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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.

116: Monique Volz: How Healthy Food Doesn’t Have to be Boring

March 30, 2016 by Gabriel Leave a Comment

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Ambitious Kitchen

Monique started her blog at the end of 2011 to share her love of healthy, nutritious food and baking, and in less than three years was able to quit her full-time corporate job to work on Ambitious Kitchen full-time. Most of Monique’s food is geared towards those with active, healthy lifestyles, and she enjoys getting creative in the kitchen with unique ingredients – pairing different flavor combinations and playing with gluten-free and vegan recipes. She’s been featured in The Huffington post, Buzzfeed and Today.com just to name a few.

I am so psyched to have Monique Volz of Ambitious Kitchen joining me here today.

(*All photos below are Monique’s.)

On Finding Time to Write About Her Food Adventures:

I think it has always been a goal of mine to start a blog. I just didn’t know where to begin, and so it took me about six months to get the guts and just say, “Okay, I need to start this.”

I worked a lot on my site on the weekends or after work. To be honest, it became this passion project, something that I just really, really enjoyed. So I’d come home and make a recipe, and then I’d photograph it really quick, and then I’d put it on my site. It was just learn as you go.

I was very familiar with the social media so that wasn’t a really big deal for me. But when I first started, I had no intention of blogging full-time. It was just really this thing that I really, really loved. I wanted to share my passion for food and nutrition with other people. It was about two years when I thought, “Okay, maybe I could do this full-time.” It involved me really working on it, every single night after work pretty much, and my weekends were devoted to photography and recipe testing. So it was basically working two full-time jobs for a long time.

The photography was a huge thing because I took one photography class in high school, and I was pretty good with it, but I had no idea what I was doing. I think it was about a year into my blog when I bought a Canon DSLR and started taking shots that were a little more professional. Before I was taking it with my point-and-shoot, and things were blurry. And I think no one really cared at that point. I got my professional camera, and things really changed, and I had to really pay attention. The whole editing process, it can take up to two or three hours. So that was really time consuming for me, and I had to learn how to, I guess, get that time down so that I was able to still blog and have my job.

On Turning Her Blog into Her Full-Time Career:

I really had to be strategic about what I was doing on social media. So that meant scheduling out my Facebook posts, scheduling out things on Pinterest and on Twitter. That was a really critical step, and then just making sure that I had a content calendar for myself. When I first started, I would just post whenever I felt like it, when I had time. Once I started committing to three posts a week or even more than that, I saw my traffic increase tremendously. It was crazy growth. I think that was a step in taking it full-time and also being organized and financially ready.

I thought about it every day for six months, and I remember I would complain about how much I didn’t like my job and how much I wanted to blog full-time. I think it just took a lot of courage to be able to do it. And so after six months of complaining, one day, I really didn’t have a plan. I was going to wait three more months, and then one day, I was just like, “Okay, if I’m going to do it, I’m going to do this.” So I went into my job, and I handed in my two weeks, and that was it, never looked back.

On Her Passion for Health and Fitness:

It was definitely something I picked up along the way. I really wasn’t conscious about the food that I was putting in my body until about my junior year of college. I was just at a point where I had gained weight. I was unhappy with the way I looked. I was not very confident. For me, it was this breaking point where I was like, “Oh my gosh, I can’t keep eating ranch or ketchup and french fries all the time.” So really for me, I had to teach myself about nutrition. I read every single women’s fitness and nutrition magazine out there. I purchased books. I just taught myself how to make healthy, wholesome meals. That was really my foundation. I don’t have a professional background in nutrition, but it’s very much become a passion of mine.

On a Misconception of Eating Healthy:

I think that people think that it’s really, really boring, and just because it’s ‘clean eating’ or ‘healthy eating’ that it’s just a chicken breast and asparagus and a sweet potato every single night. That was what I thought about it. It was just like, “It’s so boring. You can never have a burger,” but that’s not necessarily true. I think you can make really beautiful, healthy food, and it’s all about having nutritious ingredients.

When I first started, I was using a lot of sugar-free things because I thought that that meant that they were healthy, and I think a lot of people might think low-fat or sugar-free, but as I continued to learn about food and health, I learned that it’s good to have those healthy fats like avocados and nut butters and coconut oil and lean meats and vegetables. So that was a really big step in learning how to eat healthy for me.

You can be healthy and have nutritious food, but it doesn’t have to be boring. You just have to figure out a way to make the ingredients work for you.

On a Simple Way to Start Eating More Healthy:

I think the simplest way is probably meal prep, so making a list and going to the grocery store prepared so that you’re not buying a bunch of things that are unnecessary. What I like to do is plan out my meals before I go to the store. So I’ll say, “Where are all the ingredients I need? How can I make this meal a little more nutritious? Maybe adding in spinach to pasta,” or something like that. That has been a game changer for me.

On Her Summer Sweat Series:

I have a really good friend named Lee, and she also runs a blog called, Fit Foodie Finds. We’ve been friends for a few years. We both grew up in Minnesota, and one time we were on this vacation together, and we just thought, “Oh my gosh, what if we put together a fitness and nutrition program and just see what people thought about it?” We started the Summer Sweat series back in June. It was a six-week challenge, and people were just so in love with it. It came with meal plans. There were a bunch of different workouts. We worked with a personal trainer. So it was just something fun and different and a great way to bring traffic to both of our sites during what we call the summer slump where everyone’s outside and not on the Internet. So yeah, we’re doing it again this year, and we’re really, really excited.

The Pressure Cooker:

Which food shows or cooking shows do you watch?

I was a fan of Food Network Star for a really long time. Anytime that Food Network or Cooking Channel was on, I would watch anything on there, but Food Network Star was probably my favorite.

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

I really, really love What’s Gaby Cooking, and she has just a really great approach to healthy and indulgent food, and beautiful photography. You can pretty much find any recipe you’re looking for. FoodieCrush is another great one. If you like baking, Sarah of Broma Bakery who I think has already been on your site, is a very good friend of mine, and for healthy recipes, Skinnytaste is another good one.

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

I really like following Andie Mitchell. She wrote a book, a memoir actually, and she’s just really inspiring and just a fantastic woman. It’s been so fun to follow her journey. She’s lost over 130 pounds and is just truly inspirational. So I follow her on Instagram, and then also I follow her blog.

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

I have an avocado slicer. It’s really helpful, so I don’t have to do it with my knife and chop off my hand when I’m try to get the pit out. It does it all for you.

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

Olives. My brother told me when I was a little girl that olives were, I think he said snails. I was five and I believed him for the longest time. Every time I looked at olives, it was just gross to me, but now I love them, especially black olives. I love putting them on my pizza and in my salads.

What are a few cookbooks that make your life better?

I have a lot of cookbooks. Skinnytaste, she has the website and she also came out with a really great cookbook. I love it because my boyfriend tends to not eat healthy but it has a lot of healthy meals, so we cook from it. Another great one is, Back In The Day Bakery cookbook. It’s just a fun baking one. There are a lot of cakes and cookies and pies, so I always use that for when I’m baking for my family and special occasions. I think those are my go-to’s.

What song or album just makes you want to cook?

Anything by Florence and the Machine. She’s amazing.

On Keeping Posted with Monique:

I would say either Instagram or Facebook.

108: Emily Stoffel: How Cooking Changes with Parenthood

February 3, 2016 by Gabriel Leave a Comment

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The Pig & Quill

Emily started The Pig & Quill in 2012, and most recipes on her blog are heavy on the plants and low on refined sugars and starches though she is a firm believer in moderation. She is also a new mom.

I am so happy to have Emily Stoffel of The Pig & Quill joining me here on the show today.

(*All photos below are Emily’s.)

On Cooking as a New Parent:

It’s definitely driven a little bit more by convenience. I used to just cook whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted, and now, a lot of what we are doing in the house is meals, particularly dinners, where you can prep a lot of things in advance a little bit here and there throughout the day. I can prep a little bit during the first nap. I can prep a little bit during the second nap. And then by the time she goes to sleep, and we’re having dinner at night, there’s very little that’s required to bring it together, and we can still eat at a reasonable hour.

A lot of that is relying on things like a slow cooker, or, I use my rice cooker for everything. I’m cooking a lot of things in the broiler. I didn’t used to do that a bunch, but it’s such a fast way to cook protein. So that’s changed my game a little.

And my husband’s a great sport about the fact that we eat the same three or four meals in rotation, which we did not used to do. It used to be something different every night. We just have go-to’s that we know we can pull off in a moment’s notice. So there’s a lot of that, but still trying to keep things interesting.

I wasn’t such a really big proponent of the slow cooker actually before I had Lana. I know a lot of people are super hardcore slow cooker fans. I guess I just didn’t really give it a chance. I thought, “Oh, it’s for everything. Let it go…Whatever. I can do the same thing on my stove,” but it is really nice to be able to start something in the morning and then be able to leave the house and run errands or whatever and come back. I use my rice cooker for oatmeal which makes breakfast a no-brainer. So one of us can get up in the morning and start the oatmeal.

When we first had Lana, when she was a newborn, one of us would sneak out of bed before she would wake up in the morning, because she sleeps in our room, and put out all the oatmeal toppings and the ingredients and everything and set it. And then by the time she was up, it was ready to go. So we wouldn’t have to worry about making breakfast for ourselves. So yeah, I use that. I even hard-boil eggs in my rice cooker.

It’s pretty incredible. If you have a steamer insert, you just throw the eggs on top while you cook the rice. The time the rice is done, your eggs are done, and it’s perfect. If you want soft-boiled eggs, you can do it when you cook your white rice. And if you want hardboiled eggs, you do it when you cook your brown rice.

On Putting a Meal Together Quickly:

I mentioned that I like to use the broiler a lot. So I marinate a protein throughout the day. And then I can just pop it in the broiler when Lana’s napping or goes down for the night. And it usually just takes ten minutes to cook a protein that way.

I have a couple recipes on my blog. One is the shoyu chicken, and that’s super easy. It’s just chicken thighs that you marinate, and broil, and serve it with white rice or whatever side you want. And then the other one is a pumpkin curry which takes a little bit longer to do, but again, it’s something where I can do different elements throughout the day. And then it’s topped with a crispy, spice crusted tofu, and that is done completely under the broiler.

And even if you just look at the recipe for the tofu element, we put that tofu on salads. Sometimes, I just have it in a bowl with roasted veggies. So even if you’re not into curry or you’re not doing the pumpkin curry part of it, the tofu is super clutch. We do that all the time.

On How to Make Cooking Fun:

This is a cop out, but when we had Lana at first, we did a lot of the grocery meal delivery kits that are popular right now. I know that there’s Sun Basket, and there’s HelloFresh. And I know a lot of different ones that folks do. Some are organic, some are not. And that’s something that I probably never would have considered doing before I had kids. But it’s fun because they have the instructions written out so clearly step-by-step with those meal kits that it’s super easy for two people to tag team a recipe. You can just say, “Here’s where I started,” or “I left off at this step.”

Unlike some recipes, traditional recipes, including the ones that I write, a lot of times, the items that you have to prepare are called out in a different color or something like that, so you can see exactly what you need to do to this fruit or to this vegetable before it goes to the cooking stage. And you can break up the responsibilities that way.

We found those actually really helpful because it was a fast way to still be cooking together in the kitchen, something that was homemade. But A, you don’t have to go to the grocery store and B, just the way that the recipe is written, it’s really easy to do it on your own. But if you’re moving around the kitchen with multiple folks or something like that, it’s easy to make that come together.

The other thing that’s fun is we don’t go out a lot for dinner anymore. So when we’re feeling not super inspired, we’ll invite people over to just have hors d’ oeuvres here or something like that. And that’s a good way to get engaged about cooking again. You don’t feel like, “Oh my gosh, I’m just making dinner for myself to get by.” You feel like you’re entertaining which is a refreshing way to feel when you don’t get a lot of fun evening time. So that’s something that’s invigorated my time in the kitchen.

On Her Food Heroes:

Well, aside from my family, so my mom first and foremost, I learned so much from her just growing up in the kitchen, and her dad like I mentioned, just having exposure to that at a young age, and my dad as well.

In terms of people that inspired me, I guess if you think about the Nigella’s or Ina Garten, those types of folks even before Food Network was anywhere near where it is today, those were the types of folks where I just really admire. They’re cooking super un-fussy food that’s just delicious. It just tastes good. They don’t necessarily have a hook or a theme. They just make food that’s accessible and super tasty. And they deliver it in such a seductive and enticing way without really trying.

And I know that now, they’re these big brands, and they’ve got marketing up the wahoo. But back in the day of Yan Can Cook or The Frugal Gourmet, I used to watch those folks on PBS, and those were just people that cooked food that they knew they would enjoy. There wasn’t really any big spin to it.

Those are the types of folks that I think I learned the most from, just seeing their passion and seeing how that can translate into something that’s educational and entertaining. I also had a really unabashed girl crush on Giada when I was in college to the point where I would have dreams that we were best friends hanging out in Santa Monica. It was super creepy.

On Her Blog:

I had sat down with one of my good friends, and we were doing this life mapping of everything that we wanted to do in the next several years. And I told her that starting a blog was something that I really wanted to do, and I started The Pig & Quill without doing a lot of research, without coming up with a big plan for a brand or an image or even an idea of how the site would look.

It was just like I told her, “This is what I want to do.” We brainstormed a bunch of names. I bought the domain name, and then I sat on it for six months. And then it was bugging me that I had spent $13 to register this domain name and hadn’t done anything with it.

So Labor Day weekend of 2012, we actually stayed home that weekend, it was a stay-cation, and I was like, “Okay, this is the weekend that I’m going to start the blog,” and I launched it without a lot of research or anything. The images were awful, but it was exactly what I wanted it to be. It was just me talking about the food that I liked but also talking about how food fit into my life and adding a personal storyline to each post.

So yeah, it wasn’t really like, “Oh my gosh. I have this vision that I’m going to be a food blogger.” It was just something that I did spontaneously, and I’ve had to learn the ropes as I’ve gone along. Fortunately, there’s a ton of inspiration out there these days to help me grow, but it’s a crazy space, food blogging, because there’s so much opportunity and so many different angles and approaches that you can take with your blog. And I went into it with, like I said, with a really unclear vision. I was just like, “I’m going to get this up today.” And hindsight being 20-20, I would have mapped out my look and my voice a little more before I started, but finding my way has been part of the fun.

The Pressure Cooker:

Which food shows or cooking shows do you watch?

I watch Master Chef Jr. When I’m over at my in-laws or my mom’s house, I watch Chopped. That’s always fun. Sometimes, we pause it and say what we would do with the ingredients if we were given the basket. I don’t watch a lot food TV anymore these days.

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

Oh, wow. There are a lot. I really love i am a food blog. Everything that Stephanie makes I want to eat it immediately. Two Red Bowls, the photography is ridiculous, Fix Feast Flair, Kale & Caramel. I’ve only been reading Kale & Caramel in the last, probably, six months, but her voice is…I feel like I just want to be friends with Lily in real life. She cracks me up, and she does a really good job of doing what I really like doing in food blogs, which is pairing a little bit more of personal anecdotes with recipes. She does a lot of that.

Bev Cooks was one of the first food blogs that I read back in the day. She is hilarious. And she has two kiddos. They’re twins, and they’re the most adorable people ever. Her Instagram is just ridiculous. Wit & Vinegar, Billy’s really funny. I think his aesthetic is really different from anything that anyone else is doing.

I really like reading Dessert for Two because Christina’s got a little one that is Lana’s age. So it’s been fun reading her blog and seeing her daughter at the same stage that Lana’s at. We were pregnant at the same time. We’re not BFF’s or anything, but I stalked her throughout our pregnancies, and that was really fun.

Chocolate and Marrow, I really like Chocolate and Marrow. Brooke just does crazy, creative stuff, really, really delicious things, really indulgent and just beautiful stuff.

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

Snapchat, I just haven’t really gotten into yet. I would say of those things, I probably use Instagram the most. Violet Tinder, she’s really great. She has just a super rainbow-hued, really fun Instagram. And she does a lot of candy-colored things and water colors, and everything is just super poppy, neon bright. Miss New Foodie is really funny. She has some pretty funny captions for all of her indulgent eats.

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

The thing that’s most treasured in my current kitchen is not even mine because I rent, but it’s our stove. We have a vintage Wedgewood stove in this kitchen that’s incredible. It’s really petite. The oven portion is really petite, but it heats up super-fast and evenly. It’s got a legit broiler which I mentioned earlier that really gets the job done.

In terms of an appliance, I have a garlic press, the same garlic press that I mentioned earlier where I think it’s called the Garlic Twist. It’s like this big piece of acrylic. And rather than crushing garlic through it, you put the garlic in, and you twist it. And because it’s one piece of plastic, it rinses out super easily. I use it probably every day. It’s not like the garlic presses where there’s all the little holes that you have to get all the stuff out of.

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

I don’t really love mustard or I didn’t really love mustard, particularly yellow mustard, but I didn’t really use any mustard. And now, maybe because my husband is a huge mustard aficionado, I’ve come around on mustard. I actually really like hot horseradish-y mustards more so than a yellow mustard. But I used to really not be a fan of yellow mustard. I can at least tolerate it now.

What are a few cookbooks that make your life better?

I’m an awful baker, so I have to rely on cookbooks for baking or at least for measurements that I can gain inspiration from, so The Williams-Sonoma baking cookbook is really great. It’s got tons of cool recipes. But it’s also just good for if I need a jumping off point for an idea that I have.

I mentioned i am a food blog earlier, and her book Easy Gourmet is great. I’ve given it to a bunch of people because it’s just exactly what it says, easy gourmet. It’s really accessible. Anything by America’s Test Kitchen is good for the same reason as the Williams-Sonoma baking book. You just know that everything is really thoroughly tested, and it’s a good jumping off point. I still have a subscription to Bon Appétit and Gourmet. I know that that’s not a book, but those are good for keeping me aware of food trends and things like that.

What song or album just makes you want to cook?

Well, I always have this vision that if I ever quit my day job and I got to just spend all day cooking in my kitchen, that I would do it listening to Carole King or Adele on the record player. So I guess I’d say both of those ladies. Then for something maybe a little more poppy, I’ll dance in the kitchen to Britney Spears or Nelly Furtado, early 2000’s Nelly Furtado. The Who, it’s really fun.

On Keeping Posted with Emily:

I’m probably the most active on Instagram, and that is @thepigandquill or Facebook, and then Pinterest. I love Pinterest.

085: Lauren Grier: Teaching Herself and Others How to Cook

October 14, 2015 by Gabriel 4 Comments

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Climbing Grier Mountain

Lauren is a foodie, recipe developer, adventure seeker, photography lover, and world traveler. She started her blog, Climbing Grier Mountain, in 2010 to stay connected with family and since then, it has become her passion. It’s where she shares her shenanigans and most authentic self.

I am so excited to have Lauren Grier of Climbing Grier Mountain joining me here on the show today.

(*All images below are Lauren’s.)

On Being Such an Open Book:

Starting off, I grew up in a small town in Kansas. My husband and I met in college and we graduated and went right to the big city of Chicago. So I think that’s where my adventurous side was born. Chicago is… they throw you right in and you just have to start swimming and figure it out. From there, I just really opened up and figured out, you know what? There’s more to me than I think. I started writing my own story, just really being curious about why are things the way they are when it comes to cooking or travel or whatever it is.

It was definitely a cultural awakening, coming from a small town in Kansas to me just being around people that were challenging you every day in terms of growth. It was a great experience. I miss that city. I don’t miss the weather but it was definitely a great city to start my adventure.

On Starting Her Blog in 2010:

In general, there were no manuals for blogging. Today, you’ll see ‘how to start a blog 101’. Back then, it was like the Wild West in terms of like you’re still using Blogger as a platform and it was just a very quiet space. People were trying to figure out photography and just how to share in general on the Internet because all these platforms were starting to pop up. So that was the biggest challenge. I had to do a lot more research, a lot more trial and errors. I feel like today, it’s a lot easier for bloggers to start up because there is a manual out there. There is ‘how to improve your photography’, ‘how to write recipes’ and those kind of things, and how to really actually start the blog from the ground up. Whereas, I feel like in 2010, it was not the case at all.

I mean, most people never say they dreamed about making money back in the day, but now, people literally start blogging to make money and it’s amazing to me. I think it’s fantastic, it’s just a different perspective now. I think this industry is growing and changing constantly. So it’ll be interesting to see where it’s at in two years.

On Her Interest Around Food:

I hated cooking and when I got married, I didn’t even know how to boil water. It was that bad. I took on the concept and when we moved from Chicago to Denver, I was working in the financial industry. I still am today but at the time, when the market crashed, I lost my job and between looking for jobs and interviews, I watched the Food Network during the day and I was like, “You know what, I’m a newlywed. I probably should learn how to brown meat or do something functional so we can eat and not eat out all the time.” So from there, I just literally, with the blog, I was like, “You know what? If I can teach myself how to cook, maybe I can teach others,” and it slowly progressed. So no, my love for cooking didn’t form probably until about 10 years ago. So it’s kind of funny.

It was actually kind of a funny story. So, it was a Giada recipe and it was for a swordfish bake sandwich with some arugula and lemon aioli, which was basically like Mandarin to me at the time because I had no idea what aioli was. I remember going to the store and getting all of the ingredients and I came home and you know, I put some oil in a pan. Well, I threw a solid chunk of swordfish into a frying pan. Can you imagine this? This is literally almost burning down the house. My husband walks in. He’s like, “What are you doing?” I’m like, “What? This is normal, right? You just throw in a frozen solid piece of fish into a hot skillet.” And he’s like, “No, you don’t.” I’m like, “Oh my God.” So it was a huge learning curve right there but we ended up saving the fish and it actually ended up being a really, really good sandwich and it was fantastic and I’ve been obsessed with lemon aioli and arugula and swordfish ever since.

It’s a funny story now. At the time, it was a little close to call in terms of almost burning down the house but yeah.

On Her Go-To Sources for Inspiration:

I have a couple. I mean, you have your standards like Food & Wine and Bon Appétit, they’re kind of always my go-to to make sure I’m staying with the industry and what’s going on and what’s relevant. I do look for other bloggers as inspiration. Jessica from How Sweet It Is is great. Joy the Baker is a nice kind of contrast because I’m not a baker so it’s nice to get like, “Oh, that’s what people do when they bake.” But I’m also inspired a lot by Heidi from FoodieCrush. She’s probably one of my favorite blogs to look at for inspiration because she does things so simple but they’re also creative as well.

On Deciding on What to Make for Dinner or Her Blog:

It’s interesting. I feel like it’s a simple process but it’s also like an easy process in terms of my cooking during the week is your basic chicken, potatoes, broccoli, rice. I just keep it simple because, to me, when I do stuff for the blog, it’s more adventurous. When I decide what I want to do for the blog, I always look at those simple meals that I make during the week and then I’m like, “How can we tweak this? How can we take a simple meal and then just take it to another level, like take a Middle Eastern twist on it or an Asian twist on it?” I think people get stuck in a rut, like I do, too. Just take the extra couple of minutes to figure out where else you can go with it.

On the Difference in Food Culture Between Denver and Chicago:

Denver is geared towards healthy lifestyle. Everything is outdoors, versus Chicago, I mean, Chicago is healthy, it’s just it’s more like heartier foods. So to me, when I moved here, my palette definitely changed. I still kind of keep things more towards a lighter side in cooking, whether it’s more fresh ingredients, local, those kinds of things just because Colorado has such a different dynamic. Like I was talking earlier, Colorado’s very centered around brunch. If you don’t have a good brunch at a restaurant, you can kiss your tuckus goodbye because you’re not going to be around. Or happy hour, those things. So my food is definitely geared around kind of those…you can eat it for breakfast, lunch and dinner types of food versus like your three standard meals like in Chicago.

The Pressure Cooker:

Which food shows or cooking shows do you watch?

I watch Restaurant Impossible. I love Robert, probably because we own restaurants and so when people go in there, I’m like, “Oh my God, they have no idea.”

I love Top Chef. I mean, I watch that. Quickfire Challenge, you name it, I would love to do it.

I probably would cry crocodile tears while I’m doing it but it would be the most fun ever. Plus I would love to meet Tom Colicchio.

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

Definitely Real Food by Dad. Matt is amazing. He kind of is similar to the way I cook. His recipes are simple but also you’re like, “Damn, that is such a great idea.” And also, My Name is Yeh. She’s addicting. She has the best smile. Her recipes are just so fun. And also, Heidi at FoodieCrush. She’s a mentor. She’s good at what she does. She has a great editorial background and I think people could really learn a lot from her.

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

Instagram is probably my most go-to as most people probably say. Ashlae from Oh, Ladycakes, her Instagram is this beautiful portfolio. She travels and creates beautiful food and to me, she makes it just look effortless. So to me, I appreciate that even though I know there’s some background to it. She’s just a really nice person in general too.

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

My onion goggles, no joke. I hate cutting onions and my husband got a gag gift one year, like someone gave him a pair of onion goggles. I was like, “This is ridiculous.” I tried them on. I’m telling you, they are lifesavers and no more tears. I look like a total dork but I swear, they’re my most treasured thing in the kitchen.

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

Tabasco, which is funny because I literally just this past week, I did a whole week series with Tabasco. My husband loves Tabasco and so till I married him, I learned to love Tabasco. I love it now more than anything. It’s the best condiment ever.

What are a few cookbooks that make your life better?

I always keep Jacques Pepin’s Essentials cookbook. The man is a genius and he’s been around forever and he knows so I pull that constantly just to remember how to make an aioli from scratch. To me, it’s a brilliant cookbook in terms of like, he’ll give you recipes but he’ll also break down what you need to know in a very simplified manner. It’s not over the top. It’s straightforward. I can’t recommend that book enough. It literally is a lifesaver.

What song or album just makes you want to cook?

Like I mentioned earlier, Jason Isbell, his album, Southeastern. Me and my husband actually saw him in New York City live. He is probably one of the best artists to listen to because he’s a great storyteller and I feel like that is a basic way of when you’re cooking and you’re photographing and sharing this, it’s the perfect way just to set the tone of what you’re doing. He’s extremely talented and a wonderful singer and I highly recommend you check him out. He’s great.

On Keeping Posted with Lauren:

Definitely Instagram, Snapchat, and just checking out the blog because I am out there and constantly just trying to create recipes. I’m always there if you need me. So always check out the blog.

073: Joanne Ozug: Cooking From Scratch with Natural Ingredients

September 2, 2015 by Gabriel 4 Comments

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Fifteen Spatulas

Joanne has a deep molecular interest in food. On her blog, and YouTube channel, she not only shares recipes using whole foods and natural ingredients, Joanne focuses on explaining the how’s and why’s of cooking and tries to encourage us to cook from scratch.

I am so happy to have Joanne Ozug of Fifteen Spatulas joining me here on the show today.

(*All images below are Joanne’s.)

On Her Blog:

It was about five years ago. I had a background in finance and business and economics, and I just hit this wall where I was like, “I am not liking this at all.” I just was really unhappy, and I really wanted to do something in food. I loved food probably since I was in the womb. I love food. And at the time I was living rural Georgia. My husband is in the Navy, and he was stationed in this really rural part in southern Georgia, like an hour from Honey Boo Boo, just to give you an idea of how rural it was. So there wasn’t a lot of food opportunity down there. So I decided to start the blog as something that could serve as an online resume or like some body of work where I could pour my recipes and stuff into while we were stationed down there, because we moved around a lot. I knew it was going to be somewhat temporary but just something for me to do. I had no idea what it would turn into but that’s how I started.

On Her YouTube Channel:

Since the beginning of Fifteen Spatulas, I’ve always done step-by-step photos, because when I started there wasn’t a lot of that and you’d see a picture of a recipe and it’s like, “That’s great, but how does it look in the middle?” So I focused on step-by-step photos and then there were some recipes where the photos, it almost wasn’t enough. It would have been better explained if I could do it in a video. So I started dabbling a little bit in video, and it’s interesting because when I first started on YouTube, it was just kind of a hosting platform to post videos on my blog. But I discovered that there was a separate different community on YouTube, so again, like the story of how I started, is a little bit different from how it is now and how it evolved. Originally, I just wanted to give people a little bit more information visually on how to make the recipes.

On Her Process for Her Videos:

It’s interesting because even YouTube and my blog, they like different foods. I’m still making food from scratch on both places, but they like different kinds of recipes. So for my YouTube, again I have that list where I write out some ideas and then I’ll refine them further, and I’ll start story boarding them and planning them out. Most of the stuff now I try to storyboard and script. I didn’t use to but it helps to do that. And so from there I’ll go ahead and I’ll film all the close-ups and then the wide shots and then edit, and then put it up. It’s not too bad actually. I’ve got it down to the steps to get me to the end.

The thing that’s tough for me about the blog is the writing part. I will bang out the photos, the recipe, everything will already be set to go, and the last part that I leave for the end is always the writing. It’s the hardest part for me. For a video, you kind of script a little bit but it’s not fully scripted, you’re just talking. So I feel like that’s not as hard for me.

Video requires a lot more work but you have that writing part always like, “What do I say? How do I be witty on the Internet?”

On Her Curiosity Around Cooking:

That definitely started later. I think early on from a young age, you’re like food is delicious! I love food. But you start making it, I remember I think some time in middle school, I started watching Food Network, and I feel like that’s really where my curiosity for the how’s and why’s of food really started. Because there’s some really amazing people on there. Like Alton Brown is one of my favorite people in food ever, and he’s the god of cooking technique and how-to’s. So that’s kind of where it started.

I feel like if you know certain concepts, then you can stray away from recipes. And just cook based on what you find at the grocery store that’s interesting. There’s just a freedom that comes with knowing those basic things, where you can truly become a cook on your own instead of making recipes. There’s nothing wrong with that to start, of course, but that’s why I love it so much, is you can just play around a lot more when you know the rules of the road.

On Cooking From Scratch with Whole Foods and Natural Ingredients:

I ate so much junky processed foods when I was younger. The turning point for me was my freshman year in college. I was so sick. I was throwing up every night, going to the hospital, sometimes I had to have an endoscopy and seeing these GI doctors, and they couldn’t figure out what was wrong and why I was throwing up every day. I was not bulimic or any of that stuff, it was uncontrolled, I just felt so sick. And my GI doctor thought that maybe I should try making my own food. So he wrote me a letter to get out of the school meal plan.

It was just so processed and gross, so I started cooking just in my college dorm room from scratch, just with wholesome real ingredients, real food, and I wasn’t sick anymore. The thing that’s crazy about that is there have been times where I’ve gone to potlucks where I knew there was processed food, like when people are saying, “I made three boxes of mashed potatoes.” I’m like, “Boxes of mashed potatoes? Mashed potatoes don’t come in boxes.” My husband and I both would get sick after we eat that.

So it’s just a reminder of that at least for my body, and I won’t speak for everyone, but for my body, I need to eat food where I know what’s in it and it’s wholesome real food.

It’s so funny because I think cooking from scratch can be laborious, if you make, beef bourguignon or something. But there are so many recipes from scratch that are quick and easy, and totally delicious. I feel like it’s just totally a stigma that exists for whatever reason for some people until they find out or, they’re shown by someone that, “Hey, that’s actually not hard at all.”

I’m not trying to knock on some of these products, but the pre-packaged pancake mix, for instance. I’d see someone make that and think, “You still have to add the eggs and the milk!” I have a great pancake recipe on my website called, 100% whole wheat pancakes, and I think it’s like five ingredients. People go absolutely crazy for them. They’re so easy.

On Some Resources For Learning to Cook from Scratch:

One publication I love that people probably already know about, but I really love America’s Test Kitchen and Cooks Illustrated. I love that they test things, like they’re science heavy behind the food, but they try to keep it relatively simple.

Probably my favorite YouTube channel right now is my friend, Gemma. Her channel is called, Gemma’s Bigger Bolder Baking. She’s a pastry chef from Ireland. She lives in California now. But she just has the most extravagant, ridiculous desserts, like totally out of control, but that’s how I think it should be. They’re just outrageous, but everyone can make them. They’re from scratch. They’re just gorgeous. My friend Alyssia from Mind Over Munch does a kind of healthier spin on some everyday foods, I really like that. I mean there’s so many, like SORTEDfood even. It’s four English guys and they just make food. It’s tons of banter and good eats and it’s a lot of fun.

The Pressure Cooker:

Which food shows or cooking shows do you watch?

I love Barefoot Contessa, and I love The Pioneer Woman show, Good Eats even though I don’t know if that’s on.

I love The Best Thing I Ever Ate, I love that show. Oh my gosh, I’ve gone to so many of those places they recommend to get what they love. I love Chopped too, even though it’s terrifying.

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

Some of my favorites are thelittlekitchen.net, Love and Olive Oil, that one is awesome. It’s my friend Lindsay. A farmgirl’s dabbles. I love Serious Eats, it’s not really a blog but a site, I love them.

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

I’m not on Pinterest much to be totally honest. I’m not a Pinterest person. I’m not having food people coming to mind, because Instagram I love following fashion people like Wendy’s Lookbook. Yeah, Wendy’s Lookbook comes to mind instantly.

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

I have this amazing, beautiful bowl that my best friend’s parents got for my wedding. It’s just a fruit bowl and I put onions, or bananas, whatever in there. And it just feels special because it’s for our wedding and I keep it out all the time, it’s really personal.

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

Cilantro. Oh, my gosh. I don’t know what on earth happened. I hated cilantro for so long. Now, I want it in everything.

I think I ate out at a couple of places and I’m like, “This has cilantro in it, but you know I feel like it’s doing some good here.” And it just kind of crept its way into my heart.

What are a few cookbooks that make your life better?

Okay, this is not really a cookbook. It’s more of a reference, but the Flavor Bible is the best cooking related book ever. You just go in and you’re like, “Hmm, I have some mangoes. Let’s see what pairs well with mangoes.” And it will tell you all the flavor affinities. What else do I love? I love Thomas Keller’s books too, I have a bunch of his.

What song or album just makes you want to cook?

Arctic Monkeys band, they have a lot of albums.

On Keeping Posted with Joanne:

I would say my Instagram or my Facebook. Those are my two favorites, so I tend to be on them a lot.

009: Courtney Chun: How To Find Inspiration And Learn To Cook From The Internet

March 6, 2015 by Gabriel Leave a Comment

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Fork to Belly

Courtney is relatively new to food blogging. She is a self-taught cook, and a true testament to how amazing the Internet is. Courtney claims to have learned everything, when it comes to cooking, from Google, YouTube videos, and other blogs.

I am so happy to have Courtney Chun of Fork to Belly joining me on the show today.

On Her Newly Discovered Passion for Food:

I would have to say it started maybe about a year ago. I was in my senior year of college.

Before then, I really never even spent that much time in the kitchen, and didn’t really have any experience working at a restaurant or anything. Then, I met my boyfriend. His dad owns a restaurant chain in Hawaii called Roy’s. He actually worked in the kitchen, so, I saw him making food in the kitchen, and I would help out.

I guess after that, I would watch YouTube videos of people making cupcakes or cookies. I would see different recipes on Pinterest, then I just started trying them myself. I mean, it didn’t always work out.

After a while, I got into cooking, and just really enjoying it. That’s how I got started with it. I never went to cooking school or anything. I don’t have professional skills. They’re still very basic.

On Starting Her Blog:

I always wanted to start some kind of blog. One of my friends mentioned to me, “You should start a food blog.” I was like, “Oh, yeah. That would be a good idea.”

I guess because on Instagram, I would post a lot of pictures of what I made. Another friend approached me, and she also started a fashion blog. She was just telling me you always think, “Maybe I don’t have enough experience, maybe my photography skills aren’t good enough, or my cooking skills aren’t good enough.” But that’s the whole point of the blog. If you don’t start it at some point, it’s never going to get done.

She was like, “Even if you don’t think you’re ready, maybe you should just go for it, and just see how it goes. Even if it’s not something you enjoy, then you can take a break, and stop.” So she helped me to get started.

I majored in Multimedia Arts, so I learned a lot of photography skills. I took a lot of web design classes, so that gave me a basis, a platform, to start my blog off.

I read a lot of blogger posts about how they got started, a lot of them say they have completely no experience with the photography or with web design. But they do have the cooking experience. I guess I’m a little opposite because I have the photography skills, and the web design skills, but I’m still really new to cooking. It’s kind of funny.

On Food Styling and Photography:

Food styling, sometimes I’ll be trying to put down all these plates, or arrange the forks, and it’s just not working out. I see other pictures on Pinterest and it looks so beautiful. I’m like, “I wish I could do something like that.” So I’m still definitely learning about the food styling. I’ve always been into art and design so maybe that background kind of helped.

The most helpful tip that I think I read on some blog, is that you just look at pictures that you really like. Let’s say for Pinterest as an example. You look at the type of plates they use, or maybe what kind of wooden table it’s on, or the colors. You learn that way. You read from the photo, internalize it, and think about how this can help when you’re actually doing your own food styling.

Photography’s just a whole other beast, aside from the cooking part. It’s huge. I don’t even have that much equipment. I know some bloggers, they have all the lights. They have all the different backdrops and stuff. They have really great lenses, a tripod, and stuff like that. I don’t even have all of those things.

On Learning How to Cook From the Internet:

I’ll look for inspiration through Pinterest. I use Pinterest a ton. If I see a photo of something that looks really good, like a cake or some kind of dish, I usually click on the link, and then I go to their page. I see the process about what the food blogger did to get there. That gives me inspiration.

One example is I’m thinking about doing these peach lavender Pop-Tarts because I saw a photo of homemade Pop-Tarts on Pinterest. I looked at how she did it. Then, I just go to Google, and I type in “homemade Pop-Tarts recipe.”

You know how sometimes when you Google recipes, you’ll see they have ratings on them? Normally, the higher rated ones, I’ll look at those. I’ll see what ingredients they used or the steps they took. For most recipes that are simple, it’s kind of the same process, so you can jump off it from that. You combine both, or all the recipes, and what you think might work out.

For certain recipes, like the ginger bread cake I made, and the one that you found me out from; I came across her ginger bread cake. I was like, “Oh my God, this looks so good.” Then, I search for other ginger bread cakes. They weren’t what I was looking for. So I just stuck with her recipe. It was a beautiful recipe, everything worked out really well.

For certain instances, I do use Google to help me. I also sometimes will just take a complete recipe from a blogger, then, of course, I credit them, and make sure they get some publicity from that, too.

On Cooking Through Trial and Error

I think sometimes I just may get really lucky with certain recipes, but I’ve definitely had my fair share of ones that have failed.

I did a lemon tart.

I was using my mom’s kitchen because I’m at home in Hawaii right now. I was using her kitchen for the first time. I never really cooked when I lived at home because she would always cook. She has an electric stove and at home I have a gas stove. So hers would heat differently and I didn’t really understand the temperature differences.

I was trying to make the tart filling. I guess the recipe said that you have to pre-cook it a little bit. I had it on the stove and I think I was doing something else in the kitchen. Then, all of a sudden, I hear bubbling on the stove. I run to the stove. I look and it’s like this omelet. I was like, “Now what do I do?” I used up all the ingredients.

I had to go back to the store. I was just so, “I want to be done with this recipe already.” Sometimes it doesn’t turn out how I want it to. I guess that comes with the territory, nothing’s always going to work.

On Good Online Resources for Learning to Cook:

I think YouTube is really great.

You just Google in, “How do I cut a mango?” I remember that was one of the things that I had to learn because when you cut through, it’s just the seed and you can’t really peel it away. It’s not like an avocado. It was just cutting around it and making this huge mess the first couple of times I did it. I eventually Googled about it.

I feel like sometimes it’s hard to explain certain things like that in writing. So it definitely helps to see videos on YouTube where you can just type in “How do I cut a mango?” You see a guy actually do it, and you have that visualization so that when you do it yourself, you understand it more.

The Pressure Cooker:

Which food shows or cooking shows do you watch?

I definitely watch Hell’s Kitchen. I love Cupcake Wars.

I love the one that Gordon Ramsay does where he fixes up restaurants or restaurants that aren’t doing well. It breaks my heart to watch it, and it makes me feel bad, but you can’t stop watching it.

I still love watching Ina Garten when she cooks, too, on the Food Network.

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

I love Food 52. I love their shop. I always look at everything on their shop and I’m like, “Oh my God. This is so expensive but I really want it.”

I feel like they have really good food recipes that they share from other bloggers.

I still love YouTube a lot. I like watching Nerdy Nummies. It’s just really fun. It’s just so creative. I just love watching her show.

I think my top three favorite food blogs to look at right now are Local Milk Blog, My Name is Yeh and I am a Food Blog. I love their photography. I love when they post new recipes.

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

In the food blog world, I definitely enjoy seeing Local Milk’s blog posts. She just blows my mind at how talented she is.

I really enjoy Two Red Bowls. I really like her posts because she does a lot of Asian foods, too. They’re not really well known Asian dishes, at least not to American people. That inspires me because I’m full Chinese. I enjoy sharing these dishes with other people. My mom’s third generation, so we don’t really have experience trying to make these really traditional dishes. When I see other food bloggers making traditional Chinese dishes, that’s a heart warming thing too because it’s getting to see your culture. It’s also the beautiful styling that she puts into it.

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

I definitely think my Ninja Blender has been a godsend. You can use it to make smoothies. It’s also a huge food processor because it has the long blades in it.

Since I’ve been back home here, I don’t have it with me. When I look at a recipe and I go to make it, I’m like, “Oh no. I don’t have my Ninja Blender.” My mom, she has this food processor where it’s manual. It’s this weird technology but you press it down, then the food processor spins. It gets so strenuous. I’m just missing my Ninja Blender so much.

Name one ingredient you cannot live without?

I would say butter or eggs.

I go through so much butter, and so many eggs. I literary, at one point, had three cartons of eggs in my fridge. I was trying to make a cake, and for a cake you need eight eggs or something. Those are the ingredients that I always need to have on hand.

What are a few cookbooks that make your life better?

It’s not really a cookbook. My grandma, she used to write down all her recipes. She would put them together in this folder. I’ve actually been able to look back at her recipes, and see the things she’s made.

It’s kind of funny because I haven’t eaten it since I was really young. But then, I see the name and I read through the ingredients. I don’t have to see the finished product. I can just read through the ingredients, see the steps, and I’m like, “Oh yeah, that’s what I was eating. Or that’s what she made me before.”

It’s been really nice to be able to have that, and be able to physically hold it instead of having the recipe written down on the Internet because you can see her handwriting.

It’s just really personal. It’s something I really cherish.

What song or album just makes you want to cook?

I love listening to audio books. I really enjoy reading. A lot of the time, I don’t really have the time to sit down and read with my eyes. I wish we all had four arms and four eyes because then I could do two things at once.

When I’m in the kitchen, you’re cooking or you’re using your hands, and you’re using your eyes but you’re not really using your ears. I enjoy just listening to an audio book.

Then, I also have the book myself so later on I can go back to the book and continue to read. It’s been really helpful because I feel like sometimes in the kitchen, not that I get bored, but having something to listen to, to keep your mind going, really helps and makes me enjoy the process of cooking more.

Keep Posted on Courtney:

I definitely think just following my blog.

I just made a new place where you could subscribe to it and then you get emails when I post new dishes.

My blog is the best way because I don’t always post what I’m making on Instagram. So definitely forktobelly.com.

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

On Relearning to Cook Gluten-Free:

On a Simple First Step to Making Healthier Choices:

On a Dish That’s Special to Her:

The Pressure Cooker:

On Keeping Posted with Beth:

On Finding Time to Write About Her Food Adventures:

On Turning Her Blog into Her Full-Time Career:

On Her Passion for Health and Fitness:

On a Misconception of Eating Healthy:

On a Simple Way to Start Eating More Healthy:

On Her Summer Sweat Series:

The Pressure Cooker:

On Keeping Posted with Monique:

On Cooking as a New Parent:

On Putting a Meal Together Quickly:

On How to Make Cooking Fun:

On Her Food Heroes:

On Her Blog:

The Pressure Cooker:

On Keeping Posted with Emily:

On Being Such an Open Book:

On Starting Her Blog in 2010:

On Her Interest Around Food:

On Her Go-To Sources for Inspiration:

On Deciding on What to Make for Dinner or Her Blog:

On the Difference in Food Culture Between Denver and Chicago:

The Pressure Cooker:

On Keeping Posted with Lauren:

On Her Blog:

On Her YouTube Channel:

On Her Process for Her Videos:

On Her Curiosity Around Cooking:

On Cooking From Scratch with Whole Foods and Natural Ingredients:

On Some Resources For Learning to Cook from Scratch:

The Pressure Cooker:

On Keeping Posted with Joanne:

On Her Newly Discovered Passion for Food:

On Starting Her Blog:

On Food Styling and Photography:

On Learning How to Cook From the Internet:

On Cooking Through Trial and Error

On Good Online Resources for Learning to Cook:

The Pressure Cooker:

Keep Posted on Courtney:

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