The Dinner Special podcast

  • Episodes
  • Contact

090: Lily Diamond: Playing with Food for Beauty and Nourishment

November 4, 2015 by Gabriel Leave a Comment

Lily Diamond of Kale and Caramel on The Dinner Special podcast.
http://traffic.libsyn.com/thedinnerspecial/TDS090.mp3

Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS

Lily Diamond of Kale and Caramel on The Dinner Special podcast talking about playing with food for beauty and nourishment.

Kale & Caramel

On Kale & Caramel, Lily has fun with local, seasonal produce and plays with different flavor combinations in the kitchen while creating body and beauty products that are pure enough to eat. She believes diet is a personal matter and highly recommends eating, cooking, and mixing with our own two hands.

I am so excited to have Lily Diamond of Kale & Caramel joining me on the show today.

(*All images below are Lily’s.)

On Growing Up in Maui:

Lily Diamond of Kale and Caramel on The Dinner Special podcast talking about foraging and growing up in Maui.

Growing up on Maui, first of all, I just feel incredibly lucky that I had that background and was able to be immersed in so much natural beauty, and to have such a strong connection to the land instilled in me from a really young age. Both my parents spent a lot of time in the gardens that we had surrounding our house. And my mom was an aromatherapist and an herbologist, and so I learned about working with plants from her. And that informed the way that I approach both self care, definitely, in terms of mixing up crazy potions that I would slather all over myself, but also in the kitchen and really thinking about food, not just one-dimensionally in terms of flavor, but really on a much broader level, hence the tagline “food for all five senses”.

For me there is so much richness in experiencing the other qualities of food, the way that it feels, its scent, all of these things that make it a really multi-dimensional experience to work with in the kitchen and to play with, whether you’re nourishing inside or outside of your body.

I think having that deep immersion in gardening and growing our own food made it really easy for me to want to explore different ingredients. And a lot of that just was very basic. The fruits and vegetables that we grew, not basic now that I’m living here on the mainland in California. Their ingredients are harder to get, and I don’t have the luxury of walking outside and having three different kinds of passion fruit to choose from or being able to pick my own pomegranate. But having a culinary vocabulary in that way really informed, I think, how I eat and how I cook now.

On Foraging:

Lily Diamond of Kale and Caramel on The Dinner Special podcast talking about foraging.

I lived in San Francisco prior to living here, and there is actually a really cool foraging movement growing, definitely, in California. I think, around the nation of urban dwellers who are aware that even potentially within the confines of their city limits, there are oasis that contain a lot of natural life that can be foraged and eaten. I definitely don’t recommend doing any of that on your own, scrounging up things that you think look edible, totally a bad idea. But if you can go with somebody who really knows how to identify plants.

Something that I did was when I lived in San Francisco, I didn’t have a car, and so when I moved down here, I still was into walking around everywhere and exploring my neighborhood, and I really quickly discovered this walled-in secret garden. I would peer through the fence and try and figure out what was going on there. And for a few weeks. I then finally saw a sign, and looked it up online, and ended up just showing up at a community service day for this community garden that is just a few blocks from me.

And it’s huge. It has, I think, over 150 individual plots and then several acres of avocado orchards. And the avocado trees, some of them are over a hundred years old. And it’s just an incredibly special place. So right away I went in and I was like, “Can I help? I would love to just be able to work here and spend some time here.” And they said, “Sure.” And I’ve since developed a really close relationship with them.

So many people who live in L.A. don’t know that this place exists. It’s in the middle of the city, but it’s just kind of hidden, and you do have to look, and you have to explore and I think, be willing to go off the beaten track and just have your eyes open for plant life. I don’t think that’s something that most people do. Most people aren’t really walking around and going like, “I wonder where the next rosemary plant is that I will see.”

But once you have it on your radar, you start noticing like, “Oh my gosh, there’s lavender growing at the end of my block,” or, “There’s a fig tree two blocks from me that is growing over the street and all of those figs are just dropping on the ground.” And that’s technically public property. Just little things that you can attune to that will make it easier to feel like you’re in less of a desert.

On Her Curiosity Around Cooking:

I think I was about 11. I saw an advertisement for a Quaker Oats recipe contest. And I promptly decided that I should make up a recipe and enter it, and so I did. I still remember I can see the printed page, and I remember the font that I used. And I remember what they were called, and I remember what they were. I think that I should try to recreate them now. I called them “Mini Blueberry Munchies”. And they were basically blueberry hand pies, but they had an oat crumble. Instead of being as a topping, it was baked in. So I’m not sure how that would work out now. That was the first time that I really remember making a recipe, was when I was really young.

