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118: Hannah Messinger: How Cooking is an Exercise in Patience

April 13, 2016 by Gabriel Leave a Comment

Hannah Messinger of Nothing but Delicious on The Dinner Special podcast talking about how to keep posted with her.
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Hannah Messinger of Nothing but Delicious on The Dinner Special podcast talking about how cooking is an exercise in patience.

Nothing but Delicious

Hannah graduated from Boston University with a photojournalism degree and started her blog Nothing but Delicious out of boredom. She had spent some time away from writing and photography, but through her blog, has learned many lessons like that she indeed wants to be a writer and that cooking is an exercise in patience.

I am so happy to have Hannah Messinger of Nothing but Delicious here on the show today.

(*All photos below are Hannah’s.)

On Starting Her Blog:

Hannah Messinger of Nothing but Delicious on The Dinner Special podcast talking about starting her food blog.

I had been reading fashion blogs for awhile. My favorite one is called Sea of Shoes, and they had linked to a blog called, La Tartine Gourmande. Which I’m sure I sound like a redneck. I’m from Tennessee. I’m really sorry. But I had this office job where I was just on the computer all day and talking to people on the phone, so I could look at whatever on the screen.

I ended up reading the entire blog, start to finish, like a book just because, I mean, what else was I going to do? I can’t sit still. I didn’t realize that food blogs were a thing. I didn’t realize they could be a cool thing. Back in the day when you thought of a blog, it was kind of a dorky thing, right? I was just blown away by her images of her recipes and the way she wrote. And I felt like it could be, if nothing else for me, good practice just to write and to photograph things.

Nothing else has brought me so much fun work. It’s not lucrative work. But I mean, my first job, I got from Twitter shooting a brand new chocolate company here, brand new then, not brand new now, called Olive & Sinclair. The owner is a real-life Willy Wonka, and he always just gives me a box with $200 worth of chocolate in it. It’s so much fun.

On Her Curiosity Around Food:

Hannah Messinger of Nothing but Delicious on The Dinner Special podcast talking about her curiosity around food.

When I was maybe three years old, my yaya – that’s Greek for grandmother – gave me a teeny tiny baking set for Christmas. It’s probably the best gift I’ve ever received, to this day. She was a really great hostess and I have very fond memories of going to her house on every holiday and just Sunday afternoons. And everything she made was so intriguing. From Chex Mix to Jello salad, because it was the ’80s, to prime rib. Everything was perfect.

My mom, every Easter, makes lamb and manestra. Which is not the right name for it, it’s just what my family calls it, I learned recently.

It’s lamb baked on a rack so that the juices drip down. And then you put cherry tomatoes under it and they roast in the juices and let their own juices out. And at the end, you throw in orzo and it cooks in all the tomato and lamb juice. And you serve it all together on a plate with lots of lemon and herbs and feta cheese. And she also makes spanakopita with filo dough. I wasn’t even allowed to touch the filo until I was 18. But now she lets me do it, and it’s really fun.

On Her Food Heroes:

Hannah Messinger of Nothing but Delicious on The Dinner Special podcast talking about her food heroes.

I think everyone in the blogging world. I learned almost everything I know from Alton Brown, as opposed to going to culinary school or anything like that. The book, Ratio, by Michael Ruhlman, was really life changing.

I also love this book called, An Everlasting Meal: Cooking With Economy and Grace, which is by Tamar Adler, but it’s modeled on the book, How to Cook a Wolf, by MFK Fisher. It talks about toppling meals. That if you have steamed broccoli for dinner one night, the next day at lunch you make quick pickled broccoli stem salad. And things like that. Meals that make sense, that merge into one another. And that really changed the way I cook.

On Cooking as an Exercise in Patience:

Hannah Messinger of Nothing but Delicious on The Dinner Special podcast talking about cooking as an exercise in patience.

It takes time and there’s no way around that. If you mess up a recipe, a lot of times the store is closed, you’re out of ingredients, you’re out of money to buy new ingredients. You really have to wait until next week, if you’re a home cook, to try it again. And that can seem like such a long time for an impatient person like me. I feel like that’s an everyday challenge for me, not only cooking but things take time, and cooking has conditioned me, I think, to deal with that in my life.

I did a kinfolk dinner maybe three years ago in Chattanooga. It was all about infusion. And I had made a chai pots de creme. Which, in all my recipe tests, the cream broke because ginger is pretty acidic but it’s a necessary flavor in the process.

So I struggled to figure out how to get it in there. And then when I finally figured it out, I was baking them off at my parents’ place which…they were renting a really old condo at the time. And I put them in the oven and I thought, “This is it. I’ve finally got it.” And I swear, the oven door exploded. And I sat down in the middle of the glass and cried.

On a Dish She Finds Challenging and Requires Patience:

Hannah Messinger of Nothing but Delicious on The Dinner Special podcast talking about a dish that she finds challenging.

I struggle with custard pies. I mean, we all do. They’re very temperamental. I lose one to slumping or sogginess every now and then like everyone. But I try not to let that get me down.

I’m going to use custard pies as an example, because I just talked about it. And my advice would be just to take baby steps. If you can make each separate component by itself and succeed without combining them, which is to say you can roll out the dough and you can bake it in little rounds. You can make lemon curd, put it on top, top it with strawberries and a little whipped cream or something. Then you know you can do it next time and you feel good going into it. Just that you know what each thing is supposed to be like and that you’ve done it successfully.

My mom always says, “Take the next right step,” which sounds so frustrating when you have a really big and daunting task in front of you. It sounds like being told to think small. But small steps snowball. And that’s the only way you can get anywhere. You can’t do step nine before you’ve done step two. I get really mad at her every time she tells me that, but then I’m like, “Okay, wait, this has always been good advice.”

The Pressure Cooker:

Which food shows or cooking shows do you watch?

Obviously, I watch Mind of a Chef and Chef’s Table. And Great British Bake Off. Who doesn’t love that? But recently, my favorite is called, I’ll Have What Phil’s Having, on PBS with Phil Rosenthal. It’s so, so, so funny.

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

I’m assuming everyone knows about Molly Yeh. Everyone loves Molly Yeh. She’s so funny and so sweet. I’m just a super huge, major fan girl of Lady and Pups. I like her brutal honesty. I like that she has a series called, The Shit I Eat When By Myself. I mean, it’s embarrassing stuff that I eat shit like that when I’m by myself, too. And I’m like, “Yes! Yes, she’s so cool!” My favorite one, it’s like flaming Cheetos in a grilled cheese with arugula and gouda. It’s beautiful.

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

My favorites right now…do you follow Chef Jacques La Merde? It’s really some of the best satire our generation has ever seen. And then there’s another one called Kimi Swimmy. And I saw her via Munchies on Vice. And they say that she kills octopus with her bare teeth.

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

It’s not very unusual but I have this marble rolling pin that I bought at a thrift store years ago for $10. And two or three years ago, I was in this real freak accident with this semi that ran over my Subaru, and the only things I pulled out of the car, besides myself, were my dog, my camera, and my marble rolling pin. It’s been through a lot with me, so I’m a little attached to it.

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

I’m actually in the process of learning to like shrimp. I know everyone loves shrimp but I just never have. Actually, the restaurant group I work for has a restaurant called, Little Octopus, and the chef there makes shrimp ceviche. That’s really the first time I’ve ever felt like “Okay, I can do this.” I make myself try shrimp a minimum of three times a year, and I’m really glad I did because this was the first time I thought I could get somewhere with it.

What are a few cookbooks that make your life better?

Probably my favorite cookbook right now, and maybe always, is Donna Hay’s, Seasons. It’s just photographed beautifully. The recipes are simple. They’re seasonal. They’re just beautiful. And then because I make pie a lot, I refer to The Four & Twenty Blackbirds Cookbook all the time. It’s really like the pie Bible. You can’t go wrong with a recipe from Four & Twenty Blackbirds.

What song or album just makes you want to cook?

I love the album called, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot from the band Wilco. I don’t know, I have a lot of moods while I cook. I go up and down and everywhere in between. And it has a good range of songs that I feel like accompany that.

On Keeping Posted with Hannah:

Hannah Messinger of Nothing but Delicious on The Dinner Special podcast talking about how to keep posted with her.

Definitely Instagram. And my handle is HMMessinger.

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Filed Under: Podcast Tagged With: Alton Brown, Chef Jacques La Merde, Chef's Table, Donna Hay, Food Blog, Food Blogger, Great British Bake Off, Hannah Messinger, How to Cook a Wolf, I'll Have What Phil's Having, Kimi Swimmy, La Tartine Gourmande, Lady and Pups, Little Octopus, MFK Fisher, Michael Ruhlman, Mind of a Chef, Molly Yeh, Nashville, Nothing But Delicious, Olive & Sinclair, Phil Rosenthal, Photographer, Pie, Ratio, Sea of Shoes, Seasons, Tamar Adler, The Four & Twenty Blackbirds Pie Book, Wilco, Writer

088: Liz Rueven: Celebrating Jewish Food and Holidays

October 26, 2015 by Gabriel Leave a Comment

Liz Rueven of Kosher Like Me on The Dinner Special podcast.
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Liz Rueven of Kosher Like Me The Dinner Special podcast talking about celebrating Jewish food and Holidays

Kosher Like Me

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

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

(*All photos below are Liz’s.)

