My Mother's Cookbook has Arrived!

After a long year of compiling, testing, typing, blogging, eating, scanning, and designing, "My Mother's Cookbook" is done!

My Mother's Cookbook by Shirley Davis Blake

I learned so much along the way, not only about ingredients and techniques, what I can do in the kitchen (and what I really need to work on!) but also about the world of food blogging. I have been so inspired by the many great food writers and bloggers out there—you have opened my eyes to so many interesting ways to write about cooking. I don't know where this blog will go next (other than on the shelf for a while, as I welcome my new little girl into the world), but thanks to all of you, I know anything is possible: White Fluffy Icing, Orangette, and The Wednesday Chef to name just the three that were thanked in my cookbook, but also Big Girls, Small Kitchen, Cook That Book, Foodycat and many others.

Of course, all of the credit goes to my mother for supporting me through this project, answering my frantic phone calls when I was in the middle of a recipe card trying to figure out what to do next, or why an ingredient was listed but never mentioned in the recipe, or how long something was supposed to bake in what temperature oven since those details were not listed on the card...anyway, I guess someday I will impart undecipherable recipes to my daughters and they will be equally frustrated. Or they will just pull "My Mother's Cookbook" off the shelf and everything will be perfectly clear!

Pick up a copy today at Blurb.com if you are interested—hard cover and soft cover versions are available—or just flip through the pages and enjoy.

Like I said, I think the blog will go on the shelf for a while...maybe it will re-emerge with a different project in 2011, maybe the cookbook will be the next selection on Oprah's Book Club. Wherever this experience takes me in the new year, I'm just proud to have a finished product sitting in the cookbook rack in my kitchen and the memories of a year spent cooking, learning, and making my mother so incredibly happy. Worth every minute!