Here's the story ... our local Palm Springs bear potluck group had been having cuisine-themed potlucks every other month before COVID-19 forced us to stop. We decided that since we couldn't have potlucks, we'd create a non-profit cookbook of our favorite recipes, and sell it to raise money for a local charity.
Eventually over 100 contributors submitted more than 700 recipes, and we wound up with a full-color, 500-page hardbound cookbook -- the largest cookbook ever aimed at a gay audience -- that has sold more than 550 copies and raised more than $9000 for Well in the Desert, which feeds those in need in Palm Springs and the Coachella Valley.
And now we're doing a sequel! Just like the first volume, we're welcoming recipes from both residents and visitors to Palm Springs. This second volume will have a greater emphasis on potluck recipes -- dishes you can bring to parties, dishes to feed a crowd, dishes that hold up to traveling and can sit out, etc. However, non-potluck recipes are still welcomed.
So if you cook, and are interested in being part of what could be the biggest, most deluxe gay cookbook series in history, and whether you contributed recipes to the first volume or not, you are welcome to contribute to the second!
HERE'S WHAT YOU NEED TO SUBMIT:
Recipes, background, photos. All three things. and you can mail all three things to stephenearlfreitag@gmail.com.
Here's the basic details:
1. RECIPES: These should be your recipes, recipes that you have made and tested yourself. All kinds of recipes are welcome, although recipes for dishes you can take to potlucks are especially encouraged. These recipes can be your own creations, or can come from other sources, like your family, your friends, or other cookbooks, since what recipe is really new, after all? It's all ratios of available ingredients. However, do give credit to the source. If you adapt a recipe from Ina Garten, for example, give her credit for the original version. And if you change things around (adding extra garlic, shortening the cooking time, whatever), that makes the recipe even more of your own creation. But no matter where the recipe comes from, whether from out of your head or from others, your instructions on how to make the dish should be in your words. Do not copy other people's words, and give credit where credit is due.
See down below for the nuts-and-bolts details of what each recipe should include.
2. BACKGROUND: Background info on the contributor, and optionally on each recipe. Some of the questions the contributor can answer in their background info (with actual sentences and stories, not just short one-word answers):
How did you learn to cook?
Who taught you how to cook?
Who influenced you in the kitchen? Family? Friends? Cooks or chefs?
Did you ever work in food service, as a chef, cook, server, whatever?
If yes, anything interesting happen when you did that job? How do you look back on your job in food service?
What do you like to cook?
What do you hate to cook?
What was your biggest failure in cooking at home (or on the job)?
Your biggest success?
What is your philosophy of cooking?
What do you dislike or like about potlucks? Any unusual stories about potlucks you've attended or hosted?
If you live here, what brought you to Palm Springs (or the Coachella Valley)?
What do you like (or dislike) about the Palm Springs area?
What do you see as the relationship between bears and food, or bears and cooking?
For the background info on individual recipes, see the examples below.
3. PHOTOS: Photos of you cooking (especially recipes that you've submitted for the cookbook), hanging out in the kitchen, eating, shopping for groceries, whatever. Anything food-related, or Palm Springs-related, or possibly just showing you doing activities that you love. Include a variety of photos. Some will go on "your page," the page that will have your cooking story and page numbers for all the recipes you've submitted. The remaining photos will be sprinkled through the book, usually near the recipes you've submitted.
(In the first volume of The Palms Springs Bears Cookbook, contributors each received their own chapter, which contained their background and their recipes. For this second volume, we're going back to a more traditional cookbook format -- appetizers, soups, salads, desserts, etc. -- but each contributor will have a page to themselves, for their background and photos, and page numbers of where their recipes can be found. These one-page bios will be sprinkled throughout the book.)
Regarding recipes: Minimum of two recipes, maximum of 20 or so. For most folks, I recommend a target of about 8-12 of your favorite recipes that you'd like to share. However, some recipes might be cut if they exactly duplicate other recipes in the book. We have room for plenty of recipes for pasta salad, for example, but it just wastes space to include exact duplicates.
For each recipe, you need to submit:
Some examples of comments you might make: |
| "When we feel like low-carbing it, this fauxsitsio gives the great taste of pastitsio without the carbohydrates of actual pasta. Well, maybe not the great taste, but it gives a 'suggestion' of pastitsio. However, actual Greek men might slap you across the face if you served this to them, so make this dish if you get turned on by that sort of thing." |
"Rick made this roast turkey for Harvey's mother the first he met her, but he forgot to take the plastic bag of gizzards out of the cavity before putting the turkey in the oven. Luckily, she said the plastic bag was the tastiest part of the whole meal." |
"We like to add a buttload of ground cinnamon to this pie, so you can feel young by taking part in that 'cinnamon challenge' all the kids were doing a few years ago." |
"If you don't have any mayonnaise on hand for this pea salad, you can use marshmallow fluff." * |
"We traditionally make this for Christmas, but only Mike likes it. Everyone else eats it out of a sense of duty, and then moans about how much they hated it for hours." |
Anyway, submit the recipes you've used over the years that are crowd-pleasers, the ones that people ask for, as well as the dependable ones you often make for yourself. Please don't submit recipes that you haven't tried. And if it's dish that's appropriate for a potluck, all the better, since this second volume is going to emphasize potluck recipes.
Here's a sample of what the finished recipe will look like in the book:
By the way ... if you don't have a copy of the first Palm Springs Bears Cookbook yet, use this link to order it from lulu.com: Click here to order
Regarding photos:We want to show the personalities behind the recipes, so let's get some pictures of you, preferably cooking, eating, in the kitchen, preparing food, in the pool, having fun ... but not photos of you standing there like statues before the camera. Think: action shots! Shots that capture the essence of you, the person (or couple)!
Also, try to include relatively recent photos ... maybe from within the last few years. Older photos are fine, but we do want to see what you look like now. Photos from potlucks are especially welcome. Aim for three to four photos, minimum. More if you've submitted a lot of recipes. And if you have interesting stories behind the photos, include them as well.
And this is optional but always appreciated: Photos of the finished dishes for which you've supplied recipes.
Regarding background:We want to learn about you (or both of you). What we want is a little biography of you, with an emphasis on "your life, in food." (If you're not comfortable with writing your life up, I can interview you and write it up myself.) And any interesting stories/anecdotes you have about cooking, or eating, or preparing food, or potlucks ...
Any questions? Write me at stephenearlfreitag@gmail.com.
Once you have your recipes, photos and background info all together, you can e-mail it all to me at stephenearlfreitag@gmail.com. And please do not send me photos of hand-written recipes. Write it all out! I don't want to have to try to decipher your grandmother's handwriting!
Okay, first off, let's consider
It's not to raise money -- all profits go to our charity, Well in the Desert, to feed the hungry.
So, I see it as this:
Regarding recipe copyrights
Ingredients (and ratios and measurements) are not copyrightable but text descriptions are. So, if you put the procedure of a recipe in your own words, you should be fine. It's preferable, however, to give credit where credit is due, and say something like "adapted from a Julia Child recipe," then change the ingredients (if just slightly), and then put the recipe procedures in your own words as well.
Let's face it, most recipes are not original. You find a recipe you like, you write it down, you adapt it to your own tastes. Eventually you think of it as your own recipe. And there's only so many combinations of raw ingredients, anyway ... billions maybe, but not infinite!
Here's an interesting discussion about recipe copyrights found on plagiarismtoday.com:
When it comes to recipes and copyright in the U.S., the law is actually very clear. Copyright does not protect recipes, "That are mere listings of ingredients," However, it can, "Extend to to substantial literary expression -- a description, explanation, or illustration, for example -- that accompanies a recipe or formula..."
What this means is that the basics of a recipe are not copyright protected. The list of ingredients and the actual steps that one takes to complete it are not protectable as they are mere facts and formulas. However, the expression of that recipe can be protected, especially if there is a literary description, images, illustrations or other elements along with the recipe.
This can be very confusing for many chefs. To a chef, the creativity of the recipe is in the recipe itself, not the description of it. However, the law makes it clear that it is that description and expression of that creativity that is protectable, not the actual recipe.
This isn't to say that you can't protect your recipe. Many of the most iconic recipes on the planet are protected as trade secrets. That includes the KFC "11 Herbs and Spices" and, of course, the Coca Cola recipe. However, trade secret protection requires that you make a good faith effort to protect the secret and, thus, publishing it in a book or divulging it on your site would obviously eliminate that protection.
As a result, if you publish a recipe, so long as I use no language and images from your work, I can legally copy it, put it on my site and claim it as my own.
There are many recipes for which there is only one or two ways do something and all new recipes are simple derivatives of that. Not only is prior art often times discovered, but independent creation is very common when it comes to recipes.
With recipes, it's easier to prove copying and plagiarism when the words and images are also copied, as was the case for blogger Susan Voisin, who had over 200 of her posts lifted and used in an ebook sold on Amazon.
Nearly every published chef is aware that their recipes are being copied and republished without attribution. However in most cases, especially when dealing with lesser-known or self-published authors, there's no money or scandal to pursue.
It's only when better-known chefs get accused of plagiarism that there is any real follow through.
We can't test every recipe, so we're going to have to take the contributors' word that the recipe works and produces a tasty result. If me, as the editor, has any questions, I'll get in touch with the contributor. Contributors will also be able to proofread their own chapters as well and sign off on them as meeting their expectations and standards. Contributors will keep the copyright on their own bios and recipes, of course.
We're also not going to be able to provide nutritional information, like calories and amount of protein and carbohydrates in each dish. You think we're running a food laboratory here?
Now's the time to make your opinions known, which you can do in the comments section of the Facebook post that contains this link, or in an e-mail to Steve. Keep in mind, however, that if you have really strong opinions ... you might want to keep in mind that with a group of this size, compromise is inevitable. And also, perfectionism is the enemy of deadlines. If we kept working away at this cookbook until everyone was happy with every aspect of it, it'd probably come out around 2030 or 2040. I'd rather it came out in 2024.
Hope all this excites you into contributing toward a cool second volume of our cookbook!