The Dinner Special podcast

  • Episodes
  • Contact

132: Luisa Brimble: Photography, Food and Relationships

July 20, 2016 by Gabriel Leave a Comment

Luisa Brimble on The Dinner Special podcast talking about keeping posted with her.
http://traffic.libsyn.com/thedinnerspecial/TDS132.mp3

Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS

Luisa Brimble on The Dinner Special podcast talking about photography, food and relationships.

Luisa Brimble

Luisa is a food and lifestyle photographer, based in Sydney, Australia, who strives to capture images that exude warmth, simplicity, honesty, and connection. Her work has been published in numerous print and online publications, including Kinfolk magazine, Frankie magazine, and Food & Wine magazine, just to name a few. When she is not photographing, Luisa is collaborating with other creatives to hold food photography and styling workshops.

I am so happy to have Luisa Brimble of lbrimble.com joining me here on the show today.

(*All photos below are Luisa’s.)

On Her Photography Journey:

Luisa Brimble on The Dinner Special podcast talking about her photography journey.

(Photo by Hugo Sharp)

I basically started at being a wedding and portrait photographer. When Kinfolk magazine came along in 2011, that’s when I fell in love with the whole gathering and all the food. I started shooting food and mainly gatherings. It basically started when I started doing the Kinfolk gatherings in Australia and organizing workshops here and there. Since then, it just fell in and then I started shooting for Broadsheet in Sydney. They’re like the guide to where you want to eat around Sydney and Melbourne. They didn’t pay me a lot of money, but I actually did say to people that I think it’s like baptism by fire. If you wanted to get your foot in the door in photography, you do this stuff to get your name out there. I would not have gotten my first cookbook photography, without the experience of working with Broadsheet.

This is really amazing, and kind of story that I actually tell people every time I do workshops. This is the very first cookbook that I photographed, Community by Arthur Street Kitchen cookbook. Actually, I met Hetty McKinnon. This is the first cover. There’s only 1,000 copies of this being printed. I think in a space of three weeks or a month or something like that, the book was sold out, and then it was picked up by a publisher called Plum Books. This is the second edition of the book, and I think it’s about 60,000 copies now that’s been printed in Australia. So we photographed the cookbook, and her second cookbook in New York, which is called Neighbourhood. It’s actually going to be released in September, which is really exciting.

Anyway, because of  the Community cookbook, because of love, I said to Hetty when I first met her photographing for Broadsheet, and we just started talking. We hit it off. We talked about…and I think the one common thread that we talked about is because we love Kinfolk. I loved it, and she loved the aesthetic, too, at the time. We were talking about it and then all of a sudden she said, “I really want to publish my own cookbook.” I said, “My God! I would love to shoot it. I will shoot it, I will shoot it for love.” There was money involved when we photographed this. It was both our time, her time and she paid for all the ingredients and her time cooking it. Anyway, I think when the book was released and it was sold out, it was just the biggest opportunity that I’ve ever had.

Then all of a sudden I started shooting. I shot a cookbook for Penguin, Lantern. It was one of the MasterChef guys. I’ve never been in such a legit photo shoot, where we had a stylist and we had props. It was an amazing experience. Since then, that’s when I just said, “No, I’m not shooting weddings anymore and I just want to concentrate on food.” So since then, I’ve just basically done cookbooks, shooting cookbooks and shooting food or shooting for small businesses which I love. Just doing lots of personal projects.

On Cooking and Food:

Luisa Brimble on The Dinner Special podcast talking about cooking and food.

I could never be a food blogger, and the only reason for that is because I can’t concentrate on doing two things. I would definitely prefer to be behind the lens. This is why I was so glad I met Sarah Glover because I kind of could blog through her because she cooks all the food and I shoot it. I always wanted to have a food blog, but now everything is just that way. But I do cook at home, but I can’t create recipes. I get inspired, but it’s only to share around the house. If I do have a recipe book in front of me and I don’t like one of the ingredients, I would usually just swap it or kind of change a little bit of the method.

On Hosting Styling and Photography Workshops:

Luisa Brimble on The Dinner Special podcast talking about hosting styling and photography workshops.

I think the first workshop was kind of initiated by the fact that I just wanted to collaborate with other people. My first ever workshop would’ve probably had been with Beth Kirby, Local Milk, which I organized here in Sydney at Glenmore House. That’s probably about three years ago now, and we did probably about three workshops. So she came back to Sydney. Since then Aran Goyoaga from Cannelle et Vanille invited me to teach a workshop in Seattle, which is like, “What? Are you serious? It’s like, Aran. Why would she even ask me to come to Seattle? Then since then, we’re like…I collaborate a lot with Sophie Hansen, Local Is Lovely, because they have a big property where she grew up with her mom. She’s got this property about two hours’ drive from Sydney, and she actually teaches art classes as well.

But it actually accommodates probably about 15 people, and we were able to do the workshops there. That’s how I  started doing a collab. The one thing that Sydney is really hard to kind of organize a workshop for is finding the right venue. It’s really hard because it’s very expensive. By the time you organize a workshop and work out all the logistics and the people and the food, and the scenes and the props and everything, to really make money off workshops, you should be charging about $3,000. But we were charging half of that, especially for a Local Is Lovely workshop. Because, obviously, we didn’t have to pay so much with the accommodation, and that really helped a lot.

It’s basically giving people the chance of going to a workshop that is so affordable, and it’s three days. I like that workshop, because I feel like if we do two and a half days, we’re kind of giving people a lot more value for their money. And it’s really nice to get to know everyone. It’s like I say this a lot to people, I meet the next person I’m collaborating with at a workshop. I’ve met so many already that’ve been to a second shooting with me or I mentored them and all that sort of stuff. I do a little bit of a workshop now with Annabelle Hickson of The Dailys where it’s actually 10 hours’ drive. It’s all the way down to the country, 10 hours’ drive from Sydney, but yet, people still go there.

I think one part of why we do workshops is, this isn’t money making. We’re not making money off it. We have a big team of people and only because we like to hang out with people that we really like working with. I think it’s all about relationships as well. So collaborating with a lot of people is what I love doing best. This is why workshops happen. I only have two left this year. Next month we have Molly Yeh coming. This is with Local is Lovely with Sophie Hansen. So we’re now in full swing to kind of plan what we’re going to be doing next year in 2017. I think the plan is, hopefully, fingers crossed, there will be workshops in Europe. And that’s the plan. So we’re working on that.

The Pressure Cooker:

Luisa Brimble on The Dinner Special podcast answering The Pressure Cooker.

Which food shows or cooking shows do you watch?

Chef’s Table! But I do love the local ones, the Australian local ones. The ones that I really love is, I know there’s River Cottage and there is also Mathew Evans’ show, Gourmet Farmer. Gourmet Farmer is my favorite show.

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

I love following Hugo and Elsa and Local Is Lovely, obviously Sophie Hansen. I love her food blog. My Darling Lemon Thyme, obviously. Also Cook Republic. I also do love Local Milk, Lean & Meadow is great. Matters of the Belly, obviously, Noha.  There are so many out there. I think once you can go from one place, it just spreads out. Those are some of my definite favorite blogs.

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

Number one is Lisa Marie Corso. She’s the editor or managing editor of The Design Files. I know it’s more interior. It’s not really food. But her personal Instagram makes me laugh all the time. I love it. Just really good with the way, with her words and all that. The Dailys, really beautiful aesthetics and country life and all the things that she shares. Amelia Fullarton, amazing work. Again, it’s not food. I find my inspiration not necessarily with food, and I think I feel like Instagram is so bombarded with so much food now.

I just want to get away from so much of that, and then follow people who are actually amazing at capturing the light and the shadows and all that. Saskia Wilson, she does fashion.  She does a lot of fashion, but again, I follow them because of the way they work with the lines and the elements of design. Oli Sansom, again amazing portrait photography. Tim Coulson because of his family and the way he just shares his life and love of life.

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

I would probably say this one plate. The plate that…when my mother-in-law passed away probably about five years ago now when they sold everything, and they sold the property, and I said the only thing that I want from that house is the dining, everyday plates. Whenever we come and visit, an everyday plate. I think there was only one plate that was left. It was rescued and that was it. It’s this really simple floral, and I love eating from it.

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

Brussel sprouts. I’ve never really been introduced to that, only quite recently, actually. But Hetty McKinnon made me love it. I think when we were shooting for her cookbook, she made me look at it differently. It’s such a bitter vegetable, but she just put it in an oven, roasted it and comes out and it’s just really amazing. It just brings out the sweetness in it, sweet and bitter kind of thing.

What are a few cookbooks that make your life better?

Oh my gosh. Nigel Slater. When I buy cookbooks, though, I only really look at it for photos. Sometimes I do read…I read the recipes and just go through. I really like the way he just explains it. It’s just straight to the point. No beating around the bush, simplicity. I like it, just simple. It doesn’t have to be complicated. This is A Table in the Orchard by Michelle Crawford. I love it because it’s all about her stories and also her favorite recipes. It’s a beautiful book. Again, can’t go past Arthur Street Kitchen and Emiko Davies’ cookbook, Florentine. She now lives in Italy. And yes, there are some amazing, really great recipes there. Some of the pastas and some of the really nice cakes and biscuits. Again, also photographed by one of my favorite photographers, which is Lauren Bamford.

What song or album just makes you want to cook?

You know what? I don’t have a favorite album or a favorite theme, but I do listen to Spotify and then I put like a playlist on the 80s. Just listen to the 80s music. You know what? When I’m cooking, I actually don’t listen to music a lot. But I listen to podcasts like, The Dinner Special podcast. Boom!

