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I'm Francis Lam and this is The Splendid Table from APM.
Backyard cookouts, potlucks, garden parties.
Okay, look, I don't really know what a garden party is.
we didn't grow up that fancy.
We're just a Saturday night dinner on the porch with the family.
It's that time of year when the best meals are packable or portable, at least they go a few feet outside your door.
And today we're talking to two cooks who have fantastic style, each in their own way.
Who give us great ideas for what to make and what to bring.
Later in the show we'll talk to fashion designer and newly minted cookbook author Peter Sam, who is a real knack for super delicious, unexpected food.
And we're going to get started with Casey Elsass.
Now, Casey is a pros pro in the cookbook world.
He's co -written or developed recipes for 20 books, which kind of means he's made pretty much every recipe under the sun. But for his own book, he's taking on not what to make for your guests, but how to be a guest, what to bring to the party.
The book, What Can I Bring, is full of tips, great recipes for sides, salads, appetizers.
And yes, there are two chapters on desserts.
It's an invaluable guide to guesting.
Hey, Casey. It's great to see you.
Hey. So I feel like the subtext of most cookbooks is really how to entertain, how to host. I think of the Queen Martha, Martha Stewart's first book was literally called Entertaining.
And that's really sort of the idea, right?
It's like, oh, how to make things for people when you have them over.
So what made you decide to write a cookbook from the other perspective, like a cookbook on how to be a great guest?
I mean, it's exactly that.
I think there's been so much ink spilled on being the perfect host, perfect hostess, but no one ever really talks about the guest end of the equation.
And I think there is an equal amount of responsibility there and a lot of pressure.
And so I wanted to write this book that obviously is a cookbook, but I sort of think of it as a self -help book.
And these are 75 answers to the very stressful question we all have to ask, which is what can I bring?
That's so interesting because talk about that stress, because I feel it.
And I'm pretty comfortable in my ability to cook, but for some reason, like, yeah, of course you always ask, what can I bring?
And you hope the answer is a dessert because I'm going to go out and buy one.
um but yeah why why why is why is there that pressure why why do we have this like weird stressful reaction to this thing that like we're actively asking people what we can do for you and hope that you say nothing yeah i mean maybe it's a universal thing but i feel like anytime someone's like what's your favorite restaurant i'm like i've never eaten in a restaurant in my life like whatever you're talking about so it's the same kind of thing of like what can i bring but then And like, do I know how to bring anything?
Like, I mean, for me personally, this book is great because now I just have all my favorite things to bring in one place where I can just easily reference and flip through.
But I think there's a pressure to it for a couple of reasons.
A, bringing something is not a competition, but it also kind of is.
Because we all want to, we all have the imagination of this glory of like, everyone's going to praise our dish.
Ours will get cleaned first. Who brought the potato salad?
Exactly. But I think there's also a pressure because the role of the guest, if you're bringing something, is really to support your host and make them shine.
Because when your dish is great, the whole party is better because of it.
Wait, so did you have to, like, sort of grade it?
Like, I can't bring my, like, total killer A -game dish because I don't want to outshine the host?
Is that part of the consideration?
My feeling is whatever sparkle you're bringing is going to rub off on your host. So go for it.
The competitive element of it too is it's weird. I'm not a competitive person.
But it's not so much like, oh, I want people to hate everyone else's dish and love mine.
But it is like, oh, you do.
It's performative. It's like you feel like you're setting yourself up for a little bit of a performance.
Okay. Okay, let's talk about the sort of the decision tree you went through in deciding what recipe made sense in this book or not.
I mean, it's not just, hey, here's 75 of my favorite recipes, bring them all.
I think you must have thought about what travels well.
You must have thought about what keeps well at temperature.
It's not going to be hot food.
In fact, I think you have a nice note about like, please don't bring anything where you actually need to go to the host house and use the oven.
because they might be cooking and you might be throwing off their plants.
So what are some good general precepts on thinking about, hey, if I'm going to bring something, make sure it checks these boxes?
Yeah. As you said, room temperature, I think, is always the way to go.
I think it's just crazy as a guest to walk in and expect fridge space, oven space, a burner on the stove.
Your host is playing culinary Tetris and you need to just let them be.
and so just bringing something room temp that's ready to go you have a blowtorch exactly yes no um but i also think a lot of foods taste better at room temperature and honestly i would say the same advice to hosts too just save yourself the stress of having to have everything hot and ready or chilled or frozen and just embrace room temperature foods i think a lot of fats and acids actually taste much better at room temperature.
So things like dips and salads really are just meant to be at room temperature.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, so I'm going to get to some of the recipes in a minute, but you also have this like really great, it's really only just a couple pages in the beginning of the book, but I found them really enlightening and very helpfully clarifying.
You have these short but sweet rules of great guesting.
