What's it like to write and photograph your own cookbook? Not once, but twice. Welcome to Everything Cookbooks, the podcast for writers, readers, and cooks. I am Molly Stevens, and today I'm here with Kate Lahey. Hello, Kate. Hi, Molly. So let me ask you, how's your food photography skills? Oh, man. If only I had food photography skills. I am so envious of people who do because there's something that sounds just kind of exciting to be able to see, like visually see your own project, your words come to life and how you want to visually convey those on the page because you have the talent and vision to shoot your book. Yeah. I don't have those skills. I'm envious of people who do. Yeah. No, I don't have those skills. And I, you know, sure, we all take pictures of food with our phones every now and then. And sometimes they come out OK, but it's more than, I mean, having the skills, but also that you said it, that vision, like putting it together. I mean, I remember looking, flipping through a cookbook years ago with a friend of mine as an editor, and he had really strong opinions about the photos. I think you didn't like them or, you know, saying, oh, look at that. Look at that. And I was just like, ah, it looks OK to me. I mean, and I think over the years and spending more and more time with cookbooks, I have a developed a better sense of what I think really conveys the mood and the design intent of the book. But I just don't. I'm not that visual. I'm a little envious of people who can make the food and make it look good. When you can take a camera and take it into your world, whether that world is in a different place, a different country, a different city, or just your kitchen, you can really transform a book because it becomes so much more personal, right? And think of the control you would have over how your book looks. Well, today, we're going to talk to someone who's shot her own cookbook twice, Betty Liu, who is a cookbook author, a food photographer, a wedding photographer. And wait for it. Wait for it. Wait for it. Wait for it. She is a medical doctor and a surgical resident. Oh, my God. So I mean, there are so many things we could talk to her about, like, how you have such an intense, I don't even think you call it a day job because she probably works 70 hours a week. Not only does she have a completely full professional life, but she's also taking on the making of cookbooks and photographing her own books. I think she also has a family, a young family too. So. Wow. It's so impressive. Well, she has made time for us today. So let's get to it. Betty, welcome to everything cookbooks. We are so excited to have you here. I'm so excited to be here. And congratulations on your new book. Thank you. We'll get into that and more. But we like to kind of go back and ask you about your publishing journey. How did you get your first book deal or even book idea? Because you're not your average food writer. You're a medical doctor and a surgical resident. I had a definitely an atypical course. I actually started my journey as a wedding photographer. Since I love to cook, it felt very natural to start photographing the food that I cooked and shared it on my blog. What was unexpected to me was that I found a community there and realized that I love to develop and share recipes and that people really responded to that. Of course, all accompanied by photos, which I think really helped illustrate some of the step to step parts of foods that are a little bit more complicated, such as wrapping dumplings. I found that when I wrote about the food that I ate growing up, it really resonated with the community. In part, because at that time, there were fewer resources from people who grew up eating that food. That's when I really started to have the idea of my Shanghai. What year was that? I think that was 2015, I think was the earliest when I started. It was definitely the OG block days. I was a medical student, either a first year medical student or just the year before that. I actually had a lot of time during medical school, and wedding photography was how my husband and I kind of kept afloat. You work together. Wow. Yes. We work together. Yes. That was fun. I actually do miss that a lot. Wow. I think you do mention in the acknowledgments of your first book, My Shanghai, that you talked to your agent or you met your agent through your blog. There was something in it about the idea. You had an idea to turn the blog into a cookbook? Yeah, I had this idea in my mind of writing about specifically Shanghai's food, because China's a vast country and there's so many regional cuisines, as you'd expect with varying climates and agriculture. The mainstream Chinese cookbooks out there at that time were all written by not Chinese people. I had the seed in my mind, but I really didn't know what to do with it. As you would imagine, if you're not in the industry, it's kind of a nebulous process. I was doing photography workshops and I met my friend Valentina Sofrini who lives in Italy and we did a workshop together and she was writing a cookbook with my now agent, Berta. I think told Berta about my story