Serendib Kitchen

In case it’s of interest, I had a gift certificate for $200 in books, and I decided to go all in on food memoir-ish stuff. This is what I’ve ordered:

The Language of Baklava, Diana Abu Jaber
A Cook’s Tour, Anthony Bourdain
My Life in France, Julia Child
Home Cooking, Laurie Colwin
How to Cook a Wolf, MFK Fisher
Grape, Olive, Pig, Matt Goulding
Blood, Bones & Butter, Gabrielle Hamilton
A Year in Provence, Peter Mayle
The Apprentice, Jacques Pepin
Tender at the Bone, Ruch Reichl
The Making of a Chef, Mark Ruhlman
Yes, Chef, Macus Samuelsson
Domesticity, Bob Shacochis
Toast, Nigel Slater
Give a Girl a Knife, Amy Thielen
Rhapsody in Schmaltz, Michael Wex

I imagine some reviews will be coming along at some point…

You know I’ve been too busy when I get months behind on posting photos from my phone. Let’s see if I can identify these meals:

a) I made a salad with roasted brussels sprouts — I remember that it was tasty, but don’t remember the occasion!

b) This was dinner in Greektown with George R.R. Martin and one of his fabulous assistants when he was in town — yumyum. (And did I feel very cool? Yes, yes I did.

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c) I think this was a poached egg in a salad with…oh, now I can’t remember. Maybe Amanda or Nara or Roshani or Kavi? Definitely at Léa up the street, I think. Good! I’m not sure if I’ve had a poached egg in a salad before; I approve.

d) Experimenting with painting edible gold dust on chocolate cookies pressed out with a fancy die-cut roller. Dust = good. Roller = good. Cookies = meh; at some point, I’d like to develop a cookie recipe I’m happier with for this kind of application. Something with a little zing to it. 🙂 Chocolate-cayenne, perhaps? Or abandon the chocolate and go for a classic lemon sugar cookie…maybe we’ll experiment for Valentine’s Day. What are V-day flavors to you, aside from chocolate? Hmm…I’m thinking passionfruit cookies are worth experimenting with!

e) This is the one that really makes my mouth water. Stringhoppers and curries. Nothing better! I can’t remember who I was eating this with, but I must have liked them a lot if I pulled out the string hoppers….

I’ve started reading this book, and while some of it isn’t so relevant to me (geared towards professional food photographers or those who would like to become them, so talking about apertures and the like), some of it is. I’d like to take better photos for you all.

And the intro was actually just rather lovely, esp. the last paragraph, and applicable to writing and many other arts / career passions:

“I tell you this not to boast about my own success, but because I am aware that many of you are looking to reinvent yourselves, and understanding that it’s possible matters. I know there never seems to be enough time in the day, but when you are pursuing a dream, you will find the time. It will not feel like work.”

#serendibkitchen

I’m starting to think seriously about marketing Feast. Should I have thought seriously about it earlier? Yes. But one does what one can. I’m currently reading a book about how to sell a lot of books, and I have another one recommended to me about your brand and your book. Fun? Not exactly. But I’m learning things.

So far, the first chapters have mostly told me to build a platform, so at least that’s sort of comforting, as it’s mostly done. Or at least in progress. It’s hard to figure out how much time one should spend on such things (as opposed to, say, writing new fiction, essays, etc).

Facebook I do very naturally, and it’s super-fun talking to people here. (Maybe too fun!) Right now, I try to bop over to Twitter once a day or so, but it’s just not a natural medium for me, so it’s hard to build engagement there. And Instagram I just have Heather copying things over to for now; I should probably be following food bloggers and liking their stuff and going back to their sites, etc. I mean, I even want to do that; it sounds like fun. But it all takes time.

There are some other concrete tips; I’m going to try to collate them into a document to discuss with my team.

Here’s a few so far:

– make sure your website looks professional and has all the info people will need (Stephanie is working on that now)

– build your e-mail list (it exists, but I can build it further by making it cool: extra recipes? discounts? contests when the book comes out?) — this book recommends one newsletter a week, which may be beyond me, but something to think about, I guess? They recommend checking out brainpickings.org, so I’ll go look at that

– build out the YouTube channel (I need to set that up for Serendib Kitchen, edit the videos and start putting them up; I’d really like to do a video for every recipe in the cookbook, eventually — is that overambitious? It seems like it’d be so helpful to people, though…)

– ditto if you’re doing a podcast, but I don’t think I’ll be doing one for this book.

