India | The Dinner Special podcast

106: Edlyn D’Souza: An Introduction to Goan Cuisine

January 20, 2016 by Gabriel Leave a Comment

Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

Egeedee

Edlyn restarted her blog when she moved from Goa, India, to the U.S. in 2012. She is greatly influenced by the way her family approaches food and the way they cook. And though she is not a professional cook, she likes believing that she is.

I am so psyched to have Edlyn D’Souza of Egeedee with me on the show today.

(*All photos below are Edlyn’s.)

On Her Blog:

It was about so many random things. I was really young. So picture that, picture like a young person’s journal with, “Oh, look. Look what I did today.” So it was kind of like Instagram but on a blog.

I think the fact that I had that space, not doing anything with it, when I moved here, I couldn’t work for, I think, a year almost, because I was getting my paperwork done and everything. So I was spending so much time at home, and I was getting kind of depressed even. I just needed to channel that energy into something creative, because that’s what I knew how to do.

Also, I was really hungry a lot, so first, I have to make breakfast. Now, what do I do? Okay. Then I make lunch. I used to go online and look for more American things, because I was afraid I wouldn’t find ingredients that I was used to back home. So I started reading The Pioneer Woman Cooks. I really enjoyed her writing style. My eating habits have changed a lot, so I don’t really cook from her blog, but I still really enjoy reading her writing. And then I figured it out from there.

If you read my blog, I try not to write too much about food when I do the writing part of it. I try to keep that still as a journal. That helps me keep in touch with my family back home, because I’m not really an open person. I find it hard to express myself just talking to people. So writing is that outlet for me and that’s the way I get to communicate with people like, “This is how I’m feeling right now. Leave me alone.”

On Growing Up in Goa, India and the Role of Food:

Oh, it played a huge role. I was listening to a podcast, I think your podcast, and the lady was saying how food was something people cooked every day, and eating out is like a luxury almost, it’s like for special occasions. That’s exactly how it was. I don’t think we really missed eating out as much. It was a huge task for my parents to do, cook every day. But now that I’m grown up, I kind of understand how much work it took and it makes me appreciate that. So, yeah, food is huge there.

On Her Curiosity Around Cooking:

My dad is the primary cook in our family. My mother likes cooking, but my dad is much quicker and I think he enjoys the process more than she does. For her, it’s like, “Oh, it’s a chore sometimes,” but he loves it. But he also doesn’t like having other people interrupt. He’d always yell at us, “Go away.” So we watched. We would just watch and try and help but.

I wasn’t really interested because of that. I always thought it was something negative maybe. But I also enjoy watching, smelling everything. But I only started doing it myself once I moved here.

On Learning How to Cook:

I don’t think I’ve ever cooked anything with their direction, but just watching them and kind of seeing how things looked. As a kid, I’m just watching the onions brown and exactly when you add the tomatoes after and all those spices that you add one after the other. I kind of put those smells together more than anything else, I guess.

Like I was saying, I only started once I moved here. So it was just me feeding myself and my husband, that’s why I moved here. He’s a good cook too, but a lot of his dishes are pretty standard. He likes making a good steak or a good burger and I can’t eat like that. I need different elements on my plate sometimes. So, I encourage myself to add more flavors to our meals. That’s basically what motivates me.

On the Food Culture in Goa:

Things changed once the Indian economy opened up and more foreign products and packaged foods started coming in. So things kind of changed a bit, it became easier to cook at home. And people also wanted to experiment more with other cuisines and that’s where restaurants came in.

So growing up, yes. I don’t think we used to go out. Maybe one birthday or just for fun. But it’s changed a lot now. People go out more as, “Oh, we’re bored. Let’s do something.” And that would mean going out.

On a Traditional Goan Meal:

The staple in Goa is fish curry and rice. That’s one of the staples that you have to try. So the first thing you would need is coconut, because that’s what most of our curries are based, kind of like Thai cooking. But we use fresh coconut and other spices that have a very orange color. So turmeric, coriander seeds, cumin seeds, tamarind, and just whatever fish is fresh that day.

I would say fish curry or shrimp curry. They basically use whatever fish or seafood is fresh or whatever they want to add to it. But, yeah, that would be the first thing I would recommend, fish curry rice.

