Take a Megabite | The Dinner Special podcast

069: Danguole Lekaviciute: Being Adventurous and Playing with Food

August 19, 2015 by Gabriel 2 Comments

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10th Kitchen

Danguole believes in adventurous eating and drinking. And her kitchen is her ultimate playground. Although she appreciates the classics, she truly tries to bring something creative and original to her blog, 10th Kitchen.

I am so delighted to have Danguole Lekaviciute of 10th Kitchen joining me here on the show today.

(*All images below are Danguole’s.)

On Starting Her Blog:

What happened was that a good friend of mine moved across the country, and she had a personal blog that she was doing a project 365 on, which is where you take a picture everyday and write a little blurb about it. And it’s meant to get a good blogging habit going.

When she moved away, I jumped on board. I got my own blog, and I started doing the same thing. It was a fun way for us to keep in touch. I don’t think anybody read it besides us. But what I found eventually was that I was mostly interested in talking about food and cooking. So when that wrapped up, it was just a natural transition for me to start a food blog.

I pretty much immediately bought my domain and started taking some crappy pictures and telling awkward jokes. And about four years later, I’m still doing the same thing.

I had a personal WordPress blog before, just your basic template. I had no idea how a website works. Those templates make it so easy for anyone to put up their website without really having to do a whole lot of work. Since then I’ve learned a lot about HTML and CSS and all the intricacies with hosting and stuff like that. So I’m at the point where I put it on my resume now, because it is such a valuable skill that I never had before.

I think the most challenging part was trying to switch hosts halfway. And I just lost my website for a day and a half. And it was terrifying, even though at that point, not that many people read it. So I just went back to my old host, and was like, “Please take all my money. I’ll stick with you. Just make it work again.”

It’s a terrifying thing when your website is down for some reason. It’s like an extension of you. And even though you know it doesn’t matter, it feels so strange.

I think all of it felt pretty natural to me. I’ve always played with recipes a little bit and developed my own. I’ve written before. And I’ve done photography as a hobby before. I don’t know if you can tell from those early shots because they’re just not great. But I always dabbled in artistic things like that. So all of it made sense, except the technical part probably.

On Her Curiosity Around Food:

I cooked since I was a kid. And I remember trying to make things work from an early age. I definitely helped out in the kitchen a lot. And I definitely have memories of being 10 or 12 and just playing in the kitchen and seeing what happens.

In my family, it was more of a chore. And I actually really liked it. So my sister would always do the dishes if I cooked, so I always enjoyed that arrangement. To me, it was fun.

I love David Lebovitz. I think his style is so classic and so refined. And he has such a good way of connecting it to his life in France as far as blogging goes. Jeni Britton Bauer of Jeni’s Ice Creams in Columbus completely changed my life with her method for making ice cream, which I do regularly. And I love Mark Bittman. I have his books. I’ve read his articles. I followed his podcast. He just has so many smart things to say about food and policy and connecting it to the everyday cook in the kitchen and how you can make small changes and work toward a more sustainable food system, which is the stuff that I find interesting.

On Adventurous Eating:

I’ve always been interested in just playing with things and seeing what happens. I think if I didn’t have an artistic streak, I think I’d be some sort of scientist because I just like to see how a dish changes if you use coconut oil instead of butter or more herbs or more this or more vinegar. So to me, that comes naturally. I think it’s important to appreciate all aspects of cooking.

I love ethnic food from all over the world. I’ve always dabbled in Mexican or Thai or Vietnamese. I don’t think there’s a particular cuisine that’s the good gateway. It’s more about playing with recipes that you know and love. Like if your family is from France or Russia or wherever, I think it just comes from mastering what you know and changing one thing here or there to see how the dish changes and to see how the ingredients interact with one and other.

Fish sauce, when you first smell it, is just so overwhelming and so different from what I’m used to. But it just makes such a difference in dishes. And it’s such a great savory base for crisp, clean flavors. They all meld so beautifully together in Thai and Vietnamese cuisine. It’s a thing of beauty. I love it.

