Cake Over Steak | The Dinner Special podcast

111: Amanda Paa: How a Gluten Allergy Inspired Her

February 24, 2016 by Gabriel Leave a Comment

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Heartbeet Kitchen

On her blog, Amanda shares food stories and recipes with the hope to inspire us to realize that the best meals are those made with fresh seasonal and simple ingredients. She believes that food doesn’t have to be fancy nor does it require expensive equipment. Amanda is also the author of Smitten with Squash, her cookbook with 80 original recipes on the squash family.

I am so excited to have Amanda Paa of Heartbeet Kitchen with me on the show today.

(*All photos below are Amanda’s.)

On Learning How to Cook:

There were some things that I just watched Grandma do, like my Grandma made the best loaves of bread. I never rolled them out with her, or kneaded, or anything like that. But I always ate what came from it and it was always the same and it was always so good. I could smell the yeast coming from her oven and things like that. So I think it was definitely a little bit of both. Some watching, some helping. With my other Grandma, she makes lefse every year, which is a Norwegian specialty, and I did help her, from rolling the balls to then putting it on the hot iron to getting it real thin, all of those little things, I did do with her.

It wasn’t really until about six years ago, I was living in Wisconsin and I moved back to Minnesota because I did grow up here. But moving into the Twin Cities, there were so many more farmers markets, so much more of a farm to table movement and just interesting food. I had never really taken the time to learn about or experience and so, I had this thing where I’d go to the market and every time, I would pick a new fruit or a new vegetable or even a cut of meat that I had never cooked with before. And I said, “We’re going to experiment. There is no judgment here. Just let the creativity flow,” and that is really kind of how my blog started too. It really forged this passion for telling the real story behind real food and real food recipes and it never gets boring. Because there is always something new to learn.

On Her Food Heroes:

There is so much inspiration that we are so fortunate to have because of the Internet. Years ago, it was just cookbooks which I still am inspired by today. But there is so much content out there and beautiful work being done all across the world. It’s eye opening every single day, and so when I think of my own cooking and who has inspired it a lot, I think of some of my favorite blogs like Lindsey of Dolly and Oatmeal, and Sherrie from With Food and Love, and Sarah Kieffer from The Vanilla Bean Blog.The way she is with baking and her precision and her beauty, you can’t look at it and not be inspired.

And then I think, even just typical sites like The Kitchn and Food52 have, whether it’s new ways of doing things or new ingredients that they are coming up with ideas for, and just the way that they look at food really inspires me.

I also have to say too, like even traditional people, I mean, I think Martha Stewart is phenomenal and she has gone through how many decades and not only evolved with but kept her brand. I only wish that I could throw a dinner party like her. Every little touch she does is really something special. And she takes the time to do it. I think that that’s part of what I love too and the change in me is that, cooking is an experience and I wrote about this on my blog. It’s much more than just for your health or for just putting it on the table. It evokes emotion, it can change mood, it can bring conversation. It’s just a beautiful thing.

On How Her Gluten Allergy Impacted Her Cooking:

So I have had quite a few autoimmune issues since I was young and still kind of battle it. But we finally figured out that one of the main stressors and causes was an intolerance to gluten. It was causing severe headaches and rashes and different things like shingles that I got when I was in eighth grade. I mean just very odd things, and finally, one doctor suggested that I stop eating gluten and it was basically like a miracle. Within three weeks, I was much, much better.

And at first, it was daunting. It was like, “What? You’re telling me I have to give up all of these foods that I love and I have to kind of relearn how to cook? How am I going to eat out?” All that type of stuff. And I can say today, that I would not probably be here sitting and talking to you if that had not happened, because what it did was inspire me to say, “Okay, here is what I can have. Let’s embrace this,” and what happened was it opened my eyes to all these new foods that I had never tasted or nothing that I grew up with, whether it be gluten-free grains like millet and sorghum, or teaching myself how to make flat bread that’s made from chickpea flour known as socca.

And to really too start to look at different cultures because, a lot of other cultures don’t use as much wheat or they use it in different ways, and so there are a lot of cultural things too that really were like, “Wow, this is good. I’ve been missing this for all these years?” And what I also started to realize was that most real food, that’s grown from the ground, plants, lean proteins and meats that are grown in a humane way, fruits, nuts, seeds, all those things are naturally gluten-free anyways.

