101 Cookbooks | The Dinner Special podcast

133: Danielle: Gardening and Feasting from the Seasons

July 27, 2016 by Gabriel Leave a Comment

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Rooting The Sun

Danielle is always dreaming up ways to feast from the season and celebrate the garden. A Virginian turned Californian turned Midwesterner, her blog, Rooting The Sun, is where Danielle shares her approach to cooking, food, and gardening.

I am so happy to have Danielle of Rooting The Sun on the show today.

(*All photos below are Danielle’s.)

On Discovering Her Passion for Gardening and Growing Food:

I started growing food about four years ago. My mother had always experimented with vegetable gardens. One year, I actually just thought to myself, “Man, I really love eggplants — and I still do — but wouldn’t it be cool to just do it myself?” So I did. I just got my hands dirty. And that year, the deer ate all of it. We did not get any eggplant.

But that was pretty much the beginning. From there, the gardens have gotten bigger and bigger. I’ve been in and out of some commercial gardening aspects here and there. But mostly we do personal cultivation on a large scale. I just call it the yard farm.

Gardening has really helped me define food in a light I feel really treasured to be able to see it in. We’ve been able to use it as a definition of the seasons, where food at its peak always tastes the freshest. So it’s great to incorporate what we have into what we eat. We’re not doing it for survival, but it’s been a great and delicious learning experience.

On Crops That are Easier for Beginners:

I would definitely say that if you like to eat salad, then go ahead and grow it. Leaf lettuce is super easy to grow, and you can benefit from that all season long. Also, I think zucchini comes to mind. Once you get a zucchini plant started, it doesn’t stop. It’s a plant that your neighbors will benefit from, too. Also, radishes, tomatoes, and herbs, they’re all good choices as well.

On Crops Beginners May Want to Avoid:

If you’re just beginning, I would probably stay away from both artichokes and asparagus. Artichokes are not impossible. We’ve actually done them a few different seasons in a couple of different places, but they have a very specific growing need that can be hard to fulfill depending on where you are. And then asparagus as well, if you’ve been nomadic like I have, then it can take up to three years to yield a crop. So you have to stay put to get asparagus. It’s a waiting game, but once they get started, you’ll be able to benefit from it for years.

On Gardening for City Dwellers:

This is really good, because currently, our setup is an urban area. And it always feels really amazing to exchange conversation with our neighbors, just to actually reiterate that you really don’t need a lot of space to be able to grow your own food. Even in a large city, you could potentially do a garden completely in containers, and get really good results. And almost anything can be cultivated in a pot. But standouts are probably tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, peas. And you can even do root crops like carrots. I’ve done beets before. It was kind of crazy, but it worked.

On Some Resources for Gardening and Growing Your Own Food:

As far as books go, there is definitely a wealth of very informed literature, like bible-esque books on gardening and vegetable gardening. I thrifted a book entitled, Crockett’s Victory Garden recently. It’s from the 1970s. I think he was actually a PBS show. But he goes month by month in his book as far as what vegetables to do each month of the year. I really like books that are laid out like that. As far as online, I really like Gayla’s blog You Grow Girl. She has an amazing source of knowledge on her website. And I also like Andrea’s blog Dishing Up the Dirt. She is a huge inspiration.

The Pressure Cooker:

Which food shows or cooking shows do you watch?

I don’t really watch many cooking shows, but I’ve been watching a lot of Jacques Pepin on PBS.

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

For food blogs, I really love Orangette, I love The Yellow House, I love Lottie + Doof, 101 Cookbooks, Kale & Caramel, Chocolate + Marrow, Will Frolic for Food. Of those, they’re all very awesome for reading as well. It’s really hard to pick because I love everyone so much, but I really adore the recipes on With Food + Love and Heartbeet Kitchen as well.

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

On Instagram, I love following Brooklyn Supper. Her food is really great. I love Dolly and Oatmeal. I also love Sasha from Tending the Table, she has the prettiest photography.

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

I’ll probably go with treasured and that would be a spice rack that I gained from my grandmother. I love it because it makes me think of her cooking but also because I love spices. I think they’re everything.

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

Onions, which is actually, I think, a story of revenge because I use them every day and constantly. And I think that I might actually be more allergic to them than most people. I’m timed out for, like, at least 20 minutes after I’ve cut onions.

What are a few cookbooks that make your life better?

As far as a few cookbooks, I love Local Flavors by Deborah Madison. I think it has really awesome seasonal recipes and she uses vegetables in a really unique way. I also love The Art of Simple Food I and II, by Alice Waters.

What song or album just makes you want to cook?

I don’t think I have a particular song or album in mind, but recently, I have a really big soft spot for Steely Dan. And pretty much every other kind of music and song in the universe. I really love music.

On Keeping Posted with Danielle:

I think that the best way would probably be Instagram. I use that social media platform the most out of all of them.

092: Emma Galloway: Learning to Cook with Food Intolerances

November 18, 2015 by Gabriel Leave a Comment

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My Darling Lemon Thyme

Emm went to culinary school and worked as a chef for almost eight years in restaurants, the pastry section of cafes, and catering companies in Australia and New Zealand. She left when she became a parent and discovered that not only do her children suffer from gluten and lactose intolerance, but so does she. Emm started her blog in 2010 to share gluten-free vegetarian real food recipes, and stories and tips on organic gardening. Since then, she has written a book, My Darling Lemon Thyme – Recipes from My Real Food Kitchen, and her blog was the 2014 Saveur Blog Awards Winner for Best Original Recipes Blog.

I’m so excited to have Emma Galloway of My Darling Lemon Thyme here with me today.

(*All photos below are Emm’s.)

On Her Interest in Cooking:

I grew up on quite a large property, where my parents grew heaps of vegetables and fruit that we had. And being vegetarian, my mom used to put a lot of time and effort into preparing most of what we had from scratch. So it was part of who we are, and my family, I mean, we’re all into cooking, and from a very young age, I knew that I wanted to be a chef. So, even though a few people told me not to, because that’s a pretty crazy profession, long hours and stuff, I didn’t listen and I just followed my heart and did what I wanted to do.

On Working in Restaurants, Cafes, and Catering:

My preference was working in smaller cafes, so that’s where I worked in New Zealand, mostly it was smaller cafes. Smaller cafes, you generally have only a couple of you in the kitchen, so you’re basically covering all bases yourself, you’re doing everything. Sometimes, even doing the dishes as well, which is actually how I started off in the industry. Restaurants tend to be divided into sections, so you’re only in charge of the one section. And catering companies are quite similar. So I was in charge of the pastry section when I worked for two catering companies in Sydney years ago.

They all have their challenges. It’s a pretty high stress environment, working in the kitchen. Especially when, like I said, if you’re working in a cafe, where there’s only one or two of you in the kitchen and you’re doing two, three hundred covers a day, it’s a lot of work and a lot of stress and a lot of running around. So, yeah, they’re all pretty high stressed.

I think cafes in the winter time generally are nice and calm and that’s when you have your time to play and be a little bit more relaxed. I don’t know if it’s the same in the States, but in New Zealand in summertime, if you work in a cafe, it’s extremely busy, especially if you’re in a cafe anywhere near the ocean, which is where I used to work. People are always going to the beach in the summer and then they’re wanting to go and eat, so it’s pretty busy.

On Starting Her Blog:

When I left the kitchen when my daughter was born, I didn’t even know what a food blog was. We’re a little bit behind in New Zealand and Australia. Five years ago when I started my food blog, there was probably only two of my friends that had ever heard of a food blog before. Even though, I mean, there’s people like Heidi Swanson in the States, who have been blogging for well over 10 years. We’re a little bit behind here, so I had no idea when I left the kitchen at all. And it was actually from finding Heidi Swanson’s cookbook in the library and then getting onto her food blog that I even discovered what food blogs were. So that was only five years ago.

