Welcome to Let’s Get Lost! I’m Rebecca, a recipe developer, food photographer, passionate people watcher, and chaser of new experiences. You might know me from my recipe websites, Of Batter and Dough and A Little and A Lot.
My husband and I are nomads without a home base but with many modes of transportation, namely an RV, a motorcycle, and a sailboat. I write recipes and stories for curious people who believe experiences are more important than things and who want more adventure.
—> Get this and every issue and recipe directly on rebeccablackwell.com.
Are you a fellow food writer or recipe developer? Here are three resources just for you!
10 things worth sharing
I was inspired this week by my friend Laurie Mucha, who published a list of 10 things worth sharing. I decided to follow her lead in this week’s issue, starting with an invitation to join Laurie and me on Tuesday for a LIVE conversation about living, working, and running a business from the road.
#1: Join me LIVE this week
A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about some of the frequently asked questions we get about our life as nomads without a home base. Laurie Mucha responded to that post with this comment:
I have follow up questions around running a creative business on the road…. Can we do a Substack Live? On the agenda: batching work, scheduling in various time zones, staying focused, work/life balance, etc etc etc.
Well, sure!
Join Laurie and me this Tuesday, October 27th at 11:00am Eastern to talk about living, working, and running a business from the road.
#2. Baking with Anne
Earlier this week, my pastry chef daughter and I taught a class on Substack LIVE about how to make a German Apple Pie. We offer tips about what pie crust to use and how to cut the apples, and we show you how to make a regular-size pie or cute little four-inch mini pies!
German Apple Pie is seriously one of the easiest and creamiest apple pies I’ve ever baked. The filling is simply apples coated in cinnamon and sugar, covered in cream and sprinkled with sugar. And oh my, is it delicious!
#3. Book proposal hot seat
In the middle of a conversation with Kelsey Erin Shipman on Monday, she asked if I’d be willing to talk over Substack LIVE about a book proposal I’m working on. Kelsey is the master of book proposals, so I would never in a million years turn down a chance to get her advice and feedback. I knew I’d get a lot out of our conversation, and I was not disappointed. Here’s where to watch it.
Also, yes, I am writing the book we discuss in this conversation. 🙂
#4. New Road Food Recipe: Pumpkin Miso Chocolate Chip Cake!
Why have I never thought to pair pumpkin and miso before? It’s a lavishly interesting combination. I’m picturing it in soup, pasta, and maybe gnocchi? Maybe some kind of roasted pumpkin salad?
Or maybe just more of this cake.
This pumpkin miso chocolate chip cake combines pumpkin, maple syrup, cinnamon, and cloves with all the interesting flavors of white miso and little pockets of semisweet chocolate. This cake is dense but not heavy, exceptionally moist, and not too sweet. Wrap slices individually for road trips, picnics, and packed lunches, or freeze a stash for another day.
Get the recipe: Pumpkin Miso Chocolate Chip Cake
#5. SEO for Food Writers
This is the latest class in The Food Writers Business Lab and it’s one of the most important, challenging, frustrating, and essential topics for food writers today. SEO has always been a moving target and a thorn in the side of recipe creators and food writers who just want to do good work and put it out there into the world. But, it’s especially thorny at the moment with AI taking over, well, everything.
And still, anyone who publishes anything online knows that hitting the publish button is only part of the story. Your work also has to get found. That’s what this class is about. It’s a messy subject. But also more important than ever.
#6. New Recipe! Roasted Carrot Soup
This soup is so stereotypically fall it’s almost satirical. Having said that, I don’t want you to think for one moment that it’s predictable, and it’s certainly not boring.
Roasting intensifies the flavor of the carrots and adds some complexity that didn’t exist before the veggies went into the oven. I think of roasting as giving nature a hand. Like, ok, thank you, mother nature for putting all that sweet, earthy flavor in these carrots, but I’ll take it from here.
Aside from roasting the carrots, the only other steps involved here are making a quick broth and then pureeing everything in a blender. Peeling the carrots is the most time-consuming step. And if you use baby carrots, you don’t even need to do that. Get the recipe: Roasted Carrot Soup
#7. Pumpkin muffins with no butter or oil
Kalee Tilli - Table Root Farm and Rose Huxford have been talking about pumpkin everything this month and sharing so many mouthwatering recipes that I had to bake one of them.
Rose shared a recipe for dairy and oil free pumpkin donuts (get the recipe here) and then Kalee turned them into muffins. I did the same, but added some chopped apples because I have a refrigerator full of them.
They were so good! I am genuinely impressed with how tender and moist they are with absolutely no butter or oil.
#8. The Magnolia Palace
I just finished reading The Magnolia Palace and then had the pleasure of an evening chat about the book with three friends, all of us in different states. We organized the conversation over Zoom, and I can’t think of a better way to spend a Thursday night.
The book is my favorite kind of historical fiction in that the author does a great job of weaving a fictional story into historical facts. One of the main characters is based on Audrey Munson, a tragic figure known as America’s first supermodel.
#9. Motorcycles and cheeseburger quesadillas
Steve and I have covered the entire country on this motorcycle. Before we moved into the RV, when we still lived in Colorado, we rode it through every single state except Hawaii (we rented a bike in Hawaii). We even rode it all the way up to Alaska.
These days the motorcycle gets a lift in the RV when we are traveling long distances. And, now that we spend our summers on a sailboat, it doesn’t get ridden as much as it used to. But, there is still nothing quite like the feeling of freedom that comes with my arms around Steve’s waist and a stretch of open road, even if we are just riding down a highway to a restaurant in North Platte, Nebraska, which is what we did last weekend.
We discovered Pal’s Brewing Company several years ago and make a point to go there whenever we are in the area. On a visit last year, I ordered their cheeseburger quesadilla and liked it so much that I came home and made my own version. Here’s where you can get the recipe: Cheeseburger Quesadilla
#10. Breakfast tostadas
These breakfast tostadas are, hands down, one of my favorite things to eat for breakfast or any time of the day. A crispy fried corn tortilla topped with scrambled eggs, spicy Peruvian green sauce (Aji sauce), and chopped cherry tomatoes. I made the sauce yesterday, so the whole thing took maybe 10 minutes.
I published the recipe for Aji Sauce in this issue from 2024. I can imagine very few things a spoonful of this herby, savory, slightly spicy sauce doesn’t make more delicious. Making it requires nothing more than piling all the ingredients into a blender and pressing the power button, so the effort to reward ratio is heavily skewed to the reward side. Just as we like it.
Also, try Aji Sauce on these Saucy Salmon and Rice Bowls. These super simple, extremely versatile salmon bowls are the kind of thing I love to make when I want a meal that tastes decadent, feels virtuous, and doesn’t take a lot of effort. In other words, salmon bowls are on the menu all the time at our house.
To all my paid subscribers: This newsletter would not exist without your generous support. The CookStack Collective classes and the new Road Food series are exclusively available to you. They are two ways for me to say thank you.
Join me for the November CookStack Collective class where Kerry Faber will show us how to make one of her favorite cozy fall dishes: Cabbage-Wrapped Chicken Parm Meatballs! Here’s where to get more information and register!
❤️ Did you know that if you hit the heart or recycle symbol at the top or bottom of this post, it makes it easier for other people to find this newsletter?