And you also separately have a list on what you can always bring, sort of like the sort of like, in this situation you can always do that so go first talk through your rules of great guesting yeah so room temp foods one of them a sister rule to that one is bring everything you're going to need because in the same way you shouldn't expect kitchen space you shouldn't expect your host to be providing you with a serving bowl or a platter or tongs or whatever you're going to need so pack all of that okay plan ahead even if you're bringing your dish to compose there have what you're going to put it
on packed with you um and then the other big one that i really push on people because i think we've kind of forgotten is the lost art of saying thank you i two times have had guests come over and they have sent me thank you notes in the mail and they're still on my fridge because it was such a meaningful act and a thank you note is not always always going to be appropriate i think it's great in very special occasions or if you're making new friends with somebody but even just taking the time the next day to send a very thoughtful thank you text not just a flippant thanks it was fun but like actually
showing your host appreciation for all their work because hosting is hard it really makes your host feel seen and appreciated oh that's lovely and that is true it's like oh there's some there is a different thing we've have all been there too or like hey that was great thanks i'm like yeah sure that's your your buds and that's that's how you talk to each other we live in this like very quick and transactional and like you shoot off a dm and you feel like you've done something and i just let's go back let's go back to actually appreciating each other yeah well i think something the thoughtfulness
of it and like oh how is it thoughtful if you have like an emotional reaction to it and you want to tell a story sure great but even something that just like highlights something that you noticed right at the party a certain thing that the host did or a certain thing they said that really made you feel especially welcome yeah and like reflect that back on them is is really a touching thing yeah as a host it feels so nice to get to relive it the next day through someone else's appreciation of it like that's such a great feeling yeah post lots of pictures in the party please i want to to see it
all over instagram okay let's also go to again the name of your book is like what can i bring but um sometimes people don't have an answer for that or sometimes you know but you you have some nice sort of guidelines of certain situations like you can always do this you can always do that yeah so i think an important thing for guests is to be honest about what kind of guests you are so i say right up front in the book if you're always on time bring appetizers appetizers if you're reliably late bring a drink if you're stopping by later bring dessert and if you bring nothing else bring a present
because nothing is going to derail a party like promising to bring the cheese plate but you know you're not going to leave your house until the time you're supposed to be there that's just going to throw the whole night off so just kind of monster are you but i mean it's happened to me before that like someone promised to bring this great appetizer And so I sort of cleared the way for that.
And then they showed up an hour and a half past the time I asked everyone to come over.
That's not great. Not ideal.
That's not great. Okay.
Let's go to some of the food because there's so much good food in here.
And it's funny because I was flipping through.
We don't have to talk about this now.
We can get to it later.
But it is such a thoughtful book because I'm like, oh, where are the main courses?
I'm like, oh, no one would say bring the main course.
I mean, if they do.
Can you bring the main course?
don't go to that party if they're asking you to bring that's bad news rsvp no thank you sorry yeah could you roast the leg of could you roast the leg of lamb and walk it over um okay so it's summer say you're going to a party a picnic a potluck what are some things things we should be making i mean i think summer's ideal dip time um those are great especially if you're going to be outside those are very safe outdoors kind of foods um there's a couple in the book that i really love there's um a pico de sandia which is kind of basically pico de gallo but with watermelon instead of tomato which i
think just adds such a nice denser texture it It doesn't get as mushy as tomatoes get, but also gives this really nice sweet flavor to it that I really like.
Because pico gets so juicy anyway, so it might as well be watermelon juice in the mix.
And there's also my ideal version of a guacamole, which takes some knife work, takes a lot of chopping to get everything nice and fine.
But the payoff is that every bite of avocado is just coated in flavor.
And I just like to me, that is exactly what I want in my guacamole.
We're talking with Casey Elsass, author of What Can I Bring?
We'll be back with more with him in a minute.
I'm Francis Lam, and this is The Splendid Table from APM American Public Media.
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Support for this show comes from Pure Leaf Iced Tea.
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I'm Francis Lam, and this is The Splendid Table, the show for curious cooks and eaters.
We're talking with Casey Elsass, author of possibly the first cookbook ever written about how to guest like a pro.
It's called What Can I Bring?
Let's get back to it with him.
Let's talk about the structure of guacamole.
And I guess most people would hear that and be like rolling their eyes.
But I guess if you're listening to this show, maybe a conversation about the structure of guacamole makes sense to you.
But by that I mean, so I think a lot of people think of guacamole as, oh, you take avocados and you just mash them.
And, you know, you add, you know, whatever seasonings and lime juice and cilantro and all that.
Talk about why you prefer like a cut diced avocado guacamole.
So the knife works actually with everything else for the onion, the cilantro, the jalapeno. And that's what I like to get chopped up really nice and fine.
So they're just in tiny, tiny little pieces.
With the avocado, actually, I tried a bunch of different methods to figure out how.
Wow. Because with guacamole, you're kind of doing two actions.
You're stirring and you're smashing at the same time.
And too much stirring can lead to too much smashing.
