Hey everyone, it's Dan here with another Sporkful Reheat for you.
And this one I bring to you with a heavy heart.
It's my conversation with Elle Simone Scott, the chef, food stylist and first black cast member on America's Test Kitchen.
And we'll share this one with you now because Elle died on January 5th at age 49 of ovarian cancer.
She'd been diagnosed back in 2016 and we talked about this in our episode with her her relationship with the disease, how she approached eating during chemo.
And I actually ran into her at an event in the Boston area a couple years after she was on the show and it was great to catch up with her.
She was someone who was just known for her warmth, her generosity, her enthusiasm and her deep knowledge.
And if you follow Food Media folks on social media you've been seeing the tributes pour in in the last few weeks.
But as of here, in this conversation, Elle really believed in living life no matter the situation, not dwelling on the things you can't change.
She's actually a former social worker.
So she brought a curious, compassionate perspective to her work with food.
We're all going to miss her.
Remember, if there's an episode of The Sporkful you want to hear in one of these reheats, drop me a line at hello at sporkfulcom.
Thanks.
And here's my conversation with Elle Simone Scott.
I heard you say that the job of the food stylist is to sell the story of the food.
And whatever you have to do to sell that story, you do it.
So what's the weirdest thing you've ever done to make a food look good on camera?
For a breakfast shoot.
I literally had to scour through maybe three economy-sized boxes of cornflakes for the perfect cornflakes for just one bowl of cereal.
You mean like you were literally going through every single flake?
Every single flake.
Every flake had to be right.
Yes.
There's a certain diameter.
There's like, you know, it can't be folded.
It can't be folded, Elle.
Those are some of the best cornflakes.
This is very subjective.
That's why they're all in the box.
That's why.
But like if you food styled a bowl of cornflakes that was all folded flakes and showed that to me, I'd be like this is the most beautiful bowl of cornflakes I ever saw.
It's the crunchiest.
It's the best.
That's right.
That's right.
That's what I'm saying.
That's not what they want to sell.
And there's no offense.
This is The Sporkful.
It's not for foodies, it's for eaters.
I'm Dan Pashman.
Each week on our show, we obsess about food to learn more about people.
Elle Simone Scott is a person who's deeply curious about stories, food stories and human ones.
As you heard, she says that food styling is really about telling the story of the food.
She's been a food stylist for shows on Bravo, Food Network, and now America's Test Kitchen.
You've probably seen her on ATK's TV show on PBS.
In 2019, she became the show's first black regular on-air contributor.
She's also the founder of SheChef, a networking and mentoring organization for women chefs of color.
Now Elle has a new podcast out called The Walk-In, where she talks with people who work in food about their struggles in the industry.
Like I said, food stories and human ones.
We'll get into that show a bit later.
Now listen, Elle can make just about any food look amazing.
She's had a lot of practice, thanks in part to her family, going back to her great-grandmother, Anne Jordan Ford.
Anne was a baker, and she ran the kitchen at a Jewish nursing home when Elle was a kid.
Elle says that made sense.
She grew up Seventh-day Adventist, which is a Christian religion that has some overlap with Judaism, including dietary restrictions similar to kosher rules.
So I was introduced to like challahs and lox and kugels and you know bialis and all these wonderful things that you know.
I mean, I thought all kids were eating like that.
You know smoked fish.
You know smoked sable.
I come from a family of really good cooks.
I'm not the best cook in my family.
I'm the only one who has pursued it professionally.
Who is the best cook in your family?
I will never, ever give my cousin the satisfaction of calling out her name.
I won't do it.
She knows who she is.
And I heard you say in an interview that you grew up in a family where it was OK, and sometimes even encouraged, to ask why.
Tell me more about that as it relates to food.
I always care about where recipes come from.
Who made the first fill in the blank, how food is used frequently as ritual and cultures.
I think that the allowance of asking why made me feel like I could move through the world, being very curious and expecting answers.
And it sounds like maybe in particular, it made you curious about people.
I remember knowing or being aware that there is depth to people, I think, from a really young age.
So I definitely have always been looked at people and wondered what their life story was.
After college, Elle's curiosity led her to a career as a social worker.
She moonlighted cooking in restaurants, but Elle felt especially connected to social work.
She says to be any good at the job, you have to have certain personality traits.
You have to have some sort of fearlessness about you because...
You as a social worker.
You can definitely find yourself in places and spaces you've never been before.
And you have to know how to navigate that like in an instant.
You know, I'm always looking at a situation on what is the solution.
I don't spend a lot of time on the problems.
