The book is here! The book is here!

If I didn’t call you back this spring, if I didn’t email you even though it was important, if you basically weren’t  bleeding from the head or one of my girls (even if they weren’t bleeding from the head I paid attention to them), you may have heard, I was writing a cookbook.  It sort of took up every available moment.  And now it’s here!  It’s here!

The huge tractor trailer truck pulled up in our driveway.

Out they come!

Projects are a funny thing.  You think about them for a while and sometimes have a hem-and-haw period where you don’t know the how, where, what and why although the who is pretty clear – me, myself and I.  Finally, you get a mental grip on yourself and dive right in.  Once you are in the process, then it’s about both the creative work and the deadlines with all the requisite organization and executive skills.  As the project nears the end, there seems to always be a bit of a crunch (and by ‘bit’ I mean ‘a big, hairy while when you think you’ll never be done’) and then poof off it goes into the universe (or off to the printer as is the case with a book).  Once you have it in hand, it’s almost hard to remember what all the fuss and hubbub was about.  It’s not unlike, although not nearly as intense as, birthing a child where there is a time when every woman wonders how it is that we actually have so many children on this planet, because, dang!, who would keep doing this over and over again?  And then you hold that child in your arms and all of those intensely difficult hours seem suddenly very fuzzy and unimportant.

Safe and sound in the barn.  Hee, hee!

So now as I write, I’m so excited to have Sugar and Salt in hand that I’m a little foggy on how much work was involved.  Elizabeth, the photographer of all the book’s photos not to mention the manager of the entire production schedule, will shoot daggers in my direction when she reads this, but she loves me, so that’s okay.

The first box we opened!

Thank you to MORE & CO. for their amazing design work and their knowledge of book production.  Maria, CDR and Ryan you are all terrific.  Thank the heavens for your facility with In Design, we would have been sunk without you in so many ways.   Working together with you all in our creative process was so much fun that I’m already looking forward to next time.  Thank you to Sharon Kitchens for actually finding us MORE & CO. in the first place and for continuing to beg for a cookbook to promote.  I appreciate you and all of your smart, ingenious work.  Thank you to Elizabeth for her photos, her attention to detail and her organizational skills.  Working with you every day is such a pleasure.  Lastly thank you Kirkwood Printing for the beautiful paper and the quality print job.  Dear ones, we created something lovely together.

In celebration!
Annie