Joy of Cooking | The Dinner Special podcast

125: Posie Harwood: A Career Cultivated from Growing Up on a Farm

June 1, 2016 by Gabriel Leave a Comment

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600 Acres

Posie grew up on a farm that is just over 600 acres where here family had access to the freshest of milk, eggs, and harvests from their well-attended garden. On her blog, 600 Acres, is where she shares some of her memories as well as the new things she is cooking and trying in places far from her home. Posie had worked as a food writer and editor for Tasting Table, Food52, King Arthur Flour and she contributes to Sift Magazine.

I am so pumped to have Posie Harwood of 600 Acres here on the show today.

(*All photos below are Posie’s.)

On Growing Up on a 600 Acre Farm:

I look back and I think how lucky I was because we grew up drinking raw milk and my mom made everything from scratch. We didn’t have chips or any of that stuff. But I never felt like, “Oh man, I feel so deprived.”

When I got older and people started talking about organic food and all that kind of stuff, to me, I always thought, “What else is there?” That’s what I’d always known. Now I realize how lucky that is. Some people have to learn that or seek it out. So, it was a really cool experience. I think it is responsible for what I ended up doing.

On Her Interest in Cooking:

My mom, she cooked every night and we always had family dinner, but she is an incredible baker. She always made bread for scratch. Just watching her, I learned a lot of the things I’d love to make and cook and bake. And I also think I just watched her have that natural rhythm in a household and picked up on that.

I never went to culinary school. I didn’t start working in food until a little while after college. So, I just always knew that was what I wanted to do. And not even what I wanted to do. I just felt like, “What else is there?” That is just in me. I feel I don’t have a choice. I have to.

On Leaving the Farm:

I’d spend a decent amount of time in spaces away from home. And then, going to college. I went to college in New Jersey actually and then I moved to Manhattan. I think New York took a lot of getting used to for me. I am really not a city person. I love New York. I think it is an amazing place to live and there is lots of food.

But I have always missed open space and fresh air. I know I won’t stay in New York forever. That’s always been a hard thing to just get used to. It is a pro and a con. It is an exciting, huge place. But sometimes I want to speak to no one for the next four hours, but you can’t when you are in New York. It is an adjustment. It is always a little bit of a balance. Now I work for a company in Vermont. So, fortunately, I get to spend a lot of time up there, which is a really nice balance.

On a Dish That’s Special to Her:

I guess I would have to say baking is my one main love. I feel like the first thing that ever really made me excited about food was baking bread. As I said, my mom, we never had store bought bread. She makes everything from scratch. My favorite thing is just white sandwich bread that she makes. It is the most delicious.

When it would come out of the oven we had all my sisters waiting just like rabid animals and she would cut off the loaf, the heel, and give it to one of us and we spread it with butter, which we always would have because we had cows. And she would churn it. So it was this really bright yellow Jersey cow butter and she packed it in these little ramekins. So, she would take a big swipe and put it on the bread and eat that.

That is the ultimate, that is the best thing. Now, every time when I bake bread, which is a lot, I am always making just that white sandwich bread loaf. And I am like, “Ah, this is heaven.” The thing is it is so easy to make. I think a lot of people are intimidated by yeast bread, which I feel like it is the kind of thing if you make yourself do once, it is totally magical and you realize, “Oh, okay, that is actually easier than so many recipes cooking- wise.” I mean, what are there? There’s like three, four ingredients. It just is all a matter of touch and just getting used to what it feels like, bread dough, and how it should feel.

The Pressure Cooker:

Which food shows or cooking shows do you watch?

Top Chef. I’m obsessed with Top Chef. And The Great British Baking Show. Also obsessed.

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

I love Smitten Kitchen. I love Food52, former employee, I have to say that. I also love The King Arthur Blog where I work now because it is incredibly informative, super good step-by-step baking. If you ever want to learn how to bake, or frost a cake, or make sourdough, check it out.

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

I love following Molly Yeh.

Funny, playful, great flavors, love her farm life snap shots.

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

Treasured item probably my stand mixer, I guess I have to say. It is bright red and I love it, and it does so much for me.

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

Mushrooms. I used to hate mushrooms and now I eat them all the time. I eat scrambled eggs and mushrooms twice a week for dinner.

What are a few cookbooks that make your life better?

Definitely the Joy of Cooking. That is a huge one. Always referencing it. And probably, I have the Cook’s Illustrated Best Baking Cook Book. That is another go to with everything I bake.

What song or album just makes you want to cook?

I really like cooking to reggae music. I listen to Bob Marley a lot when I cook because it just makes me want to dance around.

On Keeping Posted with Posie:

Definitely my blog, which is 600acres.com and Instagram. I am always Instagraming twice a day. So you can always check out what I am doing in my kitchen there.

117: Hannah Kirshner: Studying Food Through Work

April 6, 2016 by Gabriel Leave a Comment

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Sweets & Bitters

Hannah is the founder and editor of Sweets & Bitters, a blog and series of printed mini-cookbooks offering a beautiful and practical vision of everyday pleasure. Each volume features fun recipes with helpful tips, and sets the scene with photo essays.

Hannah grew up on a small farm in Washington State, and continued to study food by working her way through a number of varied food roles: from harvesting herbs on an organic farm to developing recipes for publications. She is happiest when her creative and culinary interests overlap.

On A Dish that is Special to Her:

Since I’m just back from my time in Japan, I’m thinking about Japanese food a lot. I had a little apartment there, and I would cook every day. I would go shop. There was a produce market and a butcher right next to my apartment on my street. It was so fun to go each day and get fresh things from them, and try and cook.

But I didn’t get to learn recipes as much as I wanted to. I’d imagined that I would be cooking with grandmas and getting behind the scenes in restaurants. And it took two months just to get to the point where I had those relationships. So maybe next time I go back, I’ll get to do that. But mostly, I was just cooking classic Japanese comfort dishes, or things that I already knew. I definitely had to shift the way that I cooked to suit the type of kitchen ingredients I had there.

One of my favorite things to cook for myself is Oyakodon, which is the rice bowl with chicken and egg. It roughly translates to mother and child bowl, which I just think is delightful.

First of all, let me just describe the whole dish for anybody that doesn’t know. It’s chicken thigh, usually, like the dark meat of chicken, and egg, and some negi, which is the Japanese green onion. It’s like a scallion, in between a scallion and a leek. It’s thicker than a scallion and a little sweeter. But you can easily use scallion too. So you’ve got the chicken, the egg, the negi, and sort of a sweet sauce, with sake, mirin, soy sauce, and dashi, the Japanese kelp and fish stock. And it’s over rice, so it’s just sweet and salty and savory, and it’s over rice. And it’s really easy and fast to make.

I would just crisp the skin of the chicken first, under the broiler, because that was my little change to it, because I love crisp chicken skin. And then, meanwhile make the sauce — dashi, mirin, soy sauce, and sake, and just get the balance of the sauce to taste right. And really, it can be to taste, a little sugar in there too. Then, add the chicken to that, cut it up into little bite-sized pieces, because you’re going to eat it with chopsticks, and then put that in the sauce. And then when it’s almost done, add the negi or a scallion. Then you beat a couple of eggs with a little bit more dashi, and just pour that into the pan, and let it almost cook, and just slide the whole thing onto a big bowl of rice.

The Pressure Cooker:

Which food shows or cooking shows do you watch?

I actually don’t watch any, I don’t have television.

