A lot of kids' cookbooks feel the same, but lots of similar recipe lists. How do you write a fresh cookbook for kids? Welcome to Everything Cookbooks, the podcast for writers, readers, and cooks. This is Kristin Donnelly, and I'm here today with Andrea Nguyen, and very special co-host, my daughter, L.S.A.K.U.B.R. [MUSIC PLAYING] Hello. L.S.A., I'm so glad you're here with us today. You're an expert. Happy to be here. She's going to help us talk about kids' cookbooks today. So today, our guest is Priya Krishna. She is most recently the author of Priya's Kitchen Adventures, a cookbook for kids. She is also a New York Times staff food reporter and video host, the best-selling author of several cookbooks, including Indian-ish. She's from Dallas, Texas, and has been on the Forbes list 30 under 30. So quite accomplished. I'm really curious to know why she wants to write a kid's cookbook. Totally, because she doesn't have kids. She doesn't have kids, which I don't think you need a kid to write a good kid's cookbook, but you do need to love kids. You do, and that's why L.S.A. is here today, because I know L.S.A. has a lot of thoughts going up in your household. Yeah. L.S.A, you have opinions. I do. I put spicy mayo on everything. Dang. All right. Well, we're the perfect threesome to talk to Priya about her new book that I'm extremely excited about. Me too. Let's go talk to Priya. Thank you so much for being here, Priya. We are thrilled to have you on everything cookbooks. Thank you for having me. This is a different kind of book than you've done before. Yeah. Why did you decide to write a kid's cookbook? That is a great question, Elsa. I never really thought about writing a kid's cookbook until my cookbook, Indian-ish came out, my first book. My publisher contacted me and was like, you have a very youthful energy. Have you considered writing for young kids? And I was like, I don't really know if I have anything to say. And then I went home and I talked to my mom, who is incredibly wise. And she was like, Priya, you loved cooking when you were a kid. But like, I remember talking about how there weren't cookbooks for you. You know, you would travel. You were interested in cuisines from around the world, but cookbooks were, you know, for lack of a better word, really white. The food was very beige. It was all like popovers and chicken tenders and making pizzas on English muffins. And all those things are delicious. Do not get me wrong. But she was like, your interest in food always like went beyond a lot of those like kids menu dishes. Why don't you just write the cookbook that like you wanted as a kid? You know, I had this amazing childhood. My mom worked in the airline industry. So when you work in the airline industry, basically if there's a seat on a plane, you can claim it after they've gone through the entire rest of the list. So we would show up to the airport with like a snow suit in one part of our suitcase and flip flops, another part of our suitcase. And literally to spend all day seeing what flight we could get on. Sometimes we hit the jackpot and got to like the Bahamas or Paris. Sometimes we just go home and that's how I learned about the world. So the book takes kids around the world through my journeys and I really hope will help to like normalize different flavors and cuisines for them at an early age. Cause like one thing that Andrew and I talk about all the time is like, how do we make American home cooking look the way that America does? I think it starts at kids your age also. I think it literally starts like right now where you are. Kids also is age. They're watching so much on YouTube and you're on YouTube, right? And they're watching TikTok and you do stuff that gets on TikTok too. So why a book versus like something that's more active and, you know, video oriented? And how do you bridge that in your work? I still really believe in the value of like physical, tangible things. I think there's something really wonderful about like giving your kid a book that they can curl up with on the couch and read a tangible thing that they can mark, that they can post it, that they can splatter stuff on. I also think that a cookbook, it allows you to like sort of tailor the instructions to your audience, right? So a TikTok video is a little hard to follow, but like I got to basically learn how to write instructions for an eight to 12 year old audience. So your instructions have to be very clear. There's no jargon. You can't just have a lot of text. I use a lot of diagrams, a lot of like showing people what it's supposed to look like describing it. Like when you're folding whipped cream into chocolate, you don't just say fold. You have to say like what exactly you're doing and describe it for someone. I really think that like a cookbook is an opportunity both to like give kids something tangible, but like teach them how to cook in a way that is very accessible to them and that speaks directly to them without speaking down to them. Yeah, because when I was looking through the book, I noticed that. And I was actually very helpful because sometimes in some books, I can't always understand and like when there's no pictures of what the recipe looks like, it makes it almost look less appealing to me. So I just really liked that about your book. Oh, thank you. You know, I was actually inspired Elsa by Japanese cookbooks and most Japanese cookbooks, they have pictures for every step. And I think that's kind of brilliant. And I wish that more cookbooks had those step by step photos. You know, one of the things I also wondered, this is a question actually for both you, Priya and Elsa, which is that like now adult cookbooks, adult cookbooks is why a novel, yeah. Yeah, but like I see all these cookbooks nowadays made for so-called adults like me and all the instructions are like crammed onto one page. Yeah. The idea behind it is that we don't want to turn the page yet in your book. They're page turners in many ways. Elsa, is that something that crosses your mind and Priya, how intentional was that? Yeah, I'm curious to see what you think Elsa, because I know a lot of authors who are like, I just wanted to fit on one page so it looks really easy and doable. Yeah, people are like lazy. They don't want to flip the page to anything. Yeah. So I'm looking at your tostadas right now. And I've like noticed that you're showing like a lot of pictures and then there's like picture this, you're like showing a bunch of instructions and then you're being very descriptive about what's on the next page, it's helpful. So it's the ingredients on one page and then the instructions on the next, but the way the instructions are written, is that helpful? Like there's little symbols. Yeah. Like, okay, we know we're using the stove because there's a fire, right? No, there's some knife work happening here. I feel like that helps, right? Even though you have to flip the page. Definitely. Yeah, I always feel like what was more important to me than like, does it all fit on one page was, is it clear and does it look clear? And for me, that was like, you'll see the, the recipe steps are like written in such a way. It's not like all crammed together. Like I feel like when you look at a page and it's just so much small text, like that can be really intimidating. So I wanted to like create like physical space between the instructions. I also wanted to add illustrations, diagrams, photos that like would just sort of hold your hand along the way, you know, know that like, okay, this step is a little hard. You might need an adult's help. This step involves chopping heads up. This is what this is supposed to look like. Here's a tip. You know, I don't think the book feels super hefty, but like for me, clarity was king, even if it required flipping the page. Yeah, that's such an interesting decision to have to make, I guess, between like fitting it all on one page and then like lots of breathing space, white space. The fact that the steps are numbered and there is all that space in between just makes it easier to read. That really helps. Yeah. That's great to hear. I will say, and like, Andrea, I feel like you're similar to this. I feel like I'm not so deeply steeped into cookbook world, but I think that's like an advantage. Like I don't know what the norms and trends are. So I'm just kind of going with what feels the most intuitive to me. But I do find to what you say, like there are norms and the norms have changed and evolved and I see things like it's got to fit on one page, but I don't always agree with those norms. Well, yeah, you know, like I'll be honest, like the first book that I ever wrote was a children's book and it was about my family's journey to the United States. And it was an illustrated book. So I see so many elements in Priya's kitchen adventures that are very much like a children's story book because you're turning it and there's this journey that evolves, but yet it's, you know, more formatted like a cookbook that's hefty for kids. It could have been a third of the size. It could have been half the size, but it's actually something that is a lot more substantial. But at the same time, it gave me that feel of being one foot in the world of an illustrated, you know, if Newberry Awards gave awards for kids, it would be something I'm just saying. It gives me that vibe. And that's why I wanted to ask because I have to sometimes get out of magnifying glass to read some of these recipes that are written on one page. So, you know, I get bugged by that. You sometimes cook from TikTok recipes, right? You'll bring something or Pinterest. Pinterest, right. This isn't your only kids cookbook. You do have some other ones. Why do you sometimes also like cookbooks instead of cooking from a video? Well, a cookbook is sometimes more clear. And when a video just keeps going, it's like hard to pause it at the right moment to see the measurements. And it's just easier to look and see the measurements over and over again. Then restarting the video and having to go back. That's why I like cookbooks a lot better sometimes. What do you like about kids cookbooks? Definitely the pictures. And I like how it makes me feel. I don't know if other kids feel like this, but it makes me feel a lot independent when I'm doing stuff by myself. And a cookbook for kids is just like easy recipes. Yeah. And it helps kids develop skills about being independent and all that. So, yeah. You know, Elsa, one thing that was so interesting