On the Five Jewish Holidays Starting the Fall:

Liz Rueven of Kosher Like Me on The Dinner Special podcast talking about Rosh HaShanah.

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

Liz Rueven of Kosher Like Me on The Dinner Special podcast talking about Rosh HaShanah.

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

Liz Rueven of Kosher Like Me on The Dinner Special podcast talking about Rosh HaShanah.

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

Liz Rueven of Kosher Like Me on The Dinner Special podcast talking about Yom Kippur.

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

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

Liz Rueven of Kosher Like Me on The Dinner Special podcast talking about Sukkot.

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

Liz Rueven of Kosher Like Me on The Dinner Special podcast talking about Sukkot.

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

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

Liz Rueven of Kosher Like Me on The Dinner Special podcast talking about Simchat Torah.

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

Liz Rueven of Kosher Like Me on The Dinner Special podcast talking about Chanukah.

So, that’s the five holidays.

On Starting Kosher Like Me:

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

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

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

Liz Rueven of Kosher Like Me on The Dinner Special podcast talking about the best part of being the chief eater at Kosher Like Me.

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

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

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

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

On Her Passion for Food:

Liz Rueven of Kosher Like Me on The Dinner Special podcast talking about her passion for food.

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

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

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

The Pressure Cooker:

Which food shows or cooking shows do you watch?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What are a few cookbooks that make your life better?

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

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

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

What song or album just makes you want to cook?

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

On Keeping Posted with Liz:

Liz Rueven of Kosher Like Me on The Dinner Special podcast talking about how to keep posted with her.

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

 

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Filed Under: Podcast Tagged With: Andrew Smith, Chopped, David Lebovitz, Food Blog, Food Blogger, Food in Jars, Four Bloggers Dish, Gefilteria, Gil Marks, Hanukkah, Holy and Hungry, Ina Garten, Jewhungry, Kosher food, Kosher Like Me, La Tartine Gourmande, Liz Rueven, May I Have That Recipe, MyGarbage, New School in New York CIty, Rosh Hashanah, Sarah Lasry, Simchat Torah, Sinai, sukkah, Sukkot, The Forest Feast, The Kitchn, The Nosher, The Rolling Stones, What Jew Wanna Eat

049: Julia Gartland: Being Self-Taught and Going Gluten-Free

June 15, 2015 by Gabriel Leave a Comment

Julia Gartland of Sassy Kitchen on The Dinner Special podcast talking about how to keep posted on her
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Julia Gartland of Sassy Kitchen on The Dinner Special podcast talking about being a self-taught cook and baker and going gluten-free.

Sassy Kitchen

Julia is a self-taught cook and baker, photographer, food stylist and recipe developer. On her blog, Sassy Kitchen, she shares gluten-free seasonal recipes and is always on the lookout for the best gluten-free version of everything. Sassy Kitchen was a finalist in the 2014 Saveur Blog Awards for Best Special Diets Blog and is a finalist again in 2015 for Best Photography.

I am so happy to have Julia Gartland of Sassy Kitchen here on the show today.

(*All images below are Julia’s.)

On Her Interest in Cooking and Food:

Julia Gartland of Sassy Kitchen on The Dinner Special podcast talking about her interest in cooking and food.

I liked to always cook and bake as a kid, I think it wasn’t anything too crazy but I loved having independence, being able to do that. I got more seriously into food later when I had health and digestive problems and I had to find a way to feed myself.

I found out I was gluten intolerant and decided to go vegan at the same time, so my options were very limited and I felt kind of inspired by those restrictions. It gave me the opportunity to try so many new foods and stuff.

I was always into food. I liked eating really healthy. I was raised in California. I loved hippy food and Mexican and I was always really into it, but it took a turn when it became more about health.

I don’t know if I had any real cooking mentors in my early days. I definitely think I was inspired by the issues that I had with western medicine. I remember the first time I went to a western doctor with all of my issues and I had all these PDF printouts of everything I’d been eating. He didn’t even want to look at it and just said, “Here’s some medication. You have IBS,” and sent me on my way.

I just felt like there’s something bigger going on than this. I totally believe that food is an opportunity to heal yourself and that was what got me into it in a really real way.

