Rosie Grant: A Casual Culinary Chat About Our Cookbooks That Have Given Up The Ghost

Summary

The Joy of Cooking Podcast

Episode: Rosie Grant: A Casual Culinary Chat About Our Cookbooks That Have Given Up The Ghost

Date: October 29, 2025
Host: The Joy of Creation Production House
Guests: Rosie Grant, Sarah Marshall, Megan Scott, John Becker

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Episode Overview

This week’s episode is a warm celebration of family, food, and memory—centered on the unique work of special guest Rosie Grant, archivist and author of To Die For: A Cookbook of Gravestone Recipes. The hosts (John Becker and Megan Scott, fourth-generation Joy of Cooking authors, alongside Sarah Marshall) dive into food’s role in commemoration—literally carved in stone—and reflect on cookbooks that have nourished generations, both in the kitchen and in the heart.

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Table of Contents

• Kitchen Catch-up & Comfort Food
• Introducing Rosie Grant and Her Gravestone Recipe Project
• Food, Memory, and Grief
• Documenting & Archiving Family Recipes
• Secrets, Surprises, and Recipe Reconstruction
• The Mystery of How Gravestone Recipes Are Discovered
• Why So Many Baked Goods?
• If You Had a Gravestone Recipe…
• Joy of Cooking & Cookbook Nostalgia
• Listeners’ Cookbook Stories: Books That Have “Given Up the Ghost”
• Favorite Cookbooks: The Well-Loved and Well-Worn
• Recipe of the Week: Mushroom Confit
• Closing: What’s Cooking Next?
• Where to Find Rosie & Book Recommendations

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Kitchen Catch-up & Comfort Food

Hosts trade stories of recent meals, kitchen mishaps, and “leftover heroics”:

• Sarah Marshall reminisces about post-fancy-dinner fried chicken and JoJo’s (a PNW potato wedge snack):

  “Gas station JoJo’s, they’re kind of like my savior sometimes.” (02:02, Sarah)

  • JoJo’s are explained as chunky, seasoned, deep-fried potato wedges—an iconic Pacific Northwest treat, typically eaten with ranch rather than ketchup.

• Megan and John discuss their “chicken and rice” streak, exploring different comfort recipes from many cultures, including Kazakhstan-inspired roast chicken with rice:

  “You cook the whole chicken in a Dutch oven with the rice around it, so the rice absorbs all the juices. It’s just really comforting.” (05:02, Megan)

• Sarah praises the power of pickled veggies as “meal prep hacks”:

  “Pickled onions and pickled green beans is sort of my cheat for having meal stuff prepped… I just open up onions or pickles or green beans and throw them in the pan!” (08:43, Sarah)

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Introducing Rosie Grant and Her Gravestone Recipe Project

[10:00]

John introduces Rosie Grant:

• Creator of the viral Ghostly Archive account (TikTok, Instagram)
• Researches and recreates gravestone recipes—actual favorite recipes engraved on headstones.
• Newly published author: To Die For, A Cookbook of Gravestone Recipes.

“I was so struck... You can put a recipe on a gravestone. And I just thought it was so lovely. I was curious what the cookies tasted like, so I tried them and posted the process. That started it all.” (12:16, Rosie)

Pub day excitement: Rosie shares it’s her official book release day, and she hasn’t yet been to the store to see it.

“Possibly after this recording, I might run to a Barnes and Noble in the flesh.” (10:49, Rosie)

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Food, Memory, and Grief

[13:01–17:26]

• Rosie describes the surprising online enthusiasm for both cemetery culture and food memorialization.
• Deep connections between cooking, grief, and family:

“It was so personalized—all these strangers... fully sharing about them using food to connect with someone that they were missing. Food is this really powerful memory tool.” (13:22, Rosie)

• Ratatouille effect:

“It’s like that movie, Ratatouille... when the villain eats that dish and is immediately back in his childhood home.” (15:47, Rosie)

• Megan draws parallels to recent podcast guests, showing this food-memory link is universal.

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Documenting & Archiving Family Recipes

[17:26–20:01]

• Rosie urges listeners to document food stories and recipes now, before it’s too late.

• Shares practical tips:

  • Interview family members, even informally.
  • Record conversations or write down stories and recipes.
  • Share copies so the knowledge isn’t lost (“losing a library” when someone passes).

  “I have [in the book] 21 questions to ask your family members to document your food history.” (17:52, Rosie)

• Emily’s personal story: She interviewed her grandmother for a genealogy class; her grandma passed away two weeks later, but she preserved precious stories and recipes.

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Secrets, Surprises, and Recipe Reconstruction

[20:01–26:28]

• Some families treat recipes as closely-guarded secrets, only to be revealed at the end of life or even after, sometimes opting to engrave only the ingredients (not instructions) on a tombstone:

  “She did keep a little bit of her secret … the gravestone only has the ingredients. There’s no instructions.” (21:14, Rosie, re: Naomi’s spritz cookies)

• Rosie details the challenge and fun of figuring out incomplete recipes, sometimes in “Great British Bake Off technical challenge” style (23:33), and sometimes needing to research traditional techniques or interview relatives.

  “I failed it when I first did it. I didn’t know what a spritz cookie [was]… I made it kind of like a sugar cookie… I now own four cookie presses.” (23:45–24:15, Rosie)

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The Mystery of How Gravestone Recipes Are Discovered

[26:28–29:30]

• Early finds: Internet sleuthing—searching blogs, Reddit, news, and even accidental hashtag misspellings.
• Now: Families often reach out themselves as the project has grown. None found “organically” while walking through cemeteries yet.
• Researching and verifying: Rosie digs through obituaries, “Find a Grave” databases, and messages family members via social media.
• The power of online legacy—sometimes old Facebook profiles are the digital equivalent of abandoned graves:

  “Great Aunt Joe has been dead for years. We never took down her Facebook… That’s why she hasn’t written you back.” (28:35, Rosie)

• Modern memorials now must consider social media:

  “That’s like an important part of death planning now—what do you do with your social media accounts?” (29:30, Megan)

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Why So Many Baked Goods?

[30:10–31:29]

• Gravestone recipes are most often cookies, cakes, or other baked goods.
• “Special occasion” or holiday foods are what families remember (and what fit on a tombstone).
• Baked recipes tend to be short enough to fit and visually resemble poems.

  “With a lot of cookies and that sort of thing, it’s a little more forgiving with less text. In some cases, they picked a recipe because it looked like a poem.” (30:15, Rosie)

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If You Had a Gravestone Recipe…

[31:29–33:10]

Panelists ponder what food they’d want immortalized on their own headstones:

• Rosie: “Clam linguine… very nostalgic.”
• Megan: “My southern cornbread recipe—one I’ve worked on a lot and perfected.”
• Sarah: “My green tomato enchilada sauce recipe from my canning book, since it’s useful to Oregonians.”
• John (after much thought): “I’d have to spend at least a year thinking about this.”
  (31:29–33:10)

“For the other sauce, you could have a little jar to reference it or something.” (32:57, Rosie, to Sarah)

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Joy of Cooking & Cookbook Nostalgia

[34:05–36:06]

Rosie’s relationship to Joy of Cooking:

• Owns several vintage copies, picked up during her gravestone research travels.
• Fascinated by handwritten notes, marginalia, and little scraps tucked inside old books ("the comment section in the olden days").
• Her own cookbook was physically inspired by these classic books.

