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The Joy of Cooking Podcast
We Are Joined At The Table With Ivy Manning: Inspired By Mushrooms
01:10:51
Episode 4: John and Megan set the table with their co-host and friend Shannon Larson and their guest Ivy Manning to discuss Joy of Cooking recipes and stories, kitchen victories and miseries, and, most importantly, what they are all cooking and eating. This episode is inspired by mushrooms.
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- [00:40]
Shannon Larson
Hello and welcome to the Joy of Cooking podcast. Each week we set the table for a discussion about recipes and stories from the authors of the Joy of Cooking, kitchen victories and misadventures, and most importantly, what we are cooking and eating right now. We're glad you joined us at the table today. I'm Shannon Larson, home cook, ardent Joy of Cooking user and fan, and Jimmy Nardello, pepper enthusiast.
- [01:01]
Megan Scott
I'm Megan Scott, co author of the 2019 Joy of Cooking. I'm a food editor by day and avoider of dish duty by night. And I make a mean cherry pie.
- [01:10]
Jon Becker
I'm Jon Becker, the fourth generation co author and steward of the Joy of Cooking, America's oldest family run cookbook. I'm our in house breakfast expert and do most of the dishes and a lot of obsessing.
- [01:22]
Megan Scott
Well, hello everyone. Welcome. How was your week?
- [01:25]
Shannon Larson
My week was really good. I had a visitor come into town, so that was fun. Cooked some really good food this week. I mean, I know I've said it like already a million times, but this is my favorite time of year to cook. So leaning into a lot of squash right now.
- [01:40]
Megan Scott
What are you doing with the squash?
- [01:42]
Shannon Larson
Actually, I used my favorite thing we cooked this week was I did homemade miso soup like from scratch and then paired it with the a squash and ground meat recipe from Love Japan, which I love that book. But I use delicata squash, which is my favorite squash and ground chicken instead of, I think in the recipe they use kabocha and ground pork. So I switched those out and it was phenomenal. And just side of rice and it's perfect.
- [02:07]
Megan Scott
That sounds so good. Yeah, delicious. I kind of get a little. Well, this time of year it's really nice to have all the squashes. I kind of get a little burnout on them by about February and all I can think to do with them is roast them, which is fine. Like they're good. But I would love, I love more ideas for squash.
- [02:24]
Shannon Larson
I think thinking of it in like different cuisines, I think that helps make it exciting still because yeah, my go to is just put it in the oven.
- [02:30]
Megan Scott
Yeah. Call it a day.
- [02:32]
Shannon Larson
What about you guys?
- [02:34]
Jon Becker
Well, I guess the big things, I don't know, we did some Hungarian mushroom soup because you know, we were, we have mushroom on the brain because of this week's topic, you know, classic recipe, I think originally from Moosewood Cookbook, but I was introduced to it at a Portland restaurant called Old Wives Tales, like, oh wow, way back in the day. So kind of a nostalgia hit. I Guess.
- [02:59]
Megan Scott
Such a good recipe, though. It's really like, it's just a pretty simple mushroom soup, but it has smoked paprika and of course it has some sour cream stirred in at the end. So it's a little creamy.
- [03:09]
Jon Becker
Yeah.
- [03:10]
Megan Scott
Dill, really good fall recipe.
- [03:11]
Jon Becker
Dill and thyme and, yeah, onions. It's got, you know, a little bit of, got a little bit of flour in there to. I mean, I think that helps, helps the sour cream not break when you add it. Yeah. I feel like, I don't know. As with all the recipes that we cook from the book, I'm always wondering, like, how would this be better? And definitely thinking that we need to move from suggesting milk to just going for cream because that would actually help with the, you know, the emulsifiers and the cream help keep it all, you know, nice and creamy, homogenized, whatever, you know, emulsified, whatever you want to call it.
- [03:52]
Megan Scott
I love that you're always thinking about ways to improve the recipes.
- [03:55]
Jon Becker
Yeah.
- [03:56]
Megan Scott
I feel like we started thinking about things we wanted to change or add to the book immediately after we turned in the manuscript, like the same day. We were both like, oh, dang, we didn't talk about this. So we immediately started making notes for the next edition, which is going to be like. Was going to be like in 11 years or 12 years or something. So really thinking ahead, it's never too early. It's never too early.
- [04:18]
Jon Becker
I mean, I'm a big procrastinator, so I feel like if I just, if I think of something, I'll just immediately write it down because otherwise it's gone forever. It's gone. Yeah.
- [04:27]
Megan Scott
Yeah. You also made apple butter this week.
- [04:29]
Jon Becker
That is true. I did make some apple butter with some really fancy apples that probably. I mean, I'm hoping that some of the subtleties of the Ashmead's kernel apples that I used come through in the butter, but I have my doubts it's.
- [04:44]
Megan Scott
Going to be really good.
- [04:45]
Jon Becker
It's a fantastic apple, just fresh and so I, I mean, it's supposed to be good for cider, you know, according to all of the apple authorities. So I figured that, you know, maybe some, some of the acidity of the fresh eating apple would come through. It's a, it's a very sweet and very tangy apple.
- [05:04]
Shannon Larson
Did you find them at Kirokawa?
- [05:06]
Megan Scott
Yeah, Kirokawa orchards. They're. They're kind of like a russeted apple. So they're like, they just have like a brownish apple look to them, like green and brownish. So they're not necessarily the prettiest apple, although I think they're very pretty. But they're super crisp and super tart and sweet. So it's just like a flavor. I mean, honestly, I can eat like half of one and be so flavorful. Ashmead's kernel. Yeah, it's our favorite. Our favorite apple.
- [05:35]
Jon Becker
Oh, and yeah, we also, we were introduced to a slow roasted chicken recipe by our friend Kate over the summer when we were visiting her in Wyoming. And I'm almost, I almost want to dub it like the forbidden roast chicken because it breaks all the rules, you know, I mean, you know, you just cook. You're cooking it in a very low oven for a very long time. And, you know, I feel like, I don't know, maybe since early mid-90s, early-90s, at least, food writers have been obsessed with keeping that chicken breast as moist as possible. And, oh, no, you have made a dry chicken breast. And, you know, this recipe basis is basically like completely oblivious to those concerns.
- [06:22]
Megan Scott
I mean, you're technically overcooking it, but it's still delicious. You know, like, I feel like there's so many way. We've roasted chickens in about every way you can. We've done the salting one to two days ahead of time. We've brined them, we've spatchcocked them, we've done a high heat, we've done low heat, medium. But, like, they're all really good. I don't think you mess it up as long as you don't undercook it.
- [06:45]
Shannon Larson
Yeah.
- [06:46]
Jon Becker
And, you know, granted, like, the texture of the breast isn't going to be, you know, it's not going to be like the moistest thing ever. But on the other hand, like, you know, such a long roast, you kind of concentrate the flavor of the chicken. So, you know, I mean, there has.
- [07:00]
Megan Scott
Nice juices in the pan, too. You're not burning off like the high heat roasting. Sometimes you burn off all of the juices. But this, you had enough to make like a pan sauce or a gravy to go with it, which was super nice.
- [07:11]
Shannon Larson
I'll have to try that.
- [07:12]
Megan Scott
Yeah. Very cozy. It drove the cats nuts all day. They know. They know there's a chicken in the oven just staring. We would like to welcome this week's guest, Ivy Manning, to the table. Ivy is a Portland, Oregon based food and travel writer and author of 10 cookbooks, including her most recent title, Tacos A to Z A Delicious Guide to Inauthentic Tacos. Her work regularly appears in cooking light, clean, eating, eating well, Better Homes and Gardens and the kitchen dot com. And she's also. This is not in her official bio, but it's in my bio for Ivy. Her recipes are so reliable. Like, I never wor when I'm making one of Ivy's recipes, I never worry that it's not going to work. She is such a pro. So welcome to the show, Ivy. Thank you so much for joining us.
- [08:02]
Ivy Manning
Oh, thank you. That's very high praise. Goodness. I want that on my tombstone.
- [08:07]
Megan Scott
The most reliable recipes rip well, Ivy, what's the best thing you ate this week?
- [08:14]
Ivy Manning
I found some matsutake mushrooms at H Mart, if you're not familiar. Matsutake, it actually in Japanese means pine mushroom. So they grow underneath pine trees. And in Japan, they're extremely expensive and very much prized. They're given as gifts and they come in little boxes. That's how prized they are. And they symbolize long life and fertility. They have a very piney flavor to them and a beautiful smell. But the window for them is very, very short. It's only maybe a month. And it's rare that you find them. So I snap those up right away. And so it's all matsutake all the time over here.
