Donna Hay | The Dinner Special podcast

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

April 13, 2016 by Gabriel Leave a Comment

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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:

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:

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:

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:

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:

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:

Definitely Instagram. And my handle is HMMessinger.

061: Kris Osborne: How Pleasure is an Important Part of Wellness

July 22, 2015 by Gabriel Leave a Comment

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80twenty

Kris is a holistic chef, recipe developer, and food photographer and stylist. On her blog 80twenty, she shares vibrant and delicious food and drinks that aim to healthfully nourish us 80% of the time and satisfy our cravings and wants 20% of the time.

I am so happy to have Kris Osborne of 80twenty joining me here on the show today.

(*All images below are Kris’s.)

On Growing Up in a Family-Owned Restaurant:

My family owned actually a restaurant and a motel, so we lived in an apartment above the motel and the restaurant was in a building adjacent. And so my whole life, up until I was 13 years old, I spent in and out of the kitchen or in and out of the rooms, and my life was always filled with my family feeding people. It was a really common theme. When we weren’t feeding people in the restaurant, I remember my mom and my aunt always having dinner parties and having friends over.

I come from a family of people who shows their love through feeding people and so I was always surrounded by food.

My mom describes me as being a bit mischievous, I guess. She would say that I would, even as a three year-old, I would be wandering around the restaurant and I would go up to customers’ plates and steal french fries from their plates, for example.

I think probably because I was three, people thought it was adorable. But also because I grew up in a small town, people also got to know my family and got to know me and my siblings. I don’t remember necessarily helping out in the back or anything like that, but I was always in the restaurant scene.

For as long as I can remember, I’ve always loved food. I’ve always loved cooking and learning about food and sharing food with people.

I’ve always had an interest in healthy food. So that’s always formed the backdrop of how I wanted to live my life. And I never intended necessarily to work in the restaurant industry, because when I was a teenager, I served. And then eventually when I was old enough, I became a bartender. I had quite an entrenched life in that world and so I wanted to have a professional career.

All of my off time was spent reading cookbooks and visiting whole food producers or local farms or things like that. And so it’s always been integrated into part of my life.

I think probably a lot of bloggers that you interview, I imagine, would have a similar perspective on this. And that is that food is such an integral part of our life. We use it for, obviously, sustenance and nourishment, but we also use it to celebrate and we use it as a reward and we use it to show love. There are so many reasons that we use food in our lives. And I feel so fortunate that I get to somehow do this in a way that also involves my career and my passions. Probably other bloggers feel the same way, where we are hoping to connect people with that same meaning that we get from it.

On Starting Her Blog:

It’s not really that interesting of a story but I wanted to start a food blog for a long time, mostly just as a way to share what I was already doing. My partner kept encouraging me to start it and I kept thinking, “Well, I don’t know how to do anything. I don’t know how to take photos and I don’t know what to write and I don’t know what to post.” So literally I had a URL for a year or two before I even posted anything.

The blog name was something different and I was just talking one day and I said, “You know what? I think what I want to be able to convey to people is this idea of, I want people to eat healthy food, and I want to inspire people to eat healthy food, because I think we get a lot of the other stuff all the time anyway, so why not do what I’m passionate about?” But also if I want to eat pizza on a Friday night, then I want to be able to talk about that and share that with people because that’s also part of life and part of wellness.

And so, I was speaking about that and I said, “It’s kind of like 80/20,” and then the name came out and I was like, “That’s it, that’s the name. It’s 80twenty.” Then it evolved and when I was in naturopathic school I often thought that it was going to be a way for me to get potential patients interested in what I was doing, but then life changes and shifts and here I am today doing something totally different.

