WEBVTT - Claire Saffitz 0:00:00.160 --> 0:00:03.680 You are listening to Ruthie's Table four in partnership with Montclair. 0:00:05.600 --> 0:00:08.440 We've only just met, but I'm sure Claire Saffatts and 0:00:08.520 --> 0:00:11.440 I will be friends forever. Being a modern woman, I 0:00:11.520 --> 0:00:14.640 know all about her from her beautiful and brilliant YouTube 0:00:14.960 --> 0:00:18.599 and instagrams, the closest I guess I'll ever come to 0:00:18.680 --> 0:00:22.439 dating online, though I'd have a lot of competition dating Claire. 0:00:22.760 --> 0:00:26.520 She has over a million followers who love her. Claire 0:00:26.600 --> 0:00:29.200 is open and she is honest. She shares with us 0:00:29.280 --> 0:00:33.080 the challenges of baking and of life in general. She's 0:00:33.120 --> 0:00:35.680 a star in a new era of food writers who 0:00:35.720 --> 0:00:39.879 are experts in their knowledge, passionate about their craft, rigorous 0:00:39.920 --> 0:00:43.720 about their work. Claire measured in history and literature at Harvard, 0:00:44.080 --> 0:00:47.600 pursuing her career as an academic. Then one day, in 0:00:47.640 --> 0:00:51.280 her own words, almost by accident, she became the host 0:00:51.320 --> 0:00:55.600 of her own cooking show. Claire has also written two cookbooks, 0:00:55.840 --> 0:00:59.320 Dessert Person and What's for Dessert, both of which are 0:00:59.360 --> 0:01:02.440 New York Times best sellers. I've come to New York 0:01:02.480 --> 0:01:05.640 to meet Claire the Dessert Person, and most of all, 0:01:05.680 --> 0:01:09.640 my new best friend. One million other friends. I'm not worried. 0:01:10.040 --> 0:01:12.280 Thank you, Thank you so much for having me. 0:01:12.480 --> 0:01:14.160 It's great to see you. And here we are in 0:01:14.160 --> 0:01:16.800 New York, beautiful day after the eclipse. Did you see 0:01:16.800 --> 0:01:17.319 the eclipse? 0:01:17.400 --> 0:01:18.960 It was clowny where I was. Oh, it was in 0:01:19.040 --> 0:01:24.440 Hudson Valley. We're in Orange County, sort of far from 0:01:24.440 --> 0:01:25.120 the Cat's Skills. 0:01:25.200 --> 0:01:27.120 Yeah, so it was born in Monticello. 0:01:27.240 --> 0:01:30.280 Oh, we're not too far. We're actually very close. It 0:01:30.360 --> 0:01:33.160 was clear all day until about three pm, and then 0:01:33.280 --> 0:01:34.119 I couldn't see anything. 0:01:34.200 --> 0:01:36.560 Yeah. Great thing about being here us today was the 0:01:36.640 --> 0:01:39.880 amount of people on the streets, in the on the rooftops. 0:01:40.160 --> 0:01:44.240 The people want to share seeing something, don't they. You know, 0:01:44.600 --> 0:01:47.720 it was so beautiful to see the kind of movement 0:01:47.840 --> 0:01:49.680 on the streets of everybody on the streets. 0:01:49.760 --> 0:01:51.080 Yeah. New York comes alive in spring. 0:01:51.360 --> 0:01:54.320 Absolutely, yeah, I really And today is a beautiful day. 0:01:54.320 --> 0:01:57.400 So we're here and I am so happy to meet you. 0:01:57.840 --> 0:02:01.600 And my favorite dessert is vanilla ice cream, and it's 0:02:01.640 --> 0:02:03.680 the one you went right too. So would you like 0:02:03.680 --> 0:02:04.080 to read it? 0:02:04.120 --> 0:02:08.400 I'd love to, Okay, vanilla ice cream one point seventy 0:02:08.440 --> 0:02:11.560 five liters double cream, four hundred and fifty mili liters 0:02:11.560 --> 0:02:16.880 whole milk, four fresh vanilla pods, split lengthways, fifteen egg yolks, 0:02:17.320 --> 0:02:20.400 three hundred and fifty grams cast or sugar. Combine the 0:02:20.400 --> 0:02:23.320 cream and milk in a large saucepan. Scrape the vanilla 0:02:23.360 --> 0:02:25.640 seeds out of the pods into the pan using a knife. 0:02:25.680 --> 0:02:29.080 Then add the pods to heat until just below boiling point. 0:02:29.280 --> 0:02:31.840 Remove from the heat. Beat the egg yolks and sugar 0:02:31.919 --> 0:02:34.480 together until pale and thick. Pour a little of the 0:02:34.480 --> 0:02:37.760 warm cream into the eggyoak mixture and stir. Return this 0:02:37.919 --> 0:02:39.520 to the rest of the cream in the saucepan, and 0:02:39.520 --> 0:02:42.240 cook gently over a low heat, stirring constantly to prevent 0:02:42.280 --> 0:02:45.239 the custard from curdling. When the custard is thickened enough 0:02:45.280 --> 0:02:47.440 to coat the back of the spoon, strain it into 0:02:47.440 --> 0:02:50.080 a heatproof bowl and leave to cool. Pour into an 0:02:50.080 --> 0:02:51.880 ice cream machine and churn until frozen. 0:02:53.200 --> 0:02:55.640 What made you choose a vanilla ice cream? 0:02:55.880 --> 0:02:57.799 I have a memory of culinary school and went to 0:02:57.800 --> 0:03:00.520 culinary school in Paris at age It was twenty four 0:03:00.520 --> 0:03:03.440 to twenty five, and I did a sort of general 0:03:03.480 --> 0:03:05.880 culinary program, so I didn't focus on pastry, even though 0:03:05.919 --> 0:03:08.919 now I'm mostly a baker, but we had one day 0:03:08.960 --> 0:03:11.880 a week of pastry, and I was very influenced by 0:03:11.880 --> 0:03:16.120 our chef. Chef Antoine was our pastry chef in culinary school. 0:03:16.120 --> 0:03:18.320 And I remember the day that we made vanilla ice cream. 0:03:18.639 --> 0:03:22.520 We were doing all the custards and he, you know, 0:03:22.560 --> 0:03:24.240 he was late in his career. He had worked at 0:03:24.400 --> 0:03:27.160 lots of tiv Aut, like lots of three Michelin star 0:03:27.240 --> 0:03:30.160 restaurants in Paris, and we made vanilla ice cream and 0:03:30.160 --> 0:03:31.560 he took it out of the ice cream machine and 0:03:31.600 --> 0:03:33.240 he tasted it, and he just got this look on 0:03:33.520 --> 0:03:36.600 a total sort of like exalted look on his face, 0:03:36.680 --> 0:03:38.720 and he was just like, I love anell ice cream. 0:03:39.200 --> 0:03:42.000 It's the best thing there is. And so that was 0:03:42.040 --> 0:03:44.520 really formative, and he was right. It really is the 0:03:44.560 --> 0:03:47.920 most delicious dessert. I love dairy based desserts. I love 0:03:48.000 --> 0:03:51.800 dairy in general. Vanilla is one of the most unique, 0:03:51.960 --> 0:03:56.360 incredible flavors that comes from the earth. So I just 0:03:56.400 --> 0:03:59.560 think it's the most perfect dessert that there. 0:03:59.440 --> 0:04:03.520 Is, because I do too when I go to the 0:04:03.600 --> 0:04:06.520 River Cafe now, and I know every dessert I've made, 0:04:06.520 --> 0:04:09.320 every dessert, and I love, you know, I just love them, 0:04:09.360 --> 0:04:12.160 but they almost don't ask me anymore. They just bring 0:04:12.960 --> 0:04:16.440 ice cream, right, And I think, do you make your 0:04:16.480 --> 0:04:18.560 ice cream in the same way? Do you use the 0:04:18.640 --> 0:04:19.440 vanilla pods? 0:04:19.600 --> 0:04:21.760 Yes, I mean I like, I like this recipe because 0:04:21.760 --> 0:04:24.880 it has a lot of vanilla, which is great. But 0:04:24.920 --> 0:04:26.400 I do make ice cream at home. I got an 0:04:26.400 --> 0:04:28.800 ice cream maker last year, a good one. Finally a 0:04:28.839 --> 0:04:31.880 good one, so you have a good result. But I like, 0:04:32.160 --> 0:04:33.600 you know, I went to colony school in France, so 0:04:33.680 --> 0:04:37.080 I like the cramong glass base and lass egg yolks 0:04:37.120 --> 0:04:39.200 and make the most delicious ice cream. 0:04:39.520 --> 0:04:41.360 And so if we're going back, because I would love 0:04:41.400 --> 0:04:44.039 to talk to you more about coming, you know, to 0:04:44.320 --> 0:04:47.360 pastry and how you came there and going to France 0:04:47.440 --> 0:04:50.760 to learn to cook, because again there's a similarity there 0:04:50.800 --> 0:04:52.919 that my living in Paris, as I did as an 0:04:52.960 --> 0:04:57.480 adult working in an architect's office. It was there that 0:04:57.560 --> 0:05:01.599 I decided to become a cook, and I went to 0:05:01.680 --> 0:05:04.080 do you know, the Mastering in the Art of French cooking. 0:05:04.320 --> 0:05:06.920 Of course, I'm so old that Simone Beck was living 0:05:06.960 --> 0:05:09.280 in Paris, and I somehow got in touch with her 0:05:09.760 --> 0:05:12.040 and asked her if I could have some time with her, 0:05:12.080 --> 0:05:13.599 and so I used to go to her apartment in 0:05:13.640 --> 0:05:16.120 the sixteenth Wow, this is about me, and I want 0:05:16.120 --> 0:05:18.559 to talk about you. So tell me. Tell me about 0:05:18.640 --> 0:05:20.960 growing up in your house, Tell me about your parents 0:05:21.080 --> 0:05:22.240 and food. 0:05:22.680 --> 0:05:25.320 I grew up in Saint Louis, Missouri, in the Midwest. 0:05:26.000 --> 0:05:28.200 I would say it was a very typical kind of 0:05:28.200 --> 0:05:31.880 suburban childhood of the nineteen nineties. But both of my 0:05:32.000 --> 0:05:35.400 parents cooked all the time. Mostly both did, yeah, mostly 0:05:35.440 --> 0:05:38.200 my mom who was home more. My dad worked more. 0:05:38.680 --> 0:05:39.320 What did he do? 0:05:39.880 --> 0:05:44.080 He was actually recently retired. He worked at Washington University 0:05:44.120 --> 0:05:47.680 Medical School, so he was an academic physician. And that's 0:05:47.720 --> 0:05:49.400 what brought my family to Saint Louis. They are not 0:05:49.520 --> 0:05:52.240 originally Midwesterners. My parents there from the East Coast, so 0:05:52.279 --> 0:05:55.200 they moved out to the Midwest, where my grandma was 0:05:55.279 --> 0:05:57.320 sure we'd never get a bagel. She was very worried. 0:05:57.440 --> 0:05:59.680 She came, my family came to No, she was just 0:06:00.160 --> 0:06:01.960 family was on the East coast and she was very 0:06:02.000 --> 0:06:03.640 scared that no one would get a bagel. Turns out 0:06:03.640 --> 0:06:07.400 we had a great bagel shop nearby. So and I 0:06:07.440 --> 0:06:09.120 have two older sisters. We were all born in Saint 0:06:09.120 --> 0:06:12.880 Louis and I just come from a house where cooking 0:06:13.080 --> 0:06:17.200 was very central and we all ate dinner together every 0:06:17.279 --> 0:06:20.280 night at the table. My mom made dinner almost every night, 0:06:20.920 --> 0:06:22.760 and I think as a child of the nineties, I 0:06:22.839 --> 0:06:25.720 learned later in life that that wasn't so typical. That 0:06:26.279 --> 0:06:29.240 it's like a lot of my friend's parents both worked, 0:06:29.520 --> 0:06:32.000 and my mom worked as well, but she was a teacher, 0:06:32.040 --> 0:06:34.719 so she had more time in the afternoons, so she'd 0:06:34.720 --> 0:06:37.719 come home and it wasn't uncommon for her to bake 0:06:37.760 --> 0:06:39.960 a loaf of bread in the afternoon, and so we'd 0:06:39.960 --> 0:06:42.039 have fresh bread for dinner, and she'd make lots of 0:06:42.120 --> 0:06:46.520 soups and everything homemade from scratch. So I grew up 0:06:46.680 --> 0:06:50.320 with that very normalized and very kind of typical. We 0:06:50.360 --> 0:06:53.479 started every meal with a green salad where she'd you know, 0:06:53.680 --> 0:06:56.880 cut up crunchy vegetables and mostly romaine, and she'd put 0:06:57.160 --> 0:06:59.839 all of oil and redwhe vinegar and some grated parmesan 0:07:00.240 --> 0:07:02.320 on the salad, and that was how we started our meal, 0:07:03.279 --> 0:07:07.200 and it was really ideal. I think that taught me 0:07:07.839 --> 0:07:10.840 from a young age about the importance of cooking, and 0:07:10.920 --> 0:07:14.480 I think my parents also modeled really healthy behavior around food, 0:07:14.840 --> 0:07:16.800 which I think again as a child in the nineties 0:07:16.920 --> 0:07:19.360 was not so common really. That was the era of 0:07:19.400 --> 0:07:22.920 like everything was low fat or no fat, with a 0:07:22.920 --> 0:07:24.560 lot of you know a lot of snack foods and 0:07:24.600 --> 0:07:27.280 prepared foods. So that wasn't really a thing in our house. 0:07:27.320 --> 0:07:29.800 I think I learned I gave me good habits as 0:07:29.800 --> 0:07:33.040 an adult because I'm not a snacker, you know, I'd 0:07:33.040 --> 0:07:36.120 like to eat a proper meal. So I'm really grateful 0:07:36.280 --> 0:07:40.080 for the modeling around food and cooking in our house. 0:07:40.400 --> 0:07:41.960 How do you think she did that that she would 0:07:41.960 --> 0:07:43.560 teach and then she would go shopping or do you 0:07:43.600 --> 0:07:45.800 think she'd wake up in the morning and think, I 0:07:45.840 --> 0:07:47.200 know what I'm going to cook today? 0:07:47.320 --> 0:07:49.280 Or did you I have di I really ask her. 0:07:49.320 --> 0:07:52.640 I mean she has still today a really extensive and 0:07:52.760 --> 0:07:55.880 well curated recipe box. She did me multiple boxes, really, 0:07:57.120 --> 0:08:00.440 But I think my mom really liked cooking, so it 0:08:00.480 --> 0:08:02.960 wasn't it was a chore for her, because you know, 0:08:03.000 --> 0:08:05.240 with family of five, I think it's always going to 0:08:05.280 --> 0:08:07.040 feel like a chore if you do it every night. 0:08:07.360 --> 0:08:09.880 But she also liked it, so I don't really know 0:08:09.960 --> 0:08:11.800 how she decided what she would make, But we would 0:08:11.880 --> 0:08:15.600 have dinners of she would have to me. Looking back, 0:08:15.640 --> 0:08:17.800 I think that they were really inspired meals. We'd have 0:08:17.840 --> 0:08:20.680 like french onion soup and crocs one night, and then 0:08:20.720 --> 0:08:24.720 we'd have what were other sort of typical meals that 0:08:24.800 --> 0:08:28.280 she would make. We would have like baked potatoes and 0:08:28.400 --> 0:08:33.439 steak and broccoli another night. So we had really well rounded, 0:08:34.160 --> 0:08:35.320 abundant meals. 0:08:35.440 --> 0:08:36.800 Would you ever go in the kitchen? 0:08:38.320 --> 0:08:40.760 I would help her. We all had chores, my sisters 0:08:40.760 --> 0:08:43.080 and I, So it was setting the table, clearing the table, 0:08:43.720 --> 0:08:45.319 not so much helping with the dishes. My dad is 0:08:45.360 --> 0:08:48.600 sort of a mania called dishwasher, and so we were 0:08:48.600 --> 0:08:52.160 not actually didn't want our help with that, And so 0:08:52.400 --> 0:08:55.680 I would bake with my mom more often. I was 0:08:55.720 --> 0:08:58.160 a really studious child, so I would be doing my 0:08:58.200 --> 0:09:00.520 homework when my mom was making dinner. But on the 0:09:00.559 --> 0:09:03.600 weekends we would, you know, I would help her baking 0:09:04.000 --> 0:09:04.880 breaking projects. 0:09:04.960 --> 0:09:07.720 Would you have dessert? Also? Every night you'd have screen salad, 0:09:07.760 --> 0:09:09.199 but go on to the dessert. 0:09:09.720 --> 0:09:11.200 We would have dessert every night. 0:09:11.320 --> 0:09:11.600 Yeah. 0:09:11.640 --> 0:09:13.400 It was I mean it was small. It was like 0:09:13.440 --> 0:09:16.000 a little bit of ice cream after dinner on you know, 0:09:16.040 --> 0:09:18.120 everyone kind of doing we wouldn't like properly have it 0:09:18.160 --> 0:09:20.640 at the table, but it was everyone can kind of 0:09:20.640 --> 0:09:23.720 help himself, and there was no restriction or judgment around food, 0:09:23.800 --> 0:09:24.959 which is really important. 0:09:25.240 --> 0:09:27.599 And you said your father cooked as well, Yeah, my 0:09:27.720 --> 0:09:28.280 dad cooked. 0:09:28.280 --> 0:09:29.960 It was more of a weekend project. You'd make us 0:09:29.960 --> 0:09:33.080 breakfasts and we'd always have It was very common in 0:09:33.080 --> 0:09:35.360 my family to had like a Sunday brunch with bagels 0:09:35.400 --> 0:09:37.520 and scrambled eggs and fruit and that kind of thing, 0:09:38.200 --> 0:09:40.840 and he would cook. One of my earliest food memories 0:09:40.960 --> 0:09:45.240 is my dad sawteg sliced garlic and olive oil to 0:09:45.360 --> 0:09:46.840 make linguini with clams. 0:09:48.000 --> 0:09:50.319 So where did you live. Where was it you were 0:09:50.320 --> 0:09:51.360 near the No. 0:09:51.400 --> 0:09:53.400 We were in Saint Louis. We had like kind of 0:09:54.840 --> 0:09:57.360 so in those days. I think he would use canned clams. 0:09:58.160 --> 0:09:59.840 We had a pretty good fish market where a lot 0:09:59.840 --> 0:10:01.320 of the fish came up from the Gulf because we 0:10:01.360 --> 0:10:03.600 were in Saint Louis. So I grew up eating fish, 0:10:03.640 --> 0:10:07.080 but not like not like here in New York. But 0:10:07.160 --> 0:10:10.800 that memory, and especially the smell memory of the garlic 0:10:10.840 --> 0:10:12.360 and olive oil, I still to this day I think 0:10:12.400 --> 0:10:14.480 that there is no better smell in the entire world 0:10:14.520 --> 0:10:16.040 than garlic and olive oil. 0:10:16.559 --> 0:10:18.920 And sometimes you need that smell that you I mean, yeah, 0:10:19.400 --> 0:10:20.920 you know there have been times that I just need 0:10:20.960 --> 0:10:21.360 to have that. 0:10:22.080 --> 0:10:24.280 Yeah, it's very grounding to me just because of how 0:10:24.320 --> 0:10:27.640 early on I remember that. So in my family, we 0:10:27.679 --> 0:10:30.360 always joke that we discussed the next meal. At the 0:10:30.400 --> 0:10:32.040 current meal. I'll be sitting out for dinner, then we 0:10:32.040 --> 0:10:34.000 talk about what what are we gonna eat tomorrow? 0:10:35.000 --> 0:10:37.400 I think that might that might become more common, that 0:10:37.559 --> 0:10:40.520 there's something about because I remember saying that to my mother. 0:10:40.679 --> 0:10:42.280 She said, well, you know, what are we going to 0:10:42.320 --> 0:10:44.520 eat tomorrow? So you just was slightly groaning from a 0:10:45.920 --> 0:10:47.680 and but then it's it's fun. 0:10:47.840 --> 0:10:48.840 Yeah, it's fine. 0:10:48.679 --> 0:10:50.559 To get a bed thinking what are we going to 0:10:50.600 --> 0:10:52.720 eat tomorrow? What are we going to wake up to tomorrow? 0:10:52.800 --> 0:10:57.040 We loved a meal plan and yeah. 0:10:55.880 --> 0:10:58.920 And so your father more about your dad cooking, So 0:10:59.160 --> 0:11:01.439 you would do at the breakfast and he would do 0:11:01.480 --> 0:11:07.200 the weekends. Was it his family that came from Ukraine. 0:11:07.400 --> 0:11:10.800 It's very fuzzy, yes, and no Ukraine or Russia, we 0:11:10.800 --> 0:11:13.959 don't really know. It's been actually very difficult to find 0:11:14.320 --> 0:11:18.559 on my mom's side. My mother's grandparents came from Ukraine 0:11:18.920 --> 0:11:23.480 and only spoke Yiddish, and her grandfather before coming to 0:11:23.559 --> 0:11:26.000 the United States was a baker, which I didn't know 0:11:26.040 --> 0:11:27.880 this until I was an adult, like not even that 0:11:27.920 --> 0:11:32.240 many time. Yes, I was working on my first cookbook 0:11:32.520 --> 0:11:33.880 and I was with my mom because my mom and 0:11:33.920 --> 0:11:37.120 I cooked together all the time now, and she kind 0:11:37.160 --> 0:11:40.680 of offhandedly mentioned this. We were in the kitchen together 0:11:40.720 --> 0:11:42.559 and she said, oh, yeah, well, you know, my grandpa 0:11:42.640 --> 0:11:44.920 was a baker, and I had truly never heard that before. 0:11:45.240 --> 0:11:49.040 But it makes sense because we have a small but 0:11:49.200 --> 0:11:52.319 really important collection of family recipes from her side in 0:11:52.360 --> 0:11:55.520 the family of you know, sort of Jewish baking recipes, 0:11:55.640 --> 0:12:02.520 so apple cake and mondel bread and poppy seed bread, 0:12:02.520 --> 0:12:04.680 all these sort of like Eastern European Jewish and. 0:12:04.640 --> 0:12:08.640 They would have come from your grandmother who has got 0:12:08.679 --> 0:12:09.200 them from her. 0:12:09.480 --> 0:12:12.280 Yes, mother, Yes, So we have Aunt Tilly's apple cake, 0:12:12.320 --> 0:12:14.320 which is my grandmother sister was Tilly. 0:12:14.559 --> 0:12:15.280 I haven't Aunt Tilly. 0:12:16.960 --> 0:12:20.160 Yeah, a famous, a famous apple cake recipe. Actually my 0:12:20.200 --> 0:12:22.959 mom submitted it to this is like in the nineties 0:12:23.200 --> 0:12:26.240 Saint Louis Post Dispatch, our local paper, and it won 0:12:26.320 --> 0:12:31.079 Recipe of the Year. So it's a famous apple cake. Famous. 0:12:32.440 --> 0:12:35.199 It has some it has orange juice in it, and 0:12:35.280 --> 0:12:39.319 it has sour cream, so it's like a very very 0:12:39.360 --> 0:12:41.920 tender cake and it just has mostly it has just 0:12:41.960 --> 0:12:45.199 a ton of apples in it, and it's delicious. I've 0:12:45.280 --> 0:12:46.600 made it in a very long time. 0:12:46.720 --> 0:12:48.880 Did your entertain They did. 0:12:49.200 --> 0:12:52.559 They entertained a lot, And it gave me a false 0:12:52.559 --> 0:12:55.880 sense of how easy entertaining is because my mom made 0:12:55.920 --> 0:12:59.240 it look so easy. She was so organized and would 0:12:59.679 --> 0:13:03.680 always have like be dressed and ready and flowers arranged 0:13:03.800 --> 0:13:06.600 fifteen minutes before people started showing up. 0:13:06.920 --> 0:13:11.559 Not like us, right right, yeah, right. 0:13:13.920 --> 0:13:16.280 But I grew up, Yeah, I grew up with those 0:13:16.440 --> 0:13:19.920 kinds of like parties. My dad's you know, fellow faculty 0:13:19.920 --> 0:13:22.760 from the hospital would come over for parties. And I 0:13:22.800 --> 0:13:25.400 grew up with that kind of as a kid from 0:13:25.400 --> 0:13:27.319 the top of the stairs looking down at the party 0:13:27.400 --> 0:13:30.880 and that the kind of little chit chat and you know, 0:13:30.960 --> 0:13:33.520 some sort of sound effects of a good party. I 0:13:33.559 --> 0:13:34.080 grew up with. 0:13:34.480 --> 0:13:38.480 And when you left this dream and you went off too, 0:13:38.640 --> 0:13:40.720 was the first time you left when you went to college? 0:13:40.880 --> 0:13:41.160 Yes? 0:13:41.360 --> 0:13:43.959 And did you what was the food like there? I know, 0:13:44.040 --> 0:13:46.600 the university, and I know Harvard, and I know so 0:13:46.640 --> 0:13:48.840 I don't you know, what would you be interesting to know? 0:13:48.960 --> 0:13:51.559 What was it like as in terms of food. 0:13:51.720 --> 0:13:55.080 It was at Harvard. It's most common for students to 0:13:55.120 --> 0:13:58.960 live on campus all four years, so it's not typicult 0:13:58.960 --> 0:14:01.920 to be in an apartment where you have may kitchen 0:14:01.960 --> 0:14:07.040 and can prepare your meals. So that's what I did. 0:14:06.600 --> 0:14:08.640 I lived in the dorms and we ate in the 0:14:08.679 --> 0:14:13.120 dining halls, which was sort of typical dining hall food. 0:14:13.440 --> 0:14:15.880 They I think right around the time I was a student, 0:14:15.920 --> 0:14:18.760 they had begun a program to work with local farms, 0:14:19.080 --> 0:14:21.800 but in Boston that just means you're eating winter squash 0:14:22.240 --> 0:14:24.840 for most of the year. We were just limited in 0:14:25.720 --> 0:14:28.280 our options, but I would go. I would Actually an 0:14:28.280 --> 0:14:31.960 interesting anecdote is that my parents moved to the Boston 0:14:32.000 --> 0:14:35.040 area when I started college. My dad's pitch shops, so 0:14:35.080 --> 0:14:37.760 my parents have been in Boston for the last eighteen 0:14:37.800 --> 0:14:40.960 plus years. But it meant that I had a home 0:14:40.960 --> 0:14:43.200 that I could go to if I wanted to cook. 0:14:43.400 --> 0:14:45.200 So I would go home on the weekends and bake. 0:14:45.320 --> 0:14:48.160 Sometimes i'd bake pies, and if I just really felt 0:14:48.160 --> 0:14:51.960 like I wanted to have that kind of domestic time 0:14:52.720 --> 0:14:55.800 from away from school and academics, and I would do that, 0:14:55.880 --> 0:14:57.600 so I was lucky that I also got to do that. 0:14:58.080 --> 0:15:00.760 Do you think the smell of baking was powerful as 0:15:00.760 --> 0:15:02.840 the smell of garlic and oil frying in the pan? 0:15:03.600 --> 0:15:03.960 I do. 0:15:04.160 --> 0:15:06.560 It is about smell biking, right. 0:15:06.240 --> 0:15:09.440 My mom. I know when I am so funny in 0:15:09.480 --> 0:15:14.240 my When I first started working up on Epite magazine, 0:15:14.600 --> 0:15:18.400 we worked in what was the former Gourmet Test kitchen 0:15:18.920 --> 0:15:22.440 where they really didn't have hoods, and I could I 0:15:22.440 --> 0:15:24.400 always knew when something was done because I could smell it. 0:15:24.760 --> 0:15:27.440 And then we moved facilities into a much bigger, newer 0:15:27.520 --> 0:15:29.400 kitchen where they had really powerful hoods and I couldn't 0:15:29.400 --> 0:15:32.680 smell anything, and it really kind of screwed me up. Yeah, 0:15:32.760 --> 0:15:36.480 but baking is very evocative for me of my childhood. 0:15:36.560 --> 0:15:40.960 My mom, we had a outside of my sister's window, 0:15:41.160 --> 0:15:43.640 we had a sour cherry tree, which is very special. 0:15:43.760 --> 0:15:46.720 Sour Cherries are partly because of my childhood and partly 0:15:46.760 --> 0:15:51.040 just because they're incredible, always my favorite baking fruit, and 0:15:51.040 --> 0:15:53.480 they're so temporary, so fleeting. 0:15:53.760 --> 0:15:54.920 What is this season for us? 0:15:54.960 --> 0:15:58.640 Out? It's really early July. It was just about a 0:15:58.640 --> 0:16:02.040 week or two where you get window because they're very, 0:16:02.120 --> 0:16:05.680 very fragile. When they're ripe, they are so soft, and 0:16:05.720 --> 0:16:09.080 so they just they go bad so fast. So my 0:16:09.160 --> 0:16:11.480 mom would bake pies with Sara cherries, and we would 0:16:11.480 --> 0:16:14.600 pick the cherries out of my sister's window from her bedroom. 0:16:14.720 --> 0:16:16.280 My mom would be terrified, we're gonna fall out of 0:16:16.320 --> 0:16:19.840 the window. So before the birds could get them, we'd 0:16:19.920 --> 0:16:21.400 try to pick enough cherries. 0:16:21.440 --> 0:16:23.600 Would you preserve them? Would you put them into ours? 0:16:23.680 --> 0:16:24.280 We didn't. 0:16:24.400 --> 0:16:27.200 I wish we had done that. I would do that now. 0:16:27.360 --> 0:16:31.280 One of my favorite things is is cherries and grappa, 0:16:32.040 --> 0:16:34.800 you know, really strong alcohol, and I don't like so 0:16:34.880 --> 0:16:37.800 much in syrup, but the French do it in a 0:16:37.960 --> 0:16:42.440 kind of de v and the and yeah, yeah, I 0:16:42.560 --> 0:16:42.840 love that. 0:16:43.840 --> 0:16:46.520 Yes, my mom would bake pies, just bake pies. Yeah, 0:16:46.560 --> 0:16:48.760 so the smell of pie baking is to me very 0:16:50.080 --> 0:16:51.240 reminiscent of my childhood. 0:16:51.720 --> 0:16:54.520 So you'd go home at the weekends and bake. And 0:16:54.560 --> 0:16:57.360 you were saying, as saying in the introduction that you 0:16:57.440 --> 0:17:01.680 were studying literature and history and the liberal arts education. 0:17:01.920 --> 0:17:05.639 But then you had a moment was there a moment 0:17:05.680 --> 0:17:07.800 that you sort of an epiphany when you said, actually, 0:17:07.800 --> 0:17:09.760 what I want to do is cook or was that 0:17:10.280 --> 0:17:13.360 a gradual thing to do it? 0:17:13.359 --> 0:17:15.720 It feels like it was both in a way. When 0:17:15.760 --> 0:17:19.199 I graduated from college, I didn't really know what I 0:17:19.240 --> 0:17:22.320 wanted to do. I moved back home for the summer, 0:17:22.600 --> 0:17:26.000 and I started cooking basically NonStop. It became the only 0:17:26.040 --> 0:17:28.720 thing that I really I wasn't really motivated to find 0:17:28.760 --> 0:17:32.440 a job, but I was highly motivated to cook dinner 0:17:32.480 --> 0:17:34.920 every night for my parents, me and my parents, and 0:17:35.080 --> 0:17:36.760 they kind of loved it, but they also wanted me 0:17:36.800 --> 0:17:41.160 to like figure some stuff out. So that's when actually 0:17:41.240 --> 0:17:44.160 I got an internship. I moved to New York. That's 0:17:44.240 --> 0:17:48.400 when I became even more serious about cooking and eating 0:17:48.560 --> 0:17:51.480 and exploring New York's restaurants to the extent that I 0:17:51.520 --> 0:17:55.600 could on being like living on a stipend from an internship. 0:17:57.200 --> 0:17:59.960 Then I applied to culinary school because which one was 0:18:00.720 --> 0:18:05.840 a fernde in Paris, which I only applied to one 0:18:06.160 --> 0:18:07.919 I was the only one I really knew that much 0:18:07.960 --> 0:18:10.560 about that had been recommended by, you know, a friend 0:18:10.560 --> 0:18:15.240 of a friend of a friend. So I pursued culinary 0:18:15.240 --> 0:18:19.480 school more as a means to moving to another country. 0:18:19.520 --> 0:18:21.960 I wanted to live abroad. I wanted to get that 0:18:22.080 --> 0:18:25.320 education and have that experience. I am. You know, I'm 0:18:25.359 --> 0:18:28.320 a lover of Julia Child and I just wanted to 0:18:28.640 --> 0:18:33.440 be her basically. But I always had the plan to 0:18:34.280 --> 0:18:39.119 presume academics. So after I did that, I went back 0:18:39.160 --> 0:18:42.119 to school and I did a master's in It was 0:18:42.119 --> 0:18:44.800 a master's in history, but with their study a focus 0:18:44.880 --> 0:18:48.440 on culinary history, basically looking at the sort of intellectual 0:18:48.480 --> 0:18:53.000 history of food. And I loved doing that. But about 0:18:53.000 --> 0:18:56.520 halfway through my master's program, I just decided that I 0:18:56.560 --> 0:18:59.800 missed cooking. I missed that feeling of making something with 0:18:59.840 --> 0:19:02.159 my hands that had always been so important to me. 0:19:03.160 --> 0:19:07.159 So I finished my master's program and that's when I decided, like, 0:19:07.200 --> 0:19:09.359 I think that I have to be making food and 0:19:09.400 --> 0:19:10.919 not just reading and writing about it. 0:19:12.800 --> 0:19:15.960 And what did you think that having that academic knowledge, 0:19:16.119 --> 0:19:19.600 knowing the history, knowing influenced your actual cooking. Do you 0:19:19.640 --> 0:19:21.919 think you would have been with that all that a 0:19:21.960 --> 0:19:24.919 different kind of cook if you didn't know or have that. 0:19:25.440 --> 0:19:29.639 I think it just informs my perspective, my perspective is 0:19:29.680 --> 0:19:31.959 just very long, I think when it comes to cooking, 0:19:32.119 --> 0:19:35.520 because when I would read these like early modern cookbook texts, 0:19:36.119 --> 0:19:37.760