I did a thing, as the kids say these days.

I’m still not even sure how I landed this project. There was some back and forth on the idea with the city market manager, but to be perfectly honest, I thought it was just one of those things I bullshit about that never actually comes to fruition. Until he told me to put a proposal in writing. Even then, I wasn’t entirely sure it would happen, after all, the first rule of bullshitting your way through life is don’t believe your own hype.

Proposal accepted (!!!!), I then proceeded to spend the better part of an entire market season collecting recipes from various vendors. Or attempting to. That was hands down, the biggest challenge of this project. Many of the growers are busy during the season, not to mention they aren’t the most online people. I may have made at least one farm visit to collect recipes.  The prepared food vendors didn’t want to share recipes for fear that it would reduce the number of people who buy their goods. (Didn’t matter that I explained it didn’t have to be the recipes of the things they sell!) Eventually though, I started to collect recipes. I learned to carry a notebook to market with me, so I could write recipes down as they were told to me. Others sent pictures of handwritten recipes as their contribution while still others were texted to me in bits and pieces. As time went on, I gathered enough recipes to make a cookbook happen. Then came the fun part: the testing and photography.

This is where my co-hort Daniel James (aka, DJ) of Herd Ventures comes in. We talked about doing photo shoots in various locations, but it was just easier for me to do all the cooking in my home kitchen. And that’s how my house became the location for all the shoots. We’d do about 5 dishes or so per session, resulting in a flurry of cooking on the day. The first shoot we styled on the fly – I figured since DJ was a professional, he had at least a little experience with this, certainly more than me. As we worked our way through the book, I found myself getting the hang of it – even putting together a spreadsheet of what dishes and linens I’d used to avoid duplication. I borrowed dishes from neighbors from time to time, but a lot of what was used is from my collection. Turns out all those different pieces of china and linens I love to collect to create more interesting tablescapes for my dining room came in handy for styling a cookbook!

Over the course of the year, we moved out into the garden for shoots to take advantage of the backdrop.  My dear husband spent an entire August weekend out there making sure it was ready for its close up. Sadly, most of it got cropped out of the actual cookbook, but that’s how it goes. (I was able to use some of the photos in all their glory for a piece in the Baltimore Banner I was interviewed for so Pat’s efforts were not all for naught.)

It wasn’t until we got to the last shoot that I really wrapped my head around what I had just done. I compiled, edited, tested AND styled an entire cookbook. You guys! Holy shit. This was an absolute dream project and I’m still pinching myself that it was real. When I had announced to Aunt Jenny what I was up to, she immediately sent me this cutting board that I was slightly nervous to use, afraid I would jinx the project. I can happily say, it’s getting a lot of use now that I’ve got this book in my hands.

The most overwhelming part of the book for me was the editorial bits: the vendor vignettes and the market history. This was where the part about this being IN A BOOK really got in my head and imposter syndrome became slightly crippling. A book feels far more permanent than a magazine or alt-weekly, which has thus far been my publishing experience.  There was no editor telling me what angle to write it from either – Justin, the city market manager had given me a word count and that was it for direction. I haven’t had that much creative control since my very early days of writing the Green Editions for the now defunct alt-weekly The Hook (although this time I wasn’t taking the photos myself).  There was also the added pressure of writing about my friends, as all the vendors featured are people I call friend. That’s not why they were featured – collectively, they submitted the most recipes, but all of them are also much respected members of the city market community, so it felt fitting to shine a spotlight on them and tell their story as part of the book.

Clearly, I was able to get out of my own way and get it done, but that imposter syndrome was real. It’s funny, because it didn’t come in until the very end of the entire process. I suppose that’s in part because editing and testing recipes, that’s easy for me. I’ve been doing that both as a writer and a cooking instructor for well over a decade. Hell, I even managed to get a recipe column in Home this year, a publication I’ve written for regularly for the better part of the last decade. Styling photos was something I never bothered myself with much, but it wasn’t that hard. I kept telling myself it was because I hadn’t done that sort of writing in way too long and maybe that’s true. Trying to push through it became quite the case study for procrastination – I even vacuumed my kitchen ceiling one day to avoid sitting down to just stare at a blank screen pretending to write. That’s some next level procrastination right there.

As for how people can get their hands on this work, well friends, promotion and sales were not part of the agreement. I was hired as a free lancer, to collect recipes, edit and test them, which I did. As far as I know, they are only available at the Charlottesville City Holiday Market, which is the same parking lot on Water Street downtown as the regular city market.

As I’ve said, this was a bit of a dream project. Assembling a community cookbook for a community I hold dear was an honor while also being a fantastic opportunity in a direction I want to continue to head. I’m not at all sure what comes after this. I have ideas, but I also recognize that I may have to do some work to land another job like this. I’ve been publishing professionally for close to 15 years without ever having to write a pitch, which is both lucky and probably slightly unheard of.  I suppose it’s time to go back and learn how to do that, but I’ve got enough of a resume to back myself up that it shouldn’t be too terribly hard. Unless that imposter syndrome creeps back in, but I thankfully know now that vacuuming my kitchen ceiling is at least one way to send it packing.