Sure. Not enough smashing, not enough stirring.
It's kind of a delicate balance.
Yeah. What I found was actually using a wire whisk is the best way to do it because it breaks up the avocado, but you can still stir all the ingredients together.
But it's not quite as hard as like getting in there with a wooden spoon or something.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So you still have some nice chunks.
of avocado right in in the mash i think i love that texture so much the very first guacamole i've made actually was a was a was a cut avocado like they actually had you dice the avocado and then you sort of fold everything together so it's almost like it's almost like a salad it's like an avocado salad i mean i say in my head note there are a million ways to make guacamole and i want to eat them all which i stand by but for myself personally i like a little bit of texture in my my guacamole you also have a a cool trick that i've never seen before on how to keep the guacamole like forever green
rather you know because guacamole tends to turn brown after a while the avocado naturally oxidizes when it's exposed to air but talk about your your forever green avocado um i tried a few different things there's the pit method that i think we've all heard about i don't know that's like witchcraft i don't understand what that is yeah but also it didn't always work it's not a hundred percent reliable and i tried spraying parchment with um non -stick spray and pressing that on which again was good but then it sort of leaves this greasy texture on top that wasn't ideal um my friend in chile told me
a method that she loves where you pour whole milk on top of the guacamole and that kind of makes an airtight layer and then you just stir the milk into the guacamole which did work but I feel like that's maybe a big ask of most people they're not going to want to put milk on their guacamole and also it's like it's gonna be hanging out outside for a while yeah yeah yeah so drawbacks the one thing I found that was 100 % reliable all the time is sodium bisulfate which I won't lie it's a preservative but we eat 100 preservatives every day so it just depends where you sit on that but when I tested it
with that i left it out in my apartment for 12 hours literally all day in the summertime and it stayed as bright green at the end of the day as it was in the beginning i'm realizing now maybe i'm talking people out of using a preserve but it works i mean it's such a small amount and going back to the uh competitive nature of bringing things if you really want a guacamole that is going to stay vibrant and fresh all day that is the best way to do it you might start the winter winner but you'll end the winner i guess what i would say about that too is oh if you have a if you're hosting a party say
or you need to just make this the day before because that's when you have time to make it then actually that's a that that could be a nice um way to do that yeah at a i think it's just a little just a tiny bit of this of this um yeah yeah sodium bisulfate um yeah and if you if you're not into it then just don't use it but if you want to keep that thing nice and and bright green.
That's Casey's cool tip.
I want to go to something else that's maybe even simpler than the guacamole that really caught my eye.
And it's something you call like bread oil or bread dipping oil.
You know, obviously bread and butter or bread and olive oil, but you, I love this idea of like making a really flavorful infused oil to dip bread in.
It sounds so simple, but it's the the kind of thing where it'd be so surprising for someone that, oh my God, that's such an extra special touch. Talk about that.
This is in the last chapter of the book, which is a short chapter of food gifts to bring.
If you're told my nightmare is when people say, just bring yourself because I am physically incapable of showing up empty handed.
So these are little food gifts that you can make for your host and leave behind.
So you're not interrupting whatever their plans are, but they have something to enjoy later.
And I'm so glad you pulled this one out.
It's one of my favorites.
And I make it at home a lot of times just for myself, just to have. It's an infused olive oil.
So basically what we know and understand, if you ever went with your mom to Pier 1 imports, you know exactly what these olive oils are.
So it's infused with a mixture of herbs, But the secret ingredient here is miso, which seems really out of left field.
But to me, those infused oils always kind of had like a hollowness to them.
Like you get urban, you get oil, but there's no middle to it.
And so adding miso just adds this really savory, salty note.
And it doesn't taste like miso, but it just enhances all the flavors of the oil.
all and the miso too does it like if i was thinking of adding like something that might have a similar kind of like umami or something that like bridges those flavors like a soy sauce or fish sauce obviously the oil and water won't mix so they're just kind of like right separate so the miso can blend a little bit better too yeah i did try it with fish sauce but again yeah as you said it just kind of separated and didn't look great i tried it with tomato paste as well but that colored the olive oil and then sort of left some flecks in it the miso was kind of like the clean in and out answer oh
cool yeah and you can it can still stay uh sort of stable like shelf stable right because the miso is preserved like the miso can sit at room temp too right oh cool all right um okay i want to get to a salad because a lot of times like we're like i'll bring bring a salad yeah uh my wife doesn't eat meat and because she lived through the 90s she can basically never look at a caprese salad ever again because for like an entire decade the only food available to her outside the home was like some hard tomatoes and some bad mozzarella and some basil stuck in a piece of bread like here's our vegetarian sandwich
so she like will well, not, but you have a really cool twist on a caprese.
Yeah. A really simple twist, I think.
I am, again, the hollowness of flavor is kind of what I go to here.
Mozzarella, I love it, but it doesn't taste like all that much. It kind of tastes like cheese.
