How I put The Social Kitchen Cookbook together…
Tuesday 31st March 2015
I decided that I would need some advice, as this was not something that I had done before!
When my mom first moved to London as a newly qualified chef she worked for the wonderful Prue Leith (Leith’s Cookery School). After Googling for what felt like forever I stumbled upon her personal website, at the very bottom was a contact form. I thought I had nothing to lose so I filled it in. (This was a massive learning curve for me! I realized there is nothing to loose to just ask and the more you can learn the better) She immediately emailed me back.
Thursday 4th April 2015
We spoke on the phone, she gave me some realistic advice “this was not going to be an easy task” but she carried on to say I would need the following people, a food photographer, a chef, a food stylist, editor and someone that can bring it all together to go to print. Well that was great advice but now what do I do? It was a needle in a haystack.
Tuesday 7th April 2015
After the Easter bank holiday weekend had passed, Prue had emailed the editor of Delicious magazine which I had been copied into, introducing me and if she knew of anyone that could help. To which Karen from Delicious replied the same day to say she worked with a wonderful chef that she thinks would be perfect for the job, Charlie Clapp.
Tuesday 14th April
We met up and clicked straight away Charlie became my guru of food and my rock throughout this journey.
She then recommended the amazing photographer that I was so lucky to work with Dan Jones and he then recommended the book guy Alex Smith from Smith and Gilmour who is oozing with talent. This made up The Social Kitchen Team.
This was my dream team and with out them this would never have happened.
Thursday 14th May
Charlie and I started work on the recipes, testing them separately and then comparing notes. I also needed to have a generic portion size for the book – most of our recipes are for 30 people (you can’t sell a book like that)
Tip from Prue:
The main mistake in cookbooks is that they mention an ingredient in the list but not in the method.
Wednesday 24th and Thursday 25th June
The fun began Dan Jones the photographer, his assistant Sophie, Charlie the chef, my sister; Megan and myself started photographing the dishes for the book at my parent’s house. I absolutely loved this it was as if my dreams had become a reality!
This was the start of seeing to all come together.
