Will Frolic for Food | The Dinner Special podcast

133: Danielle: Gardening and Feasting from the Seasons

July 27, 2016 by Gabriel Leave a Comment

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Rooting The Sun

Danielle is always dreaming up ways to feast from the season and celebrate the garden. A Virginian turned Californian turned Midwesterner, her blog, Rooting The Sun, is where Danielle shares her approach to cooking, food, and gardening.

I am so happy to have Danielle of Rooting The Sun on the show today.

(*All photos below are Danielle’s.)

On Discovering Her Passion for Gardening and Growing Food:

I started growing food about four years ago. My mother had always experimented with vegetable gardens. One year, I actually just thought to myself, “Man, I really love eggplants — and I still do — but wouldn’t it be cool to just do it myself?” So I did. I just got my hands dirty. And that year, the deer ate all of it. We did not get any eggplant.

But that was pretty much the beginning. From there, the gardens have gotten bigger and bigger. I’ve been in and out of some commercial gardening aspects here and there. But mostly we do personal cultivation on a large scale. I just call it the yard farm.

Gardening has really helped me define food in a light I feel really treasured to be able to see it in. We’ve been able to use it as a definition of the seasons, where food at its peak always tastes the freshest. So it’s great to incorporate what we have into what we eat. We’re not doing it for survival, but it’s been a great and delicious learning experience.

On Crops That are Easier for Beginners:

I would definitely say that if you like to eat salad, then go ahead and grow it. Leaf lettuce is super easy to grow, and you can benefit from that all season long. Also, I think zucchini comes to mind. Once you get a zucchini plant started, it doesn’t stop. It’s a plant that your neighbors will benefit from, too. Also, radishes, tomatoes, and herbs, they’re all good choices as well.

On Crops Beginners May Want to Avoid:

If you’re just beginning, I would probably stay away from both artichokes and asparagus. Artichokes are not impossible. We’ve actually done them a few different seasons in a couple of different places, but they have a very specific growing need that can be hard to fulfill depending on where you are. And then asparagus as well, if you’ve been nomadic like I have, then it can take up to three years to yield a crop. So you have to stay put to get asparagus. It’s a waiting game, but once they get started, you’ll be able to benefit from it for years.

On Gardening for City Dwellers:

This is really good, because currently, our setup is an urban area. And it always feels really amazing to exchange conversation with our neighbors, just to actually reiterate that you really don’t need a lot of space to be able to grow your own food. Even in a large city, you could potentially do a garden completely in containers, and get really good results. And almost anything can be cultivated in a pot. But standouts are probably tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, peas. And you can even do root crops like carrots. I’ve done beets before. It was kind of crazy, but it worked.

On Some Resources for Gardening and Growing Your Own Food:

As far as books go, there is definitely a wealth of very informed literature, like bible-esque books on gardening and vegetable gardening. I thrifted a book entitled, Crockett’s Victory Garden recently. It’s from the 1970s. I think he was actually a PBS show. But he goes month by month in his book as far as what vegetables to do each month of the year. I really like books that are laid out like that. As far as online, I really like Gayla’s blog You Grow Girl. She has an amazing source of knowledge on her website. And I also like Andrea’s blog Dishing Up the Dirt. She is a huge inspiration.

The Pressure Cooker:

Which food shows or cooking shows do you watch?

I don’t really watch many cooking shows, but I’ve been watching a lot of Jacques Pepin on PBS.

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

For food blogs, I really love Orangette, I love The Yellow House, I love Lottie + Doof, 101 Cookbooks, Kale & Caramel, Chocolate + Marrow, Will Frolic for Food. Of those, they’re all very awesome for reading as well. It’s really hard to pick because I love everyone so much, but I really adore the recipes on With Food + Love and Heartbeet Kitchen as well.

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

On Instagram, I love following Brooklyn Supper. Her food is really great. I love Dolly and Oatmeal. I also love Sasha from Tending the Table, she has the prettiest photography.

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

I’ll probably go with treasured and that would be a spice rack that I gained from my grandmother. I love it because it makes me think of her cooking but also because I love spices. I think they’re everything.

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

Onions, which is actually, I think, a story of revenge because I use them every day and constantly. And I think that I might actually be more allergic to them than most people. I’m timed out for, like, at least 20 minutes after I’ve cut onions.

What are a few cookbooks that make your life better?

As far as a few cookbooks, I love Local Flavors by Deborah Madison. I think it has really awesome seasonal recipes and she uses vegetables in a really unique way. I also love The Art of Simple Food I and II, by Alice Waters.

What song or album just makes you want to cook?

I don’t think I have a particular song or album in mind, but recently, I have a really big soft spot for Steely Dan. And pretty much every other kind of music and song in the universe. I really love music.

On Keeping Posted with Danielle:

I think that the best way would probably be Instagram. I use that social media platform the most out of all of them.

121: Beth Manos Brickey: Taking Control and Making Healthier Choices

May 4, 2016 by Gabriel Leave a Comment

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Tasty Yummies

Beth has been 100% gluten-free since 2005 and was inspired to create her blog, Tasty Yummies, after significantly changing her diet and her life in 2010.

Her goal is to inspire us to get creative with our food and to live and eat well with food intolerances and allergies. Her work has been featured in America’s Test Kitchen, Huffington Post and The Kitchn, just to mention a few. Beth is also an artist, a certified yoga instructor and adventurer and lover of all things yummy.

I’m so excited to have Beth Manos Brickey of Tasty Yummies joining me here on the show.

(*The photos below are Beth’s.)

On Whether or Not to Try a Gluten-Free Diet:

The longer I’ve been in this world, the more I see that it’s different for everybody. We’re all such individuals and there’s obviously classic signs of gluten intolerances, or you can have an allergy or you can have Celiac disease, which would also bring on the intolerance. There are varying degrees of symptoms. I would say, certainly chronic digestive issues, it’s worth looking into.

Brain fog, skin issues, just feeling generally run-down. I know people that have a very classic allergenic response, hives. So, it can take on many forms and there’s also different ways but I also think that sometimes people think, “Well, I don’t have diarrhea every day, so clearly…and I eat gluten every day, so clearly, I don’t have an intolerance,” but as I was saying previously, our bodies actually are really smart and they’re built with these mechanisms to protect us. If you’re constantly exposing your body to something that it doesn’t want, it will learn how to protect you from it by building up a tolerance. So, just because you don’t have itchy skin and you don’t think you’re tired or brain fogged or digestively challenged, it doesn’t mean that there’s not something else going on. So, it’s worth experimenting. I tell everybody, if there’s any question, just try it.

On Relearning to Cook Gluten-Free:

There were a lot of fails, a lot of fails, but I think that that’s what made me love food. I’ve always loved food, I’ve always had an appreciation for it but it really connected me in a different way. I built this different relationship with food, where I started learning that I had to listen to the food and what it wanted and what I wanted to do with it. Just getting back to basics but also, realize that there is so much exploring that can be done, and sometimes the most basic things can be the most beautiful things.

On a Simple First Step to Making Healthier Choices:

If I had it my way, I’d tell every person that I ever met to never eat a processed food again because it’s just garbage for you. Your body doesn’t recognize most of what you’re eating as true food. There’s no nutrition to it, so it’s not sustaining any sort of life force within your body. So, start to take note of the things in your kitchen and be aware of what’s in them. And obviously, we’re all in a world of convenience and needing to eat on the go, so if you’re going to pick a processed food – again, this comes from Michael Pollan – but my rule is five ingredients or less, and know what those ingredients are. If you cannot pronounce a word on a box, don’t buy it, just don’t.

On a Dish That’s Special to Her:

It’s actually under my website as a tutorial because it’s a little bit more step-by-step of a recipe. My family is Greek. My dad is 100% Greek and I grew up very surrounded by traditional Greek foods and everything that you see in My Big Fat Greek Wedding where Greek people eat, someone passes away, someone gets sick, we eat, we always eat. Food is celebration. So, growing up, my grandmother, my yaya, always made stuffed grape leaves. We call them dolmades; they’re called different things in other cultures. And it’s something I always loved, I thought it was a ton of work. I would love when she would make them and I would come over and I never made time to have her teach me how to make them. It’s one of those things, she passed away. Ironically, the month that I did that cleanse to remove everything, to find out if I needed to remove gluten, that was the month my yaya passed away, smack in the middle of that. I remember then and even now being like, “My gosh, I learned so much from her in the kitchen.” She was a great cook but I never learned how to make dolmades. I moved in to this house here in southern California about three years ago and when I moved in, the whole back alley of the house right behind my bedroom window, it’s all lined with grape vines.

And I was like, “Oh, I know what I need to do. I need to make stuffed grape leaves.” So my parents came out to visit and we got my grandmother’s old church cookbook that they – all the women of the Greek Orthodox Church in Buffalo – put together and we followed the instructions and followed her notes of the things that she changed and added and we learned, taught ourselves how to make stuffed grape leaves, with fresh grape leaves nonetheless. And after we did that, the first year I was like, “I need to make this a tutorial on my website. I need to show people that even though it’s cumbersome in the sense it’s a lot of steps and there’s a lot of hands-on aspect, it’s not just dumping stuff in a pot.” It’s also such an amazing and beautiful process that it’s one of those foods I have never once ever made them on my own. I always make them when my parents are here or when I go back home or something where there’s like a community, family love aspect to the meal.

It’s cool, it’s a recipe that I have a lot of pride in, even though it’s not anything original and it’s really simple but it’s just such a fun and beautiful connection-type recipe. And then I also – in the tutorial, because I generally avoid a lot of grains and I know a lot of my readers do as well – I offer the option to replace the rice that’s in the stuffed grape leaves with cauliflower rice. So, it’s kind of a different option and then you can make it with meat or without meat, you can eat them hot or cold. So, it’s amazing.

The Pressure Cooker:

Which food shows or cooking shows do you watch?

This is not going to be a popular answer but I don’t really watch cooking shows anymore. I got sick of always turning on Food Network and always seeing Guy Fieri and a bunch of garbage food that I didn’t really want to get excited about. So, I just don’t watch it anymore. Although, Aida Mollenkamp, a friend of mine in L.A., she works with Tastemade and does a series, it’s a web series. She travels around the world and does a quick 10-minute show about the food of that area. And so, I guess I do watch a little bit, just not the traditional stuff. So yeah, that would be my pick.

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

Some of my favorites are Nourished Kitchen. This woman, Jennifer, who does an amazing job sharing how to enjoy real food and get into the kitchen; very similar mind-set to mine, get in the kitchen, make it yourself, real food. I really love Salt & Wind, also created by Aida Mollenkamp, who I mentioned before. She travels the world, she has a bunch of contributors, it’s really focused on travel and the food of travel and all around the world and being inspired by that. I think the other one that really makes me happy right now is a blog called Will Frolic for Food. It’s a friend of mine, Renee Byrd, and she’s just a beautiful photographer, beautiful photos. Everything she makes is just gorgeous and you can tell she really puts time into every detail of every dish and there’s just this level of love in every recipe. It makes me happy to see somebody slowing down and taking time with food.

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

So on Instagram, I follow a whole bunch of people that stemmed from this one person, in terms of what she was doing. I really love Beth of Local Milk. She just takes beautiful photography that has so much emotion in it and most of the time, it’s food-focused. So, I just love what she does. There’s a feed on Instagram called How You Glow. It’s two girls from L.A. and they also seem to travel a lot and they promote healthy living and getting out and experiencing your world and experiencing all the different things there are, but also mindful living; they’re very focused on yoga and healthy eating. I love The Feed Feed feed, just because it’s a really great way to find new bloggers, new recipes, new people. And then I follow a lot of people that are very much in line nutritionally with what I’m doing. Some of them happened to be Paleo food bloggers, but Diane Sanfilippo, Mickey Trescott, Liz Wolfe, Robyn Youkilis, who I just discovered recently, who wrote a book that came out this month. I think it’s called Go With Your Gut. It’s about gut healing and food. So yeah, those are just some of my favorites. Again, I could probably go on forever.

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

I don’t know if it’s unusual, but right now, it’s my most treasured. It would be a toss-up between my Vitamix and I just recently bought a pressure cooker, Instant Pot. I do a lot of batch cooking because I want to make sure that even when I’m busy and life’s crazy, that I can eat well. I drink bone broth every week. Again, another gut healing thing, and there’s just so many nutrients and I used to make it in a big stock pot and let it cook for 24 to 48 hours, and I don’t think that’s really safe to leave a pot on a gas stove that long. It doesn’t make me feel good. So the pressure cooker cooks it in a couple of hours and it’s the best. I buy a bunch of organic chicken thighs and cook that in there and I’ve been cooking sprouted grains in there. So, sometimes at the start of the week that thing doesn’t leave the counter for two days while I just cook a storm up.

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

It’s kind of a weird thing. I laugh now but I used to think that maple syrup was really gross because the scent of it I felt like it would linger if you’d have it on pancakes. When you were a kid it would just, the smell of it would just stay on your body and then it was just all you’d smell. I probably realize now that it wasn’t real maple syrup and maybe that was what I was not loving. Now, I love it. I use it when I bake and it’s always in my kitchen.

What are a few cookbooks that make your life better?

One that jumps out is Danielle Walker of Against All Grain, put out a meals-made-simple cookbook. It’s Paleo but I just like that it’s simple. It’s not, you have to have a million crazy ingredients you’ve never heard of; it’s casseroles made with cauliflower, rice and chicken, and comfort food and the things that you grew up with. I often just turn to that for when I want something easy that I can throw it on the Crock Pot and not think about. But I know it’s well tested and it will be great.

I actually don’t cook a lot from cookbooks but another book that I turn to a lot when I want some sort of inspiration, I love Indian food but I obviously didn’t grow up with Indian food. It’s just called India Cookbook.

It’s beautiful and it’s huge, and beautiful color pictures through the whole thing. But, it’s a really nice way to look at a very classic, traditional culture’s food and how they would make it, and nine times out of ten, it’s way more involved or ingredients that I don’t have access to, but it’s a good inspiration for something that maybe comes from it that’s inspired by it.

What song or album just makes you want to cook?

A lot of times when I cook I don’t have music on, but it’s when I’m taking my photos that I turn music on and then that’s so dependent on my mood. And it’s so dependent on my mood that if you looked at my stream on Spotify, you’d be like, “Is this person bipolar or are they like schizophrenic? What’s going on?” Because it would be Iron Maiden and Motorhead, and the next day it will be Fleetwood Mac and Beyonce, and then it will go to traditional Indian yogic-style music and then jazz, and then Sigur Rós. I am all over the map with music. I just don’t like country music, it doesn’t make me want to dance. But depending on my mood, I would say almost everything else will make me dance and depending on the day.

On Keeping Posted with Beth:

I’m at Tasty Yummies on pretty much on every platform, so take your pick. I’m on Snapchat and Instagram and Pinterest and Facebook. The blog is always a good home base for recipes and just stay in the loop, probably with Instagram. I have a new website coming in the next few months. So hopefully my new website will be an even better platform to keep up with the yoga events I have and retreats I found working as a nutritionist, and all the different things that I’m doing.

090: Lily Diamond: Playing with Food for Beauty and Nourishment

November 4, 2015 by Gabriel Leave a Comment

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Kale & Caramel

On Kale & Caramel, Lily has fun with local, seasonal produce and plays with different flavor combinations in the kitchen while creating body and beauty products that are pure enough to eat. She believes diet is a personal matter and highly recommends eating, cooking, and mixing with our own two hands.

I am so excited to have Lily Diamond of Kale & Caramel joining me on the show today.

(*All images below are Lily’s.)

On Growing Up in Maui:

Growing up on Maui, first of all, I just feel incredibly lucky that I had that background and was able to be immersed in so much natural beauty, and to have such a strong connection to the land instilled in me from a really young age. Both my parents spent a lot of time in the gardens that we had surrounding our house. And my mom was an aromatherapist and an herbologist, and so I learned about working with plants from her. And that informed the way that I approach both self care, definitely, in terms of mixing up crazy potions that I would slather all over myself, but also in the kitchen and really thinking about food, not just one-dimensionally in terms of flavor, but really on a much broader level, hence the tagline “food for all five senses”.

For me there is so much richness in experiencing the other qualities of food, the way that it feels, its scent, all of these things that make it a really multi-dimensional experience to work with in the kitchen and to play with, whether you’re nourishing inside or outside of your body.

I think having that deep immersion in gardening and growing our own food made it really easy for me to want to explore different ingredients. And a lot of that just was very basic. The fruits and vegetables that we grew, not basic now that I’m living here on the mainland in California. Their ingredients are harder to get, and I don’t have the luxury of walking outside and having three different kinds of passion fruit to choose from or being able to pick my own pomegranate. But having a culinary vocabulary in that way really informed, I think, how I eat and how I cook now.

On Foraging:

I lived in San Francisco prior to living here, and there is actually a really cool foraging movement growing, definitely, in California. I think, around the nation of urban dwellers who are aware that even potentially within the confines of their city limits, there are oasis that contain a lot of natural life that can be foraged and eaten. I definitely don’t recommend doing any of that on your own, scrounging up things that you think look edible, totally a bad idea. But if you can go with somebody who really knows how to identify plants.

Something that I did was when I lived in San Francisco, I didn’t have a car, and so when I moved down here, I still was into walking around everywhere and exploring my neighborhood, and I really quickly discovered this walled-in secret garden. I would peer through the fence and try and figure out what was going on there. And for a few weeks. I then finally saw a sign, and looked it up online, and ended up just showing up at a community service day for this community garden that is just a few blocks from me.

And it’s huge. It has, I think, over 150 individual plots and then several acres of avocado orchards. And the avocado trees, some of them are over a hundred years old. And it’s just an incredibly special place. So right away I went in and I was like, “Can I help? I would love to just be able to work here and spend some time here.” And they said, “Sure.” And I’ve since developed a really close relationship with them.

So many people who live in L.A. don’t know that this place exists. It’s in the middle of the city, but it’s just kind of hidden, and you do have to look, and you have to explore and I think, be willing to go off the beaten track and just have your eyes open for plant life. I don’t think that’s something that most people do. Most people aren’t really walking around and going like, “I wonder where the next rosemary plant is that I will see.”

But once you have it on your radar, you start noticing like, “Oh my gosh, there’s lavender growing at the end of my block,” or, “There’s a fig tree two blocks from me that is growing over the street and all of those figs are just dropping on the ground.” And that’s technically public property. Just little things that you can attune to that will make it easier to feel like you’re in less of a desert.

On Her Curiosity Around Cooking:

I think I was about 11. I saw an advertisement for a Quaker Oats recipe contest. And I promptly decided that I should make up a recipe and enter it, and so I did. I still remember I can see the printed page, and I remember the font that I used. And I remember what they were called, and I remember what they were. I think that I should try to recreate them now. I called them “Mini Blueberry Munchies”. And they were basically blueberry hand pies, but they had an oat crumble. Instead of being as a topping, it was baked in. So I’m not sure how that would work out now. That was the first time that I really remember making a recipe, was when I was really young.

Even before then, I would go outside, because my mom started a business making body caring spa products actually around the same age when I was around 11. And I spent a lot of time from very young, watching her put together ingredients and use different plants and scents and all different aspects of food to create really beautiful dishes, and also body products. But I would go outside. I remember just running around the yard when I was young, and I would decide I was going to make lipstick or something. And I would go, and I would pick the pink flowers and different things, and mash them all together, and then put it on myself, and go show my mom.

That mentality, just playing with food, has always been really present for me. And I think what that does for me now is informs a joy in the process of cooking that, yes, I am concerned with the final outcome, but it’s also really fun for me to take my time and play with the ingredients, which is lovely for me and means that sometimes I take a long time to make things.

On Creating Beauty Products Pure Enough to Eat:

So I think on a really basic way, if you go into my bathroom, you’ll see on my sink, there’s a jar of honey, which is not usually something that you see in people’s bathrooms. And people would always…they’d come out, they’d say, “Can I use your restroom?” And I’d say, “Sure.” And they’d come out and they would say, “Why do you have a jar of honey sitting on your sink?” And it was a tip that was given to me by an esthetician, maybe five or more years ago, who said, “We use so many harsh ingredients, and we spend so much money on really complex products. And really, for most of our lives, we don’t need those products. What we need is to help preserve and care for and on a super basic level, clean our skin. That’s it.”

And one really easy way to do that is with honey. Honey is a natural preservative. If you think about it Egyptians used to preserve mummies in honey. And it also is antibacterial. It’s a really good cleanser, and if you get raw honey, it has a little bit of a grain to it. And so it’s actually a tad exfoliating, which is super nice.

I also make my own face oil as a moisturizer. It just really started as for me saying, “Our skin is our bodies’ largest organ, what we put on our skin goes directly into our body, and people spend so much money on products to try to deal with their skin issues, whatever they may be. And a lot of them have really harsh chemicals or ingredients in them that aren’t doing them any favors at all. For me, I love being able to say, “Well, my face cleanser cost me $6 at Whole Foods to get a jar of really nice raw, wild flower, wild crafted or wild whatever honey that will last me a month.”

And the face oil that I use, I make from either sweet almond oil or sometimes add apricot kernel oil. These are all ingredients that you can get super easily at a co-op or Whole Foods or a household store. And I add a few different essential oils depending on the level of dryness or moisture that I have in my skin that season, and that’s it. And that gets to be my routine. And it’s so simple, and it feels so good, and it’s really pure.

I sat next to this super sweet high school senior on my way back home on an airplane, and she was going to Maui with her family. I think it was for some holiday vacation. And we were talking about Kale & Caramel and these different products, and she ended up telling me she had a bunch of challenges, acne and red bumps on her skin. I’m not an esthetician or a dermatologist, I would never presume to prescribe anything to anyone. But I just shared with her what I did, and I said, “You could try it and see.” And we had such a nice conversation.

We ended up exchanging information, and a couple of months later, she wrote to me and said, “I’m sorry this email is so long overdue, but I just wanted to let you know that the red bumps that I have on my skin are completely gone. I’ve never seen results like what happened with using the honey and sweet almond oil.” It’s just so simple. But I think as a culture, we’ve been trained to want the thing that’s most expensive and most complex, and yet the ingredients to really care for ourselves and for our skin are close to the earth. That’s what’s also going to keep us feeling the healthiest and the most radiant, I think. Because it’s what’s naturally occurring.

On Good Resources for Learning More About Food for Beauty:

The first thing that comes to mind is actually my mother wrote a book called The Complete Book of Flowers. It’s sort of an encyclopedia of flowers. And it is possibly not available on Amazon right now. But it’s always worth taking a look. That’s called The Complete Book of Flowers. I haven’t found any singular go-to book in that regard, but I may be working on something that could help you in that dimension.

The Pressure Cooker:

Which food shows or cooking shows do you watch?

I actually don’t have a TV. I’ve watched some MasterChef Junior. I’ve watched some of those with a friend’s kid, but that’s it.

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

Some of my favorite food blogs right now that I go to as just regular sources of inspiration, I would say, are probably, Fix Feast Flair, With Food and Love, Will Frolic For Food, and The First Mess. Those are just some that are off the top of my head. Two Red Bowls, I love. My Name Is Yeh, also. There are so many. I’m really just constantly astounded by the amount of inspiration that is out there and the level of beauty is so extraordinary.

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

This is someone that comes to mind right away whose blog I just absolutely adore is Dash and Bella, Phyllis Grant. She’s an incredible writer and as a food writer, I think, is doing really exciting things. Instagram, definitely, I’m Laura Miller. She just does hilarious things with fruits and veggies posing with them, putting them on herself in weird ways, which obviously I like doing as well.

Oh, I follow Beyonce, clearly, and some other fashion accounts. I really love fashion, and some travel magazines, Trotter and Cereal Mag. And I think, oh, The Feed Feed is also an incredible aggregate of a lot of what’s happening on Instagram and just in the food sphere today. It’s, I think, a great way to keep up to date. And anything else? The people who I mentioned previously in terms of their blogs, I love following as well. Vegetarian Ventures, Shelly is an amazing photographer. So those are a few that come to mind.

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

I’m going to have to say it’s a weird answer, because it’s so utilitarian, but my Vitamix, it’s so multipurpose, and I use it so often. Most days, I definitely use it at least once and often more than once. And so, I think, for me I would have to go with the Vitamix. Not sentimental, but practical.

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

Cilantro. I couldn’t stand cilantro, which I know is something that is common for a lot of people. I really disliked it when I was growing up. I don’t know when it was that that shifted, but it definitely became something that for me, I use it for so many types of cuisine, and I think it adds an incredible dimension of flavor. So I love it now.

What are a few cookbooks that make your life better?

Definitely, Ottolenghi’s Plenty and Plenty More. There’s so much complexity and depth in those recipes, that I’m always astounded when I explore it. There’s a cookbook called The Balanced Plate by Renee Loux, who’s a vegan chef, but she has a lot of great recipes that are super easy. There’s a vegan cupcake recipe that she has that I used to make. I just alter it to become a coffee cake. It has a really nice streusel on top. You would never know that it’s vegan. I don’t like cooking vegan recipes where you’re making a lot of substitutions and using silken tofu, and flax eggs, and complex things. I love vegan recipes where the ingredients just all stand for themselves. That cookbook really does that, which is lovely.

What song or album just makes you want to cook?

I do listen to a lot of Beyonce while I’m cooking, it’s true. I would say that I alternate between listening to really fun, upbeat music like Beyonce and listening to podcasts. That’s something that, for me, I live alone and being able to have that human element in the kitchen with me if I don’t have someone else over visiting, is really nice to be able to keep my brain engaged in that way, even as I’m using the rest of my body.

On Keeping Posted with Lily:

Instagram, any social platform, really, I’m everywhere @KaleandCaramel, so you can hit me up on any of those social media platforms.

076: Rakhee Yadav: Discovering a Passion for Food

September 14, 2015 by Gabriel 4 Comments

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Boxofspice

Rakhee is from India and lives in Holland and her life’s goal is to be more adventurous in trying new foods. On her blog, Boxofspice, Rakhee incorporates Indian spices in many of her recipes and shares her food creations as she navigates through her relatively new passion of food.

I’m so happy to have Rakhee Yadav of Boxofspice here on the show today.

(*All images below are Rakhee’s.)

On Her View of Food:

I grew up in India as you know and I wasn’t really encouraged to be in the kitchen or to cook. Because India is such a different culture, mostly in the middle class, which is how we were, food is cooked by someone else. A cook will come in, we had a lot of help and my mum was particularly finicky about her space. So I was not ever allowed in, so I think food for me was something that mum did.

We ate really only Indian food, and I’m a vegetarian and I was an extremely finicky eater. So there wasn’t a wide variety of food. I always said growing up that for me food was about surviving. I didn’t really enjoy food that much. I was sick a lot, it was just bland food.

It was really in my 20s that I began to somewhat experiment, and by experimenting I mean a little more spice in my food. I would not say no to everything. So food, yeah, food was not on my radar of fun things.

I was sick a lot, so I had a lot of tummy problems. I was not allowed to eat a lot of spices. So food was not an adventure, it was just something I ate to stay alive. That’s really how . . . it sounds very dramatic but that’s how I felt.

I think most bloggers would say that they love to cook or food was very interesting to them, therefore they began the blog. For me it was quite the opposite. I think it was because of the blog that I discovered that I could cook and not just that I could cook, but I did a pretty decent job of it. There were happy faces all around and that’s a big gratification factor I think for any cook, is to see the joy on someone’s face when they’re eating your food.

I never thought I could cook. I always thought I was a bad cook in fact, so for me to suddenly discover, and that’s what’s so funny about life, where it takes you … Boxofspice made me get out there and try new things and experiment with food and that’s how I realized I can cook.

On How She Learned to Cook:

When I moved away from India I was forced to cook. I lived in the US for a few years and suddenly there was no one, there was no back up, and even in the US again, it was very functional. Food was functional, but I realized that I had absorbed a lot of what my mother did for me, or made for me, and that’s really the basis of where it all began.

The rest is research, research, research, and recently I have decided to take the blog in a slightly different direction to where it is now. I want to explore the Indian aspect because Indian food is so varied. I have not even scratched the surface. So yeah, it’s research. It started from a base point and then building on that, from blogs, from cookbooks, from every source that I can find.

On India and Holland Influencing Her Cooking:

I grew up only eating Indian food. I mean literally. I think the first foreign food that I tried was pasta, and that was when I was 29. So I grew up purely on Indian food and really I did not want to try anything because Indian food is so vast.

Again, I was not experimenting at all with food at that time. I think the challenge in Holland is that I don’t get all the ingredients here, so the challenge is how to turn an Indian dish into an Indian dish, but with a limitation of ingredients. That’s where the Dutch aspect comes in. I have never heard of kale before I came here. So those kinds of things, like using kale instead of something else that was Indian. That is the kind of fusion that comes about in my food now, which is out of necessity and not really because I want to do fusion but because I have to.

On How Food is Enjoyed and Shared in India Compared to Holland:

I think everything that happens in India happens around food. We live in large families in India. You’re never really alone in India, and everything revolves around food, whether it’s tea time or lunch time or dinner time, and we as opposed to Holland, we eat three warm meals in India.

The women usually are always in the kitchen cooking and it’s always fresh meals. You will never have leftovers and stuff like that but in Holland again, it’s functional, breakfast is bread, lunch is bread. So it’s slapped on cheese and bread is put together just because it needs to be done, it’s lunch, done. And dinner really is the time when the family will come together. That is not the way in India. India is really . . . and when you see a table, even if it’s a regular meal in India, you will have four or five things to eat. It’s a lavish spread but in Holland again, not the case.

Dutch meals revolve around meat and since I’m vegetarian, that obviously cannot happen. And the minute you take the meat out, all you are left with is mashed potatoes and boiled vegetables. So there’s very little spices involved in Dutch food, and for me, my food has to be pretty. Being a picky eater I needed my food at least to be pretty, and I think that’s what I try and achieve with my photography for the blog.

On Her Blog:

I think three years ago, that’s how nearly old it is, I had a ridiculous amount of time on my hands then. I’m trained as a graphic designer and I’m used to crazy hours and working really like crazy, and suddenly I was at a creative dead end, so to say. Again, food was not really that important to me then but design and photography are my life. So for me, I think the food kind of brought it all together, and why a food blog you might say? I think even at that point food was not really the deciding factor. I wanted to see if I could do food photography. So food was kind of by the way. It is only in the course of these three years that food has become . . . it really is an obsession at this moment and photography as important as it is has taken somewhat of a back seat.

Food I feel is not so different than photography because both are . . . I think it’s a lifelong process of learning, and I love the fact that I don’t know it all. I love the fact that I have so much to learn and the excitement and the adventure in finding out. I think that’s what keeps me going with the blog.

Sometimes I look at an ingredient in the supermarket which is seasonal and I may say, “Hey, that looks interesting. I have never used that before, I wonder how I can use it.” I will then go back to my computer and research how many possible ways I can use that particular ingredient, which will be the star of the dish. I’m extremely close to my mother and she was a brilliant cook. So I want to revive the dishes that she used to make. With the ingredients that are available to me here I want to see how I can do that or change it around a little bit so that it becomes mine.

On Becoming More Adventurous with Food:

I would still say I’m far from adventurous. I’m trying very hard and when it comes to trying anything vegetarian or even vegan I will try it absolutely. In the past it would have been a big no, but what I’m trying now is that even with meats I at least try it. I think that is something that is developed because of my daughter. Because that’s what I tell her. “At least try it.” If you hate it, we’ll put it aside, we’ll come back to it maybe a year later. I want to practice what I preach, so I do try but I’m definitely not there yet.

I have bad associations with meat, but I do eat chicken only if I make it at home. So yeah, it’s still a process. It’s baby steps.

I think in India we are kind of rice snobs, that’s what they call us. I would not eat any other rice but basmati rice. That’s a long grain, it really is fluffy when it’s ready and it’s just as beautiful rice. Risotto to me was just like . . . I looked at it and I was like “what is this rice?” It looks like it’s bad quality rice, but obviously that’s not true. And when I tried it, it’s one of my favorite dishes today.

How to Start Becoming More Adventurous with Food:

I think the people who are finicky are scared and I am scared and I think the biggest thing is to face your fear. It really is not that bad. I’ll give you an example. I recently tried cold cuts. For years I have looked at cold cuts and I thought I don’t understand what the deal is. It doesn’t look appetizing, but when I tried it, because this friend of mine said “try it for God’s sake, you may surprise yourself,” and I did and I have to tell you Gabriel, I was shocked because it was good.

So just go out on a limb and just put it in your mouth. What’s the worst that can happen? You hate it, or you spit it out, that’s really the worst that can happen.

And you never have to try it again. I can assure you that most often, at least in my case, I have tried it again, I want to try it again and it leads to other things.

The Pressure Cooker:

Which food shows or cooking shows do you watch?

I like to watch MasterChef just because I’m completely in awe of how the people are just able to make stuff out of nothing because that’s not my process. I think I would suck at that. So I love watching that, people who are so creative and just so brilliant. So yeah, I think that’s one show and I do like to watch Jamie Oliver Quick Meals.

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

I did just stumble upon a new blog recently, it’s called Oatgasm. It has the most beautiful photography, and the writing is just poetic, and she is just 17. You have to look at this website.

And of course there is Linda Lomelino. She’s a hero for any baker out there. So she influences me a lot in terms of the kinds of things she puts together, the pairings and also the photography. And there’s one more – Smitten Kitchen. I admire her immensely because for her it’s not only about the photographs at all, it’s just the recipe and that’s just fantastic.

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

I’m not a big social media person. I think I just got on Instagram a couple of months ago. I follow a few people but I don’t really watch out for any particular ones. I’m just drawn by a particular style of photography and I do that every day. So I look out for new people every day and I think because I’m so new to Instagram, I’m following new people every day. I don’t have anyone specific.

On Facebook I have a few like Will Frolic For Food, Our Food Stories. I think food blogs that are so organic, the ingredients are so beautiful, and the way they put it together is so beautiful. It’s not contrived, it all seems so natural. I like that about them.

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

I think it’s my handheld mixer. I refuse to buy a kitchen machine. I do every possible thing with that hand mixture. I go through them pretty fast, I have a new one every few months.

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

Maybe it’s not an ingredient but a vegetable. I used to hate spinach, I’d refuse to eat spinach and I love it now.

What are a few cookbooks that make your life better?

I don’t really read cookbooks. That may sound really odd, but I think most of my stuff comes from talking to my mother or online food blogs.

Every week I say I’m going to go out and buy a cookbook because I see a lot of the blogs doing that, and I know I can learn a lot but I just . . . remember Gabriel, this is very still new to me, so I’m still in the process of trying everything.

What song or album just makes you want to cook?

It would of course be John Mayer’s newest album, Paradise Valley. I love every song on that album. I just want to have a glass of wine in my hand and be cooking away.

On Keeping Posted with Rakhee:

I think the best way is Facebook or Instagram. I’m also on Pinterest. I’m not that active. I’m trying to be. It’s just an effort for me, but the best way really is Facebook and Instagram.

Lazy Day with Renee Byrd of Will Frolic for Food

April 4, 2015 by Gabriel Leave a Comment

Ok. I’m changing things up a tiny bit.

If you’ve been following along with my Lazy Day series, you’ll know I’ve been doing recaps of some of my food hero guests’ favorite things. So, each weekend, I highlighted three of my past guests.

BUT,

I was thinking, why not try doing one at a time? That way it’s not too overwhelming and your lazy day doesn’t become an unnecessary busy day.

Everything here at The Dinner Special is about experimenting anyway, so here’s my first experiment with Lazy Day.

Renee of Will Frolic for Food

It was super cool to chat with Renee on the podcast. She talked about her passion for food and how it grew, but it was especially nice to hear her story about her food sensitivities.

Renee talked about learning to cook with food sensitivities and shared tips, resources and ideas on cooking gluten-free and dairy-free for the first time. Check out what she shared HERE.

Renee’s World Ending, Last Meal:

A Handful of Renee’s Favorite Things:

A YouTube Channel that Has Some Cool Videos:	Green Kitchen Stories
Some Food Blogs We Have to Know About:	Two Red Bowls Dolly and Oatmeal Adventures in Cooking My New Roots
An Instagram to Follow:	Eva Kosmas Flores
Some Cookbooks that Make Her Life Better:	Plenty The Inspired Vegan BabyCakes Covers The Classics
Music that Makes Her Want to Cook:	Kishi Bashi

Renee was such a great guest. I learned so much and she definitely had a ton of knowledge to drop.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this first revamp of Lazy Day.

I’d love to hear your feedback in the comments section below, or feel free to email me at: thedinnerspecial [at] gmail [dot] com.

A tiny shoutout for the podcast – if you haven’t already, please check it out on iTunes and subscribe to it HERE. It’s FREE! If you enjoy the show, I’d really appreciate it if you would rate and review it HERE.

Until next week, have a super amazing Easter lazy day!

Gabriel

016: Renee Byrd: Learning to Cook With Food Sensitivities

March 23, 2015 by Gabriel Leave a Comment

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Will Frolic for Food

Renee is a writer, photographer, recipe developer, and chocolate maker. She eats a wheat-free, dairy-free and vegetarian diet, and her blog is a reflection of this. On Will Frolic for Food, you will find recipes for creative, savory vegetarian dishes and occasionally more healthful versions of something indulgent.

I am so happy to have Renee Byrd of Will Frolic for Food here on the show today.

On The Idea Behind Her Blog:

I think the main idea for the blog came from just cooking in my daily life. I am bored very easily so I make a lot of weird, interesting recipes at home, and my now husband, then fiancé, was just really… I would make meals and he would say, “You really need to start a blog about this because people need to know these recipes. You can’t just keep them to yourself. It’s really not fair in a way.”

From my side, I was like, “No, I mean that’s so much work. I don’t want to. I don’t know.” Finally I was just like, “This is probably worth my time to share this with people,” and it totally has been. The community is a major reason I keep going.

I often have recipes that take me over eight hours to do. All in all, like recipe development, making the recipe, photographing the recipe, editing the recipe, post processing, writing; all things that go into it.

It’s so much. I love every second of it, but it’s not easy technically.

On Her Interest in Cooking and Food:

I’ve pretty much always been interested in it. I have a natural affinity towards natural foods and wanting to feel healthy and feel great.

I’ve always associated food with feeling good and being happy. I am sure the majority of that is that my mother is a fantastic cook and taught me how to make a lot of interesting foods and interesting meals out of nothing; out of like, “What’s in the fridge?” “I don’t know. We don’t have anything in fridge. I guess we’re going to make a pizza out of stuff.” She really had a good understanding of flavors and flavor combinations and how to balance meals. From that perspective, I learned all of that from her.

A lot of my inspiration has come from friends who are just passionate about food, from my friends who were basically in this little vegan, raw foods, commune situation in college, because I am just sort of hippy at heart and all my friends are like that. I love the way that they eat.

That was very inspiring to me to be with those people because they were just making these incredible curries, chutneys, and raw date brownies and it just blew my mind; so those people, and of course my mother, who gave me the foundation thankfully. I am very thankful for that.

Beyond that, so much of my inspiration comes from incredible bloggers on Internet who have been doing what they do for so long.

On Her Food Sensitivities:

I ignored most of it. Well, the dairy thing I ignored. Funnily enough, everyone in my family is allergic to dairy; allergic, not lactose-intolerant. Most of them just kind of ignore it and the wheat thing I developed a sensitivity to in my early 20s in college.

I started getting really painful stomach aches and was having really terrible digestive issues; it just hurt. I didn’t know what it was, didn’t understand it and it turned out to be a combination of sensitivity to peanuts and wheat.

I didn’t get officially diagnosed with those things but I essentially cut both of them out, and then suddenly, “Wow. Eating is fun again and doesn’t hurt me anymore.”

I just decided that I didn’t want to feel sick when I ate, and in my life, and I wasn’t going to compromise about that and I did for a long time. I basically was like, “I’ll eat wheat here and there. I’ll eat dairy here and there,” but then I was just feeling sick. It just got to a point where I was like, “I don’t need these things.”

I do eat goat dairy because it doesn’t have the same sugars and proteins as cow dairy. I am able to digest that fine, so you see a lot of that on my blog. You see a lot of chevre and goat cheese, goat yogurt. I think it’s a wonderful food, personally, so I do feature that relatively often.

On Learning To Cook with Food Sensitivities:

There are tons of resources. There are some books that I really, really love that are really on point for teaching you how to make exact recipes. Inspired Vegan is amazing. I love that book. I think it’s Bryant Terry, and it’s so wonderful. Obviously all of the Ottolenghi books, anything that’s naturally wheat-free in there is incredible.

Getting yourself out there and volunteering to help people cook big meals and for gatherings and things is another great way to learn.

Obviously blogs are fantastic resources. I’ve got a massive blog roll of people who are constantly teaching me with their process and their way.

I just have so many things going through my brain right now. I’m allergic to dairy, so the lactose and the casein that I’m allergic to but I eat Ghee. Ghee is amazing. A lot of people aren’t very familiar with it and a lot of people with sensitivities aren’t very familiar with the fact there is something that’s derived from cow dairy that they can eat.

Ghee is a wonderful clarifying food that is good for the joints, it’s good for the skin and helps support the nervous system. You can actually put it on your skin and it’s very calming and moisturizing. It’s an incredible food. I love it. I eat it a lot. I make it at home so that’s something that I use often that I feel like I am probably preaching about a lot.

Ghee is clarified butter.

To make it at home, I get a really nice organic butter. If I can get it from a farmer that’s local — that’s fantastic as well — that I trust and then I boil it over medium-high heat. I skim all of the froth that comes to the top, all of the lactose and casein off of the top. I discard that.

You just keep doing that until all of that frothy stuff is gone. Then you strain it and you pour it into a heat safe jar and you can use it. Generally a very clean organic butter, you’re going to be able to turn it into ghee relatively quickly and then you have this wonderful food that you can keep on your counter. You don’t even have to refrigerate it. It lasts for years — literally years — and it makes everything taste better.

Tips for Cooking Gluten-Free or Dairy-Free for the First Time:

Trust simple recipes. Starting with that, if you’re cooking for somebody who has allergies, trying to start out with doing a complicated baking recipe especially if you don’t have all of the ingredients and aren’t willing to follow all of the directions exactly, it’s going to be very frustrating.

I just remember back to when I was first learning how to do gluten-free cooking a couple of years ago how angry I was. These recipes weren’t working for me but I always want to try something that is more complicated because I want to be the best at it right now, but I don’t know what I’m doing.

Trusting simple recipes and finding a recipe developer that you really trust and that you really respect. I feel like I sorted through blogs and authors for years before I found people that I felt like I could trust their recipes. I wish I had a list of bloggers that I think are awesome and that I really trust their recipes. Actually I do have a list of inspiration on my blog of a bunch of different blogs that I love; not all of them are gluten-free but I definitely trust all of them. It’s just under the inspiration tab.

The Pressure Cooker:

Which food shows or cooking shows do you watch?

I don’t really watch a lot of cooking shows but I could tell you that I want to watch a really cool cooking show that is all about seasonal eating but it’s fun and there’s traveling involved.

I don’t have anything that I watch regularly. I watch YouTube videos of folks sometimes doing their thing. Green Kitchen Stories has some really cool videos.

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

Oh my god. Yeah, hundreds of them. That’s a terribly hard question but what pops in my mind, let’s see. Two Red Bowls — super awesome, gorgeous photography; hilarious and just wonderfully inspiring recipes.

Dolly and Oatmeal, I love Lindsey Love’s recipes. They all are gluten-free, they are generally dairy-free, too; very creative and beautiful photography as well. I take a lot of inspiration from her recipes, so I just have to stress that.

Let’s see, so many of them. Obviously, Local Milk. I mean do I even need to say it? She’s the best ever that ever existed. I want to be her.

Eva Kosmas Flores of Adventures in Cooking has the most gorgeous photography in the world ever.

I am trying to think of other gluten-free bloggers here. I am always super in love with My New Roots. Everything is great on My New Roots, and Green Kitchen Stories, and Sprouted Kitchen. If you do not read those, you’re a crazy person. They’re just so good.

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

Also a very hard question. Instagram, I follow a lot of people, a range of folks who do everything from food to really wonderful landscapes and stuff. Again, Eva Kosmas Flores has a wonderful Instagram.

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

Coconut oil, quinoa, always gluten-free pasta is a go-to for sure, and fantastic quality olive oil and sea salt are better than anything. I actually use JQ Dickinson sea salt which is a West Virginia sea salt which is very flaky. It is a little bit lower in sodium and has of mineral quality to it. I love it. When I’m out of it, I cry a little bit.

Olive oil, I use Zoe’s because it’s really affordable in large amounts and it is really good, just delicious. I just feel like with good oil and salts you can make anything taste good.

Name one ingredient you cannot live without?

The JQD sea salt pretty much. I bring it with me everywhere.

Pretty much anytime I say coarse sea salt, I’m talking about that salt.

What are a few cookbooks that make your life better?

Plenty by Yotam Ottolenghi, Inspired Vegan, BabyCakes Covers the Classics by Erin McKenna is the foundation of gluten-free desserts in my mind. She is such a genius with gluten-free desserts. I pretty much owe that cookbook everything. My basic understanding of how gluten-free baking works and what you need to make it work. I’ve definitely branched off from that but that’s the foundation for sure.

What song or album just makes you want to cook?

Everything by Kishi Bashi. His most recent album, I can’t remember the name of it. Yeah, I just want to dance around my house and cook.

Keep Posted on Renee:

Other than following my blog, at willfrolicforfood.com, I am always posting on Instagram and Twitter. My handle is @FrolicChocolate. I have a Facebook page, too, but definitely Twitter and Instagram are the best ways.

Have One of Renee’s Delicious Soup Recipes Sent to You Now:

Has Cooking Become a Chore? 28 Food Heroes Share Ideas on How to Make Cooking Fun Again

February 24, 2015 by Gabriel Leave a Comment

I know exactly what I’m making for dinner, each and every night.

Why is this a bad thing?

Well, it’s not necessarily, but I’ve found that, for me, cooking has become more of a chore than something that’s fun and enjoyable.

Especially after a long day, the last thing I want to do is have to think about what to make for dinner.

Sure, I could:

search online for new recipes to try
or find inspiration in new food blogs to follow

but most of the time, I just stick with the tried and true.

The funny thing is, I love food and I love to cook.

And yet, every Sunday, when I go to the grocery store, I pick up the same ingredients because on Mondays, it’s pasta, Tuesdays, pork and potatoes, Wednesdays, stir-fry with rice… and the weeks just pass by.

I totally get that the routine is boring, but it’s so easy. I know exactly how long it will take to make and how it will taste.

But, I want to break out of this cooking rut.

I want to have fun in the kitchen again. I want to get excited about making dinner. Maybe not every night, maybe not even once a week, but every now and then, I want to try new herbs, spices and ingredients, and be an inspired home cook!

This is one of the reasons I started The Dinner Special podcast.

Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, I chat with my food hero guests about their fondest food memories, favorite things inside and out of the kitchen, and a dish that is special to them.

I also ask them questions like, “For those of us where cooking has become a chore, how can we make it more fun.” Things that I truly want to get some answers and ideas on.

From time to time, I’ll put together all their answers into a post like this. I hope this makes it easy for you to turn to.

If you have any burning questions you’d like answered, please send them to me at: thedinnerspecial [at] gmail [dot] com.

You’re a huge part of The Dinner Special and I’m sure lots of people have the same questions they want answered.

(Sorry for getting sidetracked.)

When I asked my food hero guests, “For those of us where cooking has become a chore, how can we make it more fun,”

Here’s What 28 of Them Had to Say:

Marisa McClellan of Food in Jars:

For people who think it’s a chore, I simply say try something easy.

Learn to scramble eggs really well.

I don’t think everybody has to love cooking, but we all have to eat.

I think the best advice I can say to someone is just to keep it simple. Your first meal doesn’t have to be a five-course extravaganza. Like I said, learn to make really good scrambled eggs, or pancakes, or French toast, and that will take you far.

Amy Kritzer of What Jew Wanna Eat:

I think you have to start with some good music, pour yourself a glass of wine, make it like a whole experience.

Then, start with something easy that is impossible to mess up and I think that will build your confidence and it’ll make it more fun for you.

I’m not opposed to people who take things that are pre-made and tweaking them a little bit.

If you bought some pre-made chicken to add to your matzo ball soup, instead of cooking your chicken, that’s fine.

Whatever makes you happy and makes it work.

Jordan Reid of Ramshackle Glam:

I think just finding your basic technique.

Like, with a slow cooker, it’s just meat and some liquid and vegetables. And so it’s like, once you get that basic thing down, you can have fun and you can say like, “Oh, I have some sriracha in my fridge. Let me throw that in. Let me try it with soy sauce on the side, let me try it with red wine instead of…”

I tried Dr. Pepper in a pot roast and it was really good.

And so I think that’s how you can have fun. Stick to the basics that you know in terms of technique and then you can improvise from there.

Chef Tony Singh of The Incredible Spice Men:

Get somebody to help you, because lots of people are time pressured and it is a chore if you’ve got a million and one things to do.

If you can get your children involved, it’s a great family experience and you’re teaching them life skills. Get somebody to peel the onions or peel the carrots or stand there and start to wash up for you.

Get people involved and that makes it much, much better.

Chef Cyrus Todiwala of The Incredible Spice Men:

What I always tell people in my classes is, when they look at a recipe, let’s say they look at a recipe in our book and they find something which looks very daunting, I always tell them to read the recipe first as if they’re reading a novel.

Then, shut the book and put it away and come back to it in a couple of hours. The recipe will automatically fall into place and will not look as dangerous.

The most important thing is unclutter your mind. Just de-clutter it and become creative.

Just become creative because all you will end up doing is creating something new.

Elena Rosemond-Hoerr of Biscuits & Such:

I think, especially during the weekdays, we totally get into a rut.

One of the things that I like to do is try and dabble with new ingredients or new cuisines.

So dabbling in things outside of your comfort zone is a good way to sort of bring the fun back into the kitchen.

And starting really small.

Trying to make something that you love to eat out, but that you hadn’t even thought that you could make at home, like a burrito bowl and then go from there.

Jodi Moreno of What’s Cooking Good Looking:

I think involving people always makes it more fun.

If I don’t want to sit at home by myself, I’ll just invite a bunch of friends over, casually set the table, give them a job to do and this way we’re not going out to eat ’cause in New York that’s very easy to do.

So, I think involving people, and if you have a spouse or children, that makes it even easier. My husband likes to cook too so the two of us will do it together and I think we kind of motivate each other to cook at home more often.

Eva Kosmas Flores of Adventures in Cooking:

Try to think of ways to make it more attuned to your personal taste. So, if you’re trying to just make something from a cookbook, know that you don’t always have to follow it to a T.

You can always change it up and add something else that you really like.

If you’re okay about onions but you love leeks, you can totally swap those two out. The same goes with most vegetables. If you hate cooked carrots, but you love brussel sprouts, switch those up, because roasted brussel sprouts get all caramelized and delicious.

My main thing would be, don’t be afraid to change it up and make it more in tune with what you actually like to eat.

It’ll be a lot more interesting to you if it’s something that you enjoy, rather than if you’re just almost following guidelines. That’s a lot more boring.

Courtney Chun of Fork to Belly:

It’s just about doing recipes that really inspire you, and that you really enjoy.

Before I started the blog, I would try to make healthy dishes. It would get repetitive. I’m making the same chicken breast, the same salmon with broccoli, and brown rice in it. It’s not like I didn’t enjoy what I was making but the process gets repetitive. It’s just not really fun.

I started doing cakes or making Japanese dishes because I really enjoy Japanese food. That just really helped to push me along and make me really enjoy what I was doing.

I think just with anything, you need to find what you love to do.

Megan Voigt of Hint of Vanilla:

One of the things that I do whenever I bake or cook, or just when I’m in the kitchen ever, is I put on some music, and I kinda dance a little bit. I’m a terrible dancer, and I’m a terrible singer, but I will actually dance and sing as I’m cooking.

It’s something that you see in movies and you’re like, “Oh, that’s so cheesy.” But you know what? I do it, and I really enjoy it.

It’s just injecting a little bit of fun.

Have a recipe that you’re comfortable with, that you know is pretty good for a weekday dinner, so you’re not stressed. Then, on the weekends, you can kind of do a bit more research and try something that you’ve never tried before and maybe do something that has a little bit more time and effort put into it.

Jonathan Melendez of The Candid Appetite:

I would say turn on music while you’re cooking. That’s like the one thing I always do as I cook, always.

Right before I start cooking, I will turn on music, I’ll have it on shuffle, and I’ll just listen to music the whole way. And then it feels like you don’t even think about it anymore, because you’re listening to these songs that you really enjoy, and you are in the kitchen.

And it doesn’t become a chore anymore, because there is something there to distract you.

Cristina Sciarra of The Roaming Kitchen:

I think the best thing is just to make it to the market, pick something that looks good to you and go home and search (for example) broccoli recipes. The websites I really rely on, if you type things into Food52, you will have great results with a recipe that will work for you.

Karen Chan of HonestlyYUM:

I would always say start by making sure you have just the basic correct tools, and I think at the very minimum you just need a really good knife. A really good or really sharp knife, because if you’ve got to sit and cut an onion with a crappy knife, I wouldn’t even want to do that.

You just need the basics and you need really good basics.

For example, a really good pot. Like a very good cast iron pot, for example, or for me I use a mortar and pestle all the time. Especially if you’re going to be doing a lot of ethnic cooking, those are just so handy to have.

But aside from that, music. I almost always listen to music when I cook. It lets you settle into it more and kind of focus on the chopping. It’s a little meditative because you just kind of zone out there listening to music.

A glass of wine doesn’t hurt. I always have a glass of wine and some music playing and just have fun with it.

Start with manageable things, have equipment and tools that are good and that will help you. I always say, seriously, a good knife goes a really long way and alcohol…

Skye McAlpine of From My Dining Table:

In my mind, what makes cooking a chore is the mess.

I love cooking. If there are times when I don’t feel like cooking, it’s pretty much always because I cannot face cleaning up the kitchen.

So, I would say, maybe try and choose dishes where you use fewer saucepans, just to get you started.

Maybe dishes that don’t require a whole load of equipment. And clean up as you go along, because it’s really easy to wash up as you go along. But if you leave it all until the end, that sort of sets the trap.

The other thing about cooking is it’s all kind of confidence and practice. The more you do it, the more you are going to enjoy doing it. Go out and buy a really inspiring cookbook full of easy dishes that don’t require lots of washing up and just jump in the deep-end.

And also, I genuinely believe that cooking for people rather than just cooking for yourself or yourself plus one is so much more fun.

Nicole Dula of Dula Notes:

My best advice for that is like what we were talking about before, to kind of put a piece of yourself in it because it becomes more personal and it’s more rewarding in the end.

So if you like, say quinoa, just try to experiment with different things you can put on like a quick sauté of vegetables or vegetables and meat, put it over your favorite grain and just experiment with flavors until you find a dish that’s super easy to make, super adaptable, no matter what’s in your fridge.

Just have a stand out dish that you can make at the drop of a hat whenever you’re hungry, and then it will just make you feel better about yourself.

Cindy Ensley of Hungry Girl Por Vida:

Some days you just have to get dinner on the table, so it’s more about what recipes you have in your arsenal. But if you can throw something new in there every week, maybe, or even every couple of weeks, I think that makes it fun.

Or use a new ingredient. A couple of years ago, my husband and I weren’t really big fans of fennel, so we started implementing it into our meals and now we love it.

So I think that trying a new ingredient or trying a new recipe, but not going overboard and trying to do it every night of the week. I think that gets daunting.

There are lots of different ways you can use ingredients and just trying them out a couple of different ways, I think, is also key.

Phi Tran of Princess Tofu:

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

I like cooking with other people. I think if you cook with somebody who likes to share their food and also their skills, it’ll make it more fun.

It’s nice to do it with someone else every once in a while. And if it gets charred then you have someone else to share pizza with.

Alanna Taylor-Tobin of The Bojon Gourmet:

Wine or maybe a cocktail or something. Put on some fun music, pour yourself a drink, and just try to relax and make it a treat for yourself.

Also having someone to cook for, I think, is really important. So invite someone over who super loves food and is really fun and encouraging.

Ileana Morales of A Little Saffron:

Try not to overthink it. It doesn’t have to be fancy.

Our weeknight meals tend to be pretty simple. I use canned chick peas all the time and I just do that with some sautéed kale and some bacon. That’s it, that’s dinner. So I would say, don’t overthink it and don’t be so hard on yourself.

I like to think of a recipe like a guideline, because if you’re out of something, it’s fine, it’s usually not essential. Just work with what you have.

Katy Atlas of Sugarlaws:

To make it more fun, two things.

Don’t do it by yourself if you can avoid it.

Lots of people think they always have to go out for dinner with friends but actually staying in and cooking is a fun activity to do with friends too. My husband will always keep me company. He’s not a great cook but he’ll help out and hand me cans and do little things to keep me company while I go.

Put on some music.

Cooking is sort of a wonderful activity because it’s a great way to just kind of be really active and engaged with it. Your mind isn’t wandering as much as our thoughts tend to wander. You can just focus on it and sort of enjoy the experience of it even if it’s not your favorite thing and can be a tough thing to find time to do everyday.

We just focus on being present and try to have company for it.

Renee Byrd of Will Frolic for Food:

Trying new things is always fun.

For me personally, I like trying new spices, new herbs or trying something that’s a little bit weird or that’s a little bit strange.

I like to play with herbs in sweet things, like muffins, “I don’t really like muffins, muffins are boring,” put something in it that’s different, that has a new texture, that has a new flavor. Like cocoa nibs have the crunchy bitter thing going on and then you have sweet orange zest that is really aromatic.

These things are very fun for me. I don’t know if it’s fun for everybody. That’s sort of how I have fun in the kitchen.

Half of my time, I feel, is spent in the process of the mediation of chopping and looking out of my window and experiencing what I’m doing.

I really am very tactile so I love to touch things and have it in my hands. That’s really pleasurable for me and being able to create something that in my mind is artful out of that is so much fun.

Meike Peters of Eat in My Kitchen:

It’s like with everything else, you have to go through this time where you fail, where it’s not always fun, and where the results can be quite frustrating.

You just have to stick to it and cook and cook and cook.

What I like to do is because we always cook in the evenings, just open a bottle of red wine, have some cheese, some nibbles, and put on some nice music.

Because for me, what I love about food is, it doesn’t start when it’s on the table and when I eat, it starts already in the kitchen. I create a nice atmosphere in the kitchen and that definitely helps.

One shouldn’t take everything so seriously. If it doesn’t work out it doesn’t work out, and you try it again.

Phoebe Lapine of Feed Me Phoebe:

I really think that this strategy, cook on Sunday or Saturday, whichever afternoon you have free, and eat all week long, is a nice way to do it.

You’re not rushed, and once you have those building blocks in your fridge, then ten to 15 minutes of cooking becomes less burdensome on a weeknight.

I feel like dedicating your afternoon that way is a nice time to grab a buddy or your loved one to tag team and divide and conquer.

Emily Hilliard of Nothing in the House:

One of the things that has been nice for me is getting a CSA or farm share.

That’s really nice because I’m not necessarily someone who can go to the store and have an idea. But, when I have a set framework of like onions, broccoli and potatoes, I think that adds a limiting factor, so you don’t have to start from scratch.

Another thing I like, I really like cooking with other people. That’s always been present in my life with family and just having friends over and cooking together.

I also like having music or the radio on while I cook.

Kristan Raines of The Broken Bread:

I would say just to not worry about a thing and to enjoy the process. I think whether you’re baking or you’re cooking, the process can be the most reviving thing in the world.

My favorite thing is to just make it communal, grabbing whatever’s in the fridge and not worry if it’s going to come out great.

For me it’s turning on the music, and if it’s dinner time having a little glass of wine, and taking it slow and making it more of an adventure than a chore.

That shift in your perspective can aid you in like – “Okay, work day’s over, we can make food and enjoy the food because it’s nourishing and fun to do together”.

Becky Rosenthal of Vintage Mixer:

Turn on some music, keep it relaxed. Don’t try anything too difficult at first, and cook things you know you’ll enjoy.

If you’re trying something new, maybe just have a back up in the fridge just in case it doesn’t turn out.

But, don’t be too hard on yourself and just stick to the things you know you’ll enjoy.

Chef Adrian Richardson:

I suppose if you can teach people some simple dishes they can do, and how to make the dishes they’re already cooking even more enjoyable with things like seasoning and herbs and switching things around, I think this can be monumental.

Luisa Weiss of The Wednesday Chef:

I think a lot of people think cooking is no fun because they secretly don’t think they’re good at it.

I’m as lazy as the next person, I will take a short cut if it’s offered to me, I never make my own pasta.

There are many many really simple recipes out there that if you make them three times, you’ve memorized them by heart, but if you make them, you’re eating really good food.

That’s what I try to instil in my blog and that’s what I would tell someone who says “I hate to cook”, I’d say, “you know what, I bet you don’t, you just think you’re not good at it, and that’s why you don’t like it.” But actually, if you had some successes in the kitchen, you’d start to like it.

Awesome tips and advice.

Thanks food heroes!

I hope you enjoyed this post. I was actually thinking of only including ten or so responses to keep it short and sweet, but I honestly feel like we can get something from each food heroes’ thoughts.

Whether it’s a tip, some advice, or simply knowing that they get stuck in cooking ruts too, I find it encouraging and inspiring to hear their thoughts. I hope you do too!

Let’s get excited about cooking again!

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How do you keep it fun in the kitchen with a busy schedule?

I’d love to hear your thoughts!

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Let’s do this together!

Gabriel