– are there major figures in the field you want to reach out to? for endorsements (it’d be great to get blurbs from other South Asian cookbook authors, right? other general cookbook authors?), invitations to speak, support my marketing (reposting things, etc.) I’ve already joined the EATT mailing list, for people of color in the food world, but there’s a ton more I could do in this arena.

– also start working on appearances: writer’s conferences, TED venues, universities and other possible speaking venues)

– contact book buyers, of course! I need to talk to Mascot and find out who they’re contacting, so I don’t duplicate, but then I need to hustle and get on this. They’ll want to know numbers for my platforms, so I should get Heather to pull that together for me — how many FB friends / followers, etc.

– ideally, you schedule things to happen at the same time, in the first 30 days after the launch — radio interviews, book signings, posters in the windows of local bookstores, e-mail blasts — I’m not sure how much of this I can do, but we’ll see?

Expect to see more of this. 🙂

#serendibkitchen
#serendibpress

Question re: international shipping and extra taxes. No one else reported this — does anyone know what happened here? I’d like to make sure it doesn’t happen again. One of my Kickstarter backers sent me this:

“However, and this may only concern some future Kickstarter project you plan to do, it was less fun to see that there were still substantial taxes to be paid at the post office. So, adding the 16 euros in taxes, the added costs almost outweigh the price of the book.

I am not an expert on fulfillment, but I have bought a lot of other Kickstarters, somr quite heavy boardgames among them, but paying extra taxes on top of shipping is a first for me. Next time, you may want to check out what type of fulfillment they use to both lower shipping costs and avoid import taxes.

My country is The Netherlands and it’s part of the EU, if that’s helpful to you.”

#serendibkitchen

Here’s a little Feast milestone — we’ve sent out all the Kickstarter edition copies we’d ordered. Eep! In theory, I could still buy more from IngramSpark as POD, but I’m hoping to never do that again, as they cost $20 each to print, which means I don’t even really break even on those, once you take into account all the original development costs, much less bookstore discounts (generally 40%), etc.

Instead, the overseas print run has finally come in (more like $10 each to print), and I’ve had about a hundred shipped to my house, with 1900 more safe in a warehouse in Kentucky or somewhere like that. So we may actually start seeing profits? If people buy them? If not, um, well I suppose I’ll have 2000 copies at $10 each to use to keep me warm at night. I’ll build myself a book igloo, perhaps…

It was very exciting and also nerve-wracking opening them. What if the printing had gotten messed up??? But at least this first copy looks fine; I think the paper is slightly brighter than the IngramSpark paper, which is just fine. They look almost identical, though. Hopefully people will love, love, love this book.

#serendibkitchen

It’s been an evolution, figuring out how to do at least three different jobs (professor, indie publisher, nonprofit arts director) as one person. Part of that was realizing I needed help, and then it turned out that it took me quite a while to find the right *kind* of help. I think I’m making good progress on that, though, with six (!) part-time people. Some put in 1-2 hrs / week, some put in more like 10, depending on the job. Somehow, it’s all working. (It’s not quite paying for itself yet, but it’s getting there, I think. An investment in the future.)

Heather Rainwater Campbell is remotely working for me from Michigan, doing my social media work, and also some of the Feast production & PR work that can be done remotely. Irene Victoria is doing PR work as well, from New York, primarily for the SLF, but a bit for me as well.

Last night, I took out three of my local team for what was supposed to be an end-of-year thank you — wish I could’ve flown out the remote people too! — which had slipped over into a start of the new year thing, because we’re all just that busy, and our schedules are complicated. All three of the locals are moms, and y’know, holidays can get a little hectic for moms. Just a touch.

Our fourth local, Kirsten Jackson, couldn’t make it, but we’ll get her next time. She’s our hardy financial person, and has relieved so much financial anxiety for me, I can’t even tell you. She makes sure everyone gets paid on time, and the taxes too. 🙂

But Cee Gee (who does development work for the SLF, working on grants and our fund drive) managed to make it, along with Karen Murphy (our managing director at the SLF, helping to keep the schedules and files and volunteers organized), and Stephanie Bailey (who basically organizes me).

