Chapter 4
Hi Michelle,
Just checking in to see how the editor at Epicure Press liked the sample recipe pages I sent?
I have all the recipes and photos ready to go.
I’m just waiting to make sure they like what I sent them.
With the deadline coming up in September, I’d love to know what they think so I have enough time to make changes if they want me to tweak anything.
Also, out of curiosity, how much does having a cookbook usually help an author grow their platform and reach? Is it a lot?
Thanks!
Jules
9:22 a.m. from [email protected] to [email protected]
Jules,
Thank you for reaching out. I’ve just heard back from the editor at Epicure. I think it’s best if we talk on the phone about this. Can we chat this afternoon?
Thanks,
Michelle
My phone rings as I’m climbing the stairs to my apartment after my shift at Trader Joe’s. Arms laden with groceries I grabbed at the store after I clocked out, I set the heavy bags on our welcome mat and check my phone. It’s Michelle. My heart skips a beat.
“Juliana, Michelle here. So glad I caught you.” Her tone is warm yet brusque.
She is a woman with no time to waste on chitchat.
I picture her in her office in New York City.
We’ve never met in person, but her photo on her website shows a tall Black woman in her forties in a no-nonsense navy business suit holding a stack of bestselling nonfiction books from clients she represents.
When she agreed to take me on as a client a year ago, I felt like I was floating on a cloud for a week.
It still thrills me to say “my literary agent.” I’m hoping she has good news for me.
I’m so ready for some good news. This is step one of the plan I concocted late last night in the bath, fueled by espresso, sugar, and a daring, desperate hope.
I need this cookbook to be a winner if I’m going to pursue Drew’s idea and use the cookbook to widen my audience and prove the viability of The Bygone Kitchen .
Currently, everything is hinging on it. Keith may not think the show and I have enough star power, but Epicure Press seems to believe in me.
If I can prove that the publisher is right, that I do have what it takes to succeed with this cookbook, maybe it will convince Keith too.
It’s worth a shot, at least. I stayed up until one a.m. last night trying to brainstorm other ideas, but finally concluded that Drew’s idea is the only plan that makes any sense.
I think it’s my best bet even if it feels like a long shot.
I’m not ready to give up hope. I’ll do anything to keep this dream alive.
“I got your email,” Michelle tells me, “and thought we should talk. I checked in with your editor at Epicure about the sample recipes you sent and she had some feedback.” Michelle pauses. “Frankly, Jules, Claire says they’re looking for something quite different.”
My stomach does a strange little flip-flop.
“Different how? What did they not like?” I ask in confusion.
I’d sent them a collection of my best vintage recipes, complete with a brief history of each dish.
It’s what I do on the show, and the show is why they offered me a contract in the first place, right?
How could they not like it? I stare down at the scrubby courtyard in the middle of our building, waiting with a growing sense of trepidation.
The sky is a heavy gray, and the air smells like green budding things and impending rain.
Michelle sighs. “Claire says they like the idea of using vintage recipes, but they really want to showcase you personally. You’re the reason they wanted a cookbook, not the recipes themselves.
They’re looking for a warmer, more personal, connective feeling to the cookbook.
Less dry history lesson and more intimate.
Claire is a big fan of The Bygone Kitchen , and they want a cookbook that reflects that friendly, positive tone you set in the show.
Anyone can pull the recipes you sent off the Internet.
They want something that is uniquely you . ”
Uniquely me? I don’t know what to say. I’m trying to tamp down the panic rising in my throat.
“This is what I do,” I stammer. “I find old recipes and introduce people to them. That’s me.
I don’t know how to do anything else.” The truth is that I can’t do anything else.
Thinking about what Claire is asking me to do makes me feel physically ill.
I press back against my apartment door to make room for my heavily pierced neighbor as he wheels his bike past me in the hall.
He gives me a nod and his tiny, mostly toothless chihuahua runs up, tongue lolling, and turns in circles barking until I fish a soft dog jerky treat out of my pocket and give it to him.
I might be the only girl in Seattle who smells like Trader Joe’s smoked chicken tenders, but it’s worth it.
All the dogs in the neighborhood love me.
“There you go, Lester,” I whisper, scratching the spot behind his huge batwing ears. I’m trying not to panic and Lester helps calm me momentarily.
Michelle sighs again. “Look, Jules, I understand what you’re saying, but the problem is that Epicure paid an advance and you’ve signed a contract for a cookbook, and they need a book they can sell.
They’re within the terms of the contract to request that you set a more personal tone.
They want fifty recipes from you that have personal history or backstory.
They don’t need to be original recipes that you create.
They can be vintage recipes, old family recipes, something—but they need to showcase who you are.
There needs to be a personal theme tying them all together.
