The Proper Components
The group of workers on the Ekus Team within the reference library that Lisa Ekus has constructed over the last 40 years.
The Hatfield-based Ekus Team describes itself as a ‘full-service culinary company.’ This can be a distinctive area of interest clearly, one who has been effectively cultivated over the last 40 years, all through which period the identify Ekus, just like the names of lots of the authors the corporate represents, has turn into recognized around the nation and all over the world. Summing up the large vary of products and services, companions Lisa and Sally Ekus (mom and daughter) say they “convey cooks out from at the back of the range.”
If one sought after to achieve a complete appreciation for a way the corporate began via Lisa Ekus again in 1982 has grown, advanced, and emerged over the last 40 years, perhaps where to start out is in what she calls her reference library.
It has turn into the center-piece — even if there are a number of of the ones — of the 250-year-old renovated farmhouse in Hatfield she calls house. She began with a small assortment collected in highschool and faculty, and has grown it to 7,000 volumes, with extra added reputedly each week; there’s a pile of books out of doors her administrative center for studying and conceivable addition to the gathering.
There are works of fiction positioned in a single small phase, however the remainder — similar to Ekus’s profession, and that of her daughter, Sally Ekus, now a spouse on this challenge — are dedicated to meals and cooking. The volumes are sparsely cataloged and organized via more than a few topics, that means the whole lot from meals sorts to geographic areas, authors to person nations; she just lately added two volumes on Polish delicacies.
“There have been companies that did e-book PR. However we in point of fact honed in on cooks, cookbooks, meals firms, and figuring out the evolution and expansion of what was once taking place on an overly huge international level.”
The library, like her paintings to create what have come to be referred to as ‘culinary celebrities,’ is a keenness.
“It’s all arranged bodily, it is going world wide via nation, after which it is going via our nation via area,” she advised BusinessWest. “And there’s area of expertise, unmarried topics — soup, well being and vitamin, wine … you identify it. I’ve learn perhaps 75{a3762c12302782889392ca3b7989801063e93bfa43bb26bd1841194fb09ec877} of them and I’ve touched all of them come what may.”
When requested what makes a e-book worthy of placement within the library, Sally replied for her mom. “It must be … distinctive.”
That’s a phrase that might, and must, even be implemented to this industry, previously referred to as the Lisa Ekus Team, however modified just lately to mirror Sally’s extra distinguished position. Certainly, there are few firms like this any place, and more than likely just one in a rural atmosphere like Hatfield. And whilst the library does a excellent process of conveying its expansion and presence, it doesn’t … neatly, inform the whole tale — pun very a lot supposed.
To completely perceive, we want to consult with different rooms of the home, which is adjoining to the corporate’s workplaces and performs an enormous position in day by day task.
Just like the eating room and its large desk. Right here, Lisa Ekus has hosted actually 1000’s of other people for dinner through the years, together with culinary celebrities similar to Julia Kid, Emeril Lagasse, and numerous others.
Sally Ekus, left, together with her mom and industry spouse, Lisa Ekus.
Or the within reach kitchen, which doubles as a TV studio the place many of those similar cooks have mastered the nice artwork of cooking for a tv target audience, a industry area of interest that the Ekus Team has cultivated through the years.
Or the massive facet porch that Ekus added at the assets a number of years in the past. Right here, she does extra entertaining with those that have turn into celebrities and people who wish to acquire that standing.
Or the Airbnb that she just lately opened with the best identify Chefs Chateau. Because the pandemic has eased and recreational and industry trip have returned, she has booked the distance for the following a number of months, and initiatives that it’s going to ultimately turn into a forged benefit middle.
In combination, those areas within the Ekus house talk to a massively a success industry, one who continues so as to add new strains to its recipe for luck, similar to a digital “Easy methods to Write a Cookbook” route that Sally considers a logical extension of what the corporate has finished for the previous 4 a long time (extra on it later).
Taking a look forward, Sally stated the corporate will proceed to adapt and develop, however most likely stay a boutique, as in “small” company that can give customized provider to its many types of purchasers.
“It’s now not ‘right here’s a e-book — let’s promote it. We wish to establish the original promoting issues and the place available on the market this would possibly have compatibility; how are we able to assist an creator and a writer articulate what the main focal point and function of this actual e-book is. That’s what we do.”
“Now we have a want to develop deliberately in some way that continues to enhance the paintings that our present crew likes to do and in addition probably bringing in a handful of latest skill to develop such things as our agent-representation program and our skill illustration, and in addition proceed to buildout our workshops and culinary experience,” she stated.
For this factor and its focal point on girls in industry, we talked with Lisa and Sally Ekus in regards to the first 40 years at this distinctive industry and what would possibly come subsequent. Striking it in standpoint, Lisa mentioned the most obvious:
“Now we have such a lot a laugh with what we do; it’s one of the crucial absolute best industries to be in.”
Process Motion
For Sally Ekus, the word ‘rising up within the industry,’ has possibly extra that means than it does for many second-generation industry homeowners and executives.
Certainly, for the reason that Ekus house was once — and is — additionally the administrative center, but in addition where the place numerous celebrities and celebrities in ready got here to satisfy with Lisa Ekus, cook dinner, dine, and chat after foods together with her, and Sally was once a part of all that; she actually grew up within the industry — and round other people like Julia Kid.
And whilst she fondly recollects what she calls “the great previous days,” she got here of age, and become a part of the industry, because the scene was once converting, with tendencies similar to blog-to-book offers, on-line recipes, the upward thrust of self-publishing, and a lot more.
From left, Lisa Ekus, Julia Kid, and Irena Chalmers, a famous creator and meals commentator at one of the gatherings within the yard of the corporate’s house in Hatfield.
These days, the corporate nonetheless celebrates the previous whilst embracing the brand new, and Sally and Lisa are making plans the following lessons, if you’ll, for this challenge, whilst proceeding to give you the products and services that experience made this corporate such a success over the last 4 a long time. Summing them up, Lisa stated she, Sally, and the assembled crew “convey other people out from at the back of the range.”
Via that, she signifies that the corporate is helping the ones with culinary talents domesticate a logo whilst additionally serving to them broaden experience in different spaces required to turn into a real culinary famous person — the whole lot from writing a cookbook and getting it printed, to finding out learn how to cook dinner for a tv target audience, to efficient self-promotion.
Whilst there were cookbooks for possibly a century now, there wasn’t, till just lately, a focal point at the cooks, the authors of those cookbooks, stated Sally, noting that the Ekus Team devotes its energies to striking them entrance and middle, and making them, up to their recipes, the celebrities of the display.
It’s a bundle of products and services that, in combination, make the corporate distinctive and has enabled it to gather a shopper listing that may be a veritable who’s who within the culinary international, with luminaries similar to Haile Thomas, Toni Tipton-Martin, Davis Olson, and plenty of others.
Turning again the clock 40 years, Lisa Ekus stated she began her corporate to fill a necessity for a industry that fascinated with e-book PR. She moved to the valley from New York Town and taken together with her an in depth portfolio of connections and revel in.
“I advanced the industry on account of, and thru, my connections in New York publishing,” she defined. “So, I had an ideal base upon which to attract purchasers and get suggestions.”
In essence, she was once doing far off paintings prior to someone knew what far off paintings was once, she went on, including that she beloved the way of life in Western Mass. and was once dedicated to construction a industry right here and touring again to Gotham — or any place else she had to move — when wanted.
Over the following a number of years, the corporate would broaden a culinary area of interest and turn into, in her estimation, the primary and best culinary PR e-book company within the nation.
“There have been companies that did e-book PR,” she went on. “However we in point of fact honed in on cooks, cookbooks, meals firms, and figuring out the evolution and expansion of what was once taking place on an overly huge international level. Our area of interest was once striking it ahead in e-book shape.
“We labored to place our authors and their experience available in the market throughout the covers in their books,” she went on. “Nobody had in point of fact centered at the personalities, the mavens inside the classes they wrote about — like Rose Levy Beranbaum and truffles; she wrote The Cake Bible, or Lynn Rosseto Kasper, who based and was once the host of Best Desk for many years; she was once a professional at the Emelia-Romagna phase of Italy.
“Books had been simply put available in the market,” she persisted. “And we in point of fact introduced the experience ahead on a countrywide degree. And I in point of fact love for my part to grasp the place any person comes from and what they write about. It’s now not merely any other e-book about cookies or Italy or anywhere; it’s figuring out and taking a deep dive into meals.”
Stirring Issues Up
Whilst the Ekus Team stays grounded within the ideas and products and services on which it was once based, it has for sure advanced through the years and altered as the days have.
The largest exchange has merely been the emergence of meals and cooking, stated Lisa, noting that, 40 years in the past, there have been only a few famous person cooks, no tv networks dedicated to the topic, exponentially fewer cookbooks being written once a year, few who knew what veganism was once, and a ways fewer individuals who would say they’re in point of fact into the culinary arts.
Beginning within the early 90s, issues began to switch, she recalled, and lately the panorama is far other.
“We’re prepared to, and wish to, discover meals origins,” Lisa defined. “We wish to say, ‘I’m going to cook dinner a whole Korean meal this weekend, and I’m going to shop for unique components and I’m going to make it from scratch. Other people have taken up cooking and meals as a significant passion, and it’s an enormous sector economically within the nation.”
Elaborating, she stated the meals industry has reworked itself into the meals companies — masses of various sorts, from importers to outlets to area of expertise meals purveyors.
The Ekus Team has located itself to thrive on this surroundings, stated the 2 companions, throughout the cookbook, but in addition a troublesome focal point on serving those that wish to be gamers on this motion, if it may possibly nonetheless be referred to as that, be they e-book writers, bloggers, podcast hosts, or just those that wish to take their culinary talents to any other aircraft.
Best, the kitchen in Lisa Ekus’s house doubles as a studio for coaching cooks om learn how to cook dinner prior to a TV target audience. Above, one of the crucial rooms within the Chefs Chateau.
Elaborating, Sally stated the corporate is operating with a number of hundred purchasers a 12 months and possibly a couple of dozen at any given time on explicit e-book initiatives. Total, the paintings comes to construction their logo, she stated, and taking them past their first e-book, even if they for sure assist many get began.
“Oftentimes, it’s now not only one e-book or the primary e-book, even if we adore that it begins there,” she defined. “It’s the second one, the 3rd, fourth, 5th, and past; we assist them construct their logo via their publishing profession.”
Lisa agreed, and stated the corporate is helping the ones at more than a few levels of the book-writing procedure, from growing an idea, to discovering a writer, to taking pictures a photograph for the duvet.
The large function is to ‘place’ the e-book, she went on, including the Ekus Team focuses on this value-added provider.
“It’s now not ‘right here’s a e-book — let’s promote it,’” she advised BusinessWest. “We wish to establish the original promoting issues and the place available on the market this would possibly have compatibility; how are we able to assist an creator and a writer articulate what the main focal point and function of this actual e-book is. That’s what we do.”
Shifting ahead, the corporate is all the time on the lookout for other ways to percentage its experience on this huge and rising marketplace, she went on, including that this mindset has ended in new and other projects, similar to the web Easy methods to Write a Cookbook route.
There are lots of such lessons at the Web, stated Sally, however few if any that convey the Ekus Team’s degree of experience and figuring out of what makes a e-book a success at a time when cabinets are filled with new titles, and extra are written each week.
“I spotted that we had been getting the similar questions on publishing, and cookbook publishing specifically, over and over, whether or not they’re from our purchasers, the consults that we do, or simply normal interest on this trade,” she defined. “So a couple of years in the past, I believed ‘how are we able to lengthen a core cost of ours, which is to be a useful resource on this trade?’ And I put in combination this route, which is an extension of our experience.”
Elaborating, she stated it is helping resolution questions on self-publishing as opposed to conventional publishing, learn how to stand out, the position of brokers, and a lot more.
So far, the route, which options greater than 20 “unique, insider pointers” from Sally Ekus, has drawn substantial pastime, stated the companions, including that it enhances different products and services, similar to coaching in culinary media, which levels from cooking on TV or prior to a reside target audience, to accomplishing a radio interview. Cooking is one ability, stated Sally, however media appearances are any other … kettle of fish.
“There are a large number of individuals who say ‘I’m a meals professional,’ or ‘I wish to be well-known and cook dinner and communicate on tv,’” she stated. “However there’s an overly explicit ability and character that must be cultivated and educated, so we advanced this program, which is the primary of its sort on this area.”
Over the last 40 years or so, masses, together with celebrities like Lagasse, recognized for his mastery of Creole and Cajun delicacies, have had such coaching in that kitchen within the Ekus house.
As famous, numerous cooking celebrities have come to Hatfield through the years, and now extra are making the trek with the brand new Airbnb, which, as its identify signifies, has a culinary focal point.
“Other people can consult with us, whether or not they’re a shopper or now not, and be impressed, write, cook dinner, consult with the library, and extra,” stated Sally, including that as extra other people turn into extra pleased with travelling, she expects that the distance will turn into well-liked by the ones on the lookout for a quiet spot to create — whether or not it’s with a laptap or on a range.
Meals for Concept
Summing up 40 years in industry and the mindset that drives the Ekus Team, Lisa stated, “some other people consume to reside; we are living to consume and to have a good time the writers, the authors, the chefs who’re doing it so brilliantly.”
And via celebrating them, it’s serving to them navigate the trail to changing into celebrities — on one degree or any other.
This industry is, like the ones books at the reference library cabinets, distinctive. And because the industry marks 40 years, the ones rooms within the Ekus house display simply how a ways it has come and the place it may possibly nonetheless move.
George O’Brien can also be reached at [email protected]
