Almost exactly a year ago, the Austin Food Blogger Alliance announced that we were putting together a community cookbook.

We hosted a recipe writing class and gathered recipes, stories, vignettes and photos. We matched up bloggers to test one another’s recipes and hosted a potluck to taste the results and photograph some of the dishes.

Over the winter, we assembled all that wonderful content into a manuscript for The History Press and have been working quietly behind the scenes getting everything together so that we could finally announce that the Austin Food Blogger Alliance Cookbook is finally here!

I’ve had so much fun over the past year working on this book with members including Melissa Skorpil, who oversaw the photography in the book, lead copy editor Megan Myers, assistant project manager Lindsay Bailey, design consultant Shaun Martin, and editors Lee Stokes Hilton, Shefaly Ravula, Suzanna Cole and Meredith Bethune. Of course, they say it’s not really a book until you hate it at least once, which I admit happened a time or two over the course of the year, but all-in-all, this has been one of the most rewarding long-term projects I’ve ever had the pleasure of working on.

But the fun really starts now that the book has arrived!

On Tuesday, we’ll celebrate with cookbook contributors, AFBA members, pre-sale buyers and our cookbook sponsor, the Austin-based cooking app Cooking Planit, with a sold-out launch party at Freedmen’s, but mark your calendars for two upcoming events on April 24 and May 11.

At 3 p.m. Wednesday, April 24, AFBA will be hosting a cooking demonstration with member Elizabeth Van Huffel, who will show how to make her famous strawberry daiquiri, at the Sustainable Food Center Farmers’ Market at the Triangle, which will also be an opportunity to buy the book directly from us or pick up a copy if you have already purchased yours during the pre-sale campaign. (We’re also having a AFBA happy hour that night at the nearby Flying Saucer starting at 6 p.m.)

BookPeople has generously offered to host an official event for us there at 4 p.m. on Saturday, May 11. At that event, I’ll be chatting with AFBA past president Natanya Anderson, member Chris Perez and cookbook volunteers Melissa Skorpil and Megan Myers about the process of putting together the book and why we felt so compelled to create a community cookbook in the first place.

Later this summer, we have plans to teach cooking classes and host other cookbook-related events, so stay tuned for details about those. In the meantime, keep your eyes peeled for the book at local retailers including Breed & Co., BookPeople, Whole Foods and Central Market, and feel free to leave a review of the book (or buy a few extra copies!) on our Amazon.com or BarnesandNoble.com pages. You can see the full list of recipes here.

Thanks to everyone for your generous support in these past 12 months! Community cookbooks couldn’t happen without a community that believes in working together to make it happen, so I thank you from the bottom of my heart for your enthusiasm and encouragement. Hope to see you at some of these upcoming events, and if you have any questions about the book (or pre-sale book pick-ups or anything else about the book) feel free to leave them in the comments or email me at broylesa AT gmail DOT com.

– Addie Broyles, cookbook editor

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It’s been two weeks since we launched the pre-sale campaign for the first Austin Food Blogger Alliance Cookbook, and the response has been amazing! Thank you so much to everyone who has shared the news about our book through word-of-mouth with friends and family, as well as with some awesome posts on your blogs.

To further whet your appetite for this landmark (for us) project, we are releasing the cookbook cover and list of recipes that will be included in the book. (We also have a nifty little image, below, that you can use on your own sites to encourage readers to buy the book.) The book won’t officially come out through the History Press until April, but you can buy the book ahead of time for $25 each (or 5 for $100) through the AFBA website and at any of our upcoming events.

Thank you again for all of your help and support! If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to email me at broylesa@gmail.com.

