The Dinner Special podcast

  • Episodes
  • Contact

099: Dennis Prescott: An Unfolding Food and Photography Journey

December 14, 2015 by Gabriel Leave a Comment

Dennis The Prescott on The Dinner Special podcast talking about how to keep posted with him.
http://traffic.libsyn.com/thedinnerspecial/TDS099.mp3

Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS

Dennis Prescott of Dennis The Prescott on The Dinner Special podcast talking about his unfolding food and photography journey.

Dennis The Prescott

Dennis cooks, photographs and writes all the time. His food photography is incredible, and I have to confess I get instant cravings when I see his beautifully made, styled and photographed food on Instagram and on his blog. You can also find Dennis on Food and Wine’s FWx.com where he’s also got some really cool videos up.

I am so excited to have Dennis Prescott of Dennis the Prescott here on the show today.

(*All photos below are Dennis’s.)

On Learning to Cook:

Dennis The Prescott on The Dinner Special podcast talking about how he learned to cook.

I lived in Nashville for a while, being down there as a guitar player. And being a musician was a wonderful experience, as a full-time musician. Got to do a ton of things and travel and everything else, but I did not get paid very well, because that’s the musician’s lifestyle. But I had come to really enjoy all of these different foods, traveling, and so I kind of decided, well, I can either eat pasta with butter on it, eat at the dollar menu at McDonald’s essentially, or I could learn how to cook. And it was one of those three.

So I went to the Nashville public library, I got a library card, which was probably the first library card I’ve ever had in my entire life, and took out three cookbooks. And then just started working through them, and I became absolutely just obsessed with needing to know everything about everything about food, and how to make every dish. So that’s kind of where it started for me, honestly. Just innocently I just really wanted to learn how to cook some dishes so that I didn’t have to eat junk food anymore.

The people around me encouraged it for sure, because they liked to try it. My friends seem to call me “All or Nothing Guy.” If I’m really passionate about something or if I’m into it, I’m really into it and I want to know everything. It was the same when I was a kid and I wanted to learn how to play guitar, it’s the same. I really like history, it’s the same with that for me, and food was the same thing. And now food and photography are the same thing with me, I just want to know everything about everything.

I’ve never gotten bored of it probably because there are so many things to learn. I don’t know 4% of all of the foods that can be cooked in the world. It’s amazing and I find that really exciting, honestly.

On His Blog:

Initially I started taking pictures of the food dishes that I was cooking just to remember them. I was making so many, working through all of these books and I thought, “I want to be able to remember the dishes that I really like,” so I started taking photos. And then this thing called Instagram kind of popped up, so I started an account. I think initially I started an account for my band actually, and then I started a personal one. And I started posting these photos, honestly horrible, horrible photos, on Instagram. You can just scroll through a few years ago and check it out if you need. But really that’s where it started for me.

And then all of a sudden I started to realize, I was like, “Wait a second, these photos, if you catch the light a certain way or if you do this.” I started to have these glimpses of what a pretty good food photo could be, and then I was like, “Oh wait a second, there’s something more to this here, right?” But initially it was all iPhone shots for honestly probably about two years, so just on my phone snapping photos for documentation.

I only had an Instagram account for quite a while, and probably just because my friends drove me crazy saying like, “You need to write your recipes down, you need to start doing this.” I was like, “Okay, I’ll do it.” And honestly it was quite a scary thing for me initially because writing those recipes or writing that blog I found to be a pretty vulnerable thing. And so jumping in I had a really hard time.

On Honing His Photography:

Dennis The Prescott on The Dinner Special podcast talking about honing his photography.

There’s been some mentors in my life. Some of them I know and some of them don’t know me at all, but I just really love their work. I’ve tried to find people along that way that I find really inspiring, both from a styling standpoint and from a photography standpoint. And then meeting people personally and saying, “I love your craft, can we sit down and have a coffee?,” something like that along the way.