On Some Good Resources for learning about Goan Cuisine:

I don’t know if you’ve heard of A Brown Table, Nik. He does a lot of Goan-influenced food. It’s really delicious. So if you do want to learn a little bit more about Goan food, because I think he’s half-Goan and half-North Indian, I think, but he makes really good recipes with Goan food. And other more traditional recipes, there are a lot of home cooks and food bloggers that aren’t as popular as bloggers that we read every day, and they may not have the best photography, but they still have really good recipes. So if you just type “Goan food,” (in Google) the top three websites will always pop up.

On How Her Cooking Has Changed Since Moving to the US:

I think it has changed more so because in the beginning, I used to get really swayed by, “Oh, look at these healthy food bloggers, they eat so well.” And I kind of got pulled in that direction, like that was the only way to do things. But over the past few years since I’ve moved here, I realized that that’s an unhealthy way sometimes to cook if you don’t lead that lifestyle.

So over time, I started cooking more food that makes me happy and nourishes me as well. So I won’t shy away from making mac and cheese just because I like it. So what’s wrong with eating it? So my thinking has changed in that way and I’m happy about that.

On Goan Food in the US:

Pretty much everything is not the same, but Goan food is really hard to find in this part of the country, I think. I never get to eat anything from home unless I make it myself. But the North Indian foods and the South Indian foods, the dosa and the chicken tandoori, that’s really popular here. And I think the restaurants do a good job, but I can’t say for sure, because I don’t live in those parts, so.

The Pressure Cooker:

Which food shows or cooking shows do you watch?

Lately, I’ve been watching, it’s a PBS show called, Mind Of A Chef, and it’s all on my Netflix that I have.

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

If I had to pick a few, my first one would be Hungry and Excited and she needs to get her blog back up. Hi, Revati, do it. Okay. And my other favorites are, which I do enjoy for the writing, is Orangette. Also, I like Oh, Ladycakes, just because she swears a lot and she writes really good recipes. I like that, I like her honesty. And a blog that I can always immediately cook from is Sprouted Kitchen. She always uses ingredients that I know I always have. Those are my basics that I like a lot.

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

Instagram I like following Cats of Instagram. I like looking at cat pictures. They’re so funny. I do follow a lot of food people on Instagram too, but I enjoy looking more at animals — cats, dogs. Another one is, I think it’s called This Wild Idea, where he takes his dog and he puts her on random surfaces. I don’t know if you’ve seen that one.

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

My most treasured item would be my tea strainer. I’ve been wanting to own a tea strainer for the longest time, because when I make tea, I like to make it of loose leaf tea. So, yes, that is my most treasured item. And unusual would be a coconut scraper that it’s not a traditional scraper and sometimes I feel like I’m gonna scrape my palm off when I use it, but yeah, maybe that.

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

I used to really hate cardamom a lot, because whenever we would eat it in food in India, it would always be in a rice dish and it would be the whole cardamom. So when you’re eating it, you bite into it and it used to be a very unsavory taste. But now, I know that you can grind it into dust and use it in baking dishes. I like it a lot more now.

What are a few cookbooks that make your life better?

I don’t really read a lot of cookbooks, sadly. I do have a few that I own that I go back to every now and then. I like The Baking Bible, and the new Sprouted Kitchen cookbook is one of my favorites that I keep going back to every time I need to look up something or just look at beautiful photographs. Her husband takes really beautiful photographs.

What song or album just makes you want to cook?

Lately I’ve been listening to M.I.A. I thinks it’s her Kala album.

On Keeping Posted with Edlyn:

The best way is through the blog that I post on and other favorite social media platforms that I like are Instagram.

076: Rakhee Yadav: Discovering a Passion for Food

September 14, 2015 by Gabriel 4 Comments

Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS

Boxofspice

Rakhee is from India and lives in Holland and her life’s goal is to be more adventurous in trying new foods. On her blog, Boxofspice, Rakhee incorporates Indian spices in many of her recipes and shares her food creations as she navigates through her relatively new passion of food.

I’m so happy to have Rakhee Yadav of Boxofspice here on the show today.

(*All images below are Rakhee’s.)

