What Katie Ate | The Dinner Special podcast

062: Saghar Setareh: Iranian Cuisine with a Touch of Italian

July 27, 2015 by Gabriel Leave a Comment

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Lab Noon

Originally from Iran, Saghar has been living in Rome, Italy for the past eight years. Her blog is her laboratory where she creates and experiments with seasonal and natural food, and shares her photography and small DIYs. Lab Noon is a finalist in the 2015 SAVEUR Blog Awards for Best Special Interest Blog.

I’m so excited to have Saghar Setareh of Lab Noon here on the show today.

(*All images below are Saghar’s.)

On the Role of Food in Her Family:

I have grown up in a family where my parents have always cooked. My mom, especially being a housewife, she always cooked at home and she was very reluctant to let me get processed food and snacks at school. She was so strict about it that she often didn’t let me take my pocket money to school because she always baked cakes at home and she always gave me a lot of fruit because she was always quite obsessed with this.

While with my father, he’s a huge food lover but he doesn’t have that healthy sort of approach to food. He just loves really eating a lot so he also loves a lot of different types of fast foods. He experiments with cooking, and he just makes things up, which most of the times were great but sometimes just had some culinary disasters too.

That’s how I grew up. I have grown up mostly with homemade meals and then, from a certain point, also with a lot of junk food and fast food.

On the Food Culture in Iran:

I would say that it’s quite strong but since I came to Italy, I’m not so sure about it because I don’t think that the food culture is anywhere as strong as Italy.

People take a lot of take outs, even for big parties they order homemade food because there are, they call them “Kitchens.” There are people who make what they call homemade food and they bring everything to your house and so you don’t have to cook. Our food culture in Iran is all about abundance.

We are also famous for being very hospitable. That hospitality often translates to an overabundance of food, which a lot of time leads to also a lot of food waste which is not quite okay. But when we want to show that we care, there is always a lot of food and I mean literally a lot of food. We serve everything together. It’s not like I serve the starters first and then there comes different dishes. We serve everything together and people choose what to eat first and what to eat after that.

I would say we’re a very meat eater nation. So also the amount of meat in each type of dish is directly connected to the same thing. The more abundant the dish is with meat, it means that we usually care more and we’re more hospitable. Food is directly related to what kind of face we make, especially with our guests, something that people, neighbors, family would talk about in years to come if it’s a wedding or something like that.

On Iranian Cuisine:

The thing is that Iran is a huge country and it shares borders with Turkey that shares that Mediterranean type of cuisine. Then, on the other hand, with Afghanistan and the countries of Central Asia which are connected to India and in the south to the Arab Middle Eastern countries. So it has taken a little bit from all of them.

But, in general, I would say the Iranian cuisine is very delicate. It’s not the image that some people might have of very spicy and strong flavors. The flavors in Iranian cooking are actually very delicate. The food is not very spicy, everything is very balanced. But I would say that, yes, without any doubt the most famous and the most appreciated Iranian dish is definitely the Persian Kebab, which is very different with the Turkish one, the döner one. It’s like a huge barbecue and, ironically, it’s something that usually always men do. And we have different sorts of kebab. One of the most famous ones is with minced meat. We have chicken kebabs. We have chopped rib kebabs that are very great.

We have very good restaurants. We have the rustic, old family restaurants who do them. We have luxurious restaurants who do them. And then we have all sorts of these different stews that we have with our rice because our rice is very famous, it’s similar to basmati rice. We’re very, very fussy about how we cook the rice and how the rice should be. I think even if not as fussy as Italians about their pasta, definitely not less.

We have these very beautiful mixed rices. Like now is the season for sour cherries, which people don’t even eat or I don’t see them selling that. We have this very beautiful mixed rice with sour cherries, a little bit of saffron and pistachios. Some people serve it with small meatballs, some people with saffron chicken or, actually, saffron chicken kebab or it depends. You can serve it with whatever you want. So we have these very, very particular rices that are interesting.

And there some rustic dishes and some elegant dishes. In the last, I would say, 30, 40 years or maybe more, we have adopted a lot of dishes that are actually not from Iran but in the course of the years, they have become so. Like we have this salad which is called salad Olivier or something like that which is actually a Russian dish. It’s the famous Russian potato salad. And if you ask Iranians, most of them wouldn’t even know that the dish is Russian. Everybody thinks that this is Iranian for the amount of years that people have been preparing and eating it.

On a Dish that Reminds Her of Tehran:

There are so many. If we want to talk about something that I have on my blog, it’s something that I’d like to cook quite often because it’s very healthy, and it’s probably one of those Iranian dishes that I cook most often here because I don’t normally cook Iranian. It’s rice and lentils, which is called Adas Polo in Persian, in Farsi. And I just did it even in an Italian cooking show I was participating in because it’s so simple, so full of layers of flavors because you would think, rice and lentils what could that be? But there’s chopped fried onions with turmeric, and there is a little bit of saffron in the rice. There’s also raisins that are lightly toasted with some butter and a little bit of saffron. Everything is mixed together with a little bit of cinnamon.

So from the most simple ingredient, this one is actually a very poor dish but it turns out to be a very tasty and a very nutritious dish. If I have it, I usually have this with yogurt because we have this sort of thing that we mix rice with yogurt. It’s even said that it’s not the nicest thing to do if you are at a party or in a wedding, it’s not nice to add yogurt to your rice but it just works so well, the combination of yogurt and different sorts of spices. You can find it on my blog, too. I made some sort of risotto out of it. I mixed it with the Italian rice. That’s one of the dishes that reminds me a lot of my childhood among many other.

On Her Current Home, Rome, Italy:

What brought me to Rome was really chance because I was just graduating from university, and I had always wanted to go abroad and I had mainly thought about Europe. I came to know about coming to Italy as a student with a student visa and continue to study by chance, and I realized that it was quite an affordable way, especially comparing to other countries in the same situation. And I thought, “Okay let’s do this,” so I had actually never thought about Italy before that, before knowing about this.

I chose Rome simply because it’s the capital city and by my measurement of things, the Iranian way, the capital cities are always the best. So that’s how I chose the city, and I fell in love with it almost immediately. I’m very attached to the city. I notice that whenever I take tourists around, friends come from different parts of the world, friends of family, I take them around and I realize most of the times that I have seen these places. I have been there millions of times by now. I am still the one that is most enthusiastic about these places.

On Food Culture in Italy Versus Iran:

I think the attention and how Italian people care about their food is something very unique. That you wouldn’t find it anywhere else. I remember one of the things I was most amazed by the early months is that when you call somebody on the phone, a friend, your mom, your child and you’re talking on the phone, the first question is, “Hi, how are you?” Immediately, the second or the third question is, “Have you eaten?” and then, “What have you eaten?” This doesn’t happen anywhere else.

If you want to look at it from this point of view, no, there are not much similarities. But in terms of ingredients, sometimes there are some foods that remind you of some particular Iranian dishes while at the same time, the cooking is very different because Italian cooking is all about the simplicity, few ingredients, few great ingredients. So it’s all about the original ingredient and just a few touches and you have a great dish. While in Iran, we have even the most simple dish of all, you always have some onions somewhere, some spices somewhere, some turmeric or something. So Iranian cooking is more complex and definitely it takes much more time compared to some kinds of Italian cooking.

But, in terms of taste, I think that there are some dishes that recall each other. For example, there is this very, very, very Roman dish which is called coda alla vaccinara, which means the oxtail with tomato sauce. And it kind of tastes like. . . we have some sort of stew that we make with filet. I think it’s either sheep filet or maybe it’s beef. I’m not sure. But they kind of … with sauce and everything, they kind of taste the same but we would serve it with rice. These are the dishes that are most similar.

