A pristine copy of Trisha Cole’s new book—a compilation of recipes, life hacks, poetry, puzzles, hand-drawn illustrations, photographs, and more—shouldn’t stay pristine for too long, its author advised her readers.
“The book is very much a workbook, and I even say in the introduction that I encourage readers to use it, and spill on it, and write their own notes in the pages,” Cole said in an email interview. “My own copy has already become well-worn as I find myself flipping to the pages of recipes that I love to make.”
Coffee stains and tomato sauce splatters are among the welcomed imprints Cole lists in her intro to Life at the Dumpling, a 168-page book that collects various lifestyle-centric newsletters she mailed—in postmarked envelopes, not over email—to hundreds of recipients during the pandemic.
Released earlier this year, the book highlights more than 60 recipes for meals, appetizers, snacks, cocktails, and more, and is currently available at a handful of local outlets, including Alisal Ranch in Solvang and Field Day Coffee in San Luis Obispo.
For the past 20 years, Cole has worked in marketing and content creation for several hospitality, travel, and food destinations—including Cuyama Buckhorn, where she put the final touches on Life at the Dumpling before it was published earlier this year.
“Cuyama Buckhorn graciously let us use their conference room, and we spent two straight days taking the newsletter into book form,” said Cole, who thanked her friend Amy Segal-Burke for her help during the copy-editing period, and hotel owners Ferial Sadeghian and Jeff Vance for lending some space for the duo to work.
“We’d lay out the copy and print the pages, and then I would redraw all the art before giving back to her to scan and upload,” Cole explained.
Each page of Cole’s original newsletters included hand-drawn illustrations, which she needed to redo for the book version due to a restructuring decision.
“When it came time to put the book together, I had to redraw every line because we reformatted … so that now each newsletter is a chapter, from four to eight pages long,” Cole said. “The beauty of the book is that now the recipes are more spread out and easier to read. … There wasn’t a lot of real estate on an 11-by-17 single-sided page.”
Many of Cole’s featured illustrations are black and white, the author added, so someone could use Life at the Dumpling “as a coloring book if they wanted to,” she said.
“While the book is a compilation of the newsletters, it is also in many ways a memoir, a keepsake for us all of a pivotal time, and also very much a guidebook for good living that is accessible to anyone,” Cole said of her multi-faceted work, which includes at least one recipe per chapter, accompanied by nuanced blog-style observations that document her day-to-day life during the pandemic, inside and outside the kitchen.
“The recipes are all for simple, delicious dishes that were easy to make, and with ingredients that are easy to procure,” the author said. “The book has lots of soups and salads, and then a bit of everything else—cakes, sides, quick appetizers, and more. … They all have a little story and an explanation for why I was sharing them.”
Some recipes in Life at the Dumpling correlate with specific themes Cole chose, found in a chapter dedicated to car camping tips and campfire meals, for example, while others are shared recipes laced with nostalgia, including her high school French teacher’s instructions on how to make “the best tortilla soup.”
Cole’s decision to explore culinary topics in her original newsletters and eventual compilation is not the reason the word dumpling is in the final book’s title, as “the dumpling” is her family’s nickname for their home in LA.
She and her husband, Bruce, bought the house about 20 years ago. It was a fixer-upper, with overgrown landscaping and other issues, but they saw the good in it, Cole said.
“You have to understand that the house had been on the market for over a year, and no one had made an offer. … We brought my parents to see it. As we showed them around, they got very quiet,” Cole recalled, “and when I asked my mom what she thought, she responded, ‘You guys! You’ve bought such a dump!’”
“Bruce, being the sensitive Pisces that he is, immediately shot back, ‘It isn’t a dump, it’s a dumpling,’” Cole said, “and the name stuck.”
Send your favorite nicknames to Arts Editor Caleb Wiseblood at cwiseblood@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Dec 5-15, 2024.