Wednesday, May 26, 2010

Le Ventre du Nord / Borealis Books: Sounds Like a Good Team

Le Ventre du Nord ("The Belly of the North"), Trout Caviar's tagline, is a sort double pun that I was quite pleased to hit upon, expressing as it does the sense of eating up the northland, in a francophilic way.

It combines Le Ventre de Paris ("The Belly of Paris")--Emile Zola's epithet for the sprawling Les Halles market that used to cover a good chunk of the Right Bank in central Paris--with L'Etoile du Nord ("The Star of the North")--the Minnesota state motto. (I should find a way to get the Wisconsin state motto in there, too, I know; I'll work on that.)

And borealis, that means "of the north," or maybe just "northern," as aurora borealis, the Northern Lights, is "northern dawn." It's a great name for a publisher like Borealis Books, the trade imprint of the Minnesota Historical Society Press.


The ultimate significance of this whole thing is that Borealis Books is going to publish the Trout Caviar book, recipes, essays, photographs, based upon this here blog.

I'm pleased as all get-out to announce this news, and very grateful to Shannon Pennefeather and Pam McClanahan at Borealis and MHS Press, who started checking out the blog a while back and thought there might be potential for a book in it.

I'm slightly terrified, too, since though the book will not be published until fall of 2011, I've got just a few short months to pull everything together. Mainly it's very exciting, and I'm really looking forward to having a chance to show off the splendid foods of our cold (and, lately, not so cold...) climate. Not that I haven't been doing that already. But this is going to be a book, you know, an actual honest-to-god book. That's different. And really, really cool.

Anybody wanna help test some recipes...?



25 comments:

  1. How wonderful! Congratulations.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Les felicitations sont de rigueur!

    While I am in the Nothern Virginia Piedmont - not quite Borealis for sure - I'll be glad to test recipes you want to send my way (I already did the smoked bacon, remember. miam miam miam!!!!)

    Bravo!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Congratulations Brett! Put me down for recipe testing (of course you may have to provide me with the necessary foraged ingredients).

    ReplyDelete
  4. Recipe testing, please! And of course, congratulations! I've often been reading a post of yours and thinking, wow, this is written like it belongs in a book I want to read while in a cabin up North somewhere thinking of great things I want to cook... :)

    ReplyDelete
  5. Darius, Angie, thank you very much!

    Merci, Sylvie. I was so pleased that you tried the bacon recipe. Some tips for no-fuss home smoking will definitely be in the book.

    Tom, I'd be delighted to have you and Martha try out some things. As for the wild ingredients, I'll just send you GPS coordinates for all my favorite foraging spots...(!)

    And thank you, Nate. I would love it if my writing and recipes became go-to cabin reading.

    Thanks, all~ Brett

    ReplyDelete
  6. That's wonderful, Brett. And I am sure it will be a lot less hard than you think. Really.

    But yeah recipe-testing does sound terribly official and serious. Better pair it with a lot of wine to take the edge off.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Brett and Mary, congratulations! I can see the book in my mind already. Taste it, too!

    ReplyDelete
  8. Great job, Brett! I would be more than willing to test recipes. But I'm in the belly of the South. You can get Vietnamese and Indian delicacies at the local farmer's market. But I don't think they have a Minnesotan section.

    Jim

    ReplyDelete
  9. Wow! Congratulations!

    ReplyDelete
  10. Sign me up for test recipes. I'll try anything, test anything, eat anything.

    Congratulations of course!

    ReplyDelete
  11. Congratulations! That's all I can say. Congratulations. If there is anything I can do to help, let me know. Very proud of you.
    Charlie Leck

    ReplyDelete
  12. Way cool.
    Pick me! Pick me! to help test recipes!

    ReplyDelete
  13. You don't know me but I love your blog and have been following it for about six months now. My partner and I (we live in Minneapolis) would love to test recipes for your cookbook. So exciting!

    ReplyDelete
  14. Thanks so much, all, for the good wishes. As I get things a bit more organized, the recipes somewhat standardized, I'll be in touch with you generous folks who've offered to help. Of course, if you have made anything from a past post, whether from a detailed recipe or the more descriptive ones, I'd love to hear how the dish turned out.

    Again, thanks to everyone for the kind remarks, and for reading~ Brett

    ReplyDelete
  15. awesome! I would be more than willing to test recipes.
    Congratulations!

    ReplyDelete
  16. It's about time! Good going!

    ReplyDelete
  17. Wow! Congratulations on the book deal Brett. That's wonderful news. Smart people over there at Borealis Books. I am glad the blog will find its way to the more permanent home of a book, with your beautiful photos to illustrate it. Sign me up for recipe testing! Can't wait for a book signing event at the market...very cool. And I love your tagline.

    ReplyDelete
  18. Thanks, Hillary & Lela. Much appreciated.

    Brett

    ReplyDelete
  19. Wonderful news! Your writing is beautiful, your photographs are gorgeous, and your blog is always filled with good things! Congratulations.

    ReplyDelete
  20. Thanks so much for the kind words, Patrick. You know we belong to a mutual admiration society...!

    Best~ Brett

    ReplyDelete
  21. Thanks for the ideas. There's always something new to learn and improve on in this mad internet world. Uptiming is surely something to keep an eye on.

    ReplyDelete
  22. I like your post to its very effective and your blog template is according to your blog.

    ReplyDelete