Panadería - a short format cookbook

Do it yourself; do it anyway.

Since April I’ve been mentioning and otherwise alluding to the recipe zine/short format cookbook I’ve been working on with my designer, the incomparable Elizabeth Goodspeed. Elizabeth and I met on Twitter when it was still Twitter, before the social app I’ve used longer than the others went to shit. She designed the At Heart logo and other branding in 2021 when conchas were the only menu item, and I was posting preorder links on Instagram then pulling up to Piedmont Park with a trunk of pink boxes full of pan dulce. (This seems like a lifetime ago.) Once again Elizabeth took my vision and gave it life.

A PANADERÍA preview!

Panadería the recipe zine was inspired both by vintage community cookbooks, and the short format cookbook series on single subjects such as Lemons (written by Alison Roman) and Butter (Dorie Greenspan), Short Stack Editions. As I wrote in April — and as you’ll read more of in the zine — going the diy-publishing route is simply my way to create art, something you can hold in your hands, outside of and indepedent from both digital algorithms and traditonal U.S. food media.

The zine has 5 recipes, which I’ll be sharing more about when preorders go live. Being very intentional with “just” five recipes, I knew I wanted a couple of cakes, a new concha recipe which felt non-negotiable albeit a bit tricky to fit into zine format, and lots of masa harina in 4/5 of the recipes. The concha recipe is the only one that doesn’t feature masa harina, though you could certainly add some to the crunchy topping.

All recipes were tested thoroughly and my recipe testers were compensated for their time, which was non-negotiable. I paid $100 the same day notes were submitted since I believe Net 30/60/90 is not only archaic and so often exploitative, but is completely irrelevant to my work as an indepedent recipe developer.

I settled on five recipes without photography as a way to cut down on printing costs. I didn’t feel compelled to reinvent any wheels with these recipes and so photography just didn’t seem all that necessary. (There will be some illustrations!) I do want to encourage and help folks to coax out their baking intuition — this is the entire basis of me working as a recipe developer — so quick reference pictures I’ve taken for each of the recipes will be posted on my Instagram page the week of the zine release in November.

The break I took from the recipes this year was so very necessary, but I’m ready to get back to this aspect of the work. I’m not committed to publishing recipes on any kind of schedule going forward; it’s just not reasonable or realistic. I learned this because I felt supported in stepping away from the recipes for a short while! (Next week, I’m sharing a Jamaica Lemon curd recipe I’ve been making at the bakery and for the pop up cakes.) Taking the time away freed up the space for me to work on this dream of a zine I’ve had since 2017.

Preorders for Panadería will open in the coming week or so and will help give me and Elizabeth a better idea about how many copies we should initially print. Newsletter subscribers will get early access to the preorder link (a full week ahead of time!); paid newsletter subscribers will receive a free copy on me as a way to express the gratitude which runs deep in my bones and has been such a balm this year as I figured out the next step with the recipes. I am devoted to all 77 of you.

I just wanted to write a short update on the zine since I’ve been hinting at it for months. It’s feeling really real now! I’m proud of the work so far that’s gone into this self-funded, diy cookbook on a micro scale that still has quality recipes with a clear voice and point of view.