Joy the Baker | The Dinner Special podcast

113: Lynn Chen: Forging a New Relationship with Food

March 9, 2016 by Gabriel Leave a Comment

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The Actor’s Diet

On her blog, The Actor’s Diet, Lynn shares restaurant views, fashion and beauty tips, recipes and her life in show biz. She credits her blog for helping her come to terms with her eating disorders and it’s now a place for celebrating food.

An actor, body image activist and podcaster, just to name a few things she’s up to, Lynn is a media maven and she looks like she’s having an awesome time with it.

I’m so psyched to have Lynn Chen of The Actor’s Diet here on the show today.

(*All photos below are Lynn’s.)

On Her Blog:

In 2009, I was already reading a lot of food blogs, the food blogs that existed. The scene was different in 2009 than it is today but the blogs I was reading at the time, the format that was very popular was food journaling, just basically showing what people ate on a daily basis. And for me, I had been coming to terms with a very tumultuous relationship with food and eating disorders. I was a binge eater and I was also a little bit anorexic.

So for me, finding out what portion sizes were was really tricky. And so, to read these blogs made me feel like I could have a guide as to how much you were supposed to eat, and to feel full or satiated. So that’s how it started. I was reading these food blogs and then one day I was like, “I wonder if I should start a food blog?”

When I started, not only was the food blog scene different but the acting scene was different, where in my industry, you were just an actor. You weren’t an actor/blogger/anything else, which is acceptable today but back then, it just wasn’t. And it was like, “No, you’re an actor, you have to just act, you should not show your personal side because no one wants to see your business.” And actually what happened was, I was fired by both my agent and my manager and instead of trying to find a new agent and a manager, which I knew I could have done, I was like, “Let me take a year to come to terms with this whole food thing and what do I have to lose?”

If I just stop acting, and stop having a job that requires me to look a certain way, and take that pressure off of me and try to forge this new relationship with food, let’s see what happens. At the time, I was also trying to get pregnant. So, I was like, “Let’s just see what happens.” And the blog started initially as a food journal and it was me and my friend Christy Meyers, a holistic health counselor and we were basically just posting what we ate every day, and it just blew up.

And for Christy, it became very clear after a while, she was like, “I don’t want to do this,” because she was already counseling clients one-on-one. It was, the last thing I want to do at the end of the day is write more about food and also she didn’t want her clients to read it and be like, “Hey, you ate chocolate cake. What’s the deal?” So, she backed away from it and I kept going and over the years, I just have switched the format a little bit, where I’m not posting everything I’m eating on a daily basis, which gets old. It’s been almost seven years now. It’s crazy.

On Coming to Terms with Her Eating Disorder:

I think that when I was in recovery, they were always saying to me, you don’t just give up an addiction. It’s not like you can just be like that’s it, I’m done. You have to replace it with something. And so, for me, instead of focusing on counting calories or figuring out how much fat content was in something, I was figuring out how to make the photograph look beautiful, and I was focused on this new obsession, this new way of writing about food and talking about food, which took my focus off of what I looked like, what I was ingesting, but still fed that part of me that needed to be obsessive about food.

And also, not only was the creative side of me fulfilled, but just getting so much free food as a food blogger, I didn’t feel like anything was off limits because when you have a house that’s full of potato chips, the last thing you feel like doing is binge eating potato chips because there so many. You can only do that for so long. So, it really helped me come to terms with that whole concept of, “Oh, I have to eat this because this may be the last time.” There was no last supper for me anymore.

That was always the problem for me in the past, I was binge eating because, “That’s it, this is the last time and then tomorrow I go on my diet.” There was no diet anymore, there was no last supper, it was just always there and then it lost its appeal, its magic. It just became what it was.

On What She Would Say to Someone Struggling with an Eating Disorder:

I hear you, is what I would say to them because there were so many years, where I was not only struggling but I was also getting help simultaneously and I was like, “What’s going on? How come I’m not getting better? How come I’m doing everything I think I’m supposed to be doing and it’s still not getting any better?” And it was years of that. I really, truly think that it does get better and I can’t give you any magic formula, just like no one else could give me a magic formula to get better. I’m living proof that it happens.

So if I can just be the embodiment and let you know that it happens and you’ll get better. You just will, I know you will but you just have to keep at it. I would say, don’t beat yourself up because, for me, it would always be like, I was “good” for six months and then I fell off the wagon and then I’d have three months of being off the wagon and just be like, “I can never get back.” That’s just the way it was for a long time, and eventually, it stopped being that way.

On Thick Dumpling Skin:

Thick Dumpling Skin came about because, for the first few years of writing The Actor’s Diet, I was writing a lot about my eating disorder, obviously because I was coming to terms with it and I got such a response from so many people, and it was so specifically about culture and our families. It was just something that I could really relate to as an Asian American being in a culture, where we don’t really talk about our feelings.

When we socialize and gather, it’s all about the food, not how are you doing? It’s how much have you eaten and have you eaten? And, oh try this, and you’ve got to get the recipe. I felt like because it was such a serious topic and it was coming up so often, I didn’t want my blog, The Actor’s Diet to become just a site for that, I wanted to give it another place. I was listening to NPR one day and I heard this interview with a woman named Lisa Lee talking about how she went to Taiwan and was forced to go on this diet and that it was just okay.

It was considered totally fine to starve herself, and I was like, “Who is this woman, I need to connect with her.” I went on Facebook, I looked her up, we had 40 friends in common. I went to the person at the top of the list, he introduced us and the next thing you know, I’m connected with Lisa Lee and she’s like, “We have to do something.” We thought about making a book, we thought about making a documentary, then we were like, “Let’s just blog.”

So, we started Thick Dumpling Skin and immediately heard from all these people who wanted to share their story. And all these years later, we’ve been in NPR ourselves, we’ve been in Marie Claire. We’re still the only source that exists on the Internet for Asian-Americans and that just shows me how much more work we have to do. Because people still think of eating disorders as a primarily white, middle-class woman problem, and we see that it’s not. But the problem is, especially in the Asian-American community, therapy is not an option for a lot of people.

People don’t want you talking to strangers and paying them. That doesn’t make sense to them. So for a lot of, especially younger people who are still under their parents’ rules and insurance, they have no one to talk to, so we are hoping that our site is a place for them.

On the Thick Dumpling Skin Podcast:

What I love about the podcast formula, is that you can just talk off the top of your head and I think that a lot of, when you’re talking about body image and you’re talking about eating issues, when we write it out, you feel this responsibility to be so precious with your words and to edit yourself. And I think that in order to have this dialogue, we need to have it in everyday conversation.

So, what we hope is that, with the podcasts, we want to go to the experts, get them on the phone, have them answer the questions because I’m not comfortable answering questions that are that serious.

On Her Videos:

Well, my husband works at BuzzFeed, so full disclosure on that, and the reason I started YouTubing, was because, it’s funny, so my husband would just be like, “I have to make a video today. You want to eat donuts?” and I’d be like, “Yes, I’m not doing anything, let’s go and eat donuts.” So we just started making these videos when he was free and when I was free for his job and I started to grow a following from it and people started subscribing to my YouTube channel. which before that had only been movies I’d been in and clips from other YouTube interviews that I had done, nothing that I created on my own. And since people were subscribing, I was like, “Oh, I think I should create some content for new subscribers, otherwise, I’m wasting time. So being on BuzzFeed, has been really interesting because it’s opened me up to a completely different audience.

The same exact week I was on Fear The Walking Dead, which was the number one cable premier ever in the history of TV. I was a guest star on that and more people recognized me from BuzzFeed videos than from being on Fear The Walking Dead. But they didn’t know who I was, they were just like, BuzzFeed. They didn’t know my name or anything and in that, I realized, “Oh, I think I should try to do a little shift,” because I’ve been acting since I was five years old, doing this a long time and let’s just see what happens if I shift things around. So, I have new managers, they’re mainly focused on me as a blogger, as a food person, as a food host and we are going for it. We are going for the hosting TV stuff. I want to be the first Asian-American female to host her own show on Food Network.

The Pressure Cooker:

Which food shows or cooking shows do you watch?

