Hummingbird High | The Dinner Special podcast

124: Robyn Holland: Baking Up a Whole New Way to Treat Yourself

May 25, 2016 by Gabriel Leave a Comment

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Sweetish.co

Robyn launched her blog in 2015 after a decade of dabbling in storytelling through writing, baking, and photography. She is obsessed with people and food, and her food experiences range from working in professional bakeries to teaching cooking classes to freelance baking and cooking for clients. Robyn firmly believes there is joy in treating yourself when you treat yourself well.

I am so excited to have Robyn Holland of Sweetish.co on the show today.

(*All photos below are Robyn’s.)

On A Whole New Way to Treat Yourself:

We played around with that tagline and that purpose a lot, and we would like to incorporate a lot more how-to on things for people to learn, so a lot of educational stuff, instead of just a recipe.

I think one of the big things that I wanted to do is bust through some of these food rumors, like what is really good for you versus what isn’t good for you at all. I know it seems oxymoronic,…I don’t know the right word…but ironically, even, because I do talk so much about desserts. But I’m very specific with the ingredients that I’ll use, and I would like to introduce produce and different flours, gluten-free options, just fun stuff like that into our everyday baking. So I really wanted to come at it from that angle and that approach. Sweetish to me, I wanted to create this online bakery, and bakeries don’t just have sweets, they have savory, too, incorporating that concept.

On Learning How to Bake:

The first dish I probably learned to bake were chocolate chip cookies. And my mom, she’s a really good cook, and my Grandma was a really good cook, and I just learned. I remember making pizza dough with my dad in the kitchen, just for fun, when I was little, six years old. And so we just were very much a family of food and always making things. And baking from scratch has just been a big part of my upbringing.

And then when I moved away for university, for college, I was like, “Okay, I’ve got to do this on my own.” That’s probably when I really fell in love with it even more because it was just me in the kitchen. I realized I could create all of these different things and started taking food science classes. I actually started working in a bakery. So it just escalated from there, really just wanting to learn.

On What it’s Like Baking Wedding Cakes:

Very terrifying, yes, very. I am not a culinary institute graduate. I learned from some amazing bakers at the bakeries I’ve worked at. But I felt very like, “Oh, my gosh. I don’t know how to do this.” So luckily the style of the cakes that they wanted were very much me, very, very simple and flowers here and there and different things like that, and they just wanted them to taste good and be pretty. So I’ve done freelance work like that. It’s super nerve-racking. The transportation of wedding cakes is the worst. It’s like, “Okay. Oh, my gosh. I forgot about this, and I forgot about having to drop them off somewhere.”

But that concept of just very simple, very, very simple and very homemade. Pretty, but very homemade, and that’s really the feeling I wanted to bring into Sweetish, very approachable, very homemade. There are some incredibly beautiful cakes and different things out there, and I’m just like, “Gosh, I’m so simple compared to that.” I really don’t want to hassle a lot with food or with baking. I want it to be easy, I want it to be really good, and I want to know what’s in my baked goods.

That approach was definitely taken into the wedding cakes. They didn’t have to do a bunch of sugar art or anything like that and just did really simple, beautiful.

On a Dish That is Special to Her:

There are so many. I don’t know if I will even ever post about this, but one dish that we used to make growing up… We have a lot of Danish heritage, and we called it cream eggs on toast. We would butter toast, we’d get really good bread, and we’d just toast it, and every kid would have a fun job in the kitchen for preparing this meal. And it probably sounds really gross, but it was really good. We’d tear toast up, and then my mom would make this cream sauce, like a Béchamel sauce. And then we would have hard boiled eggs, and you would mix the white part of the hard boiled eggs with the cream sauce. And then you’d pour it over these little pieces of buttered toast, and then you’d crumble the egg yolk on top. That was some sort of Danish thing that my Grandma would make. I don’t even know.

It was a super cheap dinner, but we loved dipping our little pieces of toast in this cream sauce with egg. Even now, it probably wouldn’t even be half as good, but it was just such a special memory that we were involved and making this special dish growing up. There are so many more that probably sound so much more appealing than that.

The Pressure Cooker:

Which food shows or cooking shows do you watch?

I love Gordon Ramsay, his show. I’ve kind of been watching old shows, though. I love Cooked…That’s a documentary series…and Chef’s Table on Netflix, both of those. And then anything that has to do with Barefoot Contessa I watch all the time. Those are probably my top ones.

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

There are so many. There are a few that I have been obsessed with lately. I love Sprouted Kitchen. She’s probably my favorite blogger out there, and I’ve read her blog probably the longest. I love With Food And Love, I love Sherrie, what she’s doing…and I love Heartbeet Kitchen. That’s another one. She just has beautiful photography. You can just feel her sunshine through her posts. I love Hummingbird High. I think she does awesome bakery goods stuff, and I love what she’s doing. There are a bazillion.

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

I follow probably more people on Instagram than anything else. I love following Apartment Therapy for different things for kitchen ideas because I dream of having an amazing kitchen some day. I love Hey, Sweet Pea. They’re really fun and inspirational, and they’re a husband/wife team that have started their own business. They started the branding program that I had mentioned previously, so they’re super inspiring.

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

I’ll go with unusual. I bought this super weird pie rack…I wish I could show it to you…but it looks like chicken coop circles. And I guess it was something that they used to cool pies on, and it looks like an empty wired cake pan. You’re supposed to put a pie to cool on top and then a pie to cool on the middle. I saw it at this cool store up in northern California, and I was like, “What is that?” They told me it was a pie cooling rack. So I don’t even know if it really is, but I had my eyes on it.

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

Raw onions. I used to hate raw onions, and now I like them. If I’m putting them in sauces and stuff or dressings, it can’t be a ton, but I definitely have learned to like them more.

What are a few cookbooks that make your life better?

Barefoot Contessa at Home, it’s one of my favorite cookbooks ever. I love Huckleberry. That’s one of my favorite cookbooks. The Violet Bakery Cookbook. I love her stuff. Those are some good ones.

Barefoot Contessa, the original cookbook, is one of my favorite cookbooks of all time. That is the cookbook that got me cooking.

What song or album just makes you want to cook?

I love listening to the Lumineers. They’re my favorite. And then I love listening to The Black Keys, and sometimes I’ll put on The Beach Boys. That’s fun and upbeat to listen to. Those three are probably my favorite.

On Keeping Posted with Robyn:

Instagram is a great way, and I love comments and stuff on my blog. Email, I check regularly. So any of those platforms are really good. Keep an eye out for YouTube because we hope to have it up and running, and we will definitely post that on the blog. Sweetish.co, the actual blog site, is probably the best way to see what’s up and coming. And Instagram, too. I try to keep that up to day as much as possible.

120: Katie Wahlman: Finding A Creative Outlet In Baking

April 27, 2016 by Gabriel Leave a Comment

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Butterlust

Katie’s blog, Butterlust, allows her to combine her love of food with the need for a creative outlet. She is open and honest about everything she makes on her blog and believes that she could quite possibly be the messiest cook on the planet.

I am so thrilled to have Katie Wahlman of Butterlust with me here on the show.

On a Dish That’s Special to Her:

I would go back to that zucchini bread recipe that I was talking about because it is my grandma’s recipe and my mom grew up eating it and then I grew up eating it. Even my mom, who, like I said, isn’t a big cook, isn’t a home baker, isn’t a home cook, it’s one of those things that even neighbors growing up and my best friend’s moms and everybody would get so excited when my mom would bring over a loaf of zucchini bread.

It really is the first baking memory from scratch that I have. You have to grate all the zucchini – that would be my job. Then my mom would let me pour in the oil and do all the stirring. It doesn’t require a mixer. It’s a really simple quick bread. But it does have a lot of memories attached to it for me as well.

The Pressure Cooker:

Which food shows or cooking shows do you watch?

I don’t have cable. My boyfriend and I recently cut the cord and we don’t have a cable service, so I don’t watch a ton of food TV, but I do watch a couple food shows on Netflix. The Great British Baking Show is on Netflix now, and I’m still on season 1, but it’s absolutely adorable and I’m kind of obsessed with it. Everybody is so happy and supportive of one another, and they make really amazing things and you learn so much from it.

Sometimes while my boyfriend and I cook dinner, we watch Chopped reruns. It’s kind of an inspiration while we’re trying to make something out of what’s in the refrigerator. So we’ll do that. And my favorite thing that I rave about to anybody who will listen, is Chef’s Table on Netflix. The six-part series documentary is about some of the best chefs in the world. The cinematography is just so stunning. I’ve probably watched each of the episodes three to four times; I love it.

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

I follow like 200-plus blogs. There are so many inspiring bloggers out there. A couple of my go-to’s that I will check every once in a while if I’m in need of inspiration or just want to see what these girls are up to, I love Hummingbird High, Michelle Lopez.

Two Red Bowls, which is Cynthia. She makes these amazing beautiful dishes. And then My Name is Yeh. She’s Molly Yeh of North Dakota. She makes the most fun, just happy type of desserts, so she’s really an inspiration too.

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

Some of my favorite Instagramers are probably @ladyandpups. Her stuff is absolutely beautiful. Again, a lot of Asian inspired food but her photography is just really stunning. Beth Kirby of @local_milk. She’s kind of just exploded in the last few years. I can’t even understand how she can take such beautiful photos. They’re just absolutely stunning. And then I guess probably Eva Kosmas Flores from Adventures In Cooking, who I know that you’ve also had on the podcast. Her stuff’s beautiful as well. I love how moody and Pacific Northwestern it is. The lighting is just absolutely stunning.

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

Does a couch count? I feel like my living room and kitchen are just basically like one big room. I don’t really have anything super unusual. I would say my most treasured items would be I have this antique teal-blue Pyrex bowl that belonged to my great-aunt Aggie who lived to be 102. So I have that, and I’m like, “Don’t touch it.” My boyfriend tries to use it to cook in and I’m like, “Don’t! If you break it, I’ll die.” Probably also my KitchenAid mixer. As a baker, your KitchenAid mixer is your best friend.

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

This doesn’t necessarily apply to baking as much, but I used to hate, despise broccoli, and now I love it. I eat it everyday. It’s my favorite vegetable.

What are a few cookbooks that make your life better?

Well, like I said, I don’t have a lot of room for cookbooks. My collection is pretty slim currently, but the, Baking: From My Home To Yours by Dorie Greenspan is probably my favorite baking staple.

I also have this cookbook called, Vintage Cakes by Julie Richardson. She apparently found a box of old vintage recipes in the attic of a bakery that she bought or something like that, and tweaked them to make them a little bit more modern and created this vintage cakes book out of it, which kind of goes with the scheme of me really loving these simple, really rustic skillet cakes. A lot of the stuff in there is along those lines, and everything I’ve made from it has been totally spot on. So I actually really love that one too. I’ve been baking from it a lot lately.

What song or album just makes you want to cook?

Probably anything shamelessly poppy. I have a wide variety of likes when it comes to music, but when I’m baking, I want to dance around and have a good time in the kitchen. So, probably Taylor Swift’s, 1989. I think when that album came out, for the next three months, that was the only thing I listened to while I baked. I find myself listening to a lot of Hall & Oates and old pop music which is a lot of fun. So yeah, anything that I can dance around to and have fun with.

On Keeping Posted with Katie:

I’m probably the most active on Instagram, so my Instagram handle is @butterlustkatie.

103: Kaitlin Leung: Connecting with Family Through Cooking

December 30, 2015 by Gabriel Leave a Comment

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The Woks of Life

The Woks of Life is written by Bill, Judy, Sarah and Kaitlin a family that has been cooking and serving up meals for a combined 139 years. Their blog is for anyone looking to try their hand at grade A authentic Chinese cooking whatever their background may be. The Woks of Life were the 2015 Saveur Blog Awards winners in Readers’ Choice Best Special Interest Blog, as well as Editors’ Choice Best Special Interest Blog.

I’m so psyched to have Kaitlin Leung of The Woks of Life with me here today.

(*All photos are The Woks of Life’s.)

On Starting The Woks of Life:

Food blogs are not new obviously but there were a couple of big ones that we did follow, me and my sister mainly, which were The Pioneer Woman. So she kind of blew up and she has her own show and she is like a complete celebrity now and also Smitten Kitchen. So those were the two blogs mainly that we enjoyed looking at and that sparked the idea like, “Why can’t we start a food blog too?”

After she (Sarah) graduated she wasn’t really sure what she wanted to do and she had the whole summer to think about that. So she came up with this idea of starting a food blog. My mom and I were pretty excited to help out and start cooking things and take photos. So it organically became this family thing. She had the idea we could call it The Woks of Life, and we could be the four people at the center of it, and it could be a family thing.

At the time my parents were sort of transitioning into that idea of living in Beijing and then I think four months after the blog was started they actually did move. I’m getting my timing a little bit wrong but she graduated and they were moving to Beijing and everything was kind of in flux.

It was a good way for us to gather our family recipes and have a way to connect with each other across spaces. We communicated mainly through iMessage, Skype and emails. I would email my sister from the library at midnight being like, “Hey, I’m really bored what did you eat today?” That kind of little small talk, chit chat that you would normally have but you don’t really have when you are at two different schools and your parents are living in Beijing. It was all sending pictures of food that we made and we were almost already in the mindset. So to actually make it official was not that big of a job. It became a great family thing and a way for us to stay connected.

On Growing Up in a Family Where Food Played a Big Role:

Growing up it was always gathering around a big table full of food, and everybody reaching across loading up their plates. It was just a really great atmosphere. My dad was very active in the kitchen and his sisters loved to cook too. So from a young age we were like sponges just soaking up all this cooking knowledge and the Food Network. Those were the glory days of the Food Network, classics like Emeril Lagasse and Rachael Ray was just starting and Giada De Laurentiis, she was unmarried and without her baby so that was when she was starting out too. It was a really great time to be interested in food.

We would always just be in the kitchen like, “What are you doing? Why are you doing that,” it’s a passive and an active thing. You’re just watching but at some point you kind of have to roll up your sleeves and when me and my sister were teenagers my parents would have dinner parties and we were like catering staff. We knew so much and we could handle so much. All of my parents friends would be like, “Oh my God your daughters, they are so effective in the kitchen.”

It was kind of always growing up with that mentality of food is important and food is at the center and that’s the big reason why we get together, extended family too, it’s let’s get together and have a barbecue or let’s go get dim sum. It’s just an integral part of not just our family specifically but I feel like the Asian experience in general. You have a big extended family and what’s the best thing to do when you have all these huge amounts of people in the room? You eat.

On Learning About Chinese Cooking:

When we were younger you’re seeing Emeril and you’re seeing Rachel Ray and they’re not making Chinese food. So it kind of got to a point where it was… my grandma always loved saying this to her friends. She brags about us like, “Anything you want, they can make it,” it doesn’t necessarily apply to Chinese food. So when my parents moved to Beijing it was tough because I never ate Chinese food anymore.

You can’t go home and have a home cooked meal. That was another big part of why we wanted to start the blog, is documenting these recipes, which for years was like, “a little this, a little that,” like, “eyeball it, just pour it until it feels right.” You can’t really make that. So Chinese cooking has definitely taken on a bigger part of our repertoire, I guess for me and Sarah, but it was always within the expertise of my parents.

On What Authentic Chinese Food is to Her:

For me personally authentic Chinese food is the food that I grew up eating. It’s the Cantonese spread of salt and pepper pork chops and the pork bone soup and the big plate of green veggies with garlic and the steamed fish. It’s all that but I think that today when you think about traditional Chinese food it’s almost like it’s more about who made it for you.

The food itself is anything that tastes good that’s pretty traditional. I guess authentic is traditional. But I think that it’s almost more important who made it for you. Going into Queens to visit my grandparents and going to the restaurants around there, a lot of those places are owned by people that are technically Chinese citizens but they opened a restaurant in Flushing, Queens. It’s almost in my mind this set of dishes that my family makes most often and eats most often. So you could watch A Bite of China which is this documentary and there’s tons and tons of variety and dishes that you could have that are traditional and authentic, but to me it doesn’t resonate as much because I didn’t grow up eating it.

On Who in the Family is More Traditional and Who Likes to Experiment:

I would say my mother is definitely the most traditional which makes sense because she grew up China and she came over to the U.S. when she was 16. So she definitely has the most knowledge so therefore the most respect for those traditional dishes. I think my dad has a similar level of traditionalism but he grew up more on the Americanized Cantonese side of things. So he has more of an expertise in take-out dishes. He is the king of General Tso’s chicken and the pork fried rices and the lo meins, he can churn out anything.

In terms of who’s the most experimental? I think it’s probably a tie between me and my sister. I think we sort of alternate in our bolts of lightning moments of culinary brilliance. There’s one dish that she made that was so good. It was kimchi french fries and it’s this delicious kimchi mixture and then you put over french fries and then you put cheese on top and it’s 10 times better than chili cheese fries. But chili cheese fries are also good.

And then I’ll make something like Sichuan peppercorn Cacio e Pepe. Which is just cheese and black peppercorns but I wanted to incorporate an Asian spin so I used Sichuan peppercorns and white peppercorns and black peppercorns. It can become hard honestly to come up with those interesting ideas. You can’t fully hang your hat on just traditional Chinese food because that’s good but sometimes you just want something more interesting. We’re definitely always watching and seeing what the food world is doing and trying to get ideas.

The Pressure Cooker:

Which food shows or cooking shows do you watch?

I do watch The Pioneer Woman just because it’s a wonderful escape from real life. She’s got this amazing ranch and she makes all this delicious, comforting, fatty food, it’s great. I love that show and Jamie at Home. That was a short lived show but that was a really good show by Jamie Oliver. He has a beautiful garden, he sits outside with a little cutting board and just cuts and reaches over and plucks fresh herbs, it’s great.

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

So the sense that we get in the food blog world is that there’s just so many blogs out there and I think a lot of them don’t get enough credit because everybody’s really passionate about food and just telling their story. A couple that we like, one of them would be, Omnivore’s Cookbook which is this girl named Maggie and she actually was living in Beijing at the same time as we were and my sister and her actually met up and talked about food. She has a great blog that has authentic recipes. She makes them a little bit easier and more approachable but they still have that good authentic taste of Chinese food. So we really like her blog.

Another blog would be Little Cooking Tips which is a really cute, really friendly couple in Greece named Panos and Mirella, and they are so nice. They have really good Greek recipes. I just was on their website today and they had a finger licking feta and sausage mac and cheese. That sounds really good. They have a lot of good fusion Greek recipes. So we definitely like them. Hummingbird High, I think she was one of your most recent podcast guest. Her photography is gorgeous and her cakes look so good. Every time I want cake I just go to her Instagram and then I visually eat it.

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

I’m not sure about Pinterest because that’s my mother’s domain. She is the Pinterest master but on Instagram we follow a bunch of people. But I would say a couple of really good accounts are…there’s one by Dennis The Prescott, his photography is gorgeous and all of his food just looks so freakin yummy. He’s just one of those people that I go to time and time again.

Another one that I really like is Symmetry Breakfast. I think it’s a couple and they just take pictures of breakfasts that they have together and it’s perfectly symmetrical. It’s just so perfect for somebody who’s a little OCD like me. It’s just beautiful, I love it. They’ve got really great stuff. They have like a bagette that’s cut open and baked with eggs inside. They know how to live. They eat good for breakfast. I just roll out of bed and I’m lucky if I have a piece of toast. So those are just a couple that I like but there are so many people on Instagram that have just amazing photography. It can be hard to keep up because so many people are just putting out amazing content but those are two that I love.

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

I would say unusual for a nonChinese audience that is actually very useful is a tong device for picking up plates. If you put a hot dish in a steamer you don’t want to grab it and it kind of goes like this and then you can grab the plate and lift it out. That’s a really amazing underrated and not that well known tool. So for anybody listening, you should go buy one.

Most treasured I would say is probably my grandfather’s cleavers from my dad’s side. He was a chef and they actually had a Chinese restaurant for a number of years. We have his old cleaver that actually has his initials carved in the side. Because there are a bunch of chefs in the kitchen and you want to differentiate which one’s yours. We don’t use that one often but it’s still very sharp. It’s interesting. It’s years and years old but it’s still really good.

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

Cilantro. I didn’t hate it. There are some people out there that hate cilantro, I never hated it but I never really liked it maybe until I was 14. It adds so much flavor. If you have a guacamole that has no cilantro, I’m sorry, but that’s not real guacamole. You need it. When you’re putting it on steamed fish with soy sauce and scallions and ginger, you need the cilantro, it adds a little something.

What are a few cookbooks that make your life better?

Ina Garten has a cookbook that is… I don’t know exactly what it’s called but it’s the pink one so people that know Ina Garten’s cookbook, there’s a blue one and there’s an orange one. But the orange one is Barefoot in Paris and there’s a pink one which is her basics cookbook. There is a chocolate cake recipe in that cookbook called Beatty’s Chocolate Cake it changed my life. This chocolate cake recipe is the only one you will ever need. It’s so moist and the frosting is perfect. It’s kind of sad actually because if you flip through the whole book, almost every page is totally pristine, and then when you go to this chocolate cake recipe, there’s just schmutz all over it. There are stains and drips of buttermilk because that’s how often I make that cake. This is more of a PSA than an interview question I feel because that cake is truly the best. We make it for friends and they rave. They love it.

What song or album just makes you want to cook?

For my sister it would definitely be Nat King Cole. For me, I would say, if anybody’s ever seen the movie Something’s Gotta Give with Diane Keaton and Jack Nicholson, that soundtrack is our favorite for cooking. It’s all French bistro music and whets your appetite and you feel so jazzy walking around the kitchen.

On Keeping Posted with The Woks of Life:

The best way to keep posted is to follow us on Facebook or Instagram. If you use Twitter, definitely follow us on Twitter, and I would say subscribe to our email list because we send out an email noon everyday when we have a new recipe.

083: Michelle Lopez: Learning to Bake at High Altitude

October 7, 2015 by Gabriel 6 Comments

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Hummingbird High

Michelle started her blog in 2011 when she moved to Denver, Colorado. She is a self-professed stress baker and believes in using simple ingredients to create beautiful, delicious food that is unfussy. Michelle strives to create recipes on her blog that are as accessible as possible while occasionally indulging in more challenging experiments. Hummingbird High was a finalist in the 2013 and 2015 Saveur Blog Awards for Best Baking and Desserts Blog.

I’m so psyched to have Michelle Lopez of Hummingbird High on the show today.

(*All images below are Michelle’s.)

On Her Blog:

I started my blog a few years ago, back in 2011. I just moved to Denver where I didn’t really know anybody. And I’d spent most of my life basically living an hour away from the ocean at most. So I was like, “Okay, this is a new city. I don’t really know anybody. My job is kind of stressful. So I’m just going to spend the weekend baking.”

I pulled out one of my favorite cookbooks and just followed the recipe to a T and then everything terrible happened. It was a recipe for cupcakes actually. Vanilla cupcakes. And I made this recipe probably 20 times. It was the sort of thing that’s like my default recipe. I could probably make it in my sleep without the instructions. And I just followed it to a T in Denver and literally nothing worked. I pulled them out of the oven and they looked like puddles of goop. It was insane. So I did some research on this because I was like, “What is going on?” And it turns out that because Denver is high up and that affects the way you cook things, water actually boils at a lower temperature because you’re higher up in altitude and because there’s less air pressure there you don’t need as many leaveners, you don’t need as much baking powder or baking soda or something.

So, you actually have to do all these alterations before you start making any recipe because most recipes are for sea level. And I had no idea, so I was like, “This is kind of interesting. I’m going to start baking more and trying this out for myself and experimenting and seeing what my standard recipes look like but in high altitude and then kind of adapting them for that.”

On Baking at High Altitude:

So baking bread was something that I never mastered because I was only in Denver six months but yeast is like an entirely different beast. And I think you have to have. So how yeast works is basically you activate it with warm water and it comes alive and then that chemical reaction is what causes the bread to rise. And usually that takes a couple of hours, but in high altitude you basically just have that time because the air just doesn’t have any of the same resistance down at sea level. It’s crazy. So I’d say that’s the big one that’s insane.

Definitely temperature because you are at high altitude the air is thinner so things tend to dry out faster and tend to cook quicker. So always shorten your cooking time I’d say is the primary step. And then probably lessen your leaveners. Those are the two big secrets to high altitude baking.

I do think everything is really adaptable. That’s why people live in the mountains. It’s pretty and it shouldn’t be an inconvenience. So I was pretty lucky in that, it took a couple of tries for some recipes, and like I said, bread was kind of my big nemesis. I still never really nailed that one down. I do really believe that you can adapt anything to high altitude.

Cookies tend to work better. I have no idea why, probably because they don’t have that much leavener to begin with and because the sugar cooks quicker, they end up chewier. It’s really good. I have no idea why, but that’s probably the main thing that I’m like, “Okay, all of my cookies here seem good.” I don’t know if that’s in my head or what.

On Learning How to Bake:

I was baking before this but I definitely credit my baking through the Hummingbird Bakery cookbook as what really taught me how baking works. Before that, I was just looking up random recipes online or I was using some box cake mixes which now that I think about that I shudder. But yeah, the cool thing about cooking through a cookbook, especially one like the Hummingbird Bakery, which I highly recommend is they basically have a couple of master cupcakes recipes and then add flavorings and everything at different stages so you start to understand why things are done in the order that they are when you’re following a recipe and how ingredients really interact with each other, depending on what quantities they added and why they would take some away if they add something in them. So stuff like that. It was really helpful.

The Hummingbird Bakery, some background, is actually a pretty popular bakery in London and it’s funny because their whole thing is American baked goods so it’s like this weird middle British take on American goods. And one of my best friends, he and I met when I was in college, he was an exchange student from England and he sent me their cookbook and he was like, “My gosh, I saw this cookbook and I just thought of you.” Because I used to make a lot of cupcakes in college and I was like, “That’s sweet of him.” And then a few months later, I went to visit him and that was his first priority to take me to that bakery. And I was like, “Okay, this is really great.” We don’t get to see each other that often because he lives out in London so it was a nice way to just keep that connection alive.

Once I finished (baking through the cookbook) I was like, “Okay, well, I baked a ton of cupcakes, but I really wish there had been other things too like cheesecake is kind of a different beast too.” So yeah, there was a little bit of disappointment there. That’s when I really started branching out and using the Internet to find bloggers and other cooking sources that I thought would help out.

On Where She Turns for Inspiration:

I have so many go-to sources it’s actually a little bit intense. I love Food52 for basic solid recipes that I know that will work because I’m pretty sure they test almost everything that’s on their site. I love anything that Food 52 features. And I have a handful of go-to bloggers that I really like. Molly Yeh for cakes. She is incredible. I am a big fan of hers. And right now I’m really into Fix Feast Flair. She just won Saveur’s Best New Voice this year. And anything that comes out of her, that she publishes on her blog I’m like, “Why isn’t this in front of me, I want to eat this right now.” Those are probably my big two.

On Which Cookbook She Would Cook through Today:

That’s a tough one because again, my cookbook collection is a little out-of-control, but the one that I’ve always kind of flipped through whenever I need inspiration is probably the Mast Brothers Chocolate Cookbook. So what it is it’s just like a series of recipes, they even have savory ones. But all just features chocolate and I’m such a big fan of chocolate and it would be interesting to approach learning how to cook something just through one ingredient. So I think that would be really cool.

The Pressure Cooker:

Which food shows or cooking shows do you watch?

I don’t watch a lot of TV but I do watch one cooking show, it’s called The Great British Bake Off. It just recently started airing on PBS in the U.S. But I’ve been streaming past seasons that were only available in England and it’s so good and it teaches you so much about baking. It’s just like this reality TV show where they take bakers from all around the U.K. and get them to bake traditional British desserts. And there’s the judges and everything. It’s great. It’s so good.

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

This is like choosing between my children or somebody because I read a ton of food blogs. But right now I’m really into some of the smaller blogs that haven’t gotten as much attention yet. So I’d say I really love Renee Kemps for her photography. She’s just the nicest person in real life. She’s so sweet. And so I’m probably pronouncing this wrong but Le Jus D’orange. It means orange juice in French. It’s this girl Betty in Boston, she’s Chinese, she makes a lot of dishes that her mom used to make and a lot of fusion dishes, too. She’s awesome, too.

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

Okay. That’s another tough one because I follow so many people. And fun fact actually, I’m being an old person my Snapchat doesn’t work on my phone so I don’t actually have Snapchat so we can eliminate that.

Pinterest, I follow so many people, but there’s this 17-year-old girl who I think lives in Southern California. Her name is… My gosh, what is her name? But she has a blog, too, It’s called Lace and Lilacs and she’s going to go study photography in Paris and for a 17-year-old she has such a good eye. She’s always pining such beautiful photos, not even just food but of flowers, people so she’s a big inspiration. And on Instagram I really like Coco Cake Land who posts these really cute Instagrams of cakes frosted-like animals that are so cute. She does a lot of tiger cakes and really cute, highly recommend following. And Linda Lomelino is the other one on Instagram who is amazing. She does cakes as well but hers is kind of the opposite direction from Cocoa Cake Land’s. Hers are just really pretty, classic cakes that are adorned with natural flowers.

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

Most unusual I’d say is, I have an office label maker in my kitchen, I’m kind of a neat freak when it comes to the kitchen and I have all my ingredients in glass jars that are easily accessible. And my handwriting sucks so I was like, “You know what? I’m just going to get an official label maker so I can label these,” and it looks great. So that’s probably the weirdest item that’s in my kitchen. And I use it a surprising amount but that might just be me being insane, so there’s that. And I’d say the most treasured item is probably my KitchenAid mixer.

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

Another really good one cause I used to be actually a picky eater. So, cinnamon. Actually that’s kind of weird and boring I know. And it’s a weird controversial thing to say cinnamon because it’s in everything but I used to really hate that fake cinnamon taste from Red Hots and cinnamon Altoids. And for a while I was using really cheap cinnamon that was five years old. But then my friend got me some designer cinnamon. I don’t even know where it was from, from some fancy shop in New York and she’s like, “Okay, you’re so weird, here try this.” And it’s actually pretty good.

What are a few cookbooks that make your life better?

I would say the one that just really improved my baking skills most recently was The Four & Twenty Blackbirds Pie Cookbook. I’ve always had a really hard time making pie. I don’t know why, that’s my big Achilles heel when it comes to baking. My pie crusts were always soggy and ugly. But I got their book because I went to their bakery in New York. This is how I get my books, I go to their bakery and get sucked in. And they had such beautiful photos of the pie making process, what it looks like after you rub the butter in, so that one was super helpful in helping me learn how to make pies. The other one that I really like and this one’s relatively new is Food 52’s Genius Recipes. One of their editors went out and found recipes that produce really amazing results for a pretty simple process and I’ve made a couple of things from there and it’s so good.

What song or album just makes you want to cook?

I like listening to Taylor Swift’s latest album when I cook. And yeah, if there was a movie… It’s crazy, this is going to sound really weird but I like having action movies as a background because they are easy to follow along to when you’re baking and you can step out and not pay attention but then come back and be like, “Okay, I get it, something exploded.” There’s not really any twists or anything in most action movies so they are always fun to bake to.

I listen to a lot of Top 40 radio while I bake, which is really weird because in college I didn’t listen to any of the Top 40 at all and I used to listen to the most pretentious music. I still like lots of small indie bands and everything but just not while I bake because it’s just not as fun.

On Keeping Posted with Michelle:

Just follow me on Instagram. My username Hummingbird High and of course just check out my blog. I post once a week so it’s pretty easy to catch up with me.

081: Liren Baker: Passing Along Meaningful Foods

September 30, 2015 by Gabriel 2 Comments

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Kitchen Confidante

Liren is a mother of two and has lived in major food cities including New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, and now, in the San Francisco Bay Area. Her blog, Kitchen Confidante, gives her the opportunity to express her creativity through photography, and of course, her recipes and the stories behind them.

I am so happy to have Liren Baker of Kitchen Confidante here on the show today.

(*All images below are Liren’s.)

On Her Blog:

I think that leading up to 2010, there were so many cooking experiences, from that first scrambled egg that you make when you’re like six or seven, leading up to it, and you just learn so much along the way, and there’s so many experiences that shape you as a person and as a cook. I was just constantly collecting and archiving recipes. I have this big binder of stuff. And I just felt like, you know what, when I started the blog, I was revisiting some of those, and also just taking all the life lessons that I had learned along the way, and started implementing it more into my cooking.

From concept through fruition, it could be anything. Sometimes, the inspiration comes from my family, and they say, “Hey, I’m really craving this thing that I tried.” Like for example, there was a salad my husband tried when he was traveling, and he was like “It was so good. Do you think you can make that?” And so I’ll think about it and that would start the ball rolling. You know, you start shopping for ingredients, see if it’s in season, if it will work with the time of year. And, like many bloggers, you just start testing the recipes and that can take a while. Then you photograph them, writing the content, and then, finally posting it on the blog. It doesn’t just stop there because you push it out there and share it with everybody, and hopefully, share it again later, maybe a year or two down the line.

On What’s Most Natural and Most Challenging about Blogging:

The most challenging thing about blogging, honestly, is not stopping. I think it’s hard. When you’re so passionate about something, you just really nerd out and that’s all you do. And then as it evolves and if it becomes, you know, a business, you don’t really take a break. And I think so for me, the challenge has always been, “Okay, I need to take a break.” Like I’m going to cook for the sake of cooking, and not necessarily feel like I have to photograph this, and spend the weekend enjoying my time with my family and enjoying the food, instead of worrying, “Oh my gosh, did I get the shot? Oh I need to set it up, nobody touch the food.” For me, that’s the biggest challenge.

The part that comes most naturally, I think it has to be the writing. I just write from the heart. I don’t necessarily stress over what I’m going to say. If it’s not flowing, I don’t stress about it. I table it. And I try not to put any pressure on myself there. But for me, I feel like that’s the smoothest part.

On Posts that Don’t Get As Much Love as Expected:

I think you can never predict what is going to be interesting or some people would call it viral. There are some dishes that I’ll put out there that I’m like “Okay, no one’s gonna care at all. Even if I like it, no one’s really going to care about it. I’m going to put it up there anyway,” and it just goes nuts. And that always surprises me. There are some things like there are certain cakes, for example, that I grew up eating, and I might expect that it’s going to do okay, and it just kinda flops.

I think that happens a lot in the beginning. You put all these amazing recipes out there that you’ve been dying to share and you don’t necessarily have the readership yet. So, I think lately, I’ve been kinda revisiting those old ones and putting them out again, redoing them and resharing them, and I’ve been surprised by a few of those too. So you just never know.

On Learning How to Cook:

I should start by saying my mom was not a good cook. She hated cooking. Baking was her thing, and she loved to bake. Every Saturday, we would bake together, or I would think I was baking with her, but she would bake and I would watch. And cooking, she hated. So, I really actually didn’t learn how to cook until later on. I was around 18 when she died. She had cancer, and so it was really just you learn out of necessity. I have a younger brother and sister and they’re eight and nine years apart. I’m older. And so, I felt this responsibility for my family to feed them, and as well as my dad. He wasn’t really that much of a cook either.

I spent that summer that she passed away trailing my aunts, because she spent that summer with us. And she would just cook for us because she knew that she needed to nourish us. So I just would pepper her with questions, and I knew I needed to write this down. So, it was my aunt who taught me how to cook. And a lot of the recipes that are of Filipino roots come from her. Because in my mind, she was the best cook on my mom’s side.

I was able to relive a lot of those family recipes slowly but surely. And so it was partially because I needed to feed my family, and also, because I wanted to finally learn. I think I realized around that time that, “Wow, you know what? I love this. Cooking is not so bad. Mom, what are you talking about?” And I was actually pretty good at it. So, that’s kind of how it all started for me.

On How Being a Parent Affects How She Cooks:

I will admit that I probably ate more junk food before I had kids. And when I say junk food, I mean like I would indulge in fast food once in a while, and now I really feel like I haven’t been to… Well, okay, Shake Shack doesn’t count or In-N-Out. But you know, I can’t tell you the last time I had fast food. So that also reflects in how I cook and I try to make it more wholesome. That said, what I feel is most important to them is to just pass along a lot of the foods that I grew up eating, so that hasn’t changed. I just think that maybe my approach to it has changed. Like maybe I’ll remove the skin off the chicken. I try to make it more healthy.

Growing up, my aunts were great cooks, and my cousins, all were pretty handy in the kitchen, and I didn’t feel like I was. But I will say that my kids like to experiment. So my son, we made pasta the other day, and he was just… I think it was more of the machine. He wanted to pass it through the roller. And so, once in awhile they do, but I’m kind of hoping that they’ll cook a little more with me.

On How Busy Parents Can Make Cooking Fun Again:

I think to make it fun, you actually have to plan. That sounds terrible, because I think spontaneity is more fun. But when you have your day-to-day and you know that you have a limited amount of time to cook and get everybody fed and everybody’s getting hungry, you really do have to plan.

I know it’s very easy to fall into a rut. I fall into ruts all the time going food shopping. So when that happens, I tell my husband “Can you please go food shopping?” Because he will go and buy all the interesting things, and it’s almost like having a Chopped basket. So, something like that, just as simple as like, “Okay, pick a different protein that you normally wouldn’t try.” And then make it simple by doing easy marinades and doing a lot of the prep work in advance if you can. Don’t overwhelm yourself making long drawn-out recipes. Keep it simple.

The Pressure Cooker:

Which food shows or cooking shows do you watch?

We don’t watch a lot of TV, but we do you watch Top Chef and does Tony Bourdain’s No Reservations count?

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

I was going to say A Thought for Food with Brian Samuels, but I think he’s been on your show so everyone knows about him now, right?

I feel like so many of the blogs out there are popular. So, Two Red Bowls is another one. I like her. I feel like she’s under the radar and Hummingbird High.

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

On YouTube, I used to follow HappySlip. Have you ever heard of her? She’s a Filipino American comedienne. She used to do little skits. She’s kind of tapered off because she started a family. But once in a while she’ll still post things on there. I think she’s hilarious because she captures all of those stereotypes so well.

On Instagram, I follow way too many people. My feed is just crazy and a lot of food bloggers. But I think the ones that surprised me the most are people who are really into food don’t necessarily have food blogs that I know of, because it’s not on their profiles, but beurrenoisette is one of them. There’s abisfarmhousekitchen. She’s up in Sonoma. She’s got a winery with her husband and I love seeing what she’s doing in the kitchen. She’s very adventurous. It’s exciting to see what other people are cooking who don’t necessarily have blogs. I find the engagement on Instagram is really fascinating there.

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

Other than that ratty old binder with my mom’s handwriting, I went through a phase where I was collecting vintage cake stands, like vintage pressed glass from the 1800s. So, I have a few of those, and it’s really weird. I just find them super precious and we’ve moved many times and I still can’t get rid of them. I don’t use them all the time except for special occasions like Thanksgiving. But yeah, it would be my binder and then those cake stands.

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

Oh, that’s easy. Cilantro. Growing up, I was like, “This is gross.” I would pick them out of the noodles and throw them away. Now, I’m just like eating it raw. I have to have cilantro in the house all the time, and I put it on almost too many things actually.

What are a few cookbooks that make your life better?

There are some cookbooks that are surprises to me. I reviewed a cookbook last year called The Greenmarket Cookbook. That was a really nice surprise. There were so many stories behind all the farmers who sell their goods at Greenmarket. I loved reading the recipes that all the chefs back east would do with the food that they got at Greenmarket, that was a nice surprise.

I like cookbooks that surprise me. The other one was The Union Square Cafe Cookbook. My daughter bought it. She was doing a camp one summer and she went into the library. They were selling old books, and she’s like, “Oh mommy, I got you a present.” And I’m like “Oh, thanks!” It turned out to be an amazing cookbook. So, those things make me happy, when it’s a book that I just did not expect to wow me.

What song or album just makes you want to cook?

Jack Johnson, Making banana pancakes. When that’s on, it’s instant happy and I want to make pancakes. It’s great on a Saturday morning.

On Keeping Posted with Liren:

Well obviously, there’s my blog, kitchenconfidante.com. Instagram is probably one of the easiest, but pretty much on any social media, I’m kitchconfidante. I have to shorten it, there’s not enough characters. But Instagram’s probably the best way to find me.