Cookery by the Book

Betty Crocker
Lost Recipes

Beloved Vintage Recipes for Today's Kitchen

Suzy Chase:                  Welcome to the Cookery by the Book Podcast, with me, Suzy Chase.

Cathy:                  Hi, I'm Cathy Swanson. I'm the executive editor of the Betty Crocker and Pillsbury cookbooks for General Mills here in Minneapolis, and I'm here to talk about Lost Recipes, which is one of our newest cookbooks that we have out.

Suzy Chase:                  80% of this cookbook includes tried and true recipes that aren't in today's repertoire. What do you think happened to those recipes like Welsh rarebit or cherry berries on a cloud, and what is Welsh rarebit, exactly?

Cathy:                  Well, first of all, Welsh rarebit is actually a very rich cheese sauce served over toast, and that was popular back in the day when people didn't have the same income as they do now and meat wasn't necessarily the center of the plate. And so they had to get creative about what they could serve for dinner. As far as what's happened to some of these recipes, I think that they've got pushed to the back of the recipe box, so to speak. As new recipes and new flavors have been introduced, people just sort of pushed them back and kind of forgot about them.

                                    It's sort of like fashion, I think. Out with the old and in with the new, but just like fashion, I think food comes back around. People long for the foods they grew up with or are interested in the nostalgic recipes because of the feelings that they invoke. They remind us of the wonderful times we've had with family and friends, or we remember going to grandma's house or whatever the case may be. So there's been a new interest in some of these old recipes again, and so we were so excited to bring them back.

Suzy Chase:                  So Betty Crocker was born in 1921. Tell us about that.

Cathy:                  Yes, I love this story. So our parent company was the Washburn-Crosby company, and we were a flour milling company, and we ... They did a contest where if you could put together a jigsaw puzzle successfully and send it in, you would win a pincushion. And a pincushion was a hot item of the day, so they had thousands of people turn in their jigsaw puzzles. But with them came all kinds of cooking questions, and the marketing people of the company at the time thought that there should be someone that represented these women to answer these letters more personally, and so that's how they created Betty.

                                    They actually took ... So it's not a real person, but they wanted to invoke a person that symbolized the continuing service to consumers. And so they were wanting these letters to represent helpfulness and trustworthiness and quality, and so what they did was ... to create her was they took the eyes of one woman and the lips of another and the hair of another and kind of put them together. And the name Betty Crocker comes from ... Betty was just a very popular name at the time that sounded warm and friendly, and Crocker was the name of a retiring, very loved executive. And so they just put those names together.

                                    And then, they just asked the women around the office to sign that name and then just went with the signature that they seemed to match the persona. I think this is so interesting, that by the time she was not quite 25, she was the second most known female after Eleanor Roosevelt. And today, she remains one of the most recognizable names in the kitchen still today.

Suzy Chase:                  Do you find that people are surprised to hear that Betty Crocker wasn't a real woman?

Cathy:                  Well, sometimes people are surprised. Her personality is so engaging, some people do think she is real. She's been around for a while, so the word's gotten out. But once in a while, we'll run into people that didn't realize that she is not real. And it's interesting, because over the years, when she's gotten many, many letters and calls about recipe questions, she's also got some unusual requests such as marriage proposals. Isn't that funny? I love that.

Suzy Chase:                  That's so funny. Well, we all love Betty.

Cathy:                  I know. I love that, too. We that work on the Betty brand feel, really, a kinship with her, and we like to embody those same characteristics today as we develop new recipes and products. But she's just in our hearts.

Suzy Chase:                  It boggles my mind that in the 1920s, Betty got anywhere between 4,000 and 5,000 letters per day as women moved to the big cities. So in 1924, one station in Minneapolis debuted the Betty Crocker Cooking School of the Air. I love that title.

Cathy:                  Yeah.

Suzy Chase:                  It was the country's first radio cooking program. Talk a little bit about that.

Cathy:                  Yes, I know. Isn't that neat? The demand for cooking information was really ramping up, when you see and when you talk about the number of letters that she'd get a day. And so the company expanded its commitment to consumer services with this Betty Crocker Cooking School of the Air, and it's actually one of the longest-running radio shows in history. It was on for a total of 27 years, and she actually had two shows, because it was so popular.

                                    And so what they did was they had two different women read the script in different areas of the country so that they could accommodate all those shows that they were doing. And it boosted the morale of homemakers through difficult eras of American history. The Great American ... or the Great Depression in 1929 hit, and the average American family income fell by 40%. And so suddenly, listeners were turning to Betty not just for tips, but for real help and support, as well.

                                    And I loved how they worked this. So you enrolled in the school by requesting the recipes, and then the homework was to make the recipes and write a report. And those that completed all the recipes and lessons graduated during a broadcast ceremony.

Suzy Chase:                  That is the cutest thing I've ever heard. I think you guys need to bring that back.

Cathy:                  I would love to do that, and in fact, I've got a grassroots program working on that.

Suzy Chase:                  I'm so excited. It sounds so darling, and I feel like, as you said, everything old is new again. I think people would love it.

Cathy:                  I agree. There's so much interest in cooking now, with the ability to Instagram your food on your plate, and people want to connect with the ingredients and know where they come from. And so this revival of cooking is just so exciting to me, as a food lover and a way to connect people with ... you can connect people with food. So this is fabulous.

Suzy Chase:                  In 1936, the first official portrait of Betty Crocker was released. Was there some kind of a message to women with that first official portrait?

Cathy:                  You know, I think that what they were trying to do was just embody those characteristics that were important that Betty Crocker represents, and by taking the eyes of one woman and the lips of another, et cetera, they wanted to represent a woman of the times. And I do believe that this portrait, who was done by a female illustrator by the name of Neysa McMain, was trying to do was ... back then, those portraits, people did have serious looks. And of course, you'd always wear your best outfit, so I love it that Betty is in her red suit and ruffled white blouse.

Suzy Chase:                  Well, then into the '60s, Betty looked a lot like Jackie O.

Cathy:                  Yes, I know. I love that. Kind of [crosstalk 00:07:42]-

Suzy Chase:                  And the Betty Crocker I remember from the '70s was more like a business Betty, like when women started going back to work.

Cathy:                  That's exactly what they were trying to portray with that. That was a big era of when women were trying to return to work, and so they were trying to make her look like a business professional woman at that time. Although, those of us that create recipes for a living just crack up at that photo, because is it very realistic to cook with a white blouse with a bow? That's really probably not the best idea, but it did embody the idea of what they were trying to portray.

Suzy Chase:                  Tell us about ... going back to the '50s, tell us about Betty Crocker's first picture cookbook that was introduced in the '50s. Why was it a picture cookbook?

Cathy:                  Well, it was done in 1950, yes. It was the first book of its kind that offered not only recipes, but images of how to make the recipes, as well. That had never been done before, and I think that was really a huge benefit to consumers, because you could ... how many times you can just see better with a picture than you can with words, and then you get it right away. That book has sold more than 75 million copies over the years.