For years I’ve always recorded recipes. If I find a great recipe in a magazine, I was always the crazy person who would be frantically writing out recipes and trying new things. And after I got onto food blogs, I thought, “Well, I’m at home.” Just looking after my kids, my kids were four and two at the time when I started it, so I wasn’t working professionally. And then I missed that creative side of cooking, where you can just experiment. So, at the start I had no clue of what I was doing, didn’t really know how to take photos, but just started.

On Recognizing Her and Her Children’s Food Intolerances:

When I was pregnant with my daughter, I had basically just a sore tummy the entire pregnancy. I just thought that’s just what happens when you’re pregnant. Being my first pregnancy, I had nothing to compare it too. And then when my daughter came along, she was extremely upset 24/7, wouldn’t sleep and was just in a lot of pain, basically. And so, my midwife at the time suggested that maybe I try cutting out some of the foods in my diet that might be affecting her through my breast milk. So, that’s when I cut out gluten and dairy, but I’d always been interested in alternative food. Being vegetarian, I’d always look to vegan foods and loved seeing how people get creative with vegan food, but the whole gluten-free thing was quite a challenge at the start.

I didn’t really know what I was doing and I don’t think I was 100% gluten-free, because I hadn’t figured out that it’s in basically everything at this stage. So, when my son came along two years later, and showed a lot of the same symptoms as my daughter had, I got quite serious and went and got us allergy tested. That’s when it showed up that we can’t handle any gluten. We can handle small amounts of dairy, and more so as the kids have gotten older, but yeah, gluten is not our friend.

On Tackling a New Approach to Cooking and Food (with Food Intolerances):

I think the easiest way to approach it, is to focus on what you can eat, rather than being all upset that you can’t eat that donut in the store. Although, there are a lot of gluten-free donuts and things around these days, but I think focusing more on what you can eat, and naturally gluten-free and dairy-free things.

I’m very lucky in that my husband is Vietnamese, and so, all of our night-time meals are based mostly around rice, which is gluten-free and dairy-free. So I find that eating a more Asian-inspired diet or a Mexican diet, where the core ingredients are naturally gluten-free is usually the easier way to go to begin with, until you get your head around working with different gluten-free flours and dairy-free alternatives.

I’ve never really used the pre-packet gluten-free flour mixers, I prefer to just use my own individual flours. I think, when you’re first starting out, by all means, if you’re overwhelmed by gluten-free, then going that way is totally acceptable. You’ll probably get to a certain point where you would love more flexibility to add different flavors or different nutritional qualities to what you’re making. So that’s when you can use your own flours, but it’s totally acceptable at the start. When it all feels too much, I just think, do whatever you can do to make it easier for yourself.

On Some Good Resources to Learn More About Gluten-Free Cooking:

The main one that I have used over the years is glutenfreegirl.com. Shauna’s recipes are extremely well-tested. I guess with her teacher background, she’s extremely good at explaining everything, and why she uses certain flours, and for all the basic things that you’re missing, like pizza and bread and all those things. She has brilliant recipes on her site and in all of her books as well.

On Her Book, “My Darling Lemon Thyme – Recipes from My Real Food Kitchen”:

After a couple of years of blogging, I pretty much had made up my mind that I wanted to try and get published. Over the years, there were a lot of recipes I had been holding back from putting on the blog, because I thought they’re too good to share in this capacity and I wanted to save them for a book.

And so, I spent about a year trying to approach publishers and see if they were interested. And I got turned down by every single one. Basically, at that stage, this was probably going back at least three or more years, probably four years nearly even. At that stage, gluten-free, dairy-free, vegetarian food was a little bit too specialized for most publishers, so they turned me down saying, “It’s just all too hard.” And basically, I was in talks with one publisher in New Zealand at the time, who said, “We’ll publish a gluten-free baking book if you’re interested in that.” But that’s not really what I wanted to do for my first book.

And so, I was extremely lucky when I was nearly giving up hope, Harper Collins, New Zealand, who I hadn’t approached, because you had to have an agent to approach them and I didn’t have one at that stage, they actually approached me from seeing my blog. So it all worked out well in the end – very, very happy and thankful.

The book is filled with a hundred of my favorite recipes. Most of the recipes in there are recipes that I have been making for a long, long time. Some are inspired by recipes my mum made when I was little and I’ve adapted them to be gluten-free. And there’s a lot of base recipes, which is what I wanted my first book to be, so that anyone can pick this up, that’s new to gluten-free, and it covers all the bases.

There are numerous breakfasts to choose from. There’s pizza. There’s a homemade sourdough. There’s how to make your own yogurt from scratch. Tomato sauces, everything like that. The whole book is vegetarian and gluten-free, and then most of the recipes are dairy-free also. There are little bits of yogurt and butter, which is what my body tolerates, so that’s in there.

The Pressure Cooker:

Which food shows or cooking shows do you watch?

I’m a little embarrassed to admit it, but I do watch MasterChef.

There are a lot of professional chefs that think cooking shows like that are just slightly embarrassing, but there’s a lot of talented people that go on MasterChef. Some of the dishes they make a lot of professional chefs would struggle to make. So, I quite like it.

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

I’m terrible, I don’t actually read heaps of food blogs. So, 101 Cookbooks is the number one, I don’t think I’ve ever missed a post of hers in the five/six years that I’ve been reading it. I love The Vanilla Bean Blog, Oh, Ladycakes, The First Mess and With Food and Love. All of those blogs, they make food that I want to eat, even if I can’t, like The Vanilla Bean Blog, my friend Sarah writes it. Most of it I wouldn’t even be able to eat, because it’s not gluten-free, but I just love looking at her gorgeous photos.

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

Green Kitchen Stories Instagram’s feed is amazing, absolutely amazing. Tara O’Brady, Seven Spoons. Luisa Brimble, Australian food and lifestyle photographer, her stuff is always amazing, and both on Pinterest and Instagram, she has amazing stuff on there. And Sarah Kieffer as well, from The Vanilla Bean Blog, her Instagram and her Pinterest even more so, it’s just amazing.

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

That would probably have to be all the vintage props that I’ve acquired over the years. I have a wee thing for bowls and plates and glass jars.

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

Mushrooms. That would probably be one of the vegetables I didn’t like as a kid, but now I can’t get enough of them.

What are a few cookbooks that make your life better?

I love, I’m not sure if it’s available in the U.S., but it’s called Vegies, by an Australian chef called Simon Bryant, that’s one of my favorites. Heidi Swanson’s book, Super Natural Every Day is another favorite, and Afro-Vegan by Bryant Terry is another good one. I have so many cookbooks it’s hard to choose. I have stacks of them all around my house.

What song or album just makes you want to cook?

Anything reggae. So, I really love listening to Burning Spear, any of his albums when I’m cooking, it just makes me happy.

On Keeping Posted with Emm:

Instagram is a daily update, so probably Instagram. On Facebook as well, but yeah, Instagram is probably the best one.

079: Jennifer Farley: How Culinary School was the Right Decision

September 23, 2015 by Gabriel 6 Comments

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Savory Simple

Food is Jen’s obsession, so much so that she dropped her entire life and went to culinary school. She has since worked as a line cook, pastry chef, and cooking instructor. Today, Jen is a full-time recipe developer, food photographer, and she’s working on a cookbook. On her blog, Savory Simple, she focuses on well-tested recipes, bold flavors, and quality ingredients.

I am so happy to have Jennifer Farley of Savory Simple joining me here on the show today.

(*All images below are Jen’s.)

On Going to Culinary School:

I don’t know that you really ever get the courage to do it. You just have to go for it. A lot of people, I think, were trying to talk me out of doing it. But my boyfriend at the time, now my husband, was very supportive. He knew that I wasn’t very happy in my job, and we both really wanted a change and it just felt like the right thing for me to do at the time. I knew I wanted to do something. I had gone through a lot of different possible career changes over time and none of them seemed right. Culinary school is the thing that I kept coming back to. And finally, I just decided it was now or never, and you only live once, and I just went for it. I figured the worst case scenario, I could always go back to a desk job. But it worked out.