Even before then, I would go outside, because my mom started a business making body caring spa products actually around the same age when I was around 11. And I spent a lot of time from very young, watching her put together ingredients and use different plants and scents and all different aspects of food to create really beautiful dishes, and also body products. But I would go outside. I remember just running around the yard when I was young, and I would decide I was going to make lipstick or something. And I would go, and I would pick the pink flowers and different things, and mash them all together, and then put it on myself, and go show my mom.

That mentality, just playing with food, has always been really present for me. And I think what that does for me now is informs a joy in the process of cooking that, yes, I am concerned with the final outcome, but it’s also really fun for me to take my time and play with the ingredients, which is lovely for me and means that sometimes I take a long time to make things.

On Creating Beauty Products Pure Enough to Eat:

Lily Diamond of Kale and Caramel on The Dinner Special podcast talking about creating beauty products pure enough to eat.

So I think on a really basic way, if you go into my bathroom, you’ll see on my sink, there’s a jar of honey, which is not usually something that you see in people’s bathrooms. And people would always…they’d come out, they’d say, “Can I use your restroom?” And I’d say, “Sure.” And they’d come out and they would say, “Why do you have a jar of honey sitting on your sink?” And it was a tip that was given to me by an esthetician, maybe five or more years ago, who said, “We use so many harsh ingredients, and we spend so much money on really complex products. And really, for most of our lives, we don’t need those products. What we need is to help preserve and care for and on a super basic level, clean our skin. That’s it.”

And one really easy way to do that is with honey. Honey is a natural preservative. If you think about it Egyptians used to preserve mummies in honey. And it also is antibacterial. It’s a really good cleanser, and if you get raw honey, it has a little bit of a grain to it. And so it’s actually a tad exfoliating, which is super nice.

I also make my own face oil as a moisturizer. It just really started as for me saying, “Our skin is our bodies’ largest organ, what we put on our skin goes directly into our body, and people spend so much money on products to try to deal with their skin issues, whatever they may be. And a lot of them have really harsh chemicals or ingredients in them that aren’t doing them any favors at all. For me, I love being able to say, “Well, my face cleanser cost me $6 at Whole Foods to get a jar of really nice raw, wild flower, wild crafted or wild whatever honey that will last me a month.”

And the face oil that I use, I make from either sweet almond oil or sometimes add apricot kernel oil. These are all ingredients that you can get super easily at a co-op or Whole Foods or a household store. And I add a few different essential oils depending on the level of dryness or moisture that I have in my skin that season, and that’s it. And that gets to be my routine. And it’s so simple, and it feels so good, and it’s really pure.

I sat next to this super sweet high school senior on my way back home on an airplane, and she was going to Maui with her family. I think it was for some holiday vacation. And we were talking about Kale & Caramel and these different products, and she ended up telling me she had a bunch of challenges, acne and red bumps on her skin. I’m not an esthetician or a dermatologist, I would never presume to prescribe anything to anyone. But I just shared with her what I did, and I said, “You could try it and see.” And we had such a nice conversation.

We ended up exchanging information, and a couple of months later, she wrote to me and said, “I’m sorry this email is so long overdue, but I just wanted to let you know that the red bumps that I have on my skin are completely gone. I’ve never seen results like what happened with using the honey and sweet almond oil.” It’s just so simple. But I think as a culture, we’ve been trained to want the thing that’s most expensive and most complex, and yet the ingredients to really care for ourselves and for our skin are close to the earth. That’s what’s also going to keep us feeling the healthiest and the most radiant, I think. Because it’s what’s naturally occurring.

On Good Resources for Learning More About Food for Beauty:

The first thing that comes to mind is actually my mother wrote a book called The Complete Book of Flowers. It’s sort of an encyclopedia of flowers. And it is possibly not available on Amazon right now. But it’s always worth taking a look. That’s called The Complete Book of Flowers. I haven’t found any singular go-to book in that regard, but I may be working on something that could help you in that dimension.

The Pressure Cooker:

Which food shows or cooking shows do you watch?

I actually don’t have a TV. I’ve watched some MasterChef Junior. I’ve watched some of those with a friend’s kid, but that’s it.

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

Some of my favorite food blogs right now that I go to as just regular sources of inspiration, I would say, are probably, Fix Feast Flair, With Food and Love, Will Frolic For Food, and The First Mess. Those are just some that are off the top of my head. Two Red Bowls, I love. My Name Is Yeh, also. There are so many. I’m really just constantly astounded by the amount of inspiration that is out there and the level of beauty is so extraordinary.

