More Recipes Please!

"Please, Sunny, I want some more" - paraphrased from Oliver Twist

Hey there! I've been a bit busy this week with plenty of recipe requests. I'm usually in recipe planning mode at all times. When I cook I jot down some notes in my notebook and when I get time, I transfer my notes to my computer. I do this at leisure and sometimes wake up saying to myself "Today, I'll catalogue some recipes" and I do. I sit on the couch or even yes, in the bed, and I type away for hours with my notebooks at my side. Sometimes I look up and realize I skipped breakfast and lunch and if I don't get moving, I'll miss the window for dinner too. Other times, I prepare and make breakfast and lunch the day before so I can just take quick breaks to reheat. So when people ask what I do day to day, that's my boring answer ... I write recipes. At least I think it sounds boring to others, but to me ... it's bliss. I do my recipe writing on auto-pilot, but when I have a deadline for something specific, I push my personal order of recipes aside and scoot the requested ones to the top of my list.

That's why I've been silent a bit this week ... I've had so many recipe requests that I haven't been able to come up for air! For what? Well, for starters ... I have a product partnership on the way and I'm submitting recipes and tips to them for approval. I also need to finalize recipes for my Atlantic City Food & Wine Festival event. BTW, my party is called Sunset, Spirits and Sliders with Sunny Anderson. It's at the Caesar's Palace rooftop pool on Saturday, July 31st. Get your tickets by clicking on the event title!! I'd love to meet you!

But that's not the biggest stress about my recipe writing this week ... I've been finalizing details of a menu I've worked up for a special event. How special? The military blood in me made me cry when I heard about it weeks ago and now that it's closer ... I'm still in disbelief ...

I've been invited to the Vice President's Residence to cook alongside Navy chefs and feed veterans of war and their families for Memorial Day. I almost need to type it again to believe it, so here goes. I've been invited to serve the troops and their families my recipes at the residence of our Vice President of the United States. Wow. My granddad went to war, my daddy, my uncles ... I'm the only female in my family that joined and I served proudly. It hurts my heart when I see people claim service in a war or even in the military when they were never a part of it. I hold Memorial Day and Veterans Day right up there with all the other holidays and make a note to call my daddy every year on Veterans Day to thank him for his service. I feel pretty honored to even be invited and Food Network Magazine is coming along to take pics for a future issue. In fact, it's the editor of the magazine that is pulling this all together. Can't wait for you guys to see the spread. It all happens next week, so this was the final week to get in my menu and recipes. I made a nod to the garden and even made room on the menu for the Second Lady's dietary needs. Turns out she doesn't do red meat, fine with me!

Want a peek at what we'll eat? I could make a corny national security joke here, but I won't. I won't give all the goods, but take a look at my personal notes I told you about above. They're from my handwritten cookbook and I flipped to this page when looking for ways to feed the troops. I've kept a journal since high school and I'm a lefty, so excuse the penmanship :-). This is what my recipes look like before they get to my hard drive ...

It's my left-brained notes for Honey Mustard Pulled Pork with Apricot BBQ Sauce. It's one of the recipes I'm serving with the help of the Navy Chefs. Somewhere in the haze of transferring it to my computer, I sent this picture to the head of the Food Network kitchens to show them what I was working with and they replied "Looks like a play book, lol". I couldn't agree more. It's my strategy for filling bellies and making smiles :-). Not a tough game, but needs a playbook nonetheless. Fyi, the arrow that is coming from the left page has 2 more ingredients I left out in the first run and made the changes the next time I made the recipe. This happens when developing a recipe. It is many parts before it is whole. Hope you are having a busy week like me, that's good news these days, eh? Take care and ladies, any idea of what I should wear? They keep insisting jeans are fine because it's a cook out ... I don't think so ...