Jesse Tyler Ferguson decided to start writing down the recipes which formed the basis of his new cookbook after a failed attempt at penning his memoir.
The Modern Family star has just released Food Between Friends: A Cookbook, which he created with his best pal Julie Tanous, but admits he never expected the little project to actually be published, because that was never his intention.
“I always thought maybe I’ll write a memoir or something. Or a book of funny essays,” Ferguson shared on the Just for Variety podcast.
“I sort of tried and then I got writer’s block and I felt overwhelmed by it. It’s not like I even had a book deal to do that, I was just like, maybe I’ll do it for myself and just see if I can sell it,” he went on.
“With this cookbook, I had a blog that I developed with my friend, Julie, called julieandjessecook.com… That’s where we just housed all these recipes we were developing together and then Clarkson Potter, the publishing house, approached us and said, ‘Let’s turn this into a book.’ And it took them having the confidence in us to actually do it,” the actor explained.
Ferguson admitted he only started growing passionate about cooking later in life, when he moved to Los Angeles, and it was a promotional appearance on a cooking show with domestic guru Martha Stewart which gave him the inspiration to start being more inventive in the kitchen.
“When I was doing press for Modern Family, I got to be on Martha Stewart’s show and I got to cook with her a little bit,” he recalled, adding: “I felt like, ‘I’m not bad at this, I think I can do it.'”