Stir, Laugh, Repeat

I've had several people ask about my cookbook Stir, Laugh, Repeat and how I came about writing it so I thought I would respond with a short history.

It all started when one of my daughters said that if I did nothing else would I please write down my Banana Pudding recipe before I died. That started me thinking about working up a cookbook for my kids. I, like most women my age learned to cook the same way my mother did, without measuring, so most of my recipes were stuck in my head. As time went on I began measuring my ingredients and started filling up the pages of my notebook. I've always enjoyed creating my own recipes and changing others but being single I had to find someone to sample my creations. I started with my best friend Dusty. I would work up a new dish and take part of it to her. She became my 1st "Food Tester." When she wasn't home I started going to another friend's house to share my creations. Before long I had half of the neighbors in my condos serving as "Food Testers."

My pages were filling up and I was ready to start typing the recipes into the computer. Dusty who was also my proofreader tole me one day that I needed to contact a publisher and share my recipes with others. I thought, who is going to want my recipes. But I listened to her and contacted the 1st publisher I found on he internet. Well, I'm not very computer smart and couldn't seem to find a way to contact them. I told Dusty and she took the name of the company and said she would see if she could find a way to make the connection. The next afternoon while at work, I received a phone call. It was Tate Publishing Enterprises. She didn't just contact them, she called them. She told them about my then called "cookbook" and how different it was from other cookbooks. One thing I failed to mention was that while working up my recipes I had memories of my cooking experiences, some as a child and some as an adult, which at the time may not have been funny but are now. These were added to my book following each recipe. Well, they wanted my manuscript. I had 3 weeks to finish and get it to them. And believe me, I finished on time. About a month later I received a packet which I really expected to be a rejection. It wasn't. It was an acceptance letter and contract. Thus started my book Stir, Laugh, Repeat.

Most women have tons of cookbooks but most have no more than 2 or 3 recipes that are actually used. They either have at least 1 ingredient we don't like or they're too fancy to feed the meat and potato man. When working up recipes for my book I would take from one recipe and add from another until I had what I thought was the perfect recipe. But you still have the problem of them possibly still having an ingredient that the cook doesn't like, so I included suggestions to change and/or add ingredients to fit the cooks taste. I want them to cook by "thinking with their taste buds." And when my other daughter told me she couldn't bring deviled eggs to Thanksgiving dinner because she couldn't peel the eggs without tearing them up, I decided to add tips to make cooking easier.

The main purpose of Stir, Laugh, Repeat is to get our offspring out of the fast food "stores" and back into the kitchen. The art of cooking is being lost and needs to be brought back.

So now you know a little about my cookbook Stir, Laugh, Repeat. I am working on my next book which will be even better.