Sexy salsa

One of the things I love about being a freelance writer and photographer is the variety the work affords one. You never quite know what you will be doing from one day to the next. With that said, I'm sure you're now thinking,"I wonder what he is up to?"

I won't hold you in suspense any longer then: I'm embarking on my first book publishing experience. And not a book of poetry nor a novel, nor even a book of photographs, as many of you who do know me might have guessed; but a book of salsa's!

YUM!

That's right! A book of hot, sexy, salsa's made by chef extraordinaire Andrew Mendes. Mendes is the executive chef at a restaurant in Camps Bay, Cape Town. He has a passion for food that could fill volumes of books, not to mention many hungry belly's. But to start off with, he has chosen to share his original salsa recipe's with the world. Hot, cold, light, very hot, summer, winter, he has a recipe for every occasion.

"Salsa's are easy to make and are the perfect dish to snack on before dinner, or while having a braai; and they're complete meals on their own. They're even brilliant eaten on a hot slice of toast for breakfast," Mendes asserts.

Go to http://www.andrewmendes.blogspot.com to follow his journey and perhaps get a sneak preview of one of his many yum salsa's. Stand back Jamie Oliver.

And on the flip-side of his culinary journey is the journey to publish his creativity. And this being my first brush with publishing, I thought it might make for some interesting following. What will I have to do? How will I go about it? Who will need to get involved and will anyone be willing to help? How much will it cost? These are just some of the anomalies we're facing at the moment.

So what has been done so far? For one, we've realized the potential success we can achieve by working together - Andrew creating beautiful salsa's and me photographing the process and writing about it. That was the catalyst to arrange a brainstorming session at La Vie, over a couple of coffees of course, to plot our course.

I've drawn up a rudimentary contract (a lawyer would cost thousands),  between the two of us, just outlining what I would do and what Andrew would do. It still needs to be finalized and signed though.

As far as marketing is concerned, I've already set up a GMAIL account for him and the blogsite mentioned above, the www.andrewmendes.blogspot.com site, that was done by me. I mention that with pride because I'm a computer dotard. And hidden in the pages is an analytics account tracking the visitors to the site. Man, blogging is brilliant. 

Anyhow, back to the marketing. I've interviewed Andrew to find out what makes him tick and what makes a salsa hot or not! And I'm now writing an article about that, in the hope of getting it published in various newspapers and magazines. But the big day is on Thursday. That's when we'll be making the recipes in a makeshift kitchen on his balcony and giving them the final tasting test to make sure that they are perfect. And I'll be documenting this process on film. Yes, I mean still film - I'm still stuck in the dark ages. 

And then it'll be over to designing the book. We have what we think is a brilliant design theme for the cover and the content but then we'll need to arrange it all in an appealing manner. And that's where our skills fail us. But we have a plan of action - big sister Debby, who has a brilliant eye for design. Please say yes to helping us Debs!

And then, who knows what then - find an agent, find a publisher, find a printer! We'll just have to take it step by step. 

Anyway, follow this blog and his to find out how we are doing!