A typical day in school involved getting up extremely early, and I’m not a morning person. I think during the first phase of school, I was getting up around five in the morning, getting to school while it was still dark out, changing into my chef’s uniform. You had to change into it there, because you didn’t want any outside germs getting on it. Doing prep. I think it was a two-hour demo and then going into the kitchen and cooking everything that we had just watched the chef instructors make. They would come around and taste it and see if it was as good as what they had made.

If it wasn’t, they would yell at us and tell us to fix it. And then we would usually have about ten minutes to eat it really quickly for lunch before we had to scrub down the entire kitchen. Maybe we would have a couple of minutes to sit and relax. Then we would go in for an afternoon lesson. And then we would be finished by 2:30 or 3:00 in the afternoon. That would be it for the day, except then we would have lots of homework. And you really want to practice your knife skills and cook the stuff and type up the notes.

I’m a very hands-on learner, so it really helps me to see something right in front of me and then practice and have someone modify my technique and say, “No, you need to do it like this instead.” So that’s how I learned best.

On Her Blog:

I actually started the blog in 2009, I think about three or four months before I started school. The blog was initially meant to be a diary of my school experience, but you’re so busy while you’re there. I didn’t keep up with it nearly as much as I wanted to. And I was inspired to do it by this other blog that I had read at the time called Cooking School Confidential, which has since been pulled down, but it was an amazing blog. And I don’t know how she did it. She was writing these super long posts every single day after her classes.

After school finished, I actually had time to start really blogging and documenting my experiments in the kitchen with cooking and baking. And it was so much fun for me because for years before I got serious about cooking, I had a lot of friends that were very good cooks. And I would always ask them for recipes and they would go, “Oh I just threw it together. I don’t cook from a recipe,” and that always really pissed me off. And so I always decided I loved the idea of putting things down, of actually making recipes for people so that when they said, “Oh, this is delicious. Can I have the recipe?” I could go, “Sure. Here’s the recipe and here’s a photo.” And that’s where everything came from.

When I first started doing it, I had no idea that it was even something that I could evolve into a career. It was just really a hobby. I think I first realized it could be something more… I believe it was in 2012 I attended a food blogger conference, and I just wanted, for fun, to meet other people, to become more a part of the community. And all of the workshops were really eye-opening. There were workshops about how to make money and how to find your voice and how to optimize your blog. The whole thing made me go, “Oh wow, I can make money at this?” And that really set me off on the path to try to turn it into a business. And over the next few years, while I was working other jobs in the industry, I started trying to build it up on the side to get where I am today.

On Baking and Desserts:

I learned it in culinary school for sure. Every single day we did a three-course meal. We did an appetizer, entree, dessert. And it was very eye-opening for me, and I think that the desserts were my zen moment in the middle of chaos every single day, because there was this scientific precision to everything, especially when they would come around to check on us and make sure everything was right. It was a lot easier to get the desserts right, so I would gravitate towards them because I didn’t like getting yelled at. And I knew there was a better chance of me getting them right, and I also just found there was something very soothing about making desserts.

I liked it so much more than I thought I would, to the point where actually, halfway through the culinary program, I wondered if I should switch to the pastry program which was completely the opposite of where I was when I started. I didn’t think I was interested in doing desserts at all. I already had a blog called Savory Simple. I was there to learn how to cook. So it was a complete switch. But I absolutely love it now. I specifically went and worked as a pastry chef for a while before I stopped working at restaurants so I could get some additional experience, which was really, really helpful to this day. I loved doing desserts. They were my favorite things to make.

On Her Cookbooks:

I did a sponsored post for Zoku and they loved it. And they loved it so much that they asked me if I would do the book for them. It was exciting; it was amazing. It was the first time. It was one of many times, I think, where I’ve just sat back and said to myself, “I really made the right decision going to culinary school and changing my career because I just had a company offer me a cookbook.” And it was really exciting. It was my first cookbook but it was very guided. They knew exactly what they wanted. It was done in a very short period of time. It was all drink based. It’s technically my first cookbook. I made the recipes but it was just as much them, I think, as it was me.

It was a fun little device to work with, and I liked the challenge in some ways, because it forced me to think outside the box a little bit and I learned that some things did not work in it at all that I thought would. It was also difficult creating recipes for a company, because I would sometimes give them recipes that I thought were delicious and they would go, “No, we don’t like this at all,” and I was like “What, this is wonderful! Why don’t you like this?” And then they would come back with an idea that I thought was just not nearly as good as what I had given them, but I was working for them, so I would always do what they wanted. It was challenging but I think I came up with some good recipes for them.

(On her next cookbook.) It’s for Simon & Schuster. It’s going to be, I think, around 125 to 135 recipes. I’m doing all the photography in addition to the recipes. It’s quite a labor of love. It’s going to be out sometime next year. I’m not sure what it’s going to be called yet, but it is a full range of recipes, both savory and sweet. And I really hope everybody likes it. It’s a lot harder than I thought it was going to be.

The Pressure Cooker:

Which food shows or cooking shows do you watch?

I used to watch Top Chef. Now I don’t really watch any of them.

I watch Big Brother and So You Think You Can Dance, because I don’t want to watch anything that has anything to do with cooking. I just like to mentally escape.

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

I think that there’s great recipes on bonappetit.com. I also think Smitten Kitchen does lovely recipes. I love 101 Cookbooks. I know I’m forgetting some good ones. We’ll stick with those three for now.

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

Oh, there are so many wonderful people that I follow on Instagram and Pinterest. I tend to just gravitate towards people that share a lot of really beautiful photography. I love following Local Milk, and Call Me Cupcake, and Adventures in Cooking, and Reclaiming Provincial. I’ll stick with them.

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

My most treasured item in my kitchen is my Vitamix, and no one can have it ever. I use it every day for something.

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

I used to dislike rosemary and now I love it. I used to associate it with bath products. Same with lavender. They’re delicious. You just have to use them within reasonable, small quantities and not go crazy.

What are a few cookbooks that make your life better?

The Flavor Bible is amazing. It’s really, really wonderful for anyone who wants to cook without a recipe, and I highly recommend it. It’s got lots of different ingredients and it pairs all of these different ingredients. So if you have broccoli and you want to know what to do with broccoli, it will list all of these other complementary flavors. I love that one. And I also love all the different cookbooks that have been released by America’s Test Kitchen and Cook’s Illustrated. Those are solid, well-tested recipes.

What song or album just makes you want to cook?

Something ’80s, new wave dance. We’ll say Depeche Mode, Violator. It is so redundant but I like dancing to the Xanadu soundtrack and working to it. It’s electric light orchestra. It’s disco-y. And Jeff walks home sometimes and catches me in the kitchen cooking and singing to it.

On Keeping Posted with Jen:

Definitely my Facebook and my Twitter. I’m very active on both of them.

057: Grace Rusch: Finding a Diet That’s Right for You

July 8, 2015 by Gabriel Leave a Comment

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The Sunday Table

Grace is a self-taught cook and a holistic nutrition consultant. She feels that our diets should be personalized, with a balance between food that makes us feel good and food that is healthy. On her blog, Grace features seasonal, organic, and whole-food ingredients, and she follows a mainly gluten-free, dairy-free, plant-based diet.

I am so happy to have Grace Rusch of The Sunday Table here on the show today.

(*All images below are Grace’s.)

On Starting Her Blog:

I’d say it was just a matter of wanting to continually be inspired by new recipes or new ingredients. It helps me keep things interesting and that way I’m looking at new cookbooks, new recipes online and trying different ingredients.

I’m always inspired by seasonal ingredients, as well. So, the blog is really just a vehicle for me to constantly come up with new things for dinner and for breakfast. That way food’s not boring.

