Kimberly Hasselbrink | The Dinner Special podcast

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

July 8, 2015 by Gabriel Leave a Comment

Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

The Sunday Table

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

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

(*All images below are Grace’s.)

On Starting Her Blog:

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

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

On Her Interest in Food and Cooking:

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

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

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

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

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

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

On Experimenting in the Kitchen:

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

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

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

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

On Some Good Resources for Learning to Cook:

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

On Being a Holistic Nutrition Consultant:

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Pressure Cooker:

Which food shows or cooking shows do you watch?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What are a few cookbooks that make your life better?

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

What song or album just makes you want to cook?

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

On Keeping Posted with Grace:

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

055: Liz Harris: Turning Food into Her Career

July 1, 2015 by Gabriel 2 Comments

Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS

Floating Kitchen

Liz is a cook, photographer, and writer. And on her blog, Floating Kitchen, she explores and shares seasonally inspired recipes that are sometimes healthy and sometimes indulgent, but always fun and delicious.

I am so psyched to have Liz Harris of Floating Kitchen here on the show today.

(*All images below are Liz’s.)

On Her Career Before Food:

Before I started blogging, I was actually a research scientist. I went all the way in school. My undergraduate focus was biology, and then I went on to get my PhD in Biochemistry. That was five years of training, post undergrad degree.

Then I went and did a post-doctoral fellowship in Cancer Biology. That was another four years of training. I spent about thirteen years working towards becoming a research scientist, and then I was working in that field. It just wasn’t clicking for me anymore so I made a drastic change in my life.

Making the change was very hard, mentally, because I had committed so much time and you feel compelled to continue on this path.

I still love science. I find it really interesting. I love reading about it in my free time. I liked actually doing it, but at the end of the day, the lifestyle that I had created for myself around this career wasn’t very healthy for me anymore, and so I needed to change that.

On Her Introduction to Cooking:

My family is pretty into food. I come from a line of great cooks. My grandmother, my great aunts, my mom is a big cook as well. I was always just in the kitchen or around the kitchen with them. So I was always very interested in it. My family also owns a farm and a wholesale distribution business in New Hampshire, so food is just something that we think about a lot and have always been really interested in. It’s just what we do.

My great auntie, Dot. She was probably the best cook in the family. She also was always very patient with me and she let me help her. She didn’t get mad if you messed up or anything. Because I’m sure I messed up a lot when I was little. I owe a lot of my cooking abilities to her.

On Turning Her Hobby into Her Career:

About five years ago is when I really started doing it. It was still a hobby at that time, but I started being a lot more serious about cooking every day for myself, cooking for friends, having people over.

That’s when people started suggesting to me, too, “Hey, you’re really good at this. Have you ever thought about having a blog or doing something with it?” And I was like, “No. Computers hate me. I would never have a blog. I can’t even do email!” That just seemed really out of reach for me.

I was spending so much time on my career, so it was like, “No way I could do that on the side.” So that’s when I really started getting into it. Around 2012 or 2013 is when I made this choice to leave my career as being a scientist, and that was the obvious thing to do, is to pursue something in cooking.

I think whenever you make a really big drastic change like that, there is a fine balance between courage and sheer stupidity. You just have to say, “Alright, I don’t know what’s going to happen and I’m just going to do it and go for it.”

My parents obviously were really supportive. I didn’t feel like I was going to be letting them down. I also was giving up a paycheck and all these other practical things. They were encouraging me and telling me that it would be okay. It gave me the guts to do it.

I’m just a really determined person. Once I get something in my head, it does not escape my head until I do something about it. So I just decided to do it and now here I am.

When I first left science, I didn’t know what I was going to do. I was mulling around for a few months, figuring it out.

I actually simultaneously started my blog and started working in restaurants. I had never had a restaurant job before in my whole life, so that was a really fun and eye-opening experience. So I started on those two paths; I had the blogging and I had the restaurant work. After doing both those simultaneously for about a year, I decided that I just wanted to pursue the blogging for now. Restaurant work is hard. I mean, it was fun but it’s a lot of work for not a lot of gain. And my blog was picking up and was growing, and I decided to put all of my energy into that.

On the Type of Cooking that’s Most Natural:

I think the savory dishes come more naturally to me. I’ve developed a style where I just like to throw things together. I cook mostly vegetarian food and it’s just easy to roast up a bunch of vegetables and make some grains, make a quick dressing. That is definitely more my everyday style. Although I do love the baking.

I think the enjoyment I get out of the baking is not the actual doing it but it’s the sharing it. Because that’s the stuff that’s easy to share, and that’s why I loved cooking to start with. I loved bringing people food or inviting people over.

Cookies and brownies are something I would take to work all the time, or bring to my neighbor’s house. So I like that aspect of the baking. But in terms of the following the instructions, I can do it and I’m great at it, but I just prefer to not have to think that much about it. Which is funny because being a scientist, all you’re doing is thinking about instructions all the time.

On Where She Finds Inspiration for Her Blog:

Mostly from other bloggers.

I read an enormous number of blogs. I have like 400 blogs on my feed. It’s insane. Because people are just doing so much great stuff, so I love just seeing what everyone else is doing.

I’m really inspired by cooking with the seasons. That’s something that’s important to me. Growing up in a family that has a farm, I’ve always been aware of that and try to follow that as much as possible. It’s better for your wallet and the environment. It’s good for your body. It tastes better when you buy food that’s in season. I love going to the local markets and looking for things that look great, and bringing them home and making something from them.

On Things Not Going As Planned in the Kitchen:

I feel like at this point, I’m pretty knowledgeable of what is going to work together, what flavors will go together, and what techniques are going to work.

I guess the only things for me, that it’s not actually the cooking part, it’s always something else that happens. I remember I made this huge tray of eclairs and they were glazed. And I dropped them and they went glazed side down on the rug, with dog hair stuck in them. It’s that kind of stuff.

I will finish a whole thing and then I’ll have some klutzy moment at the end and ruin everything, which is very unfortunate. But those things happen to me more than actually with the cooking part.

In the beginning, when I was in graduate school and during my fellowship when I was learning to cook, I was very strict about following recipes. I had to have a recipe or I couldn’t make something. Because I didn’t have that awareness of what things went together. But now that I have been cooking for so many years, it’s easy for me, just something that I’ve picked up.

The Pressure Cooker:

Which food shows or cooking shows do you watch?

I do like to watch the Barefoot Contessa.

A show I used to love to watch that’s not on anymore is Alton Brown’s Good Eats. Of course, that’s like a science-y cooking show, so you know I’m going to love that one. I don’t really watch any food competition shows because they kind of stress me out. I get nervous for the contestants.

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

From the 400 that I follow, let’s see. One blog that I love is called Local Haven. Her name is Ashely, and she has really great photography and really authentic, unfussy recipes that just feel good when I’m on her site and look at her photos. So I think everyone should check out Local Haven.

I also really love Foodie Crush by Heidi. Heidi has great recipes and great photography, but I think the thing that I appreciate most about her site is that she spends a lot of time talking about other bloggers and other blogger’s recipes. It’s really refreshing in a job where you talk about yourself all the time. I mean, that’s really what we have to do, is promote yourself. So it’s so nice to see somebody who is talking about other bloggers so much. I’ve been introduced to a lot of new sites through her blog. So I think that’s a good one everyone should check out.

And I love How Sweet It Is by Jessica. Her stuff is just so over the top and fun, and it just makes you feel good when you read it.

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

On Instagram, I love Sweet Paul Magazine. He has a lot of not just food pictures, it’s food and crafts and gardening. All the photos are really bright and fun and whimsical. He has a great feed.

I also love, on Instagram, all the meta-sites, like Food 52 and The Kitchn. Great photography, great recipes, and again, they reshare a lot of stuff from the community. So it’s been a great way to connect and find new Instagram accounts and new food bloggers.

On Twitter, I love Sarah from The Sugar Hit. She is just hilarious. She has really funny tweets. I definitely recommend people checking her out.

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

I guess the thing that would be the most treasured, is I do have recipes from my great aunt. She was the one that was sort of the biggest cook in our family. And all the recipes from my grandparents and other family members, and I think those are probably the most treasured things, just having those cards with the stains on them and the handwritten notes. It’s just really fun. You feel like you’re cooking with them when you’re using them.

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

This is a tough question because I used to dislike everything. I was that kid that only ate grilled cheese, chicken, and peanut butter and jelly for like twenty years. So it’s very surprising now that I will eat everything.

I think one of the main things is tomatoes. I used to hate tomatoes, raw tomatoes. I didn’t like tomato sauce. I would wipe the sauce off of my spaghetti, which horrified my parents. But now, I love fresh tomatoes. I love making sauces.

What are a few cookbooks that make your life better?

I really like Vibrant Food by Kimberly Hasselbrink. It’s really colorful. I want to eat everything when I flip through the pages. It’s just a spectacular book that I think everybody should own.

I love Joy the Baker. She’s one of my favorite bloggers. I love Homemade Decadence, again, really fun and whimsical, and of course, totally makes you hungry when you’re looking at it.

I also love all the Ottolenghi books. I don’t cook from them that often, because all the recipes are really involved, but just such a great source of inspiration and great photography as well.

What song or album just makes you want to cook?

I really like something upbeat when I’m cooking, like Stevie Wonder or Taylor Swift. Anything with a good beat deserves to be in my kitchen.

On Keeping Posted with Liz:

The best way, the first way is my blog, of course, floatingkitchen.net. I post new recipes two to three times a week. So you can check me out there. Instagram is my favorite, so that’s a fun place. I love connecting with people on Instagram.

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

June 1, 2015 by Gabriel Leave a Comment

Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS

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:

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:

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:

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:

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:

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:

Instagram, my handle is Kelly Carámbula.