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

As far as blogs, I really love David Lebovitz, he mostly writes about baking, and cooking in his little kitchen in Paris. And he’s so funny, and witty, and his recipes are really, really reliable. Also, the New York Times cooking site I use a lot. I really love the recipes form the New York Times.

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

Instagram is the only one that I really use. And farm animals, flowers, and food are the only things I want to feed my feed. Saipua, I don’t know if I’m saying their name right either, but it’s a florist from Brooklyn, and they actually moved upstate, and have a farm. I really love following them.

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

Just back from Japan, I actually purchased an iron nabe, big cooking pot, which made my luggage really heavy. But it’s hand hammered iron with a cedar lid, and it makes the kitchen smell like Japan every time I cook in it.

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

I think I still dislike all the things I’ve always disliked. There’s only a few. I don’t like peanut butter.

What are a few cookbooks that make your life better?

I really like the classics like, Joy of Cooking and Fannie Farmer. I like, How to Cook Everything. And then again, David Lebovitz, and Dorie Greenspan for baking, they’re two of my favorites.

What song or album just makes you want to cook?

There are some funny old jazz song like, Everybody Eats When They Come to my House.

On Keeping Posted with Hannah:

Mostly I use Instagram, though I’m on Twitter and Facebook.

111: Amanda Paa: How a Gluten Allergy Inspired Her

February 24, 2016 by Gabriel Leave a Comment

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Heartbeet Kitchen

On her blog, Amanda shares food stories and recipes with the hope to inspire us to realize that the best meals are those made with fresh seasonal and simple ingredients. She believes that food doesn’t have to be fancy nor does it require expensive equipment. Amanda is also the author of Smitten with Squash, her cookbook with 80 original recipes on the squash family.

I am so excited to have Amanda Paa of Heartbeet Kitchen with me on the show today.

(*All photos below are Amanda’s.)

On Learning How to Cook:

There were some things that I just watched Grandma do, like my Grandma made the best loaves of bread. I never rolled them out with her, or kneaded, or anything like that. But I always ate what came from it and it was always the same and it was always so good. I could smell the yeast coming from her oven and things like that. So I think it was definitely a little bit of both. Some watching, some helping. With my other Grandma, she makes lefse every year, which is a Norwegian specialty, and I did help her, from rolling the balls to then putting it on the hot iron to getting it real thin, all of those little things, I did do with her.

It wasn’t really until about six years ago, I was living in Wisconsin and I moved back to Minnesota because I did grow up here. But moving into the Twin Cities, there were so many more farmers markets, so much more of a farm to table movement and just interesting food. I had never really taken the time to learn about or experience and so, I had this thing where I’d go to the market and every time, I would pick a new fruit or a new vegetable or even a cut of meat that I had never cooked with before. And I said, “We’re going to experiment. There is no judgment here. Just let the creativity flow,” and that is really kind of how my blog started too. It really forged this passion for telling the real story behind real food and real food recipes and it never gets boring. Because there is always something new to learn.

On Her Food Heroes:

There is so much inspiration that we are so fortunate to have because of the Internet. Years ago, it was just cookbooks which I still am inspired by today. But there is so much content out there and beautiful work being done all across the world. It’s eye opening every single day, and so when I think of my own cooking and who has inspired it a lot, I think of some of my favorite blogs like Lindsey of Dolly and Oatmeal, and Sherrie from With Food and Love, and Sarah Kieffer from The Vanilla Bean Blog.The way she is with baking and her precision and her beauty, you can’t look at it and not be inspired.

And then I think, even just typical sites like The Kitchn and Food52 have, whether it’s new ways of doing things or new ingredients that they are coming up with ideas for, and just the way that they look at food really inspires me.

I also have to say too, like even traditional people, I mean, I think Martha Stewart is phenomenal and she has gone through how many decades and not only evolved with but kept her brand. I only wish that I could throw a dinner party like her. Every little touch she does is really something special. And she takes the time to do it. I think that that’s part of what I love too and the change in me is that, cooking is an experience and I wrote about this on my blog. It’s much more than just for your health or for just putting it on the table. It evokes emotion, it can change mood, it can bring conversation. It’s just a beautiful thing.

On How Her Gluten Allergy Impacted Her Cooking:

So I have had quite a few autoimmune issues since I was young and still kind of battle it. But we finally figured out that one of the main stressors and causes was an intolerance to gluten. It was causing severe headaches and rashes and different things like shingles that I got when I was in eighth grade. I mean just very odd things, and finally, one doctor suggested that I stop eating gluten and it was basically like a miracle. Within three weeks, I was much, much better.

And at first, it was daunting. It was like, “What? You’re telling me I have to give up all of these foods that I love and I have to kind of relearn how to cook? How am I going to eat out?” All that type of stuff. And I can say today, that I would not probably be here sitting and talking to you if that had not happened, because what it did was inspire me to say, “Okay, here is what I can have. Let’s embrace this,” and what happened was it opened my eyes to all these new foods that I had never tasted or nothing that I grew up with, whether it be gluten-free grains like millet and sorghum, or teaching myself how to make flat bread that’s made from chickpea flour known as socca.

And to really too start to look at different cultures because, a lot of other cultures don’t use as much wheat or they use it in different ways, and so there are a lot of cultural things too that really were like, “Wow, this is good. I’ve been missing this for all these years?” And what I also started to realize was that most real food, that’s grown from the ground, plants, lean proteins and meats that are grown in a humane way, fruits, nuts, seeds, all those things are naturally gluten-free anyways.

It’s most of the processed food where the problem comes in. It made me feel good to get that burst of energy in the kitchen. And I wanted to share that with other people. Because as I was going along, I was meeting all these farmers or these artisans that were doing this really cool stuff that it didn’t matter if you were gluten-free or not. It was just really good stuff.

On Some Good Sources for Learning How to Cook with a Gluten Allergy:

It’s funny you ask that, because I had someone message me the other day. Their friend had just found that she was gluten-free. She was like, “Where do they start? How did that work?” And my first resource and still someone that I truly love and really think is such a benefit for the gluten-free community is Shauna from Gluten Free Girl, and her and her husband started a blog before gluten-free had really even been talked about. He was a chef and I read her book which was called, Gluten-Free Girl. It was more of almost a documentary but then also education on her whole transition, and it made me feel so much better. Like, “Okay, my world is not coming to an end. A, I feel so much better and now there is this whole new world of food that I get to explore,” and that was super, super helpful for me.

The other one, I don’t know if she blogs anymore. But her site is still very active. But Gluten-Free Goddess. There are so many beginner, basic recipes that will make you feel less intimidated, and that was really powerful for me too.

On Her Book, Smitten with Squash:

Smitten with Squash was published in July of last year. I was approached by the publisher who, they kind of do these, one book a year basically on a Midwestern fruit or vegetables that you love or that you’re very passionate about and the growing of it and history, because it is a historical publisher that publishes the cookbook. It’s the Minnesota Historical Society Press. They contacted me and were like, “You know, give us a few of your ideas, write a proposal around it. We’ve got a few others in mind.”

And I had always liked squash but what was interesting to me about squash, a couple of things is that, living here in Minnesota, our growing season is rather short. And squash, the family of squash between winter squash and summer squash, you can eat locally almost all year round here. Because summer squash is so abundant and then winter squash, you can store it for up to six months, and that will last you almost until summer squash is starting to arrive again. I thought that that was really neat because I do try to base my recipes off seasonal eating, because I feel like that’s when food tastes the best and you can become creative with what looks good at the market and things like that.