about writing this book is as I was working on it, I was like, I think actually more adult books should look like kids cookbooks. I think there are too many adult cookbooks that needlessly get in the weeds using lingo that only people in the industry have heard of where the instructions could probably be a lot clearer. They're really wordy where they could use more of a dynamic layout or a design that like speaks to the recipe itself. I think writing a book for kids made me a better adult recipe developer. How did you figure out that style of writing for kids? Well, you don't have kids. I don't have kids, but I have many nieces. And I had 30 kids who tested recipes for me, my amazing cousins basically put out bulletins at their kids' schools and had their parents like sign their kids up. And it was, I mean, it was amazing. That's awesome. These kids were so, so awesome, so fun, so open-minded to, you know, whatever. And so I basically, I gave, signed them each like one to three recipes to do over their holiday break. And they would fill out Google Docs and they would tell me, you know, did the instructions feel cleared? Was there any steps that were difficult? Would you make this again? Just like they asked very specific questions about the recipes. The same questions I would ask of my adult recipe testers. And when I was writing the instructions, really what I realized was like, I don't have like a kid tone and an adult tone. It's literally just like clear writing. That's all it is. Yeah, it's really interesting. Yeah, but I mean, like, it's also, you know, you're writing recipes that are relatively straightforward. I mean, there are some things that are very complicated, but, you know, by and large, these are recipes that are meant to instill confidence and discovery. I agree. I will also say I like most of my recipes to be like that. Yeah. I am a lazy cook. I like to cook in a very streamlined way. If like something can use one pan instead of two, I will figure out a way to put it in one pan. I don't really like to overly complicate things in the kitchen. This is probably why I'll never be a baker. So like, yes, I think these recipes were designed for kids, but they very much felt like of my ethos. I mean, for example, OK, so I'm looking at the ravioli, the para and the gorgonzola ravioli. Yeah. I'm like, yeah, she's going to have them use wonton skins or hot sticker skins or something, you're providing instructions for making pasta. Yeah, but it is a very streamlined way of making pasta. That's just flour, water, and oil. You're not putting the egg in and using the fork to go to tick tick tick tick. And I watched my niece, Radika, do it in the kitchen just to see if she could do it. And I was really amazed at her ability to follow instructions. And I think I don't think she wanted to do the wonton wrapper version. I think she wanted to roll out the dough. She wanted to feel it between her hands. I think that there is like a real value of that, that physical process and that journey. It's like, Oh, wow, I like handmade this pasta and not every recipe is like that. But I found that like for the pasta recipe, that was something kids were really excited to do and to know they could do it without a pasta maker. You love all that stuff. Sensory to, you know, touching it. What does that tell us about beginners mind? Also, what do you think? What do you think it says that you love feeling things in your hands and rolling things? Um, it's just fun to play with stuff. For me, it helps me focus more. And when you're cooking, it's like you need to focus. So I guess that incorporates it when you're like playing with stuff, playing with the dough. It makes it feel more fun because it's satisfying. Yeah. Yeah, totally. Andrea, you were asking about beginners mind. What I was thinking is pretty, you said something about like not dumbing down. And you're almost like maybe assuming kids can do more than other people think they can do. Is that what you were asking about beginners mind, Andrea? OK, so like I meditate. OK. OK, so I meditate and we're always like every day or frequently, I think, beginners mind just open up, relax, just let things happen and explore and be excited to learn something new. And I think oftentimes as adults, we want perfection. And we want to have all the guardrails in place so that we don't screw up. But I think when you were younger, like, you know, when you were trying to master a new language, you just absorb things and just let them come into you. And I feel like with the instructions for the pasta, you know, for me, I'm like, she has like one paragraph with about 75 to 80 words on making pasta dough. And I'm like, tell that to Evan Funk, you know, who wrote this amazing pasta book and all the other people who have written pasta books, because it's just like, yeah, you just do everything together. And I thought, but maybe that's what I actually need because I've never made I've made, you know, dumpling doughs and all that stuff. But I've never really made pasta dough because I felt kind of like I could do it, but I feel like if I had a beginner's mind to writing instructions and also with a recipe, like what pretty is written and that kind of style that I would do it. And I think that I'm trapped in my adult brain, a wanting to seek something that is going to bring me close to Italian known status. I don't want to practice, you know, I don't want to practice like when I was a kid and I was making dumplings forever for my mother and it was fun. Yeah. So I feel like that's what Elsa's kind of talking about to just like focusing and playing and being absorbed. One of the goals of the books is just to show so many diverse kinds of food. And I feel like it's such a great place to start. So you start with these recipes and then maybe you love them. And then you go on to other cookbooks or other, you know, books on different kinds of cuisine to go more deep. And you have those recommendations in the book. Yeah. That was something in my previous book, Cooking at Home, that we did just because I just think like a love of one cookbook, but gets a love of other cookbooks. Like the rising tide lifts all boats. Once you find one cookbook, you love, you start thinking, Oh, if I like this book, what else might I like? And I think for kids, you know, I had a lot of kids who were like, I fell in love with Japanese cuisine, writing this book. I fell in love with Mexican food, writing this book. And you kind of want to be like, all right, well, what's next? There's only six or seven recipes in this chapter. And there are so many good cookbooks out there on each of the cuisines represented in the cookbook. And so, you know, my hope was that these are sort of the training wheels. And when you're ready for the training wheels to come off, you buy these other books and, you know, you can delve into the world of Moroccan food or Indian food or Egyptian food. I like that choice. Some of the recipe titles are in their native language. And some of them are in English and some of them are kind of like hybrid titles. Also, what did you think about that? And I also want to ask, Priya, how did you decide to title things? Is that something that sometimes wakes me up in the middle of the night when I'm working between cultures? Say, well, actually, funny story. My mom was looking at the sticky notes I put in the book. She was like, wait, do you know what this word means? And I'm like, no, I don't. Oh, I just saw the picture and I liked how it looked. And I like read the recipe and all that. So it was photo first. Yeah, but then you learned what it is. That is like literally the best user experience that I could have possibly imagined because also when I wrote "Indian-ish," my second book, I did something that I really regret, which is that I put the names that I refer to the dishes in. But then I put in parentheses a really, like, poorly anglicized version. For example, there's a chickpea yogurt dish called Gardi. And in parentheses, I put turmeric yogurt soup. And to this day, it just pains me to look at those words and parentheses when there's a photo that shows you what it looks like that looks absolutely delicious. And when you look at it, you think, ooh, whatever Gardi is, I want to make it. And so when I was writing this book, I wanted to lean more into the dishes as they are called. And so I basically for all of the recipe developers who develop recipes, I asked them, like, what do you call this at home? And that's what I put in the book. And there were some instances like I think we were talking to Chinese recipe developers about like how they refer to red bean buns. And they were like, well, we refer to them by like the name in Chinese. And also we refer to them as red bean buns. So we use those turns interchangeably. So I think I put both terms in the book. But if Greek people call a dolemata dolemata, I'm just going to put dolemata and not stuff grape leaves in parentheses. And I think you can you can look at the picture and read the recipe and it will be delicious, but that like that has been such a journey for me. It's like not over explaining. And I think especially with kids cookbooks, the instinct is to over explain. So it was like, it felt like a little bit of a risk. So I'm glad that this is how you have consumed the book Elsa. Yeah, I mean, you use the headnote well, I think, to lend that explanation without needing to do that parenthetical recipe title. But it was something that struck Andrea and I when we were going through it. Yeah, yeah, because, you know, that's exactly. I was thinking, you know, how you name pork and chive dumplings, but then we've got poyo, pozoli verde con boyo and the French octopoam. And I'm like, why don't we have, you know, the jouza or the shui jiao? And then I thought, because they may be my kind of weird words that people don't know. It was literally because that was like the lead that I took from Chris Ying, who developed that pork dumpling recipe. Oh, okay. And he said, I think you should call them pork and chive dumplings because that's what we call them in my family. And I said, okay, Chris. It's a very, you know, like hyphenated American experience that we're talking about here. For sure. And I think the intro talks about that, but like some of these recipes are not true to what you might find in this part of China. But, you know, it says in the headnote for that that these are the dumplings that Chris makes with his