That Time We Ate Our Feelings: 150 Recipes for Comfort Food From the Heart: From the Creators of the Corona Kitchen

By Lisa Lucas, Debrianna Mansini and Penina Meisels

Surging audience of home cooks in the wake of Covid-19: According to a survey by Hunter PR, 54 percent of respondents said they cook more than before the pandemic, 75 percent said they have become more confident in the kitchen, and 51 percent said they will continue to cook more after the crisis ends. Per the New York Times, online searches for cooking classes and cooking tutorials have surged, pointing to a wide market of home cooks eager to find entertaining, comforting, and approachable recipes like the ones in That Time We Ate Our Feelings.

Built-in audience: In the early stages of the Covid-19 stay-at-home requests and lockdowns, Lisa Lucas and Debrianna Mansini tapped into the collective need for connection and comfort to create the nightly cooking show Corona Kitchen on Facebook and Instagram Live, organically drawing more than 4,500 members—and counting—from all over the globe in just a few months. The authors will leverage this live series as a platform to drum up excitement for their book, tease recipes, and hold pre-publication contests including contests to determine which recipes from community members will be featured in the book. And the book will delight viewers in its true-to-the-series tone. It will also be promoted extensively to Mansini's 16,500 Twitter followers.

Subject appeal: Commentary and conversations on the Corona Kitchen Facebook page prove that recipes are chosen to match a person's mood. That Time We Ate Our Feelings offers a witty angle of providing recipes for moods, so people aren't left uncomfortably mulling over what dish or drink will hit the spot. All recipes embrace humor and quirk in their titles. 

Proven selling-power of cookbooks complemented by commentary: Sales of Rage Baking (Simon & Schuster, 02/2020, 9700 RTD) and Feed the Resistance (Chronicle, 10/2017, 14,000 RTD) prove that freedom of speech and cooking go hand in hand. That Time We Ate Our Feelings follows in this nascent tradition while updating the genre by including unfiltered and irreverent conversations about top-of-mind issues like the coronavirus, politics, freedom, and the current state of affairs. 

Colorful, approachable design: That Time We Ate Our Feelings is a bright, full-color, highly designed book with more than 150 images. It is designed to be approachable and while sophisticated, also a hands-on tool that can be used in the kitchen and needn't just sit on display. 

Well-known authors experienced in creating hit successes: Lucas and Mansini are acclaimed producers and entertainers who have appeared on or produced wildly successfully TV shows and films. Their track record shows their efforts leading to hit successes, and they will now turn their attention to promoting their own product. 

Wide range of recipes fit vegan, vegetarian, and allergen-avoidant diets: With many recipes that are (or can be modified to be) plant-based, gluten-free, alcohol-free, and allergen-free, That Time We Ate Our Feelings appeals to a broad audience of home cooks and takes a refreshing and inclusive stance that substitutions can, and should, be part of the cooking process.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Apollo Publishers
• Release date: Nov 28, 2023
• ISBN: 9781948062879

Lisa Lucas

Lisa Lucas is a writer, producer, and actor who has produced and written more than thirty television series including for ABC's The Bachelorette, Bravo's Work of Art, and NBC's Emmy–winning My 1st Time. She produced the 2017 Emmy-nominated feature documentary Defending the Fire, and the 2022 Emmy-winning feature documentary However Wide the Sky. She is also an executive producer and principal partner in LikeMinds, a production company based in Santa Fe, New Mexico, that creates content for documentary and scripted television series, short films, and independent features. Lisa has received professional theatrical training from the National Theatre Institute at the Eugene O'Neill Theatre Center in Waterford, Connecticut, and studied Shakespearean theater at the Guildhall School for Music and Drama in London. For some reason, she is frequently cast in roles of either unfortunate victims of wrong place at the wrong time situations, like in NBC's The Night Shift, or hyper pious parochial school nuns like in the 2021 short film The Holy Word. In 2020, Lisa and Debrianna Mansini launched Corona Kitchen, an unscripted nightly cooking show on Facebook and YouTube Live. She lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

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