On a Kitchen Experiment that Didn’t Turn Out As Planned:

This happens regularly. I don’t know if it’s going to be interesting or not. I can just tell you the thing that comes to mind. So this was somebody else’s recipe actually that I had to modify, and it had already been modified by somebody, which I didn’t realize. I was in the third iteration of it. It didn’t make sense, there’s a lot of mistakes in it, and the ingredients were off and the proportions were off. But of course I didn’t know this until I started working with it, and I made it and it didn’t taste very good. And so then I had to go back to the person and say, “I think there’s a problem with this.” But in the end ultimately I actually had to take that recipe, the original recipe, and make it workable.

One of the components that’s involved in the recipe is, you simmer tofu in a marinade essentially, and I eat tofu pretty regularly, but I’ve never essentially boiled it or simmered it. It sounds not very appealing when you think about it.

You might have tofu in soup and then it takes on the flavor of the broth, but this was actually going into a stir fry so it was going to be simmered in the marinade and then go into the stir fry. I went through this recipe five times. I kept trying to make it work, and I eventually got to a point where I was like, “Yeah, I think this is good now. I think it’s okay. It’s not my favorite.”

If it was up to me I would have pan fried it or done something else, but this is how it’s supposed to be. So I did it and I had a ton of leftovers and I brought them to my sister’s place. My sister and her boyfriend, their reaction was, this is gross. And they actually refused to eat it. They waited for me to bring them dinner, and then when I brought it they didn’t eat it. I feel like that’s a big failure. That has never happened. Of all the years that I’ve been doing this, my family is usually pretty good about eating my creations but they ended up throwing it out.

On Her Studies in Naturopathic Medicine:

I have a passion for health and really all things health-related or wellness-related and I just decided to go to naturopathic school as a way to combine my love of food and nutrition. It seems kind of like an unlikely path and I think if you were to look at it objectively, people might think that I should have gone to nutrition school or to become a dietician, but I really believe in the philosophy that naturopathy offers, which is really a holistic approach to life in general, a holistic approach to eating. That really spoke to me.

I never intended, necessarily, to practice as a doctor. I just wanted to have the knowledge to be able to, essentially, inspire people to eat more vibrantly, I guess.

I learned things all the time that surprised me because you’re studying medicine, so you are constantly learning things that are surprising and interesting. But when it comes to nutrition, I would say that one of the nuggets that has stayed with me the most is . . . we all know that we should eat more vegetables. I don’t think that that’s a piece of information that most people would disagree with or that most people don’t know already. Even if they know little about health, they’ve probably heard that or they’ve probably considered that they should eat more vegetables. But one thing that really stood out to me and stuck with me is how beneficial raw olive oil is, and so when I say raw I just mean uncooked. It’s prescribed naturopathically for a lot of disease prevention, but also actually in disease treatment because fat plays such a critical role in so many of our body processes and, in particular, olive oil just does a lot of good things.

On Misconceptions of Eating Healthy:

I think maybe the biggest one that I see all the time still, that permeates mainstream culture, is that fat is bad for us.

There’s still an idea that we should be eating a low fat diet. And I think the research, to my knowledge, is pretty clear that that’s not really the way to go. Researchers present it in a different way and so we saw, when you look in the past, that if people were eating low fat diets they were typically replacing the fat with things like sugar and more carbs that were not necessarily satiating them and were also just giving them more calories, and not necessarily good things for their body.

It seems so simple but I just really wish people wouldn’t fear fat because fat is so good for you and it’s so critical for bodily processes but also just for feeling satisfied. When we eat a meal, when there’s fat involved or you have a snack and there’s fat involved, it’s so much easier to feel satiated.

I would also say that one thing that I come across pretty regularly is people saying that healthy food doesn’t taste very good. My challenge is always, “Okay, tell me what you want me to make. And I’ll make it taste good because I wholeheartedly disagree.”

In some ways this conversation is a bit scientific, and I want to bring a personal component to it. My opinion is that pleasure is a really important component of wellness and we never think about pleasure as a form of wellness. We talk about sleep and exercise and stress and diet. Those are very simplified but, of course, those are the main things we talk about and we never talk about pleasure. Pleasure brings us so much joy and releases endorphins and allows us to relax. There are so many things that pleasure brings us in terms of wellness.