We went to Flourish Oak Park, which I haven’t tried before, and it’s really a fun concept for co-working space + cocktail bar (they have a cool mechanism that allows you to sample lots of different beers and such, which is very appealing for a taster like me). And we were lucky enough to be there when pig & fire were doing a Filipino pop-up event, so in addition to the cheese platter and sweets from Flourish, we got to sample more of their yummy Filipino food. Lumpia, YUM. (Their next pop-up will be at Kinslahger 1/25, 5:30 – 8:30! Details on their FB page…)

Thank you all, peeps, for keeping me mostly sane last fall. Looking forward to much brilliant work and fun times in the new year.

(And Kel Bachus, thanks again for telling me at WisCon last year that I needed a tribe to work with me and take care of me. You were absolutely right.)

#serendibkitchen
#serendibwriting

I’ve just ordered a big 12-month wall calendar, because it was starting to feel overwhelming trying to keep track of everything with GCal alone. The shared family GCal is working well for us in most respects, but it makes it hard to see things over the course of the year.

I’m hoping having this up on the wall where the kids can see it too will help with planning Sunday dinners (and giving them something to look forward to), letting them know when Mommy or Daddy is going out of town for work (and when we’re coming back), and helping us all make sure that there’s enough family time and vacation time in the calendar too, something that we lost track of a bit last year, to our sorrow.

Kev and I also spent a while talking about just how much book launch travel I want to do this year. It’s not easy to figure out, honestly — even aside from budget questions, there’s time, esp. working around my teaching schedule.

But I do hope we can make a Seattle trip possible — Nora Gause was a huge help in figuring out where I might want to come back and do events, and I’m hoping we can do something at Capitol Cider, where she and I met for a fun evening of drinks (so many cider options!). We’re talking about devising a little Sri Lankan menu for the chefs there, so we can offer an event with food and drink.

Not positive what kind of event, exactly — I don’t know a ton of Sri Lankan writers in the area or anything. But will brainstorm. Maybe something with sci fi folks? It’s not the most natural pairing, but I do know a lot of SF people in the area. Hmm… A sci-fi event, but one that ends up featuring me, The Stars Change, and the Sri Lankan cookbook? Is that too weird?

#serendibtravel
#serendibkitchen

One of the points raised in this conversation, about teaching South Asia in the academy, is that we think a lot about how to create safe spaces for students, where they can productively think and learn and grow, but we don’t have nearly that kind of attention to the safety of faculty.

Someone asked me after the panel, “Where is the duty of care for us?”

It’s a good question. There are days when I’m exhausted by the topics that come up in class, days when I’m driving home with Kevin and I comment enviously that it must be so much easier not having to deal with any of this in a math class. I chose this work, of course.

And I think it’s incredibly valuable having me, in my brown, queer, female body, standing up in the front of the room, for a variety of reasons. But it’s tiring. I’m tired, people. And there are days when I am not sure I have the emotional fortitude to engage as directly with the material as I would like.

(It’s easier on the page sometimes, but even there, especially if you’re active on social media, it can get vicious and frightening. Ref: Meghan Elison‘s recent essay on the topic, that I posted to my wall a few days ago: https://uncannymagazine.com/article/writing-with-my-keys-between-my-fingers/)

At the end of this panel, I ended up standing up and talking about a few incidents I’ve experienced recently, where hostile students were aggressive enough towards me that I was actually a little worried; I ended up talking to both Kevin and my chair about those incidents, documenting them. I don’t think either will turn into anything, but it was unnerving.

As we discussed in the room, every single professor of color there has experienced similar incidents, and it seemed, unsurprisingly, that the women among us had experienced more of them. It’s gotten worse in the last year or two. America under Trump, I suppose, and an emboldening of background racist ideas that live in people’s subconscious.

We talked about strategies for combating it, and I do think some of it can be lessened with appropriate framing of the class in the first days of the semester. Talking about background racism up front, discussing privilege, defining the terms. I already do a lot of that, but one professor said she gives them handouts at the start of the semester, and perhaps I should add that too, just so there’s something authoritative on paper that they can reference, rather than perhaps half-listening to the words I’m saying. It might help.