The other part that was really cool to me was that squash really is a part of every culture in one way or another and there aren’t very many foods that are like that. And so I just started formulating this idea about doing my whole book on squash and they accepted the idea.

There is 80 original recipes. There are about 40 summer squash recipes and then 40 winter squash recipes. And you’ll see everything from sweets to appetizers to pickles to main dishes, vegetarian to Paleo to kind of everything in there because it is so versatile.

The other real passion behind it is, you know how there are those foods that you had when you were young and you think like, “Oh my gosh, I do not like this because, this is probably the only way you can make it or this is the way I always see it served and I can’t stand this.” And when people talk about it, they are like, “Oh, yeah, well my mom made it, acorn squash. She baked it in a pan with some water and then when it came out she put butter and brown sugar on it. It’s just not good.” And I wanted to change that. I wanted to give people new ideas for what to do with summer squash in stuff like brownies or cake or things like that.

The Pressure Cooker:

Which food shows or cooking shows do you watch?

Chopped.

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

Well, the ones that I mentioned before. So The Vanilla Bean Blog, Dolly and Oatmeal, With Food and Love, Sara from Cake Over Steak has such an interesting food blog that has beautiful recipes but she also illustrates her recipes, and I know she’s been on your show, and she is fantastic.

If you’re looking for a wonderful vegan site, Abby from The Frosted Vegan has just a great way with words and she is one of those people that makes things very easy to understand. I love too, if you’ve never glanced over the blog, Green Kitchen Stories, just beautiful photography and wonderful, nourishing, healthy food that never loses flavor and is exactly what I love to do, which is cooking seasonally.

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

Well, on Instagram, I love following The Fauxmartha. She has her little girl that she posts pictures of, but her food scenes are just so incredible and simple yet they just make me want to start cooking. That is something that is obviously what we all aspire to do. Another friend, her blog, it’s called Sunshine and Sea Salt. And she is just a real good friend and is an amazing recipe developer as well, but her words that she writes on Instagram are almost like sometimes blog posts. They are just beautiful. Oh, Ladycakes too is a really fun one to follow along with, and I love following her. Those are a few of my biggest inspirations.

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

My most treasured, the one that I use the most that like, if you could only keep three things from your kitchen, would be my Le Creuset dutch oven because they are just workhorses. They do everything that you could ever want, and then I used to think it was strange that my mom gave me my grandma’s silverware and now, I love it and I use it in so many of my photographs, and it really means a lot to me when I see it. And then, thirdly, are some of my thrift finds that I find while I’m out. One of those is this real old baker’s scale. You’ll see it in a couple of my posts and on my Instagram but they just don’t make things like that anymore.

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

Ricotta cheese. I used to not like the texture. I only really had it in lasagna and I prefer cottage cheese over it in lasagna and that’s what formulated this dislike. Now, I think it is so great whether that’s baked with lemon and olive oil and herbs for an easy appetizer, or on salads. My favorite thing too is to put it into desserts where typically, you might use yogurt or something like that. It creates such a soft texture and moist, rich, just kind of like cake and it’s really a fabulous ingredient. But I thought I hated it. Now, I love it.

What are a few cookbooks that make your life better?

Deborah Madison’s Vegetable Literacy is, I mean, that should definitely be in your kitchen because it’s all about cooking with families of plants and how they all go together. It’s just really simple but interesting recipes and I use that as not only a reference guide but something every week in my kitchen.

Another one that I think you just should have it is Joy of Cooking, because every single technique or question you ever had about food is in there. There are also vintage recipes and modern new ways of doing things which I think is really cool.

One of my newest cookbooks that I use a lot and that I love is Sheet Pan Suppers and it’s all different recipes and it’s not just suppers but things that you can make on a sheet pan and have so little clean up. Very little clean up, like a sheet pan is just another workhorse too. And it creates delicious meals.

What song or album just makes you want to cook?

I wouldn’t say it’s any particular album or anything, but 50s and 60s music, some of those classic kind of blues but like, pop hits too. They’re all so upbeat and all have such a happy tone. They don’t make you think too hard and that’s kind of what I always have on in my kitchen.

On Keeping Posted with Amanda:

I am on Facebook and Instagram as heartbeetkitchen and beet is spelled like the vegetable, just for my blog too. And I am also on Pinterest and I am also on Twitter.

Snapchat: heartbeetkitchn

110: Kate Payne: Stumbling on Homemaking and Food Preservation

February 17, 2016 by Gabriel Leave a Comment

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Hip Girl’s Guide to Homemaking

Kate is an author, freelance writer, and educator. She’s written two books, Hip Girl’s Guide to Homemaking and Hip Girl’s Guide to the Kitchen. And her writings can be found in publications like Edible Austin, HGTV Mag, and websites such as Canning Across America and The Kitchn. Kate learned to be an avid home canner and a gluten-free baker while living in New York City and she now also teaches classes on home food preservation.

I am so happy to have Kate Payne of Hip Girl’s Guide to Homemaking joining me here on the show today.

(*All photos below are Kate’s.)

On What a Typical Day Looks Like:

Every day is very different. Either I am preparing for a class which usually means I am gathering vegetables, I am emailing farmers or I am buckling down and doing some writing, which happens often. So in those days, I hole up with the computer and a cup of tea and nail out maybe three or four hours of time to sit and write or work on other deadlines and things like that. I also just launched a bitters line. So now, my days are interesting and they have new bitters making tasks in them as well.

It’s pretty all over the place. I am a procrastinator. So my writing usually is fit into the very last time slot between when it needs to be turned in. I try, I really try to set up times where I have a morning writing schedule or routine, but I am not having much luck with that.

On Food Preservation and Canning:

I think my mom would vote me the least likely to be domestic leaving high school and into college. But I really took it on and moving to Brooklyn, moving to New York in 2008, the stock market broke and I was trying to start freelancing. I was even applying for other jobs and I felt like my budget didn’t really match. My capabilities for spending money didn’t match the opportunities that I would have liked to spend money. So I really felt like it was time to get creative and if I like jam, maybe I should learn how to make it. If I wanted pickles in the house, then I better figure out about making those because buying a $10 jar every week isn’t going to work out any longer. So, I stumbled into it via the food community, going to the farmer’s market, getting a CSA.

I had some great mentors with food preservation. I found a mentor in New York City. I now live in Austin, Texas. I moved back about five years ago. But I found a mentor in New York, Eugenia Bone is her name, and I am sure everyone is familiar with her, but she wrote a book around the time that I was researching called, Well-Preserved. And that’s a really wonderful guide to folks in food preservation, and she was kind enough to let me into her home after I invited myself over and decided to ask some questions. She was a great mentor and she actually wrote the foreword to my second book.

On Encouraging Home Cooks to Try Food Preservation:

I think, first of all, just knowing some basic science which you can read in just a few pages of either my book or a few resources that I have put forth in my book. Just understanding the science behind it, you will understand very early on then that you are not going to kill your friends and family with a jar of jam, most likely. Similarly, you are not going to likely kill your friends and family with a jar of pickles either.

So, the things that we find very intimidating, it’s because we just don’t have the knowledge of how botulism bacteria is borne. My first canning experience was canning peach jam, and I was sure that the bubbles inside the jar were botulism spores or something. And it was just me not knowing that you couldn’t even see them if there were, but they can’t bloom in that environment.