On Being Fearless and Experimenting in the Kitchen:

I remember making tacos from this leftover roast chicken, and I mixed it with a bunch of sour cream and green onion. That’s not a taco. But it was one of those times right before grocery shopping that you had to make do with whatever you had. And my family appreciated that.

One thing I was trying to do was make buttermilk rolls, which I have eventually got to making through cultured buttermilk, with powdered buttermilk. I really wanted that flavor. But I was working with a recipe that required you to heat up milk. And so I was like, “Oh, I’ll just switch it with buttermilk.” And of course, I should have known that when you heat buttermilk, you just get a curdled mess. That completely threw me off my game. That’s something that I should have know but just didn’t think about. So that happens all the time.

On Making Cooking More Fun:

I think mastering the things you know and love is a good first step to where you don’t even need the recipe anymore. Then you can play with the proportions or add different ingredients to it. Simple things like switching out parsley for cilantro or basil or something like that is a good start.

If you view recipes as a template, if you see the part that’s starchy and the part that’s savory and the part that’s fresh and the part that’s acidic, it’s like a puzzle. You can swap out the lemon juice for sherry vinegar maybe and see what happens. Just see a recipe as a whole, and then take apart the components and see what we can do with them.

It’s a balancing act, and it also makes you more flexible. If you don’t have lemon juice, you can try a certain vinegar or lime juice, things like that.

The Pressure Cooker:

Which food shows or cooking shows do you watch?

I honestly don’t watch much TV. I used to watch Top Chef back in the day. Right now, I’m binging on Orange Is The New Black. There’s cooking in that show, a little bit, prison cooking.

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

I think anyone listening to your podcast would probably know about Smitten Kitchen and David Lebovitz. Those are my favorites.

I also have blogger friends that I keep up with who are really talented, The Sugar Hit is fantastic, My Name is Yeh. Who else? SugarHero is a really fun baking blog. There’s tons. Any type of cuisine, any type of cooking you’re into, there’s a blog about it, which is fantastic.

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

I follow Take A Megabite. I think you’ve had her on your podcast before. She is just so colorful. It’s not my style at all, but it makes me very happy.

I follow The Sugar Hit, like I said. Sarah just has great taste for desserts and a great eye for photography. Tieghan from Half Baked Harvest, she’s really fantastic. She’s really visually oriented. Kelly Beall, who does Design Crush, is also really good. On Pinterest, she always posts interesting design, interesting food, interesting style.

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

I have a stovetop smoker, which I don’t break out too often because it makes your house smell like bacon for days afterward. But yeah, it’s fantastic. I love it. If you don’t have a backyard pit for barbecue, it’s a good alternative.

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

I am really trying hard to like mushrooms. It’s the one food that I just never liked, never appreciated it. And I like the flavor of it. I do like mushroom ravioli if it’s all chopped up. I think it’s a texture thing. So I’m trying really hard, and I’ve done some things with it that I ended up liking a lot.

I actually smoked shiitaki mushrooms one time, put them on polenta, and that was actually enjoyable. So that’s where the stovetop smoker comes in.

It depends on what kind of mushroom. Big, slimy portobello, I’m still at like 1%. I’ll eat it if I have too. But yeah, shiitake mushrooms are great. I love chanterelles. So, I’m working on it.

What are a few cookbooks that make your life better?

I have a lot of cookbooks. I like Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking by Marcella Hazan. I’m trying to cook my way through it. Mark Bittman’s books are always a great resource. I have How To Cook Everything Fast right now. It’s focused on fast food, but it is also really inspirational. His combinations are really innovative. And I think the cookbook that I like the most isn’t actually a cookbook, but I literally sleep with The Flavor Bible. I’m always flipping through it at night when I’m looking for ideas. It’s like a dictionary of what flavors go together. And it’s fantastic. I use it for inspiration all the time, and I used to have it on my nightstand. It’s like the bedtime story for me.

