Edith Piaf | The Dinner Special podcast

096: Meg Dubina: About New England and Family Dinners

December 2, 2015 by Gabriel 2 Comments

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Bread + Barrow

Meg is a proud New Englander who grew up on the sandy beaches of Cape Cod. Bread + Barrow is her space, where she shares her love of New England and recreates the magical moments from her childhood. Like memories of her dad’s culinary genius over a camp fire and her mother passing down the importance of family dinners.

I am so happy to have Meg Dubina of Bread + Barrow joining me on the show today.

(*All photos below are Meg’s.)

On Growing Up on Cape Cod:

Growing up on Cape Cod was really great. It’s a really beautiful spot to be a kid. It’s funny, the summers are so bustling, there are so many people, it takes an hour to get to the grocery store some days, where normally it would just be a 10 minutes drive. And then the winters are really desolate. So you kind of have this polar opposite. But it was a great spot to be a kid. The summers were full of beach days and going to the vineyard, and then the winters were very quiet and rainy. We didn’t get much snow on the Cape. I think that’s why we spent a lot of time in New Hampshire on the weekends, because I think my dad would go a little stir crazy if he was on the Cape all winter long. But some of those rainy, wet winter days were some of my favorite. My mom used to take us kids down to Woods Hole and have a cup of chowder, overlooking the wet landscape, which I still love to do. So it was a magical childhood.

On Her Interest in Cooking:

I think it was when I was little, I actually really did, my Easy-Bake Oven was probably my favorite. But other than that, growing up, I wasn’t so interested in it. My sisters and I often played restaurant, so that was one of our games. We had a little, now that I think about it, kind of creepy setup in our basement where we had, like, lawn chairs and a table, and we had a big menu that we’d write on the walls in chalk. But then in my teens and early 20s, I wasn’t interested in it much until I moved in with my now husband. That’s when I started looking back to things that we had made, because I was cooking for myself for the first time and was like, well, what am I going to make tonight? That kind of made me get more into cooking for myself and for other people.

My mom is actually a really good cook, she cooked for all of us. I’m the eldest of four, so there are six in my family. She always had a home-made dinner for us. She definitely taught me my basics. My aunt is also a really great cook, she’s been cooking her whole life, it’s been her passion, she’s obsessed. So they’re both resources that I always go to. Like, “How do make a Béarnaise sauce? How do I do this?” Roasting a chicken was one of my first things that was, like, “I don’t know how to do this,” so I would call them. But I also did look to bloggers and websites and cookbooks and a lot of it was trial and error. There was a lot of really bad cooking at first.

On the Importance of Family Dinners:

My mom was fortunate enough to be a stay-at-home mom. So that definitely helps, because you have your day to prep. Being a stay-at-home mom is a crazy job in and of itself, but I have also been a nanny for a really long time, that’s what I was doing to make money before I got into cooking and writing and things. I worked for quite a few families that found this to be challenging, because it really is. It’s hard to manage a full-time job, a household, children, and get dinner on the table by 6:00. It can be crazy. So obviously organization is key.

I think if you have children and you work and you’re planning on doing nightly meals, I think prepping on Sunday, knowing what your meals are going to be, either making them all and keeping them in the freezer or just, if you have a crock-pot, setting that, and just saying like, 6:00 or 6:30 or 7:00, or whenever it’s easiest for you, is dinner time and that’s that, we’re doing it.

Set a table. I think setting the table is huge, because sometimes if you just throw down a pile of forks and a pile of plates and say, “Okay, kids, dinner is ready.” It doesn’t always end up the way that you want it to. If you set the table and say, “Okay, five minute warning, we’re having dinner.” Then it gets the family to think about, okay, we’re sitting down together to eat and share a meal.

I like to start a meal with a prayer or something to say, because then it also gets the family all on the same page, you’re not thinking about, “I really still need to mow the lawn or do that laundry, or someone needs to do his homework.” You can get yourself all together in one space for a little bit of time.

On the Food in New England:

New England has a reputation of being stuck in their ways, and I mostly feel that that’s still true. Which is hard, it makes it a little tough for table sharing. Sharing these meals together or having the local spot to go, I don’t think it’s a very popular thing to do in New England, which is a little bit tough. But that being said, I feel like there are a lot of younger chefs that are coming out with these awesome ideas.

Island Creek Oysters is an Oyster company out of Duxbury, which actually happens to be where I went to high school. They have been doing some really cool things with getting the community together and doing an Oyster festival and really getting people involved with what they’ve been doing in their town. I know a chef, Patrick, who just started a restaurant at Applecrest Farms in New Hampshire and he too is really into, not only showcasing what New England cuisine could be, but also bringing people in and really getting the word out there of, like, wanting to bring in other people, collaborations and things. I think that that is really cool and that’s the way that I hope that New England cuisine is going to go. Because right now it can really be just stuffy pubs with chowder and fried clams. There is nothing wrong with that, those are great, too, but sometimes people I think are a little wary of changing their direction.

On One Thing She Wants Us to Know About New England:

I would like people to know that while we still are pretty old fashioned and that a lot of things haven’t necessarily changed, I still think that there are people here that are willing to see what we have to offer, and really use those resources, whether it’s the ocean or the farms or the mountains. I hope that people know that you can catch a fish one day on the ocean and then be frying it in the woods of the mountains that afternoon, which is pretty cool. I guess, I just hope that people realize everything that there is here and use it to their advantage.

On Hosting Photography and Styling Workshops:

I think how it all happened was Betty and I both realized that we were in the same State, we were like, “What? Let’s get together.” So once we actually met and realized that we not only both loved food, but we really like each other, that we wanted to start sharing that. I think that was the main reason for both of us in starting our blogs, was to share our heritage and where we’re from.

She has some amazing Chinese cooking on her blog and we want to showcase that with people, and really bring people that may not know each other together, and she’s a brilliant photographer. So I think that was another thing that we were, like, “Why don’t we just get people together, show them our cooking, show them how to use their cameras and make a beautiful meal out of it?” That’s where that whole thought process went.

We wanted to incorporate some unusual activities that maybe someone doesn’t do often, and we also wanted to base it around where we’re going to be. So we did a daytime workshop in Boston where we went to the SoWa, which is the south end of Boston, the Farmer’s Market. And we then cooked a meal with the produce. So in that vein we kind of decided that with going to New Hampshire, this little town of Tamworth is adorable. They have the New Hampshire Mushroom Company there as well as Sunnyfield Brick Oven Bakery, which you’d never think, like, these two awesome companies were in this one little town. So we were, like, maybe we can do some mushroom foraging. The man that owns the company is so sweet and he does this, basically a 4H club every Sunday, where he takes people out foraging and teaches them about the poisonous and also edible mushrooms. Then the bakery is inviting us in to watch them with their sourdough bread baking process. That’s something I’m really interested in, because growing a yeast culture scares me. I’m really intimidated by it.

The Pressure Cooker:

Which food shows or cooking shows do you watch?

Oh, none, I’m so bad. I love Ina Garten, but she’s probably the only show I can tolerate.

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

I love Sini from My Blue&White Kitchen, I love her blog. You already know Betty, but Betty is great. Beth from Local Milk, everybody knows Beth but her’s is just so stunning.

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

Krissy from Cottage Farm, her stuff is beautiful. She was a floral designer, I believe, she just has a great aesthetic. I love also following Anna from Rifle Paper Company, hers, too, she just has a great vision. Really inspiring.

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

I would say my copper pots that my grandmother gave me, I love them. But they’re really hard to keep clean and my KitchenAid, my husband bought it for me our first Christmas together, so that one is really special.

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

I don’t think that there is one that I used to dislike. I’ve pretty much eaten everything since day one except beets. I still can’t handle beets.

What are a few cookbooks that make your life better?

Renny Darling, I don’t know if anyone even knows who she is but she has a really old cookbook, it’s called, Quick Breads & Cakes and I just love it. I don’t even know where you can find it anymore, you can probably order it online, but her banana bread recipe is the best. Then I have recently been going through The Original Boston Cooking School Cookbook, which is really interesting. I think it was from, at least the copy I have, is from the early 1920’s. Just seeing the ingredients in there, it’s so interesting. But it’s really cool, it’s inspiring.

What song or album just makes you want to cook?

So I’m a huge dork and I listen to a lot of Broadway musicals if I’m by myself in the house, but if I have company over I usually put on like Edith Piaf or Regina Spektor, something a little more calming, a little less dramatic.

On Keeping Posted with Meg:

I’m @breadandbarrow on Instagram, that’s probably the place I update the most, which is kind of ridiculous, because I don’t update it that often. But there and then just on the blog.

046: Valentina Solfrini: Olive Oil and Italian Countryside Living

June 8, 2015 by Gabriel Leave a Comment

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Hortus Cuisine

On her blog, Valentina writes as she explores a more natural form of cooking and food, which is always real and locally harvested. She focuses on unprocessed ingredients from her farm and makes simple traditional Italian meals with a creative, modern twist.

Hortus Cuisine was recognized in the 2014 Saveur Food Blog Awards for Best New Blog Editor’s Choice.

I am so thrilled to have Valentina Solfrini of Hortus Cuisine joining me here on the show today.

On Where She Currently Lives, Writes and Cooks:

I am placed in between two regions in Italy, one is called Marche and the other one is called Romagna, and I’m right on the border.

So each region in Italy is very different but it’s really nice because I get the best of every world. I’m right at the seaside, and I have the woods next to me, and the hills, and the countryside. So I have a little bit of everything and it’s really a great place to live in, in my opinion.

On Moving to New York City:

I wanted to really explore the world and I felt like New York City had it all condensed in one place.

So especially back then, we don’t really have much internationality, so to speak. I really wanted to explore the Asian world and the Mexican world. I wanted to know what everything was all about. I had the chance to do this trip to New York and I fell in love with it.

It was amazing.

I knew that there was a lot that I couldn’t impossibly know about other cultures, about the world and everything, but it was so much and it felt so overwhelming but in a very good way. Every time I went out the door and I walked into the street, everything seemed just so huge and I loved it.

On What Drew Her Back to Countryside Living:

Life here is quieter. The pace is much slower especially compared to New York where everybody is super-fast. Everything here is quite laid back. Nothing is really a big deal for Italians.

So sometimes we help my grandparents tend the garden, the vegetable garden or when winter comes, we go to collect the wood for the fireplace.

I have a desk job but our life really revolves around this little moment when you have to plant a seed or collect some vegetables, or me to go forage for wild herbs and stuff like that. It’s all very, very close to nature.

On Her Interest in Food and Cooking:

Food was one of those things that fell into the realm of the things that I took for granted because it’s something that always happen in my house.

My mom and my grandmother, they were always cooking, always. I’m lucky because I was in one of those families where women can stay at home and take care of us and the kids, and they’d be cooking, making pasta or baking something or anything.

I pretty much always learned to appreciate good food. We never really had anything processed or we didn’t buy snacks or anything even as kids because we felt that we didn’t need them. We never liked candy or anything just because my mom made amazing sweets at home.

I love to look at my mom doing stuff. I wouldn’t always do something but I would always stay there and look or sometimes would maybe shape the cookies or shape the pasta.

I would help or sometimes I would eat when she was cooking or lick the bowls. I was always there watching and eventually it grew on me.

When I went to New York, I was surprised that nobody was cooking. It was, “Are you serious? What, you go and buy salad that’s already been cut?”

On What Natural Cooking Means to Her:

To me, natural cooking means cooking with ingredients that have not been processed too much. Sometimes, if you learn to read the labels, you’ll see that some foods have really unnecessary ingredients.

If you buy a jar of mayonnaise, you’ll find that it has preservatives and maybe food coloring or even sugar.

So to me, natural cooking is cooking with a list of ingredients that doesn’t have a list of ingredients.

On Her Blog:

So that was a very interesting process because when I got back from New York, I realized that I had absorbed so much of other cultures that I was starting to forget about my own.

I realized that Italian cooking is actually quite healthy by itself. It has always been full of legumes and vegetables and there were so many recipes that are Italian and perfectly vegetarian, so I thought it would be interesting to rediscover my own culture with natural food. And I thought of combining those two things and it worked wonders.

I started the blog as a way to explore my own country. I realized that I didn’t understand Italy because I was feeling so good in New York and I didn’t really feel Italian. And then in the process, I rediscovered cooking and I really started to learn about the foods that we used have as kids and to really, really fall in love with it.

On Olive Oil:

Once the olives are at a good ripeness point in November, it’s usually November, you lay huge nets below the trees and you have little rakes and you rake through the branches and the olives fall out. Then you collect those huge nets of olives and these olives are cleaned.

You separate leaves from the olives and this is quite important because if your leaves get into the olives, then the olive oil taste like grass, and that happens a lot. So you have to be careful with that process.

And then we take it to the mill. I call it a mill. It’s just basically this huge stone, you have two grinding stones, pretty much like flour, and that’s why it’s called cold pressed extra virgin olive oil. The very first layer of fat that you get out of this cold pressing, grinding between two stones, then the olive oil just filters out and you get this bright green beautiful thing but it’s actually murky. It’s not as clear.

Olive oil actually gets that golden and that clear when it’s about four or five months old. When it’s super fresh, it’s bright green and quite cloudy. And that’s it, that’s virgin olive oil.

Then you have other kinds of olive oil that are lesser quality. You can obtain by pressing what is left by pressing extra virgin olive oil.

And then you have another press which is regular olive oil.

What I’ve always seen in Italy was extra virgin olive oil. It might be very bad quality extra virgin olive oil, with olives they are not Italian that come from other countries, but we only cook with extra virgin olive oil essentially.

You have great quality extra virgin oil and you have so so quality extra virgin oil and you use the so so for cooking, for stir fries and for stuff like that, and the best quality for dressing.

That’s my experience at least.

I think that the best olive oil, it has to be quite a strong character. It’s really difficult to tell maybe by the color or the smell because it really depends on the kind of olive or on how old the olive oil is.

But usually the green sort of cloudy olive oil is really the best and it’s actually quite difficult to plant and sell because that’s going to be very expensive.

I saw that some supermarkets or some stores had a little sampler with bread that you could try, and at the end of the day, if it’s virgin olive oil, you should just taste it and see if you like it.

You can tell olive oil from extra virgin olive oil because regular olive oil is much clearer and it has a more pale color. So that’s how you tell.

The Pressure Cooker:

Which food shows or cooking shows do you watch?

I love to watch Jamie Oliver. Just whatever he does, he puts such passion in it that I just love watching his enthusiasm.

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

There are so many. I love Green Kitchen Stories. They got me inspired to actually start a blog. They were probably the first bloggers that I started to follow seriously.

And then there is another one that’s called In The Making By Belen, which is a healthy food blog. She is a yoga teacher who shares vegetarian recipes. They are really awesome.

And then there is Beth Kirby from Local Milk. She is like pure aesthetics. I love her blog so much.

And then Skye McAlpine’s blog From My Dining Table. She talks about Venice in such a beautiful way.

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

I follow definitely Beth Kirby, again, on Pinterest. She has a well-organized Pinterest account. It’s so so beautiful.

And then I love to follow Japanese photographers on Instagram. I’m not sure about the names right now but just a bunch of Japanese people. I really love the bright style that they have.

My favorites to follow on Facebook are probably everybody who has something to do with healthy food and Mimi Thorisson from Manger, the French blog. She is amazing. She really has quite the sense for aesthetics as well.

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

My Vitamix. It’s unusual for Italy because actually when I bought it, it wasn’t available here and I had to buy it from Germany but I love it so much.

It’s probably the best spent money of my entire life. I use it every day, two times per day. I love it.

Some ingredients are really hard to find in Italy, so I have to make my own like almond milk.

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

That has to be sesame oil or sesame in general.

I wasn’t into sesame probably because it’s not that known in Italian cooking. It’s not an ingredient that we use. But then I started to experiment with Asian cooking and Middle Eastern cooking and, of course, sesame is there.

What are a few cookbooks that make your life better?

Actually, the cookbooks I cook from are those old cookbooks made from the 50s or from the 70s that have those very nice recipes that I love to reinterpret in a healthier way.

And then I have my favorite cookbook to look at is probably Isa Does It. It’s a vegan cookbook that is so so full of fun ideas. I don’t think it’s always healthy but it’s amazing.

I also love to read the Julia Child’s cookbook because it’s amazing. Just so well done. It’s my kind of cookbook.

What song or album just makes you want to cook?

I don’t have a song in particular. I guess all French or Italian songs get me in the mood. There are a bunch of French songs that really getting me in the mood for cooking.

Old French songs, maybe like Edith Piaf. You know these people but maybe the happier kind of songs. Not the super romantic French songs.

On Keeping Posted on Valentina:

You can follow me on Facebook at Hortus Cuisine, Pinterest, then I’m on Instagram, and I love receiving comments of all kinds. I look forward to hearing from people who write in on my blog.