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- [00:09]
A
You're listening to all of it on wnyc. I'm Alison Stewart. The James Beard award winning cookbook author Samin Nosrat is back with good recipes and rituals to share with the people you love. It's her first cookbook in nearly eight years. After releasing the modern cooking classic Salt Fat Acid Heat and hosting the Netflix series based on it. Good Things grew out of a period when, despite enormous success, Samin was struggling with personal loss and depression that made cooking feel distant. The book gathers the recipes and rituals and small kitchen practices that helped her reconnect with joy. There are more than 125 dishes, comforting soups, bright dressing, pantry, friendly meals, a whole bunch more. And it's a reflection on what it means to build a good life. Samin Nosrat is sitting right across from me.
- [01:00]
B
It's nice to talk to you. Nice to talk to you. Thank you so much for having me.
- [01:04]
A
After the success of your last book, Salt Fat Acid Heat, you describe a point reaching a reflection point. When you asked what is a good life? What led to that question?
- [01:16]
B
I mean, I think my whole life I thought the point of my existence was to achieve and to just do the best I could do. And I think, you know, I sort of had woven a narrative for myself partly by what I learned from my family and culture and probably intrinsically that like, if I could just be the best, then I would feel full inside and I wouldn't have this like dark core of loneliness and sadness that I could never escape.
- [01:46]
A
What was your, how did you go about finding, finding the answers to those questions?
- [01:51]
B
Well, then I achieved the highest possible things in my life in my field. I got this book and show and awards and all the praise and attention and I still found, felt so empty inside. And so I really had to re, sort of reorient myself, tour around. I had to, I kind of understood I'd been oriented the wrong direction, let's say.
- [02:12]
A
Oh yeah.
- [02:13]
B
And I had to find a new orientation. And so I, I took a lot of time to figure out, well, if achievement and sort of success and yeah, stability is not the thing that's going to make me feel this, then what is? And over time I realized it was kind of making the like my, you know, sort of tightening the aperture on my lens in my life from trying to like climb the highest mountains, make everyone in the world love me and be happy to how do I just connect to the people around me? How do I take care of my community? How do I find joy in the tiniest little things in in life, in. In a day. And it. It was hard. I was very depressed. But little by little, I sort of just basically cataloged the things that made me feel good and that eventually became this book.
- [03:03]
C
Do you remember one of the first things that made you feel good and you knew you're on going the right direction?
- [03:08]
B
I. I mean, this is really funny. It's. It's not totally in the book, but gardening and weeding, there was some. There was like, I had a real long period at the end of 2019 and into 2020. I was so exhausted from all the touring. I just wanted to stay home and pull weeds. And there was this thing that felt literally like so rooted and so grounding about that in a way that was so material, you know, as opposed to this abstract thing that I. Chasing on, like, you know, tours and events and talking to people and so just like having a pile of weeds to look at at the end of the day felt so good. And in the same way, cooking often sort of scratches that same itch. Like, my, my work often is writing or making these huge projects that take months or years to do. But when you cook something from start to finish, you made something completely in a day and you enjoy it or the people around you enjoy it, and there is a gratification, like something so deeply human about that.
- [04:03]
C
You know, it is a meme to touch grass. But there's more to it than just totally touching grass.
- [04:09]
B
Like they say, it really does make a difference.
- [04:13]
C
We're talking to Samin Nosrat. Her new cookbook is called Good Things Recipes and Rituals to share with the people you love. Listeners, we love to hear about your rituals that show up in your kitchen. Maybe it's something you've always wanted to make, the way you start a meal a routine that helps you enjoy cooking a little bit more. How did you find your love of cooking? Give us a call now at 212433, WNYC 254 212433, 9692. You can also text us at that number. 212-433-9692. So the. The book is broken up into good things. Why was Good Things a good way to organize a book?