On Keeping Posted with Luisa:

Luisa Brimble on The Dinner Special podcast talking about keeping posted with her.

Definitely Instagram. I’m always just posting. If not, Snapchat. Same name, Luisa Brimble.

Subscribe to The Dinner Special podcast

Filed Under: Podcast Tagged With: A Table in the Orchard, Amelia Fullarton, Arthur Street Kitchen, Australia, Broadsheet, Cannelle et Vanille, Chef's Table, Cook Republic, cookbook photographer, Emiko Davies, Glenmore House, Gourmet Farmer, Hetty McKinnon, Hugo and Elsa, Kinfolk magazine, lbrimble.com, Lean & Meadow, Lisa Marie Corso, Local is Lovely, Local Milk, Luisa Brimble, Mathew Evans, Matters of the Belly, Michelle Crawford, Molly Yeh, My Darling Lemon Thyme, Oli Sansom, Photographer, River Cottage, Sarah Glover, Saskia Wilson, Sophie Hansen, Sydney, The Dailys, The Design Files, Tim Coulson

124: Robyn Holland: Baking Up a Whole New Way to Treat Yourself

May 25, 2016 by Gabriel Leave a Comment

Robyn Holland of Sweetish on The Dinner Special podcast talking about baking up a whole new way to treat yourself.
http://traffic.libsyn.com/thedinnerspecial/TDS124.mp3

Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS

Robyn Holland of Sweetish.co on The Dinner Special podcast talking about baking up a whole new way to treat yourself.

Sweetish.co

Robyn launched her blog in 2015 after a decade of dabbling in storytelling through writing, baking, and photography. She is obsessed with people and food, and her food experiences range from working in professional bakeries to teaching cooking classes to freelance baking and cooking for clients. Robyn firmly believes there is joy in treating yourself when you treat yourself well.

I am so excited to have Robyn Holland of Sweetish.co on the show today.

(*All photos below are Robyn’s.)

On A Whole New Way to Treat Yourself:

Robyn Holland of Sweetish on The Dinner Special podcast talking about a whole new way to treat yourself.

We played around with that tagline and that purpose a lot, and we would like to incorporate a lot more how-to on things for people to learn, so a lot of educational stuff, instead of just a recipe.

I think one of the big things that I wanted to do is bust through some of these food rumors, like what is really good for you versus what isn’t good for you at all. I know it seems oxymoronic,…I don’t know the right word…but ironically, even, because I do talk so much about desserts. But I’m very specific with the ingredients that I’ll use, and I would like to introduce produce and different flours, gluten-free options, just fun stuff like that into our everyday baking. So I really wanted to come at it from that angle and that approach. Sweetish to me, I wanted to create this online bakery, and bakeries don’t just have sweets, they have savory, too, incorporating that concept.

On Learning How to Bake:

Robyn Holland of Sweetish on The Dinner Special podcast talking about learning how to bake.

The first dish I probably learned to bake were chocolate chip cookies. And my mom, she’s a really good cook, and my Grandma was a really good cook, and I just learned. I remember making pizza dough with my dad in the kitchen, just for fun, when I was little, six years old. And so we just were very much a family of food and always making things. And baking from scratch has just been a big part of my upbringing.

And then when I moved away for university, for college, I was like, “Okay, I’ve got to do this on my own.” That’s probably when I really fell in love with it even more because it was just me in the kitchen. I realized I could create all of these different things and started taking food science classes. I actually started working in a bakery. So it just escalated from there, really just wanting to learn.

On What it’s Like Baking Wedding Cakes:

Robyn Holland of Sweetish on The Dinner Special podcast talking about what it's like baking wedding cakes.

Very terrifying, yes, very. I am not a culinary institute graduate. I learned from some amazing bakers at the bakeries I’ve worked at. But I felt very like, “Oh, my gosh. I don’t know how to do this.” So luckily the style of the cakes that they wanted were very much me, very, very simple and flowers here and there and different things like that, and they just wanted them to taste good and be pretty. So I’ve done freelance work like that. It’s super nerve-racking. The transportation of wedding cakes is the worst. It’s like, “Okay. Oh, my gosh. I forgot about this, and I forgot about having to drop them off somewhere.”

But that concept of just very simple, very, very simple and very homemade. Pretty, but very homemade, and that’s really the feeling I wanted to bring into Sweetish, very approachable, very homemade. There are some incredibly beautiful cakes and different things out there, and I’m just like, “Gosh, I’m so simple compared to that.” I really don’t want to hassle a lot with food or with baking. I want it to be easy, I want it to be really good, and I want to know what’s in my baked goods.

That approach was definitely taken into the wedding cakes. They didn’t have to do a bunch of sugar art or anything like that and just did really simple, beautiful.

On a Dish That is Special to Her:

There are so many. I don’t know if I will even ever post about this, but one dish that we used to make growing up… We have a lot of Danish heritage, and we called it cream eggs on toast. We would butter toast, we’d get really good bread, and we’d just toast it, and every kid would have a fun job in the kitchen for preparing this meal. And it probably sounds really gross, but it was really good. We’d tear toast up, and then my mom would make this cream sauce, like a Béchamel sauce. And then we would have hard boiled eggs, and you would mix the white part of the hard boiled eggs with the cream sauce. And then you’d pour it over these little pieces of buttered toast, and then you’d crumble the egg yolk on top. That was some sort of Danish thing that my Grandma would make. I don’t even know.

It was a super cheap dinner, but we loved dipping our little pieces of toast in this cream sauce with egg. Even now, it probably wouldn’t even be half as good, but it was just such a special memory that we were involved and making this special dish growing up. There are so many more that probably sound so much more appealing than that.

The Pressure Cooker:

Which food shows or cooking shows do you watch?

I love Gordon Ramsay, his show. I’ve kind of been watching old shows, though.  I love Cooked…That’s a documentary series…and Chef’s Table on Netflix, both of those. And then anything that has to do with Barefoot Contessa I watch all the time. Those are probably my top ones.

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

There are so many. There are a few that I have been obsessed with lately. I love Sprouted Kitchen. She’s probably my favorite blogger out there, and I’ve read her blog probably the longest. I love With Food And Love, I love Sherrie, what she’s doing…and I love Heartbeet Kitchen. That’s another one. She just has beautiful photography. You can just feel her sunshine through her posts. I love Hummingbird High. I think she does awesome bakery goods stuff, and I love what she’s doing. There are a bazillion.

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

I follow probably more people on Instagram than anything else. I love following Apartment Therapy for different things for kitchen ideas because I dream of having an amazing kitchen some day. I love Hey, Sweet Pea. They’re really fun and inspirational, and they’re a husband/wife team that have started their own business. They started the branding program that I had mentioned previously, so they’re super inspiring.

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

I’ll go with unusual. I bought this super weird pie rack…I wish I could show it to you…but it looks like chicken coop circles. And I guess it was something that they used to cool pies on, and it looks like an empty wired cake pan. You’re supposed to put a pie to cool on top and then a pie to cool on the middle. I saw it at this cool store up in northern California, and I was like, “What is that?” They told me it was a pie cooling rack. So I don’t even know if it really is, but I had my eyes on it.

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

Raw onions. I used to hate raw onions, and now I like them. If I’m putting them in sauces and stuff or dressings, it can’t be a ton, but I definitely have learned to like them more.

What are a few cookbooks that make your life better?

Barefoot Contessa at Home, it’s  one of my favorite cookbooks ever. I love Huckleberry. That’s one of my favorite cookbooks. The Violet Bakery Cookbook. I love her stuff. Those are some good ones.

Barefoot Contessa, the original cookbook, is one of my favorite cookbooks of all time. That is the cookbook that got me cooking.

What song or album just makes you want to cook?

I love listening to the Lumineers. They’re my favorite. And then I love listening to The Black Keys, and sometimes I’ll put on The Beach Boys. That’s fun and upbeat to listen to. Those three are probably my favorite.

On Keeping Posted with Robyn:

Robyn Holland of Sweetish on The Dinner Special podcast talking about how to keep posted with her.

Instagram is a great way, and I love comments and stuff on my blog. Email, I check regularly. So any of those platforms are really good. Keep an eye out for YouTube because we hope to have it up and running, and we will definitely post that on the blog. Sweetish.co, the actual blog site, is probably the best way to see what’s up and coming. And Instagram, too. I try to keep that up to day as much as possible.

Subscribe to The Dinner Special podcast

Filed Under: Podcast Tagged With: Apartment Therapy, Baker, Baking, Barefoot Contessa, Barefoot Contessa at Home, Chef's Table, Cooked, Food Blog, Food Blogger, Gordon Ramsay, Heartbeet Kitchen, Hey, Huckleberry, Hummingbird High, Robyn Holland, Sprouted Kitchen, Sweet Pea, Sweetish.co, The Beach Boys, The Black Keys, The Lumineers, The Violet Bakery Cookbook, Wedding Cake, With Food and Love

120: Katie Wahlman: Finding A Creative Outlet In Baking

April 27, 2016 by Gabriel Leave a Comment

Katie Wahlman of Butterlust on The Dinner Special podcast talking about how to keep posted with her.
http://traffic.libsyn.com/thedinnerspecial/TDS120.mp3

Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS

Katie Wahlman of Butterlust on The Dinner Special podcast talking about being driven by finding a creative outlet in baking.

Butterlust

Katie’s blog, Butterlust, allows her to combine her love of food with the need for a creative outlet. She is open and honest about everything she makes on her blog and believes that she could quite possibly be the messiest cook on the planet.

I am so thrilled to have Katie Wahlman of Butterlust with me here on the show.

