Speaker 1: After working with you. Besides greeness that I influenced you
Speaker 1: in any other way cooking or is it just my girl?
Speaker 2: We'll be here for the rest of the night.
Speaker 3: Of course, I think you really showed me a whole
Speaker 3: different way of eating healthfully, just eating really fresh ingredients,
Speaker 3: paying attention to what's in season, and it doesn't have
Speaker 3: to be very complicated.
Speaker 1: So I've known Jess Dami since she first came to
Speaker 1: work for Sarah Carrey, who happens to be here on
Speaker 1: our everyday food magazine, which I still refer to Sarah,
Speaker 1: And she started as an intern in twenty and eleven.
Speaker 1: She became a regular contributor to our culinary projects on
Speaker 1: shows like Martha Bakes and pot Luck Dinner Party with Snoop.
Speaker 1: Snoop fell in love with her. Does he do you
Speaker 1: still cook for Snoop?
Speaker 2: I haven't seen him in a while.
Speaker 1: I'm going to see him on Thursday Friday. I bet
Speaker 1: he'll ask about you. He always asks about you.
Speaker 2: You think we can turn him into a health nut.
Speaker 1: He is a healthy he's pretty Yuh.
Speaker 2: He's pretty healthy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's totally healthy. And before Christmas, did you see
Speaker 1: his big announcement that he was giving up. Smoke turned
Speaker 1: out to be turned out to be smoke coming from
Speaker 1: a fire, and it was. And he sold a lot
Speaker 1: of those little stoves, those little heaters, you know, one
Speaker 1: of those little fire pit things. It's just a sham anyway.
Speaker 1: Jess is also one of the many challenged chefs and
Speaker 1: artists who have worked with me throughout the years. There
Speaker 1: are many, it looks like with us here tonight, and
Speaker 1: can you stand up everybody who's worked at Martha Stewart
Speaker 1: Living or or please then please, there's a lot.
Speaker 2: I like this.
Speaker 1: I like to see it. It's nice. Oh you're working,
Speaker 1: you're working. You don't have to work in the kitchens,
Speaker 1: and you see there's a lot of people, and so
Speaker 1: I feel good as as sort of an incubator, you
Speaker 1: know how.
Speaker 2: That was one of the things I wanted to ask you.
Speaker 3: You must feel so good when you see all of
Speaker 3: these amazing people doing incredible things that have been inspired by.
Speaker 1: I'm like a mother and I like to see that
Speaker 1: progeny persist. I'd like to see them succeed. I like
Speaker 1: to see them create, and they do and they are.
Speaker 1: I still waiting for a cookbook from Sarah Carrey. I
Speaker 1: don't know where the hell that one is. I don't
Speaker 1: know where Thomas Joseph's cookbook is yet, so a lot
Speaker 1: of people creating beautiful things. Well, I have to say
Speaker 1: I'm doing very nice.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I wanted to say, you know, I don't think I've
Speaker 3: ever really told you this story, but I grew up
Speaker 3: on Shelter Island, which I'm also not sure I ever
Speaker 3: told you, But no, I read that today though. Yeah,
Speaker 3: as a pretty young girl, when I was maybe eleven.
Speaker 2: Or twelve, I first found Martha Stewart living.
Speaker 1: I had lots of friends on Shelter Island, so I
Speaker 1: probably met you well.
Speaker 3: I was certainly very inspired by everything you were doing.
Speaker 3: And I remember bringing a copy of the magazine to
Speaker 3: my grandmother's house to do my first real Thanksgiving and
Speaker 3: driving everybody crazy because I didn't have the right tartpan,
Speaker 3: not all the platters matched. And that I was like
Speaker 3: eleven or twelve years old. I was really young. And
Speaker 3: it's so it's such a huge moment for me to
Speaker 3: be sitting here with you today. I mean, I could
Speaker 3: have never imagined in a million years that this would happen.
Speaker 1: And I'm not so great, but now you could Yeah,
Speaker 1: we worked together closely on all these fantastic projects, and
Speaker 1: you were always a joy to work with. I must say. So.
Speaker 1: You have always had a kind of fearless approach to
Speaker 1: your cooking and to your wife. And you're always off
Speaker 1: doing exotic things, especially dating your most exotic boyfriend, who's
Speaker 1: right there. And as I said in the forward to
Speaker 1: her first book, Salad Free, she is a serious, thorough
Speaker 1: and fastidious cook and food stylist. And that book was
Speaker 1: a best selling cookbook, is very a very pleasurable book.
Speaker 1: I look at it. I don't use it, but I
Speaker 1: look at it because I eat that like that anyway,
Speaker 1: you know, I eat like that. I'm you know, I
Speaker 1: grow all those things in the garden. And that's why
Speaker 1: I'm a dirt nerd. We're concentrating on dirt now as
Speaker 1: opposed to what comes from the dirt, because everybody has to.
Speaker 1: If you want to be a good gardener, you have
Speaker 1: to have good dirt, right absolutely, And how is your
Speaker 1: garden my garden?
Speaker 2: You know, I've been worried sick about my seedlings.
Speaker 3: I'm literally facetiming with my seedlings to make sure they're okay.
Speaker 1: Have somebody watering them?
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's you know, we've had some cool nights
Speaker 2: in LA.
Speaker 3: It's gone down to about forty six, so I can't
Speaker 3: get them in the ground.
Speaker 2: I saw Ryan for a few minutes and I thrilled him.
Speaker 2: Believe me.
Speaker 3: He showed me all the seeds. He said, it's the
Speaker 3: biggest year ever.