So I swapped in fried halloumi for a couple of reasons.
A, for taste, because it has that really briny salty flavor that I think is great I think it also has a really nice texture that pairs super well it's meaty yeah tomatoes get really soft so soft on soft is not my ideal situation so it has some body to it so when you're eating it with a piece of tomato the tomato can melt and the halloumi is kind of chewy and squeaky and it just it to me that's like really beautiful summer presentation a caprese is super beautiful but it just sort of has this like yeah we've seen it it's not super interesting and when I was approaching these recipes I wanted everything
to feel like something familiar like you know what that is but there's one thing about it that's really interesting that makes it feel brand new in some way so talk about a frying the halloumi yeah I mean that's to me that's the only way to eat halloumi me um it just fries up so well it grills really well too because it doesn't have it's not a soft cheese it's very firm yeah so it holds its shape really well and when you put it in a skillet to fry it it just gets this like nice crispy brown crust on it yeah and it's so good i mean when it's warm like oh it's so that's its best form oh you have to
bring it room temp well i mean by that time it's like swum in the tomato juices and there's a oregano oil that goes on top so it's It's just like soaked in everything.
Yeah, yeah. So that's when you would make fully and bring because you want it to sort of sit together and marinate as opposed to like, let me fry the halloumi.
Let me bring the sliced tomatoes and then like arrange it beautifully on a platter.
Yeah, no, make it at home and let it sit.
It just gets better over time.
Yeah, those tomato juices start to come out because after you salt them, the juices start to like.
I want it right now.
What if we just ended the interview?
Yeah, we got to go.
Okay, let's get to this question in the other.
perfection because when I am having people over and people always say oh what can I bring I always say oh nothing just bring yourself I do the thing that like you know drives you crazy um but it's often because like I can't really think of it not because like oh my god I'm the host of the most and I have 45 things I'm just like I don't know let's just keep it simple like I'll make dinner and just come over and hang out you know um but I'll I I don't really uh you know for anything I'm like oh bring something you want to drink because I don't I don't drink So I don't have a nice collection of wine or whatever, if people
want that. But if I really am broken down to the point where I have to say something and where they really get at what my heart really wants, I will always say, bring a dessert.
So what dessert are you bringing to my house tomorrow, Casey?
Well, I wrote two dessert chapters in this book.
I know. Because of the frequency.
It's so unhinged. But that is the thing we get asked to bring the most. I think that's the number one thing a host, if they can check anything off their list, they're going to get dessert off the list first. And so I wanted to give a ton of options for a ton of situations.
So one of the chapters is desserts in general, like pies, cookie, ice cream.
The other chapter is just cakes and cakes for kind of any situation.
situation um but you know in summertime i think we're in like obviously thanksgiving maybe is what most people think of as pie season i think of summer as prime pie time yeah for sure and all the fruit yeah right and like it's a light dessert like it's not as heavy as a cake if you're eating outside it's a really satisfying way to end and so there's a couple pies in the book but i think for summertime um there's a blackberry basil pie and to me that is like peak summer flavor and maybe not a combination you would immediately think of but i think basil and blackberry actually go really well together
yeah blackberry on its own i think is such an under like an i'm not underrated that's a dumb thing to say but i just feel like people should be eating more blackberries because the flavor of blackberry it's like it's so grassy but so sweet and um yeah i just think they're lush i think the seeds uh so blackberries if you haven't had them like imagine a raspberry but black and bigger yeah so it's a big fat but also a better texture than raspberry yeah raspberry falls apart the second you look at it and a blackberry has like a nice it's a little firmer yeah yeah yeah it has more body um but they
do have a lot of like the seeds can be very hard it in the blackberry and there's a lot of them yeah i think people do struggle with that a little bit yeah but such a nice flavor so when you make your pie just walk us through it quickly like what's what's the filling yeah so it's actually very simple it's just blackberries basil sugar and cornstarch super easy to throw together and uh the other pie in the book uses kind of the classic double crust pie crust but i wanted to offer another option for people who are maybe a little pie crust shy pie crust is very stressful i get it so this is a press
-in pie i took a myers briggs and actually came up as a pie crust shy i used to be um but this is a very easy pressing crust it uses melted butter and water so you just kind of make a paste out of the flour sugar mixture and then you can just crumble it into the pie plate and then press it down so you get like your coverage you need but it's not like cutting in butter and having to roll it out and drape it in and okay press and crust typically i you know i love for cheesecake cheesecake is a pie i don't care what anyone says yeah um or you know like key lime pie you know these custard pies basically
right where the custard kind of sets and you don't have a lot of problems with like leaking but with a fruit filling like the blackberry you it doesn't like leak it doesn't like seep through the press and crust but you're are you talking about pressing like ground up crackers or something yeah so this is pie dough but it's not like it's sort of a cheat pie dough yeah so you're not like building like streaks of butter throughout the dough and like everything has to be cold this is a very easy you're starting with melted butter like you've already ruined your chances of that so and so it just turns
into like a really crumbly paste that then once you press it it forms the base of a pie dough gotcha gotcha gotcha but it doesn't take all the work of a pie dough oh that's so interesting and how does it bake up i mean pretty similar it's not you're not going to get like beautiful flaky layers but you get like a nice dense bottom that will hold in the filling and then the topping of it is like a very easy sugary crumble kind of mixture on top beautiful cool um i also want to get to another one that i think is probably like the most instagrammable dessert uh i know what's coming it's the mosaic
yeah it's the mosaic jello Everyone's favorite.