We create safe products by following simple recipes and basic kitchen cleanliness like don’t pet the dog and then shove stuff in your jar, rather than try to achieve sterility. That’s just so not possible because oxygen is all around us. We are breathing and everything travels in the air. So, really, I just try to remind people to relax. So if you prep the fruit or cut up the veggies the night before, and then the next day you actually make the thing, those are the most practical and simple recipes to do because it really just cuts it up into reasonable chunks of time rather than saying, “Hey, you have three hours to work on this,” which many of us often don’t.

On Some Good Resources for Learning More about Food Preservation:

I would definitely recommend both of Linda Ziedrich’s books, The Joy of Jams, Jellies and Other Sweet Preserves is one. And then, her other book, The Joy of Pickling. She is also one of my mentors. She reviewed the whole draft of my first book’s manuscript and really a great food preservation mentor. But her books are amazing, wonderful, small batch, really highlight the flavor in seasonal aspect of foods and you will not go wrong with her.

And then, a newer resource, not when I was actually getting started but I think you spoke recently with, Cathy Barrow of Mrs. Wheelbarrow. And she just wrote a beautiful book that has a lot of great information on pressure canning. In my book, I don’t really have a tutorial. I teach some classes on pressure canning, but I think it is so important to be able to put up your broths and stocks that you make, your bone broth and everything you are making nutritiously in your kitchen, to be able to store that on the pantry shelf versus in your freezer.

On Her Books:

The homemaking book was the first book. Came out in 2011. I moved to Brooklyn in 2008 and upon getting there, I was feeling like it was the final exam for everything I had learned post college and in my DIY. How do you grow stuff? How do you clean the house without toxic chemicals that cost money? And how to not let all the groceries, the farmer’s market goods that we got, go to the compost pile? I just felt like, “Oh my Gosh, I need some help here. And I think other people like me would like all the stuff pulled together.”

So I started the blog for Hip Girl’s Guide to Homemaking and just started putting stuff out there because there was another aspect of it for me that was very intriguing, and it was that I hadn’t been in the kitchen before in my post college years. I mean, as minimally as possible. I was just sort of, “Here I am. I am in the kitchen but not willingly.” And then I get to New York, and I am trying out making my own bread because gluten-free bread at that time, you bought a door stop if you were getting a loaf of gluten-free bread. So I was like, “I can make better than this for less than nine dollars a loaf for sure.” So I actually liked it, I liked being in the kitchen. I was wondering, “Is this okay. I am a modern young woman, empowered woman. Am I allowed to like being in the kitchen in terms of my feminist friends?” And the answer was yes, and a resounding yes from everyone all over.

I really wanted to explore that in the Hip Girl’s Guide to Homemaking that gender is not…to try to drop some of the previous attachments that we’ve had to the kitchen and to the home, in general, using a controversial word like homemaking to begin with. So, yeah, I really wanted to explore all of that stuff. Then the Kitchen book, turns out I had so much more to say about the kitchen because I myself had a rocky past with getting to a place where I felt comfortable and confident. So, I don’t think it happens overnight, but I definitely wanted to let people know how to go ahead and start getting used to the kitchen or get more kick ass in the kitchen.

The Pressure Cooker:

Which food shows or cooking shows do you watch?

I don’t watch any cooking shows because I don’t have a TV, and I am not really into television so much. But I’ve enjoyed some of the America’s Test Kitchen shows via the computer and all that.

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

I’d say that you would have to know about Food in Jars and you want to visit The Kitchn. Food52, I think, is another great aggregate site. And then, wellpreserved.ca. Those are my friends, Joel and Dana, that live in Canada. And then, there’s also Punk Domestics. I think that’s another great source and site for everybody to visit because it’s a great place where everyone’s recipes get pulled.

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

Well, I am really into the Dram Apothecary. Great feed and beautiful photos, and I am really into the style and design that they are doing, and I just love them. Of course, there’s Tuna Melts My Heart and he makes me pretty happy, and all the pets in the feed of my dog’s Instagram feed, she only follows pets. So just scrolling through the pets only feed is great.

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

I think the most treasured item I have in there is a Le Creuset baking dish that I bake my cakes in. It’s a white enameled Le Creuset that is a vintage one that has the little shell handles. And it’s beautiful, and I only paid $10 for it. I use it at least once a week if not more. And then, I really treasure my spatulas, my high heat rubber spatulas. That’s a weird thing to treasure I think, but I love them.

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

I’d say cabbage, in general, because I make kraut now. I make that bacon cabbage salad that we talked about and yeah. I’ve just never really been into cabbage and now I love all the things that you can do with it.

What are a few cookbooks that make your life better?

I think The Flavor Bible is a great resource for folks. I consult it often. I am a Joy of Cooking girl and specifically, there are couple of editions that I am really into and following those recipes from the 1996 publication. I am really into that one.

And then, I also visit Eugenia Bones’ book often. It’s called, At Mesa’s Edge. She’s just got a lot of basic recipes in there but are really versatile, and I just love her work in general. She is a great resource.

What song or album just makes you want to cook?

I guess, just the artist, in general, is Patty Griffin. She’s got a song called, Making Pies, and that’s a very inspirational song.

On Keeping Posted with Kate:

Well, I am on all the platforms. Though, I think more often you can see what I am doing at the moment on Instagram.

098: Brita Britnell: All About Nashville and Hot Chicken

December 9, 2015 by Gabriel 2 Comments

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B. Britnell

Brita is a Nashville native and on her blog B. Britnell she hopes to inspire us with recipes we’ll enjoy making, love eating and most importantly, be eager to share.

I am Gabriel Soh and I am so happy to have Brita Britnell of B. Britnell here with me today.

On Growing Up in Nashville:

I wasn’t born in Nashville, but we moved here when I was young, and I’ve lived here basically my whole life with the exception of college. I went to college in DC. So I’m very much a Nashville native. I absolutely love Nashville.

I will say I’m not into country music at all. I went through a year spurt in high school this one year where I really loved country music and since then I can’t stand listening to it if I’m being perfectly honest. But I love Music City. I love what it is to this city that I am in and just what it has become.

I feel like what it’s become is when people ask, “What do you do in Nashville?” part of me feels like I don’t have an answer, but it’s only because all I want to say is food and music and there’s 101 million different food and music things you can do every night in Nashville and I absolutely love that.

I love to make sure people know, that if they’ve never been to Nashville or maybe they’ve been, but they just walked down Broadway or went in all of the honky-tonk bars, is that there’s such an awesome music scene in Nashville outside of country music. We all appreciate the country music but there’s a really awesome rock-and-roll scene and a really awesome Indie scene and really anything that you can imagine. There’s just so much music in Nashville. It’s really great.

On the Role that Food Played in Her Home:

My father was born and raised in Italy in Sicily and moved here when he was in his twenties and my mom was born and raised in Georgia and so I got a very southern taste. My mom’s entire side of the family is fried chicken and buttermilk biscuits and sweet potatoes. And then my dad knows how to cook nothing besides traditional Italian food, honestly, and he loves to cook and he cooked all the time. Pretty much all he cooked was, I don’t want to necessarily say it was all spaghetti, but it was all Italian-inspired, for sure.

On the Food Culture in Nashville:

I had a big group of friends come and visit recently and I mentioned hot chicken to them and they didn’t know what I was talking about.

This is such a huge phenomenon in Nashville. I don’t think people understand until they get here. There’s a fried chicken place to every McDonald’s that we have. The myth behind the story is that this woman owned a restaurant and she found out that her husband was cheating on her and so she put a ton of paprika and cayenne and all this pepper in his chicken to punish him. He ended up loving it and started a restaurant and that restaurant is Prince’s. And so, since then it’s just hot chicken.

It’s essentially fried chicken that’s unbearably spicy. I can’t eat it. But there’s a hot chicken festival every year that the mayor comes to and it’s a really big deal here.

On Hot Chicken:

I always tell people you have to go to a hot chicken place. I think the absolute best place is Pepperfire. It’s a newer place but I just think that their recipe is the absolute best. I do a lot of Nashville food writing and do a lot of Nashville food photography. So whether or not I like it, I’m around hot chicken all the time. I always force myself to try it. That way I can at least say “They have good hot chicken. Or I don’t like theirs as much.” They’re all very spicy to me.

I actually have an article that I wrote for Thrillist that’s something like “X Number of Under the Radar Hot Chicken Dishes“. And there’s everything. Hot chicken tacos. Hot chicken taco salad. There’s everything. So I would definitely recommend the hot chicken.

Besides that, there is a place here in Nashville that I really like called Biscuit Love Brunch. I like to recommend that specifically to people just because I think it’s got a new-age new American feel while also having that southern-like “it’s all biscuits”, and they do have a hot chicken biscuit there.

On Her Blog:

I was just really bored at work, and during the summer it was super slow, and so I just felt like I needed a creative outlet. It was just this desire for a creative outlet and I did it because I wanted to write.

Honestly I didn’t know what it was going to be. I will say food had nothing to do with it. I never started my blog thinking that it would be a food blog.

I did think, “Oh, maybe once or twice a month I’ll share a recipe. That’ll be fun. I like to cook.” I never imagined that it would turn into a food blog. When I started doing those once or twice a month recipes I realized that was the part of it that I loved the most. It in a way felt like I had purpose as opposed to this “Let me come up with this witty article.”

On How She Learned to Cook:

I just figured it out. I didn’t cook a lot in college. I actually didn’t cook a lot growing up at all to be perfectly honest. It was one of those things that my mom jokes about now. She’s, “I always tried to get you in the kitchen and you wouldn’t even fry an egg.” But I’ve always loved to eat, I feel like, more than the average person. I’ve always been really into food but I just loved to have other people cook it for me.

At a certain point I just dove into it and I just wanted to know everything about it. I listened to lots of food podcasts and read everything I could. I would like to say I’m just self-taught. My husband is also a great cook. In everything that he does, he’s very technical.

The Pressure Cooker:

Which food shows or cooking shows do you watch?

I’m a huge fan of Chopped. I have it in my mind that they should do a Chopped blogger version. I really like Chopped. I like to watch Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives. There’s always a lot of Nashville places on there so I think that that one’s fun.

My husband’s really loves watching Mind of a Chef. So we watch that a lot. Chopped and Mind of the Chef are two of my favorites.

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

I already mentioned Joy the Baker’s blog. I absolutely love it. I will be honest that for me food blogs are a lot about the photography. So my favorite food blogs are mostly my favorite food blogs because of the photography. There’s a food blog called Local Milk. She caught my eye because she’s local. She lives in Chattanooga and does a lot in Nashville so in the same State as me, and her photography is just the most beautiful photography to me. She also does have really great recipes on her blog. I’ve made quite a few. And I also really like My Name is Yeh. She does, I want to say mostly baking, but she definitely does other stuff. Those are for sure some of my favorites.

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

I’ve not gotten into Snapchat. I tried. Literally the only person I’ve ever snapchatted is my husband. I keep saying I’m going to get more into that. And Periscope. I haven’t even downloaded Periscope yet. But I’m really big on Instagram and again just going back to the whole food photography thing, I just love pictures.

I’m a very visual person and I just love the pictures. Local Milk has really beautiful pictures so I love looking at hers. Who else? I follow this one account called This Wild Idea and it’s a Tennessee account and it’s actually a dog, but it’s the same thing. The pictures are really beautifully done and I love that. So again, it’s a lot about the photography for me.

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

I will say I have this spinny thing that you put eggs on and it sits on the counter top. I could never use it because in America we refrigerate our eggs and you keep them in the carton. About six months ago, earlier this season, we got chickens which has been such a great fun experience and so now I’m able to keep the eggs out on the counter.

I love walking in my kitchen and seeing this. It’s this circular thing where the eggs go around it and when you take one egg off the rest spiral down and it’s a neat thing to me. I just love that I have my own chickens and that I have the eggs in the kitchen. I love it. It’s a really cool thing to me. I like to brag about my chickens.

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

This is going back a little bit but when I was a child I absolutely hated peanut butter. I hated peanut butter. I don’t know why, and now I love it. I do a lot. I have a lot of peanut butter recipes on my blog. I have a peanut butter pie that is one of my most popular recipes and I have no idea why.

The smell of peanut butter made me sick. I couldn’t stand it but I absolutely love it.

I want to say a lot of spices. I never really cooked with spices until I got into my mid-twenties and now it’s like I’m obsessed with spices. I just love messing around with them.

What are a few cookbooks that make your life better?

I have both of Joy the Baker’s cookbooks and I absolutely love them. I think she’s working on a third one. I have a cookbook of hers that I want to say it’s called Homemade Decadence.

If you go back and look at my earlier posts from when I first started, I often referenced how much baking made me nervous. I loved to cook but baking was such a complicated thing for me, which kind of goes back to the macaroons, but that one was a great thing for me because I was able to take some of her recipes and I think she does a great job of spelling it out.

We also have the Joy of Cooking which is different from Julia Child’s book but just the Joy of Cooking and it has every recipe you can imagine. I want to say it’s at least 500 pages if not a lot more. I’m not really sure but it’s a ton and it has just everything you can imagine. It doesn’t have more popular or more modern stuff in it. I don’t think it has anything quinoa in there, but it’s got every kind of main dish every kind of bread that you can imagine and it’s an awesome go-to.

It’s been a fun way for me to experiment. My husband and I sometimes literally will be, “We want to cook a dessert. Let’s do something we’ve never done before, but that we should know how to do.” I made cheesecake for the first time recently and so it’s just been neat having that cookbook. I highly recommend that one. I think it’s a good bit of money. I think it’s $50 but I think it’s everything that you could ever want to cook from fried chicken to cheesecake to just every kind of bread. It’s awesome.

What song or album just makes you want to cook?

I just started this thing on my blog. Every time I post a recipe I’ve just been posting a YouTube video. And I told the story about how I love to listen to songs on repeat. So I often do. I just will put something on and whatever catches my attention, I’ll hit that repeat button and it will play the entire time that I’m cooking and photographing. I think it drives my husband crazy but it kind of keeps me going.

I’ve been really into lately Lucy Rose. She’s a British musician and I think I heard her in something on HBO, like she was in the end credits. I Googled the song and I’ve been really into her recently.

On Keeping Posted with Brita:

I would say that if you go to my blog www.bbritnell.com, I’ve got all my social media there. The one that I’m most active on is Instagram and my Instagram handle is @b.britnell. I use Instagram the most.

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

December 7, 2015 by Gabriel Leave a Comment

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Healthy Nibbles and Bits

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

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

(*All photos below are Lisa’s.)

On Being a Lawyer and Becoming a Food Blogger:

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

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

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

On Being Fearless in the Kitchen:

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

On Her Curiosity Around Cooking and Food:

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

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

On Her Food Heroes:

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

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

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

On What She Would Make for Martin Yan:

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

On Her Blog:

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

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

On Where She Finds Inspiration:

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

The Pressure Cooker:

Which food shows or cooking shows do you watch?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What are a few cookbooks that make your life better?

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

What song or album just makes you want to cook?

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

On Keeping Posted with Lisa:

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

067: Sarah Fennel: Baking and Picture Taking

August 12, 2015 by Gabriel 4 Comments

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Broma Bakery

Since starting her blog in 2010, Sarah has inhabited seven different kitchens, graduated college, worked in marketing for a restaurant group and now works full-time on Broma Bakery. Her blog, Broma Bakery, is where she shares her love of food while indulging in her passion for photography.

I’m so happy to have Sarah Fennel of Broma Bakery on the show today.

(*All images below are Sarah’s.)

On Her Blog:

My dad’s a reporter, so I’ve always been around cameras and film and all of that stuff. So, from a very young age, I was always interested in photography, not necessarily food photography, but just holding cameras, taking pictures, things like that. Then, when I went to college, I really missed doing photography on a more regular basis.

At college, you get so stuck up with studying and not so fun stuff. So, I just decided to pick up my camera and started shooting food. The blog and the photography really came together in the same moment, in that, I missed my mom’s baking. I wanted to have some creative outlet and I just put them together.

I had no formal training. I had never done food photography before. I just picked up a camera and went with it.

On Her Interest in Baking:

I was always more interested in baking. My sister is a huge cook; she has been interested in cooking since she was 13 years old. She would help my parents cook almost every meal at my house, so she took on that role and I stepped back. But I’d always loved sweets; I’ve always had a huge sweet tooth. So, the baking came along more natural to me and it was a nicer reward for me in the end, to be able to eat desserts.

It’s a lot more precise and it takes, for me, my development is a lot of going to tried and true recipes I’ve used before, bloggers that I trust, and creating something new, but a lot of it is really taking stuff that you know is going to work and then working off of that, because there’s been times when I’ve tried doing things just thinking that I could make cookies or a cake and it’s really a science. You need be precise in what you do.

On Her Passion for Photography:

I was doing a lot of portraits. I did photography courses all throughout high school and then some in college as well, but I was really into taking pictures of people. I really liked engaging with different people. There was something about, when you put somebody in front of the lens and I guess have them shine through your pictures.

I, again, just really taught myself. I think that, if you look on my blog, my styling is very minimal, but there definitely is a style to it. I’ll use plain backdrops and things like that. And, in terms of that portion of the site, I thought it was really important to engage with my readers, just because there are so many people out there that are interested in food and food photography, but don’t really know where to start.

So many of my friends that have come over and see me taking my photos, the first time when they come over, they were like, this is what it looks like? I mean, the behind the scene is a lot more thrown together than you’d think. So, I thought it was really important to put that on the site, to make it seem a lot more accessible to people, and hopefully get them to be able to be inspired and start photographing food.

On Working on Her Blog Full-Time:

I guess it was fortuitous, really. I was working at this restaurant job and things weren’t working out. I wanted to make a switch and instead of jumping into something right away, I thought my favorite part of this job has been taking pictures of food.

I have this baking blog. It’s gotten good reception so far. Let’s give it a couple of months and see if I can really push this to be my full-time job. So, I just took a leap and went for it. Two months passed and I was like, I want to keep working on this. Then four months passed and it’s really just gone from there. It’s something I feel fortunate enough to be able to do as my full-time job and it’s definitely something that I want to have continue grow. But, yeah, it sort of happened and I went with it.

Doing it as a side project, I didn’t really set a schedule for myself. I didn’t set different tasks I had to do to keep up with things. Things that most people don’t realize is that, there’s recipe development and there’s photographing, posting, getting them out there, but then there is so much, in terms of social media and marketing and even just connecting with other bloggers, that goes into creating a successful blog, that takes so much time.

For me, I’ll wake up at 9:00 and I’ll just get a cup of coffee and go straight to my computer, and then I’ll comment on other blogs, see what’s been going on with blogger friends that I know and that usually takes about two hours to really go through and engage with other people. Then, I’ll switch to doing some Pinteresting. Pinteresting is really important, keeping yourself active on that. So, I’ll do that probably for another hour, take a break for lunch and then right after lunch, I’ll go into making a recipe and then photographing it as well. That can take anywhere from an hour and a half to the whole afternoon. Then sometimes, if I can get a workout in, I’ll do that.

On Some Misconceptions About Baking:

I think that there are two main things. In general, when people see baking and they see a brownie that’s perfectly fudgy or a cake that’s three layers, it seems like there is a lot that goes into it. And sometimes there is, but especially with my style of baking, it’s a lot easier than it seems. I mean, it is very precise, but as long as you’re following along with those directions and really making sure you have quality ingredients, those two things will take you far in baking.

Then, I’d say the other thing that really I’ve seen prevents people from doing things is things like Pinterest and all these blogs that have popped up, because you see this final products and they seem so unattainable, just because there’s so many of them and there’s perfect lighting and there’s these perfect bit shots and all of that. I think that really scares people and it makes them think that it’s something they can’t do.

My biggest piece of advice would be to just go out and try one of those recipes, and really see how it goes. More often than not, you’ll be surprised with what you can do.

On Messing Up in the Kitchen:

There have been so many times. It still happens all the time.

There was this one time when my sister and I were making a chocolate beet cake, like with beets. We followed the directions and we put the cake in the oven, and then we realized, “oh my God,” we didn’t put the oil in. So, instead of just a beet cake, we put it on the blog and called it a low fat beet cake. It totally worked, but things like that happen all the time.

There was one I did this winter. I was trying to do peppermint cookies, so I chopped up little circular peppermints and I baked them. They came out of the oven and they completely melted off of the cookies. There were these little candy drippings everywhere. And it was just absolutely awful. So yeah, it’s a regular occurrence in the kitchen.

On Some Online Resources for Those Interested in Learning More about Baking:

One site that I go to very regularly is Food52. It’s a fantastic site. It’s basically recipes that people submit, as well as recipes that the professionals at Food52 will recreate and photograph themselves, but then, in addition, they have this whole tips and tricks section, where you can learn things like if your baking soda is expired and how to make the perfect loaf and things like that. It’s been really helpful for me and it’s just beautiful photography. It’s a really nice site layout. So, I definitely would suggest that.

In terms of books, I really grew up with The Joy of Cooking and that’s the book that we constantly pulled out, anytime we wanted a recipe. So, just going to classics like that is really great, because you can’t go wrong.

The Pressure Cooker:

Which food shows or cooking shows do you watch?

I’m really into Chef’s Table, Ina Garten’s Barefoot Contessa and Mind of a Chef.

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

You got to know about Food52, How Sweet Eats is one of my favorite bloggers, Joy The Baker is like the queen of all things baking.

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

On Pinterest, I follow Half Baked Harvest. She’s an incredible photographer and she has really unique things. On Facebook, I follow Ambitious Kitchen. She does great healthy recipes, but then she also does some really fun workout stuff. On Instagram, Kale and Caramel. It’s really innovative desserts. I love it.

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

I don’t think it’s unusual at all, but my KitchenAid is my baby. My boyfriend got it for my birthday a couple of years ago and I use it at least three or four times a week, and you can just do everything with it. So, it’s the most worth it gadget I’ve ever owned.

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

I used to not like avocados. I thought they were overrated. I just didn’t get them and then one day, I just made avocado toast, because I was bored, and I’m obsessed with avocados now. I put them on sandwiches, I put them in my toast, put them with my eggs. Sometimes I’ll have them for dinner, love them.

What are a few cookbooks that make your life better?

Joy of Cooking, absolutely. Back to basics, it’s all you need. Then, the Dominique Ansel baking cookbook is unbelievable. The photos are amazing, the recipes are amazing. You’ve got to check it out.

What song or album just makes you want to cook?

Motown, like always. Put on Motown and I’m like bopping around the kitchen. It’s just so fun and I love it.

On Keeping Posted with Sarah:

Instagram is my favorite form of social media, so you can check me out on Instagram.

019: Amy Kritzer: Learning About Jewish Cooking and Culture

March 30, 2015 by Gabriel Leave a Comment

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What Jew Wanna Eat

Amy is a cooking teacher, recipe developer, personal chef, and food writer. And her recipes have been featured in Cosmopolitan and Bon Appetite just to name a few. Today, we’re talking about Jewish food.

I am so excited to have Amy Kritzer of What Jew Wanna Eat on the show.

On The Idea Behind Her Blog:

I was living in New York City and wanted a change, so I moved from where I lived to Austin, Texas.

I was working at a corporate job as a consultant and I just felt the need to do something a little more creative. I’d been reading a few food blogs and decided I might as well start my own.

My brother and I, growing up, we were always really into our heritage, our Jewish food, and we had this kind of running joke that we’d open the door for each other and say “after Jew”, instead of after you. So it’s just a Jew thing. It was always a joke we had, and he said, “Why don’t you do Jewish food? Like no one’s blogging about that kind of thing. It’d be different and fun.” So I said, “Yeah, why not?”

I just started it for kicks, and it ended up being my true passion. I looked forward to doing recipes every weekend and I would sneakily go on Facebook at work to update everything, and email my new readers.

It was so fun so I ended up quitting my job to go to culinary school, and that was three years ago. Now, I’ve been doing this ever since.

I’ve always been creative and definitely into writing. One of my prior jobs I had was as a conference producer, so I would write different copy and agendas and interesting things like that. So I’ve always loved writing. And I always loved cooking and baking.

Growing up I cooked a lot with my Grandma, who I call my Bubbe, which is Yiddish for grandma. I’d always cook with her. But I never thought of it as a career until more recently.

It’s definitely something I’ve always had a passion for.

On Where The Name of Her Blog Came From:

It was so my brother, as I mentioned, kind of did the “Jew for you” thing.

We were just kind of chatting about funny things, and I think it came up and we were like, “I don’t really know if that’s going to fly. Should I actually use it?”

In hindsight it’s definitely a name that stands out. People see it, they definitely have a reaction. And 99% of the time it’s a positive one like, “That’s funny. I get it, I get it.” And people are like, “Are you Jewish? Is that offensive?” “No, I am Jewish, that’s fine.” But it’s definitely helped me stand out I think, and it definitely says what my blog’s about right off the bat.

On Jewish Food and Jewish Culture:

In terms of Jewish food, versus maybe Italian food or Chinese food, it’s not just from a particular region. Jews have lived all over the world, and Jewish food’s actually evolved, so in different places the Jews have lived, they’ve taken the Kosher rules that they live by, and also some of the familiar recipes for holidays, like let’s say, matzah ball soup is a favorite of mine. It’s very traditional for Passover.

But if you go to Mexico where some Jews live, maybe they’ve added a little bit of spice or a little cilantro to their version. It’s evolved through the years.

Jews, unfortunately, have gotten exiled from a lot of different places. We lived in Eastern Europe and got kicked out of there. We live in America, and grabbed different things there. So living in Texas, I love to take some spices and local flavors and ingredients and adapt them to my food and my traditional recipes.

I think it’s okay to take something traditional and tweak it and add some modern foods and conveniences that we have.

A lot of the food I make is the Ashkenazi Jewish food. My heritage is from Eastern Europe. So I think if you were going to talk to Jews from the Middle East or Africa or anywhere else, they might have different staples.

Part of what I love with my blog is exploring these different types of Jewish food. And people always email me asking me if I can make a recipe that they grew up with, and it’s not something that I grew up with. So I’ve definitely learned a lot.

I would say you’re going to start with Jewish food with the Ashkenazi heritage, there are definitely some ingredients, such as matzah meal if you’re at Passover. Matzah is an unleavened cracker, and you can use it. It’s very popular around that time of year to make everything from matzah ball soup or you can use it to make matzah pizza. It’s a favorite of mine, or desserts using it.

Other Eastern European ingredients would be different kinds of cabbage and beets are really popular, so I like to incorporate those in different recipes.

The Jews had a lot of the tougher cuts of meats, such as brisket, or tongue even. So I’ll experiment with those as well. Things that people aren’t necessarily cooking. If you just give it a little love, you can make it really delicious.

On Some Good Resources to Learn About Jewish Cooking:

The good thing is Jewish food is kind of in right now, so there are definitely more books and restaurants about it.

A classic book, which is not Jewish per se, but Ottolenghi the Israeli chef. He makes gorgeous Middle Eastern-inspired food that definitely has some Jewish heritage to it. Joy of Kosher is a great blog, and she does some more kosher food, not necessarily always Jewish, but around the holidays especially it’s more Jewish food. The same with the Shiksa in the Kitchen, Tori Avey. She is a great resource. Jewish Food The Nosher, is a website as well.

On Cooking:

It’s funny, growing up I wasn’t that big into cooking. I was more of a baker.

I was more artsy, so I loved to make cupcakes and decorate them. I would definitely lean more towards baking brownies and cookies.

When I initially started my blog I wanted to start a baking blog. And then I starting thinking like, “Do I want to make cookies every day?” I’m like, “I don’t know if I want to do that.” So I started experimenting with more cooking, and I found that I loved it because you can be a little more freehanded with it.

When I’m cooking for my website, I measure everything to make sure I can let people know exactly how much I used. When I’m cooking for a fun, I’ll just throw a little bit of this and this in there, and clean out my pantry, and add different spices. You can really experiment, and I find it just very relaxing.

On Cooking Non-Jewish Food:

These days I definitely cook mostly Jewish food, I’m really busy with my blog and all my freelance work as well. But I like to experiment, especially with different kinds of Mexican cuisine. I like to try different Middle Eastern recipes that aren’t quite Jewish.

I don’t think I had any total disasters. I have had some times where, especially during Passover, when you’re trying to use weird ingredients, because you’re not allowed to have any leavened products. So you’re not having any flour during that time, so I’ll try to make a cake with some weird ingredients and it’s just totally flat and not the best thing. But I don’t think I’ve had any horrible, horrible failures, knock on wood, so far.

On Introductory Jewish Food for Beginners:

I think it may seem a little complicated, but I love making brisket, because you really can’t go wrong with it if you cook it. The only thing that can go wrong is if you try to boil it instead of cooking it at a low and slow temperature. It’ll take all day, but it’s really mostly hands off. You can even do it in your crockpot.

If you just let it go long enough, seven or eight hours, it’ll come out delicious every time. And you can really add whatever spices you want. I’ve cooked brisket in beer, in whiskey, in wine. I did a little spicy version, added some tahini, so you can really get creative with it, too. I think it’s impressive. People are always impressed.

I think that it’s a little more complicated, than maybe beginner, but it’s really not. I think people just think it’s tricky. That’s definitely a staple.

For more Middle Eastern I always make my own hummus now, and it’s not hard. I think people are a little afraid of using dried beans, but it makes a world of difference. And again, it’ll take a little time, but it’s way better than the stuff you can buy in the store.

One of my favorite hummus recipes is a hatch chile hummus. It’s a little spicy. And recently I did a pomegranate hummus, which is a little sweet.

And one of the most popular recipes on my site is for a whiskey and cranberry braised brisket that I did two years ago. Hanukkah fell on Thanksgiving, so they dubbed it Thanksgivukah, which was really fun. So I did a lot of combo recipes. This is kind of my Thanksgiving meets Hanukkah brisket, but I still make it all the time.

The Pressure Cooker:

Which food shows or cooking shows do you watch?

I am obsessed with Chopped, I could watch that all day. I just love to see what they do with these super weird ingredients, and I think what I would do.

I really love Top Chef, too. The chefs are just on another level, the stuff they come up with, and how fast they can cook things. It’s super impressive.

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

My Name Is Yeh is a really awesome blog. She’s actually half Jewish, so she makes some Jewish tweaks on her website as well.

One of my good friends, Little Ferraro Kitchen, she does a lot of ethnic foods. I love to see what she comes up with during Hanukkah. She did eight days of different Hanukkah food from around the world, so a lot of them were even new to me, so that was super cool.

Tori Avey, I mentioned. She does a lot of food history, too, so if you’re interested in history, that’s a great one.

And then you mentioned the Food 52. I love that. I don’t even know if I’d consider that a blog anymore, because they’re on another level. But they are great for discovering new foodies and their recipes are always on point.

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

Make me happy, let’s see. I’m really into Instagram especially. I just love the visual aspect of it. I just feel like that’s the new social network, beside Snapchat, but it’s like the cool one, I guess. I like to follow food people and non-food people, so for laughs I’ll follow Andy Cohen. He always has good stuff going on. I like to follow The Garden of Eatin, she’s in Toronto, and it’s E-A-T-I-N, The Garden of Eatin. She does just gorgeous food displays. It must take her an hour to set up these gorgeous shots. But I love following her.

And Infatuation on Instagram. They’ll repost different, other people’s stuff, and they’ll post a different restaurant. Their food always makes me drool, and I won’t even be hungry, I’m like, “I need to eat something.”

I love Instagram. There are so many interesting people.

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

I think besides the immediate staples, something I like to add is unique spices.

Something I’ll have for dinner all the time is just roast of some seasonal veggies with a different spice on it. Maybe make like with a spicy yoghurt sauce on top, or poach an egg and put it on top and that’s it. Especially if I’m eating something heavy during the day, or I’m going out to dinner, I’ll have a nice light lunch.

I think what makes the difference is adding a unique spice. I love using za’atar. It’s a Middle Eastern spice. It’s a blend of actually different spices. The main ingredient is sumac, which is a very citrusy lemony flavor, kind of subtle. There’s oregano in there, sesame seeds, thyme, and sea salt. So you can make it yourself, but it’s just got a really nice balanced flavor.

Then using smoked paprika I like a lot, especially if you’re keeping Kosher, so you’re not having bacon. It adds a nice smoked flavor to the foods, too, in different chilis or stews. It gives kind of a smoky aspect. So I would say a few unique spices can take your dishes, your staples you always make, and bring them to the next level.

Name one ingredient you cannot live without?

Oh, let’s see. I might say tahini. I’ve been really into tahini lately.

Something that I always have in my fridge is Greek yogurt. I’m obsessed with Greek yogurt. I have it a lot as a savory thing, too, so I’ll make like a savory breakfast with some Greek yogurt, and I’ll put in some pumpkin seeds and some hot sauce, which it sounds really weird. But if you think of Greek yogurt as just a very neutral flavor, and you can do so much with it. I’ll even mix that with some tahini some thyme and make a sauce.

Tahini is a sesame paste used in hummus, or I’ll mix it with some hot sauce and put it over some veggies. It’s just extremely versatile. It has a lot protein, so it’s really filling, too.

What are a few cookbooks that make your life better?

I mentioned earlier the Ottolenghi, all his cookbooks are just gorgeous, even just looking at them for the food photos, I love. I always go back to the Joy of Cooking. It’s a classic.

There’s a cookbook called Schmaltz, and Schmaltz is a rendered chicken fat, and it’s a whole cookbook dedicated to what to do with this chicken fat and how to make it. So it’s your traditional Jewish ingredient, but to see it in different ways is really fun. I’d love to try to experiment with that cookbook a little more.

What song or album just makes you want to cook?

I don’t know if I should, but I’ve been listening to a lot of Taylor Swift.

People who don’t like Taylor Swift are lying, I think. It’ll pump me up, and I’m really into 90s music.

I’m a 90s child, so I’ll put on like the 90s Pandora Station, or I don’t know, Whitney Houston, Pandora, and see what comes up. Just something kind of fun and pop-y, and it’ll get you in the mood for cooking for sure.

Keep Posted on Amy:

All my social media links are What Jew Wanna Eat, and you can sign up for my emails on my website. That’s the most consistent way. There’s a few boxes you can sign up there, or follow me on Facebook, Instagram, whatever your favorite way is. Instagram and Facebook are my favorites.

On Growing Up on a 600 Acre Farm:

On Her Interest in Cooking:

On Leaving the Farm:

On a Dish That’s Special to Her:

The Pressure Cooker:

On Keeping Posted with Posie:

On A Dish that is Special to Her:

The Pressure Cooker:

On Keeping Posted with Hannah:

On Learning How to Cook:

On Her Food Heroes:

On How Her Gluten Allergy Impacted Her Cooking:

On Some Good Sources for Learning How to Cook with a Gluten Allergy:

On Her Book, Smitten with Squash:

The Pressure Cooker:

On Keeping Posted with Amanda:

On What a Typical Day Looks Like:

On Food Preservation and Canning:

On Encouraging Home Cooks to Try Food Preservation:

On Some Good Resources for Learning More about Food Preservation:

On Her Books:

The Pressure Cooker:

On Keeping Posted with Kate:

On Growing Up in Nashville:

On the Role that Food Played in Her Home:

On the Food Culture in Nashville:

On Hot Chicken:

On Her Blog:

On How She Learned to Cook:

The Pressure Cooker:

On Keeping Posted with Brita:

On Being a Lawyer and Becoming a Food Blogger:

On Being Fearless in the Kitchen:

On Her Curiosity Around Cooking and Food:

On Her Food Heroes:

On What She Would Make for Martin Yan:

On Her Blog:

On Where She Finds Inspiration:

The Pressure Cooker:

On Keeping Posted with Lisa:

On Her Blog:

On Her Interest in Baking:

On Her Passion for Photography:

On Working on Her Blog Full-Time:

On Some Misconceptions About Baking:

On Messing Up in the Kitchen:

On Some Online Resources for Those Interested in Learning More about Baking:

The Pressure Cooker:

On Keeping Posted with Sarah:

On The Idea Behind Her Blog:

On Where The Name of Her Blog Came From:

On Jewish Food and Jewish Culture:

On Some Good Resources to Learn About Jewish Cooking:

On Cooking:

On Cooking Non-Jewish Food:

On Introductory Jewish Food for Beginners:

The Pressure Cooker:

Keep Posted on Amy:

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