and I was thinking about writing a cookbook and Berta took a look at my website. I think really connected with my photography and what I was writing and she reached out to me. That's kind of how we got started. Right. It was six years later. And six years later. Yeah. Right. So my Shanghai really wasn't, I guess you call it a breakout success. I mean, it took a bit. Yeah. I don't know. I mean, in New York Times, that is one of the best cookbooks of 2021. I don't even know what's my question. How would that feel? But no, did you immediately think about writing another book? No, I was like, I'm never writing another book. Oh my gosh. So after my Shanghai was so well received, did that change your idea about never writing another cookbook? No. Because when my Shanghai came out, I was actually just starting residency, as you know, writing a cookbook takes forever. So I finished that during medical school. And that was a pretty extensive process because I went back to China every season because my Shanghai was organized by season being on location was very important to me. And during medical school, I did have the flexibility to do that. So I went back every season to take photos, to look at the produce, you know, talk to the people, do some research. So once I started residency, all of that was kind of what I considered in my past. I was so happy that it was warm when we received, I thought to myself, it was too much work. I don't have time to do this ever again. So I just kind of, you know, in my mind, closed door to that. And you had stopped blogging as well, or were you still blogging? Occasionally, not much. I think if anything, I just liked being in the community, on social media, like I stopped taking sponsor shirts, I stopped doing a lot of collaborations, mostly because of my time constraint. In residency, we routinely work 60 to 80 hours a week. I think it's really interesting. I would have never thought like medical school, you'd have like extra time on your hands. You might be somebody who just is always doing something really interesting because to be able to be balancing medical school and writing your first book and having to travel so much. Because that's the thing about my Shanghai, you were in Shanghai, you see these beautiful location photography throughout the book, and you can tell that there's a lot of research and detail put into it, as well as a lot of personal stories. On that front, I'm just curious about your proposal for my Shanghai. What did it look like? Was it really long? How did you integrate the photography? Was it pretty much like, here's the proposal, actually this is the book? I want to say, it was almost the entirety of the front matter. I really have to credit my agent for that. It was one of her priorities to get a really solid proposal, and I will say after having gone through that, I really found value in that too, because it really helped me hone my idea and concept so that when I was talking about this to various editors, it was all very clear in my mind because I was already forced to put that on paper in a way that is somewhat understandable. I think it was almost 40 pages of Word document. I had photos throughout, I had sample recipes, I had a sample chapter, it was very long, and then I think I also had an example essay, because I had essays throughout the book. Yeah, it's a very immersive book. So it seems like the proposal really reflected that, yes, sometimes the resulting book is so different from the proposal, like, whoa, something just didn't, wasn't clicking. We had to go, you know, we had to reevaluate, but for this one, it sounds like you knew from the start, like my Shanghai, as you said, it's organized by seasons. There is a lot of personal stories and, you know, history and just information about regional Chinese cooking. So you put it all in the first book, everyone says, you know, you only maybe get one shot, put it all in your first book. But then what happens? Yeah, and you say you're never doing it, you've shut the door. Right. I know. I was like, never again. Here we are, Betty. You've got a second book, so. Never again. What happened? I know. So my channel always felt like the book that I needed to do. You know, I wanted to honor my heritage. I wanted a resource for my kids in the future to know how to shake high needs food. I wanted to honor my parents. It was definitely dedicated to them. But as I shut the door to that, and I was, you know, in residency working, and I wasn't really cooking or developing recipes for any particular reason. I was just cooking for myself and my family and for fun. And I realized that, you know, the way that I cook is not very traditional. I have a very global pantry, I shop very locally. I don't always use only Chinese ingredients. When I talk to my friends, readers of my Shanghai, you know, just people online, one of the messages I got was that they loved the book. It was beautiful, but they're intimidated to cook some of the recipes in there because they felt like they needed the exactly the right soy sauce. They wanted, you know, black vinegar, they needed a wok to try anything or