Food in Jars | The Dinner Special podcast

110: Kate Payne: Stumbling on Homemaking and Food Preservation

February 17, 2016 by Gabriel Leave a Comment

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Hip Girl’s Guide to Homemaking

Kate is an author, freelance writer, and educator. She’s written two books, Hip Girl’s Guide to Homemaking and Hip Girl’s Guide to the Kitchen. And her writings can be found in publications like Edible Austin, HGTV Mag, and websites such as Canning Across America and The Kitchn. Kate learned to be an avid home canner and a gluten-free baker while living in New York City and she now also teaches classes on home food preservation.

I am so happy to have Kate Payne of Hip Girl’s Guide to Homemaking joining me here on the show today.

(*All photos below are Kate’s.)

On What a Typical Day Looks Like:

Every day is very different. Either I am preparing for a class which usually means I am gathering vegetables, I am emailing farmers or I am buckling down and doing some writing, which happens often. So in those days, I hole up with the computer and a cup of tea and nail out maybe three or four hours of time to sit and write or work on other deadlines and things like that. I also just launched a bitters line. So now, my days are interesting and they have new bitters making tasks in them as well.

It’s pretty all over the place. I am a procrastinator. So my writing usually is fit into the very last time slot between when it needs to be turned in. I try, I really try to set up times where I have a morning writing schedule or routine, but I am not having much luck with that.

On Food Preservation and Canning:

I think my mom would vote me the least likely to be domestic leaving high school and into college. But I really took it on and moving to Brooklyn, moving to New York in 2008, the stock market broke and I was trying to start freelancing. I was even applying for other jobs and I felt like my budget didn’t really match. My capabilities for spending money didn’t match the opportunities that I would have liked to spend money. So I really felt like it was time to get creative and if I like jam, maybe I should learn how to make it. If I wanted pickles in the house, then I better figure out about making those because buying a $10 jar every week isn’t going to work out any longer. So, I stumbled into it via the food community, going to the farmer’s market, getting a CSA.

I had some great mentors with food preservation. I found a mentor in New York City. I now live in Austin, Texas. I moved back about five years ago. But I found a mentor in New York, Eugenia Bone is her name, and I am sure everyone is familiar with her, but she wrote a book around the time that I was researching called, Well-Preserved. And that’s a really wonderful guide to folks in food preservation, and she was kind enough to let me into her home after I invited myself over and decided to ask some questions. She was a great mentor and she actually wrote the foreword to my second book.

On Encouraging Home Cooks to Try Food Preservation:

I think, first of all, just knowing some basic science which you can read in just a few pages of either my book or a few resources that I have put forth in my book. Just understanding the science behind it, you will understand very early on then that you are not going to kill your friends and family with a jar of jam, most likely. Similarly, you are not going to likely kill your friends and family with a jar of pickles either.

So, the things that we find very intimidating, it’s because we just don’t have the knowledge of how botulism bacteria is borne. My first canning experience was canning peach jam, and I was sure that the bubbles inside the jar were botulism spores or something. And it was just me not knowing that you couldn’t even see them if there were, but they can’t bloom in that environment.

We create safe products by following simple recipes and basic kitchen cleanliness like don’t pet the dog and then shove stuff in your jar, rather than try to achieve sterility. That’s just so not possible because oxygen is all around us. We are breathing and everything travels in the air. So, really, I just try to remind people to relax. So if you prep the fruit or cut up the veggies the night before, and then the next day you actually make the thing, those are the most practical and simple recipes to do because it really just cuts it up into reasonable chunks of time rather than saying, “Hey, you have three hours to work on this,” which many of us often don’t.

On Some Good Resources for Learning More about Food Preservation:

I would definitely recommend both of Linda Ziedrich’s books, The Joy of Jams, Jellies and Other Sweet Preserves is one. And then, her other book, The Joy of Pickling. She is also one of my mentors. She reviewed the whole draft of my first book’s manuscript and really a great food preservation mentor. But her books are amazing, wonderful, small batch, really highlight the flavor in seasonal aspect of foods and you will not go wrong with her.

And then, a newer resource, not when I was actually getting started but I think you spoke recently with, Cathy Barrow of Mrs. Wheelbarrow. And she just wrote a beautiful book that has a lot of great information on pressure canning. In my book, I don’t really have a tutorial. I teach some classes on pressure canning, but I think it is so important to be able to put up your broths and stocks that you make, your bone broth and everything you are making nutritiously in your kitchen, to be able to store that on the pantry shelf versus in your freezer.

On Her Books:

The homemaking book was the first book. Came out in 2011. I moved to Brooklyn in 2008 and upon getting there, I was feeling like it was the final exam for everything I had learned post college and in my DIY. How do you grow stuff? How do you clean the house without toxic chemicals that cost money? And how to not let all the groceries, the farmer’s market goods that we got, go to the compost pile? I just felt like, “Oh my Gosh, I need some help here. And I think other people like me would like all the stuff pulled together.”

So I started the blog for Hip Girl’s Guide to Homemaking and just started putting stuff out there because there was another aspect of it for me that was very intriguing, and it was that I hadn’t been in the kitchen before in my post college years. I mean, as minimally as possible. I was just sort of, “Here I am. I am in the kitchen but not willingly.” And then I get to New York, and I am trying out making my own bread because gluten-free bread at that time, you bought a door stop if you were getting a loaf of gluten-free bread. So I was like, “I can make better than this for less than nine dollars a loaf for sure.” So I actually liked it, I liked being in the kitchen. I was wondering, “Is this okay. I am a modern young woman, empowered woman. Am I allowed to like being in the kitchen in terms of my feminist friends?” And the answer was yes, and a resounding yes from everyone all over.

I really wanted to explore that in the Hip Girl’s Guide to Homemaking that gender is not…to try to drop some of the previous attachments that we’ve had to the kitchen and to the home, in general, using a controversial word like homemaking to begin with. So, yeah, I really wanted to explore all of that stuff. Then the Kitchen book, turns out I had so much more to say about the kitchen because I myself had a rocky past with getting to a place where I felt comfortable and confident. So, I don’t think it happens overnight, but I definitely wanted to let people know how to go ahead and start getting used to the kitchen or get more kick ass in the kitchen.

The Pressure Cooker:

Which food shows or cooking shows do you watch?

I don’t watch any cooking shows because I don’t have a TV, and I am not really into television so much. But I’ve enjoyed some of the America’s Test Kitchen shows via the computer and all that.

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

I’d say that you would have to know about Food in Jars and you want to visit The Kitchn. Food52, I think, is another great aggregate site. And then, wellpreserved.ca. Those are my friends, Joel and Dana, that live in Canada. And then, there’s also Punk Domestics. I think that’s another great source and site for everybody to visit because it’s a great place where everyone’s recipes get pulled.

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

Well, I am really into the Dram Apothecary. Great feed and beautiful photos, and I am really into the style and design that they are doing, and I just love them. Of course, there’s Tuna Melts My Heart and he makes me pretty happy, and all the pets in the feed of my dog’s Instagram feed, she only follows pets. So just scrolling through the pets only feed is great.

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

I think the most treasured item I have in there is a Le Creuset baking dish that I bake my cakes in. It’s a white enameled Le Creuset that is a vintage one that has the little shell handles. And it’s beautiful, and I only paid $10 for it. I use it at least once a week if not more. And then, I really treasure my spatulas, my high heat rubber spatulas. That’s a weird thing to treasure I think, but I love them.

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

I’d say cabbage, in general, because I make kraut now. I make that bacon cabbage salad that we talked about and yeah. I’ve just never really been into cabbage and now I love all the things that you can do with it.

What are a few cookbooks that make your life better?

I think The Flavor Bible is a great resource for folks. I consult it often. I am a Joy of Cooking girl and specifically, there are couple of editions that I am really into and following those recipes from the 1996 publication. I am really into that one.