On a Dish That’s Special to Her:

I would go back to that zucchini bread recipe that I was talking about because it is my grandma’s recipe and my mom grew up eating it and then I grew up eating it. Even my mom, who, like I said, isn’t a big cook, isn’t a home baker, isn’t a home cook, it’s one of those things that even neighbors growing up and my best friend’s moms and everybody would get so excited when my mom would bring over a loaf of zucchini bread.

It really is the first baking memory from scratch that I have. You have to grate all the zucchini – that would be my job. Then my mom would let me pour in the oil and do all the stirring. It doesn’t require a mixer. It’s a really simple quick bread. But it does have a lot of memories attached to it for me as well.

The Pressure Cooker:

Which food shows or cooking shows do you watch?

I don’t have cable. My boyfriend and I recently cut the cord and we don’t have a cable service, so I don’t watch a ton of food TV, but I do watch a couple food shows on Netflix. The Great British Baking Show is on Netflix now, and I’m still on season 1, but it’s absolutely adorable and I’m kind of obsessed with it. Everybody is so happy and supportive of one another, and they make really amazing things and you learn so much from it.

Sometimes while my boyfriend and I cook dinner, we watch Chopped reruns. It’s kind of an inspiration while we’re trying to make something out of what’s in the refrigerator. So we’ll do that. And my favorite thing that I rave about to anybody who will listen, is Chef’s Table on Netflix. The six-part series documentary is about some of the best chefs in the world. The cinematography is just so stunning. I’ve probably watched each of the episodes three to four times; I love it.

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

I follow like 200-plus blogs. There are so many inspiring bloggers out there. A couple of my go-to’s that I will check every once in a while if I’m in need of inspiration or just want to see what these girls are up to, I love Hummingbird High, Michelle Lopez.

Two Red Bowls, which is Cynthia. She makes these amazing beautiful dishes. And then My Name is Yeh. She’s Molly Yeh of North Dakota. She makes the most fun, just happy type of desserts, so she’s really an inspiration too.

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

Some of my favorite Instagramers are probably @ladyandpups. Her stuff is absolutely beautiful. Again, a lot of Asian inspired food but her photography is just really stunning. Beth Kirby of @local_milk. She’s kind of just exploded in the last few years. I can’t even understand how she can take such beautiful photos. They’re just absolutely stunning. And then I guess probably Eva Kosmas Flores from Adventures In Cooking, who I know that you’ve also had on the podcast. Her stuff’s beautiful as well. I love how moody and Pacific Northwestern it is. The lighting is just absolutely stunning.

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

Does a couch count? I feel like my living room and kitchen are just basically like one big room. I don’t really have anything super unusual. I would say my most treasured items would be I have this antique teal-blue Pyrex bowl that belonged to my great-aunt Aggie who lived to be 102. So I have that, and I’m like, “Don’t touch it.” My boyfriend tries to use it to cook in and I’m like, “Don’t! If you break it, I’ll die.” Probably also my KitchenAid mixer. As a baker, your KitchenAid mixer is your best friend.

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

This doesn’t necessarily apply to baking as much, but I used to hate, despise broccoli, and now I love it. I eat it everyday. It’s my favorite vegetable.

What are a few cookbooks that make your life better?

Well, like I said, I don’t have a lot of room for cookbooks. My collection is pretty slim currently, but the, Baking: From My Home To Yours by Dorie Greenspan is probably my favorite baking staple.

I also have this cookbook called, Vintage Cakes by Julie Richardson. She apparently found a box of old vintage recipes in the attic of a bakery that she bought or something like that, and tweaked them to make them a little bit more modern and created this vintage cakes book out of it, which kind of goes with the scheme of me really loving these simple, really rustic skillet cakes. A lot of the stuff in there is along those lines, and everything I’ve made from it has been totally spot on. So I actually really love that one too. I’ve been baking from it a lot lately.

What song or album just makes you want to cook?

Probably anything shamelessly poppy. I have a wide variety of likes when it comes to music, but when I’m baking, I want to dance around and have a good time in the kitchen. So, probably Taylor Swift’s, 1989. I think when that album came out, for the next three months, that was the only thing I listened to while I baked. I find myself listening to a lot of Hall & Oates and old pop music which is a lot of fun. So yeah, anything that I can dance around to and have fun with.

On Keeping Posted with Katie:

Katie Wahlman of Butterlust on The Dinner Special podcast talking about how to keep posted with her.

I’m probably the most active on Instagram, so my Instagram handle is @butterlustkatie.

Subscribe to The Dinner Special podcast

Filed Under: Podcast Tagged With: Adventures in Cooking, Baking, Baking: From My Home to Yours, Beth Kirby, Butterlust, Chef's Table, Chopped, Dorie Greenspan, Eva Kosmas Flores, Food Blog, Food Blogger, Hall & Oats, Hummingbird High, Julie Richardson, Katie Wahlman, Lady and Pups, Local Milk, Michelle Lopez, Molly Yeh, My Name is Yeh, Taylor Swift, The Great British Baking Show, Two Red Bowls, Vintage Cakes, Zucchini Bread

119: Alexa Arnold: Seasonal Food and The People Who Produce It

April 20, 2016 by Gabriel Leave a Comment

Alex Arnold of The Best Bite of the Plum on The Dinner Special podcast talking about seasonal food and the people who produce it.
http://traffic.libsyn.com/thedinnerspecial/TDS119.mp3

Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS

Alexa Arnold of The Best Bite of the Plum on The Dinner Special podcast talking about being driven by seasonal food and the people who produce it.

The Best Bite of the Plum

Her blog, The Best Bite of the Plum, is where she celebrates the experience of eating, preparing, and sharing sustainable, seasonal meals.

Alexa is driven by her passion for food and the people who produce it, and can usually be found promoting healthy school food and farm to school efforts around the country, and browsing cookbooks and farmers’ markets for inspiration.

I am so excited to have Alexa Arnold of The Best Bite of the Plum joining me on the show today.

(*All photos below are Alexa’s.)

On Working in the Good Food Movement:

Alex Arnold of The Best Bite of the Plum on The Dinner Special podcast talking about working with FoodCorps.

I’m really fortunate that my mom packed my lunch most days going to school, but there were a lot of kids who didn’t have that opportunity. Kids eat sometimes most of their daily calories in school. So the good food movement is trying to ensure that the food is healthy and nourishing.

On the Shift to Eating More Local:

Alex Arnold of The Best Bite of the Plum on The Dinner Special podcast talking about the shift to eating more local.

I think so many people now understand the benefits of eating local and shortening the transportation between the food to their plates, keeping money in the local economy, and eating food when it’s at peak season. I think a lot of people are totally on board with that.

On Cooking What’s Local and Seasonal:

Alex Arnold of The Best Bite of the Plum on The Dinner Special podcast talking about cooking seasonal and local.

It’s okay to not be perfect and cook seasonally every time. Maybe you were just desperate for the tomatoes because it’s been a really long time. They’re not going to taste as good from the farmers’ market, but it’s okay to not be so strict about your values in terms of just only buying local.

On a Dish That’s Special to Her:

Alex Arnold of The Best Bite of the Plum on The Dinner Special podcast talking about a dish that is special to her.

There’s a dish that’s on my blog, and it’s a Concorde Grape Focaccia. I’ve already talked a lot about tomatoes, but the thing that actually was a spark for me at a farmers market was the first time I had a locally grown grape. I’m not even sure what variety of grape it was. It was maybe a Concorde. But I took a bite of it in front of the farmer and was literally blown away by the taste. I was like, “Oh my gosh. If this is a grape, what have I been eating my whole life?”

Grape season is in September, October or maybe late August, but it’s my absolute favorite season. And so this dish is really special to me because it’s the epitome of things that inspired me. And the thought of putting grapes in bread was also really wacky to me at first. I was like, “That doesn’t make any sense.” But it’s awesome.

Alex Arnold of The Best Bite of the Plum on The Dinner Special podcast talking about her grape focaccia.

And traditionally, in Italy, during grape harvest season in September, they make this focaccia. The other wacky thing about it is, they often leave the seeds in the grapes. So, once it cooks and once it bakes, the seeds get a little softer and it’s this little crunch that at first can be shocking when you’re a person who doesn’t like seeds in your grapes, but then it’s kind of addicting and awesome.

That’s a dish that’s pretty special to me. It’s my favorite thing to make. I have a lot of frozen grape focaccia in my freezer because I made so much during grape season.

The Pressure Cooker:

Which food shows or cooking shows do you watch?

Well, I’m going to fail this question because I don’t really watch any, but I’ve been hearing amazing things about the Netflix series called Chef’s Table. I think that’s what it’s called. So that’s on my list to watch, so I’ll report back.

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

I think the one food blog that has really inspired me in a lot of ways is the blog, Happy Yolks. I’ve been following her for a really long time. I don’t know if she’s actually really blogging much anymore. Her writing is so beautiful and honest and vulnerable. And a lot of blogs that I go to, I go to also for the writing, not just for the recipes. And I think she just does such a beautiful job of pairing those.

I also follow Brooklyn Supper. I love her recipes because they’re simple, they’re seasonal. She’s based in Appalachia, I think, in Virginia. I’ve spent a lot of time in Appalachia and I know that there are a lot of people who are eager and hungry for really simple seasonal recipes with food that’s been grown there for a long time.

I’ll also mention my friend Katherine’s blog called Cook with What You Have. She’s based in Portland, Oregon. The name is perfect. She is the epitome of everything I want to be in a cook, which is a person who saves the scraps and the little bits and pieces and makes something really cool and beautiful out of them. And she also has a business where she teaches these awesome cooking classes about just that.

Those are some of my favorite blogs, among so many others.