  “I have three different copies of Joy of Cooking from different years… families would also have a Joy of Cooking or a Betty Crocker. They would pull them out during interviews, and they’d have handwritten notes in the corners from their loved ones.” (34:09, Rosie)

Megan:

“I love seeing what people have written inside… It's so cool to get a little glimpse into someone else’s life.” (35:31, Megan)

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Listeners’ Cookbook Stories: Books That Have “Given Up the Ghost”

[38:21–41:24]

A listener shares a treasured 1964 Joy of Cooking copy given at graduation, now “held together with a Velcro strap… after all these years.” (38:21, Caller Sam)

Hosts reminisce about battered old cookbooks found at beach houses, in family collections or sent in the mail—stories of resilience through floods, fires, and moves:

“It’s been through two floods and one home fire... a paperback edition… We have it in a Ziploc—it's no longer a single book.” (41:16, John)

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Favorite Cookbooks: The Well-Loved and Well-Worn

[41:49–48:59]

Panelists share cookbooks that have become “kitchen companions”—dish-stained, falling apart, and deeply loved:

• Truly Mexican by Roberto Santibañes (John): For staple salsas and delicious sauces.
• Platter of Figs by David Tanis (Megan): “My introduction to California cuisine… took it to France and back.”
• 660 Curries by Raghavan Iyer (John): For homemade spice blends. “He passed away a few years ago… every time I pull it out I think of him.” (45:00, John)
• Tangy, Tart, Hot and Sweet by Padma Lakshmi (Sarah): The start of her homemade sauce journey.
• Saving the Season by Kevin West (Sarah): Canning classic.
• Soups from Scratch and Quick Breads to Match by Ivy Manning (Sarah): “I pull that book out all the time.”
• Rosie's picks:
  • Food to Die For by Amy Bruni (“Classic spooky-season comfort food”).
  • Midnight Chicken and Recipes Worth Living For by Ella Risbridger (cooking through grief).

  “I have been revisiting Amy Bruni’s Food to Die For… classic spooky season. And… Midnight Chicken… about tragedy and loss, then cooking through that” (47:43, Rosie)

Megan also shouts out Wild Fermentation by Sandor Katz, her formative book on fermentation (“my kimchi stunk up the whole dorm…”).

Memorable moment:

“You could walk in the dorm and smell my kimchi from the front door… I did not intend for this to happen.” (50:27, Megan)

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Recipe of the Week: Mushroom Confit

[50:54–52:50]

The recipe of the week is mushroom confit (2019 Joy, p. 252), inspired by Thomas Keller’s Ad Hoc at Home and a traditional Spanish tapa.

• John details the modifications: more flavor from prolonged herb and garlic infusion, draining and salting the mushrooms for texture.

  “It just has a really nice kind of meaty texture to it.” (52:21, John)

• Ideal for wild mushrooms and the start of mushroom-hunting season.

• Use ideas: on crusty bread, polenta, or risotto.

Listeners invited to tag their creations @thejoyofcooking.

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Closing: What’s Cooking Next?

• Sarah is developing a delicata squash and lentil soup for a farmer’s market.
• Rosie is baking “a bunch of gravestone recipe cookies” for her book launch: Jennifer’s chocolate chip, Naomi’s spritz, Texas sheet cake, and snickerdoodles.

  “Lots of cookies this week… I can eat that for dinner, right?” (54:50, Rosie)

• John and Megan: Looking forward to apple dishes from an upcoming harvest festival, and Hetty McKinnon’s vegetarian tomato mapo tofu with cucumber salad from their own “cucumber glut.”

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Where to Find Rosie & Book Recommendations

• Rosie’s online:
  • @ghostlyarchive on TikTok and Instagram (56:11, Rosie)
  • To Die For: A Cookbook of Gravestone Recipes now available everywhere books are sold.
• Megan and John will list Rosie’s book in their Bookshop.org storefront.
• Resources for archiving your family’s food memories: Rosie has “21 questions to ask your family” and simple archiving how-to’s on her accounts.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “Food is this really powerful memory tool… it’s like losing a library when someone passes away and the recipes aren’t written down.” (13:22–17:52, Rosie)
• “The comment section in the olden days” — On handwritten notes in vintage Joy cookbooks. (36:42, Rosie)
• “If you don’t document it, there’s no time like the present… do it now.” (17:52, Rosie)
• “You could put a recipe on a tombstone? I was like, oh my god!” (15:59, Megan)
• “Some people say it looks like a poem—their recipe chosen for the gravestone.” (30:15, Rosie)

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Important Timestamps

• 00:38 – Introductions & Fried Chicken/JoJo’s
• 04:43 – Recent Comfort Cooking Adventures
• 08:43 – Pickled Veggies as Kitchen Hacks
• 10:34 – Introducing Rosie Grant & Gravestone Recipes
• 13:01 – Food, Grief, and Memory
• 17:26 – Documenting Family Food Stories
• 20:01 – Recipe Secrets & Spritz Cookies Mystery
• 23:33 – Making Recipes from Only Ingredients
• 26:28 – How Rosie Finds Gravestone Recipes
• 30:10 – Why Baked Goods Dominate Gravestones
• 31:29 – What Would Be On Your Gravestone Recipe?
• 34:05 – Relationships with Joy of Cooking, Cookbook Nostalgia
• 38:21 – Listener’s Cookbook Story: Given Up the Ghost
• 41:49 – Favorite, Most-used Cookbooks
• 50:54 – Recipe of the Week: Mushroom Confit
• 54:02 – What’s Cooking Next
• 56:11 – Where to Find Rosie Online & Book Details

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Episode Tone

The episode is cozy, curious, and inviting—full of wit, warmth, and genuine care for the connections food creates across time. The hosts and guest maintain a conversational and slightly irreverent tone, balancing humor and deep sentiment throughout.

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For more, visit @ghostlyarchive and follow the hosts at @thejoyofcooking.

Transcript

[Sam]

Sam.

[Sarah Marshall]

Welcome to the Joy of Cooking podcast. Each week we set the table for a discussion about recipes and stories from the authors of Joy of Cooking. We tackle kitchen victories and misadventures and what we are cooking and eating right now. Thanks for joining us at the table today. I'm Sarah Marshall and I attended a fancy dinner last night and got fried chicken and JoJo's on the way home.

[Megan Scott]

We've all been there. I'm Megan Scott, co Author of the 2019 edition of the Joy of Cooking. I'm a food editor by day and avoider of dish duty by night. And I am basically a hero for eating the dregs of two different leftovers for lunch.

[John Becker]

Thank you for your service. I'm John Becker, 4th Generation Co author and steward of the Joy of Cooking, America's oldest family run cookbook. And after years of soapy servitude, I would like to call for all dishwashers to join with me in a general strike. Our voices should be heard.

[Megan Scott]

Is that a threat? Are you threatening me?

[John Becker]

No, I just wanted to see if there's any interest out there.

[Megan Scott]

I have other strengths. Okay. Besides dishwashing.

[John Becker]

Oh, I agree. Not trying to dispute that.

[Sarah Marshall]

I am a non dishwasher.

[Megan Scott]

Oh, okay. That's good. We can also be in solidarity.

[Sarah Marshall]

And I appreciate the dishwashers.

[Megan Scott]

I do.

[Sarah Marshall]

I really do love it. Thank you, John, for your service. Thank you, Dirk, for your service. It's very necessary.

[Megan Scott]

I love that you got fried chicken and Jojo's on the way home from your fancy dinner. Were they good?

[Sarah Marshall]

So good. That's kind of my thing on the way home if I, you know, if I'm hungry, like gas station Jojo's, they're kind of like my savior sometimes. And I mean, my plan was I wanted to eat this fancy dinner, but you know, I have a shrimp allergy and the thing that they were serving was like shrimp and oysters and so I couldn't partake. And then by the time there was like a fancy side and so it was on the fancy side, and then I went over to the other side and then by the time I got out of the other side, there wasn't the rest of the food. And so I. Yeah, it was a super bummer.

[Megan Scott]

Can you explain what JoJo's are? I feel like that is a very regional Pacific Northwest thing. Is it? Well, yeah, well, the, the, the name, I think Jojo is very Pacific Northwest.

[Sarah Marshall]

Jojo's are like a big fat potato fried. They're like, they're not French fries. They're like a wedge of potato that is then deep fried. And they're.

[Megan Scott]

They're kind of seasoned.

[Sarah Marshall]

They're seasoned. They're like, seasoned with. Not spicy at all, but, like, seasoned with like a.

[John Becker]

A seasoning, salt.

[Sarah Marshall]

Seasoning salt, probably. They're salty, they're seasoned, they're deep fried, they're delicious. And usually, I mean, here in the Pacific Northwest, they're served with ranch dressing, not ketchup. It's like how you get them.

