Her firm today is a multi-faceted company.
Lisa Ekus, president of the Lisa Ekus Group in Hatfield, poses with client Anne Willian's award-winning "The Cookbook Library: The Cooks, Writers, and Recipes That Made the Modern Cookbook. " Ekus' Hatfield home holds her personal collection of some 8,000 cookbooks. In the foreground is her 2012 Outstanding Career award, presented at the Gourmand World Cookbook Awards, held Feb. 23 in Paris, France.
Earlier this year Lisa Ekus, of Hatfield, stood before an audience of 1,200 culinary professionals in the Louvre Museum in Paris to receive the Outstanding Career Award at the 2012 Gourmand World Cookbook Awards.
Ekus is not a chef or a publisher, but she has become a powerhouse in the culinary industry. She is founder and president of the Lisa Ekus Group, which serves chefs, cookbook authors, restaurateurs, food photographers and other food-related experts by getting them as much exposure as possible.
She describes her mission this way: "We promote a world of culinary talent."
The public relations agency she founded in Hatfield in 1982 was the first of its kind in the United States, "devoted entirely to cookbooks, chefs, and food products." Today it has evolved into a multi-faceted company that does everything from negotiating book deals from some 150 authors to partnering chefs with major food companies. Her walls are lined with books for which the Lisa Ekus Group served as literary agent.
Media training is also on the list. "Chefs have had to come out from behind the stove," Ekus said. "I put them in front of a camera for a long day and talk to them about things like key message points, body language, working with media and live audiences."
With her staff of six, Ekus handles areas ranging from foreign rights to first-person endorsement deals. She keeps on top of trends from vegan (no animal products) to paleo (meat, meat and more meat). Norwegian cooking is hot, she said, as are "niche" cookbooks.
She came back from Paris carrying 35 pounds of new foreign books, with an eye to their marketability in this country.
While Ekus embraces the "speed-of-light changes" that are happening online ("e-books are eternal books"), she says a paper cookbook, its pages eventually dog-eared and stained by experience and memories, will always have a sensory edge for a cook. The irony, she says, is that bloggers all seem to want a book deal.
Some of the cookbook authors for whom she has served as literary agent are "on their fifth- or sixth-book contract," she said.
Because her labor-intensive attention to detail limits how many clients she can take on, Ekus has also developed one-time "strategic consulting" services to give people direction on how on how to move forward in their culinary careers.
"I try to be helpful to people whether I represent them or not," she said. "A healthy industry supports all of us."
Ekus graduated from Barnard College in New York in 1979 with a major in English literature. She is still "a voracious reader of fiction." Her charitable causes include the Food Bank of Western Massachusetts in Hatfield.
Both her parents were good cooks, she said, but it wasn't until she spent a semester at a Kibbutz in Israel that food caught her attention in a big way. Ekus was assigned to the kitchen, which turned out 124 kosher meals three times a day.
Her first full-time job was at Random House publishers. Along the way to her current success, Ekus attended Martha Stewart's first tea-cum-slide-show presentation, shared a taxi with James Beard and made dinner for Julia Child.
Ekus is especially pleased that this year one of her clients, Anne Willan, was honored with the "Best in the World Award" at the Gourmand World Cookbook Awards on Feb. 23. Willan, whose books have been published in 24 countries and translated into 18 languages. was also inducted into the James Beard Foundation's Cookbook Hall of Fame for her "body of work" on May 3.
Author of 30 books and founder of the LaVarenne Cooking School in Paris, Willan won the world cookbook award for her book, "The Cookbook Library: The Cooks, Writers, and Recipes That Made the Modern Cookbook." The two alpha women were sitting at the same table at the awards ceremony, and they celebrated by popping a bottle of champagne.
Another of Ekus's clients is Sanford ("Sandy") D'Amato, founder of an award-winning restaurant in Minneapolis, Minn., whose recipes appear below. So impressed was D'Amato by Ekus's work that he bought a second home in Western Massachusetts.
These recipes, featuring products of Ekus client Roland Foods, are an example of how Ekus "partners" chefs and food companies to the benefit of both. Sriracha is a hot chili sauce made by Roland.
Lime grilled chicken thighs with Roland sriracha chili sauce
8 bone-in chicken thighs, 3-1/2 to 4 pounds
6 cloves garlic, 1 ounces, peeled and sliced thin
2 large shallots, 2 ounces, peeled and sliced thin
1/4 cup Roland sriracha chili sauce
1/2 cup lime juice
1/2 cup white wine
2 tablespoons ground coriander
1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
3 tablespoons brown sugar
1 tablespoon kosher salt
1 tablespoon ground black pepper
2 tablespoon Roland walnut oil
1 bunch fresh mint, about 3/4 ounces (use 1 cup loose-packed leaves, chopped, for marinade and use the rest for garnish)
Kosher salt and fresh ground pepper to taste
Mix all ingredients except mint garnish. Place mixture in a large Ziploc bag and marinate in refrigerator for at least 24 hours. Turn bag 3 to 4 times while marinating.
Next day, get a grill to a medium-hot heat level. Remove chicken from marinade.
Bring marinade up to a boil and simmer for about 2 minutes. Season chicken lightly with salt and pepper and grill about 15 minutes per side.
During last 5 minutes of grilling, brush thighs with marinade and let it caramelize on chicken. It should be very crusty, but not burned. Sprinkle with chopped fresh mint and serve with extra sriracha for dipping.
Roland balsamic vinegar-glazed grilled mortadella with fig, asparagus and fennel salad
Serves 4
6 dried medium-sized dark figs, tips cut off and cut in half
2 cups Roland balsamic vinegar
1 bay leaf
1 whole star anise
1 cinnamon stick
12 thin asparagus, cleaned and ends cut off to yield about a 6-inch spear
1 head fennel, about 6 to 8 ounces, trimmed, cut in half, core removed and sliced thinly (slice right before serving)Four slices mortadella, about six to seven ounces, 1/4 to 1/2 inch thick
4 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil. plus extra for brushing on mortadella
1 tablespoon fresh squeezed lemon juice
Kosher salt and fresh ground black pepper to taste
Place figs in a pan with Roland balsamic vinegar, bay leaf, star anise and cinnamon stick and bring up to a simmer. Cover and let sit for one minute. Remove figs and reserve.
Reduce vinegar to 1/2 cup (should be thick and syrupy). Remove spices and reserve vinegar glaze at room temperature. Heat a char grill or grill pan to extremely hot.
Toss asparagus spears with 1 tablespoon olive oil.
Season lightly with salt and pepper and grill approximately 45 seconds to 1 minute per side until crisp-tender. Remove from grill and cut in 1-inch pieces on the bias.
Brush mortadella slices with enough oil to lightly gloss, season liberally with fresh ground black pepper and grill on char grill or grill pan approximately 1 1/2 minutes per side.
Divide mortadella onto 4 plates.
Mix reserved figs and sliced fennel in with asparagus, add remaining 3 tablespoons olive oil and 1 tablespoon lemon juice, season to taste with salt and pepper and toss to mix. Divide salad over the 4 mortadella slices. Drizzle reserved vinegar over and around mortadella and serve.
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