On Her Blog:

The blog was and still is connected to the other side of my life, which is graphic design because I have studied graphic design and I have been a graphic designer for so many years now. I was searching and I stumbled upon many different food blogs, I was awed by the beauty of the pictures. And I had the critic eye, I would say, to recognize composition and the graphic element actually. That’s why I was not really surprised when I read about these people and most of them were graphic designers or designers of some sort. I said, “Oh my God this is really cool!” It’s a great way to express creativity and it’s a great way to create this sort of window through the world.

And it’s a perfect way to combine these two sorts of passion also because, before actually launching the blog, one of projects in my specialist course, my Master’s course in Graphic Design and Photography, was about the design of a food event. So I had already done a lot of graphic material for this, and I realized that I loved this. This is something that I wanted to do not only in the process of recipe developing but also in the process of the graphic design. That’s how I thought, “Okay, let’s do this.” Although Lab Noon was initially not intended to be only a food blog, actually I intended to create more. By the time I actually launched the blog, it kind of found its own way just as time went by. Also because I realized that it needs a huge amount of time to create high quality content, from the idea of the recipe to developing it, shooting, editing and the text and everything and then I have to also translate it.

The blog was meant to be in three languages, English, Italian and Persian. Eventually, right in the very early month I realized this is not going to be possible. So I almost immediately omitted the Persian. Right now I struggle to write the Italian part because it’s not very easy to me, but I try. So I think it’s something that puts everything together for me. Actually, I get my final project, my thesis in this semester of university. I created a cookbook with my own photos and recipes. Most of them have been already published on the blog by now, and it has become an interesting book speaking directly from the aesthetic and design point of view.

The Pressure Cooker:

Which food shows or cooking shows do you watch?

I always watch Jamie Oliver’s Food Tube, and that I found really, really entertaining. You learn a lot from it.

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

There are so many of them. I am pretty much in love with this food blog called Hortus Natural Cooking. It was written by Valentina Solfrini who is an Italian girl who has lived a long amount of time in New York. She is amazing, very inspiring.

The other blog that I really like is The Vanilla Bean Blog. I really like it, especially for the dessert. She’s also a fellow SAVEUR finalist.

I love a friend of mine who is actually, it’s not quite a blog, but she has this little food strategy company that is really amazing, and it’s called WE Factory.

If you want to know more about some good Persian cooking, there is another blog who was another SAVEUR finalist a couple of years ago, who’s called Bottom of the Pot. I think these are really good.

There are too many of them. I could make a list that would never end.

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

I follow way too many people. People who make me really happy, especially in the terms of photography, one of them is Call Me Cupcake, the blog, by this amazing Swedish blogger who is called Linda.

The other one is by Beth Kirby who writes the Local Milk blog, and her photos are just out of the world. I also follow Two Red Bowls. I love them. My Blue and White Kitchen, I follow these people on almost all of their socials, and they are very good, especially in terms of the visual impact.

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

I don’t think I have any unusual because, especially once you’ve entered the world of food, nothing is really unusual. My most treasured item is definitely my saffron because it comes from Iran. My mom has made it for me, prepared it for me and it’s a tiny little box and a tiny little jar. It definitely is the most precious one.

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

There are so many of them. I almost hated all sorts of vegetable and now I love them. Especially eggplant, I hated eggplant and now I love it.

What are a few cookbooks that make your life better?

I have this cookbook called What Katie Ate, which is the name of the same blog by the Irish photographer and blogger Katie. I love her photography.

Another cookbook which has definitely made my life better, not now that I cook but when I was younger is actually a Persian cookbook. It’s a huge cookbook by Miss Roza Montazemi, Iranian lady who has this huge cookbook which is a must in all Iranian kitchens. Then the Italian ones, the Artusi cookbook, the very famous cookbook by Artusi about the Italian cooking. They’re very good.

What song or album just makes you want to cook?

I love the Juno soundtrack, the movie, and there are some certain songs on that album that I get relaxed and say, “Okay let’s whip up something!”

On Keeping Posted with Saghar:

I would say that my Facebook, Instagram and Twitter are the most updated. Of course, the blog itself www.labnoon.com where you have most of the postings both in Italian and English, but I do have quite a lot of things on my socials that are not always updated on the blog.

060: Dinner Was Delicious: Chicago and Its Food

July 20, 2015 by Gabriel Leave a Comment

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Dinner Was Delicious

Based in Chicago, Lucy and Rachel share recipes, photographs and love food enough not to take it too seriously. They’ve been destroying kitchens together since 2011.

I am so happy to have Lucy and Rachel of Dinner Was Delicious joining me here on the show today.

(*All images below belong to Dinner Was Delicious.)

On How They Met:

Rachel: Lucy and I both worked at this really weird tech start-up in Chicago. Chicago has this awesome tech scene.

Lucy: We were lucky to have this job.

Rachel: And it was great, but it wasn’t super creatively fulfilling. So we just bonded together over our shared love of food and gossip of the weird architecture in the office space.

Lucy: We found each other in the midst of a strange company. For our Parks and Rec enthusiasts, we describe it as Entertainment 720. We just talked about what we wanted to do and became good friends outside of work.

On What Made Them Want to Collaborate with Each Other:

Lucy: Rachel was baking a lot. My job was already creative because I was a graphic designer. And Rachel was doing operations and needed a creative outlet and would bring us the most incredible desserts. I started with cupcakes and pies and all kinds of really incredible desserts, and I was always like, “If you ever want to collaborate, we should be documenting these. These are beautiful. Have you written down the recipes? What’s next? Let’s do something with this.”

Rachel: So Lucy was doing her photography business, and I was baking more and more and then started actually baking as a little side project, just for some extra cash. I baked for a wedding that was for one of our mutual friend’s siblings, and Lucy was shooting photography for it too. So I was doing a bunch of cupcakes, and Lucy was like, “Well, I’ll come over, and I’ll take pictures of the cupcakes. It was super fun and we decided, “Well, let’s do it.”

Lucy: It was kind of intimidating to think about getting it started, but really, we just put a Tumblr theme up. I made a logo in five minutes that wasn’t really the logo that we wanted, but we just needed to start and it just started there.

On Their Interest in Food and Cooking:

Lucy: We like to eat. I really like to eat. I became interested in food after I moved to Chicago, and I became interested in food out of the realization that I don’t know how to cook for myself. I moved into my own apartment five years ago, and so it’s just all on me. I couldn’t rely on my roommate to have dinner ready for me anymore. And Rachel had all this knowledge, basics that I didn’t know, and so that was really helpful to just be cooking with her. And then eating in Chicago, you are exposed to all kinds of different things that I became interested and curious about that.

Rachel: I’ve always cooked. My mother, bless her heart, she’s an awesome nurse. Briefly in the late ’90s, she was a super kick-ass body piercer. But she can’t cook to save her life, and she’ll say it as much as I will. So if I wanted to eat when I was a kid, I had to figure out how to make it myself. I cooked a lot with my grandma, a little bit with my grandpa too, and just figured out how to cook, always super-passionate about it.

Love cooking for people. Another part of why we started collaborating was Lucy wasn’t as proficient in the kitchen, so it was like, “Well, come over. I’ll show you how to fry an egg.”

Lucy: At the time, I was still a graphic designer, and I didn’t know how I wanted to shoot food. It was kind of a way to learn that and experiment with different techniques.

On Not Taking Food Too Seriously:

Rachel: So I think some people, many people who are really passionate about food start getting a little self-inflated about it. They lose the fun and the spontaneity of food and letting it be just what it is: something delicious to nourish you and share with people that you love. I think that we work really hard to keep the important things in mind: sustainability, seasonality, nutrient density, all of these things that we think about. But we let our love of food really shine through to be what it is, which is food. You eat it with people you love, and we’re giving food the space to be enjoyable, rather than something that’s stricter.

