Need new tasty recipe ideas for this week? This cookbook might be your new BFF!

Born and raised in Detroit, MI, Aarum Kisha Anita Hurse aka LesBintheKitchen, has spent her entire life around food. Like most African American households the kitchen is a meeting place. Aarum watched and was taught by the best - her Great-Great Grandmother, Grandmother, Mother and Aunts. Fast forward a few years and 40+ recipes later and you have Culinary Cool – Everyday Food - this book is designed to help you to find your own personal flavor profile. It’s about taking the simple foods we eat everyday and thinking outside of the box. If you can't find one of the ingredients used in the book, simply adjust it to your own flavor profile! It's all about the journey not the destination.  Cooking should be quick and fun!  Full disclosure: Aarum is my friend and I am OBSESSED with her recipes, you have to follow her on Instagram, she's soooo amazing. Here's a quick interview  for you to get to know the soon to be household name  even better! Remember her name :)

Out of all the meals you've ever made, what's your favorite? 

This is a hard one for me I’ve cooked so many meals over the last two years. I guess I would have to say the Nacho Cheese Doritos Fried Chicken because I was surprised how good it was. I only made them because I saw them on Instagram and thought no way this can be good so I crushed them up and instead of using flour I coated the chicken wings with the Doritos, they came out so “Hoodtastic” so good.

You currently live in Seattle, what would you say is the best restaurant in that area? 

Seattle is such a great foodie town it’s hard to say. I haven’t had a bad meal yet. The hideout I like to go to every weekend is a place 3 blocks from my house it’s a café called Morsel and Bean. Man the things the chef is doing with biscuits is amazing. Things like “The Goat” with herbed goat cheese, roasted tomato jam and cucumber on a cheddar chive biscuit, I’ve gained a good 7lbs hanging out in this place.

Cooking can be such a chore, how do you keep it exciting?

Lately this has been difficult with working on the cookbook and always having to give me page content daily. Because in this day and age the name of the game is keep up when building a brand. But for me food is fun! The way I cook is really just, I get hungry and ideas jump in my head. It’s a freestyle every time I never plan anything I’m going to cook, it’s all about the moment and a glass of whiskey or wine with some music playing that fits my mood of the day.

Did you study to become a chef? Or is it something that you picked up naturally?

In college my major was TV Production and after school I moved to Los Angeles and worked in Reality TV for eight years. The food side for me started two years ago when my career in TV started to dry up and my passion for it started to fall off as well. So I would cook more and more after work just to relax and I started to post the food on my Instagram page and my friends said you have to do something with this food and that’s when @LesBInTheKitchen was made and now my first cookbook is out and the page is up to almost 9k in followers.

LesBInTheKitchen is an interesting play on words. What inspired that name? 

Well LesBInTheKitchen was born because of my best friend and business partner Devon Augustine, when we created the page we needed a name and after a few rounds, she said I got it ; “LesBInTheKitchen” it’s a play on words “Let’s” all be in the kitchen together is the vibe I’m going for and also I’m a Lesbian.

With book's release and positive feedback you've received, what's next for you?

 I thought I would take a second and relax and just market the first book because I’m pretty much a one woman team. I self-published the cookbook myself including doing the page layout and photographing all the food photos and now I am moving into being my own marketing team. But some things are falling into place that will have me pretty busy this summer with cooking for the second book; “Bacon, Bitches & Breakups”, I know..... and yes that’s the name of the book and please ladies don’t come for me anyone who knows me knows I adore women it just fits the title and sometimes my dating life. And also I’m gearing up to shoot a cooking show pilot, if all the ducks line up in a row. So yeah that’s my summer and fall excited for the next book and whatever is to come with this cooking thing…it’s just funJ

Make sure to follow Aarum on her all social media pages: Instagram @LesBInTheKitchen Twitter @LBITK and the ebook and hard copies can be found on my page http://store.blurb.com/ebooks/528239-culinary-cool-everyday-food