kids at home. These are inspired by the ones that he grew up folding every Sunday and Saturday with his family. And I didn't think I needed to be chasing authenticity, whatever the heck that means. I wanted recipes that felt rooted in that country that would inspire kids about that country, but that we're ultimately delicious and fun to make and true to the person who is developing the recipe. So for example, there is a Briam recipe from Greece. And my mom developed that recipe. She loves Briam. She makes it all the time. And Briam typically has eggplant, but my mother hates eggplant. So her Briam is eggplantless. I know Andrea. It is I'm just like, how can I know I know of South Asian? Truly, it's no sense to me. I could I could roll big and buy it for her. We could do a podcast where I rant about my mother's hatred of eggplant. And I have my mother's hatred of other things. Also, you can join us about your mom. And so she was like, I'm not going to put eggplant in mine. And I was like, okay, that's fine. I'll just put it in the headnote. And, you know, this is true to the version of Briam that she makes at home. And I think that's completely fine. It was either Briam or something else. If it wasn't Briam, sorry to the people listening. Well, something also I really liked about the book was that you put the difficulty level on each recipe. That kind of helps for kids almost all ages, because it like shows like if you're a new cook, it shows like what the level is and how easy it is to make. And maybe you won't get frustrated if you fail. I'm looking at the tea sandwiches, which I know you love tea sandwiches. Yeah. My birthday party was this year. I had like a tea party themed almost. Tiny tea sandwiches. Incredible. That was like exactly what I wrote that recipe for. How did you decide the difficulty levels? I talked a lot to my friends and family with kids. And we talked through what is easy for you? What is what would medium be for you? What would hard be for you? And the way that I categorized it was easy is a parent can step out of the room and be like in another room, working, doing something else. And they can trust that their kid will be just fine. The dish is basically mostly assembly. They're not chopping anything. They're not blending anything. Parents can be completely hands off. Medium is like, I'm in the kitchen, but I'm like on my laptop, but I'm just kind of keeping an eye on them. You know, yeah, exactly. Like I'm not in the kitchen with them, but I'm just like making sure they haven't like chopped a finger off. But I'm just, I have like a peripheral vision for them, but I feel like they can mostly just do it by themselves. And then hard, put the laptop away, put the book away. I am in the kitchen with you, hands on helping. This is not a fun activity for you to do. This is an activity that we are doing together. That was what my easy, medium, and hard meant to me. And I found that that like across the board was how parents thought about cooking and also like other other projects generally. It's like, can I be out of the room? Can I be doing other stuff? Or do I have to have like all eyes on my kid? My own specificity actually makes a lot of sense. Did you find that your work as a reporter for The New York Times helped you be a better cookbook writer for this particular book? Always. Because I mean, I think like being a journalist makes you really anxious about getting things wrong. And I think that's really important with cookbooks. You really don't want to get things wrong. You don't want someone to make something and end up disappointed. You don't want to get a fact about the origin of this particular dish wrong. You just learn how important it is to report things and do your research and double check your research and triple check your research. For every cookbook that I've done since Indian-ish, I've had sensitivity readers, people from those cultures reading it and telling me like, no, this is not a correct way to characterize this. This is an oversimplification. You've generalized this. I think that is really important. And I also like being a reporter, you just like are okay with being told like, this is wrong. This is overly generalized. This is overly simplified. This is plus plays into a stereotype. And you just like learn to be okay with getting that critical feedback. You know, I feel like some cookbook writers are too soft. They're a few cries for help. You're just like, I got this and you're like, no, you don't. Yeah, it's almost like learning to not be defensive and just almost be like grateful for the feedback. For sure. Even if it triggers a little bit of a feeling, but in the end. And like it went down to like the food styling. Like when I was doing the Mexico chapter and I was working with Rick Martinez, who's an amazing cookbook author. And I was like, how should I style these and what should I not do? Because I feel like there are plenty of like stereotypes that you could play into that are very harmful. And he was very explicit down to like, here's what vessel you should put it in. You know, please avoid fiesta vibes and colors. You know, things like that. That I feel like we're just tremendously helpful in making sure that I'm not like perpetuating harmful stereotypes at a young age for kids. That makes a lot of sense. Yeah, how did it work? Like with the photo shoot for all of this. So we did it at my parents old house. It was actually the week that they moved out of the house. So like my dad thought of it as like the house's last gift to us was this photo shoot. And we'd done the Indianish photo shoot there. Our photographer, Mackenzie Smith Kelly, I mean, she is basically like part of our family. Like the Indianish photo team, they became like best friends with my parents. And they still are extremely close with my parents. Like they see my parents when I'm not even around. They like text about kitchen gadgets and knife sharpeners and all that stuff. But so we did it at my house. We had the same photographer Mackenzie who came in. My mom has this amazing collection of pottery and plates that she's gotten from all of these countries that we visited. So like in Indianish, she just like put it all out on the table. And we used a lot of stuff from those particular countries. We every single day we had my nieces, Radhika and Rishika come over. And they cooked most of the recipes and they were the ones whose hands you're seeing in the recipes. So like the food in the book is like 75% just cooked by them. They're the ones in the step-by-step photos. They're the ones in the Finnish photos. Like when you look at the photo of like the cream being folded into the chocolate, that's Radhika who is 11 doing that. And we're like, read the recipe instruction and do what you think makes sense. And she did that. She taught herself out of folded dumpling, reading the instructions. And so that process was both like an affirmation of the book's instructions, a reminder of like, what did we need to tweak and fix and make better? Because I actually feel like cookbook shoots are a really good opportunity to like look at like, oh, does this need tweaking? Oh, is this instruction not quite clear? You know, it's like a good way to like check your work. And while I was checking my work with like the very audience for the book. And so they came every day, shout out to their parents who literally just like drove them over every day after school. Wow. For 10 days. Wow. And they were part of this shoot. It was really remarkable. And then after the shoot, it was really wonderful because my mom trying to get rid of a bunch of stuff. And so she put out all of this amazing pottery. I mean, it was like, it was like a prop sale where everything is free. And the photo team just got to like free for all, take whatever nice, interesting to them. Oh, wait. So does this sound like you're not going to do another cookbook? Yeah, right. I know. All the props are gone. I, yeah, I don't think I'm going to do another cookbook. I really do feel like I have laid my greatest hits out in the world. I feel like I have contributed to the cookbook world. What I want to contribute, will this opinion maybe change? Maybe, but I don't think it will. I'm so proud of my cookbooks. I love them. I think a lot of people write amazing cookbooks and subpar sequels. I don't want to do that. I just want my cookbooks to stand alone. And I want them to be timeless. I want to ask Elsa, like, and then I want to ask you to, like, you cover the entire globe and you got to sample those dishes in person with your family. But how did you, like, create the short list that you decided? Oh, yeah. Well, this is really going to give young people a sense of what the planet has to offer. And then I'd like to know from Elsa, how did you react to that as you were, like, paging through the book? I did not want to answer that question of, like, how did you choose? So I literally just went with all the places I visited when I was a kid. Like, I just went with what was true, which was that from ages zero to 13, I went to these places. And those are the places that I featured. And they happen to be a really wonderful cross-section of the world. You've got Europe, you have Asia, you have parts of Africa, you have North America, South America. And so I wanted to make sure that it felt like a good cross-section. But I basically wrote down all the countries I visited. And I was like, yeah, I feel really good about this. Good on my parents for just taking me to one part of the world. Thank God, those seats opened up. Yeah, right. Incredible opportunity. Yeah, like you open it up the book and you're like, I'm going to learn about what the food of the world is. How did Priya's book cover that for you and what else were you maybe looking forward to? I really liked how you incorporated foods from all over the world. Because most cookbooks for kids are incorporated on one thing and they have different sections. But your sections were on the places that you visited. And the different food and like all the different desserts. And some kids cookbooks. They have sectioned by snacks, desserts, all that. All right, so I really loved how you did that. Because it also helps kids try new foods from all around the world when they don't visit these places and they have a chance to make it by themselves. Yeah, totally. I remember writing the cookbook. I mean, like what kid's cookbook takes kids to Trinidad and Tobago? Totally. It is funny how there are certain like staples in a lot of kids cookbooks. Like some version of like some celery snack, you know, that's like filled with something like an ants on a log or what do you say before a bagel pizza? Yep. Probably a version of quesadilla. And again, these things are good. But there is a sameness a lot of times to the recipes and kids cookbooks. So it's a refreshing departure for sure. How did you fit your book writing in with your reporting, your staff reporting work at the New York Times, which is like a totally full-time job, if more than a full-time job? Yeah, I mean, it's like a bit-by-bit thing. I think the key for most cookbooks is just taking it in like manageable chunks. So like, you know, when I was writing headnotes, for example, like every free night that I had, I would write three headnotes. And if you just keep writing three headnotes over the course of a few months, eventually you've written all of the headnotes. I have 20 minutes. Yeah, I'm going to write one headnote. Or I have a few hours, I'm going to write one recipe. And so it was very much just about like filling in, filling in my free time and blocking out like little chunks of time that I had to do small amounts of work. And so I very much was just like doing a small amount of work, very consistently over a long period of time. And I don't know how other people do it, but that's the only way I found it can work when you have a full-time job. Yeah, and you had a bunch of people developing recipes, right? And I had a bunch of people developing recipes, but like them submitting a recipe, as you know, is just step one. Then you test it yourself. You ask a bunch of questions. You test it and you ask a bunch of more questions. You finally come up with the recipe you're happy with. Then you send it to your testers. Your testers are like, "I don't like this. I don't like this." And you look at the feedback and you're like, "Oh, yeah, maybe I should..." I know that, you know, the tostada was originally a jorizo tostada. And all these kids were like, the fat splattered and it was really scary. And I thought it was going to burn my hand. Can we do something other than jorizo? I went back to Rick. Rick was like, "Yeah, you can do it with squash. Squash is a totally normal and standard topping for tostada." So then I had to test the squash version, make sure I corrected the squash version, take it back to my testers. It's a whole, a whole process. Yeah. The testing management. Yeah. I was curious about the promotion of a kid's cookbook. How has it differed from promoting previous books for you? Or how has it been the same? I mean, no, it's completely different. It's like, I mean, I was three months talking to like, mommy bloggers, like, you know, parenting newsletters, parenting podcasts, you know, doing kids, cooking classes, going to a lot of kids, kids events, like, you know, finding out there are various pockets where they have, they organize kids programming for like, you know, when you just want to like, take your kids on a weekend to do something. I was doing a lot of that. It's like a completely, a completely different thing. You know, part of me was like, I almost feel like I should have published the book through the kid's division, because I feel like they understand how different of an undertaking it is. And so I think publishing it through harvest, my publisher, it really required like a rewiring of brains to be like, oh, we're not just going to like, send this to like, eater and bon appetit and food and wine. Like, we have to like reach parents and kids. It was very different. Yeah, did they end up bringing in some of their colleagues who are more familiar with that market? No, they just kind of figured it out with a lot of me reminding them over and over on the phone. We're going after parents and kids. Yeah, that's our audience. And that's such an interesting point too, because a lot of times it's going to be the parents or an adult buying the book for the kids. So you kind of, and we'll seem to reach both. And then events, like, would you go to events with kids there? Yeah, pretty, I mean, pretty much all of my events were kid events. What was funniest about it was like, I announced the book tour and I like, book owners were telling me like, adults are buying tickets. And so we had to like, put a note that was like, this is, this is a kid event. But event, inevitably, every single event, there would be like, adults who are just like, fans of Indianapolis or like, who watch my videos, who'd be like, awkwardly in the background, not realizing it was a kids event, or like, in a profiterole making workshops surrounded by nine year olds. And it's like, we did say, this is a kids only event. And I like, I literally put in the caption, like, don't be the adult lurking in the back. It's like the New York City playgrounds, you know, they have those signs that are like, if you don't have a child with you, do not come in. Yeah, I feel like by the end, we figured it out. But like, the early events, it would be like, 80% kids and 20% adults who like, didn't realize it was a kids event. Love it. Well, yeah, we're not sure if this is going to be your last book or not, but it sounds like it's been a really wonderful experience for you. Probably my last cookbook, but not my last book, I hope. Good clarification. Well, I hope so too. Yeah, same. And it sounds like, you know, you really wait for something to like, speak to you. I think a lot of authors, like, you sell the book and then you come with the idea. But like, I'm trying to, I'm trying to only sell books that I like, I am going to be thrilled month 11 to still be working on this. I mean, that's something I admire so much about Andrea's books. Like, every single one feels so thoughtful and so intentional. Yeah, despite the fact that you are so prolific. Well, you know, as we like to say, Priya and Kristen, you got to have something that you want to contribute. Yeah, I think about that all the time. Yeah, Kristen, I'm curious, like, what your takeaway in all of this has been reading about kids' cookbooks, talking to Elsa, you know, as someone who also does this. I loved the approach and it was funny. Even when it was first, when you first announced doing a kid's cookbook, at first, I was like, Oh, that could be really hard without having kids. But then once I opened the book, I was like, I think you got it right. And just the fact that there are so many children in your life. And I also think sometimes just as a parent, it's almost like, Oh, I'm not sure she'll be able to do that. You know what I mean? Like, whereas I feel like sometimes people from the outside can like hold the higher standard in a way. I really appreciated that. You are also a really, like, prolific recipe developer. Just having a kid and a kid who really loves to cook has that changed the way that you look at recipe development. Aside from the obvious, like, I'm a parent now and so I have limited time, like, has talking to you, Elsa, about how she cooks, changed how you think about recipe development. I guess it's like, I was always somewhat lazy and then just got lazier music to my ears. It's like, Oh, can we like make this in one pan? Can we trim out like three ingredients here? It's not always about trimming out ingredients. But yeah, a lot of times it's like pan consolidation and cleanup consolidation. And then I think because of Elsa's like watching TikTok and that bringing some of that in and how there's a lot that's over the top. But I don't know, I guess my recipes before always lean more toward being very, like, healthy. And now sometimes I have appreciation for like, let's just throw it all in. I guess I don't develop recipes like that. But everyone's well, we'll cook like that, you know? Yeah, lots of cheese. Lots of cheese. Yeah. Going back to what you said earlier about like trying to find a solution for if we didn't have like an ingredient. I love making pancakes so much that my mom just wrote down a recipe, a very easy recipe, put it on the fridge. And every time I want to make it, I'm just like, we don't have milk. So I'm like, what can I use instead of milk? And she and she's like, Oh, you can use like yogurt. And I'm like, we don't have plain yogurt. And you're like, just use the vanilla or like reduce the sugar. Just use like just use. Was it soy milk or something? Yes. So I know. Yeah, like something like that silk milk that you put in your old meal, like, I think that's so cool. I like, I love that you feel empowered to like make those substitutions and make those determinations for yourself. Because like, that's what cooking is when you're an adult, it's literally like, I want to make this. I don't have this. What do I do? And then, and then when you find a great substitute, you're like, I'm a genius. I'm the smartest person that's ever lived on this planet because I subs the milk for yogurt and the yogurt had a nice tang. Einstein in the kitchen. That's a great example, Elsa. All right, cool. Thank you so much for your time, Priya. Thank you for coming on and sharing about your book. You're thrilled to have you. Thanks so much, everyone. Thank you so much. Bye. Thank you for listening to Everything Cookbooks. For more episodes and ways to contact us, go to our website, everythingcookbooks.com. Show is available wherever you get your audio. And if you like what you hear, please leave us a review. Any book mentioned in the show can be found on our affiliate page, bookshop.org. Thanks, as always, to our editor, Abby Circatella. Until next time, keep on writing, reading, and cooking.
Kristin, Andrea and special co-host Elsa chat with Priya Krishna about her fresh and unique kid's cookbook 'Priya's Kitchen Adventures'. Priya talks about approaching this project without kids of her own and why she wanted to create a physical book instead of going the video/social media route. She shares how writing for kids made her a better recipe developer, how she decided on the format, recipe titles, difficulty levels and cuisines to highlight while Elsa talks about the specifics she appreciated and enjoyed in the book. We learn about the recipe testing process and photoshoot that both involved kids and Priya talks about how she fit writing this book in with her New York Times work. Finally, she talks about the different approach to promotion that this called for and why she feels this may be her last cookbook, though hopefully not her last book.