On Her View of Food:

I grew up in India as you know and I wasn’t really encouraged to be in the kitchen or to cook. Because India is such a different culture, mostly in the middle class, which is how we were, food is cooked by someone else. A cook will come in, we had a lot of help and my mum was particularly finicky about her space. So I was not ever allowed in, so I think food for me was something that mum did.

We ate really only Indian food, and I’m a vegetarian and I was an extremely finicky eater. So there wasn’t a wide variety of food. I always said growing up that for me food was about surviving. I didn’t really enjoy food that much. I was sick a lot, it was just bland food.

It was really in my 20s that I began to somewhat experiment, and by experimenting I mean a little more spice in my food. I would not say no to everything. So food, yeah, food was not on my radar of fun things.

I was sick a lot, so I had a lot of tummy problems. I was not allowed to eat a lot of spices. So food was not an adventure, it was just something I ate to stay alive. That’s really how . . . it sounds very dramatic but that’s how I felt.

I think most bloggers would say that they love to cook or food was very interesting to them, therefore they began the blog. For me it was quite the opposite. I think it was because of the blog that I discovered that I could cook and not just that I could cook, but I did a pretty decent job of it. There were happy faces all around and that’s a big gratification factor I think for any cook, is to see the joy on someone’s face when they’re eating your food.

I never thought I could cook. I always thought I was a bad cook in fact, so for me to suddenly discover, and that’s what’s so funny about life, where it takes you … Boxofspice made me get out there and try new things and experiment with food and that’s how I realized I can cook.

On How She Learned to Cook:

When I moved away from India I was forced to cook. I lived in the US for a few years and suddenly there was no one, there was no back up, and even in the US again, it was very functional. Food was functional, but I realized that I had absorbed a lot of what my mother did for me, or made for me, and that’s really the basis of where it all began.

The rest is research, research, research, and recently I have decided to take the blog in a slightly different direction to where it is now. I want to explore the Indian aspect because Indian food is so varied. I have not even scratched the surface. So yeah, it’s research. It started from a base point and then building on that, from blogs, from cookbooks, from every source that I can find.

On India and Holland Influencing Her Cooking:

I grew up only eating Indian food. I mean literally. I think the first foreign food that I tried was pasta, and that was when I was 29. So I grew up purely on Indian food and really I did not want to try anything because Indian food is so vast.

Again, I was not experimenting at all with food at that time. I think the challenge in Holland is that I don’t get all the ingredients here, so the challenge is how to turn an Indian dish into an Indian dish, but with a limitation of ingredients. That’s where the Dutch aspect comes in. I have never heard of kale before I came here. So those kinds of things, like using kale instead of something else that was Indian. That is the kind of fusion that comes about in my food now, which is out of necessity and not really because I want to do fusion but because I have to.

On How Food is Enjoyed and Shared in India Compared to Holland:

I think everything that happens in India happens around food. We live in large families in India. You’re never really alone in India, and everything revolves around food, whether it’s tea time or lunch time or dinner time, and we as opposed to Holland, we eat three warm meals in India.

The women usually are always in the kitchen cooking and it’s always fresh meals. You will never have leftovers and stuff like that but in Holland again, it’s functional, breakfast is bread, lunch is bread. So it’s slapped on cheese and bread is put together just because it needs to be done, it’s lunch, done. And dinner really is the time when the family will come together. That is not the way in India. India is really . . . and when you see a table, even if it’s a regular meal in India, you will have four or five things to eat. It’s a lavish spread but in Holland again, not the case.

Dutch meals revolve around meat and since I’m vegetarian, that obviously cannot happen. And the minute you take the meat out, all you are left with is mashed potatoes and boiled vegetables. So there’s very little spices involved in Dutch food, and for me, my food has to be pretty. Being a picky eater I needed my food at least to be pretty, and I think that’s what I try and achieve with my photography for the blog.

On Her Blog:

I think three years ago, that’s how nearly old it is, I had a ridiculous amount of time on my hands then. I’m trained as a graphic designer and I’m used to crazy hours and working really like crazy, and suddenly I was at a creative dead end, so to say. Again, food was not really that important to me then but design and photography are my life. So for me, I think the food kind of brought it all together, and why a food blog you might say? I think even at that point food was not really the deciding factor. I wanted to see if I could do food photography. So food was kind of by the way. It is only in the course of these three years that food has become . . . it really is an obsession at this moment and photography as important as it is has taken somewhat of a back seat.

