This will be my last post for 2011. Every other year we go to Norway to celebrate Christmas with Wolf’s family, but we decided that this year we’d stay in Southern California. Wolf took Mimi to Norway in September to be a part of his mother’s 70th birthday bash, and when he returned told me he didn’t want to make the long trip again for a while especially with our very energetic two-year-old. At first I was a bit disappointed; I had been looking forward to going, but then images of us running after Mimi for hours on end as we made our way across the Atlantic aged me. We’ll go another time. Next year, probably.

So, as I always do when we’re home (here) for the holidays, I cook the food of a region or country I haven’t yet been to. This year it’s India. Madhur Jaffrey is my guide and I’m taking a few recipes from a few of her wonderful books. For me, Jaffrey is to Indian cooking what Julia Child was to French. She kind of takes the intimidation and the mystique out of it and makes you believe that you, too, can make something quite delicious.

This has been a challenging, magical and memorable year for me. Thank you for taking the time out of your busy lives to visit here. I’ll see you next year!

And oh. How can I forget? Very special thanks to all of you who have bought my book. I hope you’re enjoying it. xo, mari

The Cover.

We are squealing with excitement. A few days ago, we received a proof of the book. My heart was pounding. And I felt a tad dizzy. We’ve worked so long on this project. It was hard to imagine what it would feel like in our hands.

So how did it feel? In a word: great.

We had some problems with one printer/publisher and had to switch to another one very quickly. Long story short: we got two proofs, one from the first publisher that was awful. And this one that just amazed us.

I’ve sent a tiny little preview to friends who have signed up to receive email from me. If you’d like a preview of the book before its release, then please, opt-in for that mailing. You can click on The. List. to your right there in the sidebar. Or feel free to click on this link and follow the instructions.

If all goes well – and why wouldn’t it? – this little book will be ready for purchase from early December. That’s right around the corner, friends.

As you all know, I’m writing a book. About these here crazy cookies. I’m currently recreating a lot of my cookie designs so that Wolf can shoot professional-quality pictures for this very unique publication. And unique it will be.

If you would like to be among the first to know of the book’s release, please sign up and get on The. List. You’ll be asked for your name and email and no more.

We are working toward a late-September finish and hope to have the book out by mid-October. The book will contain great photos by Wolf and fascinating stories by me. It will also have some simple tutorials so that you and people as crazy as you can attempt to make cookies like me. And when I say crazy, I mean it in a good way.

So if you are kind enough to sign up, rest assured of the following:

• Your information will not be shared with anyone. Period. I might be mischievous, but I do not do scummy scammy stuff. Never.
• You will get some exclusive previews of the book right before the big announcement.
• You’ll get a sweet (pun intended!) discount toward the book.
• And there’s going to be a nice freebie in there, too. Oh, yes. Yes, yes, yes!

The. List. is not a regular email newsletter. It is more like an occasional notification of super-special stuff that’s going on that super-special people like you will receive. That’s it.

You can sign up below. Or you can think about it and come back. If you do the think-and-return thing, then just go to the sidebar to the right. See the signup for The. List.? That’s where you can sign up any time. I will occasionally post reminders to sign up on the blog; I promise they’ll be shorter and to the point.

Subscribe to The. List.!!!

Right now, I feel like an ordinary bug. I want to be a butterfly.

I’ve got a few guest blog posts coming up – one on Melissa Dinwiddie’s really wonderful new site, 365 Days of Genius – and in submitting my information and getting my posts together, I realized something a little embarrassing: I haven’t changed a thing at mischief mari cookies (the site) in a long time. Not since…2008? Is that right? I cleaned up this l’il blog here early last year, but I’ve caught blog look fatigue since and I think this area could do with a little freshening up.

So, I’m starting to put together a nice new site that will include a flash slideshow of my portfolio, and I’m going to look for some inspiration to make the blog look a bit different. I recently found Jessica Swift’s site and blog; now, it seems that gal’s a pro when it comes to designing stuff. But I sure wouldn’t mind having my web space look as charming as that. We’ll see what we come up with.

got design ideas for me? you could win some mischief mari cookies!!!

And oh. Here’s a sweet idea: why don’t you, my mischies, give me suggestions for the blog’s redesign? For ideas used, I will give you a box of mischief mari cookies. Seriously. But the suggestions have to go beyond, “Hey Mari, I’m sick and tired of your stupid banner with the Jane Austen cookie.” I mean, if you’re going to suggest something, then please give me colors, inspiration, zing, social media tips, functionality, and all that other stuff. And don’t be afraid to criticize; as long as it’s constructive, I’m all ears. Hey, this is your space, too!!! Got it? Off you go now. Come back with supremely awesome suggestions.

And of course, of course! if you make great suggestions, I’ll sing your praises here, on Twitter, Facebook and to anyone else I encounter. Oh, you know I will.

One last thing: if I don’t use your suggestions, then don’t cry. I’m not good around people who cry. We’ll still be friends.

Cheers, mari

You came in without hardly saying a thing. One minute it was 2010, next it was 2011. Isn’t that how it always happens?