It’s most of the processed food where the problem comes in. It made me feel good to get that burst of energy in the kitchen. And I wanted to share that with other people. Because as I was going along, I was meeting all these farmers or these artisans that were doing this really cool stuff that it didn’t matter if you were gluten-free or not. It was just really good stuff.

On Some Good Sources for Learning How to Cook with a Gluten Allergy:

It’s funny you ask that, because I had someone message me the other day. Their friend had just found that she was gluten-free. She was like, “Where do they start? How did that work?” And my first resource and still someone that I truly love and really think is such a benefit for the gluten-free community is Shauna from Gluten Free Girl, and her and her husband started a blog before gluten-free had really even been talked about. He was a chef and I read her book which was called, Gluten-Free Girl. It was more of almost a documentary but then also education on her whole transition, and it made me feel so much better. Like, “Okay, my world is not coming to an end. A, I feel so much better and now there is this whole new world of food that I get to explore,” and that was super, super helpful for me.

The other one, I don’t know if she blogs anymore. But her site is still very active. But Gluten-Free Goddess. There are so many beginner, basic recipes that will make you feel less intimidated, and that was really powerful for me too.

On Her Book, Smitten with Squash:

Smitten with Squash was published in July of last year. I was approached by the publisher who, they kind of do these, one book a year basically on a Midwestern fruit or vegetables that you love or that you’re very passionate about and the growing of it and history, because it is a historical publisher that publishes the cookbook. It’s the Minnesota Historical Society Press. They contacted me and were like, “You know, give us a few of your ideas, write a proposal around it. We’ve got a few others in mind.”

And I had always liked squash but what was interesting to me about squash, a couple of things is that, living here in Minnesota, our growing season is rather short. And squash, the family of squash between winter squash and summer squash, you can eat locally almost all year round here. Because summer squash is so abundant and then winter squash, you can store it for up to six months, and that will last you almost until summer squash is starting to arrive again. I thought that that was really neat because I do try to base my recipes off seasonal eating, because I feel like that’s when food tastes the best and you can become creative with what looks good at the market and things like that.

The other part that was really cool to me was that squash really is a part of every culture in one way or another and there aren’t very many foods that are like that. And so I just started formulating this idea about doing my whole book on squash and they accepted the idea.

There is 80 original recipes. There are about 40 summer squash recipes and then 40 winter squash recipes. And you’ll see everything from sweets to appetizers to pickles to main dishes, vegetarian to Paleo to kind of everything in there because it is so versatile.

The other real passion behind it is, you know how there are those foods that you had when you were young and you think like, “Oh my gosh, I do not like this because, this is probably the only way you can make it or this is the way I always see it served and I can’t stand this.” And when people talk about it, they are like, “Oh, yeah, well my mom made it, acorn squash. She baked it in a pan with some water and then when it came out she put butter and brown sugar on it. It’s just not good.” And I wanted to change that. I wanted to give people new ideas for what to do with summer squash in stuff like brownies or cake or things like that.

The Pressure Cooker:

Which food shows or cooking shows do you watch?

Chopped.

What are some food blogs or food websites we have to know about?

Well, the ones that I mentioned before. So The Vanilla Bean Blog, Dolly and Oatmeal, With Food and Love, Sara from Cake Over Steak has such an interesting food blog that has beautiful recipes but she also illustrates her recipes, and I know she’s been on your show, and she is fantastic.

If you’re looking for a wonderful vegan site, Abby from The Frosted Vegan has just a great way with words and she is one of those people that makes things very easy to understand. I love too, if you’ve never glanced over the blog, Green Kitchen Stories, just beautiful photography and wonderful, nourishing, healthy food that never loses flavor and is exactly what I love to do, which is cooking seasonally.

Who do you follow on Pinterest, Instagram, or Facebook or Snapchat that make you happy?

Well, on Instagram, I love following The Fauxmartha. She has her little girl that she posts pictures of, but her food scenes are just so incredible and simple yet they just make me want to start cooking. That is something that is obviously what we all aspire to do. Another friend, her blog, it’s called Sunshine and Sea Salt. And she is just a real good friend and is an amazing recipe developer as well, but her words that she writes on Instagram are almost like sometimes blog posts. They are just beautiful. Oh, Ladycakes too is a really fun one to follow along with, and I love following her. Those are a few of my biggest inspirations.