Food I feel is not so different than photography because both are . . . I think it’s a lifelong process of learning, and I love the fact that I don’t know it all. I love the fact that I have so much to learn and the excitement and the adventure in finding out. I think that’s what keeps me going with the blog.

Sometimes I look at an ingredient in the supermarket which is seasonal and I may say, “Hey, that looks interesting. I have never used that before, I wonder how I can use it.” I will then go back to my computer and research how many possible ways I can use that particular ingredient, which will be the star of the dish. I’m extremely close to my mother and she was a brilliant cook. So I want to revive the dishes that she used to make. With the ingredients that are available to me here I want to see how I can do that or change it around a little bit so that it becomes mine.

On Becoming More Adventurous with Food:

I would still say I’m far from adventurous. I’m trying very hard and when it comes to trying anything vegetarian or even vegan I will try it absolutely. In the past it would have been a big no, but what I’m trying now is that even with meats I at least try it. I think that is something that is developed because of my daughter. Because that’s what I tell her. “At least try it.” If you hate it, we’ll put it aside, we’ll come back to it maybe a year later. I want to practice what I preach, so I do try but I’m definitely not there yet.

I have bad associations with meat, but I do eat chicken only if I make it at home. So yeah, it’s still a process. It’s baby steps.

I think in India we are kind of rice snobs, that’s what they call us. I would not eat any other rice but basmati rice. That’s a long grain, it really is fluffy when it’s ready and it’s just as beautiful rice. Risotto to me was just like . . . I looked at it and I was like “what is this rice?” It looks like it’s bad quality rice, but obviously that’s not true. And when I tried it, it’s one of my favorite dishes today.

How to Start Becoming More Adventurous with Food:

I think the people who are finicky are scared and I am scared and I think the biggest thing is to face your fear. It really is not that bad. I’ll give you an example. I recently tried cold cuts. For years I have looked at cold cuts and I thought I don’t understand what the deal is. It doesn’t look appetizing, but when I tried it, because this friend of mine said “try it for God’s sake, you may surprise yourself,” and I did and I have to tell you Gabriel, I was shocked because it was good.

So just go out on a limb and just put it in your mouth. What’s the worst that can happen? You hate it, or you spit it out, that’s really the worst that can happen.

And you never have to try it again. I can assure you that most often, at least in my case, I have tried it again, I want to try it again and it leads to other things.

The Pressure Cooker:

Which food shows or cooking shows do you watch?

I like to watch MasterChef just because I’m completely in awe of how the people are just able to make stuff out of nothing because that’s not my process. I think I would suck at that. So I love watching that, people who are so creative and just so brilliant. So yeah, I think that’s one show and I do like to watch Jamie Oliver Quick Meals.

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

I did just stumble upon a new blog recently, it’s called Oatgasm. It has the most beautiful photography, and the writing is just poetic, and she is just 17. You have to look at this website.

And of course there is Linda Lomelino. She’s a hero for any baker out there. So she influences me a lot in terms of the kinds of things she puts together, the pairings and also the photography. And there’s one more – Smitten Kitchen. I admire her immensely because for her it’s not only about the photographs at all, it’s just the recipe and that’s just fantastic.

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

I’m not a big social media person. I think I just got on Instagram a couple of months ago. I follow a few people but I don’t really watch out for any particular ones. I’m just drawn by a particular style of photography and I do that every day. So I look out for new people every day and I think because I’m so new to Instagram, I’m following new people every day. I don’t have anyone specific.

On Facebook I have a few like Will Frolic For Food, Our Food Stories. I think food blogs that are so organic, the ingredients are so beautiful, and the way they put it together is so beautiful. It’s not contrived, it all seems so natural. I like that about them.

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

I think it’s my handheld mixer. I refuse to buy a kitchen machine. I do every possible thing with that hand mixture. I go through them pretty fast, I have a new one every few months.

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

Maybe it’s not an ingredient but a vegetable. I used to hate spinach, I’d refuse to eat spinach and I love it now.

What are a few cookbooks that make your life better?

