About Rachel

Hello!

I’m Rachel Rappaport and welcome to my blog!
I started my recipe blog Coconut & Lime way back in 2004 as a way to keep track of recipes I created and to share them with friends. It turned out to be one of the very first food blogs and helped me evolve from home cook to full-time professional recipe developer, copywriter,  food columnist, and cookbook author.  
In addition to my passion for creating recipes the average person can make at home, I  have a great interest in regional foods and food history and love to share this information with others. In fact, I have a BA in History and MA in Education.

For the 2022-2023 cycle, I applied for and received a Maryland Folklife Apprenticeship grant (supported in part by the Maryland State Arts Council) as a master of my field and together with my apprentice, Kara Mae Harris, created a spiral-bound book of updated recipes from ones we found in community cook books and archives around the state.

As a recipe developer, this project was my first time adapting other people’s recipes! That was very new and different for me.

I have widened and continued this work on my site Cooking in Community where I share community cookbooks and the recipes I’ve adapted from them to make them easier (and sometimes tastier!) for home cooks to make them today.

I’ve written several cookbooks: 

Coming in Fall 2023:

Festive Maryland Recipes: Holiday Recipes from the Old Line State co-written with my Maryland Folklife grant apprentice, Kara Mae Harris
Pre-order it here

The book includes essays about traditions from around the world and how they have been celebrated in Maryland by Kara Mae Harris and Marylanders’ own recipes used to celebrate holidays such as New Year’s Day, Christmas, Thanksgiving, Rosh Hashanah and St. David’s Day such as white potato pie, stuffed ham, blintzes, kuba, Italian Easter pies, and kinklings and more updated by me, Rachel Rappaport, so you can recreate these traditions at home.

 

This is a limited edition mini cookbook featuring 25 of my “modernized” versions of recipes found in Maryland community cookbooks and archives. This book was paid for by my 2022-2023 Maryland Folklife Apprenticeship grant (supported in part by the Maryland State Arts Council) I received as a master of my field. I wrote, printed and bound the book together with my apprentice, Kara Mae Harris, who researched the lives of the women who contributed the recipes. Limited free copies are available, contact me for details about shipping or delivery. 

Cooking with Frank’s RedHot Cayenne Pepper Sauce: Delicious Recipes That Bring the Heat is available at local book stores, on Amazon in both hardback and Kindle editions and at Barnes and Noble in both hardback and NOOK editions.
My first cookbook,  Everything Healthy Slow Cooker Cookbook features 300  new recipes from a wide range of cuisines and absolutely no canned soup. It is available on Amazon.com and  in bookstores worldwide.
My second cookbook,Everything Whole Foods Cookbook, featuring 300 new recipes using whole ingredients,  is available in stores and online now.
I contributed recipes and wrote the opening chapters to The Big Book of Slow Cooker Recipes and The Big Book of Vegetarian Recipes
Want to know more?
I have developed recipes and provided copy for many companies.
I have developed dozens of recipes for General Mills over the years. Look for my recipes on their Betty Crocker, Pillsbury,  Old El Paso, Live Better America, and Yoplait websites.
Over the years I have also developed recipes for Dole, the National Mango Board, OXO, the Shrimp Council, Eastern Fish Company, CajunCrawfish.com, Love Beets,  Bahlsen, Vlasic, the Wisconsin Milk Marketing Board, Hellman’s/Best Foods, Lipton, Lay’s, Musselman’s Apple Butter, Imperial Sugar, Divine Chocolate, La Paloma Gourmet, Hidden Valley Ranch, Food Lion Supermarkets, Thrive™ Algae Oil, Martin’s Potato Rolls, Siggi’s Yogurt, Finlandia cheese (and butter!), and McCormick spices.
I contributed many articles to Parade.com. Check my posts out here!

I had a seasonal food column in Taste of the Bay Magazine for several years.

I was a judge for the 2019 IACP cookbook awards.

I co-hosted the McCormick Spice Flavor Forcast webshow with Top Chef’s Richard Blais.
I was on a reality show hosted by Andrew Dan-Jumbo.
I organized Baltimore’s First Cupcake Camp and several Baltimore Food Blogger meetups.
I’ve done live cooking segments on our local news morning shows.
I talked about rhubarb on NPR.
I judged the Ghirardelli chocolate contest at the Maryland State Fair.
I am active on social media:
Coconut & Lime’s Facebook Fan Page
Follow me on Twitter
Follow me on Instagram