On Learning to Cook:

I was definitely forced to learn to cook it a new way because of my dietary issues. But through that, I really fell in love with food and I wanted to be completely absorbed in it. That’s a really good way to learn anything.

I find such inspiration from cookbooks and food blogs. Like finding someone who’s really committed to a certain way of cooking, whether it’s a cultural or otherwise, someone like Ottolenghi who has a very specific sense of food that’s so seductive and wonderful but it’s also really easy when you’re really into it.

Obviously, most of us are trying to feed ourselves. I feel like a lot of home cooks are super worried. How do you cook it? What do you do with it? They forget the aspect of play, it should be fun. It’s also not that hard.

I think generally not taking yourself so seriously. It’s okay if you make something that’s a disaster although it probably won’t be. Don’t be afraid, try new things, read cookbooks, follow recipes, pay attention and cook as much as you can.

I’m a fan of things like give yourself parameters on certain nights. Have a taco Tuesday, so you’re like, “I know I’m making tacos tonight” and you can just decide what kind of taco and then that can be the fun aspect.

On Kitchen Experiments Not Going as Planned:

Julia Gartland of Sassy Kitchen on The Dinner Special podcast talking about kitchen experiments not going as planned

I have a really good infamous one.

The first time I decided I was going to cook a whole fish was for a pescetarian Thanksgiving that I was hosting. Martha and Ina are scowling at me right now because it’s the cardinal rule of hosting to never test a new recipe. But I decided to do it and I took the fish out. It’s perfectly cooked but I had no idea how to de-bone it. I was like, “I can’t serve this to people,” and I literally just left it on the stove top and I was like, “Sorry, guys. We’re actually not having fish tonight.” And I just went on.

I was just like, “Well, I guess it’s just vegetarian, so sorry about that.”

I mean, with gluten-free baking, there’s so many. It’s just like too many to know but it always happens. It happens to everyone.

On Some Go-To Resources for Learning to Cook and Bake:

When I first started cooking and baking, I was vegan and gluten-free so my sources were super specific. But in general, I think I would recommend sources like Bon Appetite, Epicurious, The Kitchn, and Food52. They seem to have really good articles that demystify cooking and they go over actual techniques in a way that teaches you the fundamentals.

A few of them have a lot of articles about cooking without a recipe and stuff like that. It teaches you how to cook on the fly. I just think those are really helpful resources for sure.

On Starting Her Blog:

Julia Gartland of Sassy Kitchen on The Dinner Special podcast talking about starting her blog

When I first went gluten-free, the best and most helpful sources were definitely food blogs. That was where I was finding all of my recipes and information. They were such a godsend at the time and through the process of changing my diet and trying new things, I craved to have the same platform to share my experiences.

I went to school for photography. I went to Parsons in New York. I was not shooting food or even still life at the time. Food or food photography was not on my radar at all, in any professional way. But through doing the blog and loving it as much as I did, I found people were really responding to that work.

The first time I ever showed food work in a class at school, the guest teacher offered me a job shooting for a magazine. So I thought maybe I should pursue this a little further.

I started in photography but I will say food photography is completely different. I was not immediately good at it. I had to work. It’s a total learning curve and it’s a lot harder than it looks I will say.

On Gluten-Free Foods:

Julia Gartland of Sassy Kitchen on The Dinner Special podcast talking about Gluten-Free foods

Well, I’m sure everyone’s heard of it by now. It’s a big buzz word since it’s on every product now, even hummus, which has always been gluten-free says gluten-free on it. But it’s technically the elastic protein in wheat, it’s what makes pizza and croissant so lovely and it can also be in all of these other products like soy sauce and dressings, which it doesn’t necessarily need to be there.

That’s when I think it gets tricky for people and they don’t understand what it is. But there’s also a huge variety of gluten-free grains and products to choose from. I just saw the other day a quinoa kale puff popcorn product.

Now is the time to be gluten-free because there’s just everything. Rice is gluten-free, all rice products are gluten-free. A lot of people don’t know that. I get asked that all the time.

When in doubt, a piece of meat is always going to be gluten-free unless it’s battered. It’s like there’s a certain aspect of logic to it, but it is tricky for sure.

I do feel a lot better than I used to. Eating this way definitely suits me. I have some moments where I’m reminded of all the pain and discomfort I used to feel all the time. So I’m definitely happiest when my diet’s pretty strict and pure. That being said, it’s still not perfect. I don’t feel absolutely amazing and energized every single day, but it’s constantly evolving with what I feel best eating.

On Gluten-Free Ingredients:

There are so many, especially with the baking. I’m obsessed with gluten-free baking flours.

My favorites of all time are definitely sorghum flour, which I discovered super early on. Brown rice flour, almond flour, buckwheat flour, garbanzo bean flour, anything like that. There are so many.

Even cornmeal, things that you wouldn’t think of as being gluten-free are so amazing to cook and bake with. And then things maybe you wouldn’t have heard of are things that you use kind of to mimic gluten like xanthan gum and potato starch and tapioca flour.

But they’re so fun. Even if you’re not gluten-free, baking with buckwheat or something like that, it’s just a new thing you wouldn’t maybe go towards.

Buckwheat is this dark grayish tint and it’s very beautiful when you bake with it. And I love almond flour. I buy five pound bags of it off of Amazon. I use it very quickly. I love anything with almond flour. It’s super good and they all have a very lovely different flavor.

On Some Good Gluten-Free Cooking and Baking Resources:

I love La Tartine Gourmande and Cannelle et Vanille are both really amazing sources of inspiration. I highly recommend both of their books, especially Small Plates and Sweet Treats by Aran Goyoaga. She’s a trained pastry chef and she has this amazing Basque influence on all her recipes. They’re super great.

Also, Bojon Gourmet. She’s another ex-pastry chef and she has a ton of super great gluten-free recipes as well.

The Pressure Cooker:

Which food shows or cooking shows do you watch?

Well I don’t really watch any shows besides Ina obviously, but I need to stop name dropping.

But I’m the biggest podcast person, I love America’s Test Kitchen. I’ve such a soft spot for them and I feel like no one gets how great they are. I love Splendid Table and Heritage Radio Network and Good Food on KCRW, and obviously, The Dinner Special as well.

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

I am in love with Amy Chaplin. I recently got her book and went through like a food renaissance ’cause her recipes are just so lovely. I so recommend her and her blog is amazing.

And you know, I keep coming back to Heidi Swanson of 101 Cookbooks. She’s still so relevant and amazing and I’m always inspired by her essence. She’s living my dream life.

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

Well, I’m huge into Instagram. That’s my favorite thing. So on and Instagram, I recently followed the chicks from Broad City who are super fun.

I’ve mostly been loving non-food ones lately, like Sight Unseen and Academy of New York. And Niche is a great one where they just post quotes from creative artists and all that stuff. And Official Sean Penn, which is just funny and great.

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

I love everything in my kitchen.

I’m constantly trying to get rid of stuff because I live in New York and that’s just the life, but I love everything in my kitchen. My favorite things are probably . . . my boyfriend has gotten me ceramics as gifts over the years. That was one of the first things he ever bought me and they’re definitely my treasured pieces.

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

Capers and olives I hated until I was probably 20 years old, but now, I almost always have them in my fridge. I love them.

I think I was not into that brininess and then I went to Spain with my family and they served green olives on every table like it’s bread. I kept trying, thinking if I keep trying it, maybe something will click and it did. So keep trying!

What are a few cookbooks that make your life better?

I love anything by Nigel Slater, Alice Waters, The Canal House Cookbooks. And as I mentioned before, Amy Chaplin and I love Mimi Thorisson’s new book.

What song or album just makes you want to cook?

It’s gotta be something on the up-side.

There’s always music in my house. My boyfriend’s a musician. He’s constantly manning the record player. But for cooking, I think Elvis Costello always puts me in a good mood.

On Keeping Posted on Julia:

Julia Gartland of Sassy Kitchen on The Dinner Special podcast talking about how to keep posted on her

On my blog, Sassy-Kitchen.com and Sassy Kitchen on all handles I guess. Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, I’m on it all.

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Filed Under: Podcast Tagged With: 101 Cookbooks, 2014 Saveur Food Blog Awards, 2015 Saveur Food Blog Awards, Academy of New York, Alice Waters, America's Test Kitchen, Amy Chaplin, Aran Goyoaga, Bojon Gourmet, Bon Appetite, Broad City, Cannelle et Vanille, Elvis Costello, Epicurious, Food Blog, Food Blogger, Food52, Gluten-Free, Good Food, Heidi Swanson, Heritage Radio Network, Ina Garten, Julia Gartland, KCRW, La Tartine Gourmande, Martha Stewart, Mimi Thorisson, New York, Nigel Slater, Official Sean Penn, Parsons, Photographer, Sassy Kitchen, Sight Unseen, Small Plates and Sweet Treats, Splendid Table, The Canal House, The Kitchn, Vegan

Hello! I'm Gabriel Soh, home cook, food enthusiast and your host of The Dinner Special podcast.
Everything here on The Dinner Special is an experiment, just like with cooking. Thank you for listening and being part of the adventure.

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