I’m glad it’s a new year. The past year wasn’t a bad one for me. It’s just that creatively I felt I was in quite a rut. A dry spell. A lull that was much deeper than just a lull. I’m sure my exhaustion from being a new parent played a big part in all this. But I also think that it was much deeper than that. I woke up many days thinking I didn’t want to bake or decorate or paint or sew or do anything creative at all.

Has that ever happened to you? You just woke up and thought, whatever?

The main reason I started this blog was to share the inspiration and ideas behind my baking and cookie designs. Most of the designs I create are based in some way on an experience that I somehow translate into colored sugar (that’s what icing really is; sugar, water and color). But last year, nothing really sparked my imagination to the nth degree as it had before.

Was I losing my edge? Was I goner? A has-been? Was I losing interest?

I wondered.

I started to go back through my old posts and my Flickr photos and my equipment in my kitchen (turns out I’m running low on Electric Pink gel color paste, by the way. SugarCraft, here I come!) and somehow, the memories of making this dog cookie and these fish cookies and this Scrooge set came back. I then looked at my cookbooks, all of the notes I’ve made on each recipe, the pages of tips and recipes I’ve ripped out of magazines. And of course, all of the files I’ve kept on my computer and backed up on external hard drives. Photos, more photos, scanned pages from rare cookbooks and clippings from newspapers and magazines where mischief mari cookies have been lucky to appear.

Quit? Give up? Be a has-been? No way. Not now.

Hey, I’ve got a book I need to finish. I’ve got tons of stories I’m sure that are just waiting to be experienced and made into cookies. I’ve got posts filled with dread and anguish and joy and pain and tears and laughter. I’ve got more pictures I need to take. I’ve got video – yes, video! – I have to shoot and share.

So. Yeah, the baby’s knackering me out. But I’ve still got stuff I want to do, and that I will do.

So here’s to a good 2011. I won’t go so far as saying I’m fired up and ready to roll. But I’m close.

Cheers.

In the next few days I’ll be cooking Ethiopian dishes for our holiday feast. Every other year we go to Norway for Christmas. In the years we’re home alone, like this year, I cook something from a place I have not (yet) been. This year it’s Ethiopia, and The Soul of a New Cuisine: A Discovery of the Foods and Flavors of Africa by Marcus Samuelsson is my guide.

This book is gorgeous. The photography, which goes beyond the typical shots of prepared dishes, the chef at work and a pantry filled with ingredients you’ll need, is beyond beautiful. It’s like flipping through the pages of a National Geographic. This book is making me dream.

Have a good one! I’ll be back soon.

Last year, I submitted the chocolate cookie recipe that I love most in the world – Carole Walter’s chocolate cookie from her book Great Cookies – along with a photo that Wolf shot for me of my “HOPE” letter cookies. The cookies, of course, were inspired by the hope I felt following Barack Obama’s election to the presidency and the new direction he’d give to this country. Well, he’s kind of struggling, occasionally stumbling. But none of that’s surprising. He inherited two wars that never should have been, and an economy in shambles. No president, no administration, no matter how skilled or popular can simply turn all of that around in just two years. To expect that is just ludicrous.

What IS surprising is that last week the photo editor of the NY Times Style Section sent me an email requesting a high resolution version of the above photo with the recipe for republishing. “Don’t they already have this? And why are they doing this again?” I wondered. But you know, even in this day and age in which social media and internet this and web that and online whatever rules, the NY Times is still, well, the NY Times. If they ask you for something other than your username and password, you respond.

So lookie, lookie! It turns out that eight of the recipes that were submitted by readers last year were baked and tested by NY Times Dining and Wine staff. And guess what? My recipe – oh, sorry, Carole Walters’s recipe! – was the unanimous favorite!

For more on what the NY Times did and how this all happened, please read the Diner’s Journal here.

Do you know what this means? I have great taste. So there.

And so does the Dining and Wine staff at the NY Times.

This also means, of course, that there is still great hope in this world. Really, there is.

Wolf’s lovely photo and the full recipe for these knockout cookies are here at the New York Times.

]]> http://www.mischiefmaricookies.com/blog/mix-roll-cut-bake-decorate-repeat-in-the-ny-times/feed/ 7 http://www.mischiefmaricookies.com/blog/getting-started-on-holiday-baking/ http://www.mischiefmaricookies.com/blog/getting-started-on-holiday-baking/#comments Mon, 06 Dec 2010 19:54:09 +0000 mischief mari http://www.mischiefmaricookies.com/blog/?p=1687

When I pick up jars of molasses at the supermarket, that’s when I feel like the holidays are here. I took every last jar on the shelf at our local Ralph’s store. If that doesn’t say “I’m baking gingerbread cookies” I don’t know really what does.

I start with cookies later today, and I’m trying a new gingerbread cake recipe this week.

Mr. Lapin. What eez he doo-ing here?

Take a guess. The first person who guesses correctly will get a beautiful package of insanely amazingly decorated mischief mari cookies. And if, for some bizarre reason you don’t want my cookies, please allow me to send them on your behalf as a gift to someone you care deeply for.

Good luck.

{CONTEST CLOSED 11.18.2010 Lily won! In Comments below. Thanks everyone! }

(or How I didn’t get a book deal).

Earlier this year, I wrote a book proposal about mischief mari cookies and sent it to several publishers who accept unsolicited material from unrepresented writers. In the proposal I talked about how I started this baking and decorating mania, the stories that inspired my best designs, what I most enjoy about baking, and how writing this blog has motivated me to do better post after post. I also included amazing photos that Wolf took of my work. (And when I say amazing photos, I mean, he took just unbelievable, eye-popping, oh-my-god-what-the-f-is-that! great photos).

Cool Dude Polar Bear

How I learned to write a book proposal

Since I didn’t know how to put a non-fiction proposal together, I did a little research on the web and followed the advice of Kathy Cano-Murillo (aka Crafty Chica) in her post How to Write a Non-Fiction Book Proposal. There were a few other sites that were helpful, but I think Cathy’s straightforward and even humorous just-d0-it-and-while-you’re-at-it-sock-it-to-’em attitude was most helpful to me. If you’re looking for help on writing a non-fiction proposal, check her post out.

Putting the proposal together, then mailing it

After deciding where to submit my proposal, I printed out the highest quality color prints and pages, made several packets, each slightly different from the next. I’ve been on the other side of publishing and journalism, and nothing stinks of carelessness and thoughtlessness so much as a proposal or a resume or an application that doesn’t follow guidelines, isn’t personalized and simply looks like it was mass-produced. Each one was slightly different in length from the other. Some publishers only wanted a cover letter and a link to my site. Other publishers wanted at least three chapters and a stack of 4 x 6 photos. One publisher only accepted electronic submissions. One publisher wanted nothing more than a cover letter and a photo, and by email only.

After sending the electronic submissions first,  I was ready to get the snail mail packets out. I remember looking at them on my desk and wondering, “Is anyone going to bite?” Self-doubt can be a destructive thing. I could think of one million reasons for not going through with this. But Wolf told me, as he did before trying to have a kid, “You don’t want to look back ten years later and say to yourself, ‘I really should have tried…’” And so I took each pile, made sure its cover letter matched the one on the mailing envelope, sealed it and moved onto the next.

A few hours later, I put Mimi in her stroller, and with my proposals in my computer bag, we made the half-mile journey to our post office. While there, one of the USPS workers noticed the addresses on the envelopes and wished me luck. On our way back I told Mimi, “I’m hoping for the best. And expecting the worst.” She was less than six months old at the time. And fast asleep in her little buggy. I guess I just needed to say something to someone.

Rejection: Stinks, but it’s not the worst thing that can happen to you

To make a long story short: I was rejected by everyone. Some – like Chronicle Books – only accept electronic submissions and said that if I didn’t hear from them in three months, they were most likely not interested. Others sent form letters including one that was a crooked photocopy and started with, “Dear Author…”

I had hoped for the best. I got the worst. Well, kind of. Actually, not really.

Two publishers – which I will not name here – who also happened to be my top choices, sent personalized notices with specific reasons for not taking me on. The first responded within three weeks. The editor in charge of food books said she loved my proposal, my style, my writing. But she had a similar book in her catalog and couldn’t add another title that would compete with the one she had already. Fair enough.

But get this: she offered to look at other proposals if I had any. Yes!

Another major publisher sent me a letter telling me that I got to the final round of consideration but the editorial board agreed at a meeting that promoting and marketing an unknown baker was too difficult. The editor wished me the best of luck and signed off in pretty green ink.

So where do I go from here? I’m going to publish it myself.

To be honest, I wasn’t too dejected by all this rejection. I knew the chances of getting a deal were slim to none. The fact that I got two major publishing houses to tell me what they thought about my proposal  and welcomed further queries was a bit of a victory. But I did wonder where I’d go from here. Do I try to find more publishers, maybe even in other countries, to get my book made? Or do I self-publish?

I looked over my proposal again, recently, and after discussing it with Wolf, we’ve decided we’re going to go the self-publishing route. Because I’ve spent years as a reporter working with editors who’ve always transformed what I’ve scribbled into something decent, and clients who push me to do better with every rewrite, the idea of going on this independent path is a bit frightening. But it’s the path I’ve chosen. I have to finish what I start.

There was a time when I wanted to be the queen of the cookie universe, open cool cookie houses worldwide, and I dared to imagine people lining up around street corners just to get into one of my bakeries for even a crumb. But that was my ego talking to me. While not necessarily a bad thing, it wasn’t what this journey has become. Oh no, dear friends. Over time I’ve seen how mischief mari cookies have made many people happy. And they’ve traveled to places I have yet to see with my own eyes like Brazil and Afghanistan. Most of all, these cookies – of all things, cookies! – have led me in some of the most unexpected ways to some really wonderful people.

Now that’s motivation to keep going, to finish what I started.

I have no idea when we’re going to finish this book project. But we will! I’ll keep you updated on progress whenever I can.

]]> http://www.mischiefmaricookies.com/blog/i-didnt-get-a-book-deal-so-im-going-to-self-publish/feed/ 10