like a bamboo steamer basket. So there seemed to be a lot of mental barriers because I think it was a lot of traditional Chinese food. The sense I got was that they felt like they needed everything traditional to even attempt the recipe. I wanted to give them a hug and tell them like that you can cook Chinese without having all the right ingredients or equipment. Like it's really about the way you approach food and the thought behind it. And that's when this book idea kind of came to place. I see because in your second book, you say this book is the way I cook Chinese food every day. It's not traditional, but it is Chinese. And I thought that really kind of sums up what you just were talking about. Like this is how you actually cook. You're going to use butter. Yeah. You're going to use the soy sauce that you found at the grocery store maple syrup because you live in New England. Exactly. I actually do use maple syrup a lot. And I don't even use soy sauce anymore because my son has a gluten allergy. So I actually only use kamari. I still consider the food I cook Chinese. And that's something I noticed my parents cooking too. They don't cook traditional Chinese food much at all anymore unless we have like a specific like, okay, I want red braised pork belly, like unless we have a specific craving, the way we cook at home is very much just a hodgepodge and just using what we have in the pantry. And I think trying to put that into words was a big struggle for me this time around. Try to explain how cooking Chinese is not just about like traditional menu of recipes, but really about the way that you approach cooking. Right. So you go from having people talk to you about being intimidated by my Shanghai. But then when does that turn into, I'm going to write another book. I'm going to go back to something I said I'd never do again. I mean, you could have just give us a recipe to your friends and maybe written a few blog posts. But, Maddy, you decided to write another enormous book, it's another almost 300 pages, just like your first one. This is not a small book. I'm a little crazy. You're a little crazy. Okay. We can leave it at that. Did your agent come to you? No, no, not at all. And she did not give me any pressure at all. You know, kind of after the success of the first book, we did briefly talk about it. You know, I know there's a period where you can submit another proposal to the same publisher. I decided not to, but after I started thinking about this idea, I just found myself kept thinking about like, how do I demonstrate these techniques organizing the food by technique was actually something I seriously considered for the first book. When I was talking to my dad about the first book, we had kind of talked about this and he suggested going by technique because that's, you know, that's how you learn how to cook. Right? You start with the technique and if you learn the technique, you can apply it to whatever you have in your kitchen. And that's really how I learned how to cook. I already had this idea of organizing by technique. And then I just started thinking about other recipes that I could add to it, like recipes that I cook on a very regular basis that is not traditional, but definitely uses Chinese technique. And I started jotting it down on like a notes like here and there and realized that I actually had a decent amount of recipes and that this could be something. You explain, I mean, your medical training, C1, D1, T1, yes, which is the way medical school is structured and you use that in your book. So these chapters, what steam, fry, boil, infuse, but each chapter, the first three recipes are called foundational, I believe. Yes. You show us how to do it, then you know, you do it, we do it and then we're supposed to go riff and you show us how to riff as well. Exactly. When did you come up with that? Well, my thought was, if I wanted to demonstrate or really talk about a technique, that one way is to do all traditional recipes, right, to, you know, just show how it's been done. But that would kind of not go against, but that was not the point of the concept that I came up with. But I did think there's a value in seeing how something has been done traditionally for generations to illustrate how that technique is used. So I thought that, you know, if we did two to three recipes in the beginning to show traditional recipes, like this is how we use braise to do ma potofu or something, you know, then it might be easier to understand that concept when we use non-traditional ingredients. And I have to say many of these recipes are, I don't say drop dead simple because that just sounds underwhelming, but I've made a couple of them already. And just, I mean, whip them off in 20 minutes, kind of say, it's just very, very straightforward and very. Yeah. It's a cauliflower and sausage chow mei and because it just was stuff I happened to have around the house and it was Italian sausage and it, you know, didn't put the ingredients on the counter. It didn't look like a particularly Chinese dinner. Yeah. And it just had this really wonderful kind of sleeper, wow, this is good. I