The Internet’s an amazing thing where you can really go online and see all of this amazing work and put that into your own perspective and take that and say, “I’m not going to do it like that, but I love how this is lit.” Lighting is the biggest thing in photography. You can’t really recreate that necessarily unless you practice it. I took hundreds, if not thousands, of really bad shots to get some pretty good shots. And there’s still days where I struggle, because I shoot in natural light. So there’s some days where it’s really dark on the East Coast and you’re just like, “Okay, it’s not working today. It’s just not working for me.” But I really think it’s just this journey where you constantly try to get better and you look back.

The other thing that I try to do often is take a look at shots that I did maybe six months ago or something along those lines and go, “Okay, so what was I doing here? What am I doing now? And how did I get from A to B?,” so I can realize what I’ve learned along the way and keep learning that way. But aside from that, it’s just shooting, constantly shooting. My Instagram is only food for sure, but I shoot people all the time. When I’m lucky enough to travel, I probably take 1,000 shots in Philadelphia or New York City or Toronto or wherever that are just for me, but all of that helps you practice on how to capture composition and lighting and everything else. Which can then cross over into how you do food photography and how you do styling.

On His Photography Inspirations:

David Loftus is fantastic; he shoots most, if not all, of Jamie Oliver’s stuff. Daniel Krieger is a great friend of mine. He shoots cookbooks and for the New York Times and everything. So those two guys for sure for me are probably the ones who I gravitate towards their work. But there is Alice Gao, who has a great account on Instagram, who does some food but she does a lot of lifestyle shots, too. I try to follow a lot of those people, as well, who do travel and do everything, and just be able to constantly be inspired. But in terms of food, those two guys for sure are the ones that I initially fell in love with what they do.

On His Work on Food and Wine’s FWx.com:

Food and Wine, they’re wonderful. I’m not on staff, but I’ve been working with them for over a year. Some of their staff reached out to me through Twitter and sent me a message, said that they really enjoyed my stuff and wanted to see what we could do to collaborate. I was just going to do a project for them, or I didn’t even really know. I honestly freaked out because it was a huge deal for me, and still is, to be able to work with them. It’s a magazine that I read long before we had anything to do with them. So then we just had creative meetings along the way, and then eventually decided how could we kind of take this.

And a videography friend of mine, who’s my partner in the videos, we made a video together with no plan, aside from we thought it was a really great idea. And then that turned into the series. And there’s more of them coming along the way.

I don’t know why I started doing the stacking things, but I did. I don’t want to sound weird, but it did happen organically. I really just enjoyed it. And with that Twitter reach-out, we just decided that that made the most sense. It seemed like I was stacking things and we could go from there. I still do that a little bit, but the column’s branched out a little bit beyond that where I will do other things now, but definitely I guess its main focus is like let’s pick the biggest, boldest, craziest comfort food possible, whatever that is. It could be stacked in a huge burger, it could be ice cream sandwiches, it could polenta fries with some dipping sauce, whatever. But it just has to be over the top.

On Which Creative Outlet He Enjoys the Most:

Dennis The Prescott on The Dinner Special podcast talking about the creative outlet he enjoys most.

I definitely enjoy Instagram the most, for sure. Because, as far as the social media world, it’s my first love. It’s the thing I gravitate towards. It’s the thing that I personally go on when I am looking at other people’s social media accounts and what they’re doing. But I really do enjoy Snapchat and I started doing Snapchat with my friends because living in Nashville for a while it was just a really easy way to connect back and forth with them. And then some people were asking me some questions about, this was before I did any videos at all, they were saying, “How do we cook X, Y and Z?” So I was thinking, “Well, how can I do this, and do this cost-effectively and quickly and just get this out there?”

So one day I posted on an Instagram picture, I said, “Follow me on Snapchat, I’m going to show how to make a steak this afternoon, like a restaurant-style steak.” And I had, I don’t know how many hundreds or thousands of people that added me on Snapchat, it was crazy. So then I thought, “Well, I better start using this now.”