The Pressure Cooker:

Which food shows or cooking shows do you watch?

I really like watching cooking videos online. I love watching Green Kitchen Stories’ videos and some bloggers who do videos. So I will watch those kinds of things.

There’s a chef here in Canada. Her name is Anna Olson. She’s a pastry chef. So I used to like to watch her show. I can’t even remember what it’s called. I think because she does things that I’m so unfamiliar with. Baking is something that I’m learning now, and I absolutely love baking, but it’s not something that comes naturally to me, and so I loved watching her show back in the day.

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

Okay, so I’m going to try to pick blogs that you probably haven’t heard about. Well actually, that’s not even true. You’ve probably heard about them.

Another colleague of mine, her name is Ashley Colburn, and she writes a blog called Butterfly Food and she has some of the most stunning photography and she is just a really lovely person. But her photography is, I think, some of the best out there. And she recently had a photo of hers used as a cover photo for a National Geographic Book.

Another blog that I just discovered within the last few months, and she’s now been nominated for a Saveur Award, so I’m sure everybody knows, but Faring Well. Again, really beautiful photography and also a nice peek into her life. She lives in Colorado and I feel like it’s always really nice to be able to see an element of people’s lives beyond that. There are also some nature photos incorporated into her blog and into her Instagram feed, and I really love that.

Kelly from The Gouda Life is one of the bloggers that I first discovered when I was starting to blog myself. And I remember linking to her blog something that I really liked and she wrote me back this really lovely email thanking me for linking to her.

I remember at the time thinking it was so nice of her because really there was nobody reading my blog and she had already had such a big following, I’m sure. But her photography really inspired me when I was starting out, and also she’s always been really supportive of me as a blogger and professionally, and now we work together on this blog called Baked. I think she’s really cool and unique. She’s got a really unique style of moody photography that you should check out.

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

I don’t really follow people on Pinterest or Facebook really that much but Instagram, I would say . . . I’m sure you’ve heard of this Instagram account called Momma’s Gone City, and it’s typically photos of her children with their cats and typically one child with a dog. But I’m a huge animal lover and so I love seeing photos of the animals and particularly animals and kids. Every time I look through her feed I’m always just so happy.

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

Perhaps not unusual, but treasured for sure is my cast iron skillet. I use it for almost everything. It’s amazing for pancakes. It’s amazing for pan frying anything, for making tortillas. I make fried eggs on it. And I even . . .it’s not maybe the best use of this, but because it’s always out, I always quickly saute spinach or kale or something like that for an easy meal all in the same pan. And that pan was probably $20 and it’s going to last me for my whole life.

I always recommend that if people are wondering if they should get . . . what five or ten things in their kitchen, I think a cast iron skillet is a really awesome thing to have.

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

Brussel sprouts and actually asparagus, anything that has a pungent, earthy flavor.

I was not a vegetable fan, ironically. When I was a kid I used to eat them, and my mom would probably put butter and sugar on things or butter and salt, things to make me like or make me eat them more often. But as I’ve gotten older my palate has fully, I think, been trained because I actually recall when I was in university in my undergrad, I would make myself eat vegetables. I was old enough to know that I should eat them. And so then I started making myself just eat more of them and eventually I started liking them.

I figured out that if I ate something three times I tended to like it by the third or fourth time. And now I just love those things. Asparagus, as an example. I just made an asparagus kimchi that I’m going to be posting for a column that I write. And years ago I never would have eaten kimchi or asparagus, so I’m really into things, I guess, with a lot more pungent flavors now.

What are a few cookbooks that make your life better?