don't know what's making it so good, you know, but just simple. So I'm so glad to hear that. Yeah. And we flagged many more. Right. I mean, it just, even things like the rice with tin fish and dill, I haven't made it yet, but I'm flagging that because it's just like, wow, that is such a, I can see that becoming a regular rotational thing because you have these ingredients in your pantry. It's so good. You can use your rice cooker. That's how I came up with it because I was home from a busy shift one day and I wanted some protein. So I just put it all in there and then I was just tweaking from there. Right. But then your recipe testing, you're writing the recipes, you're doing more than someone just creatively coming up with, you know, things to satisfy a craving. Yes. Do you think that your schedule, your limited time in the kitchen, how did those pressures of your residency affect this book? I think that has really shaped the way I cook now simply because, you know, if I'm coming home at seven PM and I want to whip something up, I'm not going to go to the store to pick up like a bunch of dill or something. I'm really looking at what I have in the pantry and using what I have. And, you know, if I don't have any fresh produce or any fresh protein, then I'm taking the tin fish that I have in the cupboard. So I do think that has really forced me to really use what I have existing in my pantry and refrigerator instead of planning like a specific meal and going out to obtain those ingredients. Yeah. It feels like the creation of these two books was a very different process. Yes. Very different. I mean, you're working with different publishers, but more so it's just, they're very different book. Very. The voice is the same. It's still very welcoming and accommodating and encouraging. What we really want to talk a lot about too is your background as a photographer. And so not only are you developing the recipes, testing the recipes, writing the recipes, but you're photographing all the recipes. Yes. Also, I do want to say just so it's clear that I did not make all of this while being an active clinical resident in my residency, it's a seven year surgical program. We have active clinical years, but we also have built into our program two years of research. So I was actually out in a research lab with more reasonable hours when I worked on this book. And because that was a planned two years away from clinical residency, I knew that this was the time to do it. And actually that is what prompted me to then talk to Burta, get the submitted so that I could time it so that I could work on this while I was in a research lab. That's really smart. Proposal wise, I know, Molly, I want to go back to your question about photography, but proposal wise for this book, did you have a 40 page proposal? So because I was a different publisher, we actually we submitted, so we started from the beginning again, because we're obligated by contract. We did first offer the book to HarperCollins, which is my first publisher, but that didn't work out. So we went back to the drawing board and essentially resubmitted to many editors. And for that reason, we did go back and put together a fairly long proposal. I think it was a little bit shorter, maybe 30 pages, but it also had a fairly developed front matter and a sample chapter, sample recipes, lots of photos. I also, because I knew I wanted illustrations to be a big part of this book, I included some sample illustrations of what kind of illustrations I want and how I would incorporate that. What's the recipe count for the two books? A hundred for books. Wow, ambitious. Yeah. Yeah. I went to the even a hundred. The thing is, too, that's nice is that you're really taking that proposal process seriously. You're really envisioning this book. And so then when you're meeting with editors, you can align with them because you've already kind of thought through what this book needs to be in a very detailed way. So that's really smart. And I got a lot of feedback from both books that the proposal was very well done and put together, and I will credit my agent for that. But it's very interesting. And I'm sure Birda will forgive me for spilling this. But my first book, I actually did not get a lot of interest from editors. I think I talked to three editors. I actually only had the one offer from HarperCollins. Luckily, I loved the editor, Christina Garces, and we really got along and I was very happy with the deal. But it was interesting because for this book, maybe because of the success of the first, that I've kind of proven, quote unquote, that I can write a book, and the fact that I think this might appeal to a broader audience, I received much more interest for this book. Interesting. It went to auction, right? It basically went to auction, yeah. Yeah. We've talked a little bit before on the podcast about selling one book at a time, how it can be very different. And also just the value, just underscoring what you're saying about the value of a thorough proposal, especially for someone or anybody, but in your case, we've very limited time and really don't have time to