[John Becker]

So, yeah, I feel like the. There is an origin story for them that is entwined with fried chicken or roasted chicken, which is like fried chicken that's fried under pressure, like what KFC does. But I think that sales reps for the company, for the fryers would actually be like, you can fry chicken on the. In this, but also at the same time. These potato wedges will cook at the same rate, or, you know, they'll both be done at the same time. And that's kind of like how it all came about, from what I understand.

[Sarah Marshall]

Well, and we have this place here called Real Amin that is like, where you go for that, but it. It takes a while, you know, so that's what I wanted. Someone mentioned it at the dinner I was at, and I was like, that's what I want to get. But you. You have to wait, you know, because they only do, like, one.

[Megan Scott]

Yeah. Their fryer is really tiny.

[Sarah Marshall]

Tiny. And everybody goes there for it. So you have to hang out and drink beers while you wait. So I couldn't get that. So my next best is convenience store.

[John Becker]

On the way home, I actually looked for Jojo's, like, no joke, like yesterday at a convenience store in Corbett, Oregon. And I was disappointed. They.

[Sarah Marshall]

They were.

[John Becker]

They were fresh out. It was really sad.

[Sarah Marshall]

Well, I can give you hot tips for where to get Jojo's Late night. On your way home, we should talk. Yeah.

[Megan Scott]

What have you. I know what you've been up to this week, John, but our listeners don't. What have you been cooking this week?

[John Becker]

I feel like you were sick and then I was sick and, you know. So, like, over the last two weeks, we have done at least three, I think. No, three different versions of chicken and rice. There was Kamin guy, then I did like, an improvised arroz con pollo type situation. And then you did a pot roasted whole chicken with rice.

[Megan Scott]

Yeah, it's a Nozdaravian recipe on New York Times cooking. Pretty simple. But it's like you cook the whole chicken in a Dutch oven with the rice around it. So the rice absorbs all the juices from the chicken. It is so, like, it's just really comforting. It doesn't. It doesn't. It's not spicy or heavily spiced in any way, but it just is kind of what you want.

[John Becker]

Sometimes I would say that the chicken turns out, like, really fall apart, like the breast. Some people might shun the breast for being, like, cooked to a very safe temperature, let's say.

[Megan Scott]

Yeah, well, you gotta eat that first. You eat that the first day, and then the thighs hold up a little better for this, like the second day and the third day that you're eating it.

[John Becker]

Yeah, I don't know. I kind of liked how it turned out. You know, I feel like that texture in chicken breast is often people are meant to feel ashamed for making breasts that way, but it's. It's good. It could be good.

[Megan Scott]

Are you dragging? Are you dragging, like, quietly dragging? My inspiration of this recipe?

[John Becker]

No, absolutely not. Like, I feel like our friend Kate, she made us, like, this slow roasted chicken that took like, what was it?

[Megan Scott]

Many hours.

[John Becker]

Many hours. And, you know, I was like, wow, that is really going to be overcooked. But it was pretty.

[Megan Scott]

It was really good.

[John Becker]

I really, I appreciate it.

[Megan Scott]

Also, the chickens we get are from our csa and they're just like, more flavorful, slightly more like robust chickens, I assume they're, like, healthier and they're, you know, running around, getting a lot of exercise. So I, I do feel like they benefit from a little more cooking than you would do at Supermarke Chicken. So I really like to, you know, technically overcook it a little.

[John Becker]

Fair enough.

[Megan Scott]

We did also. Well, I. I made our recipe of the week, which was the penicillin cocktail on page 24 of the 2019 edition of Joy. And I really enjoyed being able to go to the liquor store and buy two different kinds of scotch and put it on the business card.

[Sarah Marshall]

There you go.

[Megan Scott]

You muddle some ginger with lemon juice and honey. I think a lot of bars, as John mentioned last week, a lot of bars will make like a ginger and honey syrup instead. But if you're making them in quantity, that makes a lot of sense. But if you're just making one drink, I think muddling is good.

[John Becker]

If you're. If you're drinking alone.

[Megan Scott]

Yeah, if you're drinking alone. And then you add a blended scotch and shake that with ice. And then once you pour the drink into the glass, you top it with elay Scotch. So it's got the smoky and it's got the not so Smoky. It's kind of layered. And I think it's really. It's good for this time of year, too, because it almost tastes like something you would drink for a cold or like the flu or something.

[John Becker]

Yeah. With just a little Petey campfire on top.

[Sarah Marshall]

Yeah.

[John Becker]

You know, just a little smoke.

[Megan Scott]

Delicious.

[Sarah Marshall]

Sounds fun. I didn't tell you guys what I was cooking this week, but I think I mentioned I catered an event at Twist, and I made a million pickled green beans because I was doing, like, a heirloom Bloody Mary Caprese skewer. And so I pickled green beans in some of them. I didn't tear some of them. I did in dill vinegar. And then I had so many leftover because I made, you know, way too many, of course. And then I've been figuring out recipes to put those pickled green beans into. So we did, like, lettuce wraps that then you could put the green beans in. And then I did this recipe I found on Modern Proper that was, like, chicken with a little bit of fish sauce, and then. And then green beans. But I used the pickled green beans, and I just wanted to say that sometimes I feel like pickles, like pickled onions and pickled green beans and pickled vegetables is sort of like my cheat for, like, having meal stuff prepped. Like, I'll just, like, open up onions or pickles or green beans and just, like, be like, oh, I don't have to cut veggies, and then I'll just throw them in the pan and saute them. That's a really good idea. Well, it just makes it so easy, you know, And I. And I always have pickled everything because I, you know, have everything downstairs.

[John Becker]

Yeah. And then you can just add salt to taste at the end. Yeah. You know, maybe pull back a little, just a tiny bit.

[Sarah Marshall]

Well, I know it's. It's gonna sound like it tastes really pickly, but usually it won't. Like, if I'm doing, like, you know, a stir fry or something, I just add the pickled things as one part of it. But then if I'm adding, like. Then tomatoes and carrots and stuff like that, like, I just have that one part be the seasoned part, and then everything else just sort of, like, sucks up those juices of stuff. And I'm not adding, like, all the pickling brine, just the pickled green bean part or the pickled whatever it is. So that's my tip.

[Megan Scott]

That's an awesome tip. And I. I think that's helpful for us because we always have so many pickles.

[John Becker]

We need to work through some pickles.

[Megan Scott]

Only one refrigerator. We keep talking about getting a second refrigerator, but I think just using the pickles, easier and cheaper than getting a second.

[John Becker]

Well, it will be like we gained a refrigerator.

[Megan Scott]

Yeah, true.

[Sarah Marshall]

You're welcome.

[John Becker]

Joining us this week is Rosie Grant. Rosie is the creator behind the Ghostly archive account on TikTok and Instagram where she researches and recreates recipes found on gravestones. She works at the center for the Study ofWomen at UCLA and is currently working on a food study certificate at the UCLA Extension School. She received her master's in library science at the University of Maryland with a concentration in Digital Archives in 2022, where she got to combine her love of food writing, cemeteries, and archival work. The gravestone recipe project first began during her digital archives internship at the Congressional cemetery in Washington, D.C. rosie's Cookbook to Die a cookbook of gravestone Recipes, is officially out today, the day of this recording. Hooray. Happy Pub Day, Rosie.

[Sarah Marshall]

Congrats.

[Rosie Grant]

Thank you. So exciting to be here.

[Unknown Announcer]

Welcome.

[Sarah Marshall]

What an exciting day to be on the show with us. I feel like Pub Day is an extra special day and you took the time to be with us, so thank you.

[Rosie Grant]

Oh, my gosh. No, it's such an honor to be here. Yeah. I feel like I haven't gone to, like, a store yet. I was at the office all day. So possibly after this recording, I might run to a Barnes and Noble in the flesh. A physical book.

[Sarah Marshall]

Yeah, you have to go do a bunch of photos and sign some books. Books. And, you know, you have to make it like official. Official first day.

[Rosie Grant]

Exactly.

[John Becker]

Well, yeah, I, you know, looking at the book, was reading the intro, and I love the origin story for how the book came about. And I was wondering if, you know, for our listeners, if you can relate at least some of this. It's a pretty long and awesome story, but could you relate some of the circumstances that led you to this project?

[Rosie Grant]

Yeah, well, it started a little randomly for the fact that it turned into a cookbook. But yes, as you read in the bio so delightfully, I was interning at a cemetery and I was getting a library science degree. It was library and archives. And I had started a TikTok basically about my cemetery internship of, like, what's it like to intern at a cemetery? And I was featuring different residents at Congressional, where I was based. And then eventually was just. I grew beyond it. There were so many different ways people decided to be memorialized around the country, around the world. And that's how I learned about the very first gravestone recipe, which I guess it was earlier days in the pandemic. So, at least for me, I was home a lot more. I was virtual, I was cooking a lot more. I had just gotten my New York Times cooking subscription, and I was just trying any recipe that I could, that I could get ingredients for. And yeah, I'm coming across Naomi Odessa Miller Dawson's gravestone recipe. I was just so struck by it of like, oh, my gosh, you can put a recipe on a gravestone. And I just thought it was so lovely. And I was curious of what the cookies tasted like, so I tried them and I posted the process. And yeah, that kind of. That started the rest of them.

[Megan Scott]

At that point, when you found that first recipe and posted about it, how did you know that you were onto something special and that you wanted to continue talking about gravestone recipes?

[Rosie Grant]

I guess in a couple ways, I. I was surprised by how much of an audience was online, both on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, really wherever willing to talk about cemeteries. I think when I'd first gotten started, I didn't think there were that many people talking about it, and I was very wrong. There's a niche for everything, including death and food. And so I think for me, I was posting just because I was curious about it, and I was excited to learn more. I knew very little about the death industry and memorials and that sort of thing, memorial markers. And as far as the recipe, I think I was so struck by and like, you know, I've worked in social media for years. I. I love digital storytelling, but I was very surprised about how honest and personal people were. When I posted the recipe first, there was a bunch of people commenting, like, oh, a grapestone recipe. I didn't know you could do that. That's interesting. You know, what would I put on my gravestone? And then there were some really deeply personal comments and even personal messages that I got of folks being like, you know, my mom died last year, and I miss her so much, but when I make her cake that she made for me every birthday or every holiday, I feel like she's here with me. Or, you know, my dad died a few years ago. I make his chili when I miss him. And just like, food story after food story about people using food and connecting it with grief and a lost loved one that I was. And like, it was so personalized, all these strangers on the Internet, fully sharing about them using food to connect with someone that they were missing. And I just Thought it was so beautiful and powerful. And then I think I was at about three or four gravestone recipes of having tried them, because after I was learning more about Naomi, thinking she was the only one, and I was trying to Google search her, and a couple other women popped up who also had gravestone recipes that were featured on local news or blogs and things like that. And in that process, both of my grandmothers passed away. They were about a year apart, but it was kind of in the earlier days of the project. And I noticed that, like, at their funerals, we were talking about the food that they made for us as kids. And no fancy recipes, like, my grandma, particularly one of my grandmothers, would have loved JoJo's. They sound amazing. And so, yeah, like, there weren't anything like surface level. Like someone, a stranger might have tried it and been like, oh, you know, whatever. These are just mashed potatoes or a yellow cake or something. But for us, like, when I try it, I want that every birthday, I want that during the holidays. And I feel like I'm in the kitchen with them again and I'm a five year old being served their birthday cake. And it's just food is this really powerful memory tool that I'd never really considered before. It's like that movie Ratatouille, the Disney movie, but like, when the villain at the end of the movie eats that dish and he's immediately back in his childhood home eating ratatouille. And yeah, there's something about food that just. It's such a powerful memory tool.

[Megan Scott]

Yeah, it's like harnessing many of your senses at once. It's like, it's the smell and the. The visual and the flavor and everything just kind of. It's a really powerful trigger. We've had a couple guests recently where I feel like we've talked about this a few times. We had cookbook author Marina Boud on the show to talk about her book Lebanese Baking. And in the introduction to her book, she writes about how her mother's death was kind of the catalyst for her writing that book. And then we had Sarah on, on the podcast who wrote Uma, and she was recording her mother's recipes while she's still alive, so that she has this keepsake, and we all have it now, of her mother's recipes, which is just so cool, the idea of gravestone recipes. And you're right, I had never considered that as a way you could memorialize yourself until I think I was served one of your videos on TikTok. That's how I found you is like, I was not a follower already. I just saw this pop up in my feed one day, and I was like, oh, my God, that's amazing that you can just put a recipe on your tombstone.

[Sarah Marshall]

Yeah, that's what I was kind of wondering, if you have any advice for people out there who want to preserve their family recipes while their family is still alive, because maybe not everyone's going to put them on their gravestone, but maybe they want to keep their family recipes, you know, held close. Anything you've learned while you've done this research?

[Rosie Grant]

Oh, yeah, absolutely. If anything, I think that was the whole kind of second half of the process, and the project was just learning how it is, how it's so important to document these. And, I mean, I'm coming at this whole thing from an archivist background, and I was taking a genealogy class, and while I was also doing this project and part of the class, we had to interview, like, our family historian. So I interviewed. This was when one of my grandmothers was still alive. We talked for, like, four hours. I recorded the whole thing. I got to ask all these questions. And I was doing it in a class setting, which I probably wouldn't have done it otherwise. And she passed away two weeks after the interview. And I had all of these food stories, like things that she served my dad when he was a kid, even talking about, like, when she was younger and what grocery stores she would go to and ingredients that she would use and what she had access to and what flavors she liked. And so at the beginning of this book, I wanted to kind of encapsulate that. So I have, like, 21 questions to ask your family members to document your food history. And then I also have, like, archiving can be so overwhelming. I say this now, having a master's degree, I can find it very overwhelming. So I tried to have, like, a very simple, like, personal archiving 101 of, like, you know, save the copies, send it to family members, document it as best you can, because if no one does it, you know, when someone passes away, it is really. It's like losing a library. So both of these cookbooks sound amazing. I really have to check these both out and their episodes, of course, because, yeah, it's so precious. And if you don't document it, like, no, there's no time like the present. And I mean, I'm also speaking of this, of relatives going through Alzheimer's, of, like, there'll be a time where you're not able to document things. And so it's it's, I'm trying not to be very like doom and gloom of like, interview your people now, like cook with them now. So for the cook who wrote a book with her mother still living and able to, to get and ask lots of questions and stuff, I'm imagining it's a little bit of a scary process because you're like, you don't want to imply, but they won't be around someday because like that's not in a taboo society with death. We don't want to talk about this. For people who also just in general are like, oh, that's too much. On my Instagram and on my TikTok, I bookmarked just questions to ask your loved one. It can literally just be the who, what, where's, and then if you have a family recipe cooking it with them and you know, if you video record it, that's amazing. But it can. Yeah, you don't have to have it end up on your gravestone to preserve your family recipes.

[John Becker]

You know, it's funny, you brought up Naomi and her spritz cookies as being like the first one that you got really interested in. And I thought it was hilarious that she was really tight lipped with that recipe up until the very end. And I was wondering if while you were putting this book together, if there were other cases like that where these people are holding onto the recipes and not wanting to share because it's their signature until it's time to save it for posterity.

[Rosie Grant]

Yeah. The secret recipe is such an interesting trend because when I first started the project, I had one co worker who actually was, she was a librarian and she was like, are you allowed to cook these recipes? Like, is that what the people want? Because she's like, my family keeps all of our recipes a secret. Like no one is allowed to tell anyone them and it's like disrespectful to cook people secret recipes. And so I was asking her more about it. I was like, why? Why do they have secret recipes? Like, what is it? What is it about it? And she was like, well, it makes holidays more special. It makes like when you actually like, you know, a chocolate chip cookie recipe. If it's the special Christmas chocolate chip cookie recipe that you look forward to every year and you can only have it from your parent or an aunt or, you know, great grandparent, whoever, it makes it feel very special. The other case of families I've been talking to is that it's like secretly like the Chips Ahoy or Duncan Hines or like Joy of Cooking, like, it's a very public recipe. And so there's like, a little bit of, like, oh, well, everyone has this recipe, but when it's secret, there's, like, it almost changes, like, the mental flavor of it of, like, I can only have this now. And so, yeah, Naomi was the most, like, yeah, like, hilariously so, very quiet about her recipe. People would ask for it in life, and her son would always say, like, you can ask for it, but she's not going to give it to you. Now. That being said, towards the end of her life, when they were doing pre planning, when she was getting sick and they were planning her memorial, her son was like, I think, like, you know, what encapsulates you better than your recipe? Like, we all know you for this. You're such a good baker. You were like the family cook. You cooked for multiple generations of our family. And we all think about your spritz cookies as being with you. So she did keep a little bit of her secret in the sense that the gravestone only has your ingredients. There's no instructions on it. They did give it with permission to give me the ability to include it. So. But her granddaughter jokes she's like, oh, my gosh, grandmother's getting so much attention for this. She would have been, like, rolling in her grave about this. So trying to be mindful of it. But the family seems very happy to share it, and they were excited that more people get to try it. And, yeah, it's. At the end of the day, it's a celebration of the person pretty much. For almost everybody else, they were very free with their recipes. They wanted more people to try them. Three of the folks who are featured in the book are actually still living. They were part of pre planning, and so they have the gravestones up. They have not passed away themselves yet. And one woman named Cindy, who her gravestones in Alabama, she was just imagining, like, someone visiting a cemetery on a really maybe sad day. And you're grieving and, you know, you're at a funeral. And then she was imagining people looking over and seeing a recipe on a gravestone. And she was like, imagine, you know, some sort of joy that would come out of that of, like, on a dark day, seeing something that's kind of fun and lovely. And so she, like, that's why she put that on her gravestone. So she was like, yeah, I want everyone to try this recipe.

[Megan Scott]

I love having only the ingredients and not the instructions. It's like a. The British Bake off technical challenge.

[Sarah Marshall]

You gotta figure it out.

[Sam]

Good luck.

[Rosie Grant]

And I failed it when I first did it.

[Megan Scott]

Oh, really?

[Rosie Grant]

Oh, yeah. I didn't know what a spritz cookie. I mean, again, this started. So this started me being a librarian, and I was. I. Basically, the first time I cooked them, I tried to cook it exactly what I see on the gravestone. And I'd never made a spritz cookie before, and I. So I made it kind of like a sugar cookie of just, like, the forming of it. And then, of course, like, afterwards. Googling spritz cookie, watching a lot of videos. I now own four cookie presses. I cooked it with her family, and she used, like, an old aluminum press with a tree shape. So now I have, like, an old aluminum press with a tree shape. So it's evolved. But the first time I made it was, like, comically not the cookie.

[John Becker]

Were there, like, a lot of recipes that were like that? Because it seems like there are. There are certainly constraints about, you know, putting a recipe on a gravestone and a lot of, you know, context and maybe some instructional details that are left out. Was that like, a. A huge challenge for you?

[Rosie Grant]

Yeah, for sure. I mean, challenge in the sense of, like, most of the things a lot of American cookies are, you know, close enough, it'll say, like, you know, sift mix, bake at 350 for 10 minutes or whatever. So it's just simple enough that even if I don't get it right, it's still, like, it's still a good, classic cookie. But definitely, as I moved through it and I started interviewing the families, and it would just be closer and closer to what looks right to them. And in the best case scenario, I got to cook with some of the families. Families. And so, you know, that was by far and away the best case scenario. But, like, I mean, even in one case, I would make assumptions as, like, I'm a very, like, normal home cook. Like, I love food. I was really digging into recipes, particularly during the pandemic. But, like, I. When one of the gravestones is a cheese dip, and in my mind, like, I thought all cheese dip was hot. And so I just heated it up, and I talked to the daughter, and she's like, I mean, you can do it that way, but, like, it's cold cheese dip. That's how it made. So, like, I was like, oh, my gosh, I can't believe I did that. So definitely lots of experiments. Yeah, Some of them would be very. Like, there's a fudge recipe that's very difficult to make unless you are pretty familiar with making Fudge. And I'm trying to think of, like, the ones that I have the most trouble with. Two of the gravestones technically don't have the recipe. They just mention their recipe. So I needed to get the recipe itself. One was a meatloaf. This woman said she made the best meatloaf. And the cemetery actually had in their archives a copy of her meatloaf, able to get it from them, and then, of course, chat with her daughter about it. So, yeah, which, you know, it was close enough of their gravestone and shimmery recipe, but I couldn't actually make it until working with their archives.

[Sarah Marshall]

I was curious of how you found the gravestones. Like, do you just wander graveyards? Did you, like, call the graveyards and see if there was gravestones that had recipes on it? Like, how did you go about collecting your information?

[Rosie Grant]

It was like, the most random. I felt like just like almost like a crazy detective. Of all the recipes. And I should say, even now, I'm up to 50 people who have done this, 40 of them featured in the book. And most of them, I'd say the first eight were just featured on Google searches. They were in blogs, they were on Twitter, they're on Instagram. Some were in local news. I got very good at going through, like, Reddit and variations of hashtags. One time I like, on my own post, I misspelled recipe. And when I clicked on it, I noticed that someone else had also posted a gravestone recipe, and they'd also misspelled recipe in the same way. So it was just a fluke that I came across their post. So it's just like, very, you know, random things like that. When I was at about 10 recipes, families started reaching out. So, like, you know, the project has been entirely crowdsourced. I've never just walked into a cemetery and found a gravestone, which I've been to, like 2,000 cemeteries at this point, but none, like, found organically. They've all been sent to me. So, yeah, the families have sent a good number of them, which is the best case scenario, because then I can talk through the process and they've already heard about the project. And then in probably the most frequent case is just they were featured on the Internet. Someone either messaged me or I found it somewhere. And then from there I would. I have this, like, gigantic Google Doc. This is the library inside of me. I have a huge spreadsheet in Google Doc. I have them all Google mapped out and, like, pins. And then I find their obituary, I find their Find a grave which is like the Wikipedia of gravestones. And then I would basically just start, based on their obituary, start emailing and Facebook messaging and Instagram messaging people who vaguely seem to be related to them just based on name and location. And in some cases, like, it would take about two years, two to three years to get in contact with all of the families. Some people were like, right back immediately being like, oh, I thought we'd hear from you. Like, you know, we've been seeing other people being posted about online and we thought you'd reach out about mom. And then in some cases, like, there was one woman who I was messaging her for like a year or two and eventually got in contact with the woman whose gravestone it was. She has a fruitcake recipe buried in Tennessee. But I got in contact with her daughter or granddaughter, and I was telling her granddaughter, like, oh, I'm so sorry I've been bothering your great aunt. I've been messaging her for years. I'm assuming that, you know, she's either grieving or just doesn't know who I am. Like, I'm just this random stranger. And she was like, oh, great Aunt Joe has been dead for years. We never took down her Facebook. So, like, she is fully not alive. She would love this. But, like, that's why she hasn't written you back.

[Megan Scott]

I mean, that's like an important part of death planning now is what do you do with your social media accounts?

[Sarah Marshall]

Like, how do you let people know?

[Rosie Grant]

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

[Sarah Marshall]

Plan.

[John Becker]

You could post a lot of recipes on there and it's like a memoriam.

[Megan Scott]

Facebook.

[Sarah Marshall]

John, do you know if anyone in your family has a recipe on their gravestone that references joy of cooking at all?

[John Becker]

I.

[Sarah Marshall]

Or a recipe?

[John Becker]

I don't know, but I'm pretty sure.

[Megan Scott]

No, no, I know Marion. Marion has a really interesting, like, a sculpture at her grave site in Cincinnati, but it's not. It doesn't have anything to do with cooking or it's just a beautiful piece of art.

[Sarah Marshall]

Yeah.

[Megan Scott]

Most of the gravestone recipes in your book are baking recipes. Why do you think that is?

[Rosie Grant]

I've heard a couple of different things. For some people, it was that, like, special recipe. And so, like, yeah, this wasn't their, like, everyday recipe. This was the one they would make for people's birthdays or they would make it for holidays in some cases, because it's the person themselves picking the recipe. And other times it's their family thinking about, like, oh, what reminds us of them. And it's that recipe. Yeah. So I also wonder if Also, like, again, with a lot of, like, cookies and that sort of thing, it's a little more forgiving with less text. You can get by with versus, like, you know, these are not lasagna recipes where you just need a lot more details and instructions. In the case of a few folks, I think they picked their recipe because it looked like a poem. And so some people were thinking at first they wanted a poem, and then they were looking at, I think they were like baking their persons or their grandmother or their parents recipe, and they were like, oh, you know, this written out kind of looks like a poem. And there's something really beautiful about that. And it's so specific to them. So in any case, that's why I think a lot of them baked goods for that reason of both special recipe and then it fit like, that was the one recipe of all of their repertoire that fit onto a gravestone.

[Megan Scott]

Now I want to hear everybody's. What would be on your grave? What would be on your gravestone, Rosie?

[John Becker]

It's in the book.

[Megan Scott]

Well, nobody knows what's in the book yet.

[Sarah Marshall]

Only we know.

[Rosie Grant]

Yeah. Then I want to hear everyone's. Mine is like a clam linguine or even just a clam pasta.

[Megan Scott]

Nice.

[Rosie Grant]

I really love clam dishes. They're very nostalgic. How about for you, Will?

[Megan Scott]

I think mine would probably be my. My Southern cornbread recipe, because it's one I've worked on a lot and perfected and feel really proud of.

[John Becker]

I would have to spend at least a year thinking about this.

[Megan Scott]

That's true. You. You gotta overthink it first.

[Rosie Grant]

Yeah, it's a hard question.

[Megan Scott]

Yeah, it's hard.

[Sarah Marshall]

I mean, my first thought would be my habanero carrot curry sauce recipe. But then what if that's like a secret recipe, like, because I sell it? And what if that's like my daughter's legacy or something? You know, maybe that's going to be her business for her life. So just in case that's like, you know, how she's going to have a business, I'm going to say maybe she doesn't want to put that on my gravestone. So if not, then I would say my green tomato enchilada sauce recipe for my canning book, because that's already out in the world. And it's the one that I feel like is the most useful to people, especially people that live in Oregon, because we need something to do with all of our green tomatoes. So I would imagine I would be buried in Oregon. So then everybody can be like, oh, My goodness. I now know what to do with my green tomatoes.

[Rosie Grant]

I love that. Oh, my gosh. That is all. Sounds so delicious. And you could have, like, a little. For the other sauce, like, a little jar to reference it or something. Let's do that. That's smart.

[John Becker]

I did appreciate your choice. Linguine with clams. It's just classic, and I feel like that's. That's actually the last thing I made for company. And it's also something that we had on our anniversary recently.

[Megan Scott]

So. Are you picking that recipe, too?

[John Becker]

I'm just saying it was a classy choice, that's all.

[Rosie Grant]

Yeah, I feel the same. Like, I mean, I'm now a transplant in Los Angeles, and I am, like, very nostalgic to home, and there's been a lot of, like. Like, redefining my own community out here. And so that has turned into, like, regular dinners with friends where we'll have a few people over. And I love to make this clam sauce because it's. It feeds a lot of people. It's really comforting. Reminds me of home. And I feel like I'm, like, coming into my own as, like, an adult now, cooking without family around. And, yeah, it's good for company. And it's like, oh, it's so delicious.

[Megan Scott]

And finally, what is your relationship to the joy of Cooking?

[Rosie Grant]

My relationship to the Joy of cooking. I have been as far as, like, this is the archivist answer. My. The physical books of it. I have several copies of it when I have been traveling around. So I've been. I visited all of the gravestones. So I went from, like, Alaska down to New Orleans up to Nova Scotia, and I would pick up old cookbooks and community cookbooks as I went. So I have three different copies of Joy of Cooking from different years were just really beautiful, like, physical books. And then so those are around. I think I even used. I had to turn it upside down, but I think, like, one. There's a corner of one as a prop in the cookbook somewhere. Just because I was very inspired on the cookbook itself. I was very inspired by, like, these, like, classic, old vintage cookbooks and the covers of them and, like, you know, the styling of them I just find so lovely. And a lot of the families would also have a Joy of Cooking or a Betty Crocker or just, like, again, these classic cookbooks. So, like, they would pull them out during interviews, and they'd have, like, handwritten notes in the corners from their loved ones, and that would be something inherited through the families. I got sent Two different ones. There was one woman who collected like a prolific amount of old cookbooks. So her daughter sent me a couple of them that I now have. So I love the dry cooking as the archival like the physical cookbook form which I just find so beautiful and such like a piece of time.

[Megan Scott]

Yeah, we have a few old copies that have just been given to us by people or sometimes friends will see one at a yard sale or an estate sale and just grab it and give it to us. And they're always really fun because I love seeing what people have written inside but also what have people tucked inside. Like there might be old receipts, there are old like handwritten recipe cards or just random bits of, you know, flotsam. And I just live for that stuff. That is. It's so cool to get like a little glimpse into somebody else's life in the kitchen and just their life. Especially from some of those older books.

[Rosie Grant]

Yes, it's such a gift and such like that's so nice that people just as they come because it seems like it's, you know, it's a very easy to access book. It's at so many, I've seen it many a yard sale or thrift store. But yeah, like when you open it up that's such a joy and a treasure where you're like going through and you just find little things. The receipts I get very excited about or little notes of like how they would alter a recipe for themselves. Like oh, the so cool.

[Megan Scott]

Or just sometimes it would say next to a recipe. Good exclamation mark. Yes, this is a favorite that's like.

[Sarah Marshall]

Giving you five stars.

[Rosie Grant]

I love that the comment section in the olden days.

[Unknown Announcer]

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[Megan Scott]

So each week we answer a caller question or hear a story. And this week, Sarah, what are we talking about?

[Sarah Marshall]

Oh, we have a clip to play. So let me play the clip.

[Rosie Grant]

Hi there.

[Sam]

I want to tell you how much I enjoy your show. Requested information about history, the joy of cooking. And you might be interested that I got my copy in 1966 from Jeff Brownbauer. I had a signed copy which is dearly loved and sitting on my shelf held together with a Velcro strap because two layers of tape that we're holding covers on have given up the ghost after all these years. My version is from 1964. Jeff and I went to high school together and he gave this to me and several other girls in our class that copies when we graduated. And it was one of the nicest gifts I've ever gotten.

[Megan Scott]

All right, thank you so much for sending in that story. John, how are you related to Jeff Rombauer?

[John Becker]

That's a really good question. I've met Jeff and his wife Loretta. They're lovely people. And I think I was Scott's son, right?

[Megan Scott]

Do I have that wrong?

[John Becker]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Uncle Edgar's son. Yes.

[Megan Scott]

So Irma's son's son, correct?

[John Becker]

That's right.

[Megan Scott]

Those things always confuse me so much.

[John Becker]

So my relationship to him is.

[Megan Scott]

My goodness, I couldn't begin. Second cousin twice. I don't know. Something.

[John Becker]

We should have worked this out.

[Megan Scott]

I know the family tree. But that's really awesome. And I love so much that you said that it kind of had given up the ghost after all of those years. Since this is kind of a. It's not a spooky episode, but yeah.

[Sarah Marshall]

We thought it fit. It's our ghostly episode and it's going to be airing Halloween week. It all came together.

[Megan Scott]

We found several copies over the years. Like, I remember one time John and I were. Gosh, we were at the coast and at somebody. So it's a. It was like a friend of mine was visiting from North Carolina. We were in Oregon at the coast at this beach house that was her great aunts or something. And up in the pantry, tucked way back, was an old Joy of Cooking that was like, held together with a hair tie. Like, it. The. All the spine was broken. The edges were falling out.

[John Becker]

Yeah. And the hair tie was like. I mean, it was a. It was bull chain. Yeah. The hair tie was like, bless that hair tie. It was really doing a lot.

[Megan Scott]

It was doing the most.

[John Becker]

It was trying to hold on, but you could tell it was about ready just to fail.

[Megan Scott]

Yeah. And then we were sent a copy from somebody who I think must have gotten in touch with us on Facebook or some. Somewhere on social media. And she was preparing to go into, like, a assisted living facility. And she said, I. I just wanted to send you this book. I have used it for my entire, you know, adult life. I've raised. I can't remember how she. How many kids she said she had, but she was like, I've raised so.

[John Becker]

Many kids and it's been through like two floods and one home fire. I mean, there was.

[Megan Scott]

And a divorce or. There was a lot of. A lot. A big story that she sent us. It was very sweet. A letter with that book. And we still have that copy. Those are very precious to us.

[John Becker]

And that was a paperback edition. I mean, and it was. It was in pieces. We have it in a Ziploc. It is no longer a single book.

[Megan Scott]

But we wanted to talk a bit about some of our favorite cookbooks that we use the most. They haven't exactly given up the Ghost yet for us. I don't think we have any that are totally broken down like that, but.

[John Becker]

So we're copies of Joy.

[Megan Scott]

We're working on it. Oh, yeah, Our work. Copies of Joy of Cooking have.

[John Becker]

Yeah.

[Megan Scott]

Bit the dust for sure. John, what about you? What are some cookbooks that you think about when you're. You're thinking about the ones you use the most?

[John Becker]

Truly Mexican by Roberto Santa Banes is a big one for me. I feel like there are maybe three or four recipes that I've gone back to, like, probably each one, like, many, many times. Yeah. I don't know. I want to say dozens of times now. And of course, you know, I have to go back and look at them because I'm forgetful. I should have them, like, down pat by now.

[Megan Scott]

That's what cookbooks are for. You don't have to remember it.

[John Becker]

Yeah. So you can make room for other useless things in your book, Right?

[Megan Scott]

Exactly. Yeah. There's like a green serrano salsa in that book. That's Kind of creamy. It's a really interesting salsa.

[John Becker]

Yeah. You take the stems off of Serrano's and you fry them in a fair amount of oil, like maybe like half an inch and kind of turn them and, you know, wait until they're blistered. Then you transfer them to a blender. Then you add. I want to.

[Megan Scott]

I think there's some onion in there.

[John Becker]

Yeah, there's like a. I want to say it's like a quarter cup of just a plain yellow onion. Not sweet. I wouldn't do that because I would probably. Yeah, but you just fry the onion, you know, until it's like little golden around the edges. And it's like some water, I feel like.

[Megan Scott]

Yeah, that's it. Plus some water and some salt in the blender.

[John Becker]

Yeah. You're supposed to use the frying oil in order to. So it ends up kind of being like a mayonnaise and the Serrano and the onion end up kind of. It'll remain stable, like, it won't separate for like several days. And I think it's because of that. All that vegetable material in there that's kind of holding the emulsion together, like instead of egg in the main, in case of a mayonnaise.

[Megan Scott]

But it is sneaky. It is a sneaky, sneaky salsa because you think it's going to be mild because it's this beautiful green color and it's creamy looking.

[John Becker]

Everybody thinks it's guacamole.

[Megan Scott]

And then they.

[Sarah Marshall]

And they're tricked.

[Megan Scott]

It's delightfully hot.

[John Becker]

Yeah, yeah, that. And there's a tomatillo and Costco Bell Chili salsa. That is fantastic.

[Megan Scott]

Yeah. Those are both fantastic recipes that we make all the time. I wanted to shout out. I have several books I could talk about, but I wanted to shout out the first cookbook I kind of fell in love with. I was in college and my parents got it for me for Christmas. It's called A Platter of Figs by David Tanis. And it's kind of a. It's like California cuisine. So David Tan has worked at Chez Panisse, and so the recipes are kind of. It's like what David Chang made fun of. It's like just a platter of figs or a bunch of pigs on a plate, which it kind of is. But it was my introduction to California cuisine as, like someone who grew up in the South. I had no idea. And I was like, this is amazing. Everything looks so good and so fresh and the photos are, you know, it's like a sun dappled kitchen with all these fresh fruits and vegetables. And so I loved that book so much that I. So I was studying abroad in France. The semester after I got it, I took it with me to France in my luggage and then read the whole thing, like, one page at a time. I was, like, kind of rationing myself every day. Like, I would read, like, one page or one section and then put it away, and then I brought it back home with me. That book has been to France and back and loved it so much.

[John Becker]

You know, I do want to mention one other title. It's 660 curries by Raghavan Iyer.

[Megan Scott]

Oh, yeah, that's a really good one.

[John Becker]

And I think it's actually relevant to this. To this one conversations specifically. But some of the first times I attempted to make spice blends, like South Asian spice blends, like garam masala, chaat masala, and, like, all of that stuff, Raghavan was. He was the person that I went to for that. That kind of thing. I think there's. There's a bottle masala recipe in there that has something like 30 ingredients. And I remember some of them get toasted, some of them don't. And some of them are left whole when they're toasted. And I think some of them are actually toasted when they're. Anyways, it's a complicated recipe, and I remember it was, like, such an achievement, or I felt like it was an achievement, but, yeah, obviously plenty of curries to choose from in that book, as well as a whole bunch of other dishes. I don't know why it's called curries, because it's got everything. But also, you know, he. He passed away a few years ago. And, you know, every time I pull it out, I kind of. I do think about him. Yeah, we met him just once, but he was just such a sweet, sweet man. And it's a special book.

[Megan Scott]

Yeah, it's a really good book. What about you, Sarah?

[Sarah Marshall]

I think the cookbooks I've used the most kind of one that really got me cooking. I think in the beginning, Padma Lakshmi's book, Tangy, Tart, Hot and Sweet. I hadn't cooked much Indian food. And when I first got that book, I mean, it came out so many years ago. I remember going and trying to seek out all these spices I'd never used before. So I had never heard of, like, sumac and things like that. So it was really my introduction into that world. And I feel like, kind of inspired me into making my own sauces. So, you know, that was way, you know, way before the hot sauce business. So even 20 years ago, I think the book came out or something. I love that book. I still cook from it. There's all these rad recipes and it's like a lot of making sauces from scratch. So that was a really cool book and I still love it. And the pages are messy and splattered and so that's one of those books that eventually the pages will fall out for sure. And I think another one I use all the time and it's really, you know, worn out. Kevin West Saving the Season. Canning books.

[Megan Scott]

That was on my list too.

[Sarah Marshall]

That's one of the ones I. I like pull out still all the time. It'll definitely fall apart someday. I love it. I recommend it to people always.

[Megan Scott]

It's.

[Sarah Marshall]

It's one of those great ones. And then local author and she's been on the pod. Ivy Manning soups from scratch and quick breads to match. I'm not a baker. I barely bake. But because Ivy has all these recipes that are. You can make these breads in like under 30 minutes. That's like the perfect recipe for me and the perfect recipe to make for my family. So I pull that book out all the time and it's same. It's all crunchy because it's like all these flour baking recipes. So that would be one that's gonna. Gonna give up the ghost.

[Megan Scott]

How about you, Rosie?

[Rosie Grant]

These all sound so good. I'm writing these down as you talk. They all sound incredible. These sauces, the figs. Oh my goodness. Mine, I think. I mean, my go to ones. Right now all I can say is I'm living in this world. But like ones that combine history with the food and particularly if it's spooky history. So I have been revisiting Amy Bruni's Food to Die for, which has it pairs. She's a ghost hunter. She was on Ghost Hunters a bunch of shows around that. She has this really wonderful cookbook where she goes to historic locations and, you know, she has like a ghost story with it and then it has like a historic recipe. I'm very personal. I'm from Alexandria, Virginia. And so she has our favorite haunted tavern and this really lovely fish recipe that my dad has made. It's so good. It's like classic spooky season. And then another one that I like a lot that's again, kind of just these alternative cookbooks is Midnight Chicken and Recipes worth Living for, which is by Ella Resbridger. And it's a little bit about like tragedy and Loss, like personal, like personal grief and trauma and then cooking through that. And so she has recipes. I was very inspired by this book because it's like an alternative cookbook and the recipes are really good, including her midnight chicken recipe. It's delicious.

[John Becker]

Maybe too much detail to go into, but yeah, what is midnight chicken?

[Rosie Grant]

She goes to a hospital for a mental health crisis and gets out. It's like this very pretty, simple recipe, comfort food chicken that she makes. And it's like basically the summary of it was basically like, this is the dish that she makes when she's like kind of feeling really low. And it's very low effort and it's very soothing and filling and she gets that protein blast. It's not too difficult to make. And it's a lot of ingredients that she just always has in her cupboard. And yeah, it's just like a delicious chicken recipe.

[Megan Scott]

I love that so much. I have so many cookbooks written down. I will mention one more. I'm like, which one should I pick? Wild Fermentation by Sandor Katz. I got that when I was in college and another college cookbook. But it inspired me so much. And the way he writes about fermentation is so just beautiful and exciting that I had. I was like, I have to make kimchi right now. And I was living in a dorm. I bought like, I had a big crock and I went to the farmers market, bought all these vegetables and I made kimchi. And because I had never made kimchi before, I didn't know that it smells. When you are fermenting, it all fermented things smell. And so I'm in this dorm. Luckily, it was my own room. I had my own room. But I. You could walk in the dorm and smell my kimchi from the front door. And I was like, this is. I did not intend for this to happen.

[John Becker]

Did an RA like, talk to you?

[Megan Scott]

I think nobody talked.

[John Becker]

Oh, really?

[Megan Scott]

I think it. I think it was just like, it's going to smell bad in here. You know, like, college dorm is not a good smelling place to begin with. So I think everyone was just like.

[Sarah Marshall]

They might have got it with you.

[Megan Scott]

That's true.

[Sarah Marshall]

Nobody wanted to say anything.

[Megan Scott]

They were being nice. Yeah. But that was a very formative book for me.

[Sarah Marshall]

That just reminds me that on Thursday, I'm going to the fermentation festival and they call it the Stink fest.

[Megan Scott]

Yes, aptly named. But for this week's Joy Scouts recipe, we wanted to pick something from the 2019 edition that was either inspired by or from another cookbook. And so we chose the mushroom confit Recipe on page 252. John, could you talk a little bit about the context of this recipe?

[John Becker]

Sure. I was flipping through. It's a cookbook by Thomas Keller called Ad Hoc at Home. And I found this recipe. I think it was published as a mushroom conserva. I'm pretty sure it has olive oil. It has these garlic and all these aromatics that I always associated with this one really awesome Spanish simple Spanish dish that's, like, served as a tapa called champignones, all agio, just mushrooms with garlic. And I was like, oh, wow. This is kind of like a larger format version of that dish that maybe you can keep in the refrigerator. So, yeah, we ended up trying to make it, and, you know, as written, we were not, like, bowled over by the recipe. And so I was like, no, these flavors are awesome. We can make this better. So that's kind of how. How it ended up going. But, yeah, so we just had the garlic and all of the herbs and aromatics. You know, we infused the oil with them a little bit more than Chef Thomas Keller calls for. And, yeah, salting the mushrooms, draining them, and then having them go a little bit longer at a lower temperature at. It just has a really nice kind of meaty texture to it.

[Megan Scott]

And it's a really nice way of using wild mushrooms. Like, that's when we make. It is like, we've been mushroom hunting, and since we're getting into mushroom hunting season, this would be a fun recipe for that.

[John Becker]

Yeah, it's really good with chanterelles. I would imagine it would be great with porcinis, but maybe you want to hang on to those and do something extra special with them if you find them. It's really good with just basic mushrooms, too. Just cremines or oyster mushrooms would be really good with that. I would stay away from matsutakes, but.

[Megan Scott]

Yeah, you know, those are precious anyways. You don't use those for that. That's on page 252. If you make the recipe, please tag us on Instagram at the Joy of Cooking. We would love to see what you make. It's. The mushroom confit, serving wise, is really good. You know, as John was saying, like. Well, I don't know if you said or not, but it's really good on toast. Little toast, like crostini, or you can make, like, a big toast with them. I also think they're really good on polenta.

[John Becker]

Yeah, polenta. Or on risotto. Either one of those would be great. Yeah, you want to store it in the refrigerator and then, like, bring it out and get it to room temperature or even just heat it very, very briefly and gently before you serve it. It's really good.

[Megan Scott]

If you have a question or joy story to share, call our hotline at 503-395-8858. Leave us a message or send us a text. We would love to hear from you. We really would love to hear from you. We need more questions. Questions. Next week's topic comes from our caller.

[Sarah Marshall]

This is from Kimberly via Instagram. I always struggle with meal planning. Any tips? This is for you.

[Megan Scott]

Yeah, this is a perfect question for me. I have so many thoughts. And we will talk about meal planning on the show next week. All right, what is everybody cooking this week?

[Sarah Marshall]

Well, I'm gonna do a chef in the market on Saturday, so I am doing a delicata squash with lentil soup. So I have to practice that first and then I have to make it in market. So I'm gonna probably eat that a few times. So that's. That's my focus.

[Megan Scott]

Yeah. Yeah. How about you, Rosie? Are you cooking anything or looking forward to eating anything this week?

[Rosie Grant]

I'm coming to her house for dinner. Since my book comes out today, my book event, my book launch is tomorrow, and I'm gonna have a bunch of gravestone recipe cookies. So I'm gonna make Jennifer's chocolate chip cookies. Definitely going to make Naomi's spritz cookies. I might make a Texas sheet cake from a woman named Helen who's buried in Michigan, and maybe some snickerdoodles from California. So lots of cookies this week, which I can eat that for dinner, right?

[Megan Scott]

Oh, totally. Everyone will be thrilled. What about you, John?

[John Becker]

Yeah, I don't know. We're probably going to be going to a harvest festival in Hood river. So that could yield some appley.

[Megan Scott]

Yeah. Some apple related things.

[John Becker]

Yeah. So I don't know, maybe it's time to actually make the previous recipe of the week.

[Megan Scott]

The apple dumplings that we never made. We assigned it, but we didn't make it.

[John Becker]

Typical.

[Megan Scott]

We're also going to make tonight. All I have planned out is maybe I'm not the person to go to food for meal planning. I only have tonight's dinner planned out, but we're going to make Hetty McKinnon's vegetarian tomato mapo tofu, and a cucumber salad. Because my cucumber, that's like the one thing I've been able to grow this year is cucumbers. But, man, do I have so many cucumbers?

[Sarah Marshall]

It's so funny. My cucumber plant grew one cucumber.

[Megan Scott]

We were the opposite. So sad.

[John Becker]

By the way, just admitting that you don't have a meal plan, I feel like that's establishing your street cred. It's not like. Sure, yeah.

[Megan Scott]

It's an imperfect art. There is. Yeah. No need to strive for perfection.

[John Becker]

Right. And you're a normal person who struggles.

[Megan Scott]

Yes.

[Sarah Marshall]

Good job.

[Megan Scott]

Amazing. Very much so. Way to be you and Rosie. Before we wrap, where can listeners follow you?

[Rosie Grant]

Folks can find me at ghostly archive on TikTok and Instagram and you can find To Die For, a cookbook of gravestone recipes on most major booksellers.

[Megan Scott]

And we are putting your book in our bookshop.org storefront so folks can also find it there. And we'll link to it from the show notes as well.

[Rosie Grant]

Thanks so much.

[Megan Scott]

Thanks for listening to the Joy of Cooking podcast. Before we go, show some love for your favorite podcast by subscribing to the show and leaving us a review. Follow [e-mail] and on Instagram. He Joy of cooking. Stay tuned for next week where we'll talk about meal planning. And don't forget to make this week's recipe mushroom confit on page 252. Call in with questions, hopes, history or where you find joy in the kitchen. Our number is 503-395-8858. That's 503-395-8858.

[Sarah Marshall]

And we could not do this without our fantastic team at Joy of Creation production House. Thanks to today's producer, Dirk Marshall and Haley Bowers, our audio engineer. And Shannon will be back next week. If you love the stories we bring you each week, please consider supporting us on Patreon. As an independent media company, your support is absolutely essential. It allows us to continue creating high quality professional episodes that amplify the voices of women, small business owners, writers, artists and creatives and keep their stories free from commercial pressure. By becoming a Patreon member, you're not just supporting us, you're investing in the future of independent Media. Please visit patreon.com thejoyofcreationproductionhouse to join our community today. Thank you you for listening and supporting our podcast Dreams.