Mark Bittman’s, How to Cook Everything Vegetarian, is a really good dictionary to have in your kitchen. If you’re in a pinch and you have a vegetable or you have a grain or anything in your life, you can literally open up the book and go to the word millet or to the word broccoli and it will give you several recipes. It also has this great resource of tying things together so there will be a number of sauces and then there will be a table later in the book that says, 10 things you can add to tacos or 15 ways to make a sandwich better and it will incorporate other recipes from the book. Also, it’s showing you how to make simple things, but then it’s also showing you how to incorporate them into different dishes. It’s also a great resource for just basics.

I also love Donna Hay, any Donna Hay books because they’re beautiful to look at, and also her recipes are really simple. Usually using anywhere from between five and ten ingredients, depending, and I would say 10 is rare. So they’re very simple, they’re very straightforward, and they’re really beautiful and really tasty. So those would be my go-tos.

What song or album just makes you want to cook?

I don’t have a particular song or album, but I am notorious for going on to Spotify now that Spotify’s a thing, and searching under the mood section, and finding anything that’s folky or acoustic. My vision of cooking is in this relaxed, airy kitchen, windows open and a breeze coming through, and you’re sipping a glass of wine and you’re laughing with a friend and you’re just casually, slowly easing into whatever meal you’re going to have.

It’s intentional and joyful and thoughtful and all of that stuff and so I feel like that music often brings that vibe to what I’m doing. So it’s not a direct recommendation but certainly Spotify has a lot to offer in that realm.

On Keeping Posted with Kris:

You can keep posted with me on Instagram or you can follow me on Facebook. But Instagram, I think, is probably the most up-to-date current.

038: Paul Lowe: Perfection is Boring

May 20, 2015 by Gabriel Leave a Comment

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Sweet Paul, Magazine

Paul’s magazine Sweet Paul is a source of inspiration to anyone who enjoys easy, yet elegant recipies, entertaining ideas, and stylish crafts. The magazine is all about helping its readers create a unique style that is home-made and hand-made. Paul also wrote a book called Sweet Paul: Eat and Make.

I am so thrilled to have Paul Lowe of Sweet Paul here on the show today.

On How Sweet Paul Evolved From Blog to Magazine:

Well, I actually started my blog out of blog envy. Because a friend of mine had a blog, and it kind of looked really cool, and she got comments, and I was like, “Oh, I want comments.” So I was like, “Okay, I guess I have to start a blog.”

But then of course the question is, what are you going to blog about? Because I thought the world doesn’t need another shopping blog. So I’m just going to blog about myself and my work. I started out and I can still remember the first comment that wasn’t a family member or a friend, a stranger, how exciting that was. And it sort of became a sport. I would post a lot. I would be very excited about it.

The idea of having my own magazine was in the back of my head, but, of course, unless your name is Rockefeller or Hearst, it’s a little difficult, because it’s very expensive. But I thought about it when the whole online magazine came about and I thought, “Oh, I can actually do that.” So that’s how it started. It started five years ago.

It started out only online, and then, after two and a half years, I got an e-mail from Anthropologie, who said, “We love your magazine and we really want to sell it.” And I wrote back, “Thank you, that’s awesome, but it’s an online magazine, so that’s a little difficult.” But they were very persistent, and they are the reason why Sweet Paul magazine came into print that early. I would have got maybe into print, but not that early. So you can thank Anthro for that.

On His Introduction to Cooking:

Well, these were two very smart, little old ladies, because they could sense very early that I was kind of a different child. I wasn’t too interested in playing with other kids, I wanted to stay home. I was drawn to food and everything that was pretty. So they started cooking with me really early. And, actually, I had my own little cutting board, I had my own knife, very dull, but still, it was mine. And they would show me what to do and help me and we’d prepare a lot of meals together.

I was an only child up until I was seven. Then my sister came along, and, you know, my life was over. But up until then, their whole existence was to make me happy. So if I wanted to bake an apple cake, we’d bake an apple cake. If I wanted to make new pillows for my bedroom, we’d make new pillows. And they would always let me help.