- [09:03]
Megan Scott
What are you making with them?
- [09:05]
Ivy Manning
There's a dish I had in Japan, second to last time I went, called dobun mushi, where they take just slices of it and they put it in a tiny little teapot with dashi broth. And then sometimes they'll put like shrimp and ginkgo nuts, other things that represent the fall. And you pour it, you drink the tea, the mushroom tea first, and then you eat the little bits that are floating in it. So I did that already. And then you can also just make it with rice. You basically put rice in a rice cooker with mirin and soy sauce and put slices of the matsutake on top and just eat it like that. It's best when you do very little to it because they're so expensive and they're so valued. Have you ever had them?
- [10:00]
Megan Scott
Yeah, we. We went to a mushroom camp several years ago. This is like the most Oregon thing ever. But yeah, we went to a mushroom camp where we would go out and forage for hours and then come back with. We were instructed to just collect whatever we found and we would ID them together. But along the way, among all the really awesome mushrooms we found that were not really edible, they were just cool looking, there was a. Just a trove of matsutakes, like, unreal and this is at the Oregon coast. So the. The soil is.
- [10:37]
Ivy Manning
Was.
- [10:37]
Megan Scott
It was sand. The matsutakes were growing just in sand. And you could see them. They were not even above the surface of the sand yet, but you could see them kind of pushing the sand up. So we would dig up. We dug up all these matsutakes. There were I don't know how many pounds of them, but just so many.
- [10:53]
Jon Becker
It was pretty ridiculous. I mean, I knew that they were. You know, we had had them before, knew that they were very prized, and, you know, not all of them were. I feel like the matsutakes are graded based on, like, how open the caps are, you know, with the. With the matsutakes that do not have open caps being, like, the most prized. But. And in this case, they were the most prized because they had the least amount of sand to clean out of. Out of them. But. But. Yeah, that was magical.
- [11:22]
Megan Scott
Yeah, that was really cool. And I remember at the mushroom camp, you know, they had, like, a kitchen, so they were cooking meals for us, and they used the matsutakes in dinner that night, which I think they just cooked them in rice is what I remember most.
- [11:34]
Jon Becker
Yeah. And that does seem like the most, especially considering if you're not foraging them and if, you know, if you're purchasing them for, you know, a hefty sum that, you know, just slicing it and then adding it to steam, to rice as it steams is a good way to kind of stretch the flavor as well as appreciate the flavor. Like.
- [11:54]
Megan Scott
Like.
- [11:54]
Jon Becker
Like you said it. It definitely seems like it's a light, you know, it's very subtle flavor that's best appreciated, like, on its own. The dashi preparation you mentioned, can't remember the name of it, but that sounds absolutely delicious and worth trying.
- [12:11]
Ivy Manning
Dobun Mushi. Dobun is the. Is the little teapot that's made especially for matsutake season.
- [12:20]
Megan Scott
Nice.
- [12:21]
Ivy Manning
It really is a very. It's. It's very theatrical to be served that in restaurants. They always put a tiny little wedge of sudachi lime on the top, and you squeeze that in and then, like, you know, face steam. You, like, lean into it and, like, smell it, you know, it's. It's the. The mushroom alcohol from it is very specific. So I find the whole sort of jazz hands, like, the performance of it, the performative part of having a bowl of soup is something else. It's just. It was very special.
- [12:58]
Jon Becker
Did you say alcohol?
- [13:00]
Ivy Manning
The mushroom alcohols. It's Ostenol, I think, is the mushroom alcohol. And the reason that when they're not. When they're more closed off, when they still have their partial veil over the top of them like when you found them, they're higher in that alcohol and that's what you smell. So it's really the smell. And they do have a nice meaty texture. Yeah. I mean, but that doesn't really set it apart. It's the smell.
- [13:30]
Megan Scott
I love. Learned something today.
- [13:32]
Ivy Manning
I got really nerdy on it and I started reading a book called the Mushroom at the End of the World by Anna Lowenhaupt Singh. And she talks about how this obsession with Matsutake has sort of created this huge. There's an economy around it now. But they're the kind of mushroom that grows. It can only be grown wild. So if you pick too many of them, it actually destroys the. My mitochondrial network underneath. Because the mushroom itself is only. Is a fruit, but the real. The rest of the plant is underground and it grows on the roots of trees. And if you pick too many of them, it can actually be detrimental not only to the mushroom colony but to the tree itself because it's a symbiotic relationship. So she's kind of talking about how we. We get into these trends and how they can actually hurt the environment.
- [14:35]
Jon Becker
Sure.
- [14:35]
Ivy Manning
That they come from. It's a really good book.
- [14:37]
Jon Becker
Yeah. Over harvesting definitely seems to be a problem with several species.
- [14:44]
Ivy Manning
You're getting, you know, $50 a pound.
- [14:46]
Jon Becker
Yeah.
- [14:47]
Ivy Manning
That's happening with truffles as well. I know in having worked a season in Piedmont where, you know, the alba truffle is really famous. A lot of them, they were saying, were coming from other places because they had just been over harvested.
- [15:05]
Megan Scott
Yeah.
- [15:06]
Ivy Manning
We're coming from Croatia and Slovakia and other places, I feel like to supply the demand.
- [15:14]
Jon Becker
I'm not. I have no idea if this is applicable to, you know, the type of the Piedmontese truffle. But it does seem like there are at least some semi successful efforts at cultivating truffles or.
- [15:26]
Ivy Manning
Yeah, they seem to be figuring. Slowly figuring it out. It's just scaling up, I think is going to be the problem.
- [15:33]
Megan Scott
Right. We had some truffle fries yesterday that probably were not.
- [15:39]
Jon Becker
Impacting. They did not impact the harvest.
- [15:42]
Ivy Manning
How do you guys feel about the false truffle? I mean, you know, the stuff they make in a lab and then putting in a bottle.
- [15:51]
Jon Becker
We were having a discussion about this and how, um. I think it was actually before we had the fries. Maybe the fri. We got the fries because we were talking about it earlier. Uh, but yeah, I don't know.
- [16:03]
Megan Scott
I'm.
- [16:04]
Jon Becker
I feel like there's. There's a place for it.
- [16:05]
Megan Scott
My. My. Maybe this is a controversial opinion. I kind of, like, even if I know it's not a legit truffle, as long as it's not overdone, because it can really be overpowering if you put too much of something like that in. But I do, like, just a little bit of that funky truffle musk in, like, pasta or on fries or something. And. But, yeah, I. I don't actually think I've.
- [16:32]
Jon Becker
I don't.
- [16:32]
Megan Scott
I know I've never had a actual. I've had Oregon truffles, but I haven't had, like, the white truffle or anything like that.
- [16:42]
Ivy Manning
I kind of think of a. Like, tribute bands, you know, I'm probably never gonna go see Bruce Springsteen live. I can't afford that. But, you know, I can go see a cover band doing some pretty good covers, you know?
- [16:55]
Megan Scott
Yeah.
- [16:55]
Ivy Manning
Okay. I guess it's all right.
- [16:57]
Jon Becker
This reminds me.
- [16:58]
Ivy Manning
Catches the itch. You know, this.
- [16:59]
Jon Becker
This reminds me of the time I saw. Yeah, it's just the pied bontese truffle.
- [17:07]
Megan Scott
Okay, so I think we're gonna get into our tasting segments. So each show has a weekly topic, and this week, our theme is mushrooms. And in honor of mushroom Week, we brought in our homemade mushroom confit, which is a recipe in the 2019 Joy of Cooking. John, could you just walk through, like, how this is made?
- [17:30]
Jon Becker
Sure. I remember making this recipe or something was very close. Maybe a slightly more involved recipe out of a Thomas Keller cookbook. I think it was ad hoc, but, yeah, I think he calls it a conserva. But I felt like we needed to title it based on, like, the cooking method, which is, you know, just like, a very, very slow bake in olive oil. But first you salt the mushrooms and then let them drain for, like, an hour, and that kind of gets rid of some water. Then meanwhile, like, towards the end of that, you are infusing some olive oil with garlic, shallot, a sprig of rosemary thyme, and let that kind of just bubble for about 15 minutes, like, a very slight bubble. Then you add the mushrooms and then pop it in a low oven. We say in the book 200 degrees. But because I'm always wanting to tinker, I did a slightly higher temperature, just because, I mean, you know, you're not really going for an al dente mushroom. Nobody wants an al dente mushroom. So I just wanted to see if a slightly higher temperature Would yield a better texture. And then you finish it off with a little bit of smoked paprika, if you want, and some sherry vinegar, just a splash. And that's where it kind of departs from the confit. You know, you don't really put vinegar in confit. We might be changing the title. I don't know.
