Cookery by the Book

The Italian Table

By Elizabeth Minchilli

Intro:                  Welcome to the Cookery by the Book podcast. With Suzy Chase. She's just a home cook in New York City, sitting at her dining room table, talking to cookbook authors.

Elizabeth:                  Hi, I'm Elizabeth Minchilli and my latest cookbook is The Italian Table.

Suzy Chase:                  The Italian Table is glorious, from the recipes to the photos. The first thing you see when you open the cookbook is the stunning kitchen with rustic blue and white tile, and blue and white plates hung on the wall. Is this your kitchen?

Elizabeth:                  Oh, I wish! That's a kitchen in a beautiful castle outside of Rome. Although I've spent a lot of time in it.

Suzy Chase:                  Oh, that tile is to die for.

Elizabeth:                  Beautiful. And you know, a lot of the kitchen, I didn't get into all the kitchens in the book, but the particularly beautiful ones I tried to include since they're so inspirational.

Suzy Chase:                  I can't figure out what's more beautiful in this cookbook, your writing or your photographs. What do you love more?

Elizabeth:                  Well, you know, for me, since the kinds of books I've always done have been so image-driven, I can't imagine one without the other. And I see the photographs as giving a different dimension to the words. And that's always been my response to cookbooks, you know. I love, obviously, recipes that work, but I love the story behind them. But I also like the visual inspiration, whether it's actually the food or the place settings or the tiles on the kitchen wall.

Suzy Chase:                  Me too. So I found it interesting that each chapter captures a specific meal that you experienced in Italy. Describe how this cookbook is laid out.

Elizabeth:                  Well the way, I was trying to decide how to combine my competing passions for, you know, interior design and setting and history with food. And I realized that it all came together at the table. And once I decided that, I wanted to share as many different kinds of meals as possible to show my readers how Italians really eat. I mean you know, most people imagine certain dishes with Italy, whether it's pasta or pizza or gelato. But people aren't eating those things all day long, and they're not eating them perhaps in the way that people think.

                                    So while the settings are beautiful, these are really the way people eat, whether it's at the beach, whether it's on a coffee break, you know, grabbing a slice of pizza in Rome. Whether it's in a summer vacation villa outside of, in Umbria. So I wanted to have a great range and that way to be able to explore both the setting and the food on the table.

Suzy Chase:                  Yeah, I notice that you really drill down beyond the ingredients, beyond the cooking technique. Like you'll get the pasta and the bowl, but what about the bowl, or the tool used to get the pasta from the bowl to the plate or even the linens that cover the table. I love that part.

Elizabeth:                  Yeah, that's my ... I love that part too. And not just because it involves shopping opportunities. What I really love about it is that it really, you know, 'cause when you go to a place you might have a great meal and you might support the local restaurants, in a way, but there's other ways that you can learn more deeply about a region and that's by visiting its artisans. And you know a lot of people will see pretty, you know, ceramics from Italy and stop there, knowing that they're from Italy. But I really like to, you know, drive home why this certain kind of plate shows up if you're on the beach in Positano, why a different kind of bowl shows up if you're in a small town in Puglia, and what those mean. And explore a bit about the people who are actually making those bowls, who are often the people that are eating those dishes anyway.

Suzy Chase:                  Here's the question I'm dying to know the answer to. How did a girl from St. Louis end up in Rome as an expert on Italian cuisine?

Elizabeth:                  Well, that goes back to the fact that when I was 12 years old I was living in St. Louis and my parents took a vacation, and they went to Italy and they did Florence, Venice, Rome. And they came back and instead of getting back to our life they packed up our house, sold the business, and we moved to Rome for two years. And although we only stayed there for two years and then moved back to the States, we always came back in the summer. And so I always felt at home whether it was in Italy or Spain or France, trying to get a way to get back, and that way came back in graduate school. And in the late '80s I decided if I picked a, you know, my dissertation topic correctly, I could get somebody else to sort of fund my permanent vacation, and I did. And I ended up in Florence working on sixteenth century gardens.

                                    And then along the way I met my Italian husband and started having Italian babies and Italian dogs and that's when my new career really shifted gears from academia to publishing. And at the beginning I was writing predominantly about art and architecture and design, but almost really really shortly thereafter I also started writing about food. But always in a cultural context. You know, when I was writing for Bon Appetit or Food & Wine or Town & County I would write about restaurants but more, not just as a place to find good food but as a way to dive deeper into the culture.

Suzy Chase:                  Tell me about where you live.

Elizabeth:                  I currently divide my time between Rome and Umbria. Umbria is a region located just north, in between, let's say, Rome and Florence. And my main house is a little apartment in the old section of Rome called Monti. It's a little, I'm now talking to you from my office on the roof of our building. We've been living here, my husband had the apartment when I met him, my kids have been born here, and it's right, I mean, if I walked out, I just now walked down the street and my cash machine, my ATM, is in front of the Colosseum. Which is kind of nice.

Suzy Chase:                  Oh, wow.

Elizabeth:                  And then our house up in Umbria, which is on the cover of the book, actually. We spend the summers there and have a big vegetable garden and we have olive trees so we make our own olive oil and that's where we live.

Suzy Chase:                  How old is your house in Umbria? It looks like it's stone.

Elizabeth:                  It's made out of stone. And the house itself is, I would say parts date back to the sixteenth century.

Suzy Chase:                  Wow. That's gorgeous.

Elizabeth:                  And you know, like all of these houses, they're built onto over the years, and we restored it. My husband's an architect, and his specialty is restoring these houses into inhabitable places. And in fact two of my books talk about restoring houses in Italy.

Suzy Chase:                  Talk a bit about how the Italian food words are the hardest to tackle. Like, cicchetti, in Venice, if I'm pronouncing that correctly. What is it, and where would we eat it?

Elizabeth:                  Well, cicchetti is a word that yeah, exists only in Venice. Took me a really hard time to figure out what it means, because people translate it into tapas, you know? 'Cause we think we know what that means. Or little bites. And they kind of are both those things. But when you say to a Venetia, they know exactly what it means and it has a sort of social context. It means, little things to eat along with a glass of wine so you don't get too drunk 'cause that's not the point. The point is actually meeting your friends and having a drink. And the food is sort of secondary. And you know all this stuff I just said, it's hard to put down in a one word translation. But it's funny you ask that because I mean, food in Italy is so difficult to translate and this past week I just did food tours as well, and Melissa Clark was just here and we were doing-

Suzy Chase:                  Yes. You had your Awful Tour.

Elizabeth:                  We had our Awful Tour. And it wasn't awful at all, it was wonderful. But it did deal with innards. And one of the things that we both learned, you know, we were both in Umbria, in Rome, and in Florence, is you know, the same little part of an animal can have, you know, ten different words depending where you are in Italy. And for me, that's sort of the fascinating thing. There's always something more to learn. You know, you said I'm an expert in Italian food, but I find it hard to believe that anybody's an expert. I think that there's always something to learn.

Suzy Chase:                  Well since you brought up Melissa Clark, tell me about your food tours and your daughter Sophie.

Elizabeth:                  So, when I first started my blog I didn't really know, you know, back in the early days of blogs, I didn't really know what it would lead to and how it would make money. 'Cause blogs don't make money. And so one of the things that it led to was doing food tours. And people started asking me for food tours and I didn't quite know what they were at the time. Nobody was really doing them in Rome. And so I started doing them, and I did market tours around several different neighborhoods in Rome on my own, and was immediately very busy doing these tours.

                                    And I was doing it on my own for a few years and then luckily my daughter, Sophie, graduated university. She was going to school in London, came back here, and I convinced her to work with me. And so now we both got sort of more work than we can handle. She's doing, handling the day by day tours here in Rome. I do some of them as well. But my time is mostly focused on our week in Italy tours. And those are deep dives into different regions. We're currently doing tours in Rome, in Florence, and in Puglia. And we do them on our own, they're usually six nights. We do them on our own, sometimes we partner with people. I've partnered with Melissa Clark twice and Evan Kleiman, who's located in LA. She's a cookbook author and host of Good Food.

Suzy Chase:                  The best.

Elizabeth:                  Yeah. And then in July we're doing one with Elizabeth Gilbert, the author of Eat Pray Love.

Suzy Chase:                  Oh cool.

Elizabeth:                  Yeah. We're doing one in Puglia. So it's a fun excuse to collaborate with friends, and also see Rome and Italy in general from a different point of view.

Suzy Chase:                  What influence did Anna Tasca Lanza and her cooking school have on you?

Elizabeth:                  Well I just remember seeing the book really early on, you know, when I first moved to Italy, working on my dissertation. I can remember picking up the Marcella Hazan books, cooking through them, and then there were these books also by Anna Tasca Lanza. And these beautifully illustrated books. And Sicilian food at the time, even in Italy, people weren't really talking about it. And I just found it fascinating. And when I started writing about food and getting sent on press trips, I found myself at the Tasca d’Almerita estate. And seeing these pictures of the food processes that were going on in both of the houses on the estate. And there was one house that sort of focused on the wine and then there was Anna Tasca Lanza at the other villa. And I would see these pictures of like, women pouring tomato sauce on wooden planks in a sun drenched courtyard making tomato paste, and her recipes talked about these really romantic memories of the house cook sort of teaching her how to make things, and with the ingredients from the land. And it always was something that stuck in my head, and over the years I've made it back there as many times as possible and I'm really happy to recreate a menu inspired by my time there.