On How Perfection is Boring:

The great thing with these two ladies was that they both had impeccable taste, but they weren’t too much into perfection. That means that the cakes are always a little bit lopsided, the seams weren’t perfectly straight, but the cakes tasted wonderful. All the food was wonderful. The pillows were stylish. And if I would point out to my grandmother, if I would say, “Look, the cake is a little higher on one side than the other.” She’d always look at me and she would say, “Oh, honey, perfection is so boring.” And that is something I have actually taken with me, and I have also taken with me to the magazine. If a thing’s too perfect and looks too intimidating, no one is going to make it. And I don’t make a magazine or books to show you how clever I am, I want to make a magazine and books that you actually can use. Because there’s nothing worse than seeing a beautiful picture and reading a recipe, and there’s, like, 30 ingredients, and the how-to is three pages long. It sort of takes away from the fun of it. And I also know that people aren’t going to do it.

If there’s a picture that’s still beautiful, but you can see that it’s made by human hands, and if there’s a short ingredients list, and a short how-to, it kind of makes you want to make . . . You’re like, “Oh, I can actually do this.” And that’s my goal for everything I do. I want people to actually make it. And there’s nothing more inspiring to me personally than to get e-mails, messages on Facebook and stuff from people who actually make it. Because sometimes you do wonder. I sit here in my little office, and I’m like, “Does anyone really make the stuff?” But people actually do. And they all give me feedback, and that’s very rewarding.

My goal is to create something that I know that you actually can do. Not want to do it, but that you actually physically can do it. So there’s not too many different techniques or difficult stuff, everything’s very simple. And we strive very hard, both me and people I work with for the magazine, that we want to keep things very, very simple. I always say, “Simplify, simplify, simplify.” Let’s make it easy for people.

On Where He Gets Inspiration:

It can be anywhere, really. When it comes to colors, when I’m putting stuff together, I find a load of inspiration from fashion. I love going up and down Fifth Avenue at night and look at the windows for the fabulous stores, and I can’t afford to buy anything, but I can look in the window.

When it comes to food, I’m lucky enough to live in New York, where there’s so much amazing food going on, so just going to lunch, or going to eat, to get a coffee, there’s so much inspiration everywhere. So I feel like I can’t really say that there’s one thing that inspires me, it’s a bunch of things.

What I can say is that I do think best and I come up with my best ideas in the bath tub. That is why I always have a notebook and a pen next to me in the bath tub. I don’t know why, because I really relax well. That’s when I come up with my best ideas.

Some people think really well in a car. My thing is, I think really well in the bath tub.

On a Time When Cooking Didn’t Turn Out As Planned:

For everyone, things don’t always turn out the way you plan it. Sometimes things will suddenly develop by chance. I have this really wonderful go-to recipe that I use a lot. It’s a roasted chicken with maple syrup. And the original recipe had that you glaze the chicken with apricot jam, which is also really good.

But I was out of apricot jam, the store was closed, I had friends coming over, and I was like, “Oh, what do I do?” I always feel like chicken needs something sweet. I had maple syrup. So I covered the chicken in maple syrup, I roasted it, and then I used the drippings to make a gravy with cream. And it’s the most amazing, delicious chicken and gravy that you’ll ever have. It’s sweet, and salty, and creamy.

And then you roast fingerling potatoes with the chicken, so the chicken juices and the maple syrup also go into the potatoes. I tell you, it’s divine.

On His Book, Sweet Paul Eat and Make:

It’s a really fun book because when I was asked to make a book, I was like, “Oh, do I want to make a cookbook or a craft book?” And I couldn’t really make up my mind, so I kind of made both.

It’s mainly a cookbook, but it also has some craft projects in it. And the craft projects are very much based about my kitchen or entertaining. It was a really fun book to make and it’s also very personal, because there’s a lot of stories from my childhood, a lot of stories of growing up, a lot of stuff about my grandmother and my great aunt, and I’m very happy with it. It’s become a very personal thing to me.

I have to tell something funny about the book.