- [18:54]
Megan Scott
I don't know. I think it works. It's what you're doing. And we used chanterelles, local chanterelles for this one, but you can use kind of whatever.
- [19:03]
Jon Becker
Oh, yeah.
- [19:04]
Megan Scott
I mean, we haven't tried all the varieties of mushrooms with this preparation, but you could use a lot of different kinds.
- [19:09]
Jon Becker
Just straight up button slash cremini mushrooms would work really good here just because, you know, it's almost a shame to do it with expensive and subtly flavored mushrooms like chanterelles and. Well, I mean, you would never want to use a matsutake for this just because it is like an assertive, you know, kind of dish.
- [19:30]
Ivy Manning
Yeah.
- [19:30]
Shannon Larson
And right now we're eating it just served with bread. What are other ways you would serve this dish?
- [19:37]
Jon Becker
Over polenta with cheese or what would you do with.
- [19:41]
Megan Scott
I mean, I think that's. Polenta is the first thing that came to my mind as well. I would just also make a mushroom, like a mushroom toast with some cheese. Like do. Do a mushroom melt, maybe with a little cheese and then broil it. I think it would be good with risotto. It would be good served with eggs, probably kind of. However, I would normally serve just mushrooms. Yeah, these are just like value added mushrooms.
- [20:05]
Shannon Larson
Nice.
- [20:06]
Megan Scott
I like that.
- [20:07]
Jon Becker
And it's, you know, I mean, the question that we got that kind of prompted this topic was, you know, how to, how to store mushrooms. And this is obviously not. Well, maybe not obviously, but it's not a long term solution. But you could definitely keep them submerged in this oil for at least a few weeks, if not longer, in the refrigerator.
- [20:28]
Ivy Manning
That reminds me, my Polish grandmother. Well, my grandfather and grandmother would cure mushrooms and oil. They always had those around.
- [20:37]
Megan Scott
Did they store them for a long time?
- [20:39]
Ivy Manning
I don't, I don't. I don't remember. I was too young. But my grandfather had logs that he kept in the basement and then out back. So he would grow his own mushrooms.
- [20:49]
Shannon Larson
I love that.
- [20:49]
Ivy Manning
And then put them in oil. It's a bizarre, like, Polish thing. They always had them with chicken breasts. I remember that, like they would bake chicken and then put it alongside kind of like a sauce.
- [21:00]
Shannon Larson
Oh, yeah, I can see that working really well with Those.
- [21:03]
Megan Scott
Yeah, that'd be delicious. That would be so good.
- [21:05]
Shannon Larson
I love that. That's great.
- [21:06]
Megan Scott
Yeah. And the mushrooms. I love this. Comfy. Because the mushrooms, I mean, you said we don't want an al dente mushroom, and I don't. I wouldn't call them al dente, but they are. They're not mushy.
- [21:16]
Shannon Larson
Yeah. They hold the structure. Like, the structure is still sound.
- [21:18]
Megan Scott
Yeah, exactly. Which is really nice. And they're beautiful.
- [21:22]
Shannon Larson
It is. It's very, very pretty.
- [21:23]
Megan Scott
Chanterelles are, like, golden.
- [21:25]
Shannon Larson
Seeing that on a table at, like a party or something, it.
- [21:28]
Ivy Manning
Yeah.
- [21:28]
Megan Scott
Yeah.
- [21:28]
Shannon Larson
That's a nice addition. Thanksgiving dinner.
- [21:31]
Megan Scott
That's a good idea. Yeah. And we're definitely in mushroom season right now in the Pacific Northwest, so I need to get. I need to get out there. I haven't been in so long. Have you ever been, like, foraging? Mushroom foraging?
- [21:42]
Shannon Larson
Yeah, we go every year. We go out Mount Hood to hunt for chantrell specifically. Um, we haven't made it out this year. Just busyness in general. But last year was kind of a bummer year for me and everybody I knew I know who forages. This year looks the opposite. I'm seeing so many people talk about how many they're finding. Um, so maybe we needed a bummer year for it to, like.
- [22:05]
Megan Scott
Yeah, they.
- [22:06]
Shannon Larson
They do. Like what we were saying. Like, we can't continue to just take it all. Like, you need to be really thoughtful when you're foraging and make sure that there are still, you know, that you leave things behind and you don't just decimate the entire area. And I've noticed. I started doing it probably about 10 years ago. 10 or 11 years ago. Going up the mountain and doing it and the space or the spot that I go to every year, it's just like, I never know. And sometimes it's completely picked over and it just is very depressing.
- [22:33]
Megan Scott
Yeah.
- [22:34]
Shannon Larson
But finding that golden mushroom, like, in the forest after looking for a while is like the best feeling in the world.
- [22:42]
Megan Scott
Yes.
- [22:42]
Shannon Larson
It's like you've won the lottery. I love that feeling so much. So even if you get like a handful, it's worth it just for. Just for the excitement and to be out off the trail and just in the middle of nowhere and it being quiet and beautiful. I think it's something everybody who can, can, should. Should try to do at some point.
- [23:00]
Ivy Manning
It really taps into something deep within us, like the. The foraging, you know, I just feel like I'm going back to our roots when there's something in it where you Find one. And it just. The dopamine hits your brain more.
- [23:18]
Megan Scott
And I love how when you find. When you finally find one, it's so much easier to see more of them. It's almost like your brain has to shift into a lower gear until you can actually see what you're looking for.
- [23:32]
Shannon Larson
And I feel like we spend so much time, like, looking at screens and that kind of thing. So just, like, looking around at the forest floor for something is really good. I feel better after doing it, like, mentally, I. Even if I have nothing in my basket, I'm like, whatever, it was worth it. But then when I'm, like, hiking down the mountain, I can't help but, like, look at the ground everywhere. I know maybe I'll find one. I don't know.
- [23:56]
Ivy Manning
If you guys haven't read it, there's a book by a guy named Merlin Sheldrake called Entangled Life.
- [24:03]
Megan Scott
It's so good.
- [24:04]
Ivy Manning
It's all about fungi and how they create networks. And he gets a little out there. I mean, he's even suggesting that they can communicate with each other through their networks, Actually, that I think he is proving that currently. He's a scientist, a naturalist and scientist. But it's a very. It's just all the different ways that fungi can be part of our lives, including building materials and stuff. It's just fascinating. We read it for book club, and it was one of the longest book meetings we've ever had. I mean, I think we ate a lot of mushrooms and we killed a couple bottles of wine just because we were so into it. It's a great. It's a very entertaining book, even if you don't read science often. It's worth a look.
- [24:50]
Megan Scott
Well, he's like one of the rare science writers who can talk about the science, but who also really waxes poetic about the mushrooms. And you can tell that he's just genuinely so fascinated and enamored of mushrooms and fungi and mycelium and all of those things. And they are so interesting. And there's just, like, so much we don't know about them.
- [25:12]
Ivy Manning
The wood Wide web. Yeah, because they're all connected.
- [25:17]
Megan Scott
How would you describe the flavors of the mushroom confit?
- [25:21]
Shannon Larson
I think it's brighter than you would think it is. Like, it.
- [25:25]
Ivy Manning
The herb.
- [25:26]
Shannon Larson
The herb flavor definitely comes through. I can definitely taste the thyme, which. I am a big thyme fan, but it is. It's really bright and it's light in a nice way. But then, like what we were saying, the mushrooms hold the texture, so it's actually fun to eat. Like, I don't know. I think it's nice when you eat something that's like, this is just an enjoyable mouthfeel. And I would say that. And then it's not. Even though it's covered in oil, it doesn't feel too oily. You know what I mean?
- [25:51]
Megan Scott
Yeah, I know what you mean. It's kind of strange because I would. I mean, I feel like the mushrooms must absorb all that oil, but they. They don't have. They don't taste like a blotter, you know, like an oil blotter or something. They're not crunchy, but they're toothsome. And the little bit of zing from the sherry vinegar really comes through, which is nice.
- [26:10]
Shannon Larson
It is really good. I think in, like, on a. A table for a party or something. Pairing it with, like, a. A manchego or something would be really, really delicious. That was something that came to mind, just like one of those kinds of salty cheeses. But, yeah, I. I will be making this probably this week.
