What does a mini-cookbook mean?
After all these years of creating new recipes and writing loving romance books, I put together something to give you a glimpse into what you’ll find in my books.
In every story I write, the characters talk about food, and sometimes, they actually head to the kitchen and make a recipe. Well, I write that they’re in the kitchen. Technically, I’m the one in the kitchen mixing up that special treat.
The recipe journal included in the mini-cookbook is perfect for you when making one of the recipes because you can add notes or additions you made to the dish.
This cookbook is a long time coming. Keep reading to find out how my journey to blogging and writing romance got started.
In 2009, I worked as a food safety specialist for a third-party auditing company. I was new on social media and made my username food safety lady. My whole world was wrapped around food safety.
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Around August or September, I started a blog on Blogger called FoodSafetyLady. It was my first time blogging, and I had no clue what I was doing. I thought it would be fun to share little tips and tricks about food safety for home cooks.
Right after I started the blog, we discovered we were moving to Charlotte, North Carolina. I planned to continue the blog but started to dip my toes into creating new recipes. I still worked as a food safety specialist in North Carolina, but my focus for the blog I had created in Tucson, Arizona, was shifting.
Whenever I thought about my blog, I also considered what I could create for a new recipe. I wrote down ideas and mixed different ingredients almost daily. Writing about food safety was fine, but creating new recipes became exciting.
In a matter of months, I started learning more about food blogging, taking better photos, and building an audience around the recipes I created.
I was officially a food blogger with a small list of delicious recipes.
Below are images of when I first started blogging and where I’m at now.
In 2010, we were living in Charlotte, and because of social media, I was meeting fellow Charlotteans. There was one person I met who loved using WordPress; I was still using Blogger for my food blog, and it was time to step it up a notch.
The woman was kind and helped me get all fancy with my new food blog, which I called CafeTerraBlog.
For several years, I made new recipes every week and had so much fun interacting with the food blogging community. Sometimes, those other food bloggers would guest on my blog, or I would guest on their blog.
I even joined little food challenges to test my skills and tasting abilities. Some of the challenges were just simple: everyone would make the same recipe, and we would link our blogs in one specific location. The other challenges were for prizes.
Two of the prize challenges, I actually placed, and for one of them, I won the big prize.
My blueberry and corn muffins with Greek yogurt won second place. (I think I won a small amount of money, but I can’t fully remember.)
BUT BUT, the Bountiful Pumpkin Stuffing won the big prize…
…I won a KitchenAid mixer. HOLY CATS!
Both of those challenges helped me to see I had the ability to create recipes from scratch, and people loved the recipes.
After about five years of blogging, my husband asked when I would publish a cookbook. I had no idea where to start with publishing, so I avoided the thought and just continued creating more recipes.
In 2014, something unexpected happened. I wrote a book, but it wasn’t a cookbook; it was a romance book that included recipes made by the characters.
I loved to read romance, but writing a romance story was never on my to-do list.
The book was huge for me because I had been told I was not a good writer, and I believed the person for nine years. Now, here I was, writing a blog every week, and I wrote a romance novel.
All those positives helped propel me forward; I was excited to keep creating more recipes and romance books.
Fast forward to now, 2023, and here I am with hundreds of recipes and 40 romance books, and guess what? I’m finally writing my first cookbook (that will include short romance stories).
With all these recipes and romance stories, that’s why I put together a mini-cookbook with a recipe journal. It’s also a little hint into what the cookbook will look like.
The characters inspire every recipe in my stories, and I love running to the kitchen to create each recipe. You can enjoy the Five Recipe Cookbook + Five Page Recipe Journal here.
