Welcome to issue #013 of the 🔒 Cookbook Confidential 🔒! Each week, I send 1 private newsletter with private recipes, guides, and drafts we're developing for the book.
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I had always heard from fellow cookbook authors how difficult and time consuming writing a cookbook is. Since I’ve been in the thick of it, I fully get it.
This whole process makes me wonder if I have ADHD or something similar (a whole different topic), as I’ve had several stretches where it’s been very difficult to get into a rhythm and flow of writing.
Recently, I started taking a different approach. As opposed to trying to create a cookbook solely by banging my head against a keyboard into text editor, I started drafting my cookbook visually in Canva.
This approach has a lot of downsides, mainly that it couldn’t be further from one of my “final” deliverables - a Microsoft Word document.
However, it’s re-engaging the parts of my brain that I love - information design, layout, typography, and visual storytelling. And ultimately, at this phase, the top priority is for me to work with my parents to distill their wisdom and get more words on pages.
What I’m about to share is raw, unedited, and far from what our final cookbook will look like, but represents how I am thinking and approaching the first major section of our book.
For now, I’m calling it “Skills”, and it will hopefully be a helpful framework for breaking down and replicating how my dad approaches every meal he cooks.
I haven’t completed the entire section, but here are the first pages.
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