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039: Amelia Morris: Failure, Success and Fearlessness in the Kitchen

May 22, 2015 by Gabriel Leave a Comment

Amelia Morris of Bon Appetempt on The Dinner Special podcast talking about failure, success and being fearless in the kitchen.
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Amelia Morris of Bon Appetempt on The Dinner Special podcast talking about failure, success and being fearless in the kitchen.

Bon Appétempt

Amelia’s blog has evolved as her cooking and life has changed over the years, and her readers have been along for every step of the journey. An essay Amelia wrote about her kitchen visit with her grandma won Best Culinary Essay in Saveur’s 2011 Food Blog Awards. In 2012, Bon Appétempt won in Saveur’s Best Humor Blog category. Amelia recently released her book, Bon Appetémpt: A Coming-of-Age Story (with Recipes!).

I am so excited to have Amelia Morris of Bon Appétempt here on the show today.

On How Her Blog Started:

It really started as an accident. I was house sitting for my friend, and they have a beautiful house, and I got the idea that I could have people over for Christmas day brunch, and I decided to make this cake from the cover of a Bon Appétit. I’d never made a cake from scratch before, and it was this towering chocolate peppermint cake. But I thought I could do it. I gave myself multiple days to do everything ahead of time, and I basically did do it except as I was putting the icing on the cake. The whole thing started to slide, and it fell over.

My husband and I had been taking pictures of the whole thing because we were so impressed that I was making this gigantic cake. So then we had pictures of the rise and fall.

Afterwards, I just kept looking at the pictures and I just kept thinking there needs to be a food blog where it’s like the home-cooked version versus the magazine version. I just thought I was the perfect candidate because I didn’t know how to cook and I thought, every time, each post would be a disaster. I know it will be really funny.

This was six years ago. At first, I really wanted to make fun of the perfection and food magazines and just how fake it was. My intention was to mix it up but it could be funny.

On Her Sense of Fearlessness in the Kitchen:

I’m afraid of a lot of things and there’s a lot of stuff I haven’t tried. I don’t know if I’m afraid, but I don’t want to maybe make such a giant mess.

When I first started the blog, I wasn’t afraid of making mistakes because, A: I thought it would be funnier if I made mistakes, and B: my self esteem wasn’t tied to the kitchen. If I messed up, it didn’t injure me in any way as opposed to my other endeavors where it hurt when I failed.

I did redo the original cake that started it all and made it successfully. It was beautiful, so that felt pretty good.

I tried to make a Martha Stewart bread wreath, and it’s basically bread in the shape of a wreath. And it was an epic failure. We have a video of it on the blog, and I broke a pan in the oven. Because when you bake it, you’re supposed to have a pan of water underneath.

That pan of water broke, and so the water started gushing out into the oven. And basically, the wreath still turned out; it was an edible piece of bread and everything.

I’m always surprised with Martha Stewart’s recipes like that where you just have pay such attention to detail to get it even close to what Martha Stewart has in her magazine.

On How Becoming a Parent Changed the Way She Cooks:

Oh my gosh. Well, I feel like this changes a lot; because at the beginning, you’re just getting used to everything. And I feel like even though they sleep a lot at the beginning, I just wasn’t in my normal routine.

I used to see recipes, be inspired, go to the store, come back, cook it that night. And I feel like at the beginning, that was not really an option. And now, he’s so mobile that he won’t even… If I’m in the kitchen, he’s running to the back of the house and I have to go see what he’s up to and all that stuff. So it’s changed a lot. I really do much more simple things and I do a lot of stuff I know by heart.

I try and do a lot of stuff while he’s eating dinner. He usually eats around five, so I’ll try and do chopping and any sort of prep work that I can do while he’s contained and he sits. And then he goes to bed around seven and then I finish cooking once he’s in bed.

There are so many good things you can make with not a lot of ingredients. I feel like that’s my go-to thing. I mean, we eat a lot of pasta around here and I do a lot of shortcuts, I guess, like I find myself recently buying mushrooms that are already sliced and cleaned, which I never used to do because I always think the person doing it isn’t doing a good job of cleaning it. And now, I’m just like, “Oh, well.”

My mum would always buy a rotisserie chicken and have it in the fridge, and I would never do that. I would just do it myself. And just this week, I bought a rotisserie chicken and I made a chicken pot pie, a version of chicken pot pie, and then I just pulled the meat off of it.

