danapop

I love collecting cookbooks and I’m a sucker for the gorgeous photos. Here are a few that I really want to add to my collection.

• Food & Wine profiled Su-Mei Yu’s The Elements of Life in last month’s issue and I’m intrigued by the notion of combining Buddhist principles of cooking with the four components for a balanced life-Earth, Wind, Fire and Air.

• Roahl Dahl’s granddaughter can cook. And model, and be a television presenter, and be married to Jamie Cullum … not such a bad life there, Sophie.

• The highly anticipated book by Chef David Chang, published in the fall of 2009, is still on my wish list. While I’m a little late to the Momofuko party, I want this one.

• Thomas Keller’s newest cookbook on his Napa Valley Ad Hoc has a family-style focus that screams entertaining on the menu to me. Plus, I hear his fried chicken is last-meal worthy.

• Because you have to round out the meal with something sweet, I would love to try out some recipes in John Barricelli’s new release based on the delights from his Connecticut bakery.

• And last, but not least, Three Sheets cocktail book rounds out the list … loaded with drinking games, recipes and historical references sure to take you to from just plain annoying to know-it-all at status at your next get-together. The best part, a guy named Zane wrote it.

In December, James Wolcott wrote an incredible piece for Vanity Fair about the dumbing down of American culture due to the influx of reality television.

That article got me thinking of the Andy Warhol quote; “in the future everyone will be famous for 15 minutes.” So, here we are in 2010, with the MTV, CW, VH1, and E!, lineup of what television executives should be calling 15-minutes-of-fame programming.

The reality in my life is this; I’m the wife of a television and film writer and producer, and I’m about to get on my soapbox about the state of television in America. I’ve come up with this notion … reality TV is the new television “reel”-the new stepping stone for any sort of career in entertainment. Reality TV standouts parlay these vixens, airheads, and otherwise nobodies into other jobs-Kendra Wilkinson, Melissa Rycroft, Kyle Brandt, Lauren Conrad-line them up.

Because what we do know is that Kendra starred on Girls Next Door and it catapulted her into a spin-off show, a husband and a baby; Melissa went from being “blindsided” on The Bachelor’s “After the Rose” ceremony to a gig not just Dancing with the Stars, but as a special correspondent for Entertainment Tonight and 20/20. Go a few years back to when The Real World was in Chicago and Kyle was on it, he then got a reoccurring role on Days of our Lives. And who could forget LC, who starred on Laguna Hills as a mere 17-year-old high school senior, wham bam, now she’s a New York Times bestseller and clothing designer.

It’s as if it’s all a sociology experiment of he who puts themselves out there the most gets a bigger deal, to the nth degree. But, isn’t life kind of like that? He who wows the interviewer, get the job? He who writes the most niche/compelling blog, gets the book deal, then lands at HGTV…hi there Dooce. Or he who competes in a reality cooking show gets a three-show deal on that same network, then a hosting job on NBC this spring … fist pump Guy Fieri and your meal-ticket, Food Network.

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Kelli Fletcher & Allison Beale of George PR

A good publicist can be a journalist’s best friend. A bad one, my worst nightmare.

I “met” Allison Beale last year while trying to get an interview with a company she represented for danapop. She coordinated that interview, and then many others to follow. So, after many emails, interviews and a few music suggestions later … we’ve struck up a bit of friendship all without having ever met each other in person.

And for the record, she’s just about the furthest thing from a nightmare I’ve ever “met.” Her company, George PR turns 5 this month, so in honor of that and all the great things she and her sister Kelli do, here’s a little Q&A with the girls from George in which we talk Skype, sisters, cities, and of course, spin…

George PR, may this be your best year yet!

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Recently, my mind has been lost in thoughts of the next decade. I think it’s mostly because I’ve now been in Atlanta for ten years. It’s made me sort of want to reevaluate things on a life level, including the city I call my home. When I moved out here in 2000, I held a lot of titles-college graduate, daughter to a mother and father, single, scared, video journalist (a.k.a. the most entry-level position you can have at CNN), and Midwesterner (just to name a few).

I’ve still got that degree, my father died within 9 months of me moving here, I met my husband at CNN, my title changed from V.J. to producer by the time I was 26, and now, I no longer consider myself from the Midwest since the South is the longest I’ve ever lived in one spot. So here I am, examining the past decade and all my titles. Because as much as I hate to admit it, I care about those sorts of things, just as most of us do.

We all have them. But, what do they mean exactly? Are they simply just boxes people want to put us in or the frames around our life that fit other people’s mold of what they want us to be, or what we might call ourselves? Sometimes these titles actually fit with who we want to be, but often that’s not the case.

Going after what I want is never the issue with me. My husband describes my approach (lovingly, I think, err hope) as a bull in a china-shop. I’m not particularly proud of that. If there’s something within sight, I generally go after it and beat it into submission (although pretty sure said husband was not acquired that way).

Right now, I have career opportunities open to me. But, I’ve realized I make decisions quickly, not really giving the care and attention to if they are right or wrong decisions, just so that decision is made. Because of that, I don’t operate with the boundaries of just letting things play out, then a few years later I might think to myself, “hmm I could’ve let that rest a bit.”

I’m still trying to figure out what I want to be this decade or even just this year. Mother? Published author? Freelance writer? Communications Director? Editor? Or, answer D … all of the above? There are many people in my life struggling to come to terms with their own titles-estranged, unemployed, single, separated, mother, infertile, brave-it’s beyond career stuff.

What titles do you want to keep this year? Which ones would you throw out the window?

Just over a year ago, while walking our dog, my husband and I witnessed something horrific. We saw a stray Shepherd get hit by a speeding car. The noise of the crash was awful and the pain this dog was experiencing was dreadful to watch.

Before the dog got hit, he’d been haunting us for months. We’d see him wandering around the neighborhood, cold, unloved and appearing miserable. The night he was hit, we were actually reaching for what we thought was a collar. We’d finally managed to get close enough to him to look for a tag … it was a choke chain with nothing on it. As soon as we discovered this, he jumped into the street at the same time a car was driving down it.

It truly was an accident. Nobody that saw it would’ve ever faulted the driver; in his or her defense, the dog came out of nowhere. But, they stopped a few feet past where they hit the dog, sat for a minute or so, then drove off. My husband sat with the dog in the freezing January while I got our dog home and frantically called animal control.

The days following became a flurry of chain emails pleading for someone to take this dog on, a visit to animal control, a lot of crying, and just all around sadness about what we’d seen.

Then, Nan and Cheley came along. They agreed to foster the dog (which Fulton County Animal Control had named Boscoe), and post his leg surgery (he was scheduled for an amputation). And now, here we are. This unloved dog that no one really knew beyond being a stray has changed us all a little bit.

A few weeks ago I received this email:

I thought you would be interested to know that after several months of fostering we knew we couldn’t part with our beloved Boscoe.  He has become a part of the family and we officially adopted him.  You probably would not believe what a sweet, gentle, good-natured soul he is…I just thought you would like to know that you saved a very, very special dog and he is absolutely loved and adored in his forever home.

And just this past weekend we had a little dog reunion with Boscoe, allowing him meet our dog under better circumstances. The whole experience reminded us that all this started with one email to help one animal. But, without that moment we would not have had the opportunity to meet Boscoe, Nan, and Cheley, who, in the end, have given us all so much.