I particularly want to call out something helpful Rahul K. Gairola offered. I’d said that I found myself wondering if I’d done something differently in my teaching that led to these incidents (been more blunt, let a little more of my frustration show, perhaps?) — and he said that that while he appreciated my self-reflection, that I shouldn’t give in to gaslighting, or as he called it, gas-white-ing.

If I thought I was suddenly getting a lot more hostility from a few of my students, I probably was. And it almost certainly had nothing to do with anything different I’d done. The world has changed a little since Trump’s election. That’s all.

So now we resist, and come together in community to strategize, to seek and give support. Sometimes to grieve. I’m glad I was able to take the time to attend SALA, to attend this panel. It made me feel a little less alone. I hadn’t even realized how much these incidents had bothered me, until I got up and started talking about them.

Documenting this all here, in the hopes it will help someone else. Onward, to another semester on Monday. I’m teaching postcolonial lit., and writers of color in SF/F. Plenty of fraught material to come.

#serendibwriting
#serendibteaching

content note: weight / exercise

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As a side note to the long healthy travel post a little ways back, I must admit that I do still fret about appearance and weight too. I almost don’t want to talk about it, because I’ve spent enough time reading through work from the fat acceptance community to know just how much damage these ideas can cause.

And yet, here we are, and one essential component of my job as a writer is, I think, to be as honest as I can. Even if sometimes what I’m saying is problematic, and may even reveal poor thinking.

I’m sitting on a plane right now, and I find it deeply irritating that my momma belly is protruding notably over the seatbelt and onto the bottom of my laptop. I try to love my body, and am glad I was able to use it to help create my two munchkins, but I would be happier without quite so much of this physical residue.

When I packed for the trip, I prioritized comfort and layers most of all (with my thyroid condition, I get hot and cold easily, so layers are key), but I’ve watched enough What Not to Wear to have learned from the fabulous Stacy London that tailored layers that skim the body are the most figure-flattering — by which they mean ‘makes you look as thin and tall as possible’. At 5’0″, tall is not so feasible, and every additional pound is very visible on my frame.

I really don’t stress about it most of the time, even though I’m two sizes bigger than I’d like to be. I try to have fun with my clothes, pick them primarily for style and color and general aesthetics, not for which ones make me look the thinnest. But packing for a trip and choosing a set of clothes brings the frustration and anxieties out.

I’m supposed to make a bunch of cooking videos, promised for the Kickstarter, and I had to really make myself do them.

In the end, I did have some fun with it (it helped SO MUCH having Kavi and Jed and other friends being willing to do the videos with me), but I fretted about my clothes and how thin I looked in them a lot for the first one. And now I have to edit them, and I’m having a hard time making myself look at the raw footage. I may have to pay someone to edit them in the end, just so I don’t have to push through my self-consciousness first, which feels like a ridiculous waste of money, but I have only so much fortitude, people.

And I know, no one really cares but me. Heck — people probably like to buy cookbooks from plump cooks. I look like I love food, right? I do love food. But if I’m going to be writing about food a lot, I think I’m going to have to spend a little time working through how I talk about it, and about my relationship with it.

If I try to cook ‘healthier,’ which is such a fraught and coded word, I need to think about what ‘healthier’ means to me. I’m not a nutritionist, after all. And I’m not immune to the fads and bad food science that sweep through the cultural consciousness, powered by the diet industry.

I’m going to try to mostly keep ‘diet’ talk out of my food writing, I think, in the calorie restriction sense. But I probably will be talking a fair bit in the next year about things like eating whole foods, including protein in meals, adding in more plant-based ingredients. Reducing carbs, perhaps. But also maybe increasing fat? Additional satiety sometimes means you desire to eat less.

I’m very interested in the question of why diets almost never work. What are the contributing factors that lead to that, particularly in terms of social supports for those who are trying to make diet / exercise / lifestyle changes? (Or rather, the pervasive lack of such supports.)

I want to think through how we can, as a culture, learn to have a happier and yes, healthier, relationship with our bodies and our food.

No real conclusions here, just questions and embarrassed admissions. I did go back for seconds at lunch the other day, but picked the salmon and sweet potatoes, instead of the shortcake, because I was trying to make the healthier choice. It was delicious, filling, and kept me going happily through a long afternoon of work.

#serendibkitchen

Pictured: Me taking a selfie in the mercury glass of the hotel elevator, trying to look thin. Sigh.