What is the most unusual or treasured item in your kitchen?

My most treasured, the one that I use the most that like, if you could only keep three things from your kitchen, would be my Le Creuset dutch oven because they are just workhorses. They do everything that you could ever want, and then I used to think it was strange that my mom gave me my grandma’s silverware and now, I love it and I use it in so many of my photographs, and it really means a lot to me when I see it. And then, thirdly, are some of my thrift finds that I find while I’m out. One of those is this real old baker’s scale. You’ll see it in a couple of my posts and on my Instagram but they just don’t make things like that anymore.

Name one ingredient you used to dislike but now you love.

Ricotta cheese. I used to not like the texture. I only really had it in lasagna and I prefer cottage cheese over it in lasagna and that’s what formulated this dislike. Now, I think it is so great whether that’s baked with lemon and olive oil and herbs for an easy appetizer, or on salads. My favorite thing too is to put it into desserts where typically, you might use yogurt or something like that. It creates such a soft texture and moist, rich, just kind of like cake and it’s really a fabulous ingredient. But I thought I hated it. Now, I love it.

What are a few cookbooks that make your life better?

Deborah Madison’s Vegetable Literacy is, I mean, that should definitely be in your kitchen because it’s all about cooking with families of plants and how they all go together. It’s just really simple but interesting recipes and I use that as not only a reference guide but something every week in my kitchen.

Another one that I think you just should have it is Joy of Cooking, because every single technique or question you ever had about food is in there. There are also vintage recipes and modern new ways of doing things which I think is really cool.

One of my newest cookbooks that I use a lot and that I love is Sheet Pan Suppers and it’s all different recipes and it’s not just suppers but things that you can make on a sheet pan and have so little clean up. Very little clean up, like a sheet pan is just another workhorse too. And it creates delicious meals.

What song or album just makes you want to cook?

I wouldn’t say it’s any particular album or anything, but 50s and 60s music, some of those classic kind of blues but like, pop hits too. They’re all so upbeat and all have such a happy tone. They don’t make you think too hard and that’s kind of what I always have on in my kitchen.

On Keeping Posted with Amanda:

I am on Facebook and Instagram as heartbeetkitchen and beet is spelled like the vegetable, just for my blog too. And I am also on Pinterest and I am also on Twitter.

Snapchat: heartbeetkitchn

053: Abby Thompson: Veganism and Vegan Baking

June 24, 2015 by Gabriel Leave a Comment

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The Frosted Vegan

On The Frosted Vegan Abby showcases recipes that show that even if you’re eating a plant-based diet, you can still enjoy delicious desserts, and that it doesn’t have to be a hassle.

I am so pumped to have Abby Thompson of The Frosted Vegan here on the show today.

(*All images below are Abby’s.)

On Growing Up in a Home Where Food Was Enjoyed and Shared:

It was obviously awesome and delicious. In our house my mom was either making brownies on the weekend or my dad was making cookies after school, stuff like that. It just became a part of how I grew up, and when I moved away and started on my own that kind of fell off because mom and dad weren’t making them for me.

I loved baking, but I didn’t keep up with it. And especially when I turned vegan it became a little bit harder. I didn’t know if I would be able to keep up with all the baking and stuff like that. So, I just integrated it into my life and realized it was something that was part of my childhood and part of who I was.

It shaped how I looked at food, and treats were always an everyday thing. For some people they didn’t grow up with that, but for me it was just always something that was there.

On Being in the Kitchen:

This is kind of a weird story to remember, like baking and cooking, but I remember in middle school I did not make show choir. And I was so sad, but I was like, “I just need to make a pie.” So, I made a pie and I remember from then on it was like baking kind of solves everything. It feels awesome, I do it, and then I get a slice of pie at the end. So, it was great! It just started evolving from that.

I discovered in high school, you know, boys really like when you bring them cookies, or everyone is your friend if you bring them cakes! So, when I figured that out and I enjoyed it at the same time, it just started, like I said, becoming part of my everyday life.

I’ve always had a huge sweet tooth, and for some reason cooking doesn’t come easily to me. I have to have a recipe, I’m not just improvising dinner or anything like that. When I do it turns out not so great, so my fiance prefers I don’t improvise. But, it’s always been baking, I can kind of make up a muffin recipe and it’s no problem. I know that’s a little bit harder because baking is a little more scientific and exact, but for me it has just always come naturally. I can feel when it’s right, when it’s going to come out okay. It doesn’t always work, but most of the time it works.