Speaker 1: At the garden. Yeah he's' that's the gardener Ryan McAllister,
Speaker 1: who works incredible. Yeah he's sick. Yeah. So now in
Speaker 1: health nut, I hate nuts, so so I rarely eat nuts.
Speaker 1: I like pistachio nuts and I like macadamia nuts because
Speaker 1: they're they're kind of fun. But the rest of the nuts, this.
Speaker 2: Is not all nuts. It's all healthy.
Speaker 4: I know.
Speaker 1: I looked. I looked at every single recipe. So, but
Speaker 1: you do have a lot of nuts in the book. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and you did send me. You did send me some
Speaker 1: all nimes.
Speaker 2: Do you make your own nut milk?
Speaker 1: No, I don't. You don't drink no. Do you drink
Speaker 1: home a whole drink regular whole milk?
Speaker 2: Yeah, every morning.
Speaker 1: I'm not one of those people that has have you know,
Speaker 1: nut milk and my.
Speaker 2: Coffee and your green juice.
Speaker 1: You have every oh yeah, And she put my green
Speaker 1: juice recipe in the book. I did not actually I
Speaker 1: did not read the green juice recipes. Is it really
Speaker 1: my recipes?
Speaker 2: It's the one I made many many, many times. I
Speaker 2: hope I know that.
Speaker 1: Okay, it changes, you know every day, Yeah, depending always,
Speaker 1: depending on what's growing in the in the greenhouse or
Speaker 1: in the garden. But but these are light meals. These
Speaker 1: are full of bright flavors and infuse with her own
Speaker 1: reverence for a fresh, local produce and seasonality. And you know,
Speaker 1: Jess moved out to California. She could have never done
Speaker 1: this book or the other book if she hadn't moved
Speaker 1: to California.
Speaker 2: You couldn't not without a greenhouse, like you couldn't know,
Speaker 2: you know.
Speaker 3: I really tried for this book to sort of bring
Speaker 3: go back to my every day But.
Speaker 1: It's not a supermarket. It's not supermarket. This is, this is,
Speaker 1: this is and and or the organization it takes. But
Speaker 1: once you get into it, you can do it. And
Speaker 1: that's what I really like. You know.
Speaker 3: When I was developing the recipes, I really tried to
Speaker 3: go to stores like Trader Joe's and make sure that
Speaker 3: they were ingredients that people could find wherever they are.
Speaker 3: Of course, they're not the same as if you're going
Speaker 3: to the Hollywood farmers Market.
Speaker 1: Yes, but you should be able to find for that's
Speaker 1: arawan Yeah, araw one. You go into Arawuana and you
Speaker 1: spend one hundred dollars and you have a little time, you.
Speaker 2: Can fit everything in your part. Yeah.
Speaker 3: I love that story too, But this is sort of
Speaker 3: you know, it's the kind of food that you'd spend
Speaker 3: so much money there.
Speaker 1: I'm counting the ingredients and the black bean sweet potato
Speaker 1: and Green's Breakfast gowl one, two, three, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen,
Speaker 1: maybe fourteen or fifteen ingreenies. But you have to, you know,
Speaker 1: have to have the sweet potatoes cooked. I cooked sweet
Speaker 1: potatoes for my dogs, so this one I could actually
Speaker 1: and there's always a sweet potato cooked in their fridge,
Speaker 1: so I can actually make this salad. I don't like beans.
Speaker 1: I don't like beans, and I don't like nuts. Only
Speaker 1: fresh beans. Yeah, I don't like dried beans. You know.
Speaker 2: I've started making my own dog food because of you.
Speaker 1: Also, and.
Speaker 2: Two dogs. One is a Chiuahua and one is a Chihuahua.
Speaker 2: Italian greyhounds. Oh, oh goshful, he's like a little deer.
Speaker 2: He's very tall, very small.
Speaker 1: I just got a new French bulldog too, and she
Speaker 1: moved in with two chowchous and two old grouchy Frenchies
Speaker 1: and she's taken over. Yeah, she's lovely. Luna Muna. What
Speaker 1: are your dogs?
Speaker 2: Snacks and Toad?
Speaker 3: Yeah, and Snacks loves carrots so much.
Speaker 2: And he discovered the carrot bed in the.
Speaker 3: Garden and now he sits in there and he just
Speaker 3: pulls the people.
Speaker 1: That's weird.
Speaker 3: And it's so cute that I don't stop him, but
Speaker 3: it's annoying, and I.
Speaker 1: Know he wouldn't. I would put a fence on. So
Speaker 1: so we're supposed to be talking about our culinary careers
Speaker 1: and what it takes to create a cookbook today. And
Speaker 1: did you read that there were twenty five thousand cookbooks
Speaker 1: published last year?
Speaker 2: I believe it.
Speaker 3: I saw that Epicurious their like best of list was
Speaker 3: the top eighty cookbooks coming out this spring.
Speaker 1: Isn't it?
Speaker 2: Which is crazy?
Speaker 1: It is crazy. It is crazy. But we are consumed
Speaker 1: with food. We are very interested in the in the
Speaker 1: preservation and the growing and in the cooking of good food.
Speaker 2: Anyway, now to talk about TikTok. Have you gone on?
Speaker 2: Are you on TikTok? Martha?
Speaker 3: Of course, yeah, you're you have you were always just
Speaker 3: you're any trend.
Speaker 1: And I don't I'm never going to say I don't
Speaker 1: like you talk. I like TikTok. I think it's a
Speaker 1: I think it's a very nice platform. I don't delve
Speaker 1: deep into chiktok, but it's a very active and very
Speaker 1: lively and I learn a lot on TikTok.
Speaker 3: What do you think about you know, it's been hard
Speaker 3: for me after working with you, to not have everything
Speaker 3: look beautiful and perfect. So many of the videos, you know,
Speaker 3: people are cooking with one hand, shooting.
Speaker 2: With the other hand. The lighting's bad.
Speaker 3: Has that been an adjustment for you at all? No,
Speaker 3: You're still Everything you do is still looks fer.
Speaker 1: No, I don't. I don't mind. I don't mind looking
Speaker 1: at I I like. I really learn a lot. I'm
Speaker 1: both on TikTok and on Instagram. I don't spend a
Speaker 1: lot of time doing reading or looking at it, just
Speaker 1: because I don't have that time. But but but I
Speaker 1: always learned something and uh and I and I like
Speaker 1: I like, I like sites that actually teach a lot.
Speaker 1: So I'm into the big big gardener, and I'm looking
Speaker 1: at all the English garden sites right now, Chelsea Flower
Speaker 1: Show is coming up, and everybody's posting the most extraordinary
Speaker 1: gardens and the most beautiful proteges where they're growing all
Speaker 1: the most beautiful vegetables. So that's how I learn a lot.
Speaker 2: I love that your blog is now on Instagram.
Speaker 1: Yes, I did that. I did that. We have We've
Speaker 1: had a blog online for how many years? How many
Speaker 1: years would you say? Twenty years at least the Martha
Speaker 1: Blog hashtag Martha the Martha Blog online and we have
Speaker 1: a loyal following, but not a big following. And within
Speaker 1: three weeks our thing called Martha Stewart Blog has really
Speaker 1: taken off and it's so exciting to have it on.
Speaker 1: Justin Sanchez works with me on the blog and she's
Speaker 1: she's out photographing all day long and we're doing the
Speaker 1: research and writing a really nice informative it's like a
Speaker 1: magazine story every day.
Speaker 3: And it's really like what it's like being around you,
Speaker 3: just seeing all the little things you do.
Speaker 1: Yeah, every day. Well, thank you for mentioning that, because
Speaker 1: it is. It's a joy to do. Yeah, and I
Speaker 1: haven't really gotten in the kitchen with it yet too much.
Speaker 1: I'm excited, but we will do some stuff in the kitchen.
Speaker 1: So you're you've been cooking up a storm with all
Speaker 1: these beautiful, beautiful vegetables curried carrot dip, and everything does
Speaker 1: look good. You you have mastered your style and I
Speaker 1: like that a lot. I don't know. Let me see
Speaker 1: steam clams and sweet pepper and corn broth. Is that good?
Speaker 2: Everything's good?
Speaker 1: No? No, no, I'm just saying it. Is it good?
Speaker 1: I'm just you know what I mean? That looks so good?
Speaker 1: Is that? Did you take the corn off the cob? Yes? Okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: it looks really good. Yeah.
Speaker 2: This was a really really fun book to work on.
Speaker 1: And the broccoli apasta with peas and pectorina. My grandchildren
Speaker 1: will eat that. That's a great one for that is
Speaker 1: so good. They love they love pesto. So I'm going
Speaker 1: to children to add some broccoli choice.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and the book.
Speaker 3: It's not like hiding more vegetables necessarily, but that one's packed.
Speaker 1: This one. This artist choke, I love artist. It was
Speaker 1: I grow arted chokes and I cannot wait to make
Speaker 1: stuffed arted choke with breadcrumbs and so much garlic. How
Speaker 1: much garlic actually is there in here?
Speaker 2: There's quite a bit.
Speaker 1: And so it's only clothes because you can't you can't
Speaker 1: a lot that canst so many more clothes than that.
Speaker 2: You don't like to three garlic pasta. No is it roasted.
Speaker 1: It's not roasted. It's roasted garlics which is very soft
Speaker 1: confe kind of, and then it is sauteed and sliced
Speaker 1: and sauteta and olive oil, and then it's raw and it's, uh,
Speaker 1: it's so delicious.
Speaker 2: I thought you didn't like raw garlic.
Speaker 1: It only touched in this one and a lot of
Speaker 1: olive oil. It's very good, but you should try that one.
Speaker 1: But this is this I'm definitely going to try.
Speaker 2: That was my my Sicilian grandfather always.
Speaker 1: Used Yes, so good. And I like the colors. I
Speaker 1: love the purple cover. It was.
Speaker 3: I had these crazy girls in Paris dye that fabric
Speaker 3: for me.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, it was a fun.
Speaker 1: I thought I thought you had painted that. It's so pretty.
Speaker 3: They did all sort of bautique dying, and yeah, it
Speaker 3: was really fun to collaborate.
Speaker 1: Well after working with you, besides greeness that I influenced
Speaker 1: you in any other way looking.
Speaker 3: Or is it just my we'll be here for the
Speaker 3: rest of the night, of course, I think, you know,
Speaker 3: you really showed me a whole different way of eating healthfully,
Speaker 3: you know, just eating really fresh ingredients, paying attention to
Speaker 3: what's in season, and it doesn't have.
Speaker 2: To be very complicated.
Speaker 3: I think that's you know, everyone's always worried it's so
Speaker 3: hard to eat healthy. But all the foods that I
Speaker 3: saw you enjoy or I cooked for you.
Speaker 2: It was very simple.
Speaker 1: It's pretty simple.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, there's a.
Speaker 3: Dish here that you asked me specifically for one day
Speaker 3: for lunch, which was a jar of tuna, a supreme grapefruit,
Speaker 3: and an avocado. And that is the perfect example of
Speaker 3: something that is so simple, but it's the absolute perfect bite.
Speaker 1: It could have been a can of sardines, yeah, either.
Speaker 2: But perfect and simple and so so healthy.
Speaker 1: I have a very empty refrigerator. I mean, I have
Speaker 1: giant troll sins in my kitchen but with glass doors,
Speaker 1: and you can see that it's pretty empty except for
Speaker 1: giant bowls of citrus from my greenhouse. I'm growing a
Speaker 1: lot of citrus. You have to come up and see everything,
Speaker 1: grapefruits and oranges and lemons and limes.
Speaker 2: And you have to see our little orchard that we plant.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so fabulous. Well this is inside and you're outside.
Speaker 3: I remember you told me, well, probably about ten years
Speaker 3: ago at this point you said, I haven't bought a
Speaker 3: lemon in years, which in New York is really really amazing.
Speaker 1: We had such a crop of lemons last week, lemons
Speaker 1: and key limes. I had to squeeze them all and
Speaker 1: freeze pints of juice. So now I can make well.
Speaker 2: Your I don't know how you had any room in
Speaker 2: your freezer.
Speaker 3: Your freezer are always filled with berries, just huge bags
Speaker 3: of currants and black raspberries.
Speaker 1: Ju citrus juices. But there's nothing in the refrigerator. So
Speaker 1: I have to I've had to learn how to cook
Speaker 1: from like the air. Sometimes I'm hungry and I hate
Speaker 1: to go to the store. I hate shopping. Do you
Speaker 1: hate shopping? Are you the farmer's markets?
Speaker 2: I have the farmer's markets.
Speaker 3: I'm really trying to grow as much as I possibly can,
Speaker 3: because it is a drag to go to the store,
Speaker 3: and it's you know, I'm sort of When I started
Speaker 3: writing this book, I was really sick of the question
Speaker 3: like what's for dinner? What are we having for dinner?
Speaker 3: It's a question you have every single day. And this
Speaker 3: was really my solution for that. You know, I had
Speaker 3: written another cookbook at the same time with my friend
Speaker 3: Benny Blanco.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I'm anxious to see that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that one was fun. It's all parties.
Speaker 1: He really felt to everybody who Benny Blanco is.
Speaker 2: Benny Blanco is one of my best friends.
Speaker 1: Everybody knows who Bennie Blanco is.
Speaker 3: He's a music producer who really loves to cook.
Speaker 2: He's worked with.
Speaker 3: Justin Bieber, Katie Perry, all kinds of people, but he
Speaker 3: loves to cook. So I helped him write a cookbook
Speaker 3: and it's much different than this book. It's a lot
Speaker 3: of I think there's three different fried chicken recipes in it,
Speaker 3: but he put a recipe in there for you because
Speaker 3: he's been trying to get your attention desperately. He just
Speaker 3: it drives him crazy that you give me attention and
Speaker 3: that you don't pay attention.
Speaker 1: To music for him. Nothing. What does he want?
Speaker 3: He just wants you to recognize him.
Speaker 2: And now he's out.
Speaker 1: Now I know who he is, but.
Speaker 2: Don't do it? You know, Martha, I have a question
Speaker 2: for you.
Speaker 3: Yes, you have accomplished so much, and I want to
Speaker 3: know what it looks like for you to be proud
Speaker 3: of yourself. Do you ever pause to really like let
Speaker 3: your accomplishment sink in? Are you onto the next Do
Speaker 3: you take the time just to pause?
Speaker 1: I know for me, I don't have time. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: have no time for anything. I'm writing the hundredths book
Speaker 1: right now. Oh, and I think you'll all like it.
Speaker 1: It's a hundred of my favorite recipes and it's just
Speaker 1: called the cookbook, and so it's going to be a
Speaker 1: lot of fun. It's beautiful. We had Dana Gallagher photograph it,
Speaker 1: and we worked and we worked for how many shoot days?
Speaker 1: Was it? My book editors right here, how many shoot days?
Speaker 1: Sixteen sixteen shoots for a hundred amazing photographs and more
Speaker 1: more than one hundred. That was not enough days. But
Speaker 1: but and you talk about hard work, but all done
Speaker 1: in my kitchen in Bedford, and that's a really really
Speaker 1: it's going to be a beautiful.
Speaker 3: How different did it feel to make your hundred book
Speaker 3: than your first book?
Speaker 1: It's it's feeling about the same because I haven't finished
Speaker 1: writing those hundreds yet and it it.
Speaker 2: I don't think it will ever gets easier. It's a process.
Speaker 3: I don't think most people in this room know what
Speaker 3: does go into It does.
Speaker 1: Not get easier, and in fact, in fact it's a
Speaker 1: little bit harder because because the first book, Entertaining nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty two, that took me, that took me only a year,
Speaker 1: and this one's taking only sort of only a year
Speaker 1: two write, but a more painful year. And and it's
Speaker 1: and Entertaining is more pages. But it was like so
Speaker 1: much fun. I'm not bored.
Speaker 2: I'm not don't what's your favorite part of the process
Speaker 2: writing it?
Speaker 1: Writing the most things, yeah, and and thinking about the content,
Speaker 1: of course, and then the photographs, looking at the photographs,
Speaker 1: the final photographs. That's And we did a lot of
Speaker 1: styling in this book. It's it's pretty, it's me in
Speaker 1: which I'm happy about.
Speaker 2: That feels so good. I think this book was for me.
Speaker 3: It was I could really put more of my personality
Speaker 3: and it's good.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Why why did you find that after the first book?
Speaker 2: You know, they wanted to play it a little safer
Speaker 2: with the first one. Who was the publishers listen.
Speaker 1: To the publisher. No publishers in this room. Right is
Speaker 1: your publisher here.
Speaker 2: There's a few people from my publisher.
Speaker 1: Never listen to the publisher, Yeah, they never. They don't
Speaker 1: know what they're talking about. They published twenty five thousand,
Speaker 1: you know. Yeah, if they were really good publishers, they
Speaker 1: would not do that many.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's it's really just the last week alone, there
Speaker 3: were so many.
Speaker 1: Other here's three cookbook authors sitting around here. Does it
Speaker 1: bother you? Yeah? Yeah, yeah, it's very it's very hard
Speaker 1: to go through all the book cookbooks that come to
Speaker 1: my to.
Speaker 3: My absolutely, and I think the best thing you can
Speaker 3: do is be truly yourself, you know, That's all we can.
Speaker 1: And then don't don't let the publisher tell you anything
Speaker 1: like that. You are you are yourself. I'm not worried
Speaker 1: about you. That's why I'm sitting here. If I didn't
Speaker 1: like your book, you think I would be here?
Speaker 2: No, not, not on a rainy Tuesday night.
Speaker 1: No, no way. And if I didn't like you, I
Speaker 1: wouldn't be here. But but it is. It is a
Speaker 1: very nice accomplishment that that's such in such a short
Speaker 1: period of time. You've done three cookbooks. You have really
Speaker 1: focused and uh and centered yourself on subject matter that's
Speaker 1: really uniquely yours.
Speaker 2: It feels great and its fin for yourself.
Speaker 3: You know, I watched that documentary that came out a
Speaker 3: few weeks ago.
Speaker 1: That's the Unauthor. I see an end version The Authorized
Speaker 1: is coming soon, but sometimes this year.
Speaker 3: But I have to say, there were so many parallel
Speaker 3: to where I am right now, seeing you working on
Speaker 3: your first house and planting your orchard there and just
Speaker 3: growing this little compound and learning as much as you
Speaker 3: can about gardening, being so excited about throwing parties.
Speaker 1: I know we're sitting in a bookstore, but when you
Speaker 1: pick up a cookbook, one of the twenty five thousand
Speaker 1: or so from last year, what makes you buy the cookbook?
Speaker 1: The name, the photographs, what appeals to you?
Speaker 2: I think that. I mean, the cover matters so much.
Speaker 2: That's what's going to catch my eye first. And then
Speaker 2: I open it up. And food has to look good.
Speaker 3: It has to look colorful, It has to have a
Speaker 3: lot of produce for me, and it has to have
Speaker 3: some combinations that I wouldn't think of on my own,
Speaker 3: which is hard, you know, to find that, But that's
Speaker 3: really what I look for.
Speaker 2: That's what I look for in a restaurant as well.
Speaker 3: Sometimes it can be something really simple, but if somebody's
Speaker 3: able to come up with little combinations of flavors that
Speaker 3: excite me different, Yeah, how about you?
Speaker 1: Well, I like to bake, so I'm always looking for
Speaker 1: the next fabulous book with baking in it. It has
Speaker 1: to be some making something as hard as Brioche doable,
Speaker 1: and those are the kinds of things I look for.
Speaker 1: I'm always looking, as I said, at all these cookbooks.
Speaker 1: And again, the photography does have to be appealing, but
Speaker 1: the recipes themselves have to be understandable and.
Speaker 3: Mouth watering, and it's harder than ever to know if
Speaker 3: the recipes will work.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: It's not like when we were at the magazine where
Speaker 3: everything was being tested so thoroughly.
Speaker 2: So many people don't.
Speaker 3: They skip that step because it's expensive, but it's so important.
Speaker 3: I think coming up through magazines was really the best
Speaker 3: possible way to learn about how to write a recipe,
Speaker 3: and I think it with social media, unfortunately, it's something
Speaker 3: that's really not the case for everyone anymore.
Speaker 1: You know. And you have a few meat recipes in
Speaker 1: your book, are you going to do a book ever
Speaker 1: with more meat?
Speaker 3: I don't really do that much meat. I really don't
Speaker 3: cook it at home very often. If I go to
Speaker 3: a restaurant and I know it's being sourced from from somewhere, that's,
Speaker 3: you know, good.
Speaker 2: I'll buy meat, but I rarely cook it. How about
Speaker 2: you don't eat too much?
Speaker 1: Rarely rarely eat meat. I like to eat it sometimes,
Speaker 1: but not much. And I do look for sources for
Speaker 1: meat that are that are good sources. I had to
Speaker 1: make a chili contest the other night. I didn't know
Speaker 1: what I was getting into when I agreed to compete
Speaker 1: in the Bedford Katona Chili contest.
Speaker 2: How many people were in it?
Speaker 1: Twenty tables, twenty chili tables with like four or five
Speaker 1: people contributing to the chili that you had to prepare
Speaker 1: two giant croc pots so that they could be tasted.
Speaker 1: I mean, if you want to eat chili, this was
Speaker 1: a very good chili. I put every kind of pepper
Speaker 1: I could find in it. And I had my own
Speaker 1: plopenias that I had preserved in salt. Do you ever
Speaker 1: do that?
Speaker 2: No, I was going to see it. I sometimes with
Speaker 2: them in my freezer, though no.
Speaker 1: I put them in salt. Likely Lily Paie. She taught
Speaker 1: me how to do that. She comes from Puna. And
Speaker 1: they were actually everybody said they were a little too hot.
Speaker 1: I served them as a garnish with the with the
Speaker 1: kremlon and the other things. But it was a fun contest,
Speaker 1: but I didn't enjoy cooking the meat so much. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so you're the inspirations. We've talked a little bit about that,
Speaker 1: but for this particular health night, you are on a
Speaker 1: health kick. Yeah, you look beautiful.
Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 1: And all your pictures, you know, and everything I see posted,
Speaker 1: you always look beautiful. And would you say that these
Speaker 1: are extremely healthy recipes.
Speaker 3: I actually wouldn't say they're extremely healthy. I think they're
Speaker 3: very balanced. And I was really really inspired by the
Speaker 3: health food movement in California in the sixties and seventies.
Speaker 1: I thought about the health food movement now.
Speaker 3: The health food movement now, I think seems a little
Speaker 3: bit hard to access for a lot of people. You know,
Speaker 3: there's people like Gwyneth Paltrow and other wellness people, and
Speaker 3: a lot of that food and the supplements and all
Speaker 3: of that is very expensive.
Speaker 1: And veganism, yeah, your rampant veganism in California.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, and some of those vegan ingredients really aren't healthy, don't.
Speaker 3: They're very processed, and I'm this book doesn't use any
Speaker 3: ingredients like that.
Speaker 2: It's just whole foods.
Speaker 3: And I was very inspired by you know, I had
Speaker 3: the Source. Family gave me a restaurant I wanted to see.
Speaker 3: Did you ever go to the Source restaurant in LA
Speaker 3: when it was open?
Speaker 1: Oh? I didn't, I didn't.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I had one of the members of that. It
Speaker 3: was really fun speaking to people who grew up in
Speaker 3: California at that time and were a part of that
Speaker 3: when it was really radical. Now it's not, you know,
Speaker 3: a radical thing to want to.
Speaker 2: Eat well, but it was in the sixties.
Speaker 1: Back to gardening. Do you think growing your own food
Speaker 1: really does change your relationship to food and cooking?
Speaker 2: Absolutely?
Speaker 3: When you see how much work it takes to grow
Speaker 3: each perfect tomato, you're you know, certainly going to eat
Speaker 3: a little differently.
Speaker 2: I think more than anything, it's it makes you cook more.
Speaker 3: Simply, a tomato doesn't need much more than olive oil
Speaker 3: and a bit of salt when it comes right. And
Speaker 3: learning you know when food is in season wherever you
Speaker 3: live is so important because then you have to do
Speaker 3: even less. You know, if you're not trying to buy
Speaker 3: a tomato in the middle of the winter, of course
Speaker 3: it's gonna taste good and you're not gonna need to
Speaker 3: put all these fancy ingredients on it for it to
Speaker 3: be really, really delicious.
Speaker 1: But it's it's hard to talk to a New York
Speaker 1: audience so much. How many of you have gardens in
Speaker 1: the in the audience have quite a few, But it's
Speaker 1: it's hard in New York to talk about about the freshness. Yeah,
Speaker 1: picking your own thing when you're when you don't have
Speaker 1: a garden.
Speaker 3: I wanted to ask you, what what advice would you
Speaker 3: give to someone here in this city who wanted to
Speaker 3: get started gardening or growing something with very little.
Speaker 1: Spy a little plot of land. Yeah, come work for
Speaker 1: me on my farm, learn how to garden. It's uh,
Speaker 1: it's hard. It's hard when you're when you don't have
Speaker 1: any any space.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I have a little hydroponic tower that I really love
Speaker 3: for greens.
Speaker 2: It's really great.
Speaker 1: And the big grow so fast and then they flop
Speaker 1: so fast. I use I was figuring out today for
Speaker 1: my green juice. The main ingredient is spinach, and so
Speaker 1: I have a vegetable greenhouse for winter growing, and I
Speaker 1: use about a half a pound of spinach every day,
Speaker 1: maybe even more in my green juice. So that is
Speaker 1: a lot of spinach. And if you buy it in
Speaker 1: the organics food store, that's about nine dollars of spinach,
Speaker 1: you know, because that's how it's so expensive, fresh, big, beautiful,
Speaker 1: meaty leaves. So it's hard to grow enough to make
Speaker 1: your own green juice and the cucumbers and the celery
Speaker 1: and all of that stuff. But it's worth it, yeah,
Speaker 1: it really can. It's worth it because nothing tastes like
Speaker 1: homegrown spinach. Nothing. And now I'm cutting up spinach. On Instagram,
Speaker 1: I saw a very nice, a nice egg dish, just eggs,
Speaker 1: beaten eggs in a and lots of spinach, lots of tomatoes,
Speaker 1: lots of just lots of vegetables right in there, and
Speaker 1: just it's like a fritata, but not quite a fritata.
Speaker 1: It was so delicious. I just made that served I
Speaker 1: served it to all the guys who work on the
Speaker 1: farm because I have two hundred chickens and we have
Speaker 1: a lot of eggs every day. Do you have chickens yet?
Speaker 2: Not yet? We have a lot of coyotes. So that
Speaker 2: makes it a.
Speaker 1: Little you need a fullproof, a full proof cage for them.
Speaker 4: But what a difference it makes.
Speaker 2: I have one more question for you.
Speaker 3: I come well, after watching that documentary and knowing you
Speaker 3: for so long, you seem so fearless. Is there anything
Speaker 3: that you are afraid of.
Speaker 1: Freido, Well, you know, like jumping out of an airplane.
Speaker 1: I'm not very afraid. No, you can't. You can't do
Speaker 1: we do and be afraid.
Speaker 2: No, you really can't.
Speaker 4: No.
Speaker 1: Writing like the way we write, and the cooking the
Speaker 1: way we cook, and living the way we live. You're
Speaker 1: not afraid. Any questions from our audience. Yes, So I want.
Speaker 6: To take my recipes actually and digitize them for my kids.
Speaker 2: Any recommendations there, I'm not going to populish it, but
Speaker 2: leave something for my kids.
Speaker 1: That's a very nice idea, and I think you should.
Speaker 1: I mean, I tried to do that because someone made
Speaker 1: with my grandma's recipes and I didn't. They weren't digitized.
Speaker 1: We just typed them out, got made them sit down
Speaker 1: and cook with me and record them. So I do
Speaker 1: have them. It's a very important to do tradition. I
Speaker 1: was hoping you were going to ask me a question about,
Speaker 1: you know, the difference between our recipes. Mine are based
Speaker 1: in tradition mostly and yours are.
Speaker 3: Because we didn't write down my grandfather's recipes before he
Speaker 3: passed away, but I do have on my dad's side,
Speaker 3: my grandmother left a notebook that has a couple of recipes,
Speaker 3: but it also has all of the menus from all
Speaker 3: of the parties she ever went to, with little notes
Speaker 3: that say like this I wouldn't make again, or this
Speaker 3: wasn't very good, and it's the thing. If my house
Speaker 3: was burning down, I'd grab my dogs and that book.
Speaker 1: That's very nice, so please record them.
Speaker 5: Another question, aside from your tomatoes, chess, what is your
Speaker 5: favorite ingredient to ad to your recipes?
Speaker 1: And you as well, Martha, I mean mine's eggs, because
Speaker 1: I do have a plethora of eggs. I'm now having
Speaker 1: turkey eggs and goose eggs too. If anybody here wants
Speaker 1: turkey eggs or goose eggs, let me know. I have
Speaker 1: bowls of them, and I do not and I do not.
Speaker 1: I actually do not eat my goose eggs, and I
Speaker 1: do not eat my peacock eggs.
Speaker 2: I would say for me, I use a lot of lemons.
Speaker 3: We have a fantastic lemon tree, and I should I
Speaker 3: love lemon lemons and fresh herbs. Yeah, A handful of
Speaker 3: herbs and some fresh lemon juice can make anything delicious.
Speaker 5: Yes, I was wondering, Jess, when you're in New York,
Speaker 5: where are you eating?
Speaker 3: Four Horsemen is always my favorite place to go, and
Speaker 3: I feel like a lot of the places I've been
Speaker 3: to that have opened up since I moved to LA
Speaker 3: are very similar to Four Horsemen.
Speaker 2: But not quite as good. So I'm sticking to the original.
Speaker 1: Sarah says, we should go. I haven't been. Is that
Speaker 1: new or old?
Speaker 2: It's probably old, open for a few years. Where is
Speaker 2: it in Williamsburg?
Speaker 1: Oh, that's why I haven't been. No, no, not that
Speaker 1: I have anything as Williams Verre, I just don't. It's
Speaker 1: just after a long day of work, it's hard to
Speaker 1: go out that way when I have to go that.
Speaker 2: I got you to come to Brooklyn for my Christmas party.
Speaker 1: I remember it. Oh that was so much fun. Another
Speaker 1: question right there, Jess and Martha. Pancakes or waffles? Waffles?
Speaker 2: I think pancakes for me. I love buckwheat pants.
Speaker 1: My new book has Don's waffles in it. You were
Speaker 1: going to love it was Don Down was Don Shepley
Speaker 1: from the Shepele Vineyards, and it was his recipe and
Speaker 1: it has a couple of secret ingredients in it. You're
Speaker 1: very delicious and light lightes can be a bit crispy
Speaker 1: on the outside. I do you like them pancakes? What
Speaker 1: kind of pancakes?
Speaker 2: I love buckwheat boeancas. Yeah, that's what I grew up eating.
Speaker 3: My dad always made buckwheat pancakes and like bo wheat crips.
Speaker 1: Delicious. There's another question here, what type of hydroponic gardendase?
Speaker 2: I have one called a lettuce grow Okay, I really
Speaker 2: love it.
Speaker 3: Recommend Yeah, I've never used it indoors, but you can.
Speaker 2: They make lights for it.
Speaker 3: It takes up very little space and it really you
Speaker 3: couldn't make Martha's Green juice, but you could definitely make
Speaker 3: some salad and see some things grow, which I think
Speaker 3: is pretty exciting.
Speaker 2: Got to work with the space we have.
Speaker 1: Hen there's a leonder here, what is.
Speaker 2: Your guilty pleasure to eat? I eat dark chocolate every day.
Speaker 3: I think I eat a little bit of dark chocolate
Speaker 3: every day.
Speaker 1: If I could have a really delicious piece of fruit
Speaker 1: on my counter at all times, you know, something like
Speaker 1: I love peaches and I love sour plums with with
Speaker 1: you know, those beautiful Santa Rosa.
Speaker 2: Plum I remember once I subprem to grapefruit for you.
Speaker 1: I love grapefruits and pamelos. I have a.
Speaker 3: Valentine pamelo that hasn't it hasn't produced red inside.
Speaker 1: Yeah, oh, I've just gotta I just got a whole
Speaker 1: box of those for Easters. They're so delicious. I like
Speaker 1: I like citrus very guilty. Yes, I love granita of
Speaker 1: fresh citrus juices. That's a really grape ressert. Just yeah,
Speaker 1: you just freeze fresh, squeeze some oranges, freeze it, and
Speaker 1: scrape it while it's freezing. And that's that is better
Speaker 1: than any ice cream or a sorbet anything.
Speaker 2: I care.
Speaker 5: But when you where do you start on research for
Speaker 5: a cookbook and then where do you find like an
Speaker 5: endpoint in that.
Speaker 2: I don't research that much for this book.
Speaker 3: I definitely bought some vintage books from the seventies, but
Speaker 3: more just for the style of the actual book, for
Speaker 3: the fonts and photos and everything like that. But I
Speaker 3: like to really just think about what sounds really good
Speaker 3: to me, or something that I ate that really stuck
Speaker 3: with me from a trip, or even just looking out
Speaker 3: and seeing what's growing at my garden or going to
Speaker 3: the farmer's market.
Speaker 2: Do you research a lot?
Speaker 1: Well? For the hundredths book, I looked back in my
Speaker 1: archives and I did a lot of just archival work.
Speaker 1: And we're including a lot of archival photographs too in
Speaker 1: this book. Oh, the old, old kitchen pictures and cooking
Speaker 1: pictures with family, And it's fun. It's fun to stick
Speaker 1: those into the book here and there. Yeah, not too
Speaker 1: much research on this. If it were a baking book,
Speaker 1: much more.
Speaker 6: Hi, Hi, I'm right over here. I hope you don't
Speaker 6: mind if I get a little corny with y'all. But
Speaker 6: I wonder, what do you think is the perfect meal
Speaker 6: to cook someone to tell them that you love them?
Speaker 1: Oh?
Speaker 2: Oh, you think?
Speaker 3: I think any form of cooking for someone is showing
Speaker 3: them that you love them.
Speaker 2: That's what it is. It's an act of love.
Speaker 3: But finding out what's someone's favorite thing and making them
Speaker 3: that thing, that's you know, what did I make for
Speaker 3: I forget what I made for Valentine?
Speaker 2: Oh you wanted Pavlova?
Speaker 3: I made him Pavlova on Valentine's what fruit passion fruit
Speaker 3: from Oriards passion fruit.
Speaker 1: See that's very that's very nice. Passion fruit. Are they
Speaker 1: yellow ones or green yellow? So those are the best? Yeah,
Speaker 1: we had lots of those insane parts. I agree with Jess.
Speaker 1: It's just making something, I think, something that you love
Speaker 1: as much and serve it with fervor and attention you
Speaker 1: can get other people's attention. Maybe one more question.
Speaker 7: It's kind of a big question, but right now a
Speaker 7: huge topic in the cookbook community is how artificial intelligence
Speaker 7: is taking over and creating cookbooks. So I was wondering
Speaker 7: what your thoughts are around that and whether or not
Speaker 7: you think that there's going to be a point where
Speaker 7: we as cookbook authors become obsolete or not.
Speaker 1: We're pretty much already. And no, I don't mean I
Speaker 1: don't mean that from an age point of view. I
Speaker 1: think every single one of my recipes can be found
Speaker 1: any place you look. I mean, come on, nobody bought
Speaker 1: them from me. They're just out there. Go Google has
Speaker 1: Google did it first? They scanned every single book in
Speaker 1: the universe, takes them. At the time when I first
Speaker 1: talked to the guys about how they scanned a book.
Speaker 1: It took about maybe sixteen sixteen seconds to scan a
Speaker 1: book with their machine. I mean, unbelievably fast, and now
Speaker 1: probably even faster than that. It's incredible, and there's nothing
Speaker 1: we can do. The AI owns our owns our brains.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm talking to my masterclass, my friends at
Speaker 1: masterclass about AI. They we did a lot more filming
Speaker 1: than the master class was. You know, it ended up
Speaker 1: being like an hour and a half master class and
Speaker 1: then but we did filming for almost four days, four
Speaker 1: full days. Everything I said is now archived, and they
Speaker 1: have people asking questions. They can go into the archive
Speaker 1: and with AI reproduce my voice and get the question
Speaker 1: answered exactly as closely as possible to what the what
Speaker 1: the person asking the question wants. Just from that archival footage.
Speaker 2: We may actually be AI. You don't know.
Speaker 1: Indeed, And and and because I'm older, I would I
Speaker 1: sort of like the idea because I can live on
Speaker 1: a lot longer than you know. I'll be here for
Speaker 1: a lot longer time. That's the only reason I'd like AI.
Speaker 1: But it's it's a weird situation.
Speaker 2: Well, that's an interesting note to end on. Was there
Speaker 2: any last call for question. My friend your newts back
Speaker 2: here was raising his hands.
Speaker 1: Martha, can you tell us an embarrassing story about Jess
Speaker 1: that she wouldn't want us to know? No, her current
Speaker 1: Amora is sitting over here, so I really can't say
Speaker 1: the worst things.
Speaker 3: I remember one time we were in Chicago at the
Speaker 3: Bears Stadium doing a demo and we were doing all
Speaker 3: Thanksgiving recipes and we were making that turkey shaped cranberry yes,
Speaker 3: and I went to go flip it out seconds before
Speaker 3: we walked down stage, and it looked like an absolute
Speaker 3: murder scene. It just dropped out of the yeah, and
Speaker 3: I was horrified. But you were like, oh, okay, I
Speaker 3: guess we're not using that and just walked on stage.
Speaker 1: She was later. Yeah, anyway, thank you, thank you all
Speaker 1: so much for coming.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much, Martha.
Speaker 1: The luck of n and I do not envy you
Speaker 1: the book chore, but you'll have fun, Yeah you will. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And uh and your your fresh face. Always saw you
Speaker 1: on the Today Show. She's invading my territory and you
Speaker 1: and you did very well. They liked you. They liked
Speaker 1: you very much. Yeah.
Speaker 2: After I walked down, they ate all the.
Speaker 1: Secret they love food. They're always hungry there, but but
Speaker 1: you looked really good.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Jessin Martha, thank you both very much much,
Speaker 2: thank you