Cravings: Hungry for More

Introduction

Welcome to my second cookbook . . . so glad you came!

Two and half years have passed since Cravings hit the shelves, and the most popular question I got during the entire process of writing book two was “So what’s the theeeeeeme of the next one??” My first reaction was, “More of the same, OK??” because honestly, I’m not really into gimmick books like 500-Calorie, Three-Ingredient Meals in Under Ten Minutes. I want lifetime books, books that sit on my shelf for years and years and years with sticky pages and balsamic fingerprints.

But the truth is, this book isn’t a carbon copy of the first one at all. A lot has happened over that time—you could even say I’ve . . . grown up a little? I got to travel and taste more things around the world, and this book has some recipes with brighter flavors and maybe slightly less cheese and gravy and . . . ham than Cravings. (Not that there’s anything wrong with those things! It’s just that I realized that it’s also nice to eat really well, even indulgently, without a food-coma nap.)

Speaking of sleep (hey, I’m a newish mom and every new mom will tell you sleep is literally the only thing you think about), I have to tell you that I barely slept a wink between the time the first book was sent off to the printer and the day it went on sale in February 2016. I had toothpick-eyes nightly, wondering, Would you buy my book? Would you make my food? Would you like it? Would you get food poisoning or drunk from a bread pudding loaded with booze? Were there any errors? OH MY GOD, did I write to use a cup of salt when I meant sugar?? Would I PUBLISH MY OWN PHONE NUMBER ON MY DOG’S COLLAR IN A PHOTO? (YES.)

And then your tweets and posts and cooking parties started—there were even people who made EVERY recipe and documented it—and I swear this meant everything to me, more than any article or review or annoying think-piece interview about whether a model could actually cook.

Yes, I can cook because ANYONE can, and that was the whole entire point of Cravings in the first place. You proved my theory and then some, and then some, and then some more—all the way to the top of the New York Times bestseller list!

A lot has changed since then, obviously—we’ve got Luna, another bebé on the way (by the time this book comes out this boy-child will have also arrived). We moved. And I got really, really sick. Postpartum depression really kicked me in the ass, and it took me a while to get strong again, to feel good, to get off the couch and, quite frankly, to have an appetite for anything but a pillow and blanket. But in those dark times, I became strictly a couch-sleeper, keeping robes in my pantry so I wouldn’t have to go upstairs to change. And John slept on that couch with me every. single. night.

One of the ways I knew I was healing was that I found my way back into the kitchen, at first slowly, and maybe just to watch my mom put together something simple in the hopes that I might take a few bites. It sounds like a cliché, but starting to cook again really helped me get back on my feet and get back into normal life. So this book is filled with food that served as landmarks in my road map to something resembling normalcy (or as normal as a crazy life like mine can be).

Cooking has always been my safe haven, even when things around me are changing at warp speed. So I hope this book is as stabilizing and filling a force in your life as the making of it was for me. The good part is, no matter how you feel, I know you’ll be sure to let me know! I wouldn’t have it any other way.


Xoxoxo,

Chrissy