Strawberry Basil Margarita

Jun28

This easy recipe for a strawberry basil margarita puts some fun summer flavors into your favorite cocktail. Grab your cocktail shaker, find something to celebrate and say cheers!

I am always happy to have a strawberry basil margarita any day of the week, but never more than today. Today marks an enormous change for me and my family, as I move from my wonderful day job where I have been for the last 27 years, to working full time on the incredible adventure that is all things Framed Cooks. So please indulge me as I go down memory lane for a little while, look ahead to the future for a little while, and at the end of this post, I promise there is a recipe for my new favorite summer cocktail.

Ready for some memories and a strawberry basil margarita to go along with them? Let’s make it!

So almost exactly 27 years ago, I began my first day at HarperCollins Children’s Books. I was a whippersnapper who didn’t know a thing about editing picture books, but I was so excited and eager to learn, and little did I know that it was a the beginning of almost three decades of the best job in the world.

Along the way I got to have lunch with the likes of Neil Gaiman and Garth Williams, and dinner with Julie Andrews and Lemony Snicket.

Maurice Sendak would give me fresh eggs from his chickens when I visited him at his beautiful Connecticut home, and Shel Silverstein would show me drawing after drawing for his poetry book FALLING UP and ask which one I liked best (they were all perfect, by the way).

I got to work with my good pal Ree Drummond on her wonderful picture books and spend the day with her waving at her from behind the tv cameras while she did all her fun publicity.

And I got to hear Kevin Henkes come in with his new picture books and read them aloud to us while he showed us the brand new art for each one.

I also got the chance to work on some glorious books by so many brilliant authors and artists, including Stan and Jan Berenstain, Walter Dean Myers, Laura Bush and Jenna Bush Hager, Emeril Lagasse and my wonderful Aliki, just to name a few.

There were even totally official meetings that featured dogs. I KNOW.

And during my years as editor-in-chief of this amazing children’s publishing group, I had the great good luck to be part of everything from Veronica Roth’s heart pounding DIVERGENT series to Lauren Oliver’s brilliant BEFORE I FALL, Angie Thomas’s groundbreaking THE HATE U GIVE to Sharon Creech’s perfect book WALK TWO MOONS.

I helped take care of the Narnia and Little House books and all of Beverly Cleary’s books, as well as my own childhood favorites, GOODNIGHT MOON and CHARLOTTE’S WEB.

And most dear to my heart, I came in every day to the most talented, passionate, funny, determined group of editors, designers, marketers, sales people and production staff that you could imagine. Not seeing those faces every day is the single hardest thing about deciding to say goodbye.

So why on earth am I doing this? Well, because 9 years ago I started this little blog. It was supposed to be a two week photography assignment (that’s where the “Framed” part comes in)…check out my original header!

And somehow it morphed into a recipe website (so I had to add “Cooks” to the title.)..still with the header that, um, had not so much to do with cooking. I had a lot to learn!

Tens, and then hundreds, and then THOUSANDS of you, my wonderful readers, started to come to the site. With the help of my amazing team at WordPress Barista I worked on it until it turned into a legit recipe website. And I have found such joy in writing my recipes and taking their pictures and writing posts about them and reading your comments and answering your emails and whew!

As it turned out, the only downside was that it got to the point where there literally were not enough hours a day to do my Harper thing and do my Framed Cooks thing.

And so, with a bittersweet lump in my throat, I chose the Framed Cooks thing. And you know what? My years and years of being around such amazingly creative writers and artists and designers and editors is what gave me the experience and the courage to make this leap.

So starting now, this is my new day job, where there will definitely be meetings that have dogs in them.

This website will look the same (except I will be adding lots more video!) but I’ll be able to spend so much more time writing and testing recipes, taking their pictures, doing all the behind the scenes stuff that believe me, you don’t want to know about, and most importantly, being in touch with you guys.

Please, please, comment on my posts, find me on Facebook and Pinterest – I am going to need all of your love and support. Because, GULP. I’m DOING this thing.

So have a strawberry basil margarita with me, and clink glasses to my incredible family at HarperCollins.

Here we go!