Once upon a time, I got this nutritious nugget of advice: “You wanna be a writer? Congrats, you and every other wanna-be. So do us a favor make it juicy, something that you can sink your teeth into, make it so succulent that it dribbles down your chin.”

My kitchen education began with cookbooks by Martha, Julia, Rabbi Gil, and subscriptions to Bon Appetit, Saveur, and Gourmet (RIP). It was regularly fed by national brand chapbooks think: Betty Crocker Appetizers,Pillsbury Casseroles & Slow Cooker which were placed strategically near check out and were easy and cheap and impossible for me to resist. The Cooking Channel was everything in the pre-YouTube culinary content landscape. And cooking blogs, can’t forget the blogs. For me, the right ratio of narrative and flavor was (and still is) the secret sauce. And it wasn’t too long before I had a cooking blog of my own. I had found something to write about.

I did the things: Catering, chocolatiering, cooking-instructing, brand demoing, recipe columnizing, and cookbook writing: Get Cooking, short order cook (AKA Mom), CEO of Shabbat meals

And then came COOK/BOOK my cook-book-in-a-novel/novel-in-a-cook-book project/obssession which took me right through the pandemic. When the pandemic took a turn towards the Great Reckoning I got TESOL certification and with it gradual mastery of grammar and usage. Words, like food, need to go down nice ‘n smooth in order to nourish and delight.