Suzy Chase:                  Wow.

Cathy:                  Yeah, it's ... and what I thought was cool too was they put a washable cover on it so that it could be a hardworking tool in the kitchens across America. I thought that was so cool, and the Lost Recipes book that we just did that we're going to be talking about, as well, did the same sort of thing. We wanted to evoke that same sort of feeling of this can be a hardworking recipe book.

                                    That was our first book that we affectionately call Big Red, and we've been updating and revising that book over the years. And now, we're on our 12th edition, which just came out last fall. And with each edition, we carefully evaluate all the recipes to see if they should stay or go to make room for the new flavors ... or new recipes and new flavors and techniques the way people are cooking today. And I really love it when people find out what I do, and they say, "I've got a book in my kitchen. I have my mom's book," whatever.

                                    And they always say, "I always love it. No matter what recipe I'm looking for, I seem to be able to find what I need in the Betty Crocker Cookbook." She just doesn't age. Betty Crocker just continues to be a helper in the kitchen, and we're offering well tested, approachable, creative recipes for the way we cook today. So you can find your favorites, like apple pie, but you can find new things like shakshouka, which is a really exciting egg dish to make, and it's super easy, as well.

Suzy Chase:                  So this latest cookbook of lost recipes is perfect for the Betty Crocker fan who loves recipes with a nostalgic twist. One nostalgic recipe that has been modernized is the healthified lemon broccoli salad. Can you describe how this retro dish was upgraded?

Cathy:                  Yes. The broccoli salad is like a staple in delis and shows up at potlucks all the time. It's just been around for years. But once in a while, like for this book, we decided to offer like a 1.0 version of a classic. So that's ... we recognize that we're all looking for ways to cut calories without sacrificing flavor. So what we did for this recipe was we cut back on the fat and calories by substituting Greek yogurt for some of the mayonnaise, and then we also zipped up the flavor with some lemon peel and lemon juice. And instead of raisins, we used dried cranberries and added a bit of crunch with soy nuts. And I think it's just a fabulous treat. So it's like you can still have that broccoli salad. It's got a little bit new flavor to it, and you can feel good about eating it, as well.

Suzy Chase:                  In 2017, with every piece of information, every fact, every recipe available on the internet, there's something so timeless about having your cookbook right there on the counter as you make a meal. Don't you agree?

Cathy:                  Oh, I totally agree. It's a physical way to connect to the recipes when you can touch the pages and you can see the photos, and I think it's actually easier to cook from a book. Like, when your hands are dirty, you don't have to swipe with dirty fingers.

Suzy Chase:                  Right.

Cathy:                  And one of the things that I learned from my grandmother was that you can write notes on the pages. You can talk about when you served it or what you'd differently next time, like make a double batch. It goes quickly. It becomes a cooking scrapbook of the things that you've made, as well as a legacy to your family, because they can remake the recipes that they grew up with, and they can see all your notes on the side. So when they go, "What was that cranberry dish you served at Thanksgiving?" They'll see the notes right there.

                                    And I love it that I can go right to specific cookbooks with the recipes I want. It's a lot easier for me to find the exact ones and not have to wade through all the versions that are out there online that don't work because they weren't thoroughly tested by professionals. So I am just a complete cookbook fan.

Suzy Chase:                  What did it take to create this cookbook? Like, how were these recipes chosen?

Cathy:                  Well, for this Lost Recipes book, which just came out, it took over a year to make. And what we did was we thought it would go right to the consumer, right, and find out what kind of recipes they've been looking for. So we worked closely with our consumer relations department to identify the top recipes that have been requested over the years for each category. And then, we also compared notes with the foodies that were working on the project to make sure that we weren't leaving anything out that we really wanted to have in there.

                                    We scoured all of our old books to help us trip our memories into remembering, "Oh my gosh, I forgot all about the Sally Lunn. That has to be in the book." And then, what we did was, once we figured out what recipes we wanted, we compared all the versions of the recipes that we have to make sure that we were using the best version of it. And then, we had to scrutinize every recipe for flavor, texture, color, and tweak them if needed, because way back then, people's palates weren't as sophisticated as they are now. We cooked differently. Sometimes, things were very overly salty because they didn't have a depth of flavor, or they were very bland.

                                    So we wanted to ... or they weren't that visually attractive, because people just were more concerned about getting food on the table. Now, the eating experience has to be all those things. It has to be visual. It has to be textural, and it has to have great flavor. And so we looked at these recipes and added a little bit of parsley here or grind of pepper there to help elevate the recipes to a brand new level.

Suzy Chase:                  Now, your parent company, General Mills, has their own archives in Minneapolis. Can you tell us a little bit about that, and what can we find in the Betty Crocker section at the archives?

Cathy:                  Sure. Well, actually, the archives are closed to the public, but I've been lucky enough to get a tour. I was so excited to be back there. It was very cool. They have holdings from, I mean, 1866 to the present. They have over 3,000 cubic feet of space, and it's a secure repository for historically significant, non-current records documenting the founding of the company, development and the organization, management and archives from General Mills, the Washburn-Crosby company, which was our parent company, the Pillsbury company and the subsidiaries collectively known as General Mills.

                                    We don't specifically have a Betty Crocker section, but it's a varied ... oh, it's a variety of items, including Betty Crocker packages and advertisements and the portraits and cookbooks, and we even have a lot of consumer letters that were written to Betty and photographs of the Betty Crocker kitchens over the years. They have changed quite a bit.

Suzy Chase:                  So the other night, I made the recipe for chicken Tetrazzini, and it took me back to growing up in Kansas in the '70s.

Cathy:                  Oh, great.

Suzy Chase:                  I had no idea that the dish was named after opera singer Luisa Tetrazzini. What did she have to do with the dish? It's so funny.

Cathy:                  Well, food ... I know. Isn't that interesting? Food folklore believes that this dish was created in the very early 1900s by the chef of the Palace Hotel in San Francisco. And Luisa Tetrazzini, that opera singer, was a long time resident of the hotel. So apparently, they decided that they should name it after her, because she graced them with her presence at dinner probably very frequently.

Suzy Chase:                  Do you have any Betty Crocker Christmas/holiday tips?

Cathy:                  Oh, yes. In fact, you can find them online. We have a great website. It's easy to find, bettycrocker.com. We still are being a help in the kitchen with inspirational and doable recipes. You'll find how tos. You'll find guides for holidays and entertaining. There's a great promotion that they're running right now, the 24 Days of Cookies, that you can sign up via email to get. So every day, for 24 days, you get a new cookie in your email account. It's super fun just to get, and there's also information about our cookbooks and meal planning.

                                    And then, not only that, but we've also just come up with a brand new Christmas book, which I think is so fantastic and works really well in the kitchens, because it covers every kind of recipe you'd want for the month of December, whether it's ... you're going to one of those Friday night after work parties and you need an appetizer to bring that won't take you very long to make, but you want it to wow everyone that tries it. We've got those recipes.

                                    Or if you're wanting to have brunch or people staying with you for brunch or the big meal ... we even have recipes for making homemade gifts, and which I think is super cool, is we've even done a couple of recipes that use ingredient kitchens ... I mean, I'm sorry, ingredients from your kitchen to make gifts that aren't edible, such as ... we have a facial mask that is made with yogurt, and we have a body scrub made with brown sugar and kosher salt. Super fun. So you have to try those out.

                                    So we've got a lot going on at Betty Crocker, whether it's online or in cookbooks. We're still really trying to be a service to our consumers and help people learn how to cook, help them make things that bring people together in their life.

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

Cathy:                  Bettycrocker.com is on the web, and we also have the Betty Crocker Facebook page, which you can join. And they've got a lot of fun and exciting things happening through the Facebook page, as well.

Suzy Chase:                  Since 1921, the Betty Crocker kitchens have been a trusted source of inspiring but doable recipes. Thanks, Cathy, for coming on Cookery by the Book Podcast.

Cathy:                  Oh, you're so welcome. Thanks so much, Suzy.

Suzy Chase:                  Follow me on Instagram at Cookery by the Book. Twitter is IAmSuzyChase, and download your kitchen mix tapes, music to cook by, on Spotify at Cookery by the Book. And as always, subscribe in Apple Podcasts.

Love Real Food
More than 100 Feel-Good Vegetarian Favorites to Delight the Senses and Nourish the Body

By Kathryne Taylor

Suzy Chase:                  Welcome to the Cookery by the Book podcast with me, Suzy Chase.

Kathryne:                  I'm Kathryne Taylor, and I wrote the cookbook called Love Real Food.

Suzy Chase:                  You have more than 100 meatless recipes in this cookbook. What makes it different from the other vegetarian cookbooks?

Kathryne:                  Well, that's a good question. I think that ... So I've been blogging for over seven years now, and I do feel like the book is sort of an extension of what I do on the blog, so in the book you'll find very fresh and wholesome recipes using just mostly really standard grocery store ingredients. I like to get creative with those, so they're easy to find, and the results ... I mean, I work really hard to make sure that the flavors are just sort of like boom, just right, and I offer all the details you'll need to get a finished dish that you'll be just really excited about.

                                    So I don't know. I don't know how to describe how that's different from other vegetarian cookbooks, but I do try to make it very vibrant and delicious.

Suzy Chase:                  So you have America's most popular vegetarian food blog, Cookie and Kate. Talk a little bit about that.

Kathryne:                  Well, it is just ... Honestly, it's my dream job. I absolutely love what I do, and I feel lucky every day that I get to do it. It's really ... It stretches me creatively to always be coming up with new ideas. It perpetually amazes me that me sharing a recipe two to three times a week somehow turns into a library of recipes that people come to and get nourishment from and learn how to cook from and learn how to become a vegetarian from. So, it's really rewarding and creatively satisfying, and it's always stretching me.

Suzy Chase:                  When did the blog start?

Kathryne:                  I started it in 2010. I was actually working at an office job in Oklahoma City, and I was very, very bored, so I decided I would start a website, just an ambiguous blog as a creative project.

Suzy Chase:                  Tell us about your chief crumb catcher, Cookie.

Kathryne:                  That's Cookie. She is a rescued dog. I found her maybe a year before I started the blog. I think I had recently graduated from college, and I had grown up with dogs. I always wanted my own dog, and one day, I kind of had a light bulb moment like, "Hey, look. I'm a responsible adult. I could get a dog." So I started this deep, deep search for this dog that would be what I wanted, and I found Cookie on PetFinder.com. She was in Tulsa, and I got to speak to someone who had fostered her before, so I got to learn more about her personality, but she is [inaudible 00:02:57], and everyone remarks on how happy she is. She's exuberant and a very big force in my life.

Suzy Chase:                  Was she a puppy when you got her?

Kathryne:                  No, I was hoping to find a puppy, but she was about a year old. So, the awesome part about that is that she'd had all her shots. She was potty-trained, and she had some bad habits already too.

                                    You know, the nice part about getting a dog that's a year old is that you can actually know what you're getting into.

Suzy Chase:                  You are a huge proponent of whole foods. What are whole foods exactly, and what are a few of your whole food guidelines?

Kathryne:                  Well, my definition of whole foods is just foods that are close to the source as possible. So you've got an apple. That's really close to the apple tree in its whole farm, so you've got that on one side. Then you've got maybe Kraft Mac and Cheese on the other side, and there are a lot of additives, preservatives, ingredients that started out one way and have been tumbled through chemical processes to turn into something else. So I just try to stick with foods that are as close to the source as possible.

                                    And honestly, that can be ... Super foods are so popular right now, but so many basic ingredients are super foods like cabbage is incredible. Yeah, that's my stance. I try to use whole grains as much as possible, and I would include responsibly sourced dairy as a whole food and so on.

Suzy Chase:                  The term super food always confuses me. What are like maybe your top three super foods that you go to right now?

Kathryne:                  So I don't really use any crazy ingredients like goji berries, but I do love matcha tea. I've actually gotten into that. Matcha's cool because it's like ... I mean, it is green tea, but you're actually consuming the tea leaves, so you get extra antioxidants from that rather than just stepping the tea leaves. I'm trying to think of some other ones. Extra virgin olive oil has so many researched benefits. I just don't think super foods ... Like I'm not using chaga mushrooms or anything like that.

Suzy Chase:                  Whatever those are.

Kathryne:                  Right.

Suzy Chase:                  Was it hard to pivot from blogging about food to writing a cookbook?

Kathryne:                  Honestly it felt very natural, but there were a lot more deadlines imposed, and there were outside opinions that I had to navigate. Fortunately, I was just working with an editor and publisher who really believed in my vision for the book so it was really just a matter of me advocating for myself and mostly getting what I wanted, but it was just ... With the blog, the recipes, I publish them more organically . I might not have them on a list several months in advance, but with the cookbook, it was like I recognized that I was dealing with a static collection of recipes, and I wanted to make sure that if I was going to include a veggie burger, it had to be the best veggie burger I could possibly come up with. Stuff like that. I just wanted a very balanced collection and put a lot of thought into how the recipes would work on their own and together.

Suzy Chase:                  One of your favorite people is Michael Pollan. What are some things you learned from him about eating well?

Kathryne:                  He's kind of my hero. So, I read the Omnivores Dilemma after graduating from college. I'd always been interesting in nutrition, but I didn't ... At that point I thought maybe no sugar Yoplait yogurt was healthy, and his philosophy on whole foods and eating intuitively with the seasons just absolutely clicked with me and made so much sense, and when I learned more from his books about how conventional meat industry handles the animals, having always been a picky meat eater myself, and growing up ... Actually my dad and brothers hunt, so I was always more aware that I was actually eating animals when I was eating meat, and so once I learned more about it, I just decided I'm going to pass on meat all together. So he taught me a whole lot.

Suzy Chase:                  So it's late November, and you wrote on your blog, Cookie and Kate, "We've lost corn, cucumber and eggplant." What are your go-tos for cooler weather?

Kathryne:                  I love sweet potatoes. I love savory sweet potatoes. I don't like them with extra sugar on them. I love butternut squash. I love hearty stews and whole grains and salads that have kale, which is just offers more heft. Whole grains like [inaudible 00:08:10], wild rice, some beans, always beans, yeah so much good stuff to be eating this time of year.

Suzy Chase:                  For anyone who's interested in blogging or has a blog already, how did you grow it and keep the engagement up?

Kathryne:                  That is such a big question. Sometimes I don't even know. I feel really lucky, that I'm glad that I got into it when I did because I know that now it was be even more challenging, but to be fair, I already had a background in marketing, and I knew how to build websites, so that was tremendously helpful. I think that I have always been a little bit more tech savvy than most people, to be honest. So, just I think it's really important to know how websites work and to learn about them and to learn about marketing, but beyond that, it's just you have to super passionate about what you're doing and wanting to reach people, and that needs to be the drive.

Suzy Chase:                  How do you schedule your day?

Kathryne:                  Whew that's a good question. I feel like everyday is different, but I usually, let's see. I work from home. I do have ... When I got the cookbook deal, I had decided I needed an outside opinion, and I lucked out and found the world's greatest assistant who comes over and cooks with me once a week, so I had her throughout the whole cookbook, and I lost her for a little bit because she got a different job, and now she's back.

                                    So, I structure my week around her coming over on Tuesdays which is amazing, and that's when we get most of the cooking done, and it's so nice to have just a bouncing board for ideas, and then on the days in between, I am just sort of working between technical projects, writing new blog posts, editing photos, taking the photos. There is a lot of admin work that goes on behind the scenes as well.

Suzy Chase:                  It's really solitary, isn't it?

Kathryne:                  It can be. Honestly, it suits me well. I'm definitely an introvert, and I love what I do so much, the time kind of flies by, but I would probably feel lonely if I didn't have Cookie around. She's quite a personality.

Suzy Chase:                  What's your favorite social media platform these days?

Kathryne:                  I like Instagram. I like that's still pretty simple. As frustrated that I get that I can't schedule to Instagram like I want to-

Suzy Chase:                  I know.

Kathryne:                  It is really nice though that marketers, as a whole, can't just be automatically throwing millions of posts into Instagram. I don't ... Facebook frustrates me. I like Pinterest for collecting visuals. And Twitter, I could care less about.

Suzy Chase:                  Yes. Same.

                                    I saw on your Instagram stories yesterday that you were recipe testing. Can you give us a sneak peak of what you were testing?

Kathryne:                  Yeah. So that was ... Yesterday is the day that Mara was over here, and we perfected these chocolate chip cookies that I'm very excited about. Somehow I've made it through seven years of blogging without a proper chocolate chip cookie recipe-

Suzy Chase:                  Really?

Kathryne:                  Yeah, I needed to find my own go-to chocolate chip cookie recipe, and I'm always looking for ways that I can offer a Cookie and Kate spin on traditional recipes, so I'm actually trying to go back to those standards. Cause you can't really make a chocolate chip cookie recipe healthy. Like I want a bakery quality chocolate chip cookie if I'm going to eat one, so I think I've finally found a way to put a bit of a spin on it, and that produces a really delicious cookie.

                                    What else did we work on? We retested a recipe that's been on my blog because I've felt like it was missing a more exact amount of cabbage. Broke my food processor in the process, and we talked through a cookbook gift guide actually, among other things. So, that was my Tuesday.

Suzy Chase:                  So, you living in Kansas City, and I grew up there eating steak and potatoes almost every night of the week. How is it being vegetarian in a long established cow town?

Kathryne:                  You know, it's fine. The only places where I might struggle to find something to eat is the barbecue joints, although Oklahoma Joe's, I think, has a veggie burger now-

Suzy Chase:                  They do?

Kathryne:                  And also delicious fries.

                                    Yeah, I think they do. I think so.

Suzy Chase:                  I'm shocked.

Kathryne:                  Yeah, I've heard that they do.

                                    I have noticed ... So I mean, I came from Oklahoma which is also just kind of a cow state, but I think up here, they tend to put bacon in everything, so something I just have to ask for no bacon. But it's pretty easy.

Suzy Chase:                  The holidays are quickly approaching, and you have a fantastic three-ingredient cocktail that will impress your guests. Can you describe your elderflower champagne cocktail?

Kathryne:                  I love that cocktail. I was almost hesitant to include in the book because I thought maybe it was too basic, and then my assistant, Mara, was like, "No, sometimes when you need a cocktail, you just need a cocktail."

Suzy Chase:                  Exactly.

Kathryne:                  And it's so true because if you're entertaining, you got a lot going on. You have to clean your place. You have to prep food, and the drinks, I think, should be as easy as possible. So, yeah, you've got bubbly champagne. I adore champagne. And elder flower liquor which is one of the only liquores out there that I really love. It's not too sweet, it just has a really interesting floral, herbal flavor that I love, and it works great with champagne, and so it's just those two things and a little squeeze lemon juice and a twist of lemon if you can pull that off.

Suzy Chase:                  That sounds amazing, and the picture is gorgeous too.

Kathryne:                  Thank you. I had ... Oh, that was a fun day taking those photos outside.

Suzy Chase:                  Do you take your own pictures for the blog?

Kathryne:                  Yes I do. I really love part of my job.

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

Kathryne:                  So my blog is CookieAndKate.com and I lucked out, and I am CookieAndKate on every platform, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest and so on. And my book, Love Real Food is available on Amazon and anywhere else you might want to buy a book.

Suzy Chase:                  Thanks Kathryn for cooking on Cookery By the Book podcast.

Kathryne:                  Suzy, thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it.

Suzy Chase:                  Follow me on Instagram at CookeryByTheBook. Twitter is IamSuzyChase, and download your Kitchen Mix Tapes, music to cook by on Spotify at Cookery By The Book, and as always, subscribe in Apple Podcasts.

The Palestinian Table

By Reem Kassis

Suzy Chase:                  Welcome to the Cookery by the Book podcast, with me, Suzy Chase.

Reem:                  My name is Reem Kassis, and I'm the author of The Palestinian Table.

Suzy Chase:                  Describe growing up in Jerusalem surrounded by the love of your family and the communal experience of eating and enjoying good food.

Reem:                  It was an elaborate occasion for us. We would on Fridays go to my maternal grandmother's house, and she would have been up from the break of dawn baking bread and boiling chickens and doing whatever dish she was making that day. It's funny that I took those things for granted. I would even go so far as to say I didn't appreciate them growing up. But then, once I left home and I started living on my own, I started seeing how other people lived, I realized this was such a special way to grow up.

                                    I think it's one of the reasons that I feel so attached to my family and to my culture and why I have this love of food instilled in me, because growing up I think food meant more than just sustenance to us. It was a way that we shared our lives with each other, the way we caught up with each other when we hadn't seen one another for a while. It was what we had in good occasions and in bad. It was I guess our main source of comfort throughout it all. Food still unites us every time we are back home.

Suzy Chase:                  Who taught you how to cook?

Reem:                  I think the most important person I would say is my mother, because she's the one I spent all my time with. Of course, my grandmothers are the ones from whom she learned how to cook, and growing up, obviously, like I told you, we spent weekends at different grandmothers' houses and I picked up things along the way as well.

                                    When you live in such a big family, everyone plays an integral part in the things that you learn. There are many tips and tricks that I've picked up along the way from snippets of conversation that I've heard my grandmother have with my aunts or my mother or that I've even heard my mother have with some of her friends. But I would say my mom is the biggest influence.

Suzy Chase:                  I read that your grandmother was the taste tester in your village. What does that mean?

Reem:                  This was really way back when I was very, very young, but basically she was considered the best cook. She had very refined taste and her food was just exceptional. A lot of times when there was going to be a big gathering or a wedding, people would just bring her by to say, "Can you tell us, make sure it's okay, it's salted well, it's seasoned well? Does it need anything else?"

                                    Initially, gatherings were made at people's houses, and then later on it started becoming in more specialized venues, I guess. But until her health started deteriorating, she was definitely the person people called to get her opinion on the food that they were serving to large masses of people for special occasions.

Suzy Chase:                  Over a decade ago, you were at the Wharton School and the London School of Economics, and you promised yourself that you would never end up in the kitchen. Tell us about that.

Reem:                  I guess it's funny the way life works. Sometimes you meet your destiny on the very, I guess, road you took to avoid it. With me, that really did happen. I grew up in Jerusalem. I took it for granted that I did not want to end up in the kitchen because I saw it almost as a sentence.

                                    Part of what really pushed me to get that idea even later on in life was right after I'd been accepted to Wharton, and my father had mentioned to someone we knew that I was leaving in a few months. That person goes, "Are you really going to send your daughter to school and pay all that money? Don't you know she's going to end up in the kitchen like all Arab women anyway?" Of course, we laughed it off, thinking, look at this person who thinks in this backward way, but part of me felt he's not the only person who thinks this way, and I want to prove these people wrong. I want to prove that as a woman you do not have to end up in the kitchen.

                                    For 10 years I did that. You saw from my background I went to Wharton, I did my undergrad. I did my MBA straight after, which is very uncommon. I worked at one of the top consulting firms in the industry. Later on, went back and got another master's in psychology. But I think once I matured enough and I learned a lot along the way from having done these things, I came to this conclusion, this clarity if you will, that the kitchen doesn't have to be a sentence the way I imagine it is. Food is actually one of the most powerful mediums through which you can reach people.

                                    One of the other goals I had when I left home was I want to give back to my people. I felt fortunate enough to be able to go abroad to get an education and to escape some of the circumstances that many people back home could not, and I felt I owed it to Palestinians and to people that I knew back home to contribute in some way or other. It took me a long time to come to this conclusion, which is that through food I can actually do that. But I think today I'm happy with where I'm at, because it's out of choice, not circumstance, that I'm in the kitchen, if you will.

Suzy Chase:                  Give us an overview of the Palestinian landscape and geography as it pertains to the cuisine.

Reem:                  The geography, the north and the south you will see, you can get an entire range of climates, from very dry and arid in the desert, to humid near the coast, to very cold in the mountains. I think that comes across in our cuisine, because we tend to be very close to nature and to eat what the land provides. But given how small the country is, even these variations in climate don't tend to produce such massive differences. But you do notice that people in the north might enjoy things slightly differently from the people in the south, whether it's in terms of vegetation or even in terms of influence from neighboring countries.

                                    We eat a lot of foraged greens in the north where it rains, and there's a lot of olive groves and olive oil there. In the coastal towns, you might notice more fish dishes, like the one that you made. Then you go more to the south and you see people eating dishes that are more rice based. Rice was initially imported from Egypt, and so on and so forth. But you see these influences that are coming both from the surrounding geography and from the climate and landscape and vegetation.

Suzy Chase:                  What is the definition of the Palestinian table?

Reem:                  If you asked me this a few years ago, I'd have said, "I don't know. I don't even know what a Palestinian table is." Because when I grew up back home, there was the food that I ate at home and the food that I ate at my grandmothers' houses, and it was our food and it was delicious, but to me the notion that these things together made up a Palestinian table was kind of elusive. It wasn't until I left home and started living abroad that I noticed just how closely tied our identity is to food.

                                    I think writing this book I realized that what really unites the Palestinian table is not just the foods that we eat or the specific dishes, but rather it's this notion of home that we all have, from those of us who live in the country to those of us who are outside, whether by choice or by circumstance, to people who have left and the Palestinian diaspora everywhere, you could say. I think it's this notion of home that we all in a way aspire to, and also the sense of generosity, of wanting to share our food with others, and finding that we really enjoy our food when it's communal and when it's shared with other people. I think that's what really unites the Palestinian table across the globe.

Suzy Chase:                  Why do you think Palestinian cuisine rarely makes the headlines?

Reem:                  I think it's a two-sided story. Part of it I think is just, initially, until the Middle Eastern cuisine started gaining more notice abroad and people started learning more about it, it took a while for people to realize that there is a difference actually amongst the different cuisines of the Middle East. That's one side of it.

                                    But I think the other side is, as you know, obviously there's a political conflict that we have going on, and for many Palestinians it feels almost as if by focusing on anything other than the conflict, you are almost taking away from its importance. But more and more I think a lot of us are coming to the realization that food is part and parcel of our struggle and of who we are.

                                    If anything, I think helping people to know us as a people, as humans, as a mother, a brother, a sister, a cook, the real part of our culture and getting to understand us better, it is not taking away from our struggle. If anything, it is helping send the message across in a way that is much more humane and easy to understand.

                                    The other part is the rising interest in the cuisines of the Middle East. Now that that's happened, people are starting to learn more and more about the nuances of the different parts of the Middle East.

Suzy Chase:                  What are the differences between Palestinian food and other Middle Eastern food?

Reem:                  First let's define the other Middle Eastern foods, because it's vast. I think we form part of a geographic continuum that extends to pre-Ottoman times. Sometimes it's even hard to delineate the exact origins of a certain dish because we all enjoy many of the same things, but you start to notice nuances and differences, which can arise from a host of reasons. Part of it is the geography that we were discussing before, and the landscape, what grows where you are, what kind of animals you breed, et cetera. Another part of it is also you find differences from one family to the next, so inevitably you will find differences between these countries.

                                    Part of it is the ingredients that you are using, but another part of it is how you combine them. At the end of the day, the general ingredients that you cook with tend to be similar, but it's how you combine them. Like maftool, which is, it's similar to couscous, but it's a grain that's the size of small caviar pearls that's made by rolling whole wheat around bulgur grains. No other country in the Middle East does it the way Palestinians do. Msakhan, on the other hand, is the combination of onions with sumac with chicken and olive oil on taboon bread, which is, again, a very Palestinian way of making this bread.

                                    Here, everybody uses onions and everybody uses bread and chicken and what not, but it's the way you combine them and the way you cook them that makes them uniquely Palestinian. Same with another famous dish called maqlubeh, which is rice with fried vegetables and either lamb or chicken. Again, these are ingredients that everyone can use, but the way they are cooked and the way they are flipped upside down and spiced before doing so, that's very unique to Palestinians.

                                    These differences are becoming more and more clear now that we are not all part of the same entity and the borders are up and it's harder to mix and marry and move about more freely. These differences always with each generation become more nuanced and clear.

Suzy Chase:                  The nine-spice mix comes up a lot in this cookbook. Can you describe it?

Reem:                  The nine-spice mix is actually, it's not something that's a very common or typical Palestinian blend, it's just the one that my mother makes at home. Palestinian cuisine relies heavily on pimento or allspice, and that is the major component in this nine-spice mix that I make. But I think I've found over the years, and so has my mother, that this combination, the way we've made it, it really works for a wide range of dishes, and it does give them a very unique Palestinian flavor. The major components are obviously pimento, and then you have cinnamon, coriander, cardamom, nutmeg, cloves, cumin, mace, and in different proportions, obviously, with the pimento being the most dominant one.

                                    But I've mentioned this in the book. For people who either do not want to buy their own spices or grind them, or who just want something easier, there is the Lebanese seven-spice mix, which you can buy in stores, or the baharat spice mix, which you can also buy. Obviously, they will give your food a slightly different flavor profile, but similar enough to the end result that I am describing in the book. But sometimes people have asked me, what is the major or the most dominant flavor in Palestinian cooking? And in most cases it is this pimento spice, and then it's complemented by a few others, like cardamom or nutmeg or coriander, depending on the dish that you're making.

Suzy Chase:                  Do Palestinians see food as a way to hold onto identity and existence?

Reem:                  I think so. I think most cultures actually see food as a way to hold onto identity and culture. But for Palestinians, the issue becomes even more stark and more passionately debated because of the political conflict. Palestinians don't have a independent, self-sufficient state. You have a lot of Palestinians that are refugees, that are dispersed across the globe. I think food is one of the things that unites us, and holding onto it is in a way allowing us to hold onto that very last shred of something that unites us regardless of where we are.

                                    That's why I think it takes on more of an emotional significance for Palestinians than it might for other people, but I think across the world, everybody sees food as a way to, at least to an extent, represent their identity and their background.

Suzy Chase:                  Most flatbreads are made in a clay oven. What is your tip for making flatbread in our own home kitchen oven?

Reem:                  I struggle with this as well when I cook at home, depending on the type of flatbread you're making. If you're making pita bread, what it really needs is quick, high heat. That's what makes your bread very soft and not dry. Oftentimes I just use the grill in the oven or the broiler. I put it in for a minute or two, flip it over. It is a bit more time consuming because you're not putting in let's say five or six pitas at a time, but at the same time you're getting that out much quicker and they're fluffier and softer.

                                    The other thing that I do when I'm making taboon bread ... Again, this is the kind of bread that you cannot make into sandwiches. You can make it into rolls or use it for Musakhan. But you use pebbles. You put the pebbles in the oven, on a very sturdy oven tray, of course. You let them heat up, and then you spread your dough over it. That allows the bread to get the authentic shape of taboon bread and also to cook very quickly. Another option is to use a pizza stone, because stone retains more heat. It just allows you to cook the pita bread more quickly and as a result end up with a softer, more pillowy dough.

Suzy Chase:                  Your father finishes off dinner with a piece of bread and an olive. Talk about how bread is an integral part of each meal.

Reem:                  For us, bread is more than just something that we use to dip into spreads. I think in the West most people associate pita bread as something that you use to dip into hummus or baba ganoush. For us, we use it as a vessel to eat many of our foods, from the dips like hummus and labneh, but also for stews and braises. Many of the kaftka dishes that I have in the book, the minced meat bakes, I suggest that people serve them with rice because that's what will make most sense to maybe people in the West, but at home we often just eat it with bread.

                                    Bread is what you give your kids to school every day with something inside it. It's just such an integral part of our diet that we use it even in desserts. One of the recipes in the book is actually a toasted bread pudding with cream on top. As you can see, it's quite an important part of our diet.

Suzy Chase:                  Olive oil is another staple for you. When we're buying olive oil, what should we look for?

Reem:                  Luckily, we press our own at home, which also means I know quite a bit when I'm buying olive oils what is good and what is not good. I realize, as unfortunate as it is, that price is often a good indicator. There is a lot of adulteration, as we all know, in the olive oil industry. A $5 bottle of olive oil that tells you it's extra virgin is probably not.

                                    The other important characteristics to look out for, obviously, is a day of harvest or the date of pressing. Then, the other thing is a protected designation of origin, because then at least you know where your olive oil is coming from. Generally, those that are packed in tins or in very dark glass bottles tend to be of better quality.

Suzy Chase:                  The other night, I made your recipe for fish with tahini and onion sauce and pine nuts. Give us the background on this dish.

Reem:                  This dish comes from the coastal towns where fish is plentiful. I think it started out as something to do with leftover fish, because you would go to the fishermen on the coast and you would purchase a large piece of fish, and you'd cook it very simply at home. When you have leftovers, Palestinians tend to not want to discard anything, so they would save it for the next day. But then bland leftover fish is probably not great, so you come up with this sauce to enhance the flavor. But it is such a good dish that nowadays most people make it from scratch.

                                    I tend to use filets that I bake in the oven, and then I put the tahini with the onion sauce on top of it and bake it back in the oven for another 10 minutes until it bubbles up. But you can also, if you're in a rush on a weeknight, pan fry some filets while you have the sauce on the side and simply drizzle it on top. It's very delicious, but it's very simple, and it goes to show that many of the dishes in this book can be adapted to suit your day-to-day lifestyle and be made easily.

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

Reem:                  You can find me on my website, reemkassis.com, and from there you can link to my Instagram, my Twitter, my Facebook, et cetera.

Suzy Chase:                  I will close with Anthony Bourdain's quote about The Palestinian Table: "A thoughtful collection of great recipes, historical and cultural insights, and beautiful photographs." I couldn't have summed it up better. Thank you, Reem, for coming on Cookery by the Book podcast.

Reem:                  Thank you, Suzy. It was my pleasure.

Suzy Chase:                  Follow me on Instagram @CookerybytheBook. Twitter is @IAmSuzyChase. Download your kitchen mix tapes, music to cook by, on Spotify at Cooking by the Book. As always, subscribe on Apple Podcasts.

Bollywood Kitchen
Home Cooked Indian Meals Paired With Unforgettable Bollywood Films

By Sri Rao

Suzy Chase:                  Welcome to the Cookery By The Book podcast with me, Suzy Chase.

Sri:                  I'm Sri Rao and my new book is called Bollywood Kitchen: Home-Cooked Indian Meals Paired with Unforgettable Bollywood Films.

Suzy Chase:                  You wrote in the book, "Bollywood films are a kaleidoscope of flavors, while Indian food is melodrama on a plate." Give us a short history of the Indian film industry, what we know as Bollywood.

Sri:                  Bollywood gets its name from Hollywood in Bombay. It's kind of a play on words nickname, so it's referred to as Bollywood. It's the largest film industry in the world. They produce something like 1,500 movies every year. They sell twice as many tickets as we do in Hollywood, not just in India but in the U.K., in the Middle East, and in Asia. It's an incredibly popular film industry, and the great thing about Bollywood is that all of the films are musicals, so whether it is a comedy or a drama, an action movie or a horror movie, whatever the genre, every Bollywood movie has three or four or five musical numbers in it.

Suzy Chase:                  And what I learned in your cookbook is that there are people called playback singers, and they sing the songs, not the actors?

Sri:                  That's right.

Suzy Chase:                  That's crazy.

Sri:                  Yeah, because they make so many musical films every year, I think it's too difficult to find enough actors who can both act and sing and dance, so what they do in Bollywood instead is that they have the actors just perform, and they have a separate set of professional singers, who are also sometimes equally famous, record the songs, and then the actors, when they're on camera, are just lip-syncing, so they're not actually singing.

Suzy Chase:                  So when your parents came to the United States in 1959, there were only 10,000 Indian immigrants in the entire country.

Sri:                  That's right.

Suzy Chase:                  What pioneers they were. To your parents, Bollywood movies were postcards from home. Describe gathering at the local college auditorium to watch a movie one Sunday a month.

Sri:                  That was a really fond memory that I have growing up. When I was growing up in the '80s in a small town in Pennsylvania, there were very few other Indian families in the community, and it was very difficult to travel internationally at that time, so we very rarely went to India. I've only been to India a handful of times in my life, but what my parents would do, because my mom loved Bollywood movies, she found some guy, some film distributor in Chicago, I believe it was, who had access to Bollywood film reels, and when they were done being shipped around the country, she negotiated with this guy to send them to our little town in Pennsylvania for $30 a shot.

                                    And I remember going to the Greyhound bus station late at night once a month and waiting for a bus to pull up from who knows where, from New York or Chicago or some place, and out of the bottom of the bus where the luggage was, they would pull out these huge old wooden boxes which were film canisters, and my dad would carry them back to the car, and then once a month, my parents would rent an auditorium at a local college, and the five or six or seven families that were Indian that were in our community would get together and put these old film canisters onto the projector and watch a Bollywood movie together, and at the time, I didn't realize how important that was for my parents, 'cause I was just a kid.

                                    For my parents, these were the only images and sights and sounds of home that they were able to see for years at a time.

Suzy Chase:                  And typically how long is a Bollywood film?

Sri:                  Traditionally, Bollywood films have a reputation of being really long, and the older Bollywood films were. They were easily three hours long, but these days, contemporary Bollywood films, and those are the films that I have in my book. They're all modern Bollywood films. They're much shorter and easily digestible. Some of them are ... I think on average they're probably two hours.

Suzy Chase:                  "You don't know Indian." That's a bold statement you wrote. What's the difference between the Indian food that we've all probably ordered in our local Indian restaurant, and the Indian food you grew up with?

Sri:                  It's really astonishing to me to see a menu in an Indian restaurant with dishes like chicken tikka masala and naan and tandoori chicken, because none of these are dishes that we eat at home. This is all restaurant food that's primarily from one region of India, from Northern India, but the food that I grew up eating here in America is much healthier, first and foremost. Indian food in restaurants can tend to be quite unhealthy, with a lot of cream and butter and oil, and that's not the way that we cook at home. At home, it's very healthy and fresh.

                                    The other thing about home-cooked Indian food is that it's very simple. When my mom moved here for the first time, there were no Indian grocery stores, so she made due with the ingredients that she found at her local supermarket, and that's the way that we continued to eat growing up, and that I continue to cook for my family today, but that's not to say that this food is inauthentic. It's not. It's very authentic, but Indian food is surprisingly much more accessible than people think that it is.

Suzy Chase:                  Yeah, I discovered that Indian food is not hard to make from your cookbook. I don't even know where that myth got started, that people think it's really complicated and difficult to do.

Sri:                  Well, I think that because there are so many robust flavors in Indian food, and some of them are unusual and new to Western palettes, I think that maybe people assume that that's because, "Oh, there are so many spices in this, and stuff that I've never heard of before," but that's not the case. Like I say in my book, 75% of the recipes that are in this book, you can make with ingredients that are, I'm sure, already in your pantry.

                                    If you've ever made Mexican food, or even if you just made a pot of chili, you probably have all the spices that you need to make traditional staples of a home-cooked Indian diet. We're talking about spices like ginger and garlic, cumin and coriander, cinnamon and cloves, which we're more accustomed to using those in desserts here in the West, but in Indian food and in Middle Eastern food, cinnamon powder and clove powder is used a lot in savory dishes because it adds a wonderful warmth, so cayenne and salt and pepper. I mean, these are all basic ingredients that most people have.

Suzy Chase:                  Now, this book is organized by movie with a corresponding menu. Tell us about the process of whittling down the movies and choosing the menus to go with them.

Sri:                  Yeah, so the whole book is set up as dinner and a movie, so that you can put in a movie on Netflix or on Amazon or iTunes. These are all movies that are available online with subtitles, and then along with each film, I pair a menu that you can serve along with it. It was really important for me to find movies that were accessible, that American audiences would enjoy, so I have romances and period epic dramas and comedies and action films, so there's a little something for everyone, and then with each of those films, I wanted to find a meal that sort of connected thematically to it in some way.

                                    For example, one of the films in the book is a film called Lagaan, which is one of the few Bollywood movies ever to be nominated for an Academy Award, and that film is a sports drama about cricket that takes place during the colonial times in India, and it's a story about villagers in India who compete against their British colonizers in a game of cricket, and so with that meal, I paired a sort of Anglo-inspired meal of masala-crusted salmon, and a rice and lentil dish called khichdi, which is a traditional Indian comfort food, but was taken to England in the time of colonialism and turned into a British dish called kedgeree, which some people might be familiar with, and kedgeree is served a lot for breakfast or for brunch. It was a very fashionable dish at the time of colonialism. Mrs. Patmore served it on Downton Abbey, if there are any Downton Abbey fans out there like I am, and so what I wanted to do is to show the connection, the culinary connection between India and Great Britain that goes back centuries.

Suzy Chase:                  The film and menu I chose was English Vinglish, on page 178. This-

Sri:                  I love that.

Suzy Chase:                  I loved it too, and it's ... Okay, so it's from 2012, about a homemaker who's mocked by her family for her lack of English skills. It made me sad, and I actually didn't realize that not being able to speak English properly had such stigma attached to it in India.

Sri:                  That's right. There is very much a hierarchy, both in India, even in America. Those people in the Indian community who speak English well are considered to be more sophisticated or more educated, and those who can speak without an accent are the cream of the crop. My mom, for example, speaks broken English, and that's something that I personally struggled with growing up. I had a lot of shame around that, and it's something that I've come to terms with now that I'm an adult, and realizing that just because someone doesn't speak English well, it doesn't have anything to do with their intelligence, because my mom can run circles around anyone when she's speaking in her native tongue, and the fact that she, like so many other immigrants, can speak multiple languages is, even if some of them are not perfect, is really much more of an accomplishment than most of us, myself included.

                                    English Vinglish, yes, is a story about a simple housewife in India, who doesn't speak English well, and her family doesn't really respect her because she doesn't have an identity of her own, and she comes to New York on a trip by herself, and ends up taking an ESL class, English as a Second Language, and through the course of her experiences in New York and in learning English, she forms a newfound self respect for herself, and a new sense of identity.

Suzy Chase:                  I was kind of hoping she'd leave that husband. Isn't that awful?

Sri:                  Well ...

Suzy Chase:                  He kept saying, "All you know how to do is make ladoos."

Sri:                  The other interesting thing about that film, English Vinglish, is that it deals a lot with food, and food being a part of many Indian women's identity. Both in India and in America here, homemakers like my mom, their identity is wrapped up in the food that they make every day for their family, and not necessarily having the respect of their families. It takes a lot of hard work to put a fresh, hot, healthy meal on the dinner table every day the way that my mom has always done, and the way that so many other women in America and across the world do, but not always is that validated, and so in the course of this story, she comes to realize that the food that she creates with love and with care and with passion is something to be valued, and that if her family doesn't value it, there are other people that will value it, but more important than any of that is that she finds value for herself in what she's passionate about.

Suzy Chase:                  Along with this film, I had a little dinner party and invited my dear friend Sabrina Dhawan over, who wrote Monsoon Wedding, and she's mentioned-

Sri:                  I was so intimidated when I heard that. She's so famous, and Monsoon Wedding really put Indian films on the map in many ways here in America, and I was so nervous to hear that she was going to be trying my food.

Suzy Chase:                  You were? I had to make it for her. She's lovely. Our children have been in the same school since kindergarten, and she is the best person. I love her so much, so she's-

Sri:                  That's great to hear.

Suzy Chase:                  She's in your book, on page 257, and I was so nervous about cooking Indian food for her, because I'd never made it before, but I made your signature chicken, string beans with peanuts, and the cucumber raita. Tell us about-

Sri:                  And what's the verdict?

Suzy Chase:                  It was amazing.

Sri:                  Okay, great.

Suzy Chase:                  I want to hear about your signature chicken.

Sri:                  That's great to hear, because that was exactly my objective. I want to demystify Indian cooking, and show people that even if you're not an avid home cook ... I'm not a chef by any means, I'm just a home cook, but even if you don't have a lot of experience cooking at home or cooking food that is new to you, you can make Indian food.

                                    My signature chicken is my go to chicken dish. I feel like everyone has a go to chicken dish that they can make several times a month, that is simple enough to feed the family on a weeknight that is also special enough to serve to guests, like you did when you had your friend coming over, and so this chicken dish, I make it with boneless skinless chicken thighs, and it's quite simple, because it's only three steps, and the three steps are pretty much the quintessential three steps to any Indian curry dish.

                                    The first step is that you saute some onions in a little bit of oil, and when I say little bit, I mean just a tablespoon. Indian food, again, is very healthy, so you saute some onions, get some nice color on them, because that first step is really important. Those onions are really creating the base of flavor for your curry, so you really want to take your time, and you want to saute those onions for a good five to seven minutes, until they get some nice golden brown, deep brown color in them.

                                    The second step is that you add your spices into your onions, and that's really important as well for Indian cooking, because you never want to add your spices at the end of a dish. You always want to add your spices in the beginning so they have a chance to cook in that oil and in the onion so that they can release their flavors, release their essential oils, and wake up, so we add our spices. That's the second step, and again, you found that ... Did you have all of those spices that you needed in your cupboard, or was there anything that you had to go out and buy for cooking my signature chicken?

Suzy Chase:                  I had them all in my cupboard.

Sri:                  Great! See, you had them all. You had everything you needed right there to make Indian food.

Suzy Chase:                  I did.

Sri:                  And the third step is the chicken thighs, but it could have been vegetables, it could have been fish, it could have been some other type of meat or protein, and then you mix them all together and let it simmer for awhile on the stove, and that's pretty much the technique of all Indian cooking, and it's as simple as that.

Suzy Chase:                  Sabrina loved it.

Sri:                  That's great, 'cause she knows her food, I'm sure, and I really appreciate her opinion.

Suzy Chase:                  She made the chutney recipe from the movie Lagaan too, which was really good.

Sri:                  Oh great, and it's a chutney that you make in a blender. How simple is that?

Suzy Chase:                  One thing though, Sabrina did tell me at dinner, was growing up in Delhi, no one measured ingredients, so she said things would taste different at different people's homes.

Sri:                  That's right.

Suzy Chase:                  That's why she wanted to make the chutney from Lagaan, because she said her mom couldn't tell her how to make chutney. Did you find it was hard to get these measurements for the home-cooked meals in this cookbook?

Sri:                  Oh God, that was such an ordeal, yes it is, and the reason that the book took me over two years to write was partially because of that. Indian moms and my aunties are notorious for not measuring anything, and whenever you ask them for a recipe, they're like, "Oh, it's a little bit of this, it's a little bit of that. I don't know how much. Don't ask me." So I had a lot of those conversations with my mom and with my aunties, and then I had to do my own personal testing to figure out those measurements, and I even went so far as to go into the kitchen with my mom and watch her cooking, and she would pour a spice into the palm of her hand, and I would have to grab her wrist and pour that spice into a measuring spoon before she put it into the pot.

                                    I did all of that legwork for you, and figured it all out over the course of two years, so now, people have a reference guide for how much they need to use of every spice or every ingredient when they're making Indian food.

Suzy Chase:                  And we thank you.

Sri:                  You're welcome. It was hard work, but I'm glad it was worth it.

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

Sri:                  I am on social media at newyorksri, so that's all spelled out, N-E-W-Y-O-R-K-S-R-I. I'm on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, so please do follow me, and my website is newyorksri.com, and I'm going on ... I'm currently on a national tour, so I'm hitting 12 cities across the country in the next three weeks and would love to meet folks at the many events that I have.

Suzy Chase:                  These are easy to make home-cooked Indian meals that I was able to pull off, so any home cook can. Thank you, Sri, for coming on Cookery By The Book podcast.

Sri:                  Thanks so much. This was great.

Suzy Chase:                  Follow me on Instagram at CookerybytheBook. Twitter is IAmSuzyChase. Download your Kitchen Mix Tapes, music to cook by, on Spotify at Cookery by the Book, and as always, subscribe in Apple Podcasts.