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

This is someone that comes to mind right away whose blog I just absolutely adore is Dash and Bella, Phyllis Grant. She’s an incredible writer and as a food writer, I think, is doing really exciting things. Instagram, definitely, I’m Laura Miller. She just does hilarious things with fruits and veggies posing with them, putting them on herself in weird ways, which obviously I like doing as well.

Oh, I follow Beyonce, clearly, and some other fashion accounts. I really love fashion, and some travel magazines, Trotter and Cereal Mag. And I think, oh, The Feed Feed is also an incredible aggregate of a lot of what’s happening on Instagram and just in the food sphere today. It’s, I think, a great way to keep up to date. And anything else? The people who I mentioned previously in terms of their blogs, I love following as well. Vegetarian Ventures, Shelly is an amazing photographer. So those are a few that come to mind.

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

I’m going to have to say it’s a weird answer, because it’s so utilitarian, but my Vitamix, it’s so multipurpose, and I use it so often. Most days, I definitely use it at least once and often more than once. And so, I think, for me I would have to go with the Vitamix. Not sentimental, but practical.

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

Cilantro. I couldn’t stand cilantro, which I know is something that is common for a lot of people. I really disliked it when I was growing up. I don’t know when it was that that shifted, but it definitely became something that for me, I use it for so many types of cuisine, and I think it adds an incredible dimension of flavor. So I love it now.

What are a few cookbooks that make your life better?

Definitely, Ottolenghi’s Plenty and Plenty More. There’s so much complexity and depth in those recipes, that I’m always astounded when I explore it. There’s a cookbook called The Balanced Plate by Renee Loux, who’s a vegan chef, but she has a lot of great recipes that are super easy. There’s a vegan cupcake recipe that she has that I used to make. I just alter it to become a coffee cake. It has a really nice streusel on top. You would never know that it’s vegan. I don’t like cooking vegan recipes where you’re making a lot of substitutions and using silken tofu, and flax eggs, and complex things. I love vegan recipes where the ingredients just all stand for themselves. That cookbook really does that, which is lovely.

What song or album just makes you want to cook?

I do listen to a lot of Beyonce while I’m cooking, it’s true. I would say that I alternate between listening to really fun, upbeat music like Beyonce and listening to podcasts. That’s something that, for me, I live alone and being able to have that human element in the kitchen with me if I don’t have someone else over visiting, is really nice to be able to keep my brain engaged in that way, even as I’m using the rest of my body.

On Keeping Posted with Lily:

Lily Diamond of Kale and Caramel on The Dinner Special podcast talking about how to keep posted with her.

Instagram, any social platform, really, I’m everywhere @KaleandCaramel, so you can hit me up on any of those social media platforms.

 

Subscribe to The Dinner Special podcast

Filed Under: Podcast Tagged With: Beauty, Beyonce, Dash and Bella, Fix Feast Flair, Food Blog, Food Blogger, Foraging, Kale & Caramel, Lily Diamond, MasterChef Junior, Maui, My Name is Yeh, Ottolenghi, Phyllis Grant, The Complete Book of Flowers, The Feed Feed, The First Mess, Two Red Bowls, Vegetarian Ventures, Vitamix, Will Frolic for Food, With Food and Love

089: Naz Deravian: Persian Cuisine with a Global Twist

October 28, 2015 by Gabriel Leave a Comment

Naz Deravian of Bottom of the Pot on The Dinner Special podcast talking about how to keep posted with her.
http://traffic.libsyn.com/thedinnerspecial/TDS089.mp3

Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS

Naz Deravian of Bottom of the Pot on The Dinner Special podcast talking about Persian cuisine with a global twist.

Bottom of the Pot

Born in Tehran, Iran, Naz grew up in Rome, Italy and then Vancouver, Canada. She now lives in Los Angeles. And Bottom of the Pot is the result of cooking and eating a lot and the lively conversations around the kitchen table. Bottom of the Pot is Naz’s food journal where she shares her adventures in cooking Persian food and beyond. Her blog was the 2015 IACP Narrative Culinary Blog Winner and 2014 Saveur Awards Best Regional Cuisine Blog Finalist, and Best New Blog Finalist.

I am so happy to have Naz Deravian of Bottom of the Pot here with me today.

(*All photos below are Naz’s.)

On Food in Iran and Italy:

Naz Deravian of Bottom of the Pot on The Dinner Special podcast talking about food in Iran and Italy.

