what’s the most challenging recipe you’ve ever made? and what are your thoughts on a cookbook?
i get this question quite often and i think the most challenging recipe i’ve ever done is making croissants. it’s not that the recipe to make croissants is difficult but it’s a long, tedious process and it can be disheartening that you go through the whole 2 day process believing your lamination was nearly perfect and will produce arsicault levels of lamination but then, it produces more of a costco croissant level of lamination and you can’t help but feel a little disappointed. however! making croissants at home is one of my favorite things to make. it’s a really good recipe for me to do when i am feeling really anxious or when i’m feeling pmdd particularly hard that month. it allows me to focus on something that is time intensive, a labor of love and encourages me to do something with my hands - it’s just a really welcomed and nice distraction. and no matter how the lamination turns out, homemade croissants are always delicious and something to be proud of.
i have so many thoughts on a cookbook and what a cookbook means to me. or rather, what a cookbook doesn’t mean to me. over a year ago, or maybe even closer to a year and a half ago, i got approached by a very lovely editor at a pretty big publishing house. she brought up the idea of me doing a cookbook and i was instantly intimidated by the idea of it. i think it’s kind of safe to say that for most cooks, whether you are a chef or a home cook, doing a cookbook is a dream! a real honor and a symbol of success. when i received the book proposal, i kept putting it off and putting it off and putting it off. i started wondering why i wasn’t excited to do this book proposal. i kept blaming my adhd but i started realizing through conversations with friends and family that maybe i just wasn’t someone who was very keen on doing a cookbook because a cookbook, for me, didn’t symbolize any type of success and it was never a goal of mine when i started my instagram. i was extremely honored and flattered that i was even approached to do one but i started realizing through my lack of action that a cookbook just didn’t feel right for me. i didn’t want to just put out a cookbook just to say i put out a cookbook or just to do it to garner some sort of recognition. i want a cookbook to be an extension of me or my instagram (a perfect example of this is abi’s cookbook which is so, so genuine to her. i highly recommend it).