Episode 91: Behind The Scenes of a Cookbook: Pâtissière, Editor, Recipe Tester Mardi Balgochian

Welcome back to another Behind The Scenes of a Cookbook episode of the podcast. Today on the podcast I had the pleasure of interviewing Mardi Balgochian. Mardi is a  French-trained pâtissière, recipe tester and cookbook editor. She has degrees in English and Communications, and her professional experience is in corporate communications where she worked in defense, energy, food & beverage, and biotechnology. A few years ago, she had that “if not now, when?” moment and moved to Paris to earn a culinary diploma, specifically in French pâtisserie. Now, she endeavors to pair her professional experience with her passion for pastry.

As an editor here are a few tips from Mardi for cookbook writers: 

(1) get your recipes tested by trained chefs and home cooks (if that’s your audience)

(2) definitely work with an editor if you decide to self-publish.

Things We Mention In This Episode:

Connect with Mardi’s at her blog Love and Butter

Mardi’s Go-To Baking and Pastry Books:

The Pastry Chef’s Little Black Book (Chefs Michael Zebrowski and Michael Mignano)

The Pastry Chef’s Little Black Book – Volume II (Chefs Michael Zebrowski and Michael Mignano)

The Professional Pastry Chef (Bo Friberg)

French Pâtisserie (Ferrandi)

Classic Baking References:

Baking Chez Moi (Dorie Greenspan)

Pie & Pastry Bible (Rose Levy Beranbaum)

Baking Bible (Rose Levy Beranbaum)

Lickerland (Jason Licker) – this is the one Mardi mentioned  that was classic pastry with Asian flavors

French Patisserie Books by French Chefs (in French):

Choux (Philippe Conticini)

Fou de Patisserie (Fou de Patisserie – book is out of print, but they have others and a magazine) 

Armenian Cookbooks:

Treasured Armenian Recipes (Detroit AGBU)

Harametzek (St. James, Watertown, MA – out of print)

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