Breakfast/Breads
Papaquiles from Ryan Schierling and Julie Munroe
Gluten-Free Quiche from Rachelle King
Flaky Biscuits and Sausage Gravy from Suzanna Cole
Fried Egg Taco from Mando Rayo
Far Breton from Rachel Matthews
Moroccan Eggs Benedict from Jack Yang
Italian Easter Bread from Cecilia Nasti
Swedish Limpa from Megan Myers
Simple Homemade Granola from Kristin Schell
Thyme and Four Cheese Mini Corn Muffins from Rachel Daneman
Cinnamon Breakfast Bread from Gemma Matherne
Gluten-Free Olive Oil Pancakes from Jessica Meyer
Challah a la Dana Baruch from Mike Krell
Kolaches with Cream Cheese, Prune and Cherry Filling from Dawn Orsak
Welsh Cakes from Gemma Matherne
Sweet Baked Shredded Phyllo with Cheese (Knafeh) from Sahar Arafat-Ray

Drinks/Cocktails
Mango Lassi from Shefaly Ravula
Caliente Mexican Martini from Chris Perez
Arugula, Ginger Beer and Tito’s Vodka from Natalie Paramore
White Port Rocca from Laura McCarley
Hibiscus Mint Sun Tea Cocktail from Katie Inglis
Lemon Syrup from Kate Payne
Italian Grapefruit Cocktail with a Texas Twist from Lindsay Robison
Spring Tonic from Katie Inglis
Local Savour Strawberry Mo-Daiquiri from Elizabeth Van Huffel
Avocado Margarita from Chris Perez
Coffee Liqueur from Christy Horton

Appetizers
Gravlax from Lindsay Bailey and Lauren Macaulay
Bora Bora Fireballs from Melissa Joulwan
Smoked Salmon Hush Puppies from Derrick Stomberg
Phyllo Cheese Triangles (Tiropites) from Tracy Blair-Nicolaou
Hemp Butter Bean Pâté from Tara Miko Grayless
Goat Cheese Stuffed Hatch Peppers from Joshua Kimbell
Empanadas with Turkey, Feta and Preserved Lemons from Kristina Wolter
Mushroom and Bacon Egg Rolls with Yuzu Sauce from Jen Daugherty
Japan Meets Morocco Roll from Jack Yang

Soups/Salads/Side Dishes
Gulf Shrimp and Corn Chowder from Kristi Willis
Caldo de Pescado from Heather Santos
Summer Soup from Kristin Vrana
Sorta Gumbo z’Herbes from Lisa Rawlinson
Natalie’s Get Better Chicken Soup from Joshua Kimbell
Strawberry Balsamic Spinach Salad from Jane Ko
Watermelon Salad with Gorgonzola from Natalie Paramore
Southwestern Salad with Seared Scallops from Kristin Sheppard
Sriracha Roasted Brussels Sprouts with Lemon Vinaigrette from Kathryn Hutchison
Horseradish Cheese Grits from Susan Stella Floyd
Pad Prik King from Jam Sanitchat
Damir’s Broccoli from Ryan Schierling and Julie Munroe
Coconut-Sriracha Cauliflower Rice from Brittanie Duncan
Zucchini Pancakes from Hilah Johnson
Grilled Lime-Paprika Broccoli from Jessica Meyer

Entrees
Chocolate Chili from Melissa Joulwan
Creole Barbecue Shrimp from Margaret Christine Perkins
Beer Carne Guisada from Jennie Chen
Pork Cascabel Tacos from Heather Santos
Texas Coffee Ribs from Sommer Maxwell
Cactus Fruit-Glazed Tilapia from William Burdette
Sausage-Stuffed Quails from Meredith Bethune
Ancho Cherry-Raisin Glazed Pork Medallions with Toasted Almonds from Anna Ginsberg
Creamy Chipotle Sweet Potato and Quinoa Casserole from Mary Helen Leonard
Black Bean and Quinoa Burgers from Suzanna Cole
Rancher’s Pie from Kristin Sheppard
Rainbow Soba from Mary Helen Leonard
Sweet and Savory Goat Ragù from Meredith Bethune
Margherita Pizza from Michelann Quimby
Tiffany’s Fried Chicken from Tiffany Harelik
Baked Chicken on Bread (Musskhan) from Sahar Arafat-Ray
Persian Lamb Stew from Michelle Nezamabadi
Linguini and Clams from Addie Broyles
Bacon Corn Pesto Pasta from Lindsay Robison
Smokey Janes from Michelle Fandrich