The answer to the question is I’m still figuring out how to have shortcuts; what shortcuts to come up with.

On Her Videos:

Basically, my husband went to film school and the book goes over our mutual struggles to find creative satisfaction.

He wanted to be a filmmaker, still wants to be a filmmaker, writer, and we both had day jobs not doing anything remotely creative. I think I just got really inspired to do a cooking show by watching cooking shows and just watching how staged they are.

I just don’t really understand why everything needs to be so perfect in cooking shows. They’re all in full makeup and no aprons. So I was really inspired to do a cooking show that was more real and where it would show me cleaning up and stuff like that, and Matt was excited to try shooting again which he hasn’t done since college.

On Her Book, Bon Appétempt: A Coming-of-Age Story (with Recipes!)

The book is basically my life’s story, but it’s pretty much about growing up and trying and failing. And the way it came about matters because I went to grad school for an MFA in Writing. And my thesis was a novel and I continued working on it after school.

So I sent a novel to a bunch of agents, and one of them got back to me and was like, “Yeah, I’ll read your novel,” but she’s on my bio about my food blog and she was like, “I’m really interested in Bon Appétempt.” A long story short, she really wanted me to work on a food memoir. I guess I never really thought of doing a food memoir up until that point.

So I was excited about it. I was totally excited about it even though she wasn’t interested in my novel. I was kind of excited at the prospect of my writing career finally getting off the ground a little bit. And so I just jumped on the opportunity and I was like, “Totally, I’ll do a food memoir,” and I started putting together a book proposal.

I love my blog for many reasons and it’s great. But I think that there is this pressure to post. And for a while, I had a schedule. I would post every Sunday night. And I just think that the quality of writing would often suffer because I was just like, “I’ve got to get the post up. I’ve got to get the post up.” And with the book, I could really take my time and I didn’t feel a sense of urgency. I felt like I could talk about things that I didn’t feel were appropriate for the blog. I could start at the very beginning of my life as opposed to what’s going on right now.

The Pressure Cooker:

Which food shows or cooking shows do you watch?

Top Chef. That’s it. Final answer.

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

Well, you probably already know about Lottie and Doof. It’s one of my faves. I really like The Yellow House.

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

On Twitter, I like Andy Borowitz, and of course, USA Gymnastics.

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

Well, I have this magenta-colored skull. It’s small. It’s a scary-looking skull. His eyes are red glitter.

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

There was a point in my life where I said I didn’t like pasta, and now it’s something we eat three times a week.

I was a young woman constantly on a diet and I convinced myself that I didn’t like pasta.

I just wouldn’t let myself eat it.

What are a few cookbooks that make your life better?

Anything by Nigel Slater, but probably The Art of Simple Food by Alice Waters.

What song or album just makes you want to cook?

I love any sort of Van Morrison; that sort of realm of music.

On Keeping Posted on Amelia:

Probably Instagram, or I have a book, Bon Appétempt, and a Facebook page.

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Filed Under: Podcast Tagged With: 2011 Saveur Food Blog Awards, 2012 Saveur Food Blog Awards, Alice Waters, Amelia Morris, Andy Borowitz, Bon Appétempt, Bon Appétempt: A Coming-of-Age Story (with Recipes!), Bon Appetit, Food Blog, Food Blogger, Lottie and Doof, Martha Stewart, Mom, Nigel Slater, Parent, The Art of Simple Food, The Yellow House, Top Chef, USA Gymnastics, Van Morrison, Videos, Writer

034: Cristina Sciarra: How Learning to Cook is a Lifelong Process

May 4, 2015 by Gabriel Leave a Comment

Cristina Sciarra of The Roaming Kitchen on The Dinner Special podcast talking about writing about her food adventures.
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Cristina Sciarra of The Roaming Kitchen on The Dinner Special podcast talking about how learning to cook is a lifelong process.

The Roaming Kitchen, Food Blog

Cristina has lived all over the world and feels most at home in her kitchen. She believes food should foster community and seasonal foods and ingredients are worth waiting for. Cristina was on the board of Slow Food NYC and The Roaming Kitchen was a finalist for Best New Blog in Saveur’s 2013 Best Food Blog Awards.

