It's been 3 long months of preparing the book proposal. After countless recipes cooked, tons of stories edited, writing a cover letter, table of contents, chapter by chapter summary, and completing a sample chapter, the 45 page proposals are in the mail! I sent out 10 today; 9 to literary agents and 1 to a publisher. I'm so excited to receive feedback and to hopefully have someone want to pitch the book!
Now, all I need are more fabulous submissions! Please forward www.bittersweet-memories.com onto your friends, family, and coworkers and ask them to submit their favorite storecipes of lost loved ones!
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
WTMJ-ABC Channel 4 Milwaukee Clip
Hi! Below is a link to the Milwaukee morning show interview that I did on Sunday March 7th, 2010.
Enjoy!
http://www.youtube.com/zapwater#p/u/6/1e_nqc6aY_s
Enjoy!
http://www.youtube.com/zapwater#p/u/6/1e_nqc6aY_s
Monday, March 15, 2010
Cooking Recipes for the Book
What an amazing weekend! When I receive submissions that have touching stories, I make the recipes to make sure that the directions are correct. This weekend I made potato salad, pecan sandies, carrot cake, donuts, taffy apple salad, brownies, chocolate snowballs, holiday cheese danishes, homemade chocolate pudding, three layer chili cheese dip, cherry cool whip dessert, and chili! WOW!! It was absolutely amazing! The recipes were delicious. The one that was the most fun for me to make were the donuts. I have never made them before and it was so cool to see the batter being deep fried. They were incredible!! I'm having a blast testing all of your recipes, so, keep them coming!
Monday, March 8, 2010
Daily Kos' "The Grieving Room"
I'm so excited, tonight I am being featured on Daily Kos' "The Grieving Room." Go to http://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/3/8/844030/-Bittersweet-Memories to see the post live and make a comment.
If you cannot make it on tonight, here is what a copy of the blog:
As a kid, I used to love to watch my mom cook. I would bring my homework into the kitchen and work on my multiplication tables while watching her effortlessly chop vegetables, beat eggs, and scribble notes on scratch paper. Occasionally she’d ask for my help in a small task (adding a teaspoon of salt, or stirring in a cup of cream) and I would burst with excitement, thrilled to contribute to our family dinner. As I grew up, I became my mother’s sous chef, helping to create the menu, shop for groceries and assemble the dishes, all under the watchful eye of my mother. At an early age I discovered the joy of cooking, and learned to delight in feeding friends and family. Truthfully, I can credit my mother with every last bit of my cooking and hospitality knowledge.
While I helped my mom prepare dinner almost every night of the week, Sundays were my favorite. Every Sunday night she would cook dinner for up to 50 of our friends and family, who would gather around our large dining room table, filling our home with love and laughter. With the help of these beloved family and friends, my mother, Renée Israel, created two cookbooks, both entitled Whip Me, Beat Me, Eat Me, which were collections of favorite recipes, including many of her Sunday night staples.
In addition to her culinary skills, my mother was many other things: a loving mom, a devoted wife, a friend to everyone she met and a joy to be around. In short, she was my best friend, my hero.
Then in 2001, when I was a freshman in college, my mom was diagnosed with Stage 4 breast cancer.
I left school, moving home to help my mother and quickly becoming her right hand. I slept in the hospital during visits, drove her to complete her errands. As the disease progressed, our roles flipped: I bathed my mother, dressed her, and stepped in to the kitchen to helm not only nightly family meals, but Sunday dinners as well. As I worked in the kitchen, churning out spinach pie and lasagna, my mom sat in her bed, instructing me and answering questions through the phone. Even at the end of her life, when she couldn’t leave her room to join the meal, just knowing that our home was full of love filled her with peace.
In January 2006, my mother lost her long hard fought battle with breast cancer.
While the day of her death was the single hardest day of my life, I’ve found that my grief has been a constantly evolving journey. Even now, four years later, in addition to missing her so much I can hardly breathe at times, I’m confronted with her absence on a daily basis. What does it mean not to have a mother in your life? Who helps plan your wedding? Who answers questions about raising kids? Who do you call for a cooking question, or when you’re having a dilemma, or when you just need to hear the right words? All of those questions continue to stump me.
There’s no emotion that rivals the intensity of grieving a loved one. It’s unfathomably depressing, and ebbs and flows from getting easier to being harder to handle, depending on the day. After losing my mother, I had to find a purpose, and a healthy way to handle my overwhelming grief. One day, craving her spaghetti, I pulled out her recipe box and began to cook. Instantly, I found the comforting smells, the familiar tastes and the almost routine movements intensely comforting, and I felt powerfully connected to her, as memories flooded my mind. I began to turn to cooking as a way to connect to my mother—and it’s not just me. Her recipes bring our family together, too. My sisters and I love to sit around the kitchen, eating our favorite foods and sharing our favorite memories—complete with tears of laughter, joy and sadness. My mother would have loved that.
