Vegetarian | The Dinner Special podcast

127: Husbands That Cook: How Cooking Together Makes Food Better

June 15, 2016 by Gabriel 3 Comments

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Husbands That Cook

On Husbands That Cook, Adam and Ryan share quick and easy vegetarian meals, drinks and snacks, their favorite dishes from around the world, and everything from decadent desserts to healthy vegan options. They try to make their recipes as accessible as possible so everyone can confidently follow along and have fun with it.

I am so excited to have Adam Merrin and Ryan Alvarez of Husbands That Cook joining me here on the show today.

(*All photos below are Adam and Ryan’s.)

On Cooking as a Team:

Adam: I’ve learned so much from Ryan because, obviously, he has a lot more experience than I do, but he was the one that got me so excited about it and made it seem so fun. And so, it’s great to be able to do it together.

Ryan: And then for me, even though Adam may be not as experienced in the kitchen, doesn’t know all the techniques or whatever, but his taste is really, really good, so he always knows what to add to a dish or what to take away to make it even better.

He’s amazing with coming up with ideas for dishes, like, “What if we did a cake with this and that and this?” So he’ll come up with these great ideas. So, we make a good team that way. Maybe I might have a bit more of the experience in the kitchen, just kind of practical skills, he has this amazing internal sense of food. I think that we make a good team.

Adam: I feel like it’s helpful for the blog too, because, at least for me, the one with less experience, I make sure that the details and the recipes are written clearly so for beginning cooks that have never done this before, they can follow along with us. I like to approach it like people are going to be doing this for the first time. I think of my friends who don’t cook and who don’t have much experience in the kitchen. I feel like we’re talking to them, kind of walking them along through it so anybody could do it.

Ryan: Yeah, definitely. Because I’ve been cooking for longer, sometimes something that’s second nature to me or I think, “Well, everyone knows how to do this,” Adam might say, “Actually, I think we should explain this a little more clearly. Let’s try to make this a little more accessible.” I feel like we definitely make a good team in that sense, too.

On Being Vegetarian:

Ryan: I think, for both of us, we’ve been vegetarian for so long. I’ve been a vegetarian for about 16 years, and Adam, over 20, so I feel like at this point we’re so comfortable with cooking vegetarian. I maybe cooked a little bit of meat when I was a teenager, but I honestly barely remember how to do it.

Honestly, if somebody handed me a steak, I don’t know if I could cook it correctly, just because it’s been so long. At this point, it’s just kind of second nature. Just all the great vegetarian recipes out there, there’s so much to choose from.

Ryan: I feel like, with a lot of foods that have meat in them, a lot of times it isn’t necessarily about the meat itself, it’s more about the sauce or the flavors and the spices that go with it. So for some dishes, say like a pasta sauce, it can be very easy to take out the meat because you’re using herbs and spices and all those flavors that you get other ways besides the meat.

Whereas, of course, obviously it’s hard to make a vegetarian version of steak tartare, things like that. For a lot of things, I feel like you can get so much flavor other ways besides just from meat that it actually forces you to be creative and look at dishes in a new way.

I think part of it too is, if people think of vegetarian food as a replacement for meat, I think that’s where you can get those expectations. But if you think about a spaghetti marinara sauce, that’s vegetarian food. You wouldn’t necessarily think about it, you wouldn’t think, “Well, spaghetti marinara is vegetarian,” but it is.

It’s naturally vegetarian. So that’s one of those things where if I serve a pasta dinner to somebody, they’re not going to be thinking, “Wait, there’s no meat in this.” Theoretically, hopefully, they’ll just be thinking how delicious it is and they won’t even notice the fact that there’s no meat present.

On Cuban Food:

Ryan: Traditional Cuban cuisine has lots of flavor, they use lots of garlic. It is pretty meat-heavy in general, so a lot of the Cuban foods that I grew up with I no longer eat. But there are so many that we still do. Just black beans and rice with peppers and onions and spices. We have a dish on our website for yuca. It’s a root vegetable.

It’s also called cassava in English. But it’s just loaded with garlic and vinegar and olive oil. It’s just a lot of really bold flavors. We did a plantain recipe recently. I had the fried plantains, tostones, that are delicious. It’s kind of a mix of things, but it’s all very tropical flavors, a lot of garlic, a lot of bright flavors. Vinegars and peppers and things like that, and mangos. It’s delicious food. I love it.

Adam: So, the yuca con mojo recipe that we have on our website uses 30 cloves of garlic, just a little olive oil and salt and vinegar, and it is poured over the yuca, which is very similar to potatoes. But if you were going to try one thing first, I would say to experiment with that one. It’s so delicious.

The Pressure Cooker:

Which food shows or cooking shows do you watch?

Ryan: There’s one called Cutthroat Kitchen that we really like. It’s a super fun game show where they have to compete, cook using crazy challenges, handicaps that they have to get assigned. It’s very fun and very exciting.

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

Adam: I love Cravings in Amsterdam. It’s Paola, and she takes incredible pictures and styles her dishes so beautifully. It’s cravingsinamsterdam.com.

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

Adam: On Snapchat, we really have been having so much fun following so many people. There’s a friend who’s a blogger we met named Asha, who has a wonderful blog called, Food Fashion Party. She cooks Indian food most of the time, and gorgeous, delicious appetizing dishes.

It’s really been fun to now see more than just the photographs that she posts on Instagram, where you can see her cooking in her kitchen and explaining how she makes things and cooking with her family. Every morning, she posts a smoothie. She has a very calming, relaxing voice that’s pleasant to listen to.

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

Ryan: Well, actually, like I mentioned before, remember how I said about how we’re waiting to post the flan recipe until we had a specific kind of double boiler?

I have a double boiler in my kitchen from my grandmother, that she used to make flan, and I still use it to make flan. So it is a well-loved and well-used piece of equipment.

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

Ryan: Oh my gosh, there’s actually a lot for me. When I was a kid, tomatoes, mushrooms, olives, everything, and now I love them all.

Adam: I used to not like beets, and now they’re one of my favorites. I had some today.

What are a few cookbooks that make your life better?

Ryan: One of them, honestly, that has been so great is The Clever Cookbook by Emilie Raffa. It just came out. I know a lot of cookbooks will say that they’re full of timesaving tips and ways to get ahead in the kitchen, but truly, honestly hers really, really is.

It has changed the way that we cook certain things. Like, brown rice takes forever to cook, right? It takes like 45 minutes, but she has this great suggestion to pre-make it and just keep it in your fridge in small containers. That way, whenever you want brown rice, you just open up the freezer and dump it out, and it’s ready. So, stuff like that is so helpful, and her book is great.

Adam: And also, I’d like to just add in that we use The Joy of Cooking a lot for certain recipes. Our lemon poppy seed pancakes were adapted from them.

Ryan: The Joy of Cooking is like a cooking Bible. It’s been in my mom’s kitchen her whole life, it’s been in my kitchen my whole life.

Adam: The recipes are so good.

Ryan: So good, and just so many. If you need to know how to boil an egg, open up The Joy of Cooking. It’ll tell you how to do it. They’re great.

What song or album just makes you want to cook?

Adam: Whenever we cook Cuban food, we put on the Buena Vista Social Club. And actually, whenever we do cuisine from other countries, we try to…

Ryan: Match the music to the cuisine. So if we’re cooking an Italian dinner, we’ll put on some Venetian boat singing or whatever. Or if we’re cooking Indian, we’ll put on some cool Indian music, some Bollywood stuff. We have fun with it.

On Keeping Posted with Adam and Ryan:

Adam: Our blog, it’s HusbandsThatCook.com. We update it about twice a week with recipes, like you said, desserts, dinners, appetizers, drinks.

Ryan: And then on our website, HusbandsThatCook.com, you’ll see links to all of our stuff. We’re super active on Instagram, we’re Husbands That Cook. You can find our Snapchat, we’re Husbands Cook. But all the links to all that is on our website.

102: Erin Alderson: Moving From Fast Food to Healthier Eating

December 23, 2015 by Gabriel Leave a Comment

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Naturally Ella

On her blog, Naturally Ella, Erin shares seasonal vegetarian recipes that are pantry-inspired and favorite recipes that are simple, fresh and exciting for her family. She’s written two cookbooks, The Homemade Flour Cookbook and The Easy Vegetarian Kitchen.

I am so happy to have Erin Alderson of Naturally Ella here on the show today.

(*All photos below are Erin’s.)

On Her Journey From Fast Food to Fresh and Seasonal:

It’s definitely been a long journey, but one I’m glad I took. Through high school and part of college, we were a middle-class family who was always on the go. Had a lot of activities after school, during school and it just seemed like we never really had time to cook. Looking back I think we probably did have time. But like most people it’s just convenient to eat out and grab food as we go.

It wasn’t until in between my freshman and sophomore year of college that my father had a heart attack and had a quadruple bypass. He survived it all but it was definitely a wake-up call for my entire family. After that we changed our diets and we haven’t looked back.

On Getting Started to Eating Healthier:

Baby steps. Definitely baby steps. Instead of eating out every day I’d eat out three times a week. I just stepped back slowly but surely. There were things I didn’t like at first. I didn’t always eat a lot of vegetables as much as I should have. It took time. It took time to really grow and get the process down.

I thought it might have been easier than I expected. I definitely had it built up in my head thinking that, “Oh, I’ll be able to do it. It won’t be that hard.” But it definitely was a day-by-day experience and there were a lot of temptations and challenges around every corner.

I feel like a lot of time people think, “Oh, health food. That must mean salads.” And really I don’t know. I love eating whole grains I do a lot of noodles. Again everything in moderation. You can have a lot of fun with it.

On Some Good Resources for Starting to Eat More Healthy:

I think blogs are awesome. A lot of the healthier food blogs because there’s just so much inspiration. And a lot of times those I feel like are recipes that people can really dig into.

Any of the Michael Pollan books are really a kind of good, swift kick in the rear. Because you read them and think, “Okay. This is why I should be doing this.” Mark Bittman is also a good resource. I think he’s the one that has the cookbook, How to Cook Everything.

I feel like those books can really be go-to references. They don’t have to be something that you read cover to cover. It’s just something that you can say, “Hey. I feel like trying this.” And you can go and dig into it.

On Her Blog:

Originally I started as a healthy baking blog way back in 2007. This was towards the beginning of my healthy eating journey and I wanted to share. For whatever reason I thought blogging sounded like fun even back then.

But I soon realized I didn’t like baking. And I fell in love with cooking. And that really took hold when I joined a CSA. And it was one of the ones where I could go out and pick. Every week I’d go out to the farm and I’d get to pick the produce that was ready. So I was getting my hands dirty.

It just really felt like connecting me to my food more. And forcing me to… instead of making a list of recipes and then going grocery shopping it was forcing me to say, “Okay. This is what I have. What can I make?”

It definitely opened my eyes to different varieties of things. I tried new things. Like kohlrabi was something that I would have never bought at the store but because it was there I tried it. And you learn about it and while sometimes at first you don’t like it. You can try it a different way and prepare it a different way. I think it’s a lot of fun.

In fact in the early days I would come back from the CSA and photograph everything. And I’d say, “This is what I got from the CSA this week.” And then the recipes would be based on that. That’s when my blog really turned seasonal.

On Essential Pantry Items for a Healthier Diet:

I always say that people need a couple, two to three, different kinds of grains. If you’re a grain-eater. Obviously I know there are some diets out there that people don’t eat grains. But for my purpose I’m going to say a few grains. Quinoa’s always a nice one to have because it’s quick-cooking. I love brown rice. That’s a good base for things. I usually have some millet and oats on hand.

And then you need some legumes. I love black beans, chickpeas and lentils. I usually have one of each of those. When I say pantry-inspired, those are really the items that I’m thinking of.

On Her Cookbooks, The Homemade Flour Cookbook and The Easy Vegetarian Kitchen:

The first one the publisher actually reached out to me and said, “Hey, we think that you would be a really good fit for this concept we have. Would it be something you’re interested in?” At first I’m, “Oh my gosh!” I’ve talked about milling flour. I had a lot of grains but I’ve never really put the two together. The more I thought about it, I was like, “No, this is a really good extension of my brand because a lot of times these are the ingredients I have in my house anyway. So what a cool way to show a second use for them.” So that concept was interesting for me.

Then the second book was an idea that I had been playing around with for a while. Because it kind of goes back to that seasonal, “I have these things, what can I do with them?” And so for The Easy Vegetarian Kitchen, it’s 50 base recipes that you can build upon with whatever you have. And so I keep it really open-ended but I do give some examples of what to do per season.

On Being in the Kitchen as a New Parent:

I don’t blog full-time. I have never actually blogged full-time. Naturally Ella has always been my secondary thing that I do and I’ve kept up.

But as of January it’s going to be my full-time because with having Mack around I’ve found that I can’t continue to do about three different jobs. So I’m going to focus solely on the blog. I have been spending quite a bit of time in the kitchen. Primarily during nap times and on weekends when my husband’s home.

But he actually loves being in the kitchen. I put him in the bouncer and I set him up on the kitchen island. And he loves to watch and really enjoys just being there. So that’s nice. It’s been very helpful.

My husband and I’ll even put food up to his nose and say, “Hey, this is mint.” And there was one time that he accidentally got parsley in his mouth and that was a really funny experience. Because he was, “Wait a minute, what is this?” We’re really looking forward to when we can start solid foods and have him experience all of that.

The Pressure Cooker:

Which food shows or cooking shows do you watch?

We don’t have cable. We only have antennae. AI still watch shows like MasterChef. I love Junior MasterChef just because I love seeing the eight-year-olds and the 10-year-olds just get in the kitchen. I think it’s really inspiring for kids to see other kids be in the kitchen. And hopefully grow a generation that’s used to cooking.

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

I love blogs. I’ve met a lot of friends through blogging. But the blogs I’m loving right now, who are doing some really creative vegetarian cooking, are, The First Mess, With Food + Love, Cookie and Kate, Love and Lemons. I’m sure there’s about a dozen more I could name, but those are the four that I really love.

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

So on Instagram, I love following The Fauxmartha. She has a two-year-old at home who sometimes you see little hands in her shots. And I just love that.

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

I have a giant stoneware bowl that is made from a company where I used to live. And it’s a pottery place that’s no longer in business. I just love it. Because I feel like you can’t buy bowls like that anymore.

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

Oh. So many. I’m going to have to say goat cheese. For the longest time I was scared of any cheese that was white because I thought it was goat cheese. But now I love it.

What are a few cookbooks that make your life better?

First and foremost, The Vegetarian Flavor Bible is pretty much how I develop recipes. It’s so great because you can look up an ingredient and get other ingredients. And I love both of The Sprouted Kitchen’s cookbooks. There’s a new cookbook out called, Rose Water and Orange Blossom. That’s a Mediterranean/Lebanese cookbook and it’s just wonderful.

What song or album just makes you want to cook?

Yo-Yo Ma did a collaboration with a few bluegrass artists. And it’s called, The Goat Rodeo Sessions and it’s my favorite one especially this time of year. It gets me in the mood to get in the kitchen and cook.

On Keeping Posted with Erin:

Instagram. I am all about Instagram these days.

092: Emma Galloway: Learning to Cook with Food Intolerances

November 18, 2015 by Gabriel Leave a Comment

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My Darling Lemon Thyme

Emm went to culinary school and worked as a chef for almost eight years in restaurants, the pastry section of cafes, and catering companies in Australia and New Zealand. She left when she became a parent and discovered that not only do her children suffer from gluten and lactose intolerance, but so does she. Emm started her blog in 2010 to share gluten-free vegetarian real food recipes, and stories and tips on organic gardening. Since then, she has written a book, My Darling Lemon Thyme – Recipes from My Real Food Kitchen, and her blog was the 2014 Saveur Blog Awards Winner for Best Original Recipes Blog.

I’m so excited to have Emma Galloway of My Darling Lemon Thyme here with me today.

(*All photos below are Emm’s.)

On Her Interest in Cooking:

I grew up on quite a large property, where my parents grew heaps of vegetables and fruit that we had. And being vegetarian, my mom used to put a lot of time and effort into preparing most of what we had from scratch. So it was part of who we are, and my family, I mean, we’re all into cooking, and from a very young age, I knew that I wanted to be a chef. So, even though a few people told me not to, because that’s a pretty crazy profession, long hours and stuff, I didn’t listen and I just followed my heart and did what I wanted to do.

On Working in Restaurants, Cafes, and Catering:

My preference was working in smaller cafes, so that’s where I worked in New Zealand, mostly it was smaller cafes. Smaller cafes, you generally have only a couple of you in the kitchen, so you’re basically covering all bases yourself, you’re doing everything. Sometimes, even doing the dishes as well, which is actually how I started off in the industry. Restaurants tend to be divided into sections, so you’re only in charge of the one section. And catering companies are quite similar. So I was in charge of the pastry section when I worked for two catering companies in Sydney years ago.

They all have their challenges. It’s a pretty high stress environment, working in the kitchen. Especially when, like I said, if you’re working in a cafe, where there’s only one or two of you in the kitchen and you’re doing two, three hundred covers a day, it’s a lot of work and a lot of stress and a lot of running around. So, yeah, they’re all pretty high stressed.

I think cafes in the winter time generally are nice and calm and that’s when you have your time to play and be a little bit more relaxed. I don’t know if it’s the same in the States, but in New Zealand in summertime, if you work in a cafe, it’s extremely busy, especially if you’re in a cafe anywhere near the ocean, which is where I used to work. People are always going to the beach in the summer and then they’re wanting to go and eat, so it’s pretty busy.

On Starting Her Blog:

When I left the kitchen when my daughter was born, I didn’t even know what a food blog was. We’re a little bit behind in New Zealand and Australia. Five years ago when I started my food blog, there was probably only two of my friends that had ever heard of a food blog before. Even though, I mean, there’s people like Heidi Swanson in the States, who have been blogging for well over 10 years. We’re a little bit behind here, so I had no idea when I left the kitchen at all. And it was actually from finding Heidi Swanson’s cookbook in the library and then getting onto her food blog that I even discovered what food blogs were. So that was only five years ago.

For years I’ve always recorded recipes. If I find a great recipe in a magazine, I was always the crazy person who would be frantically writing out recipes and trying new things. And after I got onto food blogs, I thought, “Well, I’m at home.” Just looking after my kids, my kids were four and two at the time when I started it, so I wasn’t working professionally. And then I missed that creative side of cooking, where you can just experiment. So, at the start I had no clue of what I was doing, didn’t really know how to take photos, but just started.

On Recognizing Her and Her Children’s Food Intolerances:

When I was pregnant with my daughter, I had basically just a sore tummy the entire pregnancy. I just thought that’s just what happens when you’re pregnant. Being my first pregnancy, I had nothing to compare it too. And then when my daughter came along, she was extremely upset 24/7, wouldn’t sleep and was just in a lot of pain, basically. And so, my midwife at the time suggested that maybe I try cutting out some of the foods in my diet that might be affecting her through my breast milk. So, that’s when I cut out gluten and dairy, but I’d always been interested in alternative food. Being vegetarian, I’d always look to vegan foods and loved seeing how people get creative with vegan food, but the whole gluten-free thing was quite a challenge at the start.

I didn’t really know what I was doing and I don’t think I was 100% gluten-free, because I hadn’t figured out that it’s in basically everything at this stage. So, when my son came along two years later, and showed a lot of the same symptoms as my daughter had, I got quite serious and went and got us allergy tested. That’s when it showed up that we can’t handle any gluten. We can handle small amounts of dairy, and more so as the kids have gotten older, but yeah, gluten is not our friend.

On Tackling a New Approach to Cooking and Food (with Food Intolerances):

I think the easiest way to approach it, is to focus on what you can eat, rather than being all upset that you can’t eat that donut in the store. Although, there are a lot of gluten-free donuts and things around these days, but I think focusing more on what you can eat, and naturally gluten-free and dairy-free things.

I’m very lucky in that my husband is Vietnamese, and so, all of our night-time meals are based mostly around rice, which is gluten-free and dairy-free. So I find that eating a more Asian-inspired diet or a Mexican diet, where the core ingredients are naturally gluten-free is usually the easier way to go to begin with, until you get your head around working with different gluten-free flours and dairy-free alternatives.

I’ve never really used the pre-packet gluten-free flour mixers, I prefer to just use my own individual flours. I think, when you’re first starting out, by all means, if you’re overwhelmed by gluten-free, then going that way is totally acceptable. You’ll probably get to a certain point where you would love more flexibility to add different flavors or different nutritional qualities to what you’re making. So that’s when you can use your own flours, but it’s totally acceptable at the start. When it all feels too much, I just think, do whatever you can do to make it easier for yourself.

On Some Good Resources to Learn More About Gluten-Free Cooking:

The main one that I have used over the years is glutenfreegirl.com. Shauna’s recipes are extremely well-tested. I guess with her teacher background, she’s extremely good at explaining everything, and why she uses certain flours, and for all the basic things that you’re missing, like pizza and bread and all those things. She has brilliant recipes on her site and in all of her books as well.

On Her Book, “My Darling Lemon Thyme – Recipes from My Real Food Kitchen”:

After a couple of years of blogging, I pretty much had made up my mind that I wanted to try and get published. Over the years, there were a lot of recipes I had been holding back from putting on the blog, because I thought they’re too good to share in this capacity and I wanted to save them for a book.

And so, I spent about a year trying to approach publishers and see if they were interested. And I got turned down by every single one. Basically, at that stage, this was probably going back at least three or more years, probably four years nearly even. At that stage, gluten-free, dairy-free, vegetarian food was a little bit too specialized for most publishers, so they turned me down saying, “It’s just all too hard.” And basically, I was in talks with one publisher in New Zealand at the time, who said, “We’ll publish a gluten-free baking book if you’re interested in that.” But that’s not really what I wanted to do for my first book.

And so, I was extremely lucky when I was nearly giving up hope, Harper Collins, New Zealand, who I hadn’t approached, because you had to have an agent to approach them and I didn’t have one at that stage, they actually approached me from seeing my blog. So it all worked out well in the end – very, very happy and thankful.

The book is filled with a hundred of my favorite recipes. Most of the recipes in there are recipes that I have been making for a long, long time. Some are inspired by recipes my mum made when I was little and I’ve adapted them to be gluten-free. And there’s a lot of base recipes, which is what I wanted my first book to be, so that anyone can pick this up, that’s new to gluten-free, and it covers all the bases.

There are numerous breakfasts to choose from. There’s pizza. There’s a homemade sourdough. There’s how to make your own yogurt from scratch. Tomato sauces, everything like that. The whole book is vegetarian and gluten-free, and then most of the recipes are dairy-free also. There are little bits of yogurt and butter, which is what my body tolerates, so that’s in there.

The Pressure Cooker:

Which food shows or cooking shows do you watch?

I’m a little embarrassed to admit it, but I do watch MasterChef.

There are a lot of professional chefs that think cooking shows like that are just slightly embarrassing, but there’s a lot of talented people that go on MasterChef. Some of the dishes they make a lot of professional chefs would struggle to make. So, I quite like it.

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

I’m terrible, I don’t actually read heaps of food blogs. So, 101 Cookbooks is the number one, I don’t think I’ve ever missed a post of hers in the five/six years that I’ve been reading it. I love The Vanilla Bean Blog, Oh, Ladycakes, The First Mess and With Food and Love. All of those blogs, they make food that I want to eat, even if I can’t, like The Vanilla Bean Blog, my friend Sarah writes it. Most of it I wouldn’t even be able to eat, because it’s not gluten-free, but I just love looking at her gorgeous photos.

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

Green Kitchen Stories Instagram’s feed is amazing, absolutely amazing. Tara O’Brady, Seven Spoons. Luisa Brimble, Australian food and lifestyle photographer, her stuff is always amazing, and both on Pinterest and Instagram, she has amazing stuff on there. And Sarah Kieffer as well, from The Vanilla Bean Blog, her Instagram and her Pinterest even more so, it’s just amazing.

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

That would probably have to be all the vintage props that I’ve acquired over the years. I have a wee thing for bowls and plates and glass jars.

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

Mushrooms. That would probably be one of the vegetables I didn’t like as a kid, but now I can’t get enough of them.

What are a few cookbooks that make your life better?

I love, I’m not sure if it’s available in the U.S., but it’s called Vegies, by an Australian chef called Simon Bryant, that’s one of my favorites. Heidi Swanson’s book, Super Natural Every Day is another favorite, and Afro-Vegan by Bryant Terry is another good one. I have so many cookbooks it’s hard to choose. I have stacks of them all around my house.

What song or album just makes you want to cook?

Anything reggae. So, I really love listening to Burning Spear, any of his albums when I’m cooking, it just makes me happy.

On Keeping Posted with Emm:

Instagram is a daily update, so probably Instagram. On Facebook as well, but yeah, Instagram is probably the best one.

071: Kate Taylor: Whole Sustainable Foods and Healthy Eating

August 26, 2015 by Gabriel 10 Comments

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Cookie and Kate

Kate is a self-taught photographer and cook who daydreams about new recipes and devours cookbooks. She believes in eating whole, sustainable foods that delights the senses and nourishes the body. On her blog Cookie and Kate, she shares her vegetarian creations while keeping things fun and recipes flexible.

I am so delighted to have Kate Taylor of Cookie and Kate joining me today.

(*All images below are Kate’s.)

On Her Passion for Food:

It’s funny because when I was a kid I was the pickiest eater of all time. We’re talking peanut butter sandwiches, no jelly and no crust for a while. Before I got sick of that and then it was just like mac and cheese. So I think that my taste buds expanded exponentially once I went off to college and tried new things, and it was kind of a whole new world. We just live in this awesome time where we can sample all these different ethnic cuisines, and sample the world in any decently sized city. So coming from, like, a suburb in Oklahoma, I just hadn’t tried any of that and it was kind of a revelation.

I think that my learning how to cook was more just out of necessity. In college, I was trying to live really, really cheaply. Actually I spent a semester in France that really got me interested in cooking because we’d walk all the way to the grocery store and we’d just come back with what we could carry. And we did not have a refrigerator, we did not have a microwave, we just had a stove.

The two girls I was with were pretty content just eating spaghetti with marinara sauce every night. But I’d be like, “What would happen if I added these vegetables, or what’s that sauce taste like?” And so I’ve just always been a creative person who likes to make stuff, and I found, especially in that situation, that cooking could be pretty fun. It was like I had all those constraints and I just sort of played around with them.

On Her Blog:

I would say my blog kind of had a different story than most. Most food blogs start because the person already has a passion for cooking and loves to try recipes and share recipes with their friends. My blog just started when I was really bored at an office job, like, maybe a year and a half after college. I was working in online marketing, so I was learning a lot of stuff that was relevant to the more technical side of blogging. And I just felt sort of creatively stifled. I had always enjoyed writing and photography, I had taken several photography classes in college, and just wasn’t using those passions and skills. So when my friend introduced me to a lot of blogs that were out there I was like, “Oh, this is really fun.” And eventually it was like, “Hey, I can build websites and I like all the stuff that goes into a blog so why don’t I just start one?”

Cookie and Kate was just the only catchy name I could come up with for a blog that had no focus really. But I knew that myself and my dog would be involved somehow.

I wanted it to be really unique content that you could only get there. And when I started the blog I thought, “Oh, well, maybe I’ll dabble in interior design or, you know, some other topics that I enjoy, but there were other people out there doing a really good job with that.” It was like, “How do I add my own spin on this?” So one day I shared a salsa recipe that I’d been making at home and it was kind of a lightbulb moment, because I was like, “Oh, this is something I get to photograph, I get to wrap stories around it, I get to write about it. I kind of get to geek out because I really love projects that I can immerse myself in.” I also felt really, really good about sharing healthy recipes. You might not be able to buy that $200 top that I said was cute last week in a blog post I didn’t feel good about because I can’t even buy that $200 top, but you could probably stop by the grocery store and spend $4 on ingredients.

On Whole Sustainable Foods:

Whole foods, the basic definition, is just that they’re foods that are as close to the source as possible. In this day and age there are just processed foods everywhere you go. Even most breads out there have like 25 ingredients when there should only be five. So I just feel like somewhere in the last 100 years we’ve gone from whole foods, which didn’t even need definition, until now I just feel it’s really important to eat unprocessed, unrefined, whole grains. All the nutrition I have read reinforces the importance of getting enough vegetables and fruits and whole grains. It’s really just, we need more plant-based foods in our diet and less processed foods. If I have an agenda it’s just to try to get people to eat more healthy, whole foods and less processed foods.

I grew up in a pretty health conscious household. I mean, granted, for a while I only ate peanut butter sandwiches, but my mom was also really good about always just having a simple salad on the table, and fresh fruit, and she appreciated whole grain bread versus plain white bread. And I can tend to be hypoglycemic, so my blood sugar levels just get out of whack easier than other people, and so I learned very early on, if I just ate plain Bisquick pancakes with a lot of fake maple syrup on top for breakfast I would be seriously ill in a few hours.

For me I felt like the connection between what I ate and how I felt was more apparent than it is for other people. I guess my grandmother and my mom have been interested in healthy cooking and back then it was low fat so when I went to college I eventually picked up a book by Marion Nestle who’s a well-known nutritionist and I was just really surprised to learn, “Oh, maybe I don’t need three glasses of milk a day” and, “Oh, we need fat in our diet.” It’s not something I need to be scared of or avoid.

Another writer that I fell in love with his books is Michael Pollan. Very influential in convincing me to eat less meat.

On Misconception About Healthy Eating:

I think that the low-fat craze really did a number on everyone’s concept of healthy foods, because once you take the fat out of anything, it’s not going to be satisfying. So I would say don’t be afraid of healthy fats like olive oil or even some butter. They are fine, we need them in order to feel satisfied. I’d also say don’t even be too afraid to salt the recipes. I suggest to salt them, because I mean, really, you’re not going to get as much salt in anything you make at home versus the processed foods. And also just fresh flavors like fresh lemon, which I add to tons of stuff, like a squeeze of lemon juice or garlic, herbs, those aromatics just are bursting with flavor. There is no reason to think that healthy means flavorless. Also, vegetables are super tasty if you ask me, and if maybe you need to add some cheese to help you get there, go for it!

On Eating Vegetarian:

Well, I eat fish on rare occasions. I don’t have any problem in eating fish. I went vegetarian over five years ago. It was before I started my blog. I don’t really push vegetarianism much on my blog, it’s just that everything so happens to be meatless.

I think a lot of people that, maybe even most of the people, who follow my blog just appreciate healthy, wholesome, produce-driven meals like I do. I became a vegetarian, a lax one really, after reading Michael Pollan’s Omnivore’s Dilemma. I just felt like he presented a really well-balanced view on it and frankly when I went to college and my taste buds expanded I was still very picky about meat, so I never ate a ton of it, if I did it was like chicken. I eventually learned to like burgers just because there is ketchup on them. It wasn’t a lot of meat that I loved, and once I learned more about it, was like, “Okay, well this is a really relatively easy way for me to do the environment a favor, because meat takes a lot of energy to produce. It’s another way to avoid antibiotic exposure, and just the growth hormones and the stuff we put in the animals these days.” It was just easier for me.

For a while after I went vegetarian I decided I would eat some bacon and pepperoni every now and then, but I don’t do that anymore. Those are the only meats that I really missed just because they are really tasty. I never once missed chicken. I missed some comfort food, stuff that my mom would make like chicken enchiladas but now she just puts beans in mine.

On Some Resources for Learning More About Eating Vegetarian:

The book that I’ve been referencing most often is a new one that came out from America’s Test Kitchen called The Complete Vegetarian Cookbook. They just have a vegetarian version of almost anything you can think of. If you’re just dying for pad thai they’ll tell you how to make it. I think that would be a good book for anyone who wants to eat less meat. I really love Michael Pollan so if you want to learn more about food. I always feel like learning more about the reality of what you’re eating, makes it so much easier to make good choices. So I would recommend anything by Michael Pollan.

The Pressure Cooker:

Which food shows or cooking shows do you watch?

I don’t have cable, but recently I’ve gotten into Mind of a Chef on Netflix. I’ve only seen season one so it’s all about David Chang and he’s just, like, kind of blowing my mind with his ideas, so that’s been fun.

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

Well my friend Tessa has a really awesome gluten-free baking blog. She has convinced me that gluten-free baked goods can be super tasty and she works really hard on them. So I would say Salted Plains, that is the name of the blog. And then I recently met with a researcher from Harvard and she told me about a newsletter that Harvard sends out that has like really solid nutrition advice in it. So I would say subscribe to that.

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

I am kind of a sucker for Instagram accounts that are full of animals. So, I like The Dogist on Instagram, and I like Esther the Wonder Pig.

It’s this pig that these two guys adopted thinking it was going to be a little pig, but it’s like a giant pig.

They even moved to a farm so she would have more space and they dress her up. I watch my friend’s little girl some afternoons and we always catch up on Esther the Wonder Pig.

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

I have this little spatula with a little wooden handle that I inherited from my grandmother. My dad said she was always walking around with that spatula in her back pocket. So I’m pretty attached to that one.

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

I use to dislike fennel, I really like it now.

I am so sure my mom never put fennel on the table. If you slice it super thin it becomes really palatable and kind of a surprising ingredient to add to salad.

What are a few cookbooks that make your life better?

Yeah well I definitely reiterate America’s Test Kitchen Vegetarian Cookbook. I also really love the Vegetarian Flavor Bible, which also came out recently, it’s like a flavor thesaurus and I use it for almost everything. If I’m wondering what to do with a tomato, I’ll open it up and see what goes well with tomatoes. Honestly, I just have the most enormous pile of cookbooks and it’s kind of just rotating inspiration.

What song or album just makes you want to cook?

I would say anything by Otis Redding just makes me want to move and hop around in the kitchen.

On Keeping Posted with Kate:

I would suggest definitely subscribing to my blog posts by email or RSS. I post everything on Facebook. You can get some behind the scene stuff from Instagram.

052: Brian Samuels: Cooking and Enjoying Fish

June 22, 2015 by Gabriel Leave a Comment

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A Thought for Food

Brian is a Boston-based food photographer, and on his blog, he shares a lot of vegetarian options, and considers his diet 98% pescetarian. A Thought for Food was started in 2009 and has been featured in Food and Wine, Food52 and Yahoo Food, just to name a few.

I am so happy to have Brian Samuels of A Thought for Food, here on the show today.

(*All images below are Brian’s.)

On Blogging:

I think to have a successful food blog, you have to be pretty dedicated. It’s very time consuming, so I think maybe not crazy is the right word exactly, but definitely devotion, passion, maybe a little obsessive. Maybe that’s a better term. That’s really why I think a lot of people who end up writing food blogs have that type of personality.

I would say the most challenging would be the writing of it. I don’t find myself to be a natural writer. I don’t easily sit down and the words flow out. There’s a lot of editing involved. And sometimes I’ll write and write and write, and then delete a huge amount of it. Then, sometimes, I’ll just delete the whole thing and start over again. It takes a while.

There are other times, though, where I sit down and it does flow out a little bit more and I feel like I do have something to say and then it’s a little easier to say it. But for me, the most fun and definitely challenging element, but still the most fun and easy in a way, would be photography. It’s something that I’ve always connected to, just being able to capture my own experiences through the lens.

Back in 2009, when I started the blog, it was, I guess, the start of when food blogs became really big. There were definitely the big ones, like, 101 Cookbooks, Smitten Kitchen, and a few other big ones. I read frequently and I was always creating the recipes and commenting on those posts.

I felt like I also had a story to tell about food, and I was throwing a lot of dinner parties with my husband, or my now husband. I wanted to share those recipes and I wasn’t necessarily expecting people to read the blog. I was just sending it out to family members and friends who asked for the recipes. But I just really felt like I had a passion for food, and it was a way for me to get that story out there.

On His Curiosity for Food and Cooking:

I think ever since I was little, I was always passionate about cooking and showed an interest in it. I remember growing up and my mom making dinner every night. She was very much into making home cooked meals. We had take-out once in a while, but for the most part, she really wanted to make things from scratch and educated us about food.

She worked with a lot of cookbooks herself, in terms of making dinners for us, making meals for us. I just always took interest. As soon as I smelled something, I was always by her side asking questions and wanting to know how she was doing things. And eventually, she had me help her out.

On Getting Into Food Photography:

I went to film school at Emerson College in Boston. And there, I focused on documentary film-making, and I really fell in love with being able to tell stories, especially through film, but about the real world, about real people and not necessarily scripted.

I ended up working for a documentary production company in Boston for three years. And that’s actually when I started the blog, was during that time.

I did see it as a way to combine my love for documenting, not necessarily through photography but just documenting my love for food, recipe development, playing around with recipes, and educating people about food, all that. So it wasn’t necessarily about the photography specifically at the time, but definitely about documenting it.

I was shooting originally, if you go back to old posts, not that I necessarily promote that, I was using a Canon PowerShot, just point and shoot. Taking pictures of the final dishes and maybe a few processed shots along the way. But I wasn’t using great equipment; I was still learning about techniques about how to photograph food. My passion for food photography developed because of that experimentation.

On Being (98%) Pescetarian:

A pescetarian is someone who eats vegetarian and fish. Red meat is out, poultry is out. Basically any land animals are out.

When I was 15, just for health reasons, I decided that I really wanted to cut out red meat from my diet. And I was still eating chicken and turkey, but I really wanted to cut out red meat from my diet. From there, I took out chicken as well. But I could never give up fish or dairy, because I’m just in love with those two things. And I think it allows me to be a little bit more adventurous in my eating, in terms of dining out and experiencing things.

For me, that’s such a huge part of my life, is not passing up the opportunity to try something. So the 98% is really where I will usually have a bite of something if we’re dining out somewhere and it’s really special.

My husband eats meat, so he’ll most likely get a meat dish when we’re dining out. I’ll sometimes have a bite of that. And I still think meat is delicious. He loves making smoked brisket and I’ll have a bite when he’s done, just to try it out. Because I usually help him out a little bit too. So I feel like if I’m doing it, I want to know what it tastes like.

For me, it’s really about where you’re sourcing your ingredients. I make sure that what we’re cooking is locally sourced if at all possible. And I’m knowing the farmers that we’re sourcing it from and all of that. We don’t do it often. I can justify it.

On Cooking Fish:

I think salmon is hard to mess up. It’s fatty.

It’s funny because a lot of people stay away from salmon because they don’t like fishy fish. I never get that because I love fish, and I love it whether or not it has a fishy taste to it. I’m okay with that.

I think they’re getting that from the oils and the fats from the fish probably, and especially with salmon. But in terms of fish that’s hard to mess up, I think that salmon is really easy to work with. It also holds up when you add a lot of flavor to it, so you could do soy sauce, you could do a marinate with it and you’ll still have a really nice fish flavor with it.

I think that some other fish are more delicate obviously. White fish, you don’t want to mess around with that too much, so you have to be careful with that. I always think salmon is really easy to work with. I think sword fish as well. It holds up nicely. They’re both very meaty fish too.

I would not say I’m a pro at cooking fish at this point. I think I have learnt that overcooked fish is not merely as delicious as seared fish. And, so with salmon, I’m trying to make sure that the skin is crispy if it still has a skin on it. That it is cooked all the way through but not overdone. I think working with high heat is really key with fish because you just want that point where it just cooks all the way through and you’re not cooking any longer.

Starting off with high heat is really key. It really depends on the fish and what you’re doing with it and how you’re serving it. I also like to play around with other types of sea foods like scallops and shrimps and we’ll rotate that in our diet as well.

On Choosing Fish:

When I go to buy fish in the store I don’t necessarily care if it’s previously frozen or not, I really look at where it’s being sourced from. With anything I want to buy as local as possible. And coming from New England or, the Pacific Northwest, you can usually find local seafood in these areas but I know that people in the middle of the country struggle with that.

I’m really looking for stuff that, I can have a dialogue with the person at the fish counter and say, when did this come in? Where did it come from? Tell me about it? I think when it came in is usually a good sign of freshness, and yes, that’s pretty much my thought process behind it.

I think the frozen element really makes a difference because as soon as it hits the cold it’s obviously going to preserve it longer. It depends on the fish. Yes the previously frozen thing doesn’t bother me as much as the farmed versus wild caught. If it’s frozen and it tastes good then, great. I don’t think it matters either way necessarily. I don’t think it affects the flavor of it too much.

Here in New England I’ve had the luxury of being able to get fish that was caught that day and having it and there’s a deeper flavor in it. You’re tasting the ocean. It hasn’t lost that flavor. I think a fish that has probably been frozen, it sort of loses that depth.

The Pressure Cooker:

Which food shows or cooking shows do you watch?

Top Chef.

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

I think most people already know these sites but some of my favorites are Sprouted Kitchen and Happy Yolks is a favorite of mine as well, and Not Without Salt is one of my all times favorites. I think Ashley was on your show actually at one point.

Those are definitely some of my top three.

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

All those people definitely. Is it sad that West Elm makes me really happy when I see those pictures?

I’m a sucker for, we have a new house, I follow them just to see what they are posting about. So that always makes me happy. I would definitely say Ottolenghi’s Instagram feed always, I’m always unbored with that and Local Milk is a favorite as well.

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

This is a tough one. It’s funny, the weird one that popped into my head is an egg slicer. I don’t know why and I don’t think I have a connection to it really but it just popped into my head.

I don’t think it’s one of those things that people have but I actually use it fairly frequently. Whenever I want to do a big salad for one of my big weeknight meals. If I want a hearty salad. I always put hard boiled egg on it and it’s just an egg slicer. So I’m saying the egg slicer.

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

Mushrooms. I think would be the one. I was such an adventurous eater growing up but mushrooms, I was disgusted by and now I’m obsessed with them.

I think for the most part we always had it with chicken, in a chicken dish. Or it was on top of pizza. My sister loved it and I think I just hated it because she loved it so much. But I’m obsessed with it now.

What are a few cookbooks that make your life better?

For the most part I look at cookbooks for the pictures to give me inspiration. Recently, the ones would be definitely Plenty. All the Ottolenghi books, I’m always going back to them. Ashley’s book, Not Without Salt’s, Date Night In I’ve been going to too.

I think the same goes for magazines as well. I subscribe to a lot food magazines and usually I go through for the pictures. I love the new Sift magazine by King Arthur Flour. Great pictures and it just gets you thinking, because it’s so baking focused, it gets you thinking outside the box.

What song or album just makes you want to cook?

Van Morrison’s Astral Weeks or Norah Jones’s Come Away With Me. When I’m cooking, for the most part, I want that chill music with a glass of wine and it mellows me out.

On Keeping Posted with Brian:

Definitely through Instagram in terms of more day to day. It’s beyond just the food world. It’s also, I put up pictures of my dog, and where I am, and what’s going on in life. On Twitter as well. Those would be the top places. But I’m also on Facebook and all those wonderful sites.

047: Kylie Antolini: Baking and Eating in Portland, Oregon

June 10, 2015 by Gabriel Leave a Comment

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The Baking Bird

Kylie started her blog in 2008 when she was experimenting with vegetarian and veganism, and through her journey, discovered her love of baking.

Apart from showcasing her baked goods on The Baking Bird, she also shares her favorite places and adventures around where she currently lives, the lively food city of Portland, Oregon.

I am so happy to have Kylie Antolini of The Baking Bird joining me here on the show today.

On Finding Her Passion for Baking:

When I was at home and I was a teenager, my parents were meat eaters. I just became vegetarian because it interested me. I thought it was a healthier lifestyle and I had to fend for myself. So I first started out with getting cookbooks. Maybe you’re familiar with them: How It All Vegan! and The Garden of Vegan by Sarah Kramer and Tanya Barnard. They were my main inspiration.

I first started making some of their savory recipes. And then I decided to experiment with some of their dessert recipes. I just really love the idea that you can bake awesome stuff without using traditional ingredients like butter and eggs, and you get similar results.

I love the process of experimenting like with flax egg replacer or applesauce and bananas. So that was really the thing that caught on to me, and I really just enjoyed experimenting. I felt like a scientist in the kitchen. And to this day, I don’t bake vegan really anymore but one of my favorite vegan baking hacks is putting apple cider vinegar and non-dairy milk and making a buttermilk with it because it curdles the milk, which is awesome because I don’t like going to buy buttermilk because it usually goes to waste. I only use like a cup of it. That’s one of my favorite things that I’ve carried into my regular baking style now.

That was how I found my passion for baking. I just really enjoyed it and I combined my love for photography and started taking picture of things I made and thought, “Oh, I started a blog.”

On No Longer Being Vegetarian:

To be honest, it wasn’t really by choice. I had gotten into running quite a bit around the time that I became a vegetarian, and my body just couldn’t keep up with the nutrition I was getting.

Unfortunately, there were some signs that showed up here and there. My doctor encouraged me to start eating meat. I also suffered from a lot anxiety and insomnia and I noticed the correlation from eating to vegetarian and running too much. So it took a lot of convincing and my parents were really adamant about it. They’re just trying to get me meat all the time, and I was like, “Uh!” But I ended up feeling a lot better once I did and I started sleeping a lot better. My anxiety really went down. So that was really basically it. I wanted to keep being vegetarian but it just wasn’t best for my life.

On Her Interest in Food:

I know that after I was going to being vegetarian, I really got an interest in collecting a lot of cookbooks. I became really obsessed with food because when you have to start combining certain ingredients to have the right nutrition, the right balance, you really have to look at a lot of different resources. So I became obsessed about collecting lots of cookbooks and reading recipes. That was what really got me into cooking.

And my mom was always a really avid cook when I was younger. She kept all the vintage Bon Appétit magazines and was really into that. And my grandmother on my dad’s side is also a great baker. And so I would bake with her.

She’d always have a homemade pie or something for dessert when we come over to eat. I guess they were my inspiration and I grew up in a family that really loved food, so that had a big part of it.

On the First Thing She Baked:

Well, I remember the first thing that I bragged about. It was this vegan chocolate peanut butter pie with bananas, and no-bake. It was so easy and so delicious. I think it was actually from La Dolce Vegan, the cookbook from Sarah Kramer.

Fabulous recipe but terrible photos if you go back and look in the blog. It’s the very first one but it’s delicious.

On Things Not Going as Planned in the Kitchen:

I can think of one or two instances. But fortunately, it doesn’t happen very often which is great. That’s why I think baking is more of my thing than cooking.

I was trying to make a vegan chocolate cake. I turned the pan upside down and it just completely disintegrated and crumbled into pieces. I was like, “Okay.” I think I baked two things that day and they both didn’t turn out. I was like, “This is just not my day.”

Sometimes you have the baking energy and sometimes you don’t. There’s just something in the air and it makes your work shatter. But for the most part, I’m pretty lucky.

It always depends on your oven too. I had to get used to my oven in my apartment. It runs a little bit warmer. So I found over the years that it’s best to play it safe and subtract a little bit of time from your baking time and check it so it’s not too done.

On The Food Culture in Portland, Oregon:

Portland is crazy with food. There are so many people here that love food and have a passion for it. It was the number one reason I actually decided to move here. Because when I first visited, I spent a week here and had a list of places I wanted to go. I was just amazed with how people love food here and get such a wide variety.

You can go to a specific shop just for cupcakes or just for pie. I think the food culture is very experimental and it’s very inspiring. Sometimes it can get a little predictable.

There’s a lot of repeat comfort food here. A lot of pork belly, I see that left and right. So people really love that kind of Southern style. I see that quite a bit. But it makes sense when it’s overcast a lot of the time and it’s raining. So people really enjoy that kind of food here.

There are a lot of donut places. I’m sure you’ve heard of Voodoo Doughnut.

I will drive by and the line can be an hour long. It’s pretty nuts. But there have been a few places that have popped up that you can get donuts now. Pip’s Doughnuts is really amazing if you’ve ever had a chance to check them out. And my personal favorite is Coco Donuts.

On Special Places to Eat in Portland:

I would have to say as far as dinner places, my favorite, favorite place is Tasty ‘N Sons. They’re at North Williams and they’ve opened another location Downtown.

And I really have been loving Ox. I went there for my birthday. I had a fabulous birthday meal.

LucLac has an amazing happy hour. You can get like a huge variety of different small plates for just $15. They make amazing cocktails too. So they are really awesome. Sweedeedee is my favorite brunch place that can get really crazy busy though. A lot of people have caught on that it’s amazing.

For really good vegetarian/ vegan food, Harlow is wonderful too. They make great smoothies.

Levant is also really nice. They have Mediterranean food and they just started doing a brunch. And Scott Snyder who’s the owner, he’s actually from Santa Cruz where I’m from. So we have some ties to that in some ways. He’s really great. His food is awesome.

The Pressure Cooker:

Which food shows or cooking shows do you watch?

Well, I don’t have a television, so I think that makes me the odd one out. But I did just finished watching the last season of Top Chef.

Two of the chefs on the show were from Portland and that was all over the Portland news. I had to watch it.

I actually had an opportunity to photograph Doug Adams who was on the show, one of my freelance jobs for the Portland Mercury. So that was really awesome. I got to meet him in person and that’s made me more interested in watching the show.

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

I definitely have a lot of favorite bloggers I follow on Pinterest and Instagram or what-not. My three favorites of late would be Half Baked Harvest. Perhaps you’re familiar with her. And my latest obsession, Twigg Studios. I think she’s from England or Australia. I forgot. Anyway, I contacted her because I just fell in love with her photography and wanted her to know that her stuff is amazing. So definitely check her out. Her photos for just her recipes are genius.

I also recently discovered Broma Bakery and I really like her recipes.

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

I would say Instagram, I really love following Izy of Top with Cinnamon. Her recipes and photos are amazing. I really love Call me Cupcake. She is lately @linda_lomelino. She is amazing too. And then also, the Twigg Studios gal with her blog.

As far as Pinterest, I don’t really always know who I’m following.

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

I wish I could say I had some really cool hand-me-down spoon from a great grandmother or something.

I would say my most treasured item, because I use it so frequently, two metal mixing bowls, my small and large. I bought them a few years ago when I started making macaroons. The recipe I was going off of said that it was best to have metal bowls just for keeping the coolness and protecting it from too much heat. And I love them.

I just use them for everything, so I couldn’t bake without them.

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

Cardamom did not sit well with me at all. But now, I love it. I want to put cardamom in every single thing I bake. A lot of recipes on the blog have cardamom in them. I almost have to stop myself because people are going to get tired of using cardamom now. It’s really weird. I don’t know what it was. I don’t know if it was becoming vegetarian and experimenting with spices, but I love cardamom and also ginger. I used to hate ginger and I use it all the time now.

What are a few cookbooks that make your life better?

I think my number one favorite go-to resource book is The Flavor Bible. It’s pretty awesome.

If I want to tweak a recipe or I have an idea, I can go to that and it will list a bunch of ingredients that go really well with it. It’s pretty spot on.

They also recently released a Vegetarian Flavor Bible. I haven’t looked at it. But Flavor Bible is amazing.

I also really love the Cook’s Illustrated Baking Book because they have just the basic pie and cake recipes that you can make your own. They’ve been tested by the best of the best bakers and scientists. And that’s what they do all day long. So that’s a really great resource to have too.

What song or album just makes you want to cook?

I love music so much and I always try to put on a record when I bake. It’s really tough. I would have to say Bruce Springsteen, Born in the U.S.A.

On Keeping Posted with Kylie:

I think I’m most active on Instagram, The Baking Bird, and Pinterest. I’m also on it quite a bit. Yeah, Instagram and my blog.

028: Phi Tran: How Limitations are Good When Cooking

April 20, 2015 by Gabriel Leave a Comment

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Princess Tofu

Princess Tofu is a phenomenal source of inspiration if you are looking for comforting food with an Asian and Parisian flare, that just so happens to be vegetarian. Her photography throughout the blog is warm and her words are inviting.

I am so happy to have Phi Tran from Princess Tofu here with me today.

On Her Blog:

I have always been a passionate eater and I’m almost always hungry of course, so I think it was a nice way to work on my writing skills but also have this creative outlet that I have full control over.

I spend a lot of hours thinking about food and I go to the market really often. So more often than not I’m making lists of things that I want to try and make or cook or experiment with, but I don’t necessary have the time to do all of them.

When I do have time, it takes a lot longer just to think about the visual presentation of the concept, because you can’t eat the pictures online.

On Where Her Inspiration Comes From:

I think it’s a crazy mixture of everything I come in contact with. I do go to the market really often. I think that’s a nice point to start, but I think it’s a limiting point and it’s not necessarily always a creative juncture that you think of in terms of like what’s the seed for creativity.

Naturally, like you go to the market, you may see something that inspires you to make a dish but at the same it’s not like you have everything at your disposal. So I like the limits that the market places upon my recipes, but I get a lot of inspiration from cookbooks of restaurants that I think do a really good job of experimenting with flavors and textures and ingredients. From there I work around my skills and also the types of ingredients I have available at hand, because they have resources that I don’t have, obviously.

I think it’s always good to have limitations when you are exposing yourself to anything creative because it places you into a corner and it’s a nice corner. It’s a unique way of looking at the world.

I have certain limitations, other people have certain limitations, and they are very different and that’s why we make very different things to eat and look at.

I usually start my week on Sunday trips to the market and then my evenings just reading cookbooks and that marriage of those two things generate the rest of the things that I’m working on.

On Her Love of Food:

I think a lot of people like to eat so I don’t find that to be very unique, but I definitely got a lot more interested after graduating undergrad.

I’ve been cooking even before high school, but in high school I actually started watching a lot of the Food Network and realized that you can do a lot more to dinner than just hamburger helper.

There is a lot more that you can put onto your stove and treat yourself.

I took it upon myself to make Thanksgiving turkey one year as a high schooler and that was fascinating.

I did this salting method, ever since then, and I still think salting is better than the liquid brining. So I did that, but I didn’t really know what I was doing. I didn’t cover my hands and I was rubbing this on herb and butter salt mixture under the skin of the turkey and it just burned viciously, but the turkey came out spectacular.

My hands recovered eventually, but ever since then I was like, “I can probably just cook a lot more interesting things if I did the right research and just put enough effort into it,” but then school started and I really didn’t have the time or energy to spend hours and hours in the kitchen making dinner. So afterwards, when I started my vegetarian diet, it gave me the impetus to do a lot of research into different types of ingredients and how you can cook them for an alternative diet.

On Cooking as a Vegetarian:

I don’t think it was necessarily re-learning skills. I think a lot of the concepts in cooking, if you break it down to the basics, are applicable to all sorts of palettes and diets. So I don’t think of it as a technique dilemma, but it did introduce me to a lot different types of ingredients that I never would have learned about, so cooking with whole grains and also diving into cuisines in a way that I wouldn’t normally do, and also re-focusing the plates so that you don’t focus on having a meat as the centerpiece. In that sense I’m really fascinated by pastas and then I definitely got into Japanese cooking a lot more once I moved to California. So those things are very vegetarian-friendly, but you don’t necessarily think to look at that until you have to cook for yourself.

On Making Cooking More Fun:

I think you should do it with someone who loves to cook.

I like cooking with other people. The other day I was hosting an event and I’ve never had so many people watch me make scones before. It was like reality television…

It was intimidating, but at some point you have to talk about what you are doing as you are doing it and that’s something that I’m not used to. It’s fascinating.

I think if you cook with somebody who likes to share their food and also their skills, I think it will make it a lot more fun. So it’s nice to do it with someone else every once in a while.

On Messing Up in the Kitchen:

I have messed up spectacularly before just doing stupid stuff. Once I was having this dinner and I had made a pomegranate salad dressing, but I also made some sort of red fruited syrup and so they both looked quite similar. So I go to make the salad and I just grabbed one of the jars and then I sent it out. I didn’t think about it until a little bit later but then I realized I served the salad with a syrup. Nobody said a single thing. That’s the other thing. If you have a performance whether it’s food or music and you mess up, just keep on rolling.

The Pressure Cooker:

Which food shows or cooking shows do you watch?

I used to watch a lot of Alton Brown.

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

I like Tasting Table. It gets pretty ridiculous over there, so you got to pay attention.

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

I haven’t been on them for a while. I follow a bunch of people on them, like thousands. You should just go and lose yourself.

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

I love smoked paprika recently. That’s something that I’ve been using a lot and it’s really versatile and it just adds a little bit of flavor to everything.

Name one ingredient you cannot live without?

Butter.

What are a few cookbooks that make your life better?

I have this vegetarian Japanese paperback book that I don’t even think is in print anymore. Manresa from last year was great. I’m still learning so much from that. I don’t necessarily use all the weirder ingredients that he uses but there is some really good information in there and beautiful photos. He also talks about menu writing and things like that and that’s really useful.

And then Denis Cotter. He’s a vegetarian chef in Ireland and if you are new to vegetarian that’s not where you should go, but maybe a year or two down the road, when you want to make a special dinner for someone who eats meat, I would say pick up one of his books and just go to town. It might take you hours and hours to execute something but it’s totally worth it and it’s all vegetarian, so you don’t have to like change anything. Just do it.

What song or album just makes you want to cook?

I love cooking to music, so it depends on my mood, but there is this song by the Beach Boys called Vegetables that’s really cute.

Keep Posted on Phi:

Facebook, Instagram… I do a lot of cross posting. If you are following me on Twitter, sometimes I rant a lot.

022: Alanna Taylor-Tobin: How to Build a Meal Around Vegetables First

April 6, 2015 by Gabriel Leave a Comment

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The Bojon Gourmet

Alanna is a self-proclaimed recovering pastry chef, and on her blog, she shares her amazing food photography and recipes, many of which are vegetarian or gluten-free.

I am so delighted to have Alanna Taylor-Tobin of the Bojon Gourmet here on the show today.

On Being a Recovering Pastry Chef:

Well, it’s a little bit tongue in cheek, but I worked as a pastry chef for several years here in San Francisco, and two and a half years ago, I left my job to work on my blog full-time.

I don’t know if you’ve worked in restaurants? But they’re kind of crazy. When I left I just felt like, “I’m so relieved that I’m not working in restaurants anymore.”

It was just hectic and kind of a challenging place to work.

On Moving from Pastry to Cooking Savory Foods:

I’ve always loved cooking. I’ve always loved making anything I possibly can in the kitchen, including cocktails and savory foods also.

The reason I became a pastry chef is because I’m really squeamish and I don’t like touching raw meat and having to handle it. My very first job in the food industry was as a pantry cook at a restaurant. And I hated having to cut up big slabs of bloody fish and meat and stuff. So then when I went to work in a bakery I was like, “Oh, this is great! I get to do all of the food making, but I don’t have to touch all the yucky meat and seafood and stuff.”

That was actually the main reason why I went to pastry school and became a pastry chef.

But I’ve always loved cooking. I just cook mostly vegetarian at home because of the squeamish factor. I tried to make a balance of sweet and savory recipes on my blog and I tried to alternate recipes, but it is a little bit challenging sometimes because I get stuck in dessert mode.

I have to tell myself to think about like, “Okay, we need to have something substantial to eat.” So sometimes I have to just force myself to just go for something savory just so we’re not inundated with sugar all the time.

On Her Passion for Food and Cooking:

My whole family is a very food-oriented family, and nobody actually works professionally in food. They’re all psychologists actually. My whole family are psychologists but they all really love food and as a kid my favorite times were going out to restaurants with my parents. Or, my mom would always have the Bon Appetit subscription. She always had a great cookbook collection.

I have an older brother and I think I was about nine and he was dating a woman who was a pastry chef. And that was the first time that I was like, “Oh my God! That’s a thing? You can just get paid to make desserts for a living forever? That’s so cool! I want to do that!” So I kind of had it in my head from a very early age that I wanted to be a pastry chef.

My parents are divorced and my mom lives in L.A. My dad lives in Oregon. And usually when they come visit we tend to take them out to restaurants because we live in San Francisco and it’s just an incredible restaurant culture here. But we do potlucks and stuff.

The only holiday that I really enjoy is Thanksgiving because we always do a big potluck at my brother’s house in Berkeley and I get to make as many pies as I want. That’s my very favorite thing.

On Vegetarian and Gluten-Free Cooking:

My sister has known that she is allergic to gluten for 20 years I think now. She was gluten-free before it was cool. I think that kind of runs in my family. For the last ten or so years I’ve been experimenting with less gluten and just more whole grains and stuff.

I grew up not eating a ton of meat. I didn’t have a super meat-centric family and my mom’s always been really interested in health and nutrition.

When I first moved out of the house, I just ate Kraft mac and cheese for every meal because I was like, “Yeah!”

That got old really fast.

So I just started cooking more and one of the first cookbooks I owned was by Deborah Madison who’s mostly vegetarian. She’s founded Greens, the vegetarian restaurant in San Francisco. Just her whole aesthetic really inspired me.

When I moved in with my partner, he had been vegetarian for many years. It was just sort of natural to cook vegetarian. He’s not vegetarian anymore but he still eats mostly that way as do I.

As for the vegan, it’s not really a huge concern for me. I do have friends who are vegan. Or who are lactose intolerant and such. It’s kind of nice to have those recipes in my repertoire so I don’t have to be like, “Oh my God! A vegan’s coming for dinner. What do I do?”

That kind of mindset, of the meat is where you start from, is just kind of backwards from how I think. Even when I go to restaurants, I always look at the side dish, even if I get a meat entree, it’s because it has these awesome potatoes or the greens or something like that. I tend to start more from the vegetable aspect of it and sort of build a meal from there.

I tend to look at what’s in season. Or, “Oh, I’m craving sweet potatoes.” So then I’ll make a dish around that, like enchiladas.

I don’t think so much in terms of I need protein. I’m going to substitute this out for the protein or something.

I do eat a ton of cheese. I just love cheese. It’s my very favorite thing in the whole world. I probably eat more cheese because I’m needing the protein.

I guess I would say if you’re looking for a protein substitute, well, dairy obviously, but you can’t do that if you’re a vegan. Mushrooms are a really good source of protein, beans and nuts and all that kind of stuff. I don’t tend to think like that.

I tend more to start with the vegetable or the grain.

On Turning Down a Cookbook Offer… Twice:

I had really mixed feelings about whether I should talk about it at all in a public way. It seems like cookbooks are kind of the equivalent of having a baby where you’re not allowed to tell anybody in the first few months until really you’re sure it’s going to happen.

I was nervous about talking about it. But I just felt like, I was personally so confused and lost having to try to figure out whether this was a good offer or not. I just wanted to put the information out there to help other people because I know publishers are reaching out to tons of bloggers now.

We don’t always know how the publishing world works and whether what we’re being offered is good or not. And we have to stick together, you know?

So I put that information out there and I was just shocked at all of the great responses that I got. From people saying, “Good job. Good job for turning that down.” And then there were also a few people who said, “Hey, I work in publishing and that wasn’t a bad deal.” That was a good perspective to hear also because I tried to make it really clear that my whole point was that I just didn’t know.

I wasn’t saying this was a crappy deal and I turned it down. I was saying I didn’t know if this was a good deal or not, and I need to explore that some more. So it was kind of good to hear both sides of that from commenters.

The Pressure Cooker:

Which food shows or cooking shows do you watch?

When I was in college I loved watching, The Naked Chef, Jamie Oliver. And I loved watching Iron Chef when it was all in, was it Japanese, I think?

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

Oh my gosh! I follow 200 blogs or something like that on Bloglovin‘.

There are so many fabulous blogs out there. It is so hard to choose, but I’ve recently become friends with a few bloggers. I’ve been more actively following their blogs.

One of them is Snixy Kitchen and Sarah Menanix is the author and her photos are just gorgeous. She’s got this beautiful light in her space, and she’s a really adventurous cook and baker. So she’ll just make anything. She just posted these gluten-free scallion pancakes and they’re just insanely good. So I highly recommend checking out her site.

And then another one is The Pancake Princess, and Erica is the author and her styling and attention to detail is just amazing. I love her photographs and recipes so much.

Another blog I really love is Circa Happy by Pang, and she’s Thai. Her recipes have a lot of Thai influence, and she’s only been doing food photography for less than a year and they’re totally professional caliber photographs. They’re just absolutely stunning.

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

I mostly use Pinterest as a personal way to collect recipes, but I do check Instagram constantly. I love Instagram so much. A friend of mine, Ana, and her blog is Fluxi On Tour. She takes the most beautiful Instagram photos. They’re all on her iPhone and a lot of them are landscapes and cityscapes. She’s a travel and food writer, and she just blows me away with the caliber of her iPhone photography. I don’t know how she does it but they’re just incredible. So I always love seeing her posts on Instagram.

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

I would say maybe a variety of cooking oils, like olive oil and a neutral oil like sunflower or grape seed.

I’ve been really using a lot of ghee lately. It’s nice because you can keep it at room temperature even though it’s derived from butter, and it has a really high smoke point. So it’s really great for making popcorn or anything that you need really high heat for, and you want that kind of warm flavor like pancakes. You don’t get the butter burning in the pan because it’s got such a high smoke point. And it just adds this delicious warm richness to anything that you make.

I usually purchase it. A good friend of mine actually gave me a big jar of homemade ghee for a holiday gift.

I was just like, “Wow! This is the best gift ever!”

Name one ingredient you cannot live without?

I’d have to say, well, chocolate is really obvious, but for a savory ingredient? Maldon Salt is just my favorite finishing salt. It’s such a small and simple thing, but it can just make any dish, even sweet things, it just adds this crunchy amazingness that makes people go, “Wow! This is awesome!” And it can be the most basic thing but it has this delicious flaky, crunchy salt on top.

What are a few cookbooks that make your life better?

Oh boy, cookbooks. Well, one that I just have in my head because I used it the other day is The Perfect Scoop by David Lebovitz. And it’s all ice creams and it’s kind of like the ice cream bible. It was the first ice cream book that was a very natural and fun and really thorough way with ice creams.

I’m a huge Deborah Madison fan so I love her book on soups. I use that one a lot. And she has one called Local Flavors that’s all about farmers market cooking, and it’s not one of her better known books. But I’ve probably made a third of the recipes in that book and every one is just fabulous! They’re really unique and they’re simple and they’re just super good. It’s things that I would never think of to cook. I feel like I owe a lot of my aesthetic to Deborah Madison.

What song or album just makes you want to cook?

I would have to say Lovely Day by Bill Withers is just one of the most fun upbeat songs that I’ve ever heard.

Keep Posted on Alanna:

I would say Instagram is probably a good way to keep in touch with me. And my handle is The_Bojon_Gourmet. (BojonGourmet.com)

On Cooking as a Team:

On Being Vegetarian:

On Cuban Food:

The Pressure Cooker:

On Keeping Posted with Adam and Ryan:

On Her Journey From Fast Food to Fresh and Seasonal:

On Getting Started to Eating Healthier:

On Some Good Resources for Starting to Eat More Healthy:

On Her Blog:

On Essential Pantry Items for a Healthier Diet:

On Her Cookbooks, The Homemade Flour Cookbook and The Easy Vegetarian Kitchen:

On Being in the Kitchen as a New Parent:

The Pressure Cooker:

On Keeping Posted with Erin:

On Her Interest in Cooking:

On Working in Restaurants, Cafes, and Catering:

On Starting Her Blog:

On Recognizing Her and Her Children’s Food Intolerances:

On Tackling a New Approach to Cooking and Food (with Food Intolerances):

On Some Good Resources to Learn More About Gluten-Free Cooking:

On Her Book, “My Darling Lemon Thyme – Recipes from My Real Food Kitchen”:

The Pressure Cooker:

On Keeping Posted with Emm:

On Her Passion for Food:

On Her Blog:

On Whole Sustainable Foods:

On Misconception About Healthy Eating:

On Eating Vegetarian:

On Some Resources for Learning More About Eating Vegetarian:

The Pressure Cooker:

On Keeping Posted with Kate:

On Blogging:

On His Curiosity for Food and Cooking:

On Getting Into Food Photography:

On Being (98%) Pescetarian:

On Cooking Fish:

On Choosing Fish:

The Pressure Cooker:

On Keeping Posted with Brian:

On Finding Her Passion for Baking:

On No Longer Being Vegetarian:

On Her Interest in Food:

On the First Thing She Baked:

On Things Not Going as Planned in the Kitchen:

On The Food Culture in Portland, Oregon:

On Special Places to Eat in Portland:

The Pressure Cooker:

On Keeping Posted with Kylie:

On Her Blog:

On Where Her Inspiration Comes From:

On Her Love of Food:

On Cooking as a Vegetarian:

On Making Cooking More Fun:

On Messing Up in the Kitchen:

The Pressure Cooker:

Keep Posted on Phi:

On Being a Recovering Pastry Chef:

On Moving from Pastry to Cooking Savory Foods:

On Her Passion for Food and Cooking:

On Vegetarian and Gluten-Free Cooking:

On Turning Down a Cookbook Offer… Twice:

The Pressure Cooker:

Keep Posted on Alanna:

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