I am so happy to have Cristina Sciarra of The Roaming Kitchen here on the show.

On Writing About Her Food Adventures:

Cristina Sciarra of The Roaming Kitchen on The Dinner Special podcast talking about writing about her food adventures.

I had been living abroad. I lived in Spain for one year and then I moved to France for a year. In France I lived on a market street. Six days a week we had two butchers and a baker, a cheesemonger. I really fell into the habit of buying ingredients on a daily basis and cooking things on a daily basis.

I came back to New York to go to graduate school for writing. I studied for an MFA in fiction writing. It was a natural marrying of two really strong interests, writing and food, because I think in essence, a recipe is a story to be told. I started to create my own recipes and I wanted some place to write them down before I forgot them and couldn’t cook them anymore.

I love Spain. I studied abroad there and then I lived there for another year. Especially Madrid is where my heart is. I do love Spanish food, but I would say now, at this point, I’ve been with my fiancée for six years and I have spent a lot of time with his family. They live on the western coast of France where they do the oysters and the mussels and the sea salt. Watching my mother-in-law prepare these dishes with a duck she got from her friend’s farm down the road and really, really fresh ingredients. I think that’s influenced me hugely.

Of course it’s French food but more than that it’s local food. Here I frequent the farmers’ market. I’ll buy things that look good. I come home and I think, “What can I do with these things?”

In my mind that’s an extension of what she does in her own home too. As far as cuisines, I love French, I love Spanish, I love Italian, that’s what I grew up eating. I guess I love North American because that’s where I happen to be and that’s where the ingredients are that I’m buying.

Really, the most important thing to me is local, high quality foods then using your imagination and mixing cuisines in order to make something delicious.

On Attending Culinary School in Paris:

Cristina Sciarra of The Roaming Kitchen on The Dinner Special podcast talking about going to culinary school in Paris.

I think the culinary school system in France is probably a lot different than culinary school in the States. Just as far as I know, from the people who have gone here, it seems to be more about cuisine styles. Again, this might be too much of a sweeping statement, but at the Cordon Bleu it’s very old school French style teaching. It’s a militaristic style of teaching. Most of the chefs are old men and they are not afraid to yell at you if something goes wrong.

I went for the basic course which is the first third where they teach you basically everything you need to know. They teach you how to cut things properly, and make a stock, and poach a chicken, things like that.

The upper classes are more difficult things and perfecting dishes. I really learned all the building blocks of cooking there. I think for me it was such a valuable education. What does it mean to braise something and chemically why do you do that? Why is it different than a different style of cooking? Although some days were terrifying, the base education was really, really valuable to me.

The basic program was supposed to last three months, but I only had a little time left in France. I thought I would do the accelerated program which takes three months' worth of work and puts it in about six or seven weeks, I guess.

I was there all the time from the early morning to late at night, five or six days a week. It was intense.

Basically the day oscillated between sitting in on a lecture where the chef would speak in French with a translator or in English. He would demonstrate three or four dishes. There would be a big mirror on the ceiling so you can see what’s happening.

In your practical class after that you would be cooking one or two things that he demonstrated.

This was late summer too I will say. It’s a lot of apparel. You’re wearing a lot of clothes that need to be a certain way, so it was very, very hot and a lot of time on my feet. It was one of those experiences I will never forget. While it was really intense it was so valuable to me. I am so lucky and grateful that I got to do that.

On a Kitchen Disaster Before Culinary School:

Cristina Sciarra of The Roaming Kitchen on The Dinner Special podcast talking about a kitchen disaster story.

I made my friend run down to the supermarket and get the pre-made pizza bread that are completely done. They are like bread. You just have to stick them in the oven. I don’t know why I thought this, but I rolled the dough very, very thinly. Way too thinly and then put it in the oven for 20 minutes. It was black, completely charred, a mess. My friends were pretty patient through all of this. Most people like eating free food so it went over pretty well.

There was a farmers’ market one day a week on our campus. I did start going there. That was probably the first farmers’ market that I attended on a somewhat regular basis. That year was really, really trial and error. I remember I made my friend a carrot cake. I was very proud of that because it actually turned out okay.