I was born in Iran. I left when I was quite young. I had just turned eight years old. And then we moved to Italy. It was right around the time of the revolution in Iran, but Italy was always our second home. It’s where we vacationed, where my parents met, so there was a close connection to Italy. I think Italians and Iranians are very, very similar in their love and appreciation of food. I always like to say food is just part of our culture, and I think, I could say it’s part of the Italian culture, too. It just is, it’s in our blood. It’s not something that we think about too much, we just do it. I grew up eating home-cooked meals, going out was for a special occasion, it was a treat, but it was always around the dinner table or the kitchen table, or in the kitchen. So I think both cultures share that love and appreciation for home-cooked meals. And putting the time, effort, and love into it.

We really don’t share that many similar ingredients. But I would say one similarity is the differences in regional cooking. Both Iran and Italy are very set in their regional cooking, if you’re from the north, from the south, from the east, from the west, and everyone’s very passionate about their way. And it breaks down even further, then it’s from city to city, town to town, neighborhood to neighborhood, the same dish will differ just because someone added a little bit of this spice or a little bit of that spice, and then home to home.

On the Food in Canada and the US:

As a proud Canadian, I feel the need to distinguish ourselves from our friendly neighbors to the south, our American friends. But yes, I would say it’s a North American style of eating, and approach to food. I moved to Canada as a child in the early 1980’s, and Vancouver in particular was not the cosmopolitan city that it is today. So, it was quite a culture shock to move from Iran, then Italy, and then to the Vancouver of the early ’80s for my family. For instance, finding plain yogurt was very difficult. It was either in health food stores, or in very small tubs. And Iranians, we consume a lot of yogurt, it’s not just a little container. So, I can’t speak for America, because I wasn’t here then, but I assume they’re rather similar.

On What She’s Learned from the Different Places She’s Lived:

These cultures and regions, countries, they define my cooking. I really couldn’t say I could cook without being influenced by them. I feel just as nostalgic for a Caprese salad as I do for an Iranian dish of rice and stew, and it brings back so many memories for me. A lot of these foods are linked to memories and stories for me.

Iran I would say is the soul of my cooking, and cooking in general. It’s the aromas that permeate the kitchen. Before moving into our current house, my husband now, then boyfriend, we lived in an apartment building, and there was a long hallway. And walking down that hallway, before we got to our door, as my mother was visiting, you would start smelling the aroma of the rice steaming. And right away you knew what was for dinner, and so that would take me back to Iran. And Italy, my brother and I always have this joke about put the hot water on for the pasta. You make the phone call, put the water on, it’s ready for the pasta. Vancouver, interestingly enough, is I think where I was introduced to salmon of course, and it fit in perfectly with our Persian cuisine because we love fish, fish and rice. We have many traditional fish dishes, and the salmon in Vancouver is legendary.

On What a Traditional Persian Meal Looks Like:

Naz Deravian of Bottom of the Pot on The Dinner Special podcast talking about what a traditional Persian meal looks like.

A typical traditional Persian meal on any given day, there will be rice, always rice. And Tahdig, which is the bottom of the pot. It’s the crispy rice under the bottom of the pot, which is why obviously my blog is called Bottom of the Pot. And there will be a stew of some kind, and then all the condiments that go with it. There will be pickles of some kind, which we call torshi, some sort of yogurt, either plain or it’s a dish called Maast-o khiar, which is a yogurt and cucumber dip. And there will be bread, and fresh herbs, fresh herbs are huge. And it’s all about creating balance in a meal. So if you have something warm, you temperate it with the yogurt, the fresh herbs aid in digestion, which we’re obsessed with. So it all works in harmony.

On Putting a Twist on a Traditional Persian Meal:

That’s what I do, not every night, but at least twice a week. We get a farm box, it’s like a CSA box every week, and that really helps me get creative, because it’s introduced me to so many different vegetables in particular. A traditional Persian stew that would just be fresh herbs, which would just be maybe parsley, and cilantro and mint, when my CSA box arrives and there’s this beautiful bunch of Swiss chard, or even kale, then that’s all going to go into that stew as well, so I will incorporate it.

On Pantry Items to Have for Persian Cooking:

Certain spices are key. Turmeric, you can make a Persian dish by just using turmeric, of course, I have to mention saffron, it’s the crown jewel of all spices. It’s the most expensive spice in the world, but really a Persian stew would not come to life without saffron, and on my blog I have a post about saffron and how to make it last longer, because  it is very expensive. So how do you use it to be, economical, and still make your dishes tasty? So turmeric, you use turmeric and saffron, and you have the makings of a Persian stew. Herbs, fresh herbs, like I mentioned, parsley, cilantro, basil, fresh mint. Again, we use them in abundance, as in bunches and bunches, so not like little Trader Joe’s packets of four sprigs of parsley. There’s a little effort involved, because you have to clean it and wash it, but I would say it’s well worth it.