- [26:28]
Jon Becker
One of the reasons why I became so enamored with this recipe and wanted to adapt it from the book is because it definitely reminds me of this classic Spanish tapa champignones. Alejia just translates mushrooms with garlic. But, you know, typically it's, you know, mushrooms that are sauteed with garlic, and then it gets deglazed with a little bit of sherry, and. And, you know, it's got the herbs and. Yeah. So I feel like this is a. Just a different format for that dish, so.
- [26:58]
Megan Scott
And I bet you could. We haven't done this, but I bet if you found a lot of chanterelles or whatever, mushroom, and you really wanted to make a bunch of this and keep it for longer, you could probably just stick some of it in the freezer, I would imagine, because it's under oil, so it's not going to, you know, oxidize. Oxidize.
- [27:15]
Jon Becker
Yeah.
- [27:16]
Megan Scott
We haven't tried that, but maybe we should.
- [27:18]
Shannon Larson
Maybe we should make another batch this.
- [27:20]
Megan Scott
Week, test it out. Oh, no.
- [27:23]
Jon Becker
Well, yeah, and then we could also cut it with some not so precious mushrooms. Yeah, I like doing it typically with a mix of mushrooms. And. Yeah, just went a little crazy with the chanterelles. I don't know why.
- [27:37]
Megan Scott
Well, because they're awesome. Yeah. Ivy, as the author of 10 cookbooks, which did you enjoy working on the most?
- [27:47]
Ivy Manning
Oh, man, that's like asking which is your favorite kid.
- [27:51]
Megan Scott
Right?
- [27:52]
Ivy Manning
Well, I mean, some of them were on a much faster timeline. The Vegetarian weeknight Vegetarian For Williams Sonoma is probably some of the recipes that I use most often. But working on that book was kind of hell because I. I wrote it in three months, tested everything in three months. So I didn't, I didn't have a meal that wasn't work for like three months. There were no cravings. It was whatever needed to get done.
- [28:23]
Megan Scott
There's.
- [28:23]
Ivy Manning
And that one's by the season, so, yeah, I picked that one up a lot.
- [28:28]
Jon Becker
Just out of curiosity.
- [28:29]
Ivy Manning
I love soup and bread as well, especially right now. That one is. The idea is you can make a quick bread that matches a soup in like an hour or less. I love that book too. And I got to work on set with the photographer on that book, which was really cool. That's very rare. I don't know if people know that, but when you're working on a book, a cookbook, it's usually they don't want the cookbook author there. They just kind of do it all in house, the photographer and the stylist. And having a cookbook author there can slow things down because they want things a certain way. But on that book, I got to be on set the whole time, which was really fun to see. My recipes being cooked by a food stylist and styled was really cool.
- [29:17]
Megan Scott
That is really cool. And I think that the one you mentioned, the soup and quick bread book, that's I think, my favorite. Just mostly because I love soup so much. But I love the idea of like pairing these super easy bread recipes with the soup so that you can have, you know, fresh bread without having to spend hours making it.
- [29:36]
Ivy Manning
Yeah, everything from, like biscuits to beer bread. There's actually a really quite a lot of great savory breads that are quick breads. Doesn't have to be banana all the time.
- [29:49]
Jon Becker
Just a follow up on the weeknight vegetarian. How did it end up being three months only, if you don't mind my asking.
- [29:56]
Ivy Manning
That was a work for hire book. So the people at Williams Sonoma, their publishing house contacted me and they needed honestly to fill a slot. I think it was the holidays and they needed a vegetarian book quick. And they called me and I had the time and I'd worked with them before, so they were like, oh, do you have any ideas of how you would arrange it? And I gave them a table of contents in like a day. And they were like, okay, get back to us in three months. And I'm like, what? Wait, what? They, like, hung up the phone and I'm like, oh, my God, I gotta get started.
- [30:31]
Megan Scott
What Did I just agree to.
- [30:32]
Jon Becker
That is insane. I just can't even imagine how many.
- [30:35]
Ivy Manning
Recipes I don't remember.
- [30:38]
Jon Becker
Well, I guess we do. I guess we do have a copy of it right here.
- [30:41]
Megan Scott
Yeah, I have a copy.
- [30:42]
Ivy Manning
Probably 75, something like that.
- [30:44]
Megan Scott
80.
- [30:44]
Ivy Manning
Crazy.
- [30:45]
Megan Scott
It says 80.
- [30:46]
Jon Becker
Wow.
- [30:46]
Ivy Manning
80.
- [30:47]
Megan Scott
Yeah. And your husband is vegetarian, right, Ivy?
- [30:52]
Ivy Manning
He's now a pescatarian. Thank God. It's made it a little bit easier, especially to travel. But, yeah, at the time, I think he was still a vegetarian, so I really leaned into trying to get enough protein in there and make things different, so it didn't feel like we were always eating a side dish. So I really focused on the completeness of the meal, like, it being square. There's one. There's like a. A nice soft polenta, I believe, that has roasted brussels sprouts with walnuts or something. Sorry, it was a long time ago. I don't remember. But I. I do take that one off the shelf quite a bit. It's got stickies. I put stickies in my own books to remind me to make those recipes.
- [31:36]
Shannon Larson
I'm looking at the copy that Megan and John have, and there are stickies in this one too.
- [31:40]
Megan Scott
Yeah, I do that. I'm notorious. I will go through a cookbook and put, like, 30 sticky notes on there, and I'm like, when am I actually gonna have time to make all these recipes? I do this.
- [31:51]
Ivy Manning
I can flip through it again and know what I'm gonna want to make. I don't need to tell my future self. Just.
- [31:58]
Jon Becker
Just yesterday, we were adding more stickies to another book, and you were trying. Megan was trying to convince me to. That we needed to create a spreadsheet of all of the sticky recipes in our entire library of books.
- [32:15]
Megan Scott
Oh, my God. Some people have an itchy trigger finger. I have an itchy spreadsheet finger. Like, I could turn this into a spreadsheet.
- [32:21]
Shannon Larson
I would love that, though, honestly.
- [32:23]
Jon Becker
But then it got. It got even more. It got even better. It was like, oh, well, we should arrange it or tag. We should tag these recipes in different columns for, like, chicken and blah, blah, blah. And it's like, no, absolutely.
- [32:37]
Megan Scott
And then he was like, are you gonna. You can do that? And I was like, actually, I'm not gonna to do that. Never mind. It was nice to think about. Ivy, this is kind of a funny question, but you're. So. You're a seasoned recipe developer and also someone whose recipes I really trust. But I was kind of thinking about recipe red flags. So, like, when you read a Recipe, and you're like, I just don't know. Like, that seems off. Do you have any recipe red flags? So when, like, you're reading through a recipe and thinking about making it, is there anything that tips you off that maybe you should look elsewhere?
- [33:08]
Ivy Manning
Well, that's a good question. I'm actually doing a column for Eater at Home right now called okay, but actually where I take a recipe that's just. I see a red flag and then I write, you know, I try it out, and then. Then I translate it into a recipe that won't take you three days. And two quarts of buttermilk and 38 tea bags.
- [33:30]
Megan Scott
Oh, my God.
- [33:30]
Ivy Manning
Yes. That's a real recipe. I don't want to go into it. You can find it online.
- [33:33]
Jon Becker
I don't know which one you're talking about.
- [33:36]
Ivy Manning
There's a certain fried chicken recipe that has five different kinds of fats and takes three days to make. That one was a red flag. Often with restaurant ones, you can tell by the amount that they've scaled it from the recipe. You know, that makes enough for 20 people or, you know, enough for a service of 50 people, and they've just scaled it down. And you're like, wait a minute. That doesn't. I don't think so. Usually it's either the quantity or the lack of detail. If it's just sort of like, put it in a pan and then stir till done, those ones are pretty obvious that they didn't test it. Another red flag. This is something I learned from pastry chef named Lee Posey, who used to be the head pastry chef at Pearl Bakery. She taught me, don't trust a pastry recipe that doesn't include salt, because a little bit of salt does a lot of things when you're baking. And if you leave it out, then that might not be a recipe that's been carefully tested. That's an idea that's really key.
- [34:51]
Shannon Larson
I just made a recipe recently where it was not. It wasn't pastry. It wasn't sweet. It was. It was just a pasta recipe. And I was like, I'm going to challenge myself to follow this recipe, which is hard for me sometimes, I'll admit, because I'm like, well, more red pepper flakes and everything. More garlic and everything. But I was reading through the recipe, and I'm like, there's way too much salt in this. This is what. What are they thinking? And I was like, no, trust the recipe. Do it. It was, like, inedible. I could not eat it. And I was like, no, trust My gut, sometimes not everything. Like, there is a point, too, where you're like, I'm reading this recipe. This just seems kind of off. And this was just me challenging myself to actually follow it.
- [35:31]
Megan Scott
That's what you get, Shannon.
- [35:32]
Shannon Larson
That's what I get. We ended up having. And I had made enough for my husband and I to have dinner and the following day's lunch, and it all had to go in the compost bin. I was so frustrated.
- [35:41]
Megan Scott
Brutal. I hate that.
- [35:42]
Jon Becker
I mean, you know, adding 36 tea bags to a chicken brine, that is one thing, but, yeah, too much salts, that is just. It's violence. I mean, there's no going back. And it's not even like, oh, this cost me a lot of money. It's just, you know, it's gone.
- [36:01]
Megan Scott
Yeah, it's just gone. You can't redeem it, really.
- [36:03]
Ivy Manning
Usually you don't get that time back either.
- [36:06]
Megan Scott
Yeah. Yeah. It's so sad. And I do feel like. I mean, there's plenty of room for user error with recipes. Like, people mess up. I mess up recipes all the time. Just, you know, forgetting something or. Yeah, talk about this. But then sometimes I think about, like, a home cook who tries a recipe and then follows it to the letter and then gets really disappointed because it just doesn't turn out. And I have so much empathy for that situation because for, you know, for most of us, it's like, we just need to get dinner on the table. And when it doesn't work out, that is. It's kind of crushing. At the end of a long day, you're just like, man, I can't even do this right.
- [36:46]
Jon Becker
Yeah, well, not only that, there's also a, you know, I mean, as someone who has cooked many a recipe that, you know, I have not been happy with out of somebody else's cookbook or on from the Internet, you just kind of internalize that failure. You're like, you know, the first. My first instinct. Maybe I'm like an outlier. But, you know, you just. You. You don't want to blame the recipe immediately because that's like, you know, it's like a source of authority. And so you just internalize that failure, and it's. It's your fault. You were not reading it correctly. You messed up some step. I feel like a lot of people, or at least I. That's like my first. You know, I tended to go there first, which sucks.
- [37:28]
Ivy Manning
Yeah.
- [37:29]
Megan Scott
I think. I do think, though. I mean, you do that, and I do that sometimes, too. But I also see, you know, the comments recipe comments online where it's like, I substituted flour for eggs and did this and that, and it didn't work. It's a terrible recipe. And you're just like, wait, what? I wish I had a tenth of.
- [37:48]
Ivy Manning
That Kool Aid for Cornish game hens. And it turned out terribly. And you ruined my anniversary dinner. Something to be said for having editors. You know, when you've got a second, third and fourth set of eyes on a recipe, you know, it's a lot less likely to go terribly wrong. And I think that's the value in books that you possibly don't always get with every website. Yeah, that's how 100%, you know, because they just don't have the facilities. They don't have a staff working on the recipes. They're putting them up. And that doesn't say. That's not to say there aren't good recipes out there, but I have readers, you know, come to me and say, oh, I tried this thing online and it was terrible. And I'm like, well, you get what you pay for. So just keep that in mind. You know, keep having trusted sources. Like, the Joy of Cooking is, you know, is great. I personally, if I'm going to. If I want to learn how to make something like the Doban mushi, I go deep. Like, I'll look at two, three or four different sources to see how they do it and then kind of get that in my head, like, how it's done so that I understand the dish before I try to make it.
- [39:03]
Jon Becker
No, triangulating is what I. Is what I think of it as. It's like, yeah, you just got to get your bearings from at least three different sources, maybe more before, especially if you're developing a recipe. But, you know, I mean, obviously it's asking a lot to source three different recipes for everything you want to try to cook, but.
- [39:21]
Ivy Manning
Oh, yeah, yeah. But not everything. But, yeah, I use Eat your Books. Are you guys familiar with that website?
- [39:28]
Jon Becker
Eat your Books is awesome.
- [39:29]
Megan Scott
Yeah, we. We have all of our cookbooks cataloged on it, so.
- [39:33]
Jon Becker
Well, we try.
- [39:34]
Megan Scott
Yeah, we try to update. We forget to update when we get new stuff, but it's so helpful. Can you want to. Ivy, do you want to just briefly explain what it is?
- [39:42]
Ivy Manning
Sure. It's. You pay for it. It's a website where you can enter all of the cookbooks you own and all of the magazines you own. Like, you build your library, it doesn't take that long. And then basically what you can do is type in, let's Say Japanese eggplant, and it will show you all of the books, all of the magazines you have that have a recipe that contain Japanese eggplant. You can also source by ethnicity, date published buzz. It's a whole community, and you can get on there. And I use it multiple times a week. It's just a great way. Like, let's say I have some barley I found in the back of the pantry. Well, what the heck am I going to do with that? So I just type in barley, and it'll show me all the recipes I own. It won't show the recipe, but it will show where it is, like what book it's in and what page and then the other ingredients that I might need for that recipe.
- [40:42]
Shannon Larson
That's so smart. That's so smart.
- [40:44]
Jon Becker
The filtering, the search filters are just so incredibly useful. And. Yeah, just.
- [40:50]
Ivy Manning
Yeah, John, What? I can't remember what else. I'm always in the ethnicity button where I'm just like this, you know, Transylvanian chicken. And then, you know, go. It'll find me what I own. But I can't think of other ways.
- [41:01]
Jon Becker
You can search, you know, you want to search for a recipe that has, you know, like, I don't know, chicken and cider or something, you know, like a cider braised chicken. You know, you can just narrow search results by ethnicity, as you say, or cuisine or. Or. Yeah, just like, what different types of ingredients are in there? Like there. There are so many different ingredient tags. And it's all, from what I understand. I mean, they might have some people in house doing some of that tagging, but I think it's mostly user generated. Yeah.
- [41:36]
Ivy Manning
Yeah. Publishers will put the index in for them. It also does magazines and online recipes. And I have yet to win any of their sweepstakes, but they do. They do book giveaways, and I keep entering. Maybe they know that girl has enough cookbooks.
- [41:57]
Megan Scott
Yeah, she doesn't need any more. Yeah, I did want to talk a little bit more about the. The eater column that you're doing about, you know, kind of taking these certain recipes and simplifying them. I mean, maybe that's even the wrong word because I feel like what you're doing is you're finding the smart places where maybe the restaurant or the chef was willing to put in this extra. A lot of extra effort for a very marginal difference in the end product. And you're finding those spots and saying, like, well, you know, you can actually just do this instead. And it saves you three hours, which I feel like is a very Fair trade off. But I. I love that approach because I think, think there's not a lot of. There is really not a lot of recipe. I mean, it's not really criticism, but it's, you know, looking at a recipe and saying, like, I just, you know, this is, this is just not worth it. It's okay to simplify this in certain ways.
- [42:55]
Ivy Manning
Yeah, that was kind of the idea. Originally I wanted to call it Recipe doctor with the idea that because inefficient recipes make me really crabby. And I associate that with Lucy from the Peanuts. You know, she has that little. The doctor is in. She's like a psychotherapist. Five cents to talk to the psychotherapist. I just thought it would be like a recipe doctor. The doctor's in. Because I just get so crabby when I read, you know, somebody with, you know, a Michelin star restaurant. Like, first of all, you're gonna chop up 28 cups of onions and then you're gonna caramelize them for four hours. And like, no, I'm not. No, I'm not gonna do that. There's a lot faster way to do that.
- [43:38]
Jon Becker
I love finding recipes like that. As long as I'm not trying to follow them. And it's in the moment, I find it very humorous. And Megan and I will definitely joke around. Like, it was like, get a load of this.
- [43:50]
Shannon Larson
Look at this guy.
- [43:51]
Ivy Manning
Please pass those on to me because I'm just fascinated as well. I love seeing how we can, you know, because I think there's this misconception that just because you're a chef doesn't mean that you write a great recipe, you cook a great recipe, but that you do a different thing. It doesn't mean some chefs can't write a great recipe, but it's not what they do all day long.
- [44:15]
Megan Scott
Right. It's a separate. It's a. It's a separate skill set. And I mean, you used to work in restaurants, like high end fine dining restaurants, right?
- [44:24]
Ivy Manning
Yeah.
- [44:24]
Megan Scott
Yeah.
- [44:25]
Ivy Manning
And I can tell you that if I spent four hours doing nothing but stirring onions to caramelize them, I would get four fired. That's not how it works. Like, you have to be doing five things at once in order for the chef to have gotten the worth out of you, like your hourly rate, you should be doing five things at once. And if you don't, then they can't.
- [44:47]
Jon Becker
Afford you as long as you set aside the time. I do think that a nice, slow, lazy caramelization of onions, it's a contemplative thing for. At least for me, but. Yes.
- [44:59]
Ivy Manning
Well, I'm not saying rush it, but I don't think. I mean, four hours.
- [45:02]
Jon Becker
Yeah, no, four hours. I would never do four hours. I mean, I. Bananas. You get. You get good.
- [45:08]
Ivy Manning
I have hobbies, you know, stuff to do. My hobby is stirring and smelling like onion juice.
- [45:15]
Megan Scott
Yeah.
- [45:16]
Jon Becker
And checking social media while I stir.
- [45:19]
Megan Scott
But that takes away from the meditative aspect of it.
- [45:23]
Jon Becker
True, true. I just gave the game away.
- [45:26]
Ivy Manning
He also advises that you should enjoy every moment of. Or the soup won't turn out.
- [45:32]
Megan Scott
The soup can pick up on the bad vibes, so.
- [45:36]
Ivy Manning
My God.
- [45:39]
Jon Becker
Yeah. I think that it's all about context. And especially with that fried chicken recipe with the five fats. It's like, these are things that Sean Brock has on hand.
- [45:52]
Megan Scott
Oh, so we're just naming names?
- [45:54]
Jon Becker
I'm sorry. I mean.
- [45:56]
Ivy Manning
All right, I know where this is going.
- [45:58]
Jon Becker
We can edit that.
- [45:59]
Ivy Manning
You two were kind enough to. One of the things the chef calls for in his recipe in his 5 fats is ham trimmings. But it can't be any ham trimmings. It has to be ham trimmings from Benton's, which is a Tennessee.
- [46:14]
Megan Scott
Yeah.
- [46:14]
Jon Becker
Oh, yeah.
- [46:14]
Megan Scott
Tennessee country ham. And it is. It is excellent ham. But unless you are Sean, Leg of it, I. Shawna, you don't have ham trimmings from a Benton's ham.
- [46:27]
Jon Becker
But in that kitchen, I imagine that there's a lot of trimmings that need to be. That should be used. And so, you know, in that context, it makes a lot of sense. And then you kind of gotta wonder about the audience for those kinds of books. It's like, it's a record of, you know, the mind of a chef or whatever you want.
- [46:49]
Ivy Manning
And it's performative. It's like, this is what. Well, he says in that recipe too, though, that it's what he makes at home. And I'm like, oh, horseshit. No, he does. You work 20, 20 hour days. There's no way you're going home and making.
- [47:02]
Jon Becker
He's bringing home those hand trips.
- [47:04]
Ivy Manning
But anyway, for the record, John and Megan, very kindly Shannon gave me a little bit of their Benton's ham that they had gotten from a relative in Tennessee. And they gave it to me so I could test this recipe. And I did add it to the fat to fry chicken in. And I couldn't make it out particularly, but the fried ham itself was very delicious on its own as a snack. So.
- [47:31]
Shannon Larson
Great.
- [47:32]
Ivy Manning
Rest assured, guys, it was very kind of you to give me that Ham trimming. And I, I ate it.
- [47:39]
Jon Becker
Alan Benton really knows what he's doing.
- [47:42]
Megan Scott
Yeah, that is, that is a fantastic ham. And we, we got one of his hams. So when you live locally and maybe he would ship them, but you can get a ham that's not cured. Was it not cured or the fresher ham?
- [47:59]
Jon Becker
It was, it was a fresh ham. Yeah. I mean it was, it was smoked. I might have been lightly cured, but it was not, it was not aged, it was not dried.
- [48:07]
Megan Scott
Right.
- [48:08]
Jon Becker
It was certainly not a country ham. Yeah. I think. What does he call it? I think he calls it a holiday ham.
- [48:14]
Megan Scott
Yeah, holiday ham. And we got one of those for our wedding. And it was the most delicious thing, One of the most delicious things I think I've ever eaten. It was really special.
- [48:26]
Jon Becker
Yeah. Scored the skin which turned into some nice cheese roll. It was really good. Yeah. Just walking into that smokehouse was like a big slap in the face. Just so much hickory smoke. So much, I don't know. Country ham.
- [48:46]
Megan Scott
Yeah.
- [48:47]
Jon Becker
Delicious.
- [48:47]
Megan Scott
Magic.
- [48:48]
Jon Becker
I was wondering, do you, after you turn in a manuscript or maybe after a pub date, do you have a ritual of any kind or do you have a way of, I don't know, recharging? Recuperating. Either one.
- [49:03]
Shannon Larson
Celebrating.
- [49:04]
Ivy Manning
Sell a book. Hangover.
- [49:05]
Shannon Larson
Yes.
- [49:06]
Ivy Manning
I think all cookbook authors I've talked to have it when the box arrives with the early copies. And you know, you spent so much time on this thing. Nine months, just about. It's very much like a book baby. And you open the box and you flip through it and you have to deal with the fact that, like, it is what it is. It's done now. You know, it's a weird feeling. Yeah. I kvetch, I worry. And then, you know, as part of a cookbook author, you also have to promote. So then it's like this nine month thing that went away for a little while and now it's back. It's moved back in with you and now you have to promote it. And that's a lot especially. I think a lot of cookbook authors are introverts or they used to be. I think more and more it's more TikTok stars that are getting cookbook deals and they're outgoing anyway, but some of us are a little more quiet and it's a challenge to keep going and keep telling people about your books.
- [50:09]
Jon Becker
Yeah.
- [50:10]
Ivy Manning
So, yeah. I don't know if I have like a ritual. It's a weird thing though, if that's what I don't know the gist. Of what you're asking, but I don't, like, have a special bottle of champagne or anything that comes. If you. If you ever get a royalties check.
- [50:24]
Megan Scott
Yeah, exactly.
- [50:26]
Jon Becker
No, I mean, it's kind of hard to talk about. You know, I was wondering, like, special bottle of champagne or some sort of quirky thing that you do. But also. Yeah. Now that the hangover, the. You know, the kind of dip in your mood or whatever, I mean, it's kind of hard to talk about. So.
- [50:42]
Megan Scott
I mean, I think we both experienced after Joy came out, and partially because we had worked on it for so long, longer than most cookbook authors get a chance to work on their books, that it was this huge. It was just like, what now? And almost like a panicky feeling, like, whoa. What do we just. What, did we just turn in? Is it okay? Did I say something stupid?
- [51:08]
Jon Becker
You know, it's like the. The last scene in the Graduate when they're on the bus and they're like. And then they start looking out the window and getting a little quiet.
- [51:20]
Megan Scott
Yeah. What.
- [51:22]
Ivy Manning
What do we just do? Yeah. I think that's all artists, though. I mean, I've talked to painters and musicians that, like, once they kind of press send, you know, you hit the return button and it's. It's. It's out of your hands. I think that's just like being creative, you know, I do know one of the other phenomenons writing a cookbook is line edits. So anybody that's not familiar, you send in your manuscript, your editor will send, Will do line edits. So line by line, they're going through and asking questions and changing things and finding mistakes, and then you get the book back, and you have to spend whatever amount of time, a short amount of time, usually a couple weeks going through, and all the little nitpicky questions and the tisps and the tibs, you know, the tablespoons and the teaspoons. You have to go through all the little details. The grind of that is. My crabbiest moments are then like, I'm just. I have a Lucy. Lucy from the Peanuts T shirt that I wear when I'm doing line edits. Because it's just like. It's like pulling teeth. It's so necessary. You know, you have to do it, but it's not fun.
- [52:38]
Jon Becker
Yeah, I'm not gonna. I mean, this probably makes me, um. I will probably. You know, I'm being outed as a sick puppy, but I really, really enjoy that. Like, you know, you've been. You've been alone with that material for so long and somebody's finally, you know, you actually get to talk about it with or, you know.
- [52:57]
Megan Scott
Yeah, some correspond with someone about it.
- [53:00]
Jon Becker
And, and on the process you're hopefully, hopefully you feel like you're making it better. I mean I, I would imagine that there are some, you know, edit, you know, copy editors who are more adversarial than others and maybe not as helpful. But yeah, it's part of.
- [53:19]
Ivy Manning
Why did you write that? It's not that bad. It's just the little minutiae that I don't love that you do love that makes you a great writer.