And then, I also visit Eugenia Bones’ book often. It’s called, At Mesa’s Edge. She’s just got a lot of basic recipes in there but are really versatile, and I just love her work in general. She is a great resource.

What song or album just makes you want to cook?

I guess, just the artist, in general, is Patty Griffin. She’s got a song called, Making Pies, and that’s a very inspirational song.

On Keeping Posted with Kate:

Well, I am on all the platforms. Though, I think more often you can see what I am doing at the moment on Instagram.

088: Liz Rueven: Celebrating Jewish Food and Holidays

October 26, 2015 by Gabriel Leave a Comment

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Kosher Like Me

Liz keeps a Kosher kitchen at home and food truly excites her. She is always on the lookout for great restaurants, farmers markets, food festivals, and passionate food innovators. Liz spends much of her time researching and exploring extraordinary dining and food events. And today, we’re going to chat about the Jewish holidays and, of course, the food that surrounds them.

I am so happy to have Liz Rueven, editor and chief eater of Kosher Like Me, here today.

(*All photos below are Liz’s.)

On the Five Jewish Holidays Starting the Fall:

So, we begin with Rosh Hashanah, which literally means, the head of the New Year and it’s the Jewish New Year. We eat foods that are symbolic of new beginnings and good luck. So we often eat sweet things. There’s an association most people know between apples and honey. Apples are an early fall fruit, and the honey is really part of the beginning of most meals where we dip the apple in honey, and we wish everyone a sweet New Year. A lot of the other foods are really about, bountiful, full wishes, for example, pomegranates.

Pomegranates have many, many seeds. I know that you read my post and my recipe for pomegranate and honey glazed chicken on one of my favorite websites, a website I contribute to, called The Nosher. Pomegranates have like millions of gazillions of seeds, they’re very difficult to dislodge, as you know, because I gave a little technique that I borrowed from a fellow blogger, a blogger friend of mine. But, the pomegranate is so plentiful in the fruit that we use it as a symbolic food, wishing that all of the good omens and good wishes will be as plentiful as the number of seeds in that fruit.

There are many other foods associated with Rosh Hashanah but, 10 days after that we go on to Yom Kippur, which is the most solemn day in the year, and there’s no food. So we fast for what turns out to be about 26/27 hours. But at the end of that fast, of course, there’s a feast, like in every culture after a fast. There are many traditional foods, that I don’t know are really symbolic, but we just tend to eat them. Different cultures eat different things, my background is Eastern European, I would say the most quintessential thing that we eat is a noodle pudding or kugel.

On my blog, every year, I post a different recipe for noodle kugel. I have a very traditional one, and then last year I posted one with lemon and ricotta cheese. This year we’re posting a recipe for a noodle pudding or kugel with apple and fennel. It’s a great thing to eat because it’s very satisfying, and it’s very comforting, and it’s very filling. That’s what happens at the end of the fast.

And then, right after that, we have a harvest festival called Sukkot, and people erect temporary structures outside, and people who are really observant, live in those, eat all three meals in those, and sleep in those. They’re called a sukkah, and when, for those of us who don’t eat every meal in them, we often try to eat dinner in them.

Invariably, it’s cold and rainy, all of a sudden the weather shifts in the northeast at that time, probably in Vancouver, too. And so the focus is really, not only on the harvest foods, but I always focus on the warming foods, so I start to integrate warming spices and dishes like soups and casseroles. It’s usually when I take out my slow cooker also. So this year, we’ll be posting a butternut squash soup, that should be really delicious. Butternut squash grows in the northeast at this time of year and it’s a great thing to just throw in the slow cooker and just have simmering.

If you’re eating outside in your sukkah, you’re going to want something like that and warm foods. All of the sudden we shift from the salads to things like that.

Then, we have the next holiday, which is a celebration of the laws that were given to us in Sinai, and it’s called Simchat Torah, which really means the joy of Torah, which are the laws. And in general, people do stuffed foods for this holiday. Things that imply full bounty, so that there’s a lot of joy. And then, we end the five holidays with Hanukkah, which is always focused on oil, which we never really eat very much of.

We fry things, donuts, potato latkes, all variations of things fried in celebration of the miracle that occurred, historically, when a vessel of oil that was supposed to last only a few days, lasted a whole week. Which, was enough time to produce more oil. So the oil thing gets really big, and what’s really fun is making lots of different kinds of pancakes, wheat pancakes, potato pancakes, sweet potato pancakes, zucchini, or apple, all sorts of pancakes, deep-fried, so for those of us who are more health conscious, it’s like a time of year where we say, “What the heck, we’re eating fried, it’s Hanukkah.”

So, that’s the five holidays.

On Starting Kosher Like Me:

My home is strictly Kosher, and when we’re away from our home, we do exactly what my grandparents did. My grandparents were immigrants from Poland, they came to the lower east side of New York City, and they found that there were a lot of choices of things to eat. They just started eating fish and vegetarian when they were away from their Kosher home. Today, we have so many great choices of vegetarian and vegan restaurants that it’s really almost effortless. In those days, people would have a side order of string beans, because that was what was available if you didn’t want to eat chicken, or meat, or whatever was offered in a restaurant, so it’s completely different today.

My intention was really to be a resource for people who honor the rules like I do, because when I travel, I do a lot of research. Friends would say, “If I’m going to Aspen, where should I eat? Where do they have a lot of vegetarian choices?” But what’s happened is, I write so much about vegetarian and vegan, because I write so much about what I do outside of my kitchen, that I have a much broader base of followers than I ever expected. I have vegetarian, vegan, Jewish, not Jewish, Muslim, all sorts of people who are also just interested in healthy food. Because I really only eat and only write about things that are happening seasonally anyway. It’s a trend and people really are interested in it. For us, it’s just the way we always eat.

On the Best Part of Being Editor and Chief Eater of Kosher Like Me:

I would say I love meeting with creative people who are either, small producers, for example, honey makers, who have small backyard apiaries, or people who are making inventive products like my friends at the Gefilteria in Brooklyn, who have revived the old tradition of making gefilte fish and they’re making it sustainable, interesting, healthy, hip again. I really love meeting with the makers and the farmers. I do a lot of work at farms, especially trying to support my Connecticut agricultural scene. I love meeting the farmers, and the growers, and the makers. I like that better than eating in restaurants and writing food reviews, actually.

When I started writing four or five years ago, the approach to reinventing traditional Jewish foods was not as vibrant as it is now. For example, I’m part of a kosher food bloggers network, and that’s what we call ourselves, The Kosher Food Bloggers Network, and we are all across the country, and there was so much interesting rethinking of traditional foods. Four or five years ago, it wasn’t as energetic or vibrant a community or a scene. I would say that has been a big and wonderful exciting surprise.

Whitney and Amy, from Jewhungry and What Jew Wanna Eat, as you know, I co-authored a book with them. Those are my friends. What was really exciting was that we brought such different perspectives to it, Amy coming from Connecticut originally but living in Austin, Texas, has a completely different view of things than I do here. Whitney was in Miami, she has since moved to LA, so now her view has changed again, but she was a southern girl. I have these roots deep in the New York area and there was one other, there were four of us who wrote the book, and we called the book, Four Bloggers Dish.

The other person who contributed was Sarah Lasry, and she comes from a much more observant background. She brought a whole different perspective, and she was the one who kept saying, “I think we need more meat in this book guys,” and the three of us are like, “I don’t know.” It was great, yeah, you’ve met some of the cream of the crop.

On Her Passion for Food:

I went back recently and I read my first blog post, which was in 2011, and I wrote about my grandfather. My grandfather was a traditional Jewish baker, and he came from Poland, he had three or four years as a young teen, as an apprentice, where he was sent away from his family, and he learned how to bake bread. When he came to this country, he baked bread and lots of other things, and I grew up with my grandparents coming to my home every Sunday. He would bring things like the most delicious rye bread, and onion rolls, and challah, and jelly donuts. So, he was one of my inspirations, but I have to say that my grandmother was a brilliant baker in her own right.

So it was just interesting that even though he would bring stuff home from the bakery, she baked also. The reason she baked, this really blew me away when I really thought about it, is because so many members of my family had food allergies, so she baked at home in order to avoid using eggs and dairy. She was a vegan baker. She was born at the end of the 1800s and she developed all of these recipes, never wrote them down, she couldn’t read, she couldn’t write, she was illiterate. But she developed all of these recipes, and it turns out, as I thought about it, they were vegan.

It’s just crazy because half my cousins and my sister were allergic to eggs and dairy. So, I would say my grandparents are my greatest inspiration.

The Pressure Cooker:

Which food shows or cooking shows do you watch?

Well, there’s a new show about to launch, that I really am very excited about, it’s called Holy and Hungry, and it’s with Sherri Shepherd, and she goes to lots of different people who cook with an eye towards their religious background. She interviews people with Hindu perspectives and beliefs, and Muslim perspectives, and Orthodox Jewish perspectives, she goes to Christian cooks who are making foods from the Bible.

This show to me is super exciting, you have to look for it, it’s called Holy and Hungry. To me, that’s the most exciting.

I love Chopped, of course, because I really can’t get over the kinds of ingredients that they throw at these poor contestants. I really admire them for being so responsive and clever and being able to keep their wits about them. I would just have a total meltdown but, that’s why they’re competing. The opposite of that is Ina Garten because she’s so soothing and you want to be in her buttery arms, and they’re very, not her arms, but the food is so buttery. So I would say those would be three shows that I do love.

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

Well, I don’t know if you read The Kitchn, I really love The Kitchn, my daughter, who’s in her 20s, turned me on to it. It’s just such a huge resource. It covers so much and I love her how-tos, how to make a Caesar salad, how to handle winter squashes. I love what she does in that blog. I know she’s got a whole team.

I read and contribute to a blog called The Nosher, and so to nosh means to snack, so The Nosher really covers a ton of Jewish food trends, and edited by someone named Shannon Sarna, so her voice is very prominent in there, she’s like a master challah baker, she does all sorts of crazy and wacky challah recipes.

But of equal importance, she solicits posts from kosher and Jewish food bloggers who have very different perspectives on things. So there’s this great overview of what people are doing across the country and I love that. There’s a blog called, May I Have That Recipe, and it’s two sisters, I think they’re in Philly, and they write vegetarian, and vegan, and kosher, and their recipes are really inventive, and I’ve met them through my bloggers network. I really love what they’re doing. They’re smaller so props to them. They have a big readership, they really do. You can hear their voices in there, it’s really beautiful, and they act like such sisters, really fun.

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

Okay. My favorite feed on Instagram is called, MyGarbage.

When you look at this, to me, it is the most beautiful feed on Instagram. He, I think it’s a he, shoots his rectangular, white, garbage pail with all of the scraps from a dish that he’s made, but he arranges them. They look incredibly gorgeous, and I think for me, there’s a little message about food waste, which is that we could be reducing and we could be reusing, well not reusing the waste, but using it differently because he doesn’t even post his recipes, he just posts the ingredients which you see in the garbage pail. All of his photos are identically set up. And it’s very rhythmic and interesting to see them.

I love, love, love him. I love David Lebovitz, who is in Paris. He’s got a very funny voice, and he writes all about baking and cooking as an American in Paris, and he’s a brilliant photographer, and he’s very funny. There’s another person from Philly, and her feed is called Food In Jars, and it’s all about her preserving, and conserving, and putting up ingredients that she loves, and I just find it fascinating to see what she’s doing. Food In Jars, it’s great.

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

Well, I have a beautiful collection of ceramic handmade, plates, platters, bowls. I’m a really big sucker for big platters, big bowls. When I travel, I buy these things, which are really, really inconvenient and difficult to carry back. But I don’t care, I just feel like I’m bringing back the soul of an artist. I just get stuff, if you saw my kitchen right now, I have piles of tomatoes on a platter, and I have all sorts of things piled, like pears here in Connecticut in a big, deep, gorgeous hand-thrown ceramic bowl, so I would say, those are my most precious items.

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

I don’t know, there aren’t that many things that I’ve really converted to liking. I like most things, the one thing I don’t like and I haven’t gotten to like it at all is smoky profiles. I just feel like I’m licking an ashtray. I have no interest in that at all. So if people gift me smoky salts, whoever is around is really lucky because I’ll pass them on right away. So I can’t say that I started to like something that I didn’t like, I would just say that’s what I don’t like.

What are a few cookbooks that make your life better?

Well, by training, I’m an art historian, so I think that I really love to read food history. I took a fantastic class at the New School in New York City, the teacher was Andrew Smith, and he wrote an encyclopedic book called, The Oxford Companion to American Eating and Drinking. If it’s 4th of July, or I’m thinking about, I don’t know, avocados or something, whatever it is, I might turn to his book first and see what he has to say about it.

Parallel to that, and right next to it on my shelf, is an encyclopedia, it’s called, The Encyclopedia of Jewish Foods, by someone who unfortunately has passed away. His name was Gil Marks, and he was a brilliant inspiration and researcher to his community, and so when a holiday comes up, I always look to him first, and I get an overview and a refresher. He covers everything, he covers the meaning of the holiday and the meaning of a food. And you can also just look into his book, just look up an ingredient, so it could be something like peaches. And he’ll talk about peaches, or he’ll at least lead you to a recipe for peaches. But beyond the history, I really loved The Forest Feast.

I love her work. I love these hand drawings and the simplicity of her recipes. It helps me to get out of my head and just keep it really simple. Also, I love Beatrice Peltre, La Tartine Gourmande, her photographs I think are among the most beautiful food photographs I’ve ever seen, and when I look at her work, her blog, or her book, which I have, that’s really awe inspiring.

What song or album just makes you want to cook?

Well, I really like hearing The Stones when I cook, The Rolling Stones. That’s real rock and roll and I’ll listen to anything The Stones have ever done and just be happy to play with that.

On Keeping Posted with Liz:

Well, a lot of my readers are still turning to Facebook. Everything is @KosherLikeMe. I post probably numerous times a day on Instagram, and you can subscribe to my blog and see what I’m up to each week.

070: Cathy Barrow: Charcuterie and Pantry Building

August 24, 2015 by Gabriel 4 Comments

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Mrs. Wheelbarrow’s Kitchen

Mrs. Wheelbarrow’s Kitchen was started in 2009, and it’s where Cathy shares her cooking, baking, preserving, and keeping of her practical pantry. Her recipes have been included in the Food52 cookbook. Al Roker made her Thanksgiving stuffing on the Today Show. And she has been featured in the Washington Post. Cathy recently released her first cookbook, Mrs.Wheelbarrow’s Practical Pantry, which won the 2015 IACP Single Subject Cookbook Award.

I am so thrilled to have Cathy Barrow of Mrs. Wheelbarrow’s Kitchen here on the show today.

(*All images below are Cathy’s.)

On Starting Her Blog:

I had been a landscape designer for about ten years, and I was really a happy landscape designer. I have a big garden, a flower garden, and many, many clients in my general neighborhood. And in 2008, when we all suffered a little bit from the change in the economy, let’s say, my landscape business dried up, not just a little but sort of completely. And I know all the reasons for it now, but at the time, I couldn’t really see clear. I was pretty depressed. And several friends of mine who had come to my kitchen to eat, who I’d helped learn how to make pie dough, or learn how to cook with different ingredients, they all said, “You should be teaching cooking classes.”

And I said, “Well, that’s just a great idea. How will anybody ever find out about it?” And their response was, “Have you heard of this thing called a blog?” And I had not. I had never read one. I was really not part of that world, so I started doing some research. And one of those friends was a graphic designer and helped me set up the site, taught me a few simple tricks to figure out how to load a photo, and off I went. Nobody was more surprised than I was, that anybody actually read it.

I do feel there’s a very distinct line that you can draw from gardening to cooking, and particularly, the kind of cooking I do that is so seasonally dependent. My knowledge of the garden makes me a better preserver in many ways.

On Learning How to Cook:

I definitely took some cooking classes that were very helpful, and I read a lot of cookbooks. My curiosity led me to want to learn how to make certain things. I remember, maybe even 25 years ago, deciding that I wanted to learn how to make a baguette. And this was long before you could just Google how to make a baguette, or go to YouTube. And what I found, was that maybe the first one wasn’t good, but the second one was better, and the third one was even better than that. I recently read something Sam Sifton wrote in The New York Times, where he said that cooking is like yoga. It’s a practice. It’s not something that you’re born knowing, but the more you practice, the better you get at it. And I’ve been doggedly determined to learn how to make certain things, even in the face of failure.

I think I’ve been developing my own recipes forever, but it never occurred to me that it was something unusual, until I became part of a larger community. I think, for many of us, joining the Internet and starting to share recipes was a revelation. We either thought we were all alone in the world…because my friends, of course, were like, “You’re crazy spending eight weeks trying to figure out how to make a croissant.” And then I find this group of people who do the same thing I do, and it’s so thrilling to me.

So I’ve always gone to restaurants and tasted it, and then come home and tried to recreate things. Or I decided I’m going to study Sichuan cooking, and just cook everything in a book until I felt that I was confident enough that I could take that education, those flavors, and start to refine it a little bit. I definitely started working on my own recipes when I married a vegetarian, because Dennis would prefer not to eat much meat; he does eat a little bit but not much. He’ll eat a little chicken. I was pretty meat-centric when I met him, and now having to learn to take some of my favorite recipes and translate them into something that can become vegetarian, has been a big education for me. It’s a lot of fun.

On Charcutepalooza:

How it came together is really crazy. A friend of mine on Twitter, it happened that it was a late December Sunday morning. The tree was up, the presents were wrapped, the cookies were mailed. It was actually the first Sunday that I wasn’t crazy with things to do. I was hanging out in my kitchen and playing on Twitter, and a friend of mine said, “It’s so cold in my basement, I could hang meat.” And I said, “If you hang a duck breast, you’ll have prosciutto in seven days.” “Really?” was the answer. And I don’t know what kind of divine intervention happened, but I literary saw this whole program layout for me.

I’ve been thinking a lot about what I might do to push my blog up a little bit in terms of recognition, and it became clear to me that my knowledge of how to make charcuterie at home as a home cook could be the basis for an education program. So I got off of Twitter at that very moment and I sketched out a 12-month education program to go each month and learn something about charcuterie, following the guide of Michael Ruhlman’s great book, Charcuterie. And I came back online and said, “Hey, here’s the idea.” And a lot of people said, “We’d love to do that.”

And it became a blogger challenge over the next couple of weeks. After that, I started making random phone calls to see if I could find some sponsors. And one of my dearest friends now, who I didn’t know at all, Kate Hill, offered a week-long charcuterie program at her French retreat in Gascony. And that was gonna be the Grand Prize. So I was trying to establish how you would get the prize and how it would be voted on. Anyway, I worked out those details but I also realized that just offering somebody a week-long thing in France wasn’t enough. You had to get them there.

So then I found a travel agent called Trufflepig. I didn’t know them at all but I just went to their contact form on the web and said, “Hey, you got a great name. I got this crazy idea, would you give me free tickets to France?” And they came back and said, “Sure, and we’ll do train tickets and hotels. And how about a party?” I mean, they were so generous. And so I put this program together and about 400 bloggers around the world participated, and Food52 partnered with us and ran the whole program on their site. And it was just tremendously fun. What I loved is that in September of that year, Kate Hill invited me to her farm in the south of France, so I got to do that same charcuterie training. It was wonderful.

On Making Charcuterie for the First Time:

I always say to start with bacon. You can’t go wrong. Everybody loves bacon. And once you have it, you’ll join that forever club. You’ll never go back. Bacon, simply you get a pork belly, you cure it for a week in the refrigerator and then you roast it very, very low until it comes to a temperature that’s safe. So there’s no hanging it in the closet. There’s nothing dangerous or unsafe about it. It’s going to be refrigerated then it’s going to be cooked. It’ll change your mind about charcuterie right then and there. You’ll never go back.

Salting, and then you could add other flavorings, too. You can do plain salt but I personally have a combination in my book that is maple syrup, bourbon, and coffee. And those three things with some salt makes a really delicious bacon.

I think that the biggest mistake you can make is not buying really good meat. Buying commodity meats makes it more difficult to be precise with charcuterie, mostly because there’s too much water in most commodity meat. And you need to get the water out in order to make safe charcuterie. And sometimes that means that…what we look for, for instance, in most charcuterie, is a 30% weight loss will tell you that that meat is ready, if you’re hanging it. But if you have commodity or commercial pork, for instance, it might have such a high water content that it’ll need to reduce more. So I would say buying the best possible meat from sources that you know is going to guarantee more success.

On Some Good Resources for Learning about Charcuterie:

I think Michael’s book is a really great place to start. And then there’s a new book by Jeffrey Weiss called, Charcuteria, and that’s more Spanish. There’s Jane Grigson’s classic charcuterie book from England. But I really think if you want to learn charcuterie, just start with Michael Ruhlman’s book and work from the front to the back. Or you can get my book, which has this small discreet and very simple chapter on charcuterie.

On Her Book, “Mrs. Wheelbarrow’s Practical Pantry”:

I set out to write a book that would really be a primer on all kinds of preserving, because as long as I’ve been doing it and looking for resources, I couldn’t find one book that had everything I needed. So I also wanted to make sure that the book not only would take you through all the steps necessary to learn how to preserve everything, like jams and jellies and pickles, tomatoes, also meats and beans and soups and fish and diary, like cheese. Then I worry that so many people don’t think about what they’re going to do with all those jars they’ve put on the shelf, so I included 35 recipes using what you preserved.

For me, there’s preserving at one level, which is making the jams and jellies and the pickles. And that’s great, but that’s not really sustainable. It’s hobby preserving. I’m very interested in more of that pantry building in this practical sense, and the sustainable nature of preserving and how that means that I can eat locally year-round, that I can keep my food money in my community by purchasing from my local farmers all summer, preserving that food and then eating it all winter long.

It means that I can come home from a long trip and I don’t have to run to the grocery store or call for Chinese take out, but I can just go downstairs into my pantry and find all kinds of things that are right there for me to eat.

The Pressure Cooker:

Which food shows or cooking shows do you watch?

I’ll admit that I like the vintage ones best. I like to watch old Julia, especially Julia and Jacques Pepin. Those are great. I do love Sara Moulton. I think she’s just a solid cook. My husband and I used to watch her show a lot when we first got married, and so I always love to watch Sara.

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

I hope you know about Cheryl Sternman Rule. She’s been writing the blog, 5 Second Rule, for a long time, and had a beautiful vegetable book out called Ripe, a while back. But now she has a new book called Yogurt Culture, and a coordinating blog called Team Yogurt. And it’s a marvelous website. I love to follow my friend Mardi who writes the blog, Eat. Live. Travel. Write. And she’s been working with these young chefs, these young boys, in her chef class. It’s so fun to watch what they make. In the preserving area, Food in Jars, Hip Girl’s Guide, those are great resources. Well Preserved out of Canada, love those. I mean, I read a lot. Of course I’m smitten with Smitten Kitchen. She’s genius. David Lebovitz, I love. I guess that’s maybe a start.

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

I follow my friend Kate Spinillo on Facebook and on Instagram, because she raises chickens and pigs. She had polka-dotted pigs earlier this year. And sometimes I just had to go and look at those pigs because they’re so cute. I love following them. I’m passionate about Punk Domestics. I follow everything they do. Sean Timberlake collects all kinds of DIY on preserving information there. So I’m really always following what he’s doing. And I love Food52. Who doesn’t? I mean, they’re brilliant. They do everything wonderful.

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

I have three things that I brought back from the south of France. One is a handmade cassole to make cassoulet. It’s big terracotta and just beautiful. I also have a pepper grinder. It could be a coffee grinder, but I use it for pepper. It’s a little wooden box with a thing that turns on the top and a drawer that pulls out. And the pepper comes out in a large cracked form and it’s perfect to coat pastrami or to put on the outside of pancetta. And then on that same trip, my friend Kate’s sister, Stephanie, found these little (figures). Often, they’re babies that are put in the Mardi Gras cakes. You probably have seen it – if you get the baby it’s going to be your year, but in France, they have them for all the different professions. These tiny little pastries and sugars and confiture, just little ceramic things that sit on my stove and make me happy.

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

Anchovies. I can’t get enough of them. That’s the only one I can think of. I’m pretty much an omnivore, but for a long time, I wasn’t sure at all about anchovies. And now, I can’t get enough.

What are a few cookbooks that make your life better?

I’m really a fan of the old ones. I turn to Marcella Hazan and The Classic Italian Cookbook all the time. It’s just a brilliant book. I love the pairings after every recipe. So if you find one recipe you want to make, you know then what to make with what pasta. It’s really lovely.

Edna Lewis’ book, The Taste of Country Cooking, I read that all the time because her voice is beautiful and the recipes are just intense and organic and natural, like, what you would do if you saw beautiful things growing and brought them back to your kitchen. I like to read Laurie Colwin’s, Home Cooking, and all her recipes. And the Canal House ladies, they were my photographers, Christopher and Melissa. And they can’t do wrong, as far as I’m concerned. Every cookbook they have, you can just open it up, point, and make it, and you’re going to be happy.

What song or album just makes you want to cook?

I’ll admit. I don’t listen to a lot of music in the kitchen. It’s oddly distracting for me. More likely when things are processing, that I might turn something on and just dance. I’ve been listening to Ellie Goulding a lot lately. I just never know what I want to put on to dance around the kitchen. But while I’m cooking, I’m concentrating and I’m trying to measure ingredients. I find music, because I love it so much, totally distracting.

On Keeping Posted with Cathy:

I’m Mrs. Wheelbarrow everywhere. You’ll find me on Instagram. On Facebook, it’s Mrs. Wheelbarrow’s Kitchen. Twitter, it’s Mrs.Wheelbarrow. And I guess at the blog, on my contact form.

Lazy Day with Food in Jars, Hint of Vanilla, and Fork to Belly

March 14, 2015 by Gabriel Leave a Comment

What an amazing week it was having such a diverse trio of food hero guests!

Marisa McClellan of Food in Jars chatted about food preservation and canning, Megan Voigt from Hint of Vanilla shared her passion for baking and bread making, and Courtney Chun of Fork to Belly showed that the Internet is an amazing place for learning how to cook!

Below are some of the cool and interesting things they mentioned on their podcast episodes.

Marisa McClellan, Food in Jars

If you’re into food preservation and canning, or just want to learn, Marisa’s podcast episode is a must (in my humble opinion), you can find it HERE.

You can also catch her World Ending, Last Meal on YouTube HERE.

Food Shows She Enjoys:	Cutthroat Kitchen Breville Food Thinkers
Some Food Blogs We Have to Know About:	Punk Domestics WellPreserved Hip Girl's Guide to Homemaking What I Weigh Today
Someone to Follow on Instagram:	Teaspoons and Petals
Cookbooks That Make Her Life Better:	The Joy of Cooking So Easy to Preserve Cookbook Whole Grains for a New Generation
A Song or Album That Makes Her Want to Cook:	Rekooperation by Al Kooper

Megan Voigt, Hint of Vanilla

If baking and bread making are your thing, catch Megan’s episode and show highlights HERE.

It’s all about comfort food with Megan’s World Ending, Last Meal, you can watch it on YouTube HERE.

Food Shows She Enjoys:	Top Chef Chopped
A Food Blog and Website We Have to Know About:	Food52 My Name is Yeh
Someone to Follow on Instagram:	A Cozy Kitchen
Cookbooks That Make Her Life Better:	Bouchon Bakery The Elements of Dessert
Albums That Make Her Want to Cook:	Mylo Xyloto Viva la Vida

Courtney Chun, Fork to Belly

It’s amazing what you can learn online, Courtney shares how she learned everything about cooking from the Internet HERE.

She also shares her World Ending, Last Meal, and where we can get it on YouTube HERE.

TV Shows She Enjoys:	Hell's Kitchen Cupcake Wars Ina Garten
Food Blogs We Have to Know About:	Nerdy Nummies Local Milk I am a Food Blog Two Red Bowls
A Kitchen Tool She Loves:	Ninja Blender

Can’t believe it’s already been another week!

I get so excited when I see that you’re downloading and listening to the podcast. It’s such an amazing feeling.

Thank you, and I hope you’re having an awesome Lazy Day.

Gabriel

007: Marisa McClellan: Why No One Will Ever Get Sick From Your Jams, Pickles or Chutneys

March 2, 2015 by Gabriel Leave a Comment

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Food in Jars

Marisa is a canning teacher and author of two amazingly well-received cookbooks on preserving.

She is a writer whose work appears regularly on The Food Network’s FN Dish Blog, Saveur’s website, Table Matters and Food 52.

I am so excited to have Marisa McClellan of Food in Jars here on the show today.

On How Her Blog Came Together:

I started Food in Jars in late winter, 2009.

I had been working as the editor of a website called Slashfood, which was AOL’s food blog. My job there was coming to an end and I wanted to stay in the food blog community. I looked around to figure out what it was I wanted to write about. And, I realized that I loved canning jars and had done some canning, grew up doing it, and really felt like there was space for me to start a blog devoted to Mason jars and canning and preserving.

So I decided to carve out that little niche for myself. It has been an incredible journey since then.

On Canning:

I would say that at the start, it came naturally to me, but in the beginning, I didn’t know how much I didn’t know.

There’s been a lot of learning since I started only because as I dived deeper in, I didn’t know that there was so much that I still needed to learn. But I was already so invested that that learning process was really fun and exciting and natural.

I did most of my learning from books and the Internet. For instance, there’s a really great resource at the National Center for Home Food Preservation, which is run out of the University of Georgia and is the repository for the best practices of all canning and food preservation. They had a really good cookbook.

I took one class when I was first getting started on pressure canning just because I wanted to see someone else do it before I dove in. But, for the most part, the kinds of things I was curious about, the answers weren’t out there. I had to dig through and look at the USDA standards for commercial canning to figure out what was okay and what wasn’t.

That was fun and interesting to me, so I was happy to dive in and figure all that out.

On The First Thing She Ever Canned:

As a kid, most of what we did was either blackberry jam or blueberry jam.

I remember being nine or 10-years-old and helping my mom make blackberry jam. I grew up in Portland, Oregon, and that’s a place in the world where blackberries are just sort of anywhere. So that’s one of my primary foundational canning memories.

Then, as I got older, we’d go blueberry picking every summer.

Those two together, blueberries and blackberries, are really the core of my earliest canning memories, and what I started with when I started canning on my own.

On Where Her Canning Jars Obsession Came From:

I think it started in college. I went to college in Walla Walla, Washington, so rural Washington State.

I picked up a habit of wandering through stores, and antique stores, and junk stores when I had an afternoon off from classes. The thing I was drawn to were the old Mason jars. So I would pick up one or two here and there until I had a couple dozen in my dorm room. I used them for water glasses, I used them for pens, and it just kind of grew from there.

I don’t know why. There’s just something so appealing about a Mason jar. It’s clean and it’s got a nice heft to it, and it has so much possibility just in the vessel itself.

Tips For Those Wanting to Start Canning:

There’s a lot of really good instruction out there as long as you’re getting your information from a trusted source like the Ball Canning website, or in Canada, the Bernardin website, and they’re actually the same company, the National Center for Home Food Preservation, my website.

There’s a whole slew of good online information out there. As long as you’re following those best practices which are to use common sense, clean gear, and process your jars for at least ten minutes once they’re full of whatever you’ve made, you’re going to be okay.

It’s really hard to do harm to someone with jams, or pickles, or anything, and the thing to note too is that botulism, which is the thing that scares everybody about canning, can’t grow in high acid environments. This means that all of your jams and pickles, anything that’s designed to be canned in a water bath, is too high an acid for botulism to grow at all.

So the worst thing that’s going to happen is, if you do something wrong, it’s either going to mold or it’s going to ferment. And you’ll be able to see those things immediately upon opening the jar. So you’re never going to make someone sick with a jam, or a pickle, or a chutney, or any of these things. If they do go bad, you’ll see immediately. So there’s really no danger.

On Discovering Canning For Yourself:

There have been times when I’ve made things that weren’t as good as I wanted them to be. That typically happens when I am rushing. I find that if you really try to rush your way through a batch of jam or fruit butter or whatever, it’s going to take as long as it’s going to take. And if you have a time table that’s not working with the fruit, it’s better to stop cooking and come back to it later than it is to try to force your timeframe on to it.

I’ve had some really horrible mistakes. Nothing dangerous, but things that didn’t taste good, and I think that that’s part of the process.

One of the things with canning and food preservation that I have really experienced and have observed other people going through as well is that we have lost the institutional knowledge of what we like. It used to be that everybody canned and preserved, and you knew the five or ten things you made every year that you liked, your family liked.

If you’re picking up the canning habit, the food preservation habit without any context, it’s going to take you a few years to figure out what the things are that you like to preserve, that work for your family, that you’ll work through in a calendar year. So, it’s sort of this necessary process of discovery to figure out what are your preserves.

On Her Love of Ingredients And Food:

To be honest, it is just something that’s always been with me. I have always been a little food obsessed from the time I was really young. In fact, the first full sentence I said as a baby was, “More mayonnaise please.” So it’s just innate to me.

I really just have always been interested in food. From the time I was really young, I loved going to orchards. I have always appreciated the abundance of the harvest season, that’s something that just resonates. It connects. I feel most at home during that time of the year.

There wasn’t any one sort of foundational experience that made me go, “Oh, oh, my God, food, that’s where I want to be.” It’s just kind of grown with me as I have grown as a person.

On Her Books:

The first book, Food in Jars, came out in 2012 and is a cookbook devoted to my favorite preserves.

It’s got jams and jellies, and pickles and chutneys. There are some recipes for bread mixes in jars. I’ve got some nut butters, granolas. It was my attempt to wrap my arms around all my favorite things that I had done on the blog and translate them into a book.

The recipes are all revised for the book. So you’ll see something on the blog and it will have been changed a little bit or tweaked or made better for the book.

I think of it as a really good book for someone who’s just started canning, who wants the basics and who doesn’t mind yielding anywhere from 3 to 4 pints of something.

The new book, which came out last spring, called Preserving by the Pint, it’s still jams and jellies and pickles and things like that, but it has a philosophy that canning doesn’t have to be a large undertaking. It’s something that you can do in very small batches in about an hour or less and still really enjoy your product.

The idea behind that was simply that I live in a small apartment and have a small kitchen, and wanted to make things in small batches. And when I started posting those recipes, other people really resonated with them.

Every recipe in the book starts with either a pint of produce, a quart of produce, or a pound or two, so that your yields are only two or three half pints, but the amount of time you’ve invested in making them is really short.

It’s a really good way to prevent waste as well. I always talk about that as my secret mission with that book is it’s not just about preserving, but it’s also about breathing new life into things that you might have otherwise thrown away or decided you just couldn’t deal with.

So for instance, if you get a CSA Share, some weeks you get more than you can deal with. Instead of just throwing it away at the end of the week before you pick up your new box, you can make a little batch of pickles or a little batch of jam and extend the lifespan of that produce and get the most bang for your buck.

On Documenting Her Cookbook Tour Experience:

I wanted to make sure I didn’t forget some of those lessons that I had learned along the way, so that I can prevent myself from repeating the same mistakes.

In life if you don’t take to heart the things you learn, you do the same things over and over again. I don’t want to do that. I want to move on, learn new lessons, not have to keep learning the same ones over and over.

Throughout the process you definitely have moments where you doubt yourself. You think, “What am I doing?”

I am working on my third book right now, and I have moments where I am like, “I don’t know how to write a book. I don’t know how to do this.” I have done it twice and I still have those feelings.

The Pressure Cooker:

Which food shows or cooking shows do you watch?

I watch Cutthroat Kitchen because my husband’s a big fan.

I watch Top Chef because I find it fascinating, and it’s a really good representation of what’s sort of in the cheffy world at the moment.

I really like the online videos that the Breville small appliance company puts out. They have a really nice YouTube page.

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

Well, food blogs, I love my little community of food preservation blogs like Punk Domestics. Sean Timberlake who writes that blog is also now the blogger for About.com. As for food preservation, he’s been doing an amazing job there.

Wellpreserved, which is a Canadian food blog. My friend Kate Payne writes Hip Girl’s Guide to Homemaking, which is a really good one.

I have a friend who writes a blog called What I Weigh Today. It’s really interesting because it’s the intersection of someone who is a food writer, food editor, loves food, and is also trying to find ways to eat healthfully and work her way through dealing with weight in a culture where we put a lot of focus on both food and body image, and finding how to make that all work together.

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

I am definitely an Instagram addict. I follow a lot of people. It’s hard to even articulate.

My friend Alexis Siemons, she has a website called Teaspoons and Petals and her Instagram handle is @teaspoonsandpetals. She is a tea writer and takes the most beautiful pictures of tea cups, and desserts, and things like that.

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

All home cooks should have salt in their pantry.

You never want to run out of salt because it’s going to give everything flavor.

Vinegar is also useful. Anytime you make something and it tastes flat, if you add a little apple cider vinegar, balsamic vinegar, it’s going to brighten it up.

So salt and vinegar and it’s hard to go wrong.

Name one ingredient you cannot live without?

I cannot live without garlic.

I always have some, I use it every day, and my favorite way to add it to a dish is to grate it on a microplane rasp, because you get tiny little bits, you don’t have to chop it, and you get a lot of flavor. One of the tricks I learned recently was that if you want to brighten up a pot of soup, instead of adding your garlic at the beginning of cooking, add a little fresh garlic at the end. It’s going to make it taste more alive.

What are a few cookbooks that make your life better?

As far as just needing the basics, I still always turn to The Joy of Cooking. Anytime I need to make biscuits or just need a basic recipe for something like that, that’s my go-to. I like the 1960s edition the best because that’s the one I grew up with.

The So Easy to Preserve cookbook, that’s the one I mentioned earlier from the National Center for Home Food Preservation. That’s a great one for when I just need to understand how a recipe should work. I turn to that.

And there’s a book I love called Whole Grains for a New Generation by Liana Krissoff and it’s one that I always find something new in.

What song or album just makes you want to cook?

There is an album called Rekooperation by Al Kooper who is a blues and jazz organ player that I love to cook to.

Keep Posted on Marisa:

You can either subscribe to the RSS feed from my blog, or follow me on Instagram, or Twitter, or Facebook.

I try to keep all of those outlets updated.

Anywhere that is your favorite social media or information feed, I am there, and I am trying to keep the world posted about what I am doing.

Have Marisa's Special Jam Recipe Sent To You Now:

Has Cooking Become a Chore? 28 Food Heroes Share Ideas on How to Make Cooking Fun Again

February 24, 2015 by Gabriel Leave a Comment

I know exactly what I’m making for dinner, each and every night.

Why is this a bad thing?

Well, it’s not necessarily, but I’ve found that, for me, cooking has become more of a chore than something that’s fun and enjoyable.

Especially after a long day, the last thing I want to do is have to think about what to make for dinner.

Sure, I could:

search online for new recipes to try
or find inspiration in new food blogs to follow

but most of the time, I just stick with the tried and true.

The funny thing is, I love food and I love to cook.

And yet, every Sunday, when I go to the grocery store, I pick up the same ingredients because on Mondays, it’s pasta, Tuesdays, pork and potatoes, Wednesdays, stir-fry with rice… and the weeks just pass by.

I totally get that the routine is boring, but it’s so easy. I know exactly how long it will take to make and how it will taste.

But, I want to break out of this cooking rut.

I want to have fun in the kitchen again. I want to get excited about making dinner. Maybe not every night, maybe not even once a week, but every now and then, I want to try new herbs, spices and ingredients, and be an inspired home cook!

This is one of the reasons I started The Dinner Special podcast.

Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, I chat with my food hero guests about their fondest food memories, favorite things inside and out of the kitchen, and a dish that is special to them.

I also ask them questions like, “For those of us where cooking has become a chore, how can we make it more fun.” Things that I truly want to get some answers and ideas on.

From time to time, I’ll put together all their answers into a post like this. I hope this makes it easy for you to turn to.

If you have any burning questions you’d like answered, please send them to me at: thedinnerspecial [at] gmail [dot] com.

You’re a huge part of The Dinner Special and I’m sure lots of people have the same questions they want answered.

(Sorry for getting sidetracked.)

When I asked my food hero guests, “For those of us where cooking has become a chore, how can we make it more fun,”

Here’s What 28 of Them Had to Say:

Marisa McClellan of Food in Jars:

For people who think it’s a chore, I simply say try something easy.

Learn to scramble eggs really well.

I don’t think everybody has to love cooking, but we all have to eat.

I think the best advice I can say to someone is just to keep it simple. Your first meal doesn’t have to be a five-course extravaganza. Like I said, learn to make really good scrambled eggs, or pancakes, or French toast, and that will take you far.

Amy Kritzer of What Jew Wanna Eat:

I think you have to start with some good music, pour yourself a glass of wine, make it like a whole experience.

Then, start with something easy that is impossible to mess up and I think that will build your confidence and it’ll make it more fun for you.

I’m not opposed to people who take things that are pre-made and tweaking them a little bit.

If you bought some pre-made chicken to add to your matzo ball soup, instead of cooking your chicken, that’s fine.

Whatever makes you happy and makes it work.

Jordan Reid of Ramshackle Glam:

I think just finding your basic technique.

Like, with a slow cooker, it’s just meat and some liquid and vegetables. And so it’s like, once you get that basic thing down, you can have fun and you can say like, “Oh, I have some sriracha in my fridge. Let me throw that in. Let me try it with soy sauce on the side, let me try it with red wine instead of…”

I tried Dr. Pepper in a pot roast and it was really good.

And so I think that’s how you can have fun. Stick to the basics that you know in terms of technique and then you can improvise from there.

Chef Tony Singh of The Incredible Spice Men:

Get somebody to help you, because lots of people are time pressured and it is a chore if you’ve got a million and one things to do.

If you can get your children involved, it’s a great family experience and you’re teaching them life skills. Get somebody to peel the onions or peel the carrots or stand there and start to wash up for you.

Get people involved and that makes it much, much better.

Chef Cyrus Todiwala of The Incredible Spice Men:

What I always tell people in my classes is, when they look at a recipe, let’s say they look at a recipe in our book and they find something which looks very daunting, I always tell them to read the recipe first as if they’re reading a novel.

Then, shut the book and put it away and come back to it in a couple of hours. The recipe will automatically fall into place and will not look as dangerous.

The most important thing is unclutter your mind. Just de-clutter it and become creative.

Just become creative because all you will end up doing is creating something new.

Elena Rosemond-Hoerr of Biscuits & Such:

I think, especially during the weekdays, we totally get into a rut.

One of the things that I like to do is try and dabble with new ingredients or new cuisines.

So dabbling in things outside of your comfort zone is a good way to sort of bring the fun back into the kitchen.

And starting really small.

Trying to make something that you love to eat out, but that you hadn’t even thought that you could make at home, like a burrito bowl and then go from there.

Jodi Moreno of What’s Cooking Good Looking:

I think involving people always makes it more fun.

If I don’t want to sit at home by myself, I’ll just invite a bunch of friends over, casually set the table, give them a job to do and this way we’re not going out to eat ’cause in New York that’s very easy to do.

So, I think involving people, and if you have a spouse or children, that makes it even easier. My husband likes to cook too so the two of us will do it together and I think we kind of motivate each other to cook at home more often.

Eva Kosmas Flores of Adventures in Cooking:

Try to think of ways to make it more attuned to your personal taste. So, if you’re trying to just make something from a cookbook, know that you don’t always have to follow it to a T.

You can always change it up and add something else that you really like.

If you’re okay about onions but you love leeks, you can totally swap those two out. The same goes with most vegetables. If you hate cooked carrots, but you love brussel sprouts, switch those up, because roasted brussel sprouts get all caramelized and delicious.

My main thing would be, don’t be afraid to change it up and make it more in tune with what you actually like to eat.

It’ll be a lot more interesting to you if it’s something that you enjoy, rather than if you’re just almost following guidelines. That’s a lot more boring.

Courtney Chun of Fork to Belly:

It’s just about doing recipes that really inspire you, and that you really enjoy.

Before I started the blog, I would try to make healthy dishes. It would get repetitive. I’m making the same chicken breast, the same salmon with broccoli, and brown rice in it. It’s not like I didn’t enjoy what I was making but the process gets repetitive. It’s just not really fun.

I started doing cakes or making Japanese dishes because I really enjoy Japanese food. That just really helped to push me along and make me really enjoy what I was doing.

I think just with anything, you need to find what you love to do.

Megan Voigt of Hint of Vanilla:

One of the things that I do whenever I bake or cook, or just when I’m in the kitchen ever, is I put on some music, and I kinda dance a little bit. I’m a terrible dancer, and I’m a terrible singer, but I will actually dance and sing as I’m cooking.

It’s something that you see in movies and you’re like, “Oh, that’s so cheesy.” But you know what? I do it, and I really enjoy it.

It’s just injecting a little bit of fun.

Have a recipe that you’re comfortable with, that you know is pretty good for a weekday dinner, so you’re not stressed. Then, on the weekends, you can kind of do a bit more research and try something that you’ve never tried before and maybe do something that has a little bit more time and effort put into it.

Jonathan Melendez of The Candid Appetite:

I would say turn on music while you’re cooking. That’s like the one thing I always do as I cook, always.

Right before I start cooking, I will turn on music, I’ll have it on shuffle, and I’ll just listen to music the whole way. And then it feels like you don’t even think about it anymore, because you’re listening to these songs that you really enjoy, and you are in the kitchen.

And it doesn’t become a chore anymore, because there is something there to distract you.

Cristina Sciarra of The Roaming Kitchen:

I think the best thing is just to make it to the market, pick something that looks good to you and go home and search (for example) broccoli recipes. The websites I really rely on, if you type things into Food52, you will have great results with a recipe that will work for you.

Karen Chan of HonestlyYUM:

I would always say start by making sure you have just the basic correct tools, and I think at the very minimum you just need a really good knife. A really good or really sharp knife, because if you’ve got to sit and cut an onion with a crappy knife, I wouldn’t even want to do that.

You just need the basics and you need really good basics.

For example, a really good pot. Like a very good cast iron pot, for example, or for me I use a mortar and pestle all the time. Especially if you’re going to be doing a lot of ethnic cooking, those are just so handy to have.

But aside from that, music. I almost always listen to music when I cook. It lets you settle into it more and kind of focus on the chopping. It’s a little meditative because you just kind of zone out there listening to music.

A glass of wine doesn’t hurt. I always have a glass of wine and some music playing and just have fun with it.

Start with manageable things, have equipment and tools that are good and that will help you. I always say, seriously, a good knife goes a really long way and alcohol…

Skye McAlpine of From My Dining Table:

In my mind, what makes cooking a chore is the mess.

I love cooking. If there are times when I don’t feel like cooking, it’s pretty much always because I cannot face cleaning up the kitchen.

So, I would say, maybe try and choose dishes where you use fewer saucepans, just to get you started.

Maybe dishes that don’t require a whole load of equipment. And clean up as you go along, because it’s really easy to wash up as you go along. But if you leave it all until the end, that sort of sets the trap.

The other thing about cooking is it’s all kind of confidence and practice. The more you do it, the more you are going to enjoy doing it. Go out and buy a really inspiring cookbook full of easy dishes that don’t require lots of washing up and just jump in the deep-end.

And also, I genuinely believe that cooking for people rather than just cooking for yourself or yourself plus one is so much more fun.

Nicole Dula of Dula Notes:

My best advice for that is like what we were talking about before, to kind of put a piece of yourself in it because it becomes more personal and it’s more rewarding in the end.

So if you like, say quinoa, just try to experiment with different things you can put on like a quick sauté of vegetables or vegetables and meat, put it over your favorite grain and just experiment with flavors until you find a dish that’s super easy to make, super adaptable, no matter what’s in your fridge.

Just have a stand out dish that you can make at the drop of a hat whenever you’re hungry, and then it will just make you feel better about yourself.

Cindy Ensley of Hungry Girl Por Vida:

Some days you just have to get dinner on the table, so it’s more about what recipes you have in your arsenal. But if you can throw something new in there every week, maybe, or even every couple of weeks, I think that makes it fun.

Or use a new ingredient. A couple of years ago, my husband and I weren’t really big fans of fennel, so we started implementing it into our meals and now we love it.

So I think that trying a new ingredient or trying a new recipe, but not going overboard and trying to do it every night of the week. I think that gets daunting.

There are lots of different ways you can use ingredients and just trying them out a couple of different ways, I think, is also key.

Phi Tran of Princess Tofu:

I think you should do it with someone who loves to cook.

I like cooking with other people. I think if you cook with somebody who likes to share their food and also their skills, it’ll make it more fun.

It’s nice to do it with someone else every once in a while. And if it gets charred then you have someone else to share pizza with.

Alanna Taylor-Tobin of The Bojon Gourmet:

Wine or maybe a cocktail or something. Put on some fun music, pour yourself a drink, and just try to relax and make it a treat for yourself.

Also having someone to cook for, I think, is really important. So invite someone over who super loves food and is really fun and encouraging.

Ileana Morales of A Little Saffron:

Try not to overthink it. It doesn’t have to be fancy.

Our weeknight meals tend to be pretty simple. I use canned chick peas all the time and I just do that with some sautéed kale and some bacon. That’s it, that’s dinner. So I would say, don’t overthink it and don’t be so hard on yourself.

I like to think of a recipe like a guideline, because if you’re out of something, it’s fine, it’s usually not essential. Just work with what you have.

Katy Atlas of Sugarlaws:

To make it more fun, two things.

Don’t do it by yourself if you can avoid it.

Lots of people think they always have to go out for dinner with friends but actually staying in and cooking is a fun activity to do with friends too. My husband will always keep me company. He’s not a great cook but he’ll help out and hand me cans and do little things to keep me company while I go.

Put on some music.

Cooking is sort of a wonderful activity because it’s a great way to just kind of be really active and engaged with it. Your mind isn’t wandering as much as our thoughts tend to wander. You can just focus on it and sort of enjoy the experience of it even if it’s not your favorite thing and can be a tough thing to find time to do everyday.

We just focus on being present and try to have company for it.

Renee Byrd of Will Frolic for Food:

Trying new things is always fun.

For me personally, I like trying new spices, new herbs or trying something that’s a little bit weird or that’s a little bit strange.

I like to play with herbs in sweet things, like muffins, “I don’t really like muffins, muffins are boring,” put something in it that’s different, that has a new texture, that has a new flavor. Like cocoa nibs have the crunchy bitter thing going on and then you have sweet orange zest that is really aromatic.

These things are very fun for me. I don’t know if it’s fun for everybody. That’s sort of how I have fun in the kitchen.

Half of my time, I feel, is spent in the process of the mediation of chopping and looking out of my window and experiencing what I’m doing.

I really am very tactile so I love to touch things and have it in my hands. That’s really pleasurable for me and being able to create something that in my mind is artful out of that is so much fun.

Meike Peters of Eat in My Kitchen:

It’s like with everything else, you have to go through this time where you fail, where it’s not always fun, and where the results can be quite frustrating.

You just have to stick to it and cook and cook and cook.

What I like to do is because we always cook in the evenings, just open a bottle of red wine, have some cheese, some nibbles, and put on some nice music.

Because for me, what I love about food is, it doesn’t start when it’s on the table and when I eat, it starts already in the kitchen. I create a nice atmosphere in the kitchen and that definitely helps.

One shouldn’t take everything so seriously. If it doesn’t work out it doesn’t work out, and you try it again.

Phoebe Lapine of Feed Me Phoebe:

I really think that this strategy, cook on Sunday or Saturday, whichever afternoon you have free, and eat all week long, is a nice way to do it.

You’re not rushed, and once you have those building blocks in your fridge, then ten to 15 minutes of cooking becomes less burdensome on a weeknight.

I feel like dedicating your afternoon that way is a nice time to grab a buddy or your loved one to tag team and divide and conquer.

Emily Hilliard of Nothing in the House:

One of the things that has been nice for me is getting a CSA or farm share.

That’s really nice because I’m not necessarily someone who can go to the store and have an idea. But, when I have a set framework of like onions, broccoli and potatoes, I think that adds a limiting factor, so you don’t have to start from scratch.

Another thing I like, I really like cooking with other people. That’s always been present in my life with family and just having friends over and cooking together.

I also like having music or the radio on while I cook.

Kristan Raines of The Broken Bread:

I would say just to not worry about a thing and to enjoy the process. I think whether you’re baking or you’re cooking, the process can be the most reviving thing in the world.

My favorite thing is to just make it communal, grabbing whatever’s in the fridge and not worry if it’s going to come out great.

For me it’s turning on the music, and if it’s dinner time having a little glass of wine, and taking it slow and making it more of an adventure than a chore.

That shift in your perspective can aid you in like – “Okay, work day’s over, we can make food and enjoy the food because it’s nourishing and fun to do together”.

Becky Rosenthal of Vintage Mixer:

Turn on some music, keep it relaxed. Don’t try anything too difficult at first, and cook things you know you’ll enjoy.

If you’re trying something new, maybe just have a back up in the fridge just in case it doesn’t turn out.

But, don’t be too hard on yourself and just stick to the things you know you’ll enjoy.

Chef Adrian Richardson:

I suppose if you can teach people some simple dishes they can do, and how to make the dishes they’re already cooking even more enjoyable with things like seasoning and herbs and switching things around, I think this can be monumental.

Luisa Weiss of The Wednesday Chef:

I think a lot of people think cooking is no fun because they secretly don’t think they’re good at it.

I’m as lazy as the next person, I will take a short cut if it’s offered to me, I never make my own pasta.

There are many many really simple recipes out there that if you make them three times, you’ve memorized them by heart, but if you make them, you’re eating really good food.

That’s what I try to instil in my blog and that’s what I would tell someone who says “I hate to cook”, I’d say, “you know what, I bet you don’t, you just think you’re not good at it, and that’s why you don’t like it.” But actually, if you had some successes in the kitchen, you’d start to like it.

Awesome tips and advice.

Thanks food heroes!

I hope you enjoyed this post. I was actually thinking of only including ten or so responses to keep it short and sweet, but I honestly feel like we can get something from each food heroes’ thoughts.

Whether it’s a tip, some advice, or simply knowing that they get stuck in cooking ruts too, I find it encouraging and inspiring to hear their thoughts. I hope you do too!

Let’s get excited about cooking again!

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How do you keep it fun in the kitchen with a busy schedule?

I’d love to hear your thoughts!

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Let’s do this together!

Gabriel