Condiments/Canning
“For the Birds” Salsa from Rachel Matthews
Sweet Hot Mustard from David Ansel
Mom’s Green Chutney from Shefaly Ravula
Local Savour Hatch Chili Pepper & Cherry Salsa from Elizabeth Van Huffel
Hinkelhatz Criolla from Sommer Maxwell
Salsa Crema from Kristin Schell
Habanero Apricot-Infused Vinegar from Alex Lopez
Homemade HP Sauce from Lindsay Bailey and Lauren Macaulay

Desserts
Savory Peach Gorgonzola Galette from Margaret Christine Perkins
Creamy Lemon Blueberry Bars from Anna Ginsberg
Postpartum Cookies from Lisa Goddard
Dark Chocolate Mandel Bread from Amy Kritzer
Carrot Cake Bouchons from Shelley Lucas
Berry Blast-off Pops from Michelle Fandrich
Chocolate Sunshine Cake from Christy Horton
New Mexican Hot Chocolate Pie from Kristina Wolter
Avon Lady Citrus Squares from Rebecca Saltsman
Strawberry Rhubarb Pie from Shelley Lucas
Preston Spice Cupcakes with Cardamom Frosting from Tiffany Young, Antonio Delgado and Lindsay O’Neal
Ginger Cookies from Michelle Nezamabadi
Dreamsicle Tart from Monica Riese
Gaga’s Coffeecake from Addie Broyles
Texas Sheet Cake from Stacey Rider
Vegan Chocolate Peanut Butter Cookies from Kristin Vrana

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We have so much exciting news to share about the Austin Food Blogger Alliance Cookbook!

First, we’re so proud to announce that the History Press will be publishing our cookbook in April as part of its American Palate series, which will include a number of food books from Austin authors (including some AFBA members!). After many months of pulling together recipes, stories, photos and vignettes, hosting a one-for-one recipe testing exchange for a cookbook potluck last fall and editing and indexing late into the night, we have submitted the manuscript to the History Press, which has set a release date of mid April. A special thanks to our cookbook sponsor, the Austin-based Cooking Planit, for its financial support of the project.

Austin Food Blogger Alliance Cookbook pre-sale

The second piece of news is that we are hosting a cookbook pre-sale campaign, which will allow us to raise seed money to buy a bulk quantity of books to sell directly to members and our AFBA supporters. We launched the pre-sale campaign at a rockin’ party last night at Olive and June, where chef Shawn Cirkiel prepared a number of appetizers, as well as two recipes that will appear in the cookbook: an Italian grapefruit cocktail from Apron Adventures and thyme and cheese corn muffins from Dinner with Rachel. Thanks to the more than 170 of you who RSVP’d and made the pre-sale kickoff event such a success!

During the pre-sale campaign, books cost $25 each, plus tax, and we’re offering a sizable discount on each book if you buy at least five. We will be hosting pick-up events around the time of the book’s official launch, but we also will be shipping books to people who can’t make it to one of those events.

So, what will we do with the proceeds from the book sales? Like countless community cookbook projects before us, our cookbook will support the AFBA’s mission, which is to educate our members on how to be better bloggers, give them an opportunity to network with one another and create opportunities to raise money and awareness for other nonprofits in Austin. (We’ve raised more than $5,000 for local nonprofits, including SafePlace and Bake A Wish, in the past two years, and with the cookbook proceeds, we’ll be able to host even more of these kinds of events.)

Eventually, we’d like to add a scholarship program that gives budding food writers, photographers, bloggers and even aspiring chefs the opportunity to kickstart their careers.

You’ll be hearing lots more about the cookbook in coming months, including book signings, the launch party and how new members can submit recipes for what we hope will be the second edition of the book, but if you’d like to contribute to the project and buy a book early, you can find the link to order on the homepage at AustinFoodBloggers.org. (We’ll also have Square readers to accept pre-sale orders at our upcoming AFBA events, including a new member mixer on Feb. 9 and an education event later that month.)

Thank you so much for your support along the road!

Photos by Amber Demure and Molly Gerson.

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Photo by Shelley Lucas, Franish Nonspeaker.

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We are well on our way to publishing the first Austin Food Blogger Alliance community cookbook, and now that we’ve had a chance to go over the recipes we received during our first submission period, we’re ready to open the second. This will likely be your last chance to contribute content for the book, but we’re calling for things beyond recipes this time around, so hopefully this will give even more members a chance to participate. (Thank you so much to the dozens of bloggers who submitted recipes and photos the first go around!)

