transcript

Speaker 1:
[00:01] Welcome to Food Friends, a podcast inspiring home cooks to try new dishes in the kitchen by sharing trusted recipes, tips, and friendship. Hi, I'm Sonya.

Speaker 2:
[00:13] And I'm Kari. We met in Los Angeles over 15 years ago as personal chefs and haven't stopped talking about food since. We're so glad you're here. Hi, Sonya.

Speaker 1:
[00:25] Hi, Kari.

Speaker 2:
[00:26] Sonya, it's a big week. We have so much to discuss.

Speaker 1:
[00:29] Yes, because you already know that I had Cookbook Club this week. I'm suddenly in another Cookbook Club. I now have two Cookbook Clubs.

Speaker 2:
[00:38] Stop it. We have to know the whole recap though.

Speaker 1:
[00:41] Yeah, I have to recap it. I also just have to say like when we were on our monthly live Zoom for our paid Substack subscribers, a few people share that they had started Cookbook Clubs inspired by these conversations. I wanted to say that makes us so happy. We love knowing that you're starting your own Cookbook Clubs and enjoying your Cookbook Clubs.

Speaker 2:
[00:59] And it's also okay to be still a little scared because I am still a little scared to start my own Cookbook Club. I haven't done it yet. And I have a couple people lined up. They're ready to go. I'm the one who's holding back.

Speaker 1:
[01:10] We need to talk more about why you're scared. Maybe that's a separate conversation, but also there's no pressure. This may not be for everyone. I think the point of this is one, it lets us discover a Cookbook and I can share with you about the book, which is really what we're here for. But also it is just a fun way to get together with friends. I was not looking for a second Cookbook Club, but the one thing that makes it possible is one of my Cookbook Clubs really only meets once every three months or so, and this one is going to meet every other month. So it's not a huge time commitment and also it's the joy of my month. So I'm happy to add more to the joy in life. So this Cookbook Club, we decided to do, I actually got to choose the book and I chose The Taste of Country Cooking by Edna Lewis.

Speaker 2:
[01:54] One of my favorite books.

Speaker 1:
[01:55] I think it has some of the most beautiful food writing of any book ever written. I just even have to read one line to you, Kari, because-

Speaker 2:
[02:04] Oh, please do.

Speaker 1:
[02:06] If you're not familiar with Edna Lewis, this book first got published in 1976. And Edna Lewis is to me one of the grand dames of American cookery. He has influenced so many chefs. And the way she talks about each season is truly what makes this book so special. The book is divided by menus and it goes through all four seasons. So its menu is for every time of year. And this is just kind of the way she'll write in a section of the book. A stream filled from the melted snows of winter would flow quietly by us, gurgling softly and gently, pulling the leaf of a fern that hung lazily from the side of its bank. After moments of complete exhilaration, we would return joyfully to the house for breakfast. Floating out to greet us was the aroma of coffee cooking and meat frying mingled with the smell of oak wood burning in the cookstove. We would wash our hands and take our places on the bench, behind the table made for the children. Breakfast was about the best part of the day. Just very evocative.

Speaker 2:
[03:03] Yes. She really gave voice to so many home cooks who had not previously had voice. I think even what you're describing, how the book is organized in menus by season, that is how people cook at home. That's so much about home cooking and about the rituals of the life of the people who live around you.

Speaker 1:
[03:21] Yeah, it's very much worth looking into her biography, and a lot of it was cooking out of necessity. There are several themes that emerged in this cookbook. The joy of Cookbook Club is that you get to really experience the author's voice in a different way because you would rarely cook a dozen dishes at one time. One thing that was really interesting about this gathering is that, usually you only bring one dish, but almost every person made more than one thing for this cookbook club.

Speaker 2:
[03:47] The people offered to make multiple dishes?

Speaker 1:
[03:49] People not only offered, people made multiple dishes unprompted. No one asked them to. It was partly because it was exciting, and so many of the dishes in our book are so simple that you feel like, oh, I could take on more, I could try more things out. What we all observed, well, for one, this is a cookbook from a different time period. There are no pictures. You don't know how the dish is supposed to look. There are incredibly specific details about some things and the total absent of details about others. For instance, she's very specific about times. There was one recipe that my friend Ethan made. Ethan is my friend who makes all the incredible holiday cookies.

Speaker 2:
[04:29] Yeah, and the Rice Krispies that had halva in them, right?

Speaker 1:
[04:32] Exactly.

Speaker 2:
[04:33] I have halva in my fridge to make that recipe. I still have not yet done it.

Speaker 1:
[04:37] You're going to love it. Ethan, among the four dishes he brought, he literally made four or five things. Yeah, he made a plum tort because he has plum trees and he had kept his plums frozen from summer. So he made the plum tort. But one of the details of that recipe is you have to knead the crust for 15 full minutes. I made the Parker House rolls, which she also gave a specific timeout kneading. She says you need the dough for five minutes, but she doesn't tell you what the dough should feel like, what it should look like. And then more importantly, there were a lot of details absent, like she doesn't tell you what size baking dish to use or how many rolls to make. How do you divide the dough into what size? So there were some recipes were really detailed, some weren't, and yet it all kind of worked out, which is also the magic of Cookbook Club.

Speaker 2:
[05:24] So what were a couple of the dishes that you really loved, but also what really surprised you?

Speaker 1:
[05:31] Yeah, there were a number of things that surprised me and that I loved. I have to say overall, I loved everything. I found the simplicity and the hominess, it came across on the table. It felt like you were going to an older person's home, someone who had been cooking for decades. That was what the meal experience was like. But my friend Adelaide made the sweet potato pie, and I have had many sweet potato pies. This was by far the best sweet potato pie I've ever had.

Speaker 2:
[05:59] Why?

Speaker 1:
[06:00] The flavors. It really was about the flavor, the texture. Now sweet potato pie is a little less liquidy and watery than a pumpkin pie, but it definitely is in the same flavor territory. The exact level of spices. It wasn't too spicy. It wasn't too cinnamony or nutmeg-y, but there was a hint of something. It wasn't too sweet. It wasn't too rich. It was just a light, sweet, subtly spiced sweet potato pie. And then Adelaide made the most perfect whipped cream, not over-whipped, not too sweet topping, just dolloped on, and it was just lovely. And I am definitely making that for Thanksgiving this year. It is better than any pumpkin pie I've ever had.

Speaker 2:
[06:39] Wow, just that's such a throwdown. Like you're already willing to commit to that. Yeah. How did your Parker House rolls turn out? Were they so fluffy and delicious? I mean, I love Parker House roll.

Speaker 1:
[06:49] It's so interesting because the Parker House rolls, like I said, the recipe really was missing some details. And I felt fortunate that I've made Parker House rolls from other recipes before. But for instance, the rate, I was really curious about the flour that she used in the 70s, because the recipes often would say flour, but it wouldn't specify all-purpose or bread flour or bleach or unbleach, the way modern recipes do. So this recipe said four cups flour to two cups milk. That's a pretty high ratio of liquid. And so when I combined those two things, it was like pancake batter. I was like, you can't need this dough. So I ended up having to add more flour and I made rolls, so I know not to add too much flour. So they did come out light and fluffy, but I don't know that it's the recipe I would use again. Having said that, my friend Liz made spoon bread, kind of cornbread in a cast iron skillet that I will 100% make again. And it really was almost a souffle-like version of cornbread.

Speaker 2:
[07:50] I was gonna say, it's more of like a casserole than it is like a bread, right? A spoon bread is, it's almost like a, it's like a tight casserole.

Speaker 1:
[07:58] Yes, it really is. That's something I'm 100% gonna make again. I made one of the simpler dishes as well. In addition to the Parker House rolls, it was called like a Grand Rapids and Romaine salad, very simple salad with one really interesting detail. There's no oil. She says in her headnotes, this salad, you don't add any oil to the dressing so that you can dress it in advance and it won't wilt as quickly. And I found that very fascinating. So it's like really crisp lettuce of spring. It's a spring recipe. And then you make the most basic dressing of just white vinegar, sugar, salt and pepper. I'm pretty sure that's all there is in it. And there are quite a few recipes that had sugar, which also I feel like a modern cookbook would resist. And there were quite a few recipes that had white vinegar. And I thought, okay, that's another thing we don't see a ton of except for in pickles. And everybody loved this salad, especially on a table of rich Southern dishes. The vinegary light salad with those crisp cold leaves, it really brightened the plate up. It added that note of freshness and acidity that you're wanting with your spoon bread and your corn casserole. I have to tell you about another dish. Blew my mind. So Young made something called a chicken ring mold.

Speaker 2:
[09:14] Wait, is this like a jello mold kind of situation? That's what it makes me think about. A chicken ring mold?

Speaker 1:
[09:20] Yes, it uses a springform pan, which she did not own. So she specially bought a springform pan.

Speaker 2:
[09:27] She probably could have just borrowed a pan from one of you guys, right? I mean, she could have borrowed a pan from me.

Speaker 1:
[09:32] I think she wanted to own a springform pan. I think she looked at this recipe.

Speaker 2:
[09:36] It was permission. Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[09:37] A lot of people, when she came forward with this recipe, I have to describe it to you and I'm going to post pictures so people can see. I'll post it on her Instagram Food Friends pod. So it's like a chicken bake, a chicken casserole where the chicken is almost shredded and combined with some other creamy elements and then it gets topped with a creamy morel mushroom sauce and it gets garnished with fresh watercress and it really feels like something from the 70s. Lots of people in the group noticed that recipe and were like, whoa, that's a recipe and she bravely was like, I'm tackling this recipe. She doesn't work in food. She's a real just home cook, but she just really wanted this ambitious challenge. The morel topping, first of all, what a luxury to have someone go and buy morel mushrooms. They're in season in the spring, but they're so fleeting. They're like a delicacy. And I just thought it was so generous of her, not just to make an ambitious recipe, but to make it with very special spring ingredients. It was a real showstopper. Now, would I ever make it? I don't think so because it's certainly one of the fussiest things in the book, but I was so happy to try it.

Speaker 2:
[10:45] This is true for, I imagine, every cookbook club because you're really focusing on the voice and the taste of one author, of one food writer. But when you have a table of a lot of beautiful, rich, southern dishes, and then there's this salad that doesn't have any oil, that it's like has that crispness, you're really getting that balance that is one person's perspective, right? This idea that like a few dishes had some sugar in it, which is something that modern developers are not using as much, especially in savory dishes, or they're saying, use coconut sugar or use honey or whatever, whatever those things are, that tastes have changed. But when a cookbook is published this many years ago, this is a snapshot of a time when things were different. You're kind of honoring that as a group by putting that all in one table and talking about it.

Speaker 1:
[11:33] That is the point of Cookbook Club. That is exactly what you described as the point. You not only hear the author's voice, you can be transported to time and place. That was true of the Zuni Cafe Cookbook. We all have this feeling like we're in the 90s in Northern California. There's just another thing I have to call out, which is Adrian made this Melty Cabbage. Well, I don't think it was called Melty Cabbage. It was a cabbage dish that's like a braised cabbage. But in the recipe, it said, cook it for 25 minutes and not a minute longer. Otherwise, the cabbage will change flavor. I read that recipe before Adrian made it, and I clocked that and I was like, how interesting.

Speaker 2:
[12:11] That's so specific.

Speaker 1:
[12:13] Adrian brought it to us and says, I don't know about this. My every instinct wanted to cook this cabbage longer. I think that's also a modern instinct. I agree with Adrian. I would have the same instinct because we're used to melty cabbage. But this non-melty braised cabbage that Adrian brought was so delicious and it was like she was right. It had a different flavor than a long-cooked cabbage.

Speaker 2:
[12:38] Just how interesting and also those kind of recipe notes. This is how you cook cabbage, got passed down from cook to cook to cook. Those notes just became part of how you made a recipe. Now, the common thinking is you're really going to braise the melty cabbage to have the antithesis of that is also really interesting.

Speaker 1:
[13:00] The last thing I'll say about what was made was, a lot of the recipes called for lard. I don't really cook with any pork products. Actually, a number of people there also don't eat pork. But what was interesting is, my friend Adelaide for the sweet potato pie was like, Sonya, do you know where I can get leaf lard? It was a specific kind of lard. I was like, I have no idea because I don't ever use lard. She ended up using just butter, which of course you can use in place of lard in many dishes. But then when we were all together and she mentioned she had this trouble tracking down this ingredient, Amanda, our friend, happens to be connected to a ranch that raises animals. And so she had actually exactly the kinds of lard needed from this book. And so it was sweet to see this old way of cooking and who has connections to what. There was one last very specific ingredient that Edna Lewis uses a lot, that we all had the hardest time sourcing, which was chervil, the herb chervil. Do you ever use that?

Speaker 2:
[13:57] If I find it, I usually grab it because I really like it. It's very frilly and I like the flavor of chervil, but only when I see it every once in a while at the farmer's market.

Speaker 1:
[14:07] There were three of us who had recipes with chervil, including me. I stupidly saw it at the farmer's market and I just forgot to buy it, even though I never see it there and it happened to be there this very weekend. Ethan, his wife is a master gardener. He's the cook in the family, but she's the gardener. She put a Facebook post to her gardening group, was like, does anyone have chervil? It ended up being just one nursery had a plant. Tara sent her husband to go find chervil. No one could find chervil and there were just several dishes that you were meant to use it in. For me, it was a sliced cucumber salad. For Ethan, it was a beet salad. For Tara, she made a green bean and tomato dish, the call for chervil. You're not always going to find something when you're testing a recipe and that's okay. It all worked out, but it was a delight.

Speaker 2:
[14:57] You're just describing such a beautiful communal experience. It's a potluck. You're all bringing something. You're really honoring someone's vision. You're all helping each other, even source all these items. There's so many points of connection here beyond just the tasting of the food.

Speaker 1:
[15:12] And it's kind of fun to have it be just real home cooks, not because I work in food. So this always feels connected to my work. So I love hearing the perspective of people who don't. And they're experiencing a cookbook truly from just like someone who wants to cook for their family. But if you've ever been curious about Edna Lewis, I already love this book. This is one of those books I pick up to read for fun. I usually pick it up in the spring. But I think this is worthy of everyone having in their collection and trying out, especially, like I said, the sweet potato pie. It's worth it for that alone.

Speaker 2:
[15:45] Yeah, I mean, I make her biscuits. I love her biscuit recipe. I think it's so fantastic. And anytime that we're going to have biscuits and gravy, which is usually around the holidays, I will always pull out that book to make her biscuits. So this is a great reminder that there's so many other great things to discover in her book as well.

Speaker 1:
[16:02] Absolutely. Well, Kari, what was your best bite of the week?

Speaker 2:
[16:05] Well, Sonya, as you know, I also had a really big food week. My family participated in a chili cook-off for my son's school. And this is a ritual in our community that's been going on for many years. I think this is the third time that our family has participated in the chili cook-off. And I have cooked your chili, turkey chili, and gone in with a lot of confidence about your turkey chili. And I think what I've realized is that at a chili cook-off, classic, comforting flavor that I want in a chili is not what stands out when people are voting.

Speaker 1:
[16:41] It's not going to cut it in a competition. But that doesn't mean that it's not worth making. But I almost want to say to you, don't make my chili go rogue.

Speaker 2:
[16:50] Yeah, and I will say, what I ended up doing was I did make some tweaks. But I still wanted that classic chili flavor. Because I also think there's something comforting about what chili is. As you know, our family traveled to Venice, Italy over spring break. We came home and I was sort of hit with this email that was like, okay, what's the name of your chili? And I was like, oh God, I don't know. I don't even know what I'm making. And so one of the things that we did when we were in Venice was we learned how to make a bolognese and we learned how to make pasta at a woman's apartment. She was born and raised in Venice. Her whole family lives in Venice and it's not really a cooking school. It's her apartment. You just go and cook a meal with her. What a dream, Kari. It was truly my favorite thing that we did. We sort of did it at the end of our trip. I wish that we had done it at the beginning because I found it to be so grounding to be in someone's home, to cook a meal. She is not a cook by trade. She's actually a psychologist and she was just such a great instructor. She really was so great at helping guide Mac. In a way, it was very similar to your Cookbook Club, like this shared experience of the three of us cooking together. So I let her bolognese recipe kind of lead my idea of what I wanted this chili to be. And her bolognese recipe calls for ground beef and Italian sausage. So those were the two proteins that I put into my chili.

Speaker 1:
[18:12] But I think a little different Italian sausage is not what you think of in a chili.

Speaker 2:
[18:16] It's not. And also her bolognese was very herb heavy. She simmered a ton of sage and bay leaves while once you put the tomatoes in, you simmered that for a long time. And then at the end, she put in a ton of rosemary, which I was like, oh, God, I don't know if I'm going to like this. I mean, it was one of the best bolognese I've ever had. There was also no dairy in it. I just really kind of used that as a bit of a template while also kind of following your template of how to make a really classic chili. The Venetian ingredient, though, that I added was anchovies, which I think is a great way to start a chili because it has that salty umami base. I will cut to the end, which is that my chili did not place, which I'm fine with. I was really proud of what we put forward and I will make this chili again. And a lot of people seem to really love my chili. I was next to the winner. There were three of us at my table. The two guys that I was with were one first and second.

Speaker 1:
[19:11] I want to know what wins a chili cook off, or at least in your community.

Speaker 2:
[19:15] Well, what won the chili cook off this year was a white bean chicken chili.

Speaker 1:
[19:20] Did that win last year, too?

Speaker 2:
[19:22] No, no, no. It didn't win. That was my favorite one last year. And I think one of the reasons why he didn't win was because he didn't make enough. He ran out of samples, but his was my favorite. He has two kids in the school. Husband and wife did it together, but the husband is the one who serves everything. His name is Russell. And every time I would see Russell, I would just say, now remember, you have to make more chili. You will win if you make a bigger pot of chili.

Speaker 1:
[19:48] I need to understand the chili more. What made his white bean chicken chili special from other white bean chicken chilies that we've had?

Speaker 2:
[19:56] Honestly, number one, it was the flavor. He actually published the recipe and had a QR code. And I just forgot to... I'm going to get the recipe from him.

Speaker 1:
[20:05] You can text him.

Speaker 2:
[20:06] I want to know what... He did mention at one point there were three chickens worth of chicken. In his recipe, there was a ton of spinach. And then when he went to serve, it was really one of those maximalist servings. It was like avocado, lime, chili, a little bit of hot sauce. There was like a couple of chips in there. And there were a couple of people who also had the chips, the Fritos, the sour cream.

Speaker 1:
[20:29] What was the runner up chili?

Speaker 2:
[20:31] So the runner up chili was a dad in my class. His name is Win. And he was joking that he was going to win because of his name. But his was a short rib chili. The flavor was incredible. And he served it with a little bit of sour cream, I think a little bit of cheese and then with Fritos. That really pushes you into the next level of something crunchy, salty, corny.

Speaker 1:
[20:53] I think the flavor of Fritos in particular, because actually I make a version of my chili with beef for my clients all the time. It's one of their favorite dishes, especially for the teenager. And I have to buy Fritos. I think for some people that just is synonymous with chili.

Speaker 2:
[21:07] I completely agree with you.

Speaker 1:
[21:08] OK, Kari, I think before next year, you have to workshop this with me. We have to have a conversation.

Speaker 2:
[21:14] You have some hard takes on what I should be doing for my chili cook-off.

Speaker 1:
[21:18] No, not at all. I'm receiving the feedback after hearing about the chili cook-off for three years in a row, and that you're not placing, and I know your skills. I also know that the recipe that you're starting with is a great chili recipe. But we've learned now in competition, you can't just make a great classic chili. It sounds like the thing that defines all these winners, it's a little out of the norm. It's short ribs, it's white bean, it's something different. I think you and I could put our heads together and think of a different direction for chili, but that highlights flavor profiles you already excel at. There's things that are coming to me like, what if Kari did a version with charred poblano peppers? Because you love a charred poblano pepper.

Speaker 2:
[22:01] Yeah, or like a hatch chili. I love a hatch chili too.

Speaker 1:
[22:03] Or a hatch chili. Maybe you need to go in the white bean direction, but not do chicken. You and I could think about this and maybe put our heads together.

Speaker 2:
[22:12] Well, I will say I did forget one piece to share about the way we served our chili, which we did as a chili mac. So I had macaroni and I put a little bit of macaroni in the bottom of the container. And then I shaved a little bit of, I was looking to use a young parmesan, but I ended up finding a young pecorino which melts a little bit better. So I added that and then I put the chili on top. It mixed around a little bit.

Speaker 1:
[22:36] You're giving me inspired. I think next year need to embrace macaroni, not go Italian, not go in my direction. I think you need to go to your roots, your Midwestern roots. I think there may be a kind of casserole element to this. I think if you made a really good mac and cheese that got topped with chili.

Speaker 2:
[22:56] Yes.

Speaker 1:
[22:57] And maybe it's like a chili con carne, not a bean chili, and you're doing like a really smoky, all meat chili. Let's talk about it. Let's workshop it.

Speaker 2:
[23:07] We've got a whole year.

Speaker 1:
[23:08] I don't think you have to be different than you are. I'm sure it tasted delicious, but I think we can get you in the winner circle.

Speaker 2:
[23:14] Well, I just have to say, it was such a fun event. It just really showed such a range of chilies. I think that's part of the joy of chili, is there's such a vast experience you could have.

Speaker 1:
[23:25] And so many people have such hard takes on it. So it's really fun that you're in an environment where chili can mean so many different things.

Speaker 2:
[23:33] Totally. Well, Sonya, this has been so fun.

Speaker 1:
[23:35] Until next time.

Speaker 2:
[23:37] Bye.

Speaker 1:
[23:37] Bye.

Speaker 2:
[23:38] Thanks for being our food friend.

Speaker 1:
[23:40] If you enjoyed our podcast, please subscribe, leave us a review and share this episode with friends. We love hearing from you. So follow us on Instagram or drop us a line at foodfriendspodcast.com.

Speaker 2:
[23:54] Yes, we'd love to hear from you and your food friends. Happy cooking and eating.