaurant and we
• 12:16
  Speaker: sort of watched each other
• 12:18
  Speaker: across the hall, you know, day
• 12:20
  Speaker: in and day out, and decided we
• 12:22
  Speaker: wanted we should do something
• 12:23
  Speaker: together.
• 12:24
  Speaker: We could have a, you know, we
• 12:25
  Speaker: had a very similar approach to
• 12:28
  Speaker: things that grew in the ground
• 12:30
  Speaker: and wanting to share those with
• 12:32
  Speaker: our community.
• 12:33
  Speaker: And there was not like a hard line between what was food and
• 12:36
  Speaker: what was flowers.
• 12:37
  Speaker: It was all sort of beautiful material we wanted to transform
• 12:41
  Speaker: and share with people.
• 12:43
  Speaker: And so after a couple of years
• 12:46
  Speaker: of both being in that market
• 12:47
  Speaker: space, we went down to Pioneer
• 12:49
  Speaker: Square, which is the historic
• 12:51
  Speaker: neighborhood in downtown
• 12:52
  Speaker: Seattle.
• 12:53
  Speaker: So picture, um, big urban street trees in particular London plane
• 12:58
  Speaker: trees, um, cobblestone streets, um, near the stadiums.
• 13:04
  Speaker: And we found a magnificent space
• 13:06
  Speaker: to open what would become the
• 13:08
  Speaker: London plane.
• 13:09
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 13:10
  Speaker: And you had a restaurant and a bakery and the flower shop in
• 13:13
  Speaker: the same space.
• 13:14
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 13:14
  Speaker: Right.
• 13:15
  Speaker: So when you walk in, you could see the open kitchen at the back
• 13:19
  Speaker: of the space.
• 13:19
  Speaker: You could see the florists working behind the counter.
• 13:22
  Speaker: You could see, uh, all the flowers on display for selecting
• 13:27
  Speaker: your own bouquet.
• 13:28
  Speaker: There was the dining room and then just through another door
• 13:32
  Speaker: where the pastry chefs and the bread baker producing all of
• 13:36
  Speaker: that wonderful food.
• 13:37
  Speaker: So it was an all day cafe.
• 13:40
  Speaker: Um, sometimes we had dinner, but for the most part it was, you
• 13:44
  Speaker: know, eight a m to six p m, seven days a week.
• 13:48
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 13:49
  Speaker: And the flower shop was open during that whole time also.
• 13:52
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 13:52
  Speaker: And it was all one co-mingled business.
• 13:54
  Speaker: So the, the books were all together.
• 13:57
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 13:57
  Speaker: Right.
• 13:58
  Speaker: And so it was, it was like they
• 14:00
  Speaker: were like departments, the
• 14:01
  Speaker: flower department, the
• 14:03
  Speaker: restaurant department, the
• 14:04
  Speaker: bakery department and people,
• 14:06
  Speaker: you know, we were an anchor in
• 14:09
  Speaker: the neighborhood.
• 14:09
  Speaker: And, you know, there were some
• 14:10
  Speaker: people who came every day, um,
• 14:13
  Speaker: pre-COVID before going into the
• 14:14
  Speaker: office to get their coffee and
• 14:16
  Speaker: croissants or people who would
• 14:19
  Speaker: come for a special lunch with,
• 14:21
  Speaker: um, you know, their best friend,
• 14:25
  Speaker: um, or people would come down to
• 14:27
  Speaker: sit down with one of the
• 14:28
  Speaker: florists and plan their wedding
• 14:29
  Speaker: flowers or order an arrangement
• 14:31
  Speaker: for delivery for their mother in
• 14:33
  Speaker: law.
• 14:34
  Speaker: So all kinds of things happened in the space.
• 14:37
  Speaker: Nice.
• 14:37
  Speaker: And, um, it was open for a decade.
• 14:39
  Speaker: And I think you answered my
• 14:40
  Speaker: question about London plane is
• 14:43
  Speaker: the actual it's a variety of a
• 14:45
  Speaker: tree.
• 14:46
  Speaker: It.
• 14:46
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 14:47
  Speaker: It's a cross between a sycamore and a maple.
• 14:49
  Speaker: And if you've ever been to Paris
• 14:51
  Speaker: or London, it is the, uh,
• 14:54
  Speaker: predominant street tree that you
• 14:56
  Speaker: see.
• 14:57
  Speaker: It's a very tough urban tree
• 15:00
  Speaker: that is, uh, was planted a lot
• 15:02
  Speaker: in those, like along the Seine
• 15:04
  Speaker: River.
• 15:05
  Speaker: It's all London plane trees and
• 15:07
  Speaker: it has like good dappled shade
• 15:11
  Speaker: and, um, sort of seasonal
• 15:13
  Speaker: interest.
• 15:14
  Speaker: So it's tough and works well.
• 15:15
  Speaker: And there's a LA of London plane
• 15:18
  Speaker: trees in front of the space that
• 15:20
  Speaker: was the restaurant and I was
• 15:22
  Speaker: yeah, they deciduous tree or
• 15:24
  Speaker: it's deciduous.
• 15:25
  Speaker: So they have big, they look like maple leaves.
• 15:29
  Speaker: So great big, um, bright green leaves.
• 15:33
  Speaker: they don't turn a really pretty color.
• 15:35
  Speaker: That's sort of a muted yellow in the fall.
• 15:38
  Speaker: Um, but a really interesting sort of mottled bark.
• 15:41
  Speaker: And I should say I was a after college, I worked in journalism,
• 15:46
  Speaker: but then I went back and got a master's degree in landscape
• 15:48
  Speaker: architecture and worked as a landscape architect before I
• 15:51
  Speaker: started the farm.
• 15:53
  Speaker: And so I have a real affinity for trees.
• 15:56
  Speaker: Yes, yes.
• 15:57
  Speaker: And I can envision what that
• 15:59
  Speaker: would look like then on a street
• 16:00
  Speaker: that's lined with these big
• 16:01
  Speaker: trees.
• 16:02
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 16:03
  Speaker: Um, in an urban area.
• 16:04
  Speaker: And I love trees in an urban area.
• 16:06
  Speaker: It's, it adds an amazing feature to a busy street.
• 16:10
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 16:11
  Speaker: And our, uh, we were able to
• 16:13
  Speaker: have a patio that spilled
• 16:15
  Speaker: outside the restaurant onto the
• 16:16
  Speaker: cobblestones there.
• 16:19
  Speaker: Um, and you were underneath the canopy of the trees when you
• 16:22
  Speaker: were on the patio.
• 16:23
  Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
• 16:24
  Speaker: So the, you had three departments, then your bakery
• 16:27
  Speaker: department, floral department, and then your cafe.
• 16:30
  Speaker: Uh, what was it like on days like Valentine's Day, Mother's
• 16:33
  Speaker: Day days when flowers are like flowers or soap or everything.
• 16:38
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 16:39
  Speaker: And I guess even for that
• 16:40
  Speaker: matter, restaurants and bakeries
• 16:42
  Speaker: to both, I mean, and so we
• 16:44
  Speaker: would, you know, the flower
• 16:46
  Speaker: orders you need to promote for
• 16:49
  Speaker: Valentine's and Mother's Day,
• 16:51
  Speaker: but they do just kind of come at
• 16:52
  Speaker: you.
• 16:53
  Speaker: Um, and it's, it's hard, you
• 16:55
  Speaker: know, there's a trend these days
• 16:56
  Speaker: for people.
• 16:57
  Speaker: I hear it in marketing, um, you
• 17:00
  Speaker: know, sort of anti flowers for
• 17:02
  Speaker: Mother's Day or Valentine's Day,
• 17:04
  Speaker: like flowers wilt whatever
• 17:07
  Speaker: doesn't.
• 17:07
  Speaker: But it is the bread and butter for florists.
• 17:11
  Speaker: So I just have to say please buy flowers on those holidays.
• 17:15
  Speaker: Um, because it, it really makes or breaks those businesses.
• 17:18
  Speaker: But yeah, so we would, it would just be a bustling with activity
• 17:23
  Speaker: between the flower shop, making arrangements for delivery,
• 17:27
  Speaker: helping customers come in and place their orders or just pick
• 17:30
  Speaker: something up off the floor.
• 17:31
  Speaker: But then the bakery department
• 17:32
  Speaker: would be doing something really
• 17:33
  Speaker: special too.
• 17:34
  Speaker: We offer like three or four special Valentine desserts.
• 17:38
  Speaker: We might have a Valentine dinner, a special Valentine
• 17:42
  Speaker: dinner that was ticketed that people would come to.
• 17:45
  Speaker: And there was a lot of, um, collaboration and planning
• 17:48
  Speaker: across the departments for those types of events.
• 17:51
  Speaker: Um, you know, a lot of the people who work in these
• 17:53
  Speaker: restaurants are, are young.
• 17:55
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 17:55
  Speaker: Um, and so they're still
• 17:57
  Speaker: learning a lot about management
• 17:59
  Speaker: and, uh, how to work as a team,
• 18:01
  Speaker: but so much creative talent in
• 18:03
  Speaker: that space.
• 18:04
  Speaker: And what was really magical to me was the way in which the
• 18:07
  Speaker: chefs were interested in what the florists were doing, and the
• 18:10
  Speaker: florists were interested in what the chefs were doing.
• 18:12
  Speaker: Um, you know, we would bring, I would bring in, for example,
• 18:16
  Speaker: unripe blackberries that I'd harvested from my farm.
• 18:20
  Speaker: Right.
• 18:21
  Speaker: That are on the stem because
• 18:23
  Speaker: they work really well in
• 18:24
  Speaker: arrangements.
• 18:25
  Speaker: But the, you know, the chef
• 18:28
  Speaker: named Zach would see that and
• 18:29
  Speaker: say, hey, can I have some of
• 18:31
  Speaker: those?
• 18:31
  Speaker: And then he would figure out how
• 18:34
  Speaker: to sort of pickle them, and they
• 18:36
  Speaker: would become an element on a
• 18:37
  Speaker: summer salad.
• 18:39
  Speaker: So that sort of, um, slippage and creative energy was, was a
• 18:45
  Speaker: lot of what the place was about.
• 18:46
  Speaker: Nice.
• 18:47
  Speaker: And it was open for, uh, a decade.
• 18:50
  Speaker: Ten years, a decade.
• 18:51
  Speaker: Yes.
• 18:51
  Speaker: And, and our, as I was saying before, it was really
• 18:55
  Speaker: bittersweet when we closed and I kept having to say to people,
• 19:00
  Speaker: nothing lasts forever.
• 19:03
  Speaker: Um, but we were really proud of the ten years we were there.
• 19:06
  Speaker: And, um, you know, we're an
• 19:09
  Speaker: anchor in the neighborhood, a
• 19:11
  Speaker: bright spot, I would say through
• 19:12
  Speaker: Covid especially.
• 19:13
  Speaker: And it was, you know, the book gets into a lot of what the
• 19:19
  Speaker: Covid experience was from behind the scenes in the restaurant.
• 19:22
  Speaker: It was hard and emotional, um, and rewarding, but I think we
• 19:29
  Speaker: held our own through that.
• 19:30
  Speaker: And then on the other side,
• 19:32
  Speaker: eventually the lease was up and
• 19:33
  Speaker: it just didn't make sense to
• 19:35
  Speaker: renew.
• 19:36
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 19:36
  Speaker: You're not the first restaurant owner I've spoken to on, on the
• 19:39
  Speaker: podcast who have gone on to write a book, uh, that has been
• 19:43
  Speaker: published post-COVID that experienced a really big change
• 19:47
  Speaker: in their restaurant business and their restaurant, obviously
• 19:51
  Speaker: around times of Covid and how much of a community center these
• 19:54
  Speaker: restaurants become and how the desire to write the book and
• 19:59
  Speaker: share it with the customers is kind of an offshoot of that.
• 20:02
  Speaker: At least it was for the the other guests that I had, and I'm
• 20:06
  Speaker: suspecting it was for yours too, but even more so for you as
• 20:10
  Speaker: well, the topic that you wrote about the flower part of it, and
• 20:15
  Speaker: the bakery, which there's a lot of baking recipes and then all
• 20:18
  Speaker: the beautiful seasonal, uh, savory recipes that really lend
• 20:23
  Speaker: itself to a highly photographic cookbook as well.
