Juniper: the cookbook

what? why? who cares?

what are you doing?

cookbooks are not for restaurants that go out of business you dummy. cookbooks are for winners! nobody wants to read about how country captain got it’s name, or the best way to make buttermilk biscuits. lame. or why you named a pop-up restaurant after a homicidal southern gothic short story, you weirdo.

shutup. i’m doing this.

-inner dialogue #73

1. Why this, why now?

it has been 28 months since i closed Juniper on July 1st, 2023. it has been 16 months since i closed the last outpost of Sunday Best on June 30th, 2024. my burnout was severe. my mistakes were compounding. i had to step away. for a good while. and I did. i nearly got back into the restaurant world just a few short weeks ago, but that was short-lived and another story for another time. but it occurred to me, that while I may never get back into restaurant life again, i have a story to tell. and I am ready to share it, finally.

i am at a strange moment in my life. i spent most of my professional life chasing something that i was never quite sure of when i was chasing it. now it’s gone. that kind of thing can be devastating, and i suppose, if i’m being honest, it has been. in trying to make sense of it, i want to go back through all of it. this cookbook effort is in part an act of catharsis for me, but it’s also cementing the tiny legacy i may have been able to effect. i dont want all of it to just disappear into the ether of history. so this is me documenting it, and as they say, the internet is forever.

as many of you might recall, i went through a health scare a couple years back and it has made it’s unfortunate return. all of that means that i am sorting through the options before me and what i can realistically do. i have always enjoyed writing, whenever i got around to it, and i have a decade worth of material to pull from. it seems like now is the time, and this is the story i want to tell. and more than that, i want juniper to live on - and it can, through the recipes that get made in your home, and shared with your friends. so I am going to put my all into this, and I hope you all find something in it worth supporting. stories worth re-living. and recipes worth re-creating.

2. Who wants to read this?

my hope is that these stories, and these recipes will appeal to all the former guests at juniper. you all supported us for many years, through menu changes, and location changes, and different chefs. you celebrated birthdays and anniversaries, graduations, business deals, and all manner of celebratory things. and I speak for myself when I say this, but it was truly an honor that you chose to celebrate with us. it was something that always struck me as the unique honor of any restaurant, that your presence at our table was the result of a deliberative choice to spend your money for the thing we offered. and i took that as a kind of sacred obligation.

so, naturally, this cookbook and these stories are for you. it's something of a legacy that I am sharing with those of you who will value it for what it is, and what it was.

it might be the case that this community grows beyond the scope of former Juniper guests, folks that might be interested in a behind-the-scenes view of a restaurant with it’s warts, struggles, and successes. And of course, the recipes, from the bread basket to the fried chicken - surely, that will have some appeal. i have no real sense of how well, or how poorly, this might turn out. i might only get 10 folks sign up, or i might get a lot. i don’t know. i’m hoping for a lot.

3. what do we get?

there will be some learning in this journey, of that i can be sure. my first thought was to send out 1 email per month, with all the articles and recipes included. that might not be the best method, and instead i might break it up on a weekly basis and keep everyone engaged. i have until january to sort out how that will work once the project officially begins. i am open to feedback, so please give it. if this is a community, and i hope it will function that way, then i hope to hear from you and ways in which i can improve.

as for now, for those of you who have signed up early, i will be sending out my Thanksgiving and Christmas links on the 15th of each month. in january, i am going to begin our journey with A Good Man is Hard to Find, which was the pop-up that inspired Juniper. i’ll tell that story, and share some of the recipes that made that pop-up successful. then in February, we will begin with 2013 and some of the early recipes. did you know that when we first opened, we had two different types of fried chicken on the menu? we did! i’ll share one of those recipes, the other will come later. wink wink.

for those of you that have signed up to be a founding supporter, thank you! you will have direct access to me. each month I will be hosting a live q&a via zoom, where we will go over recipes, i’ll answer your questions. it’ll be our very own virtual classroom. eventually, once i figure out the logistics, we will move to in-person cooking classes where we make some of the recipes together, in PERSON! How ‘bout the apples. depending on how many folks sign up, i will most likely have multiple dates available so everyone has a chance to make it work with their schedule.

4. well, what are you waiting for?

like i said, no idea if this is gonna take or not. but if you like it, and think others might too…sign up, tell your friends to sign up too.

5. let’s go!

it’s too late now. i jumped off the ledge. im doing this. hope you guys come along for the journey!

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