On a Kitchen Disaster:

Rachel: One happened last night. We’re in Lucy’s photography studio, and we were supposed to make Cheeze-Its, and I just . . . They just did not work. So even if you’re someone who’s proficient in the kitchen, screw-ups happen. Your recipe doesn’t always work out as planned. When you’re testing stuff and flying by the seat of your pants and maybe didn’t set your timer, sometimes things can get burned.

Lucy: There’s a lot of burning. Not a lot, but that’s my biggest.

Rachel: One of my favorite memories with us, though, was the day that we made the fried chicken at my place, and you brought the bone-in chicken. And this was way, way, way early on, like before I had any butchery experience, but I love taking carving on the meat now. I was still super squeamish. And so we were going to make a fried chicken dinner, and Lucy brought the chicken and it was bone-in because bone-in chicken is more delicious. But it was a whole chicken. I had to figure out, how do I take this bird apart?

Lucy: I was there for moral support, and it took a lot to go down.

Rachel: It took a lot of bourbon. This was four or five years ago now.

On the Food Culture in Chicago:

Lucy: People are really interested about food here, and there’s everything available. I don’t even know where to start. It’s overwhelming.

Rachel: People, when they think about Chicago food culture, they’re going to think first about deep-dish pizza.

Lucy: Yeah, that’s true.

Rachel: And people might not realize that it’s actually one of the most prominent culinary capitals in the U.S. We have Alinea. We’ve got Next. We’ve got Publican. We’ve got all sorts of really wonderful, creative restaurants. We’ve got a lot of ramen going on right now too.

It’s more than just meat and potatoes. It’s people who really care about interesting food. It’s not just white people with Western stuff.

Lucy: Yeah, food from all different cultures. The neighborhoods are so diverse that you can have food from all over the world and have it done well.

On a Dish That Captures What Chicago is About:

Rachel: That’s a really hard question.

Lucy: Because Chicago isn’t one thing food-wise for me. Hot dog, I guess.

Rachel: Because it’s got everything.

Lucy: It’s got everything on it. And we’re so particular about how we have our hot dogs. This is the least original answer I could give you.

Rachel: No, I love it.

Lucy: But it is the Chicago style, no ketchup and . . .

Rachel: You’ve got the mustard, which has lots of Asian and Germanic influences. You’ve got this beautiful pickle that’s like a fermented pickle. It’s not a brine pickle. So it has a long fermentation process rather than the vinegar. So lots of different cultural influences there. It’s everything on a bun and like, “Ugh!”

On a Food That Locals Love that Visitors May Not Know About:

Lucy: So there’s this one dish called a “mother-in-law.” It’s a hot dog and a tamale covered in chili in a bun with a bunch of cheese, and there’s also the Chicago original rainbow cone. It’s this huge stack of ice cream. It’s got orange sherbet, pistachio, this really special cherry ice cream, chocolate, everything all on one cone, and it’s so, so essential Chicago summer. In your cut-off jeans, you’ve got to get an original rainbow cone.

The Pressure Cooker:

Which food shows or cooking shows do you watch?

Lucy: I love Anthony Bourdain.

Rachel: I love The Taste, though. Anthony’s on there, but Nigella, come on, give me a break. She’s perfect.

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

Rachel: Wit & Vinegar. Billy Green is the best human on the Internet. Love him so much. I’m super into I am a Food Blog.

Lucy: Yeah, I am a Food Blog is great. I always go to Smitten Kitchen. She’s great, solid recipes. She’s been around for so long, she has such a great library of recipes.

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

Rachel: I’m a grandmother on the Internet.

Lucy: That’s true.

Rachel: I follow lots of cat Instagrams, so I just get cat pictures in my feed throughout the day.

Lucy: Our friend Jana has an account called Bike a Bee that I follow on Instagram and Twitter and she’s hilarious and also shares all this cool information about plants. And she’s a beekeeper, and so she shares her process about beekeeping and selling honey, which is really cool.

Rachel: Speaking of Jana, there’s another, based in Philadelphia. There’s a restaurant and butchery space and education space about meat and sustainable meat called Kensington Quarters. It’s awesome. It’s not for vegans. If you’re squeamish about meat, you’re not going to love it. But they post the most beautiful, educational pictures about meat. They’re super great people I connect to.

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

Rachel: My KitchenAid mixer. I know that’s super cliché, but it has lived so many lives. It came into my life in the most . . . I was in a not super great relationship, and all that I wanted – and this was eight years ago, all that I wanted was a KitchenAid mixer because I had just started baking, and I was really passionate about it. And all that I wanted for my birthday was a KitchenAid mixer. But I was 22, 23.

Nobody has KitchenAid money at 22, 23. So I asked the guy that I was dating at the time, not a super great relationship, to talk to my friends and be like, “Everybody pitches in 10 or 15 bucks to get the KitchenAid.” And he did it, and I got my KitchenAid. And it was the best ever, and lived through a bug infestation.

It lived through 17 moves now, just going all over the place. It’s gotten me through everywhere. I love it more than everything. It barely works. It’s got this big nick on the top of it from one of my more urgent moves. My apartment flooded, and it was horrible. And I just grabbed the mixer and ran. Yeah, I love my mixer more than anything.

Lucy: I don’t know. My kitchen is kind of tiny. I don’t have any sentimental passed-on pieces yet.

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

Lucy: Pickles.

Rachel: Yeah, pickles? You didn’t like pickles?

Lucy: I didn’t like pickles. I wasted so much of my life not liking pickles.

Rachel: Weird. For a long, long time, I was really not into food. I didn’t eat asparagus until I was 25.

Lucy: Or things that were cute.

Rachel: I wouldn’t eat lamb.

Lucy: Rabbits.

Rachel: I still don’t eat rabbit. It makes me sad. I know, I’m an idiot. I didn’t have cauliflower until I was 27 and, oh my gosh, I love it now. If there’s anything that anyone is ever afraid of eating food-wise, you could be skipping your favorite food, the most delicious food you’ve ever eaten. Just eat all the things you’re afraid of. Everything is good if you cook it right.

What are a few cookbooks that make your life better?

Lucy: What to Cook and How to Cook it.

Rachel: That’s such a good one. I just got Edward Lee’s Smoke and Pickles, and it is one of the most beautifully written cookbooks I’ve ever seen. The recipes are amazing. They’re flawlessly tested. The photography is beautiful. And his prose, he has chapters in between with actually prose in it. It’s so wonderful and smart and touching.

Lucy: And What Katie Ate books are beautiful, so I look at that for inspiration sometimes for photography. It’s gorgeous, lots of good party recipes.

What song or album just makes you want to cook?

Rachel: Everything. Music makes me hungry.

Lucy: Yeah, it depends on what mood I’m in. I’ll put on an old album, like Tom Petty and The Rolling Stones, or I’ll blast Robyn if it’s winter or summer.

Rachel: If I’m making pie, I want to listen to The Secret Sisters, for sure. If I’m eating my feelings, I want to listen to Neko Case’s latest album and just cry into my soup or whatever comfort food I’m cooking. But if it’s just like general, just hanging out in the kitchen, you can’t go wrong with Robyn. She’s the queen. She’s flawless.

On Keeping Posted with Rachel and Lucy:

Lucy: DinnerWasDelicious.com, so that is where you should keep going. And then follow us on Instagram @effingdelicious, and we’re also @effingdelicious on Twitter as well.

044: Gardenias and Mint: Friendship and Food in Boston and Hartford

June 3, 2015 by Gabriel Leave a Comment

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Gardenias & Mint is an East Coast lifestyle blog by two best friends on a budget. They share things that they love including style, books, cool stuff online, and of course, food.

