I was very excited to go meet David Lebovitz at Border's for the book signing of his new book, Ready For Dessert. I had no idea who David Lebovitz was until a few months ago. I had just gotten my first ice cream maker and it was my new baby. Everything I made was in the form of a frozen treat. My fellow work friend foodie introduced me to his book The Perfect Scoop. I photocopied several recipes. Mmmmm... chocolate peanut butter was one of the best. The froyo was a great Pinkberry alternative.
A short while after that when I started to blog, I came across his name again. Turns out David Lebovitz is also a well known food blogger. While reading his blog on Monday, I found out that he was doing a book signing in NYC and had to go. I was curious to see what his personality would be like compared to his blog.
When I arrived at Border's about 40 minutes early, I was barley able to get a seat. One of the staff said that he's not very popular so they did not expect a big turnout. I overheard the manager telling his staff to find every chair the store had. Even with the extra chairs there were still many left standing.
My signed copy of Ready for Dessert.
David talked for about a half hour. More in a long maze of tangents than about any one thing in particular. Of course he mentioned his current book, Ready For Dessert. He stated that this book was meant to be a compilation of his other two cookbooks. Instead of a compilation, he ended up spending over a year and half re-writing each of his recipes. The recipes in the book are gourmet, such as Guinness Gingerbread Cupcakes, Five Spice Cookie Cups, and Pistachio-Cardamom Cake. While the pictures are beautiful and look delectable they are not practical. The photographs are spread though out the book and there are many recipes without a picture. The photos are more of a inspiration than a how to. Another common critique I read, in many reviews for this book, criticized the skill needed for the recipes. Some of them do look rather complex. I am going to set my sights low and start with the Chocolate Orbit Cake. This cake Lebovitz writes was designed to be fool proof, a recipe any idiot can follow. Somehow I know I can still manage to mess it up.
I found David to be a laid back and someone who did not sensor his thoughts. Several times he mentioned that he often gets hate e-mail about some of the things he writes about in his blog. Or he would tell a story and than say oops, I shouldn't have said that, there I go offending another group of people. Though at times he was hard to follow (going off on so many tangents) He didn't seem much a group speaker, speaking with a bit of uneasiness. He finished with a short question and answer secession. Q: Can you tell us something you would not blog about? A: I wear briefs, who wants to wear shorts under their pants? Q: How do you stay so thin? A: Yoga. Q: Are you ever going to move back to the states? A: Who knows!
I was glad I went. Blogging can be great for someone like me who can prefer writing to speaking but still enjoys the feedback and banter. However, sometimes you still need a little face time.