Kate and Molly speak with blogger, writer and MasterChef alum Hetal Vasavada about her atypical career journey. She shares stories and lessons learned from her time on the tv show, how she got around the limits of her contract after it aired and why it was important to foster a community. Hetal talks about the differences between book one and book two, the advice she got during recipe development and how she learned food photography skills to shoot her own books before diving into the design process. She discusses working with the designer, choosing a title, her unique brand of flavor combinations that yields dishes that have minimal effort but maximum payoff and leaves us with a few of her ideas for book number three.

Hosts: Kate Leahy + Molly Stevens + Kristin Donnelly + Andrea Nguyen

Editor: Abby Cerquitella

Hetal Vasavada

• Website
• Instagram

Would You Write a Cookbook for Next to Nothing?

Swasti Creative

Milk & Cardamom Linen Collaboration at Kaapus Co.

Visit the Everything Cookbooks Bookshop to purchase a copy of the books mentioned in the show

• Desi Bakes by Hetal Vasavada
• Milk & Cardamom by Hetal Vasavada

Today things get a little bit spicy and steamy as Kate and Molly speak with debut romance writer Sarah Chamberlain. Sarah shares her experience working to "American-ize" foreign cookbooks and how she brought that food world expertise to her fiction writing. She discusses stepping into the romance world (reading and writing), the inspirations for her novel and how she landed on the cookbook details that were central to the plot and character development. Finally, she talks about the role food can play in fiction and where she sees this done well before giving us a sneak peak at her next book and some advice she has for aspiring writers in the food world.

Hosts: Kate Leahy + Molly Stevens + Kristin Donnelly + Andrea Nguyen

Editor: Abby Cerquitella

Mentions

Episode 63: On Rejection and Recovery

Sarah Chamberlain

• Website
• Instagram

Susan Elizabeth Phillips

Marian Keyes

Sarah MacLean

Mhairi McFarlane

Visit the Everything Cookbooks Bookshop to purchase a copy of the books mentioned in the show

• The Slowest Burn by Sarah Chamberlain
• A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith
• Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel
• My Side of the Mountain by Jean Craighead George
• All-of-a-Kind Family by Sydney Taylor
• Dial A for Aunties by Jesse Q. Sutanto
• Crazy Rich Asians by Kevin Kwan

Kristin, Andrea and special co-host Elsa chat with Priya Krishna about her fresh and unique kid's cookbook 'Priya's Kitchen Adventures'. Priya talks about approaching this project without kids of her own and why she wanted to create a physical book instead of going the video/social media route. She shares how writing for kids made her a better recipe developer, how she decided on the format, recipe titles, difficulty levels and cuisines to highlight while Elsa talks about the specifics she appreciated and enjoyed in the book. We learn about the recipe testing process and photoshoot that both involved kids and Priya talks about how she fit writing this book in with her New York Times work. Finally, she talks about the different approach to promotion that this called for and why she feels this may be her last cookbook, though hopefully not her last book.

Hosts: Kate Leahy + Molly Stevens + Kristin Donnelly + Andrea Nguyen

Editor: Abby Cerquitella

Mentions

Priya Krishna

• Website
• Instagram
• New York Times
  

Visit the Everything Cookbooks Bookshop to purchase a copy of the books mentioned in the show

• Priya's Kitchen Adventures by Priya Krishna
• Indianish by Priya Krishna
• Cooking at Home by Priya Krishna