• 20:27
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 20:27
  Speaker: And I think again, the book, much like the place itself, was
• 20:34
  Speaker: a community effort.
• 20:36
  Speaker: And I if you look at the end pages in the back of the book,
• 20:40
  Speaker: there's a great illustration that I hired an artist to do,
• 20:44
  Speaker: and it represents everyone who was a part of the London plane.
• 20:49
  Speaker: And it's a list of all, every person who ever worked in the
• 20:52
  Speaker: place, every florist who touched it, other, you know, the farmers
• 20:57
  Speaker: who brought the food to us.
• 20:58
  Speaker: Um.
• 21:01
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 21:01
  Speaker: They have makers and vendors, front of the house kitchen.
• 21:04
  Speaker: Everybody's listed in a in a nice list.
• 21:07
  Speaker: It's a beautiful illustration.
• 21:08
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 21:09
  Speaker: And that meant that is what the place felt like to us.
• 21:12
  Speaker: And I think there's an element
• 21:14
  Speaker: of the book feeling like that
• 21:15
  Speaker: too, because I'm sure we'll get
• 21:17
  Speaker: to it.
• 21:17
  Speaker: But a lot, you know, I had a
• 21:18
  Speaker: multiple chefs from the
• 21:19
  Speaker: restaurant contribute recipes to
• 21:21
  Speaker: the book.
• 21:22
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 21:22
  Speaker: So the book is called The London Plain Flour and Cookbook.
• 21:27
  Speaker: So tell us a little bit about your idea for this book, um, how
• 21:32
  Speaker: it started in your mind and how it started to take shape as you
• 21:36
  Speaker: started to think more about it.
• 21:38
  Speaker: Sure.
• 21:39
  Speaker: Um, so the book, I always knew there was a potential for a book
• 21:44
  Speaker: coming out of the place and I, it just was.
• 21:49
  Speaker: So there was a story to tell, I
• 21:51
  Speaker: thought, and it was such a
• 21:53
  Speaker: beautiful place that I knew, you
• 21:55
  Speaker: know, there were great
• 21:56
  Speaker: photographs to go along with the
• 21:57
  Speaker: book.
• 21:58
  Speaker: Um, and to back up for a minute,
• 22:00
  Speaker: I worked in publishing and
• 22:02
  Speaker: journalism before I got to
• 22:03
  Speaker: landscape architecture.
• 22:04
  Speaker: And I used to write, um, I was a freelance writer, so I had a
• 22:09
  Speaker: comfort level with writing.
• 22:10
  Speaker: So I wasn't intimidated by the idea of, oh my God, a book.
• 22:14
  Speaker: I don't know what to do with the paper and pen.
• 22:15
  Speaker: Right.
• 22:16
  Speaker: Um, but after closing the
• 22:18
  Speaker: restaurant, it took three months
• 22:20
  Speaker: or so for that to settle, and
• 22:22
  Speaker: then for me to start talking
• 22:24
  Speaker: with a couple of my core team
• 22:26
  Speaker: members about wanting to do a
• 22:27
  Speaker: book.
• 22:28
  Speaker: And one person suggested, you know, why don't you do it?
• 22:33
  Speaker: Or I had thought originally we would organize it.
• 22:36
  Speaker: There'd be a bakery section,
• 22:37
  Speaker: there'd be a savory kitchen
• 22:39
  Speaker: section, there'd be a flower
• 22:40
  Speaker: section.
• 22:42
  Speaker: But she suggested, no, why don't you think about the calendar
• 22:47
  Speaker: year, which a lot of books, a lot of cookbooks are organized
• 22:52
  Speaker: either around the season or around the month.
• 22:54
  Speaker: And so on some level, that felt
• 22:56
  Speaker: a little oh, well, that's been
• 22:58
  Speaker: done.
• 22:59
  Speaker: But the more I thought about it, the more it made sense because
• 23:02
  Speaker: we were so grounded in the seasons and the month in, month
• 23:07
  Speaker: out, um, rhythm of what was coming in from the local farms,
• 23:12
  Speaker: both the flower farms and, um, the produce farms.
• 23:15
  Speaker: So on that level, it made sense.
• 23:17
  Speaker: And it also set up a framework.
• 23:19
  Speaker: And so each chapter, like January is a chapter.
• 23:21
  Speaker: February is a chapter march.
• 23:23
  Speaker: It also allowed me to bring
• 23:25
  Speaker: together the savory, um, the
• 23:28
  Speaker: pastry and the flowers in every
• 23:31
  Speaker: chapter, which is what the
• 23:32
  Speaker: experience of the place was
• 23:34
  Speaker: like.
• 23:34
  Speaker: All of that mixed up together as opposed to segmented in the way
• 23:38
  Speaker: I had originally envisioned it.
• 23:40
  Speaker: And so what I did was for each chapter, I knew I wanted a
• 23:45
  Speaker: handful of recipes, you know, five to ten recipes that
• 23:49
  Speaker: represented what we served in the, in the restaurant at that
• 23:52
  Speaker: time of year.
• 23:53
  Speaker: And then so there would be a core group of recipes.
• 23:56
  Speaker: There would also be an essay about flowers.
• 24:01
  Speaker: I didn't want it to be just a
• 24:02
  Speaker: purely how, how to make an
• 24:04
  Speaker: arrangement book.
• 24:05
  Speaker: I didn't want recipes of flowers.
• 24:06
  Speaker: I wanted it to be sort of more,
• 24:09
  Speaker: um, more essays about what I was
• 24:12
  Speaker: growing that time of year, what
• 24:14
  Speaker: I like to harvest to bring into
• 24:17
  Speaker: the shop.
• 24:18
  Speaker: Um, that just made more sense to me for some reason.
• 24:21
  Speaker: I think it allowed me to talk about more than just like,
• 24:23
  Speaker: here's what you would do in May for an arrangement.
• 24:26
  Speaker: On top of all that, I also wrote
• 24:28
  Speaker: an essay in each chapter really
• 24:30
  Speaker: about life in the restaurant in
• 24:33
  Speaker: January, life in the restaurant
• 24:35
  Speaker: in May.
• 24:36
  Speaker: Sometimes it was a little bit generalized, like in January.
• 24:40
  Speaker: We usually feel this way in Seattle, it's cold and dark and
• 24:43
  Speaker: wet, and what we really love to eat is a chicory Caesar salad.
• 24:48
  Speaker: But there it ended up.
• 24:50
  Speaker: So there's some amount of that.
• 24:52
  Speaker: But there it was also very specific.
• 24:55
  Speaker: In some months, like the March month, the essays really about
• 24:59
  Speaker: March of twenty twenty when Covid hit and what that was like
• 25:03
  Speaker: in the restaurant and what was going on behind the scenes.
• 25:06
  Speaker: And so it was in some ways, much
• 25:09
  Speaker: more of a memoir woven through
• 25:11
  Speaker: the whole book than I had
• 25:12
  Speaker: anticipated.
• 25:13
  Speaker: And I, you know, I said I gave the.
• 25:17
  Speaker: I had my husband and my business partner read the first draft and
• 25:21
  Speaker: they both said, they cried, you know, and it.
• 25:25
  Speaker: You know, which is just to say
• 25:27
  Speaker: there was more emotion in there
• 25:29
  Speaker: about the stories of what's
• 25:31
  Speaker: going on with people working in
• 25:32
  Speaker: a restaurant and a retail
• 25:34
  Speaker: business.
• 25:35
  Speaker: Um, behind the scenes, you know,
• 25:38
  Speaker: the, the deaths of family
• 25:41
  Speaker: members of partners, of
• 25:43
  Speaker: celebrations of babies born, you
• 25:45
  Speaker: know, the, there's a lot of life
• 25:48
  Speaker: happening there.
• 25:48
  Speaker: So I think I captured that too.
• 25:51
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 25:51
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 25:52
  Speaker: And then the, you said five to ten recipes in each chapter.
• 25:55
  Speaker: And of course, then there's twelve chapters.
• 25:57
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 25:57
  Speaker: And this flow follows throughout all of the sections, but the,
• 26:02
  Speaker: the style and the types of flowers and everything change.
• 26:04
  Speaker: I mean, you, I could tell by looking through it, like when
• 26:07
  Speaker: you get to summer, you know, you're seeing summertime flowers
• 26:09
  Speaker: and write summertime style recipes and of course, into the
• 26:13
  Speaker: fall and into the winter.
• 26:16
  Speaker: This November and December, which is great.
• 26:19
  Speaker: So it's kind of neat actually to see the progression.
• 26:23
  Speaker: You used to it from a cookbook perspective, but to have the
• 26:26
  Speaker: flowers woven into it.
• 26:28
  Speaker: And then of course, what's available for them to use in the
• 26:32
  Speaker: food from the flower side was great to see also.
• 26:36
  Speaker: I think that's what I ended up feeling sort of good about the
• 26:40
  Speaker: January through December arrangement, because I hadn't
• 26:44
  Speaker: come across a lot of books that had that did that, that were
• 26:48
  Speaker: both food and flowers.
• 26:49
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 26:50
  Speaker: Right.
• 26:50
  Speaker: Where like one of one cookbook
• 26:52
  Speaker: that I really love is the canal
• 26:54
  Speaker: House book.
• 26:55
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 26:55
  Speaker: That is, you know, it's every
• 26:56
  Speaker: month and it's like, well, if
• 27:00
  Speaker: that's out there, why would I do
• 27:02
  Speaker: that?
• 27:02
  Speaker: You know, that's like so awesome.
• 27:04
  Speaker: And I think the thing that
• 27:05
  Speaker: people don't, I mean, the, the
• 27:07
  Speaker: content of the book and the
• 27:09
  Speaker: features of the book are
• 27:11
  Speaker: duplicated in other places, but
• 27:13
  Speaker: what you bring to it is your
• 27:15
  Speaker: unique features and the story of
• 27:18
  Speaker: your place and what you tell
• 27:20
  Speaker: about those different generic
• 27:22
  Speaker: things that other people can use
• 27:23
  Speaker: in cookbooks.
• 27:25
  Speaker: Right?
• 27:25
  Speaker: It's yeah, they're very, very personal stories in there.
• 27:29
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 27:29
  Speaker: You know, I mean, yes, here's
• 27:30
  Speaker: another recipe for rhubarb
• 27:32
  Speaker: galette.
• 27:33
  Speaker: This is the way that we did it.
• 27:35
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 27:35
  Speaker: But then, you know, their stories around it.
• 27:37
  Speaker: And as you mentioned, like the
• 27:39
  Speaker: the photography is a huge part
• 27:40
  Speaker: of it.
• 27:41
  Speaker: That's right.
• 27:41
  Speaker: Um, and the, we were lucky.
• 27:44
  Speaker: I mean, it's a very, you know, it's very easy to have an
• 27:46
  Speaker: Instagram account if you have a floral or a food business.
• 27:50
  Speaker: You have more content than you know what to do with.
• 27:53
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 27:53
  Speaker: And that means also that a lot
• 27:56
  Speaker: of photographs were taken
• 27:58
  Speaker: through the years of the life of
• 27:59
  Speaker: the restaurant and flower shop,
• 28:01
  Speaker: and not just by us, but by
• 28:03
  Speaker: really good professional
• 28:04
  Speaker: photographers.
• 28:05
  Speaker: So when I went to I, and I am not a good photo editor, I have
• 28:10
  Speaker: so much trouble deciding what to keep and what to throw out.
• 28:14
  Speaker: And so I ended up calling a
• 28:16
  Speaker: woman, um, named Dorothy Brand,
• 28:18
  Speaker: who is a professional
• 28:19
  Speaker: photographer, who is a friend of
• 28:21
  Speaker: the business, had taken a lot of
• 28:23
  Speaker: photos.
