Lisa Steele, author of 'In Season' and known for her expertise in eggs from her Blog, and first cookbook of the same name Fresh Eggs Daily, and farm-to-table cooking, shares her journey from chicken farming to cookbook author. She discusses her creative process, the challenges of social media, and her upcoming baking book, offering insights for aspiring food creators. Stephanie Hansen (00:00.718) Hello, everybody. Welcome to Dishing with Stephanie’s Dish, the podcast where I talk to cool people in the food space. I’ve been expanding my repertoire, but I got a cookbook that came across my desk earlier in the season. It is called In Season. It’s by Lisa Steele. She’s the founder of Fresh Eggs Daily. And this is Lisa’s second book. The first book that she has is really all about eggs. Because if you know Lisa, she is a chicken farmer. But she is so much more than that. Lisa, this new book "In Season”, 125 sweet and savory recipes, is gorgeous. Congratulations. Lisa Steele l (00:37.886) thank you. Yeah, it it is a really pretty book. I mean, I know the most important part is that the recipes are delicious, but you know, we do all eat with our eyes. And I feel like if someone’s in a bookstore flipping through the book, you know, they’re just gonna be like, I wanna make that, I wanna make that, that looks so good. I mean, it’s just so because it’s vegetables and fruits and berries, you know. So it was easy to make it like bright and vibrant. You know, my first book, All Eggs, it can get a little dull, you know, eggs are kind of tough to photograph sometimes. Hmm. Stephanie Hansen (01:08.138) Your first book though, okay, so every season I spend a bit good portion of the summer at my cabin. And your book came with me to the cabin this summer because there’s so much to do with eggs and I do a lot of entertaining there. So there’s a lot of brunch ideas. So I use that book a lot. Lisa Steele l (02:19.71) Good. And I mean the second book does have a whole egg chapter. So anyone who does love eggs, I managed to slide in, you know, like a bunch of deviled egg recipes and, you know, some baked dishes that I feel like are, you know, kind of like casseroles that are really good for entertaining, or like you said, if you’re, you know, somewhere that you have a limited, you know, cooking space or whatever. So there are still egg recipes for those people that love eggs. Stephanie Hansen (01:55.47) Can we talk about like obviously after you got done with the first book, y you had more to say and more to say that wasn’t just eggs? I loved that you expanded your repertoire because obviously you’re a cook. you know how to make and put together a book and put dishes together. What was it that kept propelling you forward, or were you just like, I’m gonna stay on this cookbook jag? Lisa Steele l (02:19.71) yeah. So after the first book came out, I mean it was it was brand new. Like you said, I was in the chicken world. I was writing books about raising chickens. I was giving talks about raising chickens and you know, COVID came along and my publisher wanted me to write another chicken book. And I had written like almost a book a year for like six years. And I said to him, I don’t really have anything more to say about chickens. Like I have a blog with a ton of information. I just couldn’t get excited about it, you know. And so I said, I really want to write a cookbook. Like it’s COVID. I feel like this might be the end of the world. You know, I wanna like Check things off my bucket list. And he did he wasn’t interested. He he said, No, you’ve got your lane. This is what you do. This is what you do. Well, you need to do it. But he very graciously let me out of my contract. you know, you know, as a cookbook author, you they have like first write a refusal, right? And you’ve got like whatever. He let me out of my contract, wished me well. and I hired an agent and pitched, you know, the egg cookbook to him. He loved it. Jill kind of was so gracious to share with me her agent. and yeah, he loved the idea of an egg cookbook. And he said, you know, it’s the next natural step for you. You know, you’ve got all these people that raise chickens and have a ton of eggs. Let’s do this cookbook. Plus, people who don’t have chickens, you know, so it’s just widening your your universe kind of. so he loved it, got right on board, and it was so much fun. you know. People say cookbooks are hard to write and it wasn’t easy and it took a long time, you know, two years, right? Start to finish pretty much. but I found it so much easier than writing like a nonfiction chicken book because each recipe is like its own little capsule. You know, you’ve got your your title, you’ve got your head notes, you’ve got your recipe and your photo, and then you move on. And like writing a nonfiction book. There’s got to be chapters and there’s got to be paragraphs and you can’t do all run-on sentences and it has to flow. And I I just found the whole cookbook process in my mind was so much easier to like wrap my head around, you know. yeah, and I loved it so much. And the book really, for someone who wasn’t in the food world at all and didn’t know anybody and nobody knew me, it really did well. And so, you know, I did get a second book deal and now I’m working on my third cookbook actually. So I was thrilled because Just to kind of leave that chicken world behind, although I still have my foot in it. I’ve had a couple offers to sell my blog. And I’m like, I don’t know. You know, that’s kind of like my bread and butter still. So I I’m still holding on to that part of it. but the food world is so fun. I’ve had so much fun. Stephanie Hansen (04:55.276) So you the first book is egg specific. This second book in season is 125 recipes with eggs, but there are other recipes too, a lot of them. How long did this book take? Lisa Steele l (05:09.813) Yeah, vegetables and berries and stuff. so it’s been four years since my first book. But for the first two years, like every week, I was bugging my agent. I was like, I want to write another cookbook. Let’s write another cookbook. And he said, You can’t. You gotta like get some traction, you gotta get some sales, you know. We can pitch one now, but you’re not gonna get as good deal as if you have like a track record. We gotta give it some time, right? So that was like the first two years. And then I just kept bugging and I was like, you know what? I’m just gonna start writing another egg cookbook. so I I started doing that. I just started creating recipes and testing them and putting them in my little files and stuff. And then finally, you know, they said, okay, we can pitch another book. And I said, okay, great. I’m like, you know, halfway done. And they said, no, no, not another egg cookbook. Like sequels don’t usually do well, whether it’s movies, books, whatever it is. you can’t write another egg cookbook. So I was like, what the heck am I gonna do? Right. So they they suggested farm to table. And I said, I hate that. that was cool like maybe 20 years ago, but it’s like so overdone. Like I just hate that phrase, like the farm to table. Cause I was like, technically everything is farm to table unless you’re growing vegetables in a lab, right? Or meat in a lab, whatever. So I was like, I hate that, but that’s what they pitched and that what was was bought. So me being me, I was like, well I’m just gonna do what I want to do anyway. So I just kept continuing on. I got the whole egg chapter in there. and then okay. You hire professionals because they know what they’re doing. And in the end, I am so glad that they pushed me in that direction because it opened up, like obviously I don’t just cook eggs at home, right? You know, so I was like, well, what else do I make? I make sandwiches, I make soups, I make, you know, so I kind of like went through my files and thought about what I ate as a kid. And like it was so freeing not to like have every recipe have to have eggs in it, you know. So I had a lot mo… This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit stephaniehansen.substack.com/subscribe