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

I follow so many food bloggers on Instagram. That’s probably the main social media mode that I use. I love Baker Hands. She is this incredible baker who is also this incredible artist. And she makes this flower art on top of her loaves of bread. It’s amazing. It’s so beautiful. Dolly and Oatmeal, There She Cooks, Local Haven, The Roaming Kitchen, so many others. So many people that are doing just amazing things with food that are constantly inspiring me.

A lot of people that you’ve interviewed. I was looking through your list and was like, “Oh my gosh. I follow so many of these guys. They’re awesome.”

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

I live in New York City, and I have a very small kitchen. So I try to be very intentional with the kinds of tools that I keep in my kitchen. So I’m going to go with treasured, the most treasured item is probably my grandmother’s silver. She gave it to my husband and I as a gift for our wedding.

It’s a really lovely story about how she got this silver. My grandmother’s from rural eastern Kentucky, in the mountains of eastern Kentucky. She moved to Lexington, to the big city, and ended up working at the Capitol Building in Frankfurt, Kentucky. She was the secretary in the building.

And she had made it. She had really left her rural roots for the city, and one of the things she bought with her first paycheck was this beautiful set of silverware that she went home and gave to her mother. And so she gave that to me for my wedding. It’s my most prized possession that I own. It’s amazing. I use it in all of my posts on my blog, too.

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

There are a lot of things. I feel like I’m constantly teaching myself to like new foods that I didn’t like before. But the thing that I will say that I really love now, is pickles. I despised pickles. I hated pickles. I was like a person who, you order a sandwich at a restaurant and a pickle touched your sandwich and you’re like, “Oh my God. I can’t eat that part of the sandwich.”

But then somehow, I just started really loving pickles and started making a lot of pickles myself. Probably prompted by a lot of those farmers at that market who were like, “This is what you have to do to save this produce.” Now I’m totally obsessed with pickles.

What are a few cookbooks that make your life better?

I think the Ottolenghi cookbooks, Plenty More and Jerusalem, they are so creative and difficult in some ways. So those really push me because I think a lot of the cooking I generally do for myself on a daily basis is something that’s just really simple. So cooking something out of all of those cookbooks always feels like a challenge to me and an accomplishment once I’ve made it.

I’d say those cookbooks are some of my favorites. I’ll also mention The Joy of Cooking, which my mother made pancakes from almost every weekend, growing up. So The Joy of Cooking has a special place in my heart.

What song or album just makes you want to cook?

My husband is the total music guy in our relationship, so I’m often all over the cooking and over in the kitchen, and he’s at the computer or at our record player, putting some tunes on. So I let him DJ most of the time. But I’m also really obsessed with Robyn and with Sia. Things that make me wanna dance and that I know all the words to make me super excited. So I’ll pick those.

On Keeping Posted with Alexa:

Alex Arnold of The Best Bite of the Plum on The Dinner Special podcast talking about keeping posted with her.

I probably post the most to Instagram. And then I’m on Facebook too but I use that a little less frequently. So yeah, I would say Instagram and just on my blog are probably the best ways to reach me.

Subscribe to The Dinner Special podcast

 

Filed Under: Podcast Tagged With: Alexa Arnold, Baker Hands, Brooklyn Supper, Chef's Table, Concorde Grape Focaccia, Cook with What You Have, Dolly and Oatmeal, Farmer's Market, Farmers, Food Blog, Food Blogger, FoodCorps, Happy Yolks, Jerusalem, Local Haven, Plenty More, Robyn, Seasonal Food, Sia, The Best Bite of the Plum, The Joy of Cooking, The Roaming Kitchen, There She Cooks, Yotam Ottolenghi

118: Hannah Messinger: How Cooking is an Exercise in Patience

April 13, 2016 by Gabriel Leave a Comment

Hannah Messinger of Nothing but Delicious on The Dinner Special podcast talking about how to keep posted with her.
http://traffic.libsyn.com/thedinnerspecial/TDS118.mp3

Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS

Hannah Messinger of Nothing but Delicious on The Dinner Special podcast talking about how cooking is an exercise in patience.

Nothing but Delicious

Hannah graduated from Boston University with a photojournalism degree and started her blog Nothing but Delicious out of boredom. She had spent some time away from writing and photography, but through her blog, has learned many lessons like that she indeed wants to be a writer and that cooking is an exercise in patience.

I am so happy to have Hannah Messinger of Nothing but Delicious here on the show today.

(*All photos below are Hannah’s.)

On Starting Her Blog:

Hannah Messinger of Nothing but Delicious on The Dinner Special podcast talking about starting her food blog.

I had been reading fashion blogs for awhile. My favorite one is called Sea of Shoes, and they had linked to a blog called, La Tartine Gourmande. Which I’m sure I sound like a redneck. I’m from Tennessee. I’m really sorry. But I had this office job where I was just on the computer all day and talking to people on the phone, so I could look at whatever on the screen.

I ended up reading the entire blog, start to finish, like a book just because, I mean, what else was I going to do? I can’t sit still. I didn’t realize that food blogs were a thing. I didn’t realize they could be a cool thing. Back in the day when you thought of a blog, it was kind of a dorky thing, right? I was just blown away by her images of her recipes and the way she wrote. And I felt like it could be, if nothing else for me, good practice just to write and to photograph things.

Nothing else has brought me so much fun work. It’s not lucrative work. But I mean, my first job, I got from Twitter shooting a brand new chocolate company here, brand new then, not brand new now, called Olive & Sinclair. The owner is a real-life Willy Wonka, and he always just gives me a box with $200 worth of chocolate in it. It’s so much fun.

On Her Curiosity Around Food:

Hannah Messinger of Nothing but Delicious on The Dinner Special podcast talking about her curiosity around food.

When I was maybe three years old, my yaya – that’s Greek for grandmother – gave me a teeny tiny baking set for Christmas. It’s probably the best gift I’ve ever received, to this day. She was a really great hostess and I have very fond memories of going to her house on every holiday and just Sunday afternoons. And everything she made was so intriguing. From Chex Mix to Jello salad, because it was the ’80s, to prime rib. Everything was perfect.

My mom, every Easter, makes lamb and manestra. Which is not the right name for it, it’s just what my family calls it, I learned recently.

It’s lamb baked on a rack so that the juices drip down. And then you put cherry tomatoes under it and they roast in the juices and let their own juices out. And at the end, you throw in orzo and it cooks in all the tomato and lamb juice. And you serve it all together on a plate with lots of lemon and herbs and feta cheese. And she also makes spanakopita with filo dough. I wasn’t even allowed to touch the filo until I was 18. But now she lets me do it, and it’s really fun.

On Her Food Heroes:

Hannah Messinger of Nothing but Delicious on The Dinner Special podcast talking about her food heroes.

I think everyone in the blogging world. I learned almost everything I know from Alton Brown, as opposed to going to culinary school or anything like that. The book, Ratio, by Michael Ruhlman, was really life changing.

I also love this book called, An Everlasting Meal: Cooking With Economy and Grace, which is by Tamar Adler, but it’s modeled on the book, How to Cook a Wolf, by MFK Fisher. It talks about toppling meals. That if you have steamed broccoli for dinner one night, the next day at lunch you make quick pickled broccoli stem salad. And things like that. Meals that make sense, that merge into one another. And that really changed the way I cook.

On Cooking as an Exercise in Patience:

Hannah Messinger of Nothing but Delicious on The Dinner Special podcast talking about cooking as an exercise in patience.

It takes time and there’s no way around that. If you mess up a recipe, a lot of times the store is closed, you’re out of ingredients, you’re out of money to buy new ingredients. You really have to wait until next week, if you’re a home cook, to try it again. And that can seem like such a long time for an impatient person like me. I feel like that’s an everyday challenge for me, not only cooking but things take time, and cooking has conditioned me, I think, to deal with that in my life.

I did a kinfolk dinner maybe three years ago in Chattanooga. It was all about infusion. And I had made a chai pots de creme. Which, in all my recipe tests, the cream broke because ginger is pretty acidic but it’s a necessary flavor in the process.

So I struggled to figure out how to get it in there. And then when I finally figured it out, I was baking them off at my parents’ place which…they were renting a really old condo at the time. And I put them in the oven and I thought, “This is it. I’ve finally got it.” And I swear, the oven door exploded. And I sat down in the middle of the glass and cried.

On a Dish She Finds Challenging and Requires Patience:

Hannah Messinger of Nothing but Delicious on The Dinner Special podcast talking about a dish that she finds challenging.

I struggle with custard pies. I mean, we all do. They’re very temperamental. I lose one to slumping or sogginess every now and then like everyone. But I try not to let that get me down.

I’m going to use custard pies as an example, because I just talked about it. And my advice would be just to take baby steps. If you can make each separate component by itself and succeed without combining them, which is to say you can roll out the dough and you can bake it in little rounds. You can make lemon curd, put it on top, top it with strawberries and a little whipped cream or something. Then you know you can do it next time and you feel good going into it. Just that you know what each thing is supposed to be like and that you’ve done it successfully.

My mom always says, “Take the next right step,” which sounds so frustrating when you have a really big and daunting task in front of you. It sounds like being told to think small. But small steps snowball. And that’s the only way you can get anywhere. You can’t do step nine before you’ve done step two. I get really mad at her every time she tells me that, but then I’m like, “Okay, wait, this has always been good advice.”

The Pressure Cooker:

Which food shows or cooking shows do you watch?

Obviously, I watch Mind of a Chef and Chef’s Table. And Great British Bake Off. Who doesn’t love that? But recently, my favorite is called, I’ll Have What Phil’s Having, on PBS with Phil Rosenthal. It’s so, so, so funny.