On Resources for Learning More about Persian Cuisine:

Naz Deravian of Bottom of the Pot on The Dinner Special podcast talking about resources for learning more about Persian cooking.

I feel very fortunate, in the past year I was introduced to quite a few other Persian food bloggers that I didn’t even know where out there, and we formed this community, and we do joint posts, either for Persian New Year, or other celebrations. So, if you go on my blog, and search for…you know what I’m going to do actually, after this conversation? I’ll go on the blog and make a link to all of their sites. They’re all doing amazing stuff out there.

There was The New Persian Kitchen, the cookbook that came out a couple of years ago, by Louisa Shafia. It’s wonderful, it’s modernized, she has modernized the way we cook, and it’s accessible I would say. Of course, there is Mrs.  Batmanglij, Najmieh Batmanglij’s lovely book, Food of Life, which is more in the traditional realm, but you can get an idea of it. I believe Margaret Shada’s book is wonderful as well, Greg and Lucy Malouf have a beautiful cookbook out there.

I think Persian food is really starting to come out, out of the shadows, and becoming much more popular as it should, because anyone you speak to who has ever tried Persian food loves it. I haven’t encountered one person who has not liked it, and they all want to know about tahdig, the crispy rice. So, I’m really happy that it’s really starting to become more popular.

The Pressure Cooker:

Which food shows or cooking shows do you watch?

Unfortunately, because I have two little girls now, and with my job, I don’t watch a lot of cooking shows anymore, except for when I’m working out at the gym.

I’m not a big fan of the cooking competition shows, but I still really enjoy Jamie Oliver, and online there is the Two Greedy Italians, I love their stuff, it’s Gennaro Contaldo with I forget the other gentleman’s name, but I love that. I love any cooking show that will take me to another place.

I know Ottolenghi did a couple of BBC series, I think it was called Ottolenghi’s Mediterranean Feast. I just love that, I love traveling, and watching what people eat around the world. So those would be it.

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

There are many, so I’m sure I’m going to miss some here, but Pamela Salzman, she is the one blogger that I would say we actually cook from in our household the most. Her recipes are family friendly, wholesome, whatever that means, and just fun to make, so Pamela Salzman.

My friend, Cheryl Sternman Rule, her Five-Second blog is just beautifully written, beautiful food, and also her new site called Team Yogurt, which I’m also a contributor to, but any site dedicated to yogurt, you’ll find me there. That to me is heaven, yogurt is life.

Dash and Bella, the writing is incredible, with really fun and interesting food as well, but her writing just stuns me.

Nik Sharma’s A Brown Table, Nik’s photography is pure poetry to me, every time he blows my mind with his photography, food photography.

The Wednesday Chef, she and Pamela Salzman were the very first bloggers that I reached out to when I started my blog. And they were so kind and generous, and they actually wrote back, which I did not expect, and were very encouraging. And I read Luisa’s book that she wrote, My Berlin Kitchen, and that was right before I started my blog too, and it just really resonated with me. She has this term she uses about being perpetually homesick, and that really resonated with me, because it captured, it put to words my emotions, perpetually homesick. And that’s exactly, I think why I started the blog, and how it’s been developing with the story telling, and the memories connected to the food.

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

I am so new to social media. I was a hold out for the longest time, and then I started my blog. And very slowly, I do things very slowly, I like to take my time, I got on Instagram which I think I enjoy the most.

I enjoy telling stories through pictures, and seeing and traveling with people to all these different places that I haven’t been to, or have been to and seeing what they’re eating, and what they’re cooking.

So on Instagram, there is Cucina Digitale, it’s this woman who lives in Rome, I think she’s an American who lives in Rome, I love her stuff. Sami Tamimi who is Mr. Ottolenghi’s partner, they wrote Jerusalem together, I love seeing all of his stuff. It makes my mouth water, and it makes me want to get into the kitchen, which is what you really want.

There is another feed called Palestine On A Plate, I love taking a look at her stuff. Elizabeth Minchilli, she’s in Rome, she’s based in Rome. So I think I connect to the places that I’ve been to, and the type of food that I enjoy eating. And as long as it inspires me, that’s what matters most.

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

It’s this little wooden spoon that I call my saffron spoon, and my saffron jar. My saffron jar and my saffron spoon that no one else is allowed to touch because it’s very precious. And the saffron jar is this little jam jar that my mom always packs for me. It has again, a lot of memory attached to it. I would say all my spice jars. I don’t have the most cohesive looking spice cabinet, they’re all random jars from probably 30 years ago, that have just been passed down from family members. So spice jars and my saffron spoon.

