Diane Pfeifer, cookbook author and gourmet snack food manufacturer

What I do: Diane Pfeifer doesn’t let little details get in the way. She is hardly a gourmet chef, yet she has written and published several cookbooks. She didn’t care much for country music as a teenager, yet she’s been a country songwriter and backup singer for Tammy Wynette. She isn’t from the South, yet she makes and sells snacks made from grits.

Pfeifer, 58, said her whole career has been one thing flowing into another.

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Karl Ritzler / AJC Special

Diane Pfeifer self-publishes cookbooks with a twist. Her latest is all about grits.

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Her latest venture is the cookbook “Gone With the Grits,” a collection of dishes made with the Southern staple, and a grits-based snack.

A chemist by training, Pfeifer began building recipes for the book by experimenting, putting grits in everything from casseroles to sushi.

“It was chemistry,” Pfeifer said. “Inventing all these recipes was really fun. … I was able to come up with more recipes because I’m not a Southerner. I didn’t know what you can and can’t do with grits.”

She’s hyped the book at trade shows, lunches, holiday fairs and even on television. The snack food — which she described as cheese straws with grits in them — “is something cute to go with the cookbook,” she said. “It’s something fun that says, ‘Atlanta.’ “

The snacks are made by a bakery, but Pfeifer takes care of all the shipping, sales and marketing out of her home. Most of her book and snack food sales are wholesale to gift shop chains and individual stores or to gift basket makers.

There are other cookbooks as well. Pfeifer has written six, including one with recipes for popcorn, as well as a write-your-own cookbook to be filled out by the giver to pass along family recipes.

What got me interested in this: “Gone With the Grits” started as a joke, Pfeifer said. She was in a California sushi restaurant when the chef remarked on whether sushi was available in Atlanta. She replied in jest that it was available, but Georgians used grits instead of rice.

Then, she wondered if that was possible and looked for a sign. It came the next morning at breakfast when a waitress told the man in the booth behind her that they didn’t serve grits. Pfeifer struck up a conversation about her idea and received encouragement — from none other than the disappointed customer, Gregg Allman of the Allman Brothers Band.

Best part of my job: “I like the inventing part the best,” she said. “And even though I whine about it, I like to do trade shows. I work alone all day e-mailing and shipping. I like to meet people.”

Most challenging part: “The seasonality and niche aspect. The part I’m best known for is Southeastern,” she said.

What people don’t know about my job: “From inception to getting something to a customer, how many steps and how much money is involved,” Pfeifer said.

“People need to understand how many things have to happen to go from an idea to the shelf.”

What keeps me going: “I like the excitement of new places to sell, new people to talk to,” she said. “I love new ideas, but they’re expensive” to implement.

Preparation needed for this job: Pfeifer self-published all her cookbooks, so knowledge of that process is important, she said.

Instead of having to know everything about manufacturing a food product, “I find people I love, and I don’t have to mess with it. I count on really good people.”

Pfeifer began her career as a chemist with a wholesale pharmaceutical company. Because she liked to sing, she was in a weekend band in high school and college and began performing pop tunes in bars. There, she would try out songs she had written.

After her favorite radio station changed formats to country music, she started listening and soon figured out the formula for writing country songs — “a line in the chorus with a twist,” she said.

She won a songwriting contest and sang at Opryland in Nashville. At that time, Wynette was looking for a backup singer for a tour, and Pfeifer got the job. She also wrote a pair of hits recorded by Debby Boone, acted and did voiceovers for commercials.

The popcorn book was her first cookbook, and the idea for it came on a blind date about the time she was finding that songwriting and performing were becoming impractical. She’s been publishing the books for 22 years.

“I have only done things I love,” she said.

- By Karl W. Ritzler, for ajcjobs. Got an interesting job that you love? E-mail your story to jobseditor@yahoo.com.

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