- [04:50]
B
Well, partly because my mind never wants to follow like the. The trodden path and with salt, fat, acid heat. I. I felt like I had a new way to organize cooking for people. And it took. Honestly, the structure of that book took me the longest. It was the longest and most complicated part to solve for. And so I just have a resistance in my heart to doing something the way it's already been done. So I was in. I insisted on figuring out a new way to organize cooking, because I also feel like we rarely decide, oh, I want to make a chicken dish, or I want to make a, you know, a side dish. You kind of like, get inspiration for your meal by flipping through a book and seeing sort of what makes sense right now. So I try to set. Set up the book into, you know, pantry dishes for the times that we're just cooking sort of out of pocket or, you know, I don't know, the things you want to bake, yeasted things when you want to work on a project. Food things for a gathering. But what was funny was I eventually came up with the title Good Things, which comes from this Raymond Carver quote, which is, eating is a small good thing at a time like this. And I do feel like I have been through such a hard stretch, and looking around, it's so dark and hard right now, and it's kind of always a time like this. And so the sentiment is that these little things are something that we always sort of have need for in our lives. And the next morning, once I decided on the title, I woke up and I was like, oh, all good things must come to an end. That's my dessert chapter. So I used all these good things idioms as the chapter titles, and only when I was done with the book did I realize I had indeed actually just organized my book, just like every other cookbook, with a chicken chapter and a salad chapter and a dessert chapter. But I had to get there my own way.
- [06:36]
C
You also write that you're not so sure about recipes and you felt even conflicted in writing them. What changed your mind?
- [06:46]
B
Honestly, what changed my mind is people and their response to my work. I think I worked so hard and for so long, I wanted to convey this idea of salt, fat, acid heat being the sort of grounding philosophy for us in the kitchen to free us from having to adhere only to recipes when we cook and making us more instinctive and confident cooks. And it felt almost hypocritical then to follow that up with another book of recipes. But what's been so fascinating and beautiful for me is to see people's response to my work. And, of course, plenty of people come up to me, and they say, like, salt, fat, acid heat changed my life. It made me a better cook. My husband, my child, they're all better cooks. But just as often, I. People would say things like, I love your buttermilk chicken. We make it every Sunday at my house, I always have your lasagna on my birthday. And I started to see that people have individual and meaningful relationships to the recipes too. And ultimately, I'm just trying to make work that, you know, inspires and is of service to people. So I realized there was a use for this as well.
- [07:51]
C
Someone texted us. My mom was an exceptional cook, mostly Italian food, and I would often sit at the kitchen table and observe. Now she is with me whenever I am in the kitchen.
- [08:02]
B
That's so true, and that's so beautiful. I think it's so meaningful to have that sort of tradition and ancestry passed down through cooking. And, you know, in the last hundred years in this country, so many people have been divorced from that. And so I think that has led to a lot of the sort of lack of confidence in the kitchen. And that's definitely what I'm always trying to be the voice of is like, I want to be your auntie in the kitchen.
- [08:23]
A
You know, under the heading good things come in small packages, you write about the hard task of letting go of your professional brain when you're cooking at home. What did you have to let go?
- [08:37]
B
So much perfectionism. These sort of impossibly high standards that make sense in a restaurant kitchen where you're surrounded by other cooks and there's, you know, deliveries from farmers markets are being made to your doorstep every day. There's, you know, a staff of dishwashers to wash all of your dishes. You know, there's sort of. It makes sense for all of that to be fueling these incredibly high standards in restaurant cooking, because people come there and they're paying for that. But at home, you know, nobody has those deliveries to your doorstep. Nobody has a team of dishwashers.
- [09:10]
A
No, they don't.
- [09:11]
B
And so it's. It's just like, ultimately, what's the point here? The point is to take care of ourselves, to create a moment to feed ourselves, and it doesn't have to be this kind of capital P. Perfect.
- [09:22]
A
Let's take a call. Reid is calling in from Brooklyn. Hi, Reed. Thanks for making the time to call. All of it. You're on the air.
- [09:31]
D
Long time. Long time. And, Sameem, I just want to say Sulfat Acid Heat was like, the book that turned cooking from, like, an onerous chore into, like, this joyous activity. I've always been a not as much of a science person, but that kind of, like, the way that you managed to, like, weave together the art and science really just, like, exploded my whole world with cooking and now become the way that I show my love to people. And I want to kind of talk about the ritual, like when you're doing a big dinner party and there's like that like five seconds after you've been up and down to the table in the kitchen four times, you have everyone's glass of wine is filled and everyone's ready to eat. And there's like that Norman Rockwell moment where even before anyone's eaten anything, there's just like beautiful moment where you look around the table and just see all the people you love. And that's like what? I do it for that reason even more than the food or anything else. So thank you so much. I'm really excited to get this book.
- [10:29]
B
Thank you. Take care. That's so beautiful. I love it. Love that. I also think a lot about that moment right before you start eating when you sort of see the sum of all of your work and energy. But all of these people, it's all about the people. Ultimately. It's like what happens at the table rather than what's on the table.
- [10:44]
A
For me, I'm speaking to Samin Nosrat. We're talking about her new book, Good things, recipes and rituals to share when with people you love, which celebrates the small everyday practices that make cooking feel meaningful. We want to hear what rituals show up in your kitchen. Maybe it's something you always make the you start a meal or routine that helps you enjoy cooking a little bit more. How did you find your love of cooking? Give us a call. 212-433-WNYC 212-433-9692. All right, we're going to talk condiments here.
- [11:18]
B
Great topping.
- [11:19]
A
My favorite topic, little jars of flavor. What are a few of your non negotiable pantry items right now?
- [11:27]
B
Well, in terms of condiments, I always have yogurt or labneh in the fridge. My family's from Iran. I grew up putting a spoonful of yogurt on everything. Recent years I've sort of like migrated my affection to labneh, which is the drained thicker yogurt.
- [11:41]
A
I love that.
- [11:42]
B
Yes, it's delicious. I always have some form of like a crispy chili condiment. And so I have a recipe in the book for a chili crisp. But I love many of the store bought ones as well.
- [11:54]
C
This is interesting. In your book you give like details on what you like and it's a small group of things and you have a small group of utensils and you have pictures of them. In the book it's very simple. For those of us who are reading your book, why did you decide to just kind of like, look, this is what I do and this is how I do it.
- [12:13]
B
I feel like so many books have those lists, you know, of these are the ingredients. These are the things to have. And this book really became about as an expression of my everyday cooking, which it has gotten simpler and simpler as I've moved out of restaurant life. And in terms of the pictures and the way I wanted to convey it, a lot of that was inspiration from art books and other great cookbooks from the last 30 years and the way that they're laid out. And so I wanted to figure out how can I get as much information on one page? And that came out in the form of a lot of these, like, visual collages.
- [12:46]
C
This text says, I'm cooking a big batch of Colombian lentils from memory right now while listening to your show and want to share that my daily treasure cooking ritual is cooking with WNYC s company in my background.
- [13:01]
B
That's from Kathleen.
- [13:02]
C
Thanks, Kathleen. What is amazing a non cooking ritual that you have in your kitchen?
- [13:08]
B
Oh, a non cooking ritual. Maybe emptying my dishwasher in the morning while my coffee brews. I always put a little bit of fresh cardamom seeds in with the coffee when I grind it. And so it kind of makes this fragrant, lightly spiced coffee that sort of heats up the whole house and the aroma fills the whole house. And then I sort of start the day with a clean slate by cleaning out the dishwasher.
- [13:32]
C
We'll have more with Samin Nosrad. After a quick break. We'll talk recipes. Stay with us.
- [13:48]
A
You're listening to all of it on wnyc. I'm Alison Stewart. My guest in studio is Samin Nosrat. We're talking about her new book, Good recipes and rituals to share with the people you love. You love whipped tahini. There's a recipe in this book on page 63. You call it like tahini fluff. All right, how did this come about?
