I'm on the road, so I'll keep this short and sweet: I posted a new recipe over on Serious Eats. It's for waffled churros and it's a winner. Check it out.
(And if you're hungry for more, there's a waffled ramen recipe you should know about too.)
As ever, there's more waffling to come.
Photo: Waffled Chocolate-Stuffed French Toast (Will It Waffle?)
Waffling continues to ricochet around the Internet, which brings me to something I wrote in the book (isn't that convenient?):
“Waffling is growing. For a long while, after I stopped blogging and while I was working on this book, I wasn’t sure what to expect. Would waffling wane? I needn’t have worried. Waffling did not stop. In fact, it spread.”
(And no, the book is not mostly me navel-gazing about the phenomenon of waffling. If that were the case, I'd have to pay you to take it off my hands. The navel-gazing is mostly confined to two pages out of more than 200. The rest is taken up by recipes and photos. That works out to just less than 1% navel-gazing and 99% recipes and photos. For some reason, my suggestion to highlight this on the cover of the book was rejected. The book also features about 90% fewer parenthetical digressions than the blog, a feature also not chosen to be highlighted. Editors are good.)
But hey! Here are some other waffling experiments I have come across since I last visited the topic:
Six puff pastry waffle variations | Serious Eats
How to make macaroni and cheese waffles | Serious Eats
One-minute waffle iron baked apples | Cupcake Project
Waffled sausage with quail egg and fried sage | i am a food blog
Waffled donuts | i am a food blog
Mapo Tofu Waffle Recipe | i am a food blog
I'll leave you with this:
I just got back from being on the road doing demos and signing books at bookshops in different parts of the country. Some of those shops may still have signed copies of the book on hand. So if you're looking to pick up a signed copy of "Will It Waffle?" for yourself or as a gift, get in touch:
Chicago: The Chopping Block
Milwaukee: Boswell Book Company
Corte Madera: Book Passage Bookstore & Cafe
Seattle: Book Larder: A Community Cookbook Store
Phoenix: Changing Hands Bookstore
And, as always, you can also find the book at your local bookseller, or on Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Indiebound.
More waffling to come.
When it comes to expanding the boundaries of the waffle iron beyond just waffles, making dessert doesn't seem like such a stretch. Moving from waffles to waffled s'mores (aka s'moreffles) doesn't require the sort of mental recalibration that moving from waffles to, say, a nicely waffled filet mignon might require. (And, yes, recipes for both are in the book.)
So I think dessert is a great entry point for the book. And I'm happy to say that if you sign up for the Blue Plate Special email newsletter, you can download a free ebook with five dessert recipes from "Will It Waffle?". It's that simple. You will be making s'moreffles in no time. Or waffled oatmeal chocolate chip cookies. Or waffled pineapple dusted with chili powder. You get the idea.
Of course, if you're ready to take the plunge and get the book itself, you can pick up a copy at your local bookstore, or find it on Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Indiebound.
The events section of this site has been updated with a ton of waffling events at bookstores around the country. If there's an event near you, check it out! You'll also find details there about my upcoming stops in Chicago, Milwaukee, the Bay Area, Seattle and Phoenix.
To answer a question I received last weekend in Georgia: No, I do not travel with a waffle iron in my bag.
It rides on the seat next to me.
I'm kidding — about at least one of those things.
Andy, Greg and Nathan were kind enough to invite me onto the Table Set podcast. We started out chatting a little bit and eventually the guys went off to waffle on their own. I think you'll like what they came up with (after a little detour through some alternately frightening and funny Betty Crocker territory).
The finer points of traveling with a waffle iron are also discussed.
It's a great listen. Click the image to the right or download it through iTunes.
Waffled Zucchini-Parmesan Fritters
There's a lot of waffling to cover now that the book is out. Let's get right to it.
If you're asking whether I expected to spend Monday morning in Times Square with a crowd yelling "Will it waffle?" behind me, my answer would have to be no. But it happened. Good Morning America invited me on to celebrate the book's release — and, of course, to celebrate waffling. You can see from the clip that we had a lot of fun with it.
Wondering what's actually in the book? Let's take a look at a few recipes.
The Chicago Tribune shares two recipes from the book: Blueberry Cinnamon Muffles (Waffled Muffins) and Waffled Tamale Pie. (The waffled muffins are half muffin, half waffle and better than the sum of even those two parts.)
Food52 includes a recipe for the Waffled Zucchini-Parmesan Fritters pictured at the top of this post. Even with summer winding down in some places, it's worth having one more trick in your bag to use up all that garden zucchini.
Delish.com has a smattering of recipes from the book, including one for Stuffles (Waffled Stuffing) that you will want to file away for Thanksgiving. Or dinner tonight. Whichever.
One last thing: I have my first live waffling event coming up this weekend. I'm headed down south (way down south, considering I'm starting in Canada and "down south" for me could be, like, Upstate New York): I'll be in Decatur, Georgia, at the AJC Decatur Book Festival. It's Sunday, Aug. 31, at noon. I'll demonstrate how to prepare a recipe from the book, take some questions, and sign some books. It'll be fun and I'd love to see you there.