change things midstream. Like if you get into a situation and you're working on a manuscript and the editorial team is like, no, no, no, this is not the direction. If you have a very clear proposal, you know the direction you're headed and yes, because you have such a limited time. I'm still like fascinated on how you even wrote the second book, even though you have this two years, because you're still doing, you know, residence, it might not be, you know, clinical, but it's still work and you're still writing this book. It is. So just like, could you give us a day in the life? I would basically develop the recipes and test them in batches. And then once I was, you know, sure that the recipe was where I wanted it to be, then I would basically schedule days for myself to do the photography, like three or four a day and just like get those done. Because I have less time this time around, I did plan things. So I would write out like, you know, the plates I would use, like the props I would use, the background I would use, I would use, I would plan out the type of lighting. I would kind of plan things out. Of course, things, you know, become a little bit organic during the day because I'm not doing this traditionally, I'm doing this just by myself, things would be organic and move around. But I would just try to have fun with it because I also really just missed food photography at that point, because I wasn't really photographing it for any jobs or for my blog or for social media anymore. So I just tried to have fun with it. I mean, it looks like a studio book. Oh, thank you. You have varied surfaces, you have varied props. And so we're like, Kate and I were talking about the surfaces, the backdrops, like, are those all things you own? Are you renting or? These are all mine. Wow. That's amazing. Because I had a pretty extensive food photography past and I taught food photography workshops around the world. So I have collected a fair amount of fact jobs and tools, but I think more importantly, at least in terms of the props, like all the plates, utensils, you know, everything you see are stuff that I use on a daily basis. So because I wanted this to really reflect the way that I truly cooked, I wanted the photos to also show, like, these are the plates I use at home. So if you come to my kitchen and look at my cupboards, these are literally the plates and serving dishes and utensils that I use. Beautiful. How about the lighting? Yeah. The lighting I used a mix of natural and artificial, it really depended on the time of day. Like, if it so happened that the light from the windows were hitting exactly or wanted, I wanted that effect. I would go ahead and use that if not, that I would use artificial lighting. And where did all this photography take place? Was it next to your kitchen and you just set up the surfaces and basically, yeah, I would basically just find a space set up because, you know, unless you're doing like a wide, like, table shot, like, you don't need that much space in your frame. Like, if I just panned out a little bit, you would see like a TV or my dog. So you really, you really don't need a lot of space to take photos, especially the photos I was taking for the book are a little bit more close up, like very focused on the food. So yeah, I would just set up a space by the kitchen where I have easy access to get garnishes or something. And what sort of equipment are you using? When I go to camera, I'm using the D50, an Nikon D50. I'm using a variety of lenses, but I do try to use a macro lens. So I think I have a 60, 60 millimeter macro lens. And for people who want to get better at shooting their own food, when you're teaching those food photography classes, what are kind of like common mistakes that people make or certain things to really think of? I think the first thing to master is lighting because the lighting can really have an effect on the book and you know, when you're starting out, playing with natural light is very powerful because it does change throughout the day, like the quality of it, you know, if it's a sunny or rainy day, the angle, you know, put an apple on a table and you take photos of it throughout the day from morning to dusk, you'll kind of see the play of the light on the apple and what kinds of shadows are made. And I think that gives you at least a start for understanding light and how that affects your subject. I think that more than, you know, your props and your styling, like those are obviously important too, but when you're starting out, like focus on the light before you focus on everything else. It's interesting hearing you say that because in the Chinese way, the lighting, you know, sometimes you look at cookbooks and they're all, all the photos are lit the same. Yeah. And I'm not saying that's for better or for worse, but that's a style choice. Yeah, consistent. Right. I appreciate that. And you know, like I said, it's a style choice, but that's not a choice you made because they really have different moods and different feels, which comes from different lighting. So you're playing around with that different light. Yes. And part of