- [14:10]
B
It was totally an accident. I was actually working on, I think, a hummus recipe. So I had the tahini in the food processor and I added a little bit of water and lemon juice and walked away. And it was on and I came back and it was this incredibly airy and fluffy texture that I hadn't ever witnessed before. And I do think some of it is dependent on the brand of tahini. But I realized this could be its own wonderful thing. It didn't have to become you know, a component in something else. And because it has this like, almost like fluff, marshmallowy, like airy texture, it's instead of being drizzle able, it kind of creates this. You can smear it or like dollop it onto the bottom of a platter before plating like a big pile of roasted carrots on top. And it's the sauce, but it's also kind this like creamy dipping pillow bed. It's. And also on its own, it makes a wonderful dip for crudites or pita.
- [15:08]
A
You have a marinated feta in here, which is fairly simple.
- [15:12]
C
It does have a surprise element to it, however.
- [15:16]
B
Yes. Which I also give an alternative for.
- [15:18]
A
All right, so first of all, why is marinating feta such a smart approach for homeless?
- [15:23]
B
Well, for me, it's a great idea because I love feta cheese. Again, like my, my family's from Iran. I grew up eating feta cheese every morning for breakfast. And I' never shaken the habit of buying a big block of it for myself. But I live by myself, so I don't always make it through the whole block before it starts to turn sour. So I realized that if I pre cut it up and marinated it, it would really extend the life in addition to adding all this flavor and turn it into something that I could, you know, put on the side of a big, like, cheese or crudite platter or incorporate into other ingredients or eat with my morning bread. And, and the way this recipe in particular came about is I was looking at one of Yotam Ottolenghi's marinated feta recipes. But I was sort of just, again, it was a peak pandemic. I was looking at what I had around. And because I live in California, I was embarrassed to admit this. On the east coast, we had a kumquat tree in our garden, and so I had kumquats. And so I used that as my form of citrus, which is a little bit of a specialty thing. But if you don't have kumquats, you can use an orange zest or a little lemon zest.
- [16:27]
C
Let's talk to Jane calling in from Manhattan. Hi, Jane, thanks for making the time to call.
- [16:34]
E
My pleasure. Thank you. So my culinary background came from my grandmother and my mother, both of whom were fantastic cooks. One of my pleasures of summer, starting when I was about 7, was watching watching my grandmother gather up the chickens in her barnyard and kill them. That wasn't so pleasant, but kill them, take the feathers off, clean them, and then the next day after they were dressed, she'd can them, she'd bottle them in these giant bottles. Which I learned later is you have to be pretty skillful because of the danger of botulism.
- [17:17]
B
Yeah.
- [17:17]
E
But she was a fantastic cook. And my mother, her daughter will be 100 in about five months. She probably did her last batch of pickles, dill pickles, this past summer, which has always been a family affair. So I'm just very lucky to have had farm to table living before, you know, it was a phrase. You really are.
- [17:45]
C
That's a great call, Jane. Thank you so much for calling in with your family story. You have a family story in this book, Samin, where it was a birthday party for a kid and you learned a lesson. Would you share that with us?
- [17:59]
B
Sure.
- [18:00]
C
Too. It's a really telling lesson.
- [18:01]
B
Yeah. I have a group of friends who I have a weekly dinner with. And anytime it's someone's birthday in the group, especially a kid, I always say, what's your dream birthday menu? I wanna make that dream come true. So orion was turning 10 and their dream was to have fish tacos and churros, which is both pretty simple, but also a little tricky because it involves deep frying both. Both courses. And over the course of the week, as the day came nearer the group, the party grew from 10 people to 20 people, which for me, as a professional cook is not that big of a deal. But I did find myself, you know, in the kitchen sort of harried, kind of cooking all this fish and getting sort of sweaty and making a mess and everybody was outside and. And, you know, since the party was so big, there weren't enough chairs for everyone to sit down anyway. So I started sending all the food out and I said, hurry up, just start eating. I don't want the fish to get cold because no one wants to eat, like, soggy fried fish. And so they made a plate and, you know, like piled with beans and rice and slaw and made a big taco and took a bite. And then their mom came in and I said, how is it? How is it? Like, is Orion happy? And she said, yeah, like, they took a big bite and they loved it so much. And then they looked around and said, where? Where's Samin? And. And my heart fell because I have spent my life sort of with this, like, martyr slash Tasmanian devil energy in the kitchen when it comes to, like, being in charge and, you know, being the host. And I have always felt like that's an expression of my generosity because I don't want other People to, you know, go to any trouble. But in this moment, I realized Orion had not, like, you know, hired me to cater their birthday party. They had said they just wanted to have fish tacos with me. And, like, our first caller sort of said that that really special moment was this moment when everyone has their food and the wine sort of just before you dig in. That's one of my favorite moments of our weekly dinners, too, is just this sort of appreciation, kind of just taking a breath and seeing everyone at the table. And I realized by staying in the kitchen and, you know, offering to do everything and kind of being grumpy about it, that I was actually robbing everybody, including myself, of that. And so I've really tried to take a different. Different, like, approach. It's gonna. It's a lifetime of overworking and perfectionism I'm working on. So I'm trying to do less. I'm trying to. To delegate more and participate sort of.