- [53:30]
Jon Becker
Yeah, I don't know about that. Makes me something.
- [53:34]
Megan Scott
I loved the page. Getting the page proofs. I think that was my favorite part because this was after we had already done a couple rounds of of line edits, but then we got the page proofs in the mail. So they shipped us giant page, giant cookbook page, like printed out, but it.
- [53:54]
Jon Becker
Was like 11 by 17 or more.
- [53:56]
Megan Scott
Large format pages of the whole book. And then you go through it and you in pen, you make edits on the book and it's the last chance that you get to make those changes. Which I, I loved it because it was so like we had our pencils and like we're in there just writing on the man, basically writing on the manuscript. It's such a cool, I thought that was a cool process.
- [54:18]
Shannon Larson
Your hands are on the book.
- [54:19]
Jon Becker
Yeah.
- [54:20]
Megan Scott
You're touching it.
- [54:20]
Shannon Larson
Yeah.
- [54:21]
Megan Scott
It's real, but also a little scary because then you're like, well, I have to find, I have to catch everything now. This is my last chance.
- [54:28]
Jon Becker
Yeah, well, and I feel like I was also, I was going through some extra steps that I probably didn't need to, where I was like, well, what if it gets lost in the mail? I'm going to scan all of these before I send them back. And then I, you know, then you get to go to get to go to FedEx and overnight that. Gotta, gotta get some insurance on that too.
- [54:46]
Shannon Larson
That is definitely a John Becker.
- [54:47]
Megan Scott
Yeah.
- [54:50]
Ivy Manning
Yeah.
- [54:51]
Jon Becker
Well, like I said, sick, sick puppy.
- [54:55]
Megan Scott
So each week we have a topic that's based on a caller question or story. And this week we will be talking about mushrooms. This message came in via text from Neha. It's looking to be an abundant chanterelle hunting season. What is the best way to prepare chanterelles for freezing for future use?
- [55:15]
Jon Becker
So we actually have advice on how to do this in the latest edition of the book. I kind of, you know, after reviewing our instructions, I Wish we had given a little bit more detail, you know, especially for chanterelles. I mean, obviously. Well, maybe it's not so obvious but you know, they have a delicate texture and they don't really hold up to freezing very well unless you cook them. And so, you know, just doing a quick, a quick saute, not even to the point where, I mean you want, you want all of the liquid to, you want them to start giving up all the liquid, but you don't necessarily want to cook them to the point where that liquid is gone. Because when you go to packet into zip top bags and you get all the air out, that liquid is actually going to help, you know, keep the air pockets to a minimum. So that is definitely like our go to way. But you know, you could also just, you know, take it one step further and make a duxelle that packs really well. And of course, you know, in the.
- [56:13]
Megan Scott
Process of making what's a duxelle?
- [56:16]
Jon Becker
I can't.
- [56:16]
Megan Scott
You're gonna have to explain that a duxelle is like very finely minced mushrooms that you cook with butter and usually some shallot, maybe some thyme. And you can, you can serve it as is like almost like a mushroom pate or. One thing we've done before is we'll make it and then pack it into ice cube trays and freeze it like that. So then you can just pop one of those cubes into a gravy or a stock or a soup or wherever you want. Some mushroominess.
- [56:51]
Jon Becker
Yeah. And also after you, I mean mincing, you don't have to hand mince. That's going. What's going on?
- [56:57]
Megan Scott
Yeah, don't do that.
- [56:58]
Jon Becker
Yeah. Now you can definitely use a food processor. And then after you do the food processor, typically you're actually squeezing the mushrooms in a kitchen towel, a hopefully clean kitchen towel to get as much moisture as possible out of them before you even start cooking. And all of that, you know, getting rid of all that moisture is going to help with the freezing.
- [57:16]
Shannon Larson
I think I use the first thing that you guys do where you saute it, get some of that water released and then I put it in silicone muffin tins and so that way and then I put them in the freezer and then I pop, after they're frozen, I pop them out and then put them in a ziploc bag. That way I have individual servings of like, if I'm just alone one night, cuz John's at the movie or whatever, I can make pasta with like fresh chanterelles. Like Four.
- [57:42]
Megan Scott
That's a really good idea.
- [57:43]
Shannon Larson
So that's a really convenient way to do it cuz then it's just already single serving use too.
- [57:48]
Megan Scott
So nice.
- [57:49]
Shannon Larson
I like that I use your recipe.
- [57:52]
Megan Scott
Ivy, do you have any thoughts on keeping mushrooms when you find an abundance?
- [57:58]
Ivy Manning
I'm not a big chanterelle fan, sorry. So that one I don't, I don't do. But if I can get blitz, if I can get porcini mushrooms, I'll dry roast them just to bring down like the moisture a little bit and then freeze them. I do, I have a vacu pack and freeze them that way. But you pretty much have to roast most of the liquid out of them because it creates crystals that any moisture will create crystals when they freeze and that can break down the texture of them. And porcinis have such a beautiful texture. You don't want to lose that by having them kind of turn into slime.
- [58:35]
Megan Scott
So yeah, yeah, dry them out and then those are. Porcinis are also great mushrooms to actually dehydrate and just keep them in a dried form. Not all mushrooms do well with when they're dried like that. Like chanterelles are not very good when they're just dried. But the porcinis are great. Morels are good that way.
- [58:56]
Ivy Manning
Another little thing I do especially with wild mushrooms, if there's lots of cavities in them and they're in, you know, pretty rough wild state, is a trick I learned from restaurants. I put a white towel on a small sheet tray and I'll put the mushrooms before I do anything to them. If they're wild picked, I'll put them on that sheet tray and put them in the refrigerator overnight. And any little beasty stowaways will tend to out if you do that. They'll, they'll come out of their hiding places and makes cleaning them a little bit easier. I've had experiences with some, some pretty wild morels in a professional setting where there were, it was pretty much like little bug hotels. And they looked fine when we got them. And then overnight, you know, the, the bugs came out in the fridge and then next morning it was like, oh my God, it was like a graveyard of little beasties. It's like, I'm glad, glad we did that because otherwise there would have been stowaways galore. Added protein to be sure in that cream sauce, but maybe not welcome.
- [60:03]
Jon Becker
Well, that sure beats sticking them out especially with a delicate mushroom like a morel.
- [60:08]
Megan Scott
Yeah, it's almost impossible to like. I mean if we get, if, if we get morels. And they seem especially dirty or they're like, covered in those tiny little pine needles. We will. I mean, we won't do it until right before we cook them, but we'll just swish them around in some water to dislodge stuff, which I do want to go on the record and say that you can wash mushrooms. It is not the end of the world if they're really dirty. Sometimes, especially with wild mushrooms, I find this is the case. Like, I don't usually wash button mushrooms because they're not. You can easily wipe off whatever dirt is on there. But sometimes the wild mushrooms are just really dirty or pine needley and buggy, and it's fine to put them in some water and swish them around. Just do it right before you're going to cook them. Don't do it. And then put them back in the fridge because they will deteriorate really quickly.
- [60:56]
Jon Becker
We've also. I remember using compressed air on. On morels, which was, like, kind of silly, you know, like one of those duster cans that you use on your keyboard or whatever.
- [61:09]
Ivy Manning
Super sharper image.
- [61:12]
Jon Becker
Well, yeah. I don't know. It kind of like started blowing some of the morel apart. Like, I got a little too close.
- [61:18]
Megan Scott
If you're too fragile, then that can not work. But I feel like it worked for some things.
- [61:24]
Ivy Manning
May I just a little aside. The best morel mushroom thing I ever had was at Daniel Boulud's bistro, DB Bistro in New York City. And I don't even remember what. What the dish was, but on the side, it had morel mushrooms that were stuffed with a chicken liver mousse.
- [61:43]
Megan Scott
Oh, wow.
- [61:45]
Ivy Manning
And it was so phenomenal. And it was just an aside. It was like putting a pickle on a plate, you know? That was his little non yap.
- [61:52]
Megan Scott
Wow.
- [61:53]
Ivy Manning
We were all going nuts over him. And our. A Russian waiter came over to see if everything was okay. And I was like, does he just. Does the chef just stay awake at night figuring out ways to surprise and delight us? And he was like, yes, he does. And that was like the end of the conversation. Like, this is the best night.
- [62:14]
Jon Becker
Were they large morels or like the.
- [62:18]
Ivy Manning
Size of my thumb? No, not terribly large. They were just these delicate little. I think perhaps they had been poached in broth and then stuffed with a chicken liver mousse. And I'm like. Because they're hollow inside, you know, so it was like, such a perfect idea. Who thinks of these things?