Suzy Chase:                  You have a gorgeous porchetta in this cookbook. What is the key to a good porchetta?

Elizabeth:                  Well obviously the key to any of these dishes is getting great ingredients. And the other thing is that you have to sort of, a lot of these recipes that people love are often eaten in certain places. For instance, porchetta is most likely eaten at the side of the road, you know, as you're driving through Italy there's a porchetta stand and he's got, you know, this 200 pound pig on the side of the road that he's cutting thick slices off of. I don't think anybody that's buying my book has an oven big enough to fit a pig in it. And so the challenge of my recipe was creating a porchetta that you could cook at home. And in that case it was something that would fit in your oven, have all that crispy skin, have all the nice juicy fat, but not get dried out in the middle. And so I, working with my local butcher in Umbria, I came up with that recipe. So it has all those things. And it's just super easy. Once you get the really right kind of meat, you barely season it. I mean, you season it correctly, tie it up correctly, you put it in the oven and you walk away. So, and I have to say, most of the recipes in the book are sort of, you know, not a lot of work.

Suzy Chase:                  I can't talk about porchetta without bringing up fraschetta. Describe a fraschetta.

Elizabeth:                  A fraschetta.

Suzy Chase:                  Fras-, yes.

Elizabeth:                  Sorry! They're all really hard. Everybody mispronounces my name, too, because the C and the H and all those things are really hard to get in Italy. So, a fraschette.

Suzy Chase:                  Yes.

Elizabeth:                  A fraschetta is a restaurant located in the town of Ariccia. It's south of Rome and it's known for its porchetta. And these fraschette were originally just little shops, like hole in the walls that would sell wine. And people would sit outside and to provide shade the owners would put up a few branches to provide shade, so its leaves still attached. And those are frasce. And so these places became known as fraschette, where you could go get sort of table wine. And bring your own food. Eventually these places started serving their own food, turned into restaurants, but they're still called fraschette today. And one of the places that actually, Sophie and I visit a lot, is la Selvotta in Ariccia. And the pictures in the book come from our experience there, which is one of my favorite ones because it's actually located in a leafy sort of forest.

Suzy Chase:                  It looks heavenly.

Elizabeth:                  It is. And the food is just, you know, it's what you want to sit down at a picnic bench and eat. It's like, mozzarella and salami and olives. And then you always have a few cooked things included. Porchetta, maybe, some sausages. It's fantastic.

Suzy Chase:                  So last night I made some of your recipes out of the menu for a late summer dinner under the pergola. Even though it's the dead of winter here.

Elizabeth:                  I saw that, I saw that! I saw that. You put them on Instagram. They looked perfect. Well, I have to say when people are asking me what's my go-to recipe in the book, it's the bean soup recipe. It's just so good.

Suzy Chase:                  It's two minutes.

Elizabeth:                  I know. It's two minutes. And people really think you put a lot more effort into it than you did.

Suzy Chase:                  Yeah.

Elizabeth:                  I mean, if you start out with dried beans and soak them, it does become, you know. And I do suggest you do that. But I'm not gonna tell anybody if you use canned beans, that's okay.

Suzy Chase:                  Okay, thanks.

Elizabeth:                  But I have to say, it's a great winter recipe, but then I find that in the summer if you serve people soup they really appreciate it. It's like something they don't expect and they're sick of eating cold food.

Suzy Chase:                  Describe the story that went with this menu, how you became a good Italian momma immediately after your daughters were born.

Elizabeth:                  Well one of the things, one of the many things that I realized, is that being an Italian momma has lots of sort of unspoken rules. And one of them is that while you stay in the city with your kids during school year, the minute the school year ends or the weekend comes, you head out to a country house. And I don't know how it is, but everybody seems to have a country house. Whether it's your Nonna, whether it's, you know, your friends, you go out to the countryside. And so I would pack up the kids and go up to the country. And so that's where, you know, even though we live in Rome, I learned to cook a lot and entertain at our house in Todi. And you know I learned to cook, you know, meals according to the seasons as well, which is something that's, I think, really important.

Suzy Chase:                  So moving on to my segment called My Last Meal, what would you have for your last supper?

Elizabeth:                  You know, it has to do with place as well. So I think I would have to say, maybe a plate of carbonara at one of my favorite Trattoria, Perilli in Rome. Just because for me that sums up sort of everything. It sums up the place I would go for Sunday lunches with my family, it has my favorite waiter Valerio, it's a place that's always been there before I got there, it will exist long after I leave. And the plate, you know, the carbonara goes without saying.

Suzy Chase:                  Where can we find you on the web and social media?

Elizabeth:                  On social media, I'm eminchilli at Instagram. And I am Elizabeth Minchilli on Facebook, and eminchilli on Twitter. And my website is elizabethminchilli.com. And I also have an app, Eat Italy, which is guides for eating your way through Rome, Venice, Florence, Puglia, Umbria, and more and more cities every day.

Suzy Chase:                  Thanks Elizabeth, for coming on Cookery by the Book podcast.

Elizabeth:                  It was great to be here. Thanks for having me.

Outro:                  Follow Suzy Chase on Instagram, @cookerybythebook, and subscribe at cookerybythebook.com or in Apple Podcasts. Thanks for listening to Cookery By The Book podcast, the only podcast devoted to cookbooks, since 2015.

Hey New York area listeners I’m excited to announce that I’m going to be doing a live cookbook conversation with my friend Jessie Sheehan author of The Vintage Baker on Sunday March 31st from 3-5pm.

Come on by Lizzy Young Bookseller, a darling new culinary bookshop in Brooklyn on 212 Degraw Street in Cobble Hill.  Jessie will bring some treats straight out of the cookbook, we’ll have wine, she’ll sign books, it’s going to be a good time. I hope to see you there.

Keto Fat Bombs, Sweets & Treats

By Urvashi Pitre

Intro:                  Welcome to the Cookery by the Book podcast with Suzy Chase. She's just a home cook in New York City sitting at her dining room table talking to cookbook authors.

Urvashi Pitre:                  I'm Urvashi Pitre, and my blog is TwoSleevers.com. My latest book is Keto Fat Bombs, Sweets & Treats.

Suzy Chase:                  The ketogenic diet has taken America by storm, and you can attest to its effectiveness firsthand. How has it changed your life?

Urvashi Pitre:                  My husband and I had gastric sleeve surgery about six years ago. Interestingly, the decision to have the surgery was not as difficult as the decision to go keto after that, because you can have surgery, you can do a whole bunch of things, but if you don't eat right, you're going to gain back almost all of the weight. I had to accept that I was going to be on a ketogenic diet for the rest of my life in order to lose weight. My husband and I have both lost a ton of weight and kept it off for six years, which is, I think, the hardest part. My husband lost about 100 pounds, which is a little too much, and I lost about 80 pounds, which is a little too much, so we've had to put back on a little bit of it so we didn't look haggard and old, but it has really-

Suzy Chase:                  Really?

Urvashi Pitre:                  Yes. Oh, my God. I'll tell you something interesting. He was lying in bed after a shower one day, and I came in, and I thought he had died because you could see his bones and his ribs. I was like, "This is not good," so I was like, "Dude, you need to eat." You know?

Suzy Chase:                  Oh, no.

Urvashi Pitre:                  [crosstalk 00:01:29]-

Suzy Chase:                  You can be too thin or too rich, I guess.

Urvashi Pitre:                  I suppose you can. I mean, especially as you get older, I don't think it's that great to be so skinny, at least for me. I don't look that good. I think the thing about keto is that part of it is weight loss but, for a lot of people, it's blood markers. For my husband, Roger, he came off of Metformin. He came off of blood pressure medication. He had health issues that were impacted by his weight and by the way that he was eating. I had a severe insulin resistance, and I had marks on the back of my neck and on my stomach. It's called acanthosis nigricans. You could see that the way that we were eating was not good for our health let alone our weight. I think it's fashionable to talk about keto for weight, but the more fundamental issue is keto for health for many of us.

Suzy Chase:                  In your new cookbook, you share more than 100 keto recipes that help satisfy cravings for high-carb snacks. Describe the process of developing 100 recipes, and you probably tested way more than 100.

Urvashi Pitre:                  Oh, yeah. By the way, this is the fourth or fifth book out, so there has been a lot of recipe testing. My whole house has been taken over, and my husband complains that we never get to eat anything more than once. The only times we get to it eat it more than once is if it failed the first time because then I have to make the recipe again. It's challenging in a good way.

                                                      I enjoy the process of coming up with something that yes, it's keto, but mainly, it has to be good-tasting food. A surefire way to go off of a particular way of eating is if you just don't enjoy the food, and it's a chore, and it takes forever to make, and you spend half your life in the kitchen. We don't live like that. I'm not a professional chef. This is not what I do full-time. I am a mom, a business owner. I do. I have other priorities in my life other than cooking, and it has to be easy, and it has to be more ... more than anything, it has to be sustainable.

                                                      I think people go into keto, sometimes, with a deprivation mindset, and they think about all the things they can't have. I always urge people to focus on the wonderful, tasty things you can have and all the vegetables, the meats, the nuts, the cheeses, the cream cheese, the heavy whipping cream, the wonderful, delightful, tasty things that you can eat. Moreover, you can feed your family the same things because they're going to take that and go, "Wow, this is delicious," not, "What is this diet food you just fed me?" Essentially, what I do is I create a table of contents of things that I know people miss or that I have made and enjoyed. Then I just go through systematically and start cooking from one end and go to the other until I'm done.

Suzy Chase:                  You have a whole section called Keto Myths. Number one is keto and low-carb are entirely different things. Explain that.

Urvashi Pitre:                  Yeah. I'll tell you there's a lot of keto policing out in social media. One of the criteria in my group is you're not allowed to say, "That's not keto," or, "You can't have beans," or, "You shouldn't have carrots." I think context matters. The standard American diet is reputed to be 300 grams of carbs a day, and a strict ketogenic diet is 20 carbs a day. My contention is that there's a lot of room between 300 and 20. There's room for all types of eating styles, and people benefit essentially. This is not an all-or-nothing proposition.

                                                      Reducing your carbs, many people can be in ketosis at 50 grams. Many people can't be in ketosis unless they're at 20 grams. Many people choose to simply go from 300 to 100 and see health benefits. There are a million different ways of being healthy. There isn't one good way. I feel sometimes that we are so all-or-nothing in our view of how to be healthy that it's not conducive to being supportive of each other and supportive of each other's styles. If you are trying to eat better, and you decide that, "I can't do this 300 grams of carbs and processed carbs, and instead I'm going to go to something that allows me 100 grams, and I'm only going to eat natural, unprocessed foods," I'm hard-pressed to believe how that's not healthier for you and why we should not be supportive of it.

Suzy Chase:                  I gave up bread, rolls, and bagels for the first 90 days challenge of 2019. The second week in, I thought I had the flu. I had the flu shot, so I was like, "How can I have the flu?" I googled it, and it's called the keto flu.

Urvashi Pitre:                  Keto flu, yeah.

Suzy Chase:                  It was-

Urvashi Pitre:                  Yes, it is. It's a very-

Suzy Chase:                  ... awful.

Urvashi Pitre:                  Yeah, it's a very real phenomenon. Yes, it is. Interestingly, it's also on both ends of the spectrum. It's really awful when we first go through it unless you do the things that you should, which is typically drink a lot and replace your electrolytes, so like the potassium, magnesium, et cetera, a loss that you're having. You stop eating carbs. There's a diuretic effect of that, and you're peeing a lot, basically, and you secrete some of the electrolytes that you need. I will tell you, on the flip side, for those of us who have been keto or low-carb for a while, if we decide to fall face-first into a piece of regular cake, you are sicker than a dog for days afterwards.

Suzy Chase:                  Really?

Urvashi Pitre:                  Oh, my God. Oh, God. If I eat bread, and I'm not Celiac so, from that perspective, I do not need to be gluten-free, but if I eat carbs, I am so sick afterwards. I can't tell you. Your body-

Suzy Chase:                  Oh, that's the worst.

Urvashi Pitre:                  Yes. It takes a while to adjust both ways, I think, but it's ... For many of us, the health benefits are totally worth it.

Suzy Chase:                  Give us an overview of the four-week plan of easing into keto.

Urvashi Pitre:                  I am a perfectionist, there's no doubt about it, but I also believe in incremental change. I think that incremental change is easier to adjust for, so what I did in this time was basically allowed you to ease into a keto plan. I say week one and week two, so the first week, you stop eating potatoes, pasta, bread, and limit fruits now. Down the road, you're not going to be able to be in ketosis by eating three bananas a day. Most of us can't do that. However, you're making so many changes that a stair-step approach is not a bad way to go.

                                                      Many of the people that I have seen, they're trying to track, they're trying to go into intermittent fasting, they're trying to balance their macros. I think, a lot of times, they're not understanding the science behind ketosis. I say this all the time. Ketosis is a metabolic state. Food is a guideline to help get you there. To say, "That's not keto," is not often accurate.

                                                      At the end of this whole process, you will have given up almost all the carbs that you should not be eating. You will have started to drink a lot of water. You will have introduced four hours between your meals, which you really want to do. Some of us may also have introduced a 12 to 16-hour time period between at least two meals. You will have started to track. You will just not have done that all on the first day. I can attest to the fact that there are hundreds of people in my group that have adopted this method, have been successful and have lost 50, 60, 70 pounds, so it works. It's just not as drastic a method as some of the other ones that you see out there.

Suzy Chase:                  I want to ask you about intermittent fasting, but you mentioned macros before. What are macros, and how do we determine our own macros?

Urvashi Pitre:                  Macros, basically, just is the grams of protein, fat, and carbs that you ingest. The essence of keto is limiting carbs, so here's my advice. Limit your carbs. Eat all your protein. Eat the fat that you need in order to feel satiated. This belief that keto is nothing but bacon and butter and Bulletproof coffee, it is a little, in my mind, erroneous. You eat fat for satiety. We need fat because it's the one thing that doesn't elevate your blood sugar and doesn't cause you to release insulin. There's a certain sort of a distribution that is recommended. They will say eat less than 20 grams of carbs, eat about, I don't know, .5, .6 grams of protein per pound of body weight, and then the rest of it you fill in with fat.

                                                      There are many calculators. I have a calculator on my website, TwoSleevers.com, that will allow you to calculate your macros and figure out what you should do. I think where we run into trouble is that what happens, as a result of ketosis, is that you stop feeling hungry all the time. You're not on this constant eat carbs, crash blood sugar, and then a resulting hunger from it.

Suzy Chase:                  Tell us about your intermittent fasting regime.

Urvashi Pitre:                  Yeah. Honestly, as the weight started to come off, the last 10 pounds were just so difficult for me to get off. This is true, anecdotally, for many, many people. I went into intermittent fasting as a way to lose weight, but then when you read about it, you realize that the autophagy and all of the other health benefits are substantial, and there's a ritualistic long history for fasting for religious reasons, for health reasons, for a variety of other things. I think, again, it's very easy to overcomplicate fasting.

                                                      For me, what it means is that I try to keep three to four hours between meals. If I get hungry, I drink liquids because, oftentimes, we confuse hunger and thirst. Then, at night, I do try to go either 12 or 16 hours between meals. A lot of times, what I'll do is I'll stop eating at 8:00 and then, the next morning, I don't eat until about 2:30. I find that it's easier for me to keep my weight off. I feel better. You actually feel very energetic, and it's reputed to not lower your metabolism. A hungry organism is in search of food, and you're like you are activated, and you've got a lot of energy when you're fasting.

                                                      Like I said, there's a weight benefit, a weight loss, weight maintenance benefit, but there's also a basic health benefit where you allow your body time to do some of the repair functions that it needs to instead of focusing all of its energy on helping digest what you just stuffed in your face again.

Suzy Chase:                  You go from 8:00 p.m. the night before to 2:30 p.m. the next day?

Urvashi Pitre:                  I do. I do that quite often. I know it sounds ridiculous, but one of the biggest benefits of keto, like I said, is you're not hungry all the time. There are some days that I'm clock watching. There's no doubt about it. I'm clock watching going, "What time is it? What time is it?" It's because I'm forcing my self to go. Other days, I'm like, "Oh, heck. It's 3:00. I haven't eaten. I better eat something." We all want to slap those people that go, "I forgot to eat," right? But I am now-

Suzy Chase:                  I hate those people.

Urvashi Pitre:                  I know. I know, but I will tell you I'm now one of-

Suzy Chase:                  That's you now?

Urvashi Pitre:                  Yes, it is. The only way to get to it is to not eat carbs that cause ... for me, to not eat carbs that cause my blood sugar to crash, because that's what makes me hungry.

Suzy Chase:                  I read an article in Forbes about you entitled This Death-Defying CEO Proves That Life's Rules Are Yours To Mold. How do you toggle two very different careers?

Urvashi Pitre:                  Very badly some days. I feel like I'm doing such a bad job some days, and then I have to remind myself that I'm hard on myself about this. A lot of it is the team you surround yourself with. I've always surrounded myself with people who are a lot smarter than me. The team I have on both sides is very, very able, but I'm also extremely regimented in my work day. I create a calendar. I wake up every day and decide, "Here are the things that I have to get done today," and then I work until they're done. Some days, many days actually, to be honest, it's a 17-hour work day. You'll make a plan for five things, and three other things you hadn't anticipated will fall on your plate. I just work until those five things are finished, so I live by a calendar. It's not how other people choose to live but, for me, it's very satisfying to set a goal, meet that goal, and move on the the next day.

Suzy Chase:                  Other than doing your blog, TwoSleevers.com, and writing your cookbooks, what is your other career?

Urvashi Pitre:                  I have a doctorate in experimental psychology, and I have been working in marketing for about almost 20 years now. I bring data and analytics into the heart of marketing for Fortune 50s, Fortune 100s. If they're looking for customer relationship management driven by data using predicted models to say which of their customers it's going to [inaudible 00:14:26] which then is going to buy a particular product, what's the impact of their media spend? Essentially, bringing math and science into marketing to predict outcomes based on their historical performances, so very geeky, very nerdy stuff. I do have another sideline that we haven't talked about, actually, which is that we now run culinary tours to different countries because I-

Suzy Chase:                  Oh.

Urvashi Pitre:                  Yeah, so I feel that food opens doors to many different cultures and that, through experiencing the food and the customs of a country, it creates a curiosity about that country and about how people choose to live in various parts of the world. I run a couple of trips to India as part of the Two Sleevers group. We are doing one to Belize next, and we are doing one to Thailand next. If you had told me I would be the kind of person that would take a tour of people and go on holiday with a bunch of people, I would have laughed at you, but it's actually been extremely rewarding for all of us, and it's led to real-life friendships. It's led to us experiencing cultures in ways that we would not have thought about. That's becoming something that I'm really enjoying doing with other people.

Suzy Chase:                  In that Forbes article, my favorite quote was, "I stopped judging myself on results and started judging myself on actions." For most of us, it's just getting that idea out of our head into action that's the hardest part.

Urvashi Pitre:                  Actually, the whole process of weight loss really helped me accept that as well. I can control what I put in my mouth or don't put in my mouth. I cannot control how fast my body chooses to shed the weight. These things about, "I've only loss four pounds. I've only lost six pounds. Everybody around me is losing 12 pounds," I can't control it. Even when I was sick and I was coming back from this, I'm the ... I was ... I am the primary bread-winner for my family, out of choice, and I would wake up terrified that I wasn't going to be able to make a living this way. It's hard enough to start a business once. I was starting it twice. What of that could I control? The only thing I could control is did I wake up in the morning? Did I make my phone calls? Did I do my outreach? Did I contact people that I should? That's the only part I can control, so how can you judge yourself on things that are way outside your control? You just can't. It's a surefire way to drive yourself nuts.

Suzy Chase:                  Yesterday, I made your recipe for peanut butter cake on page 128. I've been missing toast or banana bread in the morning so much, so even though this is considered cake, I feel like I can do a little slice with some butter on it and some eggs in the morning. Don't you think?

Urvashi Pitre:                  Yes.

Suzy Chase:                  Okay, good.

Urvashi Pitre:                  Yes, you totally can. In fact, sometimes I don't know what to call these things because there are things that I make up, right? I have a blueberry bake recipe. Well, what the heck is it? Is it a cake? Is it bread? I don't know. It's blueberry deliciousness. That should be enough for all of us. You know?

Suzy Chase:                  Yeah, exactly.

Urvashi Pitre:                  Right? Yeah. I have some muffin recipes that if you wanted to put a little bit of sweetened cream cheese, have at it. I have a nut and seed bread that I often eat with cheese. All the muffins, the biscuits, put a little bit of a butter on them. I feel like people need to be given permission to customize the food in the way that best suits them, that you only have to eat this a particular way or you only have to cook this a particular way or it's not longer an authentic dish. I get this a lot. People will say, "Hey, I made your recipe for an Indian whatever or a Korean whatever, but I added sesame seeds because I like them. Is that okay?" I'm like, "If you like it, it's okay." Authentic is a fleeting concept, I think, in a lot of cases.

Suzy Chase:                  Totally, yeah. Now for my segment called My Last Meal. What would you have for your last supper, and would it be keto-friendly?

Urvashi Pitre:                  My last meal, I have said repeatedly, is going to be chicken biryani. There is something about chicken and rice that is just elemental for many of us. Okay. I just did a video, actually, on YouTube for how to make a keto chicken biryani in 30 minutes, and it's really, really good. However, if this is truly my last meal, I would eat the real thing with rice, and I would follow it up with the peanut butter bars that are on that keto cookbook's front page. You know what I love? I love Reese's peanut butter cups. Oh, my God.

Suzy Chase:                  I do too.

Urvashi Pitre:                  I love those things so ... Right? You want to hear a shameful secret? When my kids were little and they went trick-or-treating, when they came back, they would sit down to sort their candy, and they knew that mom got all of the Reese's peanut butter cups.

Suzy Chase:                  Same here.

Urvashi Pitre:                  I would steal that stuff from my kids.

Suzy Chase:                  Yes. The kids don't care.

Urvashi Pitre:                  I don't care if they care. I'm eating the peanut butter cups, right? The recipe on the front of it is actually a keto version of peanut butter cups. I love that recipe so much, I really do, so I would definitely make myself a huge batch of that and eat the whole dang thing.

Suzy Chase:                  Where can we find you on the web and social media?

Urvashi Pitre:                  TwoSleevers.com is the blog. I am on Pinterest. I am on YouTube. I am on Instagram. I have two groups on Facebook. One is an international Instant Pot, air fryer, et cetera recipes, and the other one is a keto recipe group. Depending on whether you're looking to do just regular tasty, easy cooking or keto cooking, you can choose to join one of those groups. We do have certain rules. You're not allowed to tell people what to do. You can't say, "That's not keto." You can use I language so, "What works for me," is acceptable to say but, "You should do that," is not acceptable to say. If people want to abide by those rules and want a supportive community where you can just talk about different cultures, different ways of cooking and eating, and then support for your keto journey, those groups would be good groups for people to join.

Suzy Chase:                  Thanks for coming on Cookery by the Book podcast.

Urvashi Pitre:                  Thank you so much. This is so much fun. You and I laughed together a lot. I really enjoyed it.

Outro:                  Follow Suzy Chase on Instagram @cookerybythebook, and subscribe at cookerybythebook.com or in Apple Podcasts. Thanks for listening to Cookery by the Book podcast, the only podcast devoted to cookbooks since 2015.

Secrets of Great Second Meals

By Sara Dickerman

Intro:                  Welcome to the Cookery by the Book podcast with Suzy Chase. She's just a home cook in New York City, sitting at her dining room table talking to cookbook authors.

Sara:                  Hi, I'm Sara Dickerman and this is my latest cookbook, "Secrets of Great Second Meals".

Suzy Chase:                  The last time we chatted was about the "Bon Appetit: Food Lover's Cleanse" cookbook that you wrote. And you even had lunch suggestions based on leftovers from the night before. So you've been a leftover supporter for years now. Talk a little bit about that.

Sara:                  Well yes, the Bon Appetit plans, because there were menus for two weeks of healthy eating, I started thinking about how to make it a little more reasonable, since it was based on home cooking. And even though we all love to cook at home, some days it's just too busy and just really trying to cook every meal at home would be complicated. So I thought about using beautiful leftovers and then reframing them in a way that made them feel new and fresh. So in the case of the Bon Appetit book, it was thinking about a lot of those proteins in salad form, in delicious, crunchy salads. All sorts of textures and all sorts of flavors. And it just reminded me how much I love that part of cooking, the cyclical nature of cooking where one meal trails into the next. I think it's a really beautiful aspect of cooking that allows you to treat your ingredients with the most respect. Of course it allows you to save money because you're not wasting as much food. But there's just something very natural about letting one meal inform the next.

Suzy Chase:                  You take uncommon delight in putting together memorable meals out of the morsels in your fridge. And it definitely comes through in this cookbook. Can you give us a brief history of the L word?

Sara:                  Sure. Leftovers, as such, didn't really have an existence until people had refrigerators, in the sense of a problem of having too much food left around the house. In the past, people probably would've eaten the stew the next morning just to use it up. But when refrigerators started being popular in American culture, first, in the late 19th century, it was ice-based refrigerators and then electric refrigerators, this idea that you have this food that was around and you didn't quite finish it and you could keep it for a while became an issue. And so around that era, at the beginning of the 20th century, cookbooks started to come out dealing with this new thing called leftovers. At the same time, women were encouraged to be very thrifty. This was the heart of the home economics movement in America. So housewives were supposed to use their skills and ingenuity to keep the household finances in good shape and to be creative and use up every little scrap of food in the house.

                                    That grew through the beginning of the 20th century. And crowning achievements in the mid-century were like Jello molds with every kind of knickknack in them. And of course the era of casseroles with tinned soup and, yet last, leftover turkey in the casseroles. And of course, naturally, that kind of cooking wore down people's palates and it lost glamour as we moved into the second half of the 20th century. And people got very interesting in farmer's market and fresh foods and really connecting with foods and experimenting with foods from around the world. And that homey cooking I think felt less of the moment at that point.

                                    What has happened recently? Well we're all becoming much more aware of the impact of our eating on the environment. So people are thinking a lot about food wastage, which wastes not just our money, our household money, but wastes water and it's a larger carbon footprint. So there is an activist movement that I'd say really got traction in England first and then came here. And you'll see people like Dan Barber really encouraging chef and home cooks alike to think about how much food gets wasted in our environment. There's an estimate that it's about 40% of food gets wasted in the United States. So it's a huge amount. And so I just combined that concern in my book with also the pleasure of creativity. And part of the joy of cooking in the kitchen can be, "Oh, I'm wasting a little bit less food but I'm also having fun thinking about this new environment for whatever I have around the refrigerator." It can make it really fun and a pleasing part of your cooking life.

Suzy Chase:                  In terms of food waste, we're all thinking about food waste these days but no one really talks about this way of thinking and cooking and how it's really budget friendly too. And you mention that in the cookbook.

Sara:                  It is. You need to know what you'll use. And if you can cook a few dishes that you know you'll enjoy and, if you have a family, your family will enjoy, and kind of cook a little more at the beginning of the week. Maybe you cook it kind of simply. Then you can reframe it and it takes a little less time the second time around because you've already cooked whatever that main ingredient is. And then it's also you're conscientiously thinking about different ways to frame your food, and so you have more fun and you're more likely to maybe eat at home instead of ordering takeout. And that also saves money of course.

Suzy Chase:                  It's so expensive. Especially in New York City, you get all these extra charges, the delivery changes. So a family of three, you can easily rack up a $50 bill just getting Chinese food. It's crazy.

Sara:                  Right. I never want to sound scoldy. I get bored very easily. I'm not the kind of person who can eat exactly the same meal days after days in a row. So that's where the fun and the creativity and the transformation comes to play, so that that simple roast chicken you had one day might become a chicken salad like on the cover of the book that has a wonderful ginger soy dressing. Or it might become enchiladas or it might become a Greek style lemon soup. It could go in any of those directions. And that allows for a little bit of spontaneity even if you're trying to be thoughtful.

Suzy Chase:                  You write about the eureka moment. Talk about that.

Sara:                  Oh, it's just, like I said, I think there's this pleasure that cooks take, and maybe not all cooks, but that when you figure out how a few things can fit together and improve each other. And so I think about that when I'm meditating on this little bit of extra pork shoulder I have around and I realize that I could add a little more flavor to the pork shoulder, like adding some annatto and it will taste a little bit like Cochinita Pibil. It won't be a classically prepared Cochinita Pibil but it'll have some of that lovely lemony annatto flavor, and that that could be reframed into tacos after I'd had it maybe in more Italian version of it the night before. And then you just start thinking, "Oh, and then I have that extra half of that onion that's in the fridge." And then I'll pickle that. And then, look, suddenly you have this new meal. And the anticipation of how that meal will come together is what I think of as the eureka moment.

                                    Soup is almost always an options. And there's a whole chapter in the book on soups. And that's often the way that you can figure out how to put all those puzzle pieces together.

Suzy Chase:                  So I want to chat about a question you brought up in the cookbook which was if we revered these ingredients that were painstakingly grown in organic fields and handcrafted by food artisans, why do we not also appreciate them after the first meal? And I was wonder why don't we? We're so quick to throw it away.

Sara:                  Yeah, I think we are. Well I think there's a few different camps I would say for sure. There are people who grew up and they just never liked leftovers. And they're a tougher nut to crack. But I think the key is reframing things and making things feel a little new and fresh. And then there's those of us who are more like me probably who just have good intentions and don't get around to it. And it's that delayed virtue thing that I think we all engage in a lot in our modern world. But it's true, I do think that there's a level of respect for ingredients that should extend beyond the farmer's market and extend into our daily lives. And it's always going to look glorious uncooked at the farmer's market. But what happens when it's in your refrigerator or in your freezer? And how can you really bring back that enthusiasm you had for the same thing before it was cooked and before you tried it?

                                    And I always say I'm easily bored. So I think of ways of layering in flavors and layering in textures. So even if I'm not preparing one of these recipes from start to finish, I have great condiments in my refrigerator door like a harissa or a gochujang, which are two different chili-based sauces. gochujang, from Korea, which has the miso-y fermented bean taste. And then harissa which has lovely warm spices like cumin and caraway in it. So those are things I would anoint this second-day food with to just bring in that vibrancy. Or maybe I'll grate lemon zest over top of something or add a dollop of yogurt to add a freshness. So always thinking about ways that you can, even very simple ways that you can add another layer of vibrancy to food after it's been in the refrigerator. Of course it can get a little less sharp tasting once it's been sitting in the refrigerator for a little while. So you need to think about ways of reviving food, but really taking pleasure in it.

Suzy Chase:                  Give us some general rules on when to throw things out, like fish and seafood, vinaigrettes, moldy cheese or cooked meats.

Sara:                  Okay, that sounds good. Well with fish and seafood, no one wants old, cooked seafood around. It just really spoils quickly. So I tend to use that the next day. Actually I love having leftover salmon, especially if it's been a little smoked, like if I did it on the barbecue. But I do tend to use it the next day. The one exception might be something like an escabeche, if you've made a vinegar-based marinade, you probably can get away with another day or two. But basically that's a quick thing. Just think of a clever thing to do the next day maybe for brunch. You could make strata and throw in some of the leftover barbecue in that case.

                                    With cooked meats, I think they generally can stick around for three days or so. The other thing I would say though is, because we sometimes don't get around to the leftovers we mean to, if it's something saucy or stewy I often just try to throw it in the freezer the next day rather than keep it around if I don't think I might get through it. And the freezer is always a good option for something that's got a lot of liquid in it. It's not such a good option for something that's like a dry roast, like if you just did a pork tenderloin in the pan. That's something you'd want to use from the refrigerator and not freeze.

                                    Oh, and then you asked me, the last question was cheeses. Now there's a few recipes in this book that I really love because they're custom made for cleaning out the cheese drawer. And I don't know about you but I have a tendency to get excited about cheeses. And when we eat through two-thirds of it, and then there's this funny little nubbin of cheese that doesn't look quite as pretty anymore.

Suzy Chase:                  Yeah. Exactly.

Sara:                  So all cheese melts together for the most part. And so there's some wonderful recipes. One of my all-time, classic, favorite things to make are gougeres, which are those wonderful cheese puffs. And you can mix those extra cheeses you have around the cheese drawer in a gougeres, and they're just so extraordinarily delicious. The other fun thing is that gougeres I've found bake up best for me if I've actually made the dough, piped them onto the pan and then freeze that dough. I find they bake better from the freezer. So not only am I saving this extra cheese that I've had around the refrigerator, but then I have them in the freezer. And if guests come over and I want a nice little appetizer, it's super easy to just pop into the oven for 20 minutes and you have these wonderful, crisp, fragrant, hot gougeres to serve your friend.

Suzy Chase:                  This is funny. One time I asked Dorie Greenspan what she would offer me if I came to her house, and she said gougeres. I said, "I'll be over in 15 minutes. It's done."

Sara:                  It's just they're so pleasing. Kids love them, adults love them. And very simple. If you want to get fancy, you can cut them in half and put [inaudible 00:13:26] as a little sandwich. But you can also just serve a big pile of them, and next time you turn around they'll be gone.

Suzy Chase:                  So the other night I made your recipe for the sesame roasted winter vegetable party on page 47. It's such a unique way to roast vegetables. I always do the regular olive oil and salt and pepper. But yours mixes together olive oil, tahini, garlic, sea salt and sesame seeds. Describe this dish.

Sara:                  Okay. Well, like you, I often just do the olive oil things. But sometimes I want a little more substance to a roasted vegetable and just a little more flavor. And so I love, when I'm working with sesame, to hit it in more than one way the sesame. So there's the tahini, there's the sesame seeds which toast up in the oven and get crunchy. And then the idea is you make just a big batch of those roasted vegetables. And you might them use them in a salad and just enjoy them throughout the week that way. You can puree them together and make a wonderful soup. But on their own they're also delicious. And that extra sesame flavor just gives them a little richness and a little depth.

Suzy Chase:                  I'm so excited to have this recipe now because I'm so sick of the regular olive oil. It zipped up my vegetables. It was really delicious.

Sara:                  It is fun. Actually roasted vegetables are great that way. There's a couple of other methods that I'll share, that aren't in the book, that I love to do. Sometimes it's really great to cook them simply but then hit them when they're just coming out of the oven with some fresh grated garlic and maybe a little parsley and maybe a little Parmesan. In that case, the hot vegetables hitting the garlic just really adds this big burst of aroma. And that's another fun way to have a little more fun with your roasted vegetables.

Suzy Chase:                  That's a good tip. So here is a brilliant tip that was a light bulb moment for me in this cookbook. Hang a list of what's in your fridge on the front of the fridge. It seems so simple yet so effective.

Sara:                  And one, I will tell you, that I go through phases with because I am a human too. Sometimes I'm better organized than others. But it is, it's true. If you know you have those things that are in the fridge, that's a restaurant, organizational tip. Knowing the inventory of your fridge is really helpful, so if you write it down or even if you just do a visual check. And also, of course, another restaurant tip that's so important is just to make sure to label what you put in the fridge. And again, it's not like I'm perfect with this. But I always regret not labeling things because something gets shoved to the back and then you don't see it. And then it's a week later and you're like, "Oh no, this was that lovely lamb stew."

Suzy Chase:                  I know.

Sara:                  "I intended to do something with it."

Suzy Chase:                  It's the most defeating moment. You're like, "Oh, rest in peace lamb stew."

Sara:                  Exactly. You know what I like to do? And there's many different ways to label. I have a roll of bright yellow masking tape and a sharpie hanging from my kitchen shelf, just like a lot of restaurants do. And I just try my best, even if I had a glass of wine at dinner, when I throw things in the fridge to slap that label just to say what it is. And then it really makes a big different.

Suzy Chase:                  For my segment called My Last Meal, what would you have for your last supper?

Sara:                  Oh, that's such a good one. It would be ... I feel like I just would want a giant bowl of spaghetti bolognese. I just love a meaty spaghetti sauce, I think it's just a childhood memory, with a lot of delicious cheese nearby. And a crisp, green salad too because you need something as a counterpoint.

Suzy Chase:                  Where can we find you on the web and social media?

Sara:                  I'm on instagram @saradickerman. And then I've also started a new community on Facebook that I'm hoping people might enjoy that is Second Meals. And that is where people could share their ideas or their creations of great second meals that they've come up with or invented for their leftovers. And then I love Instagram. I'd say that's where I'm most active.

Suzy Chase:                  I'm totally going to check out your Facebook group and join it. That's exciting.

Sara:                  Great. Thank you so much.

Suzy Chase:                  Well thanks, Sara, for coming on Cookery by the Book podcast.

Sara:                  Oh, thank you so much for having me. Really great to talk with you.

Outro:                  Follow Suzy Chase on Instagram @cookerybythebook and subscribe at cookerybythebook.com or in Apple Podcasts. Thanks for listening to Cookery by the Book podcast, the only podcast devoted to cook books since 2015.

Solo

By Anita Lo

Intro:                  Welcome to the Cookery by the Book podcast with Suzy Chase. She's just a home cook in New York City sitting at her dining room table talking to cookbook authors.

Anita Lo:                  Hi. My name is Anita Lo, and I am the author of Solo: A Modern Cookbook for a Party of One.

Suzy Chase:                  Eater named Solo the 2018 Cookbook of the Year. That is fantastic. Congratulations.

Anita Lo:                  Thank you so much.

Suzy Chase:                  "I've been dumped almost as many times as I've been in relationships, and I can count those on less than two hands." Most people wouldn't kick off a cookbook with such a personal confession. What does this book and dining alone mean to you?

Anita Lo:                  Well, I was hoping that it would make people feel less alone. I was hoping to try to remove some of the stigma around eating by yourself, because it is a fact of life, and cooking for yourself, for that matter. Yeah.

Suzy Chase:                  It is. I always feel funny about going to a restaurant alone, but then I think no one's looking at you, no one cares.

Anita Lo:                  Yeah, I mean especially in New York City, at least, and even when I'm traveling. I mean, a lot of times, you're traveling by yourself for work or whatever, and you have to eat alone. That's just a fact of life, so yeah. It could be funny. It's just there's a lot of comedy skits around eating by yourself. I think I remember watching SNL back in the early days, and there was some sort of skit about a lonely person coming to a restaurant and the hostess yelling out, "A party of one, a party of one," so that's why I included that in my book.

Suzy Chase:                  You say food is culture and identity. Where did you get the inspiration for these recipes?

Anita Lo:                  A lot of it's my travel. A lot of it is how I grew up, so it's just some of the stuff that I love to eat, so it ... yeah, that have become part of my identity.

Suzy Chase:                  You also like the meals to always be balanced. What does that really mean?

Anita Lo:                  Balance, for me, means to always include a vegetable, a little bit of starch, some protein. It means to have that sort of balance. I think there's sort of the weekly balance of having different flavors, not always eating the same thing. I think it is also sort of a general balance of eating healthy things and eating things that you feel like you just crave. Yeah, and I think balance of flavors is very important. Just for deliciousness, I think things need a certain amount of salt for ... and that is subjective, sort of acid to fat, et cetera, balance of textures, crunch to smooth, et cetera.

Suzy Chase:                  After 17 years, you closed our West Village neighborhood favorite Michelin-starred restaurant, Annisa, and not for the reasons most of us thought, so tell us why.

Anita Lo:                  It's certainly been getting harder to run a small business and especially a restaurant, a high-end restaurant, in New York City. Yeah, and I'm totally for the minimum wage increase, but they increased it kind of suddenly. That was very difficult because I think the public wasn't ready to pay for what it costs to give people that kind of a raise. That was one. Then I had some real estate tax issues there.

                                    One of the other bigger reasons was that it's just impossible to find cooks these days. It's just there is a big labor shortage around the country and especially in New York City. Even with the $15 minimum wage, it's impossible to live in New York City on that wage, and so a lot of people are fleeing to places where it's easier to live, and including chefs. Yeah, and then I had a knee replacement that wasn't that successful. I had to have two follow-up surgeries, and it's been difficult to be on my feet, but yeah. There's a lot of reasons. I mean I miss it, for sure, but I don't regret it.

Suzy Chase:                  Talk a little bit about what waste has to do with Solo.

Anita Lo:                  Well, I think it's difficult to cook just for one person without wasting ingredients because we have this problem where everything is packed for a family of four even here in New York City. I think that is starting to change, but you have to buy a lot of product at once, and so I was trying to write this ... I don't like to waste food. It just goes against my DNA. It bothers me. It's just I find it disrespectful to the food and to the environment and to humanity and all that sort of stuff. I have tried to make a cookbook that helps you to cut down on waste.

Suzy Chase:                  Each recipe has a little story, a little pleasantry or quip at the beginning of it, for example, your Pan-Roasted Veal Chop With Mushrooms and Oysters, and you used to serve this at Annisa. How did you find this particular recipe?

Anita Lo:                  I was just looking online for inspiration. I think I was looking for old and really ancient recipes written in like Old English about some veal and oyster dish from way, way back when, and I was like, "Oh, my God. Yes, of course, that totally makes sense."

Suzy Chase:                  Your upbringing is so interesting to me. Your mother is Malaysian. Your father, who was from Shanghai, passed away when you were three, and your mom went on to marry a white American. While you were growing up, you had nannies, and your favorite was Hungarian. What culinary influences did she have on you?

Anita Lo:                  Oh, God. I love her cooking. One of my favorite things growing up was Chicken Paprikash, which is like this creamy-

Suzy Chase:                  What's that?

Anita Lo:                  It's a stew. It's this creamy stew with a lot of paprika, onions, parsley, and a good amount of sour cream. It's sort of thickened, and it's served with either dumplings, which when she made dumplings, it was special. You can eat it with rice or you can eat it with egg noodles. Love it.

Suzy Chase:                  Those evenings when you're hanging around at your house alone, what do you cook for yourself?

Anita Lo:                  There's an eggplant frittata that ... it's a version of a Filipino dish that's in my book, but I make that for myself every once in a while. I often make my mother's steamed fish. This book is somewhat reflective of what I eat when I'm by myself.

Suzy Chase:                  I'm always intrigued by the choice of illustrations, photos, or no images at all. Why did you choose illustrations, which are darling, by the way, and who did those?

Anita Lo:                  Julia Rothman, who is amazing and is all over the place these days. I was 100% behind this choice, but it was my editor's, Lexy Bloom's idea. I was like, "Oh, my God. Of course." The fact that it's a drawing makes it a little bit more approachable. It's not like it's some perfect thing that you have to make. I think it gives the reader options just to make it and put it on the plate than some of them.

Suzy Chase:                  The other night, I made your recipe for Broccoli Stem Slaw on page 164. Describe how this flavor profile is similar to the good old-fashioned Green Goddess dressing that we all grew up with in the Midwest.

Anita Lo:                  It's an old-fashioned dressing with a lot of tarragon, anchovy, garlic, lemon, bunch of other herbs, and then ... a green Ranch dressing with anchovy, right?

Suzy Chase:                  Yeah, and garlic.

Anita Lo:                  Right. Yeah, well, I think Ranch dressing had powdered garlic or something. Maybe it was a powdered onion.

Suzy Chase:                  Yes. You mentioned, in the book, something about how that fake garlic that kind of sticks with you for hours ...

Anita Lo:                  Oh, God. I hate that. Yeah, the jarred ... Oh, God. Ew. I guess I can't ... Oh, God. Yeah, I just ... Oh, sorry. The memory of it renders me speechless.

Suzy Chase:                  Describe the Broccoli Stem Slaw.

Anita Lo:                  Julienned or shredded broccoli stems, and you just take it and you mix it with some mashed avocado with lemon, garlic, anchovy, tarragon. It's rich and then it's crunchy and but it's also sort of healthy. Yeah, and it uses up the other half of your avocado, and it uses up those stems from your broccoli that a lot of people just throw away.

Suzy Chase:                  Now for my segment called My Last Meal. What would you have for your last supper?

Anita Lo:                  I think it would probably have to be some sort of Japanese omakase, but I'm a big fishy head, and I love to go get, yeah, just a really long, never-ending omakase with all my favorite different types of fish and shellfish.

Suzy Chase:                  Before I wrap this interview up, as a 23-year West Village resident, may I ask, and I'm sure you hear this all the time, if you're pondering another restaurant in the West Village?

Anita Lo:                  I am not. Yeah, I mean especially not now. I'm not ruling it out, but yeah, I don't ... I would love to open another restaurant, perhaps in another country, and as-

Suzy Chase:                  Oh, really?

Anita Lo:                  Yeah. I mean I'm never going to move, by any means, but I would like to ... I'm hoping to get some sort of long-term consulting gig, yeah, preferably somewhere I'd like to visit. Yeah, I can't really. Because of my knee, I can't be on my feet all the time. I don't think that precludes me from opening a restaurant, but I think it's not wise for me to try to work in it all the time. Yeah, I'm hoping to do that, but I'm ... I run these culinary tours with the Tour de Forks, and I ... which I really love, and I hope to continue to do that. I don't necessarily always work with owing a restaurant, especially in New York today.

Suzy Chase:                  Since we're neighbors, I also have to ask another neighborhood question. What's your favorite restaurant these days, favorite butcher, and where do you get your groceries?

Anita Lo:                  Oh, God. It's so upsetting now that Gourmet Garage is gone. I just-

Suzy Chase:                  They were gross, though.

Anita Lo:                  They weren't that gross, and they were right there. Yeah. I mean no grocery store is great, but what ... I mean what was gross about it? What did you think that was gross about it?

Suzy Chase:                  Well-

Anita Lo:                  I mean you certainly don't buy fish there, by any means. You don't buy ...

Suzy Chase:                  No. I bought chicken there one time, and I had to bring it back three times because they kept giving me this stinky, slimy ... but you know what? In a pinch, it was fine.

Anita Lo:                  Really?

Suzy Chase:                  If you needed mushrooms, if you needed beer, if you need lunch sushi, you could go there.

Anita Lo:                  Wow. Yeah, I never at any of the prepared foods.

Suzy Chase:                  What did you get there?

Anita Lo:                  Vegetables, olive oil, dairy. It was just, well, because that was the closest one to my house, and then it closed. Now I either have to go to Gristedes or I have to go to Citarella, which is just ridiculously expensive. Yeah, or then sometimes I go over to Brooklyn Fare, but that's pretty far.

Suzy Chase:                  Yeah.

Anita Lo:                  Let me think. Yeah, I don't really have a favorite grocery store, but I do, I go to Citarella ... fish. It's interesting because, after all these years buying wholesale prices, buying ingredients at wholesale prices, I just ... seeing these fish prices are like, "Oh, my God."

Suzy Chase:                  Ouch.

Anita Lo:                  Yeah. Yeah, I think I'm slowly getting used to it. I like Dickson's Farmstand Meats in Chelsea Market for meat or high-end meat. I go to Florence Prime Meat for things like dry-aged steak, or I really love their Italian sausages there. They'll order stuff for me if I want something like fresh pork belly or whatever that you're not going to be able to buy in a grocery store. I ride my bike to Chinatown. I will buy things at Buon Italia in Chelsea Market as well as the Manhattan Fruit Market in the basement there, but yeah.

Suzy Chase:                  What's your favorite restaurant in the neighborhood these days?

Anita Lo:                  For sushi, I love Kosaka. I love that for high-end sushi. I love Via Carota, of course.

Suzy Chase:                  Of course.

Anita Lo:                  Yeah. I love Taim. I love Mustache. Oh, I love Hao Noodle and Tea, Ramen-Ya, Ramen-Ya, whatever, on West Fourth for ramen, or I love Empellon's soft tacos. Yeah, there's a lot of great food in the west village.

Suzy Chase:                  Where can we find you on the web and social media?

Anita Lo:                  Www.chefanitalo.com. I'm not on Facebook, but I'm on Instagram, and I am on Twitter @AnitoLoNYC.

Suzy Chase:                  Who says eating along should be lonely? I can't thank you enough, Anita Lo, for coming on Cookery by the Book podcast.

Anita Lo:                  Thanks for having me.

Outro:                  Follow Suzy Chase on Instagram @cookerybythebook and subscribe at cookerybythebook.com or in Apple Podcasts. Thanks for listening to Cookery by the Book podcast, the only podcast devoted to cookbooks since 2015.

Vegetable Cakes

By Ysanne Spevack

Intro:                  Cookery by the Book podcast with Suzy Chase. She's just a home cook in New York City, sitting at her dining room table talking to cookbook authors.

Ysanne :                  My name's Ysanne and the cookbook that I've written is Vegetable Cakes, the most fun way to five a day.

Suzy Chase:                  So, we have our carrot cake, our Pumpkin Pie, and the good old Zucchini bread. Personally, I thought that was great until your cookbook came along. And, then I got to thinking, why aren't we using more vegetables in desserts?

Ysanne :                  To be honest, I have no idea why forever, people have been making carrot cake and Zucchini bread and Pumpkin Pie and they've not though what to do with all of the other guys that are in the fridge.

Suzy Chase:                  When did you first get the inspiration to write a cookbook about vegetable based desserts?

Ysanne :                  So, I've been writing cookbooks for 20 years now. My first one was published in 2001 and there's been like 13 and I wrote a book for Rizzoli about food at the ranch in Malibu where I was based. I was the gardener. I was the head of the edible estate so, this beautiful place in the Malibu Mountains. And, so for like a few years I was in the garden, hands on with the vegetables, getting to know them on a personal basis on the vines and you know, that book was really vegetable centric and was exploring beautiful vegetables in plant based healthy contexts like salads and you know, vegetables and no strange ways. And, you know, really, I was not thinking about cake back then. But, I got to know the veggies really well. And, then the follow up to that, the one before vegetable cakes was a book of desserts so it was everything without refined sugar.

                                    That was kind of the angle for that book. It was called the No Sugar Cook book or Baking and Desserts, but I forget the name, but it was a no sugar book. And, then after that one, I was chatting with my publisher of that the book, Joanna, and we were just kind of chatting around what I might do next and really she sparked my inspiration. I'm going to go to give props to Joanna, she just had this kind of idea of like, "well, you know, you know vegetables and you know, cakes, so what do you think of like following that idea?" And you know, my initial thing was just like, this is so stupid. You know, I was going to be like, "I'm not in the business of gimmicky." That's kind of really the how to resistance around that. I was just like, you know, I create sensible, beautiful, elegant books. Why would I want to do something foolish?"

                                    And, then, but you know, I also am having an open mind and I guess that's almost the main promiser of this book almost is about, you know, helping people to open their minds in general. Honestly, that's kind of a theme for it because it's like, everyone including myself has so much resistance in initial thing. But, when when you go there is, I know you have, you know, and you've tried some of these recipes and you know this, there's really nothing silly, but when I was, you know, coming up with this thing, you know, I sat there and did that. I just kind of explored a bunch of vegetables and desserts in my kitchen and really got to understand that that's the flow between, the Rizzoli book about the ranch, which was, you know, caramelizing things and looking at how flavor balances with different herbs and how the vegetables kind of work and as the star of another kind of dish and then the no sugar book where it is just looking at, you know, baking and how to enhance sweetness and textures as well as flavors.

                                    And, so I kind of pull that stuff together in vegetable cakes, it's gonna, you know, help people open their minds to the most familiar things being in a different context in maybe every area of your life really. You know, the idea is like, "wow, it changes your perspective."

                                    Like suddenly things that you really were familiar with, you might be like, "well, maybe, maybe my preconception isn't necessarily the case." I mean, why not?

Suzy Chase:                  I had another cookbook author recently explain Aquafaba to me, aka bean water. For people who aren't familiar with it, it's the water in your can of beans. Now what do you do with your bean water?

Ysanne :                  I've included it in a few recipes. I kind of wanted to give a tip that you can't over whip it. So, this is why one of the many reasons it's awesome.

                                    With egg whites, you can over whip it, right? You can put your electric whisk in and buzz it up and it'll go fantastic and if you keep going it will turn back into mush. But, with Aquafaba that will not happen. Once you've got it up into the same thumb, the same peaks as egg whites. And, if you keep going, you wouldn't destroy it, it will just keep going. So, there's no reasons to hold back on whipping. And, so I always go over, I always whip it as far as it goes to being peaks, which is usually about, sort of six or seven minutes, that's longer than egg whites and then go another minute just in case. So, I would suggest eight minutes as a minimum. So, I've used it as the base for a pavlova for a radish pavlova recipe in the book, which I'm really happy with. And, I took like a month experimenting, by the way, that was the recipe that got the testing more than any other, every night for about a month. I was living in Brooklyn. It was winter, there was no going out anyway.

                                    Every night I sat there and whisks Aquafaba be will to a minimum of eight minutes and then incorporated it with various ingredients and stuck it in the oven and every night for a month, pretty much it failed until finally it didn't fail. And, that's the recipe that you have in the book to enjoy. But, sugar, that's the one recipe in the book that has refined sugar and you really shouldn't change that. Refined sugar is essential in my experience for Aquafaba, bean water, to become a pavlova like a serious large meringue.

                                    It's something to do is the structure of sugar. You know, how it works. It's not just a sweetening agent. Refined sugar is also the basis of so many of those kind of spun sugar kind of things. And, there's something around that. I believe that scientists actually haven't figured out yet why bean water does work in a similar way to the protein of egg whites that nobody really understands what's going on there yet, which is kind of exciting. But, yeah, that's how you bean water in this context. It's like a large amount of whisking. And, if you're using it for a pavlova, you have to use refined sugar. Do not sub that out for any kind of non refined sugar sweetener.

Suzy Chase:                  On page 34, you have an asparagus sesame cake. Talk to me about the texture of this cake and your decision to incorporate full spears of asparagus into this cake.

Ysanne :                  So, the texture is, squishy, Asparagus for me, it's so celebrated in Japan. I mean, so many cultures enjoy asparagus. And, I was tempted to go to a kind of Italian kind of thing but I just, I'm intrigued still. It's just such a different flavor palate than the one I was raised in in London or the one that I live with now here in the states. And, so for me it's, intriguing. So, yeah, I wanted to draw from Japanese culture, Japanese cuisine, they do use barley flour a lot more and it has such a gentle sweetness and then much is visually, it bumps up the green. I kind of, I've used it in a couple of recipes in here, but also the bitter kind of flavor I think in a cake context is really interesting. And, then black sesame seeds as well visually on the flavor of that, it goes so well with asparagus.

                                    And, then I went to chili flakes, which is, I guess the unusual ingredient in this cake, asparagus is not already unusual. So, I was just, you know, I figured, let's try, I mean, why can a cake not have a little kick while we're at it? So, there's a tablespoon of chili flakes there. It's, you know, it's a sizable amount. And then I went to shiso leaves because I can never resist shiso leaves in cocktails in anywhere. So, yeah, shiso leaves are in. And, then I kind of was like, at this point I want to bump it into the cake while, so vanilla is a go to, but anything tasting sweet and smelling sweet. And, then I wanted to put some almonds in there as well. So, yeah, that that makes a squishy Japanese kind of cake where you can see the asparagus spears. I've not blended them. So, you know, there's a visual, that's , I think, quite elegant to look at. Excuse me.

Suzy Chase:                  Is it a cake or is it a sculpture? Um, no, it's your Godzilla cake. I can honestly say this was a first for me. Please describe this cake.

Ysanne :                  So, I'm hoping that all of your listeners know what a Romanesco cauliflowers is because if they haven't, like, seriously guys, you need to look this up. Go on the internet. If this already one thing you look up after this podcast it's Romanesco cauliflower or sometimes it's called Romanesco broccoli. Same thing. Look it up. Have a look at the images on your browser. And, you will agree with me that, you know, I mean, I've never met a Romanesco cauliflower, but I didn't want to frame and hang on the wall as art. Kind of thought I have to do something in a cake with a whole one because that I'm not pulverizing that thing.

                                    I'm not telling you to take that beautiful Romanesco and shred it. No, I'm like, let's frame it with a cake. So, that's the Godzilla cake. The name Godzilla cake because once I've made this thing, I was like, it, I mean, it's a Godzilla. It's like a monster's coming out of the cave. First reaction is the comedy reaction. Like, the first reaction is the, "Oh my God, what is going on here?" But, then see, because it is so overwhelmingly pretty, this vegetable, you know, there is that, that there's, you can't help but admire it. And, there's, you know, the, again from the cognitive psychotherapy kind of place, it's like weird because it's green. Okay. So, automatically your brain is in a non compute, but that kind of again works in our favor because it's kind of suspending disbelief. There's like a, it's just so strange that they can't resist.

                                    And, I'm talking about children but also like it's quite an adult flavor profile for the adults, I mean there's the coconut and that I'm so coconut and cauliflower, you know, think about it goes together. It just does. And, then from the savory kind of, you know, it's kind of taken also from the whole baked cauliflower thing. That's the thing right now, kind of the cauliflower steaks kind of idea, which was actually in my book for Rizzoli, the ranch, we had cauliflower steaks and you're looking at whole cauliflowers and baking them. So, instead of doing it with olive oil and salt and pepper and whatever, and doing, you know, the savory thing, I kind of took cardamom but I've kind of covered the cauliflower with a coconut oil but then I bumped up with cinnamon 'cause cardamom and cinnamon they go together, right?

                                    So, I've kind of drawn from the classic flavors of a savory cauliflower bake kind of thing and then bumped it up. There's maple syrup and coconut and cardamom and cinnamon. Like, hopefully your mouths are watering by now. Like it actually is. Delicious. It's an elegant flavor profile and kind of quite fashionable as long as it's like on trend with coconut stuff.

Suzy Chase:                  On Tuesday I made your recipe for Red Radicchio cake on page 32, this was one of my most surprising recipes I've made on this cookbook podcast. Briefly go over what goes into this cake and then I want to talk about it.

Ysanne :                  So, the ingredients are, we have, coconut yogurt, excuse me, 'cause I wanted to make it dairy free. Everybody does not want to make it dairy free. You can use regular yogurt but coconut yogurt, is what's in there? And, then we've got the zest and juice of half a lemon. I think I mentioned earlier about my thing about organics, but it's so important use and organic lemon if you're zesting. And then your olive oil. So, so far we're kind of making a dressing, right? And, then you've got radicchio leaves. So far it's a salad. Then you got some eggs because we're making a cake and coconut sugar 'cause I love coconut sugar. I kind of wanted to talk about that after. Yeah, that's in there.

                                    A gluten free, plain flour, all purpose. You know, just that mix that you can get. Again, if gluten free isn't a thing he can use just regular flour. Personally I'm a fan of inclusive desserts, so that's I guess why there's a lot of gluten free, dairy free, sugar free stuff in my life because I really love to make a dessert that everybody at the table can eat the guy that loves his donuts. The girl that's like Paleo, Vegan, super skinny, doesn't eat anything. I want all those people to eat together when it comes to dessert. So, yeah, inclusive means high on flavor. Deliciousness, sweetness. So, the donut guy is going to want it, but you know, free of anything that might be an allergen, or in some way nasty so that she'll eat it too.

                                    So, yeah, those things with polenta, dry tarragon, I mean at this point, you know, really it's still a salad and then we've got like some cinnamon, we have black pepper because it's basically salad and some sea salt or pink Himalayan salt I prefer, and some baking powder. And, then you're just going to decorate it with some tarragon, some fresh sprigs of tarragon, and so it's a very salady cake.

Suzy Chase:                  I thought it was going to be the savory salady, polentay cake and that little tiny bit of coconut sugar sweetens it so nicely. It's a fooler if you ask me.

Ysanne :                  Thank you. I'm so glad that it fooled you.

                                    Yeah, no, I mean that's quite an honor. The uses is as somebody who knows what you're saying in the kitchen. I guess the cinnamon helps bump it up as well. I mean you can use cinnamon in a savory context. I think, everybody's thrown it into a bolognese sauce at some point, you know, but like it's basically from the sweet kingdom, cinnamon, even though by itself it's not sweet, right? It's not sweet guys, like lavender isn't sweet, but it's all about context?

                                    But, yeah, this is basically a salad that I bumped up. Then so the coconut sugar, I did kind of want to briefly mention why I love coconut sugar so much. So, it's a traditional ingredient. This is not a new fangled thing. My favorite ingredients are always traditional. In fact, you know, kind of steer away from anything unless it's been tested on at least a couple of generations if possible.

                                    So, coconut sugar has been going for a millennia. I mean it's at least a thousand years old, probably older. In Indonesia. the coconut trees there, or palms, forever, a guy has been tying a rope generally a guy, I think always a guy actually, tying a rope between his ankles, shinning up the coconut palm and before the coconuts come and they have long skinny ones over there, well you know, every kind of palm, but those ones are super long, skinny. So, it's a very skilled job. Shins up there with a knife, slits the flower, the blossom that's up there, a little piece of the blossom, just a quick one cut to drain off the nectar in the flower. Really important that he doesn't damage the flower because if he does, no coconut's right? I mean it's like any fruit, there's a flower first, then that gets pollinated, then it becomes the fruit in that case, the coconut. So, you really don't want to damage the flower that you can drain off some of the nectar and the bees will still come and pollinate that thing. You'll still get your coconuts.

                                    And, so he'd drain off the nectar shin all the way back down the palm, carrying the nectar in a little pot and then tip it out into a long narrow tray and the sun then evaporates off the water and in the bottom of the tray you're left with are kind of sticky toffee kind of residue. And, you the then grind that up and that is coconut sugar and so it's basically flower nectar of the coconut plant full of nutrients. So, many minerals in there, such a slow release of sugar. It's got a much lower glycemic index than any of the different cane or beet sugars. So, it's a really beautiful old traditional ingredient that we can now get in the states.

                                    It's not everywhere, but it is, it's fairly easy to find now. So yeah, that's one of my favorite sweeteners.

Suzy Chase:                  So, I'm dying to hear about your other love, music. Talk a little bit about how your food and music perspectives intersect.

Ysanne :                  I've been writing cookbooks since about 2000, but music is definitely the thing I'm best known for. I guess the easiest way to explain it is I smashed pumpkins and bake 'em. I'm a composer and a conductor and a musician and I've toured and recorded with artists, including the Smashing Pumpkins, Elton John, Tiesto, Christina Perry, I guess Hawkwind back in the mist of time in my early years. And, simultaneously like so many musicians I have been passionate about food. You know, as I mentioned earlier, I was in Japan, music brought me to Japan, but you know, while I was there, and this was a long time ago, it was the late nineties. So, yeah, there were traditional foods there, it was incredible to land and discover this whole world of food while I was there for music.

                                    And, I guess also you're more likely to go to a fancy restaurant at some point, so get exposed to stuff at that end and you're more likely to go to a super non fancy side of the road, you know, while the tour bus is stocked kind of joint. I mean I went to the Royal College of Music and studied composition and conducting with violin, and so that was the first thing. But, you know, I was writing about organic food from a political perspective actually. It was, absolutely not about flavors in the 90s. It was looking at, you know, how farm workers are treated and how animals are treated. And, looking about how organic, you know, really does address a lot of those issues for people.

                                    You know, I was vegan for a few years and for me, organic was the thing that allowed me to eat non plant foods because the cruelty just isn't there. And, the toxins aren't there and if you're treating animals with respect, you know, that was a whole world. So, yeah, it was always the conceptual ideas and the history, food and the future of food, which is kind of my latest book. And, it's all that as much as just, you know, enjoying eating your food. And, and that's the same with music really. It's the same ideas that, I mean, the Smashing Pumpkins are known for conceptual ideas, right? I mean all of these artists that I've been associated with and have worked with and have, yeah, I spent time with, we're talking about ideas and history and the future and how these things intersect. So, for me, it's, it's one continuity like being a composer and being a writer. It's really two sides of the same coin.

Suzy Chase:                  Now to my segment called My Last Meal. What would you have for your last supper?

Ysanne :                  I mean, I guess chocolate with coffee, right?

Suzy Chase:                  Sure.

Ysanne :                  Thanks.

Suzy Chase:                  So, where can we find you on the web and social media?

Ysanne :                  So, I've got three presences that the main one, for you guys is tastecolors.com. That's my food world. My music world is, Ilovestrings.com, strings as in violin and things. And, then I have a third entity, which is a music and food all at the same time, and that's yntegrity.com and that's with a Y.

                                    Y-N-T-E-G-R-I-T-Y.com and my socials, I do all of the socials, well, the platforms and they have links from those three websites. So, tastescolors.com, Ilovestrings.com and yntegrity.com

Suzy Chase:                  Well, you have certainly encouraged us to widen our perspective and enter into a brand new parallel world of possibilities. Thanks so much for coming on Cookery by the Book podcast.

Ysanne :                  Thank you so much for having me, Susie. Glad to be here.

Outro:                  Follow Suzy Chase on Instagram at Cookery by the Book and subscribe at cookerybythebook.com or in Apple podcasts. Thanks for listening to Cookery by the Book podcast. The only podcast devoted to cook books since 2015.