- [20:16]
A
Fully in your chapter. Good things to keep up your sleeve. You mentioned pantry staples that could be really turned into deeply flavorful dishes. So I'm opening my pantry, and I'm seeing things like beans and crispy rice and maybe tomato soup.
- [20:33]
C
Soup.
- [20:34]
A
How can I go about making that feel sustaining, feeling like I'm giving you a really great meal?
- [20:40]
B
Oh, well, I honestly feel like all of those things that you mentioned are incredibly sort of comforting and warming foods. And so I think part of it truly is just changing the perspective and understanding sort of big picture that when we are seeking comfort in the hands of a friend or a loved one at their table, very rarely it's about the specific food, very rarely it's about the extravagance of the food. It's so much more about that food as an expression of their own time, their own attention. You know, like the philosopher Simone Viall said, attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity, which I think is so beautiful and really has become almost my sort of guiding light. The idea that cooking can be an expression of our time and attention, and in that, such a beautiful form of love, and especially in this moment, in this time with so, like, food insecurity is so intense, and so many people are struggling to, you know, get food on their table. I mean, I don't want to make light of that at all, but I would like to say that things do not have to be, you know, the best and the most. We sort of are often fooled into believing that by food, media or just the culture. But truly, what I remember most about so many of my favorite meals is the conversation or the feeling at the table. And very little of the time do I remember the exact menu.
- [22:03]
A
Hmm, that's interesting. Tell me what I can do to make that soup, that creamy soup.
- [22:09]
B
Oh, yeah, the creamy soup is really simple. I actually just made it the other day for my birthday. It was my birthday wish to have tomato soup and grilled soup. Oh, happy birthday, by the way. Oh, thank you. And so it's just a couple cans of tomatoes. I feel like the difference between tomato sauce and tomato soup is celery. So you start with an onion and celery and some, you know, cooking that down in some olive oil. Add a couple cans of tomatoes. Oh, before you add the tomatoes, actually, I thicken. So I create like, a little roux base in that, in the onion and celery with a little flour and butter. Add the tomatoes, let it cook probably 25 minutes, and then I just puree it with the immersion blender. If you don't have one of those, you can put it in a food processor or a countertop blender and you. I like to finish it with a little bit of milk and cream to really give it that, like, you know, elementary school vibe.
- [22:56]
A
I do have to ask you about one thing that I have had the hardest time figuring out.
- [23:00]
B
Yeah. Aquafaba. Okay, tell me more.
- [23:02]
A
It literally means bean water, and I was drawn to it long ago, but I can't get the texture I want.
- [23:10]
B
Okay, because are you starting with your own pot of beans or are you using the beans from a can?
- [23:16]
A
Beans from a can. Okay, great.
- [23:17]
B
No, that's actually often much easier to get. So the way I like to describe it is, if you think about what you're using aquafaba for, it's almost as a replacement for egg white. So the texture of the aquafaba you're starting with for whatever dressing, because that's this. It is very high in protein, so that makes it a great thickener for sauces, is it should almost be the texture of a raw egg white, which is to say, like, kind of slimy and snotty. So if it's much runnier than that, then which. Most of the stuff from a can is the right texture to begin with. But if yours is more watery, then just put it on the stove and reduce it until it thickens a bit, let it cool, and then move forward. So probably maybe whatever brand you're using is a little watery.
- [23:59]
A
Thank you so much for answering that question. I saw it in your book, and I was like, I'm gonna ask it. Yeah, great. What would you prioritize when you are sitting down and deciding, yes, I'm gonna have people over for dinner. Like, you've given me an inspiration that in the next year I should have a dinner party once a month. But it doesn't have to be fancy.
- [24:21]
B
It doesn't have to be fancy. And to me, the priority is the time spent together. So in saying that, I would say maybe you make it a potluck. Maybe you a super simple meal of beans and rice or soup and you invite people to bring bread and salad. Maybe you, you know, if you want to do everything yourself, maybe it's things that you can do in advance and serve at room temperature or freeze and then bake off the day of. So I think choosing things that really sort of prioritize the time that you get to spend together again is returning to this idea of our time and our attention being a gift rather than feeling like you have to impress or dazzle or like really knock people's socks with some amazing menu. I think actually the simpler the better.
- [25:07]
A
This text says Samin exudes so much joy. It comes through in the pages of her books and I joyfully make and serve her recipes. I'm now known for my Christmas focaccia, which is Samin's recipe, of course. I decorate them with Christmas trees, stars, et cetera, to make herbs and vegetables out of them. Everyone I gift them to loves them.
- [25:25]
C
And they all ask for more because they're delicious and beautiful. I'm spreading joy during the holiday season thanks to Samin. That is from Susie from Red Bank.
- [25:34]
A
What have you been cooking lately that's.
- [25:36]
C
Brought you a lot of joy?
- [25:37]
B
Oh, man. I mean, I honestly have been on a book tour for almost two months, so anytime I get to be home, it really does bring me so much pleasure to make the simplest foods. Last week, like I said, I made that tomato soup another night. I just wanted something like super nourishing and warming. So I made steam rice. I used my toaster oven to roast some sweet potatoes and then I boiled some broccoli. And then because I live true to my word, I had a fridge full of condiments. So I finished it with lavna and chili crisp and green sauce. And it was so nourishing and so simple.
- [26:12]
C
The last thing I'm going to ask you about, and it sounds like a public service announcement, is a one bowl chocolate cake you can cook in under an hour. We've got one minute. Explain it to me in that minute. Go.
- [26:24]
B
You make Every you make, you layer all the ingredients into the bowl and you basically wet to dry to prevent lumps. You whisk it up. It's really rich with sour cream and cocoa and warm water helps the cocoa flavor bloom and then it bakes for about 30 minutes. I mean, it's made out of all pantry items. It's so rich and fudgy. I hope you love it.
- [26:43]
C
You've been making it for 20 years.
- [26:45]
B
Yeah, it's a variation on a cake I learned to make as a very young cook that was just honestly not that different than the recipe on the side of the Hershey's cocoa box that we've adapted over the years.
- [26:56]
C
Have you had to tweak it along the way?
- [26:57]
B
Yeah, it's not that we've had to, but you kind of learn. You're like, oh, I had a really great sour cream chocolate cake. What would happen if I had added sour cream to mine? How can I make it a little richer, a little bit more elegant, a little more sort of sophisticated? So it's just tiny tweaks over the way, but I think if you look carefully, you'll see the roots connect back to that Hershey's recipe on the side of the box.
- [27:19]
C
And it's in one bowl.
- [27:20]
B
Yes.
- [27:21]
C
The name of the book is Good Things Recipes and rituals to share with the people you love. It is out now. Samin Nusrat has been my guest. Thank you for coming to.
- [27:31]
B
Thank you so much for having me.
- [27:33]
C
And that is all of it. I'm Alison Stewart. I appreciate you listening and I appreciate you. I'll meet you back here next time.
- [27:48]
F
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