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

I’m assuming everyone knows about Molly Yeh. Everyone loves Molly Yeh. She’s so funny and so sweet. I’m just a super huge, major fan girl of Lady and Pups. I like her brutal honesty. I like that she has a series called, The Shit I Eat When By Myself. I mean, it’s embarrassing stuff that I eat shit like that when I’m by myself, too. And I’m like, “Yes! Yes, she’s so cool!” My favorite one, it’s like flaming Cheetos in a grilled cheese with arugula and gouda. It’s beautiful.

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

My favorites right now…do you follow Chef Jacques La Merde? It’s really some of the best satire our generation has ever seen. And then there’s another one called Kimi Swimmy. And I saw her via Munchies on Vice. And they say that she kills octopus with her bare teeth.

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

It’s not very unusual but I have this marble rolling pin that I bought at a thrift store years ago for $10. And two or three years ago, I was in this real freak accident with this semi that ran over my Subaru, and the only things I pulled out of the car, besides myself, were my dog, my camera, and my marble rolling pin. It’s been through a lot with me, so I’m a little attached to it.

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

I’m actually in the process of learning to like shrimp. I know everyone loves shrimp but I just never have. Actually, the restaurant group I work for has a restaurant called, Little Octopus, and the chef there makes shrimp ceviche. That’s really the first time I’ve ever felt like “Okay, I can do this.” I make myself try shrimp a minimum of three times a year, and I’m really glad I did because this was the first time I thought I could get somewhere with it.

What are a few cookbooks that make your life better?

Probably my favorite cookbook right now, and maybe always, is Donna Hay’s, Seasons. It’s just photographed beautifully. The recipes are simple. They’re seasonal. They’re just beautiful. And then because I make pie a lot, I refer to The Four & Twenty Blackbirds Cookbook all the time. It’s really like the pie Bible. You can’t go wrong with a recipe from Four & Twenty Blackbirds.

What song or album just makes you want to cook?

I love the album called, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot from the band Wilco. I don’t know, I have a lot of moods while I cook. I go up and down and everywhere in between. And it has a good range of songs that I feel like accompany that.

On Keeping Posted with Hannah:

Hannah Messinger of Nothing but Delicious on The Dinner Special podcast talking about how to keep posted with her.

Definitely Instagram. And my handle is HMMessinger.

Subscribe to The Dinner Special podcast

 

Filed Under: Podcast Tagged With: Alton Brown, Chef Jacques La Merde, Chef's Table, Donna Hay, Food Blog, Food Blogger, Great British Bake Off, Hannah Messinger, How to Cook a Wolf, I'll Have What Phil's Having, Kimi Swimmy, La Tartine Gourmande, Lady and Pups, Little Octopus, MFK Fisher, Michael Ruhlman, Mind of a Chef, Molly Yeh, Nashville, Nothing But Delicious, Olive & Sinclair, Phil Rosenthal, Photographer, Pie, Ratio, Sea of Shoes, Seasons, Tamar Adler, The Four & Twenty Blackbirds Pie Book, Wilco, Writer

091: Alexandra Stafford: From Catering and Restaurants to Blogging

November 11, 2015 by Gabriel Leave a Comment

Alexandra Stafford of Alexandra's Kitchen on The Dinner Special podcast
http://traffic.libsyn.com/thedinnerspecial/TDS091.mp3

Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS

Alexandra Stafford of Alexandra's Kitchen on The Dinner Special podcast talking about working in Catering and Restaurants to Blogging.

Alexandra’s Kitchen

Ali grew up in a home where cooking from scratch was the norm. After college, she enrolled in a cooking school and subsequently worked at various catering companies and restaurants. Ali’s two years in the Fork restaurant kitchen in Philadelphia where she became sous chef, was the experience that shaped what and how she cooks today. Apart from her blog, Ali writes a column, A Bushel and a Peck for Food 52, and contributes to the Baking Steel blog.

I am so psyched to have Alexandra Stafford of Alexandra’s Kitchen joining me here today.

(*All photos below are Alexandra’s.)

On Growing Up in a Home Where Cooking and Food was Valued:

Alexandra Stafford of Alexandra's Kitchen on The Dinner Special podcast talking about growing up in a home where cooking was valued.

I didn’t think anything of it growing up because it’s just what always was around. I think I did start thinking about it in high school a little bit because I went to a boarding school. I was a day student and my mom, my dad, my stepdad actually all taught at the boarding school. So I still came home at night but I often ate many of the meals in the dining hall, lunch of course but dinner too. It was just kind of the social thing to do when all of my friends were boarders. The breakdown was like 70% boarding, 30% day students. So I would eat a lot of the meals. I played sports, so after sports we’d go to the dining hall, have dinner and then every so often I would invite my friends over for dinner at my house. And they were always blown away, they were like, “What is this bread? You made this? What do you mean you made this? Like from a bread machine?” They just didn’t understand that, and this is just a bread that my mom would whip up all the time, it was just no big deal.

And just everything, I mean, it was just such a treat for them. And it was still a treat for me, I appreciated it but I had it all the time anyway, toast for breakfast, I had the meals on the weekends, and then I think I probably really started appreciating it when I was in college.

My senior year, I lived off campus with a roommate and so we were cooking a lot and that’s when I was calling my mom more for, “How did you make that chicken that I love?” And, “Why is this chicken so much better?” It was because my mom always used chicken thighs and not chicken breasts, and I would hear her say the thighs are more flavorful, but until I really cooked breasts and was like, “These aren’t good, there’s a difference.” Then I had all these questions for my mom and that’s when I really started recording the recipes and gathering the recipes that I loved.

On Her Interest in Cooking:

Alexandra Stafford of Alexandra's Kitchen on The Dinner Special podcast talking about her interest in cooking.

I was interested in what my mom was doing. I would say the extent of my help in the kitchen growing up was, she taught me how to make the salad dressing. So I would make the salad dressing, and I would assemble.

I remember always assembling up the Greek salad. She is 100% Greek, not from Greece but we’d make the Greek salad with Aunt Phylis’ salad dressing or this other dressing from the Chez Panisse Vegetables cookbook. I would chop up the shallots and macerate them in the vinegar, I would do that, I would set the table.

I loved baking so I would help make bread, and she had this other, in addition to this peasant bread that she would make all the time, she had this Bakery Lane Soup Bowl cookbook. And that was the sort of book that she always made these honey whole wheat loaves, or these oatmeal, brown sugar, and so I would make bread. That was it though until I was in college.

On Working in Catering Versus Restaurants:

Alexandra Stafford of Alexandra's Kitchen on The Dinner Special podcast talking about working in restaurants versus catering.

I would say the catering company, there were two aspects when I was in the catering kitchen. We were doing prep all day, just prepping and prepping and I remember realizing, “Gosh this can be really tedious”. Because we would have to assemble over 100 Asian noodle nests, it’s just a lot of the same thing over and over again. I still learned a lot from the repetition and learning how to use like industrial saran wrap, you know wrapping trays to make sure nothing would spill in transport.

And even on the jobs, I would say there were still periods of intensity where you had to work quickly and get things out, and things that were tricky. I remember one job they were serving tuna and the chef had made whatever the contraption was that holds up the trays, he had turned it into sort of a warmer, and the tuna got totally overcooked. When he went to slice it every single piece of tuna was (overcooked) and this was supposed to be a raw seared tuna. It was just a disaster and so then there are the stresses that came along with that.

When I switched, I was working in the restaurant, I just realized it felt much more intense. Like when lunch service hit it was just an hour of just orders coming in, and then obviously the same thing at dinner and Sunday brunch too. I worked the omelet station for a year.

I just remember the omelet orders coming in, and then some of them being egg white and then just trying to get the timing right on all the six or eight pans in front, trying to get it right. Fork also had sort of a private room in the back, so then every so often at the same time as Sunday brunch you’d be doing omelets for the party. I remember never feeling so overwhelmed or so focused, but also stressed and just trying to manage so many things at the same time. That I felt was sort of the biggest difference.

On prep days at the restaurant in the morning, they’re still the same. We would make soup in these enormous pots and so there is cutting carrots, and onions, and so over and over and over again so the similar kind of repetition but it was in a different kind of way.

On How Working in a Restaurant Influenced the Way She Cooks:

Alexandra Stafford of Alexandra's Kitchen on The Dinner Special podcast talking about how working in restaurants influences the way she cooks.

I think first of all, the owner of the restaurant, Ellen, she was one of the first restaurants to open in an old city. And it was years before I got there but from the beginning her saying was, “Buy fresh, buy local,” so she for me was sort of the introduction. She introduced me to that kind of concept and Philadelphia has an incredible farm-to-table movement. I hate to use that word because it just sort of seems overused now but at the time I remember it was really new for me. I thought, “Oh, I didn’t know that people would really care about where these tomatoes came from. All over the menu every tomato was labeled from whatever farm it came from, and so that was really new to me.”

And I would see the farmers. I mean we would of course get deliveries from big wholesale companies, but the farmers would come and they would bring their goods and that was really, really cool to me to see. So that would be the first thing, and then I would say the Chef Thien, any chance he could, we would ride our bikes to Chinatown and we would eat lunch. There were three Vietnamese restaurants that he liked all in Philadelphia, and he would order different things at different, so I kind of learned what to order where. He opened my eyes to a whole world of food.

He loved Italian food, he loved French food and we would go to really nice restaurants. We would go to holes in the wall. He introduced me kind of to just the restaurants here in Philadelphia and what people were cooking but also, just watching him cook was such an incredible experience. Watching him breakdown three whole salmon – he would filet it and take out the bones, and then portion them into perfect six ounce pieces. Then to just see how he made all of his soups and how he would always talk about how soups were the money makers of the restaurant because it was just with all these ingredients that cost us nothing, and they would save everything, every single scrap of meat and vegetable would go into this big pot for meat stock.