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

Eggplant and zucchini, couldn’t stand it as a child. I don’t think it was until my late teens that I started enjoying eggplant, and zucchini even came later than that, and now I love them. I could eat them all the time. So, I give my kids a break on those two vegetables, but that’s it. They have to eat everything else.

I think it’s general with eggplant. I have yet to meet a child that actually enjoys eggplant. Yes, they like zucchini, sometimes raw, they like the crunch as most children do. I made a zucchini dish the other day that I sautéed, and it really melted into the spaghetti sauce, and my older daughter who’s a little more adventurous, she enjoyed that. I have to mention another blog, Rachel Eats, British girl, Rome-based, I love her writing and all her food too.

What are a few cookbooks that make your life better?

Marcella Hazan’s, The Classic Italian Cookbook. No pictures, straight forward. When I need to cook, that’s what I need. It doesn’t have to be pretty, it doesn’t have to be all set up, it just needs to be a great recipe, and these are authentic Italian recipes. So that’s what I’m going to go to.

The Ottolenghi books, they’re all lovely, inspirational, I cook from them. What I also love about them is that we share many of the same ingredients, and I just love how it’s catapulted Middle Eastern ingredients to the masses, and I thank them for that.

We like to cook from Gwyneth Paltrow’s books. They’re convenient, they’re accessible, I like them, they work.

And then all my Persian cookbooks, another great thing has been I’ve been reading through some very old, older Persian cookbooks written in Farsi actually, and my Farsi’s, my reading and writing is not great, but this has been a great exercise, so it’s improving.

What song or album just makes you want to cook?

This is a great question, because music and cooking goes hand-in-hand in this house. One would not happen without the other. So Manu Chao. If I’m working on a new recipe, if I need something for a pick-me-up to get me excited to get into the kitchen, it’s going to be Manu Chao. Other than that, we have NPR 24/7 in the background, it’s just on. And there’s a great music program on our local NPR station KCRW called Morning Becomes Eclectic. The D.J. is Jason Bentley, and he just rocks it, and I like to chop all my vegetables to whatever he’s playing. That would be it, I think.

On Keeping Posted with Naz:

Naz Deravian of Bottom of the Pot on The Dinner Special podcast talking about how to keep posted with her.

Instagram, Facebook, now that I’m finally on it, and Twitter.

 

Subscribe to The Dinner Special podcast

Filed Under: Podcast Tagged With: 2014 Saveur Blog Awards, A Brown Table, Bottom of the Pot, Cheryl Sternman Rule, Cucina Digitale, Dash and Bella, Elizabeth Minchilli, Food Blog, Food Blogger, Greg Malouf, Gwyneth Paltrow, IACP, Iran, Italy, Jamie Oliver, Los Angeles, Louisa Shafia, Lucy Malouf, Manu Chao, Marcella Hazan, My Berlin Kitchen, Najmieh Batmanglij, Naz Deravian, Ottolenghi, Palestine On A Plate, Pamela Salzman, Persian Food, Rachel Eats, Saffron, Sami Tamimi, Tahdig, Team Yogurt, The Wednesday Chef, Torshi, Tumeric, Two Greedy Italians, Vancouver

034: Cristina Sciarra: How Learning to Cook is a Lifelong Process

May 4, 2015 by Gabriel Leave a Comment

Cristina Sciarra of The Roaming Kitchen on The Dinner Special podcast talking about writing about her food adventures.
http://traffic.libsyn.com/thedinnerspecial/TDS034.mp3

Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS

Cristina Sciarra of The Roaming Kitchen on The Dinner Special podcast talking about how learning to cook is a lifelong process.

The Roaming Kitchen, Food Blog

Cristina has lived all over the world and feels most at home in her kitchen. She believes food should foster community and seasonal foods and ingredients are worth waiting for. Cristina was on the board of Slow Food NYC and The Roaming Kitchen was a finalist for Best New Blog in Saveur’s 2013 Best Food Blog Awards.

I am so happy to have Cristina Sciarra of The Roaming Kitchen here on the show.

On Writing About Her Food Adventures:

Cristina Sciarra of The Roaming Kitchen on The Dinner Special podcast talking about writing about her food adventures.

I had been living abroad. I lived in Spain for one year and then I moved to France for a year. In France I lived on a market street. Six days a week we had two butchers and a baker, a cheesemonger. I really fell into the habit of buying ingredients on a daily basis and cooking things on a daily basis.

I came back to New York to go to graduate school for writing. I studied for an MFA in fiction writing. It was a natural marrying of two really strong interests, writing and food, because I think in essence, a recipe is a story to be told. I started to create my own recipes and I wanted some place to write them down before I forgot them and couldn’t cook them anymore.

