FULL SHOW TRANSCRIPT FOLLOWS:Stephanie [00:00:15]:Hello, everybody, and welcome to the podcast. We are talking with 2 powerful women today in the cheese world. We're talking with Jessica Sennett from Cheese Grotto and our friend Alise Sjostrom from Redhead Creamery. Alise fromRed Head Creamery has been on the program before. Jessica, this is your first time. Welcome.Jessica [00:00:35]:AliseYes. Thank you. Thank you for having us.Stephanie [00:00:38]:Okay. You guys are in collaboration. And tell us a little bit about your meeting and how this collaboration started.Jessica [00:00:46]:Oh, yeah. So so, yeah, it's probably the the fastest, collaboration known to man in terms of, us both Being on the same page, which which was awesome. I yeah. So cheese grotto a Little bit about what we do. You know, we we do have our cheese grotto, which is the namesake of the company. It's a humidor for storing and serving Cheese and we make them in the Catskills in New York as well as in, Ohio. There's, the bricks That humidify. These cheese grottoes are made in Ohio.Jessica [00:01:24]:And, essentially, they act as a humidor for prolonging the shelf's life of cheese. And we started, selling and partnering up with American Artisan Cheesemakers about 5 years ago. And once the pandemic hit, it really helped, you know, Bloom Art subscription programStephanie [00:01:47]:Sure.Jessica [00:01:48]:As well as virtual tastings and gift boxes. And we focus on American artisans Because, you know, we really love to, to support what's going on regionally because there's, like, so many amazing cheeses now that are being made. And, you know, Redhead Creamery and Elise has, just all have been wonderful, partner in our Different cheese programs for a few years now and believed in us when we were first getting started on the cheese side as well. And so, you know, this year, we have been collaborating more, with different makers to create some unique, limited, edition products. And her her little Lucy Brie is is incredible. It's this Taller format breeze style that has a very unique way that it ripens. And so you get really nice varied texture both, like, A little bit of a denser center when it's a little bit younger and then, like, a beautiful cream line right underneath, the rind. And so I reached out to her about Potentially doing a holiday version of, the little Lucy Brie.Jessica [00:03:00]:And Yeah. Immediately, we were like, how about herbs? Because herbs are, like, such a huge part of, you know, the, holiday time and just Bringing a brightness and herbaceous quality to a lot of our foods, and also baked brie is a huge thing, this time of the year. And a lot of times, there's a lot of toppings of, of, of herbs that go into different baked Brie recipes. So, so, yeah, we we just went back and forth, very quickly via email and, decided that, Herbes de Provence, that would be a great thing to to feature. A nice varied eclectic mix that really represents the holiday season. And, and Elise did some testing with it. And, yeah, I'd love to hear more about like, so on Elise's side, I know that she, Tried a couple different test batches of the cheese, but first, we put the herbs on the rind, and then eventually it ended up being Infused into the pace, which is, like, beautifully balanced, though. I'd love to hear about how she got to that too.Stephanie [00:04:09]:Yeah. I would too because it was so, like, Natural. Like, when I had it, I was like, oh, yeah. Of course. I can't believe this hasn't that she hasn't done this before Because, Elise, you're so, like, revolutionary, I think, just in making cheese and the way that you view your Marketing of cheese, and little Lucy has been such a fan favorite for so long. So, yeah, I am curious how, like, All of a sudden, like, why hadn't we thought of this before?Alise [00:04:40]:Yeah. So I think the day that we were, collaborate collaborating back and forth. I was actually on a fall vacation with my husband up in Door County, And he was also working, and I had to I just sat at my desk for a little bit, and that's what we did all day is decide what we were doing with this herb brie, but I we've played with our little Lucy brie a little bit and didn't really go farther with it. We've tried a, Chipotle line in the middle or played with ash because it's just the cool thing to do. Yep. And I knew that herb would taste good. And so When we kind of brainstorm back and forth, I knew I had some on hand in our shop that I could play with immediately. And so That was a big reason why I recommended it right away so that we could act quickly.Alise [00:05:31]:And, yeah, it was really fun. So we Did 3 or 4 different varieties, to see what tasted best, and if they got heated up, which melted best. Some of them, We tried to do the the line in the middle of the wheel with herbs, and we smothered the mold after the cheese had ripened. We smothered that with herbs, and then the infused version, actually is the easiest for making it also. And I'm always trying to go for that because I hate when I create something and then everyone hates that we have to keep making it because it goes well. So we actually, put the herb dry herbs in with the curds and whey and then, mold you You know, pour the curd in the mold that way, and it all just evenly distributes within. We let it soak for a little bit just to Infuse that flavor a little bit, but, it's awesomely pretty simple on our end, and we are really excited about the results of it, and I'm always excited to do something fun and collaborate with other people, especially Jessica because we have, like, a fun relationship, and it's been cool to see where this goes.Stephanie [00:06:48]:So, Jessica, in addition to the storing of the cheese in your very, Scientifically beautiful wood grotto for the countertop. When you think about, like, a cheese subscription, Who do you think is the ideal candidate for it?Jessica [00:07:06]:No. It's a it's a great question. We we have a couple Subscriptions that we do on our website. So we have one that is more curated, monthly pairings. So you can opt to choose with pairings or without, and we we have a theme each month that we decide on, That helps us kind of curate and highlight specific styles of cheese from different makers. And then, you know, we find some really great pairing to kinda bring that to life. So, actually, the the herbs that we see is part of our December, holiday themed box, Which makes sense because we're also including a baked Brie recipe with that, so that you can, you know, Create a very, one of a kind, I would say, type of baked brie, than maybe what you have experienced before. It's a very It it looks like a popover almost.Jessica [00:08:02]:It's very, beautiful, but because it's a little bit on the taller side. So, You know, for the monthly, I would say, you know and really, like, with both of our subscriptions, we have a quarterly one as well. It's really about, My my my main thought about the best person, for signing up for a subscription is someone who is interested in in learning more and pursuing more, in the world of artisan cheese and exposing themselves to different styles of cheese that they might not have, necessarily opted for, on their own or maybe couldn't find in their local grocery store. And that's really what we're looking for is To curate, you know, unique, you know, palatable, but also diverse styles of cheeses from different makers so that you can get a really full spectrum of what, yeah, American and artisan cheese has to offer. I mean, we're we're in the thousands of different Cheeses, it's time now that you can explore, so there's definitely not, like, a cap in terms of how many cheeses you could try. So that's really, you know, somebody who's who's curious, who's, enthusiastic, but wants to get a little bit deeper into it. That's that's what what I'd recommend.Alise [00:09:19]:I love it.Jessica [00:09:21]:Yeah. And we the other one we have is a quarterly subscription, which we actually have done with Elise in the past as well. It's, meet the maker. So we did a session. We do 4 4 shipments per year where we actually Sit down live with the cheese maker, and they get to do a deep dive into 4 cheeses from 1 maker. So that's got a really cool immersive element on that as well. So even with the quarterly, I would say the, really just to kind of elevate and and and enhance your own understanding of cheese, it really is a great opportunity to do that and, pursue it a little bit more like a hobby.Stephanie [00:09:58]:Elise, I have a confession, and it's gonna make you laugh. So I do like to make a brie. Yeah. I like to make it on croute. Right? I like to wrap it in puff pastry, but I always would buy Cheap Brie because I felt so bad using, like, your delicious product in something Kinda so pedestrian, but I feel like this is giving me, like, a new opportunity to explore it. Because do you heat up your own Brie? I felt like that was almost like a sacrilege.Alise [00:10:34]:Well, here's what now you'll laugh at me because Sometimes in the rare occasion that I'm home alone, I'll be like, well, not making dinner for anybody, but I'll have random cheese in my fridge. And so I microwaved a brie and put jam all over it, and I was like, why didn't I think of this a long time ago? I could just microwave it. But so I like, more often than not, I eat it plain like, I don't cook it, but, Yeah. It's you know what? You do you.Stephanie [00:11:05]:Yeah. And there's, like, something about holiday time. You know, I do a ton of entertaining, and Just a brie warmed up with either preserves on it or uncrut and wrapped up is Really elegant, lovely, a nice way to serve cheese that's a little bit different that maybe people wouldn't do themselves that feels fancier.Alise [00:11:28]:Yes. Absolutely.Stephanie [00:11:30]:So alright. I feel like this has opened new doors for me. And I always do I am a person that has a holiday cheese vibe. So I will seek out, special holiday cheeses from local makers that only come out this time of year, And I'll, you know, pay a lot more to put them on my table because I know that they're special and they're custom. So this feels like this could be something that could really take off for you, and then you're gonna have that problem like you do with all your cheeses where you're gonna have to make so much of it.Alise [00:12:04]:I'm okay with that.Stephanie [00:12:07]:Elise, how's the store going? And get our listeners up to speed. You guys have expanded.Alise [00:12:12]:Yes. We're in the middle of expansion. I don't know if you can hear the rumbling at all in my background, but, Everything's going great. We're our expansion project's a little bit slower than we anticipated, but it always is. And so we're hoping that we will be, making spirits by February. Fingers crossed. But we'll have more so of a full restaurant and our distilled spirits with whey. So we're really excited to get everything up and rolling,Stephanie [00:12:44]:maybe when theAlise [00:12:45]:snow is gone.Stephanie [00:12:46]:Yeah. And you've got the store too.Alise [00:12:48]:Yes. We have a cheese shop, and we do dairy farm tours. And, we serve our pan fried curds that are extremely popular, especially when it's cold out. And we now have, robotic milkers for the last month, so that's a fun new thing to come check out if you go on our farm tours.Stephanie [00:13:08]:Does that Free up you guys because they always talk about how labor intensive dairy cows are. AndAlise [00:13:16]:Yeah. It will eventually. The the onboarding process is tiring and difficult for both the cows and the humans getting them trained. But, yes, that is the end goal is that it will free up some of that time and allow us to be a little more flexible with how we spend our time.Stephanie [00:13:35]:And for those of you that maybe are new to the program or not familiar with Redhead Creamery, Elise is the daughter of dairy farmers, and She decided she wanted to take the cheese angle versus just the dairy angle and really has Created a whole more elaborate successful business for your family. How many people do you employ now?Alise [00:14:00]:We have about 12 employees.Stephanie [00:14:03]:And if you add, like, the restaurant and the distillery, that's gotta add, like, I'm thinking at least 40 more.Alise [00:14:09]:Oh, well, I don't think it'll add that many more. The distillery itself will add my husband will be our distiller, And we'll all kind of team up when it's bottling day. And then but we'll need the help for the restaurant side of things, serving, and all of that.Stephanie [00:14:27]:When is anyone else making, spirits out of whey?Alise [00:14:32]:There's about 9 to 10 other makers in the world that are making It's out of way. We will be one of the only that do everything on-site, having the cows, the cheese, And the spirit's all right here.Stephanie [00:14:46]:Oh, I'm so excited. Like, it's just that whole closed loop system that I feel like it's just the jazziest of jazzy food lore. Right? I mean, just what an awesome story. I cannot wait for it. You guys have been super fun to talk to. Are there any things that are happening in the food world that you're like, Oh, you gotta know about this, or I'm so excited about this right now. No. Nothing like putting you on the spot.Stephanie [00:15:18]:I mean, you're both just, like, staring Likely, like, I don't know. We're in holiday season. What are you thinking, lady? Surviving.Jessica [00:15:27]:Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you know, I don't know. I mean, you know, I I think it's just you have to keep encouraging you to keep exploring locally what's going on food wise. Jessica.Stephanie [00:15:39]:I'm gonna help you out. Okay. So tell me the last delicious thing you ate or drank that was not your own product. And you weren't gonna eat a cheese grotto, so there's that. Yeah. Yeah.Jessica [00:15:56]:Let's see. What would you know, I'm really into, Pastis. Tell me about them. Yeah. We went to I mean, we went to France Back in September, and, basically, every single region of France has its multiple versions of pasties. But a lot of times, you know, there's, yeah, there's one, like, From the. There's one from all these different regions, and it is really just an amazing, amazing spirit that I, like, never really got into before. But, you know, I think actually a pastiche and cheese pairing would be Pretty fun too.Jessica [00:16:38]:You know, speaking of, you know, more of these more herbaceous, like, flavor profiles, like The the anise that you're getting from from the pasties is really amazing and, just, you know, the variety. But I'm also very curious, I have to say, about the flavor profile of the distilled whey. Like, what what is that like?Stephanie [00:16:59]:Yeah. And it has me thinking about, like, aqua vie too. Like, these seasonal, herbaceous, botanically spirits.Jessica [00:17:08]:Yes. Yeah.Alise [00:17:09]:So it's it is a a neutral spirit for the most part, but it it does have a creamy mouthfeel to it. I'm still not sure how to really fully explain the actual flavor of it. We have about, oh, what is it, maybe 10 gallons of spirit that a distiller has done for us out of our fermented way so that we have something when we actually open. But, Along the lines of, you know, Aquavit is something that we hope to eventually make and a gin and then a barrel aged version of it as well just because you can. But, but, yeah, it'll it'll be fun, and we're excited for our our restaurant cocktail room because every drink will come with A wedge of cheese with it, so we'll get to figure out how everything tastes with cocktail.Stephanie [00:18:00]:Have you ever had the sugar beet vodka?Alise [00:18:05]:I don't know. Well, Molly, I think I have. What's the name of theStephanie [00:18:09]:b e t is the one that I know of that's made in Minnesota. And I would I would encourage you to check that out. Mhmm. The only reason I think of it is when you talk about, like, a creamier mouthfeel, There's a richness to that vodka.Alise [00:18:25]:Should I That nothing that IStephanie [00:18:28]:is just something that feels, I don't know. It feels like a very different mouthfeel, and it is when you talk about, like, a creamy richness, it just sticks in my brain. And I'd like you to try that because I think maybe it would give you something similar just to think about.Alise [00:18:48]:Cool. Yeah. I'm gonna look it. My husband has probably tried it.Stephanie [00:18:51]:Yeah. It's just cool and it's made with sugar beets, which is a little bit different. You know, potato butts are a little bit different. So Mhmm. Well, you guys, have been great. Are you gonna have so how can people order the cheese? And if they wanna come down, will they find it at Redhead Creamery too, or can is it just in the subscription?Jessica [00:19:11]:Yeah. Right now, we just have it we have it, 2 different ways on the Sites on cheese grotto's website. So we have it, both in the subscription, the December box. We also have a set of 2 that you can just independently or really just add on to any cheese order. You know, my recommendation when you purchase Cheese online is just buy more because the shipping is a little is always a little bit more expensive. Right. Just because it has to go express, it has to be insulated. It's perishable.Jessica [00:19:46]:It has ice packs. And we do nationwide shipping. So, So that's my that is my main recommendation. Just try just try a little bit more, when you when you go to shop online.Stephanie [00:20:00]:So I love that recommendation. Nothing wrong with that. I actually ended up with a 100 pounds of cheese in my freezer right now Wow. That I had to, like, break down. A friend ended up getting a £1,000 of Gruyere and Jarlsberg instead of the 100 that she ordered, and it came from overseas. So they couldn't take it back. So she is like giving cheese to everyone she knows and I have like a literal half a freezer full of cheese right now. Not a bad problem to have.Stephanie [00:20:32]:Yeah. Yeah.Jessica [00:20:33]:Full of it. You're stocked. You gotta get your preserves back there. You got your cheese.Stephanie [00:20:38]:I'm all set. Or anything. Elise, are you doing anything for holidays that you want people to know about before we wrap up?Alise [00:20:45]:But, yeah, we have, along with what we're doing with Jessica, we also have our 12 days of Cheez Miss calendar That is our 2nd annual year of doing, and it's really exciting. It's partnering with Milkmaid Catering in Fargo. Megan is a friend of mine, and we collaborate on utilizing our cheeses for the 12 days and then pairing each Cheese with a fun side. So, there's Minnesota made beets and, honey butter and Other fun things that go really good with cheese.Stephanie [00:21:18]:Sweet. I love it. I'll put links to all of these things in the show notes. You guys, thanks for being my guest today. I appreciate it.Jessica [00:21:25]:Oh, yes. Thank you for having us.Stephanie [00:21:27]:Alright. We'll catch up soon. Happy holidays.Alise [00:21:30]:You too. This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit stephaniehansen.substack.com/subscribe

Red Head Creamery & Cheese Grotto

Northern Waters Smokehaus Cookbook, "Smoke On The Waterfront" 

Tim Mulligan

Welcome to another episode of Makers of Minnesota! In today's episode, we have a special guest, Mathew Batt, the author of "The Last Supper Club, A Waiters Requiem." We dive into his book, which showcases his experience working at a renowned restaurant that unfortunately closed its doors. Stephanie, our host, chats with Mathew about his background, his time in the restaurant industry, and the memorable characters he encountered along the way.Stephanie’s Dish Newsletter is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit stephaniehansen.substack.com/subscribe

Welcome to another episode of Makers of Minnesota! In today's episode, we have a special guest, Mathew Batt, the author of <a href="https://amzn.to/3RSZUMc" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">"The Last Supper Club, A Waiters Requiem."</a> We dive into his <a href="https://www.matthewbatt.net/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">book,</a> which showcases his experience working at a renowned restaurant that unfortunately closed its doors. Stephanie, our host, chats with Mathew about his background, his time in the restaurant industry, and the memorable characters he encountered along the way.Stephanie’s Dish Newsletter is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit <a href="https://stephaniehansen.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&amp;utm_campaign=CTA_2" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">stephaniehansen.substack.com/subscribe</a>

Mathew Batt, Author, "The Last Supper Club, A Waiters Requiem" 

Welcome back to another exciting episode of "Makers of Minnesota"! In today's episode, the incredible Amy Theilen joins us to discuss her latest book, "Company: The Radically Casual Art of Cooking for Others." Amy takes us on a journey through her writing process, sharing how the book evolved during the pandemic and the mixed emotions she experienced. Amy reveals her secrets to creating a relaxed and enjoyable gathering with delicious recipes and menu ideas. Plus, we'll explore the unexpected twists and turns of Amy's career, from fine dining line cook to making a name for herself in the culinary world on TV and becoming the author we know today. Get ready to be inspired, entertained, and hungry as we delve into the fascinating world of Amy Theilen on this "Makers of Minnesota" episode!Preview the book here and join her on October 7 at the Minneapolis Farmers Market and October 9 at Cooks of Crocus Hill. Thank you for reading Stephanie’s Dish Newsletter. This post is public so feel free to share it. This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit stephaniehansen.substack.com/subscribe

Welcome back to another exciting episode of "Makers of Minnesota"! In today's episode, the incredible Amy Theilen joins us to discuss her latest book, <a href="https://amzn.to/44YbkRD" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">"Company: The Radically Casual Art of Cooking for Others."</a> Amy takes us on a journey through her writing process, sharing how the book evolved during the pandemic and the mixed emotions she experienced. Amy reveals her secrets to creating a relaxed and enjoyable gathering with delicious recipes and menu ideas. Plus, we'll explore the unexpected twists and turns of Amy's career, from fine dining line cook to making a name for herself in the culinary world on TV and becoming the author we know today. Get ready to be inspired, entertained, and hungry as we delve into the fascinating world of Amy Theilen on this "Makers of Minnesota" episode!<a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/Company_The_Radically_Casual_Art_of_Cook/fPRhEAAAQBAJ?hl=en&amp;gbpv=1" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Preview the book here</a> and join her on October 7 at the Minneapolis Farmers Market and<a href="https://cooksbellecour.com/amy-thielen-visits-cooks-october-8-st-paul-4-pm/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"> October 9 at Cooks of Crocus Hill</a>. Thank you for reading Stephanie’s Dish Newsletter. This post is public so feel free to share it. This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit <a href="https://stephaniehansen.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&amp;utm_campaign=CTA_2" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">stephaniehansen.substack.com/subscribe</a>

Amy Theilen

Today we have a special guest joining us, Teena Anderson - the Anoka Grilling Queen from Anoka Meats! Teena owns Anoka Meat and Sausage, a full-time grill located outside her butcher shop. But her journey to becoming the Grilling Queen was not always on the menu. Teena reinvented herself after leaving the corporate world and living in a diner for 20 years. Now, she's a thriving entrepreneur in the culinary world. Today, we'll dive into Teena's fascinating story - from starting a small salad business to taking over Anoka Meat and Sausage. Plus, we'll explore her love for cooking, her passion for specialty ingredients. Get ready to fire up the grill and join us as we uncover the secrets of the Anoka Grilling Queen on this episode of Makers of Minnesota!Here is the recipe for Teena's Cowboy Beans from her BlogIngredients* 4 pound cooked ground hamburger 85/15* 1 lb bacon or ends &amp; pieces, loosely chopped* 1 (15 ounce) can kidney beans, drained* 1 (15 ounce) can butter beans, drained* 1 (15 ounce) can pinto beans* 1 (15 ounce) can garbaonzo or black bean beans, drained* 1 (15 ounce can) great northern beans* 1 (15 ounce can) navy beans* 2 (28 ounce) can pork and beans, drained* 1 large onion, chopped* 1 Tablespoon minced garlic* 3 cup dark brown sugar + to taste* 2/3 cup ketchup* 1/2 cup vinegar* 1/2 cup dijon* 1 Tbsp Kosher Salt* 1 Tbsp Pepper* Optional: diced green pepperDirections* Heat a saucepan over medium heat; cook and stir bacon, onion, and garlic until bacon is browned, about 10 minutes. Pour off excess fat.* Brown hamburger with the salt and pepper until done. Combine the browned hamburger with bacon &amp; onions in an electric toaster or large crock pot.* Whisk together the brown sugar, ketchup and dijon then pour mixture over the hamburger.* Make this in a large crockpot by adding all the ingredients together and cook on high for 1 hours, then turning to low until ready to eat.* The electric roaster heats a little faster, so once all ingredients are combined, turn heat to 250-300 and warm to a bubble for 1/2 hour or so just to ensure all ingredients are hot and everything is thoroughly cooked.* Cool and reheat the next day or serve right away.Thank you for reading Stephanie’s Dish Newsletter. This post is public so feel free to share it. This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit stephaniehansen.substack.com/subscribe

Today we have a special guest joining us, Teena Anderson - the Anoka Grilling Queen from <a href="https://www.anokameats.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Anoka Meats</a>! Teena owns Anoka Meat and Sausage, a full-time grill located outside her butcher shop. But her journey to becoming the Grilling Queen was not always on the menu. Teena reinvented herself after leaving the corporate world and living in a diner for 20 years. Now, she's a thriving entrepreneur in the culinary world. Today, we'll dive into Teena's fascinating story - from starting a small salad business to taking over Anoka Meat and Sausage. Plus, we'll explore her love for cooking, her passion for specialty ingredients. Get ready to fire up the grill and join us as we uncover the secrets of the Anoka Grilling Queen on this episode of Makers of Minnesota!Here is the recipe for Teena's Cowboy Beans <a href="https://www.anokameats.com/post/template-how-to-write-a-recipe-post-2" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">from her Blog</a>Ingredients* 4 pound cooked ground hamburger 85/15* 1 lb bacon or ends &amp; pieces, loosely chopped* 1 (15 ounce) can kidney beans, drained* 1 (15 ounce) can butter beans, drained* 1 (15 ounce) can pinto beans* 1 (15 ounce) can garbaonzo or black bean beans, drained* 1 (15 ounce can) great northern beans* 1 (15 ounce can) navy beans* 2 (28 ounce) can pork and beans, drained* 1 large onion, chopped* 1 Tablespoon minced garlic* 3 cup dark brown sugar + to taste* 2/3 cup ketchup* 1/2 cup vinegar* 1/2 cup dijon* 1 Tbsp Kosher Salt* 1 Tbsp Pepper* Optional: diced green pepperDirections* Heat a saucepan over medium heat; cook and stir bacon, onion, and garlic until bacon is browned, about 10 minutes. Pour off excess fat.* Brown hamburger with the salt and pepper until done. Combine the browned hamburger with bacon &amp; onions in an electric toaster or large crock pot.* Whisk together the brown sugar, ketchup and dijon then pour mixture over the hamburger.* Make this in a large crockpot by adding all the ingredients together and cook on high for 1 hours, then turning to low until ready to eat.* The electric roaster heats a little faster, so once all ingredients are combined, turn heat to 250-300 and warm to a bubble for 1/2 hour or so just to ensure all ingredients are hot and everything is thoroughly cooked.* Cool and reheat the next day or serve right away.Thank you for reading Stephanie’s Dish Newsletter. This post is public so feel free to share it. This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit <a href="https://stephaniehansen.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&amp;utm_campaign=CTA_2" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">stephaniehansen.substack.com/subscribe</a>

