The Austin Food Blogger Alliance is putting out a cookbook.
Yes, it’s an ambitious project for a group that just celebrated its first birthday, but in honor of the longstanding tradition of community cookbooks, we’re turning to members for the recipes, photos, design, editing and testing of the book, which we hope to release at the end of the year.
For generations, community cookbooks have been not only a source of inspiration in the kitchen, they’ve also been a cultural record of the cooks that make up that community.
In addition to recipes, we’ll be asking members to write a little about themselves, their blog, who they cook for and why. We want this book to be a reflection of Austin in 2012, and we won’t be able to make it happen without you.
The first step is collecting the recipes, which we’ll be doing throughout the month of April.
To help all of us write better recipes, we’re hosting a Recipe Writing 101 class at 7 p.m. on April 3 in a conference room on the Plaza Level at Whole Foods Market global offices, above the store at Sixth Street and Lamar Boulevard. Guests can access the Plaza level via the elevators marked “office” from P1 or P2 parking levels, or via the staircase from the surface parking lot, and through the double glass doors.
Food writers Karen Morgan (founder of Blackbird-bakery.com and author of “Blackbird Bakery Gluten-Free“), Ann Clark (author of “Quick Cuisine” and “Ann Clark’s Fabulous Fish,” and founder of Austin’s first cooking school), and Michael Chu (of the award-winning blog, Cooking For Engineers) will walk us through some of the pitfalls that beginning recipe writers often fall into and help navigate some of the more nuanced steps of creating recipes that are clear, concise and easy to follow.
Elizabeth Engelhardt, author of “Republic of Barbecue,” and an American history and women’s studies professor at the University of Texas who specializes in foodways, will kick off the class with brief history of community cookbooks and a reminder of why they still matter today.
The class is free to members and $15 for non-members, who can sign up and pay via EventBrite.
Look for another post next week with a link to the recipe submission page, but start thinking about which recipes you’d like to contribute. Email Addie Broyles if you have questions about the project, broylesa@gmail.com.
-Addie Broyles, Feminist Kitchen