I love Spain. I studied abroad there and then I lived there for another year. Especially Madrid is where my heart is. I do love Spanish food, but I would say now, at this point, I’ve been with my fiancée for six years and I have spent a lot of time with his family. They live on the western coast of France where they do the oysters and the mussels and the sea salt. Watching my mother-in-law prepare these dishes with a duck she got from her friend’s farm down the road and really, really fresh ingredients. I think that’s influenced me hugely.

Of course it’s French food but more than that it’s local food. Here I frequent the farmers’ market. I’ll buy things that look good. I come home and I think, “What can I do with these things?”

In my mind that’s an extension of what she does in her own home too. As far as cuisines, I love French, I love Spanish, I love Italian, that’s what I grew up eating. I guess I love North American because that’s where I happen to be and that’s where the ingredients are that I’m buying.

Really, the most important thing to me is local, high quality foods then using your imagination and mixing cuisines in order to make something delicious.

On Attending Culinary School in Paris:

Cristina Sciarra of The Roaming Kitchen on The Dinner Special podcast talking about going to culinary school in Paris.

I think the culinary school system in France is probably a lot different than culinary school in the States. Just as far as I know, from the people who have gone here, it seems to be more about cuisine styles. Again, this might be too much of a sweeping statement, but at the Cordon Bleu it’s very old school French style teaching. It’s a militaristic style of teaching. Most of the chefs are old men and they are not afraid to yell at you if something goes wrong.

I went for the basic course which is the first third where they teach you basically everything you need to know. They teach you how to cut things properly, and make a stock, and poach a chicken, things like that.

The upper classes are more difficult things and perfecting dishes. I really learned all the building blocks of cooking there. I think for me it was such a valuable education. What does it mean to braise something and chemically why do you do that? Why is it different than a different style of cooking? Although some days were terrifying, the base education was really, really valuable to me.

The basic program was supposed to last three months, but I only had a little time left in France. I thought I would do the accelerated program which takes three months' worth of work and puts it in about six or seven weeks, I guess.

I was there all the time from the early morning to late at night, five or six days a week. It was intense.

Basically the day oscillated between sitting in on a lecture where the chef would speak in French with a translator or in English. He would demonstrate three or four dishes. There would be a big mirror on the ceiling so you can see what’s happening.

In your practical class after that you would be cooking one or two things that he demonstrated.

This was late summer too I will say. It’s a lot of apparel. You’re wearing a lot of clothes that need to be a certain way, so it was very, very hot and a lot of time on my feet. It was one of those experiences I will never forget. While it was really intense it was so valuable to me. I am so lucky and grateful that I got to do that.

On a Kitchen Disaster Before Culinary School:

Cristina Sciarra of The Roaming Kitchen on The Dinner Special podcast talking about a kitchen disaster story.

I made my friend run down to the supermarket and get the pre-made pizza bread that are completely done. They are like bread. You just have to stick them in the oven. I don’t know why I thought this, but I rolled the dough very, very thinly. Way too thinly and then put it in the oven for 20 minutes. It was black, completely charred, a mess. My friends were pretty patient through all of this. Most people like eating free food so it went over pretty well.

There was a farmers’ market one day a week on our campus. I did start going there. That was probably the first farmers’ market that I attended on a somewhat regular basis. That year was really, really trial and error. I remember I made my friend a carrot cake. I was very proud of that because it actually turned out okay.

There’s still so much that I don’t know. I think cooking is such a large subject that I could study and practice my whole life and there would still be more to learn. I think that’s part of what I find so interesting is that it’s endless. What I can do and how I can improve, new tricks I can learn, new flavor combinations. I think that path sort of starts there. It’s just been sort of chugging along ever since then.

On the Slow Food Movement:

Cristina Sciarra of The Roaming Kitchen on The Dinner Special podcast talking about the slow food movement.

Slow Food is actually an international organization that started in the 80s in Italy when McDonald’s first came into Italy. It was a reaction to that. It’s now all over the world. The New York City chapter, we’re under the USA umbrella, but we’re actually the biggest local chapter in the country. We really are in support of food that’s good, clean and fair.

We have several school gardens teaching kids how to grow their own food and how to cook their own food. We have a monthly Slur, which is a happy hour where people can come and talk to members of the board. We have a book and film club which I used to work on where we try to get films and have a panel, or we have book events with the author. Sometimes that includes a cooking demonstration.

We had a woman who wrote a book about making fresh cheese. We all got to try some of this fresh cheese. We work in this general goal of really trying to raise money and awareness for environmental and fair practices in cooking and food production.