• 28:24
  Speaker: And I said, Dorothy, how have I,
• 28:26
  Speaker: I don't know, could you
• 28:27
  Speaker: recommend someone to help me
• 28:28
  Speaker: edit the mountain of photos that
• 28:31
  Speaker: we have?
• 28:31
  Speaker: And she said, oh, are you asking me to do it?
• 28:34
  Speaker: Because I'd love to.
• 28:36
  Speaker: So hired, she was hired and then she was able to, um, actually
• 28:41
  Speaker: work with me to photograph recipes that we didn't have
• 28:45
  Speaker: photographs of for the book.
• 28:47
  Speaker: You know, we don't have a
• 28:47
  Speaker: photograph for every recipe in
• 28:49
  Speaker: the book.
• 28:49
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 28:50
  Speaker: But there were certain ones that
• 28:52
  Speaker: hadn't ever been photographed or
• 28:53
  Speaker: weren't good enough quality that
• 28:55
  Speaker: the chef who contributed it to
• 28:57
  Speaker: the book went back and made the
• 28:59
  Speaker: dish and Dorothy photographed
• 29:01
  Speaker: it.
• 29:01
  Speaker: So that was, um, you know, good things like that kept happening
• 29:05
  Speaker: in the process of I didn't know everything I needed when I
• 29:09
  Speaker: started the book project.
• 29:10
  Speaker: Right.
• 29:10
  Speaker: Well, I think you bring up an important point.
• 29:13
  Speaker: We never know anything.
• 29:15
  Speaker: If you knew everything about
• 29:17
  Speaker: running a restaurant and flower
• 29:18
  Speaker: shop bakery together before you
• 29:20
  Speaker: started, would you have ever
• 29:21
  Speaker: started it?
• 29:22
  Speaker: No, no. Well, it's the same thing for a book.
• 29:24
  Speaker: So I think that we need to be willing to start these projects
• 29:28
  Speaker: with not knowing everything.
• 29:31
  Speaker: And it unfolds exactly like it's supposed to.
• 29:35
  Speaker: Exactly.
• 29:36
  Speaker: And it took a year.
• 29:38
  Speaker: Yes.
• 29:39
  Speaker: You know, from start to finish.
• 29:41
  Speaker: Yes.
• 29:41
  Speaker: And so there's not really it's it's a long game project.
• 29:44
  Speaker: It's not really rushing it, but you get a beautiful result and
• 29:49
  Speaker: it's worth I always think it's worth the time and investment.
• 29:52
  Speaker: And I always mean that more than just on a monetary perspective.
• 29:56
  Speaker: But now you have this documented, you know, like you
• 29:58
  Speaker: said, you did this as a love letter for the people who love
• 30:02
  Speaker: the London plane, and you did it for people like us who never
• 30:06
  Speaker: knew the London plane, right.
• 30:08
  Speaker: Who gets a now experience the London plane in book form when
• 30:12
  Speaker: we never even got to step foot in the restaurant.
• 30:15
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 30:15
  Speaker: And the hope is it's been really rewarding, actually, to have
• 30:19
  Speaker: people who never went to the London plane, uh, love the book
• 30:23
  Speaker: and be cooking out of it.
• 30:24
  Speaker: You know, my, my husband's aunt
• 30:27
  Speaker: in Davenport, Iowa, is like
• 30:29
  Speaker: constantly making things from
• 30:31
  Speaker: the book.
• 30:31
  Speaker: She never made it to the restaurant.
• 30:33
  Speaker: And she, it works.
• 30:34
  Speaker: You know, it works for her.
• 30:35
  Speaker: Right.
• 30:36
  Speaker: And one thing I did, uh, I knew that I wasn't going to be the
• 30:42
  Speaker: one writing the recipes.
• 30:43
  Speaker: I wasn't the chef or any of the chefs in the restaurant.
• 30:46
  Speaker: And so one thing I, you know,
• 30:48
  Speaker: had to sort out early on was who
• 30:50
  Speaker: was, who would be my list of
• 30:52
  Speaker: contributors.
• 30:53
  Speaker: And I identified, you know, did
• 30:57
  Speaker: I want every chef who'd ever
• 30:58
  Speaker: worked there to contribute a
• 30:59
  Speaker: recipe?
• 31:00
  Speaker: Did I want one chef to try to do it?
• 31:03
  Speaker: It turned out to work really well to have about five of them.
• 31:06
  Speaker: And they they ranged from, you know, a very mature chef who
• 31:13
  Speaker: runs and owns her own restaurant now to, you know, someone who
• 31:17
  Speaker: was twenty five.
• 31:19
  Speaker: And the, the quality of material
• 31:21
  Speaker: turned into me, uh, reflected
• 31:24
  Speaker: that.
• 31:24
  Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
• 31:25
  Speaker: You know, and, and as you know,
• 31:27
  Speaker: chefs aren't always the best
• 31:29
  Speaker: recipe writers.
• 31:31
  Speaker: So, uh, Emily, the more senior
• 31:34
  Speaker: chef is a very good recipe
• 31:36
  Speaker: writer.
• 31:36
  Speaker: Mhm.
• 31:37
  Speaker: A younger person, Zach, for example, he wouldn't mind if I
• 31:40
  Speaker: said this, you know, sent me sort of random notes in an Excel
• 31:45
  Speaker: document that barely made sense.
• 31:48
  Speaker: You know, they probably made sense to him for recreating the
• 31:52
  Speaker: dish, but you needed to get them all in a consistent format.
• 31:55
  Speaker: And luckily you had someone.
• 31:56
  Speaker: Yes.
• 31:57
  Speaker: Emily, I guess that could do that for you.
• 31:59
  Speaker: Well, I actually ended up figuring out.
• 32:01
  Speaker: So Emily, she contributed her recipes, but I, um, ended up
• 32:06
  Speaker: hiring another woman to proofread and make consistent
• 32:13
  Speaker: all the recipe and recipe test all the recipes.
• 32:16
  Speaker: So this woman, Melissa, who had worked briefly in the kitchen,
• 32:21
  Speaker: but she doesn't have recipes of her own in the book.
• 32:23
  Speaker: It was critical, actually, for me to have her be sort of the
• 32:28
  Speaker: the recipe tester, proofreader and sort of style master.
• 32:34
  Speaker: So it was consistent across all
• 32:36
  Speaker: the recipes and that was
• 32:37
  Speaker: terrific.
• 32:38
  Speaker: That was a really good move.
• 32:40
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 32:40
  Speaker: So that's a great tip for anyone
• 32:42
  Speaker: that's getting, doing a
• 32:43
  Speaker: collaboration book where you're
• 32:44
  Speaker: gathering recipes from different
• 32:46
  Speaker: sources to have one person, they
• 32:47
  Speaker: kind of filter through at the
• 32:49
  Speaker: end.
• 32:49
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 32:50
  Speaker: And it could be you, the, you know, that could have been me.
• 32:53
  Speaker: But in the end, it was clear to me that Melissa, who is a
• 32:57
  Speaker: professional chef, would do a much better job of it.
• 33:01
  Speaker: Um, and, and so that was just, you know, sometimes you have to
• 33:04
  Speaker: decide, am I going to spend my time or will I spend some money
• 33:09
  Speaker: to do to outsource this to the more appropriate person?
• 33:13
  Speaker: And she not only tested because they were developed already, she
• 33:16
  Speaker: tested and then wrote them in their final format.
• 33:19
  Speaker: Yeah, she got them into their final format.
• 33:21
  Speaker: And you know, because they were recipes that were, um.
• 33:26
  Speaker: Scaled for the restaurant and some of the chefs were able to
• 33:30
  Speaker: scale them down, but didn't do a perfect job in the scaling down.
• 33:33
  Speaker: So some probably weren't.
• 33:34
  Speaker: So some probably some were the large quantity.
• 33:36
  Speaker: Right, right.
• 33:37
  Speaker: And so it was really important
• 33:39
  Speaker: to get them tested in a home
• 33:40
  Speaker: kitchen.
• 33:41
  Speaker: Hundred percent.
• 33:42
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 33:42
  Speaker: So I'd love to talk about some
• 33:44
  Speaker: of the recipes in the book, just
• 33:45
  Speaker: in general, um, maybe what you
• 33:48
  Speaker: know about them or maybe some
• 33:49
  Speaker: tips even from a flower
• 33:50
  Speaker: perspective, because I tried to
• 33:51
  Speaker: pick some recipes that crossed
• 33:53
  Speaker: over this food and flower
• 33:56
  Speaker: category.
• 33:56
  Speaker: Mhm.
• 33:57
  Speaker: And the first one that stuck out
• 33:58
  Speaker: to me because it's May here in
• 34:00
  Speaker: Kentucky.
• 34:01
  Speaker: And no, it's not May.
• 34:02
  Speaker: It's the end of April, almost May.
• 34:03
  Speaker: But my peonies are tall.
• 34:05
  Speaker: But they're.
• 34:05
  Speaker: Yeah, but they're not blooming yet.
• 34:07
  Speaker: And I saw a recipe for peony syrup.
• 34:11
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 34:11
  Speaker: So let's talk a little bit about using flowers that we grow in
• 34:16
  Speaker: things like syrups and salad dressings and things like that.
• 34:20
  Speaker: So one thing you want is to be
• 34:24
  Speaker: working with organically grown
• 34:25
  Speaker: flowers, right?
• 34:27
  Speaker: So there are no pesticides or chemicals on them.
• 34:30
  Speaker: Luckily my farm is an organic farm.
• 34:33
  Speaker: And so I had full confidence in,
• 34:36
  Speaker: uh, my kitchen team using any of
• 34:39
  Speaker: the product.
• 34:40
  Speaker: Um, but you do, you do want to make sure of that.
• 34:44
  Speaker: I think, you know, the flowers.
• 34:46
  Speaker: Not all flowers taste good, right?
• 34:48
  Speaker: You want to be deliberate in your use of them.
• 34:51
  Speaker: You want to use them for a reason.
• 34:53
  Speaker: So the, you know, peonies are so
• 34:56
  Speaker: beautifully Pink and blush or
• 35:00
  Speaker: Burgundy, and there are even
• 35:02
  Speaker: yellows.
• 35:03
  Speaker: I grow a lot of peonies on my
• 35:04
  Speaker: farm, and so it was a natural
• 35:08
  Speaker: fit for Emily to try a peony
• 35:10
  Speaker: syrup, because she knew she
• 35:12
  Speaker: could get this sort of blushy
• 35:14
  Speaker: pink tinted syrup that has a
• 35:18
  Speaker: floral essence, but it's not
• 35:21
  Speaker: overwhelmingly cloying and
• 35:23
  Speaker: sweet.
• 35:24
  Speaker: Um, and use that either.
• 35:26
  Speaker: Just mixed in with some seltzer water, you know, you're making
• 35:29
  Speaker: like a sugar peony syrup, like you would make a simple syrup.
• 35:33
  Speaker: Um, and, or you can, uh, have a cocktail with it as well.
• 35:39
  Speaker: And it just feels like the
• 35:41
  Speaker: essence of, um, for early
• 35:44
  Speaker: spring, I mean, early summer or
• 35:46
  Speaker: late spring.
• 35:47
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 35:48
  Speaker: And yeah, the head note says you could use it with sparkling wine
• 35:51
  Speaker: cocktail made with gin, vodka, rum, maybe some muddled cucumber
• 35:55
  Speaker: and mint and a dash of the syrup or poached rhubarb in the syrup,
• 36:01
  Speaker: maybe combined with some strawberries and spoon it over
• 36:04
  Speaker: ice cream or yogurt.
• 36:05
  Speaker: And it is a beautiful pink pink color.
• 36:07
  Speaker: And, uh, I think it's very, um, it's, it's just beautiful.
• 36:11
  Speaker: So it says, though to pick the
• 36:13
  Speaker: peony, pick the petals, petals
• 36:16
  Speaker: from the flower, like so we want
• 36:18
  Speaker: to actually harvest the flower
• 36:21
  Speaker: or harvest the petals from the
• 36:23
  Speaker: flower.
• 36:24
  Speaker: Um, while they're still attached.
• 36:25
  Speaker: Not like we're not like, um, gathering petals that have
• 36:30
  Speaker: fallen and no, no, no, you want them to be.