In honor of my mother, and everyone who has lost someone near and dear to their heart, I am working on a cookbook of my own. Entitled A Blending of Bittersweet Memories, the book will focus on recipes that go hand in hand with a memory of a lost loved one. As grief is an emotion that unites us all, I’m asking people around the globe to send in their favorite recipes along with their “bittersweet memories.” My goal is a cookbook that preserves not only family recipes but remembers our departed loved ones indefinitely.
Please go to www.bittersweet-memories.com to share your favorite memories and recipes!
If you cannot make it on tonight, here is what a copy of the blog:
As a kid, I used to love to watch my mom cook. I would bring my homework into the kitchen and work on my multiplication tables while watching her effortlessly chop vegetables, beat eggs, and scribble notes on scratch paper. Occasionally she’d ask for my help in a small task (adding a teaspoon of salt, or stirring in a cup of cream) and I would burst with excitement, thrilled to contribute to our family dinner. As I grew up, I became my mother’s sous chef, helping to create the menu, shop for groceries and assemble the dishes, all under the watchful eye of my mother. At an early age I discovered the joy of cooking, and learned to delight in feeding friends and family. Truthfully, I can credit my mother with every last bit of my cooking and hospitality knowledge.
While I helped my mom prepare dinner almost every night of the week, Sundays were my favorite. Every Sunday night she would cook dinner for up to 50 of our friends and family, who would gather around our large dining room table, filling our home with love and laughter. With the help of these beloved family and friends, my mother, Renée Israel, created two cookbooks, both entitled Whip Me, Beat Me, Eat Me, which were collections of favorite recipes, including many of her Sunday night staples.
In addition to her culinary skills, my mother was many other things: a loving mom, a devoted wife, a friend to everyone she met and a joy to be around. In short, she was my best friend, my hero.
Then in 2001, when I was a freshman in college, my mom was diagnosed with Stage 4 breast cancer.
I left school, moving home to help my mother and quickly becoming her right hand. I slept in the hospital during visits, drove her to complete her errands. As the disease progressed, our roles flipped: I bathed my mother, dressed her, and stepped in to the kitchen to helm not only nightly family meals, but Sunday dinners as well. As I worked in the kitchen, churning out spinach pie and lasagna, my mom sat in her bed, instructing me and answering questions through the phone. Even at the end of her life, when she couldn’t leave her room to join the meal, just knowing that our home was full of love filled her with peace.
In January 2006, my mother lost her long hard fought battle with breast cancer.
While the day of her death was the single hardest day of my life, I’ve found that my grief has been a constantly evolving journey. Even now, four years later, in addition to missing her so much I can hardly breathe at times, I’m confronted with her absence on a daily basis. What does it mean not to have a mother in your life? Who helps plan your wedding? Who answers questions about raising kids? Who do you call for a cooking question, or when you’re having a dilemma, or when you just need to hear the right words? All of those questions continue to stump me.
There’s no emotion that rivals the intensity of grieving a loved one. It’s unfathomably depressing, and ebbs and flows from getting easier to being harder to handle, depending on the day. After losing my mother, I had to find a purpose, and a healthy way to handle my overwhelming grief. One day, craving her spaghetti, I pulled out her recipe box and began to cook. Instantly, I found the comforting smells, the familiar tastes and the almost routine movements intensely comforting, and I felt powerfully connected to her, as memories flooded my mind. I began to turn to cooking as a way to connect to my mother—and it’s not just me. Her recipes bring our family together, too. My sisters and I love to sit around the kitchen, eating our favorite foods and sharing our favorite memories—complete with tears of laughter, joy and sadness. My mother would have loved that.
In honor of my mother, and everyone who has lost someone near and dear to their heart, I am working on a cookbook of my own. Entitled A Blending of Bittersweet Memories, the book will focus on recipes that go hand in hand with a memory of a lost loved one. As grief is an emotion that unites us all, I’m asking people around the globe to send in their favorite recipes along with their “bittersweet memories.” My goal is a cookbook that preserves not only family recipes but remembers our departed loved ones indefinitely.
Please go to www.bittersweet-memories.com to share your favorite memories and recipes!
NBC Milwaukee
Hi! Yesterday, Sunday March 7th, I was on NBC Milwaukee doing an interview about the book. I was talking about the book and telling people how they can submit. It was so much fun and the studio was really nice! As soon as I get the link to the video, I will post it!
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