What song or album just makes you want to cook?

I’ve been branching out a little bit with my taste in music. I usually listen to indie rock or stuff like that. But I’ve been into soul lately. So if I had to pick a song, I would pick Nothing On Me by Curtis Mayfield. I love that. It’s my jam right now.

On Keeping Posted with Danguole:

I probably use Instagram the most. I’m really visually oriented. It just makes it so easy to let people know what you’re up to and what you’re drinking, what you’re eating.

058: Erika Council: An Introduction to Southern Food

July 13, 2015 by Gabriel Leave a Comment

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Southern Soufflé

Erika was introduced to the art of biscuit-making at the ripe old age of four and was nicknamed Southern Souffle in college when she was dishing out meals from the hot plate in her dorm room. On her blog Southern Soufflé, she shares her love of Southern soul food through not only her recipes, but the warmth in her writing and stories.

I am so excited to have Erika Council of Southern Soufflé here on the show today.

(*All images below are Erika’s.)

On Growing Up Around Food and Cooking:

My paternal grandmother owns a restaurant in Chapel Hill, North Carolina and it’s been there since 1976. A lot of my summers were spent in the back of that kitchen, not always happily, but you learned how to make things like biscuits and fried chicken. She owned what we call a Southern style meat and three, and that’s where you get the meat and three vegetables and side of cornbread or biscuits. So you can imagine how much meat and three we’re turning out on a daily basis.

It was really kind of a drop biscuit that she taught me. It’s kind of a wet dough and you use the scoop and just drop it. You make a lot of batches at one time like that and that was my experience actually just scooping it and dropping it on the pan.

Then my mother’s mother made fancier angel biscuits, which use yeast and rise real high.

When you’re 13, 14, 15, you don’t really appreciate it as much as I do now that I can make fried chicken with my eyes closed. I will say that I learned a lot of valuable lessons just working back there and meeting the average people that wash the dishes, not a lot of the top chefs you see that live this glamorous lifestyle on Food Network. It’s just so far from that actually really running a restaurant and just trying to maintain success over a decades’ worth of time.

I think I learned more about the importance of food and how it was important to the people making it, rather than the whole glamor, a beautiful picture of food, you know.

She (grandmother) is older now and my uncle does most of the cooking in the back, but we do go and visit.

I’m in Atlanta so it’s about seven hours from here. I’ll go every now and then and visit her at home, but she doesn’t do a lot of actual cooking in the restaurant. You can find her every now and then sitting at a booth in the front when you walk in drinking coffee. She kinda makes it her way to introduce herself or speak to everybody, but if you’re from the North Carolina area and around there you know who Mama Dip is.

On Southern Culture:

I guess Southern culture, in my opinion, is kind of the backbone for a lot of things that you see everywhere. I’ll go to San Francisco for work and see someone rolling up collard green wraps and I’ll think about, just actually picking those collard greens out of the ground and hot liquor which is the liquor and the juice from the actual greens boiling down.

The South for me is just so many things. This is where I was born and raised and lived the majority of my life. It’s the people who have a complicated past, but I mean the most hospitable. Everyone says Southern hospitality but you would think it’d be a bunch of disgruntled angry Southerners, but we’re far from that.

It’s a lot of things you don’t see, where communal tables with all different kinds of people sitting together. It’s a melting pot, which is what the South has always been.

On Southern Food:

I think that Southern food is a mix of all cultures. From the very beginning, without getting into historical aspects, you have plantation cooking, which is a combination of European and African, West African cooking, and you’re seeing this sort of Southern revival, everywhere, but here, I think a lot of people are getting more back to the roots, which is, Southern food really was a plant-based diet.

So you think fried chicken and greasy and all this, but it was really the plants, like the greens, and the onions, and things of that nature. And I see a lot of people just getting back to that and just having the greens and their vegetables being the focus of their dish.

