Master & Disasters of Cooking By Carol Preflatish

Carol Preflatish has been a long time acquaintance of mine and fellow member of the writing group, Momwriters, along with my friend Kathryn Lay

Carol is the author of Masters & Disasters of Cooking

Congrats Carol! Recently, she took some time to talk with me and share something about her cookbook.

Looking at the title, this does bring one of my own cooking disasters to mind. Not long after my husband, Charlie, and I were married I'd made some baked beans. I took the long route beginning with dried beans, which turned out fabulous. I poured them in to a slow cooker with brown sugar, a bit of molasses, dried mustard, pieces of bacon, a little onion....and commenced to slow cooker them to death. After about eight hours, I brought them to the table and when they landed on Charlie's plate, it sounded like gravel! Clink, clinkety, clink..clink..kkk! Ahh! The flavor was (Since Chuckles isn't here to defend me) outstanding-but the beans were decidedly hard as rocks....lots of tiny, tasty rocks!

Since then and after a few soured shots...I figured out how to make baked beans but it took me a while to understand that it was the salt from the bacon that foiled my beans!

When did you decide to create a cookbook?

It was a couple years ago when I started writing down some of the stories about my cooking disasters. I thought the stories, along with a good recipe, would make a neat little cookbook.

What prompted you?

I love to cook and had a lot of funny stories about cooking. Because I also love to write, I wanted it to be more than just a cookbook, so I combined the stories with the recipes.

Your cover is beautiful, did you design it?

I wish I had, but it's a template from the publisher. It is beautiful, isn't it?

What inspired some of the recipes?

Many of them are from my mother that I had helped her make when I was growing up. Some are from recipes that I have sampled, but I altered them a little to make it something I liked better.

When creating this project, what was your biggest struggle?

Just finding the time to get it all down was the biggest struggle. I work full time during the day where I sit in front of a computer, so sometimes I had to make myself sit down in front of a computer at night to work on it.

Any funny stories to share?

Not really any funny stories, but while writing it I was always afraid my computer was going to crash. I think I had the manuscript backed-up on at least three disks.

Here is a paragraph from the story about where I made my husband sick from something I cooked.

My husband finished (his meal) and sat his fork down. I asked if he wanted more and he quickly said, "No." He was full. Later in the evening, I never noticed him taking antacid pills.

The next morning, in the nicest way possible, he told me he thought I had given him food poisoning. I think he spent most of the night in the bathroom. As a new wife, I felt terrible that something I had prepared made my husband sick. When he left for work, he assured me he was now fine. Although, I was positive I had seen him slip some Pepto-Bismol pills into his pocket before he left. Thank goodness he worked at a hospital, just in case he got sick.

Now, that this book is done, what if anything, would you have
done differently?

I wish I would have had more stories and recipes.

Who has been your biggest cheerleader?

My best friend, Sandy and my sister-in-law, Teresa. Both really supported me during the process.

Yay, for great friends!!

What is a surefire marketing idea that you've used?

Marketing is my weak area. I have a blog about cooking and try to post as often as I can. I have the cover of my cookbook with a link posted prominently on there. My readership there is growing.

As a mom, what is something you seem to stress to your children? Or one of
life's big lessons that you'd like them to remember?

I suppose I have tried to stress the "Golden Rule" of doing unto others. I'm very proud of how my daughter has turned out. She recently moved out on her own and my cookbook is one of the gifts I made sure to give her when she left.

Are you planning more writing ventures?

I have a romance novel under consideration with a publisher right now and I am in the planning stages of writing another cookbook. This one will be of pizza recipes. Who doesn't like pizza?

Make sure to visit Carol's blog!:
Carol's Food Bites at http://carolsfoodbites.blogspot.com