Here’s what we are in need of:

1) Recipes, specifically for breakfast items, side dishes, beverages and salsas/jellies. We have lots of entrees, but could use a few more recipes in the aforementioned categories. Each blogger can submit two recipes total, and we’ll be matching up bloggers later this summer for a one-for-one testing program. For each recipe you submit, we’ll be asking you to test another blogger’s recipe. Here are the guidelines, FAQ and a little bit of inspiration to get you going.

2) B-roll/filler photos. We don’t want this book to be just about the dishes. We want to showcase our fair city and our blogger group, so we’re asking our talented members to share photos like the ones included in this post of past AFBA events, like the above photo from Michael Chu’s recap of one of our first blogger potlucks, Austin landmarks or nice photos that show all the aspects of our food scene, from farmers and farmers markets to fancy wine glasses at a food festival or your favorite latte. These photos, which will of course be credited to the photographers, will help fill in the gaps between the chapters and illustrate the short essays that will appear throughout the book.

3) Vignettes. That’s what we’re officially calling said short essays about Austin and its food culture. These will be spread throughout the book, sometimes tucked in boxes next to a recipe, other times on a dedicated page, and will help tell the story of our group, while also providing useful content for readers. We’re looking for people to write on topics including, but feel free to submit ideas to afbacookbook@gmail.com if you have something you’d like to write:

How to host a potluck
How to take a better food picture
The AFBA City Guide
Our favorite food events throughout the year, such as the Hot Sauce festival, La Dolce Vita, Farm to Plate, supper clubs, Gypsy Picnic, etc.
Urban farms/farmers’ markets
Other favorite Austin cookbooks/food books/authors
A short history of food blogging and how it became so popular

_________________________________

You have until the end of June to submit recipes via this submission form and email photos to afbacookbook@gmail.com. (Please write a caption to go with your photo, and only submit photos that you took and are willing to let us print.) If you’d like to write one of the vignettes, please send an email to afbacookbook@gmail.com with the subject you’d like to write about, and an editor will respond with details about length and to confirm that no one else has already committed to that topic.

We are in the editing process for the first round of recipes and photos, and will be doing the same with this round in July, with the goal to have all the content to the designer by September 1. Email us or leave a comment with questions!

Thanks to our cookbook sponsor, Cooking Planit!

Top and bottom photos by Addie Broyles, middle photo courtesy of CFE Enterprises, Inc.

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Hello, AFBA’ers!

I know it has been a really busy month, which means I appreciate even more all the work and effort that you all have been putting into the cookbook recipes, which are rolling in as the deadline (tomorrow) approaches.

Throughout the past few weeks, I’ve been getting some excellent feedback from the food community at large that indicates we are working on something that is truly ground-breaking. (And thanks to Cooking Planit for signing on to be our cookbook sponsor!) We are going to go ahead and close submissions for now at the end of the day on May 1 [SUBMISSIONS ARE NOW CLOSED], but after we cull through the recipes that we have, we will have another window during which you can submit recipes to help fill in any gaps and — here’s the exciting part — non-recipe food content.

What exactly do I mean by “non-recipe food content”? As I wrote in the post last week, many of the best community cookbooks contain far more than recipes, and we’re going to include a number of essays about thing such as how the Austin food scene has changed in recent years, its iconic dishes, where we shop for ingredients and how our group formed. This will give people who don’t necessarily specialize in recipes a chance to contribute to the book, plus it will give readers a better understanding of our community.

I’ll post a list of essays that we’d like to have when I announce what kind of recipes we need to help round out the book, but feel free to pitch ideas to afbacookbook@gmail.com. I’ll be meeting with the AFBA board and cookbook committees in coming weeks, but I imagine we’ll be collecting the second round of content in June.

Thanks for all your help in putting this cookbook together! You are part of a unique project that I have a feeling is going to make waves even outside our fair city.

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Members of the McLennan-Hill Chapter Czech Heritage Society in North Central Texas weren’t messing around when they published the “Czech Reflections” community cookbook in 1994.

The book’s sub-subtitle says it all: “Recipes, Memories, History, Customs, Proverbs, Language, Farm Tasks, Costumes and Dancers.”

