I never set out to write cookbooks. In fact, I only learned to cook six years ago, when my marriage to my kitchen-loving husband fell apart and the kids and I still needed to eat. As a longtime food writer here in Denver, eating the most delicious food at our city’s best restaurants had always been top of mind; cooking it myself had not.
But a few years ago I had this great gift idea for my aunt: a cookbook that combined all the best dessert recipes, from various chefs and bakers, into a single collection. When I couldn’t find it, I created it. “50 Things to Bake Before You Die” resonated with other dessert-loving home bakers, and so I wrote a follow-up, “30 Breads to Bake Before You Die,” with recipes from amazing bakers like Duff Goldman, Dominique Ansel and Joanne Chang. Colorado bakers share recipes in the book, too, including Alon Shaya’s (Safta) pita, Shawn Bergin’s (Bakery Four) baguette, Caroline Glover’s (Annette) English muffins, Zach Martinucci’s (Rebel Bread) marble rye sourdough, and Claire Czarnecki’s (Pizzeria Alberico) pizza crust.
In March, I have another book coming out, “The Phone Eats First: 50 of Social Media’s Best Recipes to Feed Your Feed … and Then Yourself,” a compilation of the tastiest Instagram- and TikTok-famous dishes. It helps that these aren’t my recipes; I’m writing it as a restaurant critic, looking for the most delicious desserts, breads, breakfasts, dinners and more.
Since I’m writing for all levels of cooks, it probably even helps that I’m not a pro. I’m simply a gal with batter in her hair and a hankering for chocolate babka king cake. Truly, if I can do it, you can do it.
Spending a good chunk of the past three years writing and taking photographs for cookbooks has certainly accelerated my whole learning-to-cook thing. I’ve gained more kitchen knowledge than in my previous three decades. Here are the top lessons I’ve learned writing cookbooks.
Not all recipes are created equal. I used to think it was just me, that the reason a random Internet recipe didn’t turn out was because I did something wrong. Because I was a bad cook. But the thing is, writing recipes is a separate skill set from cooking them, and some chefs just aren’t that great at it. (And in the black hole that is Internet food blogs, not all bloggers and influencers are as good of cooks as they may think.)
This was a huge aha moment for me, realizing the reason some recipes don’t turn out is because they’re not good recipes. For a recipe to be great, it should be clear, concise, thorough and easy to follow. Anyone should be able to take those same ingredients, follow the instructions and end up with something tasty. It’s still definitely user error for me sometimes, but realizing that I wasn’t always the problem was freeing.
It’s fake! When it comes time to photograph the recipes for a cookbook, the food becomes merely a prop. Photoshoots were by far the most stressful part for me; trying to cook and bake everything to look cookbook-level perfect was intense. But one of my photographers let me in on a secret: Some of what I was seeing in other people’s drool-worthy cookbooks is fake.
For some big-budget shoots with food stylists, they’ll do things like brush on oil (some even use hairspray) to make that chicken really glisten; paint berries with lipstick for more color; pour motor oil over those pancakes instead of sticky syrup; and mix glue into melty cheese to achieve optimal cheese pull. Kind of gross, but also kind of gorgeous.
I can do so much more than I believed. I was so afraid to make the macarons in “50 Things to Bake Before You Die.” I’d never made them before, and I’d heard how temperamental they can be. I didn’t think there was any possible way mine would turn out, but my 9-year-old daughter said something that gave me perspective. “At least you’re trying,” she told me, “That’s your accomplishment.” I still think about that when I’m intimidated to make something new. Not everything will be perfect, but even our kitchen mess-ups will taste better than not trying at all. (Oh, and the macarons came out great on my first try!)
Celebrity chefs are surprisingly easy to work with. The recipes for my cookbooks come from a lot of professional cooks and bakers, some of whom are kind of famous. People always ask me if it was difficult getting recipes from the likes of Christina Tosi and Duff Goldman, and the thing is, that level of celebrity chef tends to be easier to work with than say, a budding food influencer who wants total creative control and a fat check. (Note to aspiring cookbook authors: Unless you’re already one of those celeb chefs, you probably aren’t going to get rich, or even middle class, off of this!)
In my experience, the more famous the chef, the bigger the team of people wanting to get me what I need. Plus, probably because they’re already so successful, they’re more willing to share their recipes. I appreciate everyone who gives me recipes for the cookbooks, but the bigger names, surprisingly, are the easiest to work with.
I discovered I liked things I thought I hated. That is the beauty of being forced to cook certain recipes, and why I now love going through cookbooks and making most every single recipe, even if I’m certain I won’t like it. (I’m usually wrong.) I pride myself on trying a wide variety of foods, but until I started doing cookbooks, I didn’t like fruit in dessert. I was always more of a chocolate person than a fruit pie person, but that all changed with lemon bars.
Of course, this comes as no surprise for normal people who learned this way earlier than I did, but lemon bars are freaking delicious! I curse myself for wasting the first 35 years of my life without them, and they opened my eyes to other amazing fruit desserts.
There are some people out there on social media currently baking their way through my cookbooks; I hope they discover new favorites that they thought they hated, too.
Allyson Reedy is a former food writer for The Denver Post and is now a freelance writer and cookbook author. Meet Allyson at Rebel Bread on Sept. 26 at 5 p.m. There will be signed cookbooks and carby treats for sale. Rebel Bread is at 675 S. Broadway, Denver.