When I am reading the intro to a new book, I always get a little annoyed when I’m happily reading along and suddenly there’s a huge paragraph of acknowledgments. It’s not that I don’t think that they are important, it’s more that for me, the reader, I’m there to experience what the book itself has to offer — I’m not really interested yet in the “making of” the book.
It’s the same with a movie. If I watch it and like it, I might be interested in the special features, or “the making of” special, or even the special three-disk edition . . .but only after I have seen it.
Since you are here in my blog, I’m going to assume you have a deeper interest in my book and won’t be bothered by some “making of” info, but in case you aren’t that person, here’s your warning:

Warning: acknowledgments ahead

This was my first time having a book professionally published and I was blessed to have my niece, Emily Chambers, as my editor.  She is very talented at what she does, and she is largely responsible for the fact that my book was published. She is also responsible for making the inside match my vision. No one else would have put in the time and effort she did.

My best editors my whole life have been my parents.  They have read many, many school and college papers and should, in many ways, be given credit for what my writing is like today. My mom, my dad, and my husband diligently and enthusiastically read everything I wrote for this book. Their astute comments and questions deeply influenced the book as it now exits.

My think tank and support group has been primarily composed of my extended family. As noted in my book, they helped me explore the scientific concepts behind the steps and also helped me brainstorm stylistic issues – sometimes in person and sometimes through email.

Several people at Cedar fort had key roles in creating the look of the book, and of course, getting the book into stores and otherwise helping with marketing. Credit for the cover, steps diagrams, and the webpage design go to great Cedar Fort employees.

Some of my most pleasant memories associated with getting this book published had to do with contacting the people who wrote my endorsements as they appear on this website and in the book. I’d like to tell you a little about each of them and that will be in a different post.

Last but not least, there are many friends who early on were involved in testing the method and recipes and are still supportive now.  You will meet some of them as guest bloggers on here in future months.

To all of you who were involved in the making of this edition: Thank You!

My intention with this blog is to do a post once each week that has a photo and relates to Dutch oven cooking or to my book.  In between, I plan to do shorter posts on a variety of topics as interesting things come up.  This post is an “in-between” kind of post.

My dad, a research physiologist, is well known for his limericks.  He often writes limericks to celebrate birthdays and other life events.  He also used to write limericks to help teach principles of physiology to the medical students who took his class.  My favorite limerick he used with his students is this one:

Whenever you’re taking a test
Heart’s pounding and lunch won’t digest
And you’ve tried and you’ve tried
And you still can’t decide –
Then you choose the answer first guessed.

I was honored when he chose to write a limerick to celebrate my book being published.  He prefaced the limerick with a rephrasing of the famous Lewis Carroll lines:

“The time has come,” the Walter said “To talk of many things:
Of camps –and coals — and cooking pots — and Dutch oven seasonings –”

Here’s the limerick:

Ingenious Dutch oven-er Pika
For Dutch oven wisdom did seek-a;
Researched those black pots
And learned lots and lots:
With many a shout of “Eureka!”

Writing one’s first official blog post can be slightly intimidating. Yes, I know this one will end up way at the bottom of the scroll bar and a few months from now, no one will ever see it. Still, the experience reminds me oddly of a time in second or third grade when I was given a big white sheet of paper (it seemed to be about twice the size of a regular sheet) and told to do some creative writing. There was something oddly intimidating about that big white sheet of paper. . . What if I ruined it?  After all, if I wrote on it, it wouldn’t be white anymore! It was so smooth and clean! What if I couldn’t do it justice?

I don’t remember what I put down on the paper that particular day, but I do know that this type of creative writing exercise was something we did frequently that school year, and the next and probably the next. After a couple times I knew automatically what to do – draw a line to divide the paper, draw a picture in the top part and write a story about it in the bottom part.

So I think I will take that as my pattern here – post a picture and tell you a story about it. Now that I come to think of it, that’s what most blog posts do! Little did they know it, but as it turns out, back in the mid-seventies, my elementary school teachers were training us to blog!