On Veganism:

A vegan diet generally means you’re not consuming any animal products. So, not only no meat, no fish, no dairy, so cheese, eggs, that kind of thing are out.

You can go from one extreme to the other.

Some people just stop at cheese and eggs. Others avoid all gelatin because gelatin has animal-dried products. Fish sauces and a lot of Thai dishes, stuff like that. Then, it expands into a vegan lifestyle so some people choose not to consume leather goods or have anything with animal-dried products. It’s a sliding scale of what extreme you want to go to. And then, on the other side of it, I kind of try to also approach it with a plant-based diet, so that’s also avoiding excessive oils, super-fatty products.

Some of the vegan products out there are not necessarily healthy, they’re vegan, doesn’t mean they’re healthy. So, it really depends on what extreme you’re on or what part of the scale you’re on. It means something different for everyone.

On Becoming Vegan:

I went vegan about three years ago.

I always grew up in a household where cheese is on everything, we had chicken, fish, all that kind of stuff. But, I had never been a huge meat eater, I never really liked it.

I was starting to slowly phase out the meat in my diet just because it didn’t really matter to me. Then, my dad actually went cold turkey vegan about three years ago. He watched Forks Over Knives, which is a documentary, and he just decided that he wanted to make a change. He wasn’t really feeling great, wanted to feel a lot better, and eat a lot better. Nothing had ever really stuck for him. So, he did that and then I was still living at home at the time so it was kind of a natural thing to follow along with it.

When I moved away from home I just kept following it because I realized I felt a lot better. My body just felt better when I didn’t eat certain foods, and I’ve just slowly gone more vegan over the years.

The meat part wasn’t as hard, but the dairy is hard. A lot of stuff like grilled cheese or things with cheese in them, you have to figure out what works if you want to use vegan cheese or cheese at all, stuff like that. I’m still figuring it out.

I’m sure it will be a lifelong journey to figure out what works and what tastes the best, to me. That’s what I like about it though because it doesn’t feel very stagnant. I’m always finding something new. It’s awesome what people are doing with vegan food now.

On Baking Vegan and Her Blog:

I originally started it because when I moved away my dad was still wanting to make all the baked goods that I grew up making, but he didn’t want to necessarily include all the vegan butters, or oils, and extra stuff like that. He wasn’t really sure how to approach it, so I wanted to start figuring it out, not only for him but myself, too.

It just progressed from wanting to share those recipes and figuring out, “Hey, maybe other people are looking for these, so I’ll just start a blog!” I kind of just had to figure out what egg replacements work, or what kind of oil replacements, or can I get rid of the oil? Stuff like that.

It’s really relearning because up until I went vegan, I was making croissants from scratch, and things with a lot of eggs in them, and I loved it, but then trying to relearn what’s going to work in place of those things was a challenge.

On the Biggest Misconception of Baking Vegan:

I think the biggest one is that it’s going to be gross. I know some of the commercially made vegan, baked goods I’ve had have not been great. They’ve come out dry, or too oily, or it’s just not the same.

I really want to make it so that if you give someone a cookie and they eat it, they’re not like, “Oh, is this vegan? I can tell.” I want it to be, “Oh, this a cookie and it’s great. I had no idea.” So, I think it’s fighting that misconception that things are automatically going to be disgusting because they’re vegan.

Coconut oil, more people are becoming familiar with it, but that’s a big one that I use a lot, especially in place of butter or different oils. I know it’s more of an up and coming ingredient, but I use that quite a bit.

Ground flax seed, I had never used until I started baking vegan and that, when you combine it with water and let it sit for a little bit, it becomes sort of a gel and makes a really good egg substitute in a lot of things.

Those are two of the main ones that I hadn’t really heard of. I try avoid using weird things or things that are hard to find because I know not everyone lives super close to Whole Foods or anything like that. So, those are my two main ones that I use quite a bit.

Then, just using high quality flours or agave nectar and stuff like that just helps substitute for some of those common ingredients.

One of the first food blogs that I followed that helped a lot was, Oh She Glows. She’s really well known, she has everything from cooking to baking. She goes more in-depth into some of the things when she makes vegan baked goods and it has helped quite a bit.