There’s still so much that I don’t know. I think cooking is such a large subject that I could study and practice my whole life and there would still be more to learn. I think that’s part of what I find so interesting is that it’s endless. What I can do and how I can improve, new tricks I can learn, new flavor combinations. I think that path sort of starts there. It’s just been sort of chugging along ever since then.

On the Slow Food Movement:

Cristina Sciarra of The Roaming Kitchen on The Dinner Special podcast talking about the slow food movement.

Slow Food is actually an international organization that started in the 80s in Italy when McDonald’s first came into Italy. It was a reaction to that. It’s now all over the world. The New York City chapter, we’re under the USA umbrella, but we’re actually the biggest local chapter in the country. We really are in support of food that’s good, clean and fair.

We have several school gardens teaching kids how to grow their own food and how to cook their own food. We have a monthly Slur, which is a happy hour where people can come and talk to members of the board. We have a book and film club which I used to work on where we try to get films and have a panel, or we have book events with the author. Sometimes that includes a cooking demonstration.

We had a woman who wrote a book about making fresh cheese. We all got to try some of this fresh cheese. We work in this general goal of really trying to raise money and awareness for environmental and fair practices in cooking and food production.

We’re actually very lucky in New York because we have many, many farmers’ markets. You could go every day to one or more. We have great access to New Jersey, Pennsylvania, the Hudson Valley. There’s also a company called Good Eggs, which is now in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Brooklyn, and they’re moving to Manhattan and New Orleans.

I love ordering from them too because fish, for example, it’s very hard to know if you’re getting good fish or not unless you have a source that you trust. On Saturdays there’s a local fishmonger, a day boat fishmonger at the farmers’ market but if I wanted fish on a Wednesday, it’s difficult to know. Good Eggs provides really high quality well sourced fish and meat. Frankly, it’s like a grocery store, all kinds of things. We’re quite lucky here. It’s not so difficult to eat really well.

The Pressure Cooker:

Which food shows or cooking shows do you watch?

I don’t really watch any cooking shows.

I will wait until Top Chef is over and binge watch the whole thing. I think every year the cooks get better and better and better. I enjoy it.

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

I have a list of them on my website. I like different ones for very different reasons.

I like good writing a lot so someone like Oh, Ladycakes who writes vegan dessert recipes, but that’s not my preference. I always read because she’s a gorgeous writer and the photographs are beautiful, the same thing with Bon Appetempt.

I definitely would try her recipes but the thing that keeps me coming back is her voice. How original it is, what great read it is. I’d say the same for Dash and Bella. The writing is so evocative and it’s very family-based, about her family. It’s gorgeous, it breaks your heart every time she writes something.

I’d say those are the three that I go to. Those are my top three I would say.

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

I’m the best at Instagram of all of those. It makes me happy, I guess those bloggers that I just mentioned and some more. So many people post such beautiful things and once you get to know someone a little bit when they post about their family or their life it’s a pleasure to see those pictures.

I have friends who live in Europe and South America, to see their posts, what they’re doing is really a gift. It’s a way of keeping in touch with someone you love but lives far away.

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

I’m the wrong person to ask this because I’ll give you a very long list.

To be the most basic, I would say black pepper, fresh ground black pepper, have a kosher salt and a flaky sea salt, have an olive oil for cooking and an olive oil for finishing, a more flavorful fancy pants olive oil.

I think if you have those things there’s a lot you can do with those things. You can open a can of beans from your cupboard and mix all of that together. If you have some herbs put it in there. If you have some radishes or cucumbers put it in there. That’s half of dinner already and leftovers for tomorrow.

Name one ingredient you cannot live without.

Olive oil. I have several olive oils and it’s fun for me. We went to Spain over Christmas to visit my fiancée’s family. They make great olive oil in Spain. I bought a few to bring home. That’s something I love to do also, is buying special food stuffs when I’m away and being able to come home and use them in my own kitchen. Olive oil, salt and pepper, but olive oil I think is fun.

What are a few cookbooks that make your life better?

That makes my life better, well, I would say certainly those big cookbooks that serve as a guide. So in something like the New York Times cookbook, you’re going to find everything in there. Those are my outside cookbooks. The ones I like to look at all the time. What else? I have several Cook’s Illustrated books. I like having a great, great background. Then I have some restaurant cookbooks, some blogger cookbooks. But, really Nigel Slater, his books are the ones I come back to. I read all the time. There are quite a few. I think that’s my favorite.