We’re actually very lucky in New York because we have many, many farmers’ markets. You could go every day to one or more. We have great access to New Jersey, Pennsylvania, the Hudson Valley. There’s also a company called Good Eggs, which is now in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Brooklyn, and they’re moving to Manhattan and New Orleans.

I love ordering from them too because fish, for example, it’s very hard to know if you’re getting good fish or not unless you have a source that you trust. On Saturdays there’s a local fishmonger, a day boat fishmonger at the farmers’ market but if I wanted fish on a Wednesday, it’s difficult to know. Good Eggs provides really high quality well sourced fish and meat. Frankly, it’s like a grocery store, all kinds of things. We’re quite lucky here. It’s not so difficult to eat really well.

The Pressure Cooker:

Which food shows or cooking shows do you watch?

I don’t really watch any cooking shows.

I will wait until Top Chef is over and binge watch the whole thing. I think every year the cooks get better and better and better. I enjoy it.

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

I have a list of them on my website. I like different ones for very different reasons.

I like good writing a lot so someone like Oh, Ladycakes who writes vegan dessert recipes, but that’s not my preference. I always read because she’s a gorgeous writer and the photographs are beautiful, the same thing with Bon Appetempt.

I definitely would try her recipes but the thing that keeps me coming back is her voice. How original it is, what great read it is. I’d say the same for Dash and Bella. The writing is so evocative and it’s very family-based, about her family. It’s gorgeous, it breaks your heart every time she writes something.

I’d say those are the three that I go to. Those are my top three I would say.

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

I’m the best at Instagram of all of those. It makes me happy, I guess those bloggers that I just mentioned and some more. So many people post such beautiful things and once you get to know someone a little bit when they post about their family or their life it’s a pleasure to see those pictures.

I have friends who live in Europe and South America, to see their posts, what they’re doing is really a gift. It’s a way of keeping in touch with someone you love but lives far away.

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

I’m the wrong person to ask this because I’ll give you a very long list.

To be the most basic, I would say black pepper, fresh ground black pepper, have a kosher salt and a flaky sea salt, have an olive oil for cooking and an olive oil for finishing, a more flavorful fancy pants olive oil.

I think if you have those things there’s a lot you can do with those things. You can open a can of beans from your cupboard and mix all of that together. If you have some herbs put it in there. If you have some radishes or cucumbers put it in there. That’s half of dinner already and leftovers for tomorrow.

Name one ingredient you cannot live without.

Olive oil. I have several olive oils and it’s fun for me. We went to Spain over Christmas to visit my fiancée’s family. They make great olive oil in Spain. I bought a few to bring home. That’s something I love to do also, is buying special food stuffs when I’m away and being able to come home and use them in my own kitchen. Olive oil, salt and pepper, but olive oil I think is fun.

What are a few cookbooks that make your life better?

That makes my life better, well, I would say certainly those big cookbooks that serve as a guide. So in something like the New York Times cookbook, you’re going to find everything in there. Those are my outside cookbooks. The ones I like to look at all the time. What else? I have several Cook’s Illustrated books. I like having a great, great background. Then I have some restaurant cookbooks, some blogger cookbooks. But, really Nigel Slater, his books are the ones I come back to. I read all the time. There are quite a few. I think that’s my favorite.

What song or album just makes you want to cook?

I usually leave the music choices up to my fiancée. He plays stuff I like and I don’t have to think about it too much, but I will say I do watch a lot of Hulu shows when I’m cooking. It’s a good excuse to watch things that don’t perhaps need your full attention.

I also listen to a lot of books on tape. I fly through books on tape when I’m cooking. That’s the most enjoyable way to spend an afternoon I can think of, cooking and listening to a book on tape.

I’m listening to 1984 right now. I’m halfway through.

Keep Posted on Cristina:

Cristina Sciarra of The Roaming Kitchen on The Dinner Special podcast talking about how to keep posted with her.

I would say Instagram is probably my favorite method of social media. You’ll always see me posting there the most. I have a Facebook page for The Roaming Kitchen. I also do updates and articles there and just check in back into to the website.

Have Cristina’s Special Dish Recipe Sent to You Now:

    First Name (required)

    Your Email (required)

    Subscribe to The Dinner Special podcast

    Filed Under: Podcast Tagged With: Bon Appétempt, Cook's Illustrated, Cordon Bleu, Cristina Sciarra, Culinary School, Dash and Bella, Food Blog, Food Blogger, French Cuisine, Good Eggs, Ladycakes, New York, New York Times cookbook, Nigel Slater, Oh, Paris, Saveur Food Blog Awards, Slow Food Movement, Slow Food NYC, Spain, The Roaming Kitchen, Top Chef

    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 © 2021 · Epik on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in