Teena Anderson is the Anoka Grilling Queen

Ina Garten

Trent Pheifer

On this episode of “Dishing with Stephanie’s Dish,” Stephanie interviews Trent Pheifer, blogger and aspiring home chef from, “Store Bought Is Fine”  who found inspiration from celebrity chef Ina Garten. From cooking their way through Ina's recipes to meeting her in person at a Paris restaurant, Trent shares  his love for her simple and flavorful recipes, including a unique dish featuring roasted grapes and sausage. The episode also dives into content creation challenges and finding a balance between creating enjoyable content and striving for perfection.  Listen to Trent’s inspirational journey of self-discovery in the culinary world through the books and recipes of Ina Garten.  Follow @Storeboughtisfine on Instagram.Make the Sausage and Grapes recipe from Ina Garten like Trent did here.Stephanie’s Dish Newsletter is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Here is the Episode Transcript:Stephanie [00:00:16]:Hello, everybody. Welcome to Dishing with Stephanie's Dish, the podcast where we talk to cookbook authors, people obsessed with food. And today we are talking to Trent Pfeiffer, and he is an Instagram influencer, I think we dare to say, and also a recipe cook and a man who is on a mission. Store bought is fine. It's his handle on instagram. And Trent, you are cooking all of the dishes from Ina Garten's Cookbook and her shows.Trent  [00:00:47]:I am. It's been quite a journey. I think I've been doing it about seven years now.Stephanie [00:00:53]:Okay. You are my jam. I just want to hear all about how this started.Trent  [00:01:02]:Yeah, so it was one of those things where I didn't know how to cook at all. I was around 30. I was dating someone at the time. I was kind of getting in the kitchen. Wasn't doing a lot of great cooking in the kitchen. And it was about this time that I read Julia Child's my Life in France. And at the same time, my roommates and I were binge watching The Barefoot Contessa. Not making any of the dishes, just binge watching. It's an aspirational lifestyle. I think it's great entertainment. When I started getting into cooking, I was making all of these recipes from online sources, from Ina, and the online source ones kept failing for me. And I don't think it was the recipe, the online recipe developers or anything. It's that I didn't have the basic skills in the kitchen. And the one person whose recipes had always kind of worked out for me, even though I didn't have the skills, were Ina's. So I thought maybe I would take a page from Julia and Julia and just cook my way through all of Aina's garden's recipes and in the process, hopefully get my cooking education.Stephanie [00:02:12]:I couldn't love this more because that trajectory of finding Julia Child through her memoir, her biographies, and then kind of going into cooking after that was sort of how it happened for me.Trent  [00:02:27]:Oh, I love that.Stephanie [00:02:29]:I wasn't a great cook, and I'm a home cook, and I felt like Julia made things feel so accessible. So I went back and started to watch some of the shows, and then I stumbled along. Food Network twelve years ago, I think around that time, I in a garden show, The Barefoot Contessa, and I, too, was like I was trying to cook specifically, like, these beautiful Martha Stewart magazine recipes never worked out. I always was disappointed, and Ina's 100% always worked. And what's unique is the things she and Julia have in common is I think the two of them have tested more recipes in their books than anybody else. Oh, yeah.Trent  [00:03:12]:And I think that's the secret to their success is Ina always watches somebody else make her recipes and then incorporates that feedback into the recipes. I think there are very few recipe developers or chefs that I will host a dinner party never having made the dish and know that it's going to be phenomenal for my guests. And Ina is that person where I'm like, I've never made this, but it'll be fine.Stephanie [00:03:43]:And you just have a huge level of confidence that she's tested it, so you know it's going to be good. And even her simple recipes and how she approaches food, too, really speaks to me because it's not, like, simple, but it's always elegant, just in its perfection and its simplicity. But it has just enough things and not too many things.Trent  [00:04:09]:Yeah, and I think that she's just distilled it in a way that with simple ingredients, you can make these great things. I think one of the biggest lessons I ever learned was roast, eating vegetables. She has a lot of roasted vegetables where it's just salt, pepper, maybe squeeze of lemon juice. But how phenomenal that on itself can be. I grew up with boiled Brussels sprout and a lot of veggies that didn't have a lot of flavor. And I think that Ina has perfected that, making it as simple as possible. Some of them are complicated, making them as simple as possible, but still making them, like, showstoppers or something that your friends are going to after eating over at your place.Stephanie [00:04:56]:Where did you grow up?Trent  [00:04:58]:I grew up in Ohio, so kind.Stephanie [00:05:01]:Of I'm from the Midwest, obviously. Minnesota.Trent  [00:05:04]:You seem a little Midwest bound.Stephanie [00:05:05]:Where do you live now?Trent  [00:05:07]:I'm in New York City. I've been here about 14 years now.Stephanie [00:05:11]:And what is your day job? Life. And do you do this all the time?Trent  [00:05:15]:No, this is not my full time job. I actually work for the Advertising Council, which is a national nonprofit that does public service communication efforts to move the needle on some of our most pressing issues. A lot of people know us.Stephanie [00:05:34]:I'm in advertising.Trent  [00:05:36]:Amazing.Stephanie [00:05:37]:We play your ads on my radio station all the time.Trent  [00:05:41]:I love that. I love that. Yeah. So I'm on the fundraising team. We oversee our board of directors and our fundraising for the organization. So that's my day job. So this is just my side leg project, just my passion project. I really thought this would be something that I would do for a couple of months and then move on to the next thing, but I really found my passion and love for food throughout this project. So it's a balancing act, working a full time job and cooking as much as I do.Stephanie [00:06:14]:How much do you cook?Trent  [00:06:17]:At a minimum, four recipes a week. That doesn't seem like much, but yes, it does. Well, if you're really thinking about okay, well, there are seven days in a week. How many, like, going out to eat, like, how many meals, lunch, dinner. So I try to do four and then two to three evenings during the week.Stephanie [00:06:40]:Okay. So what attracted me to your Instagram was an article that I saw that said ina Garten's biggest fan, his ten favorite recipes. Was that intentional, or did they just pick this up from you? Or how did this all come together?Trent  [00:07:01]:Yeah, no, they reached out maybe a couple of months ago, and they were like, so I'm pitching this story. It's going to be Aina Garden's biggest fan. Spend all day, every day talking about Ina. It is near impossible to pick a top ten. I mean, she has nearly 1300 recipes between her books and show, but sometimes I just have to be like, you know what? This is my top ten for the day. It might change tomorrow. There might have a craving that changes something. Sometimes I forget that I made a recipe, and I'm like, oh, yeah, that's one of my favorite. It's not in the top ten, but next year could be a different list.Stephanie [00:07:36]:So you had, I think, two of my top ten. You had the coconut cake, which I won a competition on the local television station, competing against the host with basically an adaption of her recipe.Trent  [00:07:50]:I love that.Stephanie [00:07:51]:And then you also mentioned, I think the roast chicken. Perfect roast chicken, because everybody needs that. I think the roasted carrots with the goat cheese might have made your list or it made my list.Trent  [00:08:07]:I've been doing a bunch of top ten lists and ranking lists, and the carrots with goat cheese, I think is on my favorite salad list.Stephanie [00:08:16]:Is there a recipe that when you made it, you didn't think you'd love it, and then you loved it like you got surprised by it?Trent  [00:08:25]:There's one that I always go to, and it is her sausage and grapes. It was probably the first year, maybe early in the second year of the project, and I looked at this recipe, and I'm like, roasted grapes. What's? I don't know, sweet, savory, but, like, sausage with cooked grapes, it just didn't appeal to me at all. I was like, you know what? Let me give it a try. And I absolutely loved it. It was that sweet, savory pairing. I feel like the roasting of the grapes concentrates their flavor, making it, like, almost like a wine that goes with the sausage and the balsamic vinegar that's in there. It's just such a fabulous dish. And I know that it's a great one because every time I mention this as one of those dishes, everyone's like, eh, that doesn't sound great. And then they're like, I tried it. It is phenomenal. It's just one of the, I think, hidden treasures in Ina's repertoire of recipes.Stephanie [00:09:30]:I love it. Now, as someone who's a creator, do you have anxiety about getting the perfect picture, or are you on the video train? You have a couple of videos, but are you feeling pressure to do more?Trent  [00:09:43]:Yeah, I live by anxiety. I feel like that's what propels me in everyday living. So there's a lot of anxiety that goes with it, and I think what's happening? Well, I know what's happening is the algorithm, Instagram, Facebook, they're all trying to be TikTok and so they're pushing everyone toward video content. I enjoy doing some videos, but because this isn't my full time job so what I did is I was like, you know what? They're pushing us towards video. I'm going to do a whole Beyonce series where I do recipes inspired by her songs and I'll do videos for everything. And I did a whole month of them. And I can't tell you it was my least favorite month of the entire project. It was just too much work and I had to remind myself, why am I doing this? The following is great and the community that's been built is wonderful, but I am doing this because I enjoy it. And as soon as it's not an enjoyable thing for me, I need to stop doing it. So I went back to filming a video every once in a while, doing mostly photos and finding this balance that I can live with. Even though I've seen my numbers grow or drop. I mean, or kind of stagnate over time, at least I'm happy doing the thing I'm doing.Stephanie [00:11:07]:Yeah. And I do think that's sort of the bane of our existence as creators too. You start out because you love something, then you catch fire and you're just on the content churning wheel and it becomes a job and it's not as fun and so why are you doing it? None of us are probably getting rich in the content sphere unless you're maybe Mr. And Mrs. Original YouTuber. Yeah, I'm always like a day late and a dollar short on the latest format, so I'm never going to win there. How about I just enjoy my life and if I can inspire some people along the way or maybe drive a little traffic to my website with clicks. Great.Trent  [00:11:54]:Yeah, that's how I feel. Do you do videos often?Stephanie [00:11:57]:I do, but I also find them exhausting. I call them the hands videos and those look simple, but they are hard to do with the stop motion and everything else. Then there's the like, I'm going to tell you all about my interpersonal feelings journeys videos that kind of nauseates me.Trent  [00:12:22]:Yeah.Stephanie [00:12:24]:Mine are like the sloppy in betweens where I realize halfway through that I can't get the jar of something open because I haven't pre planned and opened it. So I do some too.Trent  [00:12:36]:That's where I find that I get a little stressed because of the desire for perfection on video. If I forget to add something or something's not quite working for me. If I'm not filming myself, I can figure that out and I'm not worried about it. And the photo turns out great, but as soon as it happens on film, I'm like, oh God. Or what happens would like to admit is do I go to stop the recording and realize after ten minutes that I haven't been recording at all, and.Stephanie [00:13:10]:I've missed every I have done this a million times. I have done this a million times where I am in the middle of something, and all of a sudden I realize I haven't started the video. Yes, and you're halfway through making it, so you're not going to start again.Trent  [00:13:31]:And that's the thing. I don't have the time. The thing that I've loved about this project is that it allows me to just keep trying new things. Yes, there are certain things that get in my regular rotation that I'm making all the time, but I love trying new things, and I don't want to repeat a recipe for a second time in two days or whatever it is just for a video. At that point, it's becoming a photo, and everyone will just be happy with that.Stephanie [00:14:02]:Someone asked my kid once what her favorite recipes were that her mom makes, and she just said she had one. That was embarrassing. It was like an Asian tuna salad. But then she said, my mom never makes the same thing twice, so I don't know.Trent  [00:14:18]:Yes. And that's where I am. Somebody's like, oh, you must make that all the time. It's so good. And I was like, yeah, I made that that one time. I'm sure I'll make it a couple of years from now. The crazy strikes again.Stephanie [00:14:34]:So have you met Ina?Trent  [00:14:37]:I have.Stephanie [00:14:38]:Tell me about that experience and how that came about.Trent  [00:14:42]:So it was a pretty magical experience. Last day in Paris, we went to a restaurant, a tasting menu restaurant called vergu. And I walk into this restaurant, and it is a restaurant that's no bigger than a decent sized living room. I walk in, and immediately I look in the corner, and it's Ina and Jeffrey having dinner. And so blood drains from my face. My friends are like, what's wrong? And I go, oh, my God. Aina and Jeffrey are in the corner of this restaurant. So they see us at our table. We're across the room. Again, not a big room. And my friends are like, do you want to face her? And I was like, Absolutely not. I will not be able to concentrate on anything during this dinner if I'm facing her. So we faced away. My friends were in PR. They're like, okay, let's wait for them to pay the bill. And then we'll go over and say hi to her. So restaurant starts clearing out a little bit. We see they're paid their bill. We go straight over there, and I introduce myself. And I'm like, I am so sorry to interrupt your dinner, but I'm a huge fan, and I'm cooking my way through your recipes. And she nods, and Jeffrey nods, and I go, yeah, my Instagram account, store bought is fine. And she turns to me and she goes, oh, I heard you were in town, and then turns to Jeffrey and goes, oh, we've corresponded online before. I about died in that moment that she one knew I was in Paris and that she, too, remembered my experience. So we had a lovely conversation about how great the dinner was, our trips to France, and at the end, I was like, can I get a photo with you? She's like, yes, we just got a cab. We'll give you the heads up when it's here, and we get a photo outside. And she couldn't have been nicer. Her and Jeffrey were so unbelievably sweet. I think so often you worry about meeting the people you idolize because can they really ever live up to who you've built? They're all humans. Can they really live up to your expectations? And she did in absolutely every single way, got photo with her. She thanked me for what I was doing. It was just such a magical it was kismet. It was meant to be. She loves Paris. I love Paris. We both live in the city or near the city and have never run into each other here. I just think that it was meant to be, and I'm so thankful for that experience.Stephanie [00:17:14]:Well, I'm so thankful that you've spent this little moment with us today. All the listeners of my show know I'm a huge fan of ina. And so when I saw your Instagram and started following it, I was like, I have to talk to this man.Trent  [00:17:29]:Amazing. Well, thank you so much for having me. This has been absolutely wonderful.Stephanie [00:17:33]:It's great. It'll take me a couple of weeks to share it, but when I do, I'll tag you. And thank you just so much for sharing yourself.Trent  [00:17:40]:Yeah, no problem. If you need anything else, any other blurbs pictures, anything, feel free to reach out.Stephanie [00:17:47]:Store bought is fine.Trent  [00:17:49]:Yes. Thank you so much. Awesome. Thank you. Talk to you soon.Stephanie [00:17:53]:Bye.Trent  [00:17:54]:Bye bye. Our channel. This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit stephaniehansen.substack.com/subscribe

On this episode of “Dishing with Stephanie’s Dish,” Stephanie interviews Trent Pheifer, blogger and aspiring home chef from, <a href="https://storeboughtisfineblog.wordpress.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">“Store Bought Is Fine” </a> who found inspiration from celebrity chef Ina Garten. From cooking their way through Ina's recipes to meeting her in person at a Paris restaurant, Trent shares his love for her simple and flavorful recipes, including a unique dish featuring roasted grapes and sausage. The episode also dives into content creation challenges and finding a balance between creating enjoyable content and striving for perfection. Listen to Trent’s inspirational journey of self-discovery in the culinary world through the books and recipes of Ina Garten. Follow <a href="https://www.instagram.com/storeboughtisfine/?hl=en" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">@Storeboughtisfine</a> on Instagram.Make the <a href="https://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/roasted-sausages-and-grapes-recipe-1924696" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Sausage and Grapes recipe</a> from Ina Garten like <a href="https://storeboughtisfineblog.wordpress.com/2022/06/08/inas-roasted-sausages-grapes/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Trent did here</a>.Stephanie’s Dish Newsletter is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Here is the Episode Transcript:Stephanie [00:00:16]:Hello, everybody. Welcome to Dishing with Stephanie's Dish, the podcast where we talk to cookbook authors, people obsessed with food. And today we are talking to Trent Pfeiffer, and he is an Instagram influencer, I think we dare to say, and also a recipe cook and a man who is on a mission. Store bought is fine. It's his handle on instagram. And Trent, you are cooking all of the dishes from Ina Garten's Cookbook and her shows.Trent [00:00:47]:I am. It's been quite a journey. I think I've been doing it about seven years now.Stephanie [00:00:53]:Okay. You are my jam. I just want to hear all about how this started.Trent [00:01:02]:Yeah, so it was one of those things where I didn't know how to cook at all. I was around 30. I was dating someone at the time. I was kind of getting in the kitchen. Wasn't doing a lot of great cooking in the kitchen. And it was about this time that I read Julia Child's my Life in France. And at the same time, my roommates and I were binge watching The Barefoot Contessa. Not making any of the dishes, just binge watching. It's an aspirational lifestyle. I think it's great entertainment. When I started getting into cooking, I was making all of these recipes from online sources, from Ina, and the online source ones kept failing for me. And I don't think it was the recipe, the online recipe developers or anything. It's that I didn't have the basic skills in the kitchen. And the one person whose recipes had always kind of worked out for me, even though I didn't have the skills, were Ina's. So I thought maybe I would take a page from Julia and Julia and just cook my way through all of Aina's garden's recipes and in the process, hopefully get my cooking education.Stephanie [00:02:12]:I couldn't love this more because that trajectory of finding Julia Child through her memoir, her biographies, and then kind of going into cooking after that was sort of how it happened for me.Trent [00:02:27]:Oh, I love that.Stephanie [00:02:29]:I wasn't a great cook, and I'm a home cook, and I felt like Julia made things feel so accessible. So I went back and started to watch some of the shows, and then I stumbled along. Food Network twelve years ago, I think around that time, I in a garden show, The Barefoot Contessa, and I, too, was like I was trying to cook specifically, like, these beautiful Martha Stewart magazine recipes never worked out. I always was disappointed, and Ina's 100% always worked. And what's unique is the things she and Julia have in common is I think the two of them have tested more recipes in their books than anybody else. Oh, yeah.Trent [00:03:12]:And I think that's the secret to their success is Ina always watches somebody else make her recipes and then incorporates that feedback into the recipes. I think there are very few recipe developers or chefs that I will host a dinner party never having made the dish and know that it's going to be phenomenal for my guests. And Ina is that person where I'm like, I've never made this, but it'll be fine.Stephanie [00:03:43]:And you just have a huge level of confidence that she's tested it, so you know it's going to be good. And even her simple recipes and how she approaches food, too, really speaks to me because it's not, like, simple, but it's always elegant, just in its perfection and its simplicity. But it has just enough things and not too many things.Trent [00:04:09]:Yeah, and I think that she's just distilled it in a way that with simple ingredients, you can make these great things. I think one of the biggest lessons I ever learned was roast, eating vegetables. She has a lot of roasted vegetables where it's just salt, pepper, maybe squeeze of lemon juice. But how phenomenal that on itself can be. I grew up with boiled Brussels sprout and a lot of veggies that didn't have a lot of flavor. And I think that Ina has perfected that, making it as simple as possible. Some of them are complicated, making them as simple as possible, but still making them, like, showstoppers or something that your friends are going to after eating over at your place.Stephanie [00:04:56]:Where did you grow up?Trent [00:04:58]:I grew up in Ohio, so kind.Stephanie [00:05:01]:Of I'm from the Midwest, obviously. Minnesota.Trent [00:05:04]:You seem a little Midwest bound.Stephanie [00:05:05]:Where do you live now?Trent [00:05:07]:I'm in New York City. I've been here about 14 years now.Stephanie [00:05:11]:And what is your day job? Life. And do you do this all the time?Trent [00:05:15]:No, this is not my full time job. I actually work for the Advertising Council, which is a national nonprofit that does public service communication efforts to move the needle on some of our most pressing issues. A lot of people know us.Stephanie [00:05:34]:I'm in advertising.Trent [00:05:36]:Amazing.Stephanie [00:05:37]:We play your ads on my radio station all the time.Trent [00:05:41]:I love that. I love that. Yeah. So I'm on the fundraising team. We oversee our board of directors and our fundraising for the organization. So that's my day job. So this is just my side leg project, just my passion project. I really thought this would be something that I would do for a couple of months and then move on to the next thing, but I really found my passion and love for food throughout this project. So it's a balancing act, working a full time job and cooking as much as I do.Stephanie [00:06:14]:How much do you cook?Trent [00:06:17]:At a minimum, four recipes a week. That doesn't seem like much, but yes, it does. Well, if you're really thinking about okay, well, there are seven days in a week. How many, like, going out to eat, like, how many meals, lunch, dinner. So I try to do four and then two to three evenings during the week.Stephanie [00:06:40]:Okay. So what attracted me to your Instagram was an article that I saw that said ina Garten's biggest fan, his ten favorite recipes. Was that intentional, or did they just pick this up from you? Or how did this all come together?Trent [00:07:01]:Yeah, no, they reached out maybe a couple of months ago, and they were like, so I'm pitching this story. It's going to be Aina Garden's biggest fan. Spend all day, every day talking about Ina. It is near impossible to pick a top ten. I mean, she has nearly 1300 recipes between her books and show, but sometimes I just have to be like, you know what? This is my top ten for the day. It might change tomorrow. There might have a craving that changes something. Sometimes I forget that I made a recipe, and I'm like, oh, yeah, that's one of my favorite. It's not in the top ten, but next year could be a different list.Stephanie [00:07:36]:So you had, I think, two of my top ten. You had the coconut cake, which I won a competition on the local television station, competing against the host with basically an adaption of her recipe.Trent [00:07:50]:I love that.Stephanie [00:07:51]:And then you also mentioned, I think the roast chicken. Perfect roast chicken, because everybody needs that. I think the roasted carrots with the goat cheese might have made your list or it made my list.Trent [00:08:07]:I've been doing a bunch of top ten lists and ranking lists, and the carrots with goat cheese, I think is on my favorite salad list.Stephanie [00:08:16]:Is there a recipe that when you made it, you didn't think you'd love it, and then you loved it like you got surprised by it?Trent [00:08:25]:There's one that I always go to, and it is her sausage and grapes. It was probably the first year, maybe early in the second year of the project, and I looked at this recipe, and I'm like, roasted grapes. What's? I don't know, sweet, savory, but, like, sausage with cooked grapes, it just didn't appeal to me at all. I was like, you know what? Let me give it a try. And I absolutely loved it. It was that sweet, savory pairing. I feel like the roasting of the grapes concentrates their flavor, making it, like, almost like a wine that goes with the sausage and the balsamic vinegar that's in there. It's just such a fabulous dish. And I know that it's a great one because every time I mention this as one of those dishes, everyone's like, eh, that doesn't sound great. And then they're like, I tried it. It is phenomenal. It's just one of the, I think, hidden treasures in Ina's repertoire of recipes.Stephanie [00:09:30]:I love it. Now, as someone who's a creator, do you have anxiety about getting the perfect picture, or are you on the video train? You have a couple of videos, but are you feeling pressure to do more?Trent [00:09:43]:Yeah, I live by anxiety. I feel like that's what propels me in everyday living. So there's a lot of anxiety that goes with it, and I think what's happening? Well, I know what's happening is the algorithm, Instagram, Facebook, they're all trying to be TikTok and so they're pushing everyone toward video content. I enjoy doing some videos, but because this isn't my full time job so what I did is I was like, you know what? They're pushing us towards video. I'm going to do a whole Beyonce series where I do recipes inspired by her songs and I'll do videos for everything. And I did a whole month of them. And I can't tell you it was my least favorite month of the entire project. It was just too much work and I had to remind myself, why am I doing this? The following is great and the community that's been built is wonderful, but I am doing this because I enjoy it. And as soon as it's not an enjoyable thing for me, I need to stop doing it. So I went back to filming a video every once in a while, doing mostly photos and finding this balance that I can live with. Even though I've seen my numbers grow or drop. I mean, or kind of stagnate over time, at least I'm happy doing the thing I'm doing.Stephanie [00:11:07]:Yeah. And I do think that's sort of the bane of our existence as creators too. You start out because you love something, then you catch fire and you're just on the content churning wheel and it becomes a job and it's not as fun and so why are you doing it? None of us are probably getting rich in the content sphere unless you're maybe Mr. And Mrs. Original YouTuber. Yeah, I'm always like a day late and a dollar short on the latest format, so I'm never going to win there. How about I just enjoy my life and if I can inspire some people along the way or maybe drive a little traffic to my website with clicks. Great.Trent [00:11:54]:Yeah, that's how I feel. Do you do videos often?Stephanie [00:11:57]:I do, but I also find them exhausting. I call them the hands videos and those look simple, but they are hard to do with the stop motion and everything else. Then there's the like, I'm going to tell you all about my interpersonal feelings journeys videos that kind of nauseates me.Trent [00:12:22]:Yeah.Stephanie [00:12:24]:Mine are like the sloppy in betweens where I realize halfway through that I can't get the jar of something open because I haven't pre planned and opened it. So I do some too.Trent [00:12:36]:That's where I find that I get a little stressed because of the desire for perfection on video. If I forget to add something or something's not quite working for me. If I'm not filming myself, I can figure that out and I'm not worried about it. And the photo turns out great, but as soon as it happens on film, I'm like, oh God. Or what happens would like to admit is do I go to stop the recording and realize after ten minutes that I haven't been recording at all, and.Stephanie [00:13:10]:I've missed every I have done this a million times. I have done this a million times where I am in the middle of something, and all of a sudden I realize I haven't started the video. Yes, and you're halfway through making it, so you're not going to start again.Trent [00:13:31]:And that's the thing. I don't have the time. The thing that I've loved about this project is that it allows me to just keep trying new things. Yes, there are certain things that get in my regular rotation that I'm making all the time, but I love trying new things, and I don't want to repeat a recipe for a second time in two days or whatever it is just for a video. At that point, it's becoming a photo, and everyone will just be happy with that.Stephanie [00:14:02]:Someone asked my kid once what her favorite recipes were that her mom makes, and she just said she had one. That was embarrassing. It was like an Asian tuna salad. But then she said, my mom never makes the same thing twice, so I don't know.Trent [00:14:18]:Yes. And that's where I am. Somebody's like, oh, you must make that all the time. It's so good. And I was like, yeah, I made that that one time. I'm sure I'll make it a couple of years from now. The crazy strikes again.Stephanie [00:14:34]:So have you met Ina?Trent [00:14:37]:I have.Stephanie [00:14:38]:Tell me about that experience and how that came about.Trent [00:14:42]:So it was a pretty magical experience. Last day in Paris, we went to a restaurant, a tasting menu restaurant called vergu. And I walk into this restaurant, and it is a restaurant that's no bigger than a decent sized living room. I walk in, and immediately I look in the corner, and it's Ina and Jeffrey having dinner. And so blood drains from my face. My friends are like, what's wrong? And I go, oh, my God. Aina and Jeffrey are in the corner of this restaurant. So they see us at our table. We're across the room. Again, not a big room. And my friends are like, do you want to face her? And I was like, Absolutely not. I will not be able to concentrate on anything during this dinner if I'm facing her. So we faced away. My friends were in PR. They're like, okay, let's wait for them to pay the bill. And then we'll go over and say hi to her. So restaurant starts clearing out a little bit. We see they're paid their bill. We go straight over there, and I introduce myself. And I'm like, I am so sorry to interrupt your dinner, but I'm a huge fan, and I'm cooking my way through your recipes. And she nods, and Jeffrey nods, and I go, yeah, my Instagram account, store bought is fine. And she turns to me and she goes, oh, I heard you were in town, and then turns to Jeffrey and goes, oh, we've corresponded online before. I about died in that moment that she one knew I was in Paris and that she, too, remembered my experience. So we had a lovely conversation about how great the dinner was, our trips to France, and at the end, I was like, can I get a photo with you? She's like, yes, we just got a cab. We'll give you the heads up when it's here, and we get a photo outside. And she couldn't have been nicer. Her and Jeffrey were so unbelievably sweet. I think so often you worry about meeting the people you idolize because can they really ever live up to who you've built? They're all humans. Can they really live up to your expectations? And she did in absolutely every single way, got photo with her. She thanked me for what I was doing. It was just such a magical it was kismet. It was meant to be. She loves Paris. I love Paris. We both live in the city or near the city and have never run into each other here. I just think that it was meant to be, and I'm so thankful for that experience.Stephanie [00:17:14]:Well, I'm so thankful that you've spent this little moment with us today. All the listeners of my show know I'm a huge fan of ina. And so when I saw your Instagram and started following it, I was like, I have to talk to this man.Trent [00:17:29]:Amazing. Well, thank you so much for having me. This has been absolutely wonderful.Stephanie [00:17:33]:It's great. It'll take me a couple of weeks to share it, but when I do, I'll tag you. And thank you just so much for sharing yourself.Trent [00:17:40]:Yeah, no problem. If you need anything else, any other blurbs pictures, anything, feel free to reach out.Stephanie [00:17:47]:Store bought is fine.Trent [00:17:49]:Yes. Thank you so much. Awesome. Thank you. Talk to you soon.Stephanie [00:17:53]:Bye.Trent [00:17:54]:Bye bye. Our channel. This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit <a href="https://stephaniehansen.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&amp;utm_campaign=CTA_2" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">stephaniehansen.substack.com/subscribe</a>

Trent Pheifer Is Cooking all of Ina Garten's Recipes from her book and website 

Tracey Medeiros

On this episode of Dishing with Stephanies Dish”,  I chat with guest Tracey Medeiros to discuss her cookbook, "The Vermont Farm To Table Cookbook." Tracey talks about the inspiration behind the book and her passion for community-driven cookbooks. She emphasizes the importance of building a relationship with recipe contributors and provides tips for utilizing excess produce. The conversation then turns to the impact of supporting local farmers and the farm-to-table movement, with Tracey sharing two recipes from her cookbook. The episode closes with discussing the importance of educating the next generation and supporting local farmers to strengthen the community.Vermont is known for its maple syrup, goat cheese, and farm-to-table spirit. The recipes and stories of ‘The Vermont Farm Table Cookbook”  bring a little piece of that Vermont spirit into your home kitchen. After 10 years, author Tracey Medeiros has revised and fully updated this cookbook to highlight the dedication of Vermont’s farmers. Readers can indulge in the comforting seasonal recipes and farm-fresh flavors this beautiful state offers while experimenting with their garden produce, CSA, or Farmer’s market finds, regardless of geography.Stephanie’s Dish Newsletter is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Here is the Burrata Salad Tracey talked about from the  ‘The Vermont Farm Table Cookbook” IngredientsBasil PestoMakes 1 3/4 cups 2 tightly packed cups of fresh basil leaves3 tablespoons raw pine nuts1/2 cup grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese (about 2 ounces)3 medium garlic cloves, coarsely chopped 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil Salad  8 ounces baby spinach, preferably local2 medium strawberries, hulled, and sliced2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil1 teaspoon lemon zest2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice1/4 teaspoon kosher salt, or to taste 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper, or to taste  2 (2-ounce) balls fresh burrata cheese, cut in half, preferably Maplebrook Farm1/2 cup shelled pistachios, salted and roasted 1 to 2 tablespoons aged balsamic vinegar, or to taste Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste Instructions* To make the basil pesto: Place the basil and pine nuts into the bowl of a food processor and pulse several times.* Add the Parmigiano-Reggiano, garlic, salt, and pepper, then pulse several times more. While the processor is running, slowly add the olive oil in a steady stream until well blended and fairly smooth, scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed. * To make the salad: In a large bowl, toss together the spinach and strawberries. In a small bowl, whisk together the olive oil, lemon zest and juice, salt, and pepper until well combined. Adjust seasonings with salt and pepper to taste.* Drizzle over the salad, tossing until well coated.* To assemble: Smear the basil pesto onto a platter. Place the salad in the center of a platter. Place the burrata on top.* Scatter the pistachios on and around the salad. Drizzle the balsamic vinegar on top and around the salad. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Serve at once.Here is a transcript of our interview.Stephanie [00:00:15]:Hello, everybody, and welcome to Dishing with Stephanie's Dish, the podcast where we talk to fellow cookbook authors, food lovers, and anyone interested in the food space in the same obsessive way that I am. And Tracy Madeiros is actually, like, right in line with all my obsessions. She is the author of The Vermont Farm Table Cookbook. And Tracy, you are having your 10th anniversary with this amazing book. How exciting, ten years later, to get, like, a rerelease.Tracey Medeiros [00:00:46]:I was so happy when I received the call asking if I would be interested in revising the first edition, and I said yes.Stephanie [00:00:58]:When you think about your original writing of the cookbook, tell me about that process and why you decided to write it.Tracey Medeiros [00:01:05]:Sure. Well, I was writing a column for the Essex Reporter in Colchester Sun, and I just felt the dedication and the energy from these folks wanting to be in that column. And I thought, why not? Why don't I write another Vermont cookbook? So I asked my editor at the newspaper her thoughts on me turning my column into a book. And years prior, the publishing house, that Countryman Press, had approached me, and they asked me if I ever write another cookbook again, please let them know. So I called the gentleman up who had approached me about writing a book for them, and I said, hey, I'm thinking about turning my column into a book. What are your thoughts? And he said, I love the idea. And I sent him some sample recipes and some profile examples, and he gave me a contract. And that's how the first edition came about.Stephanie [00:02:18]:How many recipes were in the original cookbook?Tracey Medeiros [00:02:21]:The original cookbook had 150 recipes.Stephanie [00:02:25]:Okay. And I had a cookbook that had 170. So about the same amount. How long did it take you to put it all together?Tracey Medeiros [00:02:33]:It takes me, I just work nonstop. The second I get a contract, I just run Stephanie, and it's just all consuming, and it's my life. And I would say about a year. I have that same yeah. So you're like me. You just okay, I get the contract. Because it's a little daunting when you get that contract. It's exciting, but it's daunting because you have that pressure to produce and because you have so many people involved, and people have lives, and they're busy, and farmers are extremely busy. You just have to work nonstop. So I would say about a year.Stephanie [00:03:21]:Your cookbook. The Vermont farm to table cookbook reminds me in some respects. So two things. One, I think Vermont and Minnesota are familiar climate wise. There is a rural aspect to Vermont, but also then you kind of have this liberal city in Burlington. So I feel like my daughter went to college there. So I feel like I have some a bit of a touchstone with Vermont. But when I relooked at all of your recipes in this latest 10th edition, I really got that vibe that I got ten years ago or twelve years ago when I kind of fell in love with cooking as an adult in this farm to table movement. Like buying these really cool ingredients at farmers markets and then seeing what I could turn into them.Tracey Medeiros [00:04:16]:Vermont has always been ahead of the curve food wise. And I just find that the people in this realm are just so inspiring. And like you said, and I hope when readers open this book, they will just feel the love and the dedication. These contributors are just so dedicated, so passionate, and it's just such hard work and they're just so inspiring. And they really do this for community wellness, because being a farmer, it's not a lucrative business.Stephanie [00:04:55]:Right, like writing cookbooks.Tracey Medeiros [00:04:57]:Yeah, exactly. You have to have a love and a passion for it. And these folks really do. And I'm just so fortunate that they trust me with their profiles and their recipes. And I always make sure to send the materials back and I tell them, anything you want me to add or omit or edit, please do. Because my books are really a community cookbook and I want them to also, when I feel their love, I want them to feel my love back to them, my thank you for doing what they do. And like, you obviously you love doing cookbooks and you love food. You have to just love these folks because they help you and inspire you to do what you do and do it well. And I always want them to feel my appreciation, and I'm just so grateful for them over the last all these years doing what I've done.Stephanie [00:06:09]:I think the reason your cookbook really appeals to me too, is because I think I'm a good cook. But I am a home cook and I am always attracted to newspaper columns about recipes because I feel like you have an aesthetic and a point of view that is like you're imagining me standing in my regular kitchen like I don't have all the special supplies. And I felt like when I was reading the cookbook too, that it was super approachable and like food that everyday people can cook. And I know that sounds silly, but a lot of cookbooks, they're more aspirational and beautiful. Yours is like, I can do the things. I can make the Vermont Cheddar soup, I can make these salad dressings.Tracey Medeiros [00:06:56]:Well. That's what's so important to me when I do any of my cookbooks. Exactly what you have stated, Stephanie, that I want someone who doesn't cook that often but wants to cook at home once in a while. So, for instance, I have this wonderful Lebanese salad in there. And I think also when you're trying to educate and the importance of the whole farm to table movement and the reason why you should support your local farmer and the importance you want to have that net as wide as possible, you want to educate and entertain as many people as possible so that movement continues to grow and flourish. And that's why too, when I create these books, they're a recipe book, they're also with the profiles, they're interesting reads. So maybe someone might not try a certain recipe, but they're still learning about that farm and also a travel guide too to entice people to come to this state, but say you can't come to this state, you're still learning about our state.Stephanie [00:08:22]:Yeah, I did feel that because I felt like those farm stories, when you read about a goat cheese farmer, for instance, I might not have access to that person specific goat cheese, but it brings me back to a local goat cheese provider in Minnesota that I know has the same aesthetic or works, that same belief system. And it reminds me like, oh, I need to revisit so and so's farm.Tracey Medeiros [00:08:50]:Exactly. And that is my goal. Too you're walking through the farmers market and you tell yourself, oh, I saw this wonderful recipe utilizing goat cheese. I can't get the Vermont in my town, but I'm going to support my local farmer at this farmers market. And that's the goal, just to keep these farmers on the land and also to inspire the next generation, just to keep this growing and strengthening this, because it really is so important, the local farmer and what they do is just so connected to, again, to community wellness, to our health. And it's just really important to let them know that we appreciate them, we know what they do, we know that their work is hard work and it's just inspiring. It is really inspiring. Too if you think about it, every year, you don't know what you're going to yield.Stephanie [00:09:52]:Yeah.Tracey Medeiros [00:09:52]:And it's just hope and resilience at the end of your growing season what you will yield, and you hope that you will yield a lot, but they still every year are just so dedicated to the so dedicated to the community and year after year not knowing what they're going to yield. And it's pretty amazing how resilient they are.Stephanie [00:10:18]:I think this book speaks to gardeners, too, because I'm also a gardener, so I'm just coming up on starting to thin the beets and thin the Swiss yard and the radishes are finally poking their heads out of the ground. And I'm really feeling inspired with this book to carry it as a companion from my gardening season.Tracey Medeiros [00:10:43]:I love that. That is my goal. Too absolutely. And those who are members say of CSAs, where they exactly, yeah, an overabundance, say of potatoes or leaks that they can go through my cookbooks and say, you know what, this is a great way to use all these potatoes, or this is a great way to use all these tomatoes. So that's my other goal. Too or your garden. Sometimes you yield a lot of zucchini or whatever you're growing in your garden and you can't always give your neighbors extra ingredients that you grow, and that's my goal too. And I know you do a lot of canning. You're a big yes, and that's another wonderful way to utilize extra ingredients.Stephanie [00:11:40]:Yeah, sometimes your neighbors see you coming with that extra bushel of zucchini, and they're not so happy to see you anymore.Tracey Medeiros [00:11:48]:They're like zucchini again. I love zucchini. Zucchini is great, and you can certainly do a lot with that. But it is funny because they're like, oh, no, let me guess. They're excited in the beginning, but after.Stephanie [00:12:00]:The fifth visit, yes, I totally concur. Now, what would you say what I also think is interesting about cookbooks is, like, I can tell you the three most popular cookbook, the recipes in my book, just because I get asked about them all the time. What would you say are your top?Tracey Medeiros [00:12:19]:Well, for instance, in the cookbook, there is oh, my goodness, this Maple Brook Farms Burrata Salad. And it uses local spinach and strawberries, which are in season or soon to be in season where you live, basil pesto and pistachios and aged basalmic vinegar. And what I love about the burrata, especially the one from Maple Brook Farms, they use this old world technique, the stretching of the curd, and they put it into the mozzarella and the filling with some cream, and it's just like this luscious texture. And then you have the texture from the pistachios, which is the crunch, and then you have the sweetness of the strawberries and the spinach. I mean, that is by far one of my favorites because it's very easy to make. And visually, it's beautiful, I have to say, because I'm so fortunate, and I live in such a foodie state, when I get these recipes, I'm just so excited. I feel like it's Christmas, because I'm like, oh, how are they utilizing this? Or, I cannot wait to test this. It's just a joy because they take food very seriously, and it educates me as well, and it's just exciting. And then there's this wonderful Stephanie, let me tell you, walnut tart that you can find towards the end of the book when I tell you I could eat the whole tart, it is so good. It's sinful, but it's just like it's so amazing. And you have the walnuts and then the silkiness of the texture. I mean, it's just wonderful. I just love that dessert, and so many people love it, and it's just divine.Stephanie [00:14:24]:Okay, one more question before I let you go. In the broader context of cookbooks, and just, like, your experience as a recipe developer and a writer, are there one or two cookbooks that have inspired you, just, like, in your career, of, like, they're always on your shelf. You never take them and put them away?Tracey Medeiros [00:14:44]:Well, I love anything that Martha Stewart does. I think she is a genius. I really love I'm inspired by her. I think what she does is amazing. And what I find interesting about her, she's just constantly evolving.Stephanie [00:15:07]:A swimsuit model now, so let's just go there.Tracey Medeiros [00:15:10]:Oh, I know. Fabulous.Stephanie [00:15:12]:Beautiful.Tracey Medeiros [00:15:13]:I love the orange. I love the COVID Fabulous. Of course, julia, I mean, anything that Julia had done, she actually was my inspiration as a young child watching her. And so anything from her, I'm inspired by. So I would have to say definitely those two women. Julia just watching her and just being so animated and really when I say not caring, but just wasn't restricted by the camera. She was who she was in front of the camera. Whether she dropped something or didn't have something, she was her, and it was great. And again, with Matthew just an innovator and constantly cutting edge and creative and having the longevity of that career, it's just so inspiring.Stephanie [00:16:15]:Well, I've enjoyed connecting with you. Tracy madeiros the Cookbook is the Vermont Farm Table Cookbook, and it is in its 10th anniversary. You have over 3004.5 and a half or greater reviews, which is pretty awesome, too.Tracey Medeiros [00:16:33]:Wow.Stephanie [00:16:34]:Yeah. I mean, for Amazon, I just think that's amazing so people can find your book there. Also, I'll put a link to it so that people can directly find you on your website. Are you on social media, too, Tracy?Tracey Medeiros [00:16:49]:Yes. Facebook the Vermont Farm table cookbook. Facebook. And then I have my website, which is tracymaderis.com all right.Stephanie [00:17:00]:And I'll go ahead and put links to that in the show notes. Thank you for spending time with me today. It's been really fun.Tracey Medeiros [00:17:07]:Thank you so much. And I hope you have a wonderful day.Stephanie [00:17:10]:Thanks, Tracy. Bye bye.Tracey Medeiros [00:17:11]:Thank you. Bye bye. This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit stephaniehansen.substack.com/subscribe

On this episode of Dishing with Stephanies Dish”, I chat with guest Tracey Medeiros to discuss her cookbook, <a href="https://amzn.to/3IV1gR9" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">"The Vermont Farm To Table Cookbook." </a>Tracey talks about the inspiration behind the book and her passion for community-driven cookbooks. She emphasizes the importance of building a relationship with recipe contributors and provides tips for utilizing excess produce. The conversation then turns to the impact of supporting local farmers and the farm-to-table movement, with Tracey sharing two recipes from her cookbook. The episode closes with discussing the importance of educating the next generation and supporting local farmers to strengthen the community.Vermont is known for its maple syrup, goat cheese, and farm-to-table spirit. The recipes and stories of <a href="https://amzn.to/3IV1gR9" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">‘The Vermont Farm Table Cookbook” </a> bring a little piece of that Vermont spirit into your home kitchen. After 10 years, author Tracey Medeiros has revised and fully updated this cookbook to highlight the dedication of Vermont’s farmers. Readers can indulge in the comforting seasonal recipes and farm-fresh flavors this beautiful state offers while experimenting with their garden produce, CSA, or Farmer’s market finds, regardless of geography.Stephanie’s Dish Newsletter is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Here is the Burrata Salad Tracey talked about from the <a href="https://amzn.to/3IV1gR9" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">‘The Vermont Farm Table Cookbook” </a>IngredientsBasil PestoMakes 1 3/4 cups 2 tightly packed cups of fresh basil leaves3 tablespoons raw pine nuts1/2 cup grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese (about 2 ounces)3 medium garlic cloves, coarsely chopped 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil Salad  8 ounces baby spinach, preferably local2 medium strawberries, hulled, and sliced2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil1 teaspoon lemon zest2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice1/4 teaspoon kosher salt, or to taste 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper, or to taste  2 (2-ounce) balls fresh burrata cheese, cut in half, preferably Maplebrook Farm1/2 cup shelled pistachios, salted and roasted 1 to 2 tablespoons aged balsamic vinegar, or to taste Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste Instructions* To make the basil pesto: Place the basil and pine nuts into the bowl of a food processor and pulse several times.* Add the Parmigiano-Reggiano, garlic, salt, and pepper, then pulse several times more. While the processor is running, slowly add the olive oil in a steady stream until well blended and fairly smooth, scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed. * To make the salad: In a large bowl, toss together the spinach and strawberries. In a small bowl, whisk together the olive oil, lemon zest and juice, salt, and pepper until well combined. Adjust seasonings with salt and pepper to taste.* Drizzle over the salad, tossing until well coated.* To assemble: Smear the basil pesto onto a platter. Place the salad in the center of a platter. Place the burrata on top.* Scatter the pistachios on and around the salad. Drizzle the balsamic vinegar on top and around the salad. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Serve at once.Here is a transcript of our interview.Stephanie [00:00:15]:Hello, everybody, and welcome to Dishing with Stephanie's Dish, the podcast where we talk to fellow cookbook authors, food lovers, and anyone interested in the food space in the same obsessive way that I am. And Tracy Madeiros is actually, like, right in line with all my obsessions. She is the author of The Vermont Farm Table Cookbook. And Tracy, you are having your 10th anniversary with this amazing book. How exciting, ten years later, to get, like, a rerelease.Tracey Medeiros [00:00:46]:I was so happy when I received the call asking if I would be interested in revising the first edition, and I said yes.Stephanie [00:00:58]:When you think about your original writing of the cookbook, tell me about that process and why you decided to write it.Tracey Medeiros [00:01:05]:Sure. Well, I was writing a column for the Essex Reporter in Colchester Sun, and I just felt the dedication and the energy from these folks wanting to be in that column. And I thought, why not? Why don't I write another Vermont cookbook? So I asked my editor at the newspaper her thoughts on me turning my column into a book. And years prior, the publishing house, that Countryman Press, had approached me, and they asked me if I ever write another cookbook again, please let them know. So I called the gentleman up who had approached me about writing a book for them, and I said, hey, I'm thinking about turning my column into a book. What are your thoughts? And he said, I love the idea. And I sent him some sample recipes and some profile examples, and he gave me a contract. And that's how the first edition came about.Stephanie [00:02:18]:How many recipes were in the original cookbook?Tracey Medeiros [00:02:21]:The original cookbook had 150 recipes.Stephanie [00:02:25]:Okay. And I had a cookbook that had 170. So about the same amount. How long did it take you to put it all together?Tracey Medeiros [00:02:33]:It takes me, I just work nonstop. The second I get a contract, I just run Stephanie, and it's just all consuming, and it's my life. And I would say about a year. I have that same yeah. So you're like me. You just okay, I get the contract. Because it's a little daunting when you get that contract. It's exciting, but it's daunting because you have that pressure to produce and because you have so many people involved, and people have lives, and they're busy, and farmers are extremely busy. You just have to work nonstop. So I would say about a year.Stephanie [00:03:21]:Your cookbook. The Vermont farm to table cookbook reminds me in some respects. So two things. One, I think Vermont and Minnesota are familiar climate wise. There is a rural aspect to Vermont, but also then you kind of have this liberal city in Burlington. So I feel like my daughter went to college there. So I feel like I have some a bit of a touchstone with Vermont. But when I relooked at all of your recipes in this latest 10th edition, I really got that vibe that I got ten years ago or twelve years ago when I kind of fell in love with cooking as an adult in this farm to table movement. Like buying these really cool ingredients at farmers markets and then seeing what I could turn into them.Tracey Medeiros [00:04:16]:Vermont has always been ahead of the curve food wise. And I just find that the people in this realm are just so inspiring. And like you said, and I hope when readers open this book, they will just feel the love and the dedication. These contributors are just so dedicated, so passionate, and it's just such hard work and they're just so inspiring. And they really do this for community wellness, because being a farmer, it's not a lucrative business.Stephanie [00:04:55]:Right, like writing cookbooks.Tracey Medeiros [00:04:57]:Yeah, exactly. You have to have a love and a passion for it. And these folks really do. And I'm just so fortunate that they trust me with their profiles and their recipes. And I always make sure to send the materials back and I tell them, anything you want me to add or omit or edit, please do. Because my books are really a community cookbook and I want them to also, when I feel their love, I want them to feel my love back to them, my thank you for doing what they do. And like, you obviously you love doing cookbooks and you love food. You have to just love these folks because they help you and inspire you to do what you do and do it well. And I always want them to feel my appreciation, and I'm just so grateful for them over the last all these years doing what I've done.Stephanie [00:06:09]:I think the reason your cookbook really appeals to me too, is because I think I'm a good cook. But I am a home cook and I am always attracted to newspaper columns about recipes because I feel like you have an aesthetic and a point of view that is like you're imagining me standing in my regular kitchen like I don't have all the special supplies. And I felt like when I was reading the cookbook too, that it was super approachable and like food that everyday people can cook. And I know that sounds silly, but a lot of cookbooks, they're more aspirational and beautiful. Yours is like, I can do the things. I can make the Vermont Cheddar soup, I can make these salad dressings.Tracey Medeiros [00:06:56]:Well. That's what's so important to me when I do any of my cookbooks. Exactly what you have stated, Stephanie, that I want someone who doesn't cook that often but wants to cook at home once in a while. So, for instance, I have this wonderful Lebanese salad in there. And I think also when you're trying to educate and the importance of the whole farm to table movement and the reason why you should support your local farmer and the importance you want to have that net as wide as possible, you want to educate and entertain as many people as possible so that movement continues to grow and flourish. And that's why too, when I create these books, they're a recipe book, they're also with the profiles, they're interesting reads. So maybe someone might not try a certain recipe, but they're still learning about that farm and also a travel guide too to entice people to come to this state, but say you can't come to this state, you're still learning about our state.Stephanie [00:08:22]:Yeah, I did feel that because I felt like those farm stories, when you read about a goat cheese farmer, for instance, I might not have access to that person specific goat cheese, but it brings me back to a local goat cheese provider in Minnesota that I know has the same aesthetic or works, that same belief system. And it reminds me like, oh, I need to revisit so and so's farm.Tracey Medeiros [00:08:50]:Exactly. And that is my goal. Too you're walking through the farmers market and you tell yourself, oh, I saw this wonderful recipe utilizing goat cheese. I can't get the Vermont in my town, but I'm going to support my local farmer at this farmers market. And that's the goal, just to keep these farmers on the land and also to inspire the next generation, just to keep this growing and strengthening this, because it really is so important, the local farmer and what they do is just so connected to, again, to community wellness, to our health. And it's just really important to let them know that we appreciate them, we know what they do, we know that their work is hard work and it's just inspiring. It is really inspiring. Too if you think about it, every year, you don't know what you're going to yield.Stephanie [00:09:52]:Yeah.Tracey Medeiros [00:09:52]:And it's just hope and resilience at the end of your growing season what you will yield, and you hope that you will yield a lot, but they still every year are just so dedicated to the so dedicated to the community and year after year not knowing what they're going to yield. And it's pretty amazing how resilient they are.Stephanie [00:10:18]:I think this book speaks to gardeners, too, because I'm also a gardener, so I'm just coming up on starting to thin the beets and thin the Swiss yard and the radishes are finally poking their heads out of the ground. And I'm really feeling inspired with this book to carry it as a companion from my gardening season.Tracey Medeiros [00:10:43]:I love that. That is my goal. Too absolutely. And those who are members say of CSAs, where they exactly, yeah, an overabundance, say of potatoes or leaks that they can go through my cookbooks and say, you know what, this is a great way to use all these potatoes, or this is a great way to use all these tomatoes. So that's my other goal. Too or your garden. Sometimes you yield a lot of zucchini or whatever you're growing in your garden and you can't always give your neighbors extra ingredients that you grow, and that's my goal too. And I know you do a lot of canning. You're a big yes, and that's another wonderful way to utilize extra ingredients.Stephanie [00:11:40]:Yeah, sometimes your neighbors see you coming with that extra bushel of zucchini, and they're not so happy to see you anymore.Tracey Medeiros [00:11:48]:They're like zucchini again. I love zucchini. Zucchini is great, and you can certainly do a lot with that. But it is funny because they're like, oh, no, let me guess. They're excited in the beginning, but after.Stephanie [00:12:00]:The fifth visit, yes, I totally concur. Now, what would you say what I also think is interesting about cookbooks is, like, I can tell you the three most popular cookbook, the recipes in my book, just because I get asked about them all the time. What would you say are your top?Tracey Medeiros [00:12:19]:Well, for instance, in the cookbook, there is oh, my goodness, this Maple Brook Farms Burrata Salad. And it uses local spinach and strawberries, which are in season or soon to be in season where you live, basil pesto and pistachios and aged basalmic vinegar. And what I love about the burrata, especially the one from Maple Brook Farms, they use this old world technique, the stretching of the curd, and they put it into the mozzarella and the filling with some cream, and it's just like this luscious texture. And then you have the texture from the pistachios, which is the crunch, and then you have the sweetness of the strawberries and the spinach. I mean, that is by far one of my favorites because it's very easy to make. And visually, it's beautiful, I have to say, because I'm so fortunate, and I live in such a foodie state, when I get these recipes, I'm just so excited. I feel like it's Christmas, because I'm like, oh, how are they utilizing this? Or, I cannot wait to test this. It's just a joy because they take food very seriously, and it educates me as well, and it's just exciting. And then there's this wonderful Stephanie, let me tell you, walnut tart that you can find towards the end of the book when I tell you I could eat the whole tart, it is so good. It's sinful, but it's just like it's so amazing. And you have the walnuts and then the silkiness of the texture. I mean, it's just wonderful. I just love that dessert, and so many people love it, and it's just divine.Stephanie [00:14:24]:Okay, one more question before I let you go. In the broader context of cookbooks, and just, like, your experience as a recipe developer and a writer, are there one or two cookbooks that have inspired you, just, like, in your career, of, like, they're always on your shelf. You never take them and put them away?Tracey Medeiros [00:14:44]:Well, I love anything that Martha Stewart does. I think she is a genius. I really love I'm inspired by her. I think what she does is amazing. And what I find interesting about her, she's just constantly evolving.Stephanie [00:15:07]:A swimsuit model now, so let's just go there.Tracey Medeiros [00:15:10]:Oh, I know. Fabulous.Stephanie [00:15:12]:Beautiful.Tracey Medeiros [00:15:13]:I love the orange. I love the COVID Fabulous. Of course, julia, I mean, anything that Julia had done, she actually was my inspiration as a young child watching her. And so anything from her, I'm inspired by. So I would have to say definitely those two women. Julia just watching her and just being so animated and really when I say not caring, but just wasn't restricted by the camera. She was who she was in front of the camera. Whether she dropped something or didn't have something, she was her, and it was great. And again, with Matthew just an innovator and constantly cutting edge and creative and having the longevity of that career, it's just so inspiring.Stephanie [00:16:15]:Well, I've enjoyed connecting with you. Tracy madeiros the Cookbook is the Vermont Farm Table Cookbook, and it is in its 10th anniversary. You have over 3004.5 and a half or greater reviews, which is pretty awesome, too.Tracey Medeiros [00:16:33]:Wow.Stephanie [00:16:34]:Yeah. I mean, for Amazon, I just think that's amazing so people can find your book there. Also, I'll put a link to it so that people can directly find you on your website. Are you on social media, too, Tracy?Tracey Medeiros [00:16:49]:Yes. Facebook the Vermont Farm table cookbook. Facebook. And then I have my website, which is <a href="http://tracymaderis.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">tracymaderis.com</a> all right.Stephanie [00:17:00]:And I'll go ahead and put links to that in the show notes. Thank you for spending time with me today. It's been really fun.Tracey Medeiros [00:17:07]:Thank you so much. And I hope you have a wonderful day.Stephanie [00:17:10]:Thanks, Tracy. Bye bye.Tracey Medeiros [00:17:11]:Thank you. Bye bye. This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit <a href="https://stephaniehansen.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&amp;utm_campaign=CTA_2" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">stephaniehansen.substack.com/subscribe</a>

Tracey Medeiros author of "The Vermont Farm Table Cookbook": Homegrown Recipes from the Green Mountain State"

Judith Tschann

Stephanie [00:00:16]:Hello, everybody, and welcome to Dishing with Stephanie's Dish, the podcast where we talk to people that have written unique, amazing, and in this case, super fun books about food. I'm here with Judith Chishon, and she is a friend of a friend sister, which is fun to talk with her, too. Susie Mindrum is her sister, who's a good friend of our families and has been so kind to me and my stepmom. So it's fun to talk with you, Judith. She reached out and said, Would you ever want to talk to my sister? She has this funny book called “Romaine Wasn't Built in a Day”.Judith [00:00:53]:Sister in law.Stephanie [00:00:54]:Okay. Sister in law. It's amazing.Judith [00:00:58]:Yeah.Stephanie [00:00:59]:So do we call you? Is it an entomologist? The person who studies the nature of words?Judith [00:01:08]:Yeah. Etymologist no, n otherwise people might think it pertains to bugs.Stephanie [00:01:16]:Yes, that's right. So etymology is the derivative of words.Judith [00:01:22]:Yeah, right.Stephanie [00:01:24]:How did you think of putting this book together? Because why don't you describe it in your own words? Okay.Judith [00:01:31]:A somewhat short answer as to how it came about. I specialized in Old English and Middle English in graduate school, and as a professor, I had the great good fortune to teach history of the language, which, of course, included many discussions about the immense vocabulary of English and where all those words came from. And over the course of many, many years, I had amassed a huge pile of notes about interesting word histories. And then when the Pandemic hit, I put them all together into a book.Stephanie [00:02:17]:Isn't it amazing how many books were spawned by the pandemic?Judith [00:02:22]:Yes, really, it is.Stephanie [00:02:26]:And do you have a personal love of food or why this focus specifically on food words?Judith [00:02:33]:Yeah. Well, that's a good question. Yes. I love food. I am very interested in the history of food. I taught a course once long ago on food and literature, and often even in other courses, talked about the role that literature, that food played in a book. But the first love, I guess, was words. Even as a kid, I mean, all kids love to play with words, rhyming and punning and doing Dr. Susan kinds of things. And if I can indulge in one anecdote that's popping into my head right now about a love of language, even as a kid, I don't know how old I was maybe seven, eight, something like that. We were sitting around the table at my grandmother and grandfather's house, and he was holding forth with an anecdote, the punchline to, which was in Norwegian. And everybody burst out laughing, probably including me, though I didn't understand what he had said. I had a few words of Norwegian, that was it. But it really stands out in my head that a kind of moment of paying attention to the medium, perhaps, rather than the message that it was funny for everybody, maybe because literally what he said, but also because he said it in another language. We call that code switching now, and I wouldn't have articulated the whole business the way I am now, but it was a fun moment of awareness of I'm going to call it the ludic quality of language meaning the playfulness and all the things that we can do with language. Like tell jokes.Stephanie [00:04:39]:Yeah. And the lyricism of it. Right.Judith [00:04:42]:Yes. And I was a dictionary reader even at a young age. I don't know why exactly.Stephanie [00:04:50]:It makes me laugh that you just said that, like we're all dictionary readers. You read the dictionary as a young kid.Judith [00:04:58]:Yeah. I remember looking up words and making marks in the book. And I love the word pugnacious. Who knows why?Stephanie [00:05:09]:Right.Judith [00:05:10]:And naughty words were sometimes in there. Although I admit I was using a very old punk and wagon's dictionary, which did not have very many naughty words. Yeah. I've just always really loved digging around in the dictionary.Stephanie [00:05:28]:Have you by chance read and I think the book is called The Book of Words. It's about the writing of the dictionary from the female perspective.Judith [00:05:39]:Well, I've read a number of books like that. Is it the one by Corey Stamford? Word by word?Stephanie [00:05:48]:Maybe. Oh, I just read it, and I'm sorry that I don't know the name of the author. I will try and find it.Judith [00:05:57]:Okay. I've got it sitting here in this big pile of books.Stephanie [00:06:03]:Yeah. It was basically just this idea of how the dictionary came to be and how they chronicled and cataloged the words. And it was fiction.Judith [00:06:15]:It was fiction.Stephanie [00:06:17]:It was but I think it was based in historical fiction, and it was just something go ahead.Judith [00:06:25]:No, that sounds fantastic.Stephanie [00:06:27]:Yeah. It was just something I had never really thought about. Here's the name of it. It is called lost words. I'm going to find it. Sorry. I just think you would really like it. And it was absolutely very beautifully written. The Dictionary of Lost Words is what it was called. And it was written by a woman named Pip Williams. K. Okay. Pip Williams. And the idea was they sort of chronicled this historical fiction of the creating of the dictionary. But also what was unique about the book was this idea that women had their own language and women of the aristocracy, their language was different than women that were working in the homes or were working in the markets and were lower caste women, as it were. So she became enamored with chronicling and cataloging the words that women use that didn't make it into the original dictionaries.Judith [00:07:35]:Interesting. Well, I definitely want to read it. And she was talking about English, or was she talking worldwide?Stephanie [00:07:43]:It was in England, and it was the Oxford Dictionary compilation.Judith [00:07:49]:Okay, so it's a story about The OED.Stephanie [00:07:51]:Correct.Judith [00:07:53]:Okay. Yes.Stephanie [00:07:54]:I think you'd like it.Judith [00:07:55]:Yeah, I read the Madman story about the OED, but I haven't read this one specifically. Do you know if she has a lot of food words?Stephanie [00:08:06]:There is some, but it's not a lot that I could pick up because I think I would have recalled that. And when we were talking about preparing for this book, you were talking about the funny. We talked about rhubarb in particular because I'm obsessed with rhubarb. What is the origination of the word rhubarb?Judith [00:08:27]:It comes from a Greek word that means, well, the vegetable. But it means barbarous, too. So it's a foreign thing. That word foreign. And barbarous is in there. That's the barb part of rhubarb, which seems to me kind of fun and funny.Stephanie [00:08:47]:Yeah.Judith [00:08:49]:So I'm curious about your obsession with it. Food so often, of course, has emotional associations. And my association with rhubarb is a very positive one. Not only because my husband likes to make rhubarb pie and I love rhubarb pie, but it makes me think of my grandmother and her backyard in Northfield, Minnesota and a big rhubarb patch and the admonition that we should not ever even think about eating those leaves.Stephanie [00:09:26]:Yeah. Because they're poisonous.Judith [00:09:27]:Poisonous. And you'll die. But in spite of that, I mean, that only made it all more thrilling.Stephanie [00:09:34]:I think what I am fascinated by with rhubarb is that it's sort of this ugly looking weed in a lot of respects, and then it's not. If you just pull a stalk and eat it without a ton of sugar, it's not awesome. And then when you cut the leaves off and you boil that down or you cook it in a pastry and you add sugar, you make something completely transformative out of what is, in a lot of sense, zoeed I think that's what appeals to me, yes.Judith [00:10:03]:Well, wow. That is the magic, the transformation, right. That we can eat that stuff, but then it has to be cooked. Yeah. And when I think of rhubarb, I think of recipes that promise this transformation. I just love recipes, though I am not a recipe writer. I mean, I'm certainly not a cookbook writer. So I'm full of admiration for anybody who has written books with lots of recipes in them and all that that entails. But I just love the idea that you can have a list of rules and ingredients that promise transformation and something tasty and wonderful. And I think of it, too, in another way that's maybe kind of odd. I think of recipe cards that I have in my little old recipe card thingy holder, and I think of the handwriting that's on them. So in some cases, it's my mother's very neat handwriting. The Palmer method, that was not long ago. And in other cases, it's my grandmother's handwriting, the one who had rhubarb in the backyard. And hers tended to be shorter. I mean, she wouldn't give well, this doesn't account for the length of the recipe, but she wouldn't give a precise number for the oven setting. She would say hot oven or the precise measurement of, I don't know, flour is just scant. And somehow I liked that, that they were kind of abbreviated because she assumed you knew what to do.Stephanie [00:11:52]:Yeah. That's so funny, because in a lot of the recipes that my grandma left behind when I was writing a cookbook, trying to decipher what scamped was or what simmer, and just thinking about okay, like, a gas oven operates different than an electric oven. And so much of cooking can be intuitive. And I'm pretty good about intuiting, but I try to write it for my sister, who, if you don't say, ten minutes at 425 and test it with a toothpick, and if there's crumbs on there, keep going. She just has no idea. She has no intuition at all when it comes to cooking.Judith [00:12:34]:Yeah, well, I'm a little bit more in that category.Stephanie [00:12:38]:Yeah. And you have to spell it all out when we talk about some of the words in your book. What are some of your three to five favorite food words that you covered?Judith [00:12:50]:Okay, let me think for a minute, because those words change as to which is the favorite. At the moment, I am thinking of the word barbecue because I don't know a bunch of reasons. It comes from the Caribbean Arowakan word that means a frame that has many uses, but one of them is for roasting food. But there's a common theory about what barbecue means, that it comes from the French for barb, a cou, meaning beard to tail, presumably referring to the way you would spit the pig. Not a very pleasant idea.Stephanie [00:13:40]:Yes, you'd spirit from tip to tail.Judith [00:13:42]:Right. But there isn't any evidence for that, whereas there is evidence for this derivation from the Arawakan language. And to me, I just like to remember both. I'm very interested in false etymologies, or if you don't want to call them that, stories about words, because they suggest something interesting, too. I mean, in this case, it's a clever idea. It's based only on sound similarity. Sounds, of course, are incredibly important in trying to figure out the etymology, but that's not enough. And for dictionaries, there has to be written evidence, too. So I like the word barbecue. I like the word zydeco. I've been thinking about that a lot. The music from southern Louisiana. It's the Louisiana Creole pronunciation of lasarico, the French words for beans. The beans. And it apparently comes from a song title written by Clifton Sheny. And the title, or anyway, it's a line in the song, is something like Lazarico, pronounced zydaco son Pasale are not salted. I don't know what that means. I've dug around trying to get translations and explanations, and somebody said it means it's when you're serving just the beans and there's no meat or something.Stephanie [00:15:19]:Yeah, potentially, like a salt pork is missing.Judith [00:15:23]:Yeah. So I think that's fun. Zydeco means beans. That music. And I associate the word, then with the instruments, some of which are stringed instruments. I think of them as green beans.Stephanie [00:15:36]:Then I think about the actual artist named Buckwheat Zydeco, who sings zydeco.Judith [00:15:41]:Okay. I have to look.Stephanie [00:15:43]:Yeah, he's pretty great. He's from Orlando.Judith [00:15:47]:First name?Stephanie [00:15:48]:Yeah. He's just a great musician.Judith [00:15:52]:Okay. Thank you for that. And I like the word marathon because it's a toponym. The race named after a place in Greece where there was a famous marathon. And I like it because it has food hidden in the word. I mean, hidden to us, if we don't know Greek, it means fennel. In Greek, maratho. So it's food connected and toponym. That's interesting. Named after a place. Yeah.Stephanie [00:16:20]:What is a toponym? I've never heard of that term before.Judith [00:16:24]:A word that's named after a place. Okay. And there are also lots of eponyms words named after people, like, say, sandwich, which is a famous one, of course. Sandwich, just to confuse the issue, is also a place. Yes. And there's no evidence, really, that he did what he supposedly did, which was right. Hold a big sandwich, put all the meat and stuff between two pieces of bread, and hold it while he gambled with the other hand. So, in this case, it's a story. It's not the actual etymology. Nevertheless, it's clear that the word goes back to his name, his title. So, yeah, it's a word named after a person. I like words that have food hidden in them, too, like, seersucker, which comes from the Persian. That means milk and sugar.Stephanie [00:17:26]:Okay. And originally were suckers made with milk?Judith [00:17:33]:No, I think it's a pure coincidence that it sounds like sucker. Okay. It's from the Parisian, and I'd have to look up the precise words and pardon my inability to pronounce them, but it's like sugar and sugar. I mean, it's a word that means that means sugar, but in this case, it refers to the look of the material. Those words just got mushed together. Sucker. And the material looks like an alternating pattern of colors and maybe ones that have little bumps up and then the flat one, because Searsucker has those little material.Stephanie [00:18:24]:How long did it take you to research romaine wasn't built in a day, or were these just from the notes, and you had them all handy?Judith [00:18:32]:It's both. I did have notes for virtually all these words, but I checked them all. So it took day and night for a little more than a year, which seems to me pretty fast, but it was like day and night, and there's so much more I wanted to write, but I had a word limit.Stephanie [00:18:52]:Yes. Okay. One other question for you. You mentioned early on that you have taught classes about food literature and food books. Can you share with us, like, three of your favorite pieces of food literature or food books?Judith [00:19:09]:Okay, so this is just off the top of my head. I might have a longer and better answer if I thought about it. But I love The Odyssey for the references to food, much of which is all about being pious and giving food to the gods. They are constantly stopping to have what we would call a barbecue.Stephanie [00:19:35]:Sure.Judith [00:19:35]:It sounds as if they eat nothing but cow meat.Stephanie [00:19:40]:Yeah.Judith [00:19:41]:But it's all about piety and being civilized. And on the other hand, creatures they encounter, we might say people they encounter who don't do this. But somehow, invert the whole process of being host and guest, they are marked then as uncivilized. Like Polyphemus, who eats his guests.Stephanie [00:20:07]:Right.Judith [00:20:10]:And so many of the Greek myths that are just so fantastic about food and their use of food. But also, of course, The Canterbury Tales, because I love Chaucer.Stephanie [00:20:23]:Sure.Judith [00:20:23]:So in The Canterbury Tales, food is part of the original impetus for talking. They are about to set out on a journey, these nine and 20 in a compenia, these pilgrims. And at the end of it, there will be a meal, which is their reward, or it's especially a reward for the person who tells the best tale. So it's a competition and a thing that draws you on. And the thought of eating that makes you talk. Of course, they never do get to that meal. Yeah, that's a different story. What else? Well, I love the food in Tom Jones, that famous scene between him and the woman he's what, maybe for a second, thought to be the son of. And it's famous in its film version, the original film version, where she's eating oysters in seductive way and lots of 20th century literature. Can I think of even one? Salman Rushdie's book, Midnight's Children has fantastic interesting uses of food like pickles. And so that after a while you question, what does it mean to be pickled? Yeah, so many books.Stephanie [00:21:54]:I love it. Well, I never have thought about that book in that way. So I like that you got me to think about that. Your book has had a lot of interest. I was looking just at your reviews on Amazon and people are really loving it. It is. Romaine wasn't built in a day, and it's by Judith Chishon. And I'm impressed. I think it's really a fun book. And I love talking to you and thinking about all the things like COVID was such a weird time for so many of us, but also so prolific in the creative aspects.Judith [00:22:31]:Yes. When you had to be shut off from the world, at least somewhat. Yeah.Stephanie [00:22:38]:We found other things to do with our time. So do you think you have another book in you?Judith [00:22:45]:Yes, I feel like I have a bunch. I have many unfinished books, and I can't even say what's on the horizon. I have to hurry up and decide.Stephanie [00:22:59]:I understand. Well, it's been fun to talk to you. Thanks for spending time with me today. Talking about Romaine wasn't built in a day. It's real sweet.Judith [00:23:08]:Thank you. Thanks, Judith.Stephanie [00:23:10]:We'll talk soon.Judith [00:23:11]:Okay, bye. This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit stephaniehansen.substack.com/subscribe

Stephanie [00:00:16]:Hello, everybody, and welcome to Dishing with Stephanie's Dish, the podcast where we talk to people that have written unique, amazing, and in this case, super fun books about food. I'm here with Judith Chishon, and she is a friend of a friend sister, which is fun to talk with her, too. Susie Mindrum is her sister, who's a good friend of our families and has been so kind to me and my stepmom. So it's fun to talk with you, Judith. She reached out and said, Would you ever want to talk to my sister? She has this funny book called <a href="https://amzn.to/3BB3zoG" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">“Romaine Wasn't Built in a Day”</a>.Judith [00:00:53]:Sister in law.Stephanie [00:00:54]:Okay. Sister in law. It's amazing.Judith [00:00:58]:Yeah.Stephanie [00:00:59]:So do we call you? Is it an entomologist? The person who studies the nature of words?Judith [00:01:08]:Yeah. Etymologist no, n otherwise people might think it pertains to bugs.Stephanie [00:01:16]:Yes, that's right. So etymology is the derivative of words.Judith [00:01:22]:Yeah, right.Stephanie [00:01:24]:How did you think of putting this book together? Because why don't you describe it in your own words? Okay.Judith [00:01:31]:A somewhat short answer as to how it came about. I specialized in Old English and Middle English in graduate school, and as a professor, I had the great good fortune to teach history of the language, which, of course, included many discussions about the immense vocabulary of English and where all those words came from. And over the course of many, many years, I had amassed a huge pile of notes about interesting word histories. And then when the Pandemic hit, I put them all together into a book.Stephanie [00:02:17]:Isn't it amazing how many books were spawned by the pandemic?Judith [00:02:22]:Yes, really, it is.Stephanie [00:02:26]:And do you have a personal love of food or why this focus specifically on food words?Judith [00:02:33]:Yeah. Well, that's a good question. Yes. I love food. I am very interested in the history of food. I taught a course once long ago on food and literature, and often even in other courses, talked about the role that literature, that food played in a book. But the first love, I guess, was words. Even as a kid, I mean, all kids love to play with words, rhyming and punning and doing Dr. Susan kinds of things. And if I can indulge in one anecdote that's popping into my head right now about a love of language, even as a kid, I don't know how old I was maybe seven, eight, something like that. We were sitting around the table at my grandmother and grandfather's house, and he was holding forth with an anecdote, the punchline to, which was in Norwegian. And everybody burst out laughing, probably including me, though I didn't understand what he had said. I had a few words of Norwegian, that was it. But it really stands out in my head that a kind of moment of paying attention to the medium, perhaps, rather than the message that it was funny for everybody, maybe because literally what he said, but also because he said it in another language. We call that code switching now, and I wouldn't have articulated the whole business the way I am now, but it was a fun moment of awareness of I'm going to call it the ludic quality of language meaning the playfulness and all the things that we can do with language. Like tell jokes.Stephanie [00:04:39]:Yeah. And the lyricism of it. Right.Judith [00:04:42]:Yes. And I was a dictionary reader even at a young age. I don't know why exactly.Stephanie [00:04:50]:It makes me laugh that you just said that, like we're all dictionary readers. You read the dictionary as a young kid.Judith [00:04:58]:Yeah. I remember looking up words and making marks in the book. And I love the word pugnacious. Who knows why?Stephanie [00:05:09]:Right.Judith [00:05:10]:And naughty words were sometimes in there. Although I admit I was using a very old punk and wagon's dictionary, which did not have very many naughty words. Yeah. I've just always really loved digging around in the dictionary.Stephanie [00:05:28]:Have you by chance read and I think the book is called The Book of Words. It's about the writing of the dictionary from the female perspective.Judith [00:05:39]:Well, I've read a number of books like that. Is it the one by Corey Stamford? Word by word?Stephanie [00:05:48]:Maybe. Oh, I just read it, and I'm sorry that I don't know the name of the author. I will try and find it.Judith [00:05:57]:Okay. I've got it sitting here in this big pile of books.Stephanie [00:06:03]:Yeah. It was basically just this idea of how the dictionary came to be and how they chronicled and cataloged the words. And it was fiction.Judith [00:06:15]:It was fiction.Stephanie [00:06:17]:It was but I think it was based in historical fiction, and it was just something go ahead.Judith [00:06:25]:No, that sounds fantastic.Stephanie [00:06:27]:Yeah. It was just something I had never really thought about. Here's the name of it. It is called lost words. I'm going to find it. Sorry. I just think you would really like it. And it was absolutely very beautifully written. The Dictionary of Lost Words is what it was called. And it was written by a woman named Pip Williams. K. Okay. Pip Williams. And the idea was they sort of chronicled this historical fiction of the creating of the dictionary. But also what was unique about the book was this idea that women had their own language and women of the aristocracy, their language was different than women that were working in the homes or were working in the markets and were lower caste women, as it were. So she became enamored with chronicling and cataloging the words that women use that didn't make it into the original dictionaries.Judith [00:07:35]:Interesting. Well, I definitely want to read it. And she was talking about English, or was she talking worldwide?Stephanie [00:07:43]:It was in England, and it was the Oxford Dictionary compilation.Judith [00:07:49]:Okay, so it's a story about The OED.Stephanie [00:07:51]:Correct.Judith [00:07:53]:Okay. Yes.Stephanie [00:07:54]:I think you'd like it.Judith [00:07:55]:Yeah, I read the Madman story about the OED, but I haven't read this one specifically. Do you know if she has a lot of food words?Stephanie [00:08:06]:There is some, but it's not a lot that I could pick up because I think I would have recalled that. And when we were talking about preparing for this book, you were talking about the funny. We talked about rhubarb in particular because I'm obsessed with rhubarb. What is the origination of the word rhubarb?Judith [00:08:27]:It comes from a Greek word that means, well, the vegetable. But it means barbarous, too. So it's a foreign thing. That word foreign. And barbarous is in there. That's the barb part of rhubarb, which seems to me kind of fun and funny.Stephanie [00:08:47]:Yeah.Judith [00:08:49]:So I'm curious about your obsession with it. Food so often, of course, has emotional associations. And my association with rhubarb is a very positive one. Not only because my husband likes to make rhubarb pie and I love rhubarb pie, but it makes me think of my grandmother and her backyard in Northfield, Minnesota and a big rhubarb patch and the admonition that we should not ever even think about eating those leaves.Stephanie [00:09:26]:Yeah. Because they're poisonous.Judith [00:09:27]:Poisonous. And you'll die. But in spite of that, I mean, that only made it all more thrilling.Stephanie [00:09:34]:I think what I am fascinated by with rhubarb is that it's sort of this ugly looking weed in a lot of respects, and then it's not. If you just pull a stalk and eat it without a ton of sugar, it's not awesome. And then when you cut the leaves off and you boil that down or you cook it in a pastry and you add sugar, you make something completely transformative out of what is, in a lot of sense, zoeed I think that's what appeals to me, yes.Judith [00:10:03]:Well, wow. That is the magic, the transformation, right. That we can eat that stuff, but then it has to be cooked. Yeah. And when I think of rhubarb, I think of recipes that promise this transformation. I just love recipes, though I am not a recipe writer. I mean, I'm certainly not a cookbook writer. So I'm full of admiration for anybody who has written books with lots of recipes in them and all that that entails. But I just love the idea that you can have a list of rules and ingredients that promise transformation and something tasty and wonderful. And I think of it, too, in another way that's maybe kind of odd. I think of recipe cards that I have in my little old recipe card thingy holder, and I think of the handwriting that's on them. So in some cases, it's my mother's very neat handwriting. The Palmer method, that was not long ago. And in other cases, it's my grandmother's handwriting, the one who had rhubarb in the backyard. And hers tended to be shorter. I mean, she wouldn't give well, this doesn't account for the length of the recipe, but she wouldn't give a precise number for the oven setting. She would say hot oven or the precise measurement of, I don't know, flour is just scant. And somehow I liked that, that they were kind of abbreviated because she assumed you knew what to do.Stephanie [00:11:52]:Yeah. That's so funny, because in a lot of the recipes that my grandma left behind when I was writing a cookbook, trying to decipher what scamped was or what simmer, and just thinking about okay, like, a gas oven operates different than an electric oven. And so much of cooking can be intuitive. And I'm pretty good about intuiting, but I try to write it for my sister, who, if you don't say, ten minutes at 425 and test it with a toothpick, and if there's crumbs on there, keep going. She just has no idea. She has no intuition at all when it comes to cooking.Judith [00:12:34]:Yeah, well, I'm a little bit more in that category.Stephanie [00:12:38]:Yeah. And you have to spell it all out when we talk about some of the words in your book. What are some of your three to five favorite food words that you covered?Judith [00:12:50]:Okay, let me think for a minute, because those words change as to which is the favorite. At the moment, I am thinking of the word barbecue because I don't know a bunch of reasons. It comes from the Caribbean Arowakan word that means a frame that has many uses, but one of them is for roasting food. But there's a common theory about what barbecue means, that it comes from the French for barb, a cou, meaning beard to tail, presumably referring to the way you would spit the pig. Not a very pleasant idea.Stephanie [00:13:40]:Yes, you'd spirit from tip to tail.Judith [00:13:42]:Right. But there isn't any evidence for that, whereas there is evidence for this derivation from the Arawakan language. And to me, I just like to remember both. I'm very interested in false etymologies, or if you don't want to call them that, stories about words, because they suggest something interesting, too. I mean, in this case, it's a clever idea. It's based only on sound similarity. Sounds, of course, are incredibly important in trying to figure out the etymology, but that's not enough. And for dictionaries, there has to be written evidence, too. So I like the word barbecue. I like the word zydeco. I've been thinking about that a lot. The music from southern Louisiana. It's the Louisiana Creole pronunciation of lasarico, the French words for beans. The beans. And it apparently comes from a song title written by Clifton Sheny. And the title, or anyway, it's a line in the song, is something like Lazarico, pronounced zydaco son Pasale are not salted. I don't know what that means. I've dug around trying to get translations and explanations, and somebody said it means it's when you're serving just the beans and there's no meat or something.Stephanie [00:15:19]:Yeah, potentially, like a salt pork is missing.Judith [00:15:23]:Yeah. So I think that's fun. Zydeco means beans. That music. And I associate the word, then with the instruments, some of which are stringed instruments. I think of them as green beans.Stephanie [00:15:36]:Then I think about the actual artist named Buckwheat Zydeco, who sings zydeco.Judith [00:15:41]:Okay. I have to look.Stephanie [00:15:43]:Yeah, he's pretty great. He's from Orlando.Judith [00:15:47]:First name?Stephanie [00:15:48]:Yeah. He's just a great musician.Judith [00:15:52]:Okay. Thank you for that. And I like the word marathon because it's a toponym. The race named after a place in Greece where there was a famous marathon. And I like it because it has food hidden in the word. I mean, hidden to us, if we don't know Greek, it means fennel. In Greek, maratho. So it's food connected and toponym. That's interesting. Named after a place. Yeah.Stephanie [00:16:20]:What is a toponym? I've never heard of that term before.Judith [00:16:24]:A word that's named after a place. Okay. And there are also lots of eponyms words named after people, like, say, sandwich, which is a famous one, of course. Sandwich, just to confuse the issue, is also a place. Yes. And there's no evidence, really, that he did what he supposedly did, which was right. Hold a big sandwich, put all the meat and stuff between two pieces of bread, and hold it while he gambled with the other hand. So, in this case, it's a story. It's not the actual etymology. Nevertheless, it's clear that the word goes back to his name, his title. So, yeah, it's a word named after a person. I like words that have food hidden in them, too, like, seersucker, which comes from the Persian. That means milk and sugar.Stephanie [00:17:26]:Okay. And originally were suckers made with milk?Judith [00:17:33]:No, I think it's a pure coincidence that it sounds like sucker. Okay. It's from the Parisian, and I'd have to look up the precise words and pardon my inability to pronounce them, but it's like sugar and sugar. I mean, it's a word that means that means sugar, but in this case, it refers to the look of the material. Those words just got mushed together. Sucker. And the material looks like an alternating pattern of colors and maybe ones that have little bumps up and then the flat one, because Searsucker has those little material.Stephanie [00:18:24]:How long did it take you to research romaine wasn't built in a day, or were these just from the notes, and you had them all handy?Judith [00:18:32]:It's both. I did have notes for virtually all these words, but I checked them all. So it took day and night for a little more than a year, which seems to me pretty fast, but it was like day and night, and there's so much more I wanted to write, but I had a word limit.Stephanie [00:18:52]:Yes. Okay. One other question for you. You mentioned early on that you have taught classes about food literature and food books. Can you share with us, like, three of your favorite pieces of food literature or food books?Judith [00:19:09]:Okay, so this is just off the top of my head. I might have a longer and better answer if I thought about it. But I love The Odyssey for the references to food, much of which is all about being pious and giving food to the gods. They are constantly stopping to have what we would call a barbecue.Stephanie [00:19:35]:Sure.Judith [00:19:35]:It sounds as if they eat nothing but cow meat.Stephanie [00:19:40]:Yeah.Judith [00:19:41]:But it's all about piety and being civilized. And on the other hand, creatures they encounter, we might say people they encounter who don't do this. But somehow, invert the whole process of being host and guest, they are marked then as uncivilized. Like Polyphemus, who eats his guests.Stephanie [00:20:07]:Right.Judith [00:20:10]:And so many of the Greek myths that are just so fantastic about food and their use of food. But also, of course, The Canterbury Tales, because I love Chaucer.Stephanie [00:20:23]:Sure.Judith [00:20:23]:So in The Canterbury Tales, food is part of the original impetus for talking. They are about to set out on a journey, these nine and 20 in a compenia, these pilgrims. And at the end of it, there will be a meal, which is their reward, or it's especially a reward for the person who tells the best tale. So it's a competition and a thing that draws you on. And the thought of eating that makes you talk. Of course, they never do get to that meal. Yeah, that's a different story. What else? Well, I love the food in Tom Jones, that famous scene between him and the woman he's what, maybe for a second, thought to be the son of. And it's famous in its film version, the original film version, where she's eating oysters in seductive way and lots of 20th century literature. Can I think of even one? Salman Rushdie's book, Midnight's Children has fantastic interesting uses of food like pickles. And so that after a while you question, what does it mean to be pickled? Yeah, so many books.Stephanie [00:21:54]:I love it. Well, I never have thought about that book in that way. So I like that you got me to think about that. Your book has had a lot of interest. I was looking just at your reviews on Amazon and people are really loving it. It is. Romaine wasn't built in a day, and it's by Judith Chishon. And I'm impressed. I think it's really a fun book. And I love talking to you and thinking about all the things like COVID was such a weird time for so many of us, but also so prolific in the creative aspects.Judith [00:22:31]:Yes. When you had to be shut off from the world, at least somewhat. Yeah.Stephanie [00:22:38]:We found other things to do with our time. So do you think you have another book in you?Judith [00:22:45]:Yes, I feel like I have a bunch. I have many unfinished books, and I can't even say what's on the horizon. I have to hurry up and decide.Stephanie [00:22:59]:I understand. Well, it's been fun to talk to you. Thanks for spending time with me today. Talking about Romaine wasn't built in a day. It's real sweet.Judith [00:23:08]:Thank you. Thanks, Judith.Stephanie [00:23:10]:We'll talk soon.Judith [00:23:11]:Okay, bye. This is a public episode. 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Judith Tschann, Author

Julie Jo Severson

Stephanie [00:00:12]:Hello, everybody, and welcome to Dishing with Stephanie's dish. We talk to people that have written cookbooks or books or food adjacent things because I can't get enough about talking about food, and and today we have a great guest. She is julie joe sieverson. She is the author of Oldest Twin Cities a Guide to Historic Treasures. And I had read about this book, and I thought, oh, that's cool. I wonder if she has stuff in there about restaurants and breweries, because we have so much history in the Twin Cities. And indeed she does. Welcome to the program.Julie  [00:00:47]:Thank you for having me here. This will be fun.Stephanie [00:00:50]:Yes, it will be fun. So how did you decide? Are you like a born and bred twin Citian, and how did you decide to undertake this project?Julie  [00:00:59]:Yes, I'm a fourth generation Minnesotan, and I've lived in the Twin Cities most of my life. I first wrote a book called Secret Twin Cities a Guide to the Weird, Wonderful, and Obscure, and that came out in 2020, arrived March, mid March, right when the cities were shutting down. So good timing on my part. I shoved them all in the corner for a couple of weeks because I thought, who's going to want to buy a travel guide right now?Stephanie [00:01:24]:Right?Julie  [00:01:25]:It turned out okay for secret Twin cities. They had a lot of social distancing ideas in it, coincidentally. But anyway, all this Twin Cities evolved from that book. About a year later, the publisher asked if I'd like to write another one. And I really wanted to do one of more of a historic nature because I just think with COVID and the really tough year that the Twin Cities had in 2020, including the murder of George Floyd and the Civil uprising and businesses shutting down, burned down. I just felt like I needed a reason to fall back in love with the Twin Cities. And I was feeling a loss of community and a loss of connection. And for me to feel connected to the region I live in is very important to me. I need to feel part of the fabric. And so I just stopped focusing on enduring places in our midst and places that hung in there and have endured and have reopened, providing us continuity, kind of a comfort that was good for my soul to focus my energy there. So that's why I kind of went in this direction.Stephanie [00:02:43]:Well, and one of the selections in the book is the Oldest Best Bar, which is our friend Tony Zacardi, who bought it from our friend Lisa Hammer. I knew Lisa and Keith, and they had shepherded the bar, and then they sold it to Tony Zacardi. And it's from 1906.Julie  [00:03:03]:Apparently.Stephanie [00:03:04]:It's an institution on Cedar Avenue. And you talk about sort of that pandemic and that coming back to life. Tony is a good example of someone that really he had just bought the bar and all of a sudden it has to close, and they're trying to hang on. And a lot of these bars and restaurants and distilleries really were in tough shape. So I was so glad that when we came out of the pandemic that Palmers has come out of it. And tell me a little bit about the history of Palmers in particular.Julie  [00:03:40]:Yeah. And Tony really was he was really propelled into the national spotlight during that time. Yes.Stephanie [00:03:48]:He was an African American man who.Julie  [00:03:51]:Owns this in the heart of he spray painted black owned business in hopes to protect his business, to deflect potential looters. And he was really a spokesperson and a comfort, I think, for the twin stage community during that time. We needed absolutely.Stephanie [00:04:10]:And the music community, too, because Palmer has had such a history in steeped in music.Julie  [00:04:16]:Yeah. What a gem this place is. It's so unique, with an Islamic mosque on one end and then that iconic Mustachioed man against it on the other one. And as I write in the book, you rarely leave this place without a story to tell. Kind of rough edge place. Maybe not everybody's going to feel comfortable there, but you're very welcome there, no matter who you are. And you'll be invited to play a game of Scrabble or get into a conversation, unless you're a jerk. Because if you're a jerk, you're going to get plastered on a poster note on the back wall, and you're not going to be welcome there at all.Stephanie [00:05:00]:That's funny.Julie  [00:05:02]:Yeah.Stephanie [00:05:02]:Another institution that is in downtown Minneapolis specifically, and I didn't realize that they had had a fire in 1989, but this was Glicks, the oldest downtown bar.Julie  [00:05:20]:Yeah. Lots lots of damage. It seems like most of these places have endured fires over the years. Yeah.Stephanie [00:05:30]:You can imagine that. Yep.Julie  [00:05:32]:Yeah, they they really came back from that. In fact, there was a moose in there. They have these animal heads mounted all throughout the restaurant. And the moose in the back room had been stolen from during a fraternity party there. And I think this group, whoever had stolen it, felt so bad because of fire that Reopening day, they anonymously returned it, leaning it against the front door. Welcome, everybody back. But yeah, my daughter was just there the other day. She's like I'm a glicks. I'm like, do you know that's in my book? No, I didn't even know that.Stephanie [00:06:05]:I had no idea either. Now, the Monte Carlo has been near and dear to my heart for some time, and my mom and dad got divorced, and my dad moved downtown. And that was really like, wow. Because we were suburban girls. And the first weekend my dad had us, he took us into this CD alley, and he went through this back door that had this weird sign above it and brought us in. And I thought he was bringing us into a pool hall. And I was like, oh, my gosh, my dad has really tipped over here, and it turned out to be the Loveliest bar inside. It was actually the Monte Carlo, and he was kind of a regular there. What's the historic nature of the Monte Carlo?Julie  [00:06:47]:Yeah. Well, yeah, the hum of the neon sign is going to remain a constant in the North Loop Bar. It's really exquisite in there with this mirrored wall behind the bar. One's kind of an elegance to it, to it all. But the whole North Loop area, the warehouse district is where the Milky Way candy bars and cream of pasta and pop up toaster were invented. This was a real industrial place. The neighborhood has more than 60 buildings that are over a century old. A lot of them have been repurposed. Some of them. A few of them are rehearsal spaces for the Minnesota Opera, and a lot of them are faded. Business signs are repurposed. You see the old signs, ghost signs, sort of. But the Monte Carlo Bar and Grill have stood the test of time. It used to be mostly only for men, but then when it changed ownership, mr. Rimsick, who owns a number of places in the Twin Cities, he kind of turned it into a destination for all the patty, is a great happening place. Now, Beijing style wings, they're really famous for.Stephanie [00:08:06]:Yeah, the dry rubbed wings are my favorite. Yeah, a kind of funny one that I didn't expect would reach me and grab me, but it did. So I work on the Stone Arch Bridge festival and I curate a culinary market that happens underneath the Hennepin Avenue Bridge. And underneath that bridge, we have 38 ten x ten booths of vendors that produce Minnesota made food products. And as I was looking through your book, it's the oldest bridge relic at First Bridge Park, which is where I am during these two days of the festival from 1855. Underneath that bridge, there's these giant anchors, and I sit on those anchors. That's my chair during the two days of the festival. So I didn't realize they were so old.Julie  [00:08:56]:Well, yeah, those don't date back to the very first bridge to cross the Mississippi River anywhere. Right there at St. Anthony Falls. I mean, prior to that bridge back in 1855, people were crossing over the falls to get to the other side. That first bridge didn't last real long, and then they created another one and another one. So anyway, these archaeological excavations revealed anchors from the original bridges, and so now they are under the Hennepin Bridge. Now you can see and sit on them if you want. There's plaque. So cool. Really interesting history at that park. Yeah. Right down from Melrose Park.Stephanie [00:09:42]:The oldest island venue in 1893 is the Nicolette Island Inn, which is still operating as a hotel, as a restaurant. It is a beautiful, gorgeous spot. If you ever just want to pop in for a drink or they have delicious food, too. Yeah, that's a great spot. And I didn't realize that David Shea was kind of responsible for bringing that back. He's designed so many restaurants in the Twin Cities.Julie  [00:10:08]:Yeah. I didn't realize he was connected to that either until I started research. Talented guy. Yeah. That place I learned a lot about. I didn't really know a lot about that fire that had kind of spread through Nicholas Island and all northeast Minneapolis. A very ravishing fire, and only one of two structures, industrial structures, on the island to survive it. A fire started by some boys smoking. And so, again, these places that have endured. And at one point, it was a men's shelter, salvation army men's shelter. So I really and, you know, I can't help but continue then to learn about and read about Nicholette Island.Stephanie [00:10:52]:Right.Julie  [00:10:53]:So many storied history there. Couple donkeys, Pearl and she. But I really focused on that island and my secret Twin Cities.Stephanie [00:11:01]:Who would have known that the oldest bowling alley was the Bryant Lake Bowl?Julie  [00:11:08]:Yeah, I mean, that's a legendary spot in the Lin Lake neighborhood, and that's really evolved over the years. It used to be a Ford garage, and apparently it's haunted by a mechanic who was crushed by a car there. But at the heart of it is the eight lane bowling alley. Old school. But around it now is a really funky groovy restaurant that you never super funky for. A bowling alley and a cabaret with these red leather seats from Stillwater Junior High School, where you can go to all kinds of events there. And there's a really cool drone video that went viral in 2021 that they created to support businesses struggling through the pandemic. It's a cool right up our alley. You can Google it went viral. Yeah.Stephanie [00:11:57]:In 1964, Boca Chico became the oldest Mexican eatery, which is interesting, because I know that the Silva family opened El Burrito Mercado a little bit further down the street in the 70s, early seventy s. I didn't realize Boca Chica was that old. And it's still run by the family, isn't it?Julie  [00:12:17]:Yeah, it sure is. Grandma Fria seasoned pork tamales are still on the menu. Yeah, this place was a really delightful surprise. Walking into you can go there after visiting the Wapisher Caves, the gangster tours there. That's a great place to go to afterwards. You just walk in and every wall tells a story of the family's heritage murals. But, yeah, Uramo Frias and Gloria Coronado, who's a petite, spunky lady, they fell in love and started this little place. She was actually linked to a dynasty, cultural dynasty in Minneapolis. Her parents owned the first Mexican restaurant in St. Paul, and then in Minneapolis called the Casa Coronado, but that has long closed.Stephanie [00:13:10]:And there's the oldest family Italian restaurant in St. Paul. Yuruso's.Julie  [00:13:15]:Yeah. Yuruso's and giant meatballs. And again, that's family owned. Same family. And what I love about that place are giant murals of Sweet Hollow especially. It is located right across from Sweet Hollow. You would never know that across the street there is a hidden valley below street level. Right. We're former immigrant shanty town and in the book I give directions on how to get there because it's a little kind of windy but you can find it.Stephanie [00:13:50]:Yeah.Julie  [00:13:51]:Yes.Stephanie [00:13:53]:When you were writing the book, what was one of your favorite discoveries?Julie  [00:14:00]:Well, I fell in love with the New York Life Eagle. And that's a Summit overlook park in the Summit neighborhood. It overlooks the river valley.Stephanie [00:14:09]:I lived right there. It's right across from the University Club on Point of Land.Julie  [00:14:16]:Maybe because of a mother. She's a mother. She's there taking her tail ons into a serpent, digging in there, protecting her nest of eaglets there in that pose she was almost discarded. She used to be on the third story entrance of the New York Life building in downtown St. Paul. And when that was removed, she really was nearly forgotten and discarded. And she was kind of put on a pedestal in front of a parking lot for a while until she found her new home here. And now she's in all her glory. There a nice spot while you're mansion goggling over mansions there in that area.Stephanie [00:14:54]:Yeah. I had no idea about Newman's being the oldest bar in the state.Julie  [00:15:00]:Well, that's the big question because it's a tie between Newman's and the Spot Bar in St. Paul. The feud. I'm sure St. Spot fans will be mad at me for including Newman's, but I included the Spot bar in secret to the city, so I had to be fair. But those two kind of feud over. They both have very good reason but different reasons to want to claim that title. So yeah, Newman's is famous for their frog tank in the window.Stephanie [00:15:30]:What is the story of the frog tank? Do you know?Julie  [00:15:34]:You ask people there and the Tank of Frogs has just been there as long as anybody can remember. It's just a tradition that they keep going and I guess the frogs have disappeared every now and then. One was found in a pitcher of beer. But this place has a hidden door behind the Tank of Frogs. It's only used for special events, but they used to hide have kind of speakeasy up there during prohibition and that's where you could speak up there and have a legal hooch. And there was like a phone that connected upstairs to the main bar to let the bartenders know when the cops were coming sniffing.Stephanie [00:16:13]:That's hilarious. Yeah. I love it. You go into all this detail like 1972. The oldest food co op is the Seward food Co op. Who knew that that was I mean, I don't know. The Twin Cities co op movement has been so strong, but who knew Seward was the first? I didn't. I thought the wedge was the first.Julie  [00:16:36]:Yeah, no, they were really kind of the first, and now the most enduring. And what I didn't know was what a violent struggle the food co op went through in those early years. It sounds kind of like stuff going on these days with, you know, there was a takeover yeah. That tried to take over with steel bars and fire bombs, but they failed because there was such a difference of philosophy. And these were really some veteran radicals really disagreed with what they called the white bourgeois elitism. That's kind of how the opposing group.Stephanie [00:17:21]:Those bourgeois co op people.Julie  [00:17:25]:And there's a new documentary about that called The Co op wars that was created in 2021. Super interesting to learn about the whole early Twin Cities.Stephanie [00:17:34]:Yeah, that sounds neat. Well, this is a great book. Your second book, Julie. Joe Sieverson Oldest Twin Cities a Guide to Historic Treasures. Are you already working on your third?Julie  [00:17:44]:Not yet. Promoting this is full time right now.Stephanie [00:17:49]:Yes. Well, it's fun to visit with you and to hear the story and to just get more history about some of these great spots. Pick up the book and then take your own kind of historical tour, right?Julie  [00:18:03]:Yes.Stephanie [00:18:04]:I love it. Thank you, Julie Joe. And thank you for highlighting some of our relics. Treasures, a fabric of a community is always about the history. That where you come from. Right. And it's good to be reminded of some of these great spots. I sat on that anchor all summer, last summer, and I never knew. So I love it. Thank you so much for joining us. I appreciate you.Julie  [00:18:29]:Absolutely. Thank you.Stephanie [00:18:30]:All right, we'll talk soon. Okay, bye. This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit stephaniehansen.substack.com/subscribe

Stephanie [00:00:12]:Hello, everybody, and welcome to Dishing with Stephanie's dish. We talk to people that have written cookbooks or books or food adjacent things because I can't get enough about talking about food, and and today we have a great guest. She is julie joe sieverson. She is the author of Oldest Twin Cities a Guide to Historic Treasures. And I had read about this book, and I thought, oh, that's cool. I wonder if she has stuff in there about restaurants and breweries, because we have so much history in the Twin Cities. And indeed she does. Welcome to the program.Julie [00:00:47]:Thank you for having me here. This will be fun.Stephanie [00:00:50]:Yes, it will be fun. So how did you decide? Are you like a born and bred twin Citian, and how did you decide to undertake this project?Julie [00:00:59]:Yes, I'm a fourth generation Minnesotan, and I've lived in the Twin Cities most of my life. I first wrote a book called Secret Twin Cities a Guide to the Weird, Wonderful, and Obscure, and that came out in 2020, arrived March, mid March, right when the cities were shutting down. So good timing on my part. I shoved them all in the corner for a couple of weeks because I thought, who's going to want to buy a travel guide right now?Stephanie [00:01:24]:Right?Julie [00:01:25]:It turned out okay for secret Twin cities. They had a lot of social distancing ideas in it, coincidentally. But anyway, all this Twin Cities evolved from that book. About a year later, the publisher asked if I'd like to write another one. And I really wanted to do one of more of a historic nature because I just think with COVID and the really tough year that the Twin Cities had in 2020, including the murder of George Floyd and the Civil uprising and businesses shutting down, burned down. I just felt like I needed a reason to fall back in love with the Twin Cities. And I was feeling a loss of community and a loss of connection. And for me to feel connected to the region I live in is very important to me. I need to feel part of the fabric. And so I just stopped focusing on enduring places in our midst and places that hung in there and have endured and have reopened, providing us continuity, kind of a comfort that was good for my soul to focus my energy there. So that's why I kind of went in this direction.Stephanie [00:02:43]:Well, and one of the selections in the book is the Oldest Best Bar, which is our friend Tony Zacardi, who bought it from our friend Lisa Hammer. I knew Lisa and Keith, and they had shepherded the bar, and then they sold it to Tony Zacardi. And it's from 1906.Julie [00:03:03]:Apparently.Stephanie [00:03:04]:It's an institution on Cedar Avenue. And you talk about sort of that pandemic and that coming back to life. Tony is a good example of someone that really he had just bought the bar and all of a sudden it has to close, and they're trying to hang on. And a lot of these bars and restaurants and distilleries really were in tough shape. So I was so glad that when we came out of the pandemic that Palmers has come out of it. And tell me a little bit about the history of Palmers in particular.Julie [00:03:40]:Yeah. And Tony really was he was really propelled into the national spotlight during that time. Yes.Stephanie [00:03:48]:He was an African American man who.Julie [00:03:51]:Owns this in the heart of he spray painted black owned business in hopes to protect his business, to deflect potential looters. And he was really a spokesperson and a comfort, I think, for the twin stage community during that time. We needed absolutely.Stephanie [00:04:10]:And the music community, too, because Palmer has had such a history in steeped in music.Julie [00:04:16]:Yeah. What a gem this place is. It's so unique, with an Islamic mosque on one end and then that iconic Mustachioed man against it on the other one. And as I write in the book, you rarely leave this place without a story to tell. Kind of rough edge place. Maybe not everybody's going to feel comfortable there, but you're very welcome there, no matter who you are. And you'll be invited to play a game of Scrabble or get into a conversation, unless you're a jerk. Because if you're a jerk, you're going to get plastered on a poster note on the back wall, and you're not going to be welcome there at all.Stephanie [00:05:00]:That's funny.Julie [00:05:02]:Yeah.Stephanie [00:05:02]:Another institution that is in downtown Minneapolis specifically, and I didn't realize that they had had a fire in 1989, but this was Glicks, the oldest downtown bar.Julie [00:05:20]:Yeah. Lots lots of damage. It seems like most of these places have endured fires over the years. Yeah.Stephanie [00:05:30]:You can imagine that. Yep.Julie [00:05:32]:Yeah, they they really came back from that. In fact, there was a moose in there. They have these animal heads mounted all throughout the restaurant. And the moose in the back room had been stolen from during a fraternity party there. And I think this group, whoever had stolen it, felt so bad because of fire that Reopening day, they anonymously returned it, leaning it against the front door. Welcome, everybody back. But yeah, my daughter was just there the other day. She's like I'm a glicks. I'm like, do you know that's in my book? No, I didn't even know that.Stephanie [00:06:05]:I had no idea either. Now, the Monte Carlo has been near and dear to my heart for some time, and my mom and dad got divorced, and my dad moved downtown. And that was really like, wow. Because we were suburban girls. And the first weekend my dad had us, he took us into this CD alley, and he went through this back door that had this weird sign above it and brought us in. And I thought he was bringing us into a pool hall. And I was like, oh, my gosh, my dad has really tipped over here, and it turned out to be the Loveliest bar inside. It was actually the Monte Carlo, and he was kind of a regular there. What's the historic nature of the Monte Carlo?Julie [00:06:47]:Yeah. Well, yeah, the hum of the neon sign is going to remain a constant in the North Loop Bar. It's really exquisite in there with this mirrored wall behind the bar. One's kind of an elegance to it, to it all. But the whole North Loop area, the warehouse district is where the Milky Way candy bars and cream of pasta and pop up toaster were invented. This was a real industrial place. The neighborhood has more than 60 buildings that are over a century old. A lot of them have been repurposed. Some of them. A few of them are rehearsal spaces for the Minnesota Opera, and a lot of them are faded. Business signs are repurposed. You see the old signs, ghost signs, sort of. But the Monte Carlo Bar and Grill have stood the test of time. It used to be mostly only for men, but then when it changed ownership, mr. Rimsick, who owns a number of places in the Twin Cities, he kind of turned it into a destination for all the patty, is a great happening place. Now, Beijing style wings, they're really famous for.Stephanie [00:08:06]:Yeah, the dry rubbed wings are my favorite. Yeah, a kind of funny one that I didn't expect would reach me and grab me, but it did. So I work on the Stone Arch Bridge festival and I curate a culinary market that happens underneath the Hennepin Avenue Bridge. And underneath that bridge, we have 38 ten x ten booths of vendors that produce Minnesota made food products. And as I was looking through your book, it's the oldest bridge relic at First Bridge Park, which is where I am during these two days of the festival from 1855. Underneath that bridge, there's these giant anchors, and I sit on those anchors. That's my chair during the two days of the festival. So I didn't realize they were so old.Julie [00:08:56]:Well, yeah, those don't date back to the very first bridge to cross the Mississippi River anywhere. Right there at St. Anthony Falls. I mean, prior to that bridge back in 1855, people were crossing over the falls to get to the other side. That first bridge didn't last real long, and then they created another one and another one. So anyway, these archaeological excavations revealed anchors from the original bridges, and so now they are under the Hennepin Bridge. Now you can see and sit on them if you want. There's plaque. So cool. Really interesting history at that park. Yeah. Right down from Melrose Park.Stephanie [00:09:42]:The oldest island venue in 1893 is the Nicolette Island Inn, which is still operating as a hotel, as a restaurant. It is a beautiful, gorgeous spot. If you ever just want to pop in for a drink or they have delicious food, too. Yeah, that's a great spot. And I didn't realize that David Shea was kind of responsible for bringing that back. He's designed so many restaurants in the Twin Cities.Julie [00:10:08]:Yeah. I didn't realize he was connected to that either until I started research. Talented guy. Yeah. That place I learned a lot about. I didn't really know a lot about that fire that had kind of spread through Nicholas Island and all northeast Minneapolis. A very ravishing fire, and only one of two structures, industrial structures, on the island to survive it. A fire started by some boys smoking. And so, again, these places that have endured. And at one point, it was a men's shelter, salvation army men's shelter. So I really and, you know, I can't help but continue then to learn about and read about Nicholette Island.Stephanie [00:10:52]:Right.Julie [00:10:53]:So many storied history there. Couple donkeys, Pearl and she. But I really focused on that island and my secret Twin Cities.Stephanie [00:11:01]:Who would have known that the oldest bowling alley was the Bryant Lake Bowl?Julie [00:11:08]:Yeah, I mean, that's a legendary spot in the Lin Lake neighborhood, and that's really evolved over the years. It used to be a Ford garage, and apparently it's haunted by a mechanic who was crushed by a car there. But at the heart of it is the eight lane bowling alley. Old school. But around it now is a really funky groovy restaurant that you never super funky for. A bowling alley and a cabaret with these red leather seats from Stillwater Junior High School, where you can go to all kinds of events there. And there's a really cool drone video that went viral in 2021 that they created to support businesses struggling through the pandemic. It's a cool right up our alley. You can Google it went viral. Yeah.Stephanie [00:11:57]:In 1964, Boca Chico became the oldest Mexican eatery, which is interesting, because I know that the Silva family opened El Burrito Mercado a little bit further down the street in the 70s, early seventy s. I didn't realize Boca Chica was that old. And it's still run by the family, isn't it?Julie [00:12:17]:Yeah, it sure is. Grandma Fria seasoned pork tamales are still on the menu. Yeah, this place was a really delightful surprise. Walking into you can go there after visiting the Wapisher Caves, the gangster tours there. That's a great place to go to afterwards. You just walk in and every wall tells a story of the family's heritage murals. But, yeah, Uramo Frias and Gloria Coronado, who's a petite, spunky lady, they fell in love and started this little place. She was actually linked to a dynasty, cultural dynasty in Minneapolis. Her parents owned the first Mexican restaurant in St. Paul, and then in Minneapolis called the Casa Coronado, but that has long closed.Stephanie [00:13:10]:And there's the oldest family Italian restaurant in St. Paul. Yuruso's.Julie [00:13:15]:Yeah. Yuruso's and giant meatballs. And again, that's family owned. Same family. And what I love about that place are giant murals of Sweet Hollow especially. It is located right across from Sweet Hollow. You would never know that across the street there is a hidden valley below street level. Right. We're former immigrant shanty town and in the book I give directions on how to get there because it's a little kind of windy but you can find it.Stephanie [00:13:50]:Yeah.Julie [00:13:51]:Yes.Stephanie [00:13:53]:When you were writing the book, what was one of your favorite discoveries?Julie [00:14:00]:Well, I fell in love with the New York Life Eagle. And that's a Summit overlook park in the Summit neighborhood. It overlooks the river valley.Stephanie [00:14:09]:I lived right there. It's right across from the University Club on Point of Land.Julie [00:14:16]:Maybe because of a mother. She's a mother. She's there taking her tail ons into a serpent, digging in there, protecting her nest of eaglets there in that pose she was almost discarded. She used to be on the third story entrance of the New York Life building in downtown St. Paul. And when that was removed, she really was nearly forgotten and discarded. And she was kind of put on a pedestal in front of a parking lot for a while until she found her new home here. And now she's in all her glory. There a nice spot while you're mansion goggling over mansions there in that area.Stephanie [00:14:54]:Yeah. I had no idea about Newman's being the oldest bar in the state.Julie [00:15:00]:Well, that's the big question because it's a tie between Newman's and the Spot Bar in St. Paul. The feud. I'm sure St. Spot fans will be mad at me for including Newman's, but I included the Spot bar in secret to the city, so I had to be fair. But those two kind of feud over. They both have very good reason but different reasons to want to claim that title. So yeah, Newman's is famous for their frog tank in the window.Stephanie [00:15:30]:What is the story of the frog tank? Do you know?Julie [00:15:34]:You ask people there and the Tank of Frogs has just been there as long as anybody can remember. It's just a tradition that they keep going and I guess the frogs have disappeared every now and then. One was found in a pitcher of beer. But this place has a hidden door behind the Tank of Frogs. It's only used for special events, but they used to hide have kind of speakeasy up there during prohibition and that's where you could speak up there and have a legal hooch. And there was like a phone that connected upstairs to the main bar to let the bartenders know when the cops were coming sniffing.Stephanie [00:16:13]:That's hilarious. Yeah. I love it. You go into all this detail like 1972. The oldest food co op is the Seward food Co op. Who knew that that was I mean, I don't know. The Twin Cities co op movement has been so strong, but who knew Seward was the first? I didn't. I thought the wedge was the first.Julie [00:16:36]:Yeah, no, they were really kind of the first, and now the most enduring. And what I didn't know was what a violent struggle the food co op went through in those early years. It sounds kind of like stuff going on these days with, you know, there was a takeover yeah. That tried to take over with steel bars and fire bombs, but they failed because there was such a difference of philosophy. And these were really some veteran radicals really disagreed with what they called the white bourgeois elitism. That's kind of how the opposing group.Stephanie [00:17:21]:Those bourgeois co op people.Julie [00:17:25]:And there's a new documentary about that called The Co op wars that was created in 2021. Super interesting to learn about the whole early Twin Cities.Stephanie [00:17:34]:Yeah, that sounds neat. Well, this is a great book. Your second book, Julie. Joe Sieverson Oldest Twin Cities a Guide to Historic Treasures. Are you already working on your third?Julie [00:17:44]:Not yet. Promoting this is full time right now.Stephanie [00:17:49]:Yes. Well, it's fun to visit with you and to hear the story and to just get more history about some of these great spots. Pick up the book and then take your own kind of historical tour, right?Julie [00:18:03]:Yes.Stephanie [00:18:04]:I love it. Thank you, Julie Joe. And thank you for highlighting some of our relics. Treasures, a fabric of a community is always about the history. That where you come from. Right. And it's good to be reminded of some of these great spots. I sat on that anchor all summer, last summer, and I never knew. So I love it. Thank you so much for joining us. I appreciate you.Julie [00:18:29]:Absolutely. Thank you.Stephanie [00:18:30]:All right, we'll talk soon. Okay, bye. This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit <a href="https://stephaniehansen.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&amp;utm_campaign=CTA_2" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">stephaniehansen.substack.com/subscribe</a>

Episode 53: Julie Jo Severson author of "Oldest Twin Cities"

I talk with Cookbook authors and others obsessed with food stephaniehansen.substack.com

Tamar Adler

Stephanie [00:00:15]:Hello, everybody, and welcome to Dishing with Stephanie's Dish, the podcast where we talk to people that are cookbook writers obsessed with food or otherwise food at Sent. And I'm very excited to talk to someone today. Her name is Tamar Adler and she has written this book called The Everlasting Meal Cookbook leftovers a to Z. And I first read about it, I think, in maybe the New York Times. And then I got a copy of the book, and you guys, people that know me know I'm obsessed with my freezer. I'm obsessed with Mason jars. I'm constantly repurposing things. I'm like an old housewife from the 1920s. I can't throw a thing away. And this book is like the guide to how to make sense of all this chaos, of all these leftovers and these little dribs and drabs that you have. I just am so impressed with you. Thank you for coming on the show.Tamar [00:01:13]:Oh, my gosh, I'm so happy that I'm talking to a soul sister and saving.Stephanie [00:01:18]:So how did you have you been like this since you were a little kid and finally just wrote this? I mean, it's a tome.Tamar [00:01:26]:And I wanted it to be longer. My publisher cut me off at some point. I haven't been like this. I mean, I've always liked saving things, and I've always been sort of into things that had age to them or stories. But I think that this actually came from being a professional cook, because I think, contrary to what a lot of people think would be true, professional cooks are amazing at using all of everything and both what is done. In restaurants and certainly what's done for diners but also what's done to serve the staff of a restaurant is always a version of either thinking ahead, so cooking something partway and then finishing the cooking or making sure that you're cooking something in a way that lets you use it over the course of days or making sure to eke all of the flavor out of anything that you have. So it was being a professional cook that kind of helped me realize that I could if I could put down on paper what so many of us already knew but from years of professional cooking, then I could kind of hand some of it off to home cooks.Stephanie [00:02:50]:Yeah. During the pandemic, many people sort of rediscovered cooking and certainly their pantry and maybe things that their mom did or dad that they hadn't thought about, that now all of a sudden you're at home and you can't run to the grocery store every day unless you're going to have the survival gauntlet. Because it was kind of a grim time. So we went back to some of this. Like an example in here, you talk about moldy cheese. Well, my mom just cut the mold off the cheese, and we just kept going. She never missed a beat with it. But you take it further in zest and different. Any ingredient that you have, you can literally look up in this book, you guys, and she tells you what to do with it.Tamar [00:03:42]:I mean, my theory was, if you have it, why not use it? And I think remembering the pandemic is a really sort of smart point of orientation for how to use this book and also how I wrote it, because that was a time during which all of our outlooks was, if I have something, I'm going to use it, because the stakes of going out to get a new thing are just too high. And so the stakes feel different now, and they are different, but they're still stakes, right? It still takes a lot out of every person to go to the supermarket. I find it takes a lot of energy, and it takes, like, personal energy and planning and gas for the car and the standing and the line, like, the whole thing. Plus, it costs money. So it's like, if you have it, why not use it? And that is what I was trying to help people do in this book.Stephanie [00:04:41]:And I'll just like an example that I talked about on this podcast a while ago that I overcooked quinoa for a TV segment I was doing, and I had all of this quinoa, and I froze it in these little cubes right in the freezer. And I've been making bowls, and I've still got all these cubes left, and I looked it up in your book, and I can make a savory tart with the quinoa crust. I would have never thought of that.Tamar [00:05:05]:Oh, yeah, that's great.Stephanie [00:05:07]:Yeah. And then obviously a quinoa salad, but you talk about making it crunchy by adding all of these other elements to it, and it just like I looked up quinoa, and I was like, who would have thought to make a crust with that? That's how useful your book is. And it is called the Everlasting Meal Cookbook. I just want to make sure I repeat it. When you thought about organizing the book so that somebody like me who's got a cup of white beans left, and what do I do with that? Or right now, I'm awash in ham from Easter and trying to get creative ways to eat ham other than a ham sandwich and pea soup, because I've already done those. How did you think about how to organize things?Tamar [00:05:50]:Okay, before I answer the organization question, I just want to shout out to Emma McDowell, who is the person from whom I got the quinoa crust recipe, just because I just don't want to take credit. I thought so brilliant, and I definitely got the idea from her. And she, I think, has a book out, and she has recipes on the Internet all the time, and she's super great. But I at first wanted to organize the whole book alphabetically. I thought that would be easiest. So just A to Z and you would look up quinoa under Q and beans under B probably, although then it's like or do you look them up under cannellini and ham under H? But I did that for the first draft. Maybe two drafts of the book were just purely alphabetical with no other organizing principles. And I had a friend who always reads my draft who said that it made for some really inflicitous neighbors. He didn't like reading the word anchovy next to apple peel. He felt like it just made him want to close the book up and just not worry about either the anchovies or the peels. Yeah, nothing. He was like, at first I sort of booked, and I was like, but the whole point is that it's like a reference book. And then I calmed down a little bit, and I thought, that's true. And that maybe a new it's also not. You do kind of want there to be a category that you're searching in, because that is often how we use reference books, too. And so I decided to create larger leftovers categories, which it still can be, I think, confusing to somebody because we're so used to searching any culinary text by what we want to make, not by what we have. And I have had to remind people, if you look up a roast beef sandwich, I am not giving you a recipe for a roast beef sandwich. I'm telling you what to do with the soggy half of roast beef sandwich you have left.Stephanie [00:08:06]:Yes.Tamar [00:08:09]:But creating those larger categories is how I ended up organizing it. So the first chapter is vegetables, and it's leftover vegetables. The second is fruits and nuts, and it's overripe underripe, et cetera. And leftovers of all, there's leftover bread, leftover rice and grain. I mean, rice and beans. Leftover stuffed dough's was kind of a hard category to come up with, but it kind of made sense to me. There's leftover drinks, leftover sweets. Oh, leftover snacks. So stuff like the dust at the bottom of a pretzel bag or cheetos.Stephanie [00:08:48]:Which that dust is amazing. If you're like going to bread something or put a little sprinkle on a little pile of soup that you're eating.Tamar [00:08:59]:It'S like extra good salt.Stephanie [00:09:00]:Yes, extra good spicy salt. And even like, I make Caesar salads all the time, and I like to use real anchovies in the dressing. How did I not think about using the anchovy oil? And I've just been throwing that away.Tamar [00:09:16]:I'm glad that you now have ideas for it.Stephanie [00:09:19]:Yeah, it's such an obvious one, like, oh, yeah, this is that delicious flavored oil. Why aren't you doing something with it? And also something I discovered during the pandemic is brine from pickle juice.Tamar [00:09:33]:Oh, yeah.Stephanie [00:09:34]:I was just not salvaging my brine, and now I'm hoarding it.Tamar [00:09:39]:Yeah, because if you're going to do a whole chicken or a bunch of pork chops, you actually need kind of a good amount right. You need to be saving the pickle juice from two jars because you need a lot.Stephanie [00:09:54]:And frying chicken and brightening the chicken before you fry it in. That pickle juice is a secret of many chefs. Was there something that you did not know what to do with it like pistachio shells. Let's use that as an example.Tamar [00:10:16]:Well, we have always used those for fire starters. Those are pretty good for starting, like a wood stove or a fireplace. No, that was okay. But there were a bunch I didn't I mean, cherry stems, a lot of them I had to look up and then do some experimenting with, and I hadn't known that one could use.Stephanie [00:10:40]:What do you do with a cherry stem?Tamar [00:10:43]:You make tea. And it's supposed to be really good for you. Yeah.Stephanie [00:10:47]:See, this is, like, the joy of the discovery of this book I've been reading. It like a Bible in bed at night, like, hoarding, ten pages at a time. I've never been so excited about a book before. I'm in love with it now. Where do you go from here? You mentioned that your publisher cut you off. Could you do a whole other?Tamar [00:11:14]:I don't know if I have enough for a whole other, but I'm still collecting the ones that aren't in there. So I wonder if they would ever let me do, like, a five if I could break up the letters so that each one could be a little bit shorter, like A through E or something like that. A bunch of volumes. That would be one thing. Another is I could just, at some point in the future, reissue it with everything that got left out. I don't know. Anything that seems outdated. I don't know.Stephanie [00:11:45]:When you go out to eat, like, you have a recipe or an idea for leftover French fries that I'm assuming you're bringing home from a restaurant. When you go out to eat, do you bring everything leftover home?Tamar [00:11:58]:Yeah, I think so. Let me think. Yeah, I do. I think. I was like, well, do I really? And I'm like, no, I totally do. Because everything is good in fried rice. Or everything is good in, like, a lunchtime, some constellation of eggs and rice. And I do I keep pasta for salad. And the other day, this was for a TV show, which I only mentioned because it's like you're doing it on the spot, so it really has to work. And I made Caesar salad stuffed boiled eggs, kind of like deviled eggs, but with Caesar salad chopped up. And then combined with the yolks and a little bit of anchovy and parmesan and garlic. And they were so good. And I had to make a bunch of them. It still looks beautiful on TV. And my husband and I just ate them all. They were so delicious.Stephanie [00:12:55]:It's so smart because leftover salad is hard because it gets soggy obviously pretty quickly. And some people love a leftover salad. I'm not a huge leftover salad person, but that's brilliant because the texture isn't necessary, but the taste is still carried through.Tamar [00:13:10]:Exactly. Yeah.Stephanie [00:13:12]:Oh, that is so amazing. Who inspires you? Like, do you have some cookbook authors that are your go to?Tamar [00:13:20]:I get the most inspiration from cooks from other cultures. So it's when I read, like, Thai Cookbooks and Indian Cookbooks, and there's a really beautiful I think it's Senegalese Cookbook I forget the name of. But I really like a big book of Indian pickle. Indian Pickles. That was self published. I think it's called usha's pickle. That's where I get the most sort of like, oh, my God, that's a great idea. And, oh, yeah, that flavor. I used leftover Caesar salad dressing to make something Thai recently because I realized that fish sauce is just pressed anchovies and garlic and everything, and it had lemon instead of lime. And I was like, oh. So I used it as the beginning of Yamun Sen, a Thai noodle salad. I just added all of the ingredients to that. And so that's the kind of thing that I think comes to me from flipping through those other cuisines recipes and.Stephanie [00:14:41]:Getting inspiration, too, because I think sometimes people just cook the same stuff and you want to branch out a little bit. Strawberry leaves. Who knew that you should be eating those in salads? I did not.Tamar [00:14:56]:I did not, either. My friend Wes told me that. He's like, that's what I always do. Yeah. I had no idea.Stephanie [00:15:01]:And so much of this, too, is forageable, like, a strawberry leaf. There's wild strawberries all over my woods, and I could not always get the strawberries because the bears get them first, but I could get the leaves and make something cool out of that. So that's fun.Tamar [00:15:17]:Yeah.Stephanie [00:15:19]:Well, I am just obsessed with this book, and I'm hoping that we can get you on our radio show, too, because we talk a lot about leftovers and how to repurpose things and just how to be a good home cook and good meaning not like, fancy. Good meaning just like, being able to get a meal on the table for your family in a reasonable amount of time that makes sense for your schedule and your life.Tamar [00:15:43]:There's just so many ideas. Totally. I would love to, and I love how much it seems like you're reading it.Stephanie [00:15:55]:I get it.Tamar [00:15:56]:I really found you. I'm so happy.Stephanie [00:15:57]:Thank you. It found me. There's more than 1500 recipes ideas in here, and it's economical, too. My daughter is a starving 24 year old person, and I was like, you have to look at this book when you come over. I'm like, you can't have it, but I'll get you one because you'll never waste anything again. And there's so many great ideas. Tamara, I just love it. Thank you so much.Tamar [00:16:21]:Thank you so much.Stephanie [00:16:23]:Absolutely. And pick up the book. The Everlasting Meal Cookbook. Do you have a newsletter, too? I think I saw.Tamar [00:16:28]:Maybe I don't. I just cookbooks on instagram.Stephanie [00:16:33]:Just books and Instagram is plenty, right?Tamar [00:16:36]:It's a lot to keep for now.Stephanie [00:16:37]:Yeah, exactly. All right. Thank you for being my guest today. I appreciate it.Tamar [00:16:42]:Thanks, Stephanie. Bye.Stephanie [00:16:43]:Okay, bye. This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit stephaniehansen.substack.com/subscribe

Stephanie [00:00:15]:Hello, everybody, and welcome to Dishing with Stephanie's Dish, the podcast where we talk to people that are cookbook writers obsessed with food or otherwise food at Sent. And I'm very excited to talk to someone today. Her name is Tamar Adler and she has written this book called The Everlasting Meal Cookbook leftovers a to Z. And I first read about it, I think, in maybe the New York Times. And then I got a copy of the book, and you guys, people that know me know I'm obsessed with my freezer. I'm obsessed with Mason jars. I'm constantly repurposing things. I'm like an old housewife from the 1920s. I can't throw a thing away. And this book is like the guide to how to make sense of all this chaos, of all these leftovers and these little dribs and drabs that you have. I just am so impressed with you. Thank you for coming on the show.Tamar [00:01:13]:Oh, my gosh, I'm so happy that I'm talking to a soul sister and saving.Stephanie [00:01:18]:So how did you have you been like this since you were a little kid and finally just wrote this? I mean, it's a tome.Tamar [00:01:26]:And I wanted it to be longer. My publisher cut me off at some point. I haven't been like this. I mean, I've always liked saving things, and I've always been sort of into things that had age to them or stories. But I think that this actually came from being a professional cook, because I think, contrary to what a lot of people think would be true, professional cooks are amazing at using all of everything and both what is done. In restaurants and certainly what's done for diners but also what's done to serve the staff of a restaurant is always a version of either thinking ahead, so cooking something partway and then finishing the cooking or making sure that you're cooking something in a way that lets you use it over the course of days or making sure to eke all of the flavor out of anything that you have. So it was being a professional cook that kind of helped me realize that I could if I could put down on paper what so many of us already knew but from years of professional cooking, then I could kind of hand some of it off to home cooks.Stephanie [00:02:50]:Yeah. During the pandemic, many people sort of rediscovered cooking and certainly their pantry and maybe things that their mom did or dad that they hadn't thought about, that now all of a sudden you're at home and you can't run to the grocery store every day unless you're going to have the survival gauntlet. Because it was kind of a grim time. So we went back to some of this. Like an example in here, you talk about moldy cheese. Well, my mom just cut the mold off the cheese, and we just kept going. She never missed a beat with it. But you take it further in zest and different. Any ingredient that you have, you can literally look up in this book, you guys, and she tells you what to do with it.Tamar [00:03:42]:I mean, my theory was, if you have it, why not use it? And I think remembering the pandemic is a really sort of smart point of orientation for how to use this book and also how I wrote it, because that was a time during which all of our outlooks was, if I have something, I'm going to use it, because the stakes of going out to get a new thing are just too high. And so the stakes feel different now, and they are different, but they're still stakes, right? It still takes a lot out of every person to go to the supermarket. I find it takes a lot of energy, and it takes, like, personal energy and planning and gas for the car and the standing and the line, like, the whole thing. Plus, it costs money. So it's like, if you have it, why not use it? And that is what I was trying to help people do in this book.Stephanie [00:04:41]:And I'll just like an example that I talked about on this podcast a while ago that I overcooked quinoa for a TV segment I was doing, and I had all of this quinoa, and I froze it in these little cubes right in the freezer. And I've been making bowls, and I've still got all these cubes left, and I looked it up in your book, and I can make a savory tart with the quinoa crust. I would have never thought of that.Tamar [00:05:05]:Oh, yeah, that's great.Stephanie [00:05:07]:Yeah. And then obviously a quinoa salad, but you talk about making it crunchy by adding all of these other elements to it, and it just like I looked up quinoa, and I was like, who would have thought to make a crust with that? That's how useful your book is. And it is called the Everlasting Meal Cookbook. I just want to make sure I repeat it. When you thought about organizing the book so that somebody like me who's got a cup of white beans left, and what do I do with that? Or right now, I'm awash in ham from Easter and trying to get creative ways to eat ham other than a ham sandwich and pea soup, because I've already done those. How did you think about how to organize things?Tamar [00:05:50]:Okay, before I answer the organization question, I just want to shout out to Emma McDowell, who is the person from whom I got the quinoa crust recipe, just because I just don't want to take credit. I thought so brilliant, and I definitely got the idea from her. And she, I think, has a book out, and she has recipes on the Internet all the time, and she's super great. But I at first wanted to organize the whole book alphabetically. I thought that would be easiest. So just A to Z and you would look up quinoa under Q and beans under B probably, although then it's like or do you look them up under cannellini and ham under H? But I did that for the first draft. Maybe two drafts of the book were just purely alphabetical with no other organizing principles. And I had a friend who always reads my draft who said that it made for some really inflicitous neighbors. He didn't like reading the word anchovy next to apple peel. He felt like it just made him want to close the book up and just not worry about either the anchovies or the peels. Yeah, nothing. He was like, at first I sort of booked, and I was like, but the whole point is that it's like a reference book. And then I calmed down a little bit, and I thought, that's true. And that maybe a new it's also not. You do kind of want there to be a category that you're searching in, because that is often how we use reference books, too. And so I decided to create larger leftovers categories, which it still can be, I think, confusing to somebody because we're so used to searching any culinary text by what we want to make, not by what we have. And I have had to remind people, if you look up a roast beef sandwich, I am not giving you a recipe for a roast beef sandwich. I'm telling you what to do with the soggy half of roast beef sandwich you have left.Stephanie [00:08:06]:Yes.Tamar [00:08:09]:But creating those larger categories is how I ended up organizing it. So the first chapter is vegetables, and it's leftover vegetables. The second is fruits and nuts, and it's overripe underripe, et cetera. And leftovers of all, there's leftover bread, leftover rice and grain. I mean, rice and beans. Leftover stuffed dough's was kind of a hard category to come up with, but it kind of made sense to me. There's leftover drinks, leftover sweets. Oh, leftover snacks. So stuff like the dust at the bottom of a pretzel bag or cheetos.Stephanie [00:08:48]:Which that dust is amazing. If you're like going to bread something or put a little sprinkle on a little pile of soup that you're eating.Tamar [00:08:59]:It'S like extra good salt.Stephanie [00:09:00]:Yes, extra good spicy salt. And even like, I make Caesar salads all the time, and I like to use real anchovies in the dressing. How did I not think about using the anchovy oil? And I've just been throwing that away.Tamar [00:09:16]:I'm glad that you now have ideas for it.Stephanie [00:09:19]:Yeah, it's such an obvious one, like, oh, yeah, this is that delicious flavored oil. Why aren't you doing something with it? And also something I discovered during the pandemic is brine from pickle juice.Tamar [00:09:33]:Oh, yeah.Stephanie [00:09:34]:I was just not salvaging my brine, and now I'm hoarding it.Tamar [00:09:39]:Yeah, because if you're going to do a whole chicken or a bunch of pork chops, you actually need kind of a good amount right. You need to be saving the pickle juice from two jars because you need a lot.Stephanie [00:09:54]:And frying chicken and brightening the chicken before you fry it in. That pickle juice is a secret of many chefs. Was there something that you did not know what to do with it like pistachio shells. Let's use that as an example.Tamar [00:10:16]:Well, we have always used those for fire starters. Those are pretty good for starting, like a wood stove or a fireplace. No, that was okay. But there were a bunch I didn't I mean, cherry stems, a lot of them I had to look up and then do some experimenting with, and I hadn't known that one could use.Stephanie [00:10:40]:What do you do with a cherry stem?Tamar [00:10:43]:You make tea. And it's supposed to be really good for you. Yeah.Stephanie [00:10:47]:See, this is, like, the joy of the discovery of this book I've been reading. It like a Bible in bed at night, like, hoarding, ten pages at a time. I've never been so excited about a book before. I'm in love with it now. Where do you go from here? You mentioned that your publisher cut you off. Could you do a whole other?Tamar [00:11:14]:I don't know if I have enough for a whole other, but I'm still collecting the ones that aren't in there. So I wonder if they would ever let me do, like, a five if I could break up the letters so that each one could be a little bit shorter, like A through E or something like that. A bunch of volumes. That would be one thing. Another is I could just, at some point in the future, reissue it with everything that got left out. I don't know. Anything that seems outdated. I don't know.Stephanie [00:11:45]:When you go out to eat, like, you have a recipe or an idea for leftover French fries that I'm assuming you're bringing home from a restaurant. When you go out to eat, do you bring everything leftover home?Tamar [00:11:58]:Yeah, I think so. Let me think. Yeah, I do. I think. I was like, well, do I really? And I'm like, no, I totally do. Because everything is good in fried rice. Or everything is good in, like, a lunchtime, some constellation of eggs and rice. And I do I keep pasta for salad. And the other day, this was for a TV show, which I only mentioned because it's like you're doing it on the spot, so it really has to work. And I made Caesar salad stuffed boiled eggs, kind of like deviled eggs, but with Caesar salad chopped up. And then combined with the yolks and a little bit of anchovy and parmesan and garlic. And they were so good. And I had to make a bunch of them. It still looks beautiful on TV. And my husband and I just ate them all. They were so delicious.Stephanie [00:12:55]:It's so smart because leftover salad is hard because it gets soggy obviously pretty quickly. And some people love a leftover salad. I'm not a huge leftover salad person, but that's brilliant because the texture isn't necessary, but the taste is still carried through.Tamar [00:13:10]:Exactly. Yeah.Stephanie [00:13:12]:Oh, that is so amazing. Who inspires you? Like, do you have some cookbook authors that are your go to?Tamar [00:13:20]:I get the most inspiration from cooks from other cultures. So it's when I read, like, Thai Cookbooks and Indian Cookbooks, and there's a really beautiful I think it's Senegalese Cookbook I forget the name of. But I really like a big book of Indian pickle. Indian Pickles. That was self published. I think it's called usha's pickle. That's where I get the most sort of like, oh, my God, that's a great idea. And, oh, yeah, that flavor. I used leftover Caesar salad dressing to make something Thai recently because I realized that fish sauce is just pressed anchovies and garlic and everything, and it had lemon instead of lime. And I was like, oh. So I used it as the beginning of Yamun Sen, a Thai noodle salad. I just added all of the ingredients to that. And so that's the kind of thing that I think comes to me from flipping through those other cuisines recipes and.Stephanie [00:14:41]:Getting inspiration, too, because I think sometimes people just cook the same stuff and you want to branch out a little bit. Strawberry leaves. Who knew that you should be eating those in salads? I did not.Tamar [00:14:56]:I did not, either. My friend Wes told me that. He's like, that's what I always do. Yeah. I had no idea.Stephanie [00:15:01]:And so much of this, too, is forageable, like, a strawberry leaf. There's wild strawberries all over my woods, and I could not always get the strawberries because the bears get them first, but I could get the leaves and make something cool out of that. So that's fun.Tamar [00:15:17]:Yeah.Stephanie [00:15:19]:Well, I am just obsessed with this book, and I'm hoping that we can get you on our radio show, too, because we talk a lot about leftovers and how to repurpose things and just how to be a good home cook and good meaning not like, fancy. Good meaning just like, being able to get a meal on the table for your family in a reasonable amount of time that makes sense for your schedule and your life.Tamar [00:15:43]:There's just so many ideas. Totally. I would love to, and I love how much it seems like you're reading it.Stephanie [00:15:55]:I get it.Tamar [00:15:56]:I really found you. I'm so happy.Stephanie [00:15:57]:Thank you. It found me. There's more than 1500 recipes ideas in here, and it's economical, too. My daughter is a starving 24 year old person, and I was like, you have to look at this book when you come over. I'm like, you can't have it, but I'll get you one because you'll never waste anything again. And there's so many great ideas. Tamara, I just love it. Thank you so much.Tamar [00:16:21]:Thank you so much.Stephanie [00:16:23]:Absolutely. And pick up the book. The Everlasting Meal Cookbook. Do you have a newsletter, too? I think I saw.Tamar [00:16:28]:Maybe I don't. I just cookbooks on instagram.Stephanie [00:16:33]:Just books and Instagram is plenty, right?Tamar [00:16:36]:It's a lot to keep for now.Stephanie [00:16:37]:Yeah, exactly. All right. Thank you for being my guest today. I appreciate it.Tamar [00:16:42]:Thanks, Stephanie. Bye.Stephanie [00:16:43]:Okay, bye. This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit <a href="https://stephaniehansen.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&amp;utm_campaign=CTA_2" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">stephaniehansen.substack.com/subscribe</a>

Episode 52: Tamar Adler Author of "The Everlasting Meal Cookbook"

With over thirty-five years of combined experience, homesteaders Stephanie Thurow (@minnesotafromscratch) and Michelle Bruhn (@Forksinthedirt) have taught thousands of people across the globe how to garden, preserve food, tend backyard chickens, cook from scratch, and care for their families with natural homemade alternatives. Their homesteading knowledge and instruction can be found in one place with Small-Scale Homesteading.In this sustainable guide, learn how to grow your own food, tap maple trees to make gallons of homemade syrup, successfully raise a small flock of laying hens, and more. Other topics include:* The benefits of small-scale homesteading and its local impacts* Soil health and composting* Keeping chickens* Planning a vegetable garden using annuals and perennials* DIY recipes and projects for the home and garden * Seed saving and planting tips* Handmade candles, soaps, lotions, and cleaning solutions * Companion and succession planting* How to extend your growing season* Explanation of approved food preservation methods and supplied needed* Maple sugaring* And so much more!  This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit stephaniehansen.substack.com/subscribe

With over thirty-five years of combined experience, homesteaders <a href="https://www.instagram.com/minnesotafromscratch/?hl=en" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Stephanie Thurow (@minnesotafromscratch)</a> and <a href="https://www.instagram.com/forksinthedirt/?hl=en" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Michelle Bruhn (@Forksinthedirt)</a> have taught thousands of people across the globe how to garden, preserve food, tend backyard chickens, cook from scratch, and care for their families with natural homemade alternatives. Their homesteading knowledge and instruction can be found in one place with <a href="https://amzn.to/3Tz27ev" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Small-Scale Homesteading.</a>In this sustainable guide, learn how to grow your own food, tap maple trees to make gallons of homemade syrup, successfully raise a small flock of laying hens, and more. Other topics include:* The benefits of small-scale homesteading and its local impacts* Soil health and composting* Keeping chickens* Planning a vegetable garden using annuals and perennials* DIY recipes and projects for the home and garden * Seed saving and planting tips* Handmade candles, soaps, lotions, and cleaning solutions * Companion and succession planting* How to extend your growing season* Explanation of approved food preservation methods and supplied needed* Maple sugaring* And so much more!  This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit <a href="https://stephaniehansen.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&amp;utm_campaign=CTA_2" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">stephaniehansen.substack.com/subscribe</a>

Episode 51: Stephanie Thurow (@MinnesotaFromScratch) and Michelle Bruhn (@ForksInTheDirt) 

Ryan McEnaney

Ryan McEnaney is the Marketing and Communications manager for Baileys Nurseries and its consumer brands: Endless Summer® Hydrangeas, First Editions® Plants, and the Easy Elegance® Rose Collection. Ryan just published his first book called, "Field Guide to Outside Style: Design and Plant Your Perfect Outdoor Space."  We catch up with Ryan and discuss how to plan your outdoor living space.Stephanie’s Dish Newsletter is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit stephaniehansen.substack.com/subscribe

<a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryan-mcenaney-2b825b63/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Ryan McEnaney</a> is the Marketing and Communications manager for <a href="https://www.baileynurseries.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Baileys Nurseries</a> and its consumer brands: Endless Summer® Hydrangeas, First Editions® Plants, and the Easy Elegance® Rose Collection. Ryan just published his first book called, <a href="https://amzn.to/3yOQ7fx" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">"Field Guide to Outside Style: Design and Plant Your Perfect Outdoor Space." </a> We catch up with Ryan and discuss how to plan your outdoor living space.Stephanie’s Dish Newsletter is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit <a href="https://stephaniehansen.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&amp;utm_campaign=CTA_2" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">stephaniehansen.substack.com/subscribe</a>

Episode 50: Ryan McEnaney Author of "Field Guide to Outside Style"

In Cassoulet Confessions, Sylvie travels across the Atlantic from her home in New York to the origin of cassoulet – the Occitanie region of Southern France. There she immerses herself in all things cassoulet: the quintessential historic meat and bean stew. From her first spoonful of cassoulet, Sylvie Bigar is transported back to her dramatic childhood in Geneva Switzerland. Not only did she discover the deeper meaning of her ancestral French Cuisine but she found the family stew that saved her soul. Sylvie takes us on a journey of Cassoulet with words and recipes.Morgan Baum, from the gallery and pottery studio of Clay Coyote in Hutchinson, Minnesota, partnered with Sylvie to make her the perfect cassole. Listen to the Makers of Minnesota Podcast episode about her cookery from season 4 here. Together they will share their story at Alliance Francais with a conversation moderated Panel discussion with Sylvie Bigar, Vincent Francoual, and Morgan Baum.Moderator Lynne Rossetto KasperCassoulet tasting- made by  Chef Raymond Espuche!Ticket price: $60 - price includes entrance fee, Sylvie Bigar’s book, and cassoulet tasting Tickets are $60 and can be had by calling 612-332-0436 or here Monday, February 27thStephanie’s Dish Newsletter is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.*Contains Affiliate links This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit stephaniehansen.substack.com/subscribe

<a href="https://amzn.to/3KjO4Hm" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">In </a>Cassoulet Confessions, Sylvie travels across the Atlantic from her home in New York to the origin of cassoulet – the Occitanie region of Southern France. There she immerses herself in all things cassoulet: the quintessential historic meat and bean stew. From her first spoonful of cassoulet, Sylvie Bigar is transported back to her dramatic childhood in Geneva Switzerland. Not only did she discover the deeper meaning of her ancestral French Cuisine but she found the family stew that saved her soul. Sylvie takes us on a journey of Cassoulet with words and recipes.Morgan Baum, from the gallery and pottery studio of <a href="https://www.claycoyote.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Clay Coyote </a>in Hutchinson, Minnesota, partnered with Sylvie to make her<a href="https://www.claycoyote.com/product/cassoulet-confessions-cassole/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"> the perfect cassole. </a>Listen to the Makers of Minnesota Podcast episode about her cookery from season <a href="https://www.stephaniesdish.com/podcast/clay-coyote-season-4-episode-29/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">4 here</a>. Together they will share their story at <a href="https://www.afmsp.org/about#/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Alliance Francais </a>with a conversation moderated Panel discussion with Sylvie Bigar, Vincent Francoual, and Morgan Baum.Moderator Lynne Rossetto KasperCassoulet tasting- made by Chef Raymond Espuche!Ticket price: $60 - price includes entrance fee, Sylvie Bigar’s book, and cassoulet tasting Tickets are $60 and can be had by calling 612-332-0436 <a href="https://www.afmsp.org/event?eventId=1331#/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">or here</a> Monday, February 27thStephanie’s Dish Newsletter is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.*Contains Affiliate links This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit <a href="https://stephaniehansen.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&amp;utm_campaign=CTA_2" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">stephaniehansen.substack.com/subscribe</a>

Episode 49: Sylvie Bigar & Morgan Baum

Giving Tree Gardens is a full-service organic gardening company in Minneapolis, Minnesota. I first learned about Russ Henry, owner of Giving Tree Gardens and Minnehaha Falls Landscaping, from this Star Tribune article highlighting his entire yard as a garden designed for urban food foraging.Giving Tree Garden started with a few tools and a dream of creating enchanting organic urban gardens. Giving Tree Gardens is an eco-friendly garden landscaping services company. Their hardy gardens, perennials, trees, shrubs, and self-seeding annuals are the backbone of a sustainable garden. They use native plants to attract wild birds, butterflies, and animals. Today Giving Tree Gardens services residential and commercial clients throughout the Twin Cities metro area. Their Bee Lawn is a popular way to start your  eco-conscious lawn care.Subscriber Bonus:As a bonus to this episode, I wanted to include the recipe for my June Berry Drink Syrup that I get from the Serviceberry trees in my Golden Valley yard and Ely. I make the syrup and use it on pancakes or in a June Berry Martini Cocktail or Mocktail.Stephanie’s Dish Newsletter is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.June Berry Drink SyrupEach Spring, I look for Serviceberry trees to make June Berry syrup.  Note: This syrup could be replicated with blackberries, blueberries, or raspberries. Adjust the sugar as needed based on the sweetness of the berries you pickIngredients3 cups fresh June Berries from your local Serviceberry tree.  Washed, rinsed, and stems picked1 cup water1/3 cup granulated sugar2 Tbsp lemon juiceInstructionsIn a medium heavy-duty saucepan, place berries with 1 cup water and 1/3 cup sugar.Bring to a boil over medium-high heat, reduce the heat to medium-low, and simmer until the berries are very soft and juicy. About 5 minutes.Set a fine sieve over a bowl. Pour the berry pulp into the sieve and allow the juice to drip through. Press the pulp with a rubber spatula to extract as much juice as possible.Add 2 Tbsp lemon juice.Transfer to a mason jar or cruet.June Berry Martini CocktailIngredients1 .5 oz June Berry syrup1 oz vodka1 oz orange liqueur like Grand Marnier or CointreauLemon twist peeled and squeezed into the drink to release the lemon oilInstructionsFill a shaker with ice.Add the syrup, vodka, and orange liquor and shake to combine.Strain into a martini glassGarnish with a twist of lemonJune Berry MocktailIngredients1 .5 oz June Berry syrup3 oz lemonade1 oz sparkling waterLemon twist peeled and squeezed into the drink to release the lemon oilInstructionsFill a shaker with ice.Add the syrup and lemonade and shake to combine.Strain into a rocks glassTop with soda waterGarnish with a twist of lemon.Thank you for reading Stephanie’s Dish Newsletter. This post is public, so feel free to share it. This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit stephaniehansen.substack.com/subscribe

<a href="https://givingtreegardens.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Giving Tree Gardens</a> is a full-service organic gardening company in Minneapolis, Minnesota. I first learned about Russ Henry, owner of <a href="https://givingtreegardens.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Giving Tree Gardens</a> and <a href="https://minnehahafallslandscape.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Minnehaha Falls Landscaping</a>, from this Star Tribune article highlighting his entire yard as a garden designed for urban food foraging.Giving Tree Garden started with a few tools and a dream of creating enchanting organic urban gardens. Giving Tree Gardens is an eco-friendly garden landscaping services company. Their hardy gardens, perennials, trees, shrubs, and self-seeding annuals are the backbone of a sustainable garden. They use native plants to attract wild birds, butterflies, and animals. Today Giving Tree Gardens services residential and commercial clients throughout the Twin Cities metro area. Their Bee Lawn is a popular way to start your eco-conscious lawn care.Subscriber Bonus:As a bonus to this episode, I wanted to include the recipe for my June Berry Drink Syrup that I get from the Serviceberry trees in my Golden Valley yard and Ely. I make the syrup and use it on pancakes or in a June Berry Martini Cocktail or Mocktail.Stephanie’s Dish Newsletter is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.June Berry Drink SyrupEach Spring, I look for Serviceberry trees to make June Berry syrup.  Note: This syrup could be replicated with blackberries, blueberries, or raspberries. Adjust the sugar as needed based on the sweetness of the berries you pickIngredients3 cups fresh June Berries from your local Serviceberry tree.  Washed, rinsed, and stems picked1 cup water1/3 cup granulated sugar2 Tbsp lemon juiceInstructionsIn a medium heavy-duty saucepan, place berries with 1 cup water and 1/3 cup sugar.Bring to a boil over medium-high heat, reduce the heat to medium-low, and simmer until the berries are very soft and juicy. About 5 minutes.Set a fine sieve over a bowl. Pour the berry pulp into the sieve and allow the juice to drip through. Press the pulp with a rubber spatula to extract as much juice as possible.Add 2 Tbsp lemon juice.Transfer to a mason jar or cruet.June Berry Martini CocktailIngredients1 .5 oz June Berry syrup1 oz vodka1 oz orange liqueur like Grand Marnier or CointreauLemon twist peeled and squeezed into the drink to release the lemon oilInstructionsFill a shaker with ice.Add the syrup, vodka, and orange liquor and shake to combine.Strain into a martini glassGarnish with a twist of lemonJune Berry MocktailIngredients1 .5 oz June Berry syrup3 oz lemonade1 oz sparkling waterLemon twist peeled and squeezed into the drink to release the lemon oilInstructionsFill a shaker with ice.Add the syrup and lemonade and shake to combine.Strain into a rocks glassTop with soda waterGarnish with a twist of lemon.Thank you for reading Stephanie’s Dish Newsletter. This post is public, so feel free to share it. This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit <a href="https://stephaniehansen.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&amp;utm_campaign=CTA_2" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">stephaniehansen.substack.com/subscribe</a>

Episode 48: Russ Henry

Local Chef Jasmine Weiser, the Executive Chef at Edwards Dessert Kitchen (EDK), owned and operated by Schwan’s Company spent time with us talking about the Twin cities pastry scene and her appearance on the Zoë Bakes show on the Magnolia Network (on Discovery +). This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit stephaniehansen.substack.com/subscribe

Local Chef Jasmine Weiser, the Executive Chef at <a href="https://www.edwardsdessertkitchen.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Edwards Dessert Kitchen</a> (EDK), owned and operated by <a href="https://www.schwanscompany.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Schwan’s Company</a> spent time with us talking about the Twin cities pastry scene and her appearance on the Zoë Bakes show on the Magnolia Network (on Discovery +). This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit <a href="https://stephaniehansen.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&amp;utm_campaign=CTA_2" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">stephaniehansen.substack.com/subscribe</a>

Episode 47: Jasmine Weiser

Happy New Year! I am very excited for 2023 and have many trips planned after wrapping up a grueling Fall book tour, including a “Taste of Spain” trip in October.Listen to the Podcast above, then Sign up to join us. and you will get $100 off your booking fee here. It’s going to be one of many trips I host in the coming years, so make sure you sign up -  I have also started a Facebook group for Culinary travelers here, so join us on the trip!https://tvlleaders.com/taste-of-spain/In 2019 I went on a Riverboat cruise in France through the wine country on a 52-foot houseboat. There were over 100 locks and damns as Kurt piloted, and we navigated our way on the Sein through the wine country of France. The boat was great, and the wine and countryside were terrific, but riverboat traveling is something I would only do once. It’s a very slow and frankly arduous mode of travel waiting to pull up the locks, enter the locks, fill the locks and release the locks over 100 times in 5 days. That said,  each of the towns we visited was picturesque, and my best day was spent riding my bike along the river, getting to the lock in advance of the boat to prepare them and speed things up for our travel. From there we went to Barcelona.  I loved Barcelona. The town is full of art and history. The architecture of Gaudi is fantastic, and there is a beach right in this crazy busy and lively city. The food was excellent, from Tapas to pizza, and the wine was fantastic. I loved walking through the markets and smelling and seeing all the cuisine, cheese, seafood, and local specialties, and I vowed I would return. Here is a video I took in the market on our way to shop for Paella at a cooking class. This brings me to our trip! One of my goals in 2023 is to create more experiences with fans of Stephanies Dish, and we are kicking that initiative off in a big way with a trip to Spain.  We leave on October 1, 2023, and come home on October 9, 2023.⁠ * 2 nights Madrid* 2 nights Seville* 1 night Granada* 1 night Valencia* 2 nights BarcelonaTotal of 8 nights in Spain! Listen to the Podcast above, then Sign up to join us. and you will get $100 off your booking fee here. It’s going to be one of many trips I host in the coming years, so make sure you sign up -  I have also started a Facebook group for Culinary travelers here, so join us on the trip!https://tvlleaders.com/taste-of-spain/On this trip, we will take a Paella Class. Here is chef Kurt getting ready for the calamari.Coincidentally Ellie bought Kurt a Paella pan for Christmas this year so that he may continue his culinary success we learned on the trip! Here are a few other pictures from that trip to get you excited about joining us.One of the last places we visited was Park Güell. Park Güell is an enormous garden with stunning and distinct architectural elements designed by the renowned Catalan architect Antoni Gaudí. The Park is named after Eusebi Güell, a wealthy entrepreneur and count that had a great passion for Gaudí's work and who became his patron. While walking through the park, we saw these handsome musicians practicing for a show they had later that night. It was magical.Listen to the Podcast above, then Sign up to join us. and you will get $100 off your booking fee here. It’s going to be one of many trips that I host in the coming years, so make sure you sign up:https://tvlleaders.com/taste-of-spain/What’s up in 2023? A Paid Substack OptionI'm excited to announce a new paid version of my email newsletter will be available in 2023. Our first email for paid subscribers is coming out in January! This is exciting news, as it will allow me to get paid for my work, connect me with all of you in a new way, and offer new types of content and exclusive content and recipes for paid subscribers.Subscriptions are $5 a month or $50 for the year. As a subscriber, you will access full episodes of my podcasts, exclusive videos, exclusive recipes, and access to my fill archive of recipes, maker recommendations, giveaways, custom restaurant suggestions, and fun, exclusive subscriber benefits throughout the year. All subscriptions get a 7-day trial, and I will ALWAYS offer some free content and recipes, so there is no pressure! However, if you dig my work and want to support it, I would be grateful.Subscribe before the end of 2022, and you will be entered to win a FREE “True North Cabin Cookbook”Stephanie’s Dish Newsletter is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit stephaniehansen.substack.com/subscribe

Happy New Year! I am very excited for 2023 and have many trips planned after wrapping up a grueling Fall book tour, including a “Taste of Spain” trip in October.Listen to the Podcast above, then Sign up to join us. and you will get $100 off your booking fee here. It’s going to be one of many trips I host in the coming years, so make sure you <a href="https://tvlleaders.com/taste-of-spain/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">sign up</a> - I have also started a <a href="https://www.facebook.com/groups/515504367152860/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Facebook group for Culinary travelers here, </a>so join us on the trip!<a href="https://tvlleaders.com/taste-of-spain/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://tvlleaders.com/taste-of-spain/</a>In 2019 I went on a Riverboat cruise in France through the wine country on a 52-foot houseboat. There were over 100 locks and damns as Kurt piloted, and we navigated our way on the Sein through the wine country of France. The boat was great, and the wine and countryside were terrific, but riverboat traveling is something I would only do once. It’s a very slow and frankly arduous mode of travel waiting to pull up the locks, enter the locks, fill the locks and release the locks over 100 times in 5 days. That said, each of the towns we visited was picturesque, and my best day was spent riding my bike along the river, getting to the lock in advance of the boat to prepare them and speed things up for our travel. From there we went to Barcelona. I loved Barcelona. The town is full of art and history. The architecture of Gaudi is fantastic, and there is a beach right in this crazy busy and lively city. The food was excellent, from Tapas to pizza, and the wine was fantastic. I loved walking through the markets and smelling and seeing all the cuisine, cheese, seafood, and local specialties, and I vowed I would return. Here is a video I took in the market on our way to shop for Paella at a cooking class. This brings me to our trip! One of my goals in 2023 is to create more experiences with fans of <a href="https://www.stephaniesdish.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Stephanies Dish,</a> and we are kicking that initiative off in a big way with a trip to Spain. We leave on October 1, 2023, and come home on October 9, 2023.⁠ * 2 nights Madrid* 2 nights Seville* 1 night Granada* 1 night Valencia* 2 nights BarcelonaTotal of 8 nights in Spain! Listen to the Podcast above, then Sign up to join us. and you will get $100 off your booking fee here. It’s going to be one of many trips I host in the coming years, so make sure you <a href="https://tvlleaders.com/taste-of-spain/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">sign up</a> - I have also started a <a href="https://www.facebook.com/groups/515504367152860/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Facebook group for Culinary travelers here, </a>so join us on the trip!<a href="https://tvlleaders.com/taste-of-spain/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://tvlleaders.com/taste-of-spain/</a>On this trip, we will take a Paella Class. Here is chef Kurt getting ready for the calamari.Coincidentally Ellie bought Kurt a Paella pan for Christmas this year so that he may continue his culinary success we learned on the trip! Here are a few other pictures from that trip to get you excited about joining us.One of the last places we visited was Park Güell. Park Güell is an enormous garden with stunning and distinct architectural elements designed by the renowned Catalan architect Antoni Gaudí. The Park is named after Eusebi Güell, a wealthy entrepreneur and count that had a great passion for Gaudí's work and who became his patron. While walking through the park, we saw these handsome musicians practicing for a show they had later that night. It was magical.Listen to the Podcast above, then Sign up to join us. and you will get $100 off your booking fee here. It’s going to be one of many trips that I host in the coming years, so make sure you sign up:<a href="https://tvlleaders.com/taste-of-spain/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://tvlleaders.com/taste-of-spain/</a>What’s up in 2023? A Paid Substack OptionI'm excited to announce a new paid version of my email newsletter will be available in 2023. Our first email for paid subscribers is coming out in January! This is exciting news, as it will allow me to get paid for my work, connect me with all of you in a new way, and offer new types of content and exclusive content and recipes for paid subscribers.Subscriptions are $5 a month or $50 for the year. As a subscriber, you will access full episodes of my podcasts, exclusive videos, exclusive recipes, and access to my fill archive of recipes, maker recommendations, giveaways, custom restaurant suggestions, and fun, exclusive subscriber benefits throughout the year. All subscriptions get a 7-day trial, and I will ALWAYS offer some free content and recipes, so there is no pressure! However, if you dig my work and want to support it, I would be grateful.Subscribe before the end of 2022, and you will be entered to win a FREE <a href="https://www.stephaniesdish.com/true-north-cabin-cookbook/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">“True North Cabin Cookbook”</a>Stephanie’s Dish Newsletter is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit <a href="https://stephaniehansen.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&amp;utm_campaign=CTA_2" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">stephaniehansen.substack.com/subscribe</a>

Episode 46: Lets go to Spain

Gemma Stafford

I had a really enjoyable conversation with Gemma Stafford about her second cookbook, “Bigger, Bolder, Baking Every Day.” This cookbook is really beautifully shot and has over 120 accessible, rustic, delicious recipes. I was just on the heels of baking pies for Thanksgiving and had suffered the slumpy crust, so Gemma shared her pie recipe with me that features full fat Greek yogurt to enrich the dough. Also enclosed is her tasty gooey jam tart that uses this pie crust.Are there other Cookbook Authors or Food Folks you would love to hear from? Drop me a note so I can connect with folks for 2023. Happy Baking. This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit stephaniehansen.substack.com/subscribe

I had a really enjoyable conversation with Gemma Stafford about her second cookbook, <a href="https://www.biggerbolderbaking.com/cookbook/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">“Bigger, Bolder, Baking Every Day.”</a> This cookbook is really beautifully shot and has over 120 accessible, rustic, delicious recipes. I was just on the heels of baking pies for Thanksgiving and had suffered the slumpy crust, so Gemma shared her pie recipe with me that features full fat Greek yogurt to enrich the dough. Also enclosed is her tasty gooey jam tart that uses this pie crust.Are there other Cookbook Authors or Food Folks you would love to hear from? Drop me a note so I can connect with folks for 2023. Happy Baking. This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit <a href="https://stephaniehansen.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&amp;utm_campaign=CTA_2" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">stephaniehansen.substack.com/subscribe</a>

Episode 45: Gemma Stafford

Emily Maxson

I have a chance to catch up with Emily Maxson from “Emily’s Fresh Kitchen.” The last time we spoke with Emily (March 2022  - Episode 30) her cookbook was just being released so I circled back to reconnect and also to offer an apology. Take a listen and order her cookbook hereNO-BAKE PEANUT BUTTER CRUNCH BARSWhen my daughters came home from college during quarantine, I made a lot of treats. I think it was my way of trying to make their newfound circumstances more fun. Each week I put together a batch of peanut butter bars, experimenting with different ingredients. I would keep a pan in the refrigerator and we would all slice off pieces to nibble on throughout the day. If you just take little bite here and there and don’t take a full bar at once, you are eating less, right? This recipe is the version we all liked best. I love that they are gluten free and dairy free and sweetened with pure maple syrup. They remind me of Special K bars but are made with healthier ingredients. Enjoy!INGREDIENTS:1 1/2 cups natural peanut butter3/4 cup pure maple syrup1 cup puffed quinoa (I like nuts.com brand)1 cup salted peanuts, chopped1 1/2 cups dairy free chocolate chips or chopped dark chocolate1/4 cup natural peanut butterDIRECTIONS:* Line a 9×9 pan with parchment paper.* In a medium bowl, combine 1 1/2 cups peanut butter and the maple syrup.* Add the the puffed quinoa and the chopped peanuts. Mix well.* Spread the peanut butter mixture into the parchment lined pan and smooth.* Add the chocolate chips or dark chocolate and 1/4 cup peanut butter to a bowl and melt in the microwave, or over a sauce pan filled with simmering water.* Spread the melted chocolate mixture on top of the bars and smooth.* Place in the refrigerator for 2-3 hours until set.* Cut into bars and store in the refrigerator. This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit stephaniehansen.substack.com/subscribe

I have a chance to catch up with Emily Maxson from “Emily’s Fresh Kitchen.” The last time we spoke with Emily <a href="https://stephaniehansen.substack.com/p/episode-30-emily-maxson#details" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">(March 2022 - Episode 30)</a> her cookbook was just being released so I circled back to reconnect and also to offer an apology. Take a listen and <a href="https://www.emilysfreshkitchen.com/product/cook-your-way-to-better-health/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">order her cookbook here</a>NO-BAKE PEANUT BUTTER CRUNCH BARSWhen my daughters came home from college during quarantine, I made a lot of treats. I think it was my way of trying to make their newfound circumstances more fun. Each week I put together a batch of peanut butter bars, experimenting with different ingredients. I would keep a pan in the refrigerator and we would all slice off pieces to nibble on throughout the day. If you just take little bite here and there and don’t take a full bar at once, you are eating less, right? This recipe is the version we all liked best. I love that they are gluten free and dairy free and sweetened with pure maple syrup. They remind me of Special K bars but are made with healthier ingredients. Enjoy!INGREDIENTS:1 1/2 cups natural peanut butter3/4 cup pure maple syrup1 cup puffed quinoa (I like <a href="http://nuts.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">nuts.com</a> brand)1 cup salted peanuts, chopped1 1/2 cups dairy free chocolate chips or chopped dark chocolate1/4 cup natural peanut butterDIRECTIONS:* Line a 9×9 pan with parchment paper.* In a medium bowl, combine 1 1/2 cups peanut butter and the maple syrup.* Add the the puffed quinoa and the chopped peanuts. Mix well.* Spread the peanut butter mixture into the parchment lined pan and smooth.* Add the chocolate chips or dark chocolate and 1/4 cup peanut butter to a bowl and melt in the microwave, or over a sauce pan filled with simmering water.* Spread the melted chocolate mixture on top of the bars and smooth.* Place in the refrigerator for 2-3 hours until set.* Cut into bars and store in the refrigerator. This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit <a href="https://stephaniehansen.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&amp;utm_campaign=CTA_2" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">stephaniehansen.substack.com/subscribe</a>

Episode 44: Emily Maxson

Gavin Kaysen

“At Home” by Gavin Kaysen,  features more than 100 recipes ranging from quick weeknight dinners to show-stopping weekend projects, as well as utilitarian pantry staples, kid-friendly meals, and family favorites all organized by season, including:* The Perfect Pot Roast with Kale and Squash Salad* Watermelon and Tomato Salad with Sumac Vinaigrette* Grilled Branzino with Brown Butter, Tomato, Olives, and Bread Crumbs* Pappardelle Pasta with Pork Ragu* Swedish PancakesAnd more! Try Gavin’s Pot Roast as we discussed excerpted from the book “At Home” by Gavin KaysenPot roast is a very nostalgic dish for me and by far my most published recipe (you can find versions of it all over the Internet). It was one of my grandmother Dorothy’s two signature dishes, and she’d make it anytime we visited her, no matter the season. It was also one of the first recipes I ever cooked from start to finish as a kid, and the first dish I put on the menu at Spoon and Stable, where you’ll still find it today. The great chef Sean Brock always says that in the South, nothing can compete with your grandmother’s corn bread, and I feel the same about pot roast in the Midwest: Dorothy’s is the best, and every time I eat it, I feel like she’s giving me a big hug. Pot roast certainly works as a meal by itself, but I like to pair it with a salad made with the contrasting textures of raw and roasted kale, dressed with a tangy buttermilk vinaigrette.The Perfect Pot Roast2 pounds boneless beef top blade roastfine sea saltfreshly ground black pepper2 Tbsp. canola oil2 Tbsp. unsalted butter1 medium red onion, quartered2 carrots, peeled and cut into 2-inch pieces2 celery stalks, cut into 2-inch pieces1 small rutabaga (about 8 ounces), peeled and cut into 12 to 16 pieces4 cremini mushrooms, halved1 parsnip, peeled and cut into 2-inch pieces1 head garlic, top trimmed to expose cloves3 Tbsp. tomato paste1 bay leaf1 sprig rosemary¾ cup red wine, preferably cabernet2 cups beef broth or stock1. Preheat oven to 350°F. Season meat generously with salt and pepper.2. In a large Dutch oven or other heavy ovenproof pot with a lid, heat oil over medium-high heat. Add meat and sear until a dark crust forms, 3 to 4 minutes per side. Transfer to a plate.3. Reduce heat to medium and add butter to pot. Melt butter and add all vegetables and garlic, stirring frequently and scraping bottom of pot, until vegetables start to color, 8 to 10 minutes. Add tomato paste and cook, stirring frequently, until it darkens slightly, about 5 minutes. Add bay leaves, rosemary and wine, and cook, stirring occasionally, until liquid is reduced to a thick gravy consistency, 5 to 7 minutes.4. Return meat to pot. Add broth, cover pot, transfer to oven, and cook until roast is very tender and starts to fall apart when you lift it, about 2 hours and 20 minutes.5. Let roast sit at room temperature at least 10 minutes. Transfer meat to a cutting board and carve into 1½-inch slices. Skim fat from surface of stew. Discard bay leaves and rosemary stems. Squeeze any garlic cloves remaining in their skins into stew and discard skins.6. To serve, lay slices of roast in shallow bowls along with vegetables and a generous amount of cooking liquid ladled over top. Serve with Kale and Squash Salad (recipe follows).Kale and Squash SaladButtermilk Vinaigrette¼ cup buttermilk2 Tbsp. red wine vinegar1 tsp. Dijon mustard1/3 cup olive oilfine sea saltSalad8 oz. Tuscan kale, washed, dried and stems removedolive oil, for drizzlingfine sea saltground white pepper1 large acorn squash, quartered and seeded½ tsp. light brown sugar½ tsp. ground cinnamon½ tsp. ground cloves½ tsp. freshly ground black pepper4 Tbsp. unsalted butter, at room temperature¼ cup Marcona almonds, toasted and lightly crushed1. Make the buttermilk vinaigrette: In a blender, purée buttermilk, vinegar and mustard until well combined. With machine running on low, stream in oil until smooth. Season with salt. Set aside or refrigerate until ready to use.2. Make the salad: Preheat oven to 220°F. Line a sheet pan with foil. Arrange 1/3 of kale in a single layer, drizzle with oil, and sprinkle with salt and white pepper. Transfer to oven and bake until crispy, 15 to 20 minutes. Let cool to room temperature.3. Meanwhile, put remaining kale in a large bowl, add a pinch of salt and gently massage kale about 2 minutes to tenderize it. Increase oven temperature to 375°F. Line a second sheet pan with foil. Lay squash skin-side down on lined pan. In a small bowl, combine 1 tsp. salt, brown sugar, cinnamon, cloves and black pepper. Rub butter onto squash flesh and sprinkle evenly with spice mix.4.Transfer sheet pan to oven and bake until squash is tender, 45 minutes to 1 hour. Remove from oven, and once cool enough to handle, peel squash and cut into 2-inch cubes. Add crispy kale to bowl with raw kale. Add almonds and some of buttermilk vinaigrette and toss well. Divide onto plates and top with squash. Drizzle with more vinaigrette and serve. This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit stephaniehansen.substack.com/subscribe

“At Home” <a href="https://gavinkaysen.com/products/at-home-by-gavin-kaysen" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">by Gavin Kaysen</a>, features more than 100 recipes ranging from quick weeknight dinners to show-stopping weekend projects, as well as utilitarian pantry staples, kid-friendly meals, and family favorites all organized by season, including:* The Perfect Pot Roast with Kale and Squash Salad* Watermelon and Tomato Salad with Sumac Vinaigrette* Grilled Branzino with Brown Butter, Tomato, Olives, and Bread Crumbs* Pappardelle Pasta with Pork Ragu* Swedish PancakesAnd more! Try Gavin’s Pot Roast as we discussed excerpted from the book<a href="https://gavinkaysen.com/products/at-home-by-gavin-kaysen" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"> “At Home” by Gavin Kaysen</a>Pot roast is a very nostalgic dish for me and by far my most published recipe (you can find versions of it all over the Internet). It was one of my grandmother Dorothy’s two signature dishes, and she’d make it anytime we visited her, no matter the season. It was also one of the first recipes I ever cooked from start to finish as a kid, and the first dish I put on the menu at Spoon and Stable, where you’ll still find it today. The great chef <a href="https://chefseanbrock.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Sean Brock</a> always says that in the South, nothing can compete with your grandmother’s corn bread, and I feel the same about pot roast in the <a href="https://www.exploreminnesota.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Midwest</a>: Dorothy’s is the best, and every time I eat it, I feel like she’s giving me a big hug. Pot roast certainly works as a meal by itself, but I like to pair it with a salad made with the contrasting textures of raw and roasted kale, dressed with a tangy buttermilk vinaigrette.The Perfect Pot Roast2 pounds boneless beef top blade roastfine sea saltfreshly ground black pepper2 Tbsp. canola oil2 Tbsp. unsalted butter1 medium red onion, quartered2 carrots, peeled and cut into 2-inch pieces2 celery stalks, cut into 2-inch pieces1 small rutabaga (about 8 ounces), peeled and cut into 12 to 16 pieces4 cremini mushrooms, halved1 parsnip, peeled and cut into 2-inch pieces1 head garlic, top trimmed to expose cloves3 Tbsp. tomato paste1 bay leaf1 sprig rosemary¾ cup red wine, preferably cabernet2 cups beef broth or stock1. Preheat oven to 350°F. Season meat generously with salt and pepper.2. In a large Dutch oven or other heavy ovenproof pot with a lid, heat oil over medium-high heat. Add meat and sear until a dark crust forms, 3 to 4 minutes per side. Transfer to a plate.3. Reduce heat to medium and add butter to pot. Melt butter and add all vegetables and garlic, stirring frequently and scraping bottom of pot, until vegetables start to color, 8 to 10 minutes. Add tomato paste and cook, stirring frequently, until it darkens slightly, about 5 minutes. Add bay leaves, rosemary and wine, and cook, stirring occasionally, until liquid is reduced to a thick gravy consistency, 5 to 7 minutes.4. Return meat to pot. Add broth, cover pot, transfer to oven, and cook until roast is very tender and starts to fall apart when you lift it, about 2 hours and 20 minutes.5. Let roast sit at room temperature at least 10 minutes. Transfer meat to a cutting board and carve into 1½-inch slices. Skim fat from surface of stew. Discard bay leaves and rosemary stems. Squeeze any garlic cloves remaining in their skins into stew and discard skins.6. To serve, lay slices of roast in shallow bowls along with vegetables and a generous amount of cooking liquid ladled over top. Serve with Kale and Squash Salad (recipe follows).Kale and Squash SaladButtermilk Vinaigrette¼ cup buttermilk2 Tbsp. red wine vinegar1 tsp. Dijon mustard1/3 cup olive oilfine sea saltSalad8 oz. Tuscan kale, washed, dried and stems removedolive oil, for drizzlingfine sea saltground white pepper1 large acorn squash, quartered and seeded½ tsp. light brown sugar½ tsp. ground cinnamon½ tsp. ground cloves½ tsp. freshly ground black pepper4 Tbsp. unsalted butter, at room temperature¼ cup Marcona almonds, toasted and lightly crushed1. Make the buttermilk vinaigrette: In a blender, purée buttermilk, vinegar and mustard until well combined. With machine running on low, stream in oil until smooth. Season with salt. Set aside or refrigerate until ready to use.2. Make the salad: Preheat oven to 220°F. Line a sheet pan with foil. Arrange 1/3 of kale in a single layer, drizzle with oil, and sprinkle with salt and white pepper. Transfer to oven and bake until crispy, 15 to 20 minutes. Let cool to room temperature.3. Meanwhile, put remaining kale in a large bowl, add a pinch of salt and gently massage kale about 2 minutes to tenderize it. Increase oven temperature to 375°F. Line a second sheet pan with foil. Lay squash skin-side down on lined pan. In a small bowl, combine 1 tsp. salt, brown sugar, cinnamon, cloves and black pepper. Rub butter onto squash flesh and sprinkle evenly with spice mix.4.Transfer sheet pan to oven and bake until squash is tender, 45 minutes to 1 hour. Remove from oven, and once cool enough to handle, peel squash and cut into 2-inch cubes. Add crispy kale to bowl with raw kale. Add almonds and some of buttermilk vinaigrette and toss well. Divide onto plates and top with squash. Drizzle with more vinaigrette and serve. This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit <a href="https://stephaniehansen.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&amp;utm_campaign=CTA_2" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">stephaniehansen.substack.com/subscribe</a>

Episode 43: Gavin Kaysen

I talk with Cookbook authors and others obsessed with food <a href="https://stephaniehansen.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">stephaniehansen.substack.com</a>

Dishing with Stephanie's Dish

My girlfriend Molly King had an epic 50 birthday party and she loves to throw theme parties. Her idea on how to stay connected during the Coronavirus with a distanced dinner party is brilliant. Take a listen here.Support the show (https://paypal.me/StephanieKHansen?locale.x=en_US) This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit stephaniehansen.substack.com/subscribe

My girlfriend Molly King had an epic 50 birthday party and she loves to throw theme parties. Her idea on how to stay connected during the Coronavirus with a distanced dinner party is brilliant. Take a listen here.<a href="https://paypal.me/StephanieKHansen?locale.x=en_US" rel="payment nofollow" target="_blank">Support the show</a> (<a href="https://paypal.me/StephanieKHansen?locale.x=en_US" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://paypal.me/StephanieKHansen?locale.x=en_US</a>) This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit <a href="https://stephaniehansen.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&amp;utm_campaign=CTA_2" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">stephaniehansen.substack.com/subscribe</a>

Episode 15: The Socially Distant Dinner Party

It had been a while since I recorded so I got caught up with you all while on my way back home from the Feast Local Food Show in RochesterSupport the show (https://paypal.me/StephanieKHansen?locale.x=en_US) This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit stephaniehansen.substack.com/subscribe

It had been a while since I recorded so I got caught up with you all while on my way back home from the Feast Local Food Show in Rochester<a href="https://paypal.me/StephanieKHansen?locale.x=en_US" rel="payment nofollow" target="_blank">Support the show</a> (<a href="https://paypal.me/StephanieKHansen?locale.x=en_US" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://paypal.me/StephanieKHansen?locale.x=en_US</a>) This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit <a href="https://stephaniehansen.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&amp;utm_campaign=CTA_2" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">stephaniehansen.substack.com/subscribe</a>

Episode 14: Feast Local Food Show in Rochester

Bradley Traynor

Bradley Traynor is perfecting his Sourdough starter and Bread Loaf during the Covid 19 Pandemic. He watched You Tube videos and found a starter process he really liked at Marys Nest - You too can make Sourdough Loaves. Click here to see his loaf.Support the show (https://paypal.me/StephanieKHansen?locale.x=en_US) This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit stephaniehansen.substack.com/subscribe

Bradley Traynor is perfecting his Sourdough starter and Bread Loaf during the Covid 19 Pandemic. He watched You Tube videos and found a starter process he really liked at <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ae15FVHTIZE" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Marys Nest </a>- You too can make Sourdough Loaves. <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/B_oSlsWFw0f/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Click here to see his loaf.</a> <a href="https://paypal.me/StephanieKHansen?locale.x=en_US" rel="payment nofollow" target="_blank">Support the show</a> (<a href="https://paypal.me/StephanieKHansen?locale.x=en_US" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://paypal.me/StephanieKHansen?locale.x=en_US</a>) This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit <a href="https://stephaniehansen.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&amp;utm_campaign=CTA_2" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">stephaniehansen.substack.com/subscribe</a>

Episode 16: Baking Sourdough Bread with Bradley Traynor

I recap some of the best movies I have seen at the Twin Cities Film Festival including:JoJo RabbittWorking ManMarriage StoryScience FairHoney BoyInternational FallsGet tickets to the Festival hereBecome a member hereSupport the show (https://paypal.me/StephanieKHansen?locale.x=en_US) This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit stephaniehansen.substack.com/subscribe

I recap some of the best movies I have seen at the Twin Cities Film Festival including:<ul><li><a href="http://www.foxsearchlight.com/jojorabbit/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">JoJo Rabbitt</a></li><li><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8391044/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Working Man</a></li><li><a href="https://www.netflix.com/title/80223779" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Marriage Story</a></li><li><a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.com/films/science-fair/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Science Fair</a></li><li><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8151874/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Honey Boy</a></li><li><a href="https://www.internationalfallsmovie.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">International Falls</a></li></ul> Get tickets to the Festival <a href="http://twincitiesfilmfest.org/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">here</a> Become a <a href="http://twincitiesfilmfest.org/?fbclid=IwAR0z-3KI3uJa8vLonou2rFUvhZHRR40a_YtN7TD08hMYgkRlqrwfXhYl4UQ" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">member here</a> <a href="https://paypal.me/StephanieKHansen?locale.x=en_US" rel="payment nofollow" target="_blank">Support the show</a> (<a href="https://paypal.me/StephanieKHansen?locale.x=en_US" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://paypal.me/StephanieKHansen?locale.x=en_US</a>) This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit <a href="https://stephaniehansen.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&amp;utm_campaign=CTA_2" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">stephaniehansen.substack.com/subscribe</a>

Episode 13: Twin Cities Film Festival

Looking for a great place to go on a girls trip? Boston can fill the bill for a 2-4 day trip. Flights are usually pretty reasonable to get there and there are plenty of historic hotels and also VRBO's to choose from. Here is a recap of my Boston trip.Restaurants included:Daily CatchLegal Seafood HarborsideUnion Oyster House - Bostons oldest restaurantSupport the show (https://paypal.me/StephanieKHansen?locale.x=en_US) This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit stephaniehansen.substack.com/subscribe

Looking for a great place to go on a girls trip? Boston can fill the bill for a 2-4 day trip. Flights are usually pretty reasonable to get there and there are plenty of historic hotels and also VRBO's to choose from. Here is a recap of my Boston trip. Restaurants included: <a href="http://thedailycatch.com/restaurants/north-end" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Daily Catch</a> <a href="https://www.legalseafoods.com/restaurants/boston-legal-harborside-30" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Legal Seafood Harborside</a> <a href="http://unionoysterhouse.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Union Oyster House</a> - Bostons oldest restaurant<a href="https://paypal.me/StephanieKHansen?locale.x=en_US" rel="payment nofollow" target="_blank">Support the show</a> (<a href="https://paypal.me/StephanieKHansen?locale.x=en_US" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://paypal.me/StephanieKHansen?locale.x=en_US</a>) This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit <a href="https://stephaniehansen.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&amp;utm_campaign=CTA_2" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">stephaniehansen.substack.com/subscribe</a>

Episode 12: Girls Trip in Boston

Stephanie is making preparations to put the Ely garden to bed and head out on the road in the Wonderbread Van (follow the @WonderbreadVan on Instagram) Here is the Onion Jam recipe. I use this as a topping for pasta, mix it into risotto, use on bread with cheese or use it to make a quick pan sauce for chicken.Ingredients1 tablespoon Olive Oil4 large onions or 8 small, halved lengthwise and thinly sliced1 teaspoon of salt4 tablespoons butter2 tablespoon Balsamic Vinegar1 teaspoon fresh ground pepperInstructionsHeat olive oil in a large skillet (use a skillet with a lid).Add onions to skillet and pinch of salt; cover with a lid and cook over medium-low heat for 15-20 minutes, or until tender, stirring occasionally. You want dark brown color and the onions to carmelize but not burn.Remove lid and continue to cook over medium heat for 3 to 5 minutes, or until golden, stirring frequently.Cook and stir over medium heat until liquid evaporates; about 1 minute.Season with salt and pepper and remove from heat.Serve.Support the show (https://paypal.me/StephanieKHansen?locale.x=en_US) This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit stephaniehansen.substack.com/subscribe

Stephanie is making preparations to put the Ely garden to bed and head out on the road in the Wonderbread Van (follow the <a href="https://www.instagram.com/wonderbreadvan/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">@WonderbreadVan</a> on Instagram)  Here is the Onion Jam recipe. I use this as a topping for pasta, mix it into risotto, use on bread with cheese or use it to make a quick pan sauce for chicken. Ingredients<ul><li>1 tablespoon Olive Oil</li><li>4 large onions or 8 small, halved lengthwise and thinly sliced</li><li>1 teaspoon of salt</li><li>4 tablespoons butter</li><li>2 tablespoon Balsamic Vinegar</li><li>1 teaspoon fresh ground pepper</li></ul> Instructions<ol><li>Heat olive oil in a large skillet (use a skillet with a lid).</li><li>Add onions to skillet and pinch of salt; cover with a lid and cook over medium-low heat for 15-20 minutes, or until tender, stirring occasionally. You want dark brown color and the onions to carmelize but not burn.</li><li>Remove lid and continue to cook over medium heat for 3 to 5 minutes, or until golden, stirring frequently.</li><li>Cook and stir over medium heat until liquid evaporates; about 1 minute.</li><li>Season with salt and pepper and remove from heat.</li><li>Serve.</li></ol><a href="https://paypal.me/StephanieKHansen?locale.x=en_US" rel="payment nofollow" target="_blank">Support the show</a> (<a href="https://paypal.me/StephanieKHansen?locale.x=en_US" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://paypal.me/StephanieKHansen?locale.x=en_US</a>) This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit <a href="https://stephaniehansen.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&amp;utm_campaign=CTA_2" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">stephaniehansen.substack.com/subscribe</a>

Episode 11: Preparations and Onion Jam

I had a sneak peak of the 2019 Minnesota State Fair.Support the show (https://paypal.me/StephanieKHansen?locale.x=en_US) This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit stephaniehansen.substack.com/subscribe

I had a sneak peak of the 2019 Minnesota State Fair.<a href="https://paypal.me/StephanieKHansen?locale.x=en_US" rel="payment nofollow" target="_blank">Support the show</a> (<a href="https://paypal.me/StephanieKHansen?locale.x=en_US" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://paypal.me/StephanieKHansen?locale.x=en_US</a>) This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit <a href="https://stephaniehansen.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&amp;utm_campaign=CTA_2" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">stephaniehansen.substack.com/subscribe</a>

Episode 10: A Walking Preview of Minnesota State Fair

We always plan our restaurants and sightseeing spots when traveling but what about taking that same mentality to your own town? We spent three days in the Twin Cities recently being tourists.Support the show (https://paypal.me/StephanieKHansen?locale.x=en_US) This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit stephaniehansen.substack.com/subscribe

We always plan our restaurants and sightseeing spots when traveling but what about taking that same mentality to your own town? We spent three days in the Twin Cities recently being tourists.<a href="https://paypal.me/StephanieKHansen?locale.x=en_US" rel="payment nofollow" target="_blank">Support the show</a> (<a href="https://paypal.me/StephanieKHansen?locale.x=en_US" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://paypal.me/StephanieKHansen?locale.x=en_US</a>) This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit <a href="https://stephaniehansen.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&amp;utm_campaign=CTA_2" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">stephaniehansen.substack.com/subscribe</a>

Episode 9: Being a Tourist in your own Town

Having a blast in the Ely Garden.The Cookbook I refer to is Savory Sweet by Beth Dooley.Support the show (https://paypal.me/StephanieKHansen?locale.x=en_US) This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit stephaniehansen.substack.com/subscribe

Having a blast in the Ely Garden. The Cookbook I refer to is <a href="https://www.upress.umn.edu/book-division/books/savory-sweet" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Savory Sweet</a> by Beth Dooley. <a href="https://paypal.me/StephanieKHansen?locale.x=en_US" rel="payment nofollow" target="_blank">Support the show</a> (<a href="https://paypal.me/StephanieKHansen?locale.x=en_US" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://paypal.me/StephanieKHansen?locale.x=en_US</a>) This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit <a href="https://stephaniehansen.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&amp;utm_campaign=CTA_2" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">stephaniehansen.substack.com/subscribe</a>

Episode 8: The Garden

Summer is here in Ely. If you want to see the Van restoration follow our Instagram @wonderbreadvan or follow @StephaniesDish for gardening pictures.Support the show (https://paypal.me/StephanieKHansen?locale.x=en_US) This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit stephaniehansen.substack.com/subscribe

Summer is here in Ely. If you want to see the Van restoration follow our Instagram @wonderbreadvan or follow @StephaniesDish for gardening pictures.<a href="https://paypal.me/StephanieKHansen?locale.x=en_US" rel="payment nofollow" target="_blank">Support the show</a> (<a href="https://paypal.me/StephanieKHansen?locale.x=en_US" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://paypal.me/StephanieKHansen?locale.x=en_US</a>) This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit <a href="https://stephaniehansen.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&amp;utm_campaign=CTA_2" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">stephaniehansen.substack.com/subscribe</a>

Episode 7: Summer in Ely

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