• 36:32
  Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
• 36:33
  Speaker: So what I would do is I would harvest the flowers, uh, bring
• 36:36
  Speaker: them into the shop and hand Emily a bunch of the heads.
• 36:41
  Speaker: And then they would carefully pick off the petals and then
• 36:44
  Speaker: they would rinse them.
• 36:45
  Speaker: You know, there are bugs.
• 36:47
  Speaker: So you want to you want to clean them.
• 36:49
  Speaker: But yeah, no, you want them to
• 36:50
  Speaker: be it's not like you're using up
• 36:52
  Speaker: the bad rotten petals on the, on
• 36:54
  Speaker: the ground.
• 36:55
  Speaker: Um, and I think, you know, some things give you sort of that
• 37:00
  Speaker: subtle floral essence.
• 37:05
  Speaker: There are other things like the,
• 37:07
  Speaker: um, there's a pickled elderberry
• 37:10
  Speaker: and blackberry.
• 37:12
  Speaker: So the green blackberry and the elderberry before, while it's
• 37:16
  Speaker: still green, I, Zach developed a recipe, I think it's a midsummer
• 37:21
  Speaker: in the book for both those things that they almost, they
• 37:24
  Speaker: almost become like capers.
• 37:26
  Speaker: So they have a much more, um, astringent and strong flavor and
• 37:32
  Speaker: less what you would expect.
• 37:33
  Speaker: I mean, those are, I guess they've become berries.
• 37:37
  Speaker: They're no longer the flower, whereas we have an elder elder
• 37:40
  Speaker: flower syrup in the book as well, which is much more akin to
• 37:44
  Speaker: the peony syrup.
• 37:45
  Speaker: It's a sort of like floral essence.
• 37:48
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 37:48
  Speaker: But it's, you know, I think I'm
• 37:50
  Speaker: a little more familiar with the
• 37:51
  Speaker: flavor, um, I traveled to
• 37:55
  Speaker: Austria.
• 37:55
  Speaker: I know they use elderflower.
• 37:57
  Speaker: Yes, a lot.
• 37:58
  Speaker: Yes.
• 37:59
  Speaker: Um, in, uh, may wine like punch.
• 38:02
  Speaker: I've those teeny little white flowers, but they are very, very
• 38:06
  Speaker: they're fragrant and a very unique flavor to the site.
• 38:12
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 38:12
  Speaker: And one thing, um, you know, we're very inspired by sort of,
• 38:16
  Speaker: uh, flavors from all around the Mediterranean in the restaurant.
• 38:20
  Speaker: So a lot of Moroccan spices and flavors.
• 38:23
  Speaker: And there's a lot of like rose water, um, orange water,
• 38:29
  Speaker: pomegranate molasses, sort of those sweet flavors, sweet and
• 38:34
  Speaker: floral that got worked their way into the restaurant.
• 38:38
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 38:38
  Speaker: And the next recipe actually used rose petals in a granola.
• 38:42
  Speaker: Yes.
• 38:43
  Speaker: And I would, um, I believe they
• 38:44
  Speaker: dehydrate the rose petals, uh,
• 38:47
  Speaker: and mixed it in with the
• 38:49
  Speaker: granola.
• 38:50
  Speaker: And, you know, to be honest, I don't know that that it adds a
• 38:53
  Speaker: ton of flavor, like a little sweetness, but it makes for a
• 38:59
  Speaker: really pretty granola.
• 39:00
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 39:00
  Speaker: Because also the nut is pistachios.
• 39:03
  Speaker: And then there's white coconut.
• 39:04
  Speaker: So I can see a lot of color just visually in the granola.
• 39:08
  Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
• 39:09
  Speaker: Now, if someone didn't have rose petals, I guess they maybe.
• 39:12
  Speaker: Can you buy dried rose petals that are for culinary use?
• 39:16
  Speaker: Um, you might be able to.
• 39:19
  Speaker: I mean, what I would do is try to find organic, organically
• 39:23
  Speaker: grown fresh roses and then just dry is the way.
• 39:25
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 39:26
  Speaker: I mean, I, I'm trying to think like I, I'm because another
• 39:30
  Speaker: thing they did the, the pastry department would do the rose
• 39:33
  Speaker: petals is sugar them.
• 39:35
  Speaker: Mhm.
• 39:36
  Speaker: And um, you know, so it becomes
• 39:38
  Speaker: sort of like this candied sugar
• 39:40
  Speaker: piece of rose petal that would
• 39:42
  Speaker: be on a like the Persian love
• 39:44
  Speaker: cake or on top of some kind of
• 39:47
  Speaker: pastry.
• 39:48
  Speaker: I know you can sometimes buy those packaged.
• 39:50
  Speaker: But I can't think of like sometimes you find edible
• 39:54
  Speaker: flowers in the produce department of a restaurant.
• 39:57
  Speaker: It's rarely roses, though.
• 39:58
  Speaker: It's usually mixed.
• 40:00
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 40:00
  Speaker: Or um, marigolds or nasturtium.
• 40:03
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 40:04
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 40:05
  Speaker: Um, yeah.
• 40:06
  Speaker: And so I think you just, you know, you don't use flowers just
• 40:09
  Speaker: for the sake of using flowers.
• 40:11
  Speaker: It's intentional either because it's visually interesting and
• 40:15
  Speaker: has a certain flavor or because it has a very specific flavor.
• 40:18
  Speaker: I mean, but what they are, what
• 40:20
  Speaker: they do though, is evoke the
• 40:22
  Speaker: season.
• 40:23
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 40:23
  Speaker: Like you're not really gonna,
• 40:25
  Speaker: you can't make peony syrup in
• 40:27
  Speaker: December, right?
• 40:29
  Speaker: It's very difficult.
• 40:30
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 40:30
  Speaker: I could even see someone if from a visual perspective, the
• 40:34
  Speaker: granola with the pistachios and the rose petals, even it it's a
• 40:38
  Speaker: beautiful mixture for a gift.
• 40:41
  Speaker: Um, yeah.
• 40:42
  Speaker: If you like to make things like
• 40:43
  Speaker: that to give to friends or
• 40:46
  Speaker: somebody, you know, for a
• 40:47
  Speaker: special occasion, I think it's
• 40:48
  Speaker: nice to do something like that,
• 40:49
  Speaker: of course.
• 40:50
  Speaker: On the opposing page, there's a coconut pecan granola, which
• 40:53
  Speaker: looks equally delicious.
• 40:54
  Speaker: And of course, it doesn't
• 40:55
  Speaker: require any flowers for it, but
• 40:58
  Speaker: it just goes to show you how the
• 40:59
  Speaker: flowers can be incorporated into
• 41:01
  Speaker: something like this relatively
• 41:03
  Speaker: easily.
• 41:04
  Speaker: And it adds a nice visual appeal
• 41:06
  Speaker: and something, something
• 41:08
  Speaker: different.
• 41:09
  Speaker: And one thing when I started my farm, which was called marigold
• 41:13
  Speaker: and Mint, you, you know, marigold and mint.
• 41:16
  Speaker: So it was both a sort of old fashioned flower that I chose to
• 41:23
  Speaker: feature in the name, and an herb which isn't traditionally
• 41:26
  Speaker: thought of as a flower.
• 41:28
  Speaker: It's not a flower, it's an herb.
• 41:30
  Speaker: But the point was, I was
• 41:33
  Speaker: combining things you don't
• 41:35
  Speaker: necessarily think of combining
• 41:37
  Speaker: in a high end floral florist
• 41:40
  Speaker: environment and trying to
• 41:42
  Speaker: showcase the beauty of these
• 41:43
  Speaker: things.
• 41:44
  Speaker: And.
• 41:44
  Speaker: And also that mint can be in a flower arrangement and marigold
• 41:49
  Speaker: can be in your food.
• 41:50
  Speaker: Right.
• 41:51
  Speaker: And there.
• 41:52
  Speaker: And I grow so many varieties of marigold.
• 41:55
  Speaker: And there's the little French marigolds that you often see
• 41:58
  Speaker: scattered on a salad.
• 42:00
  Speaker: But there are also the tiny
• 42:02
  Speaker: tangerine and lemon gem ones
• 42:04
  Speaker: that have, they're even more,
• 42:06
  Speaker: um, they have even more bite to
• 42:08
  Speaker: them and a different kind of
• 42:10
  Speaker: scent.
• 42:11
  Speaker: Um, and just, you know, to me, they say fall, the marigolds
• 42:16
  Speaker: bloom in the fall.
• 42:17
  Speaker: We harvest them in the fall.
• 42:18
  Speaker: The colors are so spectacular,
• 42:20
  Speaker: those sort of oranges and russet
• 42:23
  Speaker: reds and the yellows and um, but
• 42:26
  Speaker: that has a communicates
• 42:28
  Speaker: something very different than
• 42:30
  Speaker: peony syrup.
• 42:31
  Speaker: Hundred percent.
• 42:32
  Speaker: And you, um, when you started
• 42:34
  Speaker: your marigold, did you start
• 42:35
  Speaker: things from seed then and grow
• 42:37
  Speaker: the seedlings in a. Yeah, I did
• 42:40
  Speaker: both.
• 42:40
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 42:41
  Speaker: So I started it.
• 42:43
  Speaker: Seeds in um seed trays or soil
• 42:46
  Speaker: blocks in an unheated
• 42:47
  Speaker: greenhouse.
• 42:49
  Speaker: And then we would, I would move them out into the field.
• 42:52
  Speaker: Um a, you know, about now a
• 42:55
  Speaker: little later into May, um,
• 42:57
  Speaker: there.
• 42:58
  Speaker: I also, uh, have a lot of
• 43:01
  Speaker: planted a lot of bulbs and a lot
• 43:03
  Speaker: of peonies and things that come
• 43:05
  Speaker: back.
• 43:06
  Speaker: Right.
• 43:06
  Speaker: And then I, and then there was some amount of plants I would
• 43:09
  Speaker: buy as starts because for example, there's a great grower
• 43:13
  Speaker: out of Colorado called Mountain Valley grower, and he grows
• 43:16
  Speaker: terrific scented geranium.
• 43:18
  Speaker: That's another plant that is it a food.
• 43:21
  Speaker: Is it a flower?
• 43:22
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 43:22
  Speaker: You know, um, because that also makes a terrific syrup like the
• 43:26
  Speaker: rose scented geranium.
• 43:28
  Speaker: So I would use that to make a syrup.
• 43:30
  Speaker: Yes.
• 43:30
  Speaker: But it's also a terrific, um,
• 43:32
  Speaker: green to pair with peonies in an
• 43:36
  Speaker: arrangement.
• 43:36
  Speaker: So I love that dual purpose.
• 43:39
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 43:39
  Speaker: One of the recipes actually uses a marigold and mint vinaigrette.
• 43:43
  Speaker: It's called a big salad.
• 43:45
  Speaker: And you said it highlights the colors of autumn.
• 43:48
  Speaker: Um, you toast the nuts and then it has for the salad fennel,
• 43:52
  Speaker: radicchio, kale, Parmigiano Reggiano, mint and parsley.
• 43:57
  Speaker: But let's talk a little bit
• 43:58
  Speaker: about using these mint and
• 44:00
  Speaker: marigold together.
• 44:01
  Speaker: Now we've heard it in your farm name.
• 44:03
  Speaker: We've talked about it as our arrangement.
• 44:05
  Speaker: And now this is an example where
• 44:06
  Speaker: they're used together in a
• 44:07
  Speaker: vinaigrette.
• 44:09
  Speaker: And that wasn't my idea.
• 44:11
  Speaker: You know, it was one of the chefs, um, which was fantastic.
• 44:15
  Speaker: You know, that they, I mean, I
• 44:17
  Speaker: guess it's kind of obvious once
• 44:18
  Speaker: you hear the name, but it, it
• 44:22
  Speaker: wouldn't work if the pairing
• 44:24
  Speaker: didn't work ultimately on the
• 44:27
  Speaker: plate.
• 44:28
  Speaker: So and it says that Zach was the one that developed this.
• 44:32
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 44:32
  Speaker: And Zach is the one who gave me the Excel document recipes.
• 44:37
  Speaker: Um, but he had the most enthusiasm.
• 44:41
  Speaker: So for the floral product, that
• 44:43
  Speaker: would come in one hundred
• 44:44
  Speaker: percent, you know, that's the
• 44:45
  Speaker: neatest thing about it is, um,
• 44:48
  Speaker: there is a lot of enthusiasm on
• 44:50
  Speaker: that end.
• 44:51
  Speaker: And I think it just goes to show you, if you're ever
• 44:54
  Speaker: collaborating with creative chefs on a cookbook, they have
• 44:59
  Speaker: so many good ideas in the way the recipes are translated.
• 45:04
  Speaker: Probably, you know, like you said, you need someone to bring
• 45:06
  Speaker: it all together, but never.
• 45:07
  Speaker: It's just amazing what it just, it really is richer.
• 45:11
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 45:12
  Speaker: And if, if one of your collaborators, you know, is more
• 45:17
  Speaker: work in a certain way, like with Zach, it was more work to get
• 45:23
  Speaker: his recipes into recipes that worked on the page.
• 45:26
  Speaker: But it was so worth it because
• 45:28
  Speaker: he had such creative energy and
• 45:31
  Speaker: spirit.
• 45:31
  Speaker: So and I think that's the,
• 45:33
  Speaker: that's something to, uh, maybe
• 45:36
  Speaker: even tell a chef if they're kind
• 45:38
  Speaker: of hanging back and not wanting
• 45:39
  Speaker: to contribute because they're
• 45:41
  Speaker: afraid that they can't get it
• 45:42
  Speaker: all out on paper, like it looks
• 45:44
  Speaker: in a cookbook, that that should
• 45:45
  Speaker: not be a barrier to them
• 45:46
  Speaker: submitting something because you
• 45:49
  Speaker: would.
• 45:49
  Speaker: This salad just looks it looks, uh, delicious on the paper.
• 45:55
  Speaker: It talks about the flower combinations.
• 45:57
  Speaker: I just love the way it ties, like I said to the name of your
• 46:00
  Speaker: flower farm and.
• 46:01
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 46:02
  Speaker: Um, I think it's amazing that
• 46:04
  Speaker: Zach, um, did everything he did
• 46:07
  Speaker: to get it to the point that he
• 46:08
  Speaker: did.
• 46:08
  Speaker: And then, uh, your recipe developer and tester and writer
• 46:12
  Speaker: was able to bring it home the rest of the way.
• 46:14
  Speaker: And, um, congratulations to Zach and everybody because yeah, it's
• 46:18
  Speaker: a, it's a great looking recipe.
• 46:21
  Speaker: And I would say, you know, for
• 46:23
  Speaker: these, I mean, there are a
• 46:25
  Speaker: couple of things I'd say about
• 46:26
  Speaker: that too.
• 46:26
  Speaker: Like it means a lot to him to have recipes.
• 46:29
  Speaker: And I know one hundred percent where is someone, you know, it's
• 46:33
  Speaker: funny, like who owns the recipes from the restaurant, right?
• 46:37
  Speaker: You there.
• 46:38
  Speaker: It wasn't it wasn't on paper anywhere.
• 46:42
  Speaker: Right.
• 46:43
  Speaker: And so I could have come across some chefs saying, well, I don't
• 46:47
  Speaker: want to share this.
• 46:48
  Speaker: This was the thing I made at the
• 46:49
  Speaker: London plane, but I it's mine,
• 46:51
  Speaker: you know, but there was none of
• 46:52
  Speaker: that they were so generous
• 46:54
  Speaker: about.
• 46:54
  Speaker: Well, and I think that, you
• 46:56
  Speaker: know, separate recipe in
• 46:57
  Speaker: somebody's head that's not part
• 46:58
  Speaker: of a collection about the London
• 47:00
  Speaker: plane.
• 47:00
  Speaker: Doesn't really mean anything.
• 47:02
  Speaker: Right, right.
• 47:03
  Speaker: The recipes they take on a whole new life of their own when
• 47:05
  Speaker: they're combined in a book like this and put up against a story
• 47:10
  Speaker: about a place that people remember or people are
• 47:12
  Speaker: introduced to through the book.
• 47:15
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 47:15
  Speaker: It's and you know, it's I, it reminds me of when I started
• 47:19
  Speaker: growing flowers and I knew I wanted to open a flower shop and
• 47:23
  Speaker: eventually and there was a florist I sold flowers to, and
• 47:28
  Speaker: she had been offered a space that ultimately became the space
• 47:32
  Speaker: that I had.
• 47:32
  Speaker: And she said, oh, I'm not going to take it, but you should.
• 47:35
  Speaker: And her attitude was, there's room for all of us to do this.
• 47:39
  Speaker: Right?
• 47:40
  Speaker: And, um, the book is better for having all these voices in it.
• 47:44
  Speaker: You know, there were sort of two.
• 47:46
  Speaker: I don't know how much you want
• 47:47
  Speaker: to get into this, but in, you
• 47:48
  Speaker: know, we talked about the okay
• 47:51
  Speaker: here.
• 47:51
  Speaker: I got the idea for the book.
• 47:53
  Speaker: I talked with Emily about the organization, but then I had to
• 47:55
  Speaker: do two or three very well, three very separate things.
• 48:00
  Speaker: One, I had to sit down and write all the essays.
• 48:04
  Speaker: I had to project, manage all of the chefs, write and set
• 48:10
  Speaker: deadlines for them, and make sure ultimately, we were getting
• 48:14
  Speaker: the right mix and number of recipes for every month.
• 48:18
  Speaker: And then I had to figure out how the photography piece of it.
• 48:23
  Speaker: Right.
• 48:23
  Speaker: And let's, um, let's pause there for just a minute, because the
• 48:25
  Speaker: reason you had to figure that out is because what was your
• 48:28
  Speaker: publishing path for this book?
• 48:30
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 48:30
  Speaker: So I knew when I had the idea for the book that there were two
• 48:36
  Speaker: paths I could self publish at.
• 48:40
  Speaker: Whatever that might mean.
• 48:41
  Speaker: Or I could try to find an agent and get it sold to a publisher.
• 48:47
  Speaker: I was for two different reasons.
• 48:50
  Speaker: I went the self-publish route.
• 48:52
  Speaker: One was I thought, well, there's potentially a pretty small
• 48:54
  Speaker: audience for this book.
• 48:56
  Speaker: I don't want to spend a lot of
• 48:58
  Speaker: time begging someone to take it
• 49:01
  Speaker: on.
• 49:01
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 49:02
  Speaker: To to then find a publisher who told me it had to look a certain
• 49:06
  Speaker: way, you know, that it had to be a certain format.
• 49:10
  Speaker: It's funny.
• 49:10
  Speaker: That's what the other restaurant owner that I interviewed.
• 49:13
  Speaker: Oh, really?
• 49:14
  Speaker: Because their their restaurant and their food had a very
• 49:16
  Speaker: certain style and they wanted the book to reflect that.
• 49:19
  Speaker: Exactly.
• 49:19
  Speaker: I wanted the book to be a beautiful book.
• 49:22
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 49:23
  Speaker: And that's expensive.
• 49:24
  Speaker: And so I did.
• 49:25
  Speaker: I wanted total artistic control.
• 49:27
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 49:27
  Speaker: And I luckily discovered pretty
• 49:30
  Speaker: early on, as I was thinking this
• 49:31
  Speaker: through, that there's a business
• 49:33
  Speaker: called Marquand Books in Seattle
• 49:35
  Speaker: that they are not technically a
• 49:36
  Speaker: publisher even.
• 49:37
  Speaker: They, um, but they like produce.
• 49:41
  Speaker: They do everything except put up the money for the book.
• 49:44
  Speaker: Right?
• 49:45
  Speaker: Right.
• 49:45
  Speaker: And so I reached out to Marquand books, talked to the that had
• 49:51
  Speaker: newly been purchased.
• 49:53
  Speaker: And so I was talking with the new owner and they were able to
• 49:56
  Speaker: give me and let me just interrupt myself and say they
• 50:00
  Speaker: primarily publish art books.
• 50:01
  Speaker: They'd never published a cookbook, but I knew they had
• 50:05
  Speaker: published beautiful, beautiful books for museums.
• 50:08
  Speaker: You know, if there's a big, um,
• 50:10
  Speaker: Matisse show at a museum,
• 50:12
  Speaker: Marquand will produce the book
• 50:14
  Speaker: that that gets sold in the
• 50:15
  Speaker: museum.
• 50:16
  Speaker: Bookshop.
• 50:17
  Speaker: Right, right.
• 50:18
  Speaker: Um, in that case, the museums
• 50:20
  Speaker: are often commissioning those
• 50:22
  Speaker: books, but it's not, um, a, it's
• 50:25
  Speaker: part of a marketing budget
• 50:27
  Speaker: almost.
• 50:28
  Speaker: It's not trying to square the financials at the end of the
• 50:32
  Speaker: day, just around the book.
• 50:33
  Speaker: And there's a bigger picture.
• 50:35
  Speaker: Whereas I thought as long as I can break even, I'm good with
• 50:39
  Speaker: this, I did.
• 50:40
  Speaker: I wasn't in a position where I
• 50:41
  Speaker: had to make a lot of money off
• 50:42
  Speaker: the book.
• 50:43
  Speaker: Right?
• 50:43
  Speaker: I mean, that would be nice, but I wanted to not lose money to
• 50:49
  Speaker: pay for itself.
• 50:50
  Speaker: I wanted it to pay for itself.
• 50:51
  Speaker: And I'm pretty close, you know,
• 50:53
  Speaker: and, um, but so anyway, worked
• 50:56
  Speaker: with Mark and talked to them
• 50:57
  Speaker: about what this would look like,
• 50:58
  Speaker: and they were able to come up
• 50:59
  Speaker: with a proposal, you know, this
• 51:01
  Speaker: many pages, this many, um,
• 51:04
  Speaker: copies printed will cost you
• 51:06
  Speaker: this.
• 51:06
  Speaker: So part of it then I had to sort of guess, well, can I sell one
• 51:10
  Speaker: thousand copies, two thousand copies, three thousand copies.
• 51:13
  Speaker: Obviously, the more books you
• 51:14
  Speaker: order, the lower the unit price
• 51:17
  Speaker: becomes.
• 51:18
  Speaker: And I, I knew I wanted it just
• 51:20
  Speaker: couldn't be one hundred dollars
• 51:21
  Speaker: book, right?
• 51:22
  Speaker: No. Cookbooks are twenty eight dollars, maybe forty five.
• 51:27
  Speaker: Mine is sixty five retail.
• 51:29
  Speaker: Right.
• 51:30
  Speaker: And it is it sort of straddles art book, coffee table book.
• 51:34
  Speaker: Right.
• 51:35
  Speaker: Um, so I, but I like that's as high as I thought I could go,
• 51:38
  Speaker: which means the wholesale cost is thirty two fifty, which I
• 51:43
  Speaker: knew there was no way a bookstore was going to buy the
• 51:46
  Speaker: book for more than that.
• 51:48
  Speaker: So in my mind, and I used to buy books for my restaurant and
• 51:52
  Speaker: shop, which had, uh, things like books in it too.
• 51:55
  Speaker: So I, I had a feel for the business and I knew even that
• 51:58
  Speaker: number is pushing it.
• 51:59
  Speaker: But in any case, I so that, that
• 52:02
  Speaker: took me to three thousand
• 52:03
  Speaker: copies.
• 52:04
  Speaker: Mhm.
• 52:05
  Speaker: And, you know, I've sold two thousand.
• 52:08
  Speaker: Got a thousand to go, but you
• 52:10
  Speaker: know, I, it's um, so I guess if
• 52:13
  Speaker: I just printed two thousand I'd
• 52:15
  Speaker: be done.
• 52:16
  Speaker: Yet I, I couldn't have sold the
• 52:19
  Speaker: price per book would have been
• 52:21
  Speaker: higher.
• 52:21
  Speaker: Yes.
• 52:22
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 52:22
  Speaker: So I, I think I'll sell these
• 52:24
  Speaker: and I think I made the right
• 52:25
  Speaker: decision.
• 52:25
  Speaker: And you know, I wish it didn't cost as much as it does, but
• 52:29
  Speaker: that's what it costs.
• 52:30
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 52:30
  Speaker: And when you're when you're self-publishing, though, you
• 52:32
  Speaker: kind of have to wear all the hats of the publishing process.
• 52:36
  Speaker: The book, the book packager actually printed the book.
• 52:40
  Speaker: Yes.
• 52:41
  Speaker: And I don't know how much distribution they do.
• 52:44
  Speaker: Or did they send all the books to you?
• 52:46
  Speaker: Or do they warehouse them somewhere and you order them
• 52:48
  Speaker: when you need them?
• 52:49
  Speaker: No, they all came on a pallet to my driveway.
• 52:54
  Speaker: So three thousand books in my driveway?
• 52:57
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 52:58
  Speaker: Into my house.
• 52:58
  Speaker: So yeah, I it's not for everyone.
• 53:01
  Speaker: Um, I luckily have a sort of a can do attitude.
• 53:06
  Speaker: Like, as in, I can figure this out and have worn a lot of hats
• 53:11
  Speaker: just in running the business and having been a writer, freelance
• 53:14
  Speaker: writer and having built websites for my own shops.
• 53:19
  Speaker: The first shop, the farm.
• 53:21
  Speaker: So. I, yes, so I had.
• 53:25
  Speaker: They did a fantastic job.
• 53:27
  Speaker: They gave me deadlines.
• 53:28
  Speaker: I turned in the copy.
• 53:30
  Speaker: They provided a really good copywriter, a copy editor who I
• 53:35
  Speaker: did three rounds with them, so that felt really thorough.
• 53:39
  Speaker: They managed all the, um, you know, I submitted all the art,
• 53:43
  Speaker: but they, they do a really good job on the colour.
• 53:46
  Speaker: Did they do the layout, the actual page design and layout.
• 53:49
  Speaker: Yes, yes.
• 53:50
  Speaker: So they have a, they have an in-house book designer.
• 53:53
  Speaker: So, you know, I worked with him about, well, this is how I think
• 53:56
  Speaker: I want it to look.
• 53:57
  Speaker: And then he came up with a plan and proposed that to me.
• 53:59
  Speaker: And they help you pick the
• 54:01
  Speaker: paper, the cover, all that
• 54:04
  Speaker: material.
• 54:04
  Speaker: So it was a really wonderful experience with them.
• 54:08
  Speaker: Good.
• 54:08
  Speaker: But they do not distribute the book.
• 54:10
  Speaker: Right.
• 54:10
  Speaker: Um, so I have been the so I
• 54:13
  Speaker: created a website and I sell the
• 54:15
  Speaker: book.
• 54:16
  Speaker: People can buy the book directly from the website, the London
• 54:18
  Speaker: book dot com.
• 54:20
  Speaker: Then I also created a portal.
• 54:22
  Speaker: And then if you order the book, there it comes to me.
• 54:26
  Speaker: I package the book and I ship it to you.
• 54:30
  Speaker: You know, so it's and I use Shopify works really well.
• 54:33
  Speaker: I knew Shopify from my previous
• 54:35
  Speaker: shops, so I knew how to build
• 54:37
  Speaker: that website.
• 54:38
  Speaker: Mhm.
• 54:38
  Speaker: Um, but then there's, and then
• 54:41
  Speaker: I, there, I created a portal for
• 54:43
  Speaker: bookstores to order the books
• 54:45
  Speaker: wholesale.
• 54:46
  Speaker: But I really, and, you know, I'm
• 54:49
  Speaker: barely making a dollar off of
• 54:52
  Speaker: those sales.
• 54:54
  Speaker: So, but I wanted to, I knew I couldn't sell three thousand
• 54:59
  Speaker: through my website alone.
• 55:00
  Speaker: No. And I think it helps with discovery people that, yeah,
• 55:03
  Speaker: they see it in different places where they maybe haven't heard
• 55:05
  Speaker: about it before.
• 55:07
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 55:07
  Speaker: And I, it was, and, you know, I ended up getting it into all my
• 55:11
  Speaker: favorite bookshops in Seattle and then some further afield.
• 55:15
  Speaker: And that's been really rewarding.
• 55:16
  Speaker: And then they would have events
• 55:18
  Speaker: and I would, you know, have a
• 55:20
  Speaker: interview at the shop or do a
• 55:21
  Speaker: book signing.
• 55:22
  Speaker: And so that's been fantastic.
• 55:24
  Speaker: And they continue to reorder.
• 55:25
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 55:25
  Speaker: Did you use the Shopify platform to do the London plane book?
• 55:30
  Speaker: Yep dot com.
• 55:31
  Speaker: The the site, when people go to
• 55:33
  Speaker: that URL, the whole thing, whole
• 55:35
  Speaker: thing.
• 55:35
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 55:35
  Speaker: And I, and I use Shopify, you
• 55:37
  Speaker: know, fifteen years ago with my
• 55:39
  Speaker: first shop.
• 55:40
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 55:40
  Speaker: And Shopify has grown since then.
• 55:42
  Speaker: So it's, it, it does a better job than it used to.
• 55:45
  Speaker: I would say the other piece I
• 55:47
  Speaker: had to figure out, and I was a
• 55:48
  Speaker: little behind the ball on this
• 55:50
  Speaker: was marketing.
• 55:51
  Speaker: You know, I had to be the person who marketed the book.
• 55:53
  Speaker: And I, we hadn't I had a really
• 55:56
  Speaker: robust newsletter list from the
• 55:58
  Speaker: restaurant.
• 55:59
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 55:59
  Speaker: That I could use.
• 56:00
  Speaker: I had two different Instagram accounts I could use.
• 56:04
  Speaker: Um, so I did a fair bit of
• 56:05
  Speaker: marketing through that, but then
• 56:07
  Speaker: I eventually figured out, oh, I
• 56:09
  Speaker: should hire a young person to
• 56:10
  Speaker: help me with my social media
• 56:12
  Speaker: game.
• 56:13
  Speaker: And she, but that was sort of, you know, some number of months
• 56:17
  Speaker: after the book launched.
• 56:18
  Speaker: I wish I'd gotten her on board earlier.
• 56:21
  Speaker: Um, and she was really helpful
• 56:23
  Speaker: and she got me to do videos and
• 56:25
  Speaker: she came out to the farm and,
• 56:27
  Speaker: you know, things that got a lot
• 56:28
  Speaker: of attraction.
• 56:29
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 56:30
  Speaker: I also hired two different publicists at different times.
• 56:34
  Speaker: That's trickier.
• 56:35
  Speaker: I mean, it costs a lot to hire a publicist.
• 56:38
  Speaker: Um, I ended up with one that, you know, and she's fantastic.
• 56:42
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 56:42
  Speaker: Right.
• 56:43
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 56:43
  Speaker: That's how I heard about you.
• 56:44
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 56:45
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 56:45
  Speaker: You just need to be careful how you spend your dollars.
• 56:47
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 56:48
  Speaker: And I should have hired her when I had the idea for the book.
• 56:53
  Speaker: Right.
• 56:53
  Speaker: You just really need to back up on the marketing.
• 56:55
  Speaker: You don't want to start it when
• 56:57
  Speaker: the book arrives in your
• 56:58
  Speaker: driveway.
• 56:58
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 56:59
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 56:59
  Speaker: No, it's gotta it's like a little bit more forethought, but
• 57:01
  Speaker: it's kind of funny when you self publish and you're thinking, you
• 57:04
  Speaker: know, you're first of all, maybe you're looking at the second
• 57:08
  Speaker: round of copy edits or you're, you know, uh, being the project
• 57:14
  Speaker: manager for the back and forth of the recipes.
• 57:16
  Speaker: Some people think, well, how can I think about the marketing on
• 57:19
  Speaker: top of all that.
• 57:19
  Speaker: But it does.
• 57:20
  Speaker: It does pay off to start
• 57:22
  Speaker: thinking about it and start
• 57:24
  Speaker: putting some thought into what's
• 57:25
  Speaker: going to happen once this book
• 57:26
  Speaker: arrives.
• 57:28
  Speaker: And, um, yeah, it really is a multiple hat wearing, um, thing.
• 57:34
  Speaker: And I think then when people talk about traditional
• 57:36
  Speaker: publishing, then if you have a commercially viable topic that
• 57:40
  Speaker: you don't feel like you want control over the way it looks
• 57:43
  Speaker: necessarily like you did, you wanted this book to look like
• 57:46
  Speaker: your restaurant and your flower shop, but exactly.
• 57:49
  Speaker: If you don't have that exacting type of vision for it, but you
• 57:53
  Speaker: have a vision, um, traditional publishers, this is the type of
• 57:58
  Speaker: stuff they help you do.
• 57:59
  Speaker: Um, absolutely.
• 58:00
  Speaker: Marketing and publicity though,
• 58:01
  Speaker: is still not all up to the
• 58:03
  Speaker: publisher.
• 58:04
  Speaker: I think that's kind of a misnomer.
• 58:05
  Speaker: It's definitely a shared experience these days.
• 58:08
  Speaker: So any author, it's, um, it's
• 58:11
  Speaker: good to start thinking about
• 58:12
  Speaker: that.
• 58:12
  Speaker: I think it's gotten, I mean, I have friends who are cookbook
• 58:15
  Speaker: writers who it has been so much more pushed on to the writer
• 58:18
  Speaker: than it used to be.
• 58:20
  Speaker: Especially around cookbooks, I
• 58:21
  Speaker: think where you really need to
• 58:24
  Speaker: promote and promote yourself via
• 58:26
  Speaker: social media.
• 58:27
  Speaker: So you have to get comfortable with that, or hire a young
• 58:30
  Speaker: person who's sort of crackerjack and can like boss you around a
• 58:33
  Speaker: bit and say, like, I need captions, I need this, I need
• 58:35
  Speaker: this, and, and it's, you know, that worked really well for me.
• 58:39
  Speaker: What was the value of having the email list?
• 58:42
  Speaker: Um, huge.
• 58:43
  Speaker: Because, you know, I think that was ten zero zero zero people
• 58:48
  Speaker: who loved the London plane.
• 58:50
  Speaker: I mean, maybe they didn't all love it, but, um, who at one
• 58:53
  Speaker: point expressed interest in hearing about it.
• 58:55
  Speaker: And so that one thing I did do is do pre-orders on the book.
• 58:59
  Speaker: And so using the newsletter, that's how that happened.
• 59:02
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 59:02
  Speaker: And it, you know, newsletters are helpful because email is
• 59:05
  Speaker: helpful because people can click on the link and buy the book,
• 59:08
  Speaker: whereas Instagram, it's still a little bit harder to buy unless
• 59:13
  Speaker: you've got a really robust business Instagram site.
• 59:17
  Speaker: Correct.
• 59:17
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 59:18
  Speaker: And I think email is it's still the number one.
• 59:22
  Speaker: One of the number one ways to
• 59:23
  Speaker: stay in touch with your
• 59:24
  Speaker: audience.
• 59:24
  Speaker: So I highly recommend it to everybody to have an email list.
• 59:29
  Speaker: And I love how you use Shopify to set up with the URL specific
• 59:33
  Speaker: for your book.
• 59:35
  Speaker: And it does have a place for
• 59:37
  Speaker: events and it has a place for
• 59:39
  Speaker: press.
• 59:40
  Speaker: So it's not just a one page, a website.
• 59:43
  Speaker: It's that's nice, nice
• 59:44
  Speaker: functionality to be able to do
• 59:46
  Speaker: that.
• 59:46
  Speaker: And events were a key part of marketing the book.
• 59:50
  Speaker: I mean, I knew that at least.
• 59:51
  Speaker: And so to line up, and because
• 59:54
  Speaker: I'd been in the local business
• 59:56
  Speaker: community, I had relationships
• 59:57
  Speaker: with bookstores and people had
• 59:59
  Speaker: beautiful clothing and
• 1:00:02
  Speaker: housewares shops.
• 1:00:03
  Speaker: And so they were so happy to host me.
• 1:00:05
  Speaker: Oh, yeah.
• 1:00:06
  Speaker: And that was a good way to, to piggyback on their news
• 1:00:10
  Speaker: newsletter lists too.
• 1:00:12
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 1:00:13
  Speaker: You know, to get the word out.
• 1:00:14
  Speaker: So it it's and it's exhausting to I mean, I think one thing, if
• 1:00:19
  Speaker: you're a book author, I did learn, you know, some events are
• 1:00:22
  Speaker: better than others.
• 1:00:24
  Speaker: So once you get a couple under your belt, you start to get a
• 1:00:27
  Speaker: little more strategic about which ones you want to do.
• 1:00:30
  Speaker: I mean, there were there were some where I sold one book, you
• 1:00:34
  Speaker: know, and there were some where I sold fifty books.
• 1:00:36
  Speaker: And you don't always know that going in, but you do start to to
• 1:00:40
  Speaker: figure it out a little bit.
• 1:00:42
  Speaker: What's going to make the better event?
• 1:00:44
  Speaker: Right, right.
• 1:00:45
  Speaker: And it's always kind of hard if
• 1:00:46
  Speaker: you go to an event and you don't
• 1:00:48
  Speaker: sell fifty books, you sell a
• 1:00:50
  Speaker: few.
• 1:00:51
  Speaker: Um, it could still have been a
• 1:00:53
  Speaker: really great experience, like to
• 1:00:55
  Speaker: go and maybe connecting with
• 1:00:57
  Speaker: people you hadn't seen in a
• 1:00:58
  Speaker: while.
• 1:00:58
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 1:00:58
  Speaker: Talking to people about the book, right?
• 1:01:00
  Speaker: Making a connection where
• 1:01:02
  Speaker: there's maybe another event that
• 1:01:03
  Speaker: pops up.
• 1:01:04
  Speaker: So it's so hard sometimes to
• 1:01:06
  Speaker: decide, uh, what you're going to
• 1:01:09
  Speaker: do and what the payoff is going
• 1:01:11
  Speaker: to be.
• 1:01:11
  Speaker: But I think for that first initial push, I say just be open
• 1:01:15
  Speaker: to say yes, almost anything.
• 1:01:17
  Speaker: Yeah, I think you're right.
• 1:01:19
  Speaker: I think that's good advice.
• 1:01:20
  Speaker: And it's also I mean, this was
• 1:01:23
  Speaker: true actually though with
• 1:01:24
  Speaker: wedding clients, I used to I
• 1:01:26
  Speaker: said yes to everyone when we
• 1:01:27
  Speaker: were doing wedding flowers in
• 1:01:28
  Speaker: the beginning.
• 1:01:29
  Speaker: And then, you know, some things go wrong.
• 1:01:31
  Speaker: And so you, you begin to understand, oh, I'm going to
• 1:01:36
  Speaker: work well with this person.
• 1:01:37
  Speaker: So if, if you, if it's a shop
• 1:01:39
  Speaker: that you love, it's going to go
• 1:01:41
  Speaker: well, because you'll just be
• 1:01:42
  Speaker: happy to spend the evening in
• 1:01:43
  Speaker: that shop.
• 1:01:43
  Speaker: That's right.
• 1:01:44
  Speaker: Right.
• 1:01:45
  Speaker: But you're right.
• 1:01:45
  Speaker: There could be some random thing that you think is sort of, well,
• 1:01:49
  Speaker: this won't be anything when in fact, you meet someone who's a
• 1:01:52
  Speaker: terrific connection for them.
• 1:01:53
  Speaker: Right, right.
• 1:01:54
  Speaker: One hundred percent.
• 1:01:55
  Speaker: And so someone that comes and
• 1:01:57
  Speaker: buys, you know, more than one
• 1:01:58
  Speaker: copy or they become a repeat
• 1:02:00
  Speaker: customer and they've returned to
• 1:02:01
  Speaker: your website, you just never
• 1:02:02
  Speaker: really know the, the effect of,
• 1:02:04
  Speaker: all right.
• 1:02:05
  Speaker: Or they, they buy a book and they cook out of it and they
• 1:02:07
  Speaker: post pictures of it.
• 1:02:09
  Speaker: And that spreads.
• 1:02:10
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 1:02:11
  Speaker: So talk to people in my audience now about the experience of
• 1:02:15
  Speaker: having this whole experience that you've had in a book and
• 1:02:23
  Speaker: what that's like for you and what the sure.
• 1:02:27
  Speaker: The journey there to get there, but what it's like now to have
• 1:02:30
  Speaker: this all together, right?
• 1:02:32
  Speaker: I mean, it's so.
• 1:02:36
  Speaker: Meaningful for me to have the object of the book because it
• 1:02:40
  Speaker: gives me back a piece of the place that meant so much to me.
• 1:02:44
  Speaker: So on a selfish level, there's that.
• 1:02:48
  Speaker: The experience of doing the book, uh, it put me back in
• 1:02:52
  Speaker: touch with a lot of my employees that I loved.
• 1:02:55
  Speaker: So I reconnected.
• 1:02:56
  Speaker: I had I didn't anticipate that, but I reconnected with the
• 1:03:00
  Speaker: community that I loved.
• 1:03:01
  Speaker: And it, you know, it was sort of lonely after you close your
• 1:03:04
  Speaker: restaurant doors and go home.
• 1:03:06
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 1:03:06
  Speaker: So that was wonderful to be in
• 1:03:09
  Speaker: sort of community with those
• 1:03:11
  Speaker: guys again.
• 1:03:13
  Speaker: It there's a part of me that says, oh, I, I don't know what
• 1:03:16
  Speaker: the next book is, but I want to do another book.
• 1:03:18
  Speaker: Like I'm really, it was a nice
• 1:03:22
  Speaker: mix of experiences because
• 1:03:23
  Speaker: writing is a somewhat solitary
• 1:03:25
  Speaker: experience, but I. That came
• 1:03:28
  Speaker: fairly easily.
• 1:03:29
  Speaker: I just made a schedule, you
• 1:03:30
  Speaker: know, every week I have to do
• 1:03:33
  Speaker: two essays or whatever, and you
• 1:03:35
  Speaker: just sort of march through the
• 1:03:36
  Speaker: schedule and, and then I, there
• 1:03:38
  Speaker: was that.
• 1:03:39
  Speaker: And then there's the communication with the Marquand
• 1:03:41
  Speaker: books and all the writers.
• 1:03:43
  Speaker: And that felt good.
• 1:03:45
  Speaker: And I, yeah, it's a, it's a great journey.
• 1:03:47
  Speaker: I mean, I'm sure, you know,
• 1:03:48
  Speaker: people liken it to like giving
• 1:03:51
  Speaker: birth or something, but it's,
• 1:03:52
  Speaker: um, there's the process, which
• 1:03:54
  Speaker: is rewarding and frustrating and
• 1:03:56
  Speaker: expensive if you're
• 1:03:57
  Speaker: self-publishing, but then you
• 1:03:59
  Speaker: have this amazing thing on the
• 1:04:00
  Speaker: other side.
• 1:04:02
  Speaker: If you were able to participate
• 1:04:03
  Speaker: in the decisions about what it
• 1:04:05
  Speaker: became.
• 1:04:06
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 1:04:06
  Speaker: So and it's a new life in a way, for London plane.
• 1:04:09
  Speaker: Yes, yes.
• 1:04:10
  Speaker: And some someone was just saying to me, what are you doing next?
• 1:04:12
  Speaker: And, you know, I've been making a lot of art and painting and I
• 1:04:16
  Speaker: have the farm and ceramics.
• 1:04:18
  Speaker: But someone said, well, there's some kind of stream that's going
• 1:04:22
  Speaker: to flow out of this.
• 1:04:23
  Speaker: You just don't know exactly what that stream is.
• 1:04:26
  Speaker: And I think that's right.
• 1:04:27
  Speaker: It's just, um, there's some amount of you can just do one
• 1:04:31
  Speaker: thing at a time, but it, you know, so the book, as it
• 1:04:35
  Speaker: unfolded, the process of making it, things revealed themselves
• 1:04:38
  Speaker: to me in the way that that happens in life.
• 1:04:42
  Speaker: Right, right.
• 1:04:43
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 1:04:43
  Speaker: That's right.
• 1:04:44
  Speaker: So, um, you love this book.
• 1:04:49
  Speaker: I know you've talked about cookbooks and your chefs, but
• 1:04:54
  Speaker: what about a cookbook in your life that you have used, um,
• 1:04:59
  Speaker: outside of the restaurant just for day to day or home cooking?
• 1:05:03
  Speaker: Um, any books stand out in your mind as one of your favorites?
• 1:05:08
  Speaker: Yeah, I would say one of my
• 1:05:09
  Speaker: favorites is Ruth Reichl's My
• 1:05:12
  Speaker: Kitchen Year.
• 1:05:14
  Speaker: And it I must confess that my husband is the primary chef in
• 1:05:20
  Speaker: my house, mostly because he's always more interested.
• 1:05:23
  Speaker: He's hungry.
• 1:05:24
  Speaker: He's like, what are we having?
• 1:05:25
  Speaker: It takes me a minute to get my head, oh, what are we going to
• 1:05:28
  Speaker: have for dinner?
• 1:05:28
  Speaker: So. Um, but I love this book of Ruth's because again, it is I
• 1:05:35
  Speaker: didn't put this together in my head, but it's it is also
• 1:05:38
  Speaker: organized around the seasons.
• 1:05:40
  Speaker: And she wrote it after she lost her job at gourmet.
• 1:05:45
  Speaker: And, uh, that was somewhat unexpected.
• 1:05:48
  Speaker: And then suddenly she moves out to the country with her husband
• 1:05:51
  Speaker: and she spends the year cooking.
• 1:05:52
  Speaker: So it is a story over the course
• 1:05:55
  Speaker: of the year that's grounded in
• 1:05:57
  Speaker: recipes, but also very much in
• 1:05:59
  Speaker: the landscape.
• 1:05:59
  Speaker: I mean, this must have been more
• 1:06:00
  Speaker: in my head than I thought, you
• 1:06:02
  Speaker: know, because she's talking
• 1:06:03
  Speaker: about the trees out the kitchen
• 1:06:06
  Speaker: window or the snow or the
• 1:06:08
  Speaker: rainstorm.
• 1:06:09
  Speaker: So there's a real mood in the
• 1:06:11
  Speaker: book that's connected to the
• 1:06:13
  Speaker: recipes.
• 1:06:13
  Speaker: And then the recipes are very straightforward.
• 1:06:16
  Speaker: So that works for me.
• 1:06:18
  Speaker: Um, so like there's a really
• 1:06:19
  Speaker: good corn muffin, you know,
• 1:06:21
  Speaker: there's a really good peach
• 1:06:23
  Speaker: cobbler.
• 1:06:24
  Speaker: Um, a, you know, I don't need twelve Bolognese recipes.
• 1:06:28
  Speaker: I just need one good one.
• 1:06:30
  Speaker: And I really trust her.
• 1:06:32
  Speaker: So yeah, you know, it's amazing when that, that magazine
• 1:06:36
  Speaker: shuttered in two thousand and nine, it was really at the very
• 1:06:40
  Speaker: beginning of like social media.
• 1:06:43
  Speaker: You're right.
• 1:06:44
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 1:06:44
  Speaker: And I was shocked.
• 1:06:46
  Speaker: I mean, and I'm sure Ruth was shocked.
• 1:06:50
  Speaker: And everybody that even home cooks that read that magazine
• 1:06:54
  Speaker: just like devastated.
• 1:06:56
  Speaker: And it's interesting to me that through okay, so the two
• 1:07:00
  Speaker: thousand and nine now we're in twenty twenty six, right?
• 1:07:03
  Speaker: I have to wonder if it wouldn't have survived, but I guess it
• 1:07:08
  Speaker: was a business decision.
• 1:07:09
  Speaker: Bon appetit.
• 1:07:11
  Speaker: Right.
• 1:07:11
  Speaker: Is going food and wine still is going.
• 1:07:14
  Speaker: Uh, I get some other Epicurean magazines.
• 1:07:18
  Speaker: Mhm.
• 1:07:18
  Speaker: I live in the South southern living.
• 1:07:20
  Speaker: Still going, um, Midwest living, still going.
• 1:07:23
  Speaker: I think it's fascinating that gourmet was the one that went.
• 1:07:28
  Speaker: It is interesting.
• 1:07:29
  Speaker: It's it was it was more the long form food magazine to write like
• 1:07:34
  Speaker: severe or something.
• 1:07:35
  Speaker: Yes.
• 1:07:35
  Speaker: Yes.
• 1:07:36
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 1:07:36
  Speaker: Severe stopped.
• 1:07:38
  Speaker: And then it's it's made a resurgence.
• 1:07:39
  Speaker: But yeah it's interesting.
• 1:07:41
  Speaker: I was shocked about that magazine.
• 1:07:44
  Speaker: Well, when you read the
• 1:07:45
  Speaker: cookbook, which you've probably,
• 1:07:46
  Speaker: you know, I mean, I think she
• 1:07:48
  Speaker: was stunned.
• 1:07:49
  Speaker: Yes.
• 1:07:50
  Speaker: You know, it just was.
• 1:07:51
  Speaker: I think she thought it was going
• 1:07:52
  Speaker: to be a little more gradual,
• 1:07:53
  Speaker: like.
• 1:07:53
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 1:07:54
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 1:07:54
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 1:07:55
  Speaker: But it's um and it's interesting
• 1:07:58
  Speaker: because the book, it has no
• 1:08:00
  Speaker: photographs.
• 1:08:01
  Speaker: It has some photographs.
• 1:08:02
  Speaker: I guess it does have photographs, but I think of it
• 1:08:04
  Speaker: as not having photographs.
• 1:08:05
  Speaker: It does, but it feels um, but it
• 1:08:08
  Speaker: probably when you think about
• 1:08:10
  Speaker: the type of book that it is, the
• 1:08:11
  Speaker: photographs aren't the story,
• 1:08:12
  Speaker: right?
• 1:08:13
  Speaker: No. They're smaller.
• 1:08:14
  Speaker: They don't take up a full page.
• 1:08:15
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 1:08:15
  Speaker: I mean, I think yeah.
• 1:08:16
  Speaker: Whereas in yours, the photo, the photographs because it's a place
• 1:08:19
  Speaker: and we got flowers, right?
• 1:08:21
  Speaker: It's it's huge part of the whole thing.
• 1:08:23
  Speaker: Right?
• 1:08:24
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 1:08:24
  Speaker: But I also think mine is more,
• 1:08:26
  Speaker: um, reflects what's happened in
• 1:08:28
  Speaker: cookbooks since Ruth's book was
• 1:08:30
  Speaker: published.
• 1:08:30
  Speaker: Right.
• 1:08:31
  Speaker: So many more cookbooks are very there's so much food styling
• 1:08:35
  Speaker: going on in them.
• 1:08:36
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 1:08:36
  Speaker: Right.
• 1:08:36
  Speaker: It's interesting.
• 1:08:37
  Speaker: Um, it's kind of a little bit of a, some books, uh, more
• 1:08:41
  Speaker: combination, like the illustration you have in the
• 1:08:43
  Speaker: back of your book.
• 1:08:44
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 1:08:45
  Speaker: Um, I just talked to, uh, not
• 1:08:47
  Speaker: too long ago, a, a son and
• 1:08:50
  Speaker: mother who wrote an Indian
• 1:08:52
  Speaker: cookbook.
• 1:08:52
  Speaker: And it's a combination of illustrations and photos and
• 1:08:57
  Speaker: both of their voices.
• 1:08:58
  Speaker: And they also used a hybrid publisher to publish their book
• 1:09:02
  Speaker: because she's a cooking school teacher in her home in Kansas.
• 1:09:06
  Speaker: But it was a combination of illustration and photography and
• 1:09:11
  Speaker: yeah, so and I think there's more of the illustration.
• 1:09:14
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 1:09:14
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 1:09:14
  Speaker: And I actually, you, you may or may not have noticed, but the
• 1:09:17
  Speaker: start of every chapter has an illustration that is done by.
• 1:09:22
  Speaker: She was one of the first people I hired.
• 1:09:23
  Speaker: She was an artist and did all
• 1:09:24
  Speaker: the illustrations for my first
• 1:09:27
  Speaker: website.
• 1:09:28
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 1:09:28
  Speaker: So there's a pretty.
• 1:09:30
  Speaker: Yeah, they're very pretty.
• 1:09:32
  Speaker: Um, but yeah, I do think there's
• 1:09:33
  Speaker: a trend back to that to mint and
• 1:09:36
  Speaker: may.
• 1:09:37
  Speaker: Yeah, I think that's mint.
• 1:09:39
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 1:09:39
  Speaker: That's mint.
• 1:09:39
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 1:09:40
  Speaker: From Kentucky.
• 1:09:41
  Speaker: You know we're coming up on the Kentucky Derby.
• 1:09:43
  Speaker: Mint juleps are like the big thing.
• 1:09:44
  Speaker: So we know all I mean and especially mint if you don't
• 1:09:49
  Speaker: contain it it's just like nuts.
• 1:09:51
  Speaker: Yeah I know yeah.
• 1:09:53
  Speaker: It's one of those things people
• 1:09:54
  Speaker: are like, oh, you have mint in
• 1:09:55
  Speaker: your backyard.
• 1:09:55
  Speaker: Get rid of it.
• 1:09:56
  Speaker: Right.
• 1:09:57
  Speaker: Well, one of the one of my.
• 1:10:00
  Speaker: You can contain it.
• 1:10:01
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 1:10:02
  Speaker: My first one of my first customers before I had any shops
• 1:10:04
  Speaker: was a woman who made a really delicious ice cream.
• 1:10:08
  Speaker: And she would buy all my mint
• 1:10:10
  Speaker: for her mint chocolate chip ice
• 1:10:12
  Speaker: cream.
• 1:10:13
  Speaker: Wow.
• 1:10:14
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 1:10:14
  Speaker: So good.
• 1:10:15
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 1:10:16
  Speaker: So tasty.
• 1:10:17
  Speaker: Well, I'm sure everyone that's
• 1:10:18
  Speaker: listening would love to hear how
• 1:10:21
  Speaker: they can connect with you
• 1:10:23
  Speaker: online.
• 1:10:24
  Speaker: Yes, absolutely.
• 1:10:25
  Speaker: Well, if you're interested in buying the book, um, it's the
• 1:10:29
  Speaker: London plane book dot com.
• 1:10:32
  Speaker: You can contact me by email
• 1:10:34
  Speaker: through the website there as
• 1:10:36
  Speaker: well.
• 1:10:36
  Speaker: And then the Instagram is London plane Seattle and plane is p l a
• 1:10:44
  Speaker: n e not as in airplane.
• 1:10:47
  Speaker: And um, yeah, those are the best ways to connect.
• 1:10:50
  Speaker: We're also in book larder is an incredible kitchen.
• 1:10:54
  Speaker: Um. Cookbook store in Seattle.
• 1:10:56
  Speaker: They ship all over the world.
• 1:10:58
  Speaker: They carry the book.
• 1:10:59
  Speaker: So does an independent bookstore here called Third Place Books.
• 1:11:03
  Speaker: I'm not on Amazon.
• 1:11:05
  Speaker: There have been a couple fake copies of the book on Amazon.
• 1:11:09
  Speaker: Like literally with my title, um, a different cover.
• 1:11:14
  Speaker: Snippets of my content being sold for twenty dollars.
• 1:11:18
  Speaker: Oh my God.
• 1:11:19
  Speaker: So, um, don't go there to buy it because you won't find it.
• 1:11:22
  Speaker: But it makes me, I don't, I don't like hearing that.
• 1:11:26
  Speaker: Yes.
• 1:11:26
  Speaker: I guess it's, I didn't realize
• 1:11:28
  Speaker: it, but it's a very, uh,
• 1:11:29
  Speaker: pervasive thing.
• 1:11:32
  Speaker: And, and you there's a mechanism
• 1:11:34
  Speaker: for report, but like I tried to
• 1:11:36
  Speaker: write a review and it you can't
• 1:11:39
  Speaker: write a review if you bought the
• 1:11:40
  Speaker: book.
• 1:11:41
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 1:11:41
  Speaker: But so then you report it through copyright infringement,
• 1:11:44
  Speaker: blah, blah, blah.
• 1:11:45
  Speaker: But the people who are doing this and AI is hugely powering
• 1:11:49
  Speaker: this, I guess.
• 1:11:49
  Speaker: So there's so many more of these fake books on Amazon now.
• 1:11:53
  Speaker: um, they're very clever in
• 1:11:56
  Speaker: getting around the copyright
• 1:11:57
  Speaker: stuff.
• 1:11:57
  Speaker: So it's not, it's not as simple as me saying, hey, they stole my
• 1:12:01
  Speaker: name and content.
• 1:12:04
  Speaker: Take it down.
• 1:12:05
  Speaker: It doesn't always come down.
• 1:12:06
  Speaker: That's too bad.
• 1:12:07
  Speaker: Too bad.
• 1:12:08
  Speaker: I hate to hear that.
• 1:12:09
  Speaker: Yeah, well, I wish you nothing but, um, more joy with your
• 1:12:14
  Speaker: book, The London Plain Flour and Cookbook Stories and Recipes by
• 1:12:18
  Speaker: Catherine Anderson and friends.
• 1:12:21
  Speaker: Well, Maggie, thank you so, so much for having me.
• 1:12:24
  Speaker: I'm really.
• 1:12:25
  Speaker: And I'm really glad you were able to come on the show and
• 1:12:28
  Speaker: tell us all about your book and your publishing journey.
• 1:12:30
  Speaker: And, um, have a great spring and summer.
• 1:12:34
  Speaker: Lots of flowers, I hope in your future.
• 1:12:35
  Speaker: And, uh, who knows you too.
• 1:12:37
  Speaker: If any book ever emerges again, please get in touch.
• 1:12:41
  Speaker: I'll let you know I will.
• 1:12:42
  Speaker: Okay.
• 1:12:43
  Speaker: Thank you so much.
• 1:12:43
  Speaker: Okay.
• 1:12:44
  Speaker: Thank you.
• 1:12:44
  Speaker: Okay.
• 1:12:45
  Speaker: Bye.
• 1:12:45
  Speaker: Bye bye.
• 1:12:46
  Speaker: Thank you so much for joining us today for this episode of the
• 1:12:49
  Speaker: Cookbook Love Podcast.
• 1:12:51
  Speaker: again.
• 1:12:51
  Speaker: All the links can be found in
• 1:12:53
  Speaker: the show notes at w w w dot gov
• 1:12:55
  Speaker: dot co.
• 1:12:56
  Speaker: And if you are interested in
• 1:12:58
  Speaker: writing a cookbook of your own,
• 1:13:00
  Speaker: please check out the free
• 1:13:02
  Speaker: Cookbook Writing Masterclass
• 1:13:04
  Speaker: called How to Get Paid to Write
• 1:13:05
  Speaker: a Cookbook.
• 1:13:06
  Speaker: It is designed specifically for
• 1:13:08
  Speaker: food or nutrition experts, and
• 1:13:11
  Speaker: you can check that out at w w w
• 1:13:13
  Speaker: dot cookbook writers academy dot
• 1:13:15
  Speaker: com.
• 1:13:18
  Speaker: So that's it for today's episode of the Cookbook Love Podcast.
• 1:13:21
  Speaker: This is your host, Maggie Green.
• 1:13:23
  Speaker: And until next time, have a
• 1:13:24
  Speaker: great day and keep loving your
• 1:13:27
  Speaker: cookbooks.
• 1:13:32
  Speaker: Thanks for listening to the Cookbook Love podcast.
• 1:13:34
  Speaker: You can find out more information at w w w dot
• 1:13:37
  Speaker: cookbook dot co.