Giving In: Gruyère and Emmentaler Macaroni and Cheese Casserole with Ham and Cubed Sourdough

-This utterly sexy photo by Matt Armendariz.-

So I'm giving in this year.

Admittedly, it's not something I usually do, let alone admit to. I'm what many call stubborn, though I prefer stalwart. But after complaints, begging, pleading, and even a bit of polite asking I'll bend for once.

This year I'll make stuffing for Thanksgiving.

Now, admittedly, this probably sounds odd. Can one have a Thanksgiving without stuffing?

Yes. Yes you can.

Usually, I make blue cheese biscuits, cheddar crackers, homemade olive bread, or some epic macaroni and cheese where the cheese sauce bubbles over the sides and the house smells like warm feelings and comfort.

Last year, I crafted a wild rice stuffing studded with feta, roasted chanterelles, toasted pine nuts, dried cranberries, and the finest mince of scallion.

What did my guests say? "Oh, it's good. Delicious, in fact. I just miss real stuffing."

One even had the gall to ask if I wanted him to run out and grab a box of *shudder* Stouffer's. After beating him unconscious and leaving his corpse on the street I went back to my apparently simple rice stuffing and spooned in onto the unappreciative plates of my so-called loved ones.

So, this year, I'll make stuffing. I plan to use sourdough, cherries, sage, hazelnuts (or, perhaps, pecans), and plenty of turkey sausage. That should shut them right up.

However, if you're looking for something hearty for Turkey Day but don't want to do stuffing, might I recommend the following?

This is another popular recipe from my cookbook, Melt: The Art of Macaroni and Cheese. If sitting by a warm fire in Europe has a flavor I imagine this to be it. It'll put meat on your bones, no doubt, but think of it as protection from the cold or perhaps a return on investment when you ate nothing but salad last summer.

It uses ham, but feel free to omit it and use roasted cauliflower instead.

Another option is leftover turkey because fuck yes leftover turkey mac and cheese.

Some Nifty Cookbooks Worth Your Time

So I feel the need to share some cookbooks with you guys. A heads-up: I received copies of these books free of charge. However, I'm only writing reviews of them because I actually enjoy them and gleefully stained the heck out of many of their pages.

I'm not being paid to write these. I'm not so base as to do that.

These books rock because the authors put a lot of time and effort into developing quality books with a engaging narratives, capturing photography, and unique recipes. They're worth having for the stories and foods they share.

So let's move on...

Cookbook Tour Advice: Rhubarb Scones

-Smile all the time. Even when you are tired of smiling.-

For those aspiring cookbook writers or for those about to go on their first book tour allow me to offer some helpful advice I wish I had been given.

Shit happens. Roll With It.

I had an event where after plenty of email communication it still went to hell.

The venue insisted that they did not want to sell books themselves so I organized a third party bookseller, a locally owned mom-n-pop shop, to come in and sell the books instead.

Cookbook Proposal Advice + Delightful Oatmeal Cookies

-To fuel you in your writing. Also, because.-

Stephanie and I were lucky that we had friends who could guide us through the proposal process when we first conceived of Melt. With their advice and a bit of our own innovation we crafted a successful document that had publishers fighting to purchase the rights to the book.

So what are some key elements to a phenomenal cookbook proposal? Well, organization is key, as is knowing your audience, communicating a clear and focused topic, and having a good sampling of tested recipes that represent your cookbook. (In case, someone at the publisher does decide to test a recipe.)

Since starting the tour I've been getting asked advice on putting together a proposal. It's a long conversation to have but below are three important aspects to consider. I feel giving these items attention will assist significantly and get publishers jazzed for what you have to offer.

Hooking Up with Seattle: Pumpkin Stuffed with Fontina, Sausage, and Macaroni

-Welcome to Seattle. Please proceed to get down.-

It is wet in Seattle right now. It is also cold. Neither of these things bode well to me and I am outside of my comfort zone as it feels like Northern California January right now and I'm just not ready for that. Add in the fact that two days ago I was wearing shorts and flip-flops in Los Angeles' 76 degree weather and my body is just wracked with loads of whattheeffisallthiscrazy?