There’s actually a cake in the book that is called the World’s Best. And I don’t claim it to be the world’s best cake, but that is actually the Norwegian name translated, World’s Best. It was a few years back. It was the biggest radio show in Norway, everyone got to vote on what was their favorite cake, and this cake won. And it’s a cake my grandmother used to make. And it’s really wonderful, and it’s so easy, because what it is, it’s a very eggy sponge cake that you bake with a layer of meringue on top and then sprinkle slivered almonds on top of that. And you bake everything in one pan.

Then you take it out, you cut it in half, and you sandwich it with whipped cream in the middle. The great thing about it is that it’s not so sweet.

American cakes are very sweet. When I first moved here, I was like, “Oh my God, this is disgusting. All the frosting on stuff. Now I love it. But it’s such a good cake. Of course, whenevever you call something World’s Best, you kind of get into trouble.

The cake is wonderful. It’s really, really, really good. You should really try it. We definitely got some comment, because, you know, how could it be World’s Best Cake, there’s no chocolate, and there’s no this or that, but it’s fun, because it’s actually the Norwegian name, I just translated it.

The Pressure Cooker:

Which food shows or cooking shows do you watch?

That’s so embarrassing, because I don’t watch any of them. Sorry.

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

You know something? That’s another thing I don’t really do. I don’t really look on blogs and food websites too much. I used to do it, but I really don’t anymore.

I look at stuff, and people send me stuff, but nothing that I’m like, “Oh my God, this is amazing.” I’ve seen some beautiful websites and stuff around, but remember, I’m old. I’m almost 50. I don’t do so well anymore. I honestly don’t remember.

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

I follow a lot of people on Pinterest and Instagram. I can’t really say one person. What I think is amazing is that there is so much talent out there. There’s so many people that take beautiful images and make stuff on their kitchen table, and it always amazes me when I see all these people and all this amazing talent that is all around the world.

The funny thing is that, I say that if the world was run by bloggers and Instagrammers, the world would be a much better place.

No wars, but there would be a lot of good food, and very stylish.

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

The item I use the most is an immersion blender because I’m really into making mashes right now. So I try to make mashes with everything. So I love that.

I love my Le Creuset pots. They’re really good.

And an old whisk I have from my grandmother.

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

Tomatoes.

I used to hate tomatoes. It’s still kind of a love-hate relationship. If it’s a ripe, beautiful tomato, then I love it. But if it’s one of those you get in the winter . . . I don’t eat tomatoes in winter.

It has to be fresh in the season. A little olive oil, salt and pepper, wonderful.

What are a few cookbooks that have made your life better?

I think Donna Hay makes really good cookbooks. I think Jamie Oliver makes really good cookbooks.

I also think Nigella Lawson makes really good cookbooks. Oh, if I ever am to watch a cooking show, I would watch one with her. Because I think she’s just so chic and stylish, and I trust her when she says that something is good. I kind of trust her. Because she eats, and breathes, and lives deliciousness. She’s a very believable chef.

What song or album just makes you want to cook?

I really like listening to bossanova when I cook. Brazilian music. There’s no artist or album, really. I just put it on a playlist.

Get the hips going, it kind of makes everything a little easier. I also listen to that kind of music when I clean. Because I feel like it’s the kind of music that gives you a little energy. It’s fun if you can clean, and dance a little, and drink some wine. It makes cleaning and cooking so much more fun.

On Keeping Posted on Paul:

I’m on Facebook, or on Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest. Absolutely everywhere. Sweet Paul Magazine.

006: Nicole Dula: How A Community Supported Agriculture Share Can Inspire

February 27, 2015 by Gabriel

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Dula Notes

On Dula Notes, Nicole shares her love of fresh, seasonal produce, her recipes, and an insider’s view on her home state of Michigan.

I am so happy to have Nicole Dula from Dula Notes here on the show today.

On Blogging:

Consistency is so important if you want to have an audience.

I try to do at least one post a week and so far I’ve been doing really good at sticking to that even on vacations and stuff. I try to have a couple ready. So it’s been fun.

I’m still passionate about food, and trying new things, which I think keeps motivating me. But everything that I do for the blog is a habit.

Because I have a full time job, so I have to sneak it in where I can.

I do my photography usually on Saturday mornings when I have good natural light. So it does have to be pretty regimented how I sneak it into my life. That part is a little bit habitual but there’s definitely still passion behind it.

On Detroit:

There’s so much creativity going on right now that anything you want to try is going on right now, and that’s why it’s so exciting.

There are breweries down there where you can just get a pizza. Part of that Hither and Tither feature I talked about La Feria, which is tapas, authentic Spanish tapas. There’s a new ramen place which is excellent. There’s a little French cafe.

It’s just anything you want, you can have right now, and it’s so exciting. It’s just super creative and just really exciting right now.

Detroit just came out of bankruptcy actually a lot sooner than everyone thought. And I really feel like the food culture and all the creativity and the food business has really helped with bringing Detroit back.

I’m not a native Detroiter so I’m sure there are some hole in the wall places that are primo, but as a tourist, or even for myself, I love to go to Midtown, because it’s really bubbling up. That’s where La Feria is.

Corktown is really cool. You can have BBQ, there’s a new place that just opened, it’s called Gold Cash Gold and it used to be a building that sold gold and he turned it into a restaurant. I haven’t been yet, but the inside is gorgeous.

So Corktown’s really fun, it’s a really old neighborhood and it’s super cool. So I guess I would say start in Corktown.

On Community Supported Agriculture and Produce:

A CSA is where you basically partner with a local farmer and you and whoever else is supporting that farm, ahead of the season, you purchase your CSA. It usually comes in half shares or full shares depending on how many people are eating from it.

My husband and I get a half share. So you pay ahead of time for the whole season, and then the farmer takes your money and uses it to plant things for the season. Then once your CSA starts, it depends.

I’ve been a part of a couple different CSAs.

One I picked up at somebody’s house, so sometimes members will have the shares there on their back porch and that’s where you pick up your share.

My current share I pick up on Saturday mornings at the farmer’s market.

So I believe it starts in June and then it ends in early October. Every week I have a box and they send me an email a couple days ahead of time telling me what’s going to be in my box, which is helpful because then I can kind of have some grocery trips around it to see like, “Okay, I’m getting cabbage or I’m getting this.”

And it’s very inspiring because sometimes they’re things I would never pick up at the grocery store. So when I see them in my box I’m like, “Wow, I get to try this!” And then I’ll think of another recipe I tried with a different squash, and I’m like, “Maybe I can try it with this.”

So it’s really inspiring and then the food is so fresh. It’s the best produce you’ll ever have because it’s what’s in season. It was picked usually the day before or that morning so it’s really a wonderful thing.

Produce always inspires me.

I’m pretty good about what’s seasonal, but I don’t know some of that hyper seasonal stuff, like ramps. I don’t know exactly when it’s coming, but when I see it in a CSA box or I see it at the grocery store, I’m like, “Oh, it’s ramp season, now I’ve got to get some of that.” So it’s the produce that’s kind of my jumping off point, and then I look for recipes around that.

On Cooking:

Well I didn’t really start cooking until I got married. I helped my mom a little bit and my grandmother used to have a lot of dinner parties, so I used to see that a lot. I used to love the whole dance in the kitchen that they did and the end result.

I didn’t really experiment much until I got married because I was going to school and I just didn’t have a lot of time for experimenting. So it just kind of came with practice.

As soon as I started cooking and getting the basics, then, I felt more comfortable playing around with things and saying, “Well this tasted really good with this, I bet this will taste good.” I kind of go with my gut and try to let that lead the way, and it’s worked out well so far.

And it’s trial and error.

