the making of a cookbook (part 1)

behind the scenes of baking by feel <3

Apr 25, 2023

Hi friends, thank you so much for being here! It means a lot to me. If you enjoy my writing, I’d love it if you’d share A Little Something Sweet with the people you love. I also invite you to upgrade to a paid subscription, which gives you access to my Rom Coms Revisited movie club, exclusive recipes, and other subscribers-only content. Your support of my work allows me to keep creating here and elsewhere. I’m so grateful, xoxo.

You may not know this about me, but before I was The Sweet Feminist I had a tiny little food blog called Flours In Your Hair (cute, right?) where I taught myself to write recipes. Creating a cookbook has always been one of my big dreams. But prior to Baking by Feel, I really had no idea what that process entailed. Turns out it’s super long and complicated, with lots and lots of different steps. So this is part 1 (of however many parts it takes!) of the story of making my lil baby book.

Let’s start at the beginning. I started planning for this book in the middle years of The Sweet Feminist. At that time, I thought it would be something completely different - something much more related to the cakes. I had a general idea of what I was trying to do, but it was still very nebulous.

**the cakes**/first idea cover inspiration

Now, in general, you can’t pitch to publishers without an agent. And since I had no idea how to get one, I googled it. And Google told me to send query letters to literary agencies. A query is typically an email that includes information about you and your future book, and sometimes actual book content/a proposal if you have it available. I worked off of internet examples, and drafted something I thought might work. Now, who to send those queries to? More googling. After several “I’m not taking on new clients” and many non-responses, I found an interested agent.

With her help, I wrote a proposal for that first idea and pitched it to publishers. And I got a whole lot of “yeah, no thanks”. Naively, I was surprised! Unsurprisingly, it wasn’t great for my self esteem. Rejection sucks under the best of circumstances, and it definitely sucked in those early-COVID unemployment days. I was big mad/sad for weeks. I baked a lot of brownies.

Eventually I came up with another idea - one that I liked even better. One that felt more like me. It’s a cliché, but it really was a lightbulb sort of moment. I was sitting on my couch and a thought popped in that went something like “Wait, I use baking to process my emotions all the time. What if there was a guide for that??”. I opened my laptop and typed out everything I could think of about the idea, stream of conscious style, until I ran out of steam. Here’s some of that brainstorm, pulled from ancient google docs:

we love an emotionally agnostic cookbook <3

Tiny break for context, in case you’re wondering where this sudden interest in emotions came from. During my COVID unemployment I was lucky enough to go to therapy for the first time. And through that therapy I realized that when it comes to emotions, I’m an intellectualizer. I thought that since I could understand my emotions and articulate them, that was the same as feeling as them. Turns out, it’s not! After some experimentation, I started noticing that it was easier for me to process my emotions when I was also doing something to engage my body. Something like walking, or playing with therapy dough, or baking.

me, the day i pitched my book to publishers

OK back to the story. So, I wrote the proposal for Baking By Feel and my agent sent out letters. From those letters I got two bites, and then one offer. And then I realized I actually had to figure out how to write a book (!!).

part 2 coming soon!

some notable (and less notable) things

Book recommendation: Hannah Matthews’ You or Someone You Love - Reflections from an Abortion Doula is coming out 5/2 and is available for preorder now!
An eye-opening, transformative, and actionable journey through radical and compassionate community abortion care and support work: what it looks like, how each and every one of us can practice and incorporate it into our daily lives, and what we can imagine and build together in a post-Roe v. Wade United States.
Current Grinnell students: I’d love to see you at the workshop I’m hosting this week on campus! We’re making sour cream sugar cookies, talking about how to use baking as a way to process our emotions, and decorating Sweet Feminist-style cakes. It’ll be low pressure and fun!
Mifepristone will remain approved by the FDA for the time being!
Coming this Sunday 4/30: Rom Coms Revisited, She Devil (1989). Meryl Streep is the villain who lives in an all pink everything mansion!
- ICYMI, Rom Coms Revisited is a new movie club for paid subscribers where we talk about the good, the bad, and the ugly of your fave 90’s-early 2000s rom coms! Here’s the ones we’ve done so far:
My fave secret from this week:
Feedback request: what do you want to see more of in A Little Something Sweet? Let me know in the comments!

a recipe

chocolate cake for your lover

This cake was designed to make someone fall in love with you (or make you fall in love with you). It’s a rich, deep, dark chocolate cake with a fluffy milk chocolate frosting. Bonus: it’s a single layer cake, so no need to mess with any filling or stacking. More time for making out, or whatever!

The secret ingredient? Love. Just kidding - it’s espresso powder. The amount we’re using won’t make the cake taste like coffee (but add some more if you’re into that!), it’s just there to amplify the chocolate flavor.