On Her Interest in Food and Cooking:

I’ve had a long-time interest in food and cooking.

I started cooking at a young age, just helping my mom in the kitchen. So, it probably stems from that good foundation that she built and instilled in me. And then, I got a lot more into it in college and high school. I really started to get into nutrition and thinking about how the food we eat affects how we feel and our bodies. So, that really is what, kind of, jump-started my interest in cooking. Through that, I’ve discovered how food actually made me feel. And through that, I found out I was gluten and dairy intolerant. So, it’s just been a journey.

When I moved to California, this “California fresh” fare was really inspiring to me. I come from the Midwest; I’m from Minnesota. And not that we didn’t eat healthy growing up, but it wasn’t quite the same cuisine. So, in college in California, I really started to use fresh produce and make that the foundation of my meal. Since that was something that was relatively new to me, it really inspired me to find new recipes.

Finding food blogs was also an inspiration to me, as a source for new recipes.

What else inspires me is just the food that makes me feel good. I try to eat food that’s healthy, but also tastes delicious. I definitely wouldn’t say I only eat for nutrition. Sure, that’s my basis, but it also has to taste good, because I also really enjoy eating.

What pushes me further is the fact that I have some dietary restrictions. And so, I have to constantly be creative and be adapting recipes to make it something that I can eat that’s not going to hurt my stomach.

On Experimenting in the Kitchen:

I’d say I’m a creative or curious cook. I just throw things together. I don’t have too many total flops, but that’s because I love adapting recipes that I know work. Or, I just throw things together that are super simple, like oatmeal or an egg bake. There’s a lot of really simple foundations that you can build on to make something healthy and delicious. I’ve definitely had major flops, though. Especially in baking. There’s trial and error, for sure.

I think if you find recipes that you like, just try swapping out an ingredient. Like, having that curiosity. If you switch vegetables in a dish, that’s a pretty safe swap. Just start experimenting. If you add additional spices, that’s a pretty easy way to explore. Baking it’s a little harder. But for cooking, it should be fun and it should be kind of an experiment.

Just having the curiosity of “What happens if I add these spices?”, or you switch up the vegetable or you switch up the meat. Don’t feel like you have to have exactly what’s in the recipe, unless that’s exactly what you want to eat.

I think I look a lot to the online community. There’s so many people doing really amazing things. So, I’m continually inspired by other food bloggers. I have a lot of cookbooks and I cook from a lot of them here and there, but I don’t have one in particular that really inspires me.

On Some Good Resources for Learning to Cook:

I am a 100 percent self-taught cook in the sense that I never really looked up the science behind cooking or baking. I think you learn that over time. So, I don’t think that I went to one resource. 101 Cookbooks, Heidi Swanson was definitely a first food blog that I found. Sara Forte from Sprouted Kitchen was another one.

On Being a Holistic Nutrition Consultant:

I had considered, in college, going to school for nutrition but decided to go to school for business, but I found this holistic nutrition school in Berkeley, California which is where I live now. And so, I kind of made it my plan: “Alright, I’m already in California. After I graduate I’m going to move to Berkeley and do this program.” It took me a few years, but eventually, I signed up to do the holistic nutrition program. It really just stemmed from curiosity of how food affects our bodies and how you heal yourself from the inside out, through food.

I think it’s pretty baffling to me that people don’t have the connection between what you eat and how your body feels. So, for me, it was really just to get that information. I’m a total food science nerd, so I love learning about how what we eat affects our body and then how that affects how you feel. It really is a holistic approach how that affects the rest of your life.

There’s definitely a balance between healthy and food that makes you happy. It’s easy to go too far one way or the other, and finding a balance is really a personal preference. It’s different for everyone. For me, I definitely feel better when I eat a lot of vegetables, but I also love sweets. So, oats with maple syrup is one thing; that, even to me, is enough.

Sometimes I really want dark chocolate and I’m not going to deny myself that. So, it’s definitely different for everyone. That’s my overall philosophy: every single person has a different diet that’s right for them, and food should make you happy. It should be something that you look forward to eating, but it also should be nutrient-rich. It should be something that’s not going to eventually, down the road, make you sick.

I think that is the first question you get asked and it’s the hardest question to answer; is “What should I eat?”. Because it is so individualized. It is fun to navigate that path with people; to help them understand foods they like and foods they don’t like.

If you really hate peas, then there’s no reason to eat them. If you really hate beets…I personally hate beets. It’s really hard for me to want to cook them and eat them. Just because it’s healthy, doesn’t mean you have to eat it. You should definitely find things that you want to be eating that are also healthy.

The Pressure Cooker:

Which food shows or cooking shows do you watch?

I don’t watch any. I have a television, I rarely use it.

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

Ones that I frequently visit and actually cook from are: Sprouted Kitchen, it’s one of my favorites.

Cookie and Kate, that’s a really good one, I’ve cooked a lot of delicious things from her site.

A Couple Cooks, they have a lot of really good recipes.

Dolly and Oatmeal, she’s also gluten and dairy free, so I always love her recipes.

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

I’d say Instagram’s probably my favorite platform, just because I love to look at photography. I actually follow a lot of photographers and travel or portrait photographers on Instagram. I follow the food blog world, too, but those are the pictures that make me happiest. It’s just seeing other parts of the world and little snippits. If you’ve had a rough day and you’re feeling uninspired, it’s so nice to see these beautiful nature landscapes.

One that comes to the top of my head is Jeff Marsh. He’s a Seattle photographer, both portrait and outdoor nature photos. Beautiful, beautiful photos. Aubrie Pick, she is a local San Francisco food photographer; just amazing stuff. Oh, I recently met a photographer from Vancouver Island, Kelly Brown; she’s a wedding photographer and lifestyle. Really beautiful stuff.

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

I don’t think I have anything too unusual, but I have to admit, my most treasured thing right now is my Vitamix. I use it every day.

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

Probably, snap peas. I really like them and can eat them raw now. And bell peppers. I kind of have a love hate relationship with them. I’m learning to like green beans; still not my favorite.

What are a few cookbooks that make your life better?

Recently, I’ve been returning to Vegetable Literacy by Deborah Madison; I love that one. The new Sprouted Kitchen cookbook just came out, that’s a really great one and her previous cookbook is excellent. I’ve also been cooking a lot lately from Vibrant Food, which is Kimberly Hasselbrink’s cookbook.

What song or album just makes you want to cook?

I love music. I went to school for music business, so music is a big part of my life. I couldn’t just pick one, but I always go to Motown or old soul or funk music in the kitchen. It’s just fun, upbeat, and inspires you. Right now, I’ve been listening a lot to Brandi Carlile’s new album, The Firewatcher’s Daughter; that’s a great one. So, a big mix.

On Keeping Posted with Grace:

Instagram is my preferred platform. But I have a Facebook page, I’m on Twitter, I’m on Pinterest, and of course the blog.

052: Brian Samuels: Cooking and Enjoying Fish

June 22, 2015 by Gabriel Leave a Comment

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A Thought for Food

Brian is a Boston-based food photographer, and on his blog, he shares a lot of vegetarian options, and considers his diet 98% pescetarian. A Thought for Food was started in 2009 and has been featured in Food and Wine, Food52 and Yahoo Food, just to name a few.

I am so happy to have Brian Samuels of A Thought for Food, here on the show today.

(*All images below are Brian’s.)

On Blogging:

I think to have a successful food blog, you have to be pretty dedicated. It’s very time consuming, so I think maybe not crazy is the right word exactly, but definitely devotion, passion, maybe a little obsessive. Maybe that’s a better term. That’s really why I think a lot of people who end up writing food blogs have that type of personality.

I would say the most challenging would be the writing of it. I don’t find myself to be a natural writer. I don’t easily sit down and the words flow out. There’s a lot of editing involved. And sometimes I’ll write and write and write, and then delete a huge amount of it. Then, sometimes, I’ll just delete the whole thing and start over again. It takes a while.

