Welcome back to another Behind The Scenes of a Cookbook episode of the podcast. Today on the podcast I had the pleasure of interviewing Mardi Balgochian. Mardi is a French-trained pâtissière, recipe tester and cookbook editor. She has degrees in English and Communications, and her professional experience is in corporate communications where she worked in defense, energy, food & beverage, and biotechnology. A few years ago, she had that “if not now, when?” moment and moved to Paris to earn a culinary diploma, specifically in French pâtisserie. Now, she endeavors to pair her professional experience with her passion for pastry.

As an editor here are two of Mardi’s tips for cookbook writers: 

(1) get your recipes tested by trained chefs and home cooks (if that’s your audience)

(2) definitely work with an editor if you decide to self-publish. 

Listen to Episode 91 below:

Things We Mention In This Episode:

Connect with Mardi’s at her blog Love and Butter

Mardi’s Go-To Baking and Pastry Books:

The Pastry Chef’s Little Black Book (Chefs Michael Zebrowski and Michael Mignano)

The Pastry Chef’s Little Black Book – Volume II (Chefs Michael Zebrowski and Michael Mignano)

The Professional Pastry Chef (Bo Friberg)

French Pâtisserie (Ferrandi)

Classic Baking References:

Baking Chez Moi (Dorie Greenspan)

Pie & Pastry Bible (Rose Levy Beranbaum)

Baking Bible (Rose Levy Beranbaum)

Lickerland (Jason Licker) – this is the one that I mentioned was classic pastry with Asian flavors

French Patisserie Books by French Chefs (in French):

Choux (Philippe Conticini)

Fou de Patisserie (Fou de Patisserie – book is out of print, but they have others and a magazine)

Armenian Cookbooks:

Treasured Armenian Recipes (Detroit AGBU)

Harametzek (St. James, Watertown, MA – out of print)

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