I watch so many cooking shows. It’s not even funny how many cooking shows I watch. They’re mostly, not competition.

I watch everything from the stuff on The Food Network and Cooking Channel that’s demonstrational, like The Pioneer Woman, The Barefoot Contessa. I even watch Semi-Homemade with Sandra Lee, which doesn’t even exist anymore. I watch The Kitchen, I watch America’s Test Kitchen, I watch The Chew. I just watch a lot of food shows.

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

Well, you’ve actually had a couple of them on your podcast already as guests. Lily from Kale & Caramel. I also read CakeSpy on a regular basis. There are a lot of blogs that I’ve been following since the beginning, like Kath Eats Real Food. She was one of the main reason I became a blogger. She knows I love her and I’ve just been following her and her life forever.

I like Cupcakes & Cashmere, she lives in my neighborhood, so I stalk her online, so embarrassing. She’s great. I love her site and I like seeing parts of my neighborhood pop up on her site, makes me feel like seeing someone I know on TV. And Joy the Baker. She’s somebody I followed for a very long time and I’ve loved every incarnation of everything that she’s done. She has an Instagram feed now called Drake On Cake where she makes cakes and puts Drake lyrics on them and it’s of course, exploded the Internet as is everything she does. So, she’s great.

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

My friend, Leslie Durso is a vegan chef and I just love keeping in touch with her on Snapchat. My friend Whitney Adams, she has a great YouTube channel as well, she’s a wine expert. She is hilarious on Snapchat. I’m just starting to get into the Snapchat game, it’s not something for people over 20-something. So it’s a little strange, but I like that world a lot right now because it’s people being honest and real because it disappears.

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

I’m not too sentimental about stuff in my kitchen. Things break all the time but I guess, if there was something I was the most sentimental about, it would have to be my mug from college, my Wesleyan mug. It has four chips in it because I’ve dropped it but I can’t bring myself to throw it away because I went to college with it.

I think I ate ramen out of it, I can’t get rid of it. So I use that all the time but looks like crap.

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

I like everything, except, you know what I didn’t like growing up was raw tomatoes, on their own, I don’t even think I would go near one. In fact, when I was younger, and I used to drink a lot of orange juice, my mom would pour it for me and I would drink it and be like, “No, that tastes like raw tomatoes.” I think because I thought it would taste like V8.

Sometimes I remember being a jerk and refusing to drink my orange juice, even though I liked orange juice because I’d be like, “It tastes like raw tomatoes.” I like raw tomatoes today, not like eating them like apples or anything.

What are a few cookbooks that make your life better?

I don’t cook from cookbooks that often, but I do use them as inspiration. Actually, a very sentimental item to me, is The Moosewood Cookbook. It’s probably a cookbook that I’ve had since college. It was what I first learned to cook from because I used to be a vegetarian and I still use it as inspiration sometimes. I just love that, it’s all hand drawn and it just reminds me of being young and not knowing what oregano was. How far have we come?

What song or album just makes you want to cook?

I don’t listen to music anymore. As I said, I listen to all these podcasts but I guess, you know what puts me in the mood to cook is, it’s a song, The Frim Fram Sauce, do you know that song?

It’s a jazz standard but there’s a great version of it that I think it’s Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald do. It’s a great song, it’s all about food.

On Keeping Posted with Lynn:

I think probably Facebook. I have double Instagrams, double Facebooks, The Actor’s Diet and Lynn Chen because one is for the blog, initially one was for acting but now, those worlds sort of coincided with one another. So, if you want to know what’s going on with me, I think the Lynn Chen Facebook fan page is probably the best one because I put everything that’s the most important to me there.

098: Brita Britnell: All About Nashville and Hot Chicken

December 9, 2015 by Gabriel 2 Comments

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B. Britnell

Brita is a Nashville native and on her blog B. Britnell she hopes to inspire us with recipes we’ll enjoy making, love eating and most importantly, be eager to share.

I am Gabriel Soh and I am so happy to have Brita Britnell of B. Britnell here with me today.

On Growing Up in Nashville:

I wasn’t born in Nashville, but we moved here when I was young, and I’ve lived here basically my whole life with the exception of college. I went to college in DC. So I’m very much a Nashville native. I absolutely love Nashville.

I will say I’m not into country music at all. I went through a year spurt in high school this one year where I really loved country music and since then I can’t stand listening to it if I’m being perfectly honest. But I love Music City. I love what it is to this city that I am in and just what it has become.

I feel like what it’s become is when people ask, “What do you do in Nashville?” part of me feels like I don’t have an answer, but it’s only because all I want to say is food and music and there’s 101 million different food and music things you can do every night in Nashville and I absolutely love that.

I love to make sure people know, that if they’ve never been to Nashville or maybe they’ve been, but they just walked down Broadway or went in all of the honky-tonk bars, is that there’s such an awesome music scene in Nashville outside of country music. We all appreciate the country music but there’s a really awesome rock-and-roll scene and a really awesome Indie scene and really anything that you can imagine. There’s just so much music in Nashville. It’s really great.

On the Role that Food Played in Her Home:

My father was born and raised in Italy in Sicily and moved here when he was in his twenties and my mom was born and raised in Georgia and so I got a very southern taste. My mom’s entire side of the family is fried chicken and buttermilk biscuits and sweet potatoes. And then my dad knows how to cook nothing besides traditional Italian food, honestly, and he loves to cook and he cooked all the time. Pretty much all he cooked was, I don’t want to necessarily say it was all spaghetti, but it was all Italian-inspired, for sure.

On the Food Culture in Nashville:

I had a big group of friends come and visit recently and I mentioned hot chicken to them and they didn’t know what I was talking about.

This is such a huge phenomenon in Nashville. I don’t think people understand until they get here. There’s a fried chicken place to every McDonald’s that we have. The myth behind the story is that this woman owned a restaurant and she found out that her husband was cheating on her and so she put a ton of paprika and cayenne and all this pepper in his chicken to punish him. He ended up loving it and started a restaurant and that restaurant is Prince’s. And so, since then it’s just hot chicken.

It’s essentially fried chicken that’s unbearably spicy. I can’t eat it. But there’s a hot chicken festival every year that the mayor comes to and it’s a really big deal here.

On Hot Chicken:

I always tell people you have to go to a hot chicken place. I think the absolute best place is Pepperfire. It’s a newer place but I just think that their recipe is the absolute best. I do a lot of Nashville food writing and do a lot of Nashville food photography. So whether or not I like it, I’m around hot chicken all the time. I always force myself to try it. That way I can at least say “They have good hot chicken. Or I don’t like theirs as much.” They’re all very spicy to me.

I actually have an article that I wrote for Thrillist that’s something like “X Number of Under the Radar Hot Chicken Dishes“. And there’s everything. Hot chicken tacos. Hot chicken taco salad. There’s everything. So I would definitely recommend the hot chicken.

Besides that, there is a place here in Nashville that I really like called Biscuit Love Brunch. I like to recommend that specifically to people just because I think it’s got a new-age new American feel while also having that southern-like “it’s all biscuits”, and they do have a hot chicken biscuit there.

On Her Blog:

I was just really bored at work, and during the summer it was super slow, and so I just felt like I needed a creative outlet. It was just this desire for a creative outlet and I did it because I wanted to write.

Honestly I didn’t know what it was going to be. I will say food had nothing to do with it. I never started my blog thinking that it would be a food blog.

I did think, “Oh, maybe once or twice a month I’ll share a recipe. That’ll be fun. I like to cook.” I never imagined that it would turn into a food blog. When I started doing those once or twice a month recipes I realized that was the part of it that I loved the most. It in a way felt like I had purpose as opposed to this “Let me come up with this witty article.”

On How She Learned to Cook:

I just figured it out. I didn’t cook a lot in college. I actually didn’t cook a lot growing up at all to be perfectly honest. It was one of those things that my mom jokes about now. She’s, “I always tried to get you in the kitchen and you wouldn’t even fry an egg.” But I’ve always loved to eat, I feel like, more than the average person. I’ve always been really into food but I just loved to have other people cook it for me.

At a certain point I just dove into it and I just wanted to know everything about it. I listened to lots of food podcasts and read everything I could. I would like to say I’m just self-taught. My husband is also a great cook. In everything that he does, he’s very technical.

The Pressure Cooker:

Which food shows or cooking shows do you watch?

I’m a huge fan of Chopped. I have it in my mind that they should do a Chopped blogger version. I really like Chopped. I like to watch Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives. There’s always a lot of Nashville places on there so I think that that one’s fun.

My husband’s really loves watching Mind of a Chef. So we watch that a lot. Chopped and Mind of the Chef are two of my favorites.

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

I already mentioned Joy the Baker’s blog. I absolutely love it. I will be honest that for me food blogs are a lot about the photography. So my favorite food blogs are mostly my favorite food blogs because of the photography. There’s a food blog called Local Milk. She caught my eye because she’s local. She lives in Chattanooga and does a lot in Nashville so in the same State as me, and her photography is just the most beautiful photography to me. She also does have really great recipes on her blog. I’ve made quite a few. And I also really like My Name is Yeh. She does, I want to say mostly baking, but she definitely does other stuff. Those are for sure some of my favorites.

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

I’ve not gotten into Snapchat. I tried. Literally the only person I’ve ever snapchatted is my husband. I keep saying I’m going to get more into that. And Periscope. I haven’t even downloaded Periscope yet. But I’m really big on Instagram and again just going back to the whole food photography thing, I just love pictures.

I’m a very visual person and I just love the pictures. Local Milk has really beautiful pictures so I love looking at hers. Who else? I follow this one account called This Wild Idea and it’s a Tennessee account and it’s actually a dog, but it’s the same thing. The pictures are really beautifully done and I love that. So again, it’s a lot about the photography for me.

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

I will say I have this spinny thing that you put eggs on and it sits on the counter top. I could never use it because in America we refrigerate our eggs and you keep them in the carton. About six months ago, earlier this season, we got chickens which has been such a great fun experience and so now I’m able to keep the eggs out on the counter.

I love walking in my kitchen and seeing this. It’s this circular thing where the eggs go around it and when you take one egg off the rest spiral down and it’s a neat thing to me. I just love that I have my own chickens and that I have the eggs in the kitchen. I love it. It’s a really cool thing to me. I like to brag about my chickens.

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

This is going back a little bit but when I was a child I absolutely hated peanut butter. I hated peanut butter. I don’t know why, and now I love it. I do a lot. I have a lot of peanut butter recipes on my blog. I have a peanut butter pie that is one of my most popular recipes and I have no idea why.

The smell of peanut butter made me sick. I couldn’t stand it but I absolutely love it.

I want to say a lot of spices. I never really cooked with spices until I got into my mid-twenties and now it’s like I’m obsessed with spices. I just love messing around with them.

What are a few cookbooks that make your life better?

I have both of Joy the Baker’s cookbooks and I absolutely love them. I think she’s working on a third one. I have a cookbook of hers that I want to say it’s called Homemade Decadence.

If you go back and look at my earlier posts from when I first started, I often referenced how much baking made me nervous. I loved to cook but baking was such a complicated thing for me, which kind of goes back to the macaroons, but that one was a great thing for me because I was able to take some of her recipes and I think she does a great job of spelling it out.

We also have the Joy of Cooking which is different from Julia Child’s book but just the Joy of Cooking and it has every recipe you can imagine. I want to say it’s at least 500 pages if not a lot more. I’m not really sure but it’s a ton and it has just everything you can imagine. It doesn’t have more popular or more modern stuff in it. I don’t think it has anything quinoa in there, but it’s got every kind of main dish every kind of bread that you can imagine and it’s an awesome go-to.

It’s been a fun way for me to experiment. My husband and I sometimes literally will be, “We want to cook a dessert. Let’s do something we’ve never done before, but that we should know how to do.” I made cheesecake for the first time recently and so it’s just been neat having that cookbook. I highly recommend that one. I think it’s a good bit of money. I think it’s $50 but I think it’s everything that you could ever want to cook from fried chicken to cheesecake to just every kind of bread. It’s awesome.

What song or album just makes you want to cook?

I just started this thing on my blog. Every time I post a recipe I’ve just been posting a YouTube video. And I told the story about how I love to listen to songs on repeat. So I often do. I just will put something on and whatever catches my attention, I’ll hit that repeat button and it will play the entire time that I’m cooking and photographing. I think it drives my husband crazy but it kind of keeps me going.

I’ve been really into lately Lucy Rose. She’s a British musician and I think I heard her in something on HBO, like she was in the end credits. I Googled the song and I’ve been really into her recently.

On Keeping Posted with Brita:

I would say that if you go to my blog www.bbritnell.com, I’ve got all my social media there. The one that I’m most active on is Instagram and my Instagram handle is @b.britnell. I use Instagram the most.

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.

077: Laicie Heeley: How Everything Always Comes Back to Food

September 16, 2015 by Gabriel 2 Comments

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A Thousand Threads

On her blog, A Thousand Threads, Laicie writes about more than just food and recipes. She shares a lot about herself, from her wedding, travels and everyday adventures, she really puts herself out there for her readers.

I am so happy to have Laicie Heeley of A Thousand Threads here on the show today.

On Her Blog:

I actually started my blog because I had a day job that was fulfilling, but not entirely. I was writing, but I was writing about a lot of technical subjects and didn’t have the chance to write about the more creative things or do the more creative things that I enjoy doing. And so, around the time…my husband and I had been together for probably around five years at that point. When he proposed to me, I decided that it was an excuse to write about something on the Internet.

I started writing about the process of planning our wedding and of our lives at the time. It evolved in that way, eventually, to really be a representation of our lives together, and ultimately that all came back to food, because, for us, it does totally come back to food, with everything.

The relationships that I’ve built on the Internet, because I’ve been open and been willing to have those conversations with people and go back and forth, I’ve made so many good friends. It’s really been a great experience, so I’m glad that I wasn’t overthinking it at first and it allowed me to open up and keep it that way.

When I was putting it out there on the Internet and there weren’t any faces to go along with it, there weren’t any reactions. And honestly, the people that I found on the Internet, when they did appear, were so supportive and so great that it was really a good experience for me from the beginning, that I was able to make those friends, who I almost felt more open with, in many ways.

On Her Interest in Cooking:

I’m a 4-H kid from way back in the day. I grew up in Oregon, and I was in 4-H, I rode horses, that was the biggest part of my 4-H. But from the time I was very young, I actually did the cooking side as well and competed in the cooking contests in front of a judge, and it was all a very fun thing for me. It was always made fun for me, I think, particularly by my mom, who was really always interested in cooking, especially in baking. And she makes these incredibly amazing desserts that are just nuts.

She taught me how to make those things, and she taught me and brought me through that whole process of, the terrifying process of cooking in front of a judge when you’re 12 years old. It is crazy but it’s awesome, and I think it really fostered my love of cooking. I had a family of cooks, my grandmother was constantly baking pies.

And in Oregon, we all had big gardens. The fruit that my grandmother always baked the pies with always came from her garden, that was something that was crazy, that you just don’t experience that as much over here, quite as much as I did there and growing up. And it made me love food very much, having all those people around me who also loved food.

Some places have 4-H, some places have FFA, it’s a country kid thing. Some kids raise cows, and then they sell them at the auction at the county fair. It’s a thing that essentially all leads to the county fair, which is where you exhibit your work that you work on throughout the year. It’s kind of like Girl Scouts, but with a very country lean to it.

On Her Cooking Influences:

I think that my mom is hands down my greatest cooking influence. My love for baking, in particular, is completely shaped by my mother. And also my love for gathering people, I think, was shaped by my mother. Just a week ago, she had this huge event at her house for all of the women from her graduating class from high school. I don’t even know if I could track down the people from my graduating class from high school.

I’m really impressed by her. She had all the women from her graduating class over and had this beautiful, beautiful brunch party out on her patio and cooked everything and made this huge spread of desserts. My mom’s cheesecake is the craziest cheesecake that you’ve ever had.

Chocolate éclairs are something that she had always made and always brought. She was always this amazing home cook, but also one who never shied away from something that was tougher, like a chocolate éclair. She would make these fantastic cakes for my birthdays and just things that were just amazing. And I always really respected that, and still do.