I don’t really read cookbooks. That may sound really odd, but I think most of my stuff comes from talking to my mother or online food blogs.

Every week I say I’m going to go out and buy a cookbook because I see a lot of the blogs doing that, and I know I can learn a lot but I just . . . remember Gabriel, this is very still new to me, so I’m still in the process of trying everything.

What song or album just makes you want to cook?

It would of course be John Mayer’s newest album, Paradise Valley. I love every song on that album. I just want to have a glass of wine in my hand and be cooking away.

On Keeping Posted with Rakhee:

I think the best way is Facebook or Instagram. I’m also on Pinterest. I’m not that active. I’m trying to be. It’s just an effort for me, but the best way really is Facebook and Instagram.

041: Nik Sharma: Exploring the Culinary Arts and Food Photography

May 27, 2015 by Gabriel Leave a Comment

Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS

A Brown Table

Nik grew up in India and the United States. The non-traditional dishes on his blog represents this experience. He believes in using fresh, seasonal whole foods and knowing where his ingredients come from. A Brown Table was recognized by Better Homes and Garden in 2014 as a top ten healthy food blog. Nik recently gave up his job in the pharmaceutical industry to follow his dream of learning more about the culinary arts.

I am so happy to have Nik Sharma of A Brown Table here on the show today.

(UPDATE: Since recording this episode, A Brown Table was chosen as the winner of the International Association of Best Culinary Professionals – Best Photo Based Culinary Blog of 2015, and is a Finalist in the 2015 Saveur Blog Awards for Best Photography.)

On His Upbringing in India:

I come from a mixed background where my dad is from the north and he grew up Hindu and my mother is Goan who grew up Catholic. So it’s an infusion of cultures which is what I try to reflect in my food, but it’s also something that I grew up with where you eat everything.

That is something that my parents gave us, both me and my sister the opportunity to do that. We were very fortunate in that sense to try everything out at least once. But make up your mind about it and then you decide. That is something I strongly believe in. I think people should explore food. There’s a lot out there. And have fun with it more than anything.

On His Interest in Cooking:

Growing up, both my parents had day jobs. I think Thursdays were my day off from school and I had to take care of my sister at a certain point. So she would come home from school and she hated my mother’s food.

My mother’s a good cook but I feel like my grandmother, her mother, was a better cook. We always lean through with my grandmother’s food. Anyway, I started learning how to cook at that age because neither of us wanted to eat what my mother cooked. It was good food. It just wasn’t something that we were interested in so I started exploring, going through my mother’s cookbooks and notes that she had collected before getting married, and I started exploring those recipes by myself.

A lot of them were desserts. I have a strong sweet tooth that shows up quite a bit on my blog. So that’s when I started to cook.

I also spend a lot of time with my grandmother where I’d watch her cooking and she would talk about how you need to cut all the vegetables to the right size, they should all be similar, and stuff like that.

On His Culinary Influences:

For me, it’s been more to explore and see what’s out there because my personal belief is that I do not want to get restricted to be in one genre. I’d like to learn as much as I can because there’s so much out there and you live once. Why stop yourself?

Definitely when I moved here, there was definitely that stage where I wanted to taste a lot, get an idea. Because in Indian food, I think the flavors are a little stronger and there’s definitely a mix of what doesn’t match can actually be mixed and brought together in Indian cooking.

Whereas in Western food, it’s a little more mellow and subtle; flavors are kept subtle. So over the years, I’ve definitely learned to strive to get close to a mixed balance between the two. I think I’ve become better at it. I don’t think I’m an expert in any sense. But I think with each recipe, I try and strive for that.

On Experimenting with Indian Flavors:

I always say start basic and simple. That’s how I’ve learned. I think a lot of the Indian food, we use a lot of combinations. So there’s like the garam masala, then there’s like when you make chana masala, there’s a separate mix. It’s nice for me. My experience has been to go back to the spice mix because that’s the root of all the flavor. Go back, make it from scratch.

You may find that certain ingredients in there, you may not like them individually but they actually make the dish up as a whole. So I think it’s important to go back to the basics. Knock everything down piece-by-piece and that’s something you learn in science.