There are other times, though, where I sit down and it does flow out a little bit more and I feel like I do have something to say and then it’s a little easier to say it. But for me, the most fun and definitely challenging element, but still the most fun and easy in a way, would be photography. It’s something that I’ve always connected to, just being able to capture my own experiences through the lens.

Back in 2009, when I started the blog, it was, I guess, the start of when food blogs became really big. There were definitely the big ones, like, 101 Cookbooks, Smitten Kitchen, and a few other big ones. I read frequently and I was always creating the recipes and commenting on those posts.

I felt like I also had a story to tell about food, and I was throwing a lot of dinner parties with my husband, or my now husband. I wanted to share those recipes and I wasn’t necessarily expecting people to read the blog. I was just sending it out to family members and friends who asked for the recipes. But I just really felt like I had a passion for food, and it was a way for me to get that story out there.

On His Curiosity for Food and Cooking:

I think ever since I was little, I was always passionate about cooking and showed an interest in it. I remember growing up and my mom making dinner every night. She was very much into making home cooked meals. We had take-out once in a while, but for the most part, she really wanted to make things from scratch and educated us about food.

She worked with a lot of cookbooks herself, in terms of making dinners for us, making meals for us. I just always took interest. As soon as I smelled something, I was always by her side asking questions and wanting to know how she was doing things. And eventually, she had me help her out.

On Getting Into Food Photography:

I went to film school at Emerson College in Boston. And there, I focused on documentary film-making, and I really fell in love with being able to tell stories, especially through film, but about the real world, about real people and not necessarily scripted.

I ended up working for a documentary production company in Boston for three years. And that’s actually when I started the blog, was during that time.

I did see it as a way to combine my love for documenting, not necessarily through photography but just documenting my love for food, recipe development, playing around with recipes, and educating people about food, all that. So it wasn’t necessarily about the photography specifically at the time, but definitely about documenting it.

I was shooting originally, if you go back to old posts, not that I necessarily promote that, I was using a Canon PowerShot, just point and shoot. Taking pictures of the final dishes and maybe a few processed shots along the way. But I wasn’t using great equipment; I was still learning about techniques about how to photograph food. My passion for food photography developed because of that experimentation.

On Being (98%) Pescetarian:

A pescetarian is someone who eats vegetarian and fish. Red meat is out, poultry is out. Basically any land animals are out.

When I was 15, just for health reasons, I decided that I really wanted to cut out red meat from my diet. And I was still eating chicken and turkey, but I really wanted to cut out red meat from my diet. From there, I took out chicken as well. But I could never give up fish or dairy, because I’m just in love with those two things. And I think it allows me to be a little bit more adventurous in my eating, in terms of dining out and experiencing things.

For me, that’s such a huge part of my life, is not passing up the opportunity to try something. So the 98% is really where I will usually have a bite of something if we’re dining out somewhere and it’s really special.

My husband eats meat, so he’ll most likely get a meat dish when we’re dining out. I’ll sometimes have a bite of that. And I still think meat is delicious. He loves making smoked brisket and I’ll have a bite when he’s done, just to try it out. Because I usually help him out a little bit too. So I feel like if I’m doing it, I want to know what it tastes like.

For me, it’s really about where you’re sourcing your ingredients. I make sure that what we’re cooking is locally sourced if at all possible. And I’m knowing the farmers that we’re sourcing it from and all of that. We don’t do it often. I can justify it.

On Cooking Fish:

I think salmon is hard to mess up. It’s fatty.

It’s funny because a lot of people stay away from salmon because they don’t like fishy fish. I never get that because I love fish, and I love it whether or not it has a fishy taste to it. I’m okay with that.

I think they’re getting that from the oils and the fats from the fish probably, and especially with salmon. But in terms of fish that’s hard to mess up, I think that salmon is really easy to work with. It also holds up when you add a lot of flavor to it, so you could do soy sauce, you could do a marinate with it and you’ll still have a really nice fish flavor with it.

I think that some other fish are more delicate obviously. White fish, you don’t want to mess around with that too much, so you have to be careful with that. I always think salmon is really easy to work with. I think sword fish as well. It holds up nicely. They’re both very meaty fish too.

I would not say I’m a pro at cooking fish at this point. I think I have learnt that overcooked fish is not merely as delicious as seared fish. And, so with salmon, I’m trying to make sure that the skin is crispy if it still has a skin on it. That it is cooked all the way through but not overdone. I think working with high heat is really key with fish because you just want that point where it just cooks all the way through and you’re not cooking any longer.

Starting off with high heat is really key. It really depends on the fish and what you’re doing with it and how you’re serving it. I also like to play around with other types of sea foods like scallops and shrimps and we’ll rotate that in our diet as well.

On Choosing Fish:

When I go to buy fish in the store I don’t necessarily care if it’s previously frozen or not, I really look at where it’s being sourced from. With anything I want to buy as local as possible. And coming from New England or, the Pacific Northwest, you can usually find local seafood in these areas but I know that people in the middle of the country struggle with that.

I’m really looking for stuff that, I can have a dialogue with the person at the fish counter and say, when did this come in? Where did it come from? Tell me about it? I think when it came in is usually a good sign of freshness, and yes, that’s pretty much my thought process behind it.

I think the frozen element really makes a difference because as soon as it hits the cold it’s obviously going to preserve it longer. It depends on the fish. Yes the previously frozen thing doesn’t bother me as much as the farmed versus wild caught. If it’s frozen and it tastes good then, great. I don’t think it matters either way necessarily. I don’t think it affects the flavor of it too much.

Here in New England I’ve had the luxury of being able to get fish that was caught that day and having it and there’s a deeper flavor in it. You’re tasting the ocean. It hasn’t lost that flavor. I think a fish that has probably been frozen, it sort of loses that depth.

The Pressure Cooker:

Which food shows or cooking shows do you watch?

Top Chef.

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

I think most people already know these sites but some of my favorites are Sprouted Kitchen and Happy Yolks is a favorite of mine as well, and Not Without Salt is one of my all times favorites. I think Ashley was on your show actually at one point.

Those are definitely some of my top three.

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

All those people definitely. Is it sad that West Elm makes me really happy when I see those pictures?

I’m a sucker for, we have a new house, I follow them just to see what they are posting about. So that always makes me happy. I would definitely say Ottolenghi’s Instagram feed always, I’m always unbored with that and Local Milk is a favorite as well.

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

This is a tough one. It’s funny, the weird one that popped into my head is an egg slicer. I don’t know why and I don’t think I have a connection to it really but it just popped into my head.

I don’t think it’s one of those things that people have but I actually use it fairly frequently. Whenever I want to do a big salad for one of my big weeknight meals. If I want a hearty salad. I always put hard boiled egg on it and it’s just an egg slicer. So I’m saying the egg slicer.

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

Mushrooms. I think would be the one. I was such an adventurous eater growing up but mushrooms, I was disgusted by and now I’m obsessed with them.

I think for the most part we always had it with chicken, in a chicken dish. Or it was on top of pizza. My sister loved it and I think I just hated it because she loved it so much. But I’m obsessed with it now.

What are a few cookbooks that make your life better?

For the most part I look at cookbooks for the pictures to give me inspiration. Recently, the ones would be definitely Plenty. All the Ottolenghi books, I’m always going back to them. Ashley’s book, Not Without Salt’s, Date Night In I’ve been going to too.

I think the same goes for magazines as well. I subscribe to a lot food magazines and usually I go through for the pictures. I love the new Sift magazine by King Arthur Flour. Great pictures and it just gets you thinking, because it’s so baking focused, it gets you thinking outside the box.

What song or album just makes you want to cook?

Van Morrison’s Astral Weeks or Norah Jones’s Come Away With Me. When I’m cooking, for the most part, I want that chill music with a glass of wine and it mellows me out.

