Welcome And How To Message Us

Ellie Alexander 0:04

Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to another episode of Reality Writes. I am author Ellie Alexander. This is the podcast where we talk about all things bookish, writer-ish, and this week bakish. And I'm here with the Tech Guy.

Tech Guy 0:20

Yeah, that's right. I'm excited about today's subject. We've been off for a couple of weeks, so um it's great to get back to it. Um but before we get started here, I just want to remind all the darlings out there that uh of a new feature we have with the Reality Writes Podcast. And you've always been able to leave us comments on YouTube and Spotify and channels like that, which we totally appreciate. But now for everybody else who consumes this show on your favorite podcasting app, um, whether that be Apple Podcasts or Outcast or any of the any of the podcast apps out there, if you look in the show notes, you'll see a send us a message link. If you tap that link, you can send us a text message. But you can also, if you like, you can send us a voice message. And who knows, maybe you'll just hear your own voice on a future episode of Reality Rights. Uh, we've already had a few uh darlings out there write in and with some great questions, and we've shared those on the the show here in past episodes. Um, but keep them coming, uh, especially if you got any burning questions out there, because I I love putting Ellie on the spot. So I would love to share them in a future segment.

Ellie Alexander 1:29

Great. Yeah, bring them on. Thanks a lot, darlings.

Tech Guy 1:33

Yeah, totally, totally. But uh yeah, so we are back at

Disneyland Nights And Coffee Rituals

Tech Guy 1:38

it. We've been off for a couple of weeks because there's been a lot going on. Um, we've had a lot of travel uh life for both your job and my job. Um and uh but it wasn't all work. We got to do some fun stuff too. Um we we spent uh Star Wars Day, for those who don't know, May the 4th um and 5th, actually, at uh Disneyland. And we got to go to Star Wars night at Disneyland, Disney After Dark. If you've never had a chance to go to a Disney After Dark um uh event, they have so many. Um, there are a half dozen or more, maybe uh probably more than that, throughout the year, and they it's phenomenal. Um, I mean Star Wars Night is best by far, but um, you know, that's goes without saying. But I I think regardless of of the event and all of the the fun that goes with it, one of the coolest things that we found was that there's just no line for any of the rides.

Ellie Alexander 2:43

Yeah. It was so empty. It was great, but let's be real, I was there for the food.

Tech Guy 2:49

That's true. You were there for the food, and that's that is one of the reasons that I brought it up because of the this particular episode uh uh topic this week. You love the food options there. Uh and they have all sorts of special stuff, and you had it mapped out. I mean, it was like first we have to go here, then we've got to order this while we're waiting for that. And it was just like all these plans, and it did not disappoint.

Ellie Alexander 3:15

I am still dreaming about the um cherry cold brew that was like the special for the spring. I I'm definitely gonna put that in a future bake shop mystery because it was so good. No notes, like not too sweet, this touch of cherry, the cold brew, like a little hint of like a chocolate in there. Oh, I think we had those both days because I was like, I'm going back for another. You also, I think, tried every cold brew in the park because I had a list of all the special spring, like banana, and then there was a special Star Wars milk, the blue milk. Yeah, so it was it was a lot of food.

Tech Guy 3:54

Yeah, I was awake. That that is that is absolutely true. I did not have any trouble staying awake until midnight or whenever we ended up leaving the park. Um, it was incredible. So um uh, but I did sleep, so that's good. I was a little worried there. I did try a lot of different cold brews that day.

Costco Raspberry Cookies Meet The Hype

Ellie Alexander 4:14

It's true. And then on this note of food, because we're gonna do a whole episode about uh fake it till you bake it today. Uh yesterday we raped Costco at like two o'clock on a Saturday afternoon, which in my book is not. I mean, that's that's murder worthy on its own. But I scored the viral raspberry cookies from Costco. So, darlings, if you are a fan of a buttery sugar cookie with raspberry in the middle, this is my problem. On social, because I write a bake shop mystery, my entire feed and algorithm shows me, of course, like all the Disney food or all of the incredible bakers, or we were just talking about like cake trends and what's on trend for weddings and cake designs right now. And then any kind of like Trader Joe's, Costco, regional, local shops that are doing interesting things. So my entire feed for the last few days has been these raspberry cookies that apparently you can't find. And I found them.