I am so happy to have Christa Tubach and Regina Vecchione of Gardenias & Mint here on the show today.

On How They Met:

Regina: We go way back. We’ve been friends for a long time.

Probably third grade, Christa moved here. And I had been living here since I was five.

She was just wearing the coolest velvet shirt with a daisy on it. And I was like, “Hey girl, I like your shirt.” And, being a T and a V in our last names, our lockers were next to each other pretty much from middle school on. So even if we didn’t have classes together, we hung out.

Regina: We always got along really well. We have similar tastes. That’s kind of how the blog started. Since we were kids, we’d go shopping and realized, “We love that. We both love that.”

Christa: We’ve always been very good partners when shopping.

Regina: Yeah. We have a lot of the same clothes. We’ve been known to walk out and have the same thing on.

On the Food Culture in Their Cities:

Regina: Boston, I’ve noticed, is all about the gastro-pub style.

Everyone is very into bar food with a refined edge. So you can always find a really delicious poutine with like cheese curds and duck gravy. And then pair it with a really delicious craft beer.

Christa: Hartford is all about the hidden gem. Like neighborhood area. So, you’ll hear people comparing their restaurants with which neighborhood you’re from. In my neighborhood, in the West End, we have, I think, the best Mexican. But you’ll hear other people say they think theirs is the best. So you’re always finding little places here and there from the neighborhoods.

I think it has a lot to do with the local aspects of it; there’s a lot of things happening. And restaurants really try and make an effort in showing you where the food is coming from.

All these little neighborhood places will have the farm listed, the ingredients listed. And it’s great because, even though Hartford’s a city, the surrounding areas are still pretty rural. So we have a lot of farms. And this urban and city farming is happening too. So Hartford is trying to do that. And I think it’s great.

Regina: Boston is very similar. We tend to branch out a little bit. Just because we’re a city so we can’t always have our own farms. But then the surrounding areas, like Concord Mass, we have a lot of farms over there. So we tend to get the fresh, good stuff.

On Neighborhoods in Their Cities for Tasty Food:

Christa: The South End of Hartford is known for the bakeries and the Italian section. The West End, where Mexican is, that one particular place is fantastic. It’s just kind of the walkable neighborhood area that has some delicious spots. And downtown, there are definitely some pockets which are really great. Because Hartford’s pretty spread out so it’s not really as walkable as Boston. So you’re driving and you’ll find little places here and there.

Regina: I wish there was more Thai food actually. That is something I feel it is a little short of. But there is a Chinatown in Boston. So you can definitely get some good hot pot. I’ve had some really great hot pot or I think some people call it shabu. But I feel like every neighborhood in Boston and the surrounding areas makes a point of having a couple of go-to spots, which is awesome.

We love Delis. I feel like no matter what neighborhood you’re in, you can find good food. I personally live in Brookline which is right outside and kind of near Fenway. And I have a couple go-to spots like this place, Otto Pizza, which originally started in Portland, Maine. And Public House, which again, is all about the gastro food. And they have like, I think, one of the most extensive draft beer lists in New England or something. It’s crazy.

On Local Dishes that Visitors May Not Know About:

Regina: Christa and I, one time, she came to visit and we went to this place called Island Creek Oyster Bar. Which is obviously it serves oysters, hence the name. But we ended up getting the mussels as an appetizer. And we were just completely blown away. We were just looking at each other like, “What is happening in our mouths?”

Christa: And it’s local so it’s another thing that Boston’s by the water. Actually, Hartford right now, our little thing that everyone loves is we have this little doughnut spot called Tastease, that has mini doughnuts. And they’re beautiful. They’re decorated. They’re colorful. They’re absolutely fantastic. And no one knows about them.

It’s just one of those things that you’ll see pictures and then you’ll hear about it. And they sell out by 10:00 in the morning. They have a little sign that says, “Over a million donuts served.” Just a small local business that, when you know about it, people are like, “Oh my god, Tastease! I can’t believe I hadn’t heard about it.”

On Their Blog:

Christa: Well, we’re both creatives. I’m a graphic designer and Regina was a photography major. And so we just found ourselves one day, talking about blogs. We hadn’t discussed it. We were just like, “Wow. I follow a lot of blogs.”

Regina: We were both following a lot of the same ones and constantly texting each other about it.

Christa: When Reg moved, we were both starting out in our careers and trying to figure out what we wanted to do. And those first jobs, they’re fun, they’re interesting but they’re not quite as creative as you want. So it kind of started out with being like, “What else do we want to do?” And we just saw that there are opportunities to collect the information off the Internet that we liked. And then doing DIYs, and cooking food, and doing all these things we like to do anyway.

Reg takes beautiful photographs. We were like, “Why don’t we just start doing that and documenting it?” So we actually just sat down one day and we made it happen.

Regina: It was so funny how quickly it happened. We just sat down. We’re like, “What do we want to call it? Let’s do this test name Gardenias & Mint. We could always change it.” And then we’re like, “Actually, I kind of like it.”

Christa: Then we put some stuff together and then we went out to a really good restaurant, and brought a notebook, and literally were like, “What are some ideas? Let’s do this.” We stuck with it. Which is, you know, the hardest part.

Regina: Christa was really helpful for all this too because she had done an internship for Design Love Fest.

Christa: Blogshop. I don’t know if you know who she is. She’s a major blogger out in California. And I kind of interned for a weekend with her where I gave tips on Photoshop. And so it was all about the blogging world though. Not just how to use Photoshop for yourself. But specifically with blogging. And so I had this inside scoop that I didn’t even realize I had. And so it was fun to share what I learned. And you started picking it up on it really fast.

On How to Decide on What to Make for the Blog:

Regina: We have a very serious sweet tooth, in case you haven’t noticed.

Christa: Pretty much everything is some sort of baked good.

Regina: We just love baking. I find it to be very calming. If I’m like stressed out, I just want to go home and make cookies.

Christa: We always are talking about how we want to do more food and less treats but we just end up making cakes.

Regina: It’s funny because we love savory dishes so much. We’re always just like, “Cheese!”

Christa: I think that what happens is we’ll look at stuff that we like. It has to be something that we want to make. Now as much as blogs are about it being pretty, we want to eat it.

We approach it as what looks good. Is this something I want to make for myself? Make for my roommates? Make for my boyfriend? And then we don’t want to just sit there and copy someone’s recipe straight up most of the times.

So it’s nice to be able to feel comfortable with the ingredients to know that we could change something if we need to. How to make it our own because with there being a million things on the Internet, it’s so easy just to be like, “That looks good. Let’s make it.” Well, it’s ours now. But it’s not.

Regina: It’s so easy to adapt things from other people that we always make sure to give the other blog credit if we happen to find it there.

Christa: Yeah. And so, we want to be able to approach it in a way that we feel comfortable kind of tweaking something.

I wouldn’t know how to look at a recipe and change everything but we want to throw an ingredient here, tweak a little bit of that there. And that usually works best for us.

On a Dish Not Turning Out as Planned:

Christa: Yeah, it happens. Actually this past Valentine’s Day, we wanted to just make a cute little heart-shaped pizza. And then we decided it was just going to be heart-shaped pepperoni. And so, it was last minute. We’re scrambling. And pizza is not hard to make by any means, but I’m sitting there, cutting out heart-shaped pepperoni with a knife which is not a good idea.

It’s angular and you’re trying to make these cute hearts and it’s not happening. And something happened. Reg is half making it and we realized we don’t have cheese. And we’re just having such a struggle.

Regina: We just did not prepare at all.

Christa: So she decides, “Look let’s just make something else. I’ll freeze the pepperonis. We’ll make the pizza another time.” And then I go home and we’re cutting it close on time because we wanted to post it.

Regina: Because it was Valentine’s Day. So it was just a specific date it had to be up by.

Christa: So I’m like, “You know what? I’m just going to make this at home. Don’t worry about it. I’m going to do it in Hartford. I’ll figure it out.” And I go to the store, I buy some more pepperoni, and then I walk into my kitchen and I’m like, “Why did I not use kitchen scissors?” It was the easiest thing in the entire world. Took me two seconds. I did like 15 pepperonis in under a minute.

Regina: Versus like half an hour of slimy labor with a knife.

Christa: So I was just like, “Wow, that was dumb.”

Regina: And dangerous.

The Pressure Cooker:

Which food shows or cooking shows do you watch?

Regina: I really like the Barefoot Contessa. She is all about home cooked meals that just make you feel good. And they’re rich and wonderful.

Christa: I actually don’t watch any cooking shows. I feel so terrible saying that. I have caught a couple fun ones at the gym.

Regina: It’s so weirdly satisfying to watch cooking shows at the gym. You feel terrible but great all at the same time.

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

Regina: I’m always on The Kitchn. That’s a good one. I think one of my big inspirations for blogging about food is probably Skinny Taste. She recently came out with one or two cookbooks, I think. But she’s again, back to that comfort food stuff.

It’s always with a low-fat quality. She loves using applesauce to replace things when she’s baking. It’s like comfort food without the guilt.

Christa: And I really love Food52. They post so many beautiful pictures. There’s just something that sparks my interest visually. Which then, when I read about it, makes me hungry.

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

Christa: This is funny. We worked at a pizza place back in high school. And that’s actually where I met my boyfriend. They post their specials on Facebook and Instagram and I love it. All I want to do is go there. When I see every week what they’re doing. I’m so excited.

Regina: Yeah, you heavily monitor it to see if you can go there that weekend for their specials.

Christa: I’m like, “Oh you’re coming home? These are the specials ahead of time. Are you into it?”

Christa: They’re called Flatbread. But there’s American Flatbread and then Flatbread. They’re two different things.

Regina: It’s like The Flatbread Co.

Christa: Yeah, Flatbread Company.

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

Regina: I feel like I always get called out for my butter dish on the counter. I always have room temperature butter at my house. Which is wonderful and apparently it’s a very European thing. I just grew up with it but I feel like room temperature butter just makes my life complete. Because you can just throw it on anything. It’s already ready to go. And then, especially if you’re baking, you already have the room temp butter. So, you’re good to go.

Christa: Our apartment is really old. We have this really cute nook where there definitely used to be an ironing board. But, no ironing board anymore. And we turned it into a spice rack. Were moving soon and I think I’m going to miss it a lot. I didn’t realize how cute it was until we’re not going to have it anymore.

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

Regina: I love tomatoes. I put them in absolutely everything. Tomatoes and onion. I don’t know where I would be without them now. But when I was a kid, I wanted nothing to do with them.

Christa: I’m actually the same way about peppers. I don’t know why kids hate peppers. They’re delicious.

Regina: Vegetables in general. Vegetables make me so happy.

Christa: Like brussels sprouts. Oh my god, brussels sprouts are my favorite.

Regina: I don’t understand the stigma associated with them as a child.

What are a few cookbooks that make your life better?

Regina: A couple of years ago for Christmas, my sister got me this really wonderful book at Anthropology that’s called What Katie Ate. And the photography in it is so stunning. It just has this very dramatic, dark backdrops and pretty high contrast. But they’re just beautiful. And it makes you want to cook really badly.

Some of the food that she does is a little labor extensive but it always looks worth it. And I’m like, “Wow, those potatoes look sensational.”

Christa: My mom, she’s got Cook’s Illustrated my whole life. And just seeing those around, it was always fun to look at the illustrations on the back and just get this real breakdown of food that kind of, is so normal.

There’s something about it that was just so friendly for the everyday person. But actually, I did see a beautiful cookbook the other day called, One Pan, Two Plates. Which is great for a couple, like my boyfriend and myself. Which I definitely want to check out.

What song or album just makes you want to cook?

Regina: For me, especially around the holidays, back to baking, but it’s Ella Fitzgerald. And She and Him. They both just put me in that holiday spirit. I’m like, “I need to make gingerbread now.” And then, my coworker introduced me to the most random collection of songs. It’s just like a Nigerian eclectic band that just makes you want to cook so badly. I highly recommend Nigerian music to put you in the mood to cook.

I don’t know the name. It’s not a band name. It was like a collection of various bands on one album. But I think they all have a similar beat to it. And it’s very like, saucy. And you’re just like, “Yeah, I want to make some enchiladas or something.”

Christa: We actually listen to music a lot in the kitchen. It’s just something that gets us excited. But I love Vampire Weekend. They’re just fun and poppy and gets me going. I know all the words so I’m just in my zone. Which is helpful.

On Keeping Posted with Gardenia’s and Mint:

Regina: We are on Instagram.

Christa: Instagram.

Regina: And Facebook daily.

Christa: Yep. And gardeniasandmint.com. So we’re social media people for sure. We try to tweet but we’re not very good at it.

Regina: Bad at tweeting. I don’t know why. Yeah, Instagram though, we’re always on that.

Christa: Yes, and Pinterest, you know, the whole deal.

Regina: Our handle is just Gardenias and Mint. Pretty straightforward.

033: Gabriel Cabrera: Food Styling, Photography and Mexican Cuisine

May 1, 2015 by Gabriel Leave a Comment

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The Artful Desperado

On The Artful Desperado, Gabriel shares his favorite things from food to art and design all through his beautiful photography, styling and his lively commentary. Originally from Mexico, he now lives in Vancouver, BC, Canada.

I am so psyched to have Gabriel Cabrera of The Artful Desperado here on the show.

On Starting His Blog:

The reason that I got started is at that time I was going to culinary arts school. There were a lot of things that were new to me which I assumed were new to the world. They weren’t. So then I started doing it A: I wanted to just document a lot of the stuff that I was learning and seeing and B: honestly, it was a hobby, just something that was cool to do.

On Food Styling and Photography:

I’m a prop stylist. But as of late, also, because part of the job, I have been doing quite a lot of photography, so now the balance is tilting a little bit more towards photography. So, I’m going and reading about classic photographers, and just going back into film.

Every time I start something, I get really obsessed with it and I deconstruct it. So it’s a little bit of, I guess between photography and styling.

Mostly, I would say styling. So as you can see, just for example, on the blog, I do use original recipes, but a lot of the recipes are adapted from other sources because that really helps me minimize the time that I have to develop, test and do something with the recipe, and leaves all the time to do the styling. Which, is what I’m mostly interested in. That’s what I do for a job, so my heart will run with styling and sometimes it runs away with photography.

What happened was, photography, I have always been interested in since I was a kid. I was lucky enough that my parents also loved photography. They are not photographers. They just loved it as a hobby, so we were always exposed to that. So, I guess that is where the love of photography came from at an early stage.

And, the food styling, in a sense, we were always cooking at home and I was always interested in the kitchen and that is what lead me into culinary arts.

In culinary arts, a big part of it is plating your dishes. It’s part of the process, but it’s more than just spending time in the kitchen and preparing it, I love the part at the end where you get to present it or create a crazy way of putting it together or just a classic way with a little spin to make it a little more modern. I guess that’s where my interest came from.

I knew there were food stylists. Actually, I guess I knew, but I never thought I would do it full time. When you see a magazine or something, I think most of us think of the photographer. “Oh, what a good photographer,” right? It wasn’t until I started blogging and doing things on my own that, “Oh, there’s a stylist!”

And now that I work for a company doing full time styling for other clients, there’s a photographer, an assistant, and cooks. There’s a whole other layer of things. So, no, I didn’t know you could do it full time. Doing it, I was like, “Oh, there is potential here.”

I’m lucky enough in Vancouver, people love, love food. And everybody is a foodie. It’s an easy thing to do. It’s not like you’re trying to explain things to people, like this is whatever dish. So, it was a surprise, a very, very happy surprise.

On Cooking:

I’m originally from Mexico. I was born in Mexico. We do love our food down there. So, I guess the same as when I was a kid. We were not the typical Mexican family that you would see in the movies where, “Oh, we are all gathering together there around the table and making food.” It was just regular food, Mexican food. But, I was always interested in it.

My brother is a pastry chef. Well, he’s not doing that anymore, but he was doing that for quite a long time. There was also that component. So, that was when it started. I was good in the kitchen. With just regular stuff, I was good.

I guess going to cooking school really helped me boost that on to a professional level. I just learned so many things and I think I take it for granted now because when I’m cooking or when I’m doing things, I just do it quickly and done.

When I have friends over and they see me, they say, “How do you cut like that?” Just things I take for granted I learned in cooking school that you wouldn’t have learned maybe so much if you were just at home. That’s where my interest came from, from actually just being hungry all the time.

On Food in Mexico:

Mexican food is, I think, internationally has a good and a bad rep. A good rep because it’s yummy, a lot of people like it, but it has a bad rep because a lot of people think it’s burritos, chips and salsa and guacamole and that’s it. That’s snack food. There’s so much more to that.

In Mexico City, I will say that it’s like the epicenter of almost everything there. You can find all sorts of food. It is basically like New York, but in Spanish. It’s huge and there are so many trendy restaurants now that retain our food culture, but they make it more modern. Like I said, you will not find there a burrito. You will not find there chips and salsa. It’s a whole different level of cuisine.

There’s a mix because of all of our history. There’s a mix of Spanish influence, French and our own food comes from the Aztec times, corn and different kinds of mushrooms and desserts. It is quite huge and broad, but I do love it in Mexico City.

Every time I eat Mexican food in Mexico City, it’s like a little party with your family and it’s so good and it’s always so yummy. That’s in a nutshell how I will describe it there.

On a Specialty Mexican Food:

The name in Spanish is called huitlacoche. It sounds really gross, but it is really amazing. What it is, is a fungi that grows in corn. So, it’s a pest, you know, something that actually grows in the corn. But, Aztecs harvest it and they will eat it. It is very good for you and also, it tastes amazing. Unless you knew about it because it is an Aztec word, it would be hard for you to find if you don’t know the word. Locals know it. We eat it all the time. It’s a earthy flavor thingy. But, the thing is, you never Google how it looks because it looks really weird, but it tastes amazing.

It would be its own dish. It looks like little fibers, very thin fibers. What people will usually do is sauté it with onions and garlic and put it for example in a tortilla to make a taco or they can put it on top of something as well, rice or something else. You can put it in mole sauce. It’s very famous, mole. They can put it in mole and you can eat it with mole.

The Pressure Cooker:

Which food shows or cooking shows do you watch?

Jamie Oliver’s show and Gordon Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares and I just discovered an Irish cook.

His name is Donal Skehan. It’s DonalSkehan.com. He has all these little YouTube snippets and he as all these different shows but they’re really cool and are very quick and easy. They are usually really decadent desserts. I just discovered it recently. So, I have been watching those little ones and it’s really fun.

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

For websites, I would say, Food52 for sure. That’s like the almighty site for everything.

For blogs, I would say, she’s quite big now, Top With Cinnamon, is one of my favorite ones. She’s really, really good. She has lots of great desserts and her recipes are usually very simple and her photography is amazing.

Another one would be Bakers Royale. Her photography also is super. It’s crazy. And I’m sure everybody knows all about her too, but I always go back to it, What Katie Ate from Australia. It’s also stunning photography. I think she puts more of her commercial work rather than just her recipes, but if you go back to the archives, her history I will say, there are beautiful photos and her style is very unique.

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

Instagram, it’s called Slice of Pai. She’s a local photographer and she is really sweet. She always has really beautifully photos and I’m always so jealous because she posts these photos like, “Boom, I was having coffee,” and it’s beautiful and it makes me happy. She loves Paris and she puts a lot of things about Paris. So, that’s amazing.

On Pinterest, I’m going to say, she has the best food boards. Every time I see it, you are amazing, please never leave earth. It’s called Lucy supergoldenbakes and her board for food photography is great. She finds the best stuff in there.

Laura from The First Mess is what it’s called. I follow her, well, we are friends too. Well, we have met online. We are online friends. But, Laura from the First Mess. She’s great, she posts so many beautiful things. She has a vegan blog. Her photos are always stunning and she lives on a beautiful farm in the Niagara region. And of course, she just has fresh veggies coming up from the ground and it’s just happiness and wholesome foods.

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

Chocolate.

Name one ingredient you cannot live without.

Chili flakes.

What are a few cookbooks that make your life better?

Yes, so, Barefoot Contessa Parties! it’s called. It has a lot of classic recipes and some of the recipes might be a little bit old school like cupcakes with chocolate, but great book to have.

Maybe it’s not a cookbook, per say, just Gather Journal. It’s culture magazine, and it’s a biannual magazine. The photography in there is just breath-taking, the styling is stunning and their recipes are really good and very easy to make.

What song or album just makes you want to cook?

There’s a band called St. Lucia. They have their latest album that is called When the Night and that would be one because it reminds me of summer. They’re a little bit of 80s vibe, but you always want to have summer. When it’s kind of crappy outside, I put it on and say, “Okay, let’s get something cooking here.”

Keep Posted on Gabriel:

Instagram. Artful Desperado on Instagram would be the best one. That’s where I keep in touch with everyone and post regularly. So, yeah, you can find me there almost every day.

029: Kristan Raines: Tips for Greater Baking Success

April 22, 2015 by Gabriel Leave a Comment

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The Broken Bread

The Broken Bread is where Kristan explores her creativity through cooking. It’s also where she shares her stories and the tales behind the dishes she makes. The Broken Bread was a 2014 finalist in Saveur’s Food Blog Awards for Best Baking and Desserts blog, and in 2015 is a finalist for Best-Designed Blog.

I’m so happy to have Kristan Raines of The Broken Bread, here on the show.

On Her Blog:

I was eight or nine years old when I got my first Easy-Bake Oven. I just fell in love with baking. Even though it was just a little microwave, but it popped out a cake and I got to decorate it and I thought it was so much fun.

And then photography has always been my life. So I would say with those two components, it actually came together.

Three and a half years ago when my husband and I got married, we moved to Seattle. We didn’t really know anybody. It was this new environment for me to explore things I’ve always wanted to.

I made a few friends and they actually showed me for the first time cooking blogs. I really wasn’t familiar with them until about three and a half years ago. On these blogs, I would just see gorgeous pictures and recipes. Thinking, “Oh my gosh, this is what I want to do. I love baking. I love photography.” And then some of these stories would be so captivating and I could identify so much with that particular blog.

I would identify with what they were saying and I just thought, “John, this is what I want to do. Some of these women have cookbooks and they have these blogs that are actually generating some sort of income so that would be a dream.” So with that said, it was in Seattle when I first got there that I’m like, “Okay, I want to just explore this as a hobby.” It started as just a hobby.

I didn’t realize how much work would need to go into all this. I just thought food and pictures, this is great. But there are so many components that I was unaware of.

I would say baking of course comes the most natural to me because that is instinctively what I know and love to do. I would say that writing is probably the most difficult. My personality is very all over the place. I love activity and like going to the farmers’ market and cooking in the kitchen and making a mess. Sitting down and actually getting my words down collectively and organizing them, that probably takes the most time.

