Autumn Omakase, A Tasting Menu from Tatsu Nishino of Nishino, October 5, 2005 — Just a short note to say WOW! The response to our new electronic cookbook Autumn Omakase, a Tasting Menu from Tatsu Nishino of Nishino has been overwhelming. It should be known that these books we've been doing are truly a team effort. I want to thank: Peyman for his gorgeous and authentic photographs, Jenny for the beautiful and natural aesthetic and design, Debbie for her hardcore editing keeping the verbosity to a minimum, and Alex for the days he spent in the kitchen and running around Seattle shopping to make sure the recipes actually worked as written. And of course, Tatsu Nishino and his wife who were gracious enough to share their time with us. Tatsu spent a significant chunk of his busy schedule walking us through (and re-walking us through) every detail of how he prepares those delectable dishes. One of my favorite moments of each of the books we've made has been when we did the test dinner and the chef comes and eats his food that we prepared from a draft of the book. In Tatsu Nishino's case I remember one key moment where he took barely a fraction of a bite into one of the dishes and immediately and gently called back to us in the kitchen "did you forget the salt?" Sure enough. The fact that he zeroed in right off the bat is no big surprise. Still the intimate access that we got to seeing how this wonderful food is made and being able to represent it in such detail and live it (as best we could with our skill set) was really super exciting. Hopefully that comes through in the book itself.

And most importantly, thanks everyone for the huge number of downloads as well as the fantastic feedback on the book. The response of folks on the web is what motivates us to spend all this time making these little creations.

Next post, back to regular programming.