Open to suggestions are we?
My input would be to first identify and focus on your market, (Me, Me, Me). I assume the least common denominator you would be writing for would be those with zero culinary knowledge, but who have a burning desire to build their knowledge and want to be serious foodies.(People that eat from boxes will never care, not even if Solient Green is people. :roll:) In the median range are people who are already on the foodie path who are looking for good information in a cooking manual to enhance their burgeoning skills. Given your previous writing examples on this forum I can see hard core foodies and even professionals being interested in a reference or refresher book, doubly true for professionals who are young in their careers.
All that being said, not a single type in your market would want “Americanized” or “more American” recipes. You can get that kind of book anywhere. Do the arroz con pollo, but give us some of that classic boar d laze background info that we can use to impress our friends and loved ones when we show off our new found skills.
The thread on Alfredo Sauce is a prime example of what you do very well. When you went into the history of the dish you mentioned how it rose to fame and referenced Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks, great info. The fabulous part was when you later referred to them as “Mary and Doug” that is a style thing that makes the reader feel like they are “in” on a secret. Those types of style choices set you apart and make the reader like you and keeps your highly technical work from being a dry boring text book that puts people to sleep.
As a side note, I grew up with a mother who could follow a recipe but couldn’t cook her way out of a wet paper sack. When I had been out on my own for about a year I made friends with a fellow who was first generation Italian on his father’s side and Sicilian on his mother’s side. Boy could he cook! I didn’t even realize that such food could be made, let alone from the dregs of my refrigerator. I had been eating at the Olive Garden thinking that was good food. My favorite was Fettuccini Alfredo. Then he made it from scratch. It was a defining moment in my personal food history and darn near a sexual experience (with the sauce, not the guy). I never went to the Olive Garden again. Yet, now I find that it was al burro, not Alfredo. Doesn’t change what I love, just makes me better informed and I will soon get to trying Alfredo, thanks to you.
Really and truly, I would probably enjoy reading your description of how to make toast. Outside of my dreaded sea food allergy I would try my hand at anything you recommended based on how you describe things. The style you write in might even convince me to cook sea food; I just wouldn’t be able to eat it. My husband would love you for that.
So recipe suggestions: a spectrum of what you like. Your knowledge is self-evident. No disrespect to that knowledge, but it really is your approach and flair that makes me want your book as opposed to another with the exact same technical information.
Also, my brilliant deductive skills have pieced together enough bits of information that you have dropped to lead me to believe that you have a European background. Americans love nothing more for someone from across the water to instruct us on how to be more than bourgeois, even if that person is merely an American who has spent time abroad. Play that up to an American audience. Wax poetic about your time outside of our borders and how you first came to love arroz con pollo in its purest form. And then tell us how to make it.
I first started visiting this forum a year ago. I fell off the radar last December when I took ill and my teenager killed my computer. After surgery on both the pc and me I came back to find a new dude with some serious posts. (That would be you.) I’m nosy and like to know who I am interacting with so I always check out the profiles and websites of posters who peak my interest. When I read that you were working on a cook book, I assumed that all of your posts were research and practice runs for your book. And given the amount of posting you do I figured you were getting fairly close. Hence I started this thread. I find it funny, that you have been writing min-instruction manuals in this forum but say that your book is stalling.
If you compiled all of your posts, you could have a basic outline. Not to mention that questions posed by others here and advice that is sought ought to give you a good idea of the topics that people are most interested in learning about.
Got to go, kids are all home for the summer and they have been quite for far too long.
