“You look familiar,” Marge said.
“Maybe it was because I was here five months ago,” the woman said. “I’m from the Statewide Bookstore. I bought a couple of boxes of your cookbook. We’re almost out of them now and I’d like to get a couple more boxes.”
“Come on in,” Marge said. “Let’s see what we got. We haven’t been selling many of them lately, but there’s been a steady trickle over the last few months.”
“Is this house new?” the woman asked.
“Yeah,” Marge said. “We’ve had some difficulties here.”
“I’ve heard. I’m glad you’re still around.”
“Me, too.” Marge found the boxes of cookbooks in a corner of a closet in a back room. “Looks like we’ve got four boxes left.”
“Great. Like I said, I’d like to buy a couple of boxes for the store.”
“Let me help you get these into your car and then you can pay for them at the produce stand.”
Each of the women grabbed a box and they carried them out of the house. When they were loaded into the car, Marge and the woman from the bookstore headed over to the produce stand.
Paul G was at the stand working with Cat and Blue Sky. Since Cat and Blue Sky were busy, Paul G rang up the order.
“Will that be it?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said. “Unless you have having any other books that you folks have written. We’re always looking for new books.”
“No other books that I know of,” Paul G said. “Of course, I didn’t even know about this one until today.”
“Nope,” Cat chimed in. “That’s all we wrote.”
“Well, I’m glad you wrote it because we’re happy to sell it.”
When the woman left, Blue Sky asked about the cookbook.
“We wrote it last year and it was published in January,” Marge said. She had stayed for a moment. “We’ve only got two boxes left. Maybe it’s time to reprint it.”
“No,” Cat said.
“You don’t want to reprint it?” asked Paul G.
“No,” Cat said again. “I don’t think we should reprint it.”
“Okay,” Marge said. “I know that there’s gotta be more than that. You’ve got something in mind. I know it. So what’s the rest of it?”
“I don’t think we should reprint it. I think we should revise it.”
*
“That makes sense,” Nancy said when she heard what Cat said. “I’ll bet we could get a lot of new recipes for the new edition.”
“Oh great,” Dan said. “Now we’ve got to start collecting stuff all over again.”
“And we should really revise a bunch of it,” Viv said. “I’ve learned a heck of a lot more about sprouting and krauting. Enough so I want to change much of what I wrote in the book.”
Soon Nancy and Dan started going around to everyone, even the BBAAers and the ex-Trollworkers, getting new recipes and going over ideas and the older recipes and changes to them, consulting with the original cookbook as well as covering lots of additional paper with all the new things people wanted in the book.
“So Luna wants to add a new section on what we’ve learned from growing stuff in the fields and the EcoGreenHouse,” Dan said.
“Yeah, and Cat wants to add a section emphasizing nutritional choices,” Nancy said.
“At least we don’t have to take out the cupcake recipes,” Dan said.
“Yeah but that’s only because I talked Cat out of insisting that we do just that,” Nancy said.
“With all the additional material, I’m worried that we’re going to double the size of the book.”
“I know. Does that mean we get to charge twice as much?”
“I wish,” Dan said.
Nancy looked at all the new stuff in front of her. “How big can the book get before it gets too big?”
“I think that’s what we’ve got to figure out.”
“Yeah,” said Nancy, “and I really think we’re going to need to edit some of this out.”
“Okay but which stuff?”
“Maybe since we’ve got this new recipe for collard snacks we can remove the one for broccoli puffs.”
Dan looked through a dozen pages. “Do you think we really need a second recipe for dandelion pie?”
Slowly, sifting and sorting, Nancy and Dan took all the new ideas and merged them with most of what had been in the book. By the time they were finished with their organizing and editing, the cookbook was only half again as big as the original.
“I think that’s the best that we can do,” Nancy said.
“I agree,” said Dan. “Let’s talk with Ken’s uncle about republishing the book.”
Ken’s uncle was glad to print the revised edition and this time the commune decided to order thirty boxes of the cookbooks.
“Well, at least this time we know it will sell,” Sal said.
“Yeah,” said Marge. “Now all we have to do is wait for the new cookbooks to be printed. Hopefully it won’t take as long as it did last time.”
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