Original Episode Transcript Follows

Stephanie Hansen:

Hello, everybody, and welcome to Dishing with Stephanie’s Dish, the podcast where we talk to people in the food space. And also today, we’re going to talk travel, because whenever I travel, food’s always a big part of it. I’m here with my friend Michael Kenny, and he owns the travel agency Defined Destinations. And Michael and I met and have gone on a number of trips. We’ve gone to Croatia together. We’re just about to embark on Turkey. We are also planning a new trip that we just launched, that is a trip to South Africa. And a lot of times the best way to get people excited about these trips is to talk about them.

And Michael does more than that. He scouts them out for me first. So, Michael, you went to this trip?

Michael Kenney:

I did. I’m your personal scout, but I love it. There’s not a. There’s not a better deal than being able to do that and then going on with you and Kurt and with everybody else. So we’ve had some fun adventures. But, yes, I recently got back with my family. We went scouted this South Africa trip out, or Southern Africa, I should say that we visit four different countries. And it was.

I’ve been on a safari before, but it was in. In Kenya, which was fabulous as well. But this is a whole different experience. So I brought my wife and my two kids, and we had one of the best experiences, from seeing Cape Town to Johannesburg and then all the wildlife, different lodges and on boats. So we do all these different sorts of transportation and see four different countries. And it was unbelievable. I came back really, really excited. I was excited in the beginning, but having gone on it and then really first experiencing it firsthand was phenomenal.

And. And I knew you and Kurt would love it. And of course, everyone that follows you as well. It was just. It’s really a trip of a lifetime.

Stephanie Hansen:

So we put the trip out there. It is a more expensive trip, and we had a limited number of seats we had that could join the trip. And, you know, I’ve never done a trip that is on the higher end like that in terms of expense. And you’re just. You have a lot of in flight situations within the country. You have a lot of different lodging situations. There’s a boat, like, in order to do all the things we wanted to do, there were a lot of moving parts.

Michael Kenney:

Yep.

Stephanie Hansen:

So we put the trip out there and it sold out, like, right away. Right. So then Michael was like, okay, do we want to try and do another one? And of course we do, because I want you guys to have as many of these experiences as we can put together. Because I think traveling this way is great. I love traveling in a group for destinations that maybe I’m not comfortable in fully by myself. So Michael has secured another trip, a second round that is the same itinerary, but they leave. I think it’s a day later.

Michael Kenney:

Yes. And let me just touch on that. You hit some good points in there. Yeah. One reason the trip, it’s, it’s. It’s definitely at the highest price point we’ve ever offered a trip. But I think if you’re going out there and you’re shopping in African safari, you see that as well. So the value is there with all the different.

Essentially all the meals are included where we’re at on, on this trip, the inner flights inside the countries as well. From a couple smaller bush planes to the larger flights that go from Cape Town to Johannesburg, Johannesburg up towards Victoria Falls, etc. Those are already included in all the transfers. And this is a different trip too, Stephanie, because it’s not like a typical motor coach group that you’re going with all these big lodges and motor coaches coming in. This trip is. Can only take 16 people. It’s not because we design it that way, it’s the ship only handles 16 people. So if you go on our website, you take a look at it, you’ll see this small intimate cruiser on this river slash lake, Lake Kariba, which is part of the Zambezi.

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Michael Kenney:

And in the game lodge that we stayed at too for four nights as well there, there’s only eight cabins for 16 people. So it’s a real intimate experience and it will only be for our group. Same thing for your departure on May 8 and the 1 that we still have, there’s only. We just sold one another cabin online just, just now. So there’s four cabins left May 9th through the 25th of 2027. Same thing is gonna be true for that. It’s only gonna be our group as well. So there’s no other groups going to be in, on, on the ship and then in the lodge too.

Michael Kenney:

So it’s a real small intimate experience and it’s just real, real lovely.

Stephanie Hansen:

Can you walk us through like some of the high points having done this trip?

Michael Kenney:

Yeah. Oh, what do you start? I think this is just. Sometimes you use the word potpourri too much, but it’s, it’s really a bit of different. You know, you think you go to Africa just for the safari itself, but we go in and we visit Cape Town and Cape Town blew me away. It was one of the most beautiful cities and I’m not necessarily a city person, but it was just beautiful sitting under Table Mountain. We’ll go up to Table Mountain, we’ll go visit the areas around it, we’ll go visit some vineyards. South African wine is to die for. We’ll visit that.

We have a wine tasting included. We get to see penguins on this penguin beach in South Africa, which I didn’t know there was penguins in, in South Africa. So we’re actually good to go see those. And you actually get up pretty close too, so that was a real highlight. Nelson Mandela’s home in the prison, we’re going to go visit that. So we have a cultural experience as well. But then we fly into Johannesburg. We’ll get to hear the history in Johannesburg for a night.

And then we fly further north and we go into the. Our game lodge. We spend for four days right on the Zambezi River. You’ll absolutely love this place. You’re. You’re really well taken care of. You eat really well and you see the wildlife all around you right from your lodge. You sit in your plunge pool and there could be hippos down below you.

It’s incredible. It’s just a real amazing experience. And then we fly to Lake Kariba, we get on the boat itself and we have four nights again. There’s just 16 of us total. And it’s. This is where it’s really different. You glide up into shore and there can be elephants, giraffes, lions feeding in the water itself. It’s.

This isn’t a zoo. This is incredible. You are right there with it. That a real slow experience. You’re really able to take it in. So I invite, you know, anybody that’s watching this to go online. Just take a look at our photos. It’s free to do that and we pride ourselves.

The majority of all the photos on it were taken while on the trip, especially with me and my family. So you’ll get to really see what it really was, was like. So say you’ve done a trip to Tanzania or Kenya and have done a safari. This is. This is different. You see four different countries. It’s a slower pace, smaller groups. It lovely.

So those are really the experiences that I enjoyed the most, were the penguins seeing around Cape Town. Of course, the different game drives all the different wildlife. Victoria Falls, which is one of the most stunning waterfalls you’ll ever see. It was. It was really enlightening and it was fabulous and everything’s taken care of for you. So to Be able to do something on this on your own. To do the same trip would be really difficult. Putting all the flights together, the meals, what are we going to do? We’ve taken care of all of that.

All you have to do essentially is register for the trip and then we can help you with getting international airfare when it does come available later in the summer for this May 9th through the 25th, 2027 trip. So it, it was just an amazing experience.

Stephanie Hansen:

So can you talk a little bit about the food? Because I have no idea what African food is going to be like.

Michael Kenney:

Yeah, I, I think this, it’s not like we’re out eating street food, you know, in some of the villages we’re not doing that. It’s all in a controlled environment from the salads to things like that because you want to drink bottled water. We never got sick while on the trip itself, but it’s, it’s real, it’s westernized, let’s say that. So a lot of meat and potatoes and fish and different things like that. So there won’t be anything a little bit, I think outside of your comfort zone. So I, we really, really. Well, like lots of beef, chicken, sometimes there’d be lamb, but you can have choices too. So they’re really great with diets with that.

But again, the food was really safe. Nothing too exotic. You have a chance. Maybe you want to try ostrich or something like that. You can do that. But it’s a real, it’s really high level too. Especially at the lodges and the boats itself. All sit down plated meals.

Really, really nice. But again it’s, it’s, it’s safer on the meat and potato side on that. But it’s, it’s really nice high end food which you’ll, I think I, I know you’ll enjoy.

Stephanie Hansen:

Yeah. And was there different fruit?

Michael Kenney:

Yeah, some of the fruits, I can’t remember. You’d be like, well, what is that? I don’t know. Honestly, I wish I had the list on there. Like, well, what is that? Well, let’s, let’s try it. If you’re in the markets and things like that. But they, they do, especially in the mornings they’ll bring some fruits on, on the plate and you’ll have, you’re like, well what? And you just try it. So yeah, I’m not really good to help you on that. I’m sorry.

No, but it’s there exotic fruits whenever

Stephanie Hansen:

we’re traveling because we went to Thailand together. We’ve been to Vietnam, Cambodia, whenever we’re Traveling in these countries, there’s always fruits that I’ve never, I don’t even know what they are like. I’m just always amazed by how many fruits there are in the world.

Michael Kenney:

Yeah, it’s crazy. Like I said, you go through and you’re like, what is that? Especially on our Vietnam, Cambodia trip here, it’s, that’s, that’s really exotic with the food. This is a little bit different, but yeah, we’re in the southern hemisphere, right down to the Cape of Good Hope, which you’ll actually see too. So you see different, different foods for sure, so they’ll point that out too. But it’s. The main course is definitely not exotic, but you’ll see some really neat, neat, different fruits, things like that.

Stephanie Hansen:

We talked about South African wines, so I’m glad we’re doing that because that was a blast. So this second itinerary leaves a day later. Will there ever be an opportunity where I will overlap and interact with the second? It’s kind of hard to tell at this point.

Michael Kenney:

Yeah, it, it really is. And we’ll know a little bit more later on because we’re in, in contact because we’ll have they. The ships. We have two different ships on it and it’s just a day apart, like you said. But we’re in the lodge for four days. Our lodges are different, they’re close by. But we’re working on trying to see maybe if we get a couple game drives together, maybe maybe a meal somewhere that we could see each other once or twice during, or maybe even three times with Cape Town too, that we could run into each other as well. So if you decide to book, because you won’t be on the second trip, the second departure, we’re hoping two or three times we’ll be able to, to, to run in each other.

But again, it’s not guaranteed. But we’re very hopeful because both of the ships are completely ours. So I’m sure we can, we can do a little overlapping in our two lodge stays. They’re relatively close, but they’re, they’re different from each other. So we might be able to pop in and visit each other maybe for a happy hour on one of our boats, because each lodge has got like its own beautiful pontoon to go out and go look at the wildlife and we might run into that too, but. Yeah, but other than that, and you’re not being on the second one, their tenders are the same, just different lodges. And they’re both very, very amazing, high quality lodges. And again, if you go Online, you can see both the different boats and the lodges too, which you’ll absolutely love.

Stephanie Hansen:

I love too, Michael, that you actually took these trips. When I travel with you, you’re very upfront about what, you know, what, you don’t know. We get in country guides if we need more expertise, and a lot of times you want that because you want a local person to share with you the local feel of the place and to give you information based on their perspective of living there or being familiar with the country.

Michael Kenney:

Yeah, I think that that’s, that’s, that’s really important. People want to not just get the information to make sure it’s correct, but just like what’s life like being you’re from Namibia or Zimbabwe or South Africa and we have these local guides. We have, you know, the folks with us in the lodge and when we’re doing the game drives a professional that will tell you, you know, what you’re seeing, how they, you know, migration or whatever they’re doing and what they consume, all of that. So you’ve got that, that credibility too. So we have that throughout, from our city guides to our, our on land folks as well. You’ll really get that expertise. So you’ll, you’ll come back feeling, you know, about the people itself, which there’s. We could have different podcast talking about that.

I loved it. And then, you know, the animals that you’re going to sing like, oh, I didn’t know. It’s, it’s a really educational but rewarding, relaxing trip as well, which you, you, I know you’ll, you’ll enjoy.

Stephanie Hansen:

Yeah, I’m looking forward to it. And people say that the African people are like just fabulous.

Michael Kenney:

They are it. And again, I’ve been to Africa a few times not, not to, to these parts. The people are wonderful. And I don’t know if you’re going to bring it up, but the languages. So revisiting different four countries and, and they, they speak different dialects of in. In the different countries and different languages as well, from English to African and wherever, you know, from where their group is from. But they use English as kind of the common language. So you’ll.

If we have a little overlap with some of our guides from Namibia to Botswana, they’re going to speak English with each other, which was. I was like, oh, wow. I didn’t, you know, really realize that. So the language is never a problem. Everything’s in English. Even in. Through all of the countries visited. You would see the road signs.

It’s all in English, which was like, oh, wow, that’s interesting. But then you get to hear them speaking with each other, their languages and they’ll talk about that too. But I was, I was really surprised about the whole language situation being it really a lot of English.

Stephanie Hansen:

Yeah, I’m excited about that. Okay, so when we say expensive, can you just say on the podcast how much the trip is? Because I don’t want people not to explore it.

Michael Kenney:

Oh yeah.

Stephanie Hansen:

You get so many things and a lot of people that are, you know, TV hosts and that sort of thing are hosting week long trips places and they cost more than this trip costs.

Michael Kenney:

So yeah, for the, for the land only per person It’s $12,000. And so you, other than that you just need to get your international airfare to and from South Africa. And we have that all written down if you want to look at and for it yourself. But like I mentioned earlier, rates don’t come out availability about 10 months prior to departure. So it’ll be sometime later this summer, maybe in July that you’ll start seeing what rates would be to fly into to Cape Town with that. But again the value is really there. It’s typically double the price that we usually have for our trips going to Europe and other places like that. But I think if you go through it and if you’ve done your research, if you’ve looked at trips to Africa before, you’ll see the value there with all the, all the flights, all the meals, all that included and it, like you said it, it’s sold out right away.

People I think understand that too. And we only have a few cabins left on the second departure so hopefully you’re able to join it. But take a look at the website again, it’s free to do that. Look at all the things that we offer, all the inclusions. I think everyone will see the value there for sure.

Stephanie Hansen:

Yeah, I was just noticing another person going somewhere for a week and it was like 15,000. And I was like, wait, we’re going to Africa, we’re doing all of this great stuff, all the meals are included, it’s over, it’s two week long trip and we’re going on all these game drives. Like this is more than maybe most people would spend on a vacation. But like for a trip of a lifetime it’s very, I thought really well priced. And I went and looked at Nat Geo. I looked at some of the other trips were actually cheaper than those too.

Michael Kenney:

Yeah. And I think a lot of people are just looking when you, you first look at it too, you want to make sure you’re comparing apples to Apple. So, you know, we encourage you to go out there and shop and look at other companies because I know you’ll come back and you’ll see our value. A lot of them are just maybe doing similar game drives that we’re doing, but they’re not including like Cape Town in it and we are, which is huge. Again, you might not be a city person, but you’re gonna love Cape Town. Not just the city itself, the drives around there, going to, to see the penguins and to go up into the area where the, the vineyards are, it’s abso stunning. So there’s a lot to it. So I encourage everybody to take a look and you’ll again see the value and all the different experiences you’ll have

Stephanie Hansen:

on this trip and the vibes. Because I’ll be there on the first trip, hopefully I’ll get to overlap with you on the second trip. I don’t want to make any promises we can’t keep, but I feel good that I’ll see you at least once and then we can like talk about all the stuff that we saw when we get back. So it’s going to be just great vibes.

Michael Kenney:

Exactly. And I already know the majority of the people that from previous trips that have already booked the second departure. So if you’re thinking about it, I’m looking at the name list. There’s some really good people on this, on this trip. So you’re going to have fun. You’ll have a great guides throughout. So it’s yes, they won’t have you incurred on the trip, which is sad, but I think at the same time you’re really going to love, if you’re going for this experience, you’re absolutely going to love it for sure. And we encourage.

Send an email to us. Give me a call. I’d be happy to talk to you about the trip itself. But again, having just a few cabins left, I know this one will sell out too. So if you’re on the fence again, give me a call, send me an email. I’d be happy to get you on it because this will be our Last one for 2027, so we’d love to have anybody else join.

Stephanie Hansen:

I’ll put all that information in the podcast release. Also, it pays to be traveler with us because we have a pretty good list now of people that are repeat travelers and I think that says a lot about you as someone coordinating these trips. I think it says a lot about me as someone that is fun to go on these trips with, like we have someone that’s coming up on, this will be their fourth trip with us. They’re, they’re high end experiences, they’re fun. We don’t take ourselves too seriously. We have a good time. The pacing is right. If you need to peel off because you need a day to just relax, you can usually do that at the different places.

It really, I, I feel like while we’re leading a trip, we also understand it’s your trip, not ours. So if you need to do, you know, like, I remember when we did a cooking class, Lori standing up on the bus and saying, well, who wants to do that? And everyone went except for her. And then Kurt went with her, so she wasn’t alone. But again, if the cooking class isn’t your jam, then you can find some way to do something else. So just to see a good time?

Michael Kenney:

No, it is if this is your vacation. But I honestly think everything that’s in this itinerary, you’re going to want to, to join in. And again, this is a relaxed pace too. But sometimes we have some earlier game drives to, to go see the animals that are out there early in the morning, which you want to do. But then we’ll usually have the afternoon free that you can go into your plunge pool, sit by one of the beautiful trees and have having a cocktail or something like that. So it’s really relaxed as well and you have time to take it in and I think that’s really important. Sometimes everything’s just go, go, go and see how much you can see and do. I mean, we are, we’re going, but we still have that time to sit back and relax.

And that’s what’s really fun about even being on the ship. Second, because we’re moving around and, and popping into small little bays and seeing when animals come up through these savannahs. It’s stunning. You’re like, you’re in the comfort of a beautiful boat and you’re going up and there’s, you know, elephants coming down to water, which I loved, or the hippos just down below you. We go fishing one time or a couple times, whatever we want to do. And just the wildlife around you. And it’s like, oh, I’m not in a Minnesota northern lake right now. It’s, it’s pretty spectacular.

Michael Kenney:

So, Kurt, no swimming off the boat, please. Unlike Kariba with, with knowing, uh, there’s a tiger fish in there. There’s these world famous fish that people like to fish for, the sharp teeth, but it’s more so you got to watch out for those hippos. Of course.

Stephanie Hansen:

Yeah. Are there crocodiles?

Michael Kenney:

Yes, there are. So, yes, there’s the crocodiles and the hippos in there. So don’t go in the water.

Stephanie Hansen:

Yeah.

Michael Kenney:

But it’s fun to be on our big boat, so it’s, it’s safe and you get up really up close to everything, which is super cool.

Stephanie Hansen:

All right, well, I’m looking forward to it, Michael. Again, I’ll put all the information in the podcast notes here. Thanks for joining us and I’ll see you. Well, I won’t see you tomorrow because I’m leaving for Turkey a few days early because I like to get there and get fresh before you guys all arrive so that I have a personality. But I’ll see you in a couple days in Turkey.

Michael Kenney:

That sounds great. Thanks so much, Stephanie.

Stephanie Hansen:

Okay, bye. Bye.

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Welcome to "Dishing with Stephanie's Dish," the show where we dive into the stories of people passionate about food, family traditions, and the recipes that connect us all. I'm your host, Stephanie Hansen, and today, I'm thrilled to sit down with cookbook author Sarah Peterson, whose new book, Dish and Tell: Recipes from the Heart, celebrates the beauty of vintage family recipes and the memories shared around the table.

Dish and Tell: Recipes from the Heart highlights celebrated dishes from Peterson’s recipe box—and collects stories from other passionate home cooks who opened their kitchens to share their own tried-and-true recipes. Peterson takes readers along as she visits, cooks, and bakes with friends old and new to present a smorgasbord of family favorites. She serves up stories about the people behind the dishes and offers special tips and tricks from the keepers of these recipes.

Whether you're an avid home cook, a lover of kitchen nostalgia, or just here for some culinary inspiration, get ready to hear heartfelt stories, tips on cookbook writing, and a delicious conversation that will leave you hungry for more!

Original Episode Transcript Follows:Stephanie Hansen [00:00:02]:

Hello, everybody, and welcome to the Dishing with Stephanie’s Dish podcast, where we talk to people in the food space who are as obsessed about food as we are. And today we’re talking to the cookbook author Sarah Peterson. She is the author of Dish and Tell Recipes from the Heart. I’m going to hold up her book so that you guys can see it. It looks so cute. It’s pink. Sarah, I am really excited to talk to you because I don’t normally get to know people sort of along the whole journey of them writing a book and then seeing it released into the world. But that did happen with you and I.

Sarah Peterson [00:00:37]:

Yes, it did. We’ve known each other a little while, or at least I’ve known you. I’ve followed your career, and so it’s been really great to have you to consult with a little bit, and you’ve really been a mentor to me throughout this process.

Stephanie Hansen [00:00:50]:

Well, and I think for you, coming from the PR world, which was where your background was, and then taking it into a cookbook, I’m seeing so many, like, similarities of how you’re approaching things, and I think it’s just super smart, and I can’t wait to talk to you. So can you just give the viewer, the listener, a little bit of backstory about the book and why you wrote it and why it’s special to you?

Sarah Peterson [00:01:17]:

Yes.

Stephanie Hansen [00:01:18]:

So.

Sarah Peterson [00:01:18]:

So about five years ago, maybe more, I started thinking about what I wanted to do with my career. I’d been in PR a long time, telling other people’s stories, writing in the voice of other people. I wanted to do something of my own. I had this love of everything vintage. I’m very nostalgic. I love any opportunity to, like, go back to my grandma’s kitchens in my mind and, like, imagine them in their homes. And so this idea started brewing about, you know, what if I blogged about family recipes and shared some of these handwritten recipe cards, recipe boxes, my love of vintage. So I started with Instagram first, and I was posting a little bit, and then I.

Sarah Peterson [00:02:00]:

That kind of evolved into a blog, and that just really grew and grew, and it was just not my own family’s recipes, but other people’s families, too. Like, I started to just talk to my friends and my neighbors and ask them what are the recipes in their families that I’ve been handing down through the generations that are really close, you know, to their hearts, and started to share those stories on the blog and then thought, well, this could be a book. A book is daunting as you know, to write, but I had some encouragement from my dad and some other people and just pitched it to the Historical Society, and I’m just so grateful that they decided to publish it.

Stephanie Hansen [00:02:37]:

And what we’re seeing in terms of trends for cookbooks is cookbooks that are AI proof, In other words, cookbooks that have a real narrative point of view on a story. And this book seems like it is exactly that and more. Did you feel uncomfortable or were you nervous about, like, being the keeper, the seed keeper, as it were, or the storykeeper of these stories and how you would translate them into an actual book?

Sarah Peterson [00:03:07]:

Yes. You mean for, like, other families? Yeah, absolutely. And I think what gave me maybe a little bit of confidence is that something that I had done in my career as a PR person and in one particular project for a client, I was tasked with shining the spotlight on small independent restaurants and the special role that they play in their communities. And so I had this chance to really interview them and tell their stories and talk about how they were making a difference in their communities. And so I was thinking about what I wanted to do with recipes and family stories, kind of drawing on that past experience of the storytelling, the type of storytelling I had done for restaurants and, like, small restaurant owners. And I think that helped give me some confidence. I think just seeing the difference it makes in someone’s life, too, when they see a story printed about them. And I also love to shine the spotlight on, like, the underdogs.

Sarah Peterson [00:04:03]:

And I feel like home cooks don’t get a lot of time in the sun, you know, So I wanted to do that. But, yeah, I do think there’s a lot of responsibility you carry when you’re telling somebody else’s story. And it’s not something I take lightly. So when I approach a story, I really, you know, lean on my journalistic background. I have a degree in journalism, try to get all the facts straight, run things by people, do fact checking, that kind of thing, too.

Stephanie Hansen [00:04:33]:

So you assembled all these stories and put them into a book along with your own family stories. And how has the book been received? Because it’s really beautiful. It’s super charming. There’s lots of photos, recipe cards. It’s very stylized in a sweet way.

Sarah Peterson [00:04:51]:

Thank you. I think it’s been received really well. It’s fun to see. Like, I’ve done a couple of events where people come up and they’re just like, oh, this book is just so sweet. It reminds me of my grandma, and I can’t wait to go look through her recipe box. That’s like, the biggest compliment I can get. The Star Tribune editor, Nicole, she said she’s the editor of Taste. She said it was like opening the book is like getting a big hug.

Sarah Peterson [00:05:15]:

And I think that’s just so sweet, too. Like, I really wanted people to, of course, love the recipes and the stories, but I think, like, the imagery of vintage dishes, of recipe boxes, of grandmas and aprons, I mean, that’s just like, so me. And I love all that, and I’m happy that other people seem to really love that as well.

Stephanie Hansen [00:05:34]:

I know it’s hard to answer this question so soon after having the book come out, but this really does feel like it could continue on and be a series and continue to live on in your Instagram. Could even be like, audio, you know, version, or you could do television things with it because there’s so much historical narrative in there. Has that occurred to you at all?

Sarah Peterson [00:06:00]:

Not so much yet. I mean, I’m trying to figure that all out now. Like, what do I want to do next? And I think, like, I would love to do more storytelling, more sharing of recipes, maybe more on my sub stack and my Instagram. But yeah, I mean, it could, there could be future editions of the book. But that’s just so ambitious for me right now. Just kind of in the thick of it. Maybe I’ll have to tap you for some more knowledge later on. But I mean, I do have, like, in talking to these families that I interviewed for the book, other stories would come up that they’re, you know, other recipes.

Sarah Peterson [00:06:34]:

And certainly people that I’ve been meeting, doing events are telling me about their recipes. I had this woman come to see me at a book event at Kowalski’s last weekend, and she brought her family cookbook that she had made, you know, just something that she had pieced together but was sharing with her family. And so it was really sweet, and I love seeing that, too. And I think, you know, sharing some of the recipes that other people share with me at events, but also talking about how they’re recording their family recipes. Like, I think, if anything, I’d love to be an inspiration for other people or give people an inspiration to collect those recipes and show some of the formats that other families are using to share those with with their extended family.

Stephanie Hansen [00:07:15]:

As we talk about the nuts and bolts of making a cookbook, what was the hardest part for you in putting this book together?

Sarah Peterson [00:07:25]:

I think it was. It seemed so massive in the beginning, like, the organization of a cookbook. I’ve learned a lot in the process and, like, Have a rockin spreadsheet now. But that was very daunting in the beginning. Then I got into the thick of it, and I think toward the end, like, the editing. Oh, my gosh, that was really something because you don’t know exactly when it’s going to hit. Like, when are you going to have to look through this whole thing? Like, after. Even before it was in layout, like, just getting the manuscript and after the editor had done a first pass, and then you have to reread it all again, and you just have to, like, carve out a bunch of time and just get into it.

Sarah Peterson [00:08:07]:

And I thought that was really hard. It reminded me of being back in college when you’re cramming for a final.

Stephanie Hansen [00:08:11]:

Yeah.

Sarah Peterson [00:08:13]:

So I didn’t, like, love that. But, I mean, it’s just part of the process.

Stephanie Hansen [00:08:18]:

Yeah. Because the manuscript comes back and you don’t know when. And then all of a sudden, like, your entire life is put on hold for however long it takes you to get through it.

Sarah Peterson [00:08:25]:

And for me, it was like a summer weekend. Like, oh, okay. I guess I’m gonna just be doing this for the next two weekend. Yeah.

Stephanie Hansen [00:08:33]:

How did you feel about the photographing of the book? Because that can be a challenging part that stops people.

Sarah Peterson [00:08:40]:

I’m glad you asked about that because as you know, we have the same publisher. And it’s really like, they were so great. They’re like, sarah, just take photos like you’re, you know, doing on your Instagram. These will be great. We’ll make it work. Well, yes, but I just was, like, feeling I’m not a food stylist. You know, I do my thing and I take pictures in the moment when I’m making food, but I’m like, I don’t know if these are cookbook worthy. And I do everything on my iPhone.

Sarah Peterson [00:09:08]:

I’m not gonna get a fancy camera. So as I got further along the process, pretty late in the process, I’m like, I just need some help, because I want somebody to help me get a really pretty shot for the COVID Help me shoot some of the things. Like, meat is so hard to take a pretty picture.

Stephanie Hansen [00:09:24]:

Yeah, for sure.

Sarah Peterson [00:09:25]:

Meatball. Or, you know, like, just. Oh. I was just really struggling, and I listened to your podcast and I know that you interviewed Rachel White of Set the Table Photography, who happens to be a food stylist as well. And I’d been following her on Instagram and really liked her style. So I reached out to her after hearing her on your podcast, and we met, and I just told her what I was doing. I said, I don’t have a lot of money, but here’s a few shots that I’d like to get. And she also took some headshots of me.

Sarah Peterson [00:09:52]:

But she came to my house for a few days, and we just banged out as much as we could. Not even like three full days. Like, two and a half days. I just was, like, cooking up a storm. We did headshots and lifestyle shots one morning, and then just a bunch of recipes and then, like, a bunch. A brunch spread one day, too.

Stephanie Hansen [00:10:10]:

So what that translated to me when looking at the book was we’ll call them, like, some hero shots.

Sarah Peterson [00:10:16]:

Exactly.

Stephanie Hansen [00:10:18]:

That were. They were. It was funny because I couldn’t necessarily tell when I was looking at the book, but I could see, like, just from the perspective of the stylized nature of the background and the more complete shot. Like, let’s see if I can just find one that I can hold up.

Sarah Peterson [00:10:44]:

Yeah, A lot of the shots in, you know, the chapter intros.

Stephanie Hansen [00:10:49]:

Yeah, it’s like, that one maybe.

Sarah Peterson [00:10:52]:

Yes, yes.

Stephanie Hansen [00:10:53]:

And I thought maybe that one.

Sarah Peterson [00:10:56]:

I took that one, actually. But I think just having Rachel, like, in. In the end, too, I was like, well, people are gonna. Is this gonna be weird to have a mix of really good professional pictures than my pictures? And then it was really important for me to have pictures that the families submitted, so candids and snapshots. And I know feature a lot of those in your cookbook, too. And I think those are so important, and I think they all came together. I hope so. Yeah, I did that one, too.

Stephanie Hansen [00:11:28]:

Oh, see, look at.

Sarah Peterson [00:11:30]:

I can’t even tell if you look in the back. We credit which pages are definitely her pictures. But, you know, she did the COVID

Stephanie Hansen [00:11:37]:

shot, and that’s this one. Yeah. No, I. I knew you had worked with her, but when I looked through the book, I thought I could tell, but I couldn’t, so. Good for you.

Sarah Peterson [00:11:49]:

She helped me do the. The Dutch pancake.

Stephanie Hansen [00:11:52]:

Yep. Those are so hard to get because they deflate.

Sarah Peterson [00:11:58]:

I know. And the day that we did it, I just made the most gigantic one ever in my largest lodge skillet. And it worked. And, like, screaming in excitement that it came out so beautiful. And then it did deflate, but we made it look pretty with berries and powder. Powdered sugar. I did that one, too. That one.

Sarah Peterson [00:12:16]:

Handballs. But, like, she did these really pretty pictures of my recipe cards and recipe boxes, and she took pictures of me with my grandma’s dishes. So she got a lot of shots, too, that obviously I Couldn’t take because I was in them. Yeah, it was really nice. And I’ve been using her photos like crazy and all of my Instagram and marketing efforts, so I’m just so grateful that I had her. I wish I could have hired her for the whole thing. But I think, too, when you’re making a cookbook, I don’t know about you, but I like to eat what I make. And I’m, like, photographing it in the moment.

Stephanie Hansen [00:12:49]:

Yes.

Sarah Peterson [00:12:50]:

And I do like those kind of pictures too, so I’m really glad I have a mix.

Stephanie Hansen [00:12:54]:

I. I feel like, for me, if I’m not living that life or I’m not like, that is the life I live. So the intention is that it’s happening in real time. I’m. I felt like this. Making this thing today, when I made it, this is what it looked like. This is how I ate it. This is how it.

Stephanie Hansen [00:13:14]:

The dishes I served it in. To me, that’s what makes this food life fun. So when it becomes like a complete chore or a list or a job, that’s when I find I don’t like it as much.

Sarah Peterson [00:13:26]:

Right. And I do think that people resonate to real life pictures.

Stephanie Hansen [00:13:31]:

Yeah. We’re lucky in that way, because if we would have been doing this during the fussy Instagram, first coming alive and everything being blown out white, beautiful shots,

Sarah Peterson [00:13:42]:

I don’t know that we have to do that. And especially with AI now, you want things to look a little imperfect.

Stephanie Hansen [00:13:47]:

Tell me about how you scheduled your book tour and how you worked with your publishing company, because I feel like you’re approaching it very methodically from a publicist standpoint, and I think that’s helpful for cookbook writers.

Sarah Peterson [00:14:05]:

Well, I’m glad it appears so, because that is. That’s been like a big surprise, like, book tour. Okay. I. You know, I didn’t really know what to expect, and I’ve seen everything you’ve done, and you’ve done a phenomenal job. And I’m like, if I can do a fraction of what Stephanie does, that would be great. So really, right now, I’m in the thick of it. The book came out in February, but it was a little bit slow in getting events because I had a vacation and some other things planned.

Sarah Peterson [00:14:33]:

But then now, coming into April, I’ve got a lot more going on, and I’ve just been fielding requests that have come through the publisher or through my website, and I haven’t said no to a lot. Although, know, like, there’s things that come up, like speaking Opportunities. And I don’t know that I’m there yet to do that kind of thing. So I’m just doing a mix of like, traditional book signings. The independent bookstores I absolutely love. I had a really sweet event in New at a bookstore called Luca. It was like, seriously, the set of the Gilmore Girls. It was so cute.

Sarah Peterson [00:15:10]:

That bookstore is amazing. And they had addition tell event where we talked about this. Like, how fun would it be to have people bring a recipe from their recipe box and we do a little recipe card swap. So we did that. And then they also made some of the dishes from the cookbook and we had like a potluck style event. So that was really sweet. So I think, you know, some of these events that come up are people that request them. Yeah, I do put on my PR hat and I’m like, well, how can we make this extra special and make it more an experience? And so I’ve been bringing.

Sarah Peterson [00:15:42]:

I’ve been hauling my grandma’s china teacups to all these events filled with flowers. I gave you one places I use doilies made by my Aunt Jeannie. I bring pictures of the women in my family that I call the keepers that have been the keepers of our food traditions. So I sort of have this traveling roadshow.

Stephanie Hansen [00:16:02]:

A kid. Yeah.

Sarah Peterson [00:16:04]:

But in terms of the events that I’m doing, I’ve just. Whatever comes my way, I’m kind of doing. I am not like seeking out things. I will say, though I do love the independent bookstores are really fun. And then this week I have an event at Fickers up in Duluth, which is my home. You know, Duluth and Cloquet. So that will be really exciting to do something like that where they’re making the food and I just, you know, come in and speak and mingle with people. That will be.

Sarah Peterson [00:16:32]:

That will be nice.

Stephanie Hansen [00:16:34]:

We have an or we have a Taste Buds with Stephanie episode coming up with you. I know Michelle is editing it right now, and it is where we made sandwich loaf. And you have the recipe and the techniques for sandwich loaf in your book. Can you just talk a little bit about why sandwich loaf is important to you?

Sarah Peterson [00:16:57]:

I would love to talk about sandwich loaf.

Stephanie Hansen [00:17:00]:

It was the funnest thing I’ve done.

Sarah Peterson [00:17:03]:

Sandwich loaf is something that I just. I just love it so much. And for people who don’t know what it is, it’s basically a layered sandwich that comes in a loaf. It looks really pretty, like almost like a wedding cake. And then you slice it so it’s like layers. It’s Bread with layers of tuna salad, egg salad, chicken salad, pimento cheese, whatever you want to put on the inside. And then it’s all encased in cream cheese and decorated with. You can decorate it with, like, piped cream cheese that’s tinted so it truly does look like a pretty cake.

Sarah Peterson [00:17:35]:

Or. My friend Tony and I like to do it with vegetables and herbs and just make little flowers and whimsical butterflies. So my passion for sandwich loaf started when I was probably growing up. It just showed up at, like, wedding showers, baby showers, graduations. And I always loved it. I mean, I loved how it tasted, and it was just kind of enamored by how charming it is. And then my friend Tony had it at her wedding, and we just. We.

Sarah Peterson [00:18:01]:

We share a bond over sandwich loaf. And part of it. She has an aunt that works at the Super One Deli up in Cloquet and made these things. And that’s how we’d get them growing up. They’re always ordered from the deli. They didn’t make them. But Tony and I were like, we should. We should make one of these.

Sarah Peterson [00:18:17]:

You know, we can buy the. It’s called Pullman bread. It’s that long, rectangular bread. She’s like, we can just order that from the deli and make our own sandwich loaf. And wouldn’t this be fun? And I think we were probably influenced by Instagram seeing other kinds of decorated cakes.

Stephanie Hansen [00:18:33]:

Yeah.

Sarah Peterson [00:18:33]:

Pasture breads, where people are doing, like, fun, fun scenes. So we just started doing it a few years ago around Mother’s Day. We’ve done it at her house. We’ve done it at my house, my parents house. And we’d share it with ladies in our life that we know would appreciate it. And we got such a great response. People that know sandwich loaf love it, and they’re just so excited to get it. So we make, like, the big ones, then we’d cut them up and do little smaller ones, decorate them really cute and hand them out around town.

Stephanie Hansen [00:19:03]:

It was so fun to make that with you. I had seen sandwich loaf, but when Michelle, my producer, was like, hey, she wants to make a sandwich loaf. I was like, yeah, we can make whatever she wants to make. And then when I got there, I was like, oh, yeah, like, this is how we do it. And just making the pimento cheese and, you know, do you put tuna in? Because some people feel weird about fish. And then we had this. Do you have a salmon loaf? Like, do you have egg salad? Just such a blast making that. And I can’t wait for us to show people what that’s like on television.

Stephanie Hansen [00:19:40]:

This weekend it’ll air Saturday at 8.30am it will launch on Instagram or, excuse me, it will launch on YouTube on Thursday and then it lives into perpetuity. And I’m sure they’ll air it again. So it’s nicely timed for your book. Thank goodness.

Sarah Peterson [00:19:55]:

And it’s sandwich loaf season, I mean, in my world. So I’ll be up in Duluth around Mother’s Day and my friend Tony and I are planning to get together and make some. And it’s just such a pretty spring thing and I think it would be great if people started serving them again at showers.

Stephanie Hansen [00:20:08]:

Yes, yes.

Sarah Peterson [00:20:11]:

Beautiful food item. And it’s, it’s tasty. You can customize it how you want. You know, you can make more than one if somebody doesn’t like tuna or if you want to add some other salad. Yeah, I think it’s going to be great. And it would be a fun group activity, wouldn’t it, with your girlfriends?

Stephanie Hansen [00:20:27]:

Like. Yes.

Sarah Peterson [00:20:28]:

I love it because we just have fun decorating them together.

Stephanie Hansen [00:20:31]:

I also think it’s a good multi generational thing, like for Mother’s Day where, you know, you can have the kids, the grandkids, really, everyone can sort of get involved if they’re, you know, I guess they have to be 10 or older probably. Unless they’re. I mean, you see these little kids on Instagram making gourmet meals now. I don’t know how that works. That wasn’t.

Sarah Peterson [00:20:51]:

Well, you could make a peanut butter and jelly one. Like you could really modify the ingredients. I mean, that’s not the way that I grew up with it, but it’d be fun to see what people do with it.

Stephanie Hansen [00:21:00]:

Yeah. And you could think you could frost it with peanut butter. Like that’d be pretty easy to do, actually.

Sarah Peterson [00:21:04]:

Yeah.

Stephanie Hansen [00:21:05]:

Or just frosting in and of itself and then have like a, a sweet with jam and kind of. That would be really good too. Or like a cream cheese buttercream for sure.

Sarah Peterson [00:21:17]:

And I just think it’s so pretty when you cut into it too. Like it’s pretty on its own when it’s decorated in its loaf form. But when you slice into it, the picture of, you know, just how it looks when, when it’s on the plate I think is really pretty.

Stephanie Hansen [00:21:32]:

I’m just gonna see if I can find it here so I can show it.

Sarah Peterson [00:21:35]:

Yeah, here’s the. It looks kind of funny on the camera there.

Stephanie Hansen [00:21:39]:

Can you see it pull back a little bit? Yes, now I can. Yep. It looks great.

Sarah Peterson [00:21:45]:

That’s like in its full, complete form. And then here it is sliced. And I like it on vintage luncheon plates that, you know, the kind our grandmas and our moms used years ago. And they have the little indentation for the coffee mug.

Stephanie Hansen [00:22:01]:

We just had Easter yesterday and my mother in law is 94, I think, and came for Easter dinner. And over the years she keeps giving me, you know, dishes and things that she’s offloading, as it were, but I kept. I’ve kept stuff. And we used to have Easter all the time in Nebraska with her at her house there. So I made the Easter spread. I used her tablecloth, I used her silverware forks. I used these little paper mache bunnies that she used to put on the table that I still kept. And it was so sweet to see her come to the house yesterday and sit down and like recognize all this stuff that we had when Ellie was little and we would have Easter with her.

Stephanie Hansen [00:22:46]:

It was. I was so glad I kept it all. You know, it’s kind of a pain, but I’m so glad I did.

Sarah Peterson [00:22:51]:

Oh, and you’ll have that to enjoy for years. And what a great memory. I mean, and I bet Dolores was just tickled.

Stephanie Hansen [00:22:56]:

She was, she really, she. She really was. And the funny thing, I said, well, you know, that’s your tablecloth. And she said, well, where are the napkins? And I didn’t really remember that there were napkins because they were in a closet and probably in a box and I didn’t unearth them. So I was like, oh, I have the napkins. I just didn’t get them out. Like, you know, where are the napkins? All right, so we are going to feature you on the Taste Buds episode. It’s a Dec.

Stephanie Hansen [00:23:22]:

Decades episode where we had to think of recipes that were important to us like through the decades. So sandwich loaf was one. Then I did a Chicken Marbella, which I don’t know if you did any dinner parties in the 80s, but if you did, that was what everybody made into like probably the early 90s too.

Sarah Peterson [00:23:44]:

I can’t wait to try that. I have not had that dish.

Stephanie Hansen [00:23:47]:

It is the simplest thing to make and it has a power punch of flavor. I always double the sauce just because I like it. Really saucy, but it sounds gross. And my producer was like, oh, wait, we’re putting prunes in this. I was like, yeah, you just gotta trust me. It’s gonna be really great. And then by the time it’s all done, you have this really delicious Sauce and the cooked chicken and you can just throw it in one big pan or one big pot and then serve it right from the pot. So it’s an easy dinner party.

Sarah Peterson [00:24:19]:

Dinner party, yeah. That sounds really good.

Stephanie Hansen [00:24:22]:

Do you have any, like 80s or 90s dishes that you. Not actual dishes, but things to make that you’re like, oh, I. If I had to do a decades theme, what would you make?

Sarah Peterson [00:24:32]:

You know, let’s see. So the 80s, I wasn’t cooking too much, but I love.

Stephanie Hansen [00:24:37]:

Because you’re so much younger than me.

Sarah Peterson [00:24:38]:

I’m not so much younger, but I was in that time of life where it was like high school. School.

Stephanie Hansen [00:24:43]:

Yep.

Sarah Peterson [00:24:44]:

Not doing a lot of entertaining or anything. I can’t think of. I don’t know if this is. I mean, we love Dorito. The taco salad with Doritos. I don’t know if that’s 80s or 90s, but like.

Stephanie Hansen [00:24:56]:

No, it’s. I think it’s 90s. And we actually talked about taco salads when we were trying to think about, like, what would be we. I couldn’t think of anything of the 90s. And then my producer Michelle, like came up with a bunch of stuff. And taco salad was actually also mud pie.

Sarah Peterson [00:25:14]:

Yes.

Stephanie Hansen [00:25:15]:

So we ended up making a mud pie bar that was actually a recipe that my stepmom had. But, like, people were eating a lot of mud pie apparently in the 90s. And chocolate lava cakes.

Sarah Peterson [00:25:27]:

Oh my gosh. And chocolate lava cakes. Are they. They’re back. I mean, I see they are back. My daughter Lucy is a big fan, so anytime we’re out to eat, she’s got to get a chocolate lava cake.

Stephanie Hansen [00:25:36]:

Have you ever made one?

Sarah Peterson [00:25:38]:

No, have you?

Stephanie Hansen [00:25:39]:

I have attempted it like three different times and it never works. I always get a delicious brownie but like getting that molten lava piece in the middle have not succeeded yet. So I didn’t want to do that on camera because I was like, oh, I just don’t know.

Sarah Peterson [00:25:56]:

So, yeah, in 90s dishes. I was just thinking of one thing that my mom has made throughout my life and is in the cookbook are Italian shells. So the big pasta shells. Yes, we ate them a lot in the 90s. We probably ate them definitely after. But just the big pasta shells loaded with Italian sausage, some torn up bread, a, you know, an egg base in there and some pasta sauce and cheese and then smothered with more sauce and cheese. That was like at every big occasion in my life.

Stephanie Hansen [00:26:28]:

I love it. So delicious. Well, Sarah, congratulations on the book. I’m happy to be on this journey with you, and I’m real proud of you. I think the book is beautiful, and I’m glad you’re having so much success. And I can’t wait till people see us make sandwich loaf on taste buds this weekend.

Sarah Peterson [00:26:46]:

Well, thank you. And I just have to thank you for everything, Stephanie. It’s been so fun to watch your career and how you’ve evolved and. And done all these amazing things with your radio show, with your books, all your books and the TV show, too. It’s been really fun to follow along.

Stephanie Hansen [00:27:01]:

Thanks. I. I had people that helped me along the way, so I feel like it’s my obligation, but also my joy to help other people because, you know, I. There are things about being a freelance creator and freelance writer and cookbook writer that no one can answer for you unless they’ve done it. And, you know that first person that told you, like, how much they made and how long it took and what to expect for food costs and, like, those were really valuable lessons that I was so glad that I learned and that people gave me the real deal because I think that is part of, you know, some people write books for fame and fortune. Some people write them to document a historical time in their life or something that’s important to them. And then some people just do it because they think it’s fun. But all of it and getting, you know, the historical background about what it’s going to cost and how long it’s going to take, it’s important information, I think, to learn before you set out on the journey.

Sarah Peterson [00:28:01]:

Right. And you’re doing such a great service to find that information and share it with the world. So.

Stephanie Hansen [00:28:07]:

Yeah. And I think your story about the food stylist, too, like, people, you don’t have to have a food stylist. Do the whole book. Like, you could have 10 shots or hero shots or the beginning of chapter shots. That’s a great way to do.

Sarah Peterson [00:28:19]:

And just like spending that time with Rachel, too, for those two or three days, like, I just learned so much. So I’ve taken some of that experience and been able to piggyback on that and some of the photography and things that I’m doing now.

Stephanie Hansen [00:28:33]:

Yeah, she’s really good at it. So I’m glad that Rachel was a resource for you. Her podcast, you can find it in the archives, too, of Dishing with Stephanie’s Dish, because it’s in there and it’s a good one to listen to. So, Sarah, thanks for being with me today. Congratulations on the book. It is Dish and Tell. And where can people get the book and how do you want them to

Sarah Peterson [00:28:53]:

follow you so they can find the book at, you know, online through the major retailers. And then if you’re in the Twin Cities, it’s at, like, Kowalski’s and a lot of independent bookstores. It’s even at Barnes and Noble. I went by and visited it this weekend at the Barnes and Noble in Roseville. I’ve been going around and seeing my book at different places. It’s so exciting, and people can follow me. My website is vintagedishandtel.com. my social media handles are the same.

Sarah Peterson [00:29:19]:

Vintage, Dish and Tell. And then I have a sub stack too, which, if you can’t find, just go to my website and you’ll be able to link to it.

Stephanie Hansen [00:29:26]:

Has anyone told you that when you see your book in the wild, you’re supposed to sign them?

Sarah Peterson [00:29:31]:

No, I’ve thought about that. Do you, like. Do you talk to the bookstore manager or the.

Stephanie Hansen [00:29:38]:

Sometimes I wouldn’t. At a Barnes and Noble, I’d probably just do it. But there’s a real rationale behind it, because booksellers can return books that don’t sell. They can’t return books that are signed.

Sarah Peterson [00:29:50]:

I’m gonna go sign every one I can find.

Stephanie Hansen [00:29:52]:

Yeah, I. Whenever I’m out and about, and if it’s a small store, I will tell them, okay. But if I see it, I’m. I’ll just. I go to the bookseller and I’m like, hey, I’m here and my book is here. Do you mind if I sign a couple? A lot of them have stickers and they’ll put, you know, signed edition. But if I’m at, like, Barnes and Noble, I just sit there with my pen and sign them all.

Sarah Peterson [00:30:11]:

Oh, that’s great. Yeah.

Stephanie Hansen [00:30:12]:

So make sure you sign them.

Sarah Peterson [00:30:13]:

Thanks for that. Hot tip.

Stephanie Hansen [00:30:14]:

Yeah, hot tip. Hot tip. All right, Sarah, thanks for joining me today.

Sarah Peterson [00:30:18]:

Thank you.

Stephanie Hansen [00:30:18]:

Okay, bye. Bye.

Sarah Peterson [00:30:20]:

Bye.

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Hello, everybody. Welcome to Dishing with Stephanie’s Dish, the podcast where we talk to people in the food space, cookbook writers, people that are obsessed with food. And I’m really delighted today to speak with Tim Niver. He is the host of the Niver Niverland podcast and also a restaurateur in St. Paul, our fine capital city. He owns Mochis, also is a friend. And I was just noticing in my calendar, we recorded about a year ago today.

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Tim Niver:

Yeah, well, I know we recorded before. I don’t remember the, the date, but I’m glad to, I’m glad to be back on. It’s, it’s, it’s a good time to talk about things.

Stephanie Hansen:

Yeah. And we. I’m going to release this podcast on Friday, so it’ll be timely. I moving it up in my schedule because we have been under extreme stress as restaurateurs and people in the hospitality industry basically for the last two months. But really increasingly in the last two weeks as ICE agents, 3,000 of them have started roaming the streets of Both Minneapolis and St. Paul and our surrounding suburbs and towns, asking people for papers, going into restaurants, stopping cars on the road, doing traffic enforcement type stops, going to people’s homes, taking children as little as 2 and 5 years old. And unfortunately, these actions have resulted in the shooting of Renee Good also over the weekend on Saturday, the shooting of Alex Pretty. And it is so interesting.

As this podcast was being released, a relief fund for Minnesota restaurants was launched by Stephanie March with support from The Minneapolis Foundation. You can give here:

Stephanie Hansen:

I was on the air live with my radio partner Stephanie March on Saturday morning when the second shooting happened, which technically is the third shooting because there was another one where someone was shot in the leg in their house, defending themselves with a shovel and a broom. What I just am so wanting people to hear from Minneapolis and St. Paul and Minnesota in general is that the actions that are happening here, A, are not legal, B, are not law enforcement, and C, are creating so much harm to a community that has been trying to recover for the last five years since the COVID pandemic. And I’m so. It’s always restaurants. We’re the canary in the coal mine. Right.

Tim Niver:

I’m, I’m listening. And it’s hard to refute anything you said. Number one, there’s a, restaurants are involved in particular in moments of social change, were involved in helping support, care for the community at large. As a product of them supporting and caring for us at large, it’s a debt that we want to owe to the community. But there’s a lot of pressure to act and, and it’s not always an easy decision because we’re business people in this. In this state, business feels insignificant altogether. And then to continue to participate appropriately on whatever way you can is, I think, ultimately where we all need to be. Whatever we can do, whatever you feel like you want to do, that should be enough for people.

But there’s a lot of expectation.

Stephanie Hansen:

It’s fascinating, too, because when I say that restaurants are the canary in the coal mine, I feel like when these situations happen or civil unrest happens or starts to unfold, we see it in the restaurant community because it is communal spaces. But then we also lean on the restaurateurs and people to provide food and community. And there’s so much expectation not only for you to, hey, run your business and serve me my pizza in a timely fashion, but can you also donate and feed my whole community and show up? And it’s so interesting because you guys do. Yes, you do. You can.

Tim Niver:

We do it despite being able to.

Stephanie Hansen:

Because you are hospitalitarians in your heart. Like, yeah, that is why you stay in this business. It is a level of service and leadership.

Tim Niver:

Yeah, yeah, it’s. I just think it’s a matter of care, which is what we innately provide. And when there’s moments where care is especially needed. You’ve seen this community react in full. The restaurant community and the community at large, like, we’ve all reacted in full. We’ve been there for each other. It’s inspiring.

Stephanie Hansen:

It is inspiring. And it’s ongoing.

Tim Niver:

Yeah, it’s ongoing. It’s an economic occupation as well. Completely affects and dampens any kind of feelings of joy. The. The way you might want to express yourself on a birthday feels different. The way you want to express yourself on an anniversary might feel different. Things that we celebrate, that we, as restaurateurs, try to preserve. Now we’re changing our language to It’s really nice to have you here. Even the things we say prompting, you know, it’s. It’s not. It’s discompassionate, perhaps, to ask somebody how they’re doing right now. So. So we’re talking to each other in a whole new language based on how. How things feel.

It’s pervasive on all levels. But we have to persist, right? We have to, as a business, even though it feels insignificant in the moment, you have to persist. You have to do the things through an, you know, austerity or what have you to understand clearly what you’re able to support and give. And then on the Inside, you have to make the decision about folks who need every single hour of work that they get per week to stay afloat. Many restaurants are the same way. And so, you know, this kind of doubles down on a time that is not normally busy. It’s a huge multiplier effect.

Stephanie Hansen:

It’s like 20 below in January and has been for about a week in the Twin Cities with another potential week ahead.

Tim Niver:

Right. And, you know, it does keep people in the suburbs. That interaction between the inner parts of the city, it becomes a more of a bubble. So, you know, and understanding security. It’s true. Like, I get it. You know, these are all real things. Overall, it’s a big pill to swallow.

Stephanie Hansen:

And the weight is getting really heavy. The reason I think you’re uniquely qualified to speak to me today is I want people to know that in 2025, you were the James Beard semifinalist for outstanding hospitality, and you are known in our community for providing great food, great service, but your whole being and your whole approach to care and hospitality within the confines of our restaurant’s four walls is what you’ve really done your entire career. And you’ve mentioned that that looks like it’s changed. It has to change. It has to be modernized in light of the times and the moments that we find ourselves in.

Tim Niver:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, we began to lean more, lead more with compassion after George Floyd and Covid, trying to understand, you know, there’s also a lot of strengthened worker rights. A lot of things have been changing over the years, and in good fashion. But also, I guess the thing that we. We try to do is just stay with it. We’ve been through some of these similar feelings before. They’re triggering.

Stephanie Hansen:

And thank you for saying that, because I. I do think that is a uniquely Minnesota thing in that five years ago, when the George Floyd murder happened, and, well, the lockdowns were first, and then the George Floyd murder. Like, when I hear a helicopter, I feel very anxious. I feel like a trauma of what is happening. I’m heightened. I’m scared. I’m looking around. I’m wondering if there’s some breaking news.

It’s hard to describe that to people who haven’t lived under that complete fear of what’s next.

Tim Niver:

Yeah. And in many parts of the world, they live like that every day.

Stephanie Hansen:

And also true. Yeah. And. Oh, gosh.

Tim Niver:

But we certainly do gain a perspective that nobody else could have. It also provided ample levels of or already set types of organizations in times of need. People had done this before.

Stephanie Hansen:

Yeah. And it mobilized quick. How Fast people.

Tim Niver:

Well, you know, we’re trying to. We’re all trying to protect somebody here. We’re all trying to protect somebody. So I really feel like having had experience like that, you have a new generation of restaurateurs and thinkers like Rectangle Pizza. They lead with love, but they’ll fight for it. Just such heart and fearlessness. That’s. That’s fearlessness.

I don’t contain that. I don’t contain that. Thank God they do. Thank God they do.

Stephanie Hansen:

Yeah.

Tim Niver:

And they’re thrust into it too, like being where they are.

Stephanie Hansen:

To give some context, Wrecktangle Pizza put out a mutual aid fund and I think they raised at last count, over a hundred thousand dollars of. Oh, over two.

Tim Niver:

I believe it’s over two through selling.

Stephanie Hansen:

Pizzas and collecting donations. And that money is going back into their communities. And we’ve seen a lot of that. These mutual aid funds that people have just started on their own.

Tim Niver:

Then they were visited the next, the following day after they did that by Ice2, perhaps recognizing that they were part of some resistance by helping take care of people and, you know, it just. How is that imaginable?

Stephanie Hansen:

What do you. I. It’s hard to describe the. It’s hard to describe the impact that the diverse population and immigrant population has had on the restaurant business as a whole. I think some people believe that everyone who works in a restaurant that is a black or a brown person is somehow an illegal person. And it’s ignorant and I’m not sure people fully know, but there is this sort of idea too, like, well, these owners. These owners are employing these people without papers and we’re just getting the bad guys. Can.

You’ve been in this industry a long time. This industry is made up of a lot of people.

Tim Niver:

Yeah. You know, honestly, you hire somebody, you have to do the paperwork. That’s the only way they can get paid. And I am not an ID expert. I do not run this through some sort of machine that tells me exactly where the documents are. We’ve. We’ve been very, very fortunate just for a matter of retention that we’ve done so little hiring. It made moochies in particular, but in general that, you know, it’s just part of the first day packet, but you have to take care of it.

Tim Niver:

It’s. It’s immensely important to the infrastructure of a business to be organized in such a way and still mistakes can be made. But for me in particular, it’s never a question. It’s like, you have to have this to work. It’s so easy. Either you do or you don’t.

And when you pay someone and give them a paycheck, there is an employment tax that’s attached to that paycheck.

Yeah. Oh, yeah. Their own. And then we match. Yeah, we. No, nobody gets around that. There’s no way for them not to pay taxes unless somebody’s doing something illegal. But everybody’s got to do the same paperwork.

They get the same i9 w4 and w2 at the end of the year. You know, it’s all stated. That doesn’t make somebody legal either. But in terms of when you hire somebody, you go through and you. You do what you can to do everything right. And hopefully they stay for a long time, whoever they are. Yeah, but we are made up of the community at large. Any city is going to be made up of a cast of characters and we certainly don’t want them to be the same character over and over.

The diversity speaks loudly to the depth of the culture that you exist in. So we benefit.

Stephanie Hansen:

It’s also when we look at the diversity of the food culture that’s offered in the Twin Cities. I mean, you’re making Italian food.

Tim Niver:

Italian American. Yeah, yeah.

Stephanie Hansen:

Someone else is making Somali food, Ethiopian food, Vietnamese food. The irony is we have all these diverse cultures all coming together over this common tradition of breaking bread, of communally spending time in community together at our tables.

Tim Niver:

Yes.

Stephanie Hansen:

And it just saddens me that this is, this schism that is going to happen. It happens in restaurants first and then we’re going to be the last ones to be able to pick up the pieces when all these creeps leave. And all of this is, you know, the bad guys and the murderers and the rapists and whatever excuse you want to use for this complete brutality that’s happening to our community, then the restaurateurs will again pick it up. Food costs will probably increase. I would imagine none of these things that are happening are inexpensive. We have a somewhat broken food system nationally. You know, when you think about.

Tim Niver:

It’s a rough year of tariffs. It was a rough year. Understanding the more in price increases, insurance costs, health care costs, whatever you’re involved with, you know, I’m. My little business. You would be so shocked to know what we pay for insurance a year.

Stephanie Hansen:

Yeah, I just wrote my thousand dollar check for the month. Yeah, I’m a freelance person. No support.

Tim Niver:

A lot of money.

Stephanie Hansen:

Yeah, it is.

Tim Niver:

And those things have been ongoing. And then this obviously again is, like I said, a multiplying factor.

Stephanie Hansen:

So how do you keep. I mean, we’ve painted a Pretty gloomy picture. So how do you keep waking up every day and coming into your restaurant and finding joy? Because I think a couple of months in and two weeks of really acute persecution here, people are feeling really beleaguered.

Tim Niver:

Yeah, Weighted, I guess what I’d say. And I. And I haven’t necessarily found it totally in myself, but we talk about preserving joy and pieces of it. You shouldn’t think of joy being some all encompassing kind of a thing that just washes over you completely. You really have to parse it out and be deliberate with how you preserve your joy. Right now, that may be in a restaurant, I think I’m just starting to get my feet kind of how I feel personally. But the last few days kind of forced myself into tons of conversation. Even though that doesn’t always feel comfortable.

I feel like staying at home. So I think that conversation, there’s. Maybe you’re commiserating or whatever, but there is a unity when you don’t hold up, when you don’t sacrifice joy because of it feels wrong. In this time, I do believe, you know, my message to anybody would be is, and I am intent on this is just where you see joy, like stop and engage with it and. Or force it and make sure that you’re trying anyway. Get out, go where you want to go. It doesn’t have to be Moochie’s. It doesn’t.

That that’s not it, you know, but that. That’s part of it too, you know, hey, we’re giving a lot of money. Other, not just restaurants, people are giving a lot of money and resource to. To feeding people or staying safe or doing what they need to do right now. I mean, I understand dining out may not be your priority, but preserving a little bit of joy, if you could consider that. I think, I think there’s a little tiny pot of gold. Right.

Stephanie Hansen:

I thought I would start out this year talking about, like, food trends, because I love to talk about food trends. It’s like one of my favorite things to talk about. But, you know, that feels a little like we’re not doing that today. How are your colleagues feeling? Like you have a unique ability because you have people on your podcast. You are behind the scenes in the hospitality business. How are your colleagues doing?

Tim Niver:

Beleaguered. Beleaguered. Same boat. You know, the tides are out. It’s not in saying that is unattractive. You know, I get it. Like saying. Saying that things are hard is kind of an unattractive thing or unhospitable thing.

But we’re all feeling it. It’s. It’s kind of hard. Anyway, I’m empathic, so, like, I’m just, like, sponging energy, and I. It’s. It’s really hard to, like, you know, continue to hear it.

Stephanie Hansen:

Yeah. I. I also think something that has come to me over the years of working in this business is we think about artists and musicians as these very creative beings. Right. And their art is their song or their poem or their story. And what I have learned in this business is that my fellow hospitalitarity people are also artists. It is the food that they are putting on the plate. It is the care with which they are putting there.

It is the farmer who’s growing his heirloom seed to get that tomato to bring to you to make that perfect. Yeah. Salad. And artists as a class tend to be fairly sensitive people. They have a lot of empathy, a lot of emotional capacity, and it is just crushing sometimes. Similar happening. Yeah.

Tim Niver:

Yeah. You know, going back just a bit toward the last piece about Joy, a story. I got reminded of something after I said my bit last week. Earlier last week, like, Tuesday, before anything happened with Alex Preddy, I was at the door. A father and son walked in the door, and I’m at the host stand, and I see that they have a birthday designation. And I’m like, hey, you know, welcome in. I see one of you is having a birthday today. And they both kind of stopped in their tracks.

And I said, hey, hey. I didn’t. You know, I don’t mean to get, you know, too personal. Whatever. I just see it listed here, and they’re like, well, my wife, his mother, she died 30 days ago, and today’s her birthday. Oh, that’s why we have to be here.

Stephanie Hansen:

Yeah, that’s.

Tim Niver:

That’s what we have to preserve, and that’s what people should. Should still celebrate.

Stephanie Hansen:

Sorry.

Tim Niver:

Thanks.

Stephanie Hansen:

No, it’s. It. It’s interesting because I’m one of those weirdos that gets together with friends in January and does tarot card readings.

Tim Niver:

Oh, I love it.

Stephanie Hansen:

And my, you know, you can pick, like, career adventure. And I picked joy as my, like, category, and I’ve been feeling kind of joyless. And you really hit something on the head when you talked about joy, which is something I’m working on, but it’s recent, so I’m not doing well at it yet. But it’s hard that, you know, I really. I was working on a project that wrapped up at the end of the year, and I pushed myself so hard. By the time I got done, I Just was an empty, depleted cup. I had nothing left. And I had this trip planned, and I was gonna go on this trip, and I was gonna rest and read, and I was gonna get my joy back and re.

Energize. And on that trip, all this thing, these things were happening at home, and I haven’t been sleeping, and it’s been just constant cortisol rushing.

Tim Niver:

Yeah.

Stephanie Hansen:

And I didn’t get that joy in that way that I felt. And. And what my tarot cards said was exactly what you said, which is. It’s not a huge wave. It’s the moments within the wave. And you have to intentionally seek them out, look for them, create opportunities for them to happen.

Tim Niver:

Yeah.

Stephanie Hansen:

And for me, as a person who loves restaurants, it does happen a lot in restaurants.

Tim Niver:

Yeah. Yeah. You know, it’s not a manufactured feeling, you know, either. When you come in here, there’s a genuine desire to uphold whatever you’re there to be doing in whatever form. You know, whether it’s a funeral or, you know, an anniversary or a birth. You know, we want to be able. When you walk in the door, we want to be able to make sure we’re taken care of. Wherever you are, be compassionate to that moment.

And that’s why memories are made in restaurants. It’s where people get together, you hear other voices, and you don’t have to listen to them. You know, it’s a din. It kind of makes you feel comfortable, like there’s an outside world that’s not affecting you. And there’s a lot of beauty in finding a place that gives you that sort of peace for a little while and visiting it.

Stephanie Hansen:

Oh, and I just. I think about Town Talk Diner, which was one of your original spots, and so many people still talk about that place and Nick Kosevich and you, and just this idea of what that place meant to so many people. And you’ve had a number of places like that because then you had Saint Dinette. And I’m trying to think of the. I’m trying. A total blank of your place.

Tim Niver:

Strip club up on the hill.

Stephanie Hansen:

Thank you.

Tim Niver:

Strip club. It’s all good. It’s a lot of years.

Stephanie Hansen:

It’s a lot of years, like, so many of these places that have meant so much to people as we move forward, because we’re really in it right now. We’re sort of stuck. What would you like to see moving forward? And how can people listening to this podcast be supportive of restaurants in general if you’re their spokesperson?

Tim Niver:

Yeah, if I was a spokesperson and. And I. And I kind of am sometimes, you know, I don’t try not to speak for the whole industry at large, but I would just say, you know, mind, mind what you are spending on and what you aren’t spending on and a business is doing the same. And I’m just looking for moments of unity between everybody that we can to kind of find some sort of momentum back into pushing towards joy. But for business folks right now, we understand we have a little bit of more time to consider that this might be happening. So to those business folks, I’d say consider your austerity. Now. What keeps you there for your community? What keeps you there for your employees? What keeps you there for the right reasons? But also, you know, folks, I know that they’re in general acting so generously and putting emotion on things, but I would say, you know, to preserve that joy, make a reservation somewhere and go out and eat, do whatever you can.

Tim Niver:

It doesn’t have to be a full blown meal. It could be a short visit. It could be go in and have a drink and hug the person you really like there. But I think you have to kind of get everybody working in the space that yes, there may be some time here for operators, but also for folks that are out there feeling a lot of different ways that there is a lot to be said for visiting and being out in your community and it’s not a feelful place all the time. And restaurants and businesses, we need you to continue to visit. It’s really that important. And that’s all there is. You know, it’s a business that’s in service of others and without them it’s hard to continue.

Stephanie Hansen:

And it feels so much better to, you know, after ruminating in my house for days. Then today I went to two coffee shops and I sat down with a friend who’s turns out starting a business. She’s an immigrant herself and scared and trying to figure out what the way forward is. Just spending time hearing her, hearing her concerns.

Tim Niver:

Yes.

Stephanie Hansen:

Introducing her to some new people that maybe she hadn’t thought about that might be resources. Yes, I just.

Tim Niver:

Expanding your community and, and yeah, expanding your community and bringing people in, bringing people in, you know, and we have.

Stephanie Hansen:

So many young people like, I mean, we’ve been around the block. We’re sage and oh no, the young.

Tim Niver:

The youngs are, are really strong here. You can see it in their dedication to their craft. You can see it in the dedication to their employees. You can see it in their dedication. In whatever way they were able to show solidarity during a day of Strike. It’s. It’s really insanely cool. Group of people were hoping for, rooting for desirous of their success.

Tim Niver:

I mean, that’s what we want.

Stephanie Hansen:

We do, because we had the, you know, the Phil Roberts and we had our. Everyone’s mentor, Tim McKee. But we have this new group of really committed and passionate folks, and it’s nice to be able to share wisdom with them, but also to create and be absorbed in their energy of how they want to move this industry forward. It’s pretty neat.

Tim Niver:

During these times. During these times. Well, you know, you. You said it. And I feel that this industry has been nothing but supportive, if not led the way in a lot of ways. I’m proud to be a part of it. I would like to do just what I do, but I understand that times are different and we all need to stand up and in the way that we need to stand up, but we do need to stand up and show ourselves for everyone. Yeah.

Stephanie Hansen:

If all you can muster is to go to a new business and have a cup of coffee, then do that. If you have the time or the capacity to be a protester, do that. Like there’s nothing. Everyone showing up in different ways. I just want people to hear that you show up. And even if you didn’t vote for who I voted for or you voted for someone and that wasn’t what you thought you got, it’s past that.

Tim Niver:

We’re just humanity, man.

Stephanie Hansen:

This is.

Tim Niver:

This is humanity. This is treating each other appropriately.

Stephanie Hansen:

Yeah. That’s it.

Tim Niver:

Like basic stuff. And then respecting our rights.

Stephanie Hansen:

Yeah. And agreed. Well, I think, Tim, I’m gonna wrap it up. I really. I love spending time with you today.

Tim Niver:

Thanks.

Stephanie Hansen:

Farther away from the restaurant now, so I don’t get in as often, but.

Tim Niver:

You know, we’re here. Just we’re here anyway, you know, we’re here.

Stephanie Hansen:

Yeah.

Tim Niver:

You feel us? You feel us?

Stephanie Hansen:

I do. And I really appreciate the leadership, also the respect that you have garnished in this community and the leadership that you provide for other restaurant tours and just.

Tim Niver:

Trying to earn it. I’ll keep trying to earn it.

Stephanie Hansen:

Yeah, you do. Every day. And just the ability to be able to hear your story and to help people understand what it feels like on the ground as a small business person who’s just trying to keep their people employed, their family fed, and are moving. Yeah, exactly. Thanks, Tim.

Tim Niver:

Yeah, my pleasure. Always.

Stephanie Hansen:

Okay, we’ll talk to you soon.

Tim Niver:

Thank you.

Stephanie Hansen:

Okay, bye. Bye. Bye.

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Growing up as a Canadian-born Vietnamese Chinese American, Kat Lieu sought comfort in the flavors of her youth, like taro, matcha and black sesame. But she struggled to find a home for herself as a third-culture baker in American bakeries, online, or in cookbooks. In the auspiciously titled 108 Asian Cookies, Lieu honors the varied and rich tapestry of Asian cultures and ingredients

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Original Episode Transcript Follows:

Stephanie Hansen:

Hello, everybody, and welcome to Dishing with Stephanie’s Dish, the podcast where we talk to people in the food space, a lot of cookbook authors, manufacturers, and people who are doing cool things with food. And Ashley Russell came across my desk, and she has a cookbook that’s called “What’s Cooking Good Looking”. And I was first of all, captured by the illustrations in the book you are working on or have. They were very. How do I describe them? They were like tattoos. They were adorable, and they are original art by @sadpuppytattoo.

When Ashley describes the banana bread of her grandmas, she was generous enough to share the recipe here.

Ashley Russell:

Yeah.

Stephanie Hansen:

Tell me about the book and how you decided to illustrate it the way you did. And then I wanted to talk to you specifically about self publishing a book, because I think a lot of people think about it, but they’re not sure how to do it. So I just wanted to get your feedback.

Ashley Russell:

Totally. So I started this book inspired by my grandma. She passed away in 2024, summer of 2024. And it was almost immediate, was like, we have to have all the family has to have our recipes. And so she had a really cute little vintage recipe card box, and the whole process just sort of unfolded over the past year and a half. It is definitely a lot of Southern cooking. She’s from Texas, but lived the past 30 years up in northern Washington. And her and my mom and her siblings lived all over the country.

So there’s just a little bit of everything in there from, like, recipes she got from neighbors or things that she learned from different parts of the country. So it’s a really fun, like, eclectic mix of American cooking. And it’s just so much her. Like, there’s sugar and everything, and it’s just. I’m so happy to have all of the family favorites in one place. Yeah.

Stephanie Hansen:

Did you work with members of the family, or was it primarily. Did it fall on you to compile everything?

Ashley Russell:

I definitely compiled everything, but my family was there every step of the way. Like, my grandma wrote in cursive, and I couldn’t always read it.

Stephanie Hansen:

A lot of our grandmas wrote in cursive, and it is hard to read.

Ashley Russell:

It’s so hard to read. And so we started this text group, and I would be like, does anyone know what this says? And then also things like vegetable oil or sweet milk or, you know, polio olio. Exactly. What is that?

Stephanie Hansen:

It’s shortening. But, I mean, nobody knew.

Ashley Russell:

Nobody knew. And so it was a lot of just, like, you know, there were puzzles to it, and it was funny, and it brought us together and it kept us talking about her. And then, in addition to the community that I reached out to here in Portland, all My family members helped recipe test because it’s like they remembered how it was supposed to taste. So it was almost like, you know, I think that this is missing this because she didn’t write everything down. Like, a lot of things lived in her head.

Stephanie Hansen:

Yeah. Did you ever done this before or anything like this? Do you. What’s your background?

Ashley Russell:

No. So I worked for a decade in costume design. I worked on a lot of small budget indie film and tv. And so I think I’m used to like, okay, we have this big hurdle of a project ahead. But I’ve never, I’ve never written a book. I’ve never written a cookbook. And the whole process was such a journey, but it, it was all so much fun, I think, because I was like learning and uncovering things about my family along the way. Yeah.

Ashley Russell:

So.

Stephanie Hansen:

Well, the creative process too, I think, is. Know you talk about being a costume designer. I didn’t really think about writing a cookbook or recipes or being a recipe developer as a creative endeavor until I kind of started doing it more. And then I was like, oh, yeah, this does require creativity. And this is where that, where I scratch that itch.

Ashley Russell:

Yes, totally. I agree with that. It is super creative. And I never realized that either. I have a few cookbooks, but in this process, it made me realize, like, what little magical creative books they are and how much, you know, there’s people’s dreams and they nourish us and they’re little windows into different parts of history and people’s lives and they’re just pretty cool. Yeah.

Stephanie Hansen:

And people talk about like, I’m, I’m in the process of. I just released a book in September, so I’m out at bookstores and grocery stores and selling the book everywhere. And a lot of people are like, oh, you know, nobody really needs cookbooks anymore. And I was like, well, actually, you can always look up a recipe on the Internet that’s there, but the narrative, the piece of how that fits into their life, the memory that that recipe brings or that combination of spices that transports you to a place that is what is unique about a cookbook. It’s. It’s so much more than just the recipe. And if you’re not jazzed by any of that, then, yeah, it’s probably not for you.

Ashley Russell:

Totally. Yes. Like, you have to be inspired by it. Right. And like, I don’t know, I get pretty annoyed with recipes online. There’s a ton of pop ups and your phone, you know, has the auto timer and it has to face ID every two minutes. I. It’s just when you have it in a cookbook, it’s almost like the record version of like a Spotify song.

I don’t know, like, you sure? Yeah, yeah.

Stephanie Hansen:

Like, and you can get a song but you don’t have it in the context of all the songs in the record and that the artist had. Yeah, it’s very similar, actually.

Ashley Russell:

Totally. And like, people love listening to records and collecting records and I really just think it’s, it’s, it’s a similar. Comes from a similar place.

Stephanie Hansen:

Yeah. Okay. So your book, what’s Cooking Good Looking? It is a spiral bound, which I thought was an interesting choice that I want to ask you about. And it’s also got these illustrations. Did you illustrate it or did someone else? They’re real cute. They’re like tattooed inspired and they’re kind of jazzy and it kind of. It had like a hipster core vibe to it.

Ashley Russell:

Yes. So my boyfriend’s brother’s sister, so more or less my sister in law. I’ve known her for six years now. She’s a tattoo artist and she does a lot of florals and she did like a food flash at one point. And I’ve always loved her art. And when I was first starting the book, I was in Canva and I was like, oh, clip art’s cute. And I was like, you know, I don’t know if I would ever release a book with clip art in it, you know, And I wasn’t sold on doing photography. I knew how specific and it had to be.

Ashley Russell:

Like, people have nailed food photography. If I was going to do it, I wanted to make sure it rocked. And so I asked her one day, I was like, would you want to illustrate this book? And she was like, oh my God, yes. And her tattoos are in black and white already. So it kind of, it transferred pretty easily into print form. And so I was able to use all of her tattoo library, like things she had already drawn. And then she drew things specifically for the book as well. And I just think it looks awesome.

Stephanie Hansen:

Yeah, it really does. It’s real sweet. And what about the choice of spiral bound? And can you talk, can you make that be the introduction of talking about like how you decided to self publish and did you go out and try to find agents or did you go right to self publishing?

Ashley Russell:

Sure. So I in the past couple years have been really inspired by Rizzo prints and graphic novels and a lot of small press publishing and super inspired by vintage cookbooks. And a lot of them are spiral bound or they’re notebook bound. And it’s. It’s kind of like, it gives it this retro feel, and it’s kind of an homage to all of, like, the women’s groups and church groups that did cookbooks over the decades. But I also think it’s super functional in the kitchen. And I had a graphic design friend mention to me that she loves when a spiral bound is a color that totally offsets the book. So my book is, like, very black and white and yellow, and then it has this bright red spiral binding.

And I just think it makes it pop. Like, it’s. It’s fun and practical. So as far as self publishing. So when I started this, it was really just a project for my family. It was really just, you know, I wanted them to have all the recipes. I. I wasn’t even sure if I was going to print it.

And as the process unfolded more, I realized more and more that I wanted to make this a book. And I wanted to put my heart in this book. And I wanted to share who Wanda and our family is with the world. And it really was just like a flower slowly blooming. Like, every week would be like, oh, I have to put the ingredients in the order of the method. Oh, you have to do this. Oh, people like, you know, like, you want everything in a recipe on one page. You don’t want to have to, like, go back and forth.

And it became this really fun project puzzle for me to be like, maybe I can create a cookbook. And so I didn’t reach out to agents or anything, because I think the main important part was for this book to be about my grandma and come from me. And I was worried that having an agent or a publisher might dilute that a little bit.

Stephanie Hansen:

Yeah, they’d have feedback or input or change things. Sure.

Ashley Russell:

Yeah. So I was able to work with a lot of friends, family, and get a lot of feedback throughout the entire process. I hired an editor, and so there was that constructive criticism, but I didn’t feel like the voice or the vision was changing for profit, per se. And so self publishing is what I stuck with. And I think that in order for me to print this book the way I wanted to and for it to look the way it does, I don’t know if I could have convinced a publisher to get on board with that.

Stephanie Hansen:

So then you make that decision and you’ve got your book assembled or your PDF pages, essentially. Did you tell me about, like, did you go out and just Google, like, how to self publish? Did you figure out, like, how to print on Demand was there color considerations. Kind of walk me through that process a little bit.

Ashley Russell:

Sure. So I did start looking up print on demand and I started Googling, you know, how to write a cookbook. I listened to Maggie Green’s podcast Cookbook Love, like, religiously. I got books on the subject, and I really just created, like, it was my own research project. And I was learning as I went. What turned me away from doing, like, on demand printing or online publishing was that I really wanted it to be spiral bound. I knew that from the beginning almost. And I really wanted to do a mixture of Rizzo printing.

Ashley Russell:

And I wanted the paper. I just wanted everything to be really high quality and feel like her note cards, feel like her recipe cards. And I didn’t think I would get that with online printing. So I went and talked with a few print shops here in Portland, Oregon, and Brown Printing, like, got the project right away. And I’ve been working with them for the past several months to get it printed.

Stephanie Hansen:

Have you. Have you printed, like, X amount and you’re kind of selling stock as you go?

Ashley Russell:

Yeah, So I, you know, budget has been a concern throughout this whole process. Like, anyone who’s made a cookbook knows it gets very expensive between recipe testing. And I did end up doing photography. I did it myself. All of those things really add up. And so I did an initial print run of 300, which is almost gone at this point. I just picked it up in the beginning of the month. And Brown’s doing another run of.

Ashley Russell:

Of, 300 for the 1st of December so I can have more for the holidays.

Stephanie Hansen:

And then do you package them up and ship them when people make an order? Can you talk a little bit about that? Because people don’t think about that. But you have to buy, like, special envelopes. You have to go to the post office. There is a category for media mail that makes it a little cheaper, but it’s still. It’s a process.

Ashley Russell:

It is a process. Like, every bit of this has been such a process. And so, yeah, my. My limit, I had about 180 orders to ship out when I got all the books from recipe testers. Order, pre-orders, family, you know, you name it. And our whole. Our whole living room and kitchen was just, like, stacked with boxes and you.

Stephanie Hansen:

And they’re bigger than you think.

Ashley Russell:

Like, they’re bigger than you think and they’re heavy.

Stephanie Hansen:

Yes. And a box of like, 15 books is, like, a big box. And they’re everywhere.

Ashley Russell:

They’re everywhere. Yeah. So, you know, it’s kind of like if you’re an Etsy shop owner, you know, kind of our pain, I guess. But, you know, you’re doing. You’re the manual labor and you’re the author and you’re the publisher, you know, so you’re doing everything. And I lugged them all down to the UPS and USPS and shipped them off. Yeah.

Stephanie Hansen:

Where do you go from here with it? Like, you gotta sell through your next 300, obviously. Did this, like, create a pathway for you, or is this where you’ll end this journey and just one and done. And it was great.

Ashley Russell:

Yeah. So when I first started, I had over 300 recipes from the family. And I reached out to my first editor contact and they were like, whoa, that’s a lot of recipes. They’re like, books are usually like 75 to 150. And I was like, oh. And like now seeing this printed and it’s 260 pages, like, I get it. But at the time, I was like, I just wanted to have everything. And so I have at least one other book of Wanda’s on the horizon.

But for now, I’m really just trying to put myself in. What if I had a publisher? What if I had an agent? What would they be doing? So it’s a lot. Yeah, it’s a lot of reaching out to retail stores, seeing if I can get an interview on a podcast, trying to put my book out there in ways that I know of and seeing where it lands. I have. There’s about seven stores in Portland that are carrying the book right now, and they’re all stores I really love. And that’s super exciting.

Stephanie Hansen:

They carry it on consignment or do you sell them to them outright?

Ashley Russell:

It depends. So a couple are wholesale and a couple are consignment. Wholesale obviously works better for us, but I’m just happy to have the book out there. I think it’s a good time of year. You know, she made all these dishes for Thanksgiving and. And Christmas, so it’s the. It’s the time to have it in your kitchen.

Stephanie Hansen:

Do you. Can you talk about, like, how much you make per book?

Ashley Russell:

Sure. So if I’m talking just printing costs to do the 300 with the brown printing and the riso printing I did by hand at outlet PDX, we’re looking at about $20 a book. And I have the book priced at 38. So because I’m not splitting this with any publisher or agent, that means technically $20 profit goes back into my pocket. But at this point, we’re still paying off all the production costs, and it also doesn’t include that dollar amount. Doesn’t include, like, my labor. So when you really figure it out, it’s probably. Or food.

When you really figure out the numbers. This first round probably cost me about $50 a book to make, you know, and then the hope is, over the years, if continuing to sell copies here and there, you break even, or maybe you make a few dollars.

Stephanie Hansen:

Yeah, it’s. It is kind of like that. As you get, like, past Wanda’s story, do you see this being a journey you’ll stay on, or is it really just. I’m curious if it ignited something in you because you seem like a creative person.

Ashley Russell:

Yeah. Like, I’ve always wanted to be a writer, and it’s been pretty daunting. My grandma always encouraged me to be a writer. This feels like that first step. I also like the idea. I’ve heard a cookbook is, like, the best business card, you know, And I think that’s, like, a great way to look at it, too. It’s something that I’ve made that I can say, you know, I wrote this, I’ve made this. I’d like to do this project.

Stephanie Hansen:

And fascinating, because that is for. For me personally, I wanted to have agency in the cooking space, and I wasn’t. And I wasn’t a writer, so I was like, how am I going to get that? I wanted to have a television show. I wanted to do more podcasting, specifically about food. I had a radio show about food, but I needed to have more autonomy, and that's how I started.

Ashley Russell:

Totally. That makes sense. Did you. Do you feel like that helped achieve some of the dreams you had?

Stephanie Hansen:

Oh, for sure. I have a TV show now, and I wouldn’t have had the TV show if I hadn’t have written the cookbook, I don’t think.

Ashley Russell:

Yeah.

Stephanie Hansen:

Because even though I’m a home chef or a home cook and not a chef at all, actually having the book gives you some credibility of why this person’s gonna invest in you and put you on television station. 88 markets. I don’t think they would have done that if I wouldn’t have had the book.

Ashley Russell:

Totally. And honestly, like, I think being a home chef, you almost write a better cookbook because you can anticipate what other home chefs are going to be confused by or what they need written down.

Stephanie Hansen:

Well. And a lot of the best chefs, who I have much admiration and respect for, their books are really challenging or technical and. And that’s great. Like, maybe that’s who they’re writing them for. But some of my favorite chefs, I get their books and I keep them because I love the photography and I just admire so much of the skills and what they bring to the party. But very few of them I actually ever cooked out of.

Ashley Russell:

Yeah, they’re like these beautiful aspirations.

Stephanie Hansen:

Yeah, they’re aspirational books, for sure.

Ashley Russell:

Yeah.

Stephanie Hansen:

Can you talk a little bit about Wanda? Just your grandma? Like, you just have a real spirit about you that must come from her. And I’m just curious why she was so meaningful to you outside of just being your grandma.

Ashley Russell:

Yeah, totally. So I was raised by my mom. It was just me and my mom and I would spend a lot of time with my grandparents. I think when you’re set up in that sort of one parent system, I was either going with my mom everywhere or I was spending summers at my grandparents, and those summers at my grandparents. I, I feel like as an adult, I’m sort of chasing that feeling, you know, of, of being, you know.

Stephanie Hansen:

Really? Yeah. Oh, that’s so touching.

Ashley Russell:

Yeah. I mean, it’s true. Whether it’s cooking in the kitchen or laughing with my grandpa. You know, my grandma taught me how to sew, and later on in life, I worked in costumes and I used to bake with her, and now I’m making this cookbook. She meant a lot to me. And I know, I know both of them meant so much to our whole family that I don’t want, I don’t want us to lose that, and I don’t want anyone that comes next in our family to not know about it.

Stephanie Hansen:

Yeah. Yeah. What a beautiful sentiment. I, I just the I, the what you said, just, I’ve been chasing that feeling is really. I wrote my book for very similar reasons. You know, my mom had died early of breast cancer, and I wanted to document family recipes. Yeah, just the way you said that was really beautiful, so. Oh, that’s so nice.

Ashley Russell:

I, I, whether or not we’re aware of it, that we’re, we’re kind of doing that right. You know, where’s your happy place? What makes you, what brings you happiness? And those memories really do as, as I’m sure other memories for other people do for them.

Stephanie Hansen:

Yeah. All right. Well, I have loved hearing your story. I knew right away when the book came across my desk and you reached out to me directly, I was like, oh, yeah, I do want to talk to her. I want to figure out, like, what inspired her to take this on. Because it is a labor of love, you. Even if, I mean, I don’t I’ve not read a statistic, but like most cookbooks and most cookbook authors are not getting rich by writing cookbooks. They’re using it to parlayed into other things.

So it’s usually not actually a money making endeavor. It’s more a creative process and something that you do as a labor of love. And I think a lot of people that love cookbooks may be listening, you know, have wanted to do this. So I wanted to like, really document, like, how did you do it and what did you think about and how did you decide to put it together? When you put your list of recipes together, was it obvious what was going to make it?

Ashley Russell:

Yeah, you know, it started with what are the family favorites? What, what do we have to have? And then it was with, you know, what turned out really well in recipe testing. And from there, like, you know, the, the, the baking section’s over half the book. Yeah. And then it was sort of trying to round out the other sections of the book. Yeah. And they were recipes that could stand the test of time and that people would still want to make and also that my, my grandma would enjoy another favorites. Oh, yeah. So I mean, her banana bread is like, I knew I wanted to start the book with her banana bread and end it with sweet tea.

That’s my grandma to the core. And then in between, you know, there’s so many great home cooked meals, home cooked desserts. She had a famous chocolate pie, famous pecan pie. Her Italian cream cake is to die for. It’s like a coconut cake. Um, my aunt Angie, her oldest daughter, said that people used to request that she make that. So that was fun to learn and to put in the book.

Stephanie Hansen:

And now you know how to make all the things too, or a lot of the things.

Ashley Russell:

Yes. My family’s like, well, I guess you’re cooking for Thanksgiving now because you know all of her recipes.

Stephanie Hansen:

Oh, that’s so great. I really enjoyed talking to you. It is Ashley Russell. The book is I wrote the what’s Cooking Good Looking? Sorry. It is a really beautiful, fun, different way to approach this topic of cookbooks. And I was really. I’m impressed by what you did and I know your grandma would be, she would love it. She’d be real proud of you.

And it’s really nice to talk with you and share your story. I’ll put a link to the book in the podcast notes and put that all together and hopefully we’ll help you sell through your next 300. Ashley.

Ashley Russell:

Thank you, Stephanie. I really appreciate it.

Stephanie Hansen:

Yeah, it was great. To hear your story and to just spend time with you. Good luck.

Ashley Russell:

Thanks. Have a good day.

Stephanie Hansen:

All right. Bye.

Ashley Russell:

Bye.

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Original Episode Transcript Follows

Stephanie:

Hello, everybody, and welcome to Dishing with Stephanie’s Dish, the podcast where we talk about food. A lot of times we talk to cookbook authors and kind of understand their process and what they’re doing. Well, I’m just noticing my hair is real bedhead, but it is what it is. Friends, in this particular episode, I want to talk to my friend Michael Kenney. He is from Defined Destinations. He owns his own business, and it’s a travel company. And. And Michael and I met about three years ago now, and we have done a number of trips together, and we are planning our April trip, which is going to be to Turkey, and we have a lot of different cities that we’re going to visit.

And one of the things that I’ve heard from a lot of people is they all know we’re going to Turkey and they want to hear about it, and they’re excited to know about the destination, but they’re nervous about signing up for the trip. So said to Michael, let’s just talk. Let’s do a podcast where we give people an idea of what to expect, where we’re going, what kind of things we’re going to see. My friend Todd Walker, coincidentally has. He’s in Turkey right now. And he said. And he’s been. He travels all over.

He works for the Viking Cruise Lines, doing trips for them and helping to write about them and help people experience them. He sent me a text, and he said, turkey is in his top three places he’s ever been. He’s just super hot on it. He’s like, you are totally going at the exact right time. Because he’s like, people are just starting to learn about it, but there’s so many cool things. He said it’s a trip like nothing has ever experienced before. So, Michael, I’m excited to talk to you about it. And people ask me like, well, why did you pick turkey? And I was like, why not? I have always.

I met a guy 20 years ago and in Paris that was from Turkey, and first of all, he was gorgeous, so let’s just go there. But second of all, he really, like, he just was telling me about where he lived and what Turkey was like and what the food was like. And he talked to me about the spice Trail and kind of how people came in through Istanbul and then crossed over into Italy and into Spain. And it made me feel like, wow, okay. Turkey is this very Mediterranean feeling place with tons of culture, and I’ve always wanted to go there, so I picked it. Michael, why did you allow me to pick Turkey? Knowing that it would be a destination that would be harder to sell for people.

Michael Kenney:

Yeah, I think that’s what’s great. And thanks for having me on, Stephanie. It’s always a blast, you know, to travel with you and with your, your listeners. It just, we’ve built some really great bonds with the people, which has been a fun. So even our latest trip to Sicily. What, what a blast. And great people.

Stephanie:

Yes.

Michael Kenney:

But you going back to why we choose this and with Turkey, and that’s what’s great about you. It’s like you’re willing to try some new areas. And a lot of people are like, well, I’ve heard of Turkey. I don’t know much about it. And I think that’s where we both kind of glammed on. Like, let’s go and let’s have this experience. And we’ve been putting group trips together for 27 years and we have some great partners and some Turkish partners, too, that can really open up the, the eyes. I know several people that have been to, to Istanbul and everyone’s heard of Istanbul, like, oh, it’s a top five city on earth for a lot of people.

And you’re probably wondering, well, why? So I encourage you to kind of jump in, look at our website, do a little research on that. But Turkey is so, so much more than that. I. They have absolutely stunning beaches, their food culture, their spices, the seaside communities, the, the Roman ruins. They have so much in different little pockets. So Turkey offers. And I think that’s what maybe gravitated you and I both to it. Just the diversity and still a little of that wonder, like what’s, what’s really, what’s in Turkey.

And I think, you know, we, we talked about a little earlier before the podcast about some of the places, you know, that are kind of overrun with tourists. And definitely Turkey is not there. It will be at some point. So it’s kind of fun to get on maybe the ground level to, to some of these places and not just Istanbul, because it, it is busy, but some of the other places that we’re going to go from Ephesus to Kabukia or Pamuk. There’s so many different places that are on this trip that you’ve never even heard of. So it’s kind of like, well, I haven’t really heard of that. Go, go look at our website. Go do a little research on the Internet and see what.

It’s so amazing. The Europeans, they know of Turkey really, really well because it’s a, it’s a quick flight and they Absolutely love it. I’m in Europe nine times a year and the folks that I talk with over there, they absolutely love it. So it’s kind of like a discovery trip for Americans. And what’s great about our trip that will, it’s fully guided. We have 31 meals included. We have the inner flight inside, Turkey included. So there’s really no out of pocket expense for that.

So you can really sit back and relax and take in the best of Turkey with our local guides. And there’s just so much and I think that’s what’s going to be kind of fun to go discover. This place in our group is going to be no more than 15 people. It’s a small group experience so you can really relax and enjoy that. And I know folks that maybe, well, what’s a group tour? You know, I think you even mentioned that too for some people. Like, well, what do you do? It’s again, we’ve kind of handled everything. We’ve taken care of the hotels, the buses, the cooking class that we’re going to do. I mean, you might want to touch on that later.

But we’ve taken all of that, these best of experiences and put it in one itinerary so you can sit back and relax and know that you’re going to see the best of Turkey.

Stephanie:

I think explaining my husband Kurt’s sort of transformation is good here. My husband is an independent person. He’s owned his own business, he’s a sailor. He would, he, he has no interest really in group travel. Like when I brought it up to him and that I was going to start leading trips, he was like, why would you want to do that? Why would you want to be with people you don’t even know? Like, he is just anti group travel as a rule. And he came on our first trip, he wanted to come with us when we went to Cambodia and we went to Vietnam. He knew that he would never plan a trip to Asia on his own. So he thought, well, I’ll go along on this group travel and I’ll just suck up the group travel part because I get to go to this cool destination.

Well, what happened is he loved it. He liked group travel. He liked meeting new people. He liked not being the person that had to be in charge of making sure that we got our luggage to the room and that we made it to the right flights and that he had to carry all the stuff and all the itinerary. He kind of liked that he wasn’t responsible for all that. And he liked the food, he liked Meeting the people he liked, not having to be in a city he’d never been in and figure out exactly where we were going to eat every single meal. We had flexibility. Obviously, on these trips, we want it to be your trip.

In our Sicily experience, you mentioned a couple times, like, if this doesn’t feel like something you want to do, then don’t do it. Do something else for the day. We can help you orchestrate other things. He really loved the idea that he didn’t have to do everything. And in fact, when we did our cooking class in Sicily, which was amazing, by the way, we learned to make arancini, which they call arancino. We made a thing called a pinella, which was a chickpea pancake that they eat in a sandwich, which was kind of different. But Kurt didn’t want to do the cooking class. He was like, you know what? I think I’m just gonna go walk around the city.

So him and another friend peeled off and, like, that’s the joy of these trips. We plan everything, but if you’re tired or if you just want a day of rest, you can do that too. We really try to make it so that we know it’s your experience. We’re not as interested in you just being forced to come along on things that you’re not interested in. We’re interested in your experience. We want you to have a good time. So if Kurt Johnson can get turned on to group travel, I feel like, seriously, anyone can.

Michael Kenney:

No, that’s. That’s well said. I would have never guessed that about Kurt initially. You know, and I wouldn’t call him an introvert by any means, but I think we get, you know, a lot of people like that with. With. Kurt. You know, maybe their. Their.

Their husband or their wife drags them on a trip, and they’re like, you know what? This is actually pretty cool, especially for the person that maybe is doing typically all the planning. And it’s stressful. You know, we do all that for you, but you can really, again, sit back and enjoy. You spend a lot of money to go on these trips, and that’s what we want. So we want you to feel like you. You have that. That freedom, too. When we set up our hotels in nice, central locations and safe areas, too, that you can go out and explore, so we encourage you to do that.

But honestly, we feel pretty good that the pace of these trips are designed really well, that you have that flexibility, because we want you. Yes, you’re in a group, even a small group, but we want to make it feel like you’re having these experience with, with a friend or a family member that’s with you too, that you, you feel like you’re, you’re having these little exploring trips, but it’s all kind of put together already for you. But again, we, we have time for you to go exploring, to have these other experiences, which is really, really important. Balance is so important. Over 27 years, I think we’ve really, we focus on that so we know that, that people are comfortable having that free time to explore. But again, having the, the framework of an itinerary with, with experiences. Typically, we might do a city tour in the, in the morning and then have the rest of your day free to have your own exploring. Then maybe for, especially for this trip with the 31 meals that will meet up and have dinner in a place.

And again, they’re all being curated with our local team too, in the area that you’re going to have foods local from the area in great mom PA type of restaurants. So sometimes it’s stressful when you’re trying to figure out where am I going to go eat, what should I do? I want to make sure the dinner is going to be great. We’ve got that taken care of so you can sit back and relax. And again, we know most of you probably have not heard of a lot of these places. Please, we implore you to go and take a look at the itinerary, do a little research, because I guarantee in a few years from now, these are going to be mainstream and you’ll be able to go explore and see these places before they’re overly busy. So take a look at this itinerary.

Stephanie:

I was impressed because when I first was thinking about Turkey, I went on a map and I didn’t realize, like, when I started going to Croatia, I didn’t realize how close Croatia is to Italy. That literally they share a sea and that a lot of Italians use Croatia as their summer vacation spot.

Michael Kenney:

Yeah.

Stephanie:

And I didn’t also realize that Turkey and Italy are very close and that a lot of Europeans, because they’ve got EasyJet there, that’s an Italian airline, they’re going to Turkey like we would be going to Palm Springs. I mean, a lot of Europeans are experiencing Turkey and it’s just not a destination that a lot of Americans are familiar with. But a lot of people are going there and having fun, doing fun things. This. It’s been so fun for me to watch my friend Todd Walker, because he went to Cappadocia, which is a city that we’re going to go to and they have all these fairy houses that are like these stone. They look like dunce caps sort of. They’re these weird structures. And he, like, actually spent the night in one of them.

He did a hot air balloon r there, which is part of our itinerary. If someone wants to add that on, I know Kurt’s going to do that. It’s like he went and he had all this video of it where there’s 140 hot air balloons going up kind of all at once out of this city. It just looks so completely cool. And then the. The huge market. There’s like, the world’s largest market. So all of these trips, I always end up with a group of great women shoppers.

And I’m like, okay, bring an extra bag, ladies, because you’re going to come home with a rug and you’re going to come home with all of these spices. There’s 4,000 stalls in the Grand Market in Istanbul. Do you know that?

Michael Kenney:

Yeah, the Grand Bazaar. I didn’t know exactly how many, but, yeah, it’s massive.

Stephanie:

So just that, like, I love getting into a market and just, like, seeing all the different things, feeling all the different spices. In Sicily, we had an opportunity to go to the market, and afterwards we had our. Our local guide that kind of takes you around and shows you where everything is and gives you a sense of maybe what to look for at the market. And then we split up and Kurt and I, he just wanted to drink beer in the market and kind of experience feeling in the market. So we went and got sandwiches. But a bunch of other people, like, shop till they dropped. Like, they had huge shopping bags full of stuff. So if your jam is shopping, great.

If your jam is just sitting and taking in the culture, great. Like, you can also learn more about a city by spending time with the city guides that are with us. They’re always having lunch with us, and we have a bus driver that we get to know in certain trips. It really just. We just got back from Sicily and we had such a great experience. We had such a great trip. It was probably one of my favorite groups because a lot of the folks had traveled with us before, so we really knew each other, too. It’s group travel is really fun.

I’m just. I don’t know, I’m really jazzed about it, and I’m jazzed about Turkey, and I want people to come. If you could describe Ephesus, because that’s a place that I haven’t been before and you have what is that like?

Michael Kenney:

Yeah, Ephesus, it was, you know, built by the Romans in the time of Christ, so 2,000 years ago. And it’s. You’re walking through. It’s. It’s unbelievable. It’s not like when you’re at the Roman Coliseum or that area around there that’s actually, it feels like it’s in. More in ruins, if you will. But you’re like in this village, this Roman village that you can think of, the Apostles walk, maybe if you’re, you know, religious.

Mary, Jesus’s mother, has walked. And the. Still, the stone streets are there. You know, a lot of the buildings are in ruins, but the library, the, the whole front facade is still there. It’s, it’s unreal. It feels like you’re just being brought back in time. And there’s truly nothing like Ephesus, which is just right outside of the, the village of Kusadasi, or city in Turkey. But it’s, it’s like the.

If, again, if I could have an analogy, like you’re in Rome, but to another level that it’s, it’s much more, I would say intact. Still in ruins, but intact. But this, this, this village that it’s in hibernation. So walking these streets. And we have these local guides as you touched on too, that kind of can bring everything to, to, to life. So, you know, you’re not looking through your, your book and trying to like, well, what is this? You listen to an audio guide or our, our local guide speaking about that. So you’re learning about the history. But Ephesus is, is.

Is unbelievable. And we’re not going to see. There’s other ruins and more Roman sites and throughout this trip, so you’ll really get, you know, a history. I wouldn’t say a deep dive. They touch on it. So you’re not like, oh, this is so boring. But you even said it’s, it’s a trip like this is great for, for shoppers, if you want to shop. I’m not a shopper.

I like to do what Kurt does. Sit down, maybe have a beer and take it all in and do nothing. Just take in the people walking around, the smells. There’s. There’s nothing like it. And again, I think this trip to Turkey really offers a potpourri of different experiences. So if you’re a foodie, if you’re into photography, to culture, to history, this trip really ticks all the boxes. And I guarantee it, you’ll love it.

You’ll love the trip. But then even at the end you. There’s a great chance you’re going to make lifelong friends on, on a trip like this too. So it’s, it really ticks a box of. Of of experiences. So hopefully April is a great time to go to. The temperatures you can expect, you know, low 70s, you know, 50s, 60s at night. So it’s really comfortable.

Not like in the summer when it’s really busy and it’s busier with the Europeans and the temperatures hotter. This April time is a great time to visit for sure.

Stephanie:

Can you talk a little bit about what the food is like? Like, I have an idea, but I don’t really know. Like, is it Mediterranean? Is it like meat and pomegranates and couscous?

Michael Kenney:

Yep, you’re nailing it right now. No, it. It is like that. So I think I encourage again people to. To look online too, to see what some of these are. But you maybe have heard of, you know, baklava or, you know, kebabs, the lamb, the beef, the chicken. They have, you know, the different kebabs, lots of different spices, ganache, as many, you know, like fried dishes too, but then a lot of cooked on open fires. But I would say, I wouldn’t necessarily say it’s comfort food, like German, you know, in having, you know, some of the staples that you might know, but still something that’s not too odd.

It’s probably more closer to home than maybe some of the French food you would see. But you’ll see a lot of lamb, the beef, I said some of the fried foods, lots of, you know, from your Turkish delights and different things like that. So I think even when we’re walking around in the market, you’ll get that. And then we’ll at our dinners have different meals as well that will infuse some of these different experiences. So it won’t be something completely foreign, but it’ll be. It’ll be comfortable enough that I think you’ll enjoy it, but it definitely be a nice array of different experiences with the food.

Stephanie:

I haven’t told you this, but one of the places, and I don’t know where I’m going to do this, but I am going to find. Have you ever been to a hammam or done the spa experience where like, you lay on like hot marble and it’s sort of like a sauna and you get sweaty and then you like, go into a room and they like brush you with salt and scrubby things and like completely clean you. It’s a Muslim tradition and it’s the most amazing thing I’ve ever done. I did this in Athens and I loved it so much. We went three times while we were in Athens.

Michael Kenney:

Wow.

Stephanie:

Find a spa that does this there. I don’t know in what city or where we are, but I know a local guide can help me when we get there.

Michael Kenney:

Yep.

Stephanie:

Both Kurt and I, it was just the most amazing, relaxing experience. Just someone scrubbing you with all these different herbs and salts. And they have weird little brushes that your eyes are closed and. And you can’t even. Like. One of them was this big, puffy, like, pillow feeling that was running across the top of your body. It was so weird, but so great.

Michael Kenney:

Yeah, I haven’t done it. I’ve seen them. I’ve done, like, the part that we’re just going in, like, in the. In the sauna or the steam bath. That’s it. I haven’t had the full rub down yet. Maybe on this Turkish.

Stephanie:

We’re going to do it. Yeah, it’s great. I’ll do it.

Michael Kenney:

No, it’ll be fun, but no, it’s very popular over there. The Turkish amans. To do that. So there definitely will be that opportunity. I will. I’ll give it a shot. You know, it’ll be interesting to have someone scrub me down with salts. But, hey, life’s about to have any experiences and.

And I’m. And I’m. I’m for it, but I’m glad you enjoyed that. But, yes, they definitely have that. And you’ll have that opportunity if you want again. It’s. Yeah, it’s always. It’s.

Stephanie:

I’m not gonna make anyone go get naked and do this, but if you want to get naked and do this, I’m telling you, it’s amazing. And they probably actually. They wear bathing suits because they’re pretty modest. Or they’ll have, like, a separate women’s area and a separate men’s area. When we did it in Athens, it was men and women together, and we wore bathing suits. And then when you got into the private room, you could take your bathing suit off. And they were very modest and helpful, but.

Michael Kenney:

Yeah. So being comfortable. Yeah, no, that’s. That’s great. Well, that’ll be. Maybe we’ll just get a whole group and do that to get so great.

Stephanie:

Yeah, it’s just like. It was one of the best things I’ve ever done. And I. I like spas and massage, and I’ve done a lot of weird things like that. This was, like, just amazing. Well, I’m excited. I hope that people will join us. The way it works is you can find all the itinerary on defined destinations website.

We’ll link that in the show notes here you can see each particular day and what city you’ll be in and what you’ll be doing and what’s included. I would imagine in most of these breakfast is included because that’s typically a sort of European thing to do. And then as he’s. As Michael said, a lot of the meals are included. I do think when you’re breaking open a new destination, it’s important to kind of give people a sense of what they’re going to be experiencing. And food is obviously a big part of that. And food is a big part of my journey on this trip. Turkish delights, if you’ve never had them, they’re like this beautiful little jelly.

Turkish coffee is very different. It’s a much more intense coffee experience. So if you’re a coffee drinker, you’ll learn a lot. Also, olive oil is very much present in Turkey. Like again, I keep comparing it to Italy, but it is right across the water. So there’s a lot of different olive oils that are used in Turkey, a lot of different spices. We’re going to have fun. So the way this works is you can go online, you can put your deposit down and full payment is due I think in January for this trip.

You can book your own travel if you want to, meaning get your airfare to get to where we’re going to meet for the trip. Or you can use Michael’s got a service that can help you book all your airfare. I personally like to control my airfare because I like to have the miles and I like to know exactly how I’m going to set things up on my itinerary. Kurt and I also like to get there like a day or two in advance just to get acclimated a little bit before the rest of you guys come. So that I’m not super jet lagged. I’m on fire by the time you arrive. And yeah, we do. There’s going to be a lot of beautiful wine, I’m assuming too, because that’s something that there’s a great grape destination there.

You don’t know about Turkish wines yet, but you will. They, they exist. There’s actually quite a lot of them. Yeah. And that’s how it works. Michael, you’ve got a special offer just to get people that may be on the fence a little bit. Yeah.

Michael Kenney:

Well, we’re excited. The trip again is April 9th through the 20th. And again, go online, take it just take a look at the website, look at some of the pictures. You’ll absolutely love it. And then even all the things that we’ve talked about that aren’t even mentioned in the itinerary, there’s so many fun things. But if you’re listening to this and you’re new to register, you’ll get $200 off per person if you register for the trip. Final payment is January 1st, so just think about that. So this would be a great.

A great gift for a loved one. Hey, let’s. We’re going to go to Turkey. And I hear more and more people are. They want to have a travel experience rather than having tangible things about having experiences, especially with ones you love. So hopefully this trip to Turkey, if you want to try something new and have just an amazing experience about a place you maybe haven’t heard too much about, I think you’ll absolutely love it. So just go to defined destinations.com, like Stephanie said. She’ll have the link there, too.

Against April 9th through the 20th. You can register right there. If you need help with airfare, we’re happy to do that. So we make it pretty easy for you on that end. So we’re gonna. We’re gonna have a blast with a great group of people and hopefully, you know, you’ll want to join this small group of no more than 15 people.

Stephanie:

Is this the time that we tell people that are listening to maybe stay tuned. I mean, we do have a pretty epic October trip planned.

Michael Kenney:

Yeah, no, I mean, go for it. We don’t have the. All the dates totally confirmed, but we’re. Yeah, go ahead.

Stephanie:

Well, we’re working on one of the trips. So I have taken people to Spain, I’ve taken people to Croatia, I’ve taken people to Cambodia, Thailand, and now Turkey. And the Croatia trip was really magical and people loved it. And I have a huge fondness for Croatia. Obviously, I’ve been there a lot, and there were a lot of people that wanted to go on that trip that didn’t get the opportunity because it’s a luxury experience. It’s a luxury yacht. It’s small rooms or not small rooms. It’s a small ship with actually, the rooms were quite big for a boat.

And so we had so many people that wanted to do that itinerary again. Michael said, hey, how about we do it again? But I’ll add a couple of new things so that it’s a new experience for you too, Stephanie, because there is. I’ve never been to Zagreb, which seems probably surprising since I’ve been to Croatia so many times and there’s a bunch of these finger lakes. What do they call those? Is it the plastic lakes?

Michael Kenney:

Yeah, the Plaviche Lakes National Park. Yep.

Stephanie:

The national parks in Croatia are legendary. If you. I mean Mijet has one of the most beautiful national parks on it with a monastery in the middle of this lake. So we are going to be taking another small group. It’ll be smallish. I think we had 28 on our last.

Michael Kenney:

Yeah, enough to fill the boat. And the boat only can sleep like 34. So it’s a small experience on that. But yeah, I’m excited to go back to that again. That’s been one of our hot sellers, our Croatia trip. So with the Zagreb and the Blevice lakes and then our seven night cruise, the Croatia trip will be great. So maybe you want to do two trips. Our beautiful Turkey trip in the spring and then come October we’ll have this amazing trip to, to Croatia.

So go out and have experiences and hopefully you want to join us. I think you’ll find great value, great meals just. And great people that to travel with.

Stephanie:

And if you’re listening and you want to explore Michael’s other trips because he takes trips with other people, not just me. And also he just guides trips himself. Just tell him that you’re a friend of Stephanie’s dish so that he knows that you came from my referral. But just like, yeah, if you want to sign up for a Christmas market or you’re interested in heading to the Amalfi coast, traveling with defined destinations is a really great opportunity. They do it extremely well. I have traveled a lot and so I’ve had some good experiences and some not so good experiences. So I know that when you travel with Michael, you’re in good hands. I’m still just missing our guide Peter, who was with us on our last Sicilian trip, who turns out has been your friend for like 25 years.

I just miss him. He’s such a character. I loved him so much.

Michael Kenney:

Yeah. And that’s great. Yeah. Peter’s a good friend of mine for. He’s our Austrian guy, but he’s. He’s got family in, in Italy and does some of our, our Central European trips. But again, like you said it too, it’s, it’s. Again, it’s more than just the sights.

You’re building relationships even if you’re not even looking for that. But it’s fun to recall and all the good people you’ve met and the fun experiences you’ve had along the way. I love what I do, and hopefully it shows in our trips. It’s all about having a great experience with great people, so encourage you. And you’ve been such a great part of the defined destinations family. Thank you, Stephanie.

Stephanie:

I love it.

Michael Kenney:

Looking forward to more.

Stephanie:

If I didn’t, people know I would have kicked you to the curb long ago. And you even have got. You’ve even converted Kurt.

Michael Kenney:

So, I mean, yeah, that’s great. So, yeah, it’s about. About having fun and that’s what we do. And we’d love to have you on, on any of our trips.

Stephanie:

Yeah. All right, you guys. So I’ll put all that information that you need in the links below. We are going to Turkey and I hope you come. That’s all I can say because I’m gonna probably be talking about it non stop because I’m so excited.

Michael Kenney:

That’s great.

Stephanie:

I’m.

Michael Kenney:

I’m looking forward to it. Thanks again, Steph.

Stephanie:

Thanks, Michael. Okay, bye. Bye.

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Thank you to everyone who tuned into my live video on Tuesday night! I had a good time making some of my favorite recipes from the “True North Cabin Cookbook Vol 2” If you missed it you can watch the video above!

I’ll be signing books at these locations if you want to pick up a signed copy

Here are the recipes we made!

Pomegranate Old Fashioned from the “True North Cabin Cookbook Vol 2”

Pomegranate Old Fashioned

Ingredients

* 1 Tbsp Pomegranate seeds

* 2 oz Pomegranate juice

* ¼ teaspoon maple syrup

* 2 ox Bourbon

* 4 dashes orange butters

* Orange slice for garnish

Instructions

* Muddle the pomegranate seeds with the pomegranate juice, maple syrup and orange bitters

* Add bourbon and shake in a cocktail shaker to combine

* Pour over rocks glass with ice and garnish with an orange slice

Roasted Brussels Sprouts:

Ingredients

* 3-4 Cups Brussels Sprouts, cut in half or quarters

* Tbsp olive oil

* Teaspoon kosher salt

* 1/4 cup Fig Jam, or you can substitute Apricot Jam, Orange Marmalade, or other jam

* 1 Tbsp Balsamic Vinegar or Pomegranate Molasses

Instructions

* Toss Brussels Sprouts in olive oil and salt and roast in a 400 degree oven for 30 minutes

* Toss with the jam and the vinegar and roast for another 10 minutes

Instant Pot 5 Minute Risotto

Get the recipe here!

Scallops With Oven-Baked Risotto

Ingredients

For the Risotto

* 1 1/2 cups Arborio Rice

* 4 cups chicken stock

* 1/2 cup diced onion

* 1 large garlic cloves minced

* 3 Tbsp butter diced into 6 chunks

* 1 teaspoon black pepper

* 1 teaspoon salt

* Zest of one lemon

* 3 Tbsp lemon juice

* 1/3 cup Parmesan Cheese

* 1 Tbsp chopped parsley

* 3 Tbsp chopped Dill

For the Scallops

* ½ cup flour

* 1 tsp paprika

* ½ tsp. Lawry’s seasoned salt

* ½ tsp. pepper

* pinch of sugar

* 1/4 cup butter

* 1/4 cup dry white wine

* 4 Tbsp lemon juice

* 16 large Day Boat Scallops patted dry

Instructions

For The Risotto

* Preheat oven to 350

* In a 10-inch oven safe skillet or pot with a lid, add the rice, stock, onion, garlic and butter

* Cover the pot with tin foil and the lid of the pot and bake for 45 minutes

* Remove the pot from the oven and start the broiler preheating for the Scallops

* Add pepper, salt, lemon zest, lemon juice, and 1/3 cup parmesan cheese to the rice pot and vigorously stir for 3 minutes, combining all the ingredients and blending the risotto until creamy. If the mixture seems dry, you can add additional broth or cream a few Tbsp at a time until you get the consistency and creaminess you desire. Cover the pot and let rest until the scallops are done.

* Right before serving and plating, stir fresh herbs into the rice

For The Scallops

* Preheat the broiler

* Mix all dry ingredients in a plastic bag.

* Melt butter in a baking dish under the broiler. Add the wine and lemon juice.

* Toss scallops in dry ingredients – shake until coated.

* Put scallops in a buttered baking dish and spoon a teaspoon of butter over each scallop.

* Broil for 4-6 minutes until no longer opaque and cooked through

* Serve the scallops alongside the risotto with fresh lemon slices and the broiled butter spooned over both the scallops and drizzled over the risotto

Pecan Pie Bars

Get the recipe here

Thanks for cooking along! If you like these recipe please share and like by clicking the heart below.

November 18 5-8 pM Fitgers Duluth

Author Talk and Recipe Tasting collaborative event between The Bookstore at Fitger’s, Duluth Kitchen & The Boat Club.

The Boat Club, 600 E Superior Street, Duluth, MN 55802

Get your ticket

November 19, 6:30-8 PM Knife Sharpening and Book Signing Event Vivront

A fall gathering for home cooks, flavor seekers, and anyone who knows the joy of a sharp knife and a good story.

4948 France Ave S, Edina, MN 55410

Get Tickets

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On the latest episode of “Dishing with Stephanie’s Dish”, I sit down with accomplished book cover designer, art director, and now, celebrated cookbook author, @LauraKlyn The episode is a deliciously detailed look into Laura’s new book, “100 Pie, Tart and Galette Recipes for Every Season” and a behind-the-scenes peek into her world of culinary creativity and design.

From the moment I flipped through the pages, it was clear Laura’s design expertise shines brightly. Laura’s background as a cover designer and art director, paired with hands-on experience working on dozens of cookbooks, comes to life in her visually stunning collection. Each photo in the book tells a story——and is surrounded by thoughtful prop styling, from vintage pie servers to antique dishes discovered at local shops.

A special treat is Laura’s focus on savory pies—think samosa pie or the show-stopping asparagus tart—beautiful options for every season and palate. The attention to technique continues with creative garnishes, like sugared cranberries and candied herbs, adding sparkle to your holiday spreads and beyond.

Laura’s cookbook recommendations are rock solid—even non-pie bakers will find plenty to love between these pages.

Ready to up your pie game? Listen to the full episode for stories, tips, and plenty of seasonal baking inspiration!

Enjoy these two recipes from Laura, one savory and one sweet, to get a taste of her book!

Lemon Meringue Tart

Makes 1 10-inch round tart

I love this twist on lemon meringue pie in tart form. For me, the proportion of crust to lemon is perfect, and it’s even better with Swiss meringue instead of French meringue, which is a traditional pairing with lemon. Swiss meringue is cooked on the stove and doesn’t need to go in the oven. It is softer and creamier, adding a beautiful airy sweetness to counter the tart lemon curd. This bright tart comes out looking lovely and tastes even better.

Press-In Shortbread Tart Dough

Makes 1 10-inch tart crust

I’ve tested a lot of tart crusts over the years, and many of them are so hard, it’s difficult to break off a bite with a fork. This buttery and delicious shortbread crust is delicate enough to easily break apart but strong enough to hold the tart together. Using cake flour is key to getting a nice, cookie-like crumb. This dough is not tough enough to roll out. Press the dough directly into the pan for an easy to pull together, delicious tart base.

Ingredients

¾ cup (169 g) unsalted butter, softened

½ teaspoon fine sea salt

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

⅔ cup (73 g) confectioners’ sugar

2 cups (230 g) cake flour

Instructions

In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, mix butter, salt, vanilla extract, and confectioners’ sugar on medium speed until light and fluffy, about 5 minutes. Add flour and mix just until combined. Press dough directly into a 10-inch tart pan, starting with the sides and finishing with the bottom. Bake the crust according to the tart recipe’s instructions.

Lemon Curd

Ingredients

8 egg yolks

zest of 2 lemons

⅔ cup fresh lemon juice

1 cup (200g) sugar

10 tablespoons (141 g) salted butter

Swiss Meringue

5 egg whites

1¼ cups (250 g) sugar

½ teaspoon cream of tartar

1 teaspoon vanilla bean paste

Instructions

To make the crust: Preheat oven to 350ºF. Press tart dough into a 10-inch tart pan. Generously dock with a fork and bake for 25 to 30 minutes or until lightly browned. While still hot, use a tamper or back of a spoon to lightly press down the center of the crust, leaving a ¾-inch edge.

To make the lemon curd: Whisk together egg yolks, lemon zest, lemon juice, and sugar in a saucepan. Cook over medium-high heat, stirring constantly, until mixture becomes thick and coats the back of the spoon, about 8 to 10 minutes. Use an instant read thermometer to check the temperature; it should reach 170ºF. Transfer to the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Mix on low. Add butter 1 teaspoon at a time, mixing until fully combined before adding the next teaspoon of butter. Strain through a sieve into a medium bowl. Pour while still warm into the tart shell. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 2 to 3 hours.

To make the Swiss meringue: Whisk together egg whites and sugar in the top pan of a double boiler until completely incorporated (see note below). Cook, whisking continuously, for about 5 to 6 minutes or until mixture reaches 170ºF. Pour into the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment. Add cream of tartar. Beat on high for about 2 minutes. Add vanilla extract and continue to beat on high until stiff peaks form. Scoop or pipe onto lemon curd. Toast meringue with a kitchen torch or under the oven broiler. Keep a close watch on meringue while toasting to avoid burning. Remove sides of tart pan and serve.

Episode Transcript Follows:

Stephanie Hansen:

Welcome to Dishing with Stephanie's Dish, the podcast where we talk to people in the food space and a lot of cookbook authors. And this book came across my desk by Laura Klynstra And right away I was like, pie! Laura, your book, “100 Pie, Tart and Galette Recipes for Every Season” is extremely beautiful. And, and I, it kind of, when I read through the whole book and I read through your bio, I was like, oh, well, she's like in the design field because honestly, this is probably one of the most beautiful books on pie I've ever seen.

Laura Klynstra:

Oh, thank you. Thank you so much.

Stephanie Hansen:

It's so incredible, like just the way that the pies are decorated, the color choices that you used for the intros, everything is laid out so it feels easy, accessible. And even like the whole rolling out the pie dough section, there's tons of pictures, the decorating of the lattice work, It's a really well done book. Congratulations.

Laura Klynstra:

Oh, thank you so much.

Stephanie Hansen:

What's your background and how did you come to be the pie aficionado?

Laura Klynstra:

My background is actually cover design. I'm a book cover designer and art director. But I also, during all the time that I've been an art director, I've also worked on a lot of cookbooks. So I gotten to go on a lot of photo shoots, work with food stylists and photographers. And during that whole time I learned, I just kind of sat back and watched and learned all the bits and it took time. I'm a self taught photographer. It took me a long time to really figure out how to capture light correctly. And light is really the key to getting a good photo.

Laura Klynstra:

So yeah, it was a lot of trial and error, but eventually I figured out a system to get my camera mounted correctly. I shoot manually and get that light, but I also, I consider every photo similar to what the way I look at a cover design. It's not just here's your pie or whatever it is you're shooting. There's a lot of things going on around it. And so it's telling a story. The photograph is telling a story. It's giving you a sense of the time. Especially like the fall ones are a lot of fun to shoot.

Laura Klynstra:

So many great things to props that you can put in with the photos for the fall shots. And it's just, it's a lot of fun.

Stephanie Hansen:

Did you amass a large library of props and did you have things already or were you always on the lookout?

Laura Klynstra:

This is my third book, so I had a lot of props already. I have like all these Storage shelves downstairs have the weirdest things. You know, I go to antique stores and I'm always looking for old boxes and just everything. Pretty much everything that could possibly have anything to do with baking. If I go to an antique store, I'm always like, I need that. Especially pie servers. Old, old silverware.

Stephanie Hansen:

Yes.

Laura Klynstra:

I hate, I hate photographing with a shiny silver, you know, piece of silver or a new one that it never, you know, for one thing, you can end up reflecting your camera in that. So these old patina silverware and things like that are just fabulous to have. Like, you just gotta have a ton of those in your.

Stephanie Hansen:

In your Agreed, agree. Thus my sort of background of stuff from my cookbook styling myself in. Can we talk about pie crust? Do you have, like, what you would say is your definitive pie crust that you mostly use.

Laura Klynstra:

For sweet pies? There's a recipe in there called a maple pie crust, and that's actually my favorite crust to use. It's very similar to a regular crust, except for a lot of the liquid is made with a pure maple syrup. And when you roll that crust out, that syrup gives it like a pliability that just. It doesn't crack the way sometimes you can get with the regular all butter pie crust. And it's just so easy. And so it's just supple. It's, it's. It's my favorite one.

Laura Klynstra:

But again, I'd only use it for sweets. Even though you don't really taste the maple, it's like, you know how when you add maple to something, it doesn't have a strong flavor, as strong as what you would expect it to be, but it' if you're beginning. That would be my press recommendation for somebody who's just beginning because it does make a really easy to roll out.

Stephanie Hansen:

I love this because I use vodka in my pie crust to kind of do the same thing. It gives you that moisture when you're putting the assembly together and the roll, but then it bakes out in the final product, so you get kind of a crispier situation. Maple. I've never thought of that. I wonder, have you ever tried honey? Would it do the same thing?

Laura Klynstra:

I haven't tried it. I would expect it would. And it would just add a little bit of sweetness. The other thing is buttermilk. You can add a little buttermilk that I don't know if you've ever made pie dough, and then put it in your refrigerator and left it in there for two days and it started to turn kind of like a gray Color, Yes. When you add some acid from the buttermilk keeps it from doing that. I'm not sure. I can't.

I don't know what the science is behind that, but a little. A little. I think the vodka might, too. I'm not sure. I.

Stephanie Hansen:

That's a great.

Laura Klynstra:

Yeah.

Stephanie Hansen:

I know what you're talking about, and I'm trying to think if I've noticed it with or without vodka. And I can't say. Truthfully, I have, but, like, a lot of times for Christmas or Thanksgiving or any of the. The special holidays, you're making your crust in advance because you've got so much to do, so. So that's a really great tip. I love it.

Laura Klynstra:

Yep. Yep. And you can also freeze pie dough. So you can make. If you're having Thanksgiving and you're. You're. You can do it a week ahead, just wrap each one individually and then put it inside a freezer as a black bag and then throw it in the freezer. And that way you're just.

You've got something that's totally done, even a week in advance.

Stephanie Hansen:

One thing that I really liked about this book, too, was you took pie into not just sweet places, but also savory. So there's a lot of galette and, like, savory forward dishes, like a potato bacon, gruyere galette. You've got quiche. Do you eat a lot of savory pies? Because that's actually kind of one of my favorite ways to do it. This samosa pie looks amazing.

Laura Klynstra:

The samosa pie is so popular at my house. So popular. We love that one. So, yeah, we do eat that one quite a bit. The quiches, we do a lot. Some of the other ones, not as often, but, like, the. The asparagus one is kind of just more of something that I would bring to a party.

Stephanie Hansen:

Yeah. Spring or Easter.

Yeah. You know, like, that first time when you. Asparagus is one of the first things that comes out. And in this. In the spring. And so you're just, like, dying to get something fresh. We talked. before I started the podcast that. She's in Michigan, I'm in Minnesota. And literally, like, when you see anything green at the store. And we always jump the gun. Right. Because.

Get produce from the coast before we get our own, but there's nothing better than, like, your own homemade asparagus.

Laura Klynstra:

Yes. And the rhubarb is the other thing that comes up the soonest. And again, I love rhubarb. It's.

Stephanie Hansen:

So do I think that's My next book, actually.

Laura Klynstra:

The whole rhubarb book.

Stephanie Hansen:

Yes, because I just. I'm obsessed with it, and I have, like, 60 recipes, so I'm like, you know, I'm. I'm about way there.

Laura Klynstra:

What kinds of recipes are they? Like cakes and.

Stephanie Hansen:

Yeah. Yes. Like bars and cakes and pies and custards, but also chutneys and pork dishes and breads, cookies.

Laura Klynstra:

That's a fabulous idea. I'm on board with that one.

Stephanie Hansen:

I think I might have to, like, submit that as my next proposal. We'll see. Another thing that happened this year about pies, I guess it was maybe last year, but it created quite a kerfuffle, and you address it in this book, is the loss of the chocolate wafer cookie. The company that makes the chocolate wafer cookie, I believe it was Nabisco, stopped making that chocolate wafer cookie. And it was the base for a lot of people's, like, mud pies or chocolate pie crust or the press in crusts or the cookie crusts. And people were really freaked out, and people were, you know, we need a recipe to make this cookie. So in here, you have your own chocolate cookie recipe.

Laura Klynstra:

Yeah. Yep. It's got the black cocoa in it. Like, it's actually like an Oreo, but without the. And if you do end up using Oreos, do take out that middle part. I always scrape out the. If you don't, you're gonna end up with kind of like a too much butter and it's not gonna work. But, yeah, you can make your own so that you're not adding all these preservatives and yucky things into your pies, but sometimes people don't have time.

I mean, I totally understand that you can't always.

Stephanie Hansen:

And I guess maybe depending on your audience too, like, if you're making something for a kid's birthday party, maybe that will be fine. Not that we feed our kids less delicious things than we feed ourselves, but come on, we kind of do times. I do love to. There's a lot of detail in this book about garnishes and sauces. And the white chocolate cranberry tart is just a beautiful photograph, but it also has these sugared cranberries. Tell me about those. And. And obviously, putting them on a tart is delightful, but what else could we do with those? Because those were just gorgeous.

Laura Klynstra:

I've used them on cakes. And just even, like, even if you're doing a spread, like a holiday spread, they look beautiful in a little bowl. And that same method, the method to make Those is you create a simple syrup and then you dunk the cranberries in the simple syrup and then you let it dry and they become really sticky. And then you roll them in sugar so they look really beautiful. But you can do that same process with mint leaves, rose petals, rosemary. And it's just a beautiful garnish, especially in the winter, because it has that sparkle to it. It just makes it look more special than if you were just going to, you know, lay a sprig of rosemary next to something.

Stephanie Hansen:

When you started making pies, do you remember how old you were? And what is it about pies that captured your imagination?

Laura Klynstra:

Well, I really like the handmade nature of it. The fact that, I mean, before I made pies, I was a cookie baker. Cookies were my. Because that's the easiest thing when you're a little. When you're a kid. And I baked since I was basically able to. My mom was a wedding cake baker, so we had all the supplies and all.

Stephanie Hansen:

Wow.

Laura Klynstra:

All the inspiration was there, but I didn't start making. And my mom, she always, she loved pie too, but she always used the pie crust from the box, which I kind of hate, but same, same. She just didn't like rolling out dough. So she just, she just used the, the rolled. The rolled up version. But you can buy better versions than the red box. There are.

Stephanie Hansen:

Joe's is surprisingly good.

Laura Klynstra:

I think that, yeah, Whole Foods has one too. That's butter instead of like the other weird oils that are in the. The other one. But I think maybe all of my love of like rolling out cookies and then you kind of turn that into rolling out dough. I learned it was a learning curve. I don't think that we just all naturally can know how to make a pie crust and how to roll it out. And you have to practice a little bit. But the lovely part of, of a pie versus a cake or a cookie is that there's just more of your hands involved.

Laura Klynstra:

And because I make so many things electronically and digitally, because I'm a book cover designer. So to have to be able to make something physically with your hands is both relaxing and satisfying. And I think it makes like a more special finished product. It makes a great gift or something to share with people, to bring to the office or a party or a potluck, and it just feels like it. A pie has a slightly more personal touch to it than maybe a cookie does or a bar. Even though I love cooking bars, don't get me wrong.

Stephanie Hansen:

Yes. Tell me about your other books.

Laura Klynstra:

So this is The Homemade Pie Cookbook is the first book I've written by myself. My book just before this one was called “Gather & Graze” and I wrote with my former colleague who is also an art director. She, she does the, she works at HarperCollins. Sure. Mumtaz Mustafa @spiceandsugartable and I have it right here. This is “Gather & Graze”

Stephanie Hansen:

That's beautiful.

Laura Klynstra:

So this is more of like a party table spread book. So Mumtaz is brilliant with savory food and I'm more, more of a baker. She's from Pakistan, so she's got this really broad sense of spice and she's just brilliant with the savory. So we split this book up by anything that was baked in the oven I've made and then pretty much anything that was cooked on stove she made. And it's divided by country. So it's a really fun international style party book.

Stephanie Hansen:

I love that. I'm glad you brought it to my attention. I'll for sure put that in the notes.

Laura Klynstra:

Yeah, it's a, it's a, it's quite fat. It's, it's a, it's, it's, there's over like 170 recipes in it. It's not a, not a lightweight book. And then the book before that I wrote with my mother. Oh, look at that cute “Christmas Baking”. And this one is it, it does well every, every holiday season. And it's kind of, it's been out for I think five years. And so it's kind of a perennial, hopefully at this point.

Laura Klynstra:

And it's just, you know, all my favorite. But Christmas baked goods. There's a, there's a breakfast chapter in there for Christmas morning.

Stephanie Hansen:

Holiday high points. What's next?

Laura Klynstra:

I got my way. And who knows if I will. I would like to do a fall baking book.

Stephanie Hansen:

What would that look like? I'm thinking apple. You have quite a, like pumpkin chapter in here.

Laura Klynstra:

Yeah. Yep. They would have all of those, those, those cozy. It would just be all the cozy, cozy recipes. And I just love the styling of fall too. Fall is one of my favorite seasons. So. Yeah, that would be, that would be super fun.

Laura Klynstra:

But I also have another idea for, called like, I want to call it Paradise Baking or Baking paradise, which would be all tropical recipes.

Stephanie Hansen:

That's a great idea. And that's not something we've seen before.

Laura Klynstra:

I don't, I haven't seen it. No. I have a second home in Guatemala so I could do a lot of the photography there, which would be fun. Yeah. The first few recipes in the Homemade Pie Cookbook were Shot in Guatemala. The line Mango and the hummingbird pie. So I got all of those props while I was down there.

Stephanie Hansen:

Yeah. In the. And beautiful colors. You also dedicate, like a whole spread to apples for pie. And we just talked about this on our TV show that I'm on. And Honeycrisp is obviously an apple I use a lot because it's Minnesota. Granny Smith is an apple that I think works really well for pies. Do you mix your types of apples? Apples when you're making apple pie?

Laura Klynstra:

Sometimes I do. The Pink lady is actually one of my favorite ones now that I've been, you know, baking so many apple pies. It's got, like, a tartness to it. But yeah, there you can mix them for sure. Just don't ever use them. Macintosh.

Stephanie Hansen:

Yeah. Or like the Red Delicious, which is now. Oh, yeah, that's the worst selling apple.

Laura Klynstra:

They aren't very delicious.

Stephanie Hansen:

They're not. And it's kind of funny that, like, that was like our lunchbox apple for basically our whole lives. Like, why did we have to eat such terrible apples? I'm so glad they've gotten better.

Laura Klynstra:

Yes. There's some. I mean, pretty much every variety is better.

Stephanie Hansen:

Yes, Pretty much. When you make a galette or a tart, let's just say savory, do you adjust that dough at all or do you use your same basic pie dough?

Laura Klynstra:

I use the same. Well, the. The tart is a totally different dough, but the galette is the same pie dough as the regular pies.

Stephanie Hansen:

And just.

Laura Klynstra:

You could use them. Yeah, you could use the maple pie. You could make the maple crust for a galette as well. If you. If it's a sweet, I wouldn't put it on a savory.

Stephanie Hansen:

When would you ever make, like. I love the idea of slab pies because I think they're kind of cool looking, but they seem like they're just not great. Like, I don't know who's gonna get the middle piece. And then it's just always, like, so messy and kind of falls apart. I love the idea of like, everyone getting a little bit of crust on the edge and then having their perfect little triangle. Do you serve slab pies a lot? And am I missing the boat here?

Laura Klynstra:

Oh, not a lot, but I would bring them to more of like a potluck or something. The same thing that I would bring bars to. Although you. You really can't pick it up and eat it.

Stephanie Hansen:

Yeah.

Laura Klynstra:

Because it's going to be kind of a more gooey center than A. Than a. And then a bar. But it's just. It's. You get a little bit more. It's going to go farther than a. Than a pie.

Laura Klynstra:

So if you just want to bring one thing and it needs to cover more people, I would bring a slab pie for that. Like a. Like a potluck summer potluck.

Stephanie Hansen:

People always ask me what my favorite recipe is in my book, and I always have the dumbest answers. So if I ask you what's your favorite recipe in your book, do you, like, have a answer that you're set on?

Laura Klynstra:

Well, the lemon meringue tart on the COVID is one of my favorite recipes in the book, and I've never been a big lemon meringue pie person, and I don't know why. It's. This is a. Has a Swiss meringue, and it's a little bit different than the lemon meringue pies that, you know, we all grew up eating. And I also feel like lemon meringue pie has too much lemon to, like, the crust is too little to the lemon. Like, the ratio.

Stephanie Hansen:

The big, like, meringue.

Laura Klynstra:

Yeah. Yeah. So this, I feel like, is the perfect ratio of meringue to lemon to crust. It's got a thick shortbread crust on it. So it's. It's actually kind of reminiscent of those lemon bars. And you're from the Midwest, so you probably had those lemon bars that everybody likes to crust. Yep.

Laura Klynstra:

It's. It's kind of like an elevated version of one of those lemon bars.

Stephanie Hansen:

Okay. I'm going to have to try it, because I always make something with lemon for Easter. It's sort of just something I do for the big Easter brunch. So maybe I'll use this as my recipe this year.

Laura Klynstra:

Yeah.

Stephanie Hansen:

How long does it take you to work on a book?

Laura Klynstra:

Well, I mean, it's hard to give a full, like, because there's a lot of time thinking about it and planning. Like, my first step to doing a book is to. Is writing the table of contents.

Laura Klynstra:

Is that what you do, too?

Stephanie Hansen:

Yes.

Laura Klynstra:

Yeah, I do it.

Stephanie Hansen:

So spreadsheet of all the recipes I think I want, then I sort of, like, try to organize them in some way, and then I start, like, thinking about the narrative and where I'm going to.

Laura Klynstra:

Right.

Stephanie Hansen:

I'm going to start.

Laura Klynstra:

Right. And so there's, like, this long, like, thinking period that you're not. It's just. I don't know. So it's. It's hard to put a time on how long it takes, but Once the. Once everything is set and I've gotten a few shots done and a few recipes tested, I can. I can do a book in a year and a half or a year if I'm really focused on it.

Laura Klynstra:

But I'm also doing all the photography and the design. So it's. It's a pretty intense process.

Stephanie Hansen:

Yeah. Because I just submit my photographs and my word docs and, you know, the designer makes it look pretty, and, gosh, you have to do the whole thing. That is harder.

Laura Klynstra:

And I don't have to, but, you know, you've done this much, and I am a designer. It's kind of hard to hand the design off somebody else when you're. That's like what I do. So.

Stephanie Hansen:

Yeah, of course, when you think about other books that. Cookbooks that you love, whether from a design feature or from just like that, you go back to them and use them a lot. Give me, like, a couple of your favorites.

Laura Klynstra:

The Martha Stewart's Baking Handbook. I don't know if you have that. It's got an orange spine. It's kind of like a go to, like, oh, I want to make banana bread. It's just so reliable. So that one is always in my kitchen. I also really like the Bake From Scratch series. Have you seen those? Big.

Laura Klynstra:

They're really huge. I think they're. They're not written all by the same person. I think there's an editor that collects recipes. It's based on the magazine, I believe. But the thing I love about those is there's so many recipes in those books. They're just loaded with recipes, and then you can just kind of page through and get all kinds of inspiration and ideas. So I love those.

Laura Klynstra:

I'm a big fan of Erin Jean McDowell, who is also a pie person. I like watching her on, like, her videos and stuff.

Stephanie Hansen:

Do you watch a lot of people, like, on YouTube?

Laura Klynstra:

Not a lot, no. I mean, mostly on Instagram. I'm. I'm watching, you know, the quicker reels that come through. And, yeah, one of the. One of the things that made me so inspired to want to do the fall thing is, is when you. When the fall baking stuff starts coming out on Instagram and all these beautiful baked goods and this. This wonderful mood of cozy comes through, it's like, people are.

Laura Klynstra:

Creators are just amazing at how they. They put this mood out there, and I just. I love it.

Stephanie Hansen:

Yeah, it's pretty. Pretty delightful. I was just gonna think of another question I had for you, but it totally just fell out of my brain right As I thought about it, do you, have you ever had the chance to meet like any other bakers in any of your cookbook travels?

Laura Klynstra:

Specifically bakers. It seems like most of the books I've worked on have been more chef related. Like cooks like Melissa Clark. I worked on some of her cookbooks. I did the photography for Bri McCoy. She. I don't know if you've seen her book. It's called the Cook's Book.

Laura Klynstra:

Yep, I did her photography for that book, so I've that kind of stuff, but I haven't done any specifically for bakers.

Stephanie Hansen:

So if in your, in your work life, do you like, like when someone gives you a recipe and you're like the person that photographs it and does the final like, is that an appealing piece of work for you?

Laura Klynstra:

Oh yeah. I love to do that too. Yeah. Yeah. Actually got a couple of them in the works right now that are coming down the pipeline.

Stephanie Hansen:

There's a lot of creators that do that and I didn't realize that, but that they, they maybe have a favorite recipe or they have recipes but they don't have the time or they don't want to be the one who puts it together for the book. So they hire all that out. Do you get any jobs like that that are one offs or do you mostly just do like a whole project?

Laura Klynstra:

Mostly a whole project.

Stephanie Hansen:

Yeah. It's, it's interesting. There's a lot of people out there that will cook your stuff if you find the right person. And I didn't realize that that was such a robust business, but apparently it is. Do you keep like a food blog yourself or is it mostly just the book?

Laura Klynstra:

Mostly I'm mostly in the book. But we have, I have. My friend who wrote Gathering Grace with me have a. We. We have an Instagram that's called Spice and Sugar. Oh, she's the spice and sugar table. Because spicy sugar was taken and she's the spice and I'm the sugar. Of course that's sweet.

Stephanie Hansen:

And you guys share it. So you just post when you're inspired?

Laura Klynstra:

Yeah, yeah. And we don't. We, we haven't posted.

Stephanie Hansen:

Yeah. Sometimes like what sounds good and feels good just falls away, right? It's no reason or rhyme. Just all of a sudden you're like not as interested in that anymore.

Laura Klynstra:

Well, I think we're, and we're so, both of us are so focused in the book world and our career. Careers are very busy. So it's like I feel, I feel like to really maintain one of those robust social media sites you have to be pretty much focused on it.

Stephanie Hansen:

Yeah. Some people post, like, on Facebook, like, 12 times a day. I don't know. They manage it all. But do you watch any baking shows? Like, are you a great British Bake off aficionado or.

Laura Klynstra:

I don't. I watch almost no tv.

Stephanie Hansen:

Okay, So I love that. And you have chickens too, right?

Laura Klynstra:

And I have chickens and duck.

Stephanie Hansen:

Okay. And do you eat the duck eggs and the chicken eggs?

Laura Klynstra:

Obviously, yeah. Usually the duck eggs I use in baking. I don't. You know, it has a slightly different flavor, and if you're not used to it, it's kind of like. It feels a little weird. But they're. They're actually have a higher fat content in a duck egg, and they're really great for baking, especially for cakes and.

Stephanie Hansen:

Oh, I love that. I don't think I ever thought about duck eggs in context of baking. That's so neat.

Laura Klynstra:

They're a little larger, so you might. Sometimes you have to be a little, like, careful because.

Stephanie Hansen:

Yeah.

Laura Klynstra:

You know, they might end up being too much egg in here, depending on how many eggs are in the. Like, if there's four eggs, you would probably only put three.

Stephanie Hansen:

Yeah, you can kind of see it, too, when you have the egg, like, the size. All right. The book is the Homemade pie Cookbook. It's 100 pie, tart, and galette recipes for every season. Like I said, it's beautiful. But even if you're, like, not thinking you're a pie person, I really think people would like this book because there's ice cream pies, there is icebox pies. Again, there's a lot of savory. There's tarts, there's little.

Stephanie Hansen:

There's some cookies in here, some sauces. There's just a lot of different things. When I started to go through the book, I was pleasantly surprised that there's a lot to offer here. There's whoopie pies. Your whoopie pie recipe looked great. Yeah. Everybody loves a good whoopee pie, don't they?

Laura Klynstra:

Yeah. I thought I might be stretching it a little bit with that one, but I'm like, it's called pie, so it's a pie.

Stephanie Hansen:

That's right. It's Laura Kleinstra, The Homemade Pie Cookbook. Thanks for being with me today, Laura.

Laura Klynstra:

Thank you so much for having me.

Stephanie Hansen:

Yeah, for sure. And when you get your. When you get your next book ready, give me a call anytime. I love talking to you.

Laura Klynstra:

Okay, great.

Stephanie Hansen:

Okay. All right. Bye. Bye.

Laura Klynstra:

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

Welcome to "Dishing with Stephanie’s Dish." In this episode, Stephanie sits down with Emily Maxson—two time cookbook author, chef, and the creative mind behind @EmilysFreshKitchen. Emily shares her personal health journey, navigating Crohn’s disease through diet and lifestyle changes, and how that experience fueled her passion for approachable, healthy, and delicious recipes for everyone. Her New Book, “Real Food Every Day” (ships October 21) is a follow up to “Emilys Fresh Kitchen.”

With real talk about creating cookbooks, food photography, adapting to dietary needs, and the ups and downs of life as a food creator, this episode is for home cooks, entertainers, and anyone curious about the connections between food, health, and community.

Stephanie’s Dish Newsletter is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Emily mentioned two influential books in the Podcast from her food journey:

"Breaking the Vicious Cycle" by Elaine Gottschall

"Against All Grain" by Danielle Walker

Emily shared her recipe for Roasted Carrot and Miso Butter Soup from the “Real Food Every Day” cookbook that is available now for pre-order.

Roasted Carrot and Miso Butter Soup

Gluten-Free, Grain-Free (Adaptable for Dairy-Free and Vegan)

PREP 10 minutes COOK 60 minutes TOTAL 70 minutes SERVES 6

Roasted Carrot and Miso Butter Soup is one of my favorite soups to make in the winter. It warms you up and is very satisfying. The recipe calls for simple ingredients that produce layers of flavor. The Miso butter adds another depth of flavor and is worth the extra step, but the soup is still delicious without it.

To adapt for dairy-free and vegan, use miso butter made with vegan butter.

INGREDIENTS:

* 2 pounds carrots

* 4 Tablespoons olive oil, divided

* 2 cups diced yellow onion

* 2 Tablespoons minced garlic

* 2 Tablespoons grated ginger

* 2 teaspoons sea salt

* 1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper

* 7-8 cups vegetable broth

* 2 Tablespoons fresh lime juice

* 2 Tablespoons Miso Butter

DIRECTIONS:

1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

2. Scrub the carrots and cut them into large chunks, removing the tops.

3. Place the carrots on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper.

4. Coat the carrot pieces in 1 Tablespoon of olive oil.

5. Roast the carrots for 45-60 minutes or until tender.

6. Meanwhile, heat 3 Tablespoons of olive oil in a large pot over medium-high heat.

7. Add the onions and cook until they are translucent, about 10 minutes.

8. Add the garlic, ginger, salt and cayenne pepper and sauté for an additional 3 minutes.

9. Add the roasted carrots and 7 cups of broth.

10. Cook for an additional 2 minutes.

11. Remove from heat and ladle into a blender.

12. Blend the soup until smooth.

13. Wipe out the pot and pour in the blended soup.

14. Return the soup to the stove over medium heat, adding additional stock to achieve desired consistency.

15. Whisk in the lime juice and miso butter.

16. Adjust seasoning if needed and serve.

17. Top with additional miso butter if desired.

Miso Butter

Gluten-Free, Grain-Free (Adaptable for Dairy-Free and Vegan)

PREP 5 minutes COOK 0 minutes TOTAL 5 minutes MAKES about 1/2 cup

Miso Butter is made with only two ingredients:butter and miso paste. This compound butter is so versatile. You can add it to fish, chicken, steak, vegetables and potatoes. I add it to my roasted carrot soup on page_ and it adds another depth of flavor. Miso Butter is one of my favorite condiments to keep on hand.

To adapt for dairy-free or vegan, use vegan butter.

INGREDIENTS:

* 8 Tablespoons butter, softened

* 3 Tablespoons white miso paste

Instructions:

Place the softened butter and miso paste in a small bowl.

Using a hand blender or fork, cream the butter and miso paste together until smooth.

Store covered in the refrigerator for up to 2 weeks.

Transcript Episode Follows:

Stephanie [00:00:00]:

Hello, everybody, and welcome to Dishing with Stephanie's Dish, the podcast where we talk to people in the food space. And today I'm talking with another Minnesota favorite, Emily Maxson. She is the author of Emily's Fresh Kitchen. And you have a second book coming out that is Emily's real food every day, similar to Emily's Fresh Kitchen, but more goodness, more healthy for you recipes. Emily Maxson, welcome to the show.

Emily Maxson [00:00:31]:

Thank you, Stephanie. Thanks so much for having me.

Stephanie [00:00:34]:

So when we first started talking, you had your first book, and you and I were on a similar publishing schedule. And that book, your book did super well, I think, of self published cookbooks because you worked with publisher, my friend Chris Olsen. I think that you sold, like, way more than a lot of cookbook authors do.

Emily Maxson [00:00:57]:

I did sell quite a few, and I'm very grateful for that. I had built a pretty good online community, and I think a lot of people resonated with my health story of healing through diet from Crohn's. So I think that helped with sales.

Stephanie [00:01:13]:

I think too, the thing about your book that I loved so much was you get a lot of diet books or health books that come across the way in the business that I'm in. But yours felt very much like a real cookbook, like real food, real approachable, a way that you could heal your gut and the way that you could eat healthier, but also with, like, regular foods, not with, like weird supplements. And also the recipes were just delicious. Like you could feed them to your whole family, not just be making separate things for yourself. Does that make sense?

Emily Maxson [00:01:53]:

Yeah. Well, yes. Thank you. That is a huge compliment because that is my goal with both books. Just to make healthier food that's very approachable, very easy, and just to taste good and that you don't know you're eating something that is gluten free or dairy free, and it tastes the same as a traditional version of that recipe.

Stephanie [00:02:13]:

So can you talk a little bit about your health, about your health journey, how book one started, and then obviously you had more to say with book two.

Emily Maxson [00:02:23]:

Yeah. So my health journey, I was in my late 20s and I was diagnosed with Crohn's disease through severe abdominal pain. Had thought they thought I had appendicitis. Was rushed into the hospital for surgery. They found out I had diseased intestines and removed part of my small and large intestine. Diagnosed with Crohn's disease. So I spent about 10 years in and out of the hospital on lots of different medications. And then I approached it differently through diet and lifestyle changes.

Emily Maxson [00:02:57]:

And learned about a diet called the specific carbohydrate diet. And that is a diet where you eliminate you, you eliminate disaccharides and polysaccharides. It gets to the chemical structure of food. So basically you can only have monosaccharid because they're the easiest to absorb in your intestines. So meat, fish, nuts, seeds, vegetables, fruit. No starches, no grains, no lactose. The only sugar I could have was honey or fruit. So I followed that.

Emily Maxson [00:03:32]:

The theory is if you follow that for one to two years, you can reset your gut. And that's what I did. And fortunately for me, I was able to totally reset it after 18 months of following really strict program. And then now I can eat things that weren't allowed then. Like I can go out and have pizza. And it's not, it doesn't upset me and, but I mostly try to cook the similarly to the way I was on that diet at home so that I can enjoy things in restaurants and have treats and things like that.

Stephanie [00:04:07]:

And so that someone could use your book to follow to try and heal their own guts, as it were.

Emily Maxson [00:04:13]:

Absolutely. I have a lot of recipes that follow that diet and they're all labeled if it's specific carbohydrate, if it's vegan, if it's grain free or paleo. And I also recommend the book if somebody wants to try to do that. The Specific Carbohydrate Diet by Elaine Gottschel. That is the book that got me started and she outlines everything.

Stephanie [00:04:36]:

Okay, I'll make sure to include that link in the show notes. One other way I think that your book has been helpful for me is when I'm entertaining and I have someone that's coming with a certain dietary restriction. It just, I don't know when more dietary restrictions became on my radar or in the zeitgeist. But you know, I've been entertaining a long time and now it's customary to ask people like do you have any dietary restrictions? And when you ask, people always do. And if I'm stumped or I don't know, like, oh, what can I do here? Like one time I had a cocktail party that I was having and we had a gluten free, a dairy free, a vegan, someone that was allergic to nuts. Like it was really a long exhausted list where I was like, oh my gosh, what's left to cook?

Emily Maxson [00:05:32]:

Yes, I can relate to that. It is it all. It seems like in every family or every friend group there's one or two people with dietary restrictions. And I don't know if it's just that we know more today or our food has changed or what. What it is, but that's definitely very common. So it is helpful to have something at your fingertips to look through and find something that would hopefully fit all those.

Stephanie [00:05:59]:

I think it's a combination almost of both. Like, we do know more about our food, and that's great. But also, you know, since the 70s, they've been putting a lot more processed food chemicals into our food. There's no, you know, it doesn't take a rocket scientist, I don't think, to like, correlate the rise of obesity and the rise of the packaged food industry and what people have been putting in our foods. And now you can see with Ozempic, you know, that 7 to 10% of the population are on GLP1 medications. And we're seeing that the packaged food industry is having to change again. And. And obviously recessionary thoughts, tariff pricing.

Stephanie [00:06:42]:

We're seeing product sizes shrink, too. It's interesting that I'm just. I've. I do a lot of work and hear a lot about restaurant culture because of the radio show that I do. And there's now like a whole subset of restaurants that are making like, mini versions of things so that people that are on medications and not eating as much can still enjoy coming to their restaurant and have something for them. It's so crazy how food becomes so fashionable and trendy.

Emily Maxson [00:07:11]:

I know that. I agree with you and I agree with the processed food and that impacting our health. And that's part of my second book, Real Food Every Day, where I talk about the difference between processed and unprocessed food. And, you know, it's great the. The things that we can do today, the. But we also are hurting a lot of our food, stripping it of nutrients and adding chemicals that are causing damage to our health, our microbiome and things.

Stephanie [00:07:43]:

I think too, one thing about your book that I really enjoyed and I'm a huge fan. Can you tell it also isn't hard, like, if you're not. I think sometimes if you're not a cook or you don't cook a lot, you feel like certain books are intimidating. Your book is very approachable, and that is something that was important to me with mine. Like, I'm not a fussy cook. I'm not a fancy cook. Your book feels really like I can make all the recipes in it. And it's not like weekend project cooking, which has its place you know, sometimes it's fun to do a recipe that takes two or three days and you're gonna have a special event, but for the most part when you're eating, you just like want something.

Stephanie [00:08:25]:

And the reason I think that people eat poorly is a lot of times due to convenience and just speed of our lives.

Emily Maxson [00:08:32]:

I agree. And that's why the majority of the recipes are very simple. Simple ingredients, easy to prepare. I joke that because I did go to culinary school, I am a chef, but I say I'm a chef turned home cook. I keep it nice and simple, focus on whole foods, real ingredients, and doesn't have to be complicated to make good.

Stephanie [00:08:54]:

Your food in the book is so beautiful. And you have a really close relationship with the person who photographs your books. And I'm assuming she's doing a lot of your edit, editing, video work too. Do you want to talk about Baylin a little bit?

Emily Maxson [00:09:08]:

Yes. Balin Fleming B Photography. She is phenomenal. I've worked with her for seven plus years now. She's just one of the most talented creatives I know. She takes all the beautiful photographs in both of the books. And when we've worked together, we have so much fun. She's great to collaborate with.

Emily Maxson [00:09:32]:

She has lots of great ideas and how to style the food. She always loves to hear the story behind the food and that just helps set the stage. Stage. We. I'm very grateful. It's been such a blessing in my life to have that relationship with her because as you know, Stephanie, writing your books, when you write a book, it's a very, it's a very lonely solo mission, other than maybe your husband's, your taste tester or your kids, but otherwise, you know, you're not working with a lot of other people on it. So to have a photographer who I have a close relationship with, who's really talented is great because I can bounce my ideas off of her and it doesn't feel so like such an isolating project.

Stephanie [00:10:14]:

You. I think that's a really good point. And I think that a lot of my extroverted activities, like I always look super busy and I always look like I'm doing a million things. And of course I am, but so is everybody else. Right? The, the actual process of making food and creating recipes and writing a substack and posting beautiful pictures, like, it's all very solitary and it is kind of lonely. And when you kind of do the entertaining piece, it feels like, oh, it's so nice to share that because a lot of times you're Just running from house to house trying to give them food to get it out of your kitchen.

Emily Maxson [00:10:55]:

Yes, yes, definitely. I agree.

Stephanie [00:10:58]:

When you think about this career, because it's a later in life career for you. Later in life career for me. Are you glad you landed on it? Has it been joyful?

Emily Maxson [00:11:09]:

Yes, definitely, it has been joyful. I, yes, I have really enjoyed it. There have been hard times, writer's block, lack of creativity, but it always comes again and I'm really enjoying it. It's so fun to have this new thing later in life because I think when you're younger, you think, these are the years I've got to get it all in and think of, you know, for me, I'm 55. That's old. Well, you know, it isn't. I don't feel old. And there's still so much more to do.

Stephanie [00:11:41]:

Yeah. What has been the thing you hate the most about this journey?

Emily Maxson [00:11:46]:

Oh, that's a great question. I think sometimes I have a hard time with the writing of the non recipe content or like, how to put. Put my thoughts into words. I have this information that I really want to share with and it's finding the right words to say it.

Stephanie [00:12:08]:

And it is like, if you think about a cookbook, the way that I think the best cookbooks work is there's a narrative, there's a through line. So if your through line is this health journey and starts with health, then, you know, how do you make that not boring? How do you turn that into a story? How do you make that feel personal to you but yet relatable to someone else? And then like, sometimes, let's just be honest, I'm staring at a recipe, I've made the recipe, I like the recipe, I like the pictures. It's all coming together. And then I have to write like a head note. Like, how many times can you say, you know, grandma's sugar cookies are the best sugar cookies in the world, made with real butter. And like, I just don't even have the words to get you excited about this thing. And then you have to still come up with it and then a story to go with it. And it can be just challenging to find the words.

Emily Maxson [00:13:04]:

I, I agree. That is my biggest struggle too. And like, how many times can I say simple to make, so delicious family and yeah, how, how can you reword that and how can you. Yeah, I know, I agree. I struggle with that as well.

Stephanie [00:13:23]:

When you think about the actual making of the recipes, like, how many times do you test each one and is it always the Same because for me it's not. Sometimes I'll make something once and be like, this is great, I love it. I know it's going to work. I make something like it all the time. Let's just be done.

Emily Maxson [00:13:41]:

Yeah, I have a handful of those. But then I get concerned like, oh no, this is, this is how I do it. I want to make sure that I've got it written out clearly for somebody else to do it because I'll have, I've had in the past, people say, when I'll make something, just somebody be over, well, tell me what you did with that and I'll send them the recipe. They'll be like, it didn't turn out like yours. So I want to make sure. So I would say I on average make a recipe three or four times. And it depends. There are a handful where I just do one like, oh my gosh, this is, this is spot on.

Emily Maxson [00:14:20]:

And it's simple enough. That you know, But a lot of them are things I make regularly at home anyway. So I am just cooking. Well just for my husband now or when my kids are home.

Stephanie [00:14:32]:

Right. When you, when you go back, like, have you had any recipes where there's been an error or like the way you wrote it isn't the way that someone else experience it and it's in the book and you're stuck and you're like, oh, oh, shoot.

Emily Maxson [00:14:48]:

I, I taught a cooking class at the Fox and Pantry, a holiday cooking class. And it was one of my newer recipes. And I did these molasses grain free molasses cookies for dessert. And I had baked them ahead of time to serve as dessert. I was demonstrating other recipes and then I gave the, the, the people in the class the recipes and I had a woman email me and say, I made your molasses cookies. And they didn't turn out at all like that. And I just panicked. And so I went to make them again.

Emily Maxson [00:15:17]:

I said, let me get into it, I will get back to you. And I made them. And I think I, I forget what it was off the top of my head, but I had one of the measurements incorrect. Like a third of a cup instead of two thirds or a quarter instead of three quarters. And so I was able to correct it and email her back like, so sorry, this is what the mistake was. I haven't found one in my book yet. There's always mistakes, but that was good. I'm glad that I got that corrected because that is in my new book.

Emily Maxson [00:15:47]:

So I'm glad that she tested it out.

Stephanie [00:15:50]:

It's funny, too, because I just cooked something from my first book that's now, I guess, three years old. And I'm at my cabin, and I had a bunch of tomatoes, and I was like, oh, I'm gonna make the tomato pie here. And I have a really bad oven at the cabin. It's a new stove, but it's just. It's beyond terrible. So I'm, like, looking at the instructions, and it says to cook it for 30 minutes. I ended up cooking something for 50 minutes. And I don't know, like, I think it's my terrible oven that's 75 degrees off.

Stephanie [00:16:22]:

But I was just like, oh, gosh, you know, I hope it isn't the recipe itself, because when I've made it at home, like, it worked fine. But also, like, that's weird, too, when you're calibrating different ovens or you're cooking different places or in stoves you're not familiar with, it's just like. That's why when you see, like, 20 to 25 minutes on a baking time, it used to bug me, but now I'm like, oh, I get why there's that range.

Emily Maxson [00:16:47]:

Yeah. I mean, it's bound to happen. You test the recipe multiple times. You have a. You have a copy editor. You proofread it multiple, multiple times. There's always. I've heard this from writers.

Emily Maxson [00:16:58]:

There's always going to be an error.

Stephanie [00:17:00]:

And there's like, my husband's a fiction writer, so there's always pages that there's a spelling error or a pronoun that's used incorrectly. So I guess that's just part of the. Part of the journey. So you have the cookbooks, have you, like, let's talk about the whole creator, Emily Maxson. Like, are you doing, like, substacks? Are you doing cooking clubs? Are you really leaning into all these other ways of monetizing your brand now that you are on your second book?

Emily Maxson [00:17:31]:

Current? I mean, I am not. I have my website and I post recipes there and tips and things there and social media, but I have not tapped into the substack or other things yet to generate revenue. I also help with our. We have a fireplace manufacturing company, and I do some work with my husband there, so I haven't had put as much time into that. But I. There are. There are products I'd like to recreate and do more with it, but I'm not yet. I have a few ideas, but.

Stephanie [00:18:09]:

Yeah, because I imagine with this health angle, like, there's ways to really get more into that and to help people on that journey, do nutritional or health coaching or, you know, meal plans if you're on specific type of restrictions or. I would imagine that there's a lot of gold to mine there, should you decide to. But do you feel pressured by that? Like, because, I mean, for a lot of us, this starts as a side hustle, and then it, like, becomes your thing. And, you know, groceries are expensive. It's not producing a lot of revenue. Usually people make money from books, but it's usually the second, third, and fourth books, not the first.

Emily Maxson [00:18:53]:

Fingers crossed on the second.

Stephanie [00:18:56]:

Yes.

Emily Maxson [00:18:56]:

But I know there is a little pressure because, honestly, I love creating recipes. I mean, I like that part of it, and I think the meal planning with dietary restrictions would be a good avenue for me. But, yeah, there is a little pressure for that. And with the other things going on in my life, sometimes I think, I don't know if I can do it, but if. Hopefully there'll be a window that will open up.

Stephanie [00:19:23]:

Are you a. Like, type A, where you're only going to do it if you can do it to the maximum degree of wanting to do it, or are you, like, more like me, where you'll do everything and it all might be just a little sloppy, but you'll just put as much work out there as you can.

Emily Maxson [00:19:40]:

I would say more type A. Yeah.

Stephanie [00:19:42]:

I. I wish I was more like that because I think I would be more refined in all the offerings that I have. But I get so excited about so many different things. I'm just like, oh, yeah, let's do this. Oh, yeah, let's do that.

Emily Maxson [00:19:55]:

But I love that about you. I love your approach. I love seeing you everywhere and all the things that you do and you're so casual about it, and just you. You produce good products, and people are like, yeah, I can do that. I think that's awesome, the way you approach it.

Stephanie [00:20:10]:

Thanks. Because I would say casual is how I showed up for the podcast today, because I'm at my cabin. I don't. My husband basically lives up here in the summertime, and I'm doing reverse commuting because of filming of the show. And I literally have, like, there's one day off a week that I have, and it's Sundays. And so, like, when I'm up here, like, okay, I have to do this podcast. I used to do audio only, and then everybody wanted video, so I'm like, okay, fine, I'm gonna video it, but I'm gonna have dirty hair, and I'm not Gonna put lipstick stick on. And it kind of just is what it is because I also want to live the quality of life that I want to live.

Stephanie [00:20:49]:

That feels good to me, and it's honest and it's authentic to a fault, probably because, you know, sometimes the dog will bark in the background, even when we're doing the TV show. Like, I don't know, and never say never. But that TV show that we do came sort of by accident, and it happens in my kitchen. It's my real life. My dog barks. My husband runs to the bathroom in the background. I don't know if I know how to do things any other way. I'm just not that good at being that polished, I guess.

Emily Maxson [00:21:24]:

I think people love real life. That's why, I mean, keeping it real. It's very approachable, and that's why reality TV is so popular. People want to see. Yeah. How people are really living and how people are doing and hear the dog bark in the background, because that's what's happening in their homes.

Stephanie [00:21:42]:

We can be real. The real cookbook writers of the Twin Cities. Wouldn't that be funny?

Emily Maxson [00:21:47]:

Yes. I love it.

Stephanie [00:21:48]:

Okay. Another weird thing that I discovered, and I'm curious if this for you. Like, I cook a lot. I just. I do. I cook a lot. I cook a lot for my family. I'm cooking for the shows.

Stephanie [00:21:59]:

I'm cooking for tv. I'm doing all this cooking, but I really have anxiety about cooking in front of people. And you would think that, like, TV would be people, but it's not. It's two camera people who are my friends now, and there's no anxiety about cooking in front of them. But, like, when I'm going, like, people want me to do cooking classes, and they want me to do all this cooking in front of them, and I'm realizing it really causes me a lot of stress, and I don't love it, and it doesn't give me joy. I have so much anxiety. I wake up in the middle of the night before the class, wondering. I don't.

Stephanie [00:22:36]:

I'm not a professionally trained cook. I'm not a chef. I didn't go to cooking school. So I feel like people are going to be looking to me for answers to things that I have no business giving. I have so much impostor syndrome around the actual cooking, and yet I have this whole life that's building up around this being a cook. Do you have any of that?

Emily Maxson [00:22:58]:

Definitely. I have the same thing. I don't. I get nervous. I get anxious about Cooking in front of people. Even when I'm on TV shows where it is just a couple cameras, I still am. I still get nervous, and I think it is that pressure. You want to give people the right information.

Emily Maxson [00:23:16]:

And I did go to culinary school. It was a long, long time ago, and I still have imposter syndrome. Like, what do I know? Yeah, but. But this is how I do it. And you share it with people and. But I do. I get that as well.

Stephanie [00:23:30]:

Yeah. And then people will be like, well, I know I have terrible knife skills. Do you have good knife skills?

Emily Maxson [00:23:35]:

I don't think so. I mean, I know what to do. I mean, sometimes I look at the pictures of my chopped up cilantro, and I'm like, ooh, a chef would look at that and say, that's not so good.

Stephanie [00:23:45]:

Yeah. And, like, you know when you're making, like, a mirepoix, and it's all like, my carrots are 16 different sizes instead of just, like, unifor and batons. Right. So I took. I actually took a class, and I did learn a lot, but I'm finding now that I'm not good at staying with it or practicing it because it requires, like, practice. Right. And if you were in a classroom setting or being judged on it, you would keep going. And now I'm just like, oh, I know I'm supposed to hold my hand this way, but I really got to get these carrots chopped.

Emily Maxson [00:24:17]:

Exactly. Yeah.

Stephanie [00:24:19]:

So it's kind of funny. Are there people that inspire you that are in the cookbook or the cooking space?

Emily Maxson [00:24:27]:

Oh, that's a great question. I mean, there's a lot of great cookbook authors out there.

Stephanie [00:24:33]:

You.

Emily Maxson [00:24:33]:

You're an excellent author. I love your book. I ordered your second one. I'm excited to get that. I mean, I remember early on, early in my culinary career, I just had so much respect for Jamie Oliver, the Naked Chef, because he was just so different than everybody else. And I still have a lot of respect for him. And he's put out a ton of.

Stephanie [00:25:03]:

And he's changing too, which I also love. Like, you know, he went from. He's just. He's evolved, I think, as a chef, and he's really gotten more to the space where I think he's feeling the most comfortable in his skin, too, in his own kitchen, cooking for his own family. He's a very rustic cook, actually, versus, like, when you see him doing more of the chefy things that he started with. I just. I really like him too, and I like how much he simplifies. Things.

Emily Maxson [00:25:33]:

Yeah, he's insanely talented, but he brings it down to our level and I appreciate that. It's, it's. He. He's very approachable and just real. So, yeah, I really like him a lot. He's good. And Danielle Walker, who wrote Against All Grain, she has, I don't know, maybe five books out now. She was.

Emily Maxson [00:25:54]:

Her first book, I remember getting that. And I had done the specific carbohydrate diet and was writing my own recipes and doing some blogging, and that was the first book that I was like, you know what? I could do this. And so I think she's been inspiring to me because a similar health journey and did it. And I was the one person who I was like, okay, I think I can do this.

Stephanie [00:26:16]:

So you know what would be cool? Not that you need more ideas, but I'm going to give you one because that's how I think it would. Like there. There's a woman, her name's Carolyn Chambers, and she's a cookbook writer and she's a family cook. We'll say, like, lots of variety. And the thing that she does that really resonates with people is she has all the substitutions in a recipe. So, like, she'll make a rice salad, but she'll give you all the different grains you could substitute for the rice. And if you can't have rice vinegar, there's the five other vinegars you could use. One thing that would be cool, that I would love to see is if you, like, took a recipe that you liked and you made it so that it could be healthier or in a way that more people could enjoy it.

Stephanie [00:27:00]:

So, like, my recipe book, for instance, is not at all diet, not at all. It's. It's whole, it's regular ingredients, it's not weird stuff. But, like, I think that could be a real interesting thing to follow for you.

Emily Maxson [00:27:16]:

I have done that with some recipes. Like in my Real food, every day, I have my strawberry shortcake recipe, which is grain free, which I loved growing up. My mom would make the Bisquick. Yes, Strawberry shortcakes, and I loved. It was the perfect balance of sweet and savory. It's a little salty. And so I wanted to re. I mean, that was a recipe I did multiple times to try to recreate that, so things like that.

Emily Maxson [00:27:41]:

But I love your idea. I could just cook through a book and try to do a version that would fit the different dietary guidelines.

Stephanie [00:27:49]:

Yeah. Or even just picking different recipes from different books and like filming that, like here's because when you have a cookbook that you like or when you're looking for inspiration, you probably pull out this recipe and you look at it and you think, oh, I have these six things. I don't have these three. You know, and especially I think about this because I'm at the cabin a lot, and I. It's 20 minutes to get to a store and a boat ride and a car ride, and it's complicated. So I will want to make something, but I'll have to really improvise a lot of times on the exact ingredients and figure out how I'm going to get it all to go. So I think that could be really interesting and also educational for people that are on a dietary journey, that maybe it's new for them and they do know some cooking, but they haven't cooked in the way that is maybe more helpful for them. Yeah, this is a weird thought, too, but I've been spending a lot of time at the cabin, and there's all these people that come and go and they bring all their groceries and then they leave.

Stephanie [00:28:49]:

And I keep looking at this refrigerator full of food, and I, I, I feel like, oh, I'm gonna have to make dinner here now for the rest of us that are left, but there's not, like, food you can eat. Like, it's so much like processed food and cheese spreads and salsas and condiments and breads that, like, there's just so much food that I actually wouldn't probably eat. And it's fascinating to me how people grocery shop.

Emily Maxson [00:29:19]:

Yeah. And I suppose too, if they're coming to your cabin as a guest, they're on vacation, so they're eating maybe more treats or processed foods that they eat on a regular basis. So it's their snacks and things like that.

Stephanie [00:29:34]:

Yes, that's like, what I'm left with. And I'm like, oh, okay, now I have to make a meal. It's a Sunday night. Which is why we make a lot of pizza, because we're using up all those dribs and drabs. And I hate to waste things. So, like, sometimes I have this horrible salsa that tastes like just a sugary mess. I'm like, what am I going to do with this? And I've got tons of vegetables in the garden. I was like, well, I could probably use a cup of it to make a soup.

Stephanie [00:29:59]:

And if I fortified it enough with vegetables and broth and it wouldn't be so terrible to have this sort of super sweet base. But yeah, that's my life.

Emily Maxson [00:30:16]:

I like your soup idea. That's a great way to use up the salsa.

Stephanie [00:30:20]:

All right, so where can people follow you? And how can they get the book?

Emily Maxson [00:30:24]:

Okay, my website, emily'sfreshkitchen.com the book is on Amazon. It will be in local stores. Five Swans, Gray and Excelsior. The Fox and Pantry, Golden Fig. Yes. So I love it.

Stephanie [00:30:42]:

Well, thanks for spending time with me. Emily and I will see you around. And maybe we'll do a taste bud episode together. You never know.

Emily Maxson [00:30:49]:

I'd love it. Thank you. Always good to see you.

Stephanie [00:30:51]:

Yeah, same. We'll talk soon. Thanks.

Emily Maxson [00:30:54]:

Bye. Bye.

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Welcome to another episode of "Dishing with Stephanie's Dish." Today, I interview acclaimed food writer, wild foods expert, and self-described hunter-gatherer Hank Shaw. Hank is the author of the brand new cookbook, "Borderlands: Recipes and Stories from the Rio Grande to the Pacific," an exploration of the flavors, cultures, and stories that define the borderlands between the United States and Mexico. He also has a Substack that’s wonderful, called Hank Shaw “To The Bone” and a website full of recipes.

In this episode, Hank and I dive into everything from his early days as a restaurant cook and investigative journalist to his passion for foraging, preserving, and hunting wild foods. Hank discusses the vibrant mix of culinary traditions that thrive along the border, debunks myths about iconic ingredients (like acorns!), and shares the fascinating histories behind beloved dishes such as chimichangas and parisa.

They also touch on practical advice—like the art of drying herbs, the joys and challenges of single-person food preservation, and the ins and outs of self-publishing cookbooks at a high level.

Get ready for an episode filled with storytelling, culinary wisdom, and inspiration for your next adventure in the kitchen or the great outdoors. Whether you're a curious home cook, an aspiring cookbook author, or simply a lover of good food, there’s something here for everyone. Let’s get started!

Original Episode Transcript Follows:

Stephanie:

Hello, everybody, and welcome to Dishing with Stephanie's Dish, the podcast, where we talk to fun people in the food space and sometimes they have cookbooks. And today's author is an author. He's an author of great magnitude, Hank Shaw. His new book is Borderlands Recipes and Stories from the Rio Grande to the Pacific. And Hank, you are such a prolific, beautiful writer. This book, I feel like, is just so you. Do you love it?

Hank Shaw:

It's been a long journey to make this book, and I'm pretty proud of it. And it's. It's been probably the biggest project of my adult life in terms of time, commitment, travel, really unlocking understanding of things that I thought I knew but didn't necessarily know until I got there. And it's just been this. This crazy, fantastic journey and a journey that you can eat.

Stephanie:

Can you talk a little bit about your history? Like, I think many people know you as the hunter, forager, gatherer, type, and Borderlands obviously has a lot of those elements to it. But can you just walk readers that are listeners that might be new to your journey kind of through how you got here?

Hank Shaw:

Sure. Many, many years ago, when I was still fairly young, I was a restaurant cook. So I worked first as a dishwasher and then as a line cook and then as a sous chef in a series of restaurants, mostly in Madison, Wisconsin. And I left that job to be a newspaper reporter. And I ended up being a newspaper reporter for 18 years. And I cooked all throughout that and traveled and learned more about food and did fishing and hunting and foraging and such. And then I left the News Business in 2010 to do my website, which is hunter, angler, gardener, cook. And I've been doing that full time since 2010.

So, yeah, my entire kind of current incarnation is wild foods. But Borderlands is kind of an outgrowth of that for two reasons. The first is I've been basically written all of the fishing game books you can possibly write already. I've got one for every kind of quarry you can imagine. And then the other thing was, oh, well, you know, a lot of that travel for those other books was on the border on both sides, on the American side and on the Mexican side. And that kind of grew into this. Wow, you know, God, the food is so great and God, this area is just so neglected, I think, by most, you know, the. The food, or radio, for lack of a better term.

Yeah, because all of the, like, everybody seems to love to hate Tex Mex without really fully knowing what Tex Mex actually is. And people say that the Southwestern cooking is so very 1987. And. And, you know, the people who know Mexico are like, oh, all the good foods in Oaxaca or Michoacan or Mexico City or Yucatan. And really that's not the case, as over and over and over again, I was discovering these amazing just finds. And a lot of them had to do with wild foods, but not all of them. And so that borderlands became my diary of that journey.

Stephanie:

And quite a diary it is. What's interesting to me is I didn't actually ever know that you were in the newspaper business.

Hank Shaw:

And that makes a Pioneer Press graduate.

Stephanie:

Oh, you work for them. How did I not know this?

Hank Shaw:

Yeah, I was a St. Paul Pioneer Press investigative reporter from 2002 to 2004. And if you're of a certain age and you remember there was a big story about some Republican operatives getting involved with a telecommunications boondoggle. And yeah, that was probably. That was us. That was our story.

Stephanie:

Well, and it makes sense because the book is so like. It's the storytelling that's so good. And, you know, cookbooks are cookbooks with beautiful recipes and different people's point of view on recipes. But what I love about your book, too, is it really goes into ingredients a little more in depth. It tells the story of the terroir, of where the recipe's from and why it's the way it is. And it makes sense now to me that you're a journalist because it's so beautifully written.

Hank Shaw:

I really appreciate that. I mean, I tried in this particular book. There are essays in all of my books, but in this particular one, I really, really wanted people from the rest of the country to get a flavor of what it's like to was really honest to God, like on the border. Everybody has thoughts and opinions about immigration and about the border and about blah, blah, blah. And it's like, well, how much time have you actually spent on the border? Do you actually know what it feels like, what it smells like, what it tastes like? Chances are you probably don't. And I really wanted this book to shine a light on that in ways that go well beyond food.

Stephanie:

When we talk about the borderlands, can you talk about it without talking about immigration and the close connection between the United States and Mexico? I mean, we share this border. People have this idea that it's like this gated, fenced situation, and really there's tons of the border that's just. You'd only know it was a border if someone told you you were crossing it.

Hank Shaw:

It's very true. In Fact, one of my favorite moments to that was in south southwest Texas there's a beautiful national park called Big Bend. It's one of the biggest national parks in the country. It's fa. It's famous, it's amazing. But you're going to drive and hike and hike and drive and hike and drive a gigantic park. So one place that you can go to. And it's actually, if you open up a copy of Borderlands and you see this huge vista right at the beginning of the book, there's this huge vista and it's on a cliff. That is exactly it. That is. That is Big Bend National Park. And if you're looking right in the back end of that back center, a little to the left, you'll see a canyon in the background. In that canyon is St. Helena Canyon. And St.

Helena Canyon is created by the Rio Grande. So you can go to that park and you can walk across the border literally to Mexico and not have the Rio Grande come up over your ankles. And there's Mexicans on their side, there's Americans on our side, and everybody's crossing back and forth until their families are there and having a fun time, blah, blah, blah. And it's just, it's one of these great moments where it shows you that, yeah, that border is really just sort of a fiction.

Stephanie:

Yeah. Yes, in many ways. Right. Figuratively. And also, I don't know, we seem to be in a global food economy whether we want to or not. When you look at the individual ingredients that you're using here in Borderlands, obviously there's very different things because of temperature in Mexico than you might have here in the Midwest. But is it really different from like say, Texas to Mexico in.

Hank Shaw:

Yes, there, there are definitely different. So the food you'll get in Nueva Leon or Coahuila or Tamaulipas, which are the three Mexican states, that border Texas is going to be different from what you would think about as Texas food. However, on the Borderlands, that. That change really is minimal. And I talk about in the book the idea of Fronteraisos, people who are neither fully Mexican nor full. They're. They're border people and they can slide between English and Spanish in mid clause. And it's really the, you know, the, the pocho or Spanglish or whatever you want to call it that you'll hear there is very different from what you'll hear from a bilingual person from, say, Mexico City, where typically those people will speak in full sentences or paragraphs in one language and then maybe switch to another language in the next sentence or paragraph.

Hank Shaw:

Well, on the border, it's a mishmash. So the structure, the words, the adjectives, like, it's everything. It's like no function. And so it's like. It's like this whole kind of amalgam of what's going on. And that kind of translates into the food where you've got some Texas, you know, some very Texas. Texas. Things that don't cross the border, like yellow cheese doesn't really cross the border.

Stephanie:

Right.

Hank Shaw:

The idea of, like, rotel queso. So it's. It's like Velveeta cheese melted with rotel. That's queso. That's the bad queso in North Texas. Like, you'll get that in, like, Amarillo. But the real queso is south of Interstate 10. And that is a white Mexican cheese.

That it where you get, you know, roasted fire roasted green chilies folded into it and a little bit of Mexican oregano and salt and a little bit of crema to thin it out. And it's is to the rotel queso what a match is to the sun.

Stephanie:

Yeah.

Hank Shaw:

And, you know, I mean, that said, I'm not gonna poop all over the Velveeta one, because that while I don't think it tastes great, what I realized is that particular version of queso, which I personally don't like, is really heavy with cultural significance.

Stephanie:

Yeah.

Hank Shaw:

And. And so that's. There's a place for it. It's just not. That's not really as border food as you might think. That's a little bit more North Texas, and that's an example of where things don't cross. But a really great example of where things are damn near the same is Arizona and Sonora. So that there's almost no difference between Arizona Mexican food and Sonora Mexican food because they're one and the same.

The burritos are pretty similar. The flour tortillas are similar. The carne asada is pretty similar. And so that. That's a case where the border's really. I mean, yes, it's a border, but I mean, it's like the. It's. There's no food border.

Same thing with Southern California and Tijuana and Northern Baja. There's almost no. No functional difference between the two of them. Now, New Mexico and Chihuahua has a difference. And, like, north of Interstate 10 in Texas and the border in Texas are quite different.

Stephanie:

There's a recipe in here that I didn't even really know existed called Parisa.

Hank Shaw:

Oh, yeah.

Stephanie:

And, you know, you we will order steak tartare or make tartare. And I didn't realize that there was a. In many cultures, you sort of see similar foods or similar food groups, and they're just treated differently with herbs or spices. This looks delicious.

Hank Shaw:

It really is. It's the best way to describe it if you. If you're not familiar, because it's very. It's. It's super regional in Texas. Like, you can't even really get barista in Dallas or in. Or in El Paso. It's not a thing there.

It's sort of a south central Texas thing. But the best way I can describe it is really accurately describe it. It is steak tartar meets aguachile. Because most people will say it's steak tartare meat ceviche. And yes, you absolutely can get it like that, but the. The acidity and the citrus will turn the. The raw beef gray, which I think looks gross. Yeah, I mean, it.

It tastes fine, but it just kind of looks like, meh. So my recipe and what I do is I. I mix the steak tartare with the. Essentially, pico de gallo is really what it. What it's being mixed with, and a little bit of cheese, and I. I'll mix it and serve it right away so that when you eat it, the meat is still pink.

Stephanie:

Yeah, it looks really good. And then also in the book, so you're a hunter, obviously, we established that. But in many of these recipes, you have substitutions of different animal proteins that can be used. So whether it's elk or bison or sheep or duck, I think that's cool.

Hank Shaw:

Yeah, I mean, I think I. I started that process. It's done with icons. So if you look at a recipe for. Oh, there's a stew that's very popular. They're called puchero. And I'm just to that page, so I'll. So.

Oh, that's a sour puerto. So always pork, but, like, no. Babies will die if you use something else from that. But that is traditionally a pork dish. Buchero is traditionally beef or venison, but really, you know, you're gonna be fine if you put damn near anything in it. It's a big, giant stew, a lot of vegetables, and it's fantastic. And to. To really make the book more versatile, because I.

The two things that I always do in my books. Number one is I'm going to give you the recipe as faithfully as I can to what it actually is, wherever it's from, and then I'm going to give you all these substitutions so that if you live in, you know, Bismarck or Crookston or, you know, rural Iowa, you're going to be able to make it. And that's important to me because it's more important to me that you make some version of it than to be exactly proper and specific. I hate cookbooks where it's like, especially with cheese, where you'll see someone be like, it must be the, you know, Cowgirl Creamery point raised blue from 2012. Otherwise this recipe won't work. I'm like, come on guys, this is a stupid recipe. Like it's blue cheese. It'll be fine.

Stephanie:

I was surprised that you have a chimichanga in the book. Can we talk about chimichangas? Because people that grew up in the Midwest, Chichis was like the first Mexican restaurant besides El Burrito Mercado. And El Burrito Mercado was authentic and chichi's was like the Americanized what they thought Mexican food was. Which also I will say I have taste memories of chi cheese. I say this not dogging on them and they're actually coming back. And the chimichanga is something that like, if I actually go to the new restaurant, which I'm sure I will, I will order a chimichanga. It's like a taste memory for me. What is the origination of chimichanga?

Hank Shaw:

It's shrouded in mystery. So there's a couple different theories. And then I'll tell you what I think the general story is that a woman was making burritos in Arizona and either dropped, which I don't believe because that would create a splash that would, you know, send 350 degree oil everywhere, or placed a burrito in the deep fryer. And the, the legend, which I don't believe this is true at all, is she drops the burrito in the deep fryer and you know, says something like, you know, ah, chingo to madre or whatever, like just like swears something bad and. But then sort of does what you would do in a kind of a mom situation. And if you instead of saying the F word, you would say oh, fudge. And so she goes, oh Jimmy changa. And which is sort of vaguely reminiscent of some Mexican swear words.

And so that thus the, the dish was born. But I think that's not true because there is a fantastic resource, actually. I mean, I found it in some of my older Mexican cookbooks that I own. But there's a fantastic research that the University of Texas at San Antonio of Mexican cookbooks. And some of these Mexican cookbooks are handwritten from the 1800s, and so they're all digitized and you can. You can study them. And so there's a thing in Sonora. Remember I just got done saying that, like, there's almost no difference between Sonora and Arizona.

There's a thing from Sonora many, many, many, many years ago, you know, early early 1900s, for a chivy changa. C H I V I C H A N G A ch and it's the same thing. So I'm convinced that this is just a thing, because if you have a burrito and you fry things, there's zero. There's zero chance that at some point you be like, I want to. I wonder if frying the burrito will make it good? You know, like, the answer, yes, yes, all the time.

Stephanie:

And.

Hank Shaw:

And so, you know, I, like you, came into the chimichanga world just thinking with a definite eyebrow raised, like, what is this? And when it's done right, and if you see the picture in my book, it is dressed with a whole bunch of things on the outside of the burrito. So it's crema, it's a pico de gallo. It's shredded lettuce or cabbage, limes. The thing about a properly served chimichanga is that you have to eat it as a whole because the chimichanga itself is quite heavy. You know, it's a. It's a fried burrito with, like, rice and beans and meat inside it. Like, it's a gut bomb. But when you eat it with all these light things around it that are bright and fresh and acidic, it completely changes the eating experience. And I was sold.

Stephanie:

I can imagine. The one you have in the book looks really good. I'm going to. I keep asking about specific recipes, but there were, like, some that just jumped out at me, like, wow. Another one that jumped out at me was from that same chapter about the acorn cookies. I've always been under the impression that acorns, and maybe it's from just specific to the oaks, but that they're poisonous. I didn't think about making acorn flour.

Hank Shaw:

So, number one, no acorns are poisonous. Zero, period. End of story. It's a myth. You were lied to. Sorry.

Stephanie:

Yeah. I mean, it helps me because my dog eats them.

Hank Shaw:

I mean, acorns have been a source of food for human beings forever, you know, all the way. I don't know how long ago, but way more than 10,000 years. Way more. Okay, so what the myth comes from is most acorn varieties, so most especially red oaks, are full of tannins. And tannins are not poisonous. Tannins are not toxic. Tannins will make you constipated if you eat too many of them. And I suppose it would be possible to poison yourself with tannins, but I mean, good luck.

Yeah, good luck eating enough of that astringent stuff to be able to get yourself poisoned. But tannins are water soluble. So for millennia, the people who eat acorns, and especially in. In northern California, where, you know, acorn. Acorns were their main starch, the idea of leaching the tannins out in a stream or wherever is as old as time. And so you make the. You make a meal. It's really a meal is probably a better way to put it.

I call it flour, but there's no. There's no real gluten in it. In fact, there's no gluten in it, but there is some starch in it that will help the flour stick to itself. So that's true everywhere. In fact, it's a very good acorn year here in Minnesota this year. And I found some bur oaks in a. In a place that I'm going to go back and harvest them to make some more acorn flour this year. And I'll have to leach them here.

But this is a very long walk up to this cookie recipe, because in south Arizona and in Sonora, there's an oak called an emery oak. And the emery oak is in the white oak. It's in the white oak clan. And it is sweet in the sense that you can roast those acorns and eat them. And in fact, you can get roasted acorns as a snack on some of the reservations down there or really wherever. I mean, it's a thing like it's. It. It.

They could just roast it. Roast the acorns? Yeah. It's just like a chestnut. Very good. That's exactly with the. Because it's the same kind of a texture as well. And so that particular oak is unique in. In North America.

The cork oak in Europe is the other one that doesn't have any tannins to it. So you can just sit there and eat them. And that's why they make flour out of them. It's an indigenous thing. You don't really see it too much among the Hispanic Sonorans. You see it a lot more with, like, Yaqui or Pima or Tono O', Odham, those indigenous groups.

Stephanie:

It's so Cool. I also subscribe to your substack, which I would encourage people to subscribe and. And yes to the Bone, it's called. And you just had a post about herbs and how important herbs are in your cooking and in your yard. And I know that you have kind of a small St. Paul yard because we've talked about it. What are you doing with your herbs now that we're at the end of the season? Are you. Do you have anything that's special that you do with them? Do you dry them? Do you mix them with salt?

Hank Shaw:

I do all of the above. I am a preservation fanatic. I could talk for hours just about various ways to preserve things for our Minnesota winners. Maybe that's another podcast for sure. But the short version is, yes, all of the things. I mostly will do things like make pesto with basil, because I love pesto. But I do dry some and there are tricks to drying herbs. The trick is low heat for a long time, so the don't use your oven and try to get them dry within 40, 48 hours, but also try to do it at less than 110 degrees, otherwise they turn brown.

Stephanie:

Do you use it like a dehydrator, then?

Hank Shaw:

Yes, I use a dehydrator. And most herbs dry really well. In fact, many herbs are better dried because it concentrates their flavor. Basil's iffy. Parsley's kind of terrible. Dried parsley's one of those ones where eat it fresh, make pesto. I suppose you could freeze it. I mostly will.

I will gather big scabs of it because I grow a lot and I will freeze it. And even though it's going to suffer in the freezer, it is one of the most vital things I use for making stocks and broths with the game I bring home. So freezing, drying, you can, you know, I just mixed a whole bunch of. Of lovage with salt. So you go 50, 50 the herb and. And coarse salt, like ice cream salt almost. And then you buzz that into a food processor or a blender, and then that creates a much finer kind of almost a wet salt that is an enormous amount of flavor. And if you freeze it, it'll stay bright green the whole winter.

And sometimes I like to do that, but the other times I kind of like to. To see it and progress over the. Over the months. And it's kind of a beautiful thing to see that herb salt kind of brown out and army green out as we get to like, late February, because it really is. Is sort of also indicative of how of our Harsh winters and feels a little bit more of the time and place than pulling something out of a freezer.

Stephanie:

Yeah. So let's talk about that because you're a single man, you are a recipe writer and developer, so you're also cooking and testing recipes. You're preserving all these things. I mean, my freezer right now is kind of a hellscape. I just closed up my summer and I came home with so much food. I have, like, canned and pickled and preserved. And I just literally feel overwhelmed by all of the food in my home right now. And I realize this is a real first world problem.

So, you know, my daughter's kind of in her young 20s and sort of poor, so I've loaded her up with stuff. But do you just feel overwhelmed sometimes by all of the abundance of food?

Hank Shaw:

Absolutely. It's one of the things that's been really remarkable about it, about sort of single life, is how less I need to hunt or fish. So I find myself. I mean, I still. I. Because. So, side note, background backstory. I don't buy meat or fish at all.

I occasionally will buy a little bit of bacon because I love bacon. And I'll occasionally buy pork fat to make sausages with game, but that's it. So if I'm eating red meat, it's going to be venison. If I'm eating white meat, it's probably going to be grouse or. Or pheasants. If I'm eating fish, I've caught it. And so that's what I find is that I eat. Hey, I don't eat that much meat anymore.

Like, I eat plenty. But I mean, it's not like I. I don't gorge myself on giant steaks anymore. And it's just me. So, you know, a limit of walleyes can last me a month. And before, it was definitely not like that. And so, yes, I can feel the overwhelm. But what's, you know, I have neighbors that I give things to.

I have friends that I give things to. Like, I. I had two deer tags last year, and I shot the second deer because I had a whole bunch of friends who didn't get a deer and needed medicine. So it was really cool to be able to give to. You know, I butchered it all and gave them an all vacuum seal. It was like all ready to go. And. And that was really satisfying to be able to help people like that.

And then, you know, I like, you know, have a dinner party here and there.

Stephanie:

Yeah, I want to come to a dinner party. Not to invite myself. But please, I'll. I'll reciprocate in the. I have a cabin in the summer, so I'm sort of like between here and there. But once sets in, I really like to entertain and have people over. I find that it's a really easy way to gather new people too. Like, I like collecting people because I just think people are so amazing and I love putting like, new people at the table that people don't know yet or making those connections.

I think I'm actually kind of good at it. So I can't wait to have you over this fall.

Hank Shaw:

Yeah, likewise. We'll. We'll do a home and home.

Stephanie:

Yes, I would love that very much. Your book is available, Borderlands on. I found it because obviously I. You sent me a copy. But also it's on Amazon and you self publish. So there's a lot of people that listen to this podcast that are cookbook writers themselves or people that maybe are trying to get published or find publishing. Can you speak to that a little bit and why that's been your route. You've been doing this a long time.

Hank Shaw:

Yeah, this is my force. Fourth self published book. And self publish is really kind of a misnomer in a way because the books that I put out are of Random House quality. Like, they're for sure. There's no way you're gonna be able to tell this book is apart from a gigantic publishing house, because what I ended up doing is creating a publishing company. So the books are published in big, big runs at Versa Press in Illinois. I'm very happy to say that these books are entirely made in America. And that's kind of important to me because most cookbooks are made in China and not a fan.

So the books are printed in Illinois and they are stored and shipped at a, at a, a warehouse in Michigan. So the best ways to get the books are to either buy them from my website or buy them from Amazon. Those are probably your two best avenues for it. The thing about self publishing, if you want to do it at the level that I'm doing it, which is to say, make a book that, you know, even a snooty Random House person will be like, damn, that's a good book. You have to go big and it's not cheap. So I do, I, I don't ever do runs less than 5,000. And a typical run for me is between 10 and 15,000. And because your unit costs go way, way down.

Stephanie:

Right.

Hank Shaw:

And we can get in the weeds of it, but I have some Advantages in the sense that my sister has designed books for a living for 30 some odd years and her husband has edited books for 30 some odd years.

Stephanie:

Oh, so you got like family business going.

Hank Shaw:

Yeah, and my ex, my ex does most of the photos like this. Borderlands is the first book where the majority of the photos are mine. They're nice, but the. But even she's cheap. She photo edited this book. And so like I have people with very good skills. And so what I would say is if you have a kitchen cabinet where you have people who have those skills. And I have to kind of stress that, for example, copy editing, copy editing or proofreading or indexing a book are entirely different from copy editing or proofreading something in business

It's just not the same skill. And I found that out. So if you have that ability to put together a dream team, then you can make a really, really beautiful book that will, that will impress people and that you will actually love. The print on demand system is still not good enough for cookbooks. It's fantastic for like a memoir or something without a lot of pictures, but it is not good for, for cookbooks still.

Stephanie:

All right, I'm just making notes here because people ask me questions about this all the time. All right, well, I appreciate that you've done all this work, and the book is beautiful, and I love talking to you about food. So hopefully we can call you again and just wrap it down.

Hank Shaw:

Yeah, let's talk about preservation.

Stephanie:

Yeah, I. Because I've never met anyone that only was eating what they killed.

Hank Shaw:

Well, you could go up north. I bet you'd find more people who do.

Stephanie:

But yes, yes. And I just, I find that to be fascinating and also just the idea of preserving food and how you use. Use what you preserve. So yeah, that's a great topic to get into at a later date. The book is Borderlands. I'm talking with Hank Shaw. Recipes and Stories from the Rio Grande to the Pacific. You can find it at Amazon or at his website.

I always say this one wrong. Hunt, Gather. Cook

Hank Shaw:

So. So the best way to get to my website is just go to huntgathercook.com okay.

Stephanie:

And you have lots of recipes there too. I want people to just explore thousands. Yeah, it's incredible the mon recipes that you have there. And you know, if you think about protein as being interchangeable in a lot of these instances, it's definitely a really well done website with tons of recipes.

Stephanie:

Thanks for your time today, Hank. I appreciate it.

Hank Shaw:

Thanks a lot. Thanks for having me on.

Stephanie:

We'll talk soon.

Hank Shaw:

Bye.

Stephanie:

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

What a blast to have done a live video with my new friend and Substack Super Star Rebecca Blackwell and to help her experience her first Hot Dish from the Midwest! We made the Juicy Lucy Tator Tot Hot Dish from the “True North Cabin Cookbook Vol 2”

To get the recipe, watch the video or grab the book. To find other tasty Midwest comfort food favorites, go to Stephaniesdish.com

Here is a local newspaper article about the book with a few more recipes to try.

Thank you Lori Olson White, Miss Shannan Paul, Jenn Sharp, Sue McElligott, and many others for tuning into my live video. Join me for my next live video in the app.

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