On Working With Her Husband on the Blog:

We manage it quite well, actually. We both are really busy all the time, we have a lot going on. I have a nine year old stepson as well, and so we have all these things happening. And I think that ultimately, the blog and our various projects, because we’re both so passionate about them, they bring us back together in this way that we’re creating something together.

There’s nothing like creating, being able to create something with your spouse and really be excited about the outcome of it and just geek out over whatever this thing is. We both cook for the blog as well, and we shoot things back and forth.

He’ll have an idea, and I’ll add to it, and it’ll go back and forth and become this thing that’s really incredible. Even with the photography, I’ll style it, and then he’ll take the picture, and then I do the editing. So we have this very collaborative relationship that goes back and forth, and it makes us stronger in every way.

On Being Oregonian at Heart:

It’s not hard for me to live on the East Coast, but I’m certainly sad not to live on the West Coast still. I grew up in Oregon, I truly think that it’s the most beautiful place in the world. My parents are there, I love it there, I love the people, I love the food. The food scene in Portland, it’s always been amazing, but over the last 10 years, it’s really gone crazy. I go back there, and I just feel so completely close to home. I grew up on the coast, near the ocean, and there’s things about that that I miss. The East Coast is very different, it’s got a very different ethos, it’s got a very different approach to food.

But also, I’ve learned a lot, I actually live just outside of D.C., in the country, and one thing that I love about that is that we visit a lot of farms in the area, constantly. We get our eggs from the farm, we get our milk from the farm, we get everything that we can as locally as possible. And that’s really, really a cool aspect of this particular part of the area, that I didn’t necessarily have in my coastal town in Oregon, that I really appreciate here.

On the Difference in Food Culture Between Washington, DC and Oregon:

I was a vegetarian for many years, and that will make the difference very stark for you if you go from the West Coast to the East Coast, in general. It’s much harder to find good vegetarian food on the East Coast than it is on the West, because there’s a real love for meat here. And I respect that too, because I’m no longer a vegetarian, and there’s a reason, because it’s delicious. That’s one really big thing.

It used to be more so that there was a real love for local food that was easier to find on the West Coast than it is on the East Coast. I think a lot’s changed in the last few years, definitely, the restaurants have changed completely in the way that they approach things, and everyone is starting to appreciate that sort of thing more. And that’s really refreshing, that changes a lot. It’s amazing how much food can impact your love of living in a place, because it’s so much a part of your daily life. I really missed that when I first moved here about 10 years ago. Now, I would say it’s very different.

The Pressure Cooker:

Which food shows or cooking shows do you watch?

I watch whatever’s on the Cooking Channel. Obviously, I watch Anthony Bourdain, anything that he does. I watch him on CNN now, because I love his travel show and what he does. I also love Ina Garten, she’s amazing. The things that she does, it’s really wonderful.

Mind of a Chef will always be the most amazing…Netflix, just binge on Mind of a Chef, I could do it over and over and over because it’s so awesome.

I’ve had a lot of really amazing food inspiration on Netflix, Jiro Dreams of Sushi and all the good ones that are on there that are just incredible.

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

There’s so many great people making good food. I love all the big ones, I love Joy the Baker, I love Not Without Salt. I love Smitten Kitchen, she’s just incredible. I don’t even know how she does it, but every single recipe that she makes on Smitten Kitchen is just out of this world good..

I feel like there are always awesome ones that I’m discovering too, like Lady and Pups is really a cool one that does some awesome things. And I love My Name Is Yeh and all awesome newer people as well. Not totally new but just doing crazy, amazing things. I’m blown away by the blogosphere and all the great cooking being done.

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

On Pinterest and Instagram, I’m on there all the time. My friend A Daily Something is really awesome. Her children are the cutest. What she does on her Instagram blows me away. And so many great photographers, like With Hearts, who really are so inspiring and also are often in the Pacific Northwest and remind me of home and are so incredible.

On Pinterest, there are so many people who are awesome as well, and so prolific. Local Milk, obviously, I follow her on Instagram, she’s amazing on Instagram. But she’s also really prolific on Pinterest and has this awesome Pinterest account that is constantly making me discover new, awesome things that are really, really cool.

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

I love picking up vintage things, I love bringing vintage things home, and you don’t always use them. Sometimes, they just sit around and they’re props or whatever they might be, and I’ve stolen every little weird vintage thermometer and various things from my grandma’s kitchen and have them in my drawers.

But one that we have is a juicer that we use constantly, which is actually vintage. Every time I use it, I think it’s gonna fall apart because it’s so old. But it’s also so effective and fantastic, and it really just has a handle, and you can squeeze down the handle, and juice. It’s a very, very good vintage juicer that we probably don’t need in our kitchen, but I like having it.

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

Corn. I love it if it’s made a certain way. I eat a lot of foods, I’m really pretty open to almost…put anchovies on something, I’m totally fine. I like all olives and things. I taunt my husband with olives because he hates olives, and I love them. But I never really liked corn, which is a pretty basic food that I think that growing up, I just never had it cooked in a way that I really liked it.

As I’ve grown up, I have found that the fresher the corn the better. And there are definitely awesome things that you can do to corn, like chili lime seasoning or things that are really good that make it a much more awesome dish. I wouldn’t necessarily say that I love it now, but I like it a lot more than I did when I was younger.

What are a few cookbooks that make your life better?

Sugar Rush is a fairly new cookbook that I’m so impressed by, because the level of detail in the cooking and in the breaking down the processes that make for a good pastry kitchen are really broken down in a way that’s just so awesome. Also, I’ve always had my Better Homes and Gardens cookbook and the ones that I’ve had sitting around forever that my mom got me when I first moved out of the house and will always be on my shelf. Those are some that I return to the most often, because they’re really those staples that you have in the kitchen, and they have these recipes that you can take, and you can run with them as far as you wanna run with them and make them crazy. And that’s something I always love doing.

What song or album just makes you want to cook?

The song or album right now that makes me want to do all of the things and get up and jump around is Shakey Graves’s new album, who is pretty awesome, and every song on there is really good. We saw him last year in this tiny little venue. We love going up to Newport Folk Fest in Newport, Rhode Island, and he was there and really knocked our socks off. So lately, when I’m in the kitchen, that’s what’s been playing on my speakers.

On Keeping Posted with Laicie:

I’m on Instagram a lot, @laicie, and I’m on Pinterest a lot also, on Twitter and definitely the blog, of course.

067: Sarah Fennel: Baking and Picture Taking

August 12, 2015 by Gabriel 4 Comments

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Broma Bakery

Since starting her blog in 2010, Sarah has inhabited seven different kitchens, graduated college, worked in marketing for a restaurant group and now works full-time on Broma Bakery. Her blog, Broma Bakery, is where she shares her love of food while indulging in her passion for photography.

I’m so happy to have Sarah Fennel of Broma Bakery on the show today.

(*All images below are Sarah’s.)

On Her Blog:

My dad’s a reporter, so I’ve always been around cameras and film and all of that stuff. So, from a very young age, I was always interested in photography, not necessarily food photography, but just holding cameras, taking pictures, things like that. Then, when I went to college, I really missed doing photography on a more regular basis.

At college, you get so stuck up with studying and not so fun stuff. So, I just decided to pick up my camera and started shooting food. The blog and the photography really came together in the same moment, in that, I missed my mom’s baking. I wanted to have some creative outlet and I just put them together.

I had no formal training. I had never done food photography before. I just picked up a camera and went with it.

On Her Interest in Baking:

I was always more interested in baking. My sister is a huge cook; she has been interested in cooking since she was 13 years old. She would help my parents cook almost every meal at my house, so she took on that role and I stepped back. But I’d always loved sweets; I’ve always had a huge sweet tooth. So, the baking came along more natural to me and it was a nicer reward for me in the end, to be able to eat desserts.

It’s a lot more precise and it takes, for me, my development is a lot of going to tried and true recipes I’ve used before, bloggers that I trust, and creating something new, but a lot of it is really taking stuff that you know is going to work and then working off of that, because there’s been times when I’ve tried doing things just thinking that I could make cookies or a cake and it’s really a science. You need be precise in what you do.

On Her Passion for Photography:

I was doing a lot of portraits. I did photography courses all throughout high school and then some in college as well, but I was really into taking pictures of people. I really liked engaging with different people. There was something about, when you put somebody in front of the lens and I guess have them shine through your pictures.

I, again, just really taught myself. I think that, if you look on my blog, my styling is very minimal, but there definitely is a style to it. I’ll use plain backdrops and things like that. And, in terms of that portion of the site, I thought it was really important to engage with my readers, just because there are so many people out there that are interested in food and food photography, but don’t really know where to start.

So many of my friends that have come over and see me taking my photos, the first time when they come over, they were like, this is what it looks like? I mean, the behind the scene is a lot more thrown together than you’d think. So, I thought it was really important to put that on the site, to make it seem a lot more accessible to people, and hopefully get them to be able to be inspired and start photographing food.

On Working on Her Blog Full-Time:

I guess it was fortuitous, really. I was working at this restaurant job and things weren’t working out. I wanted to make a switch and instead of jumping into something right away, I thought my favorite part of this job has been taking pictures of food.

I have this baking blog. It’s gotten good reception so far. Let’s give it a couple of months and see if I can really push this to be my full-time job. So, I just took a leap and went for it. Two months passed and I was like, I want to keep working on this. Then four months passed and it’s really just gone from there. It’s something I feel fortunate enough to be able to do as my full-time job and it’s definitely something that I want to have continue grow. But, yeah, it sort of happened and I went with it.

Doing it as a side project, I didn’t really set a schedule for myself. I didn’t set different tasks I had to do to keep up with things. Things that most people don’t realize is that, there’s recipe development and there’s photographing, posting, getting them out there, but then there is so much, in terms of social media and marketing and even just connecting with other bloggers, that goes into creating a successful blog, that takes so much time.

For me, I’ll wake up at 9:00 and I’ll just get a cup of coffee and go straight to my computer, and then I’ll comment on other blogs, see what’s been going on with blogger friends that I know and that usually takes about two hours to really go through and engage with other people. Then, I’ll switch to doing some Pinteresting. Pinteresting is really important, keeping yourself active on that. So, I’ll do that probably for another hour, take a break for lunch and then right after lunch, I’ll go into making a recipe and then photographing it as well. That can take anywhere from an hour and a half to the whole afternoon. Then sometimes, if I can get a workout in, I’ll do that.

On Some Misconceptions About Baking:

I think that there are two main things. In general, when people see baking and they see a brownie that’s perfectly fudgy or a cake that’s three layers, it seems like there is a lot that goes into it. And sometimes there is, but especially with my style of baking, it’s a lot easier than it seems. I mean, it is very precise, but as long as you’re following along with those directions and really making sure you have quality ingredients, those two things will take you far in baking.

Then, I’d say the other thing that really I’ve seen prevents people from doing things is things like Pinterest and all these blogs that have popped up, because you see this final products and they seem so unattainable, just because there’s so many of them and there’s perfect lighting and there’s these perfect bit shots and all of that. I think that really scares people and it makes them think that it’s something they can’t do.

My biggest piece of advice would be to just go out and try one of those recipes, and really see how it goes. More often than not, you’ll be surprised with what you can do.

On Messing Up in the Kitchen:

There have been so many times. It still happens all the time.

There was this one time when my sister and I were making a chocolate beet cake, like with beets. We followed the directions and we put the cake in the oven, and then we realized, “oh my God,” we didn’t put the oil in. So, instead of just a beet cake, we put it on the blog and called it a low fat beet cake. It totally worked, but things like that happen all the time.

There was one I did this winter. I was trying to do peppermint cookies, so I chopped up little circular peppermints and I baked them. They came out of the oven and they completely melted off of the cookies. There were these little candy drippings everywhere. And it was just absolutely awful. So yeah, it’s a regular occurrence in the kitchen.

On Some Online Resources for Those Interested in Learning More about Baking:

One site that I go to very regularly is Food52. It’s a fantastic site. It’s basically recipes that people submit, as well as recipes that the professionals at Food52 will recreate and photograph themselves, but then, in addition, they have this whole tips and tricks section, where you can learn things like if your baking soda is expired and how to make the perfect loaf and things like that. It’s been really helpful for me and it’s just beautiful photography. It’s a really nice site layout. So, I definitely would suggest that.

In terms of books, I really grew up with The Joy of Cooking and that’s the book that we constantly pulled out, anytime we wanted a recipe. So, just going to classics like that is really great, because you can’t go wrong.

The Pressure Cooker:

Which food shows or cooking shows do you watch?

I’m really into Chef’s Table, Ina Garten’s Barefoot Contessa and Mind of a Chef.

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

You got to know about Food52, How Sweet Eats is one of my favorite bloggers, Joy The Baker is like the queen of all things baking.

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

On Pinterest, I follow Half Baked Harvest. She’s an incredible photographer and she has really unique things. On Facebook, I follow Ambitious Kitchen. She does great healthy recipes, but then she also does some really fun workout stuff. On Instagram, Kale and Caramel. It’s really innovative desserts. I love it.

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

I don’t think it’s unusual at all, but my KitchenAid is my baby. My boyfriend got it for my birthday a couple of years ago and I use it at least three or four times a week, and you can just do everything with it. So, it’s the most worth it gadget I’ve ever owned.

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

I used to not like avocados. I thought they were overrated. I just didn’t get them and then one day, I just made avocado toast, because I was bored, and I’m obsessed with avocados now. I put them on sandwiches, I put them in my toast, put them with my eggs. Sometimes I’ll have them for dinner, love them.

What are a few cookbooks that make your life better?

Joy of Cooking, absolutely. Back to basics, it’s all you need. Then, the Dominique Ansel baking cookbook is unbelievable. The photos are amazing, the recipes are amazing. You’ve got to check it out.

What song or album just makes you want to cook?

Motown, like always. Put on Motown and I’m like bopping around the kitchen. It’s just so fun and I love it.

On Keeping Posted with Sarah:

Instagram is my favorite form of social media, so you can check me out on Instagram.

055: Liz Harris: Turning Food into Her Career

July 1, 2015 by Gabriel 2 Comments

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Floating Kitchen

Liz is a cook, photographer, and writer. And on her blog, Floating Kitchen, she explores and shares seasonally inspired recipes that are sometimes healthy and sometimes indulgent, but always fun and delicious.

I am so psyched to have Liz Harris of Floating Kitchen here on the show today.

(*All images below are Liz’s.)

On Her Career Before Food:

Before I started blogging, I was actually a research scientist. I went all the way in school. My undergraduate focus was biology, and then I went on to get my PhD in Biochemistry. That was five years of training, post undergrad degree.

Then I went and did a post-doctoral fellowship in Cancer Biology. That was another four years of training. I spent about thirteen years working towards becoming a research scientist, and then I was working in that field. It just wasn’t clicking for me anymore so I made a drastic change in my life.

Making the change was very hard, mentally, because I had committed so much time and you feel compelled to continue on this path.

I still love science. I find it really interesting. I love reading about it in my free time. I liked actually doing it, but at the end of the day, the lifestyle that I had created for myself around this career wasn’t very healthy for me anymore, and so I needed to change that.

On Her Introduction to Cooking:

My family is pretty into food. I come from a line of great cooks. My grandmother, my great aunts, my mom is a big cook as well. I was always just in the kitchen or around the kitchen with them. So I was always very interested in it. My family also owns a farm and a wholesale distribution business in New Hampshire, so food is just something that we think about a lot and have always been really interested in. It’s just what we do.

My great auntie, Dot. She was probably the best cook in the family. She also was always very patient with me and she let me help her. She didn’t get mad if you messed up or anything. Because I’m sure I messed up a lot when I was little. I owe a lot of my cooking abilities to her.

On Turning Her Hobby into Her Career:

About five years ago is when I really started doing it. It was still a hobby at that time, but I started being a lot more serious about cooking every day for myself, cooking for friends, having people over.

That’s when people started suggesting to me, too, “Hey, you’re really good at this. Have you ever thought about having a blog or doing something with it?” And I was like, “No. Computers hate me. I would never have a blog. I can’t even do email!” That just seemed really out of reach for me.

I was spending so much time on my career, so it was like, “No way I could do that on the side.” So that’s when I really started getting into it. Around 2012 or 2013 is when I made this choice to leave my career as being a scientist, and that was the obvious thing to do, is to pursue something in cooking.

I think whenever you make a really big drastic change like that, there is a fine balance between courage and sheer stupidity. You just have to say, “Alright, I don’t know what’s going to happen and I’m just going to do it and go for it.”

My parents obviously were really supportive. I didn’t feel like I was going to be letting them down. I also was giving up a paycheck and all these other practical things. They were encouraging me and telling me that it would be okay. It gave me the guts to do it.

I’m just a really determined person. Once I get something in my head, it does not escape my head until I do something about it. So I just decided to do it and now here I am.

When I first left science, I didn’t know what I was going to do. I was mulling around for a few months, figuring it out.

I actually simultaneously started my blog and started working in restaurants. I had never had a restaurant job before in my whole life, so that was a really fun and eye-opening experience. So I started on those two paths; I had the blogging and I had the restaurant work. After doing both those simultaneously for about a year, I decided that I just wanted to pursue the blogging for now. Restaurant work is hard. I mean, it was fun but it’s a lot of work for not a lot of gain. And my blog was picking up and was growing, and I decided to put all of my energy into that.

On the Type of Cooking that’s Most Natural:

I think the savory dishes come more naturally to me. I’ve developed a style where I just like to throw things together. I cook mostly vegetarian food and it’s just easy to roast up a bunch of vegetables and make some grains, make a quick dressing. That is definitely more my everyday style. Although I do love the baking.

I think the enjoyment I get out of the baking is not the actual doing it but it’s the sharing it. Because that’s the stuff that’s easy to share, and that’s why I loved cooking to start with. I loved bringing people food or inviting people over.

Cookies and brownies are something I would take to work all the time, or bring to my neighbor’s house. So I like that aspect of the baking. But in terms of the following the instructions, I can do it and I’m great at it, but I just prefer to not have to think that much about it. Which is funny because being a scientist, all you’re doing is thinking about instructions all the time.

On Where She Finds Inspiration for Her Blog:

Mostly from other bloggers.

I read an enormous number of blogs. I have like 400 blogs on my feed. It’s insane. Because people are just doing so much great stuff, so I love just seeing what everyone else is doing.

I’m really inspired by cooking with the seasons. That’s something that’s important to me. Growing up in a family that has a farm, I’ve always been aware of that and try to follow that as much as possible. It’s better for your wallet and the environment. It’s good for your body. It tastes better when you buy food that’s in season. I love going to the local markets and looking for things that look great, and bringing them home and making something from them.

On Things Not Going As Planned in the Kitchen:

I feel like at this point, I’m pretty knowledgeable of what is going to work together, what flavors will go together, and what techniques are going to work.

I guess the only things for me, that it’s not actually the cooking part, it’s always something else that happens. I remember I made this huge tray of eclairs and they were glazed. And I dropped them and they went glazed side down on the rug, with dog hair stuck in them. It’s that kind of stuff.

I will finish a whole thing and then I’ll have some klutzy moment at the end and ruin everything, which is very unfortunate. But those things happen to me more than actually with the cooking part.

In the beginning, when I was in graduate school and during my fellowship when I was learning to cook, I was very strict about following recipes. I had to have a recipe or I couldn’t make something. Because I didn’t have that awareness of what things went together. But now that I have been cooking for so many years, it’s easy for me, just something that I’ve picked up.

The Pressure Cooker:

Which food shows or cooking shows do you watch?

I do like to watch the Barefoot Contessa.

A show I used to love to watch that’s not on anymore is Alton Brown’s Good Eats. Of course, that’s like a science-y cooking show, so you know I’m going to love that one. I don’t really watch any food competition shows because they kind of stress me out. I get nervous for the contestants.

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

From the 400 that I follow, let’s see. One blog that I love is called Local Haven. Her name is Ashely, and she has really great photography and really authentic, unfussy recipes that just feel good when I’m on her site and look at her photos. So I think everyone should check out Local Haven.

I also really love Foodie Crush by Heidi. Heidi has great recipes and great photography, but I think the thing that I appreciate most about her site is that she spends a lot of time talking about other bloggers and other blogger’s recipes. It’s really refreshing in a job where you talk about yourself all the time. I mean, that’s really what we have to do, is promote yourself. So it’s so nice to see somebody who is talking about other bloggers so much. I’ve been introduced to a lot of new sites through her blog. So I think that’s a good one everyone should check out.

And I love How Sweet It Is by Jessica. Her stuff is just so over the top and fun, and it just makes you feel good when you read it.

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

On Instagram, I love Sweet Paul Magazine. He has a lot of not just food pictures, it’s food and crafts and gardening. All the photos are really bright and fun and whimsical. He has a great feed.

I also love, on Instagram, all the meta-sites, like Food 52 and The Kitchn. Great photography, great recipes, and again, they reshare a lot of stuff from the community. So it’s been a great way to connect and find new Instagram accounts and new food bloggers.

On Twitter, I love Sarah from The Sugar Hit. She is just hilarious. She has really funny tweets. I definitely recommend people checking her out.

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

I guess the thing that would be the most treasured, is I do have recipes from my great aunt. She was the one that was sort of the biggest cook in our family. And all the recipes from my grandparents and other family members, and I think those are probably the most treasured things, just having those cards with the stains on them and the handwritten notes. It’s just really fun. You feel like you’re cooking with them when you’re using them.

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

This is a tough question because I used to dislike everything. I was that kid that only ate grilled cheese, chicken, and peanut butter and jelly for like twenty years. So it’s very surprising now that I will eat everything.

I think one of the main things is tomatoes. I used to hate tomatoes, raw tomatoes. I didn’t like tomato sauce. I would wipe the sauce off of my spaghetti, which horrified my parents. But now, I love fresh tomatoes. I love making sauces.

What are a few cookbooks that make your life better?

I really like Vibrant Food by Kimberly Hasselbrink. It’s really colorful. I want to eat everything when I flip through the pages. It’s just a spectacular book that I think everybody should own.

I love Joy the Baker. She’s one of my favorite bloggers. I love Homemade Decadence, again, really fun and whimsical, and of course, totally makes you hungry when you’re looking at it.

I also love all the Ottolenghi books. I don’t cook from them that often, because all the recipes are really involved, but just such a great source of inspiration and great photography as well.

What song or album just makes you want to cook?

I really like something upbeat when I’m cooking, like Stevie Wonder or Taylor Swift. Anything with a good beat deserves to be in my kitchen.

On Keeping Posted with Liz:

The best way, the first way is my blog, of course, floatingkitchen.net. I post new recipes two to three times a week. So you can check me out there. Instagram is my favorite, so that’s a fun place. I love connecting with people on Instagram.

045: Megan DeKok: Simple Ways to Experiment in the Kitchen

June 5, 2015 by Gabriel Leave a Comment

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Take A Megabite

Baker by night, and freelance food stylist, Megan tries to incorporate her love of food in everything that she does. Take A Megabite has been featured on CNN, Buzzfeed, The Kitchn, and Food Gawker just to name a few. And when she is not remixing childhood favorites or experimenting with new ideas, Megan contributes to the Betty Crocker website.

I am so happy to have Megan DeKok of Take A Megabite here on the show today.

On Writing About Cooking and Food:

Well, I grew up eating a lot of good homemade stuff all the time. And it was the combo of getting done with school and being like, “What am I supposed to do after work?,” kinda thing.

I felt like I had so much spare time. On top of that, my parents moved away. So I had to count on myself for homemade goodness. I just start figuring out how to make stuff my mom made all the time. Calling her and being like, “Is this weird? Is this supposed to be happening? It’s not working! It’s working!” And, you know, figuring stuff out that way.

I didn’t really cook that much when I was little. But cookies, chocolate chip cookies, were the main thing. So my mom made those all the time so those were the only thing that I ever did make, or like over easy eggs for my dad.

I started it because I liked it, and I think it just translated. Like how much I liked it and how much fun I was having just was apparent, maybe. I don’t know. So it actually worked out. I now work, I do social media. So I do photographing and design and stuff for a brand at an agency.

They found me through my blog. So it’s just kind of evolved naturally into my career, I guess.

On Her Food and Cooking Influences:

Definitely my mom. She’s an awesome baker and a good cook.

The first food blog I ever looked at was Joy The Baker and so she totally inspired me to start my site. I like her. She likes baking a lot also. I feel like her and I have things in common.

And then, looking at cookbooks. Beautiful cookbooks and vintage ones. I love all the illustrations in the vintage Betty Crocker versus like the newfangled designs.

When she (mom) comes to town, I always try to make at least one thing that she’s never had. Or something she might think was a little weird and try to win her over with it.

Occasionally, now, she actually calls me for food things. So it’s switched a little bit, which is fun. And when she visits too, I always try to be like, “Let’s make one thing that I’ve never made before or you’ve never made.” She’s really good at pies, “So let’s make a pie.” It’s pretty fun.

On Deciding on What to Make on Her Blog:

I’m inspired a lot by Pinterest. I’m constantly pinning recipes I want to make.

I guess I like making things where it’s like one dessert in a different form, so it’s like blueberry cheesecake but made into an ice cream flavor with goat cheese! I really like the idea of making one thing into something else. Or taking a different view on it.

On How Homemade Things Excite Her:

It’s something about knowing everything that’s in your food. There’s nothing weird and it’s not like you’re eating something processed where there’s a million ingredients. It’s really fun to know. Like, “Oh, you’ve got everything in the pantry to make this awesome stir-fry.”

Banana bread’s no big deal. You know you’ve got the stuff. Just switch up the sugar, use coconut oil, whatever. I really like the simplicity, but also like how delicious it can be, I guess.

I will think like, “Okay, I want to make banana bread, for sure.” I make it a lot, actually. I made it today. So, I’ll just be like, “Okay, I want to make that but I’m going to use grape seed oil, and this time, I have muscovado sugar.” So I’m going to use that in it. And then, I actually have a little bit of granola leftover, so I’ll put that on the top of it.

On Easy Ways to Start Experimenting in the Kitchen:

I’m not sure I’m answering this right, so you can let me know. Lately I’ve been making this roasted vegetable stir-fry thing. So it’s not a stir-fry because you’re roasting, but it’s just roast every vegetable you have. And then make a simple sauce that’s like almond butter and sesame oil and soy sauce, brown sugar, Sriracha, and it’s changed everything. I’m like, “All I want to do is make this stir-fry everyday.” It’s super easy, but it’s also delicious. And impressive looking.

There’s been times where it’s like, “Oh, I didn’t have blueberries.” So I used this berry instead and that’s awesome. I guess there was a time where I was going to make a berry crumble but I only had plums. So I made a plum crumble, and I never baked with them before. I was like, “This is awesome! I loved it and it was so pretty.” So I guess like that would be an example. Baking with a fruit that you have on hand that you wouldn’t normally.

On Valentine’s Day:

Well, I guess it’s because I love love, first of all. And I just loved it ever since high school, even.

It doesn’t matter if I’m single or in a relationship. It’s not even about that. It’s more about, first of all, it’s the prettiest holiday. The colors, the decorations, but mostly I like to think of Valentine’s Day as a day to show everybody that you care about that you care about them.

I have a brunch party every year. I’ve had it seven years now. And it’s so much fun and I think it just kind of makes the holiday something special to people who would normally think like, “Ah, Hallmark holiday, who cares”? But then, you turned it into a really fun day with food and mimosas.

I’ve upped my game every year since. The first year, I invited like 10 people. I’ve based the guest list on how many champagne glasses I had. And this year, I got up to 28 people invited. So it’s gotten a little bigger. I think I’m just one of those people that once I start something, I just keep doing it until I don’t care about it anymore.

The Pressure Cooker:

Which food shows or cooking shows do you watch?

The truth is, I only have Netflix and I don’t have cable anymore. But when I did, I would watch Chopped quite a bit.

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

I would say Food52 is really cool. They also have a shop that’s awesome. Where I might have bought purple jars from bed the other morning. Because I was like, “Woah, purple jars! Limited edition!” So there’s that.

Food blog-wise, I know Dula Notes was just on here. I really love her. She’s really fun. I like her seasonal goodness.

Hungry Girl por Vida. That one’s really good. My Friend Cindy has mad food styling skills.

And, Wit & Vinegar and My Name is Yeh, definitely. There’s a million I feel like I could list.

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

Well, on Instagram, it’s for sure, Shop Bando and Jen Gotch. Theirs are so happy and awesome, it’s just like constant positivity, pretty colors, it’s great.

My Name is Yeh, also, is awesome on Instagram. She has made such awesome cakes. They’re so pretty. And she does a lot of marzipan animal cutouts which is the cutest.

I like Bev Cooks. She’s got these twin babies that are pretty adorable.

And then Harlow and Sage. I don’t know why babies sent me straight to puppies, but, it’s like three dogs are best friends.

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

I would say it’s a toss-up between my gold french press, which I love and use everyday basically. And then, I have these enamel wear pots that I really love. They’re vintage and one of them is yellow with little crowns on it. And I’ve got a royal blue one. I really love those.

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

I would say sweet potatoes. I never cared about them. I was like, “Who cares about sweet potatoes?” I just thought of them as like, thanksgiving marshmallow situation.

But then as soon as I starting making them savory all the time and not trying to add pecans and marshmallow fluff to them, I was like, “Hell yeah!” So I’m putting them in my quesadillas, and in stir-fry. And adding them to brioche buns. I love them now.

What are a few cookbooks that make your life better?

I would say the Jeni’s Splendid Ice Cream cookbooks. She has two of them. They both are awesome.

The Top With Cinnamon cookbook is so good and beautiful.

I really like the new Joy the Baker cookbook. It’s got a lot of good baking recipes in there.

Also like the Hummingbird Bakery cookbook. It’s just a small cookbook but their basic cupcake is like, “What’s up.” It’s like one stick of butter. For a dozen cakes, it’s awesome.

What song or album just makes you want to cook?

Well, I was thinking about this because it goes from like Otis Redding, like records or listening to him on Spotify. Or Katy Perry and Lady Gaga. It’s a big jump there.

I guess it’s either fun, soul type stuff, or it’s lady tunes of the most embarrassing level. I mean, I’ll tell people I like it, but, I mean, it’s not necessarily cool.

On Keeping Posted on Megan:

You can follow me on Facebook, and Instagram, and Twitter mostly. I’m on there as Take A Megabite. It’s easy to find. On Pinterest also.

018: Jonathan Melendez: Guiding Home Cooks via Food Photography

March 27, 2015 by Gabriel Leave a Comment

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The Candid Appetite

Jonathan is a cook, a baker, blogger and food photographer, and what is really great about his blog is that he is meticulous in photographing the steps in all his recipes and posts. You can basically figure out how to make his dishes by simply looking at his beautifully styled images.

I’m so pumped to have Jonathan Melendez of The Candid Appetite joining me today.

On Photographing Food:

I went to culinary school for a brief period, like right after high school, and all my life I thought I would become a chef. I quickly learned being in school that it just wasn’t everything that I thought it was. It completely took the fun out of cooking away from me. So I stopped going to culinary school, and I threw myself back into school taking all my general education classes.

I took one basic photography class and then that evolved into a passion that I didn’t even know I had. It wasn’t until my senior year of college that somebody told me like, “Hey, you should really photograph food. That makes sense because of your background,” and it was born through that, and I was able to combine two of my passions basically into one thing.

On Starting His Blog:

I needed a final project for my graduating class- the final class you need right before you get your degree. And for me I wanted to do something that was fun, and I thought I could incorporate this blog with my school work and get credit for it. The idea behind the step by step came to me because I’ve been following food blogs for many years. And I always come across the same questions of people asking like, “Oh, am I doing this right? Is it supposed to look this way?”

Most often you see a blog that only has one image of the final product and people don’t know the steps in between. So I guess I wanted a resource for people to be able to see it step by step, that there wouldn’t be questions for them. It would guide them through it and hold their hand, I guess, in the kitchen. So that’s how it came around.

The images are so predominant in it because of my photography background. But, you know, when it comes to the bottom line of it, I really want the food to shine. I feel like having those images there gives people the chance to be able to do it, gives them the confidence.

On What Comes Most Naturally:

I would say that cooking comes so naturally to me because it was something that I have always done ever since I was really young. To me cooking is a way to relieve stress basically.

You would think that even after a full day of shooting and making a bunch of recipes, I won’t want to make dinner. But I still do and I think it’s because it gives me that chance to forget about everything that I have to do. Get in the kitchen, and just kind of cook as I go.

Cooking to me is super easy because you could not think about it. You could basically whip up something without having to really measure everything out. Whereas baking is more precise and I have to go through the trouble of accurate measuring, and that sometimes becomes a little tedious. So I would say baking to me is one of the hardest things that I do on a daily basis.

On Who Inspires Him:

In the food blogging world, it would have to be Joy the Baker, Joy Wilson. She for me was one of my biggest inspirations when I first started my blog, and then Ree Drummond from The Pioneer Woman, for sure. I think she kind of set the way for all these food bloggers that came after her.

As far as just regular TV personalities, because I did grow up watching the Food Network a lot, I would say Ina Garten, Emeril, Mario Batali, and Sara Moulton were some of my all-time favorite people to see on TV.

The only person I’ve ever cooked for in that list is Joy, and I think it wasn’t even anything that fancy. I believe I made her soup. It was potato and kale soup or something like that.

On Doughnuts:

You never say no to a doughnut.

I’m from California, Southern California. I was born and raised in Los Angeles and there is a small shack in Burbank, California, that’s like a small mom and pop shop. It’s called The Doughnut Hut and seriously like the best doughnuts I’ve ever had.

I’m not a fancy doughnut connoisseur. I get down with the classics like the bare minimum. My favorite doughnut to get there is a cake doughnut that has just regular vanilla frosting and colored sprinkles. It’s the best thing ever. That place just knows what they are doing.

There’s a line around the block, I mean, it’s big and it’s not a big place at all. It’s like a little hut, you can’t even walk in. You order from a window on the sidewalk and it’s just the best doughnuts you’ve ever had.

On Collaborating with Joy the Baker:

I have these quirky weird things that go on in my life, and I kind of stalked her on her social media platforms.

I came across a photo of her cat and I commented on it, and we kind of became friends through this photo and my comments. I kept telling her how obsessed I was with her cat, so I saw her at a book signing once and I went up to her, and I was, “I don’t know if you remember me, but I’m the one that’s obsessed with your cat.” And then it kind of developed a friendship through that weirdness basically. That was, I think, two or three years ago, and now we’ve kind of become friends because of that.

I am currently shooting her third book right now that will come out in 2017, I believe.

The Pressure Cooker:

Which food shows or cooking shows do you watch?

Chopped and Top Chef.

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

I’m currently obsessed with i am a food blog, which is an amazing food blog. I’m obsessed with it. Stephanie, who writes the blog is amazing. Her photographs just give me such inspiration, it’s amazing.

Souvlaki For The Soul, which is another blog that is very photo oriented. Very pristine photos that I could only wish I would one day be able to take photos like, and Top with Cinnamon, which is a food blog run by a 18 or 17-year-old. I’m thinking like I’m 25, there are people out there so much older who are all doing these food blogs, and here’s an 18, 17-year-old doing everything we can, but so much better than anybody else out there, and I’m obsessed with it.

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

I have to admit I’m really bad with Twitter, and I have it, but only because I have a blog, and it’s there. I hardly ever update it.

Pinterest, I wish I pinned more, and I don’t. So I don’t really follow anybody there.

Instagram, of course, is my number one favorite social media, and I follow Chronicle Books. The publishing house does a really good job with their Instagram account, and it’s nice to see them have this passion for books.

I feel like nowadays with all these ebook readers and tablets and iPhones and everything else that’s out there, I feel like actual books are becoming really hard to find, and books are going extinct. I feel like here is a publishing house that’s showing us cookbooks that are actually there, like actual physical cookbooks. I still find them exciting, and every time I see one of their photos on my feed, it just puts a smile on my face because they do such an amazing job.

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

I would say a black pepper mill because I hate already ground pepper. I feel like it doesn’t have the same potency and the same flavor as freshly ground, so I am always using that pepper mill.

Those coarse grounds instead of just the finely ground powdered stuff? I feel like it’s instantly better.

Name one ingredient you cannot live without?

I’m going to say potatoes. I’m obsessed with potatoes. I’m obsessed with a lot of things, but potatoes is definitely one of them.

What are a few cookbooks that make your life better?

I have to say the first one is Homemade Decadence. I am biased towards it, but it’s a great book. I love seeing it.

Ceviche, by a man named Martin Morales. I love this book. I don’t know if you’ve seen this book, but it’s a Peruvian ceviche book, and the cover has this texture of white tile, like kitchen tile on it. It’s just really nice. It’s a great book.

There’s Huckleberry cookbook, it’s published through Chronicle Books, and I believe it’s a bakery also, but it makes me so happy because the sides of the book, like of the pages, have a design on it. It’s like a yellow color with white polka dots on it. I had never seen that before.

What song or album just makes you want to cook?

I go through these phases that I’ll listen to certain songs more often than not, and I guess right now I’m addicted to a song called Burnin’ Up by Jessie J. I don’t know if you’ve heard of that song because it’s very poppy, and it’s very upbeat and fast, and I feel like that’s something that you definitely want to be cooking to.

It depends on my mood, and the time of day it is, like at night after I’ve done a ton and have a full day of work, and a full day of shooting, the last thing I want to do is listen to something super upbeat. So I’ll put on a record and I’ll listen to something that’s kind of mellow. At the beginning of the day when I need to wake up, that’s when I’m listening to something that’s more fast and upbeat.

Keep Posted on Jonathan:

I’m going to say Instagram. I don’t think there’s a day that goes by when I don’t post something on Instagram, and I’m always putting my blog updates there as well as life updates. I just feel like it’s great. Since, again, I’m so photo oriented. For me it’s the perfect social media to update.

You can check out the blog at thecandidappetite.com.

On Her Blog:

On Coming to Terms with Her Eating Disorder:

On What She Would Say to Someone Struggling with an Eating Disorder:

On Thick Dumpling Skin:

On the Thick Dumpling Skin Podcast:

On Her Videos:

The Pressure Cooker:

On Keeping Posted with Lynn:

On Growing Up in Nashville:

On the Role that Food Played in Her Home:

On the Food Culture in Nashville:

On Hot Chicken:

On Her Blog:

On How She Learned to Cook:

The Pressure Cooker:

On Keeping Posted with Brita:

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 Interest in Cooking:

On Her Cooking Influences:

On Working With Her Husband on the Blog:

On Being Oregonian at Heart:

On the Difference in Food Culture Between Washington, DC and Oregon:

The Pressure Cooker:

On Keeping Posted with Laicie:

On Her Blog:

On Her Interest in Baking:

On Her Passion for Photography:

On Working on Her Blog Full-Time:

On Some Misconceptions About Baking:

On Messing Up in the Kitchen:

On Some Online Resources for Those Interested in Learning More about Baking:

The Pressure Cooker:

On Keeping Posted with Sarah:

On Her Career Before Food:

On Her Introduction to Cooking:

On Turning Her Hobby into Her Career:

On the Type of Cooking that’s Most Natural:

On Where She Finds Inspiration for Her Blog:

On Things Not Going As Planned in the Kitchen:

The Pressure Cooker:

On Keeping Posted with Liz:

On Writing About Cooking and Food:

On Her Food and Cooking Influences:

On Deciding on What to Make on Her Blog:

On How Homemade Things Excite Her:

On Easy Ways to Start Experimenting in the Kitchen:

On Valentine’s Day:

The Pressure Cooker:

On Keeping Posted on Megan:

On Photographing Food:

On Starting His Blog:

On What Comes Most Naturally:

On Who Inspires Him:

On Doughnuts:

On Collaborating with Joy the Baker:

The Pressure Cooker:

Keep Posted on Jonathan:

Have One of Jonathan's Special Dish Recipe Sent to You Now: