In preparation for tomorrow’s Thanksgiving dinner, amateur chefs around the country are consulting cookbooks for ideas.
For a side dish with a Japanese-Mexican fusion spin, try the “Roasted Kabocha and Maitake with Bitter Chocolate” recipe listed on the bottom of this post.
The recipe comes from Anita Lo, chef/owner of the Michelin star-rated New York City restaurant Annisa. We spoke with Chef Lo and her writing partner Charlotte Druckman about their cookbook collaboration project Cooking Without Borders.

A = Chef Anita Lo
C = Writer Charlotte Druckman
Q: How does a chef approach the cookbook creation process?
A: I’ve been trying to write this book for literally decades. I came up with the idea for this book in the early 90′s. You get an agent who can help you sell the book; you don’t necessarily have to have an agent but I did. You write a proposal. Hopefully someone buys the book; hopefully it gets several bids and you decide who is going to support you the best for what you want to do. I’ve been trying to write it myself for a billion years and realized that I just didn’t have the time. I ended up hiring a writer, Charlotte Druckman who is very talented and smart. I think I wrote a good portion of it, but the rest of it we sat down and sort of dictated what to write for the head notes and choose some recipes.
Q: How does one approach writing a cookbook? Is it about being technical and giving exact directions?
C: The first and most important thing is to come up with a focus and structure. In this case, my priority was not only to distill Anita’s culinary point of view, but also to find out what matters most to her, and what she wanted her cookbook to convey. That goes beyond the food. The recipes become examples of how she thinks and of her collective life experiences (in and out of the kitchen). They allow you to show readers who she is and what she values without your having to tell them. Once you’ve figured out what the book’s mission statement is, you want to, as a writer, get ‘The Voice’ down. The way that Anita expresses herself verbally is as important as the way in which she does that on the plate. I don’t want it to sound like me; I want you to read it and say, ‘That’s Anita.’ But, at the same time, the tone needs to match the content. Anita is a serious Chef (I capitalize that to distinguish it from home cook or even a chef-in-training or a chef who is just starting out) and her restaurant isn’t some casual brasserie. So, you don’t want something that sounds too colloquial; still, you want to feel as though Anita is speaking to you.
As for the technical aspect, it relates. This isn’t a cookbook for beginners; it’s not about quick-n-easy cooking in 30 minutes or less or taking shortcuts. That’s not who Anita is. You don’t want to dumb things down to a point where you lose her style or type of food. It’s a hard balance to strike–assuming a certain level of culinary intelligence on the part of your reader without going too far; you want people to feel inspired, and, also, confident enough to try the recipes. One of the things that’s particularly trying for chefs is that they’re asked, often, when writing recipes, to give exact cooking times. The truth is, depending on your cooking equipment (pan size and composition, oven, etc.), you’re going to find that things cook differently. We decided it would make more sense and, at the same time, help readers become better cooks, if we told them what the desired result was and what they were looking for, so that they would begin to learn how to tell when their meat has reached its ideal doneness, for example. It’s not all that different from what you’re trying to do on the literary front–you want it to be accessible but not a Cooking For Dummies project. And, it also relates to the book’s ultimate goal, which is to expose people to new flavors and encourage home cooks to incorporate unfamiliar global ingredients at their stoves … if the book can broaden their virtual (and literal) pantries and get them improvising on their own, that would be the best possible outcome.
Q: What advice do you have for writers when they embark on a collaborative project?
C: First and foremost, you need to respect the person you’re working with–you have to believe in them and what they do. Equally important, though, you need to make sure you can work with that person. Genuinely liking him/her helps, because you’re going to be spending a lot of time together. That’s not enough though; you have to have complementary working styles. If you’re collaborating with someone who will be the star of the show (as in, if he/she is The Talent and you are the hired pen), you also have to realize that part of your job is project management. I was lucky because Anita stayed on top of things and was good about sticking to a schedule. But you may find yourself working with someone who needs to be pushed and prodded to stay on track.
And then, two other related pieces of advice. 1. Avoid what I call narcissistic writing. That means, remember, it’s not YOUR voice. You may write something you think is the cleverest, most pithy thing and everyone’s going to think it’s great. Well, guess what? If it doesn’t sound like your subject, if it doesn’t mesh with the overall tone you’ve created for the book or, if it’s some kind of passive ‘all about me’ interjection, you need to cut it. 2. Respect the trust. Again, when you’re writing on behalf of someone else or translating his/her perspective or biography, you need to take that seriously. It’s not an even exchange–someone is telling you a whole lot about him/herself and it’s kind of a one-way flow of information as far as getting the work done goes. You need to honor that; protect your source and value their trust.
For the full piece, and there is a lot more advice, link here.