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I scroll through Yelp like many scroll through Twitter. I research restaurant menus to get inspiration for my own cooking. My digital rabbit-holes usually involve the Instagrams of inspiring chefs and tastemakers. So tonight, I was thrilled when my Instagram stories took on the role of my Google Calendar to remind me that Aran Goyoaga, the photographer, pastry chef, and James Beard Award-winning blogger of Cannelle et Vanille, celebrated her cookbook launch at Book Larder, a mecca cookbook store in Seattle. Without a ticket, I headed over strategically late and, taking a cue of the fearlessness of my mother and grandmother, walked in the door.
Cannelle et Vanille has made the Best New Cookbook lists of Bon Appetit, Food & Wine, Mind Body Green, and many more. So, as I walked opened the door with a humorously ear-splitting screech, a room full of mostly white, blond, well-dressed, and very attentive women turned towards me. "This is why we dress tf up," I thought. Settling back into the interview, I observed the room and deliberated her appeal, maybe hoping to poach something in my own career. I imagined it was a combination of her moody photography, the edible nostalgia in her triumphant gluten-free baking, her beautiful home and local provisions, and the calming portrait of her family life in the Pacific Northwest. Ms. Goyoaga is from Spain, but now lives in Seattle. She loves it, as her lengthy answer to her favorite farmers markets and chefs’ shops illustrated. (For reference, they include Henry's Produce and the Sunday Ballard Farmers Market.)
Ms. Goyoaga was interviewed by restaurateur Molly Wizenburg, of the James Beard Award winning blog, Orangette, cookbook-memoir, Delancey, and host of the podcast, Spilled Milk. I am a fan of Ms. Wizenburg's for her clear and candid writing. However, I felt they were missing the point. Why were they discussing her favorite shops and favorite recipes when that would all be laid out in the book that everyone (besides yours truly. . .) had purchased? I took out my Moleskine (#notspon but #shouldbe) and started scribbling all the questions I would ask had I been in Ms. Wizenburg’s chair.
For your “One Bowl Olive Oil Cake,” why did the dish usage and this ingredient stand out? How do you choose recipe names?
Samin Nosrat aimed to empower chefs by illustrating that the basic elements of cooking - salt, fat, acid, and heat - are what you need to make any meal delicious. When you’re recipe testing, what do you do when the ingredient a recipe needs is on the tip of your tongue, but you don’t quite know what it is?
People go to social media, and Instagram in particular, for #inspo. When was the first time you realized you made someone think differently about food or how to eat?
So, when the floor opened up, I surprised myself and asked a question:
“Thank you for being here. You mentioned previously that it was brutal picking the chapters for the book, and decided to organize it by time. However, the cover of the book says, ‘Nourishing, gluten-free recipes for every meal and mood.’ What does it mean to cook and eat by mood and why was that important enough to put on the cover?”
Ms Goyoaga threw her head back, looked back at me, and said, “That’s a great question,” which, as Jarrett and I have discussed, is an addictive feeling as an interviewer, and one I wonder if Terry Gross still gets high from. She answered that the “nourishment” and “moodiness” of the book, the recipes and photographs alike, are freeing. They “allow indulgence” amidst the restraints of both wellness culture and the categorization required in writing a cookbook.
When writing her cookbook, publishers would ask her to think of some meals from the point of view of a busy mom going to soccer practice, an approach quite different from her own home cooking. I wanted to ask Ms. Goyoaga, “Do you feel pressure, writing a cookbook, to be everything for everybody?”
A tastemaker’s approach to food is the key to their influence. How I’ve made skeptical friends enjoy salad is something that came easily to me, but was (lower-case-“r”) radical to them. As Ms. Goyoaga described the process of publishing, I wondered how restrictive the practices of writing a cookbook may be. I wanted to ask her, “What was the first time you made someone think differently about food and how to eat?”
Eating by mood also addresses the restrictive way cookbooks are published into categories. She explained that when you’re writing gluten-free recipes, it’s assumed to be a healthy cookbook. I laugh at that notion, since you can be unhealthy whether you’re gluten-free, paleo, or vegan alike.
This categorization pressure was also expressed when she sheepishly explained that gluten free bread, like her famous gluten free sourdough recipe, can be made using a wheat flour sourdough starter, as “most of the gluten has already been eaten” in the fermentation process. Her sheepishness was illustrative of wellness cultures’ all-or-nothing, good-and-bad tendencies, but I applaud her for sharing that tip because it may free someone (without Celiac) to try a recipe they otherwise may not have. When blogging earlier in her career, she explained that her photos were “fluffier,” as she would top a brown dish with microgreens to make it more appealing. She learned that in her second cookbook that we were celebrating tonight, she prioritized “humble” and “honest” food.
“Honest food is the most vulnerable and what people respond to the most."