What the society couldn’t guarantee were notes like the kind that my neighbor Mary Beth’s mother, who was also named Mary, wrote for her inside the cover. “Hope you enjoy this book as much as I enjoyed giving it go you,” she wrote that Christmas.

This post, which is a helpful reminder that recipes for the AFBA community cookbook are due on May 1 [SUBMISSIONS ARE NOW CLOSED], isn’t really about this particular cookbook or that particular inscription, but before I get to the real heart of the matter, a few things of note from inside its pages:

On the cover, a girl with flowers in her hair and in a traditional dress feeding geese. After the photo shoot, she probably went home to watch “Saved By The Bell” like the rest of us, but in that moment, she represented the many generations’ worth of recipes and cultural traditions that are packed in the 204-page book.

On wells:

“Water for drinking was drawn from the well with a bucket on a chain and pulley. In the summer to keep meat from spoiling, it was placed in the bucket and suspended down halfway into the water to keep it cool. Also to cool beer, the bottles of beer would be placed in the bucket and lowered to half-way in the water.” — Henrietta Cervenka

On making it “in the early twenties,” when food was scare:

“One made the best of what was on hand. There were no supermarkets or gasoline filing stations. Fast food was never thought of nor were Dairy Queen and Long John Silver. Even so, often a peddler would come by. A mule was hitched to a wagon carrying much needed staples like flour, coffee beans and some type of bean stored in wooden barrels.” –Evelina Lenart

Recipes, of course, make up the bulk of the book. Five kolache recipes, plus lesser-known Czech desserts, like meringue kisses and poppy seed cake. Goulashes, stews and sausages, plus slightly more unusual dishes, like fried frog legs:

“Wash frog legs, put in deep bowl. Salt and pour a little oil and lemon juice over them. Sprinkle them with chopped onion and chopped green parsley and leave to marinate about an hour. Then take out and place on a clean napkin, dust with flour, dip in beaten egg and roll in grated bread crumbs, fry in hot melted butter shortly before serving. Arrange on dish lined with green parsley.”

They’ve published Czech translations of many of the standards like cucumber salads, sour potato gravy with dill roux and vanilla cookies, but how often do you think that frog legs recipe, which was also translated, was used in the early 1990s?

But the recipes — like the darker stories that this kind of digging into the past can bring up — are important, even if we don’t particularly like them anymore.

Community cookbooks like this one capture so many things about a society, including aspirational and traditional dishes that people might not actually cook any more but that are important to understanding how we came to eat the way we do now. With ours, we’re not looking to document the entire history of a culture, but merely a glimpse at the kind of food that bloggers who live in Central Texas love to make. Through publishing these stories, we hope to also tell the stories of the people they love and who loved them enough to pass down the art of cooking.

The owner of this copy of “Czech Reflections” doesn’t have any children herself, and I might be the only person in a decade who asked her to point out which recipes were her mother’s and which were from her dad’s mother. This, of course, led us to talking about how her parents met and how her dad’s mom taught her own mom, who couldn’t boil a pot of water when they got married, to be one of the best cooks in the county.

I’ve been talking a lot lately with my maternal and paternal grandmothers, who are 81 and 86, respectively, about our family histories, and sometimes the best way to get them talking is to ask them questions about food and cooking. I’m trying to get them to open up about relatives who died years before I was born in an effort to build an Ancestry.com digital family tree, which is a free and pretty spiffy tool if you haven’t checked it out.

Talking the other day with one of my grandmothers about how she used to bury eggs in a wooden box of salt to preserve them led to both of us in tears, facing a difficult conversation that needed to be had. My other grandmother’s stories got a little more tepid after we touched on the time after her father walked out on her, her mom and her brother when she was just a kid.

Emotions are tied up in the simplest things, but documenting them taps into something deep within us, a reverence for the things we know and the things we wish we knew.

I feel lucky to have started gathering oral histories now before my elders start losing some of those details about who moved where when and what they did when they got there. (My great-great grandfather left Sweden in 1884 to make wagons in Springfield, Missouri. He couldn’t afford to go back to get his wife and children for a decade, and my grandmother still uses the bread knife that her grandmother carried over on that boat.)