Seriously, I will slap someone until fire comes out if this isn't resolved.

Seattle and I have a rather intriguing relationship. We're like old hookups who still enjoy getting together every so often. They're filled with indulgent behavior, fine meals, and tawdry nights out that result in stories I only share in person after I'm about three glasses in (consequently, three glasses in brings us back to another story about Seattle).

Panic: Sweet Potato Waffles

-Waffles aren't always a cure for panic attacks, but they can't hurt.-

Recently I've been suffering from a small stutter of miniature anxiety attacks. It's like having to regularly walk past one of those territorial birds that live outside your house and constantly dive-bombs you anytime you step near it. I'll be writing or working and then suddenly ohmygodpanic!!!

There are a few reasons for this, the book tour being the first to come to mind because it involves me being social on a massive scale with people I generally don't know. This usually sets me off pretty well even though I hide it smashingly through sarcasm and witty repartee. Now most people would say I'm quite social and do very well in social events. Thing is that internally I'm screaming to just go home and hide. (I've learned to jam it down and cry when no one is around.) Even at my wedding I took 15 minutes to hide from everyone and catch my breath and that was from people I love. Plus, the tour involves event planning on a whopping scale. It's like juggling balls. Fifteen of them. And half of them are invisible. And one of the balls is a chainsaw.

Another source of stress is the whopping amount of vet bills for Eat Beast who, in the end and $1000 worth of tests later, apparently was just having a delayed reaction to Prozac. In addition to all this I have an unscrupulous ex I extricated myself nearly a decade ago. Suddenly, I being hounded by people wanting to serve him papers and threaten him on credit due. Naturally, none of the harrassers will listen to me when I tell them I don't know where he is and have zero contact with him because I assume they hear that record played more than a Katy Perry album regardless if it's the truth. (I haven't heard from him since maybe 2007, praise be to Jesus.) How they even have my number - or even more so, why - is beyond me.

Oh yes, and suddenly $3000 in house repairs are coming up. The joys of home ownership.

Suffice it to say, I haven't been cooking so much as rocking myself in a fetal position two or three times a day.

Giveaway: $500 Le Creuset Package + Book Tour Details

To celebrate the nearing release of Melt: the Art of Macaroni and Cheese, we are giving away a $500 set of Le Creuset cookware and a $100 gift certificate for Murray's, the premier online retailer for artisan cheese. One lucky winner will receive the following pieces, making it the ultimate set for creating all the macaroni and cheese dishes in the book:

• 4 1/2-qt round French oven 
• 3 3/4-quart deep covered sauté pan 
• 3 3/4-quart oval stoneware baking dish 
• One set of four oval mini-cocottes 
• Plus a $100 gift card for Murray's online cheese shop 

To complete your entry, email us at info@meltmacaroni.com or leave a comment. That's it! Boom! You're done!

This contest is now closed. 

Of course, the best way to enjoy all these cookware and cheesey goodness is with mac and cheese. If you haven't pre-ordered then we hope you will!

• Amazon.com 
• Powell's (Independent bookseller!) 
• IndieBound (Another independent bookseller!) 
• Barnes & Noble 
• Books-A-Million 

One winner will be selected and announced on the book's release date, October 22. For other details and legal what-have-you, please refer to the official content rules.

We also have an initial book tour list up. This list isn't complete as is only the West Coast, but East Coast and Central U.S. events will be added as we plan them. Many events have links to the event details.

Melt Cookbook Trailer!

With the upcoming release of Melt, Steph and I have been hard at work setting up book tour dates, redesigning our site (with help from Ben, the best designer in the world, of course), and recording our cookbook trailer. Today, we're so excited to show you the finished trailer, something we've been working on for weeks now. It's done! We're almost as excited as when we finished the book.

With this short minute and a half trailer we wanted to communicate our reasons behind creating Melt: the Art of Macaroni and Cheese, what we love about cheese and cooking, and to give you an idea of what to expect when you pick up your copy of Melt. We put so much time and energy into creating what we think is a truly special cookbook, so we needed an equally special video to go along with it. Thank god we had a very talented videographer, Ryan Donahue, to make our vision a reality. Thanks, Ryan!

So without ado, we give you the Melt cookbook trailer! Please share using Vimeo's social media features so we can spread the love. Click the little heart-shaped "love" button, share it on Facebook, and pass it around on Twitter. We'd love you to help us get people jazzed about Melt and its cheesy goodness.

-Melt: the Art of Macaroni and Cheese - The Official Trailer from Stephanie/SJS on Vimeo.-

You'll have to pardon my inability to look straight into the camera, I imagined that most of this was going to be voiceover. It wasn't, so therefore I look like I might be suffering from a sudden embolism as I gaze off camera. On the plus side normally I sound so gay on video that one can only imagine a cock falling out of my mouth. This time I don't so yayness there.

Overall, though, not bad. Pretty darn awesome, actually. 

So now, I must ask something of you all. Give it a watch, share it on Facebook, pass it around. I ask you to help me get people jazzed about Melt and its cheesy goodness. Also, be sure to check out the newly designed official website for Melt: the Art of Macaroni and Cheese, located at MeltMacaroni.com. There you'll find an event calendar, links to buy, and other delicious tips and recipes for cooking with cheese.

In other news, we've also got a handful of book events lined up for all around the country and we're adding more every week. So far we're appearing in Seattle, Portland, Los Angeles, Sacramento, and the Bay Area. We're working on setting up a complete calendar that will automatically update when we add a new date, and a Google map of all the places we'll be. You should be seeing that announcement soon.

And don't forget: Melt is available for purchase on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and other online book retails. Order your copy now!

XOXO.

Garrett out.

Giveaway Winner and Gypsy Curse

-Getting some shots ready.-

I always get sick at the worst possible times it seems. It's like some kind of curse and makes me wonder what gypsy I pissed off in a previous life for some viral dreadnought to sack my body at only the most inopportune moments. I picture running over a young lad with a horse and his hoop-earring'ed mother swearing that in my next life I will spend many joyful moments with a fever.

Because that's how I spent many of my Halloweens as a child. Not screaming around the neighborhood mooching free candy off of total strangers in a bizarrely socially approved tradition that goes against all better judgement that we reserve for the other three-hundred and sixty-four days of the year. No, I spent it in bed with an ancient humidifier clunking along and heaving out a damp fog over the bed.

So 'eff all if all I got was a tablespoon of Nyquil while my little brother hauled in a pillowcase stuffed with enough Twix bars that he could swing it over his shoulder on any corner in Santa Ana and knock no less than three hookers unconscious. So unfair. After Dad stole all the Milky Way's and Three Musketeers and I was finally feeling better a week later the only things left were the tosser candies like Bit-O-Honey.

The night I got engaged? Two hours later I was laid up with a stomach bug that pretty much annihilated any possible romance that night and for the next two days. Then again, nothing assures your faith in true love then when your man is gently rubbing your back and stroking your hair as you lean out of the bed and horf into a bucket.

Romance!

Then, of course, there was this weekend. I was taping the trailer to my cookbook trailer with Stephanie, and our filmographer, Ryan Donahue. He's a talented food photographer in Sacramento and the editor of Edible Sacramento magazine.

Final Mac and Cheese Edits

No proper post this week because I'm in the crunch to finish final edits for my cookbook, Melt: The Art of Macaroni and Cheese. We're going through a paper copy of the book to catch any last edits and check on formatting and design. After that it goes off to print.

Below is a mini-preview of sorts. Hope you enjoy. (And don't judge too harshly as this is my first video.)

If you're a fan of this blog, of cheese, or macaroni, of macaroni and cheese together, or of little 'ol me then I encourage you to also head over to Amazon and please do two things:

1. "Like" the book on Amazon. Really, this helps immensely when it comes to marketing the book. It's shocking how much, in fact. Lots of liking demonstrates a book's popularity in the upcoming market and gets people to pay attention. (A note: sometimes the like button is there and sometimes it is not. No idea why.)

2. Pre-order. If a book has enough pre-orders it can tumble into a second printing before it even releases the first printing. This will also encourage possibilities of foreign language translations of the book and inspires more media outlets who see the numbers to publicize the book, thus encouraging more people to pick the book up and dive into the melty goodness. 

Plus, pre-ordering means you'll own a copy! Yayness!

Okee dokee, I'm off to play with my red pen. 

Garrett out.

Behind the Scenes of the Melt Cookbook Shoot

This last few days the photography for the cookbook took place. It's essentially the physical marker for the halfway point of the book. A year ago we found a publisher and a year from now the book will be in print and, hopefully, resting in your hands waiting to be stained with cheese and smeared from use and love in your kitchen.

-A composed shot of cheese.-

Stephanie and I made our way down to Long Beach in Southern California, my old stomping ground where I grew up just thirty minutes south in Mission Viejo. Our friends, Matt Armendariz and his partner in love and creation, Adam Pearson, kindly took us on as clients and would be shooting and styling 47 recipes from the book as well as taking a few style shots and cover shots.

Melt Website Goes Live

Hey all, just a quick little cookbook update to share with you all in a special post. The website for, Melt: The Art of Macaroni and Cheese, went up today. On it you'll see information about the book, recipes, cheese information, and details about events related to the book that will become more robust with dates and times as next October approaches. Before then, though, expect a lot of interesting and engaging content that will baptize you in whey and lead you into the gooey, striny, meltable world of macaroni and cheese.

We have to thank our web guru, Ben De Jesus, for lending us his epic talent and HTML skills in developing this site. If you like what you see then be sure to check out his website (that is still under construction as he has been hard at work on our site).

There are a few other ways that you can stay in touch with what's happening in the Melt kitchen. First, you can follow us on Facebook, and you can chat with us on Twitter. You can also add our blog feed to your RSS reader or subscribe to blog posts by email, which you should receive every two weeks. We would also like to invite you to join our monthly macaroni and cheese newsletter, where we will share special list-only details such as giveaways, photos, and a few special recipes that will only be sent out via the mailing list. We promise to not share your information with anyone else, and we also guarantee that you will be delighted by all the luscious macaroni and cheese details we will be sharing to our list members.

Thanks a ton!

Hearts,

Garrett

Visit to Redwood Hill Farm: Caramelized Pineapple

-Caramelized pineapple over goat's milk yogurt.-

This last weekend Stephanie and I were invited up to Redwood Hill Farm in Sebastopol, Sonoma County. We came into contact with Scott and Jennifer who run the farm, through their PR Maven, Kathleen. We were invited up to come see their beautiful dairy where they care for about 300+ goats as we wanted some pictures of a dairy for the cookbook.

-Yogurt from start to finish.-

Right now the farm is in the middle of the birthing season so the place is cacophonous in the sound of newborn kids braying and crying for pettings, food, and play. The kids, as you can guess, are abso-freakin-adorable.

La Tartine Gourmande Cookbook Review

-Pictured: Not macaroni and cheese.-

So this week has been kind of a string of failures in regards to The Cookbook. I feel like I’ve been falling down a flight of stairs, only they’re Escher’s stairs so I just keep tumbling down, up, and sideways and I’m not exactly sure when I’ll finally, bloodily land into a broken heap at the bottom. It’s just that every. Single. RECIPE has sort of collapsed in on itself or worse. No explosions as of yet (unless you count emotional ones), but I have no doubt that I and my 1973 gas range will sort that out before the month is out.

Allow me chronicle this with you.

Failure 1: Paneer Korma
Let me prep you first by saying this was part five (billion?) in a series of me trying to make an authentic Indian dish. I had been talking to friends Monica Bhide and Maneet, the woman who owns the Indian grocery store around the corner from my rental, and working through a number of dishes that could utilize homemade paneer into something with truly authentic Indian flavors.

Time after time the flavors seemed to be too weak or somewhat offputting. I would increase the amount of ginger, garlic, turmeric, everything. I would switch that out with this, then back again. After so many failures with vermicelli, curries, and stir-fries I moved on to kormas.

Of course, I have no experience cooking Indian food so all of this was very much off the hip. Yet, at the same time, I followed recipes to the T from people who knew what they were doing and everything kept going awry for me. I’m not sure what it was but the universe had decided that I was banned from cooking Indian-style cuisine.

The korma would be an exercise in simplicity. Tomatoes, a heavy hand of spices, and cream cooked down into a thick sauce before veggies and paneer were added. The whole of it then served over pasta. Now, when I say heavy hand of spice I mean three cloves of garlic, and knob of ginger the size of a witch’s knuckle, coriander, cayenne, cumin, garam masala, and enough turmeric to dye a quilt all went into this sauce. Still, there was barely any flavor. And what there was just didn’t have the richness and depth of the kormas you eat at a hole in the wall Indian restaurant.

Same old problem.

Paneer, of all cheeses, is truly kicking my ass. I’m thinking of simply sautéing it with some spinach, ginger, garlic, and chili flakes and tossing it over vermicelli. Essentially palak paneer with a little liquid added to make it saucier.

-Cause we always love things saucy.-

Failure 2: Cocoa Cardona with Chocolate Pasta, Strawberries, Balsamic Reduction, and Black Pepper
Once in a while you stumble into a Black Hole of Flavor. One of those dishes where a bunch of strong willed ingredients converge and completely cancel each other out somehow. It's much like when two opposing frequencies collide and thus cease to exist. Everything in a recipe gets sucked into some sort of negative zone where taste and flavor are null and void.

In this dish all the above went into it. Strawberries were sautéed and then sauced with a reduced balsamic. Tossed with chocolate pasta, cheese, and black pepper it should have been black and red fireworks bombarding the eater. Rather there was no spark, not even a fizzle. It tasted like cardboard and a disappointing sense of lack akin to expecting a letter to arrive in the post and finding the box empty.

We’ve tried it numerous times. I've come to the conclusion that this dish is simply a hollow vessel of the parts that made it. A puppet without strings to animate it.

Sad. So sad.

Writing a Cookbook: Sauteed Persimmons

-Something without pasta. Thank god.-

Writing a cookbook is an interesting venture. Things are often unpredictable, which is both exhilarating and somewhat exhausting.

Take, for example, the speed at which things move in the publishing world. Sometimes things go achingly slow like the near year it took to cobble together a proposal that Stephanie and I were proud to put our names to. At other times things move at breakneck speed like when we actually sold the book during a hurricane three-day publisher bidding war that literally kept me tied to my phone and e-mail for a good 72 hours.

Details are insane. I'm learning publishing slang. I'm doing my best to go over each recipe with a fine tooth comb only to come back the next day and find new details I forgot to include. I'm familiarizing myself with copyright laws. The contracts are so long and confusing they practically cause vertigo and require steady footing, not to mention reliable people at your back to prop you up and hold a magnifying glass for that print under the dotted line you're so eager to sign. Lucky, the peeps at Little, Brown and Company and my agent, Janis Donnaud, are all kick ass people who I know have my back.

Organization is key. Numerous spreadsheets have been crafted, accounts created, and documents shared. There are notebooks. Literally notebooks. Plural. To keep things in check.

In fact, this organization has been crazy especially when it comes to the many and beloved testers I am so happy to be working with. When Stephanie and I put out a call for volunteer testers we expected a humble number of emails to eek their way to us.

We definitely did not expect 300+ volunteers.

-Words cannot express my shock and gratitude.-

To all the testers out there who are currently testing or waiting to test a recipe, know that we adore you. You guys are the heroes of this book. The organization is stressful but worth it as I've had an amazing privilege to get to know many of you personally as you share stories with me and we converse about cooking, cheese, and our families. We love every typo you find, every recipe quirk, and we adore the great feedback were getting (almost all of it positive).

I know many of you have sent e-mails to us wanting to test a recipe and are still waiting for a response! I beg your patience. Between blogging, my day job, moving, the wedding, and cooking and testing it's been hard to get through the deluge of e-mails I have coming in like a digital tsunami. Know that it's a current I am slowly swimming against and that I will address each and every one in the coming weeks.

