by Tony Wilkins
I am so honored to be asked to appear at Book Passage to promote my book The Single Person's Cookbook. If you don't mind, I'd like to share the journey of getting here with you. The idea for the book came out of a conversation I had with a buddy of mine who was entertaining a new beau at his fancy new digs. My friend was very smitten with this new person and was excited about preparing a romantic meal for just the two of them. There was only one problem. He couldn't cook." Okay no biggie", I said "there are several meals you can prepare for one or two people that are quick and easy and relatively inexpensive. "As we began preparing the meal we began discussing recipes and how great it would be to have a book specifically designed to teach singles how to cook for 1-2 people. The theory being that most cookbooks focus primarily on people with families to cook for. But what if it's just you and maybe one other person? What then? Over the next several months I began to really think about this quandary more and more. Could I really put together a cookbook that would serve the singles of the world? I had previously published another book titled Telemarketing Success for Small and Mid-sized Firms so I had an idea of what I could expect. Fool that I was. Writing a cookbook is hard. I mean really hard-particularly if you're a cook that never measures anything. So my task began with deciding which recipes would be the easiest for the average cook to create and more importantly which recipes do I personally like? Sounded like a good start right? Wrong?
Because I cook a lot, I have a large repertoire of recipes to choose from. Some have been handed down for generations in my family (and tweaked for healthier cooking) while others are some I created personally. I chose the later. Over the course of the next year I began manically writing down recipes and thoughts and snippets of how the recipe came to past. Usually there was a story involving a man who dumped me after filling his belly with my delicious 5 course meal. Okay I was still bitter about dredging up the past. Anyway, I decided to write the book as a cross between Sex and the City and 30 Minute Meals with a gay twist. After months of phone calls and e-mails to my publisher, deciding on the book cover and distribution and marketing strategy, the book was finally published in March 2007. Happy Anniversary. Then the real work began. I have never worked so hard and had so much fun in my entire life. So far I've toured doing signings and samples throughout the Bay area. And while I'm not a chef, I have been treated with the utmost respect from my peers for coming up with a unique and original idea. To date I've done about ten engagements on the West coast and will be traveling to the East and Midwest to promote the book further. Sales have been impressive so far the subject matter has resulted in opportunities I could have only dreamt about. The bottom line is that sometimes the best ideas come out of a need to get a different point across to the general public. Once you do you might find your life on a different path than you first anticipated.
The Single Person's Cookbook Book Signing 3/13/08 at 6:00 pm @ Book Passage SF Ferry Building--Come and sample some recipes!
Order your copy here!
No comments:
Post a Comment