How Heidi Swanson made 101 Cookbooks

It’s difficult to discern which came first for Swanson, the photography or the cooking (which has been described by chef Yotam Ottolenghi as “luscious, fresh, wholesome and completely enticing”). For her, the two have always gone hand-in-hand.
“Cooking always appealed to my creative side. The colour, textures, ingredients’ palettes and recipes are a great lens into exploring broader culture,” she says
“The idea that you can go off and explore food through ingredients, place, an individual or a book, and then circle back and hang those observations or impressions on a recipe, appeals to me. And capturing what I was excited about via photography felt like a natural way to communicate for me.”
Swanson’s aesthetic and culinary sensibility was soon picked up by traditional publishers, for whom she’s written and photographed four cookbooks over the past 10 years. She describes her latest, Near & Far, as a personal travel journal, with recipes and photographs from the countries that have most inspired her cooking – Morocco, Japan, Italy, France and India, as well as her hometown of San Francisco.
“While the books are related to the site in sensibility, they’ve all been independent of the site with new recipes, new photography, different focus and concepts,” she says. “A lot of people seem very interested in how to propose [or pitch] a cookbook, and one of the more popular series on my site was when I went into depth about the cookbook proposal process.”

In these posts Swanson explains in great detail how to put together a proposal for a book, using Near & Far as an example, with images of her sketches, planning and mock-ups of the layouts. It has led to a conversation with an audience hungry for information on how to publish their own books. Having the ability to connect with her readers in these various ways is one aspect of blogging that has evolved in recent years.
“The main thing that has changed for me is that there used to be a very direct channel of communication between me and my readers – everything lived at 101cookbooks.com,” says Swanson. “That’s just not the case now, and it’s pretty amazing. I end up sharing (in different ways) via Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook.
“Also, in the earliest days it was writing, and then writing and photography, and now writing, photography and video. So the blog or website is part of it, but there’s the opportunity to have a lot more going on. It’s about information, a point of view, and which tools and networks you want to use to communicate and share. Figuring out which tools resonate with you creatively is key.”
Now that her fourth cookbook is out, Swanson’s time is mostly spent on the blog and her online shop.
“I focus a lot of my time on Quitokeeto. Wayne, my partner, and I tend to come across really incredible culinary items, usually through friends or travel, and a few years ago we decided to choose a number of our favourite producers – knife makers, Californian ceramicists, vintage culinary – and highlight them in a shop,” she says.
“We put a lot of care into everything related Quitokeeto – we source and photograph all the products, pack every box and handle all the merchandising. We only stock items we love having in our own home and kitchen. I feel like that is part of what differentiates us and is why we have such an incredible customer base.”
For Swanson, blogging is a launch pad for other creative endeavours and she is constantly inspired by the tools that exist – and continue to emerge. “As far as media, and correspondingly photography, goes, it’s a really interesting, exciting and transitional time,” she says.
“The way video tools and platforms have moved away from big, expensive productions toward casual, hand-held personal narratives and storytelling – I love it and can’t wait to see how platforms like Instagram Stories and Snapchat evolve.
“It reminds me of the earliest blogging days, when expensive custom content-management systems became nearly obsolete because of tools like Grey Matter, Moveable Type, Blogger, etc. It very quickly impacted everything.
“It feels like we’re finally there on the video front now. The intersection of cameras, networks, editing tools and individual content is finally at this really amazing, powerful point, and it entirely changes the chemistry of the water we’ve been swimming in.”
This article was first published in the December 2016 issue of BJP, which is still available from thebjpshop.com. 101cookbooks.com