When I worked in science, one of the things we do is hypothesis testing. Go back to the basics and break everything down and then build it up again from scratch. I think that really applies to food as well. I think not only with Indian food but any cuisine.

On Starting His Blog:

So I was in the habit of entertaining a lot of friends at home for a while. It’s something that I enjoyed doing. Then a couple of them, and I think this sounds a stereotypical way of friends or family members tell that, “You should start a blog.” I said, “Okay, let me go ahead and do this thing.” and it sucked. It sucked. It was way too much work for me and I decided to scrap the whole thing. Because I couldn’t keep up with it. I just started school. I was working full time. I was about to start in school in the evenings and it just wasn’t happening. It wasn’t coming together.

So then, a couple of months later, we had gone to visit my now mother-in-law’s house. She said, “I think you should go back and give it a shot.” So I said, “Well, I think my photography sucks,” number one, and all the blogs out there that I’m drawn to are visually just stunning. I can spend hours just scrolling back through the pages and I don’t have it.

I said, “Well, maybe I should invest a little money in a simple camera and then give it a shot.” So I went ahead and I did that. I started practicing a little bit. And then I thought, “Maybe I also need a concept and I wanted it to be something more personal. It didn’t matter if it’s mainstream or not.”

That’s the other thing in blogging. You have mainstream and then you have off-site, probably just never does well. And that’s where I was coming from. I said, “Let me talk about the food that I make at home. That’s a fusion of cultures. Let’s do that. Lets infuse things and see what happens. If it works, it works; if it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work.”

So I tried it again.

I started finding my voice and personality which is when I started falling in love with it. I think the main thing for me there was I was talking from my heart. My food was coming from my heart. I think that’s important in anything that you do. Blogging or a job, it should come from your heart, and then you’ll enjoy. And that worked for me.

On Finding His Style of Photography:

I think it’s really important to find your own voice. It takes time.

When I started blogging, one of the things that a lot of food bloggers, we do as a community is you go and submit a photograph to photo curating sites, which is all good and done deal at the end of the day. It gives you traffic but also you have to remember why you’re blogging. For me, it was expressing myself through food and also getting to be creative which I wasn’t getting to do at work.

Photo curating sites are good to a certain point. Take the advice they give you with a grain of salt and move on. When I stepped away from all of that, I feel I grew as a photographer, as a cook. That helped me because I stopped caring about the numbers.

In blogging, we get really focused on numbers so much. As soon as I stopped focusing on that, I felt happier with my work. I’m not saying I’m perfect right now. I’m definitely not. I still see faults in everything I do. But as a person, I feel happier with my work now. I think that’s what people need to focus on. Just be happy with what you do.

Alot of the times, the style that I’m doing now is something that I’ve always wanted to do. When all these sites people come and tell, “Don’t do this because they don’t want this. This is not good.” For me, the biggest step was putting my hands out. You see my hands a lot with my photographs. I like to do a lot of process shots because I’m not very good at writing, so I like to visually tell people. If I’m making a recipe, I’d like them visually to see what’s going on.

For me, that’s an easier way to get that message across. So for me, that was something important but a lot of sites did not want that. I said, “Well, let me take a chance and see how this works out for a couple of months. So far, it’s been fortunate enough that people have been very receptive about it, so it’s good.

On Following His Passion for Food and Culinary Arts:

My husband has been my number one supporter of everything that I’ve done. As a kid growing up, I wanted to go to chef school. My mother said, “Well, a lot of chefs, all they do is they sit in the kitchens. I’ve seen them because this is what happens at work. They are sitting in those walk-in freezers peeling onions and cutting their fingers. I don’t think it’s meant for you.”

So I went the traditional route as all Goan Indian families push you to do. It’s either engineering, medicine or something more stable. I went with that and there were still those nagging feelings that I enjoy being creative. And I love biochemistry. That’s one of my things. And a lot of foods is especially based in the pastry field. It’s all about chemistry, like knowing biochemistry and why stuff does what it does in food.

I started noticing that as I started applying those rules from school into my food, my baking skills improved quite a bit. So in that sense, I found that I wasn’t really going to step away from all the knowledge I had gained in school, so it wasn’t a waste but it’s helped me quite a bit.