it is just creative. Yeah. But he doesn't. Yeah. Like I said, I really enjoy food photography. So I kind of saw this as one of my last like professional projects because I'm not doing another cookbook. That's why you're saying no. So I just wanted to have fun with it and take some good photos and also have it match what I thought the mood of the food. Yeah. That makes sense. So I just did it per dish and you were a photographer before you were a cookbook author. And so when you're writing your proposals, when you're pitching, you are bringing, I am a photographer, I'm going to be shooting my own photos for these books. Was that ever a conversation with either of the publishers? Yeah, I think that was pretty much assumed. And I would, I said that I think in my proposals, but the conversations I had, I think most every editor I talked to liked my photography and seemed to want that to be part of the book. And I think, I think if an editor had told me that they wanted me to consider using another photographer, I would probably not consider them an appropriate partner. Yeah. I could see it. The equivalent would be if an editor said they really liked your writing, but not your recipes or something. And they're like, can we bring the recipe developer to do the recipe? You're a photographer, like having somebody else do the photography would be a very strange thing. It would change the vibe of the book because photography is such a big part of who I am. Right. And you're obviously doing the styling too. You're doing the propping. You're doing everything. Did you ever edit a recipe after you shot it? Because when you were doing it that day, you realized, Oh, actually, if I don't put that ingredient on, like, it looks better or easier or something. Did you ever like edit, you know, a recipe, mid shoot, really, what I have done is I realized like certain garnishes, like certain cuts of scallion, like looks better in some dishes. So I would change that up because that also doesn't really affect the recipe. I would only photograph the recipe once I completely finished testing it. I actually think that happens, Kate Moore, to those of us who don't shoot our own photos or style our own photos or because somebody else has your recipe in their hands and you're looking at it and you're like, what have they done, you know, and then it's already done and you have to go back and choose the recipe. So I'm thinking of like when you get copy edit questions and they're like, use that cilantro, but this is parsley and it's like, Oh, yeah. Oh, and then like you look at the photo and you're like, Oh, it's baby parsley. Okay. Cilantro or parsley, then you add that. That leads nicely into the next question we wanted to ask you about sort of advantages and disadvantages of shooting your own cookbooks. I think the support that you have when you're shooting with a team is incomparable. There were times I wished I had a stylist or even like an assistant to help coordinate everything. And I seriously thought about it about, you know, hiring a prop stylist or a food stylist, just to have, you know, they're obviously their valuable professional expertise, but also like just another set of hands, you know, to help move things along so I could focus on the photography. But because of my schedule and how I was not scheduling this over a three to four day period, I was doing this kind of as I went. There was no way I could make that work logistically. I'm curious. How did you make all the photos fit together so well? Because when you are working on a project over a longer period of time, there can be a change in style as you go because when you look at all these photos that you know that they belong in the same book, how deliberate was that? It was somewhat deliberate, somewhat spontaneous because I would plan things out, but I would also like I had this like master document where I would organize the photos I've already done by chapter so I can see how it all worked out. So if, you know, if one chapter had too many red backdrop or something, or if I noticed I'm using the serving dish a little bit too much, I would change things. I would definitely reference that when I was photographing, but I do think what makes it cohesive is the lighting, like how you play with lighting. Did you think about your first book and wanting this book to fit well next to that book like aesthetically? Kind of. Not as much just because I knew they were going to be very different books. Like in this book, I don't have any of the landscape environmental shots as much. And I knew that this next book, I was going to incorporate illustrations in a very deliberate way. So I knew it was going to be different, but I also, I also knew though at this point that whatever photos I took, like would be probably recognizable as my style. So I knew that, you know, even if it were different, it would probably be recognizable as the same person that the creative direction for this. Between the two books. Yeah. So you mentioned illustrations a couple times, Betty, and it's such an interesting choice and really sets this book apart from your first book. And