Cheers! My Next Cookbook Is Almost Here!

Imagine a time in a few weeks when my next cookbook will begin its journey to readers near and far. When the day comes and the cookbooks wait patiently to be read in a pile of mail, maybe beside a bathtub or nightstand. I wonder which recipes will be chosen first by the readers. I didn’t think it really mattered which family recipes were “favorites” until my previous cookbook, My South Texas Kitchen, was published. There are about 100 family recipes in that cookbook and one is my older brother John's recipes. Somehow when I’m at my author signings or cooking classes and someone flips through the pages, they’ll often say oh I can wait to make this Johnny’s Brisket. Its probably the ongoing sibling rivalry, but it always catches me off guard and now I just laugh when I hear that comment.

After publishing My South Texas kitchen my husband said you really need to do this with my side of the family's recipes from New Orleans. And that's how this cookbook came to be because we wanted to celebrate the cooking of southeast Louisiana and preserve these recipes for our daughters. What excites me about this cookbook is that these are the recipes that I learned to cook when I married my husband and lived in Louisiana in the same town as his family.

There was a lot of cooking together as a family. They often cook with seasonal ingredients and prepared special dishes at certain times of the year and those dishes only appear at those times of the year. That was very familiar to me because that is how my family in South Texas also cooks based on the growing seasons, the liturgical seasons the social seasons. However, I had no frame of reference for New Orleans home cooking. These are the dishes that are celebrated during special growing seasons like Creole tomatoes in the summer or fig cookies that are prepared St. for Saint Joseph altars or oyster dressings that appears around the thanksgiving and Christmas holidays. This type of cooking is very pantry focused cooking with a few unique ingredients tossed in. I discovered Tasso, andouille, pickled meat, filé, olive salad, oysters and so many more unique flavors in southeast Louisiana.

So, my friends, the cookbook about New Orleans home cooking is almost here. If you’d like to receive the behind the cookbook process, and first notice when the cookbooks are in stock and available to order, my newsletter is your insider notice. Also, follow along at Y_delicacies for all the fun along the way!