Dairyfreebaking.com. Dairy free might still include a few eggs, but more milk substitute, stuff like that, she goes into that. I’ve had her site come up a lot when I’ve looked for different things.

The Pressure Cooker:

Which food shows or cooking shows do you watch?

I don’t watch a ton of cooking shows, but when she’s on, Giada De Laurentiis. I watch her, I think she’s pretty inspiring.

Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives, usually late at night it makes me really hungry so my fiance and I watch that quite a bit on a weekend night. Alton Brown shows when they were on, and I think those are the main ones.

I like Chopped too. It makes me think, “I can do anything in the kitchen!”

What are some food blogs or food websites we have to know about?

The First Mess, Laura writes that one and she’s awesome and totally inspiring. Vegan food that just, if you have it, again, you wouldn’t really know it’s vegan. She has an awesome writing style and I absolutely love it. I love her.

Cookie and Kate, she does amazing stuff with seasonal produce, and whenever I get my produce of the week, I know that she always has something that I can do anything with.

Cake Over Steak, Sara is awesome, I know she’s been on your podcast. And I love that she’s doing something different with using illustrations. I know she’s starting to do photography, but she does illustration and they’re awesome and amazing, so I love her things as well.

Then, let’s do one more, Joy the Baker, oh my gosh. She’s one of the first blogs I ever read. I would love to be the Joy the Baker of vegan baking.

Who do you follow on Pinterest, Instagram, or Facebook that make you happy?

Floating Kitchen, Liz over at Floating Kitchen, she lives on the east coast and she posts really awesome pictures. She lives by the beach and takes her dogs on walks and stuff like that. When it’s snowing here or really crappy, it’s cool to see her pictures of that.

Laura, again, of The First Mess, she does a lot of gardening and I love when she posts pictures of pulling radishes, or carrots, or anything like that. I think her dad does weekly deliveries to her, berries and things that he grows. So, I love seeing those things because it’s really cool. I think those are the ones I can think of off the top of my head.

What is the most unusual or treasured item in your kitchen?

My most treasured one at the moment is my Vitamix blender. I just got it about six months ago, and I use it almost every day, all the time. I’ve always wanted one so I’m glad I finally sprung for it.

Then another one is, it’s a measuring cup, which sounds weird, but it’s a tin measuring cup that my grandmother passed down to me. She grew up baking with it, I think it was her grandmother’s, and it’s really cool to use it. It’s super functional, and I love using it because I know it’s been passed down through baking generations in our family.

Name one ingredient you used to dislike but now you love.

Tomatoes. I use to not eat tomatoes in anything. I hated them. I hated chunks of them in anything, and I still wouldn’t like, eat one whole like some people do. But I’ve discovered that really good tomatoes, like fresh, summer tomatoes are amazing, and I love it now!

Then spinach too, I used to hate spinach. I grew my own spinach a couple years ago, and I loved it. So, I think the freshness really makes a difference.

What are a few cookbooks that make your life better?

The Bountiful cookbook which is by the White on Rice Couple, Todd and Diane, is awesome. Again, really focused on seasonal produce. They grow a lot of their own stuff, and it’s made it so much better because I’ll get something from the grocery store and think, “I don’t really know what to do with this. I’m going to look at this cookbook.” They have something amazing, very accessible, very easy, love their cookbook.

I have a baking cookbook from Williams Sonoma that I got several years ago that doesn’t have any vegan baking recipes in it, but it’s a super solid foundation for if I need a good jumping off point for a cake recipe or anything like that. I know that it’s going to be reliable, and even if I tinker with it with all my weird vegan stuff, it will probably come out or make a good foundation.

What song or album just makes you want to cook?

So, I’m a big fan of Pandora and I’ve really been into the song Uptown Funk by Bruno Mars. I think that song makes me say, “Okay, I can do this. Let’s get some cooking done. I am ready to go.”

On Keeping Posted with Abby:

I would say probably Instagram and Facebook. Those are the two biggest ones I am probably most active on.

Lazy Day with Cake Over Steak, HonestlyYUM, and Sugarlaws

March 28, 2015 by Gabriel Leave a Comment

I always get super excited to do these lazy day posts. They give me a chance to check out all the cool stuff that my food hero guests are into. And it’s always such an awesome mix because they all have different views on food.

Sara from Cake Over Steak is a super talented artist and looks at food in that same way. Karen is a globetrotter and loves to entertain, and HonestlyYUM is a reflection of that, and Katy of Sugarlaws is a mom, lawyer and writer, so the way she cooks has to fit into her busy life.

Below are some fun things they love and shared on podcast.

Sara Cornelius, Cake Over Steak

Sara is really passionate about art and we chat about that, but one thing we talked about was her passion and love of a certain food. I don’t think I’ve ever met someone with such a passion for it. Find out what it is HERE.

You can also find out what Sara would have for her World Ending, Last Meal HERE. (A hint, it includes the food that she’s super passionate about.)

A Food Show She Enjoys:	Mad Hungry
Some Food Blogs or Websites We Have to Know About:	Food52 Cookie and Kate Love and Lemons Minimalist Baker
Instagrams to Follow:	Momma's Gone City Bev Cooks
Cookbooks that Make Her Life Better:	Smitten Kitchen cookbook Keys to the Kitchen Fast, Fresh and Green
An Album that Makes Her Want to Cook:	Dean Martin's Greatest Hits

Karen Chan, HonestlyYUM

Karen has such a cool global view on food and it was super awesome to talk with her about different cultures and their food. If you’re not an adventurous eater, check out what Karen thinks would be a good gateway cuisine to try HERE.

For her last meal, Karen talks about a delicious dish that actually my wife made me when we were first dating. When put into the hands of someone who knows how to make it, it can’t be beat. Find out what it is HERE.

A Food Show She Watches:	Top Chef
A Food Blog we Have to Know About:	Green Kitchen Stories
An Instagram Account to Follow:	Yellowstone National Park
Cookbooks that Make Her Life Better:	Nigel Slater (Anything!)
A Band That Makes Her Want to Cook:	Alabama Shakes

Katy Atlas, Sugarlaws

I can really relate to Katy’s view on food and cooking at the moment, especially with a baby in our home. It’s really not about doing anything too fancy, but just having something that’s healthy and uncomplicated. If you want to limit your time spent in the kitchen, listen to Katy’s episode HERE.

Katy’s last meal is an eclectic mix of very simple things, well, and also champagne, but why not? The world is ending afterall! Find out what she’d have for her last meal HERE.

Food Shows She Enjoys:	Martha Stewart
Some Food Blogs and Websites We Have to Know About:	Bon Appetit Cooking Light Cupcakes and Cashmere
A Few Cookbooks That Make Her Life Better:	Martha Stewart The Art of Simple Food
Musical Artists That Make Her Want to Cook:	Bob Dylan Crosby, Stills and Nash The Beatles

That’s it! Another week of awesome conversations with food heroes.

I’m so lucky to be doing this.

If you haven’t already, please check out the iTunes page and subscribe to the podcast HERE to catch all the episodes. It’s FREE! If you enjoy the show, it’d be super cool if you would rate and review it on iTunes.

Have an incredible lazy day. You deserve it!

Gabriel

013: Sara Cornelius: How Cooking, Friends and Art Come Together

March 16, 2015 by Gabriel 2 Comments

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Cake Over Steak

Sara is a self proclaimed food blog and cookbook junkie, but above all, she is an artist.

Where many food blogs have super stylized photography that follow their recipes and posts, Sara illustrates many of the featured images on her blog Cake Over Steak, and they are crazy cool.

I am so pumped to have Sara Cornelius from Cake Over Steak joining me on the show today.

On Her Day Job:

I create custom hand etchings on gravestones, and you might think what the heck does that mean. Essentially, I illustrate pictures on granite with the Dremel tool. But we also have a laser machine that can laser etch photo quality images. It works like a laser printer but it is actually laser etching the granite.

I also create the files for that and operate the laser. We do actual pictures on some, or we use that to do texts sometimes, but the more fun part of my job is I create real custom scenes and things for people. Around here, it usually involves deer, cabins and tractors or things like that. Also, houses and beach scenes, so it’s really neat.

For most of the texts that we do, we sandblast that and a lot of that is done by machines and rubber stencils that is put over it, but we also have a guy in our sandblasting shop that hand carves roses. My boss says that he is the best guy in the East Coast doing that and he is really talented. So that is another art aspect at my office.

It’s really fun for me because now that I am in this industry, when I see old graveyards, I get really excited. I creepily go look at it, especially the really old stuff. I love seeing the designs from the ’20s and their kind of designs. You just get this whole new appreciation for it as a craft.

