Fleetwood Mac | The Dinner Special podcast

134: Joumana Accad: Sharing a Taste of Beirut

August 3, 2016 by Gabriel Leave a Comment

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Taste of Beirut

Born and raised in Beirut, Lebanon, Joumana moved to the U.S. in 1979 and is a former school teacher, pastry chef, caterer and translator. She started her blog, Taste of Beirut, in 2009 to share a window into the Eastern Mediterranean where Lebanese food mixes with Turkish, Syrian, Persian, Iraqi, and Egyptian flavors. Joumana was a finalist in the 2012 SAVEUR Blog Awards, has shared over 1200 recipes on Taste of Beirut, and published a cookbook, Taste of Beirut. Today, she works both in the U.S. and in Lebanon as a food stylist, recipe developer, menu consultant, and a cooking instructor.

I am so excited to have Joumana Accad of Taste of Beirut with me here on the show today.

(*All photos below are Joumana’s.)

On the Role Food Played While Growing Up in Beirut, Lebanon:

When you are born and brought up in one place, you don’t begin to realize how special it is until you move out of that environment into a completely different environment. And that’s what happened with me when I moved to the U.S. It suddenly dawned on me what the words fresh and local meant. For example, my grandmother who lived with us and she was in charge of feeding us, she would buy her fruits and her veggies every single day by lowering a straw basket and checking out the street vendors, and then even bargaining with them to do her marketing for the day. And then she would cook every single day, a fresh meal. And that’s something that when you live in a country like the United States or even in Europe, it’s something that you don’t have that luxury of time. I wanted, all of a sudden, being thrown in a new culture, you feel like you want to hang on to your roots and your heritage, but you don’t know quite how to do it. That was the impetus that got me started on the blog, wanting to blog about it.

I’ve always had an interest in cooking, it just was not encouraged when I was growing up. It was not something one would, at that time, encourage people. It was more like, “You need to go to college and learn something serious like law or business.” I had no interest in. But in the U.S., left to my own devices, whatever comes naturally is what you end up doing. To me, my interest in cooking was completely natural, and I did it on my own learning, sometimes calling home and getting tips. And it just gradually developed over the years. But I think the seed was there initially.

On Lebanese Cuisine:

It’s a simple cuisine with ingredients and techniques that recur for example. When you talk about Lebanese cuisine and dairy, you’re talking about yogurt. And I’m not talking about the sweetened yoghurt with the fruit at the bottom. I’m talking about the plain, a little bit sour yoghurt that is used for sauce. If you’re making a stew or a soup, that is used as a side dish. If you’re making a pilaf with rice or with bulgur, that would be the yoghurt. There’s a lot of legumes, chickpeas being one of them, beans, lentils, a heck of a lot of lentil dishes. Simple things like citrus, lemons, you’re always squeezing lemons either in a salad or on a soup or whatever.

It’s not a sophisticated cuisine. And once you’ve learned a few techniques… And now, there are some dishes that require some more sophisticated technique, but by and large, it’s a simple cuisine that anybody can learn and that anybody can make in less than 30 minutes.

On What a Typical Lebanese Meal Looks Like:

Well, for example, you would take, say, any kind of veggie that would be in season, say artichoke. If you have an artichoke, then you would make a stew with some artichoke. The stew would not have a whole lot of meat, it would have a few pieces of shank, maybe with some bone to give more flavor. And then at the end of that stew, to give it flavor, you always add a pesto which is basically you sizzle, in some olive oil, some cilantro and some garlic. You add that at the last minute for flavor.

We have lemon, we have tahini. Tahini is essential in a pantry. Tahini would be like the Lebanese or the Levantine equivalent of butter for the French. Because with Tahini, you make your hummus, you make your dressing for your salads, you make a lot of different veggies dressed with that tahini dressing. You boil them or steam them and you add that tahini dressing. You don’t use butter, you use tahini. And tahini is a paste that’s made out of sesame seeds. That’s about it.

On Her Cookbook:

So many people were telling me, “You ought to have a cookbook,” because I was getting such a good response from the blog and getting to be a guest on radio shows, and on television, and so on. I didn’t have to struggle really. I had a publisher who was interested, HCI, famous for publishing the Chicken Soup for the Soul series, and they offered me that book deal, and I worked on it. And I basically wanted to include the core recipes that would exemplify Lebanese cuisine without going just crazy. So I just focused on that. And each recipe had a photo because I’m also the food photographer for the blog and cookbook.

