86 WBM Elena Rosemond-Hoerr Preschool teacher Elena Rosemond-Hoerr never gave much thought to writing a cookbook. The Durham, North Carolina native was hungry for home cooking while attending art school in Baltimore. An internet search for recipes resembling her grandmother’s country-style steak came up dry. “I missed home and I wanted to eat something familiar,” Rosemond-Hoerr says. She created her own version of the beloved dish and the recipe became her first post on biscuitsandsuch.com, her blog with a southern cooking focus. But Rosemond-Hoerr readily admits she wasn’t the most experienced cook when she began chronicling her kitchen adventures in 2008. Over time, both her readership and her culinary prowess grew, but she was still a bit surprised when British publisher Dorling Kindersley (DK) contacted her to ask whether she’d like to work with another cookbook writer on a book about American cuisine. Rosemond-Hoerr jumped at the chance and “The American Cookbook: A Fresh Take on Classic Recipes” came out in the US earlier this year, garnering a mention in the New York Times Review of Books. Writing “The American Cookbook” was intense, says Rosemond-Hoerr, who devised and tested about 90 recipes for the book in three weeks. Rosemond-Hoerr wrote several recipes for parts of the country she wasn’t actually familiar with. She had a friend with New England roots test her clam chowder recipe and asked her Philadelphian husband to sign off on her take on the classic cheesesteak. But Rosemond-Hoerr had “a little bit of a culture clash” with some of the British recipe testers hired by DK. “The testers, I remember, were horrified by how sweet the sweet potato casserole was,” she says. “And one of the testers suggested we boil the brisket to cut down on cooking time. And I was like, ‘I’d like to go back to Texas at some point.’” Rosemond-Hoerr has since collaborated with DK on two more cookbooks, the just-published “Meat Cookbook” and a forthcoming book with quick and easy recipes. She’s working with an agent on a proposal for a fourth book all about biscuits. “I would like to do more cookbooks that speak a little more to what I do on the blog,” she says. There, the focus is on real and whole foods. “No margarine, no shortcuts, it’s really the way my grandmother cooked and the way she taught me to cook,” Rosemond-Hoerr says. “So it’s a lot of butter.” november 2014 Voted Best Vegetarian Food by encore magazine Lovey’s Your LOCAL Health Food Store and Café CELEBRATING 12 YEARS • Organic Produce and Groceries • Salad, Soup, Hot & Juice bars • Cafe • Catering • Supplements • Health & Beauty Aids • Wheat & Gluten-Free foods SpecialS Country Life 25% off • Source Naturals 25% off Solgar 25% off • Planetary Formulas 25% off 910-509-0331 Landfall Shopping Center • 1319 Military Cutoff Road www.loveysmarket.com
2014-11
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