Tech Guy 5:17

Yeah, and I will say, uh, they're worth the hype. I I think so anyway. They they're delicious.

Ellie Alexander 5:24

Yeah.

Tech Guy 5:25

That's true. Yeah. Well, so today we're gonna talk about food and baking. And um, we're gonna keep talking about food because we've that's all we've been doing thus far in this episode. But but we're gonna talk about it in relation to your writing. And uh, this is a topic I think we've covered here on reality rides before, but the thing, and the darlings out there who are longtime listeners, uh, have been longtime followers of Ellie, will understand this that it doesn't matter how many times we cover a topic, how many times you give a book talk, how many times you post on social media about a certain topic, not everyone sees it. Not everyone hears about it, not everyone knows about it. And even though those who do still have more questions. So you get questions every week, every week about baking and specifically about the bake shop mysteries, but also you've had recipes in other series too. So um I but this is in particular, this one series has generated more questions about baking than I think most people get in their entire lives. Uh, you know, in a month, you get more questions than most people get in their entire lives.

Ellie Alexander 6:43

I know, and it would be really curious to speak to a professional baker about this. In fact, I should because I have so many relationships with professional bakers. Like, do they get this many questions about baking? I wonder. Like, it's fascinating. Yeah, we thought it would be fun to um comb through my some of my most recent email messages and uh just share some of the baking questions, lore, et cetera, that uh come through. But it's a lot, yeah.

Tech Guy 7:07

Yeah, yeah.

Why Recipes Appear In The Books

Tech Guy 7:08

So I I say I have some reader questions here. Um, and I'm just going to ask them. And we're gonna start out with a basic one uh that you get asked all the time. Why do you include recipes in the books?

Ellie Alexander 7:20

Right. Yeah, I know.

Tech Guy 7:22

Right.

Ellie Alexander 7:24

I'm always surprised at this question. This happens in email. Um, this is also something that happens a lot if I'm doing some sort of a public appearance. Let's say I'm doing a book signing. In fact, this just happened when I was doing book events up in Portland a few weekends ago, uh, where I was I was signing for other readers and somebody else that's in the store might come over because they're curious. They're like, oh, there's an author here, they're signing books. And they'll be like, wait a minute, it's murder and baking? Like, I don't understand. Um, because you know, I don't think necessarily in every genre it's something that you always find that you have recipes in the back of the book. Although we'll get to, I think, some questions about that maybe later too, because this comes through. Um, the cozy culinary mystery is its own thing, right? Uh so the recipes are just sort of like bonus content for you, darlings, for readers. I you're not under any obligation to obviously bake from the books, but I love it when you do and you send me pictures of your bakes and what you've made. Um, but they're just really that added bonus because the stories are so centered on food. And so it's just this way that the publishing houses then get to offer you this little bonus incentive at the end to check out the recipes.

Tech Guy 8:44

Yeah. And and many recipes there have been over the course of yeah, because you, and we've talked about this before, but you have included recipes in every book in the Bake Shop mystery series. But in addition to that, there have been so many more recipes that you have shared and that are out there um on your blog, um, on the website, you know, the 31 Days of Pie uh event that that you did. Um, all the all the all the things. So uh another reader wrote in and asked, are you a professional chef? Are you a professional baker? Um they they want to know.

Not A Pro Baker Just Informed

Ellie Alexander 9:29

I mean, I hate to burst some bubbles here. We might be, you know, like I am not a professional baker. The joke that I always say is I play one on the pages of the big shot mysteries. I know enough these days to be dangerous because I've been writing this series. Well, the series has been published for 15 years. I was writing it before that when I was first working and on developing the series. So I have nearly 20 years of experience writing about baking, working, interviewing real pastry chefs, being in real commercial kitchens. And then, as I was speaking about at the beginning of this episode, my entire algorithm on social media is just deep dives into baking. So I definitely know enough to be dangerous. I really try to make sure that I get the baking right because that is something that will pull a reader out of the story. And I don't want that to happen. And um, a many, like all of the tips that I share that are peppered in throughout all 22 books in the series thus far, are all real tips, you know? And it's funny, it's things like at the beginning, and I get this message a lot from readers still. So I think in Meet Your Baker, one of the very first books in the series, Jules takes her coffee cup because she's she has a real ritual when it comes to coffee, which I do as well. Um, when we're traveling, like I need my coffee pretty much first thing, or I'm pretty crabby. Like, we gotta hit that cold through right away.