I mean, it looks amazing.
It is. And I think, I grew up with Jell -O.
I love Jell -O and like I feel like Jell -O has disappeared from my life for decades.
It's time for Jell -O to come back.
Yeah, I also was a Jell -O kid and then I kind of forgot about it sort of.
It's, yeah, this is the one dessert that like if I bring it anywhere, everyone is going to comment on it.
It's just, it's stunning.
It's so cool. There's a competitive juices flowing.
For sure, yes. If you want to win.
so tell us about it how what's it look like for those who haven't seen it yet and and actually like and walk us through the process of how you how you make it yeah so it's one of those great things that looks very complicated but is actually so easy which is the best kind of dessert yeah so it's made in a bundt pan so when you turn it out you get this outer layer of a milky white jello.
But when you cut into it, there's all these like squares and shards of different colors of jello floating in the jello mold.
So it just has this really great mosaic effect.
Some people call it stained glass jello, church window jello.
I've heard all sorts of names for it.
But it just has this sort of like, really interesting look to it because of all the different colors and shapes.
And really all you're doing is making a few different flavors of jello, letting those set, and then just chopping those into squares.
And then stacking those in the bundt in sort of alternating colors layers.
And then the milky layer is made with condensed milk, evaporated milk, and then just plain gelatin.
So you make your own kind of milk jello.
Sure, sure. And then just ladle that into the bundt pan to surround the colored jello.
And then once it all sets, it just has this, like, incredible effect.
But it actually was very easy to make.
That's so cool. I love that.
Okay. I mentioned before earlier, too, like, sometimes I will ask people, oh, why don't you bring something to drink or bring what you want to drink?
And if they bring wine, beer, juice, whatever, that's fine.
Yeah. But you also have drink recipes.
So if people, if you want to bring, like, a batched cocktail or a batch drink, what's one that you really especially love?
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I'm not above like a bucket of beer or a sticky table of alcohol and mixers.
But I think it's really chic to show up to the party with the signature cocktail.
That's just like a cool move.
And so the chapter has a bunch of alcoholic and non -alcoholic options.
For summertime, all I want to drink is a sort of beer cocktail that I made up called the staycation and to me this is kind of like if you want to be in europe but you're stuck in brooklyn this is what you should drink so it's a mixture of saint germain which is a very elder flower elder flower and it's really syrupy like it's very sweet and then suze which is a more bitter citrusy kind of liqueur and then those go in your glass with ice and then beer gets poured on top and so there might be some challenging words in here for people like beer and ice or beer and liquor my stomach is turning a little
bit i don't even drink this stuff i'm like oh but go on i'm listening i think it's a really nice combo first of all what kind of beer what kind of beer i use modelo but any kind of light like a light yeah yeah we're not going for like hyper flavor in the beer this is sort of filling in where champagne would be ah the champagne of beers perhaps yeah well i don't like highlight but if you do go for it but i think one thing If you're not in the beer over ice club yet, come on in.
The water's great. You're going to love it.
But beer cocktails, I think, are such an underappreciated category of cocktail.
And so all of those like sweet notes, floral notes, they all just play really nicely because the beer is kind of like a mild sort of malty flavor.
But to me, that's just like a great sippable all day kind of drink that I want to be drinking.
Very cool. Very cool.
Cool. Well, Casey, I, like you said, when you walked in, like, today is a little bit of a break in the weather, but it's going to be like a hundred degrees.
Yes. I hope you're going to a fabulous picnic and stay in the shade.
Thank you. It's been great talking with you.
You too. Thanks. That's Casey Elsass, author of What Can I Bring?
He left us with a recipe for that mosaic jello.
You can find it at splendidtable .org.
Coming up, a conversation with a consummate host, food writer, and fashion designer, Peter Saum.
I'm Francis Lam, and this is The Splendid Table from APM.
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You know, one of the most delightful cookbooks I've read recently is called Family Style by Peter Somm, and it's just full of recipes that made me go, God, why didn't I think of that?
It's so smart, so delicious.
delicious. But Peter didn't train with a litany of great chefs to get to his distinctive culinary style.
Instead, his mentors were people with names like Bill Blass, Michael Kors, and Calvin Klein.
It seems unfair, honestly, that Peter is a renowned fashion designer and happened to write a brilliant cookbook as a side gig, but here we are.
So hey, Peter, it's so great to see you.
Hey, Francis, how are you?
So great to see you as well.
Wow. Congratulations on your cookbook.
You know, it's so funny because obviously we're here to talk about your cookbook, and you just wrote one.
But for most of your career, people, you know, have looked at you really more for what to wear rather than what to eat.
I mean, you have dressed Maggie Gyllenhaal, Beyonce, Michelle Obama, you know, no big deal.
But actually, let's start there.
How did you get into fashion?
You know, I was a really, really shy kid growing up.
And so for me, drawing was the thing that kind of let me, allowed me to just be in my own world.
And I really started in the beginning drawing my mother.
I mean, she was there.
I drew her. And then I started drawing the clothes she was wearing.
And it really, you know, it wasn't until fifth grade where we went on a family trip to France.
France and my sister, my older sister bought Paris Vogue and Leficiel.
And this was sort of the height of eighties fashion.
It was, I opened these pages and it was like Claude Montana, Thierry Mugler, you know, shoulder pads, you know, just high drama.
And that was the moment I was like, wow, that's what I want to do.
So it was really in fifth grade where I decided this is what I wanted to do for my career.
And I was lucky, you know, my parents are both architects, tech. So I was lucky I escaped sort of maybe what the idea of being, you know, parents pressuring me to be an engineer or anything else like that.
Sure, sure. Doctor, lawyer.
Exactly, exactly. So, you know, at that point is really when I sort of was singularly focused on this.
I put my blinders on, I was like learning, like where Barney's New York was in New York, you know, I was, you know, I was doing all the research I could.
Um, yeah. And then, you know, flash forward, uh, you know, many years, I started my clothing line, uh, when I was 30, which is kind of a long time ago.
And, um, you know, it was, it was obviously a wild ride, you know, fashion is a fascinating, beautiful, crazy beast. yeah i i can only imagine i mean just you know like we are huge project runway fans in our home and obviously that is a very sort of weird you know um stilted version of what fashion is or is about but watching the the combination of craft and creativity and vision but then also having to have this overlay of like well what's commercial what can actually work what can like help me survive like um you know in that way i guess it's not terribly unlike cooking but um but you don't
you know you don't have a restaurant you create recipes and i love the creativity with which you create recipes so i'm actually curious are there similarities in when like do you feel like your brain is like yes the part of my brain that has worked in fashion for so long is the part of my brain that works to create recipes or is it totally different parts of your brain and that's why you love doing both of them yeah it's an interesting question um you know for me I think the part of my brain that does fashion is the creative part and I think I've come to realize over the years of developing recipes
and things and envisioning recipes and a dish that that part of my brain that um that you know thinks about fashion is the same part of my brain that thinks about food, the creative part, um, obviously the technicalities that the, you know, the, you know, you know, the fundamentals are different where you're chopping, you're thinking about ingredients, but in a lot of ways it's similar.
Um, you know, they say you eat with your eyes, um, and it's the same thing with fashion.
You know, obviously it's, it's like a, that dress you are looking at online has to look great, you know, in the same way that, um, that dress has to have, be in the right fabric.
It has to fit well, the same thing with the recipe.
That recipe, it's nothing if it doesn't taste great and that recipe has to actually function and be delicious.
And in fashion, there's this Garmento phrase called, you know, front of closet.
It's a very, you know, very industry term.
You know, these are the pieces that you want to wear every day.
You know, that dress or that sweater that you want to wear all the time.
And so, I realized, I come to realize that the recipes that I do, I want them to be kind of front of closet.
I want them to be recipes that you'll make over and over again.
That's so interesting.
Let me ask you this, too.
You mentioned this thing, oh, we eat with our eyes first. And I think every chef, you know, also thinks about that.
They think about the presentation of the dish.
And now, you know, probably especially so because, you know, people come in and they'll, you know, put their meal on Instagram.
So you really want, like, it's a huge part of your business success.
But I'm curious as to what you think that means.
Yeah, you know, I think for me, it's probably the element of surprise.
I mean, sort of surprise and delight.
You know, I've often sort of thought about a dish and the colors of it.
Like there's one dish in my cookbook that is actually, it's a seared tuna with a roasted cherry and caper salsa.
salsa. And I kind of thought about tuna and the pinkness of the tuna and being grilled or something very summery.
And then cherries also being that deep red.
And, you know, so I guess, you know, I think it works both ways where you can think of a color and an idea of what something looks like and then back into it.
Or you can really obviously look at the ingredients and then sort of form an idea around there.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So Peter, I know you've always loved to cook um obviously you know professionally you've you've spent most of your time in another field are there people that you look to for inspiration when you're cooking i mean your i know your family's super important to you but are there people you've read over the years are there cookbooks you've reached for oh my gosh there's so many cookbooks you know i have piles and piles of cookbooks that inspire me and i think uh hetty mckinnon for sure um you know i think what she does, you know, with Asian cuisine, and vegetarian cooking, and kind of the mix
up between East and West is inspiring.
Eric Kim's cookbook, Korean American, I think for me was a real watershed moment.
And, you know, I mean, I go way back to even The Joy of Cooking, you know, Irma Rombauer, whose cookbook my mom used all the time, I actually sold her copy.
So I have it. um you know i also love uh ruth reichel um you know her writing and her cookbooks you know kalou henry also i love she's a wonderful person and i i love her dishes they're delicious it's so simple and also um lighty huck as well i love her i love her recipes as well there's a simplicity in her recipes which is like you just get right to the point and and it's great food so yeah she worked for aina garten for a long time so i think yeah yeah i know it's like simplicity rubbed off on her.
Absolutely. Okay. Well, let's flip a bit to talking about your recipes.
I want to ask you, you know, because I am so warm right now, I'm imagining, okay, what do I like about this time of year?
It's like, oh, I love a picnic.
I love a backyard meal.
If you were going on a summer picnic tomorrow, what would you bring?
What's a dish in your book that you feel is very summery?
well there there are two dishes and i can't really decide but one of them is um it's a take on a classic so i love a deviled egg and obviously um deviled eggs are a classic but i've done my version where i've made them as tea eggs first so you know tea eggs which are um you know hard boiled eggs which are marinated in sort of a tea broth um so you kind of get tea and soy sauce and soy sauce exactly it's a marinade basically and and so for me it's always my thought was always how to bring in more flavor into something like a deviled egg, which does have flavor.
But, you know, I always crave that deep, sort of slightly salty umami.
And, you know, mayonnaise doesn't bring that as much as I'd like.
So for me, that extra layer of flavor with the tea egg is such a great bite.
And then there's one other dish that, you know, I can't really, you know, it's much more traditional in some ways.
I don't know if if it's traditional, but my mom made it a lot in the summer when she didn't want to turn on the stove for a company.
And it is a chilled summer tofu that has century eggs and sort of a chili crisp kind of sauce.
And, you know, century eggs, I don't know why I'm talking about eggs so much, but, you know, are eggs that have, I mean, they're actually, what are they?
Are they salted, fermented?
They're often duck eggs.
Well, they're sort of preserved in this ancient technique of they're preserved in like ash i think most traditionally they're preserved in ash and the ash has a sort of chemical reaction with the egg that i mean if you've never seen a century egg before it it will blow your mind because you think of a hard -boiled egg and all the white of the egg is now like translucent black yeah it's it's pretty amazing and the yolk right the yolk or the yellow of the egg is now sort of like this like kind of beautiful almost green color yeah and the flavor is is a little bit funky it's it's more mild than you
would people would think i think you think they're just gonna start they're just gonna be really really intense but they're actually sort of a delicate sort of you know funky flavor yeah and the tofu itself is super simple right you just i mean most people forget the tofu is already cooked yeah yeah exactly out of the package exactly yeah so this is a silken tofu again which is you know the most soft supple kind of jiggly kind of tofu and the the sauce is really made out of chili crisp sesame oil a little soy sauce it's a very simple dressing and you just lightly score the top of the tofu if you
go in too far the whole thing's just gonna fall apart because silken tofu like you look at it wrong and it'll just sort of fall apart um so all these this sort of grit on top is just really meant for the sauce to get in a little bit more you just pour the sauce over and again it's got a little bit of heat from the chili crisps that tang of umami from the soy sauce you know that nuttiness from the sesame oil and then it's really a bunch of scallions and cilantro on top and the thousand year old eggs next to it and it's quite refreshing um i i actually like it alone or you know a lot of times of course
we would have it with rice so it's sort of the coolness of the tofu with the warm warm, warm another rice.
It's a nice kind of balance.
But of course, if you're at a picnic, just go solo without the rice.
Yeah. That sounds so cool.
Because it's like a, it's almost like just like a spicy, savory custard, which exactly.
Oh, that sounds great.
You have another dish.
I mean, so many dishes, dishes sound delicious.
And like so many dishes, I'd say in your book, I look at like, why didn't I think of that?
Like that? um but one it seems really special to you also savory but bright and sounds like it's probably really great for hot weather uh it's your grandmother's lemon chicken oh yes yes it's in the cookbook it's called famous lemon chicken which uh I think up to the point of the cookbook coming out was really only famous to uh my family but yeah it's again it is a dish my grandmother mother made constantly when i was a kid she's been gone 20 years so this is we're talking way back um and it's a recipe she uh developed uh and i say developed because she she really wasn't a grandma who did a pinch
of this a pinch of that she actually bucked sort of you know tradition of grandmas you know having sort of just a pinch of this and a pinch of that she actually wrote down and developed this recipe.
She was in Hong Kong in the 1920s.
She was a pharmacist, which in that time in the 20s, for a woman was actually quite rare.
You know, her parents, her parents wanted her, well, she wanted to be a more of a surgeon, but the her parents didn't have the means.
So she became a pharmacist. And I think, you know, with a pharmacist, you measurements are important, all those things, you know, precision is very important.
So this is, This was just instilled in her.
So when she came to the US with her family, which is my mom and her five siblings and my grandfather, you know, she had to kind of learn how to cook in a real way for like three meals a day.
And so she set out to develop recipes.
And my mom recalls, you know, growing up, you know, when she was in high school, my grandmother actually fed this to them for like seven days straight, this lemon chicken, because she wanted to get it exactly right.
And so, you know, I changed it a little bit.
I streamlined a few things and I bumped up the lemon because I love the lemon flavor.
But in principle, it is, it's her recipe.
And it's a delicious one.
And describe it for us.
It's really the meat is super tender.
You know, you have ginger, you have scallion in there.
You know, it's all about the sauce in a way.
You know, because it starts on the stove, finishes in the oven.
And that sauce is, you know, it has a little cornstarch in there, of course, which a lot of Asian dishes do, or Chinese dishes especially.
So there's a little bit of a silky sauce.
And the lemons are sliced in there.
You have the juice, you have the zest. You know, the lemon slices get so tender, you can eat them as well.
So it's a really super lemony, delicious dish, which for me, of course, has to be eaten with rice.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. But also so great in the summer.
There's one more I really need to ask you about.
And this is one of the ones where I was like, why did I never think of this?
But you have such a knack for creating these Cantonese, Chinese, American recipes.
And this is something I've never seen before.
But basically, you take a pan of potstickers.
So potstickers, I mean, people love them in restaurants.
And I don't think people realize how easy they are to make at home when you have just a bag of frozen dumplings.
Oh, completely. But you get a nonstick pan going with a little oil.
You set the dumplings in there.
you pour in some water cover and then it steams until the dumplings are cooked and you take the lid off all the water steams off and then they just basically slowly brown yep and that's like and then you have your crispy skin dumpling but what you do which is genius is then you pour in eggs yes and the eggs basically cook into a frittata with these dumplings like nestled into the egg it's like it's genius it is i don't know what i'm asking you i'm just I just want to talk to you about your dish because I'm so excited about it.
It is one of those ones where it just sort of was born of what I always have a bag of frozen potstickers in my freezer.
Like I go to bed at night feeling good that they're there, you know, because like you said, it takes minutes.
And I think this really came out of the idea of, you know, when you pour the water in and cover the lid to steam.
I was like, well, why do you just have to pour water?
You're still steaming and cooking the dumplings.
and I kind of love the idea of sort of this a lake of eggs you know with these little ships of pot stickers floating in them yeah it's a fun one it's a really delicious one yeah that's great and you know what actually get this brings me back to what we were talking about at the top when you're saying like oh what does it mean to eat with your eyes and part of this idea of visual appeal is surprise yeah yeah let me ask you this one um take it in a different direction um you know you have have entertained beautifully over the years you've loved cooking for so long and i'm sure you have like you
know friends who come over who have um you know experienced uh a life where they expect a certain sense of style from you what do you think makes for a great host yeah i mean i think for for a dinner party it is really there's sort of two parts first of all i think whoever's throwing the party just um enjoy it as well because if you're having fun and relaxed and chill and then everybody else will i think we've all been to gender parties where the host is stressed out and it doesn't make for a great evening and and you know the way i sort of not stress myself is is by planning ahead as much as
possible um you know i love setting a table so i actually if i have time i'll set it in the morning so i just the last thing i have to worry about um and then it I think people can get so caught up in the details and get stressed out about the food.
And sure, the food's important and all these things are important.
Lighting's important.
Why not? But at the end of the day, people are there for the people.
People are there to sit around a table and be together.
And I think we have to always remember that.
So when the souffle doesn't rise or the pavlova cracks or whatever goes wrong, I mean, I've had so many disasters that you just recover from.
And I've had times where I've had to order food at the last minute for delivery and put it on a nice plate.
And you know what? It's all good.
It happens. People are there to hang out, yeah.
Yeah. Well, Peter, this has been such a joy to talk with you.
Thank you so much. Thank you, Francis.
This has been so much fun.
peter zahm is the author of family style elegant everyday recipes inspired by home and heritage and if you go to splendidtable .org you'll find his recipe for that hot sticker frittata i am telling you when i saw it i smacked myself in the head and i was like why didn't i think of that it's so brilliant well anyway that is our show for the week we hope you enjoyed it we'll talk Talk to you again next week and go to a great party.
The Splendid Table was created by Sally Swift and Lynn Rosetto Casper.
It's made every week by technical producer Jennifer Lupke, producer Erika Romero, digital producer James Napoli, and managing producer Sally Swift. Lauren Humpert is our senior podcast production manager.
I'm Francis Lam, and this is 8 p .m. American Public Media.
