Delivered!

Well, folks, today was the big day. At 9:30 AM I met with Lizzie, my constant companion and photographer over the past year, so she could hand over the discs with all of her pictures and the match prints (hard copies) for me to deliver, along with my manuscript, to my publisher, Artisan Books. And so it was that after we sipped cappuccino (Lizzie) and iced coffee (me) and Brendan the barrista kindly snapped that photo you see above, I journeyed south on 6th Avenue down to Houston, over to Varick and up the elevator to my publisher to hand things over.

At 11:03 AM, hand things over, I did. (In case you're wondering why it says "WORKMAN" and not "ARTISAN" that's because Artisan is a division of Workman Publishing.)

And now, 34 minutes later, I'm back at home breathing a huge sigh of relief. My finished cookbook, as I Tweeted yesterday, has, in its current incarnation: 629,414 characters, 115,574 words, 16,697 lines, 4,712 paragraphs & 506 pages. (It features 50 chefs and 150 recipes, to put that all in context.)

Which is all to say: PHEW!

And also: HELLO!

Sorry I've been a neglectful blogger for the past few weeks, but I'm excited to return to the platform that made this all possible. So look out for more frequent blog posts, newsletters, Tweets and Facebook Fan Page updates. Also look for an 8,000 pound brick floating into the sky: that's the weight that was just lifted off my shoulders. I can now cross "write a cookbook" off my bucket list.