Award Winning Excellenc Attained

Yesterday I featured Stephanie Savors the Moment as a blog post. To share a bit more about the history of this great title here is a bit of background.

In 2000, FRP had the privilege of publishing Savor the Moment by the Junior League of Boca Raton.  This League had been discussing the publication for at least 5 years prior to the actual publication.  They knew what they wanted but pulling if off would take hard work and real leadership.

To the forefront stepped Cindy Krebsbach.  Cindy was a dynamo who does not know the meaning of "can't".  This group of women decided early on that they wanted to create an award winning book and they kept that vision in front of them with every decision they made along the way.  I am happy to say that the book did win an array of awards as is chronicled in the articles you will read later.  Savor the Moment is the first self-published book to win a James Beard Foundation Award.

After 10 years of continuous print sales, the book remans a top seller in the community of Boca Raton, FL.  I hope you enjoy the memories the individuals who worked to develop Savor the Moment have to share.

Legacy of Succes:  Savor the Moment    

by Regan Such

FOR THE PAST 10 YEARS, PEOPLE FROM BOCA RATON AND BEYOND HAVE ENJOYED THE CULINARY CREATIONS OF THE JLBR'S JAMES BEARD AWARD-WINNING COOKBOOK, SAVOR THE MOMENT. IT IS THE ONLY JUNIOR LEAGUE COOKBOOK TO EVER WIN A JAMES BEARD AWARD.LOTS OF TIME, ENERGY AND PASSION WENT INTO THE CREATION OF THIS PHENOMENAL BOOK THAT HAS RAISED OVER $500,000 FOR THE JLBR AND ITS COMMUNITY PROJECTS. IN HONOR OF THE 10TH ANNIVERSARY OF ITS PUBLICATION, LET’S REVISIT THE HISTORY OF THE FABULOUS COOKBOOK THAT HAS MADE US ALL SO PROUD.

In the Beginning, the idea of taking on a Junior League cookbook is a momentous task. Previous boards had concerns about the upfront costs of printing thousands of books, not to mention the workload of writing, confirming recipes and tasting each dish for quality control. Well, to be fair the tasting part always sounded like fun!
Incoming President Ellen Malone’s New Board Dinner in 1996 was when the chemistry really came together. Emerging from a beautiful round table in Sustainer Vicki Barbar’s house, a small group agreed it was finally time to take action. The result was the formation of a taskforce by 1997 to research the viability of a new fundraiser in the form of a new cookbook for JLBR. Before long, the six woman task force bloomed into a committee of almost 60 with future JLBR President Cindy Krebsbach at the helm as chair. There were many amazing and innovative women involved in this process and we asked several of them to share their memories with us.

Cindy Krebsbach remembers: “I still dream about all the pink recipe collection forms and the potential for another book just from the reject recipes! Those little pink forms were “our life” from the 1997 November General Membership Meeting until we turned in the recipes in March of 1999. At the November GMM we handed every member ten forms, which were clipped with a “chip clip” that read: JLBR Chip in Recipes! I would go to the office every couple of days just to see what recipes had come in. Sometimes Mary Lavalle, the JLBR Office Manager at the time, would stop at Publix on the way home from work and get the ingredients to try out a recipe that had come in that day. It was the “buzz” and kept us so entertained!”

 

Kelly Husak remembers: “As the token “non-cook” on the cookbook task force, and later the cookbook committee, I wondered early on if I had landed in the best placement. I found myself among women who cataloged their dinner party place settings in scrapbooks (complete with Polaroids) and kept files of menus they had served! I wondered if I would be found out - that I didn’t read a cookbook like a novel, or own that many that I used. I was wrong, though, I had found the best placement in the oddest place. Even as a sustainer, I stay in close touch with many of the women on that committee. I’m really proud of all the work that we did, and I’m grateful to those of you I haven’t yet met, but who keep the sales going and the funds coming in. While I still don’t catalog my dinner parties, I do make a mean “Magical Toffee”.”

 

Wanda Harrold remembers: “It was three wonderful action-packed years, definitely a labor of love. I know my family has never eaten as well as we did when the recipe tasting was a high priority in our house. The production of a Savor The Moment CD-ROM was also exciting. The idea was actually generated at a General Membership Meeting by a member who said “join the 21st century and put it on a CD!” One of the great benefits of that idea, besides getting the cookbook on a CD, is that we met Robin Deyo and Emily McMullin through their company, Cendyn, which created the CD-ROM. They were easily recruited into the Junior League once they worked with us for a bit and understood what the League was all about.”

 

 

 

What’s in a Name?

 

Lynn Holcomb recalls: “I remember exactly how the name for the cookbook came up! I originally thought of it as we were all trying to name the book, and I threw it out there as a possibility. The night before what we thought was going to be our last photo shoot, I said to Cindy, “Well, I can’t believe that this is going to be our last one! It has been so much work, but so much fun! We all better savor the moment! I still think that would be a great name for the book!” She looked at me with a BIG smile, and said “I think you’re right!”  And that was it! I remember it like it was yesterday!”

 

A Few Minor Challenges:

 

One of the most difficult aspects of designing the look of the cookbook was dealing with food on location. We wanted a book that celebrated our community, but photographing food in the hot Florida sun is not always the easiest task. Again, our committee of stylists and chapter chairs saw to it that we had a platform for the most incredible food in the most spectacular settings. In fact, the twilight shots on the chapter-opening pages of “Appetizers and Beverages” were shot at the crack of dawn after a very long night of prepping food and styling shots in order to get just the right lighting.

 

Karen Edwards remembers: “The photo shoot we did at Darcy Simms’ house was incredible. We actually had people cook each recipe and then we prepped the food to look pretty for the shoot. Everyone brought items they thought would look good either with the food or in the background shot. Most of the time, we even got to sample the food. I still think the CD-ROM is a neat tool since every recipe has a picture.”

 

Debbie Abrams recalls: “We wanted the perfect shot of Old Town Hall in between two palms. But one of the palms was in the wrong place. It made sense for photographers in the future to have access to this shot, too. So, Steven Abrams, who was on the City Council at the time, asked the City if the palm could be moved over and it was. Now, when you see that “perfect shot” of Old Town Hall between the palm trees, you’ll know how it happened.”

 

Emily McMullin recalls: “Ten years ago when Cendyn was a tiny start-up company, we were given the opportunity to produce the CD-ROM of recipes to go along with Savor the Moment. My sister, Robin Deyo, and I were working day and night to make the disc perfect. Once all of the bugs and kinks were worked out, we needed to FedEx the disc to California to have the 10,000 copies made to be included with the book. The JLBR was having a grand kick-off party at the Boca Raton Resort & Club for the unveiling of our new masterpiece.”

 

“The deadline to mail off the CD was here and it still had a few kinks when the FedEx guy came to the office to pick it up. We learned that we could go to another location for the latest drop-off possible. Well, that time came and went! We finally perfected the CD and learned we could drop off the package at the main FedEx facility at the Ft. Lauderdale airport. I hopped in my car and raced down I-95 only to screech to a halt due to a severe accident. The interstate was a parking lot. I called my sister in a panic. This was a big deal for our once-small company, not to mention we had developed great respect and admiration for the committee (and we were hoping to join the League!) If we missed the deadline what would this mean for Cendyn? Would we still be allowed to join the JLBR? As I was sitting on I-95, I noticed a FedEx 18-wheeler a few feet away! I was still on the phone with Robin and she suggested I ask if the driver was able to take the package. I was a bit teary-eyed, but begged the driver to take the package. He explained that he did not have a scanner therefore he could not take the package. Rats! I could not give up. I put my car in park (on I-95, traffic was still stopped) and started walking looking for another smaller FedEx truck! Well I found one, he had a scanner and he took the package, but said that since he was going to be late to the airport due to the traffic, the package may still not make it out that night. Well, it turned out that everyone was stuck on I-95 for 3 hours that night. Since several delivery trucks were included in that mess, FedEx sent another plane out that night. The CD-ROM was delivered on time and Savor the Moment became the first Junior League cookbook to produce a CD-ROM as a companion to the cookbook.”

 

STM in The City

 

Wanda Harrold remembers: “Winning the prestigious James Beard Award stands out, to date, as one of the proudest moments ever for the League. This award is the culinary equivalent of winning an Oscar and it reflects all of the hard work each committee member and every JLBR member who submitted a recipe, held a tasting, or gave time to this project. It was a blast being in New York City for the awards show. We were definitely the most excited group there! Most nominees were very professional and conservative in their acknowledgement of their nomination, they nodded their head and quietly rose to accept their award. When the JLBR was announced as the winner, Brenda Lusher, Cindy Krebsbach, Lisa Mulhall and I jumped for joy and screamed and hugged and carried on like schoolgirls. We did finally pull ourselves together and floated up on stage where Cindy made a beautiful acceptance speech. That morning we had been at Rockefeller Center on the Plaza outside of the Today Show studio. Al Roker briefly interviewed us and we handed out cookbooks to the four anchors of the Today Show. John Ritter and Henry Winkler were the James Beard Award presenters. When “THE FONZ” presented the award to us, he said, “I saw you on the Today Show this morning!”  It was so surreal that one of the all-time coolest guys on TV recognized US in the Big Apple!