your first book, you do have a lot of technique photographs. Yeah. And I'm very curious how you took those, are those your hands? And if so, how do you photograph yourself, you know, folding dumplings? Yeah. My husband would help sometimes because he, you know, he's a photographer too, he and I did weddings together. So that was very helpful. But other times I would just set up a tripod and I would have a remote button where I can take a string of photos at once. So there are ways to make it work if you're on your own. So there are no technique, you know, step-by-step photos in the Chinese way. Yeah. They're all done with these wonderful illustrations that are also pantry illustrations and they go throughout the book. So let's talk a little bit about that. You said from the beginning, you knew you wanted them. Yes. What were you after? I thought that the feel of the books were different. Like the first book is a little bit more serious, you know, this is a serious matter. But the second book, I wanted it to be more approachable and a little bit more whimsical and fun, you know, so that someone can pick up this book and know that they don't have to be intimidated that this is an approachable book. And I thought illustrations would be a fun way to do it. I also have always loved illustrations and food. I actually desperately wanted an illustrated cover, but I was shot down by my editor, sales, marketing, multiple people. But your photographer, you would think you would want, you know, of all people to want an illustrated cover that surprises me. I know. I just love cookbooks with illustrated covers. Maybe it's the fact that we're in the US and most cookbooks have a photograph or a cover. It's a little bit more novel. It's funny because you did get sort of a hand-drawn typeface. I did. Right? Yeah. And I have the scallion on the spine. I don't know. Can we talk about that? Yeah. But wait, I went to the cover a little bit more. That was my win. It's a walk full of noodles. I mean, it's a very traditional looking dish, but then they put this sort of more whimsical typeface. And then now we could talk about the spine, sorry, the scallion on the spine, which I love. I knew I couldn't get an illustration on the cover. So when we were designing the spine and you can probably tell that I want to have a pretty large influence on how the design looks, my poor editing team probably thought I was crazy and too micromanagedy, but I wanted a very simple spine. I wanted my Chinese name on it, so I got that. And then since there was some space, I wanted the scallion on the spine and the scallions and the illustration. Yes. A line drawing with green and white. It's so good. It's so cute, right? Absolutely. Absolutely. I think if you like control F and find scallion in the manuscript, there's probably like hundreds of mentions of scallions. I use it a lot in cooking and as a garnish. I love the ingredient. I'm actually planning to get a tattoo of it at some point, but that's another story. So if I wanted any illustration somewhere on the book jacket, I knew I wanted it to be the scallion. Congratulations for getting that good job. Yes. It'll stand out on a shelf. I know. It really does drive your eye there. And as we talked about our show sometimes with booksellers, your book only is face out for a set amount of time before it's going to be on the shelf at the bookstore or the library. Spines out. Right. Let me say. Yeah, exactly. So I feel like we're going to see more ingredients on Spines after people take a look at your book. I don't know. You might have started something. It's very interesting to hear you refer to micromanaging, but you do say in the acknowledgments of your first book how you were very involved with design conversations and if not decisions, at least you were consulted and part of it, which is something because you're coming to this with you're doing the photography, you're obviously a design forward author. And so to hear that you were involved in the second as well, because if you're photographing the book, you know, how those photographs are placed and used is also a really important part of it. And you also do something that is, I feel like this book is layered and it's just a thoughtfulness to it in terms of like the organization, you know, it's a way to do your see one, teach one, do one, but also your use of English and Chinese characters throughout the book. Your foundational recipes have both titles, the Chinese and the English title, whereas the riffs or whatever you call the rest of the recipes are just have English titles. So you seem to play around with, I don't want to call that a design element, but it's a language linguistic element to tell your story. It kind of reflects, I guess who I am as a person too, because I speak both languages and sometimes I'm talking to my parents and now my son, because we're trying to race and bilingual, I will interchangeably use Chinese and English and I do think that is like a pretty common thing for, you know, first and second generation immigrants. And that was a change up from the first book where every recipe has both Chinese and English. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. The first book was the book that I needed to write. I think this book was the one that I really wanted to write really well said. Going back just quickly to design at what point did you start working with the graphic designer? We were already talking about a graphic designer and actually, fun fact, the same book designer actually did My Shanghai. They brought her in to do this one too, because I really liked what she did with My Shanghai. I think she understood that I really wanted like a clean but, you know, modern book. Michael, my editor, Averacious suggested just being her in for this one, which I was totally on board with. Because My Shanghai is such a deep dive into a place and it has project recipes 2020 might have been a great year for a book like that to come out. And now that we're in this really busy time where people are homeless, they have different needs or different wants. Yes. You can cook books. Yes. I completely agree. Yeah. Well, it also in 2020, to be able to travel through a book, it was also very appealing. Very timely. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. All of my book events were virtual. So I never actually had an in-person signing because it came out right during COVID. Yeah. And will you do in-person signings for this or is it going to be hard with your schedule? I'm doing a very limited tour because I am active now and I'm an active clinical resident. My time is limited, but I scheduled a week of vacation around pub date. So I am going to New York for a couple of events. I have an event in Boston and I'm thinking about doing DC, but I have to fit all of this within, you know, five days, essentially. And I also don't want to be too exhausted because technically, that's my vacation on work. That's amazing. I'm so impressed. I feel like there'll be another book for one of these years, but it might be a while. We'll let you get through this. No, it just seems that to have this much creativity and so much specificity into a project, there might be like a time or like builds up in your subconscious. Then five years later, you're like, aha, I have another one. Well, it's a big thing for me because this is not my career. I didn't want to write a book for the sake of writing a book. So you know, if I ever do another book, it's going to be one that I truly believe in because it's so much time and effort. I don't want to do something that I don't truly believe in. That's also why I feel anxious about when this book comes out because I've put so much into it. I'm sure you guys know there's always anxiety about reception and how well it does and meaning expectations, but I think I just have to trust the book will speak for itself. Yes, and there's that funny period when you're all done and the book is out of your hands and you know, you can't do anything. You've been so involved in creating it and working so hard on it and managing it without everything else you do in your life and all you can do is wait now. Yeah, yeah. It's going to find a receptive audience. It's a really captivating book. Congratulations on it. Those were really wise words of wisdom you just shared to end on. That's something to always think about. Like, do you need to write it just because you want to write a book or do you happily something you really want to say? Well, and also to anyone who says, "Well, I'm not going to do that book because I don't have time," but you've just taught us that there are ways to make time. It's very impressive and it is a beautiful book and I'm thrilled that the illustrations are in there next to your photos because it really does. It makes it fun, too. Yeah. Thank you so much for having me. Thank you. Congratulations. Thanks for spending time with us. Thank you. Thank you for listening to Everything Cookbooks. For more episodes and ways to contact us, go to our website, www.everythingcookbooks.com. The show is available wherever you get your audio and if you like what you hear, please leave us a review. It really helps other people find the show. Any book mentioned can be found on our affiliate page at bookshop.org. And thank you, as always, to our editor, Abby Circatella. Until next time, keep on writing, reading, and cooking. and cooking. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Molly and Kate speak with Betty Liu about the process of creating her second cookbook which she photographed while juggling a demanding day job. She shares how she ventured into the cookbook sphere from her career in wedding photography, blogging and surgical residency as well as where the idea for her first book came from. She talks about why she wanted to showcase Shanghainese food, why she focuses on cooking authentic, not traditional, food and how she incorporates medical school's "see one do one teach one" approach into her books. With her skilled eye for design she was deeply involved in the visual aspects of the book, photographing it all herself, and she talks about the importance of the linguistic and illustration elements to make this the exact book she wanted to write.
