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108: Emily Stoffel: How Cooking Changes with Parenthood

February 3, 2016 by Gabriel Leave a Comment

Emily Stoffel of The Pig & Quill on The Dinner Special podcast talking about how to keep posted with her.
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Emily Stoffel of The Pig & Quill on The Dinner Special podcast talking about how cooking changes with parenthood.

The Pig & Quill

Emily started The Pig & Quill in 2012, and most recipes on her blog are heavy on the plants and low on refined sugars and starches though she is a firm believer in moderation. She is also a new mom.

I am so happy to have Emily Stoffel of The Pig & Quill joining me here on the show today.

(*All photos below are Emily’s.)

On Cooking as a New Parent:

Emily Stoffel of The Pig and Quill on The Dinner Special podcast talking about cooking as a new parent.

It’s definitely driven a little bit more by convenience. I used to just cook whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted, and now, a lot of what we are doing in the house is meals, particularly dinners, where you can prep a lot of things in advance a little bit here and there throughout the day. I can prep a little bit during the first nap. I can prep a little bit during the second nap. And then by the time she goes to sleep, and we’re having dinner at night, there’s very little that’s required to bring it together, and we can still eat at a reasonable hour.

A lot of that is relying on things like a slow cooker, or, I use my rice cooker for everything. I’m cooking a lot of things in the broiler. I didn’t used to do that a bunch, but it’s such a fast way to cook protein. So that’s changed my game a little.

And my husband’s a great sport about the fact that we eat the same three or four meals in rotation, which we did not used to do. It used to be something different every night. We just have go-to’s that we know we can pull off in a moment’s notice. So there’s a lot of that, but still trying to keep things interesting.

I wasn’t such a really big proponent of the slow cooker actually before I had Lana. I know a lot of people are super hardcore slow cooker fans. I guess I just didn’t really give it a chance. I thought, “Oh, it’s for everything. Let it go…Whatever. I can do the same thing on my stove,” but it is really nice to be able to start something in the morning and then be able to leave the house and run errands or whatever and come back. I use my rice cooker for oatmeal which makes breakfast a no-brainer. So one of us can get up in the morning and start the oatmeal.

When we first had Lana, when she was a newborn, one of us would sneak out of bed before she would wake up in the morning, because she sleeps in our room, and put out all the oatmeal toppings and the ingredients and everything and set it. And then by the time she was up, it was ready to go. So we wouldn’t have to worry about making breakfast for ourselves. So yeah, I use that. I even hard-boil eggs in my rice cooker.

It’s pretty incredible. If you have a steamer insert, you just throw the eggs on top while you cook the rice. The time the rice is done, your eggs are done, and it’s perfect. If you want soft-boiled eggs, you can do it when you cook your white rice. And if you want hardboiled eggs, you do it when you cook your brown rice.

On Putting a Meal Together Quickly:

Emily Stoffel of The Pig and Quill on The Dinner Special podcast talking about putting together meals quickly.

I mentioned that I like to use the broiler a lot. So I marinate a protein throughout the day. And then I can just pop it in the broiler when Lana’s napping or goes down for the night. And it usually just takes ten minutes to cook a protein that way.

I have a couple recipes on my blog. One is the shoyu chicken, and that’s super easy. It’s just chicken thighs that you marinate, and broil, and serve it with white rice or whatever side you want. And then the other one is a pumpkin curry which takes a little bit longer to do, but again, it’s something where I can do different elements throughout the day. And then it’s topped with a crispy, spice crusted tofu, and that is done completely under the broiler.

And even if you just look at the recipe for the tofu element, we put that tofu on salads. Sometimes, I just have it in a bowl with roasted veggies. So even if you’re not into curry or you’re not doing the pumpkin curry part of it, the tofu is super clutch. We do that all the time.

On How to Make Cooking Fun:

Emily Stoffel of The Pig and Quill on The Dinner Special podcast talking about how to make cooking fun.

This is a cop out, but when we had Lana at first, we did a lot of the grocery meal delivery kits that are popular right now. I know that there’s Sun Basket, and there’s HelloFresh. And I know a lot of different ones that folks do. Some are organic, some are not. And that’s something that I probably never would have considered doing before I had kids. But it’s fun because they have the instructions written out so clearly step-by-step with those meal kits that it’s super easy for two people to tag team a recipe. You can just say, “Here’s where I started,” or “I left off at this step.”

Unlike some recipes, traditional recipes, including the ones that I write, a lot of times, the items that you have to prepare are called out in a different color or something like that, so you can see exactly what you need to do to this fruit or to this vegetable before it goes to the cooking stage. And you can break up the responsibilities that way.

We found those actually really helpful because it was a fast way to still be cooking together in the kitchen, something that was homemade. But A, you don’t have to go to the grocery store and B, just the way that the recipe is written, it’s really easy to do it on your own. But if you’re moving around the kitchen with multiple folks or something like that, it’s easy to make that come together.

The other thing that’s fun is we don’t go out a lot for dinner anymore. So when we’re feeling not super inspired, we’ll invite people over to just have hors d’ oeuvres here or something like that. And that’s a good way to get engaged about cooking again. You don’t feel like, “Oh my gosh, I’m just making dinner for myself to get by.” You feel like you’re entertaining which is a refreshing way to feel when you don’t get a lot of fun evening time. So that’s something that’s invigorated my time in the kitchen.

On Her Food Heroes:

Well, aside from my family, so my mom first and foremost, I learned so much from her just growing up in the kitchen, and her dad like I mentioned, just having exposure to that at a young age, and my dad as well.

In terms of people that inspired me, I guess if you think about the Nigella’s or Ina Garten, those types of folks even before Food Network was anywhere near where it is today, those were the types of folks where I just really admire. They’re cooking super un-fussy food that’s just delicious. It just tastes good. They don’t necessarily have a hook or a theme. They just make food that’s accessible and super tasty. And they deliver it in such a seductive and enticing way without really trying.

And I know that now, they’re these big brands, and they’ve got marketing up the wahoo. But back in the day of Yan Can Cook or The Frugal Gourmet, I used to watch those folks on PBS, and those were just people that cooked food that they knew they would enjoy. There wasn’t really any big spin to it.

Those are the types of folks that I think I learned the most from, just seeing their passion and seeing how that can translate into something that’s educational and entertaining. I also had a really unabashed girl crush on Giada when I was in college to the point where I would have dreams that we were best friends hanging out in Santa Monica. It was super creepy.

On Her Blog:

Emily Stoffel of The Pig and Quill on The Dinner Special podcast talking about her blog.

I had sat down with one of my good friends, and we were doing this life mapping of everything that we wanted to do in the next several years. And I told her that starting a blog was something that I really wanted to do, and I started The Pig & Quill without doing a lot of research, without coming up with a big plan for a brand or an image or even an idea of how the site would look.

It was just like I told her, “This is what I want to do.” We brainstormed a bunch of names. I bought the domain name, and then I sat on it for six months. And then it was bugging me that I had spent $13 to register this domain name and hadn’t done anything with it.

So Labor Day weekend of 2012, we actually stayed home that weekend, it was a stay-cation, and I was like, “Okay, this is the weekend that I’m going to start the blog,” and I launched it without a lot of research or anything. The images were awful, but it was exactly what I wanted it to be. It was just me talking about the food that I liked but also talking about how food fit into my life and adding a personal storyline to each post.

So yeah, it wasn’t really like, “Oh my gosh. I have this vision that I’m going to be a food blogger.” It was just something that I did spontaneously, and I’ve had to learn the ropes as I’ve gone along. Fortunately, there’s a ton of inspiration out there these days to help me grow, but it’s a crazy space, food blogging, because there’s so much opportunity and so many different angles and approaches that you can take with your blog. And I went into it with, like I said, with a really unclear vision. I was just like, “I’m going to get this up today.” And hindsight being 20-20, I would have mapped out my look and my voice a little more before I started, but finding my way has been part of the fun.

The Pressure Cooker:

Which food shows or cooking shows do you watch?

I watch Master Chef Jr. When I’m over at my in-laws or my mom’s house, I watch Chopped. That’s always fun. Sometimes, we pause it and say what we would do with the ingredients if we were given the basket. I don’t watch a lot food TV anymore these days.

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

Oh, wow. There are a lot. I really love i am a food blog. Everything that Stephanie makes I want to eat it immediately. Two Red Bowls, the photography is ridiculous, Fix Feast Flair, Kale & Caramel. I’ve only been reading Kale & Caramel in the last, probably, six months, but her voice is…I feel like I just want to be friends with Lily in real life. She cracks me up, and she does a really good job of doing what I really like doing in food blogs, which is pairing a little bit more of personal anecdotes with recipes. She does a lot of that.

Bev Cooks was one of the first food blogs that I read back in the day. She is hilarious. And she has two kiddos. They’re twins, and they’re the most adorable people ever. Her Instagram is just ridiculous. Wit & Vinegar, Billy’s really funny. I think his aesthetic is really different from anything that anyone else is doing.

I really like reading Dessert for Two because Christina’s got a little one that is Lana’s age. So it’s been fun reading her blog and seeing her daughter at the same stage that Lana’s at. We were pregnant at the same time. We’re not BFF’s or anything, but I stalked her throughout our pregnancies, and that was really fun.

Chocolate and Marrow, I really like Chocolate and Marrow. Brooke just does crazy, creative stuff, really, really delicious things, really indulgent and just beautiful stuff.

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

Snapchat, I just haven’t really gotten into yet. I would say of those things, I probably use Instagram the most. Violet Tinder, she’s really great. She has just a super rainbow-hued, really fun Instagram. And she does a lot of candy-colored things and water colors, and everything is just super poppy, neon bright. Miss New Foodie is really funny. She has some pretty funny captions for all of her indulgent eats.

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

The thing that’s most treasured in my current kitchen is not even mine because I rent, but it’s our stove. We have a vintage Wedgewood stove in this kitchen that’s incredible. It’s really petite. The oven portion is really petite, but it heats up super-fast and evenly. It’s got a legit broiler which I mentioned earlier that really gets the job done.

In terms of an appliance, I have a garlic press, the same garlic press that I mentioned earlier where I think it’s called the Garlic Twist. It’s like this big piece of acrylic. And rather than crushing garlic through it, you put the garlic in, and you twist it. And because it’s one piece of plastic, it rinses out super easily. I use it probably every day. It’s not like the garlic presses where there’s all the little holes that you have to get all the stuff out of.

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

I don’t really love mustard or I didn’t really love mustard, particularly yellow mustard, but I didn’t really use any mustard. And now, maybe because my husband is a huge mustard aficionado, I’ve come around on mustard. I actually really like hot horseradish-y mustards more so than a yellow mustard. But I used to really not be a fan of yellow mustard. I can at least tolerate it now.

What are a few cookbooks that make your life better?

I’m an awful baker, so I have to rely on cookbooks for baking or at least for measurements that I can gain inspiration from, so The Williams-Sonoma baking cookbook is really great. It’s got tons of cool recipes. But it’s also just good for if I need a jumping off point for an idea that I have.

I mentioned i am a food blog earlier, and her book Easy Gourmet is great. I’ve given it to a bunch of people because it’s just exactly what it says, easy gourmet. It’s really accessible. Anything by America’s Test Kitchen is good for the same reason as the Williams-Sonoma baking book. You just know that everything is really thoroughly tested, and it’s a good jumping off point. I still have a subscription to Bon Appétit and Gourmet. I know that that’s not a book, but those are good for keeping me aware of food trends and things like that.

What song or album just makes you want to cook?

Well, I always have this vision that if I ever quit my day job and I got to just spend all day cooking in my kitchen, that I would do it listening to Carole King or Adele on the record player. So I guess I’d say both of those ladies. Then for something maybe a little more poppy, I’ll dance in the kitchen to Britney Spears or Nelly Furtado, early 2000’s Nelly Furtado. The Who, it’s really fun.

On Keeping Posted with Emily:

Emily Stoffel of The Pig and Quill on The Dinner Special podcast talking about how to keep posted with her.

I’m probably the most active on Instagram, and that is @thepigandquill or Facebook, and then Pinterest. I love Pinterest.

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Filed Under: Podcast Tagged With: Adele, America's Test Kitchen, Bev Cooks, Bon Appetit, Britney Spears, Carole King, Chocolate and Marrow, Chopped, Dessert for Two, Easy Gourmet, Emily Stoffel, Fix Feast Flair, Food Network, Garlic Twist, Giada de Laurentiis, Gourmet magazine, HelloFresh, i am a food blog, Ina Garten, Kale & Caramel, Master Chef Jr., Miss New Foodie, Nelly Furtado, Nigella Lawson, Parent, Sun Basket, The Frugal Gourmet, The Pig & Quill, The Who, The Williams-Sonoma Baking Cookbook, Two Red Bowls, Violet Tinder, Wit & Vinegar, Yan Can Cook

091: Alexandra Stafford: From Catering and Restaurants to Blogging

November 11, 2015 by Gabriel Leave a Comment

Alexandra Stafford of Alexandra's Kitchen on The Dinner Special podcast
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Alexandra Stafford of Alexandra's Kitchen on The Dinner Special podcast talking about working in Catering and Restaurants to Blogging.

Alexandra’s Kitchen

Ali grew up in a home where cooking from scratch was the norm. After college, she enrolled in a cooking school and subsequently worked at various catering companies and restaurants. Ali’s two years in the Fork restaurant kitchen in Philadelphia where she became sous chef, was the experience that shaped what and how she cooks today. Apart from her blog, Ali writes a column, A Bushel and a Peck for Food 52, and contributes to the Baking Steel blog.

I am so psyched to have Alexandra Stafford of Alexandra’s Kitchen joining me here today.

(*All photos below are Alexandra’s.)

On Growing Up in a Home Where Cooking and Food was Valued:

Alexandra Stafford of Alexandra's Kitchen on The Dinner Special podcast talking about growing up in a home where cooking was valued.

I didn’t think anything of it growing up because it’s just what always was around. I think I did start thinking about it in high school a little bit because I went to a boarding school. I was a day student and my mom, my dad, my stepdad actually all taught at the boarding school. So I still came home at night but I often ate many of the meals in the dining hall, lunch of course but dinner too. It was just kind of the social thing to do when all of my friends were boarders. The breakdown was like 70% boarding, 30% day students. So I would eat a lot of the meals. I played sports, so after sports we’d go to the dining hall, have dinner and then every so often I would invite my friends over for dinner at my house. And they were always blown away, they were like, “What is this bread? You made this? What do you mean you made this? Like from a bread machine?” They just didn’t understand that, and this is just a bread that my mom would whip up all the time, it was just no big deal.

And just everything, I mean, it was just such a treat for them. And it was still a treat for me, I appreciated it but I had it all the time anyway, toast for breakfast, I had the meals on the weekends, and then I think I probably really started appreciating it when I was in college.

My senior year, I lived off campus with a roommate and so we were cooking a lot and that’s when I was calling my mom more for, “How did you make that chicken that I love?” And, “Why is this chicken so much better?” It was because my mom always used chicken thighs and not chicken breasts, and I would hear her say the thighs are more flavorful, but until I really cooked breasts and was like, “These aren’t good, there’s a difference.” Then I had all these questions for my mom and that’s when I really started recording the recipes and gathering the recipes that I loved.

On Her Interest in Cooking:

Alexandra Stafford of Alexandra's Kitchen on The Dinner Special podcast talking about her interest in cooking.

I was interested in what my mom was doing. I would say the extent of my help in the kitchen growing up was, she taught me how to make the salad dressing. So I would make the salad dressing, and I would assemble.

I remember always assembling up the Greek salad. She is 100% Greek, not from Greece but we’d make the Greek salad with Aunt Phylis’ salad dressing or this other dressing from the Chez Panisse Vegetables cookbook. I would chop up the shallots and macerate them in the vinegar, I would do that, I would set the table.

I loved baking so I would help make bread, and she had this other, in addition to this peasant bread that she would make all the time, she had this Bakery Lane Soup Bowl cookbook. And that was the sort of book that she always made these honey whole wheat loaves, or these oatmeal, brown sugar, and so I would make bread. That was it though until I was in college.

On Working in Catering Versus Restaurants:

Alexandra Stafford of Alexandra's Kitchen on The Dinner Special podcast talking about working in restaurants versus catering.

I would say the catering company, there were two aspects when I was in the catering kitchen. We were doing prep all day, just prepping and prepping and I remember realizing, “Gosh this can be really tedious”. Because we would have to assemble over 100 Asian noodle nests, it’s just a lot of the same thing over and over again. I still learned a lot from the repetition and learning how to use like industrial saran wrap, you know wrapping trays to make sure nothing would spill in transport.

And even on the jobs, I would say there were still periods of intensity where you had to work quickly and get things out, and things that were tricky. I remember one job they were serving tuna and the chef had made whatever the contraption was that holds up the trays, he had turned it into sort of a warmer, and the tuna got totally overcooked. When he went to slice it every single piece of tuna was (overcooked) and this was supposed to be a raw seared tuna. It was just a disaster and so then there are the stresses that came along with that.

When I switched, I was working in the restaurant, I just realized it felt much more intense. Like when lunch service hit it was just an hour of just orders coming in, and then obviously the same thing at dinner and Sunday brunch too. I worked the omelet station for a year.

I just remember the omelet orders coming in, and then some of them being egg white and then just trying to get the timing right on all the six or eight pans in front, trying to get it right. Fork also had sort of a private room in the back, so then every so often at the same time as Sunday brunch you’d be doing omelets for the party. I remember never feeling so overwhelmed or so focused, but also stressed and just trying to manage so many things at the same time. That I felt was sort of the biggest difference.

On prep days at the restaurant in the morning, they’re still the same. We would make soup in these enormous pots and so there is cutting carrots, and onions, and so over and over and over again so the similar kind of repetition but it was in a different kind of way.

On How Working in a Restaurant Influenced the Way She Cooks:

Alexandra Stafford of Alexandra's Kitchen on The Dinner Special podcast talking about how working in restaurants influences the way she cooks.

I think first of all, the owner of the restaurant, Ellen, she was one of the first restaurants to open in an old city. And it was years before I got there but from the beginning her saying was, “Buy fresh, buy local,” so she for me was sort of the introduction. She introduced me to that kind of concept and Philadelphia has an incredible farm-to-table movement. I hate to use that word because it just sort of seems overused now but at the time I remember it was really new for me. I thought, “Oh, I didn’t know that people would really care about where these tomatoes came from. All over the menu every tomato was labeled from whatever farm it came from, and so that was really new to me.”

And I would see the farmers. I mean we would of course get deliveries from big wholesale companies, but the farmers would come and they would bring their goods and that was really, really cool to me to see. So that would be the first thing, and then I would say the Chef Thien, any chance he could, we would ride our bikes to Chinatown and we would eat lunch. There were three Vietnamese restaurants that he liked all in Philadelphia, and he would order different things at different, so I kind of learned what to order where. He opened my eyes to a whole world of food.

He loved Italian food, he loved French food and we would go to really nice restaurants. We would go to holes in the wall. He introduced me kind of to just the restaurants here in Philadelphia and what people were cooking but also, just watching him cook was such an incredible experience. Watching him breakdown three whole salmon – he would filet it and take out the bones, and then portion them into perfect six ounce pieces. Then to just see how he made all of his soups and how he would always talk about how soups were the money makers of the restaurant because it was just with all these ingredients that cost us nothing, and they would save everything, every single scrap of meat and vegetable would go into this big pot for meat stock.

And then just some of the foods he made, he made chicken curry that was so amazing. He would buy these fresh rice noodles in Chinatown at this one store called Ding Ho and he would just cut them up, and he would make this sauce with fish sauce and lime and just toss it with tons of herbs, and it was like I had never eaten that kind of food, that’s so fresh and just so fast. It was the most delicious thing in the world.

On Her Blog:

Alexandra Stafford of Alexandra's Kitchen on The Dinner Special podcast talking about her food blog.

Blogs were totally new in fact I remember when a friend told me, I think I was maybe still working in restaurants, and I remember she said that she was going to start a blog and I thought, “That is the strangest thing I’ve ever heard. Who cares what you have to say? What are you going to write about?” And then, when I left the restaurant I said, “Okay, I would love to write about food and write about the things I’m discovering.”

There was a small newspaper in Philadelphia and I just walked into their office one day and said, “Do you have a food department?” And they didn’t, but they wanted one, so I just started writing for them.

I was discovering so much in Philadelphia or thinking back on the kind of experiences I had had for the past four years in the restaurants and catering companies and I was like, “I want to start recording this.” And the paper was so small I was discovering more things than I was able to put in the paper every week, and maybe some things were not appropriate to put in the paper, or just not inappropriate, but there wasn’t the right space, so that was sort of how I started. I thought, “Okay, well, I’ll start a blog so I can at least document what I’m doing in Philadelphia and finding and we’ll see how it goes.” I really didn’t care about it at all in the beginning. I would write an entry and hit post and publish it or whatever and then I would go off.

I didn’t care about posting anything to Facebook or Twitter or trying to drive traffic in the beginning. It was just a journal, and then we moved cross country so I kind of documented our cross country travels.

We’ve been in California for three years and then back to Virginia and I had two kids, and I was at home more, and I posted a couple of recipes and I remember just getting a really good response. Some of the comments were like, “You know I love your recipes,” or “This is the most delicious,” and I think one of them was this buttermilk blueberry breakfast cake and it was my mum’s recipe.

I love sharing family recipes. I love making people happy with food. This is really important to me. So I thought now I want to spend more time on my blog making the recipes really thoughtful, not necessarily foolproof but mostly tested before I publish them, and being there to respond to comments.

The Pressure Cooker:

Which food shows or cooking shows do you watch?

We cancelled cable a few years ago though we have Netflix. I watched recently, which I really loved, Chef’s Table, it’s a Netflix original series and it’s six episodes. I loved the one on Francis Mallmann he’s just such a character and it’s incredible food he cooks in this episode on this remote island in Patagonia, its amazing. And then the other one was on Dan Barber and it’s inspired me to read his book, The Third Plate.

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

I think everybody knows about Food52’s Genius Recipes column but I look forward to Kristen’s column, it’s so good every week, I don’t know how she does it.

One that I just discovered recently, there’s this cookbook called, Make The Bread buy the Butter and its by Jennifer Reese. Her blog is called Tipsy Baker and I just discovered it and I just love her writing style. She’s just funny. It’s a new discovery for me, I’ve been telling everybody I know.

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

Okay, Snapchat somebody needs to explain to me, I think it’s a sign that I’m way too old. I have no idea how to use it.

I have to be honest I feel like I hardly pay attention to Facebook anymore, I’m terrible. I don’t check Facebook.

Pinterest, I love Pinterest, I think I follow a lot of people but I don’t actually go and look at my feed.

I was very late to the Instagram game. It’s so simple and I don’t know why it took me so long but I like it because it’s simple. I really love the format. I follow a lot of people. There’s a photographer his name is Eric Wolfinger and I love his stuff, I always have. The books that he photographs I find myself always going back to.

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

One was a wedding gift, it’s a wooden baguette shaper, it’s really long, it extends the full length of my arm span, and it was a wedding gift, my Godmother, she got it in France and I have no use for it because I could never make baguettes that long but the wood is beautiful. It has a nice finish so that’s hanging up. And then my aunt gave me this also enormous pizza peel that wouldn’t even fit in my oven, you’d have to have a wood burning oven, and I have that hanging up also.

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

It may be fish sauce, I hope that’s not too obvious, but I remember the first time I was in Philadelphia in our little apartment and I remember a recipe called for fish sauce. I opened the bottle and I said, “This smells like dirty socks. I don’t understand how I can actually put this on my food, this is crazy.” And then, I did it because I thought, “I’m going to try it,” and I was like, “Wow, this is amazing!”

What are a few cookbooks that make your life better?

Chez Panisse Vegetables is probably one of the first cookbooks that my mum gave to me I think maybe when I graduated from college. It’s just something for every season. Part of it is because I do that column for Food 52 but part of it is just because I’m always getting a CSA, but that is a book I turn to over and over and over again. How to Be a Domestic Goddess, Nigella Lawson’s. I remember a friend gave it to me in college. There’s so much in that book, so much good content and she is such a good writer, and I love her voice and her stories.

What song or album just makes you want to cook?

This is going to be also so random too. I don’t know why, maybe because Philadelphia was when I really started cooking a lot but I would listen to Buena Vista Social Club over and over again. So if I hear that music I associate with being in the kitchen and that would make me want to cook.

On Keeping Posted with Alexandra:

Alexandra Stafford of Alexandra's Kitchen on The Dinner Special podcast talking about how to keep posted with her.

I post and do all the things I’m supposed to do, I do a post and I post it to Facebook, I tweet, post it to Instagram, but I find social media exhausting and hard to keep up with. I prefer to just follow people by subscribing directly to their websites. I guess I’m kind of old school. I like getting an email when they post.

 

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Filed Under: Podcast Tagged With: A Bushel and a Peck, Alexandra Stafford, Alexandra's Kitchen, Bakery Lane Soup Bowl, Baking Steel blog, Buena Vista Social Club, Chef's Table, Chez Panisse Vegetables, Dan Barber, Eric Wolfinger, Food52, Food52's Genius Recipes, Fork Restaurant, Francis Mallmann, Make The Bread buy the Butter, Nigella Lawson, Philadelphia, The Third Plate, Tipsy Baker

068: The Food Gays: Sharing a Taste of Vancouver

August 17, 2015 by Gabriel 2 Comments

Adrian Harris and Jeremy Inglett of The Food Gays on The Dinner Special podcast
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Adrian Harris and Jeremy Inglett of The Food Gays on The Dinner Special podcast talking about the food and food culture in Vancouver, BC, Canada.

The Food Gays

Adrian and Jeremy love food, photography, and social media. And on their website, The Food Gays, they share healthy and tasty recipes as well as food news in and around Vancouver, BC, Canada.

I am so happy to have Adrian Harris and Jeremy Inglett of The Food Gays on the show today.

(*All images below are Adrian and Jeremy’s.)

On How They Met:

Adrian: We met I think maybe close to six years ago.

Jeremy: Yup, we met through a friend.

Adrian: Through a mutual friend at a random party that neither of us were planning to go to.

Jeremy: We went anyways.

Adrian: And we didn’t really know anyone there other than the host. So yeah, we kind of just gravitated towards each other, and we’ve been hanging out and . . .

Jeremy: Doing our thing ever since.

On Collaborating on Their Blog:

Adrian-Harris-and-Jeremy-Inglett-of-The-Food-Gays-on-The-Dinner-Special-podcast talking about their food blog.

Jeremy: So it was probably July of 2012 when we decided to pursue the food blog, not really knowing what we were getting ourselves into.

Adrian: We were just wanting to find a hobby to do together, something fun. I was blogging previous to this, doing a fashion arts kind of blog, and I think Jeremy was tired of me being on the computer all the time. So we thought we’d put our heads together and was like, “What do we both like?” And we were already cooking a lot at home and doing that, so we just started it not really knowing what was going to become of it, just something fun to do as a hobby.

Jeremy: Baking is kind of a specialty. So it just goes back to my roots. My grandma used to be a baker, and there are probably three or four other bakers in my family too. So it’s just in the family, and I feel comfortable with it.

Adrian: I guess I’d always been cooking too. Even as a little kid, I was in the kitchen making weird snacks and that kind of thing, left to my own devices probably a little too much. But I never ever thought that we’d have a blog, that it just started really organically. Neither of us had any sort of preconceived notions of . . .

Jeremy: What it’s gonna look like…

Adrian: . . . what it’s was gonna be…

Jeremy: what we’re gonna post in a month.

Adrian: Yeah, it’s really evolved a lot from three years ago, for sure.

On Their Separate Roles for the Website:

Adrian: We don’t really have anything set in stone, but we’ve, I guess, gravitated towards what . . .

Jeremy: we enjoy most.

Adrian: Or what each other’s strong suits are. So Jeremy’s definitely a lot more about the analytics and the planning and . . .

Jeremy: organizing and making sure things are up.

Adrian: And I’m probably more gravitated towards the styling and photography.

Jeremy: And then we work together on recipes and in the kitchen, so it’s intertwining. It’s a good nest.

Adrian: We pick up where the other leaves off. Because it’s hard, right? Being a blogger . . . We don’t need to tell you. It’s like there’s so much involved, and you don’t necessarily think of all of that when you’re first starting.

We definitely worked our way through it.

Jeremy: There’s no way I was thinking about analytics week 2 of our Food Gays. It was just like, “What am I gonna tweet about?” and “Who should I follow?” and stuff like that.

On Deciding What to Make for the Blog:

Jeremy: Depends on the season.

Adrian: Yeah, nowadays probably, it’s really seasonal for us. We cook a lot with fresh plant-based ingredients, I guess you could say, so what’s fresh at the market. I really love farmer’s markets and going at least once or twice a month and getting inspired…

Jeremy: Sometimes once a week.

Adrian: Well, depending on what we can afford. But I don’t know. I guess before we were very much just cooking . . .

Jeremy: to experience cooking and to get to do that.

Adrian: I guess now we are probably trying to be more creative and inventive with flavor combinations and what can we come up with and that kind of stuff.

On Their Blogging Process:

Jeremy: First, create, of course. I think I’ve tested out a few things over the couple of years, but I think right now we’re doing the Instagram test first.

Adrian: Yeah, a lot of times, we’ll post stuff to Instagram now because that’s where we really put our primary focus in the past few months. So we’ll put something up and if it gets a lot of interest, then we’re like, “Okay, that’s definitely worthy of a blog post,” and we’ll then go to the next steps.

But generally, if we do post our recipe to the blog, we’ll try to have tested it a few times at least and make sure it’s a solid recipe because that’s important too, that you’re putting something out there that’s going to work for people. But it’s different every time, I guess.

If we were doing it, say, for a client or something, if it was a sponsored post, then there would be a lot more involved time-wise.

Adrian: I really focused a lot in the last few months practicing, and Jeremy definitely is very important part of the process though. He’ll tell me if something’s not working or if I can’t figure something out.

Jeremy: “Do this there. Try this.”

Adrian: Or use his hands a lot in the shots.

On Misconceptions about Healthy Food and Healthy Eating:

Adrian Harris and Jeremy Inglett of The Food Gays on The Dinner Special podcast talking about healthy food and healthy eating.

Jeremy: That it’s all green and boring.

Adrian: We really try and show people that it can be fun and that you can really make fun interesting things and use new ingredients. I think it can feel really limiting for people.

We’re not vegetarian, and that’s why I think we can have so much fun with it. But for those who are and who have food allergies and limitations that way, it can feel really like the same thing. I think you can get into a bit of a food rut. So, yeah, I think that’s our biggest thing, just that it can be different and you can have fun with it and have great, amazing flavors.

Adrian: And get to know your farmers too because that starts to inspire you too.

Jeremy: Yeah, he’s glad to know this really, really wonderful woman for his edible flowers.

Adrian: I’m talking about her flowers all the time.

Jeremy: Well, eating-out option is kind of hard in itself.

Adrian: Yeah, I think eating out can be a challenge.

Jeremy: You’re not gonna go out and buy a nine-dollar salad when you can easily make a three-dollar salad at home and that can fill you up.

Adrian: I think pick your splurge moments, I guess. We definitely eat junk food, and not everything that we eat is on Instagram. And then we have just regular routine meals and stuff.

Jeremy: But just incorporating it into your routine is just a good way to do it.

Adrian: Just start slow. Just start somewhere.

And cut down on your meat. That’s something that we’ve done a lot. We love protein still, and we’ll eat it maybe a few times a month now, as opposed to it being like it felt like it needed to be every single night of the week. That, with the side of your vegetables.

If you shift your focus . . . And I think cookbooks. Cookbooks and blogs, that’s a really great way because a lot of the work is done for you. You don’t need to sit and worry about trying to come up with something super creative. Just go online and find it. Someone’s done it. Try it out.

On the Food Culture in Vancouver, BC Canada:

Adrian-Harris-and-Jeremy-Inglett-of-The-Food-Gays-on-The-Dinner-Special-podcast talking about the food culture in Vancouver, BC, Canada.

Adrian: You can probably find a little bit of everything here. For someone who’s really well traveled, maybe Vancouver still has a lot of growing to do, but in a lot of ways, if you’ve been here or if you’re from here, you know it’s a bit of a small town. So in that respect, we do have a lot of options, and we’re spoiled.

Jeremy: There’s still a lot of restaurants that we have never been to.

Adrian: People ask us where we should go eat, and we’re like, we haven’t dined out probably, nearly . . .

Jeremy: as much as we used to.

Adrian: Yeah, nearly as much as we used. Can’t keep up. It’s like a full-time job.

On Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner in Vancouver:

Adrian: I think breakfast, we’d probably say Café Medina.

It’s a good solid spot. Go early so you’re not waiting in line for too long. But they do a really good breakfast.

Jeremy: Lunch, there’s this really cute spot, Japanese spot, Basho Café. They do these lunch sets, so you get three little pastries, or two pastries.

Adrian: Yup, and some soup.

Jeremy: A lunch bowl and a soup and a drink.

Adrian: It’s made by this little Japanese family. It’s super authentic, really, really good, just solid home-cooking lunch. And dinner, we’d probably say Kessel&March. That’s one of our favorite restaurants.

And we live in the distillery and brewing district of Vancouver, so there’s literally within a 15-minute walking span four or five different places that you can go drinking.

The Pressure Cooker:

Which food shows or cooking shows do you watch?

Jeremy: MasterChef Canada.

Adrian: Love Nigella Lawson, which I mentioned, Nigel Slater.

Adrian: Oh, and we just started watching Food Network Star, which is just ridiculous, but… Cutthroat Kitchen.

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

Adrian: I’m sure you probably know about a lot of them, but stuff we love, Feed Feed, that’s a really great place for just dinner inspiration. Artful Desperado, yeah, we love him. And then we’ll give Baked a shout because we just started contributing for Baked, the blog, so that’s a really good baking website.

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

Jeremy: I really love Dennis The Prescott stuff.

Adrian: Yup, Dennis Prescott, for sure. Again, Feed Feed for sure, Artful Desperado, Molly Yeh, I am a Food Blog, Vanilla and Bean…

Jeremy: Just to name a few.

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

Jeremy: Ironically, the appliance we didn’t use for maybe two years, which we’re now using almost every other day.

Adrian: The pressure cooker.

Jeremy: Yeah, steam pressure cooker.

Adrian: And we just got it and we never used it, and then it sat there for literally two years. We finally figured out how to use this scary-looking object, and yeah, it’s really great.

Adrian: We make dog food for our dog, so we have to steam vegetables.

Jeremy: It just keeps all the nutrients in the vegetables that we’re cooking for him and because we only feed him real food.

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

Adrian: Mine would be cilantro.

Jeremy: Blue cheese for me. It was too pungent to eat before, but now I can just eat it, no problem.

What are a few cookbooks that make your life better?

Adrian: Definitely Ottolenghi’s cookbooks Plenty, Plenty More. Those are two really great ones. Sunday Suppers, love that book.

Jeremy: My school pastry book, that’s good resource.

Adrian: Yeah, Jeremy has a lot of books from school, and then we’ve got this Seven Spoons cookbook. We haven’t cooked from that yet, but it’s a really beautiful one. We actually laid off the cookbooks in the last few months because I kind of went a little crazy.

It’s like an addiction in itself.

What song or album just makes you want to cook?

Adrian: Right now we really love Galantis’ “Peanut Butter Jelly.”

It’s such a good song. They just released the album. It’s very good.

On Keeping Posted with The Food Gays:

Adrian Harris and Jeremy Inglett of The Food Gays on The Dinner Special podcast talking about how to keep posted on them.

Adrian: Definitely, Instagram’s our number one platform.

But Twitter, Facebook, we’re pretty much on all three, and we’re trying to post more recipes to the blog. So definitely, check us out there more, where you can expect more recipes this summer.

 

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Filed Under: Podcast Tagged With: Adrian Harris, Artful Desperado, Baked, Basho Café, Café Medina, Cutthroat Kitchen, Dennis The Prescott, Feed Feed, Food Blog, Food Blogger, Food Network Star, Galantis, Healthy Eating, Healthy Food, i am a food blog, Jeremy Inglett, Kessel&March, MasterChef Canada, Molly Yeh, Nigel Slater, Nigella Lawson, Plenty, Plenty More, Seven Spoons, Sunday Suppers, The Food Gays, Vancouver, Vanilla and Bean, Yotam Ottolenghi

060: Dinner Was Delicious: Chicago and Its Food

July 20, 2015 by Gabriel Leave a Comment

Dinner Was Delicious on The Dinner Special podcast
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Lucy Hewett and Rachel Adams of Dinner Was Delicious on The Dinner Special podcast talking about the food culture in Chicago.

Dinner Was Delicious

Based in Chicago, Lucy and Rachel share recipes, photographs and love food enough not to take it too seriously. They’ve been destroying kitchens together since 2011.

I am so happy to have Lucy and Rachel of Dinner Was Delicious joining me here on the show today.

(*All images below belong to Dinner Was Delicious.)

On How They Met:

Lucy Hewett and Rachel Adams of Dinner Was Delicious on The Dinner Special podcast talking about how they met.

Rachel: Lucy and I both worked at this really weird tech start-up in Chicago. Chicago has this awesome tech scene.

Lucy: We were lucky to have this job.

Rachel: And it was great, but it wasn’t super creatively fulfilling. So we just bonded together over our shared love of food and gossip of the weird architecture in the office space.

Lucy: We found each other in the midst of a strange company. For our Parks and Rec enthusiasts, we describe it as Entertainment 720. We just talked about what we wanted to do and became good friends outside of work.

On What Made Them Want to Collaborate with Each Other:

Lucy Hewett and Rachel Adams of Dinner Was Delicious on The Dinner Special podcast talking about what made them want to collaborate.

Lucy: Rachel was baking a lot. My job was already creative because I was a graphic designer. And Rachel was doing operations and needed a creative outlet and would bring us the most incredible desserts. I started with cupcakes and pies and all kinds of really incredible desserts, and I was always like, “If you ever want to collaborate, we should be documenting these. These are beautiful. Have you written down the recipes? What’s next? Let’s do something with this.”

Rachel: So Lucy was doing her photography business, and I was baking more and more and then started actually baking as a little side project, just for some extra cash. I baked for a wedding that was for one of our mutual friend’s siblings, and Lucy was shooting photography for it too. So I was doing a bunch of cupcakes, and Lucy was like, “Well, I’ll come over, and I’ll take pictures of the cupcakes. It was super fun and we decided, “Well, let’s do it.”

Lucy: It was kind of intimidating to think about getting it started, but really, we just put a Tumblr theme up. I made a logo in five minutes that wasn’t really the logo that we wanted, but we just needed to start and it just started there.

On Their Interest in Food and Cooking:

Lucy Hewett and Rachel Adams of Dinner Was Delicious on The Dinner Special podcast talking about their interest in food and cooking.

Lucy: We like to eat. I really like to eat. I became interested in food after I moved to Chicago, and I became interested in food out of the realization that I don’t know how to cook for myself. I moved into my own apartment five years ago, and so it’s just all on me. I couldn’t rely on my roommate to have dinner ready for me anymore. And Rachel had all this knowledge, basics that I didn’t know, and so that was really helpful to just be cooking with her. And then eating in Chicago, you are exposed to all kinds of different things that I became interested and curious about that.

Rachel: I’ve always cooked. My mother, bless her heart, she’s an awesome nurse. Briefly in the late ’90s, she was a super kick-ass body piercer. But she can’t cook to save her life, and she’ll say it as much as I will. So if I wanted to eat when I was a kid, I had to figure out how to make it myself. I cooked a lot with my grandma, a little bit with my grandpa too, and just figured out how to cook, always super-passionate about it.

Love cooking for people. Another part of why we started collaborating was Lucy wasn’t as proficient in the kitchen, so it was like, “Well, come over. I’ll show you how to fry an egg.”

Lucy: At the time, I was still a graphic designer, and I didn’t know how I wanted to shoot food. It was kind of a way to learn that and experiment with different techniques.

On Not Taking Food Too Seriously:

Lucy Hewett and Rachel Adams of Dinner Was Delicious on The Dinner Special podcast talking about not taking food so seriously.

Rachel: So I think some people, many people who are really passionate about food start getting a little self-inflated about it. They lose the fun and the spontaneity of food and letting it be just what it is: something delicious to nourish you and share with people that you love. I think that we work really hard to keep the important things in mind: sustainability, seasonality, nutrient density, all of these things that we think about. But we let our love of food really shine through to be what it is, which is food. You eat it with people you love, and we’re giving food the space to be enjoyable, rather than something that’s stricter.

On a Kitchen Disaster:

Rachel: One happened last night. We’re in Lucy’s photography studio, and we were supposed to make Cheeze-Its, and I just . . . They just did not work. So even if you’re someone who’s proficient in the kitchen, screw-ups happen. Your recipe doesn’t always work out as planned. When you’re testing stuff and flying by the seat of your pants and maybe didn’t set your timer, sometimes things can get burned.

Lucy: There’s a lot of burning. Not a lot, but that’s my biggest.

Rachel: One of my favorite memories with us, though, was the day that we made the fried chicken at my place, and you brought the bone-in chicken. And this was way, way, way early on, like before I had any butchery experience, but I love taking carving on the meat now. I was still super squeamish. And so we were going to make a fried chicken dinner, and Lucy brought the chicken and it was bone-in because bone-in chicken is more delicious. But it was a whole chicken. I had to figure out, how do I take this bird apart?

Lucy: I was there for moral support, and it took a lot to go down.

Rachel: It took a lot of bourbon. This was four or five years ago now.

On the Food Culture in Chicago:

Lucy Hewett and Rachel Adams of Dinner Was Delicious on The Dinner Special podcast talking about the food culture in Chicago.

Lucy: People are really interested about food here, and there’s everything available. I don’t even know where to start. It’s overwhelming.

Rachel: People, when they think about Chicago food culture, they’re going to think first about deep-dish pizza.

Lucy: Yeah, that’s true.

Rachel: And people might not realize that it’s actually one of the most prominent culinary capitals in the U.S. We have Alinea. We’ve got Next. We’ve got Publican. We’ve got all sorts of really wonderful, creative restaurants. We’ve got a lot of ramen going on right now too.

It’s more than just meat and potatoes. It’s people who really care about interesting food. It’s not just white people with Western stuff.

Lucy: Yeah, food from all different cultures. The neighborhoods are so diverse that you can have food from all over the world and have it done well.

On a Dish That Captures What Chicago is About:

Rachel: That’s a really hard question.

Lucy: Because Chicago isn’t one thing food-wise for me. Hot dog, I guess.

Rachel: Because it’s got everything.

Lucy: It’s got everything on it. And we’re so particular about how we have our hot dogs. This is the least original answer I could give you.

Rachel: No, I love it.

Lucy: But it is the Chicago style, no ketchup and . . .

Rachel: You’ve got the mustard, which has lots of Asian and Germanic influences. You’ve got this beautiful pickle that’s like a fermented pickle. It’s not a brine pickle. So it has a long fermentation process rather than the vinegar. So lots of different cultural influences there. It’s everything on a bun and like, “Ugh!”

On a Food That Locals Love that Visitors May Not Know About:

Lucy: So there’s this one dish called a “mother-in-law.” It’s a hot dog and a tamale covered in chili in a bun with a bunch of cheese, and there’s also the Chicago original rainbow cone. It’s this huge stack of ice cream. It’s got orange sherbet, pistachio, this really special cherry ice cream, chocolate, everything all on one cone, and it’s so, so essential Chicago summer. In your cut-off jeans, you’ve got to get an original rainbow cone.

The Pressure Cooker:

Which food shows or cooking shows do you watch?

Lucy: I love Anthony Bourdain.

Rachel: I love The Taste, though. Anthony’s on there, but Nigella, come on, give me a break. She’s perfect.

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

Rachel: Wit & Vinegar. Billy Green is the best human on the Internet. Love him so much. I’m super into I am a Food Blog.

Lucy: Yeah, I am a Food Blog is great. I always go to Smitten Kitchen. She’s great, solid recipes. She’s been around for so long, she has such a great library of recipes.

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

Rachel: I’m a grandmother on the Internet.

Lucy: That’s true.

Rachel: I follow lots of cat Instagrams, so I just get cat pictures in my feed throughout the day.

Lucy: Our friend Jana has an account called Bike a Bee that I follow on Instagram and Twitter and she’s hilarious and also shares all this cool information about plants. And she’s a beekeeper, and so she shares her process about beekeeping and selling honey, which is really cool.

Rachel: Speaking of Jana, there’s another, based in Philadelphia. There’s a restaurant and butchery space and education space about meat and sustainable meat called Kensington Quarters. It’s awesome. It’s not for vegans. If you’re squeamish about meat, you’re not going to love it. But they post the most beautiful, educational pictures about meat. They’re super great people I connect to.

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

Rachel: My KitchenAid mixer. I know that’s super cliché, but it has lived so many lives. It came into my life in the most . . . I was in a not super great relationship, and all that I wanted – and this was eight years ago, all that I wanted was a KitchenAid mixer because I had just started baking, and I was really passionate about it. And all that I wanted for my birthday was a KitchenAid mixer. But I was 22, 23.

Nobody has KitchenAid money at 22, 23. So I asked the guy that I was dating at the time, not a super great relationship, to talk to my friends and be like, “Everybody pitches in 10 or 15 bucks to get the KitchenAid.” And he did it, and I got my KitchenAid. And it was the best ever, and lived through a bug infestation.

It lived through 17 moves now, just going all over the place. It’s gotten me through everywhere. I love it more than everything. It barely works. It’s got this big nick on the top of it from one of my more urgent moves. My apartment flooded, and it was horrible. And I just grabbed the mixer and ran. Yeah, I love my mixer more than anything.

Lucy: I don’t know. My kitchen is kind of tiny. I don’t have any sentimental passed-on pieces yet.

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

Lucy: Pickles.

Rachel: Yeah, pickles? You didn’t like pickles?

Lucy: I didn’t like pickles. I wasted so much of my life not liking pickles.

Rachel: Weird. For a long, long time, I was really not into food. I didn’t eat asparagus until I was 25.

Lucy: Or things that were cute.

Rachel: I wouldn’t eat lamb.

Lucy: Rabbits.

Rachel: I still don’t eat rabbit. It makes me sad. I know, I’m an idiot. I didn’t have cauliflower until I was 27 and, oh my gosh, I love it now. If there’s anything that anyone is ever afraid of eating food-wise, you could be skipping your favorite food, the most delicious food you’ve ever eaten. Just eat all the things you’re afraid of. Everything is good if you cook it right.

What are a few cookbooks that make your life better?

Lucy: What to Cook and How to Cook it.

Rachel: That’s such a good one. I just got Edward Lee’s Smoke and Pickles, and it is one of the most beautifully written cookbooks I’ve ever seen. The recipes are amazing. They’re flawlessly tested. The photography is beautiful. And his prose, he has chapters in between with actually prose in it. It’s so wonderful and smart and touching.

Lucy: And What Katie Ate books are beautiful, so I look at that for inspiration sometimes for photography. It’s gorgeous, lots of good party recipes.

What song or album just makes you want to cook?

Rachel: Everything. Music makes me hungry.

Lucy: Yeah, it depends on what mood I’m in. I’ll put on an old album, like Tom Petty and The Rolling Stones, or I’ll blast Robyn if it’s winter or summer.

Rachel: If I’m making pie, I want to listen to The Secret Sisters, for sure. If I’m eating my feelings, I want to listen to Neko Case’s latest album and just cry into my soup or whatever comfort food I’m cooking. But if it’s just like general, just hanging out in the kitchen, you can’t go wrong with Robyn. She’s the queen. She’s flawless.

On Keeping Posted with Rachel and Lucy:

Lucy Hewett and Rachel Adams of Dinner Was Delicious on The Dinner Special podcast talking about keeping posted with them.

Lucy: DinnerWasDelicious.com, so that is where you should keep going. And then follow us on Instagram @effingdelicious, and we’re also @effingdelicious on Twitter as well.

 

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Filed Under: Podcast Tagged With: Alinea, Anthony Bourdain, Bike a Bee, Chicago, Chicago original rainbow cone, Dinner Was Delicious, Edward Lee, Entertainment 720, Food Blog, Food Blogger, i am a food blog, Kensington Quarters, KitchenAid, Lucy Hewett, Neko Case, Next, Nigella Lawson, Parks and Rec, Publican, Rachel Adams, Robyn, Smitten Kitchen, Smoke and Pickles, The Rolling Stones, The Secret Sisters, The Taste, Tom Petty, What Katie Ate, What to Cook and How to Cook it, Wit & Vinegar

038: Paul Lowe: Perfection is Boring

May 20, 2015 by Gabriel Leave a Comment

Paul Lowe of Sweet Paul on The Dinner Special podcast talking about how his blog evolved into a magazine.
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Paul Lowe of Sweet Paul magazine on The Dinner Special podcast talking about how perfection is boring.

Sweet Paul, Magazine

Paul’s magazine Sweet Paul is a source of inspiration to anyone who enjoys easy, yet elegant recipies, entertaining ideas, and stylish crafts. The magazine is all about helping its readers create a unique style that is home-made and hand-made. Paul also wrote a book called Sweet Paul: Eat and Make.

I am so thrilled to have Paul Lowe of Sweet Paul here on the show today.

On How Sweet Paul Evolved From Blog to Magazine:

Paul Lowe of Sweet Paul on The Dinner Special podcast talking about how his blog evolved into a magazine.

Well, I actually started my blog out of blog envy. Because a friend of mine had a blog, and it kind of looked really cool, and she got comments, and I was like, “Oh, I want comments.” So I was like, “Okay, I guess I have to start a blog.”

But then of course the question is, what are you going to blog about? Because I thought the world doesn’t need another shopping blog. So I’m just going to blog about myself and my work. I started out and I can still remember the first comment that wasn’t a family member or a friend, a stranger, how exciting that was. And it sort of became a sport. I would post a lot. I would be very excited about it.

The idea of having my own magazine was in the back of my head, but, of course, unless your name is Rockefeller or Hearst, it’s a little difficult, because it’s very expensive. But I thought about it when the whole online magazine came about and I thought, “Oh, I can actually do that.” So that’s how it started. It started five years ago.

It started out only online, and then, after two and a half years, I got an e-mail from Anthropologie, who said, “We love your magazine and we really want to sell it.” And I wrote back, “Thank you, that’s awesome, but it’s an online magazine, so that’s a little difficult.” But they were very persistent, and they are the reason why Sweet Paul magazine came into print that early. I would have got maybe into print, but not that early. So you can thank Anthro for that.

On His Introduction to Cooking:

Paul Lowe of Sweet Paul on The Dinner Special podcast talking about how he was introduced to cooking.

Well, these were two very smart, little old ladies, because they could sense very early that I was kind of a different child. I wasn’t too interested in playing with other kids, I wanted to stay home. I was drawn to food and everything that was pretty. So they started cooking with me really early. And, actually, I had my own little cutting board, I had my own knife, very dull, but still, it was mine. And they would show me what to do and help me and we’d prepare a lot of meals together.

I was an only child up until I was seven. Then my sister came along, and, you know, my life was over. But up until then, their whole existence was to make me happy. So if I wanted to bake an apple cake, we’d bake an apple cake. If I wanted to make new pillows for my bedroom, we’d make new pillows. And they would always let me help.

On How Perfection is Boring:

Paul Lowe of Sweet Paul on The Dinner Special podcast talking about how perfection is boring.

The great thing with these two ladies was that they both had impeccable taste, but they weren’t too much into perfection. That means that the cakes are always a little bit lopsided, the seams weren’t perfectly straight, but the cakes tasted wonderful. All the food was wonderful. The pillows were stylish. And if I would point out to my grandmother, if I would say, “Look, the cake is a little higher on one side than the other.” She’d always look at me and she would say, “Oh, honey, perfection is so boring.” And that is something I have actually taken with me, and I have also taken with me to the magazine. If a thing’s too perfect and looks too intimidating, no one is going to make it. And I don’t make a magazine or books to show you how clever I am, I want to make a magazine and books that you actually can use. Because there’s nothing worse than seeing a beautiful picture and reading a recipe, and there’s, like, 30 ingredients, and the how-to is three pages long. It sort of takes away from the fun of it. And I also know that people aren’t going to do it.

If there’s a picture that’s still beautiful, but you can see that it’s made by human hands, and if there’s a short ingredients list, and a short how-to, it kind of makes you want to make . . . You’re like, “Oh, I can actually do this.” And that’s my goal for everything I do. I want people to actually make it. And there’s nothing more inspiring to me personally than to get e-mails, messages on Facebook and stuff from people who actually make it. Because sometimes you do wonder. I sit here in my little office, and I’m like, “Does anyone really make the stuff?” But people actually do. And they all give me feedback, and that’s very rewarding.

My goal is to create something that I know that you actually can do. Not want to do it, but that you actually physically can do it. So there’s not too many different techniques or difficult stuff, everything’s very simple. And we strive very hard, both me and people I work with for the magazine, that we want to keep things very, very simple. I always say, “Simplify, simplify, simplify.” Let’s make it easy for people.

On Where He Gets Inspiration:

Paul Lowe of Sweet Paul on The Dinner Special podcast talking about where he finds inspiration.

It can be anywhere, really. When it comes to colors, when I’m putting stuff together, I find a load of inspiration from fashion. I love going up and down Fifth Avenue at night and look at the windows for the fabulous stores, and I can’t afford to buy anything, but I can look in the window.

When it comes to food, I’m lucky enough to live in New York, where there’s so much amazing food going on, so just going to lunch, or going to eat, to get a coffee, there’s so much inspiration everywhere. So I feel like I can’t really say that there’s one thing that inspires me, it’s a bunch of things.

What I can say is that I do think best and I come up with my best ideas in the bath tub. That is why I always have a notebook and a pen next to me in the bath tub. I don’t know why, because I really relax well. That’s when I come up with my best ideas.

Some people think really well in a car. My thing is, I think really well in the bath tub.

On a Time When Cooking Didn’t Turn Out As Planned:

For everyone, things don’t always turn out the way you plan it. Sometimes things will suddenly develop by chance. I have this really wonderful go-to recipe that I use a lot. It’s a roasted chicken with maple syrup. And the original recipe had that you glaze the chicken with apricot jam, which is also really good.

But I was out of apricot jam, the store was closed, I had friends coming over, and I was like, “Oh, what do I do?” I always feel like chicken needs something sweet. I had maple syrup. So I covered the chicken in maple syrup, I roasted it, and then I used the drippings to make a gravy with cream. And it’s the most amazing, delicious chicken and gravy that you’ll ever have. It’s sweet, and salty, and creamy.

And then you roast fingerling potatoes with the chicken, so the chicken juices and the maple syrup also go into the potatoes. I tell you, it’s divine.

On His Book, Sweet Paul Eat and Make:

Paul Lowe of Sweet Paul on The Dinner Special podcast talking about his book Sweet Paul Eat and Make

It’s a really fun book because when I was asked to make a book, I was like, “Oh, do I want to make a cookbook or a craft book?” And I couldn’t really make up my mind, so I kind of made both.

It’s mainly a cookbook, but it also has some craft projects in it. And the craft projects are very much based about my kitchen or entertaining. It was a really fun book to make and it’s also very personal, because there’s a lot of stories from my childhood, a lot of stories of growing up, a lot of stuff about my grandmother and my great aunt, and I’m very happy with it. It’s become a very personal thing to me.

I have to tell something funny about the book.

There’s actually a cake in the book that is called the World’s Best. And I don’t claim it to be the world’s best cake, but that is actually the Norwegian name translated, World’s Best. It was a few years back. It was the biggest radio show in Norway, everyone got to vote on what was their favorite cake, and this cake won. And it’s a cake my grandmother used to make. And it’s really wonderful, and it’s so easy, because what it is, it’s a very eggy sponge cake that you bake with a layer of meringue on top and then sprinkle slivered almonds on top of that. And you bake everything in one pan.

Then you take it out, you cut it in half, and you sandwich it with whipped cream in the middle. The great thing about it is that it’s not so sweet.

American cakes are very sweet. When I first moved here, I was like, “Oh my God, this is disgusting. All the frosting on stuff. Now I love it. But it’s such a good cake. Of course, whenevever you call something World’s Best, you kind of get into trouble.

The cake is wonderful. It’s really, really, really good. You should really try it. We definitely got some comment, because, you know, how could it be World’s Best Cake, there’s no chocolate, and there’s no this or that, but it’s fun, because it’s actually the Norwegian name, I just translated it.

The Pressure Cooker:

Which food shows or cooking shows do you watch?

That’s so embarrassing, because I don’t watch any of them. Sorry.

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

You know something? That’s another thing I don’t really do. I don’t really look on blogs and food websites too much. I used to do it, but I really don’t anymore.

I look at stuff, and people send me stuff, but nothing that I’m like, “Oh my God, this is amazing.” I’ve seen some beautiful websites and stuff around, but remember, I’m old. I’m almost 50. I don’t do so well anymore. I honestly don’t remember.

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

I follow a lot of people on Pinterest and Instagram. I can’t really say one person. What I think is amazing is that there is so much talent out there. There’s so many people that take beautiful images and make stuff on their kitchen table, and it always amazes me when I see all these people and all this amazing talent that is all around the world.

The funny thing is that, I say that if the world was run by bloggers and Instagrammers, the world would be a much better place.

No wars, but there would be a lot of good food, and very stylish.

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

The item I use the most is an immersion blender because I’m really into making mashes right now. So I try to make mashes with everything. So I love that.

I love my Le Creuset pots. They’re really good.

And an old whisk I have from my grandmother.

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

Tomatoes.

I used to hate tomatoes. It’s still kind of a love-hate relationship. If it’s a ripe, beautiful tomato, then I love it. But if it’s one of those you get in the winter . . . I don’t eat tomatoes in winter.

It has to be fresh in the season. A little olive oil, salt and pepper, wonderful.

What are a few cookbooks that have made your life better?

I think Donna Hay makes really good cookbooks. I think Jamie Oliver makes really good cookbooks.

I also think Nigella Lawson makes really good cookbooks. Oh, if I ever am to watch a cooking show, I would watch one with her. Because I think she’s just so chic and stylish, and I trust her when she says that something is good. I kind of trust her. Because she eats, and breathes, and lives deliciousness. She’s a very believable chef.

What song or album just makes you want to cook?

I really like listening to bossanova when I cook. Brazilian music. There’s no artist or album, really. I just put it on a playlist.

Get the hips going, it kind of makes everything a little easier. I also listen to that kind of music when I clean. Because I feel like it’s the kind of music that gives you a little energy. It’s fun if you can clean, and dance a little, and drink some wine. It makes cleaning and cooking so much more fun.

On Keeping Posted on Paul:

Paul Lowe of Sweet Paul on The Dinner Special podcast talking about how to keep posted on him.

I’m on Facebook, or on Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest. Absolutely everywhere. Sweet Paul Magazine.

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Filed Under: Podcast Tagged With: Anthropologie, bossanova, Cookbook Author, Donna Hay, Jamie Oliver, Magazine, Nigella Lawson, Paul Lowe, Sweet Paul, Sweet Paul Eat and Make, World's Best Cake

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

April 29, 2015 by Gabriel Leave a Comment

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

The Wednesday Chef, Food Blog

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

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

On How Her Travels Have Shaped Her Food Journey:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

On How Her Blog Started:

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

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

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

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

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

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

On Cooking for Hugo:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Pressure Cooker:

Which food shows or cooking shows do you watch?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Canned tomatoes, salt, olive oil.

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

Name one ingredient you cannot live without.

Yeah, canned tomatoes without a doubt.

What are a few cookbooks that make your life better?

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

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

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

What song or album just makes you want to cook?

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

Keep Posted on Luisa:

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

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

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

025: Skye McAlpine: How Food is Just an Excuse for Connecting with People

April 13, 2015 by Gabriel Leave a Comment

Skye McAlpine of From My Dining Table on The Dinner Special podcast talking about keeping posted on her.
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Skye McAlpine of From My Dining Table on The Dinner Special podcast on How Food is Just an Excuse for Connecting with People

From My Dining Table

Skye is a writer, a cook, mom and scholar of Latin literature and she is from Venice, Italy. On From My Dining Table, Skye shares stories that come about over her home cooked meals, what she last made for her family and friends, and why it was good or not.

I am so excited to have Skye McAlpine of From My Dining Table on the show today.

On Her Journey to Starting Her Blog:

Skye McAlpine of From My Dining Table on The Dinner Special podcast talking about her journey to starting her food blog.

I am English, but my parents moved to Venice when I was five years old. They were just going to live there for a few months and we just stayed. So I grew up there.

I grew up kind of part English, part Italian, part kind of everything. Very much enjoying the local view. When I finished school, I thought that it would be fun to leave home. I think everyone wants to leave home very dramatically when they’re that age.

I had this dream that it would be fun to study at Oxford. So I went to Oxford, and I studied classics. That is where I met my husband. I think it was sort of, funnily enough, being away from home that I realized how much about the day-to-day life in Venice and the food that I really missed.

So I started cooking for myself and for my friends. And one thing led to another and I became more and more interested in cooking, and loved entertaining, and having people around, and long meals. And then when we left university, I just kept on cooking and I then thought, “Well, why do I not write about it?” My great passion is writing and cooking, and I put the two together in my blog.

On Being a Writer:

Skye McAlpine of From My Dining Table on The Dinner Special podcast talking about being a writer.

I think I probably would say I’m writer first and a cook second. Just because I have no training, no formal training in cooking, I’m completely self-taught, and taught almost entirely through cook books and reading them obsessively, and trying things out, and talking to people.

I never really feel confident putting myself out there as a chef. I am very much a home cook.

On Cooking:

Skye McAlpine of From My Dining Table on The Dinner Special podcast talking about cooking.

I think it comes naturally to everyone. I feel quite strongly that food and cooking is very second nature for humans. We have to feed ourselves. So we are built to cook and to eat well.

I do not know if maybe that’s something that becomes as part and parcel of growing up in Italy, where everyone cooks. I mean, that’s the thing that we have in the Anglo-Saxon world where cooking is like – it’s skill. In Italy, everyone is like, “Well, of course you can cook. Why would you not be able to cook?” So maybe that’s why I have a kind of can-do attitude about it.

I’m not sure if I’ve got a talent for it, but I know that I know what I like. I’m willing try stuff. So I’ll try it and if it tastes good, then I’ll make it again and again and again.

I’m sort of adventurous in that I like exploring new things, but also very classic as well. In Italy, it’s not so much about nouveau cuisine or crazy flavors. It’s more about good solid classic flavors that work well. And then I love cooking with herbs and things. So I will add a lot of herbs to sweet dishes or savory dishes. It’s not particularly revolutionary, but I find it makes things taste good.

On the Food Culture in Venice, Italy:

Skye McAlpine of From My Dining Table on The Dinner Special podcast talking about the food culture in Venice, Italy.

The food culture is… that’s almost, that is the culture. Food is such an important part of life there. I think that was something that certainly I took for granted when I lived there before I moved away.

It was living in England that I appreciated it. Of course it’s really special that you get to buy your tomatoes at the market, and that children grow up eating artichokes. And all these basic things that I’d really taken for granted but that actually don’t happen so much in the U.K.

The food there, it’s always been fresh. There are one or two supermarkets, but they’re very small and they’ve only opened in the past few years. Traditionally, people really do shop at the market everyday or every other day. They’ll buy small portions. And it is just very seasonal the way people eat. Not too much because that’s trendy and fashionable, but more because that’s how they do it. That’s how it’s always been done.

One of my favorite dishes is this dish that’s very, very Venetian, and very typical called sarde in saor. It’s tiny sardines which are pan-fried in a bit of flour and just lightly fried, and then you cook them in a sauce, just kind of vinegar, and onion, and pine nuts, and raisins, and bay leaves, and there are some other herbs in there. Traditionally, it’s little sardines but you can do it with prawns or pretty much any sea food.

I kind of think that’s one of those things that sounds really not terribly nice, but actually when you eat it, it’s delicious, it’s so good. I can imagine coming to Venice as a stranger and seeing it and saying, “Oh, no, I wouldn’t have any of that.” But it would be a real mistake. You should definitely try it.

I have a rule if I get into a restaurant and there’s something on the menu and I think, “Oh, my gosh, that sounds absolutely disgusting.” I have to order it, because I think they wouldn’t put it on the menu sounding like that unless it tasted really, really, really good.

On Venice, Italy for Food Lovers:

Skye McAlpine of From My Dining Table on The Dinner Special podcast talking about Venice, Italy for food lovers.

Venice is a really tiny town. You can walk from one end to the other, if you know where you are going, in 45 minutes. So it’s not so much like London or New York, where there are cooler neighborhoods or so forth. It’s all pretty kind of the same. But I would say that I would avoid the Rialto, St. Marks Square, kind of more touristy area, just because, I mean there are some good restaurants there, but it’s also it’s more geared towards tourists, it’s more expensive, it’s not quite so good.

I would definitely explore the kind of ghetto area up towards the station that’s very quiet and very residential, and there are some great restaurants there which are undiscovered. Explore the outskirts of the city. Maybe go to the Guidecca or those parts of the city where there are fewer tourists, and that’s where you can get really good food and a more local experience.

On Her Love of Cooking:

Skye McAlpine of From My Dining Table on The Dinner Special podcast talking about her love of cooking.

I think my parents always entertained a lot, my father in particular. Lunches and dinners at home would quite regularly be for ten, 12, 15, 20 people. Often kind of random people, friends would be in town and they’d say, “Oh, we met some people, can we bring them? Or friends of friends or family or just totally random people. I’ve always really kind of loved that. Maybe because I grew up that way, or maybe just because that is my character.

I love thinking of meals as more than just a way of eating and feeding yourself. I think it’s sort of special to make it something special, even if it is if you’re just having pizza. Or you are just having a plate of pasta. I think if you have a large group of people, good company and a decent bottle of wine, it really does make for a very special event. And I think that life is made out of those special moments. Those are the ones that you end up remembering. So yeah, I love cooking for people. The more people, the better.

I really care about the food but for an enjoyable meal it’s about so much more than that. And to be honest, if you burn dinner, I think if you have the right group people and an okay bottle of wine and you are relaxed about it and it’s a nice table, I don’t think anyone really cares. It’s just much more about connecting with people and food is just really an excuse for that.

The Pressure Cooker:

Which food shows or cooking shows do you watch?

I don’t watch food shows. I read cookbooks though. I will avidly read cookbooks.

I mean like classic English ones like Nigella Lawson or Jamie Oliver, are kind of cliches. But I also love just finding really obscure cookbooks in secondhand book stores and being a like, “Oh, I have not heard of this person, and there are no photos, but it looks like it’s full of cool stories or cool recipes.”

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

I love Local Milk. I love Two Red Bowls. And what else do I love? Oh, there’s another blog that I love called La Petite Americaine.

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

I follow Ginny Branch on Pinterest. I recently toured a workshop with her and Beth Kirby of Local Milk in Venice. She has an amazing collection of pin-boards of just really inspiring stuff. Then, who do I follow on Instagram that I really like, so many people. I mean, that’s the one thing I would say about Instagram is that I’m constantly overwhelmed by the crazy amount of talent out there.

I love Condé Nast Traveler, even though it’s a magazine, they have a very cool feed that’s a fun blend of travel and food and other stuff going on.

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

Well, herbs. I know they don’t go in your pantry but I would definitely have some kind of pots of fresh herbs. I use them for cooking in everything sweet, savory, what have you.

And then I like to keep my pantry stocked up with real basics like eggs, flour, sugar. Basically, I love baking, so I like to be able to bake a cake at any given moment, randomly in the middle of the night. So I need those basic essentials.

Name one ingredient you cannot live without?

Cheese. Everything tastes better with cheese.

Truffle oil. Everything tastes better with truffle oil too.

Well, I love all the Pecorinos and the slightly peppery hard cheeses. But then obviously Mozzarella, I mean oh, burrata. I can’t choose one type of cheese. That’s just too much pressure.

Cheese in general is good.

What are a few cookbooks that make your life better?

I love The Flavor Thesaurus. It’s this really great book. There are no actual recipes and no images in it. But it takes most of pretty much every flavor. So you can search “Peach”, and it will list the flavors that peaches conventionally go well with. So it might say like thyme and almonds and walnuts and what have you. I find it like a really helpful inspirational tool for creating recipes.

I have so many cookbooks. It is terrible. It’s a condition, I have too many of them.

What song or album just makes you want to cook?

That is a tricky one. I love old 70s or 60s music. That kind of gets me in the mood for cooking. Something like The Beatles, or something really classic like that.

Keep Posted on Skye:

Skye McAlpine of From My Dining Table on The Dinner Special podcast talking about keeping posted on her.

I am really active on Instagram. And obviously on my blog, I’ll put updates. Then I have got a Facebook page and I am on Pinterest. I am not really on Twitter. Or send me an email. I like receiving emails.

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    Filed Under: Podcast Tagged With: Condé Nast Traveler, Food Blog, Food Blogger, From My Dining Table, Ginny Branch, Guidecca, Italy, Jamie Oliver, La Petite Americaine, Local Milk, Nigella Lawson, Skye McAlpine, The Beatles, The Flavor Thesaurus, Two Red Bowls, Venice, Writer

    024: Meike Peters: How Mediterranean Cooking Can Be Simple

    April 10, 2015 by Gabriel Leave a Comment

    Meike Peters of Eat in My Kitchen on The Dinner Special podcast talking about food culture in Berlin, Germany.
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    Meike Peters of Eat in My Kitchen on The Dinner Special podcast on How Mediterranean Cooking Can Be Simple

    Eat in My Kitchen

    On Eat in My Kitchen, Meike shares her culinary journey which is inspired by her mother’s passion for cooking and food, and her connection with Malta in the Mediterranean. Her photography is amazing and transports us to her dining table in her apartment in one of Berlin’s wide boulevards.

    I am so thrilled to have Meike Peters of Eat in My Kitchen on the show today.

    On Her Blog:

    Meike Peters of Eat in My Kitchen on The Dinner Special podcast talking about her food blog.

    I’ve always loved food and cooking. I’ve been cooking for almost 20 years now and we always have lots of friends over. Sometimes I cook for ten, 15, 20 people. After our dinner parties, people always ask me for recipes, they just give me a call during the week like, “Can you give me some inspiration and tell me what I can cook?” So at one point I thought I can also share all of this on a blog.

    I also love photography, I love writing. The blog brings everything together. Now you can just go to the blog and see what I cook and get some inspiration from there.

    Cooking is definitely easiest. I don’t even have to think much about it; it just comes naturally. Photography and writing, it depends a lot on my moods, especially with writing. Sometimes when I’m in the right mood or sometimes even when I’m lying in bed in the morning, I have a whole text in my head. But when I’m not in the right mood, it can take an hour, two hours and it just doesn’t come out.

    With photography, it depends a lot on the light. So since I take all my pictures with daylight, I depend a lot on how the lights change. Sometimes the food and the light and everything works perfectly, and sometimes it doesn’t, and then it’s a bit more work.

    For me it’s important that the food looks quite natural and even of late, I don’t decorate much. With my food, I’m not the kind of person who gets five plates and five fancy spoons. What you see on the photos is what I use for cooking and the plates we eat from. It’s very practical.

    On Her Mother As an Inspiration:

    Meike Peters of Eat in My Kitchen on The Dinner Special podcast talking about her mother as her inspiration.

    We talk on the phone two, three times a week and very often we just talk about recipes, what we cook.

    She travels a lot and sometimes she calls me from a restaurant and tells me, “I had this amazing pasta here in Sicily with truffle. You have to try that.”

    We both have this huge passion for food; for cooking and good ingredients. And very often it comes very natural that we talk about it other than mother and daughter. Others may talk about clothes and shoes and handbags. We talk about cabbage, carrots, soups, and pasta.

    When I visit my mama, we sit at the table and we drink wine, we eat. Sometimes we meet in the kitchen at five in the afternoon and we just cook and chat. Although my family is German, it’s quite Italian.

    On Mediterranean Food and Cooking:

    Meike Peters of Eat in My Kitchen on The Dinner Special podcast talking about Mediterranean food and cooking.

    It doesn’t need many ingredients, but the ingredients are very good. It starts with good olive oil, good vegetables, ripe vegetables, something that’s hard to find sometimes here in the north of Europe, in Berlin.

    But in the Mediterranean, they pick the vegetables and fruits from the trees and they are perfect, ripe, sweet. So whenever we go to Malta and I come back home to Berlin, I’m a bit disappointed with what I find here. The cooking is varied because they have these amazing ingredients; they don’t actually need much. You throw together what you have.

    Whenever we are in Malta my cooking is very quick.  The seafood is amazing; we just throw some fish on the barbecue and some great bread and olive oil. A quick salad and that’s it; doesn’t need much. But what you have is very, very good and it’s very pure.

    I use a lot of fennel seeds in my cooking. That started, was it ten years ago, when I moved in with my boyfriend because they have amazing fennel seeds in Malta. So there are more fennel seeds in my cooking. And citrus fruits like lemon zest, orange zest, I use that a lot. These are ingredients that everybody really knows but once it really fits your taste buds, you might use it a bit more. So for me, it’s citrus flavors and fennel seeds.

    The best thing is to travel to Italy, to Malta. Find a nice mama who opens her kitchen for you and cook with her. I think it’s like with any other style of cooking as well; that it’s always best to meet someone who is from this country and to cook with this person.

    Because a cookbook, a blog, they can inspire you to try out things that you might not have tried before, but the best thing is always to cook with people who come from this country or from this area, and to learn from them. That’s what I believe.

    They know more of the secrets because it’s the cooking that comes from their mother or grandmother; all these recipes that are given from one generation to the next. And I love to learn like this.

    On Food Culture in Berlin, Germany:

    Meike Peters of Eat in My Kitchen on The Dinner Special podcast talking about food culture in Berlin, Germany.

    It’s very multicultural and there are these trends like in any other big cities. At the moment, there’s big hype for Korean food, burgers as well; a big burger hype.

    There are always new people coming to the city and bringing their culinary background with them. But it’s really very inspiring because it’s permanently changing and developing.

    The locals here, they love a dish that is called Königsberger Klopse. It’s like a meatball and it’s cooked in a broth. The sauce is a bit thick and creamy with capers. It’s sweet as well. For some people it’s quite a challenge. If someone prepares it well, then it’s really, really good.

    What is very famous here is currywurst. Everybody knows currywurst, it’s a sausage. It’s light with a curry ketchup. I’m not a big fan of that.

    On Her Blog Series, “Meet in Your Kitchen”:

    Meike Peters of Eat in My Kitchen on The Dinner Special podcast talking about a series on her blog called Meet in Your Kitchen.

    The idea is that I meet other people in their kitchen because on my blog people just see what happens in my kitchen.

    For Meet in Your Kitchen, I meet other people in their kitchen, people who inspire me. Some have culinary backgrounds, some are artists, designers, friends. The idea is to show a process through the eyes of their kitchen.

    We cook one dish together; the recipe will be, as always, on the blog and as well, they choose if they want to bake or to cook. I spend a few hours with them in their kitchen and we talk about their lives, the projects, food. Also culinary memories, how they learned about cooking and the food culture in their family.

    The Pressure Cooker:

    Which food shows or cooking shows do you watch?

    None, I don’t watch any. I’m sorry.

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

    I love Manger by Mimi Thorisson. I mean, it’s very popular. I love France. I love the food. I love the pictures. It’s a very popular blog.

    I love What Should I Eat for Breakfast Today by Marta. She lives in Berlin as well. I did a feature with her and I love her photography. I love her writing, her start into the day, and I love her blog.

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

    Okay, I follow Marta What should I Eat for Breakfast Today, she makes me happy.

    I follow Manger as well, Mimi Thorisson because she shows France.

    I like to follow travel bloggers. I don’t know their names, but I love to see when they go to the Caribbean and it’s like going on holiday for a split second.

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

    Everybody should have good olive oil, good flour. I use spelt flour, like white spelt flour, for all my baking and that’s really good. Yeast for baking, also.

    Name one ingredient you cannot live without?

    Something I cannot live without is bread. I love bread. If that’s the only thing I can eat for the rest of my life, I’m happy. I love bread.

    What are a few cookbooks that make your life better?

    I love the Nigel Slater cookbooks because I love his approach to cooking and his diary form of the books.

    I like Ottolenghi although I don’t cook much of his recipes, but I find him inspiring.

    There is a new cookbook that I got for Christmas, Persiana; this book is great too.

    I like Nigella Lawson’s baking book.

    What song or album just makes you want to cook?

    Jazz music, in general, Wes Montgomery. Yes, jazz music, definitely.

    Sometimes I need something loud and wild, sometimes classic music. It depends a lot on my mood really.

    Keep Posted on Meike:

    Meike Peters of Eat in My Kitchen on The Dinner Special podcast talking about how to keep posted on her.

    The blog, that’s where I share pictures on Instagram, on Pinterest, on Facebook, on Twitter as well. You get the recipes, the pictures, all on the blog.

    Have Meike's Special Dish Recipe Sent to You Now: 

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      Filed Under: Podcast Tagged With: Berlin, currywurst, Eat in My Kitchen, Food Blog, Food Blogger, Germany, Königsberger Klopse, Malta, Manger, Mediterranean, Meet in Your Kitchen, Meike Peters, Mimi Thorisson, Nigel Slater, Nigella Lawson, Wes Montgomery, What Should I Eat for Breakfast Today, Yotam Ottolenghi

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

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