Oh, hello!
Here’s a story about what happens when your juices evaporate.
After finishing That Sounds So Good in August of 2020 (yes, that 2020) and launching it into the public the following October, I found myself creatively spent. I wrote TSSG during quarantine, and the combo of world crisis and huge creative deadline did not create ideal conditions for productivity. I had zero ideas. My brain had left the building.
My professional life had imploded and I was pretty wrecked from that, too. Once TSSG was out in the world in October 2021, I had not one original thought about cooking. When I tried to come up with new recipe ideas, there would be a weird static noise in my head and dryer lint would fall out of my ears and then I would fall asleep. The thought of coming up with another 100 recipes to fill a third book was absolutely hilarious to me. Not. Gonna. Happen.
At the same time, I started making my own videos at home. I was so grateful to have content from my two books to draw on, and over the past year and a half, I’ve had a lot of fun “performing” those recipes for YouTube. I like to compare this to Madonna going on tour after her album comes out. She’s not coming up with new songs, but there’s still a reason to go see the concert! (Not that I’m Madonna, but this one guy on YouTube criticized me for making videos from the already-published book and of course that’s the comment I feel I must defend!) I also had to learn how to be CFO, executive producer, studio manager, accounts payable, accounts receivable, talent, and sound guy for my channel, which were all new skills but not necessarily the fun ones.
I did a bunch of other things! There are a couple of video/TV/streaming projects I’m working on, and hopefully I’ll have more to say about that in coming months. I launched a podcast. I stayed up late and slept in. I spent a lot of time at the gym and adopted a puppy! Then I didn’t spend so much time at the gym because: puppy. My older child left for college and family dinner got a lot more casual.
Weirdly, thankfully, and recently, ideas have been percolating. I’m making lists! I’m asking my followers for requests, and turning those responses into new dishes. I’m taking photos of food again! I’m eating out more, which really fills up the tank. I am cooking for fun without really thinking about it, and some of those creations go on repeat, and that’s when I know I should develop a new recipe in earnest.
And that’s why I’m launching Food Processing. I got to a place where I have things to share, and this platform makes it easy to do that. I am definitely going to be delivering new recipes as they come out. I also love talking and writing about food shopping, kitchen organization, tools and equipment, and ingredients (the ones you’ve heard of and maybe some not!). I write recipes with lots of Spin Its and alts, and have a lot to say about improvising. There are so many myths and mysteries about cooking—salt! chocolate! olive oil! spices!—that I love going off about and breaking it down. Opinions based in fact, that’s my goal!
You’ll also get to see the process that takes me from rough dish idea to an actual written recipe with a pretty photo. Recipe development and writing is an imperfect and weird thing, and everyone I know in this field goes about it in their own way. In the process of writing two books over the past six or so years and making videos at home for almost three, I’ve made a lot of mistakes. Some of them were very annoying and others were expensive, but all of them helped me figure stuff out. I’ll share what works for me in the hopes that seeing more of my actual process will inspire your own creativity in the kitchen.
Finally: community. When I left the Bon Appétit test kitchen, I was no longer surrounded by other cooks all day every day. I didn’t have the ability to ask several actual experts their opinion on what I was doing or thinking about making. I didn’t have people to spitball with about ideas, and I didn’t have friends with excellent palates who would tell me objectively what they thought about a dish that I was working on. That was a huge loss. It is a huge loss.
The feedback I get now is from the people who trust me enough to watch my videos and make my recipes. What you like (or don’t!) and what you hope to see from me is important. I read every comment and I try to answer questions as they come up. I hope Food Processing can include a lot of back and forth and community-sourced content. I need you to make that a reality, so thank you for being here and for cooking with me!
xoCLM
p.s. I use a lot of exclamation points and I am okay with that.
I want you to know that when I talk about you with my mom, I refer to you simply as Carla and she knows exactly who I’m talking about. Can’t wait to tell her about the substack.
Carla! I am glad you are feeling more creative! I always learn new things from you and feel like we have the same sense of humor :-) I will follow you where ever you go. I mean, you know, not in a creepy way. Cheers!
PS I, too, use a lot of exclamation points and am also ok with that.
PPS We're gonna need more puppy content. kthnx