On Keeping Posted with Brian:

Definitely through Instagram in terms of more day to day. It’s beyond just the food world. It’s also, I put up pictures of my dog, and where I am, and what’s going on in life. On Twitter as well. Those would be the top places. But I’m also on Facebook and all those wonderful sites.

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

June 15, 2015 by Gabriel Leave a Comment

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Sassy Kitchen

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

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

(*All images below are Julia’s.)

On Her Interest in Cooking and Food:

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

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

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

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

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

On Learning to Cook:

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

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

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

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

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

On Kitchen Experiments Not Going as Planned:

I have a really good infamous one.

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

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

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

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

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

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

On Starting Her Blog:

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

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

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

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

On Gluten-Free Foods:

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

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

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

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

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

On Gluten-Free Ingredients:

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

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

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

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

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

On Some Good Gluten-Free Cooking and Baking Resources:

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

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

The Pressure Cooker:

Which food shows or cooking shows do you watch?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I love everything in my kitchen.

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

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

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

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

What are a few cookbooks that make your life better?

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

What song or album just makes you want to cook?

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

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

On Keeping Posted on Julia:

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

042: Valeria Necchio: How Following Food Seasonality Leads to Tastier Eating

May 29, 2015 by Gabriel Leave a Comment

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Life Love Food

Valeria grew up in the Venetian countryside, and grew up eating local seasonal food most of which was home grown. She has a Masters Degree in Food Culture and Communications, and her recipes on Life Love Food are simple, wholesome, and inspired by her Italian roots.

Currently living in London, she chooses healthier ingredients and enjoys eating a balanced diet that just so happens to be naturally plant-based, and the recipes on her blog reflect this.

I am so excited to have Valeria Necchio of Life Love Food here on the show today.

On the Food Culture in Italy When She Was Growing Up:

I was born in Venice, in the city, but really quickly, we moved in the countryside as my father found a job. He’s a teacher, so he found a job in a school in the Venetian countryside. And my grandmother happened to be there and my grandparents as well. They had a really, really beautiful vegetable garden, and that was definitely not an issue for that generation. Everybody was, to some extent – especially when living in the countryside – just growing their own food, mainly vegetables. Sometimes they would have some livestock.

So for me, that proximity to that vegetable garden, just the proximity to my grandparents, has had a really, really big influence in regards to my way of cooking and eating. And the way they were growing the vegetables, the way they were bringing the vegetables to the kitchen, how they were transforming that and creating meals out of those. Somehow, growing up, I absorbed this concept of seasonality.

Everything was really bountiful. I learned the skill of preserving from them, because they obviously embraced modernity, and indeed had refrigerators, freezers, and things like this. But still, that kind of culture of preserving was really strong. And coming from the past, it was just something that they’ve always done and they kept doing.

For example, lots of tomato preserves and really classic Italian tomato sauce. That was definitely the first food experience for me and what really had a big impact on my way of cooking and eating.

Now it’s definitely this cycle of seasons and respecting the natural growth of vegetables that are brought to the table, and are really so fresh because they have been grown in their right season. And also, this concept of trying to preserve it for the months to come simply because tomatoes, they were not available in the winter, but then they’re really not that tasty in the winter.

So try to enjoy what summer has brought to you in such abundance and just carry on with that. Definitely seasonality is a crucial point for me, and also the fact that we’ve been eating out of this vegetable garden for so long. It has brought so many cheerful meals to our family.

For me, eating mainly vegetables, having vegetables as the core of my meals is just a really natural way of eating. It comes really effortless for me.

On the Seasonality of Food:

That’s a really really important factor, the awaiting for the ripe strawberries, especially things like strawberries that you find available year-round and most of the time are so tasteless. And not only do you miss that feeling of saying, “Okay, it’s May, June, the strawberries are ripe, so great. You just go and pick them,” but also the fact that they really don’t taste very good at all. So yeah, it’s a double miss.

On How Food Culture in Italy Has Changed:

I think it has changed a lot. Not very many people grow their food anymore.

My generation doesn’t have access to their own vegetable garden. Maybe they still have relatives that do that, but more and more, that kind of skill has been lost.

And definitely, obviously, like modern life, everything is much faster.

There is the culture of the supermarket everywhere, a lot of convenient food. People still tend to have some sort of basic knowledge about food. Somehow Italians, because of osmosis or I don’t know what, they absorb some sort of skill that helps them navigate the kitchen, the food world, and try to prepare some decent meals for themselves.

At the same time, not very many people do tomato sauce from scratch anymore. You just open the bottle and just pour it on your pasta and that’s how it goes.

On When She Realized that Food is Her Passion:

I think it happened when I left home to go and study at my university and I started to cook for myself mostly. Because before, really, I was fed rather than cook, so really lucky.

I started to experiment in the kitchen more and more, and share meals with people that were not my family, so my roommates, friends, really different types of mechanisms that go beyond the classic family meal.

For me, it started to become quite interesting to see the different dynamics that happen around the table and how food really brings people together. There were people from different nationalities at that point. So anything can trigger a conversation about food memories or traditions from other countries.

I had really started to become quite passionate about how food can play a different role, yet a really, really crucial one in all different cultures, and so I wanted to dig deeper for sure.

On a Simple Dish that is Very Traditional Italian:

Risotto is, again, a really obvious answer, but it might sound very intimidating to most because they say, “Oh, it’s so complicated. I don’t know how to make it as an Italian makes it.” But in reality, you just need to nail the basic steps and then it really comes together very easily.

Starting from the onion fried in oil. Then you toast the rice and add in the wine. And then you put your ingredients, then you keep cooking it really slowly. You keep stirring it until it comes together into a smooth cream, but the rice is not mushy. And the risotto is not too solid. It needs to be really running still. That’s it.

On Food Culture in London, UK Versus Italy:

London is a really, really exciting place for food in general. In terms of the food scene, it’s extremely diverse, so it’s really hard to categorize it. But in terms of daily cooking and daily living, I think families rely a lot more than Italians on convenience and just prepared dishes.

I also think that there’s generally less of a knowledge about basic cooking skills. You just notice it from the type of offering that you find in supermarkets in general.

Other big difference is I noticed, as soon as I came here, that most of the fruit and vegetables that you buy at supermarkets is all prepackaged, which is really strange because in Italy, even supermarkets, you just pick up your lettuce or your carrots and it’s all loose. And then I think also in terms of seasonality, there is not a lot of culture related to that. And it’s just a different way of conceiving a meal.

For Italians, vegetables are very much part of a dish, whereas here, for example, vegetables are conceived as a side. You have the protein, and then it’s like a “meat and three veg” type of culture most of the time. This a huge generalization, of course. But just in terms of feeling of how meals are constructed, I think it is pretty much how it works.

On a Food She Was Introduced to in London that She Now Cannot Live Without:

It’s definitely brassicas. We don’t use them very much in Italy just because they grow better in colder climates.

Going to the markets and finding this huge variety of brassicas, for me has been really eye-opening. You can find various types of kales, a lot of different cabbages, little sprouts and all these brassic-y things that make at least the winter a bit more colorful. It’s just not potatoes and beetroots, so there is at least something else.

It’s quite nice and I really grew fond of them besides kale, obviously, which is the big thing. But also other things, as I said, like savoy cabbage, just really, really nice ingredients to cook with and quite versatile.

On Her Blog:

I started the blog in 2010 in spring time, so it’s almost five years. It was just after I knew that I was accepted for this Masters in Food Culture.

I wanted to start sharing recipes from my family, or just recipes that I really enjoyed from Venice, from the region, as well as my experience throughout the Masters of just moving to a different town, living this experience, one year with this really international group of students and the trips that I was doing. And so it just all went from there.

After the end of the Masters, I just realized that I really enjoyed doing it and I just wanted to keep doing it. And so I just kept going.