- [62:35]
Megan Scott
I know. That's such a good Idea.
- [62:38]
Jon Becker
We didn't actually start talking about chanterelles and morels until the 1963 edition when Marian was kind of. She had a very completist, encyclopedic approach to joy and was trying to add information about as many foods as she possibly could. There's like, little diagrams in the 1963, I think, going forward. Well, at least the 1975. Just mushroom ID photos, which are cute. I don't know how useful they are. They're pretty small, so, yeah, they're small.
- [63:08]
Megan Scott
I wouldn't use them as a. As a guide, but they're really cute. I kind of want to get a tattoo of those because they're just really fun.
- [63:17]
Jon Becker
After the rooster.
- [63:18]
Megan Scott
Yeah, after. I have so many tattoo items. But also, there was an interesting recipe that was in the book for quite a while called Mushrooms Under Glass.
- [63:28]
Jon Becker
Yes.
- [63:29]
Megan Scott
Which is like a very, very old school. In fact, in the 1940s edition.
- [63:37]
Jon Becker
No, it was like. It was in the 1931 edition. And like, the headnote to it is like, in former years, the following dish was associated in my mind with extreme luxury.
- [63:49]
Shannon Larson
Ooh.
- [63:49]
Megan Scott
So, like, when were those former days? It's a very old. Must be a very old preparation. That was a fancy trendy.
- [63:58]
Shannon Larson
What's involved?
- [64:00]
Jon Becker
Well, I could just read the recipe. Trim the stems from a pound of mushrooms. Beat until creamy. A quarter cup of butter. Stir in a little bit of lemon juice. Add parsley, salt, paprika. Cut with a biscuit cutter and toast some bread half inch thick slices of bread. Spread them with the butter, half of the butter. Spread the rest on the mushroom caps. Place the toast in the bottom of a small baking dish and heap the mushrooms upon them. Pour over them a half a cup of cream. Then you bake it at 375 for 20, 25 minutes. Add more cream if they become dry. Just before serving, add 2 tablespoons sherry and then garnish with parsley.
- [64:44]
Megan Scott
But you miss the part where you put a bowl over the mushrooms before you bake them.
- [64:48]
Ivy Manning
Right.
- [64:49]
Megan Scott
Like you put a glass bowl, invert it over the baking dish. And then I guess you. I guess the idea is you take the dish to the table and you lift off the bowl and the steam, you know, the mushroom steam comes out and it's very. It's probably really aromatic.
- [65:05]
Shannon Larson
Yeah. I'm sure it smells amazing.
- [65:06]
Megan Scott
I mean, we should. Honestly, we should make this recipe just to. Just to try it. I'm really curious.
- [65:11]
Shannon Larson
Or uninvited over that night.
- [65:13]
Jon Becker
It is funny because, like, Irma, she puts that into the head note. But it's like, oh, you can do this fancy thing with the glass bowl, which is like the whole, like, the title of the recipe. But, you know, actually in the recipe, it's like, oh, don't even bother.
- [65:26]
Megan Scott
Yeah, I mean, it does seem a little like you don't really need to do that, But I appreciate the artistry of it. It sounds very cute.
- [65:33]
Shannon Larson
I like it.
- [65:34]
Megan Scott
Yeah, it sounds like a good dinner party dish.
- [65:36]
Jon Becker
In the 1950s edition, which is the peak stuffed vegetable edition, there were definitely, like, at least four recipes for stuffed mushrooms with, unfortunately, none with chicken liver mousse, but, yeah, nuts and breadcrumbs, onions, shad roe, shadroe, and shrimp, which, again, like, I'm not sure about that. Yeah, you know, 1950s, different time.
- [66:05]
Megan Scott
Yeah, a lot of stuffed things were stuffed. All right, if you have a topic, ingredient, 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. And next week's topic comes from our caller. Well, this was an anonymous text.
- [66:24]
Ivy Manning
Next.
- [66:25]
Megan Scott
And the question is, are there any tips for making pickles canned or refrigerator crunchy versus soft? Ooh, I love this topic.
- [66:32]
Shannon Larson
I love this topic.
- [66:33]
Megan Scott
I have so much to say. Pickles.
- [66:37]
Shannon Larson
Wait, what?
- [66:37]
Megan Scott
So we're gonna talk about pickles in our next episode. What is everyone looking forward to doing this week? What are we cooking? Any plans?
- [66:47]
Shannon Larson
I will be actually pickling green tomatoes.
- [66:51]
Megan Scott
Oh, perfect.
- [66:53]
Shannon Larson
I have so many green. Our tomato plants were wonderful this year. I was very excited about them, but we had so many that now they're not ripening, so. But that's not a problem. You just pickle them and they're delicious. So I will be talking about pickled green tomatoes next week.
- [67:11]
Megan Scott
Have you ever made chow chow?
- [67:13]
Shannon Larson
I have not, but I've had chow chow.
- [67:15]
Megan Scott
Green tomato chow Chow is quite good.
- [67:17]
Shannon Larson
That's in the book, right?
- [67:18]
Megan Scott
It's in the book. Yeah. It's. Enjoy. So you can try that if you. Depending on how many you have.
- [67:22]
Shannon Larson
I have a lot. I actually have more. I need to pick. So, yeah, maybe I'll do both and I'll report back. So I'm excited.
- [67:29]
Jon Becker
Yeah. Cookbook author, fermentation expert, and friend of the show, Liz Crane. She is a big fan of the green tomato chow chow. That's in the book. It's been in the book for a really long time. Probably since the 50s.
- [67:43]
Megan Scott
Yeah.
- [67:44]
Jon Becker
Yeah.
- [67:44]
Megan Scott
It's an old one. I'm really excited about so that I noticed in this week's CSA box. So we get. We get a CSA every other CSA box every other week. And the farmers are so nice, they send out an email about kind of what to expect in your CSA box, which I really appreciate because it helps me with planning. But we're starting to get into chicory season, and I'm so excited. So I saw that we're going to get a Castelfranco chicory, which is the really pretty frilly. Like, it's kind of yellowish, but it has, like, pink speckles on it. It's just a beautiful, beautiful chicory. So I'm excited about chicory salads.
- [68:22]
Shannon Larson
I have a painting of that chicory in my dining room.
- [68:25]
Megan Scott
Like, that painting worthy for sure.
- [68:27]
Shannon Larson
But, yeah, we. We all get a CSA from flying coyote farms here in Oregon. And it's. It's.
- [68:32]
Megan Scott
They're awesome. It's so good.
- [68:33]
Shannon Larson
Yeah.
- [68:34]
Jon Becker
Yeah. I think that might be making lasagna this week. It's starting to feel like lasagna at the time.
- [68:39]
Megan Scott
Yes. It's time.
- [68:41]
Shannon Larson
It's time.
- [68:42]
Megan Scott
Ivy, what are you. You have any cooking plans this week that you're excited about?
- [68:47]
Ivy Manning
I'm fixing a paella recipe for work. A certain lifestyle guru has written. That doesn't make any sense. And I am using up the last of my matsutake, and I just got Nicola Lamb's books baking book called Sift, which is very much a. It's sort of a textbook. It's like if you wanted to win the Great British Bake off, you would read. You would study this first. And it has some really interesting recipes in it. So I've made some rough puff, and I'm gonna make her fennel and cherry tomato tarte tatin.
- [69:29]
Shannon Larson
Amazing.
- [69:30]
Megan Scott
Yeah, that sounds really good. I love a savory.
- [69:33]
Ivy Manning
We'll see how it goes. Because I'm not great at puff pastry, so I made a rough puff, and I'm hoping for the best. Yeah, I probably am gonna yutz it up.
- [69:42]
Megan Scott
Let me know how it goes.
- [69:43]
Ivy Manning
I will.
- [69:44]
Shannon Larson
Thanks for listening to the Joy of Cooking podcast. Before we go, show some love for your favorite podcast by leaving us a review on Apple podcasts and itunes or anywhere else you listen. Follow us on Instagram at the Joy of Cooking. Stay tuned for next week, where we will tackle pickles, which we're all very excited about. And please call in with questions, hopes, history, or where you find joy in the kitchen. Our number is 503-395-8858. Again, that's 503-395-8858.
- [70:13]
Megan Scott
We could not do this without our fantastic team at the Joy of Creation production house. Thank you to Kayleen Veach, our production coordinator, Haley Bowers, our audio engineer, and Sarah Marshall, our producer. Producer.