I really enjoy it, to be perfectly honest. It’s something where I’m still trying to figure out where I fit in to that world and how best to use that medium for me. But I really like it and I love being able to connect with people. I feel like it’s a different way to connect with people. And I’m able to Snapchat things about my daily life, which I try to do, too. And it’s not necessarily food. Like I was dressed up in a suit and tie yesterday, so I took a selfie of myself. I wouldn’t put that on my Instagram account, but I’ll put that on there. So it’s a cool way, I think, for other people.

And I follow other accounts that do that, too. It’s a way to get a background scene of what that person is actually doing at the time and what’s going on in their daily life, which I think is really cool. I always thought, when I was a kid I was a big Radiohead fan, and I was like, “What are they doing today? What are they eating? Are they at a record store? Are they at the mall?” I just wanted to know that stuff.

I think that’s really cool that we live in a world today where we can get a glimpse into what those people are actually doing. Because they’re probably not making a movie that day or recording a record, they might just be out with their kids. But I think that stuff’s really interesting and it helps you to develop this relationship with the person because you’re like, “Oh, I actually know you, you’re a real human and I appreciate you even more.”

That’s why I like that, as well. So it’s more for me to get that investment in what those people are doing in their lives. And if I can be a part of that, that’s really cool.

The Pressure Cooker:

Which food shows or cooking shows do you watch?

That’s hard. Any of the Jamie Oliver stuff.

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

Definitely FWx. I won’t say my own, but you should probably go check that out sometime. i am a food blog is great, I love that, I love everything she does, too.

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

Definitely my friend Daniel Krieger is great, Alice Gao is great, Stephanie from i am a food blog is great. Diala, her name is Diala’s Kitchen, is great. She’s from Toronto and posts a lot of Toronto shots. If you’re Canadian it’s specifically great.

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

I collect antiques all the time. So I’ve got an antique citrus…like a juicer, and an ice cream scooper from 1880, 1870, and I absolutely love them.

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

Dates. I hated them. When I was a kid I hated dates. And my dad would eat date squares growing up and just try to force feed them on me. I was like, “No,” I was not having it at all. And now I think they’re the most delicious thing in the world.

What are a few cookbooks that make your life better?

When I started cooking I started cooking to the Jamie Oliver cookbooks. As a little plug for a guy I don’t know at all obviously, they’re great, they’re fast, they’re easy. Anyone can make all of those recipes, and it’s really great to build your confidence and learn basic, easy steps that then you can take from there. So for me that’s initially how I started doing it.

I love older cookbooks, so kind of collecting ones. I actually just was looking at one the other day that it was a White House cookbook from the early 1900s and all the recipes that the White House made for the President.

I like a lot of those weird and wacky ones for sure, too. But reading through newer ones, as well, at the same time. So it’s kind of hard to pin exactly one. But if I could say ones that helped me out, for sure initially it was definitely the Jamie Oliver books.

What song or album just makes you want to cook?

I love alt-J; I cook a lot to the alt-J records. Foals is a British band that I really love. Anything kind of atmospheric. Anything with a really great drum beat, a little bit of atmosphere. I actually cook to a lot of hip-hop, too, surprisingly. So I love listening to Jay-Z and Kanye and stuff. I’m not nearly cool enough to actually say that I’m a fan of theirs, but I really actually love that when I’m cooking.

On Keeping Posted with Dennis:

Dennis The Prescott on The Dinner Special podcast talking about how to keep posted with him.

On Instagram for sure, on my website, Twitter, Facebook, it’s all @dennistheprescott. If you want to check out FWx, I’m on there, as well. And then if you just google “Dennis the Prescott,” that will come up with different…because I’m very fortunate enough to work with other companies and that kind of thing, like Reynolds and Frigidaire and stuff, so a lot of different recipes are on there that I’ve been able to do for them. Dependent upon what they are, if you’re looking for chicken wings, if you’re looking for whatever, you’ll find it somewhere out there.

Subscribe to The Dinner Special podcast

Filed Under: Podcast Tagged With: Alice Gao, Alt-J, Daniel Krieger, David Loftus, Dennis Prescott, Dennis The Prescott, Diala's Kitchen, Foals, Food and Wine, FWx, i am a food blog, Instagram, Jamie Oliver, Jay-Z, Kanye, Nashville, Snapchat, Stacked

043: Kelly Carámbula: How to Become a More Adventurous Eater

June 1, 2015 by Gabriel Leave a Comment

Kelly Carámbula of Remedy Quarterly on The Dinner Special podcast talking about why she started documenting her food adventures.
http://traffic.libsyn.com/thedinnerspecial/TDS043.mp3

Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS

Kelly Carámbula of Remedy Quarterly on The Dinner Special podcast talking about how to become a more adventurous eater.

Remedy Quarterly, The Best Remedy

Kelly is the publisher, editor and designer for Remedy Quarterly an independent magazine about food memories and the recipes that inspire them. She also has a blog called The Best Remedy where she shares seasonal food and cocktail recipes and classic comfort food.

Blogging since 2007, Kelly’s work has also included a column called Drinking in Season on Serious Eats.

I am so thrilled to have Kelly Carámbula of Remedy Quarterly Magazine here on the show today.

On Why She Started Documenting Her Food Adventures:

Kelly Carámbula of Remedy Quarterly on The Dinner Special podcast talking about why she started documenting her food adventures.

My family cannot believe that I’m in food because when I was growing up I was the quintessential picky kid, like butter and noodles, chicken fingers. I eventually got up to spaghetti sauce on my noodles.

I was just really, really picky.

When I was in college I studied design. For my senior thesis I created a cookbook for people who didn’t know how to cook basically, I think that’s even what it was called. So that got me going on cooking. Then after graduation I moved to New York and realized that while I can cook spaghetti for myself and warm up some chicken, when we went out to eat there weren’t a whole lot of options for me. It got to the point when, who was my then boyfriend and now husband, and I would go out with friends, it was embarrassing for me. There wasn’t anything that I would like to eat.

It got to this tipping point where I was like, “Okay. We’re living in New York City. There are amazing options to eat and I’m going to a sushi restaurant and I can’t find anything.” There’s nothing that I’ll try.

It just got to the point where I decided to start trying things. Eat, Make, Read initially started as, my thought was a restaurant blog where I would document new places that I went and it would give me a reason to go out and try things, I had to be held accountable.

I also started cooking, too. I would go to the farmer’s markets, get something new that I hadn’t tried before and just share it with people.

The restaurant thing fell by the wayside. We still went out a lot but the cooking thing really took off. From there I just started cooking, sharing and I found it really inspiring and energizing to go to the farmer’s market, meet people, meet farmers, meet other people shopping for their food.

Food is a topic that anyone can talk about. I found that was really inspiring to me and really helped me meet people too in a huge city. It just grew from there.

My husband was fantastic and when we would go out, he would order a safe dish and I would order a daring dish and if I didn’t like the daring dish he would take it. So, I always knew I would have a fall back and so that also inspired me to try and if I found something that I liked out at a restaurant, I would try and make it at home and post it on the blog. That’s kind of how things came to be.

On Her Magazine, Remedy Quarterly:

Kelly Carámbula of Remedy Quarterly on The Dinner Special podcast talking about her magazine Remedy Quarterly.

I see Eat, Make, Read as this little seed that was planted and out of that grew basically everything that I do now.

Remedy Quarterly is a magazine about food memories and the recipes that inspired them. Before I even did that, my senior project that I mentioned, my senior thesis, my mom had given me a recipe book. It was spiral bound, it was filled with recipes from our family and she wrote little notes about, “this is Kelly’s favorite, this is my favorite.”

My mom passed away and that’s just a real treasure to me and I feel like everyone carries around these treasures with them. Whether it’s from their childhood, from someone who’s passed away, from new adventures that you go out on vacation and you have this amazing drink and you just want to share it with everyone. I wanted a place for people to share those stories and the recipes. That’s what Remedy Quarterly is. It’s different from my blog, where my blog is what I’m interested in right now.

Sometimes I share things on my blog that are familiar to me that I made during my childhood, that my mom made. But really they’re more like what I’m interested in right now, now that I feel especially I’m more capable of cooking. I have years of experience under my belt. Remedy Quarterly is digging into the past or sharing recipes that are really special and tried and true.

What I love about Remedy Quarterly is that it makes people slow down and it makes them take some time for themselves, sit down and just get lost in these stories, think about when they’re going to make this or how this person felt.

I think our world, and I love our world, is just really fast-paced and can be overwhelming. What I aim to create with Remedy Quarterly is a place for people to feel good about taking a break and really indulge through reading and hopefully take that indulgence into the kitchen and try to make it, and then in turn make their own memories.

One of the things I love about Remedy Quarterly is I test all the recipes, so when I’m making them and when I sit down to the table I tell my husband about the story behind the recipe that we’re eating. It’s really cool, it sounds cheesy, but I love that when I’m eating something I know the story behind it and it makes it feel really special and intentional.

On Introducing New Foods to Non-Adventurous Eaters:

Kelly Carámbula of Remedy Quarterly on The Dinner Special podcast talking about introducing new foods to non-adventurous eaters.

One thing I like to do is introduce new things with very comfortable things. Don’t try to cook a whole meal that seems super scary or unfamiliar. Introduce a side . . . I remember when I first tried mushrooms, which was embarrassingly late in life, I ordered it out at a restaurant but it was mushroom fundido which is basically mushrooms and a whole lot of cheese. I’m not saying put cheese on everything. But, it was in the context of all these other things that I really liked and then there was the mushrooms and it turned out mushrooms are awesome.

I just roasted carrots for the first time the other day, I like carrots, I don’t crave carrots but I roasted them like I do sweet potatoes to make sweet potato fries. They were so awesome and I made them the next night again and then three days later because I was just like, “Wow.”

Ingredients can surprise you and the way they’re prepared too is really huge. I grew up in the 80’s and my mom and babysitters liked canned vegetables – I think that’s a big reason why I was so picky because canned vegetables . . . and we’re talking the kind you buy in the store not the kind your grandma puts up in the cellar. They’re just totally unappetizing. They’re kind of grey, at least they were when I was little. I understand why I was picky because if I presented my daughter with some grey green beans, I wouldn’t expect her to eat them either. I think presentation is big and freshness and flavor are really king.

On the Gateway Cuisine that got Her into More Adventurous Foods:

That was Thai food. I think Thai food has really comfortable things like noodles but it’s prepared in a way that’s very different from anything my mid-western family ever ate.

We love Thai food so much. We went to Thailand on our honeymoon and took a cooking class there that was vegetarian. It was life changing in that I didn’t know vegetables could taste that amazing.

I think the way that different cultures use herbs and spices and just different vegetables in general, it was really eye opening and inspiring to know that flavor can be incredible by changing what you pair it with.

On Pairing Cocktails with Dishes:

Kelly Carámbula of Remedy Quarterly on The Dinner Special podcast talking about pairing cocktails with dishes.

When I started toying with cocktails, just to be clear I have no formal bartending skills, I just liked drinks and I liked fresh food. I basically started using ingredients that I found at the farmers market.

If strawberries and basil are good in a tart then they’d probably be good in a drink, so I’d use flavor pairings that I saw in food and use them in a cocktail and that really took off on my blog and was super inspiring to me because it’s easy.

It doesn’t take a huge time commitment and you can muddle together some berries and herbs, toss in some gin, add a little seltzer. A little squeeze of lemon or lime or citrus and you’ve got yourself this awesome cocktail. Once you do that once, it’s like, “Oh, what can I do next? And what can I do after that?”

One thing that I found is that it doesn’t necessarily have to be alcoholic.

I love my cocktails and I kind of built a career making these yummy, delicious cocktails and then having a drink, and then when I got pregnant I couldn’t do that and I would go out with friends to a bar. Everyone would want to serve me a ginger ale and I was like, “This is so boring. You guys get amazing drinks and I get ginger ale? No. Be creative.”

Fortunately my tastebuds were kind of low and so were my energy levels when I was pregnant. I did make a few fresh . . . I hate the work mock-tails, I don’t know what you want to call it, drinks to drink while I was pregnant. They were super flavorful drinks. They were delicious whether they had alcohol or not.

I also think that it’s important when you’re throwing a party to have delicious drinks for people who don’t want to drink.

On Virgin Cocktails:

Kelly Carámbula of Remedy Quarterly on The Dinner Special podcast talking about virgin cocktails.

Not every cocktail can be made into a virgin cocktail because some cocktails like a Manhattan are strictly alcohol so you would just be left with a cherry maybe.

I think most bartenders, or if you go to a nice restaurant that has a very curated cocktail menu, the type of alcohol that you use is a part of the flavor component of that drink. However, I think that a lot of drinks if they’re thoughtfully made and have a lot of elements in them, the alcohol can be taken out and it’s still a lovely drink.

If it’s a good bartender, they’ll know what to add to what the alcohol was bringing into it.

Vodka doesn’t have a whole lot of flavor so it’s not adding a whole lot. Gin adds more herbal flavor, whiskey of course adds a whole other component.

The Pressure Cooker:

Which food shows or cooking shows do you watch?

I don’t really watch much TV. If I do watch a cooking show, it’s the PBS America’s Test Kitchen. That’s the closest thing I get to watching T.V.

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

The one that I’ve been looking at a lot lately is my friend’s website called Yummy Toddler Food because I’m trying to find new things to make for my two year old and you can only do so many sweet potatoes and tortellini, you just want to find something new. So yeah, Yummy Toddler Food, myself I always go to Smitten Kitchen and or The Kitchn to find new recipes.

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

Well, Kimberly Hasselbrink on Instagram, her photos are just incredible and she just came out with a cookbook last year that’s super dreamy. She has a carnitas recipe and that cookbook is so good with an apple salsa, it’s awesome.

The people that I mentioned already, the Yummy Toddler Food and Deb from Smitten Kitchen.

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

The treasured is my mom’s cookbook, for sure.

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

I wouldn’t say that I love it now but I use it fairly often, mayo totally grossed me out for the first 28 years of my life. It’s white and jiggly and the texture, but now I can totally appreciate what it adds to a sandwich.

What are a few cookbooks that make your life better?

There’s one called Simply Organic that goes through the seasons. It’s just really flavorful food that definitely makes me happy. Everything I’ve made from it is delicious and impressive.

Kimberly Hasselbrink’s Vibrant Food and Dinner, A Love Story.

What song or album just makes you want to cook?

When I cook I listen to Jay-Z or Kanye. I like a lot of energy in the kitchen or Dolly.

They both are upbeat and have something that’s like, “I can do this!” Otherwise, I’ll just be like, “Oh I want to go sit down.”

On Keeping Posted on Kelly:

Kelly Carámbula of Remedy Quarterly on The Dinner Special podcast talking about how to keep posted with her.

Instagram, my handle is Kelly Carámbula.

 

Subscribe to The Dinner Special podcast

Filed Under: Podcast Tagged With: Adventurous Eating, America's Test Kitchen, Cocktails, Dinner: A Love Story, Food Blog, Food Blogger, Food Magazine, Jay-Z, Kanye, Kelly Carambula, Kimberly Hasselbrink, Pairing Cocktails with Dishes, PBS, Remedy Quarterly, Serious Eats, Simply Organic, Smitten Kitchen, The Best Remedy, The Kitchn, Vibrant Food, Virgin Cocktails, Yummy Toddler Food

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

Enjoy the podcast?

Click HERE to subscribe, rate and review on iTunes now.

Let’s Keep in Touch!

Copyright © 2023 · Epik on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in