And the testing itself!? What a whirlwind! There have been some amazing things coming out of this kitchen. Ingredients like persimmons, truffle oil, arugula, vanilla beans, shallots, and guanciale have all had a place here and each one warmly admitted to the fold like a new member marrying into the family (Ack! The wedding similes are creeping in!).

Admittedly, there has been one or two recipes that have given off an indolent thud as they hit the bottom of the trash can, never to see the light of day. The good with the bad and all that noise.

Oh, but the cheeses. *Sigh* The cheeses...

Sure, my cheese bill may have been more than my rent this month, but it is so worth it. Dolcelatte, Keen's Cheddar, Abbaye del Be'loc, Feta, Nicasio Square, Gruyere, Point Reyes, and chalk-white slabs of Monte Enebro have all had a chance to dance on my plate.

The Cookbook and a Call for Recipe Testers

I was at a blogging conference attending one of the sessions entitled, "From Blog to Book." I was there mainly out of curiosity as my authorial leanings usually tended to sway more to literary than culinary instruction. I listened as friends and colleagues discussed how they made the transition, the pitfalls and challenges they faced, how they overcame them, and so on. It was all quite interesting and I took it all to heart but felt that, really, none of this pertained to much to me. After all, I had zero desire to write a cookbook.

I explained as such to my friends. I told them that no, I did not want to write a cookbook, nor did I ever want to. It seemed like too much work. Too much hassle.

Until, suddenly, one day it didn't seem like a bad idea. In fact, the project sounded riveting. Still, I realized I didn't want to go it alone. I called my BBFF (Blogging Best Friend Forever), Stephanie Stiavetti, and talked to her about it. We synced up immediately.

We found a subject we wanted to explore. Something that no one else had done. Something that would kick quite a bit of kitchen boo-tay.

It was cheese. Really amazing, artisanal and farmstead cheeses and how to cook some truly modern and epic recipes with them.

So we started drafting a proposal. Then we found an insightful agent with a good eye and plenty of experience who loved it, and who we developed an immediate and genial rapport with. She then found a publisher who was as excited about the project as we were.

And, so, suddenly, it seems I'm writing a cookbook with my BBFF.

Who would have guessed that this would ever happen?

The book's working title is called, Melt: The Art of Macaroni and Cheese and it's been picked up by Little, Brown and Company. The concept behind the book is to present a variety of macaroni and cheese dishes that embody a modern, minimalist approach that allows each recipe to focus on the cheeses utilized and how the other ingredients compliment and are complimented by them. Fine cheeses truly are amazing on their own, but cooking with them brings out new personalities and flavor profiles that are rarely ever experienced. This book presents the chance to do just that. It'll even have pictures by the infamous duo of Matt Armendariz and Adam Pearson.

It's going to be a crazy ride filled with plenty of laughter, excitement, exhaustion, and probably a break down or two (much future thanks to BF's patience on the latter, but he'll be eating well this coming year so I figure it's an even trade off) and I cannot wait.

Recipe testing has already begun and I'm waist deep in notes, cheese, pasta, and far too many dirty dishes. The thing is, though - and readers, this is where you all come in - Stephanie and I need help.

We're looking for recipe testers. Lots of them. People who are interested in trying hand-crafted cheeses, unique recipes, and providing crucial feedback. We can't reimburse and compensate anyone as it's just not in the monetary stars, but we can give you acknowledgement in the book and you can certainly note in your resume, "Professional Recipe Tester." It's a nice start for anyone looking to get in the business.

Anyways, huzzah! I'm so excited about this project I almost pass out!

We're already quite a few recipes in and ready to just go nuts. Fresh produce, special meats, and an array of amazing cheeses from Stilton and Red Hawk to Keen's are all going to be featured and given the star treatment. We hope you'll love these recipes as much as we do.

I'll keep you all posted as things advance. Until then if you're interested in becoming one of our recipe testers and getting a bit more information e-mail Stephanie and me at meltrecipetesters@gmail.com. We hope to hear from you!