And then just some of the foods he made, he made chicken curry that was so amazing. He would buy these fresh rice noodles in Chinatown at this one store called Ding Ho and he would just cut them up, and he would make this sauce with fish sauce and lime and just toss it with tons of herbs, and it was like I had never eaten that kind of food, that’s so fresh and just so fast. It was the most delicious thing in the world.

On Her Blog:

Alexandra Stafford of Alexandra's Kitchen on The Dinner Special podcast talking about her food blog.

Blogs were totally new in fact I remember when a friend told me, I think I was maybe still working in restaurants, and I remember she said that she was going to start a blog and I thought, “That is the strangest thing I’ve ever heard. Who cares what you have to say? What are you going to write about?” And then, when I left the restaurant I said, “Okay, I would love to write about food and write about the things I’m discovering.”

There was a small newspaper in Philadelphia and I just walked into their office one day and said, “Do you have a food department?” And they didn’t, but they wanted one, so I just started writing for them.

I was discovering so much in Philadelphia or thinking back on the kind of experiences I had had for the past four years in the restaurants and catering companies and I was like, “I want to start recording this.” And the paper was so small I was discovering more things than I was able to put in the paper every week, and maybe some things were not appropriate to put in the paper, or just not inappropriate, but there wasn’t the right space, so that was sort of how I started. I thought, “Okay, well, I’ll start a blog so I can at least document what I’m doing in Philadelphia and finding and we’ll see how it goes.” I really didn’t care about it at all in the beginning. I would write an entry and hit post and publish it or whatever and then I would go off.

I didn’t care about posting anything to Facebook or Twitter or trying to drive traffic in the beginning. It was just a journal, and then we moved cross country so I kind of documented our cross country travels.

We’ve been in California for three years and then back to Virginia and I had two kids, and I was at home more, and I posted a couple of recipes and I remember just getting a really good response. Some of the comments were like, “You know I love your recipes,” or “This is the most delicious,” and I think one of them was this buttermilk blueberry breakfast cake and it was my mum’s recipe.

I love sharing family recipes. I love making people happy with food. This is really important to me. So I thought now I want to spend more time on my blog making the recipes really thoughtful, not necessarily foolproof but mostly tested before I publish them, and being there to respond to comments.

The Pressure Cooker:

Which food shows or cooking shows do you watch?

We cancelled cable a few years ago though we have Netflix. I watched recently, which I really loved, Chef’s Table, it’s a Netflix original series and it’s six episodes. I loved the one on Francis Mallmann he’s just such a character and it’s incredible food he cooks in this episode on this remote island in Patagonia, its amazing. And then the other one was on Dan Barber and it’s inspired me to read his book, The Third Plate.

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

I think everybody knows about Food52’s Genius Recipes column but I look forward to Kristen’s column, it’s so good every week, I don’t know how she does it.

One that I just discovered recently, there’s this cookbook called, Make The Bread buy the Butter and its by Jennifer Reese. Her blog is called Tipsy Baker and I just discovered it and I just love her writing style. She’s just funny. It’s a new discovery for me, I’ve been telling everybody I know.

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

Okay, Snapchat somebody needs to explain to me, I think it’s a sign that I’m way too old. I have no idea how to use it.

I have to be honest I feel like I hardly pay attention to Facebook anymore, I’m terrible. I don’t check Facebook.

Pinterest, I love Pinterest, I think I follow a lot of people but I don’t actually go and look at my feed.

I was very late to the Instagram game. It’s so simple and I don’t know why it took me so long but I like it because it’s simple. I really love the format. I follow a lot of people. There’s a photographer his name is Eric Wolfinger and I love his stuff, I always have. The books that he photographs I find myself always going back to.

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

One was a wedding gift, it’s a wooden baguette shaper, it’s really long, it extends the full length of my arm span, and it was a wedding gift, my Godmother, she got it in France and I have no use for it because I could never make baguettes that long but the wood is beautiful. It has a nice finish so that’s hanging up. And then my aunt gave me this also enormous pizza peel that wouldn’t even fit in my oven, you’d have to have a wood burning oven, and I have that hanging up also.

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

It may be fish sauce, I hope that’s not too obvious, but I remember the first time I was in Philadelphia in our little apartment and I remember a recipe called for fish sauce. I opened the bottle and I said, “This smells like dirty socks. I don’t understand how I can actually put this on my food, this is crazy.” And then, I did it because I thought, “I’m going to try it,” and I was like, “Wow, this is amazing!”

What are a few cookbooks that make your life better?

Chez Panisse Vegetables is probably one of the first cookbooks that my mum gave to me I think maybe when I graduated from college. It’s just something for every season. Part of it is because I do that column for Food 52 but part of it is just because I’m always getting a CSA, but that is a book I turn to over and over and over again. How to Be a Domestic Goddess, Nigella Lawson’s. I remember a friend gave it to me in college. There’s so much in that book, so much good content and she is such a good writer, and I love her voice and her stories.

What song or album just makes you want to cook?

This is going to be also so random too. I don’t know why, maybe because Philadelphia was when I really started cooking a lot but I would listen to Buena Vista Social Club over and over again. So if I hear that music I associate with being in the kitchen and that would make me want to cook.

On Keeping Posted with Alexandra:

Alexandra Stafford of Alexandra's Kitchen on The Dinner Special podcast talking about how to keep posted with her.

I post and do all the things I’m supposed to do, I do a post and I post it to Facebook, I tweet, post it to Instagram, but I find social media exhausting and hard to keep up with. I prefer to just follow people by subscribing directly to their websites. I guess I’m kind of old school. I like getting an email when they post.

 

Subscribe to The Dinner Special podcast

 

Filed Under: Podcast Tagged With: A Bushel and a Peck, Alexandra Stafford, Alexandra's Kitchen, Bakery Lane Soup Bowl, Baking Steel blog, Buena Vista Social Club, Chef's Table, Chez Panisse Vegetables, Dan Barber, Eric Wolfinger, Food52, Food52's Genius Recipes, Fork Restaurant, Francis Mallmann, Make The Bread buy the Butter, Nigella Lawson, Philadelphia, The Third Plate, Tipsy Baker

078: Chitra Agrawal: Following Tradition and Inspiration with Her Creations

September 21, 2015 by Gabriel 2 Comments

Chitra Agrawal of ABCD's of Cooking on The Dinner Special podcast
http://traffic.libsyn.com/thedinnerspecial/TDS078.mp3

Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS

Chitra Agrawal of ABCD's of Cooking on The Dinner Special podcast talking about following tradition and inspiration with her kitchen creations.

ABCD’s of Cooking

On her blog, ABCD’s of Cooking, Chitra shares her family recipes from South and North India as well as her own creations from things that inspire her, like local ingredients and other cuisines. Chitra is writing her first cookbook on Bangalore recipes using local ingredients and runs a small batch Indian condiments company called Brooklyn Delhi. As if she isn’t busy enough, Chitra hosts pop-ups featuring Indian inspired cuisine and teaches cooking classes.

I am so excited to have Chitra Agrawal of ABCD’s of Cooking and Brooklyn Delhi joining me today.

(*All images below are Chitra’s.)

On Her Blog:

Chitra Agrawal of ABCDs of Cooking on The Dinner Special podcast talking about her food blog.

I guess I have been collecting a lot of my family’s recipes for a long time, and I also get a farm share every week during the growing season. So I usually take a lot of those recipes and then use whatever vegetables or produce that I have and make these recipes my own.

The name ABCDs of Cooking comes from that because ABCD means American-Born Confused Desi which is basically someone like me who grew up in the U.S. but is of Indian or South Asian descent. A lot of my cooking is an analogy of that where it’s based in traditional Indian cooking techniques but then using influences local or even just like cuisines that I grew up eating in the U.S.

I always was cooking for my friends in high school or in college. I remember even my roommate and I, we would religiously go to the grocery store every week, and as a college student, I think that was weird because a lot of the times, college kids go out and eat a lot, but we made it a point to cook at home. It was basically also the way I grew up. My parents have always even though they worked nine to five jobs, they always had home cooked meals on a table. So I think, it’s just the culture that I grew up into.

On Her Condiments Company, Brooklyn Delhi:

Chitra Agrawal of ABCD's of Cooking on The Dinner Special podcast talking about her condiments company, Brooklyn Delhi.

I make achaar or Indian pickle. So it’s basically a spicy condiment that is made from vegetables and fruits, and of course in India, it’s also made from local vegetables and fruits. A lot of times, green mangos or thin skinned lemon, gooseberries.

My farm share actually inspired me to come up with a lot of these recipes. The farm which I actually source from now is called Wilklow Orchards and they were the farm that was supplying the Greene Harvest CSA that we were a part of when we lived in Fort Greene, which is basically the neighborhood over from where we are now. And we got rhubarb, heirloom tomatoes, green gooseberries, and I started making achaars from all of these different vegetables and fruits, and I started serving them at my pop-ups and at my cooking classes, and then I got so into it.

My husband is a food packaging designer. He was like, “Why don’t we start packaging these?” and basically we just went with it, and I contacted the farmer directly and I was telling him that I tested all my recipes using his ingredients, and now I want to order like hundreds of pounds of the produce. I literally just text him, and then I get the produce, and then I make it in a commercial kitchen space that I rent out.

It really helped that I already had the recipes pretty much down. The next part was testing to see that these recipes could be shelf stable according to FDA regulations. So there’s all these different hoops you have to jump through when you are making a product for store shelves. So that was definitely a learning process. Luckily, I have a lot of friends that are in the Brooklyn community, in the food community that have either launched products or knew people that did launch. So I was able to gather a lot of this information through that network and then quickly bring everything to market. And it helped because Ben has that background as a food packaging designer. So, he was able to navigate for me really quickly as to how the label was going to look. I didn’t even know how big the font size should be or these types of things. So that was extremely helpful to have him there.