Tech Guy 10:59

It's true. It is a hundred percent true. Yeah, I can attest.

Ellie Alexander 11:04

And it's not even so much, I mean, it is the coffee, but it is also the ritual. Like I have this like morning routine. I have my cup of coffee and I do um my daily important work, which is like wortle and strands and connections. And um, I just enjoy kind of this leisurely morning with my coffee. So I digress. In one of the early books, I don't know for sure if it was Meet Your Baker, because I've written so many now that I'm not sure where things land in which book. Jules warms up her coffee cup in the microwave first, so that she has a very warm coffee cup to keep her coffee warm. Well, this was long before the days of things like Ember, the coffee cup that you gave me many years ago, that now is electronic, so it keeps your coffee cup warm. But I hear from readers all the time, like even just minor things like that that I forget even exist in Jewel's world that um that have weed their way in. So yeah.

Tech Guy 11:59

Yeah, yeah. Uh no, um, it is definitely like I've been impressed over the years, just when because I like to cook a lot too, and I'll be in the kitchen and I'll be flustered because I'm like, oh, we don't have this. And you're like, oh, just substitute with that. And I'll I'm like, what? You know, so you have picked up a ton of stuff over the years, which has been very impressive. Um uh that leads me into the next question that you get from readers all the time. And you actually just got one of these last week. Um, and I can absolutely answer this question, but uh, but I'll let you do it first, which is do you test all of the recipes?

Testing Recipes Without Losing Your Mind

Ellie Alexander 12:45

I do. I do. For better and for worse, if you live for me with me, right?

Tech Guy 12:52

Well, I I was just gonna say from a from my own personal standpoint, I know that you do. Uh, and that is why I've developed a love-hate relationship with running, uh, because there's been a lot of testing over the years, darlings. There's a lot of testing. Um, and not all this stuff is locale. Let's just say, No, a lot of it is not.

Ellie Alexander 13:16

It's a bake shop. I know. That's the problem. It's not like Jules has got to work some more salads into the right, totally.

Tech Guy 13:23

There's there needs to be some veg. Yeah.

unknown 13:27

Yeah.

Ellie Alexander 13:28

As you know too, a lot of the recipes don't always turn out the way that I anticipate they're going to in my mind, especially the first time. Right. I just baked something last week. Oh, the these, like, this kind of like, I wanted a soft, kind of almost brownie like, gooey, dense chocolate cookie. And they were great the first night. And then the next day, they were totally dried out. So like I gotta rework that.

Tech Guy 13:56

Yeah. Yeah, that was weird. They they started out really, really moist and delicious. And the next day it was as though they had been like left out in the sun for a week. Just they were crispy. So yeah.

Ellie Alexander 14:10

You know, a first test, especially of maybe like a savory recipe too, like the flavor won't be intense enough. I just was testing recipes um a couple weeks ago for something that's gonna be in the pumpkin vice cafe. And like the first round was fine, but it was sort of like eh, we had it for dinner and we were all like, okay. Um, so yeah, it's a lot of trial and error for sure.

Tech Guy 14:32

Yeah, yeah. And neighbors know about the testing as well. Um, because they've they've been the beneficiary, uh, whether or not they wanted to be um for from many a delivery uh when we just can't eat any more cookies or pastries or pies or whatever it is. Yeah. Yeah.

Ellie Alexander 14:54

Neighbors, family, friends, the cross-country team back when Sky Guy was in high school, where I'm like, oh, you're having a party? I'll bring cookies. Uh, please give me feedback on all of these. Yeah.

Tech Guy 15:03

Yeah, absolutely. Okay, so that uh that leads me into um another topic that that comes up. And I think you just got another email uh question about this from a darling out there the other day. But it's uh, hey Ellie, how many eggs does insert name of recipe uh have in it?