Anyway, I’m delving far too much into genealogy and away from cookbook publishing, but as you are thinking about which recipes and stories to submit, consider the recipes that have meaning in your life because the generations that follow ours will hopefully be able to read our book and get a sense of who we are, what is important to us and how we live, including how we incorporate technology into our cooking.

Speaking of technology, over on our Facebook group, AFBA member Ginny Bell asked if we were lacking in any particular category of entries. We are getting lots of desserts, but there are also plenty of appetizers and entrees, too. We have received several very complicated dishes, and we don’t have very many straight-up side dishes, so it would be nice to get a few simple and/or vegetable-heavy dishes in the next week. If you have any other questions, don’t hesitate to email me at broylesa@gmail.com.

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Zucchini Ricotta Cheesecake

We’re a week into the submission period for the Austin Food Blogger Alliance cookbook, which is a perfect time to address a few questions that came up in the recipe writing class last week and in the Facebook group. Feel free to leave other questions in the comments or email them to afbacookbook@gmail.com. Don’t forget: The deadline to submit recipes is April 30 [SUBMISSIONS ARE NOW CLOSED].

Margaret Christine Perkins from Notes From Maggie’s Farm: Do the recipes have to be Texan or particularly Austin-y?

No. Austin has longstanding culinary traditions that are as important to the city as our founding families, but that doesn’t mean that the people who live in the area now have to cast off their own food experiences to conform to what Austin food “should” be. People move to Austin from all over the world, and that’s one of the reasons our culinary scene is so unique. We want to honor that diversity by showcasing food that you identify with and that represents who you are. Recipes that have memories associated with them have the most meaning for us personally, and that emotional connection to food is what will make this book really sing.

Tiffany Harelik of Trailer Food Diaries: I’m the type of person that cooks with a pinch of this and a dash of that, and I never make the same recipe twice, especially for things like my fried chicken. How exact do we need to be and which version of my dish should I use?

At the class last week, Michael Chu of Cooking For Engineers recommended using a scale’s tare (or zero-out) feature to calculate how much of each ingredient you are using, even if you don’t use traditional measuring tools. For example, place a bowl on an electric scale and tare it so it’s back at zero. As you add flour and other seasonings for the fried chicken coating, reset the scale after each addition to record the amount, which you can translate to teaspoons, tablespoons or cups later. Establish a base recipe that is the very minimum that someone would need to know to understand your approach to the dish. In the recipe’s headnote, you can include information about the other ways that you like to spiff it up (for Tiffany, it’s soaking the chicken in sweet tea or even hot sauce).

Heather Santos of Midnite Chef asked: Should the bio be in first or third person? I’m thinking the bio should be third but the header should be first, like you are talking to the person about to prepare the recipe (those are fun to read). Thoughts?

We’re asking for bio in third person and headnote in first (“I” and “we”) or second (“you”). Admittedly, it’s hard to write about yourself in third person, but in most cookbooks and magazines, you’ll find short bios  in the front to give you a feel for the people behind the articles and text. These kinds of bios have become popular in the “about me” section of food blogs, too. Talking directly to the cook is common in recipe headnotes, which introduce a recipe and act as a segue from the title to the ingredients. If there’s something tricky about the recipe or a way that you like to adapt it, this is the place to mention it. On the cookbook submission form, we just have a single entry point for “story behind the recipe,” which is where you can give some back story as well as tips that a cook would want to know before starting.

Melissa Joulwan of Clothes Make the Girl: Can we reuse recipes from our blogs, or do you want completely original recipes for the book?

You can definitely reuse recipes from your blog! We’d really like to see original recipes, but some of our best dishes might be ones that were inspired by other bloggers but that we made our own. It’s as easy as substituting ingredients that suit your family’s tastes and adding a twist that the original creator might not have thought of. Just be honest about where your recipes and inspiration come from. We all like to get a pat on the back for our work, and there is no greater compliment than someone taking your work and using it to inspire something else entirely, with credit, of course. (Just ask Austin Kleon, the Austin artist and blogger who recently published “How To Steal Like An Artist.“)

Thanks to our cookbook sponsor, Cooking Planit!

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