Renee Paquette is excited to show everyone what she’s been working on with her latest project.
Paquette recently spoke with WrestleZone about her podcast, Oral Sessions with Renee Paquette, and also took some time to preview her upcoming cookbook. Titled Messy In The Kitchen: My Guide to Eating Deliciously, Hosting Fabulously and Sipping Copiously, Paquette’s new project was a labor of love that started back when she was still working for WWE. After noticing that one of the recipes was for “Peanut Butter and Jelly Chicken”, Paquette explained how it was originally a suggestion by her husband, AEW’s Jon Moxley, and then talked about how the whole project started.
“A lot of these recipes actually sound like I got stoned and came up with the recipe ideas, but I did not, nor do I dabble in that. I mean, I love to have a cocktail and come up with some plans, but that was actually Jon’s idea, the peanut butter and jelly chicken. And I was like, ‘Oh, I don’t know…’ And then once I started really thinking about it, I was like, ‘Actually, yes…’ because you look at Thai food and influences in Thai with peanut butter. I mean there’s peanut butter in Pad Thai or peanut chicken,” Paquette explained, “so it’s that, and deconstructed raspberry jam, which is, it’s really cooked down raspberries or whatever berries you have, really and adding in some sugar, adding in a little lemon juice, a little thickening agent and you have this beautiful sauce to dip it in, and it just goes together. It’s like that salty-sweet happiness that everyone loves. It’s very pleasing to the palette.”
Paquette talked about how long the project had been in the works and the work involved, adding that it was a great experience being able to find her own voice for the project after not doing as much writing in WWE.
“That was one of those things, I started writing that cookbook while I was still in WWE and I started writing that cookbook before I even got a cookbook deal. I was like, ‘I just really wanna do this, I just love cookbooks.’ I love buying them, I love flipping through the pages, I love trying new recipes, I love reading the little blurbs,” she said. “I think they’re such a cool piece of artwork. So when I was like, ‘I really wanna do that, someone must give me some kind of publishing deal, please.’ So I already had maybe 10-15 recipes done before I got the book deal and they’re like, ‘OK, now we need like 60-70’ and I was like, ‘oh shit, that’s a lot of cooking.’”
“But just getting all those recipes put together and coming up with the cocktails—there’s cocktails in the back instead of desserts—there’s a playlist that comes with it as well because it is also about sort of like setting the ambience and hosting and just making your home so welcoming to other people. So there’s appetizers, soups, salads, side dishes, lunch meals, big course meals, it’s really a little bit of everything,” Paquette said, “but I had so much fun writing that. I didn’t do a lot of writing when I was in WWE because we’ve got a big writing staff and that’s all kind of taken care of. So for me to be able to tap back into writing and getting in touch with my own voice and how I want to be presented and perceived, I had so much fun kind of dabbling back into that and creating this book. I’m so proud of it.”
Recommended Reading: Messy In The Kitchen: My Guide to Eating Deliciously, Hosting Fabulously and Sipping Copiously