I moved back to Lebanon since 2011 because I wanted to immerse myself in the cooking scene here, cook with local cooks. I thought that it would behoove me to have that experience under my belt, instead of sitting in Dallas writing about Lebanese cuisine by memory. It was a great experience, because I was able to spend half my time in the mountain and learn about country style cuisine, which is completely different from Beirut style cuisine, and cook with Lebanese cooks and learn from them some tips and techniques that I never would have had that exposure had I been still living in Texas.

The Pressure Cooker:

Which food shows or cooking shows do you watch?

Oh, gosh! That’s an easy one. I don’t watch any.

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

I used to subscribe to French food sites, it was called cook.com. It’s a paying site, but they have chefs, French chefs, and I learned a lot from it because I thought French chefs were very creative. And it was fun, interesting and fun. I also read a lot of blogs, and they’re usually in French from North African bloggers, because this is one cuisine I’m curious about and I don’t know much about. This is a very rich cuisine in terms of cultural history, variations, all these different tribes. It’s very interesting to me, so I’m learning. I like to learn more than just read a blog because it’s trendy or something.

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

I like Instagram. To me it’s the best medium, because it’s quick and easy, and yeah, it’s an instant gratification. I follow a lot of world famous photographers, for example.

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

I can tell you my treasured, because I would not be in any kitchen if I don’t have it, it’s my garlic mortar. It’s a special wooden mortar specifically for garlic. I refuse to use that garlic press thing. It has to be mashed, and so you have to pound the garlic with some salt or something to make it pasty.

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

Oh, easy, eggplant. I used to hide the eggplants when I was in school, in elementary school, in the pocket of my apron, so I wouldn’t have to eat it. Of course, I have changed 180 degrees as far as eggplant is concerned in my adult years.

What are a few cookbooks that make your life better?

I’m on a constant search for deepening my knowledge of Middle Eastern cuisine. So for example, if I read a cookbook, I want it to not just have a bunch of recipes. That, to me, is not interesting. I want to know the why and the history behind it, and all this. So for example, there’s some cookbooks on Persian Cuisine that I’m really enjoying, because they really go in depth on the history behind the dishes and interesting works like that.

Well, there’s, for example…her name is Margaret but she wrote a book on Persian Cuisine. There’s also Najmieh Batmanglij who also published some beautiful book on Persian cuisine, beautiful photography. Those are cultures that I’m interested in, that I want to learn more about, and the cookbook does the job. It delivers not just recipes, but the whole holistic thing of the culture.

What song or album just makes you want to cook?

Well, not classical. Classical makes me want to sleep. Anything from, let’s say, the late ‘70s onwards is good. My son introduced me to Linkin Park. And yeah, I’d go for Linkin Park. I’d go for something like from ‘80s, like Fleetwood Mac, I like this kind of stuff.

On Keeping Posted with Joumana:

Well, I’m pretty active on Instagram these days. So you just go on Taste of Beirut.

121: Beth Manos Brickey: Taking Control and Making Healthier Choices

May 4, 2016 by Gabriel Leave a Comment

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Tasty Yummies

Beth has been 100% gluten-free since 2005 and was inspired to create her blog, Tasty Yummies, after significantly changing her diet and her life in 2010.

Her goal is to inspire us to get creative with our food and to live and eat well with food intolerances and allergies. Her work has been featured in America’s Test Kitchen, Huffington Post and The Kitchn, just to mention a few. Beth is also an artist, a certified yoga instructor and adventurer and lover of all things yummy.

I’m so excited to have Beth Manos Brickey of Tasty Yummies joining me here on the show.

(*The photos below are Beth’s.)

On Whether or Not to Try a Gluten-Free Diet:

The longer I’ve been in this world, the more I see that it’s different for everybody. We’re all such individuals and there’s obviously classic signs of gluten intolerances, or you can have an allergy or you can have Celiac disease, which would also bring on the intolerance. There are varying degrees of symptoms. I would say, certainly chronic digestive issues, it’s worth looking into.

Brain fog, skin issues, just feeling generally run-down. I know people that have a very classic allergenic response, hives. So, it can take on many forms and there’s also different ways but I also think that sometimes people think, “Well, I don’t have diarrhea every day, so clearly…and I eat gluten every day, so clearly, I don’t have an intolerance,” but as I was saying previously, our bodies actually are really smart and they’re built with these mechanisms to protect us. If you’re constantly exposing your body to something that it doesn’t want, it will learn how to protect you from it by building up a tolerance. So, just because you don’t have itchy skin and you don’t think you’re tired or brain fogged or digestively challenged, it doesn’t mean that there’s not something else going on. So, it’s worth experimenting. I tell everybody, if there’s any question, just try it.

On Relearning to Cook Gluten-Free:

There were a lot of fails, a lot of fails, but I think that that’s what made me love food. I’ve always loved food, I’ve always had an appreciation for it but it really connected me in a different way. I built this different relationship with food, where I started learning that I had to listen to the food and what it wanted and what I wanted to do with it. Just getting back to basics but also, realize that there is so much exploring that can be done, and sometimes the most basic things can be the most beautiful things.

On a Simple First Step to Making Healthier Choices:

If I had it my way, I’d tell every person that I ever met to never eat a processed food again because it’s just garbage for you. Your body doesn’t recognize most of what you’re eating as true food. There’s no nutrition to it, so it’s not sustaining any sort of life force within your body. So, start to take note of the things in your kitchen and be aware of what’s in them. And obviously, we’re all in a world of convenience and needing to eat on the go, so if you’re going to pick a processed food – again, this comes from Michael Pollan – but my rule is five ingredients or less, and know what those ingredients are. If you cannot pronounce a word on a box, don’t buy it, just don’t.

On a Dish That’s Special to Her:

It’s actually under my website as a tutorial because it’s a little bit more step-by-step of a recipe. My family is Greek. My dad is 100% Greek and I grew up very surrounded by traditional Greek foods and everything that you see in My Big Fat Greek Wedding where Greek people eat, someone passes away, someone gets sick, we eat, we always eat. Food is celebration. So, growing up, my grandmother, my yaya, always made stuffed grape leaves. We call them dolmades; they’re called different things in other cultures. And it’s something I always loved, I thought it was a ton of work. I would love when she would make them and I would come over and I never made time to have her teach me how to make them. It’s one of those things, she passed away. Ironically, the month that I did that cleanse to remove everything, to find out if I needed to remove gluten, that was the month my yaya passed away, smack in the middle of that. I remember then and even now being like, “My gosh, I learned so much from her in the kitchen.” She was a great cook but I never learned how to make dolmades. I moved in to this house here in southern California about three years ago and when I moved in, the whole back alley of the house right behind my bedroom window, it’s all lined with grape vines.

And I was like, “Oh, I know what I need to do. I need to make stuffed grape leaves.” So my parents came out to visit and we got my grandmother’s old church cookbook that they – all the women of the Greek Orthodox Church in Buffalo – put together and we followed the instructions and followed her notes of the things that she changed and added and we learned, taught ourselves how to make stuffed grape leaves, with fresh grape leaves nonetheless. And after we did that, the first year I was like, “I need to make this a tutorial on my website. I need to show people that even though it’s cumbersome in the sense it’s a lot of steps and there’s a lot of hands-on aspect, it’s not just dumping stuff in a pot.” It’s also such an amazing and beautiful process that it’s one of those foods I have never once ever made them on my own. I always make them when my parents are here or when I go back home or something where there’s like a community, family love aspect to the meal.

It’s cool, it’s a recipe that I have a lot of pride in, even though it’s not anything original and it’s really simple but it’s just such a fun and beautiful connection-type recipe. And then I also – in the tutorial, because I generally avoid a lot of grains and I know a lot of my readers do as well – I offer the option to replace the rice that’s in the stuffed grape leaves with cauliflower rice. So, it’s kind of a different option and then you can make it with meat or without meat, you can eat them hot or cold. So, it’s amazing.

The Pressure Cooker:

Which food shows or cooking shows do you watch?

This is not going to be a popular answer but I don’t really watch cooking shows anymore. I got sick of always turning on Food Network and always seeing Guy Fieri and a bunch of garbage food that I didn’t really want to get excited about. So, I just don’t watch it anymore. Although, Aida Mollenkamp, a friend of mine in L.A., she works with Tastemade and does a series, it’s a web series. She travels around the world and does a quick 10-minute show about the food of that area. And so, I guess I do watch a little bit, just not the traditional stuff. So yeah, that would be my pick.

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

Some of my favorites are Nourished Kitchen. This woman, Jennifer, who does an amazing job sharing how to enjoy real food and get into the kitchen; very similar mind-set to mine, get in the kitchen, make it yourself, real food. I really love Salt & Wind, also created by Aida Mollenkamp, who I mentioned before. She travels the world, she has a bunch of contributors, it’s really focused on travel and the food of travel and all around the world and being inspired by that. I think the other one that really makes me happy right now is a blog called Will Frolic for Food. It’s a friend of mine, Renee Byrd, and she’s just a beautiful photographer, beautiful photos. Everything she makes is just gorgeous and you can tell she really puts time into every detail of every dish and there’s just this level of love in every recipe. It makes me happy to see somebody slowing down and taking time with food.

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

So on Instagram, I follow a whole bunch of people that stemmed from this one person, in terms of what she was doing. I really love Beth of Local Milk. She just takes beautiful photography that has so much emotion in it and most of the time, it’s food-focused. So, I just love what she does. There’s a feed on Instagram called How You Glow. It’s two girls from L.A. and they also seem to travel a lot and they promote healthy living and getting out and experiencing your world and experiencing all the different things there are, but also mindful living; they’re very focused on yoga and healthy eating. I love The Feed Feed feed, just because it’s a really great way to find new bloggers, new recipes, new people. And then I follow a lot of people that are very much in line nutritionally with what I’m doing. Some of them happened to be Paleo food bloggers, but Diane Sanfilippo, Mickey Trescott, Liz Wolfe, Robyn Youkilis, who I just discovered recently, who wrote a book that came out this month. I think it’s called Go With Your Gut. It’s about gut healing and food. So yeah, those are just some of my favorites. Again, I could probably go on forever.

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

I don’t know if it’s unusual, but right now, it’s my most treasured. It would be a toss-up between my Vitamix and I just recently bought a pressure cooker, Instant Pot. I do a lot of batch cooking because I want to make sure that even when I’m busy and life’s crazy, that I can eat well. I drink bone broth every week. Again, another gut healing thing, and there’s just so many nutrients and I used to make it in a big stock pot and let it cook for 24 to 48 hours, and I don’t think that’s really safe to leave a pot on a gas stove that long. It doesn’t make me feel good. So the pressure cooker cooks it in a couple of hours and it’s the best. I buy a bunch of organic chicken thighs and cook that in there and I’ve been cooking sprouted grains in there. So, sometimes at the start of the week that thing doesn’t leave the counter for two days while I just cook a storm up.

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

It’s kind of a weird thing. I laugh now but I used to think that maple syrup was really gross because the scent of it I felt like it would linger if you’d have it on pancakes. When you were a kid it would just, the smell of it would just stay on your body and then it was just all you’d smell. I probably realize now that it wasn’t real maple syrup and maybe that was what I was not loving. Now, I love it. I use it when I bake and it’s always in my kitchen.

What are a few cookbooks that make your life better?

One that jumps out is Danielle Walker of Against All Grain, put out a meals-made-simple cookbook. It’s Paleo but I just like that it’s simple. It’s not, you have to have a million crazy ingredients you’ve never heard of; it’s casseroles made with cauliflower, rice and chicken, and comfort food and the things that you grew up with. I often just turn to that for when I want something easy that I can throw it on the Crock Pot and not think about. But I know it’s well tested and it will be great.

I actually don’t cook a lot from cookbooks but another book that I turn to a lot when I want some sort of inspiration, I love Indian food but I obviously didn’t grow up with Indian food. It’s just called India Cookbook.

It’s beautiful and it’s huge, and beautiful color pictures through the whole thing. But, it’s a really nice way to look at a very classic, traditional culture’s food and how they would make it, and nine times out of ten, it’s way more involved or ingredients that I don’t have access to, but it’s a good inspiration for something that maybe comes from it that’s inspired by it.

What song or album just makes you want to cook?

A lot of times when I cook I don’t have music on, but it’s when I’m taking my photos that I turn music on and then that’s so dependent on my mood. And it’s so dependent on my mood that if you looked at my stream on Spotify, you’d be like, “Is this person bipolar or are they like schizophrenic? What’s going on?” Because it would be Iron Maiden and Motorhead, and the next day it will be Fleetwood Mac and Beyonce, and then it will go to traditional Indian yogic-style music and then jazz, and then Sigur Rós. I am all over the map with music. I just don’t like country music, it doesn’t make me want to dance. But depending on my mood, I would say almost everything else will make me dance and depending on the day.

On Keeping Posted with Beth:

I’m at Tasty Yummies on pretty much on every platform, so take your pick. I’m on Snapchat and Instagram and Pinterest and Facebook. The blog is always a good home base for recipes and just stay in the loop, probably with Instagram. I have a new website coming in the next few months. So hopefully my new website will be an even better platform to keep up with the yoga events I have and retreats I found working as a nutritionist, and all the different things that I’m doing.

037: Bev Weidner: Getting Back into Cooking as a Parent

May 18, 2015 by Gabriel Leave a Comment

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Bev Cooks

On Bev Cooks, Bev is extremely open about food and family. She’s a mother of twins, Will and Natalie, who’ve been featured on the blog even before they were born, and she claims to dish out the worst parenting advice you’ll ever hear. Bev’s high energy and wit makes me chuckle more than usual.

I am psyched to have Bev Weidner of Bev Cooks on the show today.

On Leaving Her Job to Pursue Her Passion:

I was stagnant, I was in a stagnant place and not really knowing where to go.

I was working and it was fine, but it took a long time for us to get pregnant and have our kids. So that stress and just not being super happy with my life direction, we got to this point in Aaron’s career where we looked at our life and it was like, “I think I’ll stay home. I just want to garden and hang out. Just kind of breathe and take some of the stress off of myself, and the pressure off of myself.” Once I did, I was like, “Okay, I’m home. I want to start a blog.”

I’m very inspired by other bloggers and stories out there. So it was shortly after I quit that I started, actually bought the domain. I had started posting photos of my dinners on Tumblr and Facebook, but it was right after I quit my job that I bought the Bev Cooks domain and really made it a blog. So I don’t know if you’d call it confidence or stupidity.

I was just getting more and more into the whole thing about food photography and writing. I mean, it was a mess, it was a disaster back in the early days. But time goes on and you hone your craft.

On Her Blog:

I’ve read magazines like everybody. I didn’t really pay attention to the styling of food until I started blogging. I was like, I know this doesn’t look right. This pork looks funny. I don’t know how to do this.

So, like everybody, I would just study magazines like Real Simple because I don’t want a ton of stuff in my photos. I just like it clean and white, and the focus is not a load of good scenery. I think that’s beautiful but I also just want to keep it clean. So I would just study magazines like Real Simple and things like that and kind of maybe rip them off. No, I don’t know. Inspiration, just like literally looking at them going, “Now, this is the way they have this.” “That works. Okay, ding ding.”

On Cooking as a Parent:

I want them to eat everything, and they have been eating… I make them kale omelettes every single morning, I don’t know why. It’s really easy. I mean, it sounds super fancy but it’s not. It’s an egg and kale and a little bit of the tomatoes and done. Cut it up in little squares and they love it.

I just want them to be exposed to everything that I’m making right now so that the hope is that they’re not going to be picky eaters. Now I will say, Will, he’ll touch a third of it and Natalie eats 100%. She does not care, she just eats it all.

But I haven’t really changed that much in my style of cooking because I just want them to eat it too. I cut up everything or separate some things from the others and cut up the pasta, to where it’s tiny. Make it easy for them to eat but I want them to have all the flavors.

During the weekdays, sometimes can be hard. Oftentimes I do simple, simple stuff like peanut butter toast, some torn up deli chicken and a cut up fruit or a tomato. It’s just a hodge podge of things, but I always love to have leftovers from what I’ve made either for dinner or the blog, and then just give them that too.

They need to eat constantly. I’m floating from the kitchen to their high chairs, every two hours, your snacks, here, do you want it over here? Do you want it on the top of the roof? I don’t know. They have mouths.

On Her Column on The FN Dish Blog:

I’m starting a monthly column with the Food Network. On their FN Dish blog which is on their main landing page, but I will be streamlining kids only meals, like the first part of the recipe will be kid friendly, the second part of the recipe will be fit for adults.

So take like a pasta with marinara. Most of the time you’d stop there for the babies, for your kids, and give them the pasta and the marinara and have them go at it. Then for the adults you would add the olives, and the anchovies. So I’ll be starting that.

The favorite dish that’s easiest, I love pasta dishes. If they’re shells, then that makes it easier for them to grab, like shells with shredded chicken in it. I try to avoid giving them too much sauce because the sauce gets everywhere. So I try to remove as much sauce as possible.

What I really like to make for them is just two whole wheat tortillas, and just chop up some chicken and sprinkle in some black beans and a little bit of grated cheese. Pop that in a microwave for 30 seconds, and then just cut it with a pizza cutter. So they’re having little burrito squares.

On Getting Back into Cooking Since Becoming a Parent:

I would say because it is my job I knew I had to do it. It was about four weeks in. I remember four weeks in, and they were a month old. I thought, “I’ve got to start cooking again, or I’m going to go crazy.”

I just got back in, It really wasn’t that hard. In the early stages, what you have going for you with infants, just any infant, two or multiples of one, they sleep all the time. So it’s so easy while they’re napping for their seven hours straight. I’m in there cooking, and then plan it where you know they’re going to be napping and you could go in and cook and do whatever you need to do. If you need to cook it early in the day and warm it up in the evening, great. Do what works. Just do what works.

Now is a different story. They’re down to, most of the time one nap a day, and if I haven’t gotten my work done by the time they’re up and they’re running around… They’re full on toddlers now, and that can get a little bit challenging but we make it work.

The Pressure Cooker:

Which food shows or cooking shows do you watch?

America’s Test Kitchen. Martha’s Cooking School, I do watch that.

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

I love the Sprouted Kitchen with all my heart. I love Sarah and Hugh so much, it’s ridiculous. Of course, I love How Sweet It Is, Jessica’s a dear friend of mine. My New Roots, fantastic beautiful photography, Sarah Britton is just brilliant.

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

Instagram, all the way. Local Milk on Instagram. It’s just crazy, I just want to cry all over. Sunday Suppers, feeds like that. Feeds that have to do not necessarily with food, food could be in it but a slow approach to life, lifestyle.

Beautiful composition and everything has a certain shadowy moody, feel or bright. That’s what I’m drawn to.

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

Well, I have a cutting board that my husband made for me. He’s crazy talented with DIY. He’s a maker as you would maybe call him. He went to a reclaimed lumber place and got a piece of wood, I think it’s elm. I want to say it’s elm. And sanded it way down and made it food friendly, oiled it up and it’s just this rustic dark piece of beauty that I chop carrots, onions, and garlic on every day.

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

I used to hate fennel. I hate black licorice, I absolutely hate it, but for some weird reason, I can dig some fennel.

The licorice-y flavor is definitely there, but it’s masked by its delicateness.

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

Okay, I have this cookbook called The Silver Steam that my mom gave me for Christmas many years ago. I have Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Julia Child. Not that I have made my way through it like Julie and Julia, and don’t ever plan to. But I have cooked a few things from that book, and her approach and her writing – it’s so different than modern cookbooks.

Everyday Food, the Martha publication. They put out a cookbook along, long, long time ago and that’s when I first got into cooking. It was about 10 years ago when this cookbook was released. It opened my eyes to chopping, dicing, sauteing, everything. It was just enlightening.

I used to be really into Jamie Oliver a long time ago, into his early cookbooks. I loved that.

What song or album just makes you want to cook?

Well, I love Fleetwood Mac, Rumours. You cannot go wrong with that album. I don’t know if it makes me want to cook, it makes me want to do everything. I love that record. I can just put it on and cook at the same time.

The Bird and the Bee is also another band but just their songs and the production. The approach to their production is very unique. Lots of layered vocals, it’s really beautiful, but cool. It’s poppy, little indie-rock and that just makes me dance in the kitchen.

On Keeping Posted on Bev:

Well, food-wise, I would say Facebook, my Bev Cooks page on Facebook. That’ll have everything. Instagram, I recently just started posting. When I post a recipe, I post the photo and just always photos of the babies on Instagram. If you’re just looking for food specifically, I would just say either subscribe to my blog or Facebook.