Yesterday, we had a start-of-year Serendib House meeting. I’m trying to get more organized about such things, and it was really helpful, I think, pausing and doing a round-table assessment of how we did last year (amazing, considering pandemic!), what we’re excited about this year, what we’d like to do differently, etc.
Among other things, we discussed the upcoming book birthday of Feast, on March 6th. This poor cookbook of mine — it did so splendidly in the first quarter, and then sales just crashed after the pandemic. V. frustrating.
We talked about doing a re-launch this spring, but it’s sadly too early for that — we can’t in good conscience start hosting in-person events. But did want to do SOMETHING to mark the book birthday, so we were thinking a weekend of virtual events? Again, this is March 6-7.
Here are some things we came up with — would love more suggestions, or notes on which of these you think are most appealing! I’m not sure we can do it all, so it’d help a lot to winnow it down.
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a) free roti baking class done jointly with Pooja Makhijani on Saturday, March 6, 2 p.m. CST / 3 p.m. EST — CONFIRMED — we’ll have registration info up soon. It’ll be limited to 25 people, so sign up early if interested! But also, note that we’re planning to record it and put it online, so only sign up if you’re okay with that! (You can mostly have your audio / video off if you want, of course!)
b) sale on the book (maybe $10 off for the entire weekend? That’s a bigger sale than we’ve ever done…)
c) another Zoom cooking class on Sunday? Any requests?
d) a Zoom panel conversation about Sri Lankan food (and maybe books with great food descriptions) with some of my Sri Lankan relatives and friends, if I can talk them into it? We’d record it and put it up on YouTube, possibly with simultaneous live attendance / chat, if I can figure out the tech?
e) a How to Write a Cookbook class?
f) a Facebook Live AMA (Ask Me Anything), centered on writing the cookbook, Sri Lankan food, history, culture, etc.
g) a blog tour (if you’re interested in having me write something for your food blog to post that weekend, let me know?)
h) a podcast interview (I don’t know any food podcasters, alas…)
i) what else?
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