It’s so disappointing when you buy all the ingredients and you put all the time into it and then you taste it and you’re like, “Oh, man.” It’s the worst. But it’s those great dishes, especially when you put your own spin on something, it’s so rewarding when you’re like, “I did that.”

The Pressure Cooker:

Which food shows or cooking shows do you watch?

I love PBS cooking shows, so Cook’s Country, America’s Test Kitchen, Lidia Bastianich, those are like my shows.

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

My favorite food bloggers right now, my friend, she’s in Michigan, she’s not far from Detroit, her blog is Take a Megabite.

She has a wonderful eye for design, wonderful baked goods, she’s a doll. We have ramen together, she’s like the best brunch buddy you’ll ever have. We do brunch appetizers and then we have brunch.

My other favorites are Hungry Girl por Vida. She was in Michigan for a time. She’s living in Portland now, beautiful photography, beautiful recipes, My Name is Yeh, Molly, she’s phenomenal, creative, love her writing, so funny.

Then my other favorite is Bon Appétempt, Amelia Morris. She does these wonderful videos. Just hilarious, her videos are, every time I see one I crack up.

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

Well back to my friend Take a Megabite, her on Instagram, it’s like a ray of sunshine, so I definitely follow her on Instagram.

I follow so many people on Pinterest it’s insane. I definitely have curated my Pinterest sites so I’m seeing exactly the kind of stuff I want to see. Like Kate from Wit & Delight, she has beautiful things.

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

I think grey sea salt. I love the minerality to it. It has a nice flavor whether you sprinkle it onto a dessert or you add it into your food. I really love it.

Name one ingredient you cannot live without.

I know this is going to sound kind of lame, but maybe pepper. I love pepper on everything.

What are a few cookbooks that make your life better?

Well, it’s kind of funny, this probably makes me a bad blogger, or maybe it makes me a really good blogger. I’m not a big cookbook person. I’m more of a blog person.

But I do have a few cookbooks I do like. I do like Donna Hay’s cookbooks, they’re gorgeous, I have one that’s so beautiful and pretty and it’s really inspiring for food photography. I’m ashamed to say I haven’t cooked anything out of it. But it’s just the most beautiful thing. And, I also like Jamie Oliver’s cookbooks, I have made things out of his cookbooks that are delicious, and his books are beautiful too.

What song or album just makes you want to cook?

You know what I find really fun is Huey Lewis and the News.

Like “Power of Love” and all those great ones.

Sometimes at night when you come home and you maybe don’t feel like cooking so much, you put that on and it just gives you an extra boost to get cooking.

Keep Posted on Nicole:

If you go to my blog, dulanotes.com, I have a little connect area, so I’ve linked to my Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and you can just click there and find me.

I’m very active on Pinterest, love Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. So you can keep up with me. I take a lot of food pictures, so if you like food, I’m your girl.

On Starting Her Blog:

On Her Curiosity Around Food:

On Her Food Heroes:

On Cooking as an Exercise in Patience:

On a Dish She Finds Challenging and Requires Patience:

The Pressure Cooker:

On Keeping Posted with Hannah:

On Growing Up in a Family-Owned Restaurant:

On Starting Her Blog:

On a Kitchen Experiment that Didn’t Turn Out As Planned:

On Her Studies in Naturopathic Medicine:

On Misconceptions of Eating Healthy:

The Pressure Cooker:

On Keeping Posted with Kris:

On How Sweet Paul Evolved From Blog to Magazine:

On His Introduction to Cooking:

On How Perfection is Boring:

On Where He Gets Inspiration:

On a Time When Cooking Didn’t Turn Out As Planned:

On His Book, Sweet Paul Eat and Make:

The Pressure Cooker:

On Keeping Posted on Paul:

On Blogging:

On Detroit:

On Community Supported Agriculture and Produce:

On Cooking:

The Pressure Cooker:

Keep Posted on Nicole:

Have Nicole's Special Dinner Dish Recipe Sent To You Now: