Announcement (No, I’m Not Pregnant)

Most days now, my kitchen looks like that above but usually way worse; especially the sink. I kind of saved you from an anxiety attack by posting a photo of what my kitchen looks like on a good day. You probably think the above photo is nothing. Yeah, I guess it could be way worse. There’s three dishes being cooked in that photo. Promise!

See that pink thermos on the right? Yeah, COFFEE is my life line these days. Oh and that bottle of wine in the back? More ends up in my bloodstream than in the recipes. Just kidding! :)

Photography is stressful these days, too, depending on the time of day and when everything gets finished, plated, styled, etc.

I guess I’ll spare you and just cut to the chase.

I’m writing a cookbook! Yes! A COOKBOOK. Like a book that you can sit on your coffee table (actually, no, I don’t want it to sit there – I want you to dirty the heck out of it in your KITCHEN). A book that you can physically touch and flip through and use a billion times over cause the recipes are just that amazing (in my humble opinion, haha)….ahhhhhhh! I can’t believe my dreams are coming true! This is one thing that’s been on my bucket list ever since I started this blog!

Here are the details:

• It’s called Dinner for Two. YES. You read that right. It’s gonna be dinner recipes tailored down for two servings. Many, many of you have asked me about this before and why I only sometimes cook for two if the title of my blog is ‘Table for Two’ (the FAQs explains the blog name) and well, now you’re getting an ENTIRE BOOK on recipes for two but easily doubled or tripled for more, if need be! It’s definitely going to be an extension of my blog and my cooking philosophy: quick, easy, and full of flavor. Most of the recipes in the book (like 80%) you can throw together in 30 minutes or less after a long work day because the ingredients are most of what you already have in your pantry. I don’t do anything super fancy. Like I said, this is as real as it gets because I’m right there with you when it comes to coming home after long work day and having to put together a home-cooked meal.
• There’s going to be slow cooker recipes, comfort recipes, international recipes, traditional/classic recipes, soups, salads, and breakfast for dinner recipes. Are you as pumped as I am about this?!
• It’s being published by Countryman Press a division of W.W. Norton.
• My manuscript is due February 2015.
• Release date is November 2015.
• There will be 70 recipes in the book. 90% will be brand new and 10% (so, just seven) will be from the blog but tweaked for two.
• Each recipe will have a photo accompanied with it (that I personally shoot!!). I was very adamant about this because I hate when a recipe in a cookbook doesn’t have a photo; how are you supposed to know what the dish is supposed to look like?!
• You’ll be able to pre-order the book on Amazon in March!

So yeah. There you go! That’s my big news! Things are definitely really crazy around here, especially on weekends. I still work full-time at my web development job M-F and then on weekends it’s recipe development all day and then somehow, I fit in time to develop recipes for the blog to. As you can imagine, my life is a crazy kind of hectic and awesome right now.

(This is where I hang all my completed recipes – I have about 22 more to go!)

This leads me to the next thing. You might see blog content dwindle down a bit these last couple months of the year. I tried to keep the momentum going but honestly, working on this cookbook and developing recipes for it has really taken a lot of my creative juices out and sometimes, just thinking of blog content makes me wince. I’m not totally going away; I’m just giving you warning that there might only be one new recipe a week or some weeks none at all and just a quick Beyond the Table update. Regardless, I hope you’re just as excited about this as I am!

OH!! One final thing. You can keep up with all cookbook-related news with a new tab at the top of the page. Between ‘Home’ and ‘About’ I now have a ‘COOKBOOK’ tab where it’ll take you to all posts related to the cookbook :) I can’t wait to share the cover with you guys!

Thank you all for supporting me and this blog and giving me the opportunity to make my dreams come true!! xoxoxoxo