C’est fini! Thanksgiving Cookbook!

To order Surviving Thanksgiving as an e-book delivered to your iPad instantly click HERE.

To order Surviving Thanksgiving as a soft cover delivered to your door click HERE.

The Thanksgiving cookbook is finished! Jesus Christ, that was more of a project than I had anticipated. I have never written a book or edited a book or put a book together. I have read about 1 million cookbooks but I never realized just exactly how much work goes into it so kudos to all of you cookbook writers! Setback after setback, I finally finished this book. Oh, what setback, you ask? Let’s see, where should I start? First, I had to gather the recipes from my mother who is not the most computer savvy lady on earth. Then I had to edit the recipes because when my mother is explaining a recipe, she assumes that you know as much as she does in terms of cooking. “Why don’t you know what an egg wash is,” she would think. Secondly, my mother had to email me family photos. That involves scanning and that involves a whole other set of problems. Photos needed to be enlarged, cropped, and color corrected. Next up, after I had the recipes and the photos together I had to put the book together. Even though a few of you kind readers offered help, I declined and enlisted the help of my 19-year-old daughter. Not my brightest idea. I must have forgotten that she is a typical self- absorbed teenager with a boyfriend, a job, an internship, full-time school, her own apartment to take care of, and according to her, “a life.” By the third day of her half assed, critical, bare minimum, know it all assistance… I fired her. She was not phased.

Now what was I going to do? I asked my husband for help. No such luck because according to him he has “a job.” Okay, who’s next? My French-speaking African Muslim caregiver who has never made a peanut butter and jelly sandwich let alone operated a computer? I think not. My other caregiver, Nabin, who is from Nepal and has been helping me with the blog for the past year left for Spain for two months. In his absence, we have hired a new Filipino caregiver, Victor. Victor is nothing short of a saint. Together, he and I did the cookbook. As you know, I cannot move an inch of my body except my tête and I had to dictate, teach, and explain the entire process to Victor whose English is “limited.” One word: frustrating. Like I said, I have never put a book together and I had to learn the software by myself before I taught it to Victor. “Add a page, remove a page, two-page spread, text layout, photo layout, upload photos, photo bleed, text alignment, fonts, ornaments, importing and exporting, dragging text, text spacing…” Oh my God, it was endless. I only yelled at Victor 3 to 400 times. He took it like a champ and ignored my verbal abuse and patiently adhered to my obsessive instructions. So here we are, the book has been put together and edited and now we are finally ready to publish. Victor and I looked at each other and decided we each deserved a medal or at the very least a vodka tonic.

My apologies to everyone for disappearing for these past few days. I didn’t answer emails, I didn’t do a blog, I didn’t check my text messages, I didn’t Instagram, no Facebook, I ignored my husband, my friends and my daughter. I didn’t even have time to fire off a nasty email to this girl who I hate.  I didn’t even take my medicine (don’t worry, the medicines don’t work anyway) and I hardly let Victor eat. My husband turned into a giant needy baby and pouted if I wasn’t available to take a walk with him or have an apricot tart and Earl Grey tea with him. Why is it just when you start doing something for yourself, everyone wants your attention? But here’s the good news, the book is finished and I had the time of my life doing it. I felt creative, fulfilled and a smidgen like a real person again.

So, the book is ready. I have titled it, Surviving Thanksgiving, because that’s exactly what happens every year. We survive another year of organizing the dinner, setting the table, ironing the tablecloth, idle chitchat with distant family members, ignoring that weird uncle, mother screaming in the kitchen, my brother trying to prove that he can lift me over his head, tipsy guests, bratty children, last-minute preparations and your basic family dysfunction. But, we all must be idiots because year after year we do it again and again. You know why? Because it’s fun and it’s family and I wouldn’t trade it for anything.

Voilà! Surviving Thanksgiving! I have published it as a softback book to keep the cost low and I have also published it as an e-book if you want to read it on your iPad and get it instantly. Or you could do both. If you see any typos, anything out of order, fuzzy pictures… just ignore it because f*ck you, I have ALS. :-) By the way, a portion of the proceeds will go to ALS research because I’m cool like that.

Additionally, because nothing in life is ever easy including cooking, I have included my mother’s email address (askmymother10@gmail.com) so you can ask her any questions you might have. She might answer you, she might not. She loves helping people with cooking but only if it doesn’t cut into her “treadmill time” and if she doesn’t forget her email password.

I hope you like the book, gobble gobble and bon appétit!

Purchase Surviving Thanksgiving HERE for a soft cover version.

Purchase Surviving Thanksgiving HERE for the e-book version for your iPad. It's instant.

*Something you don’t know about me? While I am still working on my regular book, I have decided also to do a Christmas book with my mother. This book will be all about Christmas. Decorating, entertaining, cooking, gift wrapping, shopping etc. If you think that my mother’s Thanksgiving recipes are fabulous wait until you see her Christmas dinner. And you will be floored at how this lady decorates a Christmas tree. It’s basically going to be a bossy book about how not to have a tacky Christmas. Stay tuned.