Missing Recipes And Ingredient Swap Myths

Ellie Alexander 15:27

I know, I know. This is so hard. And a lot of times, um I would say most times these kinds of emails come without context in terms of like what book it's from. And again, you know, I'm I'm already working on book 25 in this series. Every book in the series has a minimum of six to seven recipes. Some have even more than that. So I mean, that's just I don't know that off the top of my head. Like you have to find that in in the copy of the book. Um, so that's always hard because I I don't, I'm not always able to answer that off the cuff. It's not that I don't want to, darlings. It's just that um my mind does not retain all of the recipes from every book um in the series.

Tech Guy 16:12

Well, and throughout the books, Jules and team at tort are constantly working on things or baking things for events or just for the the um bakery itself and and everything. But just because they they happen to be working with something within the book, that does not mean that that's going to be a recipe in the back of the book, right?

Ellie Alexander 16:34

Correct. And that's something that gets brought up a lot by readers. Well, it's like on you know, page 232, Jules references a, you know, I don't know, raspberry souffle with a like chocolate sauce. Where's that recipe? I'm like, I don't, I don't, I probably didn't make it because there's so much more food that actually ends up in that recipe section in the back, too, in in every single book.

Tech Guy 16:56

Yeah. So for the darlings out there, just know that, you know, if there's a recipe in the back, it was intentional. And if Jules and team are doing something throughout the book and there's no recipe for it in the back, that is also intentional. Um, if it's just it it is part of the book and it's it's not necessarily a recipe that was forgotten or left out or whatever it is. Um but this leads me, and I know I'm I'm smiling because I know that this is this is by far one of your favorite topics. Um, and you are not alone in this because we know from over the years of actually meeting professional bakers and chefs and and working with them on various projects, they get um a lot of these questions too. And that is can you tell me if I can swap almond milk for regular milk in this recipe?

Ellie Alexander 17:52

Yeah, yeah, I know. Again, and this tracks back to the fact that I'm not a professional chef. And the recipe that I have tried and tested, maybe two or three times here at home, that ends up in the final version of the book is the recipe as I made it. To the letter, which is not actually, as you know, the way that I like to bake or cook. I'm much more of an experimental, like dump stuff in. But when I'm working on a recipe, I have my notebook in the kitchen and I'm taking copious notes to make sure like that was exactly one and a half teaspoons. As far as substitutions go, I don't, I don't know. I just literally don't know. You could try it, you should try it. That's always my response back. Um, because things don't translate. And I know this from writing the series and doing so much research into the world of baking. Almond milk doesn't always translate in a recipe to say like full fat whole milk, especially if you're making some kind of a cream or a pudding or, you know, it's a lot thinner. The properties don't stack up. The same is true for flours or alternative oils or butter. So the the short answer is always just, I don't know, but please go try and experiment. But then don't hate me, don't murder me if it doesn't work. Right. I had a reader once, yeah, email that was like, I tried this with gluten-free f flour and it didn't work at all. I'm like, I sorry, I don't, yeah.

Tech Guy 19:15

Right, right. Well, and that's a good, that's a good point that gluten-free flour is a good point because you've gotten over the years, I would say hundreds, hundreds of these types of questions, either via email or posts on videos, you know, recipe videos that you've made and everything. And and it's not, it's not just can almond milk substitute for regular milk. It's it's any ingredient, any ingredient you can imagine. One of my favorites, all-time favorites, was you had somebody ask you if they could substitute mayonnaise for like if they could or sorry, if they could substitute Greek yogurt with mayonnaise. And it was like, uh I mean go for it. Sure. Yeah, it's like that sounds terrible, but um sure. I don't know.

Ellie Alexander 20:02

Fuck yourself out.

Tech Guy 20:03

The it would be, first of all, the cost involved in testing all of the variables in a recipe would be astronomical. Second, going back to the previous question that we were talking about and my love-hate relationship with running, darlings, there aren't enough marathons in the world to handle the amount of calories that I would be taking in if Ellie were to bake every single iteration of every recipe. This one with 2%, and now we're gonna use 1%, and now we're gonna use non-fat, and now we're gonna use whole milk, and you know, we just couldn't do it. And time. I mean, you do right for a living. Yeah, exactly.

Ellie Alexander 20:42

There's that, right? Yeah.

Tech Guy 20:43

Yeah.

Ellie Alexander 20:44

And the recipes are, like I said at the beginning, they're just really a bonus. They're like a little special thing that you get at the end of the book. So, not that I don't want to spend time on them, but I don't spend the same amount of time on the recipes as I do with creating the actual book because that's hopefully what you darlings are taking away. Like you're in Jules War World, you're you're swept away into the fiction, you're trying to figure out who done it. And then when you get to the end, you get some bonus recipes. So, yes, I'm not spending months and months developing recipes the way that I'm spending actually writing the book.

Tech Guy 21:16

Totally. But the one thing I will say is that we do eat the recipes. I mean, we like not just from your testing, but these are recipes that we make continually, you know, throughout the year. Um, so it is that that part I've always found is really nice because it it's authentic, right? We we actually eat the food that you're that you're publishing in the books. Okay. Um here's another one that comes up a lot. Um, you know, hi Ellie. I read the audiobooks. Can you send me a printout of the recipes?

Audiobooks Library Copies And Copyright Limits

Ellie Alexander 21:50

Yeah, right. This this does come up a lot. Um I can't. I just I don't have that's not how I don't have like a whole Recipe list stored somewhere. They're all attached to each individual book. Um, there are copyright issues because they are in each book. So um there it's just not logistically possible for me to do that. Um, and it's a bummer because I know if you're reading an audiobook, then you know, it might be harder to listen to somebody telling you how to bake the recipes. But I guess you could jot it down as you go. We just had this happen with you and um the dungeon crawler coral series, where like there's this special story in the back that's only in the print version. So that happens with recipes sometimes too.

Tech Guy 22:38

Yeah, yeah, for sure. Um yeah, I mean, logistically and you know, again, going back to just time, um, it it it's just it's that's that's not something that that uh that we have time for at this point anyway. So um this is a related question. Uh but a reader wrote in and said, I get your books from the library and I can't find the recipes on your website. Can you help me out?

Ellie Alexander 23:09

Yeah, I get a lot of feedback from Darlings asking it, you know, like why aren't all of the recipes on the website? It's the same thing because we're talking about hundreds and hundreds of recipes, and not only well, not hundreds and I guess, yeah, over a hundred now. Um not only would I have to publish those all, but I would have we would have to bake them and take pictures and the time. And then again, they're bonus content for readers in the book. So there's just, yeah, there's so many issues with that. Um, that the website does not have every single recipe from my books on it. And I don't think that's true for any author in this genre. You just you no one has we're writers first and foremost. So that's that's what our focus is on. Yeah.

Tech Guy 23:55

Right. But uh as the webmaster of LAalexander.co, I can tell the darlings out there that the website does have a lot of recipes on it. Um I know because I've put them all there. Um and there are a ton of recipes that do not appear in the books. Um so you know, there I I would challenge somebody to tell me that they have baked and cooked every recipe that's on your website. Um, I don't think it's been done yet by a single person. I could be wrong. Like, use that, send a message, uh send us a message link and tell us that you have done it. I'd love to hear.

Ellie Alexander 24:33

Yeah, and if you have you, you definitely get a prize.

Tech Guy 24:35

Like, yeah, definitely.

Ellie Alexander 24:37

That's impressive. No, and I that's what I was gonna say. And that's what I always direct somebody who, like, if somebody sends me a question like that, I direct them to the website because we have over the years shared so many recipes, especially early on when I was working on the series. We were doing a lot of tortest kitchen baking videos. So there are so many videos of recipes on YouTube and on the blog. And a lot of times then I will pull stuff that doesn't make that final cut and share those too. So there, there's no shortage of baking options for sure. But no, there is not a like direct here's book one, all the recipes, book two. Um yeah.

Tech Guy 25:18

Yeah. Uh quick pro tip, actually, that now that I'm thinking about it, going back a couple of questions to dealing with substitutions. I would tell the darlings out there who are interested in that to be sure to read the comments of a recipe. And I'm not just talking about Ellie's recipes, I'm talking about on any baking or cooking website. Make sure you read the comments because a lot of people do comment and say, I substituted this for that, and it turned out great. And there you've got your answer, you know, without without asking the person who created the recipe, because chances are good that they didn't actually try it themselves. So um, you know, rely on uh everyone else out there who is uh helping out in the in that regard. Um that's right.

Ellie Alexander 26:02

Crowdsource it.

What To Read Next For Food Lovers

Tech Guy 26:04

Uh another thing you get asked a lot, um, a particular uh question that comes up is whether or not you can recommend other foodie mysteries um out there. Do you have any good ones?

Ellie Alexander 26:17

I love recommending other foodie mysteries. I mean, the problem is I I you literally like pick a niche of food. Do you want a pizza mystery? Do you want a cheese mystery? Do you want a wine mystery? Like they all exist. Do you want like Asian food? Do you want Italian food? Do you want Mexican food? They all exist. Um, but so first of all, like just do a search of culinary cozy mysteries and you will have enough reading material to keep your heart content for a while, darlings, which is so cool and exciting. But the one series that I always recommend is going back to my OG, the start, which is Diane Mott Davidson's series, because that was my gateway drug into the cozy culinary. I think it still stands the test of time. They're just they're lovely. Uh, the recipes are great, the food is fantastic. Um, so I think that's always a fun one to go back to. Um, but yes, there are so many. So once you've come to the cozy side, you won't go back.

Tech Guy 27:22

Yeah, well, and that is something that readers, I think, are all your darlings are always um, you know, surprised. Not not all of them, but but a lot of people are surprised to hear is that you are a prolific reader yourself. And you were before you be, you know, became a writer. And so uh Sky Guy and I would always buy you stacks of books for your birthday and Christmas and everything. And so I got to learn well before you started writing your mysteries that you not only are there a lot of food, foodie type mysteries, cozy mysteries specifically, but there's subgenres within that. So if you've got a particular style of food you like, you can probably find a mystery series that is based just around that style of food and likely has recipes in the back.

Ellie Alexander 28:09

That's right.

Tech Guy 28:10

Yeah. Um, okay, so another thing that that uh darlings write in and ask about is um whether or not cozy mysteries are the only genre of books that have good writing and good recipes. What do you have to say about that?

Ellie Alexander 28:30

Absolutely not. No. Um, and I always uh when I get this question, I kind of have my go-to list of recommended reads because a lot of these books are what really, even subconsciously, that I probably didn't realize at the time, sent me down this path. So I think of like Water for Chocolate, Under the Tuscan Sun, Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe, um, Julia or Julian Julia, um, Nora Efron's Heartburn. There are so many memoirs that have food writing. Food finds its way into so many stories. And I think, you know, obviously there's this niche with the cozy culinary, but um, it's in so many things. There's a lovely book called Um Love and Saffron that I highly recommended a few years ago that came out by um a writer in LA. Like just you, if you do a search for food in writing, you're gonna find a lot, a lot, a lot of options.

Tech Guy 29:31

That's so great. Yeah. Uh food finds a way. Uh I like it.

Ellie Alexander 29:36

Food finds a way. It does.

Tech Guy 29:40

Okay. I have uh just a couple more here uh to wrap up the episode. One is related to process. Um, and you get this question a lot. And this particular reader wrote in and asked, Do you do you know before you write the book or before uh before you bake? Like, are you do you have an idea in mind about what food is going to be involved before you write the book or before you start baking? Or does that happen as part of the process of writing the mystery itself?

How Food Choices Fit Writing

Ellie Alexander 30:14

Yeah, I get this question a lot, and it's a good one. And the answer varies. Like it sort of depends. Sometimes I will go into a story with a particular recipe or food in mind. Usually that's based on seasonality. You know, maybe it's winter and I know that I want like this cozy soup that we love. Like when we were living in Portland, elephants delicatescent, which is this great little boutique sandwich shop that was right down by your office, had this tomato orange soup. And so, like, I recreated that. I know. So good, so good. We would have that for New Year's Eve, like almost every year for years. Um, so you know, like something like that, or especially in the earlier books in the series, I have recipes from my mom, my dad, my sister, my aunts, like things like that would weave into the books. But a lot of times, especially now being this deep into the series, it is literally just whatever is top of mind as I'm writing. And whenever I'm writing, I have a journal next to me where I'm taking notes. And I don't worry so much about the recipes in the first draft. But when I go back to do layers the second or third time I touch a manuscript, that's when I'm going through and I'm really highlighting. Okay, she said she made an orange cardamom coffee cake. Like, okay, what would that really look like? And so that's when then I'll go like try to put something like that together. Maybe it works, and I'm like, okay, I'm gonna test it one more time. Maybe it's a total fail. Then I'm gonna come back to the book and maybe retweet that and it changes to a banana nut muffin or something. Like, I don't I'm just speaking off the cuff, but yeah, it works both ways.

Tech Guy 31:55

It works both ways, and I ate both things. I'll tell you that right now. So all right. Uh I am going to wrap up the this episode with your favorite question of all when it comes to writing for this mysteries. I already know what I'm saying. And you must get this question at least half a dozen times a week.

Ellie Alexander 32:19

A week.

Tech Guy 32:19

At least. At least. Ellie. Will you make a cookbook?

The Cookbook Dream And Reality

Ellie Alexander 32:29

I know, I know. I okay, so what makes my heart so happy is I so appreciate, like, I do. I'm so deeply, deeply grateful, darlings, that you want a cookbook. I mean, no joke, like I am. I would love to do a cookbook, is the short answer. I mean, I would absolutely love to. And I've talked about this here before, but like my cookbook, we would be in Ashland with jewels. I would want like a gorgeous photo display of a picnic at Lithia Park. I want the interior of Tort and Auntie's coffee. I want like, I want the spread at mom and the professor's house. Like, I want it to be visually stunning. I want it to be a storytelling kind of book. All of those things would be incredible. But that undertaking is just massive. And the way that it works in publishing is like if if my publisher came to me and said, hey, we want to support you in putting this cookbook together, a thousand percent, I'd be in in a heartbeat. But for us to try to take something like that on, I mean, we're talking you need like food stylists and professional chefs and professional photographers. And I mean, like, it's just, it would be a massive undertaking. So I'm not saying no, like I'm putting it out there. Put it, let's manifest it together. But um, in the short term, the answer is not right now.

Tech Guy 33:49

Right. And I and I'm going to add to that to say, because uh the comeback you get a lot of the times is like, well, you could just print it like a cozy mystery. It could just be all the recipes on the book and everything. And to those, the to those people, I always say, I understand that because they want the cookbook, but this is the culmination of like a good chunk of your lifetime of work that you've put into this, and you have this vision. And when you get a vision, and for those of you who know Ellie, when she gets a vision, it's going to happen. It might not happen right away, but it's going to happen, and it's going to happen according to her vision. And so she has a vision of how this cookbook needs to look for you to feel proud of it, to like for it to be the creation that you want it to be. And that's just, it's going to take time. It's going to take time.

Ellie Alexander 34:40

And the thing is, I get it, because there are some other cozy mystery authors in this field that have put together just like, you know, like a mass market version of recipes, uh, a couple of which I've purchased over the years. It's great, but that like it's not the same. Like, I yeah. So that's true.

Tech Guy 34:55

Right. Right. Well, that's all the time we have for questions. I do sorry.

Ellie Alexander 35:02

I can't say any more on it.

Tech Guy 35:04

I had I had to I had to pull that that one for the or save it for last because I know it's your favorite. I know you want it, it's something you want to do, but um it's just it's not working on the timeline. I think most darlings out there would like it to.

Ellie Alexander 35:19

So I know. I'm sorry, darlings. I'm sorry. But okay.

Tech Guy 35:23

What do you want? What do you want? 25 mysteries? You want a cookbook? Like what? Yeah, yeah, exactly. So all right, all right.

Final Thanks And Send Questions

Tech Guy 35:32

Well, that is it for this episode of Reality Rights. Again, uh, a quick reminder about that. Send us a message link. We really do want to hear from you. Uh, we love doing this podcast and really truly appreciate everyone who listens and everybody who engages with us. We love building this bookish, writer-ish community, baker-ish community now. Um uh, and uh look forward each week to getting to spend some time with you. So let us know what you thought. Until next time.

Ellie Alexander 36:00

Until next time.