FOOD

How to Cook Up a Cookbook

Ashley McMakin’s Newest Venture Is a Formidable but Fun Project

Ashley McMakin began catering from her home in 2005 and opened her first restaurant in Bluff Park two years later. Now, you can find Ashley Mac’s locations in Cahaba Heights, Homewood, Inverness and Riverchase, plus her newest spot in downtown Birmingham at the Pizitz Food Hall.

By Donna Cornelius

Ashley McMakin has a deft hand at putting the right ingredients together. Since opening Ashley Mac’s 15 years ago, she’s come up with dishes that have made her business a real success story.

Now, she’s cooking up a project that will give Ashley Mac’s fans a chance to re-create some of her favorite recipes in their own kitchens: a cookbook.

The book, which will be published by Hoffman Media, isn’t due out until next spring. But McMakin has been hard at work for some time on all the components involved in such a daunting undertaking: recipe selection, multiple tastings and photo shoots.

“My husband, Andy, encouraged me to do a cookbook, and customers often ask if I’ll share a recipe,” she said. “So this has been years in the making.”

Although she’s always loved to cook, McMakin didn’t originally plan on a fulltime culinary career.

After graduating from Briarwood Christian School, she went on to the University of Alabama. She and Andy met when both were students in UA’s Culverhouse College of Business, and she had set her sights on working in marketing.

She began catering from her home in 2005 and opened her first restaurant in Bluff Park two years later. Now, you can find Ashley Mac’s locations in Cahaba Heights, Homewood, Inverness and Riverchase, plus

her newest spot in downtown Birmingham at the Pizitz Food Hall.

“The cookbook is about how I eat and cook in real life,” McMakin said. “The book will have homestyle dishes, family recipes, things I make for the kids and, of course, some Ashley Mac’s favorites.”

This isn’t McMakin’s first cookbook.

“I made a little one in 2005 called ‘A Taste of Birmingham,’” she said. “I made 50 copies for friends and family. Those friends have always said it’s their most used cookbook, so I knew I had to do a more full-scale one in the future.”

Putting together her new cookbook has been a tad more involved than that first homemade volume. She began meeting with Hoffman Media representatives to talk about the project about a year ago. McMakin said she already had a good relationship with the company; she had worked before with Southern Lady, one of Hoffman’s most popular magazines, and she and Brian Hoffman, president and chief creative officer of Hoffman Media, went to high school together.

“Brian was another person who really encouraged me to do a cookbook,” she said.

Hoffman asked McMakin to bring about 200 recipes to the discussion table so that there would be plen-

‘The cookbook is about how I eat and cook in real life. The book will have homestyle dishes, family recipes, things I make for the kids and, of course, some Ashley Mac’s favorites.’

ASHLEY MCMAKIN

Popular choices for Ashley Mac’s salad trio: pimento cheese, chicken salad and Baby Bleu salad with poppyseed vinaigrette.

FOODIE NEWS

Girlspring Executive Director Kristen Greenwood, second from left, with members of Les Dames d’Escoffier International, from left, Andrea Kirkland, Charbett Cauthen and Stefanie Maloney.

Wonder Women: Chef’s Edition

Girlspring Showcases the Many Careers Available in the Food Industry

By ally Morrison

Girlspring invited chefs, caterers and other industry professionals from the Birmingham Chapter of Les Dames d’Escoffier International to share information about culinary and hospitality careers with girls in fourth grade to high school.

Guests of the April 30 event learned about the many ways to be involved in the culinary world, hearing from restaurant owners, dieticians and catering CEO’s at the Homewood Library.

“Before COVID, we used to have these events called Wonder Women every month,” Executive Director Kristen Greenwood said. “We’re trying to get back into these careerfocused events to give girls an idea of the many different careers available to them.”

Greenwood knew members of the Birmingham Chapter of Les Dames d’Escoffier and thought it would make for a fun event.

Charbett Cauthen, vice president of programs for LDEI, chose a panel of speakers who reflected all aspects of the hospitality industry.

Kristal Bryant, Crystal Peterson, Andrea

Kirkland and Stefanie Maloney all brought interesting backgrounds to the event, ranging from food writers to restaurant owners. “I tried to show a different variation of all the different things we do and the diversity that we have,” Cauthen said. “I did this so that we might touch a few girls and spark an interest in them for the industry.”

Participants had the chance to sample dishes and try exclusive recipes to take home and make for themselves or with their moms.

Cooking Up Fun

Jones Valley Teaching Farm to Offer Foodie Summer Camps

CAMP

From page 26 about food, farming and the culinary arts.

Campers will be able to explore the natural world through inquiry, experimentation and hands-on activities through a week-long camp held at Jones Valley Teaching Farm’s flagship Center for Food Education.

“Camp Grow engages students with the natural world, food, and farming, exploring how it all connects and impacts their lives and communities,” Executive Director of Jones Valley Teaching Farm Amanda Storey said. “Students find joy in hands-on learning and leave passionate about growing and cooking their own food and empowered with life-long skills. Camp Grow bonds students to each other and the community through their shared experiences centered around food.”

Whether it’s following the journey of a growing fruit or vegetable or discovering valuable gardening and culinary skills, a variety of options are waiting for campers of all ages. * Plant To Plate, June 6-10, second to fifth grade. * Kitchen Champs, June 13-17, second to fifth grade. * Green Engineers, June 21-24, second to fifth grade. * Bug Detectives, June 27-July 1, second to fifth grade. * Community, Food and You, July 18-29, sixth to eighth grade. —Ally Morrison

Campers at Jones Valley Teaching Farm will be able to explore the natural world through inquiry, experimentation and hands-on activities.

ASHLEY

From page 26 ty to choose from.

“First, I picked out some Ashley Mac’s recipes that I was comfortable sharing,” McMakin said. “I had to include our strawberry cake, and there’s a recipe for my spin on our chicken salad. Some of them are our archived recipes, like our spicy pimento cheese, egg salad and appletuna salad.”

Many of the recipes that came from Ashley Mac’s had to be scaled down from commercial quantities to family-sized portions.

“I had a good many of my original recipes, because I’d make them at home first,” McMakin said. “And there are so many things that I love to cook at home but not for Ashley Mac’s.”

Food for Occasions

The book doesn’t have a name yet, but it does have chapter titles: Comfort Food 101, Valentine’s Day, Spring Brunch, Summer Porch Parties, Beach Days, Kids’ Favorites, Tailgating, Friendsgiving and Deck the Halls.

“The recipes are for things that people can easily make at home with ingredients that they won’t have trouble finding,” McMakin said.

Hoffman’s involvement in the book has meant that the massive workload hasn’t fallen entirely on McMakin’s shoulders.

“They’re partnering with me to make the recipes for photos and for testing,” McMakin said. “Everything is being made and tasted multiple times.”

She’s also got a built-in tasting panel at her Mountain Brook home. Andy and the couple’s three children haven’t been shy about sharing their opinions.

“For the kids’ chapter in the cookbook, we sat around the dinner table one night and asked the kids about their favorites,” she said.

Her daughter, Mally, who’s 9 years old, wanted Chinese dumplings and fried rice. Sons Ryder, 12, and Jackson, 10, chose pizzas and burgers. Andy got a vote, too.

“My husband loves beef tenderloin, so that’s in our holiday chapter,” McMakin said. “We sell a lot of tenderloins during the holidays.”

She’s not only a soon-to-be cookbook author but a cookbook fan.

“I love, love, love to look at cookbooks,” McMakin said. “I get inspired seeing other people’s takes on food.”

To keep up with and get a behindthe-scenes look at the book’s progress, follow McMakin’s personal Instagram account, ashley_mcmakin. For more about Ashley Mac’s, visit ashleymacs.com or follow the restaurant on social media.

Best Taco: Bare Hands’ Taco Fest Lets Guests Determine the Best Taco

Bare Hands Inc. will present Birmingham Taco Fest on May 21 from 1 p.m. to 6 p.m. at Sloss Furnaces.

Taco Fest will feature Birmingham’s top taco vendors and food trucks, music, children’s activities and local art vendors.

Attendees will be able to vote for the Best Taco and pair their taco selections with locally crafted beverages.

There will be more than 20 participating local food and beverage vendors and a multitude of participating artists.

Bare Hands is a communitysupported arts organization dedicated to cultivating creativity and innovation in metro Birmingham and the surrounding region by creating opportunities for artists and audiences to play an active role in cultural dialogues.

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