And photos. Good photos of the finished product. Can you do that?”
“Um.” I swallow hard, mind racing. It’s starting to rain, and I shiver in the chilly breeze.
I’m wearing a sleeveless lime-green short-sleeved mod dress that might, upon reflection, have been too optimistic for today’s weather.
It was sunny when I got dressed this morning, but the weather has turned.
An apt metaphor for my life right now. Everything has suddenly gone an ominous gray.
Michelle’s words are an unexpected blow. I was so sure that what I sent was what Epicure was looking for. But now they want fifty recipes with a personal touch? How in the world am I going to come up with all of those by the September deadline? I don’t even know where to start. It feels impossible.
“Jules?” Michelle prompts. “Can you do that?”
I sag against the door, calculating the remaining time before my deadline in my head.
It’s the middle of June now. That leaves roughly ten weeks.
How can I possibly have everything ready by September?
Across the courtyard someone is listening to the Backstreet Boys turned up high.
I can hear “I Want It That Way” vibrating through their wall.
I wrap my arms around myself. “What happens if I can’t deliver by September? ” I ask in a small voice.
Michelle pauses. “Jules, if you don’t deliver fifty recipes and photos that they’re happy with by the submission date, they have the right to cancel the contract, and you’ll need to repay your whole advance.”
Suddenly, I can’t breathe. Repay the ten-thousand-dollar advance?
I’ve already spent it. I invested in some better recording equipment and a professionally crafted website for the show.
I told myself I was investing in my professional future.
Now that future looks increasingly precarious, and I’m suddenly wishing I had squirreled the money away instead.
If I can’t deliver those recipes, I have no way to pay back the money.
My paycheck from Trader Joe’s barely covers the basics like rent and utilities.
The reality of my situation sinks in slowly.
I’m trapped. I have to deliver what they ask for.
I don’t have another choice. I rest the back of my head against the cool, painted wood of our front door and try to breathe around the tight band of panic squeezing my chest. This is a disaster.
The issue of the ten-thousand-dollar advance aside, if I don’t deliver what Epicure wants, my chance to change Keith’s mind will vanish.
If I don’t manage to pull this off, I can kiss all my dreams for the future goodbye.
I think of the show, of Ethel and our other followers, of saying goodbye to them, of losing the one place where it feels like I contribute something good to the world. The thought is so bleak.
“Okay,” I tell Michelle, trying to sound confident and pushing down the panic.
“I’ll have the recipes by the deadline.” Right now it feels utterly impossible, but I’m just going to have to make it work.
I have no choice but to figure out how to come up with fifty recipes with personal stories and accompanying high-quality photos in two and a half months.
No big deal. I close my eyes and try not to hyperventilate.
“Jules, are you okay?” Michelle pauses on the other end of the call. She sounds concerned. Maybe she can hear my shallow breathing all the way in New York.
“Absolutely,” I lie. I struggle to sound calm and nonchalant.
“Okay, good.” Michelle sounds relieved. “I’ll let Claire know you’ll have everything to her on time. And send me some samples as soon as you have something, just to make sure we’re on the right track.”
“Of course,” I assure Michelle, trying to sound breezy, but the words come out squeaky, like someone is pressing a thumb against my larynx.
I hang up quickly and grab my groceries, pushing through the door and slamming it behind me.
Sinking down onto the worn brown carpet, back against the door, I put my head in my hands.
I try to breathe in through my nose and out through my mouth, counting silently.
Nothing is helping my anxiety right now.
It’s through the roof, heading straight to the moon.
Because what Michelle doesn’t know, what no one knows, is that I haven’t made a recipe that has a personal connection to me in over a decade, not since the accident.
I haven’t been able to. In the beginning after Dad’s death, I tried to make familiar dishes, but over and over my mind would go blank and I could not, no matter how hard I concentrated, remember the ingredients or steps.
It was like all the recipes I knew by heart had been replaced by a fuzzy sort of static, a white blankness that blocked out everything.
And frankly, even thinking of making the recipes hurt too much.
They reminded me of all I had lost, who I had lost, and so after a few times of trying, when my mind would start to go blank and my heart would ache with grief, I just…
stopped. I haven’t made a chocolate zucchini cake (my sister Aurora’s favorite) or my dad’s famous pizza dip or Nonna’s almond and olive oil biscotti in well over a decade.
Now I only make recipes that have no connection to my history, no connection to Dad or my family, nothing that might remind me of that terrible summer I lost everything.
Yet now I’m being asked to delve into the most painful parts of my life once more and it is terrifying me.
What choice do I have, though? Everything hinges on this cookbook being a success.
Somehow I have to make this work, though I have no idea how. I need a miracle and quickly.