It has been good thus far. But now it’s just hard to find the time, because London is quite busy too. It’s something that there’s no way I’m going to give up. I just cut some corners and find some time for it.

The Pressure Cooker:

Which food shows or cooking shows do you watch?

I watch No Reservations, obviously, which now became Parts Unknown.

Here in the UK, I don’t have a TV, so I don’t really watch very many shows anymore.

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

I love Orangette for the food writing. It’s absolutely stunning. And one called Rachel Eats. She’s an English woman based in Rome. Her writing is stunning. Her recipes are absolutely fantastic.

One blog I always always read is written by an amazing lady and friend – Emiko Davies.

And probably one called Hortus Cuisine, for the really, really lovely photography and also because she portrays the Italian countryside in a really romantic way, which is always nice to see.

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

On Pinterest, I follow Local Milk. She is quite an inspiration for things like interiors and things. And I think her eye is really interesting. I don’t know if she makes me happy, but she makes me inspired.

On Twitter, that makes me happy, Bruce Bourdain is quite interesting, and also whoever has created the account for Queen Elizabeth is quite hilarious as well.

And on Facebook, there’s an Italian satire website called Spinoza, who has always quite a sharp pen in regards to news and things. It’s quite fun.

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

Unusual, I have a really old mill that you use to mash basically anything, mash boiled vegetables and potatoes. Or you can mash grapes and make a grape pudding. I have that.

And then the most treasured, I treasure my food processor quite a lot. It helps save my arm and it just does the meringue better than I could ever do myself.

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

Cilantro. Italians really don’t have a palate for cilantro. It’s not an ingredient that we ever, ever use or you’ll ever find in an Italian kitchen.

The first time that I was invited to dinner by my Thai friend back during Masters times, I thought everything was tasting quite soapy. But then, I definitely developed a palate for it. So much so that now I really enjoy salads that are basically made just of cilantro and something else.

What are a few cookbooks that make your life better?

Jane Grigson’s, The Vegetable Book. It’s a bible and it’s absolutely fantastic for tips on how to choose vegetables, how to clean them, and just simple ways to prepare them.

I have been using Heidi Swanson’s book quite a lot, the blogger behind 101 Cookbooks. Her book, Super Natural Everyday, is just something that we pull out very, very often for a quick week night meal or just simply inspiration.

What song or album just makes you want to cook?

Lately, I’ve been listening to The National quite a lot. I know they’re quite obscure, but I really like them. They have a good mixture of relaxing and cheerful that gives it a good rhythm in the kitchen.

Keep Posted with Valeria:

Definitely Instagram. It’s where I share things that I cook that I don’t have the time to blog about, and where definitely I spend most of my time when it comes to social media. Because it’s really visual and it’s just really fun. So Instagram, @valerianecchio.

027: Tara Austen Weaver: How to Get Started on a Garden

April 17, 2015 by Gabriel Leave a Comment

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Tea and Cookies

A life-long traveler and adventurer, Tara is trained as a master gardener and permaculture designer. Editor of Edible Seattle and writer of the award winning blog Tea & Cookies.

I am so excited to have Tara Austen Weaver, author of the new book Orchard House: How a Neglected Garden Taught One Family to Grow, here on the show today.

On Food Writing:

It’s funny, I actually fell into food writing completely by accident.

I had always been a writer, but I mostly wrote travel and then I went to graduate school and was writing some fiction and non-fiction. It’s funny, because I didn’t pick up on it at the time. But a lot of people in my workshop group, I was writing a novel that was in Japan, people would say, “When I read your chapters, I always find myself at the refrigerator afterwards, looking for something to eat. I love the way you write about food.” But it never occurred to me.

Then I got sick, this was at the end of 2005, after the holidays. I got really sick and I was in bed for two months, really just exhausted. We didn’t know what was going on. Years later, it was discovered that I had had mono. But the doctor never, it never occurred to him.

So I was just tired, but I couldn’t really do anything. I had discovered food blogs in about November of that year. I just followed a link. Blogs were pretty young then and I had never heard of a food blog. I thought, “Huh! I’m not interested in this weird blog thing but food blog sounds interesting.”

I just fell into this world, and here were these people who were so passionate about cooking and food. In the geeky way that I was. They are having dinner parties and talking about their recipes and posting pictures. And for a couple of weeks, I just read blogs.

No one had been blogging more than a year then. But it was wonderful and it was this community. They all seem to know each other.

And then, it was January 1, I just decided to start a blog. I thought that I would just do it for a couple of weeks until I felt better and could go back to work. And I didn’t even put my name on it. It was anonymous and it was just sort of my little secret. I didn’t tell my friends and I certainly didn’t want my writing clients or editing clients to find it. But it was the most fun writing I had ever done, and I was posting everyday.

It was so much fun to go to the market and have a reason to make these recipes and to share them, and then other people started leaving comments. It just sucked me in. And it was actually about three years that I didn’t have my name on it.

The food blog world was really small back then, but within a month or two, editors started contacting me and asking me to write about food. Maybe just one or two, but that never happens. I had been a writer up to that point. So it was just kind of amazing.

They responded to the voice on the blog and I said in my bio that I was a professional writer, so they sort of assumed that I would be able to do these jobs. It just took off. After three months, a friend of mine who is an agent, read a post and she said, “You should write a book about this.” So that turned into a book contract, it really just happened very organically.

On Her Interest in Cooking:

I have a mother who’s a horrible cook. She will tell you this, the joke in my family is that my brother and I learned how to cook in self-defense.

My mom was a single parent when I was growing up and still. And we had a couple of babysitters who lived with us.

Some of them were horrible. But we had one in particular who really liked to cook. She would take the plums that fell off our tree and make jam, and make pickles. She would make kimchi, which was sort of hippie 1970s, 80s, Northern California, white person kimchi. But it was really good and she made like, we called it baby kimchi. A version for us without spices, but we really liked it because it was salty.

I think that that was the spark, seeing someone enjoy themselves in the kitchen. She was with us for awhile and then she moved away. And at that point, we were sort of growing out of needing babysitters. I was about 13 I think when I started taking over all the cooking for my family. I enjoyed it and my mom hated it and she wasn’t good at it, and so I would give her a shopping list and she would go and bring back the ingredients I wanted.

Mollie Katzen actually, who wrote the Moosewood Cookbook. I feel like she was my cooking teacher, because I would just make all the recipes.

When I was on the tour for my first book, she came to my event and I had sent her a copy of the book because I mentioned her in it. She had emailed me to say how much she enjoyed it. And she came to my event and I didn’t have my copy of the book to show her. I really, really wanted to.

It’s funny, because I came to this as a writer and not as a recipe developer or chef or anything like that. So I’m always surprised when people make the recipes. And in the beginning, I was actually terrified. Like it worked for me, I hope it works for you. But people do say, sometimes they’ll leave a comment and say, “I make this all the time, every time I get sick, I make this.” It’s like part of my family and my kitchen, goes into their kitchen and their family. It’s a lovely thing.

On Her Book, Orchard House: How a Neglected Garden Taught One Family to Grow:

The book is set in Seattle and it is a story of a somewhat broken family, which will be mine.

I was looking for property for my mom who wanted to move to Seattle, because my brother and I both live here. In the process, I discovered this sort of not totally exciting house that happened to be on half an acre of land within the city limits which was really, really unusual.

I put it on the list of properties to look at just because I was curious. I said, “If we have extra time, let’s go see it.”

We did, we went and we all just fell in love with this yard. It was completely overgrown. It’d been neglected for about 10 years. Blackberry vines everywhere and it just felt like a secret garden.

My sister-in-law and my nieces were with us that day and the girls were running wild in the sunshine and coming back with berry juice all over their face, and their arms full of Asian pears and it just was this magical moment.

