This is my friend Gemma. Isn't she pretty? I love that smile. She's been a loyal reader since the very beginning, always demanding new posts, eating my leftovers (we lived two floors apart from each other for a few years in Queens) and bugging me about when I'd ever get around to writing a book. Oh pshaw, I'd reply and get back to baking cookies or making pizza or whatever I had to do that evening for dinner. I'd feel flattered and a little embarrassed too, but mostly I didn't think I had it in me at all. So consider me the most surprised of anyone that I did do it in the end. I did it! I wrote a book!
It has been, no joke, one of the biggest thrills of my life to hear and see, via Twitter and Facebook and emails and Instagram (I'm @wednesdaychef there), the book landing on all your front steps this week. I can't stop pinching myself. I have loved hearing your first impressions and seeing the recipes appear as finished dishes in your kitchens. Actually, even more than loving it, it has been blowing my mind. How is this my life?
And tomorrow we start the first leg of our crazy journey, baby in tow, across the pond. (Pleasegodlethimsleep.)
This is where I'll be reading over the next two weeks:
Friday, September 21st, 7:00 pm:
LOS ANGELES, CA - Vroman's Bookstore
Saturday, September 22nd, 2:30 pm:
SAN DIEGO, CA - Adventures by the Book, Westgate Hotel
Monday, September 24, 7:00 pm:
SEATTLE, WA - University Bookstore. Bonus: Tara Austen Weaver will be hosting this!
Tuesday, September 25th, 7:30 pm:
PORTLAND, OR - Powell's Books
Wednesday, September 26th, 6:00 pm:
SAN FRANCISCO, CA - Book Passage
Thursday, September 27, 12:00 pm
SAN FRANCISCO, CA - Rakestraw Books
Thursday, September 27, 7:00 pm:
SANTA CRUZ, CA - Bookshop Santa Cruz
Sunday, September 30, 5:00 pm:
WASHINGTON, DC - Politics & Prose
Monday, October 1, 7:00 pm:
NEW YORK, NY - Powerhouse Arena
Tuesday, October 2, 7:00 pm:
BOSTON, MA - Harvard Book Store
Can't wait to see you there. And to give my friend up there with the shiny eyes a big old hug. Living up to someone else's hopes for you is a pretty spectacular feeling. Living up to something you never in a million years thought you could do is stratospheric.