I think that achaar also is an unfamiliar condiment. So a lot of what we’re still doing is educating people on how to use it. A lot of people compare it to a chutney but it’s definitely more intense in flavor because it’s actually pickled in the oil, and the salt, and the spices versus a chutney that a lot of times can be definitely more mild in flavor. So that has been one thing where when I walk into a store and I want the buyer to try it, I have to explain through all of those different uses of the product versus if I was selling like a ketchup or something like that. So I think that’s probably been the main challenge, but it’s also been cool because a lot of store owners that really love the product, had been huge advocates for us, and when you have that type of support from local stores that are talking to their customers about new products that are in the store, they become advocates for us when we’re not there.

On Writing Her First Cookbook:

Chitra Agrawal of ABCDs of Cooking on The Dinner Special podcast talking about writing her first cookbook.

The cookbook is all going to be about Bangalore, South Indian style cooking. My mother is from Bangalore. So all of the recipes are based in traditional South Indian cooking techniques but also, as I cook at home, I am using a lot of the local ingredients that are found seasonally. So that’s the spin on it and it’s all vegetarian. A lot of it is gluten-free. I am a lifelong vegetarian, so this book is the story of my family and how, a lot of these recipes came to be. I have just been working on that for the last year or so.

There are so many different types of cooking in India, and they actually vary quite a bit. My dad is from North India. I guess I can speak to the difference between those two cuisines, what you find in the restaurants a lot of times, North Indian cuisine, non-curry. But South Indian cooking is a lot based in rice, lentils, you may know, dosa or idli, the fermented kinds of foods, and then both regions have dals but I’d say that like sāmbhar or rasam, these are some of the lentil dishes that are popular in the South. And so those are some of the differences. Even some of the spices, like curry leaves, are used more in South India. Black mustard seeds, even the beverage is different. So after a meal, you’ll drink tea in the North usually, and in the South you drink coffee that has chicory in it. So those are some of the differences but even in the book I talk about how, the cooking that is of my mom’s family from Bangalore is a lot different from South Indian cooking that may exist in Tamil Nadu or in Andhra Pradesh.

Bangalore is a city in Karnataka. So there is all of these different layers to cooking, and especially regional styles of cooking in India vary not only from North, South, East, West but within South India, to even from household to household. Because when I was researching a lot of the recipes, I found that my aunt may make one recipe that is according to what her mother-in-law may have taught her versus another aunt that is making the recipe according to how my grandmother taught her.

On Her Pop-Ups and Teaching Cooking:

Chitra Agrawal of ABCDs of Cooking on The Dinner Special podcast talking about hosting pop-ups and teaching cooking.

I guess the pop-ups started because I started selling prepared foods at some markets in Brooklyn and my friend, who I used to do the prepared foods with and a pop-up that was Indian Mexican. So we started coming up with all of these different recipes, we did Indian Tacos at this one market. And that was actually pretty soon after I had started the blog, too. So I started to realize that, not only do I like writing about and creating the recipes, but I really like feeding people, and so that part became one that I wanted to explore further. After doing the market, we decided to do a pop-up supper club. That was in 2009, and we were just playing around with all these different recipes.

We would make like Indian Tamales. We would make all these enchiladas, all these crazy sauces and condiments, and then we would invite people, and this pop-up was in her house. And so we would literally would have these tables in her dining room and set it up all nice and everything, and then we put out tickets, and people bought them, and they would show up at her house. And so it was so fun.

So we did those, and then I started doing some of my own, where I would do, I did one at Brooklyn Winery, where they had someone that paired the wines with my meal. So that was the North and South Indian dinner I had done. And now, I do a dinner with my friend Diana Kuan, who is a cookbook author. She wrote, The Chinese Takeout Cookbook. So what we do, and this one is called Tangra, we make up recipes that are mix of Indian and Chinese cooking, and it’s all vegetarian, and also uses local ingredients. We always partner with a farm and also a local brewery, and then we are able to offer our creations to whoever wants to come.

The Pressure Cooker:

Which food shows or cooking shows do you watch?

Chef’s Table on Netflix. That show is amazing.

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

Not Eating Out in New York, my friend, Cathy Erway’s site. She posts every week and it’s very interesting because she also is very in tune with seasonality and what she is getting in her farm share. And she also calculates how much each meal costs because for a year or two what she did was, she just cooked at home. So it’s an odd pairing to be eating-in every day in New York. It’s like the city of restaurants. I feel like she has a very cool take and spin on what she does, and she posts very frequently, which I feel like is sometimes the anomaly now with a lot of food bloggers, myself included sometimes.

And then another one that I’m sure you may know is A Brown Table, Nik Sharma, I feel like his photography is just mind blowing, and he is such an awesome guy too. He always has super creative recipes and I love his blog.

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

On Instagram, I love Diana Kuan’s feed, who I partner with for our pop-ups because not only is she a really talented chef, but she’s also a talented illustrator as well. So she always has something really cool that she’s working on on her site. I love The Feed Feed, they are reposting photos from other food bloggers or food Instagrammers, and there’s always something so interesting that you can get from there. And then, of course, I love again, A Brown Table and his Instagram feed.

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

So, this is my tempering pot. It’s this little pot and basically this is what I fry all my spices in. You put just a little bit of oil and then different spices, and what happens is in the hot oil, the spices, the flavor just blooms, and after that, you pour the spices, the tempering, on top of the dishes. So it could be a lentil dish or it could be a yogurt dish. But I love this thing. I take it everywhere when I’m teaching classes, and I always encourage students to buy one as well because I think because of the small surface area, it really does the job well, and I love poaching eggs in it because it’s so tiny that you can poach an egg perfectly in it.

In different parts of India, it’s called different things. So sometimes, it’s called what tempering is, it’s called chaunk, or it can be called vagharne, or it can be called tadka. So there’s all these different names.

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

Oh, bitter gourd. When I was growing up, I hated it. It was just so bitter, and now, I’ve developed a taste for bitter things. So I actually, I’m going to include a recipe for bitter gourd chips in a cookbook, and there’s a farm actually, Hepworth Farms, that started growing bitter gourd locally, too. So it’s awesome because we can get local bitter gourd and, yeah, the bitter flavor, I like it now.

What are a few cookbooks that make your life better?

Well, I have like all the Ottolenghi cookbooks. I feel like I just love looking at those photos. They’re just amazing, and I think he just combines recipes in such interesting ways. Another cookbook is of course Diana’s cookbook. That’s my Bible for Chinese cooking, The Chinese Takeout Cookbook. Louisa Shafia’s, New Persian Kitchen. I have that. I have so many cookbooks piled up all over the place for looking at, but those are some of the ones that I really love, and of course, the classic Madhur Jaffrey cookbooks, An Invitation to Indian Cooking, A Taste of India, all those classic ones are like gems.

What song or album just makes you want to cook?

Well, I love Shangri-La by The Kinks. I love that song on so many levels, but what I love about it too, I guess, when you compare it to cooking, is that, it always surprises you. Some parts of the song are really sweet and all of a sudden, it becomes this cacophonous noise, and I love that about cooking too. There’s the slow simmer and then if you’re tempering spices, the crackling of the spices, so it’s that type of dynamic, I like.

On Keeping Posted with Chitra:

Chitra Agrawal of ABCDs of Cooking on The Dinner Special podcast talking about keeping posted with her.

Probably Instagram, and I am just Chitra, and then on Twitter, it’s my blog, ABCD’s of Cooking.

 

Subscribe to The Dinner Special podcast

Filed Under: Podcast Tagged With: A Brown Table, A Taste of India, ABCDs of Cooking, Achaar, An Invitation to Indian Cooking, Bangalore, Brooklyn Delhi, Brooklyn Winery, Chef's Table, Chitra Agrawal, Cookbook Author, Diana Kuan, Food Blog, Food Blogger, Hepworth Farms, Indian Food, Karnataka, Louisa Shafia, Madhur Jaffrey, New Persian Kitchen, Not Eating Out in New York, Pop-ups, Teaching, The Chinese Takeout Cookbook, The Feed Feed, the Kinks, Wilklow Orchards, Yotam Ottolenghi

075: Jeannette Ordas: Creating Delicious Meals from Making Do

September 9, 2015 by Gabriel

Jeannette Ordas of Everybody Likes Sandwiches on The Dinner Special podcast
http://traffic.libsyn.com/thedinnerspecial/TDS075.mp3

Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS

Jeannette Ordas of Everybody Likes Sandwiches on The Dinner Special podcast talking about creating delicious meals from making do.

Everybody Likes Sandwiches

Jeannette’s blog, Everybody Likes Sandwiches, is about the joy in preparing fresh food simply. She has fun creating delicious dishes from making do, and wants to let us know that eating and living simply and beautifully doesn’t have to be complicated.

I am so thrilled to have Jeannette Ordas of Everybody Likes Sandwiches, joining me here on the show today.

(*All photos below are Jeannette’s.)

On Publishing Her Own Pop Culture Magazine:

Jeannette Ordas of Everybody Likes Sandwiches on The Dinner Special podcast talking about publishing her own pop culture magazine.

I think at the time I was working at a record store and I just finished university and I didn’t really know what I wanted to do. I had studied film in school so I wanted some sort of creative outlet and I loved drawing and I just thought, “Oh, I’m gonna start a ‘zine.”