My mother decided to buy the house and moved to Seattle, and all of us were going to work together to bring the garden back to life. Of course the garden sort of ends up bringing us back to life, bringing us together. So yeah, it’s about growing food but also a lot about family and community in Seattle. Which I find to be a really unique community, and discovering unexpected things and overgrown deserted locations.

I didn’t go into it thinking I would ever write about it. A friend of mine when she heard me talking and heard how excited I was about the garden, she was the one who said, “You really need to write about this.” It really has been a pretty unexpected journey but a really wonderful one.

On Getting Started with a Garden:

I recommend starting with herbs. Because they are not that hard, and tremendously rewarding and it will save you so much money because you don’t have to buy an entire bunch of rosemary to get one sprig.

I don’t know about you, but I always have these bunches of herbs that are getting slimy in my fridge because I didn’t use all of the cilantro. But they are rosemary, thyme, oregano. These are some very chives as well, very hardy plants. If you’re putting them in the ground especially.

I think a lot of people try with house plants or grow herbs in their kitchen and get discouraged because they die. The problem with putting something in a pot is that it’s going to dry up pretty quickly. And most people put things in pots that are too small.

So the plant looks great at the nursery, it’s in a pot. But when you get it home, you actually need to take it out of that pot and put it in a pot that it is generally twice as big. Those roots need somewhere to go.

I grow herbs in my kitchen in the winter, because actually this huge garden is at my mother’s house. I don’t live there, so I need some herbs for my kitchen. I generally expect that they are going to die at some point in the winter. Sometimes they make it through all the way and I put them in the ground in the spring, but often times especially if I get to travel anywhere, they die. I just accepted that that is part of the process.

I think that is another thing, is that sometimes plants when taken out of their native environment will die. One of the gardeners in my clinic, the master gardener says, “You just have to accept that this is part of the cycle of life and gardening means sometimes death.”

On Good Resources for Starting on a Garden:

I love Gayla Trail, who is is a Canadian garden writer and she has a site that she’s been keeping for probably a decade now called You Grow Girl. I think she has a fantastic approach, series of books.

Margaret Roach is out of New York or Massachusetts. She was the garden editor for Martha Stewart for years, her site is A Way To Garden.

The third person I would point you towards is Willi Galloway, who is out of Portland, she used to live here in Seattle. She has a great book particularly if you are a food person, it’s called Grow Cook Eat. She talks about growing food but also has recipes, so you can trace the whole cycle. It’s a really inspiring book.

Those are three people who will not steer you wrong. And there is an entire garden blog community that I am just starting to explore.

The other book that I think is really great and I’ve had a copy since I was in high school, but it’s sort of encyclopedic but a good resource is Barbara Damrosch, who is a very famous garden writer and I bought her book when I was in high school. I think it’s a Garden Primer, that is a resource that I’m always going back to.

The Pressure Cooker:

(*The camera angle’s not the best but Tara shares a ton of really good information. Thanks Tara!)

Which food shows or cooking shows do you watch?

I’m watching a lot of garden shows these days, Alys Fowler‘s series out of the BBC is really fantastic. It’s all about edible gardening. So that’s kind of cooking and garden related.

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

I have a lot of friends who have been blogging since my early days and I’m sure you know all of them. So I’m going to tell you about a more recent blog, The Yellow House. She lives out of D.C. in the Virginia countryside, and it’s beautiful, beautiful writing. Really lovely recipes and gorgeous photography, I’m a huge fan of her work.

Who do you follow on social media that make you happy?

I’m going to call out a rising star here in Seattle, Brittany Wright, and her Instagram’s feed is Wright Kitchen. She is an upcoming food photographer and does these amazing color gradients with food, just go look at her feed. It’s really inspiring.

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

I have a lot of tea pots that people have given me as gifts that I really treasure. I actually love everything in my kitchen that has been a present, because every time I use it, I think of that person and I feel like I have my people with me when I’m cooking.

So even a set of measuring spoons that were a gift from friends, it really is, I feel like my people are around me.

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

Eggplant. When I was a kid, I used to lie to people and tell them that I was allergic to eggplant because I could not take it. It was often prepared in bad stir frys where it gets bitter and soggy.

I grew up in the kind of culture and hippies do not know how to make good stir frys. They needed some Asian cooking classes back then. But I went to Greece when I was 20 as a student living in Europe. I ate eggplant prepared well for the first time ever and now it’s one of my favorite things.

What are the few cookbooks that make your life better?

I’m editor of a food magazine now out of Seattle and I get all of the new cookbooks that come out, so I’m drowning in cook books a little bit these days. But I have to say that Heidi Swanson, her site is a 101 Cookbooks, I love her work because she really looks at ingredients with a fresh eye.

She has a new book coming out that is inspired by her travels. I feel like she takes ingredients from different cultures and uses them in really fresh and inventive ways. And the other culture I know the best is Japan. Sometimes she’ll do things and I go, “Oh, I never thought that you could do that with it.” So I love people that make me think differently.

What song or album just makes you want to cook?

I listen to podcasts when I cook, I don’t actually listen to music.

I cooked all of the food for my book launch party, which is a bit of a crazy thing. I also actually grew all of the food, it was all from the garden. My kitchen looked like a caterer set-up. I was running around frantically and I actually put on a whole bunch of Taylor Swift and played it really, really loud to get me through the experience. So whatever works.

Keep Posted on Tara:

My blog is teaandcookiesblog.com and I’m on Facebook and Twitter. Instagram is my favorite, favorite thing.

On Discovering Her Passion for Gardening and Growing Food:

On Crops That are Easier for Beginners:

On Crops Beginners May Want to Avoid:

On Gardening for City Dwellers:

On Some Resources for Gardening and Growing Your Own Food:

The Pressure Cooker:

On Keeping Posted with Danielle:

On Her Interest in Cooking:

On Working in Restaurants, Cafes, and Catering:

On Starting Her Blog:

On Recognizing Her and Her Children’s Food Intolerances:

On Tackling a New Approach to Cooking and Food (with Food Intolerances):

On Some Good Resources to Learn More About Gluten-Free Cooking:

On Her Book, “My Darling Lemon Thyme – Recipes from My Real Food Kitchen”:

The Pressure Cooker:

On Keeping Posted with Emm:

On Going to Culinary School:

On Her Blog:

On Baking and Desserts:

On Her Cookbooks:

The Pressure Cooker:

On Keeping Posted with Jen:

On Starting Her Blog:

On Her Interest in Food and Cooking:

On Experimenting in the Kitchen:

On Some Good Resources for Learning to Cook:

On Being a Holistic Nutrition Consultant:

The Pressure Cooker:

On Keeping Posted with Grace:

On Blogging:

On His Curiosity for Food and Cooking:

On Getting Into Food Photography:

On Being (98%) Pescetarian:

On Cooking Fish:

On Choosing Fish:

The Pressure Cooker:

On Keeping Posted with Brian:

On Her Interest in Cooking and Food:

On Learning to Cook:

On Kitchen Experiments Not Going as Planned:

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

On Starting Her Blog:

On Gluten-Free Foods:

On Gluten-Free Ingredients:

On Some Good Gluten-Free Cooking and Baking Resources:

The Pressure Cooker:

On Keeping Posted on Julia:

On the Food Culture in Italy When She Was Growing Up:

On the Seasonality of Food:

On How Food Culture in Italy Has Changed:

On When She Realized that Food is Her Passion:

On a Simple Dish that is Very Traditional Italian:

On Food Culture in London, UK Versus Italy:

On a Food She Was Introduced to in London that She Now Cannot Live Without:

On Her Blog:

The Pressure Cooker:

Keep Posted with Valeria:

On Food Writing:

On Her Interest in Cooking:

On Her Book, Orchard House: How a Neglected Garden Taught One Family to Grow:

On Getting Started with a Garden:

On Good Resources for Starting on a Garden:

The Pressure Cooker:

Keep Posted on Tara:

Have Tara's Special Dish Recipe Sent to You Now: