Rolf Hagberg
Duluth Grill Cookbook
The author, left, with Tom Hanson.
When Tom Hanson, owner of the Duluth Grill, gets an idea, watch out. It’s going to happen.
Plant an urban farm in west Duluth? Check. Dig up the back parking lot for a community-funded orchard/rain garden? Check.
So when he asked me to do a cookbook, it was just a matter of time.
The governor’s mansion, “Real Housewives of Miami,” a lawsuit scare, all that came later. In the beginning, it was just me, the book and an expanding budget.
One of Tom’s favorite stories about the book is when we hired the photographer. I know it’s his favorite; he makes fun of me about it all the time. Here’s apparently what I said: “We used this guy for our magazine, but we stopped because he was too expensive. But he’s the best. We have to go with him.”
Here’s what Tom thought: How much will this cost me?
To his credit, Tom agreed to use Rolf Hagberg, who, for the record, I believe is the best.
For a designer, we chose Rick Kollath because he works out at my kettlebell gym and he has a lot of book experience. His experience made a big difference in October 2012 when it came time to go to press. We’d spent 13 months puttering, getting photos and text and generally being foot-draggy about gathering recipes. Now Christmas was coming, and we had a big pile of pre-orders.
The grill’s general manager, Jeff Petcoff, remembers asking Rick if we could get it by the holidays. “He said, ‘Rushing it would have been two months ago. This is turbo-speed.’”
Jeff or Tom called me every few days, politely inquiring when exactly the book would arrive.
Sometime after Thanksgiving, things came to a head. They wanted assurances that the date I’d promised the book was firm.
I paused. I took a deep breath, and I heard myself say, “If it doesn’t come through, I will loan you half the printing cost. Until June.”
Had I just guaranteed an interest-free, six-month $9,000 loan out of my own pocket? Printing guys, I thought, you’ve got to come through.
Meanwhile, our hapless print broker, Tobbi Stager, had struggles of his own. Snows were falling, winds were howling, and the roads were iced slick. Tobbi inched his car to Minneapolis in early December for a couple boxes of books. Then he inched back home during a four-hour trip that usually takes less than two.
I spent that evening in a kitchen boxing books for pre-orders.
The book was a smash hit, but our adventure was far from over.
Later that winter, I woke up at 8 a.m. and saw a text on my phone from Tom – sent at 4:20 that morning:
i found something in the book so i pulled them from the shelves. call me
I may or may not have panicked. Could there be a worse message for a writer to get?
When I called, I went from worried to confused. Tom was concerned that Heinz, the ketchup makers, might sue us because we’d written that the ketchup had changed so much from the original, Mr. Heinz would probably turn over in his grave.
“Oh, Tom,” I assured him. “That’s not going to happen.”
The books went back on the shelf.
Two weeks later, Tom’s wife, Jaima, left a voicemail: “Heinz called. Their rep is coming. I’m here alone.”
So there was a worse message a writer could get.
It was a long afternoon of waiting; it probably felt longer for Jaima than for me. But nothing happened. The Heinz rep was on a social call and didn’t once mention the book.
What more is there to tell? Quite a bit in wrap-up. My friend Ana Quincoces became one of the “Real Housewives of Miami” and pushed our book to her tens of thousands of followers. Another friend spotted our little book on the coffee table of the Minnesota governor’s mansion. We got a national distributor and Barnes & Noble bookstores picked us up.
It’s been crazy, it’s been beautiful and it’s been a headache. We sold out our first print run in less than a year. In fact, only one thing worries me …
Tom wants a volume two.
Robert Lillegard is a freelance writer from Superior whose work has appeared in the New York Times, among other publications.