I would say that soul food is Southern food. I think that anything that you cook, and you put your heart and soul into it, that is soul food. So whether it is a Boston Cream Pie that you’ve taken your time, you’ve sat down and you made it from scratch, that’s your soul food. When you look at the definition of it, it’s a term actually that came around about the 1960s to describe African American Southern cooking, but the actuality of soul food is, it is the origins of Southern food, because Southern food started out with plantation cooking and you have to look at that and then you look at soul food as being fried chicken, collard greens, and cornbread. Which commercially it is, but a lot of African Americans will say if you’re cooking something from the heart and soul, that’s your soul food.

I absolutely love fried chicken and I love crawfish. It’s hard to get crawfish here in Atlanta like I could get it in Louisiana, but definitely those two items. Any way you got em’, I’ll take em’.

On Some Resources to Learn More about Southern Cuisine:

So my grandmother wrote a cookbook. It’s an older one, Mama Dip’s Kitchen. It’s a great basic book. The basics, she’s got a good forward in there about her life. A huge one is Mastering the Art of Southern Cooking and that’s by Nathalie Dupree and Cynthia Graubart. Nathalie Dupree is the grand dame of Southern cooking. She’s actually been nominated for Who’s Who James Beard Award this year and that book was nominated for one of James Beard’s Awards. So I definitely would say that book, it’s like 730 pages of Southern food and it’s talking about Southern food.

There’s so many. Charleston Receipts is another one, that’s a Junior League cookbook. It’s an old school book from Charleston. A friend of mine, Adrian Miller, he wrote a book called Soul Food. So that’s a great book to read about the origins of soul food, it won a James Beard Award too.

On Her Blog:

My mom actually never was a cook, and she mentioned to me one day she was reading someone’s blog and she sent it to me. She was like, “Hey, you know what? You should do this.” So when I started out, I just kind of was doing the recipes. I used to email my mom recipes that I would cook and she would try it. So I would just type up a recipe and it’d be a really short little passage or whatever.

Actually, what kind of turned it around for me was, I went to a food blog conference and it just was everything I didn’t want to be. And that kind of made me turn my back towards what I thought was cool and just kind of go with what was actually me. I hate to say that, it’s awful, but it’s just the reality.

I used a different camera, the camera I was using to take pictures of my kids, before I was using my iPhone. You know, I started out kind of, staging the food, but that really wasn’t me either, so now it’s more just taking the pictures as I go and just how I cook it, because that’s really what it’s about to me. If I could make elaborately beautiful layouts of food, then I would do it, but I can’t, so I’m not even going to try.

The Pressure Cooker:

Which food shows or cooking shows do you watch?

I don’t. I used to watch Top Chef.

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

So I’m obsessed with Two Red Bowls and Lady and Pups. Those two blogs are amazing. I guess from learning about different types of Asian style cooking, just how they incorporate different things, I love that.

The Bitter Southerner, if you like to read. They post a kind of journal entry every Tuesday and it’s something that’s about the South. Sometimes it upsets people and sometimes it’s beautiful, but I would definitely recommend reading The Bitter Southerner.

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

What makes me happy on Instagram, Megan from Take A Megabite, because her food is so happy with the animals and the different flags. So definitely Take A Megabite on Instagram. She definitely makes me happy with all her photos.

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

The most treasured item I have is my grandmother’s apron. It’s in a lot of the photos. My maternal grandmother passed away a few years ago, but she was a history teacher back in the ’40s, ’50s. She and my grandfather were huge civil rights activists. I learned so much from her as far as just African American history and just things that they don’t teach in school, things that you wouldn’t even know, just having to have been in her presence, learning how to make cakes and along with the struggles of the past, and her apron was always what she wore. So that is probably my most prized possession in my kitchen.

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

I like beets and I used to just be extremely anti-beet. The rest of the people in my family, not so much, or in my house, but I’m trying to slowly get them into it. I definitely would say beets.

I think that when they were made for me, they weren’t made right perhaps, but gosh, this was probably about ten years ago and someone made these little appetizers with goat cheese and they had pickled beets on the top. And it sounds disgusting, right, but it was so good, and I think then on, I’d say, “Well, you know what? Maybe I can find a way to make it better.” In the South, we pickle everything.

What are a few cookbooks that make your life better?

The Joy of Cooking is a good one. Right now, I’m kind of on a baking kick. The Bread Bible is one I’ve been using. Definitely those two have been helping me.

So there’s a chef in Kentucky named Edward Lee, and he’s American or he’s Korean-American and his book is Smoke & Pickles and it’s a great… I hate to say fusion because I don’t like that word. It’s a combination of Southern and Asian food, and he’s just done an impeccable job. It’s an older book but I’ve been kind of cooking my way through that just lately. There’s so many. I have a lot of cookbooks but definitely those.

What song or album just makes you want to cook?

Right now, Rihanna. I won’t say the name of this song because it’s explicit. I’m a big hip hop fan. We listen to a lot of rap music. Kendrick Lamar and Drake are really kind of on repeat. They make me want to cook. I listen to that all day.

On Keeping Posted with Erika:

I do better on Instagram. I’m on Twitter, and then Southern Soufflé on Facebook.

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.

021: Cindy Ensley: How Cooking is Where Practical Meets the Creative and Pretty

April 3, 2015 by Gabriel Leave a Comment

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Hungry Girl por Vida

Cindy is many things, a home cook, a baker, an avid doodler, and new mom. And on Hungry Girl por Vida, she shares all the things that she loves with her readers. Her work has also been featured in magazines all over the world.

I’m so psyched to have Cindy Ensley of Hungry Girl por Vida on the show today.

On Starting Her Blog:

I was in college when I started reading food blogs, and I graduated and spent a year actually working the same job that I was at during college, and just being bored and uninspired. I thought, maybe I should brush up my cooking skills. I was engaged and going to get married in a couple of years from then, so I just decided to document it and see where it went.

It started out really small and casual with a point-and-shoot and has grown from there. And that started in 2008, so it’s been a while.

On Her Passion for Food:

I come from a family of really great home cooks. And actually my aunt and my mom have a catering business, so food’s central in our family gatherings. I just grew up around it and have always loved to eat, so cooking goes hand-in-hand with that.

I always wanted to help, but I was more of an observer. I was too slow and not skilled enough to be helping very much, so I just observed and went from there.

They don’t do as much home cooking now that, you know, I’m older and my cousins and my brother are all older. None of us are at home anymore, so what inspired me to start cooking for myself was because I had to.

But, I mean, seeing them in the kitchen, I used to help with some of the dinners that they would put on. I always thought it was super fun and my aunt would let me decorate the dessert plates, which I thought was the coolest thing ever. I think just being around it definitely inspired me.

For Christmas this year my parents were here and my brother and his kids and stuff, so I got to cook for them and that was really fun.

On Cooking Being Where Practical Meets the Creative and Pretty:

Personally, I like to eat things that are very visually appealing, so I mean, even if it’s as simple as scattering some fresh herbs across a dish at dinner with just me and my husband. I’ll do that because I feel like it’s more enticing and it feels a little more special. And, obviously, cooking is a very basic, practical skill to have. I like that you can get as creative as you want to be, and also make something that looks nice every day.

I don’t broadcast that many of my fails, just because usually I get pretty upset about it and trash them or let them die in the back of the refrigerator.

On Cooking As a Parent:

I used to like to spend a weekend day on an ambitious project or something, or even just cooking something that takes a lot of prep. And now, I try to get things done as quickly as possible just because my son is almost six months old and he needs a lot of attention. I like to spend a lot of time with him. So the easier the better, but I still try to make the effort.

I’m really into bowls, so like a burrito bowl or, I’m half Korean, so we do a lot of bibimbap.

I can have things kind of pre-prepped for anything like that, you know, rice or quinoa or whatever. And then whatever protein we want and then, you know, add fresh vegetables, or whatever we have on hand.

They say to sleep when your baby sleeps, but that’s nearly impossible. I think, personally, I can’t fall asleep if I have a million things running through my mind, so get what you can, done. I think that having a base grain ready to go in the refrigerator is a great thing. I’ve been cooking quinoa or rice or whatever in batches and keeping them in the refrigerator. And also, proteins like chicken breast or even a roasted chicken, and breaking that down and having that ready to go for the week, is really nice and a great time saver.

We’re trying right now to implement a schedule with our son, Casper, so we want bath time to happen at a certain time, but we also want to have dinner. And also now I’m starting to feed him solids, so it’s a juggling act. We’re just trying to keep on a schedule because it seems to work better for him, his moods and his naps.

Having things ready to go is key. And we don’t want to resort to take out all the time.

On How to Make Cooking More Fun:

Some days you just have to get dinner on the table, so it’s more about what recipes you have in your arsenal. But if you can throw something new in there every week, maybe, or even every couple of weeks, I think that makes it fun.

Or use a new ingredient.

A couple of years ago, my husband and I weren’t really big fans of fennel, so we started implementing it into our meals and now we love it. So I think that trying a new ingredient, trying a new recipe, but not going overboard and trying to do it every night of the week, ’cause that gets daunting.

Even shaved raw fennel in the summer with bibimbap or some sort of salad would be great too. I mean, there’s lots of different ways you can use ingredients and just trying them out a couple different ways, I think is also key.

The Pressure Cooker:

Which food shows or cooking shows do you watch?

So lately, I’ve been watching The Taste, and MasterChef Junior.

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

I really love Food 52 and there are probably too many blogs to even name.

I have a really close friend, Megan from Take a Megabite, so I would mention her. I know her in person as well as through her blog.

She’s a pretty cool gal, and so I always think of her.

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

I follow so many people on all of those websites. But I guess one of my other favorite blogs is Half Baked Harvest. Her name’s Tieghan, and I love her blog because her recipes are so creative, and they’re totally not things that I would do on a normal basis, but I find it inspiring.

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

I think a couple of different vinegars and oils, along with the obvious salt and pepper, ’cause you can do a lot of things with that, those two ingredients, besides just make salad dressing.

If you have a soup that tastes kind of dull, those are great to add to punch up the flavor.

Name one ingredient you cannot live without?

I cannot live without eggs. I think they’re so versatile and they’re, I mean, in a pinch they’re a great source of protein, but they also are very transformative. You can bake with them, you can do so much, so definitely eggs.

What are a few cookbooks that make your life better?

One of the cookbooks that I always turn to is Mad Hungry by Lucinda Scala Quinn. I love that cookbook. I also really love Pancakes by Adrianna Adarme, who writes A Cozy Kitchen blog.

I refer to that pancake book often on the weekends.

I make the chocolate chip ones a lot because my husband is a chocolate fiend. And then the regular buttermilk ones, and then also the apple pie ones. I think they’re called apple pie.

What song or album just makes you want to cook?

Probably Cherry Bomb by Spoon. It’s one of my favorite songs to like sing to, and my husband really likes it, so it’s kind of a fun one to have on when we’re cooking.

Keep Posted on Cindy:

Probably either Instagram or Facebook. Those are the two that I use the most, but I definitely use Instagram the most, for sure. (And, http://www.hungrygirlporvida.com/)

006: Nicole Dula: How A Community Supported Agriculture Share Can Inspire

February 27, 2015 by Gabriel

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Dula Notes

On Dula Notes, Nicole shares her love of fresh, seasonal produce, her recipes, and an insider’s view on her home state of Michigan.

I am so happy to have Nicole Dula from Dula Notes here on the show today.

On Blogging:

Consistency is so important if you want to have an audience.

I try to do at least one post a week and so far I’ve been doing really good at sticking to that even on vacations and stuff. I try to have a couple ready. So it’s been fun.

I’m still passionate about food, and trying new things, which I think keeps motivating me. But everything that I do for the blog is a habit.

Because I have a full time job, so I have to sneak it in where I can.

I do my photography usually on Saturday mornings when I have good natural light. So it does have to be pretty regimented how I sneak it into my life. That part is a little bit habitual but there’s definitely still passion behind it.

On Detroit:

There’s so much creativity going on right now that anything you want to try is going on right now, and that’s why it’s so exciting.

There are breweries down there where you can just get a pizza. Part of that Hither and Tither feature I talked about La Feria, which is tapas, authentic Spanish tapas. There’s a new ramen place which is excellent. There’s a little French cafe.

It’s just anything you want, you can have right now, and it’s so exciting. It’s just super creative and just really exciting right now.

Detroit just came out of bankruptcy actually a lot sooner than everyone thought. And I really feel like the food culture and all the creativity and the food business has really helped with bringing Detroit back.

I’m not a native Detroiter so I’m sure there are some hole in the wall places that are primo, but as a tourist, or even for myself, I love to go to Midtown, because it’s really bubbling up. That’s where La Feria is.

Corktown is really cool. You can have BBQ, there’s a new place that just opened, it’s called Gold Cash Gold and it used to be a building that sold gold and he turned it into a restaurant. I haven’t been yet, but the inside is gorgeous.

So Corktown’s really fun, it’s a really old neighborhood and it’s super cool. So I guess I would say start in Corktown.

On Community Supported Agriculture and Produce:

A CSA is where you basically partner with a local farmer and you and whoever else is supporting that farm, ahead of the season, you purchase your CSA. It usually comes in half shares or full shares depending on how many people are eating from it.

My husband and I get a half share. So you pay ahead of time for the whole season, and then the farmer takes your money and uses it to plant things for the season. Then once your CSA starts, it depends.

I’ve been a part of a couple different CSAs.

One I picked up at somebody’s house, so sometimes members will have the shares there on their back porch and that’s where you pick up your share.

My current share I pick up on Saturday mornings at the farmer’s market.

So I believe it starts in June and then it ends in early October. Every week I have a box and they send me an email a couple days ahead of time telling me what’s going to be in my box, which is helpful because then I can kind of have some grocery trips around it to see like, “Okay, I’m getting cabbage or I’m getting this.”

And it’s very inspiring because sometimes they’re things I would never pick up at the grocery store. So when I see them in my box I’m like, “Wow, I get to try this!” And then I’ll think of another recipe I tried with a different squash, and I’m like, “Maybe I can try it with this.”

So it’s really inspiring and then the food is so fresh. It’s the best produce you’ll ever have because it’s what’s in season. It was picked usually the day before or that morning so it’s really a wonderful thing.

Produce always inspires me.

I’m pretty good about what’s seasonal, but I don’t know some of that hyper seasonal stuff, like ramps. I don’t know exactly when it’s coming, but when I see it in a CSA box or I see it at the grocery store, I’m like, “Oh, it’s ramp season, now I’ve got to get some of that.” So it’s the produce that’s kind of my jumping off point, and then I look for recipes around that.

On Cooking:

Well I didn’t really start cooking until I got married. I helped my mom a little bit and my grandmother used to have a lot of dinner parties, so I used to see that a lot. I used to love the whole dance in the kitchen that they did and the end result.

I didn’t really experiment much until I got married because I was going to school and I just didn’t have a lot of time for experimenting. So it just kind of came with practice.

As soon as I started cooking and getting the basics, then, I felt more comfortable playing around with things and saying, “Well this tasted really good with this, I bet this will taste good.” I kind of go with my gut and try to let that lead the way, and it’s worked out well so far.