I talked to my husband a couple of months. We had moved from DC to San Francisco. I said, “I feel now that I’m at this stage where I want to take the dive. And if I don’t do it now, I’ll always regret it. I want to have a professional angle to my work.” So he said, “Well, okay. Go ahead. See what’s out there.”

I called out every bakery that was close by. No one responded. I had almost given up and finally got a call from this lady who says, “So you had called up both of our bakeries. It sounds like you’re really interested. Would you be willing to come in and talk with me?” I said, “Sure.”

So I went in with no expectations. Because a lot of the people that actually called me back, a few of them that actually called me back said, “You don’t have a culinary degree, so we’re not gonna take you in.” But then again, to that end, I had read a lot of blogs who had said, “Go out there. Get the experience before you do decide to do anything professionally because it’s so different. It’s not at all a glamorous field. You’re on your feet all day.”

So I met this lady and she was really nice and kind to give me a chance. She said, “Come on in. It’s definitely a hard business, especially pastry because you’ll get up at 5:00. You are in sometimes at 5:00 and you’re on your feet all day long. So it’s a hard life, but let’s do a trial phase. And if you like it and if we like you, we’ll keep you on.” So I did that for a long time, for a month.

The trial was a month, and then I asked them. I said, “Do you want me to come back? What’s going on? Because I’m still working at the other job I attend during the week. I’ve gone part-time on everything.” I said, “I’m still working in my pharmaceutical job and then this at the side. I’d really like to just really give it all up and come here? Do you want me?” She said, “Yes, we would love you to come back. But just remember, it’s going to be tough.” So that’s when I said, “Okay.”

I spoke to my husband at home. He said, “Go for it,” and did it and I’m happy I made the decision. It helps having someone who supports you emotionally during the whole phase because it’s scary. I’m still scared about what’s going to happen tomorrow because it’s such a risky business.

It’s worth the risk. I feel like if you feel like it’s something you’re questioning, give it a shot if you can. I’m not saying everybody can do it. It’s a financial risk. It’s a stability risk, I feel. So go ahead. Give it a shot if you can. Go for it a little bit. If you don’t like it, okay. At least you tried it. Move on. I think that’s critical.

The Pressure Cooker:

Which food shows or cooking shows do you watch?

It’s called The Great British Baking Show on PBS. That’s one of my favorites.

America’s Test Kitchen is another great show to learn from, and Lidia’s Italy. That’s another really good show to learn about food and culture and flavors. I guess all those are all PBS shows.

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

Gosh, there are so many good ones so calling any specific ones up will be hard.

I’m sure everyone is familiar with the best blogs out there, so go ahead and look those up. But when it comes to some of the more different ones, I would say, feel free to choose a great community to get involved in and learn from them. America’s Test Kitchen, again. They have a great resource on their website, and The Kitchn is another great resource to learn from.

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

Dogs of Instagram?

I have a dog. I obsess over my dog like a crazy person. Yeah, so Dogs of Instagram.

Pinterest, I follow a lot of food photographers and photographers in general. So it’s hard to pinpoint any one person, but anything that I find different from stuff that I do and that visually speaks to me.

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

My ice cream maker. I love ice cream. I love making ice cream at home.

If and when I go to culinary school, and if I get to open a restaurant or a little shop, ice cream would be a special section. So yeah, ice cream maker.

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

Radishes. I hated radishes as a kid. I thought they were the nastiest things that existed.

I still don’t like the large, white radishes. I still find the flavor a little disgusting. But radishes, the Easter egg radishes, I’ve come to appreciate that they look cute. They’re not that harsh in flavor, so I like those a lot.

What are a few cookbooks that make your life better?

I do collect a lot of pastry books. Some of the ones that I really find useful are the ones, again, by America’s Test Kitchen because there’s a lot of talk process.

I like the books by Thomas Keller from Bouchon and The French Laundry. Those are really good books to own.

Also, a lot of the culinary textbooks from the CIA. If you don’t want to buy a lot of cookbooks, those are some of the good resources to learn from, so I always have those stocked.

What song or album just makes you want to cook?

As of now, I would say Taylor Swift’s new album. I love that CD.

On Keeping Posted on Nik:

Instagram would be the best way. Then my second social media platform that I really use is Facebook. Those two are the two that I love.