What song or album just makes you want to cook?

I usually leave the music choices up to my fiancée. He plays stuff I like and I don’t have to think about it too much, but I will say I do watch a lot of Hulu shows when I’m cooking. It’s a good excuse to watch things that don’t perhaps need your full attention.

I also listen to a lot of books on tape. I fly through books on tape when I’m cooking. That’s the most enjoyable way to spend an afternoon I can think of, cooking and listening to a book on tape.

I’m listening to 1984 right now. I’m halfway through.

Keep Posted on Cristina:

Cristina Sciarra of The Roaming Kitchen on The Dinner Special podcast talking about how to keep posted with her.

I would say Instagram is probably my favorite method of social media. You’ll always see me posting there the most. I have a Facebook page for The Roaming Kitchen. I also do updates and articles there and just check in back into to the website.

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    Filed Under: Podcast Tagged With: Bon Appétempt, Cook's Illustrated, Cordon Bleu, Cristina Sciarra, Culinary School, Dash and Bella, Food Blog, Food Blogger, French Cuisine, Good Eggs, Ladycakes, New York, New York Times cookbook, Nigel Slater, Oh, Paris, Saveur Food Blog Awards, Slow Food Movement, Slow Food NYC, Spain, The Roaming Kitchen, Top Chef

    032: Luisa Weiss: How Travel Has Shaped Her Food Journey

    April 29, 2015 by Gabriel Leave a Comment

    Luisa Weiss of The Wednesday Chef on The Dinner Special podcast talking about how her travels have shaped her food journey.
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    Luisa Weiss of The Wednesday Chef on The Dinner Special podcast talking about how her travels have shaped her food journey.

    The Wednesday Chef, Food Blog

    Luisa is an author, a food columnist for Harper’s Bazaar Germany, teacher of both writing and cooking and leads food tours in Berlin where she lives with her husband and son Hugo.

    I am so thrilled to have Luisa Weiss of The Wednesday Chef here on the show today.

    On How Her Travels Have Shaped Her Food Journey:

    Luisa Weiss of The Wednesday Chef on The Dinner Special podcast talking about how her travels have shaped her food journey.

    I grew up in an international home. My dad’s American, my mom is Italian and I was born and partially raised in Berlin.

    My parents split up so I moved to Boston with my dad but kept coming back to Germany and Italy to see my mother. I’ve had lots of different food cultures in my life from the very beginning and moving to Boston for college was interesting in a way because I came from high school in Berlin and then college food, the dorm room, the freshman 15, all that was totally new to me. And then Paris…

    Paris, the food education. Paris was  obviously really wonderful. I don’t think I’ve had as much of an epiphany as a normal American would have just because Italy’s culture is similar in that they really revere ingredients.

    Everywhere I’ve gone, I’ve definitely picked up something and taken it with me.

    Italian food is what I’m really comfortable with and familiar with. I know exactly what it’s supposed to taste like and I have a lot of confidence in that.

    But over the past 10 years of blogging, I’ve become so much better at cooking all kinds of different things. Now I feel like I say Italian but then I also want to say that I am really good at cooking Indian food at home now, and American food, and baking, and all kinds of other things.

    So it’s still Italian but definitely there’s lots more going on now.

    On How Her Blog Started:

    Luisa Weiss of The Wednesday Chef on The Dinner Special podcast talking about starting her food blog.

    I was working in book publishing and I had discovered food blogs a couple years before. I loved them. And it just dawned on me one day like, “I love reading food blogs. I love to cook and I love to write. Why aren’t I writing a food blog?”

    At the time there were many food blogs already and I assumed if I threw my hat in the ring, that nobody would care or pay attention because I’d be the last one to the party. So I just did it on a whim and I thought it was going to be writing practice more than anything else.

    I majored in English in college and I wanted to go to graduate school for writing. A professor of mine was like, “Don’t do it. If you’re going to write, you’ll do it out of your own accord.” But I didn’t and so finally the blog was meant to be a practice and then it turned into so much more.

    I’ve been a passionate cook and baker my whole life really, but I got into this rut when I was living in New York, my early years in New York but also in Paris.  I made the same things over and over again.

