BTS: The Making of a Cookbook

What I thought it would be like... and what it was REALLY like. (plus, the recipe I make most often!)

Some days I wake up, walk into my kitchen bleary-eyed, and reach for my coffee mug when I see it — the spiral-bound draft of my cookbook. And I laugh to myself. Because it’s still surreal that this book is going to be in your kitchens soon, hopefully open and dog-eared, with notes scrawled in the margin and speckles of sauce sprinkled across its pages.

Before this process started, I had no idea what went into making a cookbook. I’ve written lots of other books before: ones that tell my story, that help you organize your life, that empower you. I’ve made devotionals to help you start and end your day, and even kids books to remind littles they’re always enough and how to be includers.

But I’ve never been part of a book project like this in my whole life. And wow, I had no idea what surprises were in store for me.

From start to finish, making a cookbook is unbelievably complicated. Way more involved than I could’ve imagined.