And then really just giving a damn, you know, like you got to give a damn about the people.
It can't just be all about you and your head all the time, you know.
I think that that kind of selflessness is required, but it can be to a fault.
Is that something that you sometimes have to a fault?
Yes, absolutely.
It's more about the boundaries and the balance, you know, but I think that that's something that you can develop over time.
It's difficult to turn off the part of you that belongs to your job, you know so you have to work extra hard to create boundaries sometimes.
When the Great Recession hit in 2008, Elle got laid off from her job as a social worker.
She started working more in restaurants.
At one job in particular, she picked up a lot of new skills.
Tell me about cooking on the cruise ship.
What did you learn there?
Wow.
Well, I learned that I was a little bit sheltered and I had a blast.
It was my favorite job.
I grew up very religious, so I had quite an eye-opening experience.
So you weren't just cooking.
You were dancing on some of the conga lines.
Is that what you're telling me?
Oh, yeah, definitely.
I worked on a cruise ship that toured the Hawaiian Islands.
So I did a lot more luauing and parlaying than the average.
Right.
More important than learning to party.
Elle learned how to run a kitchen, how to work long hours, deal with a crisis.
Like when the ship was stuck in a storm out at sea and couldn't dock.
She had to come up with a menu using only the ingredients they had on hand.
They couldn't get anything from shore like usual.
Then she and her team had to cook and serve the meals, with the ship rocking back and forth in the waves.
People say if you work on a cruise ship, anyone will hire you.
And it's pretty much true.
After about two years on the cruise ship, Elle decided to make cooking her career.
She went to culinary school.
Eventually, she started working behind the scenes for various cooking shows as a chef and food stylist.
In an interview you once said I can look at a food and tell you what people will find appealing about it.
And my job is to make sure it looks appealing until we get the shot.
So I'm going to name a food and I want you to tell me what people will find appealing about it.
Okay.
What is the key to styling this food beautifully?
I like this guy.
This is fine.
Number one, chicken and dumplings.
So people's eyes are usually going to go straight to the dumpling.
So in this case, it's the shape, the uniformity of the dumpling, the size, the dumpling to chicken ratio.
The chicken is a little bit more difficult to discern because it's probably shredded.
So like it has to look hot.
If it's been sitting, the chicken is sinking.
The dumplings are sinking.
It's just looking really sad.
So making sure it looks hot and your dumplings look cute.
Right.
That's how you do it.
OK, next one.
Beef bulgogi.
Oh, beef bulgogi.
This is a good one.
OK, so all of the vegetables, the bean sprouts like I don't particularly want any sprouts with the heads popped off.
Like if there are bean sprouts, I want to see the whole sprout.
You know, just making sure all your vegetables look fresh.
Usually that's like holding them in water before you style the food.
You know, making sure that the beef is a good cut, that it's cooked well, doesn't look dried out.
Got it.
Last one.
We're going to get tougher here now, Al.
You ready?
Okay, I'm ready.
Banana date smoothie.
This, you're right.
This one is a little tricky.
Well, anytime you're making a smoothie or anything that involves like cold temperatures, ice, cream.
You're going to have to keep making it fresh.
And when you have a smoothie that has multiple ingredients like that, if there are dates inside the milkshake, you want to make sure that some of those dates are pressed against the glass on the inside so you can see all the components.
If it's a topping...
Just making sure that you know the pieces don't look indigestible as it relates to drinking a milkshake.
Like you have to make it make sense like this.
Can I drink?
Can those dates fit through my straw?
Like, let's make it make sense.
Right.
But making sure that it stays cold and looks foamy and delicious, and you can see all the ingredients.
My God, this is already making me hungry and thirsty.
Oh, yeah.
Now I want a milkshake.
Thanks, Dan.
Like I said, Ellen knows how to make just about any dish look amazing.
Coming up.
She takes her food styling game to the next level and starts appearing on camera when she comes to America's Test Kitchen.
Then later in our conversation she gets personal about her new podcast and about being diagnosed with cancer.
Stick around.
And now, a delicious word from our sponsors.
Welcome back to The Sporkful.
I'm Dan Hashman and I want to let you know that we have two live Sporkful tapings coming up March 19th in Brooklyn with special guest Kenji Lopez-Alt, and May 1st in Boston at WBUR City Space.
Don't know the guest yet in Boston, but when we did a live show in Boston two years ago we had a packed house and a lot of enthusiasm.
Man, we got a great crowd in Boston so I cannot wait to see all the folks in Boston and Cambridge and Somerville and wherever else you live.
So again, March 19th in Brooklyn, May 1st in Boston.
Get info on tickets at sporkful.com slash events.
Okay, back to my conversation with Elle Simone Scott.
In 2019, Elle moved from behind the scenes to in front of the camera.
She became the first black regular on-air contributor to America's Test Kitchen.
ATK is known for going to extreme lengths to figure out the best recipe for something.
Elle shares the findings.
Like when the Test Kitchen made 200 pounds of baked potatoes to determine how to make a perfect one.
Elle joined Bridget Lancaster to report.
Bridget, some crazy things are happening in the world with baked potatoes, and it has to stop.
Oh, no.
Immediately.
First, we're cooking our potatoes in the microwave.
Not good.
I've done it.
Not good.
I've done it, too.
And it cooks unevenly.
It cooks from the inside out.
We also cook our potatoes in foil.
I've done that too.
And it traps in all of the moisture and it doesn't give us a tasty potato.
Even though Elle started appearing on TV for America's Test Kitchen, she kept styling food too.
So you start food styling for ATK and you also did food styling for their book How to Cocktail, which was your first time styling drinks.
Yes.
How is it, how is styling drinks different from styling foods?
Time is a little less on your side.
You know, like, Food lives longer than ice cubes.
That's for sure.
You know, learning how to make garnishes and trying to do something that you didn't already see on like Pinterest or something you know, trying to be original with orange slices.
You know, like.
Good luck with that.
Right.
But like speaking of orange slices, can I just vent for a minute, Ellen?
I'm curious to hear your thoughts.
I feel like the orange wheel, the full circle slice, with the one slit taken out of it so that it rests on the rim.
I know that it looks nice, but it's impossible to squeeze that into your drink.
Yes.
It just kind of buckles and mushes and now it's all over your hands and not in your drink.
Well, it shouldn't even be in your drink.
Like the orange should really just be complimenting what's already in the drink.
Like the drink is made with orange.
So sometimes the orange is just to say, hey, this drink has orange citrus.
I'm not supposed to be squeezing that into my drink?
No, no, it's really, it's literally just garnish.
Do you eat it?
You can, you can.
Can I tell you a secret though?
Please, yes.
I don't eat garnishes from cocktails.
If I'm at a restaurant, I don't eat the garnish.
They're usually in a little container that if they don't use it all in a day, they put it in the refrigerator and then people put their hands in there to put the garnish on the drink.
I usually just say no thank you on the garnish.
You know, I mean, unless it makes a difference.
Like, of course, if you're having like a martini, you need the olives.
Right.
Right.
That's kind of how it goes.
But if it's not necessary, if orange is already in my cocktail, I would prefer if you didn't put orange on it.
So you're telling me that when I take that garnish that other people have already been rubbing their hands all in, and then I smush it in my hand in an attempt to squeeze that juice into the drink.
Now it's running down my arm.
It's sort of doubly disgusting is what I'm learning here.
To the germaphobes such as myself, yes.
I'm totally grossed out right now.
The image on the cover of the How to Cocktail book.
Did you style that one?
That's my hand.
Yeah.
Wow.
That's me.
There's a drink that is in a.
I'm so bad at remembering the names of different kinds of glasses, but it's like the shallow round glass.
Oh, it's a coupe, the coupe glass.
The coupe glass, yes.
Yes.
Yes, the coupe glass, right.
So it has a stem, and then it has a bowl that's kind of shallow and very round and bulbous.
Yes.
And the cover of How to Cocktail has a drink in there.
The color of the drink itself is like a deep red reddish orange and it has a beautiful thin layer of white foam across the top.
And then you're holding like a toothpick with this cherry dangling over the drink and the cherry has a little drip drop of cherry juice just falling off of the cherry.
It's like almost in midair.
It looks so delicious.
And there's something about...
I feel like I might have read something about how, like when you're trying to sell orange juice, it's better to have the picture show the orange juice pouring like, as opposed to just a glass of orange juice like motion.
Yes.
The fact that you see – the fact that, even though it's a still image, the drop off that cherry that is about to fall into the drink suggests motion, and it makes the image so much more compelling to me.
That was one of the things that we worked so hard for in the book is to give the beverages where it made sense, that motion that makes it so exciting.
You know, like there are lots of like ice cube drops that give up splash.
There are some milkshakes kind of pouring off the side of the glass, of caramel coming off the side of the glass.
Definitely leaning into a lot of motion for the cocktails.
That was a great experience.
I mean, we were tossing ice cubes from across the room.
I wish I were exaggerating when I say that, but we were doing everything.
Did you have to bring in Steph Curry?
Getting an ice cube into a glass from across the room is not easy.
What?
Like Drake said, I'm Steph Curry with a pot.
It's me.
It is I.
It is I And, as you said, it was your hand there on the cover holding that toothpick that's got the cherry on the end of it.
Is that common for you as a food stylist?
How often do your hands end up in a photo?
Oh, it's very common.
You know, and also you know at America's Test Kitchen, we're working a lot harder on representation.
I work there.
I'm a part of that company.
I'm a part of that family.
And so my family is a part of that family.
And so I want my family to look at all the work that I do and know that I'm not just talking to any one group of people.
I'm talking to the world about food.
And so having brown hands, having all kinds of hands in our food photos is extremely important.
Yeah, it's so interesting.
I saw an Instagram post a little while back by Yuande Komalafa, who's been a guest on our show.
You may have crossed paths with her.
She's a recipe developer, food stylist.
I love her.
Amazing food stylist.
Fantastic.
And she was talking about how she had making the conscious decision to include her own hands in more of the photos that she posts of her food.
And it was like kind of an eye-opening moment for me that I just – it was probably a bias that I have that I hadn't really investigated.
If you just show me a picture of beautiful food, I would probably on some level not even consciously – my head would assume that a white person made it.
And it just made me more aware of noticing whose hands are appearing in the photos that beautifully style style dish that I may swipe through on Instagram to thinking more carefully about who made this, who came up with it, who made it look so beautiful, who photographed it, and thinking about all the people that were involved in that.
Yeah.
It, it, Also helps to remind where equity and representation are and is not right.
Like when you see a set of brown hands for the first time in a photo, it reminds you that it's something that you've never seen before.
And then it gets you to thinking about.
You know, who's working in food media, who has access to telling food stories.
And you know it plays a huge role in what stories are being told about food and how you know and what is not being told about food.
You know what's being left out.
Over the last few years, as Elle's career has progressed, she's found her work and her hands on book covers.
She's also been struggling with something else, very serious, something that's had a big impact on her personally and professionally.
So in 2016, you were diagnosed with ovarian cancer at the age of 40, as you've discussed publicly before,
Yeah.
And I know the cancer recurred last spring.
First off, how are you doing?
I'm doing well.
I've had surgery.
I was out for a while.
The tumor was operable, which is always great.
Both times, very early detection, which can be a game changer.
You never know what it will turn out to at the end of the day, but ovarian cancer is one of the cancers that is always very likely to reoccur.
But overall, I'm doing well.
I'm living life from day to day.
Cancer is probably maybe the fifth thing I think about Every day.
You know it's not on the top of my list.
I don't live that way anyway, you know, and I definitely encourage people to always live life first.
Think about the things you can't change later, you know.
Has it affected your ability to do your job or your work in any way?
I can't go into the studio and do food stylings.
Because of the pandemic.
You know, with COVID I'm considered immune compromised, you know, because anyone could be tested positive for COVID at any given time, you know.
I was actually thinking about that today.
It's funny that you mentioned it.
It just made me a little sad.
Like, man, I really miss food styling.
I miss it, you know?
What do you miss about it?
I mean, it's my passion work.
It just brings me joy.
Like making food look in a way that the people who created the recipes makes them feel good for having created it.
It's more than what the world sees.
When someone works on a recipe for months and they see it finally come to fruition in print, it's getting ready to go on a book.
It's getting ready to go out into the world.
It's like grooming your kids to be the president not the current, but The president you know and like knowing that they're going to do the great job.
You know, just just preparing something that you know it's going to be great to go out to the world.
And I get to make it look beautiful for them and to see them have that pride behind making an awesome recipe.
It means a lot.
I would imagine that some people who have chemo, it affects their taste.
And any one of us who loves food, loves to eat, takes a lot of pleasure in food, sometimes uses food as a comfort.
It must be hard, I would imagine, to be in a difficult situation in life and then not be able to sort of find that same comfort in food.
Some advice that someone gave me though, a friend who had gone through chemo before I started the first time.
She said don't eat things that you like while you're on chemo, because if you taste it while on chemo and it tastes bad, it could kind of ruin your life.
Oh, interesting.
And so that's kind of what I do.
I have some things that I can really stomach through chemo.
So tell me a couple of the foods that you put on your do not eat list during chemo.
Um, my eat list is probably an easier list to share with you.
That's probably an easier list.
Um, while on chemo, I eat lots of things with like umami, heavy things like miso soup tastes great to me.
Any Asian food, curries, masala, any of that.
I love it.
I can deal with it.
Um, short of that, it becomes more complicated.
While undergoing chemo, Elle says she found an outlet hosting her new podcast, The Walk-In.
Every restaurant cook knows that the walk-in refrigerator is where you go when you need a moment to cry, to confide in a friend or to collect your composure.
It's the place where the pressure to appear in control falls away, where you're allowed to feel your feelings and get real about the hard stuff.
From America's Test Kitchen, I am Elle Simone Scott, and this is The Walk-In.
Just as The Walk-In is the safe space in a restaurant, Elle tries to create a safe space in her podcast.
She talks with chefs, food writers, and more about their experiences in the food industry.
Writer Tony Tipton-Martin talks about growing up as a chubby kid and how that influences her today.
Chef Kia Damon confesses she struggles with imposter syndrome.
The show seems to bring together a lot of the threads of Elle's journey.
The curiosity about people that traces back to her childhood.
Her instincts as a social worker, connecting with all different people.
And her experience as a chef.
She says like social workers, chefs also tend to have certain things in common.
If you've never been in the world of cooking, like in it, you know like the belly of the beast, so to speak, you could easily be like.
Why would you want to be doing that?
Don't your feet hurt?
Don't you miss your family?
And you're like, yeah, I do.
But there's something in us, food people.
And I don't know what that is.
I call it a seed, but it's something in us that just is so passionate and in love and driven.
It's the kind of job that gives you instant satisfaction.
I think the food people really do have a need for that instant satisfaction, even if it's just from themselves.
You know, like I did this thing, this thing is good.
I know it.
And now I can move on to the next thing.
You know something, something also just about the seeing the fruits of your labors frequently.
And like, there's probably a bit of an adrenaline factor factor to it as well.
Oh yeah.
Oh yeah.
The pressure, the pressure is great.
It's like good applied pressure, you know?
Right.
Look the world of food and restaurants, you know like there are people who we all have our struggles and there are people with mental health issues in every line of work and life.
I do feel like it comes up a lot in the restaurant world.
And you certainly, you know, have a lot of conversations along those lines with folks on the walk-in.
Is it that working in restaurants creates some of these mental health issues, or do people who may be predisposed end up working in restaurants?
I think the answer is yes to both of those, because the food and beverage industry is one of the very few industries that does not discriminate against people's personal backgrounds right.
Like they don't have the best track record on race and gender, but like in terms of, you know, mental health and or or past.
You know we don't really discriminate on that, you know.
So you can have all kinds of people from all walks of life in the kitchen at any given time.
So you know, so you get very abusive people.
People who are abusive in the world come to work and be abusive at work.
You know, because they're a Michelin star chef.
They make the best food.
You know, we want our restaurant to make the most money.
We don't really care what it takes.
We don't care whose expense it's at, you know, and I think that's really where the problem lies, you know.
But I think COVID has done something for us, something very positive in the food world, and I know it sounds really strange because a lot of people are out of jobs, but I think it has kind of leveled the playing field.
You know like there's no such thing as a five-star restaurant right now.
You know like everyone's a carry out, dine out restaurant.
Everybody is fricking McDonald's right now.
Right.
And so like it dismantled the hierarchy really quickly, you know?
And so, um, I hope that there, that, that structurally something can be created from that, you know, and it can translate into a new industry, you know, when the pandemic is over.
What do you hope that people will take from listening to the walk-in?
I hope that people will go into the world being more compassionate more compassionate for themselves, for others, for me, for the guests, for the food and beverage industry.
I hope that they walk away from it knowing that it's okay to have baggage issues, problems.
It's more normal than they think, but it is also okay to talk about it and get help if you need it.
I just hope they walk away feeling empowered and feeling whole.
That's Elle Simone Scott from America's Test Kitchen.
You can hear her podcast, The Walk-In, wherever you got this one.
This show is produced by me, along with senior producer Emma Morgenstern, and producers Andre Sohero and Tamika Weatherspoon.
Our editor is Tracy Samuelson.
The show is mixed by Jared O'Connell.
Music help from Black Label Music.
This Porkful is a production of Stitcher.
Our executive producers are Peter Clowney and Daisy Rosario.
Until next time, I'm Dan Pashman.
And I'm Erin in Albuquerque, New Mexico, reminding you to eat more, eat better, and eat more better.
This reheat was produced by The team that produces The Sporkful.
Today includes me, along with managing producer And senior producer.
Our engineer is Music help from Black Label Music.
The Sporkful is a production of SiriusXM Podcasts.
Our executive producer is Camille Stanley.
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Until next time, I'm Dan Pashman.