I had seen them being in record stores or in little magazine shops, so I thought, “Oh, I’m gonna start one.” It was just folded, I did cut and paste. This was before Photoshop probably or before I had access to Photoshop. And it was just Xerox, staple, folded, copied at Staples and it was a good way for me to write about music. I originally started it just so I could get free CD’s from record labels.

Then I started having a food column called “Faster Pussycat Eat Eat.” I always wrote a little recipe in every issue and it was fun coming up with recipes. At the time I don’t think there were blogs so it was a good way to combine all my interests. Music, movies, food, so it was fun, and it was a creative endeavor that’s self controlled. I was the boss, I didn’t have anyone telling me what to do so that was a very fun creative project to work on.

On Her Blog:

Jeannette Ordas of Everybody Likes Sandwiches on The Dinner Special podcast talking about her food blog.

I think just before I started, I came across a blog called, Chocolate and Zucchini, Clotilde, I think she’s from Paris. And so that was the first one I had ever seen and I was like “Wow, people are writing about food and sharing recipes.” And I really liked that, I liked documenting my food somehow.

I wasn’t sure what I wanted Everybody Likes Sandwiches to be, so I think I initially just opened up blogger. I couldn’t think of a name and I picked probably the worst name, because it’s so long. It’s so hard to type into a browser bar, and it’s not about sandwiches so, I don’t know. But I think it fits, ‘cuz sandwiches are simple, easy, and I think a lot of the recipes I choose to make are like a sandwich, very simple, easy.

That was my start, and I remember it was late at night and I just started my first post. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t even have a camera back then. It took a few months, but I remember I started getting people commenting, and it just kind of freaked me out. I didn’t think people were reading it. And, yeah, it was kind of fun, because I realized there was actually like-minded people, and they would link to their blogs so then I realized there’s actually a whole little community out there.

On Blogs She’s Followed Since Starting Her Blog in 2005:

Molly from Orangette. I think she was probably my second commenter. And she’s super successful, she has her amazing podcast which I listen to all the time, Spilled Milk. Yeah, so that is probably the one I remember best that’s still around.

All of a sudden a lot of people had food blogs. There’s still plenty I think from around that time, not 2005, but maybe end of 2006, 2007 maybe. That’s when I think people like, Tea and Cookies blog, I think she started probably around then too.

On Her Passion for Cooking and Food:

Jeannette Ordas of Everybody Likes Sandwiches on The Dinner Special podcast talking about her passion for food and cooking.

I think it comes from my mom. When I was little my mom would always have a ton of cookbooks and she had this big recipe folder that, I don’t even know what it was, a case, a giant plastic case that she used as a file folder. She’d always be clipping recipes from newspapers and magazines, and my mom loved baking, my mom loved cooking, so food always was going on in the kitchen.

We helped out, me and my brother helped out but I really loved helping my mom stir cake batter and then when my mom started working full-time again, she would always leave a little note, “There’s chicken legs in the fridge, Jeannette. Can you make dinner?” So I would have to look up a recipe, figure out what I wanted to make with that. Sometimes she’d leave me a recipe, I think, initially, but then it was just like, “Oh there’s chicken legs, use those up.” So, yeah, I think it was just something to help out the family, it wasn’t a chore exactly, I really liked doing it and, I think, I would get all kinds of ooh’s and ah’s from my parents, so that was very encouraging.

I think there’s a certain point I became a vegetarian and my family was not vegetarian. And I think I was a vegetarian for 10 years, probably in my late teens, early twenties. That I think really helped me love cooking. It was something unusual that I didn’t become a vegetarian for any sort of reason other than to sort of piss off my parents, maybe? It was just a little rebellious kind of move to become a vegetarian. That was just something I sort of figured out on my own, like cooking with beans and cooking with lentils and just using vegetables and tofu.

I think still most of our meals that I cook now are probably 70% vegetarian anyways, so I love vegetarian food.

On Make-Do Cooking:

Jeannette Ordas of Everybody Likes Sandwiches on The Dinner Special podcast talking about make do cooking.

I think it comes from maybe not having a lot of money. When I moved to Vancouver I worked at a record store, so I didn’t make a lot of money. And as a creative I’ve always been sort of struggling. So yeah, I hate wasting food and then I tend to postpone cooking dinner sometimes. It will be late so stores are closed or I don’t wanna run out to the store and buy anything, so I have to scramble and look, what’s in my cupboard or here’s some celery and some lentils. It just comes from our grandmother’s type of cooking where, yeah, they didn’t go to the grocery store and buy the best cuts of meat. They couldn’t buy whatever they wanted, because they had a strict budget. So I think that’s how my style of cooking developed, part laziness, part that I didn’t have a lot of money, so I think it all comes from a little quirkiness.

I remember once just having, this was years ago, and I was having a friend over for dinner when I realized I have no money. So I bought a little bit of Parmesan cheese and I had celery and pasta and onion and so I made this pasta dish that was basically sautéed celery and onions with some hot peppers topped with celery and then little bread crumbs. And I was just like, “Wow, this is very delicious.”  It’s probably not what you want to serve someone coming over for dinner necessarily, but the person I was with probably was in a similar situation, and they were happy to have a free meal.

I think it’s probably good to have some good herbs on hand, dried is totally fine, fresh is better. I love having rosemary on hand or like Herbes de Provence, which is this herb mix that has lavender and thyme and rosemary. I think generally you should be playing with recipes. Like I don’t have a lot of things sometimes, and I hate bananas so most smoothie recipes always call for bananas so I use pineapple instead. But yeah, I have lentils. You should have aromatics like onions and garlic on hand. I think you can do a lot if you have an onion and some garlic.

The Pressure Cooker:

Which food shows or cooking shows do you watch?

I do watch TV and I would have to say we just started watching The Great British Bakeoff. I only started watching the newest season and it’s perfect. Everyone is so polite, everyone is so kind and gentle, there’s no ego and there’s lots of luscious cakes and baked goods, so that’s pretty great. And then we also started watching, my husband and I, it’s a Netflix show, I think it’s called Chef’s Table. And it’s by the director of Jiro Dreams of Sushi, so each episode is a new chef, one-hour documentary about a certain chef, and it’s probably the most inspiring television I have seen in a long time. Not even if you’re interested in cooking, but I think obviously that helps, my husband who could care less about cooking finds it very inspiring. I think if you’re a creative person it’s really great hearing from people who are creative and have passion for what they do and do well.

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

I think Dinner Was Delicious. I really like that one. Good photography, but it’s the writing that’s kind of snappy, sassy and fun. Kitchen Culinaire. She’s a local Vancouver blogger. I’ve been to her kitchen and pretty much the blog features her beautiful kitchen and her beautiful recipes that are quite simple but very beautiful.

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

I would say Kitchen Culinaire is really good on Instagram. I look at Instagram a lot. Wit and Vinegar is another food blogger who has a great Instagram. Coco Cake Land, another Vancouver blogger, beautiful, fun, photographs of tasty cakes.

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

It would probably be a split between, I have this old cast iron frying pan that was given to us by my husband Cornelius’s grandmother when she passed away, and it’s an old workhorse. I feel like it’s just something that I’ll never get rid of, and I use it all the time. I just made eggs for breakfast in it this morning. I use it for baking salmon, I’ve baked cakes in it, it’s really amazing. I also am very partial to my pistachio colored KitchenAid mixer, which I got as a wedding present so, I love that.

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

I have a lot of dislikes for being a food blogger and someone who supposedly loves food, but I think cucumber is one that I never really liked, and I still don’t really like when people flavor water with cucumber. That’s not very refreshing for me. But now, like last night, we had sandwiches and I had cucumber in the sandwich. I make cucumber salads all the time. I just find it really refreshing, especially during the summer.

What are a few cookbooks that make your life better?

Well, I think one of the first cookbooks that I really loved when I started cooking, when I became a vegetarian, was The Moosewood Cookbook. It has no photos and that doesn’t bother me and I just really loved it. It was hippy-ish, but it really sort of explained vegetarian cooking for me, so I really think that cookbook deserves the prime spot on my shelf and I’ll never get rid of it.

There’s a whole series of those books from I think it’s a restaurant in upstate New York, vegetarian restaurant, and all the recipes are really great.

What song or album just makes you want to cook?

Probably an album by the Kinks called Village Green Preservation Society. Very retro, it’s from the ’60s so it’s retro, but it’s just very pleasant sounding poppy. It would be a perfect cooking album, but if I really am feeling tired and I need a little something, I would probably throw on Robyn, something really fun to get in the kitchen.

On Keeping Posted with Jeannette:

Jeannette Ordas of Everybody Likes Sandwiches on The Dinner Special podcast talking about keeping posted with her.

I would say on Instagram. My handle is kickpleat so that would be the best way.

 

Subscribe to The Dinner Special podcast

Filed Under: Podcast Tagged With: Chef's Table, Chocolate and Zucchini, Coco Cake Land, Dinner Was Delicious, Everybody Likes Sandwiches, Food Blog, Food Blogger, Fresh Food, Jeannette Ordas, Jiro Dreams of Sushi, Kitchen Culinaire, Orangette, Robyn, Simple Food, Spilled Milk, Tea and Cookies blog, The Great British Bakeoff, the Kinks, The Moosewood Cookbook, Vancouver, Village Green Preservation Society, Wit and Vinegar

  • 1
  • 2
  • Next Page »

Hello! I'm Gabriel Soh, home cook, food enthusiast and your host of The Dinner Special podcast.
Everything here on The Dinner Special is an experiment, just like with cooking. Thank you for listening and being part of the adventure.

Enjoy the podcast?

Click HERE to subscribe, rate and review on iTunes now.

Let’s Keep in Touch!

Copyright © 2023 · Epik on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in