You Are Here

...and that's where you begin. You begin here. We all begin here--wherever we are--not in the past, not somewhere in the future; we begin now, in this moment, in this place, with all of our baggage and burdens, but...we...begin. Wherever and whatever it is for you, begin HERE.

Earlier this year I attended a two-day workshop--a cookbook writing boot camp hosted by the James Beard Award-winning Lee Brothers.

Matt and Ted Lee run a tight ship with the workshop. Only available in two back-to-back sessions in early January, they lead an intimate group of food writers, chefs, cooking instructors (and individuals who are any combination of food-related work) through two days of determining what your food-focused passion is, what the idea for a cookbook may be, what your motivation for writing a book is and if there is a market for your cookbook. They discuss the ins and outs of writing and publishing a book, they share their experienced insight and they make sure that you are in this for the right reason/s. The number one wrong reason, by-the-way, is "to make money." They know that most of us won't.

What I learned in this workshop:

1. I'm not in it for the money. Who knows? Maybe I'll make some, but that's not my motivation.
2. My motivation is multi-faceted: to save the heritage recipes that I grew up with, to share these traditional recipes for my nieces and others in their age group, to promote authentic traditional Greek recipes, to simplify or update the heritage recipes for today's enthusiastic but busy home cooks, to record my family history through food.
3. I have many good food-related stories. I want to share them.
4. Cooking and eating with family used to be a time to tighten family bonds. Our independent lifestyle has caused us to lose these opportunities. I want to make it easy for people to do this again. These are important rituals.

Bringing an open mind to the workshop resulted in many good and workable ideas for my book and in a title for my cookbook that had not occurred to me. Matt and Ted "discovered" my cookbook title, "Greek Heritage Cooking Simplified." They also encouraged me to embark on my journey.

I have burdens, baggage and responsibilities. Don't we all? Instead of waiting for my perfect place and time, this time I began...here. That was mid-January. I have cleared my schedule for this work. I have cleaned out the physical clutter in my home office. I now declare publicly that I have embarked on a journey. I hope you'll join me and help to promote my journey and book. Follow along here: My Website, Twitter, Instagram and my food blog.

The hashtag is #GreekHeritageCookingSimplified

Thanks, Matt and Ted!