    It’s not that I didn’t want to make anything else, it’s just that nothing occurred to me. What else would I cook other than these three things? But I was really obsessive about clipping recipes and so I have binders and binders full of recipes from the newspaper food sections. So when the time came to come up with a concept for the blog, like some kind of a focus, right away I was like, “Okay, well I guess I’ll just cook my way through the newspaper recipes.” Then I could never cook a recipe twice because I always had the blog to think about. So in the past 10 years the blog has been my culinary education.

    On Cooking for Hugo:

    Luisa Weiss of The Wednesday Chef on The Dinner Special podcast talking about cooking for her son Hugo.

    When Hugo was born or when he started eating solid foods, I was coming up with silly little ideas that I thought other people might be interested in. It was also meant to be a journal of what I was feeding him, too. Like, “This was a good idea. Let me write it down so that I remember it next time,” there’s nothing in it that’s earth shattering. There’s nothing totally new in it, but I thought I would have appreciated or I do appreciate when other mothers say, “Oh, this really worked for my kid,” because even though I’m such an omnivore and my husband too, we did not give birth to an omnivore. Everybody says, “Oh just feed the kid whatever you’re eating.” When we tried that, he just wouldn’t eat. He’s a little picky.

    It’s getting better and he’s weirdly adventurous in certain moments. So we have a Sichuan restaurant that we’re obsessed with. Every once in a blue moon we go. He’ll end up eating half the things that we do. His mouth’s on fire. He’s got tears streaming down his face and he’s asking for more. But then other days, he refuses to eat a meat sauce with his pasta. The pasta has to be unadorned and plain, nothing.

    So whenever somebody says, “This really worked for my nine month old, or a 10 month old, or two and a half year old,” I think, “I want to pass that information on,” and the same for me. I had a couple inspiration moments and I just found recipes that he ended up liking. I thought, “Might as well share them.”

    I hated hearing this when I was pregnant, the mother of a newborn and all this but now that I’m a little older I understand why people say, “Enjoy it,” because actually the stages are all so short that while you’re in them, especially for the first time, you have no idea. You’re like, “Oh my God. My kid’s going to be eating pureed carrots for the next 10 years,” but subconsciously you think that they’re not even going to be eating pureed carrots for a month. So just live in the moment and then move on. Be flexible.

    On Her Book, “My Berlin Kitchen: A Love Story With Recipes”:

    Luisa Weiss of The Wednesday Chef on The Dinner Special podcast talking about her book My Berlin Kitchen.

    The book is a collection of stories in chronological order that tell the rough outline, and in some cases not that rough, of sort of the strange path from Germany to the States, back to Germany, back to the States, to France and then ultimately back to Germany again.

    Each chapter has a recipe at the end so it’s a lot about food but also about family, about what it’s like to grow up in several different cultures. All the alienation and difficulty that that can present even though it’s in a sense a nice problem to have, but it does have a lot of its own emotional baggage.

    Then the love story with the city of Berlin that I’ve had my whole life.

    The Pressure Cooker:

    Which food shows or cooking shows do you watch?

    I used to watch, like literally 13 years ago, Nigella and Jamie and Two Fat Ladies, but now I don’t watch any.

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

    Dinner: A Love Story which is about cooking for your family, specifically older children once they’re three years and up, how you get family dinner on the table.

    Orangette which is a beautiful food blog with lovely recipes and writing and photos and just wonderful.

    Bon Appetempt, which is a humorous take on cooking recipes from magazines but it’s also about life and things.

    Lottie and Doof. Tim’s writing is so amazing and his food is too but now that I think about it, I haven’t actually cooked that many things from it but I just love his take on the world and I just feel his site is a little blast of joy.

    There are so many others. Those are the ones off the top of my head.

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

    Okay, Abbey Nova from Design Scouting which is the other blog I was going to say that I love, but it’s not a food blog. Follow her on Pinterest. Love her.

    And on Facebook, Humans of New York. Best account ever. Literally every post is a gut punch in good and bad ways. It’s just wonderful.

    Instagram. My friend, Rachel Roddy, in Rome. She always posts pictures of her sink with all of the beautiful things that she’s bought at the market that day and it’s just her sink. My mother’s from Rome and my mother lived in Rome when I was in college, and there’s just something about the light. When I look at those pictures, there’s something very deep going on inside of me. They make me happy.

    Her blog is Rachel Eats and that’s the other blog I was thinking of. Beautiful, provocative, gorgeous writing about living in Italy but being English. It’s incredible and her Instagram.

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

    Canned tomatoes, salt, olive oil.

    I feel like I can’t live without canned tomatoes. That’s breakfast, lunch and dinner right there.

    Name one ingredient you cannot live without.

    Yeah, canned tomatoes without a doubt.

    What are a few cookbooks that make your life better?

    Fuchsia Dunlop’s Every Grain of Rice, which is Chinese home cooking demystified.

    The Kitchen Diaries by Nigel Slater. I love it. It’s more of a journal of food but it’s very inspiring for when you’re feeling like, “I don’t feel like cooking anymore. What should I do?” I go to him and he always gets me going again.

    Diana Henry’s A Change of Appetite, so Diana Henry is an Irish food writer in London and she’s incredibly prolific. She publishes a book a year or something and they’re all incredible. I don’t understand how she does it.  I mean really they’re all incredible and they’re all so different. Her most recent book that’s available now is called A Change of Appetite and it’s ostensively of being like a lighter eating book but it’s just great. It’s full of incredibly delicious, lush, interesting recipes.

    What song or album just makes you want to cook?

    I actually am not really into music when I’m cooking although I guess something cheerful like Ella Fitzgerald.

    Keep Posted on Luisa:

    Luisa Weiss of The Wednesday Chef on The Dinner Special podcast talking about how to keep posted on her.

    Well I’m pretty good whenever I have a blog post up, I ping the three big ones: Instagram, Facebook and Twitter so any of those is fine. I love Instagram most. It’s definitely the most fun I have while doing social media. It doesn’t feel like work.

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    Filed Under: Podcast Tagged With: A Change of Appetite, Berlin, Bon Appétempt, Cooking for Parents, Design Scouting, Diana Henry, Dinner: A Love Story, Ella Fitzgerald, Every Grain of Rice, Food Blog, Food Blogger, Fuchsia Dunlop, Germany, Harper's Bazaar Germany, Humans of New York, International Food, Jamie Oliver, Lottie and Doof, Luisa Weiss, Mom, My Berlin Kitchen: A Love Story With Recipes, Nigel Slater, Nigella Lawson, Orangette, Parent, Rachel Eats, The Kitchen Diaries, The Wednesday Chef, Two Fat Ladies, Writer

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

    February 27, 2015 by Gabriel

    Nicole Dula of Dula Notes on The Dinner Special podcast talking about Detroit, Michigan.
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    Nicole Dula of Dula Notes on The Dinner Special podcast on How A Community Supported Agriculture Share Can Inspire

    Dula Notes

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

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

    On Blogging:

    Nicole Dula of Dula Notes on The Dinner Special podcast talking about food blogging.

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

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

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

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

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

    On Detroit:

    Nicole Dula of Dula Notes on The Dinner Special podcast talking about Detroit, Michigan.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    On Community Supported Agriculture and Produce:

    Nicole Dula of Dula Notes on The Dinner Special podcast talking about Community Supported Agriculture.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Produce always inspires me.

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

    On Cooking:

    Nicole Dula of Dula Notes on The Dinner Special podcast talking about cooking.

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

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

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

    And it’s trial and error.

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

    The Pressure Cooker:

    Which food shows or cooking shows do you watch?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Name one ingredient you cannot live without.

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

    What are a few cookbooks that make your life better?

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

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

    What song or album just makes you want to cook?

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

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

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

    Keep Posted on Nicole:

    Nicole Dula of Dula Notes on The Dinner Special podcast talking about how to keep in touch.

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

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

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      Filed Under: Podcast Tagged With: Amelia Morris, America's Test Kitchen, Bon Appétempt, Community Supported Agriculture, Cook's Country, Corktown, CSA, Detroit, Donna Hay, Dula Notes, Farmer's Market, Food Blog, Food Blogger, Gold Cash Gold, Hither and Tither, Huey Lewis and the News, Hungry Girl Por Vida, Jamie Oliver, La Feria, Lidia Bastianich, Michigan, My Name is Yeh, Nicole Dula, PBS, Produce, Take a Megabite, Wit & Delight

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

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