Iron Maiden | The Dinner Special podcast

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.

035: Adrian Richardson: What to be Mindful of When Cooking Meat

May 6, 2015 by Gabriel Leave a Comment

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Chef Adrian Richardson

Adrian is the chef and owner of the bustling La Luna Bistro in North Carlton, Victoria in Australia. A cookbook author of books called Meat and The Good Life, and the host of a number of TV shows, including one that I recently stumbled on called Secret Meat Business.

I’m Gabriel Soh and I’m so excited to have chef Adrian Richardson here on the show today.

On His Journey to Become a Chef:

My father was an airline pilot, so as I was growing up, my destiny was to sit next to him in the front of a plane and fly around Australia. But, as I got towards the end of my schooling, I wasn’t doing that well, so I decided to take a year off and do some flying lessons. But to pay for the flying lessons dad said, “You know, you got to pay for part of it,” so I got a job in a kitchen. And do you know what? I just really, really fell in love with being in a kitchen. To me, there’s no other place I could be.

I love flying in planes, but I like to sit there with a glass of wine in front of me. Cooking is what it’s about for me. And I’m so lucky that the flying actually helped me to find what I want so early.

I just loved the hustle and bustle of kitchens. I love the people in kitchens. I love being able to cook for people. I love being around food and tasting food and, you know, every now and again I taste a little bit too much food.

But, I just love the environment, and to me, no day is the same. There’s always something different going on and you’re able to move around. It’s a fun life and I really enjoy it.

I have a great background in food. My mother was born in Ethiopia. My grandmother in Cairo. My grandfather in Italy. That’s my mother’s side of the family. So there was a lot of North African and Middle Eastern and Italian food around and we ate a lot. And my grandmother was a most amazing cook.

The other side of my family, my dad’s side, he was an English chef who was trained in France and London, and then came over to Australia. So I got both styles of food, I suppose, that homestyle and that professional style. And to me, it’s just a beautiful thing to have the two together. It’s fantastic.

On His Style of Cooking:

My style of food is, I like to call it bistro. I like to use a lot of influences from around the Mediterranean. I think there’s so much influence there. I really like the ingredients. The people, the food. And there’s so many different things you can do.

You know, I spent some time growing up in Asia as well, in Malaysia for three years. I’ve traveled through Asia. I love Asian food. But that’s more for home, so that’s my secret stuff that I cook at home. My professional style tends to be that modern Australian.

However, when I do TV shows, I often bring in some of those Asian influences because I think it is so much a part of Australian cuisine – is the Asian food as well. I love pretty much anything from all over the world. It’s probably all my style. But I like to present it in a simple manner that’s easy going and friendly, and, slightly challenging but enjoyable. That’s probably what I’d like to say.

Just on the Malaysian input, I hadn’t been to Malaysia for probably 18 years, and I was there a couple of years ago, and as I arrived, we got out of the car at the hotel, you could smell the spices in the air. The satay, they’d actually cooked satays for me, and it’s just amazing. For me, I feel really connected with Asian food. I grew up eating Asian food, it’s really important to me. But also, you throw in there that Middle Eastern and that Italian food as well. I really connected with that as well.

On His Restaurant and Cookbooks:

I think early on in the career I realized that I just wanted to work for myself, I wanted to do my own thing, I wanted to set up my own bistro or business. And along the way, I tended to work for people who had already done that. Owner-chefs, restauranteurs or chefs that had done really well, some of them really nice, and some of them not so nice. But I sort of mapped my career path out to follow these people, learn as much as I could from them, and apply that to my own business.

The cookbooks and the media stuff headed out after a few years of business. The restaurant was doing well, and I started to get a lot of attention. So I got a media agent, and it started from there. All of a sudden I did a commercial here for someone, and then a small TV show came along, and it sort of snowballed from there. But I love it! I really enjoy it. It’s a good part of my life.

I’ve got the restaurant on one side, and that’s busy, and that’s fun, but it’s opened the door to so many other things.

As you’ve probably worked out, I’m not a very shy person, so me being in front of the camera, in front of people and demonstrating is what I love. But the important part of it, Gabriel, is I like teaching people.

I’m really inspired by cooking and food and for me to be able to pass on a few tricks and techniques with a few dishes, so that it can make your eating experience and your life better, to me, I really get that. I really like it.

I try and keep it really simple so that you can listen to what I say and you pick up some stuff. And there’s nothing better than hearing from someone across the other side of the planet who’s seen the show and has been inspired by it. To me, that’s a really great thing.

On His Passion for Meat:

I’ve always been around good quality meat. I think one of the things when I first started training, I was put into the butchery section of a kitchen, and I just got it. It just worked for me. So, I’d always had an understanding and been quite skilled at breaking things down and butchery as I’d moved through different kitchens.

It’s a bit of a plum job, it’s an important job in a kitchen, and so I was always put on that job. And to me, I just love cooking meat. I think it’s an amazing thing to cook. You know, we kill an animal to eat it, so to me, it’s really important that we understand exactly what we’re doing, that we use every part of it, and that’s what I try and do. That’s what I try and teach.

It’s not about eating more meat. It’s about eating better quality meat, paying a little bit more for it, but actually using parts that are not used, and respecting the animal. An animal’s been killed. We’ve got to do the right thing and make sure we eat every single part of it.

Tips on Cooking Meat:

I mean cooking white meats like chicken and turkey and pork, you really have to know that they’re cooked properly. One of the things that I would recommend is using a digital thermometer. I know that if you’re cooking a piece of chicken breast, you sear it, you pop it into the oven. If you put the probe into the center of it, if it gets to 72 degrees Celsius, it’s cooked.

That’s the scientific method and it works with all types of cooking. But another way of doing it is to take it out, let it rest for a second, cut it open, and if it’s pink in the center, if it’s bloody, well then you put it back in.

I reckon that the scientific method works at the start, then you probe it, you know it’s cooked all the way through. But then, when it comes to chicken breasts, you want make sure you don’t overcook it, so cutting it nice and thin and breading it and doing a little bit of olive oil or ghee and cooking it, that’s a nice way of doing it.

With things like chicken legs and chicken thighs, you can cook them all the way through. Put some tomato passata in it, and some olives and some wine, and you know you can cook it for an hour and a half. You know it’s going to be cooked. But then, when you touch it with your fingers or a fork, and it falls apart, that’s when you know it’s nice and tender. And that’s the best way. That’s the best bit of advice.

The Pressure Cooker:

Which food shows or cooking shows do you watch?

I enjoy watching Rick Stein, I like the way he talks through what he’s doing, and he’s got an amazing narrative voice.

I also like Food Safari, which we have in Australia. It goes around lots of different cuisines and different nationalities. Fantastic show.

Within the last year, where did you have the best meal, and what did you have?

The best meal I had was in a tiny little dumpling noodle house out of Melbourne, in one of the outer suburbs, and it was fantastic. They make the best dumplings there. It’s in a broth with some chili oil in it.

There are little old Chinese ladies that make the dumplings there, and there’s a little old Chinese man that makes the noodles. It’s so fresh and so clean. It’s so cheap! And one of the best meals I’ve had.

What is a professional chef tip that all home cooks should know?

A professional chef home cook tip would be use salt, put plenty of salt on your meat. Meat loves salt and salt loves meat. Make sure you season your meat because that’s what brings out the flavor.

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

I think they should have salt and fresh pepper. I think from there, you’ve got to have pasta. You’ve got to have tomato passata, to make some sauce. Of course some butter. And I believe some bacon as well.

You’re going to have to stop me here because I’ll just keep on going. These four ingredients, from those things, I can make anything.

Name one ingredient you cannot live without.

I would have to say fresh herbs. Fresh herbs and continental parsley is my favorite. Without that, I can’t live. I need to have that flavor in just about everything I cook.

What are a few cookbooks that make you life better?

I use an old series that I think is still available.

Time Life is the publisher, and The Good Cook series, that’s the series. I think it’s one of the best.

What song or album just makes you want to cook?

I like heavy metal music. I’ll turn that on, and I’ll play heavy metal music and my kids will run around and climb all over the place. I like cooking to that. But my wife, when she comes in, she likes it nice and soft and gentle, like jazz. So, one of the two is fine by me.

I just have it on shuffle. Slayer was something I was listening to last week, and that was good. Iron Maiden’s good, Metallica, they’re all good.

On Keeping Posted on Adrian:

You can start with Twitter, it’s @tastysausage, with Instagram, which is @verytastysausage. Facebook, you can just go to the Adrian Richardson page and there I’ll be. You can go to our website, www.lalunabistro.com.au, and also adrianrichardson.net, so there’s a couple of different ways to get in touch.