I think I’m also a very instant gratification type person so if I take a picture, I can see the image and I can correct it there. But writing takes a little more time and trying to get the emotion I want across is always and interesting struggle for me sometimes.

On Her Process for Getting Her Ideas onto Her Blog:

Each recipe, I would test probably between two or three times, depends how many times it takes me to get it right. I also do a lot of research beforehand. I study the type of technique. I try to understand all components each time I make something. There is a lot of pre-prep and practice and research beforehand.

I wish I had an organized way of putting it all together. It’s just whatever I’m inspired by. My blog is seasonally based. I go to the farmers’ market and I see all these persimmons are in season and I just thought, “Okay, how can I use this in some kind of meal or baked good.” From there, something comes out. I wish I had a formula because I would pump out a lot more. But it just sort of feels right at the moment what comes to the blog.

Tips for People Wanting to Start Baking:

Baking can definitely be overwhelming at times but I think pick something that you are really excited to make. I feel like from that point it will give you the motivation to nail it. But other than that, read the recipe. Read it four or five times, over and over so you have an idea of what’s going on because sometimes I’ve done this where I just start making it right away and I’m like, “Oh gosh, I forgot! This needs to be in room temperature,” or I kind of scramble.

I would say to make sure that you have all of your ingredients pre-measured, laid out on the table and maybe have an environment that’s not super distracting.

If you put too much of this and too much of that, that can sometimes end it something that doesn’t work out. Maybe it will taste great which is fine. As long as it tastes good, that’s the point. But just have everything organized and just take it slow. And if there is something in the recipe that you don’t know exactly what that means, just research it. It’s great with the Internet, you can actually pull up images to see what the texture will look like. So you feel like if you’re confident with that then it will lead to a successful baking adventure.

On Recipes Not Working Out:

So yeah, that happens. It can happen two ways for me.

Sometimes I won’t prepare ahead of time and I’ll forget something like sugar or the proper amount of lemon. It just doesn’t turn out right.

For a wedding for a friend last year, we were making pies and I made pastry cream a few times but I was in a kitchen at my mom’s house and two pies were baking and it’s like 98 degrees. I’m just stressed out making this. I’m like, “Okay, it’s done.” And I put it in the pie and I put all these berries on top of the pie and they just start sinking because it wasn’t set.

We walk outside because I’m like, “It will be fine.” Then the pie, you don’t even see any berries because they all sank to the bottom.

So I think it can be just bad preparation and just the process of experimenting, it’s not always going to be perfect.

On Baking for Beginners:

I would recommend quick breads. That would be like cakes, cupcakes, scones, biscuits. You can find a lot of simple methods that are two bowl methods.

If you don’t even want to bring out your handheld mixer or your standing mixer, you just need your oil, your eggs and then all of your dry ingredients. I think those are really great to start because they are just simpler. I would say a pumpkin bread would be great. On my blog, I had this recipe for apple yogurt cake that I really love. And I find those to be pretty easy to figure out in terms of simplicity and accessibility.

The Pressure Cooker:

Which food shows or cooking shows do you watch?

I have to admit I haven’t had cable for 10 years. So it’s whatever I come across really intentionally.

The cooking show I’ve seen is MasterChef and MasterChef Junior. I really enjoyed those shows. I think they are really fun.

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

There are so, so many. I have a friend named Danielle she has Rustic. Joyful. Food. She is actually the first blogger I ever met face to face who had a food blog. So that was just an explosion of happiness for me. But she has a beautiful website that also is very much wholesome good meals, seasonally based, really beautiful pictures taken by her and her husband.

Another one would be Two Red Bowls. She, Cynthia, is really lovely. I actually got to meet her at the Saveur Awards and she is just lovely and her food photography is beautiful. Her food just always looks delicious. I think those are two fantastic blogs to visit absolutely.

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

I can probably only speak to Instagram the most. Tiffany Mitchell. She is from Offbeat and Inspired and I don’t know how she does it but every picture is just pure beauty on her Instagram page. You just look at it like, “I want to be there. I need to know where this place is. I need to order this exactly.” She has a really beautiful feed.

Then Adventures in Cooking. That’s the blog but it’s run by Eva. She has just this very moody beautiful gallery of images that make you feel so at peace and comfortable and inspired.

I mean those two girls just kill it.

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

So basics. I think flour, sugar, baking powder and baking soda. Just at any moments notice you can whip something together.

And spices, if you can have a few spices on hand, those are fantastic because you can always mix and make something taste almost brand new if you throw in a few fresh spices.

Name one ingredient you cannot live without.

It would probably be a jar of chili peppers. I eat chilis with everything. Little yellow or bright green chilis that I probably eat with almost every meal.

What are a few cookbooks that make your life better?

One of the first cookbooks I bought when I moved up to Seattle was by Sur La Table and it was called The Art & Soul of Baking. I feel like that was really a profound book for me to have at the time because it is a wide range of recipes from quick breads to custards to pie crust.

If you want to bake, this is the book to go to. It also teaches you so much about the scientific components of what you’re making and how sugar works, and how lavender works. So it was teaching me how to become more confident as a baker.

You can’t just go in and be like, “Okay, I’ll just dump all these things in here and hope for the best.” It taught me the science of how to learn to do it on my own. That was a fantastic book.

Then What Katie Ate, her first cookbook that she released. That book for me visually was a huge inspiration as well as the recipes themselves. I just could sit in the corner and just flip through every single page and just fall in love with it.

So those two books fed me on two different levels but I love them both. Still do.

What song or album just makes you want to cook?

Is it funny that I say anything by Phil Collins?

Yeah, he’s wonderful. I just hear him and I’m like, “All right. What do you guys want?”

Just his voice. I don’t know. Whatever he’s in is just pure gold to me. I listen to him and it really puts me in a good mood.

Keep Posted on Kristan:

I would say head to the-broken-bread.com. On Instagram, The Broken Bread. It’s the best way to keep updated.

Have Kristan’s Special Dish Recipe Sent to You Now:

005: Eva Kosmas Flores: How To Make Shrubs And What They Are

February 25, 2015 by Gabriel Leave a Comment

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Adventures in Cooking is a dramatic feast for the eyes.

Eva shares her love of homegrown food and features honest recipes in a way you’ve only seen in the most luxurious of cookbooks.

I am so psyched to have Eva Kosmas Flores from Adventures in Cooking joining me on the show today.

On Starting Her Blog, Food Styling and Food Photography:

I graduated from college back in 2009 which, if you remember, was a really rough year for the economy. So, I was unemployed for a while, a couple of months after graduation.

I had a lot of time.

I’ve always loved to cook. My family had a Greek restaurant for about 30 years, so I grew up in the restaurant helping. My parents both cooked a lot at home. I was always cooking, just during college, after college.

All my family and friends would always ask for the recipes that I was making, so I really just started it as a platform to share my recipes with just my friends and family who’ve been asking for all these recipes.

Then I got really into the food blogging world and community, and I got really into the food photography and food styling, and that’s when it really took off.

The images now are so much better than when I first started.

I went to university and studied film production and sociology. I wanted to do documentary filmmaking, but that’s really hard to get a job in. There’s not a lot of jobs for that, and so I ended up looking into producing.

I worked for a line producer at NBC Universal for a little bit. I was doing my blog at the same time that I was working there, and the more I worked there, the more I just wanted to go home and write about food or edit photos. I just looked forward to the weekends when I’d be able to shoot and style.

I ended up realizing that this is what I really wanted to do full time, and so I quit my job and just started doing that, and I haven’t looked back since. It’s been amazing. I totally just fell into it.

I had the technical knowledge from studying film production like video photography, a lot of the technical stuff is really similar, but I had no food styling experience. I just kind of picked that up from looking at other food blogs that I loved like Call Me Cupcake or What Katie Ate, and just learning from them.

On Cooking and Her Family’s Greek Restaurant:

I used to get so excited to help my mom cook. I was so small, we’d have to get a step stool so I could reach the pot to sprinkle spices in. I’ve been cooking since I was really little, so for me it’s almost like breathing. It’s so intrinsic and natural.

I think probably the first thing I did in the kitchen was peeling cucumbers, because they had a Greek salad. They were doing so much Greek salad. Peeling cucumbers is such a monotonous thing, but super easy, so I would do that. I’d also help my mom take tickets up at the front. I’d clean the tables and stuff. I just helped with whatever.

I love to cook Greek food. My dad’s from Greece. My mom’s American. They both were never afraid to use spices, so I always use tons of spices when I’m cooking and lots of olive oil rather than butter if I can, lots of vinegar too. My dad was really heavy-handed with vinegar, which I think is in me.

On Shrubs:

I love that sour-sweet combination like Shrubs. I don’t know if you’ve ever had Shrubs before?

It’s like a really cool cocktail mixer.

Basically, you just mash together fruit, sugar and vinegar, and you let it sit in a bowl overnight. It’s usually best in the fridge. Then the next day you strain out the pulpy bits, and basically what you’re left with is the sweet and sour, fruity cocktail mixer that’s super good.

Back in the day before they had refrigerators, that’s how they used to make fruit juice, because the sugar and vinegar would preserve the fruit flavor.

It’s like drinking vinegar, some people call it that. You can have it by itself, but what I like to do is I’ll just mix it with an alcohol and maybe some club soda so it’s a little sparkling.

It’s just super good, especially in the summer when it’s hot. It’s really nice and tangy.

On Things Not Going As Planned:

Yeah, that happens. That has definitely happened.

I wouldn’t say it happens a lot, but it does happen. Actually, today, I’m making these waffles for my blog. I’m topping them with toasted coconut flakes, and I’m toasting them in the oven. You’re only supposed to have them in there for a couple of minutes, and I just kept getting side-tracked with other stuff, and so I burnt two batches in a row, of coconut flakes.

I had the last bit of my bag. I was like, “Okay, I really have to pay attention now, because if I burn this I have to go back to the store.”

Luckily, I put the timer up on my phone and didn’t forget this time, but, yeah, that totally happens. It’s super normal. You just have to roll with the punches.

Sometimes it stinks because you’ll make a recipe that tastes super good, but it’s just really ugly, and you’re like, “I don’t really want to put this on my blog, because the photos aren’t going to look great,” but really, it’s super tasty.

Mac and cheese can kind of tread that line, because all mac and cheese is delicious, but it’s a weird looking thing. It can be hard to photograph, so there’s always ups and downs with that.

The photography usually wins for my blog because I don’t want to put it up there if I feel like the photos didn’t turn out. Sometimes if I think the photos are okay, but not great, I’ll put it up and have a little disclaimer like, “This isn’t the prettiest dish, but it tastes really good,” and just let people know not to judge it by its cover.

On Her Process For Getting Ideas Onto Her Blog:

I don’t practice. The ones that end up on my blog are usually the first time I’m making that recipe unless it’s an old family one that I’m sharing.

I have a Google calendar that I basically plan out a week or two, to a month out in advance, of what I want to make. I have all these color codes. I’m also writing a cookbook right now.

My cookbook recipe is coded with one color and my blog recipes I’m developing are another. The date they’re going to go up is color coded and everything. My Google calendar is absolutely insane looking.

That’s basically the process, and then once I get an idea for what I want to make, I’ll do research on similar recipes. That’s fun because sometimes I’ll find inspiration like, “Oh, they use that ingredient. Well, this is similar, and I think that might taste even better. So maybe I’ll use this instead and put a fun spin on it.”

Then I’ll just start making it. Of course, you always have to taste as you go, because sometimes it just needs a little bit more, and you don’t know that until you taste it. Like, “Oh, this is kind of bland. I’ll add a little bit more salt, or maybe I’ll add chili powder.” Something like that.

The Pressure Cooker:

Which food shows or cooking shows do you watch?

Barefoot Contessa.

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

I would say Call Me Cupcake. It’s my number one, love her. Two Red Bowls is great too. Those are probably my top two right now.

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

I probably have to go with Linda Lomelino. Once again, she’s the girl behind Call Me Cupcake.

Her Instagram feed is crazy, and it’s super, super beautiful.

Then on Pinterest, I follow this girl, Catherine Crawley, and she pins a lot of beautiful stuff too.

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

I would say Fleur de Sel. That’s a great finishing salt, and it’s a good texture too.

Name one ingredient you cannot live without?

I would probably have to go with rosemary.

You can use it in desserts and in savory stuff. It’s awesome.

What are a few cookbooks that make your life better?

I really like The Art of Fermentation. That one’s really fun. I got a fermentation crock recently, and so I’ll be fermenting.

Then, Artisan Cheeses at Home. That one’s really cool because it tells you how you can make all these crazy sounding cheeses in your own kitchen.

What song or album just makes you want to cook?

Django Reinhardt. He is a jazz guitarist from the 1920s or ’30s.

If you Google it and you listen to a song, you’re like, “Oh, yeah.”

All the music kind of sounds the same but it’s just very peppy and happy, and just makes me feel like I’m in an old world kitchen making some stuff from scratch, like rolling out dough.

I don’t know. It just has this awesome feel to it, so I would have to go with Django.

Keep Posted on Eva:

My Instagram handle and my Twitter handle are both EvaKosmasFlores. My Pinterest handle is the same.

If you want to find me on Facebook, you can just look up Adventures in Cooking, and that’s where I am.

On the Role of Food in Her Family:

On the Food Culture in Iran:

On Iranian Cuisine:

On a Dish that Reminds Her of Tehran:

On Her Current Home, Rome, Italy:

On Food Culture in Italy Versus Iran:

On Her Blog:

The Pressure Cooker:

On Keeping Posted with Saghar:

On How They Met:

On What Made Them Want to Collaborate with Each Other:

On Their Interest in Food and Cooking:

On Not Taking Food Too Seriously:

On a Kitchen Disaster:

On the Food Culture in Chicago:

On a Dish That Captures What Chicago is About:

On a Food That Locals Love that Visitors May Not Know About:

The Pressure Cooker:

On Keeping Posted with Rachel and Lucy:

On How They Met:

On the Food Culture in Their Cities:

On Neighborhoods in Their Cities for Tasty Food:

On Local Dishes that Visitors May Not Know About:

On Their Blog:

On How to Decide on What to Make for the Blog:

On a Dish Not Turning Out as Planned:

The Pressure Cooker:

On Keeping Posted with Gardenia’s and Mint:

On Starting His Blog:

On Food Styling and Photography:

On Cooking:

On Food in Mexico:

On a Specialty Mexican Food:

The Pressure Cooker:

Keep Posted on Gabriel:

On Her Blog:

On Her Process for Getting Her Ideas onto Her Blog:

Tips for People Wanting to Start Baking:

On Recipes Not Working Out:

On Baking for Beginners:

The Pressure Cooker:

Keep Posted on Kristan:

Have Kristan’s Special Dish Recipe Sent to You Now:

On Starting Her Blog, Food Styling and Food Photography:

On Cooking and Her Family’s Greek Restaurant:

On Shrubs:

On Things Not Going As Planned:

On Her Process For Getting Ideas Onto Her Blog:

The Pressure Cooker:

Keep Posted on Eva:

Have Eva's Special Dish Recipe Sent To You Now: