The Great British Bake Off | The Dinner Special podcast

097: Lisa Lin: How a Lawyer Became a Food Blogger

December 7, 2015 by Gabriel Leave a Comment

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Healthy Nibbles and Bits

Lisa is a lawyer turned food blogger and on Healthy Nibbles and Bits is where she shares simple, healthy recipes with bold flavors. She loves experimenting in the kitchen and can talk about food all day.

I am so happy to have Lisa Lin of Healthy Nibbles and Bits with me here today.

(*All photos below are Lisa’s.)

On Being a Lawyer and Becoming a Food Blogger:

Long story. I’ve been cooking a lot for my family and then I kept cooking while I was in college. And then when I got to law school I actually devoted every Sunday afternoon to cooking. It was just sort of my time to not study and also I always cooked my own meals because I got tired of all the stuff that was around school. Just all of these sandwich shops. So I really cooked a lot during law school and that’s when I started following food blogs.

When I finished law school and I moved back to the Bay Area and I was trying to find a job, I just kept following more blogs just to distract myself. That’s how I fell into food blogging. I think my husband who was my boyfriend at the time just said, “Well, why don’t you start one yourself?” Which was actually really daunting because the last blog I ever had was a Xanga.

I wrote about stupid things like Backstreet Boys and what happened at school and I was thinking like, “There’s no way I’m going to write a food blog because it’s going to be the same stuff.” But I just fell in love with testing and creating recipes and talking about it and that’s just how it all happened. So there’s no real logical transition from lawyer to food blogging but it was just something that I’ve always been doing. It just sort of blossomed into a passion.

On Being Fearless in the Kitchen:

First of all I don’t really have formal culinary training and so the only way you learn is by experimenting with flavors and cooking. Sometimes I blend things that don’t make sense at all. I was trying to make a cauliflower cake once and I used purple cauliflower thinking the color would look good. It looks nasty. It was just this weird bluish color. But you have to do it and you do it until you learn and you write it down, make sure you don’t do it again.

On Her Curiosity Around Cooking and Food:

When I was younger I was just more into books and that kind of explains why I kept going through so much schooling. But there were always times my mom forced me to help her cook. So there are all these big Chinese holidays that we have to cook for. Chinese New Year’s, the Dragon Boat Festival we make those rice wrapped in bamboo leaf things. I don’t know what they’re called. Rice cakes. So I would help my mom with that all the time and so through that that’s how I started cooking.

I was always very interested because it’s very involved. All those cakes, my mom makes it from scratch so it comes from the dough and the flour, and you press it out and everything, and then fill it, and then fold it. I was very interested in the very difficult cooking projects. But then when my mom made me cook for the family just on week nights, I was definitely way less interested in that because stir fry is just not as sexy as making dumplings. But I’m very thankful that my mom forced me to cook for the family because otherwise I wouldn’t have cooked for myself in college and onward.

On Her Food Heroes:

I guess my mom is one of my food heroes. She loves to cook and she loves to experiment. And I’ve sort of, because of that, assumed that all Chinese moms love to cook which is not the case at all.

I think I took it for granted and she has an innate curiosity to try to recreate what she eats. I think I picked it up from her. It gets a bit annoying, but whenever we go to eat Dim Sum she’d say, “Well, I can make this at home.” And it’s like, “Yeah. That’s not the point, mom.” But I do look up to her. There’s a lot of Chinese dishes that I wish I could make or famous cake that I wish I could bake one day. So she’s definitely one of my early, early food heroes. And then I would have to say when I was a kid I loved Martin Yan.

His show always aired on PBS on Saturday afternoons and I always watched it. And I love the show and I really admire what he has done for raising awareness about Chinese food in America. I really think he’s one of the pioneers of introducing Chinese cuisine. And he’s done so much to travel around China and he’s written a lot of books. So I definitely admire him.

On What She Would Make for Martin Yan:

Oh my gosh. That would be so intimidating because I’m sure he’s had everything. But if I were to do something it definitely can’t be a traditional Chinese dish because he has done it so much, he has done it so well. You just don’t do that. He just won’t appreciate it. I’ve done a General Tso’s brussels sprouts dish. So you kind of get the General Tso’s chicken flavors and then you blend it into brussels sprouts so it’s something that might fit his pallet but a bit unexpected. I would probably make that for him.

On Her Blog:

When I first started I didn’t even think I was going to be doing food blogging to the extent that I would right now. But it’s definitely not what I expected. I just wanted, initially, to test other peoples’ recipes and just blog about what I tested because that’s what I had been doing for a few years. I didn’t expect that I would have to buy a new camera, learn how to edit my photos, be engaged on social media because I only had a Facebook account and Pinterest that I used occasionally at that point.

And I really didn’t expect the business skills you have to develop for running a food blog because we do have to make money, too. And if you asked me 10 years ago whether or not I would become a business woman, I’d be like, “You’re crazy.” Because I was always about books and being an academic. But this entrepreneurial spirit was nowhere inside of my blood. So those are definitely things I picked up and I didn’t realize I had to do when I first started it.

On Where She Finds Inspiration:

A lot of different sources. One big thing is what’s in season. Then I look at what I’ve been posting on the blog lately. Do I maybe tone down on sweets now and do something savory? Magazines, I subscribe to maybe six or seven food magazines just so I can learn and get inspired. And food websites. Sometimes it’s based on what I eat at a restaurant, too. Things like that and then sometimes other food bloggers, too.

The Pressure Cooker:

Which food shows or cooking shows do you watch?

The Great British Bake-Off. I just love it.

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

I think if you’re starting out cooking you should definitely check out The Kitchn. They just have so many great tips on how to improve your cooking. Those articles are really short so you can digest it very easily. Or Serious Eats, they do a lot of cooking tips kind of posts. So I would definitely check out those two websites.

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

The accounts that make me really happy are actually non-food related if that’s okay. I like to get visual inspiration from sources outside of food. So there are definitely several Instagram accounts that I can think of, and Instagram’s actually my favorite out of all the different social media channels.

One of them is this guy named Sam Larson. He does a lot of sketches and they’re absolutely gorgeous. Sometimes he draws really tiny animals that are about the size of a penny, a U.S. penny. And so he takes a photo of the penny and the drawing just so you know how big it is.

It’s amazing. Definitely check him out. And I also like to follow DIY bloggers on Instagram, too because they’re all so colorful and it makes me really happy when I see color. I try to incorporate that on my blog, too. Oh Happy Day is a good one, The Crafted Life. They’re always very colorful so those are my favorite. They make me happy.

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

This is actually a really cool gadget that I don’t really use all the time because it’s a seasonal thing. But I have a cherry pitter. It’s one of those things where you stick the cherry and then you clamp it. It’s so much fun and I love it. I now bake a lot of cherry things in the summer time because of that thing because I hate pitting cherries with a knife and then you make such a huge mess. But with the cherry pitter you just do it inside a bowl or over the sink and you’re done. One of the best tools ever invented.

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

Fresh mint. I think it’s because when I was a kid I ate a lot of mint, artificial mint-flavored things like mint-chip ice cream or chewing gum. I had a perception of what mint should taste like and then when I tried fresh mint for the first time it was at a Vietnamese restaurant and we had Pho and on the side they always give you some fresh herbs to put into your soup. I remember thinking, “What the heck is this? It’s so disgusting.” But over the years I’ve started incorporating it in water. So I would have cucumbers, strawberries, and some fresh mint in there, and that’s how I reintroduced mint into my palate and I really like adding it to my cooking now.

What are a few cookbooks that make your life better?

Definitely anything by America’s Test Kitchen because there’s just a lot of cooking tips. I have their cooking school book. I flip through it all the time when I have some cooking questions. One book I really like is, Nom Nom Paleo. I’m not a strict paleo-eater but I think that Michelle Tam has very creative ways of using ingredients to reduce the amount of sugar intake. She has this cherry barbecue sauce in there. I frequently flip through it all the time to see if, “Oh, is there another creative way for me to use ingredients that’s unexpected, that doesn’t require adding sugar or anything like that?” And, Joy of Cooking, just classic American recipes that I need to flip through.

What song or album just makes you want to cook?

Going back to Ratatouille because I know it’s a cooking movie, if I heard the soundtrack, I would totally be all up for cooking. It just sets the mood but has a French restaurant vibe to the whole soundtrack.

On Keeping Posted with Lisa:

I’d say Instagram or Facebook would be the best. I post on there the most frequently so I would definitely check Healthy Nibbles and Bits for both of them.

094: Sarah Nevins: Cooking and Eating with Celiac Disease

November 25, 2015 by Gabriel Leave a Comment

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A Saucy Kitchen

Sarah moved away from everything familiar in Arizona to Sheffield, England in 2014, and busied herself in the one place where she was always comfortable, the kitchen. She feels strongly that the food we eat has a huge impact on the way we feel in our daily lives. This really hits close to home for her because her husband was recently diagnosed with Celiac Disease. Sarah created A Saucy Kitchen to share their journey to better health through their stomachs.

I am so excited to have Sarah Nevins of A Saucy Kitchen here with me today.

(*All photos below are Sarah’s.)

On the Role Food Played while Growing Up:

I was really lucky because both of my parents are really good cooks. My mom more so just regular, everyday meal cooking, and my dad’s really great on the grill. So I was pretty spoiled with that and I guess that’s why I got into it because I always had good food around me. If I wanted that to continue growing up, I needed to figure out how to do it myself.

For local foods, being so close to the border, I think we were spoiled with Mexican food. That’s something now, that I live in England, that I really miss. But other than that, I don’t know if there is anything… just lots of really cool coffee shops. That was probably my favorite part, going and just finding different things that you’d see featured on the Food Network and trying their cupcakes and the coffees. All that was really great.

On Her Curiosity Around Cooking:

It started really young. I was thinking about it and I remember having an Easy-Bake oven when I was really little. That’s the little microwave sort of thing where you just make single cookies and I loved that. Then my mom actually got me into baking quite young to help me learn fractions. I’m a very visual, kinesthetic learner and I felt it was really helpful to measure things out and figure how it adds up to a whole. I’m not good at math, but I am good at baking and it’s stuck with me since then.

I was around them cooking a lot, and I’d see what they did. When I was little, my mom had a shelf of cookbooks in our pantry that I’d often go to and pull them out and I just did it. Most summer vacations in Arizona, it’s really hot. It probably wasn’t the smartest thing to turn the oven on in 110-degree weather, but that’s what I would do. I’d just spend time trying out different cakes and things like that just getting my hands dirty and doing it myself.

On the Difference in Food Between Sheffield, England and Arizona:

I feel like in Sheffield or in England, in general, they have more of their staples that you recognize. And I don’t know if it’s just because Arizona doesn’t have anything that’s specific to them. But here you have a lot of fish and chips, and you get the classics like Yorkshire pudding, which I really love. There was a lot of different food. it was the same but very slightly different, which is kind of confusing.

We went to Liverpool, which is not at all like Mexico, and we went to this pub, which is not where you should buy Mexican food. And I was just really curious because I saw taquitos on the menu so I’m like, “Hmm?” And they were really nice but they were not taquitos. I feel like there’s a lot of things that they say is something like enchiladas and they’re great, but they’re not enchiladas. It’s funny seeing how different it is not having that influence there. But then they have a lot of really great food here. They’ve got a lot of Indian food because there’s a large Indian population. So you can get great curries. That’s something that’s unique to here, I think.

On Celiac Disease and What it Means:

Celiac Disease is an autoimmune disorder which is basically when your body confuses itself or things inside your body as being foreign invaders and attacks itself. With Celiac Disease, what happens is when you eat gluten, which comes from wheat products like bread. When it gets to your small intestine, your body kind of freaks out and starts attacking itself because it doesn’t know what to do. That just leads to a whole host of problems. When I looked it up last, there were about 300 symptoms of Celiac Disease. Which can be really difficult because, for the most part, people only think of the stomach issues when, in reality, you can have arthritis that you got from eating gluten and not even know it.

It is because he was diagnosed only a couple years ago but sick for about 10 years without even realizing it. It can take years and years for people to finally get a diagnosis.

It’s difficult too because it just affects people in so many different ways. His dad actually found out when he did that he also had Celiac Disease because it’s a genetic thing. But with his dad, he goes through his entire life not really realizing that there’s something wrong. Whereas, with Mike, when he was about 10 years old he got sick and he just never really got better from it because of the same exact thing.

On Learning to Cook Without Grains and Refined Sugars:

It was a lot of trial and error. A lot of research went into it because I used to just bake anything. I would use real sugar, real butter, real eggs, everything. Then we found out that he had Celiac Disease. It’s like, “All right, take out the gluten.” And then as we started uncovering more health problems, it felt like it wasn’t quite enough, so it’s like, “Okay, maybe cut back on the sugar, cut back maybe even on the eggs sometimes.” Really, I think with something like that, you just have to try it yourself and figure it out. One thing that helped me, I think, is just reading other blogs and seeing what they have to say. That helps you piece it together.

On FODMAP Foods:

FODMAPs is an acronym. It’s Fermentable Oligo-Di-Monosaccharides and Polyols. Basically what that is, is they’re carbohydrates that your body doesn’t fully digest. For most people, like me, I can eat garlic and I can have no problem. But if you’re someone with a lot of stomach issues, what happens is it sits in your small intestines and it just sits there and ferments, and it causes a lot of IBS problems. High FODMAP foods can be anything from apples to garlic and onions and things like that. A lot of people have found that their symptoms of IBS pretty much go away if they take out these foods. For some, it could be that you have a problem with apples but not onions. It’s one of those things where you just have to take it out for a while and see how it is and then slowly, over time, add it back in.

I think a lot of people are turned off by the idea of doing the elimination diet, which is where you get rid of food for a period of time and enter it back in. But I think the people who have gone through so many different health problems, it’s almost just too easy for them to do something like that because if it can give you your life back, it’s really not that difficult of a thing. Because it doesn’t have to be forever, it could be until your body gets back to health.

On Eating Out with Celiac Disease:

It’s so difficult because the thing is it’s very difficult to be completely gluten free. Just because you take the burger off of a bun doesn’t mean that meat is gluten free. By just touching it, it’s got gluten residue on it because it’s such a sticky thing. So we haven’t really been eating out lately because it’s been such an issue. But whenever we do, we call ahead and we tell them the situation, and we’ll talk to the chef. Either they’ll tell us, “I’m sorry, we can’t guarantee this,” or they’ll say, “We can set something aside for you,” which is really great when that happens.

I think in England there are so many people who are getting diagnosed recently that it’s pretty easy. It can be difficult because it is also, to eat gluten free, a very trendy thing right now. So people say it’s gluten free when it’s not. But because there are many people who have this issue as well, restaurants are really needing to learn about it. We’ve got a couple of restaurants I can think of where the owners are Celiac, so they get how serious it is and those ones are great.

The Pressure Cooker:

Which food shows or cooking shows do you watch?

I quite like to watch Chopped. That’s one that I used to watch with my family. That one’s really fun. And I haven’t kept up this season but I really like The Great British Bake Off. For anyone who likes baking, that show is amazing. It’s just great.

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

I really like Not Without Salt. I think Ashley Rodriguez is a really great writer, and I really admire her. And I quite like Bev Cooks because she’s the opposite of her where she’s just completely zany, but it’s just so bright and fun, and I love it.

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

I follow so many people on all of those. I quite like following people with really great photography because I’m so jealous of it. So I like following Half Baked Harvest. She has such beautiful photography. Local Milk’s another good one. And this isn’t on any of those channels, it’s on YouTube, but my husband and I often watch someone called Greg from Ballistic Barbecue. It’s just fun because he just goes out and he just grills all these crazy things and makes these amazing hamburgers, and we quite like watching that. So I’ll add him to the list.

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

It’s not very unusual, but I treasure my coffee pot. After I moved to Sheffield last year, there were a few dark months when we didn’t have a coffee pot because they drink tea. So they had tea kettles and instant coffee, and I find instant coffee offensive. So I didn’t have coffee during that time, and I got one for Christmas and it’s amazing. It gets me through the day.

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

You know what’s funny? I cook almost exclusively now with coconut oil, and I hated the smell of it. I hated the way it made things taste. I don’t know if I just started off using really strong coconut oil, but now I really quite like it. I think it adds an unusual flavor to the dishes and it smells nice, makes your skin soft. So, probably coconut oil.

What are a few cookbooks that make your life better?

I don’t own as many cookbooks as I’d like to because I tend to be on the more minimalist side, but I have Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Everything and that is a really great resource for anyone. It pretty much covers the basics. I grew up on the Taste of Home cookbooks, so those ones are always special to me. I think they’re just great and fun.

What song or album just makes you want to cook?

I like listening to more upbeat things in the kitchen. And it depends on the week, but what I’ve found I’ve done lately is I just go on Spotify, and I find a Motown playlist and I just do that, and it’s a lot of fun.

On Keeping Posted with Sarah:

I keep my Facebook and my Instagram updated the most consistently so probably on one of those, and on both of them you can find me @ASaucyKitchen.

083: Michelle Lopez: Learning to Bake at High Altitude

October 7, 2015 by Gabriel 6 Comments

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Hummingbird High

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

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

(*All images below are Michelle’s.)

On Her Blog:

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

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

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

On Baking at High Altitude:

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

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

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

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

On Learning How to Bake:

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

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

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

On Where She Turns for Inspiration:

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

On Which Cookbook She Would Cook through Today:

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

The Pressure Cooker:

Which food shows or cooking shows do you watch?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What are a few cookbooks that make your life better?

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

What song or album just makes you want to cook?

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

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

On Keeping Posted with Michelle:

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