Lemon Cinnamon Sorbet & a new book: 365-A Year of Everyday Cooking & Baking
One of the first things I did, once I was done proof-reading my second book 365, was to pull myself straight into the sunshine and to my favorite ice cream shop. I'm not really an ice cream person, but this place makes me happy. Their lemon cinnamon sorbet was the first of many chilled scoops of sweet bliss, and it stayed my favorite. It's very lemony and the aromatic spice is confidently present. I've been wanting to create my own lemon cinnamon sorbet recipe for years and here it is: Chilled heaven on a spoon!
So now that the endless dark months of proof-reading and correcting the English and German 365 are over, days and nights of finding and fixing mistakes and driving everybody (!) around me absolutely crazy with my German hardheadedness and my unbreakable belief that there's always (!) a mistake to find, I'm finely starting to think clearly again, slowly. I've been wanting to share so much about the process of writing a new book here on the blog but at one point I had to accept that there are only 24 hours and 7 days a week. After Eat In My Kitchen, my first book, was so joyfully received and even won a James Beard Award, I wasn't sure how it would feel to start this process all over again. Would I feel intimidated by my own work? No, I wasn't, but I thought it would be just as easy to fill a book with 365 recipes as it felt to share one recipe a day in the first year of this blog in 2014. It wasn't easy back then (I just suppressed the memory) and it was almost insane to do the same thing all over again, just physically, in a printed book.
So the book is done, and it has a name: 365 - A Year of Everyday Cooking & Baking. I'm in love with it now but I hated it at times. I put everything that I am and that I love about food into its pages and I'm happy, overwhelmed, and also scared to see it come into the world (soon, I still have some time to get used to it, it's at the printer right now). I cooked, baked, and shot the pictures about a year ago and - thanks to the wonderful people around me - we managed to make preparing and shooting 8 recipes a day feel like fun. I don't know how, but thinking back on this time still gives me goosebumps. It was magical. I just did what I love the most and fed the people around me with far too much food - it was the best. But then, the time started that I fear the most about working on a book. Turning 365 recipes, hundreds of pictures, notes, and thoughts into printable pages without adding mistakes yet finding the ones that sneaked in, is one of the scariest things. I started dreaming about words and measurements at night! I guess I have to admit that I find comfort in perfectionism (or in the rare moments when we believe we are close to it). But that's not what creating a book is about.
I pity my editor at Prestel Publishing in New York, Holly La Due, who had to go through so many discussions with me about the structure of this book, the cover (a broad field of debate for months!), and all the time have me bagging her to let me triple- and quadruple-check things again and again (until she drew the line - she knows how to deal with her German author).
I'm not yet ready to distance myself and reflect, to see the greater picture, and just chill and let things happen. I'm scared, but I guess that's fine, and despite the inner struggles I can't wait for the day when I can hold the first copy of 365 in my hands. For now, all I can do is share the cover with you (below), and my favorite sorbet recipe.
Update: The English 365 - A Year of Everyday Cooking & Baking was published on October 8th 2019, the German book on September 23rd 2019, and you can order it here:
Lemon Cinnamon Sorbet
Serves 4
270 ml / 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons water
130 g / 2/3 cup granulated sugar
1 generous tablespoon freshly grated lemon zest (about 1 large lemon),plus more for serving (optional)
1 cinnamon stick
A pinch of salt
240 ml / 1 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice (about 5 large lemons)
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
In a small saucepan, bring the water, sugar, lemon zest, cinnamon stick, and salt to a boil over high heat, stirring constantly. Reduce the heat to medium-low and simmer, stirring, for 2 minutes. Add the lemon juice, transfer to a medium bowl, and let it cool for about 10 minutes then chill in the fridge for at least 40 minutes.
Once the mixture is thoroughly chilled, remove the cinnamon stick, whisk in the ground cinnamon, and transfer to an ice cream maker then freeze according to the manufacturer's instructions (it took about 25 minutes in mine). Transfer the sorbet to an airtight container and freeze for 2 to 3 hours. Serve sprinkled with a little freshly grated lemon zest.
If you don't have an ice cream maker, transfer the lemon mixture to a shallow pan and freeze for a few hours or until firm, stirring with a fork every hour to fluff it up.