And it’s trial and error.

It’s so disappointing when you buy all the ingredients and you put all the time into it and then you taste it and you’re like, “Oh, man.” It’s the worst. But it’s those great dishes, especially when you put your own spin on something, it’s so rewarding when you’re like, “I did that.”

The Pressure Cooker:

Which food shows or cooking shows do you watch?

I love PBS cooking shows, so Cook’s Country, America’s Test Kitchen, Lidia Bastianich, those are like my shows.

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

My favorite food bloggers right now, my friend, she’s in Michigan, she’s not far from Detroit, her blog is Take a Megabite.

She has a wonderful eye for design, wonderful baked goods, she’s a doll. We have ramen together, she’s like the best brunch buddy you’ll ever have. We do brunch appetizers and then we have brunch.

My other favorites are Hungry Girl por Vida. She was in Michigan for a time. She’s living in Portland now, beautiful photography, beautiful recipes, My Name is Yeh, Molly, she’s phenomenal, creative, love her writing, so funny.

Then my other favorite is Bon Appétempt, Amelia Morris. She does these wonderful videos. Just hilarious, her videos are, every time I see one I crack up.

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

Well back to my friend Take a Megabite, her on Instagram, it’s like a ray of sunshine, so I definitely follow her on Instagram.

I follow so many people on Pinterest it’s insane. I definitely have curated my Pinterest sites so I’m seeing exactly the kind of stuff I want to see. Like Kate from Wit & Delight, she has beautiful things.

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

I think grey sea salt. I love the minerality to it. It has a nice flavor whether you sprinkle it onto a dessert or you add it into your food. I really love it.

Name one ingredient you cannot live without.

I know this is going to sound kind of lame, but maybe pepper. I love pepper on everything.

What are a few cookbooks that make your life better?

Well, it’s kind of funny, this probably makes me a bad blogger, or maybe it makes me a really good blogger. I’m not a big cookbook person. I’m more of a blog person.

But I do have a few cookbooks I do like. I do like Donna Hay’s cookbooks, they’re gorgeous, I have one that’s so beautiful and pretty and it’s really inspiring for food photography. I’m ashamed to say I haven’t cooked anything out of it. But it’s just the most beautiful thing. And, I also like Jamie Oliver’s cookbooks, I have made things out of his cookbooks that are delicious, and his books are beautiful too.

What song or album just makes you want to cook?

You know what I find really fun is Huey Lewis and the News.

Like “Power of Love” and all those great ones.

Sometimes at night when you come home and you maybe don’t feel like cooking so much, you put that on and it just gives you an extra boost to get cooking.

Keep Posted on Nicole:

If you go to my blog, dulanotes.com, I have a little connect area, so I’ve linked to my Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and you can just click there and find me.

I’m very active on Pinterest, love Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. So you can keep up with me. I take a lot of food pictures, so if you like food, I’m your girl.

On Starting Her Blog:

On Her Curiosity Around Food:

On Adventurous Eating:

On Being Fearless and Experimenting in the Kitchen:

On Making Cooking More Fun:

The Pressure Cooker:

On Keeping Posted with Danguole:

On Growing Up Around Food and Cooking:

On Southern Culture:

On Southern Food:

On Some Resources to Learn More about Southern Cuisine:

On Her Blog:

The Pressure Cooker:

On Keeping Posted with Erika:

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 Starting Her Blog:

On Her Passion for Food:

On Cooking Being Where Practical Meets the Creative and Pretty:

On Cooking As a Parent:

On How to Make Cooking More Fun:

The Pressure Cooker:

Keep Posted on Cindy:

On Blogging:

On Detroit:

On Community Supported Agriculture and Produce:

On Cooking:

The Pressure Cooker:

Keep Posted on Nicole:

Have Nicole's Special Dinner Dish Recipe Sent To You Now: