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Speaker 2:
[01:08] Learn more at betterment.com/tlh-terms. I'm Francis Lam and this is The Splendid Table from APM. So it was seemingly only moments ago when it was 45 degrees in Chile here where I live. And right now it is 85 and humid. You know, maybe that's just the weather changing. Or maybe it's because you're gonna hear me talk in a few minutes with the chef, Ralston Williams, author of The Caribbean Cookbook, whose voice and philosophy of food are so grounding, you'll feel as rooted and refreshed as if you've just spent an hour in the sun with him. But before we hear from him, we're gonna hear from you. It's been a minute, so we wanted to catch up on some of your cooking questions. And to help me staff the phone, we invited the internet's favorite meatball, Dan Pelosi, also known as Grossy Pelosi, which is really just a joke.

Speaker 5:
[02:09] He's very well-kempt.

Speaker 2:
[02:11] Dan is a two-time New York Times best-selling cookbook author, and his latest book is Let's Party. Dan Pelosi, thank you for coming into the studio.

Speaker 6:
[02:20] Thank you for having me.

Speaker 2:
[02:21] It is great to see you.

Speaker 6:
[02:22] You too.

Speaker 2:
[02:23] So your latest book is Let's Party.

Speaker 6:
[02:26] Yes.

Speaker 2:
[02:27] It's funny because you always look like you're ready to party. I am. Even though your standard condition is like, I want to be at home in my bathrobe.

Speaker 6:
[02:35] But that's a party. That's the whole point of my book. Because let's talk about what my kind of party is.

Speaker 2:
[02:41] When we're at home with the bathroom. That's a different show. Yeah. Let's talk about what happens when there's food involved as well.

Speaker 6:
[02:48] Yeah, of course. Well, there's food in a bathrobe. Okay, well, I'll drop the bathroom.

Speaker 2:
[02:53] Not right now.

Speaker 6:
[02:54] Yeah. Oh my gosh.

Speaker 2:
[02:55] Okay. So the party cookbook is organized by menus.

Speaker 6:
[03:00] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[03:00] And like your number one tip for hosting a party is to write a menu.

Speaker 6:
[03:06] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[03:06] Which sounds I think immediately to people, oh my God, that sounds so fussy. But tell us why this is your number one tip.

Speaker 6:
[03:11] Well, it's from a lot of conditioning. And I've found myself as an adult to just be the natural host. I can pull a party out of my pocket at any time. And I really had to stop and think about why that was. And it's because growing up in an Italian American, Portuguese American family, we didn't leave the house unless we knew what was going to be on the table at the house we came to and vice versa. So we're talking about lunch at breakfast, we're talking about dinner at lunch. So there was just so much talk about food and the expectation around food and what you were walking into. And so that didn't really click to me until I left my nest and moved across country to San Francisco in my early 20s. And I would get invited to parties or dinner parties and I would found myself having a level of anxiety that I wasn't familiar with. Until I went to my friend Juanita Moore's house, who's a famous drag queen in San Francisco. And she took the care to post the menu of the night on the wall in her kitchen. And so as soon as I saw that menu and knew what was coming, I was like, like calm. One, because I'm constantly hungry and I'm nervous there's not going to be enough food. In fact, my sister and I joke that we still sometimes eat before we go to someone's house because we just don't know what you're walking into. But you know, after cooking a lot with Juanita and hearing her explanation, it was really to help her pace the evening as well. And I often, or I try to as much as possible, invite people to my house and tell them what the menu will be. I feel like it's a way to make them feel protected and cared for. And also for me to know what I'm getting into. And so that's kind of like why the whole book is kind of focused on the menus and why I think that once you have that going, someone can do the music, someone can bring drinks, maybe someone brings a board game, but you're coming into a person's home as the host and the menu can really sort of center the party and the people.

Speaker 2:
[05:10] And obviously like organizing. Again, like I think people get so almost put off by the idea like, oh, if I'm organizing, then it's going to be hard. But actually the whole point of organizing yourself is to make it not hard.

Speaker 6:
[05:22] To make it not hard. I'm cooking like four days out for a party, like making dressings, making sauces, making desserts, like and in the book has a whole like three days before what to do. And I also think like the number, I get a lot of questions in my little Instagram corner of the world and people always want to know, I'll like be like new recipe. And they're like, what do I serve with that? Like people, the mixing and the matching is really hard and knowing that you're going to have enough food. And so the hardest part of the book was really coming up with recipes that were like doable, something you had a cook ahead element for the most part. And that they all felt like they belonged to the table together, which is kind of challenging for people.

Speaker 2:
[06:00] Yeah. So the book again is organized around these menus. So you just page 15 to 25, and you got this great dinner. But for those of us who would just want to know this idea and have this almost become intuitive, how do you write a good menu? And I don't mean like, oh, what will pair with what necessarily from a fancy, smancy taste profile perspective. But for you as a host and a cook, how do you write a menu that's doable and will make sense?

Speaker 6:
[06:32] Absolutely. I mean, I think I always think about who's coming. What vibe I want to be like, I have an award season Super Bowl sports watching menu where the dessert is just so heavy and gorgeous and delicious. It's a caramelized banana pudding. So much like a game, if I want to get people to the finish line and still be hungry, we're going to have lighter food so that I can lead to the dessert. If my dessert is something really easy, like in the tomato theme chapter, I just have a tomato granita, which is light and refreshing, I can really go hard on the rest of the meal. So there's just the energy and the craft of when the food goes down, how you want people to interact with it, and then how far along the journey are you going to keep feeding them? When do you pull back? When do you add more? I just think that gets me just really, really excited.

Speaker 2:
[07:26] A lot of what I'm hearing too is thinking about what is the centerpiece, and then just kind of like what else goes with that.

Speaker 6:
[07:33] Totally.

Speaker 2:
[07:34] And earlier you said, oh, like you can prepare things in advance, like a dressing and then a salad, and you can make that several days before you don't have to like stress about doing it all at the last minute.

Speaker 6:
[07:44] Like the chocolate cream pie, you could make that like three days ahead and you just pull it out of the fridge. Like, you know, it's also like, how is that? How do I get everything to the table warm? And I'm like, you don't. Some stuff's from temperature. Maybe something's cold. Maybe one or two things is like piping hot out of the oven. But you just really drop all the expectations that you think should be happening. And that's what I kind of wanted to give people sort of like my my sort of like very simple. Like, I think when you read my book, you're kind of like, oh, that makes sense. You're not like, oh, that sounds hard. I'll never do that. Hopefully it's just like, oh, that doesn't make sense. Okay, cool. Thanks. You know, okay.

Speaker 2:
[08:19] I know we have a caller waiting to talk to you. So let's go to Andrea.

Speaker 6:
[08:25] Hello.

Speaker 7:
[08:26] Hi.

Speaker 8:
[08:27] Hi.

Speaker 2:
[08:29] Great to meet you. Did I say your name correctly?

Speaker 8:
[08:31] It's Andrea.

Speaker 2:
[08:32] Andrea. Okay, sorry.

Speaker 6:
[08:33] Hi, Andrea. Hi.

Speaker 8:
[08:35] How are you both doing?

Speaker 2:
[08:36] We're great. What do you want to talk about?

Speaker 6:
[08:39] Yeah.

Speaker 8:
[08:39] So, Dan, big fan. But I'm wondering if you had to explain who you are to a stranger through a homemade three-course meal, what would it be?

Speaker 6:
[08:52] Oh my gosh. I love this so much. This is going to be considered-

Speaker 2:
[08:57] First of all, the stranger. Why are you in my home?

Speaker 6:
[08:59] Yeah. I mean, it happens a lot. Francis, don't kink shame me. I think this is going to be so predictable. I'm so sorry. But I think the first- I love- I'm such an American chain restaurant person. So I would want a spinach and artichoke dip or mozzarella sticks. Like mozzarella sticks, there's mozzarella and carozo, which is in my first book, Let's Eat, that I would definitely want.

Speaker 2:
[09:30] Tell us about that one.

Speaker 6:
[09:31] That one? Okay, so you take-

Speaker 2:
[09:33] Mozzarella and carozo.

Speaker 6:
[09:33] You take- so the traditional mozzarella and carozo is basically like a fried grilled cheese. This recipe, you take skewers of like bread, like chunks of bread and chunks of mozzarella and you like skewer them, and then you dip them in like a seltzer-based batter and you fry them, and then you make an anchovy butter. Yes. So you melt anchovies into butter and then you pull these fried skewers of mozzarella and bread out of the hot oil, and you drizzle them in anchovy butter and they are so delicious. They're so good. Actually, I think The Times is going to adapt them soon, I'm hoping. I presented it to them and I was like, this needs more attention. But they were inspired by Pizzeria Delfina in San Francisco. Everything comes from a memory, that's like as most great food does, it brings you back to a time and a place. So that's the appetizer. The entree is like-

Speaker 2:
[10:26] You're expected to eat food after that, go on please.

Speaker 6:
[10:28] Oh yeah, you're just getting warmed up. Okay. Then we're going to have my meatballs, my classic meatballs and marinara with spaghetti. They've got raisins in them, they've got mint, they're huge, they're like the size of a softball. They're so good. They sweeten the sauce, delicious. You knew that Andre already. You were like, this is going to be a meatball. I know you knew that. And then finally, I've been really loving just a simple fruit and something creamy, like a zabayon would be so good with berries. That'd be delicious. Or even just really good whipped cream and berries. Yummy.

Speaker 2:
[11:10] Well, tell us what a zabayon is.

Speaker 6:
[11:12] Zabayon is eggs, sugar, a little liqueur, and it's beaten until it's like fluffy and thick and creamy. You do it over a double boiler, at least that's what I do. I remember this. Yeah, you do. Lady Gaga doesn't remember all of her songs.

Speaker 2:
[11:31] Yeah, it's fine.

Speaker 6:
[11:33] Maybe she does. And then you get it and you just kind of, and it gets to these like gorgeous ribbons. And then you can serve it warm or chilled. And it's like, it's like custard, but it's very eggy and it has a little bit of liqueur in it. It's so good. I put a little whipped cream just to like give it a little extra oomph. Just a little oomph. The Italian American. But they have it, like they have it at Via Crota. It's delicious. And then you just serve it with berries. And that's something you can make way in advance. It's so good. I made it once for my, the ladies from my local library upstate. They came over for lunch.

Speaker 2:
[12:07] Oh, that's so awesome.

Speaker 6:
[12:08] For a charity thing. And I taught them how to make it and they had so much fun. They're so cute.

Speaker 2:
[12:13] If a stranger is in your home and you're suddenly cooking for them, to be the local librarian is an amazing situation.

Speaker 6:
[12:18] They were so great. So that's it. That's who I am to a stranger. I hope that was a good answer.

Speaker 8:
[12:23] I love it.

Speaker 6:
[12:24] Thank you. Do you feel like you know me even more than before?

Speaker 8:
[12:27] A little bit more. And I think that your description of a meatloaf as just a large meatball is something that's stuck with me. And I make that meatloaf recipe regularly. So thank you for that, too.

Speaker 6:
[12:40] Oh, my gosh. That makes me so happy. One of my friends texted me last night and I had a million meatloaf questions. And I was like, this is the best, like most heated text you may have been on in a long time. It is a big meatball.

Speaker 2:
[12:52] Andrea, what would you make for a stranger to show them who you are? Who are you? Who are you even? Why are you crying?

Speaker 6:
[12:59] Let's find out.

Speaker 8:
[12:59] Great question. I mean, in this parasocial world, I can be anybody, right? I mean, you said Zabayonan. I haven't thought about Zabayonan years, but it's something that my dad used to make for me. So that's definitely a memory-rooted food. I also grew up with a lot of bolognese. So I think I would probably do a bolognese. My parents took me to Europe when I was 10 to see Switzerland, which is where my dad's from. I think at every gas station road stop, I had spaghetti bolognese regardless of the country that we were in. So yeah, that might be it. I'm not sure I'd start with a fried cheese, maybe a burrata with post peaches or something like that. I love a food starter.

Speaker 6:
[13:53] That's great. I love that. It is spring. That's a good one. Cool.

Speaker 8:
[13:58] Yeah. Thank you both so much.

Speaker 2:
[13:59] Well, thanks so much for the call.

Speaker 8:
[14:01] Of course.

Speaker 2:
[14:02] That was a pleasure.

Speaker 8:
[14:03] So fun.

Speaker 2:
[14:07] We'll be back in a minute with more of your cooking questions and Dan Pelosi, author of Let's Party. I'm Francis Lam and this is The Splendid Table from APM, American Public Media.

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Speaker 2:
[15:27] I'm Francis Lam, and this is The Splendid Table, the show for curious cooks and eaters. We're taking your calls right now with Dan Pelosi, author of Let's Party. And hey, if you ever want to ask us a question, we'd love to talk to you about it. Email us at contact at splendidtable.org or at SplendidTable on socials. We're here for you. Now, let's get back to it. So let's go to Lori. Hi, Lori.

Speaker 8:
[15:52] Hello. Hello.

Speaker 2:
[15:54] Hi, where are you calling from?

Speaker 11:
[15:56] Toledo, Ohio.

Speaker 2:
[15:57] Ah, home in the mud hens.

Speaker 11:
[15:59] Oh, yeah. A what?

Speaker 6:
[16:01] I'll ask later.

Speaker 2:
[16:04] Why I know that, I can't even really tell you, but the Toledo mud hens really have a lot of real estate in my head. Lori, how can we help you today?

Speaker 11:
[16:11] Well, I just had a question regarding substituting sour cream with yogurt. I do a lot of my own cooking and baking, and I like to use healthy ingredients. And I much prefer to use yogurt as opposed to sour cream and cooking and baking. And if it is interchangeable, what would the ratio be? Is it a one-to-one substitution? And would any other part of the recipe need altering? If I were to substitute yogurt?

Speaker 2:
[16:50] Oh, this is a great question.

Speaker 6:
[16:52] It is a really good question. I have a very sort of like sweeping answer. Hi, Laurie, it's Dan. So in my kitchen, it's absolutely acceptable to sub one-for-one, full fat Greek yogurt for sour cream. The only time that someone suggested doing this and I gasped and said, absolutely not, and this is a me thing. It does work. I just couldn't do it. Was using Greek yogurt with the Lipton's French onion soup packet for a potato chip dip.

Speaker 2:
[17:31] For French onion dip?

Speaker 6:
[17:32] For French onion dip.

Speaker 2:
[17:33] You won't allow that.

Speaker 6:
[17:34] I couldn't do it. I couldn't do it. So that's my boundary and I'm stating it. But otherwise, I hate to be so sort of just general, I think it's a one-to-one at all times. How do you feel, Francis?

Speaker 2:
[17:50] I would say, I would think that it probably works. What I would do though is I would take the Greek yogurt, put it in a bowl and whisk it slightly. So it loosens up a little bit.

Speaker 6:
[18:02] Yeah, that stiffness.

Speaker 2:
[18:03] Yeah, that stiffness. Because Greek yogurt, when you put your spoon in it, you put it in a bowl, it keeps the shape. I would want to whisk it a little bit so it just softens up a little bit. I think, yeah, you could use it for sour cream, like Dan said, one-to-one. I wouldn't necessarily guarantee they'll work in baking. It probably does in most cases, but because there is a difference in the protein and the protein structure, and maybe it'll make things a little bit firmer when you bake them. There might be some scientific thing happening there that I can't entirely account for. But yeah, I would say that switch is probably fine, substitutions are probably fine, and to your point, Lori, yogurt does have a lot more protein, it has a lot more nutrition maybe than sour cream on its own, and it has definitely a similar flavor.

Speaker 6:
[18:54] And I feel like for Lori, it sounds like it's more important to her to have the benefits of the yogurt than having, like if you lose 10% of the bake of a baked good or something, the quality, I think to me that's enough, like I would still use the yogurt. I use Greek yogurt as a substitute for something, like if I don't have buttermilk and I'm making pancakes, I use yogurt. I'm sort of willy-nilly about it, and it always ends up being like lovely because I believe in using what you love and using what you have and not going out to buy sour cream if half of it's going to go bad.

Speaker 2:
[19:30] And you have the yogurt in the fridge.

Speaker 6:
[19:31] And you have the yogurt, and if you're like me, you buy Greek yogurt at Costco and have like gallons of it. So yeah, I think you should run free through the land of Greek yogurt.

Speaker 9:
[19:42] Yeah, into the field.

Speaker 11:
[19:44] So good. Well, thank you. Now, I do have a question in terms of if I'm cooking with Greek yogurt, does the same hold true cooking with baking in terms of its versatility?

Speaker 6:
[20:00] I think even more so. I think even more so for me.

Speaker 2:
[20:03] Yeah.

Speaker 6:
[20:04] Because typically, you're using it and sort of it's not, you're not overly heating it or, you know, in a sauce or dressing. Yeah. So I think absolutely.

Speaker 2:
[20:14] Except for French onion dip.

Speaker 6:
[20:17] French onion dip.

Speaker 11:
[20:20] I don't make dip.

Speaker 6:
[20:21] All right. Well, we're not the same kind of gal. But that's just a note.

Speaker 11:
[20:25] Nonetheless.

Speaker 6:
[20:26] Enjoy, Laurie.

Speaker 11:
[20:26] No. Thank you so much. I appreciate your time.

Speaker 2:
[20:31] No, it's a pleasure. Thanks for the call. Okay. We have Raisa on the line.

Speaker 6:
[20:36] Hey, Raisa. Hi, Raisa.

Speaker 12:
[20:38] Hello. I'm calling from Toronto.

Speaker 2:
[20:41] Hi. Great.

Speaker 12:
[20:42] I am a long-time listener, Francis, and I have a question for you about a block of tinned foie gras that I received as a gift from friends that went to Paris.

Speaker 2:
[20:51] Okay. What's your question?

Speaker 12:
[20:56] I don't know what to do with it.

Speaker 2:
[21:01] Yeah.

Speaker 6:
[21:01] Hi, Rae.

Speaker 2:
[21:01] Well, first of all, did you write the thank you note?

Speaker 12:
[21:03] I did, and I baked them home-baked cookies to thank them.

Speaker 2:
[21:06] Oh my goodness. That is really sweet.

Speaker 6:
[21:08] So did you put the foie gras in the cookie, or did you make sandwich cookies with the foie gras in the middle?

Speaker 2:
[21:13] No, it's really to give the person the gift back.

Speaker 12:
[21:15] The person is under glass on my counter.

Speaker 6:
[21:22] I've never eaten it, unfortunately. So I'm very unhelpful. I love the romanticizing of it, but I have never eaten it. Have you?

Speaker 2:
[21:31] You've never eaten foie gras?

Speaker 6:
[21:33] No, I haven't. If it's not available at your local supermarket, I just don't.

Speaker 2:
[21:40] It's not your jam.

Speaker 6:
[21:41] It's not even not my jam. I'm such a supermarket girly. I don't know.

Speaker 2:
[21:46] Well, apparently in a Parisian supermarket, you can find cans of it.

Speaker 6:
[21:49] Well, yeah. If I lived in Paris, I'm sure I'd be putting in my smoothie.

Speaker 11:
[21:52] But what about you?

Speaker 6:
[21:55] This is on you, Francis.

Speaker 2:
[21:57] Okay. Well, Risa, I have to- I'm sorry. Did I say your name correctly? Raissa?

Speaker 12:
[22:02] Yes, like rye whiskey.

Speaker 2:
[22:03] Okay, great. I like that. Go after my own heart even though I don't drink. If I did drink, I would drink rye though.

Speaker 6:
[22:09] That's rye bread, which I love.

Speaker 2:
[22:11] Also beautiful. I would say- Okay, so first of all, I think elephant in the room, foie gras, it's a controversial food. I would say I don't eat a lot of it. I'm not telling people to eat it or to not eat it. I guess I will say this though. I once worked for a chef who could not be more conscientious about the ingredients that came to the restaurant, could not be more conscientious about sustainability. He had foie gras on the menu. There were people who would protest outside the restaurant constantly. Eventually, he was like, okay, I hear you. He took it off the menu. But then internally, we would talk about it and he would say, they're talking about how it's wrong to eat foie gras because of the animal rights and how there's a belief that these ducks are being treated inhumanely. He's like, I personally think that that's not as conclusive as we think it is. But then people go out and eat industrial meat, industrial chicken, and we know those animals are being treated incredibly poorly. So anyway, there are a lot of different views on the subject. I feel like we should just say that. I would also say that I once was in Paris and I bought myself a tin of foie gras, and I brought it home, and I didn't know what to do with it. It sat in my cabinet for so long that sometime literally last year, and I was in Paris probably 15 years ago, literally last year my wife was like, do you think we should still have this?

Speaker 6:
[23:47] What?

Speaker 2:
[23:48] I was like, no.

Speaker 6:
[23:49] Is it shelf stable?

Speaker 2:
[23:50] It is, but I think for a certain amount of time, canned goods do have a best buy date. And this is not useful, but I was like, now I'm afraid of it because it's been around for so long. I don't know if it's safe to eat anymore. It was like years after the expiration date, and I threw it out.

Speaker 6:
[24:06] I think this is such a tough gift to receive. Like it's a hard one. We've been no help.

Speaker 2:
[24:15] Yeah. But I guess I will say this, despite the fact that I don't know what to do with it. I'm sure it was meant to be opened and served, maybe with some nice sweet wine, maybe with some crackers or bread to spread it on, some toast. And I would say the lesson for me was when you have nice stuff and you always want to keep the nice stuff special for that special occasion and you end up not using it. I have a pair of shoes that was like this beautiful pair of shoes I once also again bought on vacation. And I was like, I'm never in a place like nice enough to wear these shoes. And you know what, the shoes don't fit me anymore.

Speaker 11:
[24:56] Like my feet grew.

Speaker 6:
[24:57] You got to use it.

Speaker 2:
[25:00] Yeah, so my advice is use the nice stuff.

Speaker 6:
[25:03] I also think like as a recipe developer, someone who's always trying to come up with new ideas, oftentimes I have to just taste the ingredient to know what to do with it. So I think, you know, you sound like you're a food person, someone who appreciates good food, I think maybe just taking a bite. And then your brain might be flooded with ideas.

Speaker 12:
[25:23] Yeah.

Speaker 6:
[25:23] You know, I think the hard thing for me is I don't even know what it tastes like.

Speaker 12:
[25:26] Well, and I don't think you can, I think this is already prepared so I can't cook it, like I can't sear it, but I was going to treat it kind of like a pate.

Speaker 6:
[25:34] Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 2:
[25:36] Yeah, I say tonight or maybe this weekend.

Speaker 6:
[25:38] We need to call back Wefti you've done this. I want to know the part two.

Speaker 2:
[25:41] Yeah, get yourself some bread or toast or crackers. Get maybe a little bit of fruit.

Speaker 6:
[25:46] Go for it.

Speaker 2:
[25:47] Or some sweet wine if you like it. That's a classic pairing. Crack it open and taste it. You might need to salt it. I might think that maybe it's a little under-seasoned in the can. I don't know why I think that. I just have a suspicion.

Speaker 6:
[26:00] Interesting. Cool.

Speaker 2:
[26:02] But maybe some flaky salt on top.

Speaker 12:
[26:04] Put some nice Maldon salt on top and we'll try it this weekend.

Speaker 6:
[26:08] I'm ready to hear. Shoot us a message somehow.

Speaker 2:
[26:11] But use the nice stuff before your feet outgrow the shoes.

Speaker 12:
[26:17] Perfect. Well, thank you, boss. I really appreciate it.

Speaker 2:
[26:20] Thank you for the call.

Speaker 6:
[26:21] Thank you. Bye.

Speaker 2:
[26:22] Use the nice stuff now. Life is unpredictable. I'm trying to learn that lesson. That's why I keep saying it over and over and over again. I bought this beautiful pair of pants when I was last. I keep buying. The only time buying nice stuff is on vacation.

Speaker 6:
[26:34] At least we're not talking about your feet anymore. Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[26:38] I haven't worn the pants yet.

Speaker 6:
[26:39] That's why I always buy elastic waistbands because I go up and down pant size all the time. Because you never know depending on the season.

Speaker 2:
[26:45] Wear the nice elastic waistband pants now.

Speaker 6:
[26:50] Wear your best sweatpants.

Speaker 2:
[26:51] Well, Dan, this has been such a blast. Thanks for coming by and thanks for changing people's lives with me today.

Speaker 6:
[26:58] Oh, you're so welcome. I'm honored to be able to do that. Thanks for having me back. It was on once before and I've been welcome back and that just feels so lovely. So thank you.

Speaker 2:
[27:07] Like a good dinner party guest, you're always welcome back. Dan Pelosi is the author of two New York Times bestselling cookbooks, Let's Eat and Let's Party. He left us with a recipe for his roasted asparagus with Parmesan sauce. Put that sauce on anything. You can find it at splendidtable.org. So, I don't think he'll mind me telling you this, but when I first met our next guest, Rawlston Williams, he was on the phone years ago. A mutual friend had introduced us. Rawlston was busy running his restaurant and he'd been approached by a publisher to write a cookbook about the entire Caribbean.

Speaker 13:
[27:52] He wasn't really sure he should do it.

Speaker 2:
[27:54] Why me, he asked. Well, why not you, his editor simply asked him back. And that sent Rawlston down a path of memories of his growing up on St. Vincent and meeting untold numbers of cooks across the region and his neighbors in New York City, home to the largest Caribbean population outside of the Caribbean. What emerged five years later is a beautiful book, a true work of heart and soul, The Caribbean Cookbook. Rawlston Williams, thank you so much for joining us today.

Speaker 13:
[28:25] Thank you for having me.

Speaker 2:
[28:26] Congratulations on the book. It is beautiful.

Speaker 13:
[28:29] Thank you so much.

Speaker 2:
[28:30] And it's The Caribbean Cookbook. And you grew up in the Caribbean, specifically in St. Vincent, St. Vincent and the Grenadines.

Speaker 13:
[28:37] St. Vincent and the Grenadines, yes.

Speaker 2:
[28:39] Which is not the largest country in the Caribbean.

Speaker 13:
[28:41] No, it's not.

Speaker 2:
[28:42] And you wrote that you actually grew up in a vegetarian home.

Speaker 13:
[28:45] Yes.

Speaker 2:
[28:46] And you remember being a kid and smelling the fish and the meat and the chicken that your neighbors were cooking and wanting to taste it.

Speaker 13:
[28:54] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[28:54] So tell us, how did you get into cooking and how did you come to be a chef?

Speaker 13:
[29:00] That's a long winding road of disappointments and triumphs. But I can start from the beginning. You know, in the islands, most people dream about creating a better life for themselves. And so my mom came to the States to meet my dad back in 1980. At that time I was three. And so she left me with her really good friend, Gloria. And she came to the States with the idea that it would take a few months, maybe a year before she's able to come and get me. It took seven years. Oh wow. And so those seven years have totally shaped my perspective on everything I do. It's like the governor for my, it's that voice. Some people say they have, they hear their grandmother or they hear someone speaking to them. Those seven years are what speaks to me. I relive those years every day. So I can tell you a little bit about Gloria. Yeah, please do. What a wonderful woman she is. And she taught me how to serve, how to love, how to, I mean, we would schedule pillow fights and she would pick me wildflowers when she's very religious. So she'll do what's called Bible studies and she'll come back with like a dandelion or something and give it to me. We had a ton of fruit trees in the yard. We had mango trees and plum trees and coconut trees, two of them growing side by side. And one day she said to me, you got to pick one of these trees. And I was like, why? She said, every fruit that comes from that tree, you have to give it away. You have to give it to someone in the community. And so that was the grapefruit tree, which we often ignored. So the least favorite fruit was the one. Come to find out, it's one of those expensive grapefruits that you find in the States now. Everyone has to, yeah, it's just one of those.

Speaker 2:
[31:15] Luxury grapefruits.

Speaker 13:
[31:16] Yes, yes, yes. So after choosing the grapefruit tree, there's other things that I've learned. Auntie Gloria, we call her, she had what's called a rheumatoid arthritis. And so at five, six years old, it was really her arms and legs. So when she's stuck in bed, she's unable to come out, maybe her joints are swollen. She would yell ingredients down to me from the window. So we lived in this semi-A-frame home. Upper is wood, below is concrete, blocks. And to get to the kitchen, you have to walk outside of the staircases side of the home, go into the kitchen, which was in the back. So I would go, come to the front. She's up above. She will yell ingredients down to me. I'm running back and forth, really executing her instructions, whether I'm making stupis or making gluten, which is what you call now seitan. Yeah, because of how we grew up, we observed the Sabbath. We grew up seven in that manner, so had to observe the Sabbath. So everything had to be done by a certain point. Most of the cooking was done on a Friday. So Friday was often a glorious day when it comes to smelling of the baked bread and all that in the home. And so if we're making Sabbath lunch, I would be the one to make it most of the times, many of the times, because she was unable to do that. So imagine me back and forth cutting onions and dealing with tomatoes and stuff to make stew peas or burning sugar to what we call brown, the gluten after you've washed out all the starch and now you have that thing that looks like a brain per se. It does look like-

Speaker 2:
[33:13] Yeah. So the gluten is like the seitan is basically wheat gluten.

Speaker 13:
[33:16] Yes.

Speaker 2:
[33:17] You make a dough and then you wash the dough until all the starch comes out and it's just the protein, it's just the gluten protein. You use that as like a meat substitute.

Speaker 13:
[33:25] Yes.

Speaker 2:
[33:25] Yeah.

Speaker 13:
[33:25] And so, I mean, it's delicious, it depends on how you do it, but it wasn't meat and because of course as a child you're being- everyone is having animal protein so you, I mean, imagine St. Vincent, fish and chips, chicken and chips, I'm having seitan and chips. Right? No one would trade with me at school with that one, right? So, that being said, just like the music that- I didn't live too far from a disco, at that time we called it a disco. And just like the music, we weren't allowed to partake in that. But I can lay on my bed and I can hear the music on a Friday night or a Saturday night, I can hear all the rhythms and all of that. The same way I can smell the food of my neighbors. Whether it's Sean right across the way, I can tell if he's having saltfish, which is what you call like bakalao. I can smell that based on, I can tell you the range where it's the oil. Then you can smell the onions and the garlic hit in the pan. And then when the saltfish hits the pan, it's just that distinct smell of it, you know. Maybe it's across the other way, they're having stewed chicken. And you can smell the browning where you're browning sugar. And the sugar is caramelizing. And it's oil, the sugar, some people don't use oil, but it starts caramelizing. At that point, you'll add your marinated meats to it. And so you'll coat it with that sugar. It's a well choreographed dance because if you do it too early, you won't get the color. If you do it too late, it's going to have this burnt taste at the end. So you have to time it in the right way, but you can smell it. And if you burn it, it goes too far. You can smell that as well. Yeah. And so that's how I consumed those elements. Sometimes I would get a little taste. You know, like I'll get the gravy from my... Maybe I go by Eve's house and she'll have like a little bit. I'll taste, put a little bit of my tongue, taste a little bit. But then that would lend to being blackmailed or something for a month or something. It's the forbidden fruit. Hey, I'm going to tell that you had chicken gravy if you don't go to the store for me or something. You know what I mean?

Speaker 2:
[35:56] Ralwston Williams is the author of The Caribbean Cookbook. We'll be back with more with him in just a minute. I'm Francis Lam and this is The Splendid Table from American Public Media.

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[36:43] Anywhere.

Speaker 10:
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Speaker 10:
[36:48] Or relaxing sanctuaries like the Conrad in Touloume?

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Speaker 10:
[36:54] What about the five-star Waldorf Astoria in the Maldives? Are you going to do this for all 9,000 properties?

Speaker 14:
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Speaker 2:
[37:11] Hi, I'm Francis Lam, and this is The Splendid Table, the show for curious cooks and eaters. We're talking with Ralston Williams, author of the Caribbean Cookbook. Let's get back to it with him. Okay, so I love this because, you know, I interview a lot of chefs, and, you know, some of them learn how to cook from culinary school. You know, they knew they wanted to be a chef, and they enrolled in school, or some, oh, I got a restaurant job as a dishwasher, and yada, yada, yada. And I love that, of course, many people say, oh, I learned from my mother, my grandparents, whatever. And I love that what you're saying is, in part, it was this caregiver, this woman, Gloria, who raised you for seven years when you were a child. But really, it was also about you just being attuned to the world, smelling the smells and seeing the sights, and just being really curious about what was happening in your community and your neighbors. It was almost like you were fated to write this book.

Speaker 13:
[38:04] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[38:05] Because it's really just about you wanting to absorb.

Speaker 13:
[38:11] I spend a lot of time alone. Yeah. And so you have to use your imagination or try to... I took a lot of trips in my head. And so when it came to this book, at first I thought, maybe I'm not qualified. Maybe I need it to be this well-storied individual who really wants a cookbook. I never really dreamt of having a cookbook. It wasn't like a desire of mine when it wasn't...

Speaker 2:
[38:42] You fell into having like 400 recipes.

Speaker 13:
[38:45] Yeah. When I started the restaurant, I didn't even think about that. It was just about, well, not being a failure. You've tried so many other things. You've started and didn't really finish. I had this fragmented existence to a degree. You're trying to understand your purpose. I lost my dad at a young age and so my mom is single mom. Trying to navigate that and figure out there's a lot of trial and error. So having those seven years is like my pilot in some ways. Helped me to keep going even though you're not sure where you're going. Yeah, I often use this thing where I told you that house is an old house. So I'm not sure who did it. It seemed like it was like a DIY thing, but the light switch was in the middle of the room. So each time you went into the room, you have to walk through darkness before you turn on the light. Yeah. So that really is how I proceeded now with my life, even to, in this book is the discovery.

Speaker 4:
[40:06] First you fumble in the dark.

Speaker 13:
[40:08] Yeah. First you fumble in the dark, you try to figure out your way and that's how I was with the restaurant. Only thing with the restaurant what happened is that while fumbling, people show up and start writing reviews. Yeah. And it's one of those things where they show up uninvited. And it was something I think about. I didn't ask you. I started getting these write-ups and I'm like, how is this happening? Like the New York Times when they named us Best Place to Eat Chivoli in 2015, I didn't know what I was doing then. I had no clue. I was just trying to figure it out. And we were like the number one place and the next day, there's people lining up trying to come into the restaurant. You know what I did? What did you do? I closed and just went away. We just went away. Yeah, we were going to get trampled. We weren't ready. We were supposed to open at noon. We always open at like 2 or 3 because we were in there prepping, trying to figure stuff out. It was just me and my sous chef, Teresa. And there's a line of people outside ready to come in and trample us. So I was like, let's just close. Let's just get out of here and come back tomorrow. Wow. So we went away and came back and then, yeah, we did get trampled the next day as well, you know. And then you have people saying, hey, it's hotting here. And I told one person, and I'm pretty frank, I said, you're not really supposed to be here. You're complaining about it.

Speaker 2:
[41:33] This is supposed to be like a little chill neighborhood spot.

Speaker 13:
[41:35] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[41:36] Well, okay. Well, it does seem though that even though you have a sense of your boundaries like, okay, we're not going to get crushed today. We're just going to make sure this will not happen. You did not go halfway with the book.

Speaker 13:
[41:50] Right.

Speaker 2:
[41:50] There are, like I said, almost 400 recipes spanning almost 30 countries in the Caribbean. You collected these recipes through travel, through interviews, through cooking with cooks. Here in Brooklyn, which has the biggest Caribbean population outside of the Caribbean or in the countries. But I want to ask you, there's so much of Caribbean food that we think we might know from seeing in restaurants a few classic dishes like jerk chicken. I think a lot of people think of Jamaica and jerk chicken as a classic thing, or we'll think of rice and peas. But I thought it was so interesting that you start the book with a chapter not on these hits, not on appetizers or snacks, which a lot of people would do, just little small things. You start the book with a chapter on seasonings and marinades. Why? Why is that the first thing you want us to see?

Speaker 13:
[42:46] It's the foundation of Caribbean cooking. You need to, and by the way, this may be controversial, but you should wash your meat.

Speaker 2:
[43:00] We'll get to that later. We'll get to washing your meat.

Speaker 13:
[43:02] We'll get to washing the meat. But the foundational building of flavor comes from these like marinades or the peas or green seasoning and sofrito and all of that. You got to imagine you're getting the refused. You're getting the awfuls and the hooves. And sometimes it's not, there's no refrigeration. You know, it was like, you know, maybe it's on the way to going bad. And how do you make that taste good? How do you make it delicious? You start with the foundation of like adding like aromatics and so forth.

Speaker 2:
[43:47] Maybe with powerful seasoning.

Speaker 13:
[43:48] But I think sometimes the marinade is sometimes more important than the protein.

Speaker 2:
[43:54] Okay, let's talk about some of these. Certainly, you have a recipe for, you know, jerk spice, dry rub, scotch bonnets, allspice, you know, many different urban spices. I think a lot of people know that. But green seasoning. And green seasoning is something that exists in a lot of the cuisines around the Caribbean. You took one from your home country of St. Vincent. Tell us what green seasoning is for people who don't know.

Speaker 13:
[44:19] Green seasoning is basically what we call like green onions or scallions. You'll have that. You'll have what we call culantro, but we call it chateaubény.

Speaker 2:
[44:28] A cilantro-like herb, but like...

Speaker 13:
[44:30] Yeah, yeah, but it's like an intense cilantro. If you have that issue with the tasting like soap, with that one, you more likely wouldn't have that. Oh, interesting. But I find it very... I don't know what it is. It just tastes more elevated. That particular culantro, right? You have that. Some people add maybe scotch bonnets or then you'll have maybe celery leaves. Some people may put a little bit of mustard or some don't.

Speaker 2:
[45:04] Mustard like... Jard mustard or mustard greens?

Speaker 13:
[45:07] Yellow mustard, sorry. Onion and garlic, you just blend that up and that will be the foundational thing. Some people may not. It depends on the household. Each household does it differently. Yeah. And so, also time. Time is necessary. So you have the broadleaf thyme or what you would call, some people call it Cuban oregano. It has a little furry surface, almost broadleaf. And then you have the fine leaf thyme.

Speaker 2:
[45:33] And so two kinds.

Speaker 13:
[45:34] Two kinds. And all of those are...

Speaker 2:
[45:36] So herbal.

Speaker 13:
[45:37] Yes.

Speaker 2:
[45:38] And like so super aromatic.

Speaker 13:
[45:39] It's rich.

Speaker 2:
[45:39] So you puree it up.

Speaker 13:
[45:41] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[45:41] And it's almost like a paste. It's a little liquidy, right? And then as a marinade or do you use it to like... Do you cook with it? Like how do you actually use it?

Speaker 13:
[45:49] All of the above. So you can use it as a marinade, but for some reason when you use it as a marinade, and you can let it rest in it. The longer you let it rest, the more it soaks into the protein.

Speaker 2:
[46:01] Sure, sure.

Speaker 13:
[46:02] But you're always going to put a little more into the pot when you're cooking it as well. I mean, you can even put it in if you're making rice. It's just that. And most people can tell if you didn't do it. You're like, you're missing, you know, you often say...

Speaker 2:
[46:19] You don't want to catch those comments.

Speaker 13:
[46:20] Yeah, they often say, this tastes fresh. So if you say something tastes fresh in Caribbean, it means like it didn't have, you didn't marinate it. In the States, it's like, this tastes fresh, that's good.

Speaker 2:
[46:32] Oh, that's great.

Speaker 13:
[46:32] Oh, this is fresh.

Speaker 2:
[46:33] Like you didn't do enough to it.

Speaker 13:
[46:34] Yeah, you didn't let it marinate long enough.

Speaker 2:
[46:37] You did not do enough.

Speaker 13:
[46:38] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2:
[46:39] Oh, my God. I love that. So that's green seasoning and like, I first learned of green seasoning from a Trinidadian cook.

Speaker 13:
[46:46] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[46:47] And so like, but I didn't know about the, you can always add a little more during the cooking, during the, I love that. So you get layers of that flavor.

Speaker 13:
[46:56] And then, I forgot something. You can actually, some people put a little bit of oil, some people put a little bit of vinegar. It could be on a citrus note as well. A little bit of sour orange and all of that, so.

Speaker 2:
[47:11] Okay, so you mentioned citrus and earlier you talked about washing the meat. So before you marinate, tell us about this technique. Because this is something that, there's a real divide between people who like, believe in washing meat and people who don't believe in washing meat. And so tell us your...

Speaker 13:
[47:26] It depends on your definition of washing, right?

Speaker 2:
[47:28] First of all, okay, we have to say, no one means soap. I've seen people like put dish soap on, I'm like, no.

Speaker 13:
[47:36] No, no, no, no.

Speaker 2:
[47:38] But you mean, okay, tell us what you mean.

Speaker 13:
[47:40] I mean, it depends on where you get it from. It beginning from the supermarket, it's been sitting in that styrofoam-y and plastic thing, and all the juice is being released, it's just sitting there. And it's also like you consume things with your mind, mentally first as well. You know, it's like the idea that...

Speaker 2:
[47:59] These sort of like stale meat juices are sitting on it.

Speaker 13:
[48:01] Yeah, so you bring it into your home and you want to make it your own. It's almost like a baptism by citrus, you know what I mean?

Speaker 2:
[48:09] Oh, this is so...

Speaker 13:
[48:10] Yeah, you do...

Speaker 2:
[48:11] Tell me more.

Speaker 13:
[48:11] It's the idea of like cleansing and washing and getting it prepared for your sacred vessel, you know, which is your pot or whatever, your pan or whatever you're about to do. You don't want to just take this thing and put it in there.

Speaker 2:
[48:25] But okay, so tell us how you do it, because again, it's not... I've seen people like they squeeze lemon or lime or sour orange on it.

Speaker 13:
[48:34] Yeah, you grab it on there and you just get that and let it sit for a bit. Some people would then take cold water and wash it off again. And then gently rinse it and then you would start with the going on in with the... if you're doing salt and the dry seasonings and then you'll add your green seasoning. But yeah, the washing is like... that's essential in most Caribbean homes or else they don't want that food.

Speaker 2:
[49:07] I've never heard anyone talk about it in terms of a ritual. And to me, actually, funny enough, like that is the most compelling argument I've heard for it.

Speaker 13:
[49:17] Oh, good.

Speaker 2:
[49:18] The idea of ritual, of intentionality. And this is feeling very much like what you were saying in the beginning, which is so much about your attitude towards cooking is sensitivity to the smell and the act and the sort of spiritual aspect of it.

Speaker 13:
[49:38] I mean, you have to think about this. Of course, if you're cooking at home, yes, you know who you're cooking for, for the most part. But if you're cooking in a restaurant, there are strangers coming into your restaurant with the expectation that you're going to cook and prepare to the best of your ability. And they actually, it's kind of insane to think about it. They actually expected to nourish them and do them no harm. All of that is, for me, it's all, there's a line of intimacy with all of it. Yeah, it's probably more intimate than sex, actually, when you think about it. That's insane, but it's something we do and I welcome it, you know? So you have a great responsibility to make sure that you're putting your best foot forward and you're treating everything with integrity and you're doing your best, so yeah. Yeah, I love that.

Speaker 2:
[50:40] I want to talk about more dishes and because there are 400 recipes in the book, we could really be here for the rest of my life. Let me take at least one because this was so surprising to me. You have recipes for, again, classic dishes, brown stew chicken, jerk chicken, rice and peas. But then I see things that I've never seen before. You have a spicy rice with khalalu, the greens, that sounds delicious. A pineapple rice. But one that really stood out to me was steamed lobster with ginger sauce.

Speaker 13:
[51:12] So the first place I had it was actually in an island in the Grenadines. It was called Miro. And I got it at the, it's called the last bar before the jungle. I still remember that. And it will get the lobster out of the water and they would, there's a basket there, fresh lobster, and they will grill it.

Speaker 2:
[51:35] Okay, so the sauce for this that you have is, it's very simple but it sounds incredibly flavorful. You basically saute ginger, garlic, and butter. And then there's like soy sauce and lime juice. And you pour it on the steamed lobster. I mean, again, it sounds so delicious. But it also reminded me too with the soy sauce in particular. The culture of the Caribbean, it's 29, I think, I might have that number wrong, countries. They all have their own histories, but so many of them have different iterations of mixes of African, Native, Indigenous, European colonizers, but also many Chinese, many Indian cultures in various ratios and forms, and so many of those influences from so many different places have come together in these islands. It's such a fascinating book. I love talking with you.

Speaker 13:
[52:31] Thank you.

Speaker 2:
[52:31] Thank you so much for writing this. Thank you for coming by.

Speaker 13:
[52:34] Thank you for having me. I mean, I still don't understand what all the fuss is about. But I'm still dealing with the impact. It's really a connector when it comes to when you think about food. It's that how you learn people based on the recipes and how we cook and why you can get some real amazing low-main in Trinidad. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2:
[53:05] Well, thank you so much, Chef.

Speaker 13:
[53:06] Thank you for having me.

Speaker 2:
[53:09] Rawlston Williams is the author of the Caribbean Cookbook. He left us with recipes for three of those seasonings and marinades that are so vital. Green seasoning, jerk marinade, and sofrito from Puerto Rico. Check them out, splendidtable.org. Well, that is our show for the week. We hope you enjoyed it. We'll talk to you again next week. The Splendid Table was created by Sally Swift and Lynn Rose of Casper and was made to speak by technical producer Jennifer Lukey, producers Erica Romero and Maria Wartell, and managing producer Sally Swift. Jordan Turgeon is our digital producer with help from Dilanix Wynn. Our intern is Ruby Sigmund and Lauren Humpert is our senior podcast production manager. Thanks for listening. I'm Francis Lam and this is APM, American Public Media.

Speaker 4:
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