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How a Cozy Becomes a Culinary Mystery—Research, Recipes & Baking Fails · Reality Writes

• 0:05
  SPEAKER_03: Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to another episode of Reality Rights.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_03: I am author Ellie Alexander.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_03: This is the podcast where we take you behind the scenes of all things reader-ish, writer-ish, and bookish.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_03: And I am here with the tech guy.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_03: Hey, tech guy.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_01: Hello.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_03: What's up?
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I'm actually hungry today.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_01: I haven't had lunch yet.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_01: Which I think might be because of the topic.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_01: Uh what are we cooking up today?
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_03: What are we cooking up today?
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_01: See what I did there?
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_03: I love what you did there.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_03: A reader asked how I come up with uh themes in my books, and I thought this would be a great opportunity to share the recipe behind the story.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, two puns in the first minute.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_01: That is now you know you're on reality rights.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_03: We are coming in hot this week.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_01: That's right, that's right.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_01: That's right.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_01: So coming up with the food themes.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, well, you do uh you do include food in in a lot of your books.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_03: Food tends to play a major role in my books, I will say that for sure.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_03: And um I would I would like to start with this one in terms of the inspiration for the food, because I think that's central to telling the story, quite honestly.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_03: So the next bake shop mystery, which is gonna be book 21, Jules and the crew were finally legal.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_03: They're gonna have a silver core glass of champagne after all these years.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_02: Nice.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_03: Uh uh.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_03: The next book, Laying Down the Latte, comes out at the end of this month.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_03: And um, I would say we went big for the food research for this one.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, that's uh biggest yet.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_03: The biggest yet.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_01: The biggest yet, the farthest yet, the most expensive yet.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_03: All of memes, all of the series, obviously the inspiration for food was that food was such a love language for me growing up.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_03: Both of my parents spent so much time in the kitchen.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and then as the series has continued to grow, that has grown, I had the immense pleasure of getting to spend so much time with real pastry chefs and in commercial kitchens and with real bakers and chefs and um coffee roasters and baristas.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, it's amazing if I start to like step back a little bit to think how many hours I have spent on the research.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_03: And I don't know, maybe 10 or 15% of that actually ends up in the final book.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_01: Right, totally.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_01: But doing the research is it's hard work, but somebody's gotta do it.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so uh it's also the reason that I have to hit the gym and run a lot of miles every month uh just to uh maintain uh I know.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_01: But no, but for this one, you're right.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_01: We did like so normally your research involves seeing like the like where stuff is happening and everything, but this one we went even farther back in the process and we went right to the source.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_03: We went straight to the source.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_03: We went to Costa Rica.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_03: Um, I've been writing about Andy as a character since book one, um, which is amazing because as the series has grown, the entire cast has grown.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_03: And I would say, like six or seven books ago, I just happened to put in that one day he wished that he could go to Costa Rica, to the source, to the coffee farms, and have a full coffee immersive experience.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_03: And this is how it happens sometimes.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_03: It's like I write it into existence.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_03: Fast forward, I don't know, three or four years later, I'd have to find this specific reference, which I sure at some point in time, but I think it was in like mocha she wrote maybe.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_03: So quite a few books ago.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_03: You come home from work one day and you're like, so I have to go to Costa Rica.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_01: Right, right.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_01: And we were like, okay, well, you were like, what?
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_01: No way.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_01: And you then told me about this, and I was like, Oh, that's perfect.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_01: So I had to be there for a week for work, and you came with me and like started doing a bunch of research yourself, and then we stayed for almost another week after that, too, so that you and I could just uh do some, you know, fun stuff and and even more research.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_01: And I don't think I've had yeah, I was just gonna say, I don't think I've had that much coffee in my life before going there.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_01: Um I I was up all day every day.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_03: It was fun amazing.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_03: We drink a lot, like we we are coffee people, right?
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_03: We have a morning coffee routine, um, and then we usually both do like a half decaf or a decaf.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and I was slightly worried about my caffeine consumption, and there was something different about it, like it didn't affect me in the same way that I feel like it does here.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_03: So I don't know what that is, or if it's just it's the lifestyle.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean, it's the lifestyle there.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_01: It's it was just like chill, chill, totally chill, puda vita, right?
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_01: Like it just like just good life.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so I think you know caffeine just affects you differently.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_01: If you're a bundle of stress and like always worked up and everything, and you're like loading, you know, power loading on caffeine, you're gonna feel it.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_01: But if you're just like chilling out in like one of the most beautiful places I've ever seen, um with the friendliest people I've met in a long time, like uh you're you're not gonna feel it as much, I don't think.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_03: No, so for this particular experience, and this parallels what I've done for most of the bake shop in particular, because it is set in a family artisan bake shop.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_03: And so I always want to make sure that I get that part really right.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_03: Like readers will, I've said this before, I know, darling, so forgive me, but it's true because readers will never have an issue with the fact that there have been 20 plus murders and tiny ashes.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_03: If I get something wrong about the baking or the process of how a real kitchen is run, I hear about that.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_03: So it from the get-go, my goal has been to make you feel like you are actually getting a behind-the-scenes look at how a small family business is run.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_03: And I think knock on wood, like I'm pretty close.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_03: I always love it when I hear from real pastry chefs.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_03: And this is such a gift and a delight, especially to track back to last week's episode when I was talking about readers behaving badly.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_03: 95% of the emails that I get from readers are so lovely.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_03: And one particular email that always makes me literally I'm dancing here, darlings.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_03: If you're just listening, makes me do a happy dance around my office, is I will hear from pastry chefs who will be like, where did you go to culinary school?
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_03: Like, tell me about your pastry background, and I'll be like, I didn't.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_01: No, your your real life um, your real life experiences have definitely shaped like the food in your books and everything.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, it's important for people to know.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_01: Like you're you're you are an amazing cook and an amazing baker, but you have your fails.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, I have so many fails.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_03: And I am not a pastry chef.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_03: I did not go to culinary school.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_03: Um, but what I'm really good at um is paying attention, taking copious notes.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_03: So, like when we were in Costa Rica, when you were off doing your day job, I would spend the entire day taking videos, talking to people, watching, taking pictures, notes.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_03: Um, one of the greatest experiences was getting to be like basically a barista uh for the day at the hotel we were staying at because they did a whole coffee culture class.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and it ended up just being me as a private tour, which was not, I mean, it was open to anyone who was staying at the hotel.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_03: So I signed up the first day that we got there, and it was just me.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and so I spent like six hours with the team.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and they walked me through everything.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_03: We made the coffee, they showed me the beans, they showed me the process, the wholesale.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_03: Um, so I just have probably a thousand photos and videos from that.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_03: Um, that then when I was writing, I was able to go back to that.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_03: And then we took tours and hiked through the coffee farms with how the beans every step of the process.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and so all of that is embedded in the book.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_03: And I I love that myself as a reader.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_03: If I am just fully immersed into a world and I feel like, oh, I could be on a coffee farm right now.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_03: Um, so I take maybe too much delight in that part of the food writing.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_01: Well, but that like that particular experience, and we we have to get back there.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_01: So I want Andy to have to go back to a coffee farm again because that that was incredible, or maybe Brazil.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_01: Brazil's also a big coffee uh, but but like one of the things that was just amazing about that experience was you know, as we're touring the coffee farm, they'd be like, Here, try this coffee, and you'd be like, Oh, that's so good, that's so good.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_01: And then you'd go on 10 minutes later, they'd be like, Now here, try this one, and you'd be like, What?
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_01: How is this better than that one?
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_01: And that just kept happening and happening and happening, and it was just like, oh, it uh I mean, you haven't had coffee until you had it at the source, like you just haven't.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_01: You just haven't.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_01: There's no way that you can transport coffee, whether it's freeze, freezing it, dry, you know, vacuum sealing it, whatever, it is not the same.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_01: And and a large part of that, I think, is just the experience because sitting under a covered veranda, like with the the tropical birds flitting about and butterflies and everything, and like a there was a waterfall at that one.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_01: We're just sitting there like sipping coffee, and I'm like, do we have to go back?
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_01: It's just like, can't you just write from Costa Rica?
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_03: It's like peak taike.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_03: And then the same is true for all of the food.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_03: So, like for this particular book, all of the recipes were really inspired by that trip.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_03: Um, a number of recipes were actual recipes that we got from the coffee farms that then I took and and made my own here.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_03: But um, throughout any of my food writing, I try to make the food a character.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_03: So I definitely want you to read this book feeling hungry, like desperate to go find something in your fridge or your cupboard that would parallel something that Jules and the team are making it toward.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_03: And I also want it to um align with whatever the story that's being told is.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_03: So that means like seasonal food.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_03: You know, if I'm writing something in the fall, the recipes are going to be very different than something that's set in the dead of summer.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and so making sure that that all aligns, I think is important.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_03: I know that the culinary cozy is its own beast in terms of a subgenre.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_03: And there are varying levels in terms of how much food is included.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_03: And for me, food is really central.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and I try to always tether it to the mystery too.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_03: And then there are definitely culinary cozyes where you might just get like a little bite, a little taste, um, and then you're back um to the plot.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_03: So it it's really subjective in terms of of readers and you darlings, in terms of how much food you want with your mystery.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_01: Well, and so sometimes food is like the central, so it's central to the plot, right?
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_01: And other times it's it plays more of a background character.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_01: How do you decide that?
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_01: Is it just is it the overall plot that determines that or does it change along the way?
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I think it definitely changes book to book because sometimes there will be a specific food item that sparks a story.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_03: And so, you know, the food is the inspiration for the plot, and then sometimes it's the other way around.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_03: Um, but even like going back to Meet Your Baker, the very first book in this series um is inspired by this Raspberry Danish that my mom made growing up all the time.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_03: And so when I started thinking about jewels and where the first book was gonna go, I immediately had this idea of well, I want her to start in the kitchen having just made homemade raspberry jam, which was something I did every summer growing up with my mom.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_03: And I want her to assume that the victim that is lying on the floor is covered in blood or is covered in raspberry jam, when in reality it's gonna be blood.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and that was the impetus for the whole story.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_03: And so, bam, I was off to the races for that.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_03: And then maybe with another book, it's like, oh no, I have an idea for how the murder is gonna happen or what's happening happening in subplots, and then I'm gonna work the food in based on the time of year and what I'm cooking.
• 13:17
  unknown: Yeah.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_01: So um what like how yeah, and you've talked about this before, but I'm sure there are a lot of people out there that don't know this.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_01: But how do you come up with the recipes?
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_02: How do I come up with a recipe that uh wouldn't we all let to know?
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_01: Two two-part question because uh the one the other thing that I want you to talk about, because I know the answer to this, but I well, I know the answers to all this stuff, but I I like I still like to hear it because this one is really this this is really interesting, and I always find it uh funny because um because we eat a lot of this stuff that that you're that you're testing.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_01: But so how do you come up with the recipes?
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_01: And then uh I'll just ask the question now, you can transition into that one.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_01: But how do you deal with um cooking recipes out of season because you're constantly writing books out of season?
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_01: Because if you have a book that's releasing in the winter, you have to be writing it, you know, well before that.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, it's true.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_03: That's so true.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_03: Um, you know, as far as recipes go, it is usually I'm in the story.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_03: Um, I'm I'm just like whatever is coming to my mind as Jules is baking, I have that as a placeholder.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_03: And so it's not until maybe a second, third, sometimes even fourth pass at the book that I'm actually deciding, like, okay, she references a Boston cream pie, let's say.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and this will loop back, and the tech guy's laughing.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_03: This was a recent baking fail, as in last night.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_01: Amazing.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_01: It was amazing.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_03: She's making a Boston cream pie.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_03: And um I'm like, okay, I can bake that, but I need to practice.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_03: I need to make sure, like sometimes I'll have a recipe from it.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_03: I have lots of family recipes, so that's often a starting point.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_03: But usually it's flagging things that feel like, okay, not only is that something that I can do and I can test a couple times, but I also try to make most of the recipes pretty accessible, accessible, not accessible, yeah.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_03: Well, to you, darlings.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_03: Um, because early on in writing this series, um, especially because it is so baking heavy, I quickly realized that there's there's a big range in terms of darlings um understanding of baking, comfort.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_03: Um, so I try to have recipes that anyone at any level can bake.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_03: And then sometimes I have more involved recipes that might be, you know, a little you need you need some baseline baking or cooking experience for.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_01: I hadn't even thought about that.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_01: That like not only that, but like number of ingredients and just cost, right?
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_01: Because like a recipe that has 20 ingredients in it, that's gonna be a pretty expensive thing to make.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_01: And and sure, if you want to splurge and do it, great, but um, but that doesn't make it super accessible.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_03: No, exactly.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, and I I remember early on getting um an email from a reader because I had done a video about um cake mix hacks, how you can take cake mix, which I think is still like one of the most popular videos we've ever done on YouTube.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's got like 200,000 views on YouTube, so yeah, it's like just okay.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_03: But um, this reader was like, hey, I live in a tiny apartment.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_03: I'm not a baker.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_03: Thank you so much for this.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_03: Because the the video is about like how you can take a basic cake mix and make it taste like homemade.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_03: Some some pretty simple hacks that you can do.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_03: And they were like, this is so great for me because I don't have flour and sugar and baking soda and like all the ingredients that somebody who is a home baker might have on hand.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_03: And I'm not ever gonna buy those, but I can buy a cake mix and then you know, make it my own kind of a thing.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_00: Right, right.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_03: Um, as far as writing off season, I've just I've I've had to learn how to embrace it.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_03: I think it's easier if I'm writing a book about summer in the winter.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_03: It's harder if it's I'm writing a winter book in the summer because nobody wants like you know, a heavy stew or hot stew when it's 80 degrees, 90 degrees out.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_02: But totally, yeah.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes we're roasting in the house, and it's like, oh, here's the beef stew for tonight.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_01: You know, and it's like, oh great, with a side of broiled potatoes, and you're just like uh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_01: That's great.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_01: Well, and oh, did you have more on that?
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_03: No, I was just gonna loop back to our baking fail, my baking fail.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_01: Well, yeah, let's talk about that because then I want to talk about Tor Test Kitchen.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, because baking fails are part of the process, um, especially because I, again, am the kind of writer that I test every single recipe.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_03: So each book in the series multiple times.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, multiple times.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_03: Usually well, sometimes I get it right on the first try.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_03: That's always like, whoo, knocked it out of the park there.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_03: But most of the time I'm testing at least a couple times.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_03: Um, each book in the series has a minimum of six or seven recipes in the back, and I have personally made all of those over the years.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_03: So it's been a lot of recipes, and um, with that comes baking fails, which I have learned to embrace.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_03: But uh I was testing a Boston cream pie because Jules happened to mention in the next book that's coming out, uh, that is not named yet.
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_03: Uh not even coming out, that I'm working on, I should say.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_03: She happens to mention that she's baking a Boston cream pie.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_03: I'm like, oh, I haven't done that forever.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_03: My mom used to bake Boston cream pies in the summer.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_03: I'm like, oh, this is perfect.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_03: It's on season.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_03: Like, I'll try it.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_03: But I thought I'm gonna make the pudding, the filling in the middle, with soy milk because I'm a soy milk drinker these days.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_03: And um darlings, if you're wondering, it doesn't hold up to Sam Lai real milk does.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_01: It tastes, it tastes great.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_01: It tastes great.
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_03: Um it did not put it great.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_01: I think it tasted the top layer kind of slid off the the bottom layer.
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_01: Uh the the custard really they it acted more as a like a lubricant than uh than than a pudding, you know.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it was a total fail.
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_01: Um it was a it was a bowl cake, it was a spoon and bowl cake, yeah.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_03: That's right.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_03: Um, so it's gonna be back to the drawing board in a week or so.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_03: I'll make another.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_03: Uh we'll try it again.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_03: Um but it is interesting because darlings will email me and say, or you know, if I share a recipe I'll hug, yeah, I'll get a lot of comments of like, hey, can I try it with this?
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_03: Can I do this?
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_03: Can I substitute?
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_03: I don't know.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_03: Because it matters, especially with baking.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_00: It really does.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_00: It does.
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_00: But that's true.
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_00: That's gonna be true of any, even a professional chef, though.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_01: There's no way that like any, and now I'm blanking on any professional chef's names, but there's no way that anybody could can like when they they're coming up with these recipes, just because they came up with the recipe doesn't mean that they tried it with all 17 varieties of alternative milks, right?
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_01: There's just no way.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_01: So I guess that's a good message, right?
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_01: Is just try it.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_01: Just like, you know, try it.
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, again, going back to that whole like if it's a recipe that's got 18 to 20 ingredients, like maybe experimenting could be a an expensive and time-consuming right thing, but it would be for you too, is my point, right?
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_01: So you're writing full time, you don't have time to test every variation of every recipe because you mentioned something about the number of recipes, but the one thing that you forgot, uh, well, not one thing is actually multiple things, but is tortest kitchen and the all the holiday stuff that we've done in the past, like 30 days of cookies, 30 days of pie.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_01: Oh my god, that was so much pie.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_01: Um uh yeah, so yeah.
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_01: Oh yeah, but yeah, but you made all of those.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_01: I did like you made all of them, and some of them more than once, because there were a few Boston cream pie mishaps along the way.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_01: So um, yeah, that that so it's at this point, you've probably put out hundreds of recipes.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_00: I mean I know, yeah.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_01: Which is I'm gonna I'm gonna take a little of the side here.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, a real quick aside, a little tech eye mid mid episode rant.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_01: Um for the darlings.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: Out there, listen, I know you want a cookbook.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_01: I know it.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_01: I think you ask about it all the time, you ask about it all the time.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_01: And yeah, and it's not that we don't want to do a cookbook, it's but I'm just because I know even with me saying this, we're going to get there.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_01: Some listeners they're going to write in or comment and say, You should do a cookbook.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_01: We do want to do a cookbook.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_01: We don't have time to do a cookbook.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_01: Also, doing a cookbook is an extremely expensive endeavor.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_01: It's very expensive.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_01: And it's not that we don't want to spend the money to do it.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_01: I go back to that time piece.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_01: It's very time uh-based uh endeavor, too.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_01: And yes, we could just slap the recipes onto pages and throw them into like just black and white print paperback, you know, mass market size book, but that's not what we want to do.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_01: If we do a cookbook, like your vision of a cookbook, Ellie's vision of a cookbook, is beautiful.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_01: And I think and I I am in agreement.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_01: I think it should be.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_01: And so if we if we ever do one, we'll do it right.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_01: So it is it's on the list, it's just a very long list.
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_03: That's yeah.
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_03: Um, but I love that food has become like such a part of my whole like sphere with darlings, like because it is such a point of connection, I feel like.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, and at some point in time, I would love to do a cookbook.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_03: I'm not ruling it out, but don't expect it anywhere in the near future.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_01: Right, right.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_01: No, totally.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it is something that that we'd love to do.
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_01: We've talked about it many times, um, but it's it's going it's gonna have to involve a lot more people than just you and me.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_01: And that that is like to do it the way that we want to do it, and and then we'll do that, and it'll be just amazingly beautiful, and no one will buy it.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_01: So it'll be no.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but yeah, uh Torred Test Kitchen, though, was kind of our our interactive video version of a cookbook that was a lot of fun.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_01: Since you brought up fails, um, some of the best videos of Tor Test Kitchen.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_01: Um, for those of the darlings out there that don't know, we we did a whole series, I don't know how many, a lot, a lot of videos uh they're on YouTube um uh with the Torred Test Kitchen where you we you did recipe testing and and we released a couple of behind the scenes like baking fail uh ones that are my favorite.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_01: Uh they weren't my favorites at the time, um, when they like in the moment when they happened, but um, but it I think that's a great uh that if people go back and watch those that that like really shows like the authenticity of everything you do with food is like no, you really aren't a pastry chef.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_01: And yes, this kind of stuff happens in the kitchen, like yeah, turning the mixer accidentally instead of the kitchen aid, and this is a word out to kitchen aid, like for your mixer, maybe change the change the lock and the speed uh levers so that they're different shapes or something because uh-huh, yeah, yeah.
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_03: Banana bread, banana cake everywhere, yeah.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_03: Totally.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_03: But um, the thing for me about that process too is um I think that really impacts my writing because I do spend so much time in the kitchen and there's the sensory piece of like, okay, what is it sounding like?
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, I'm getting the smells, I'm physically needing a bread dough, like all of those things.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_03: And that all ultimately ends up in the final book, which I hope and think it makes the book that much richer then too.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, well, I know it does because I I see the the comments and the social posts and everything when when readers actually make the recipes that that you put in your books and send you pictures or post online.
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_01: I see like you, I mean you're that you love that, right?
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_01: You love hearing from people and and you've had so many people write in and and talk about how they've found recipes that their family absolutely loves and they make them all the time now, and that's super cool.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_03: So cool.
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_03: And I feel like that's a great way to wrap up this episode for our darlings out there.
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_03: If you have tried something from either my books or any culinary cozy mystery that you read, um, tell us in the comments uh what it was, why you love it, or if it ended up being a massive baking fail.
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah, that'd be awesome.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_01: Uh especially with pictures.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_01: Like if you share share them online and tag Ellie, especially the fails, because I love to see those.
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_01: So just like it's they're fun.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_01: Don't worry about it.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_01: One final question before we wrap up here.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, since you were talking about um laying down the latte coming out soon.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_01: Um, are there any coffee-based recipes in laying down the latte?
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_03: I feel like that's such a big spoiler.
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_03: Oh yes.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_01: That's good.
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_01: So do we have to go back to Costa Rica to research more?
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_01: That's what I want to do.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_03: I'm open to anything in in the coffee zone, though.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_03: So wherever the golden beans are, we shall go.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_01: Awesome.
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_01: That sounds perfect.
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_03: All right.
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_03: Well, on that note, till next time.
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_01: Till next time.