On Starting Her Blog:

At first I started reading food blogs and I thought this is really cool but I will never do this. There is no way I would ever do this and then I guess slowly over time I thought maybe I could do this. It seems like such a nice way to record your life. I like how people could weave a story about their life into a post with a banana bread recipe. You see how people put their own personality into them and you get to know these people through their blog.

I thought well maybe this would be something fun to do but I thought I can’t come up with my own recipes and I am not a photographer, and I would want to have good photography. Then I realized duh, I’m an illustrator. I could do the illustrations, but then I thought, well, I still wanted to have photos.

It took a while for me to actually start it. It took me like two years to come up with a name for my blog, so that was holding me back for a while. But when I started dating my husband, he is a photographer, I convinced him to take my photos for me.

It’s funny because we got engaged two months or so before I actually launched the blog, but I had already been working on it for a couple months behind the scenes. It was kind of funny because when we got I engaged I thought, “Okay then, I know I have a photographer for my blog for long term.” It’s not just that I am getting a husband, I’m getting a full time blog photographer until he gets totally sick of it and forces me to take my own. But I told him he has to teach me before it comes to that.

On Working With Her Husband:

He started his own blog back in June so sometimes it’s a push and pull where he wants to go work on his blog first. But he is a really good sport about it. I feel like people don’t realize how much of a saint he is unless you witness one of our photo-shoots together.

I am a total control freak and I think that because I am not in control of photography as much as I would like to be, it can be so frustrating to me. If the lighting is not good in the one afternoon that we have to do it, I’m like, “I don’t understand there is light on the table, why can’t the camera take this picture that I see in my head.” But he is really good about it.

With us both being artists, but totally different kinds of artists, we can feed off of each other and not be too competitive with each other. Because we are both very competitive people. But for example, I never say I am done with one of my illustrations until he sees it and doesn’t have anything to change. When he is working on one of his crazy composite photography images, he doesn’t call it done until I have seen it either. We are always asking each other for advice and he shows me Photoshop tricks for my illustrations which I do mostly digitally and things like that.

But also, when you are in a relationship with someone like that, I can tell exactly what I think and know that he is not going to freak out on me and stuff like that.

I think that we are really honest with each other.

On the Connection Between Food and Artistry:

I didn’t get into the field until college. I have always been into art as long as I can remember. It just has always been a part of me. Food, I started getting into near the end of college when I moved off campus and had my own apartment, and my own kitchen, and had to feed myself. I think needing to feed myself in my brain I was like, “If I am going to do this, I am going to do this really well.”

I have always loved baking and I was never super into cooking real food. But I think that’s because I just have such a sweet tooth that I have never been that into real food or at least I thought I wasn’t. But I don’t think I found the foods that I really loved until college when I was introduced to them. Like discovering things when you meet new people and you’re in a new place and everything.

That started to grow in college and then for my junior thesis project I did a cookbook. I mean it wasn’t actually a cookbook; it was like you pretend you are doing this big project then you do two to three pieces for it. So I did it as a cookbook and I did some food paintings. They are actually hanging in the kitchen of my parent’s house.

In my senior year for one of my graphic design classes I did actually design a cookbook. So I started moving it into my college projects. I was so burnt out from college that aside from my job, I took the other areas of my life off from art because my senior year was so intense. I started my full time job three weeks after I graduated so it was just no stopping. I gave my brain a break from art for a bit which I think was a really good choice, and instead, I would just bake cookies.

I did get to indulge in that other passion but slowly I started thinking more and more about doing the food blog again. What that would be and what I wanted it to be like, and eventually, it turned out to be what it is now.

On the Person Who Influenced Her Cooking:

It would be my really good friend Jackie from college. She was really into cooking and I remember thinking that’s so weird. Because even though my mom always had a home-cooked meal for us at home almost every night – family sits down for dinner and it’s homemade and everything like that, my mom didn’t love cooking and she still doesn’t. I think she might have if we hadn’t been such picky and annoying children. I really feel for her now looking back on that.

Being that my friend Jackie was really into it, I started cooking with her every now and then in college. Actually, when I started becoming friends with her, it was my freshman year and I went to school in Philly. That day, she had walked to the Italian market, which is kind of a long walk, just to buy a rolling pin because she wanted to bake a pie.

I met up with her when she got back to the house. She said, “Hey, I’m going up to the penthouse in the dorm to make a pie, do you want to help me?” So I said, “Sure!” and then my best friend and roommate came out to join us, and a couple of other friends, and we ended up going outside to eat this pie. We bought ice cream and some other things and it was as the cherry blossom trees were blooming right in front us.

That is the night we all became really good friends. So then every year after that we celebrated our pie night and we would have pie and ice cream when the trees bloomed. That was really cool. I would say she’s the first person I knew who really loved cooking that influenced me. But then once I started reading food blogs. It was really food bloggers who got to me more.

On How She Decides on What to Cook:

That’s a good question because I don’t make as much as I want to.

I have cookbooks that I have not even cooked from, that’s ridiculous. Sometimes a recipe grabs me so much that I literally put it on my to-do list. If I know I can’t make it that day, I’ll think why do I have this going on this night, but I have this day off and I could make this then, and I will put it on my to-do list for that day.

Every once in awhile it’s kind of like the luck of the draw where I have everything in my kitchen to make it or something like it and then it’s like, “Ooh this is what I will make for dinner tonight!”

The Pressure Cooker:

Which food shows or cooking shows do you watch?

I don’t watch many but last year when I got my tonsils out I became obsessed with Mad Hungry with Lucinda Scala Quinn.

I don’t think the show is technically on anymore. I think you can find a couple of them on Hulu but I think the recipes are on YouTube though.

What are some food blogs or websites that we have to know about?

Definitely Food 52. That’s one of my favorites.

I follow so many it’s ridiculous. Smitten Kitchen obviously. I also love Cookie and Kate, Love and Lemons, Sprouted Kitchen, Minimalist Baker, Joy The Baker.

Who do you follow on Pinterest, Instagram or Twitter that make you happy?

Every morning I check in with a couple of Instagrams. My two favorites involve people with children, the one her name is Momma’s Gone City. Theo and Beau?

She is a mommy blogger but her family adopted a puppy like a year ago and this dog naps on their two-year-old son every day.

It’s so cute.

And then also food blogger Bev Cooks, she had twins like a year ago, a boy and a girl, and she posts really great pictures of them every day. She also adds hilarious captions so that is one of my favorites.

What is something all home cooks should have in their pantry?

I think everyone should have a microplane zester because if you have ever tried to zest a lemon or whatever without one, it makes me want to kill myself.

Those make it so easy and they are also the best for grating parmesan cheese.

Name one ingredient you cannot live without?

Chocolate. Milk chocolate.

I guess with baking I use more of semi-sweet but flavor-wise there’s like Icelandic chocolate bars, something they sell at Whole Foods, that I used to get in college, and I think my favorite was 33%.

It’s great, it comes in this plane white paper, it looks really nondescript but it’s two layers of chocolate. So it’s technically two bars and they are pretty big. They have all these squares but they have a couple of different percentages, but I liked the 33 and the 55.

What are a few cookbooks that make your life better?

I mentioned the Smitten Kitchen one, I love that one. I love Keys to the Kitchen by Aida Mollenkamp, that is one of my all time favorites. That one just has so many great recipes. My favorite pesto is from there. But that one is fun because each recipe teaches you a technique. So if you wanted to do just a basic recipe, you could leave out some of the crazy seasonings or whatever, but it also gives you a new interesting take on it. I think that is a great one for a beginner cook who is a little adventurous.

Another one I turn to a lot is one of the first cookbooks I ever got. It’s called Fast, Fresh and Green and it’s all about cooking vegetables. But it has it broken down by cooking technique and within each chapter it gives you a breakdown of if you are using this vegetable, cut it to this size, and do it for this time for this method. It has a bunch of great sauces and different ideas for things so I turn to that a lot.

I think that’s one of the things that I love about trying new recipes, because you almost always learn something and then I can use that to come up with my own version later.

What song or album just makes you want to cook?

Probably Dean Martin’s greatest hits. I really love the Rat Pack old style stuff. I think that makes me want to chill out in the kitchen and cook up some really good pasta.

Keep Posted on Sara:

There is always my blog cakeoversteak.com. I am also on Twitter and Instagram mostly. I put a lot of recipes on Pinterest. I’m not super interactive on that, mostly just to hoard recipes on it.

I would say Twitter, Instagram and also Facebook.