Her Story
About Lynn
My journey in the culinary field began with my father, who loved gourmet cooking and trained with a professional chef in his 20s just for his own enjoyment. His ambition for retirement was to open his own restaurant, and my plan was to get a culinary degree and work with him, but unfortunately, he died prematurely. I worked in the Army as a cook, and later I was able to go to culinary school like I always wanted and get a degree in it at Pima Community College here in Tucson. I feel like I've been doing it my whole life. After finishing culinary school, I worked at a tea room here in Tucson for 12 years until they closed their doors. Right now, I can't really work in the culinary field because of my disabilities, so I am actually writing cookbooks, combining my writing with my culinary expertise. I've published a beverage cookbook on Amazon called Thirst Quenchers, which features healthy sodas, homemade sodas, flavored lemonades, and iced teas. I'm currently working on several other cookbooks as well as some novels. I publish with Chime Press now, and my publisher is amazing. We got my novel on the bestseller list. I write horror fiction, and I would eventually like to join organizations like the Horror Writers of America. The biggest challenges I face in cookbook writing are the photography requirements and coming up with unique recipes that haven't been done before, as well as testing recipes to make sure they work properly.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Lynn
01What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
With writing, read the classics, read the people that have been there. Even if it's something like Jane Austen, read as much as you can because you can learn stuff from other writers. If you want to do a murder mystery, read Agatha Christie, read Dorothy Sayers, read people who have established themselves to get an idea of how a well-written story is put together. Don't copy them, but try to learn from them. Use them as kind of a schoolroom. With cooking, read recipes and see how things are put together before you try to invent your own recipe, because recipes is almost like doing chemistry. If you put too much salt in the dough, it'll kill your yeast. Practice until it comes out perfect. It takes work if you want to do it well. Anything takes work. It's good to learn from the people who are established in your field, whatever field you're into.
02What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in your field right now?
In culinary, the biggest challenge for me is the plating - getting something plated where it's visually appealing. I have some issues with things like ADD, so it's sort of a focus thing. In cookbook writing, the biggest challenge is the photography. Nowadays, you pretty much have to have a picture for every recipe, which wasn't necessary in the past. If you try to keep the page limit down, you actually limit how many recipes you can have in the cookbook, so you have to decide whether you want a very thick cookbook with many recipes and pictures, or a much thinner cookbook. Another challenge is trying to come up with unique recipes, trying to come up with stuff that hasn't been done before. You could come up with a wonderful idea and then discover that six other people have come up with something almost identical. You also have to test recipes - some people don't test recipes, but if you try a recipe and there's something wrong with it or the instructions don't make sense, you need to know your product, know what you're doing, and how something should turn out. If it doesn't turn out, figure out what went wrong and adjust it to get something that you are proud of.
Keep Exploring
More Influential Women · Arizona
Join Influential Women and start making an impact. Register now.