female speaker: please joinme in welcoming deb perelman to the stage. [applause] deb perelman: hi. thank you so much for havingme here today. i'm so excited to be here. i'm a total google dork. i am. i actually read my entire lifefrom google documents.
it's actually what the insideof my brain looks like. i have like this series of-- it sounds kind of weird. basically, everything that iever need to remember, i have to pull up on a google doc. so yes, i'm very excitedto be here. anyway, thank you. and this fall, smitten kitchenturned six years old. it would be a first grader.
it would be talking back, whichseems about appropriate for me being up here. and i'm often asked how i gotthe site started, but i tend to drag my feet. i know that bloggers aresupposed to like to talk about themselves, but i hate it. i think it's really awkwardbecause basically, my life story is i like to cook. i wrote a book.
the end. but i suppose you'd liketo hear a little bit more than that. so i'm just going to tell youjust like this much more. and then what i'd love to do isanswer questions, because i love answering questions. i think it's way moreinteresting. when i registered the domainname, smitten kitchen, in the summer of 2006, i actuallyexpected it to
be a six-month endeavor. i imagined that was about howlong most blogs lasted. and i didn't expect this one tolast, because i read a lot of food blogs at the time. there were a bunch. i read adam roberts' amateurgourmet and lisa fain's homesick texan. and what each blog i readhad in common was that they have an angle.
they have a story they'retelling about texan food that you miss or teaching yourselfhow to be a gourmet chef. and i don't have an angle. i just like to cook. and so i didn't imagine thatthe blog would last. but i do remember whati was looking for. and google actually comes intoplay here, too, because i remember very early on thesite i wanted to make a birthday cake for a friend.
and i knew exactly whatkind of birthday cake i wanted to make. i wanted to make one of thoseyellow, layer, buttery, vanilla-scented, plush birthdaycakes for a friend. and i didn't have a go-torecipe for it. i was somebody who liked tocook, but i didn't have these go-to recipes. and i decided to google "bestbirthday cake." and 1,670,000 results appeared.
you guys don't seem remotelysurprised by this. i guess you know that. and i had no ideawhere to start. so i started withthe first one. and it was ok. it was fine. it was good. i mean, it probably wouldhave been good enough. but i'm really picky, andi wanted to do something
different with it. i wanted to use buttermilk. i had all of these ideasfor birthday cake, and it wasn't that one. so i got to fiddling with it. and i ended up coming up with acake that i thought i wanted people to get to first. and i wanted to share that withpeople, because as much as i love and adore google, ididn't want it to be this huge
recipe roulette when you aretrying to figure out what to make for dinner or when you wantto make birthday cake. most birthday cakes are madepretty much at like, what, 11:00 pm the night beforeyour husband's or kid's birthday party. and you're just hoping to getit right the first time. you guys seem like really nicepeople, but i don't think you're going to apologize if thecake is a disaster, and it slumps on the floor at2:00 in the morning.
so i knew what kind of recipesi wanted to make. but at the time, i wasan it reporter. oh boy, if i haven't put youto sleep yet, i should tell you guys about my daysbeing an it reporter. oh boy. i have no idea what i wasdoing as an it reporter. if you met some of my formerco-workers, they would be really nice about things. but they would be like, wehave no idea what she was
doing as an it reporter,either. i had no business writingabout it or reporting. but nevertheless,it was my job. and it was one of manyiterations of my so-called career to date. i've also been anart therapist. i have been a barista. i used to write happybirthday on bakery cakes in high school.
i've taught swim lessons. i have swirled frozen custardafter college classes. i've had a lot of weird jobs. i wouldn't say that i'vebeen particularly good at any of them. but they're what i did. and i think what's even moreimprobable or illogical is that i decided i wanted to startthis food site, because as i've made clear,i don't know a
whole lot about writing. and my kitchen is aboutthe size of-- like this is probablymy entire kitchen counter right here. i have this tiny manhattankitchen, something i'm sure a lot of you guys arefamiliar with. and i am not a photographer. i do not know what half thebuttons on my camera do. i just kind of just play arounduntil i get what i'm
looking for or not,close enough. and i've never really learnedto write properly. i never went to journalismschool or anything. in fact, this entire talkhas been one long run-on sentence so far. but i wanted to startthis site. and i remember the thing thathappened very early on, the thing that kind of changed itfor me, was i remember very early on i'd shared a recipe.
and someone said-- they left me a comment. and they were like, i madeyour recipe last night. i was like, mine? you made mine? you had one hour of free timeafter putting your kid to bed, and groceries are expensive,and you don't know anything about me. and you made this recipe?
i was completely flattered,and very humbled, and utterly terrified. i realized that if people weregoing to spend their time actually making these recipes,i better start knowing what i'm doing quickly. time to start figuring it out. so that was around the time-- after one comment, therebecame more and more. and what was happening in thecomments is that people were
asking me questions, because ihad mistakenly given them the impression that i knewwhat i was doing. people would ask me, cani use cake flour instead of regular flour? what if i only have saltedbutter, not unsalted? and what if i only haveextra large eggs? ina garten only uses extra largeeggs, and you only use large eggs. what am i supposed to do?
so people would ask me allof these crazy questions. and i would scramble to getanswers, because they were there, and i wanted to help. and i actually feel that overthe years, answering all of these questions have reallyhelped me become a better cook, that it was the comments,it was the readers asking these things that i hadto figure out the answer to that really helped. anyway, so i started the sitein the fall of 2006.
and in 2008, i quitmy day job. i'm sure they were like,see you later. don't let the door hit you. but i quit my day-- and it was completelyterrifying, as i'm sure, if any of you have experienced thedeciding that you do not need your safety net anymore. but i think it was actuallyreally good for me, because it really gave me permission tostart working on the kind of
recipes i wanted to work on. i had been sort of fumblingalong on this site. but now i had this grant tostart creating the kind of recipes i wanted to each day. and it was really fun for me. and i think the siteprobably took off a bit more after then. anyway, if you cook lunch foryour friends today, and you make them, like, a really greatroast chicken, and a
salad, and whatever else you do,it's going to be amazing, because you are anamazing cook. and your friends are goingto go, oh my god. this is the best roast chickeni've ever had in my entire life, and i love this. and you should open arestaurant, because this is what people do. they say you shouldopen a restaurant. and with all due respect, ithink it's a terrible idea.
i think that opening arestaurant because you cook chicken well is areally bad idea. and a similar thing happens whenyou have a food blog that has more than twocomments a day. people say, you shouldwrite a cookbook. and i said, oh absolutely not. i think writing a cookbookis the worst idea in the entire world. and i will never, ever,ever write a cookbook.
but that kept happening. and i kept saying no. and that went on for aboutanother two or three years. and it would've stayedthat way. and i would not be probablystanding here today. but what happened was-- and i'msure not the first person to say this-- buti got pregnant. and i know it's sort of cheesy,but becoming a parent sort of shifted my paradigma little bit.
ok, it was the hormones. i was like, my baby is nevergoing to know what i do when he grows up. i was like, he can't holda website in his hand. he won't know what i did. and he'll never knowabout these meals. and what if this website-- i get tired of doing it,and then i don't do it. anyway, so very logical,rational line of thought led
me to deciding that i wasgoing to write a book. but it wasn't justthat simple. despite saying ok, maybe i'llwrite a book, i was still a little resistant to the idea. i am so in love withthe web format. i wasn't one of these people whowas just like, oh, i have a blog, and i hope iget a book deal. i was like, i have a blog, andi hope if i write a book, it doesn't ruin the site.
because i really feel likei love doing the site. i love being able to writelong introductions. you can't really fitthose in books. i like to be able to talkfor as long as i want, as you can see. i love being able toadd process photos. most cookbooks, they just showyou a final shot, if even one. and it looks really pretty,but i don't think it helps people as much cook that recipeas a few details from
the recipe, like what the onionslook like when you chop them or what the frostingtexture is going to be on the beaters. i think those thingsreally help. and i wanted the cookbookto include that. and i really like commentson websites. i didn't know how i was going tobe able to have those in a paper book. and i still don't, actually.
so i had this whole crazy listof rules for the book that i basically wrote knowing thatnobody was ever going to agree to them, and i'd neveractually have to write the book. that was my great, reallyprofessional plan. and the first one was thati wanted to have these longer intros. i wanted to have as many processphotos as possible. although it was going to becalled "the smitten kitchen
cookbook," i didn't wantit to just have recipes from the site. i wanted it to be mostly new. and the book is, in fact,85% new recipes. i didn't want people to buy abook that they could just get for free online. it seemed kind of insultingto ask people to do that. and then, as if i hadn't hada ridiculous enough list of demands, i heard about thisthing called lay-flat binding.
you know when you're in thekitchen, and you have a cookbook open, and it closeson you, i didn't want it to do that. i think i'm like the firstauthor ever that came to a publisher and said, and here'sthe kind of binding i want. i mean, i was really tryingto get them to say no. and it didn't work, whichis why i'm here. the last harebrained idea i hadwas that i thought, even though i was about to have anewborn, and i'd never written
a book before, and i have thisfull-time job, which is taking care of my website,no big deal. i was going to write the bookin six months, because isn't that like a normal amountof time to write a book? so i was absolutely insistentthat i was going to finish it in six months. and i insisted that they putit in the contract and everything. so that was really great.
so three years later,the book is here. i kind of like to callit my second baby. at 336 pages and 2.8 pounds,i think she's a beaut. and i dedicated herto my first baby. and now i would be happyto answer any questions you have-- almost any, most questions. i will not answer the questionof when i'm going to have another kid, because i knowmy mom put you up to it.
and she's totally busted. oh what? you want me to-- oh, use the micover there or over there-- awesome-- if you want to aska question or heckle me. heckling is fine. i can handle it. audience: i have a question. i'm melissa. i love your blog so much.
i've gotten away with-- like, people think that i'm anamazing cook, and i'm not-- deb perelman: you arean amazing cook. audience: --because it'sso self-explanatory. i guess one, with the photos,how do you do the photos if you don't think of yourselfas a photographer? because i think that's a reallyrich part of the site. and also, what was the catalystto sort of decide that you wanted to make theleap, besides just like
disenchantment with your oldjob and interest in this? deb perelman: so melissaasked about the photos. and i really do consider myselfa photography hack. i mean, there are people whocan have very serious conversations about lightingand scrims and aperture. and i'm like, i'm justlike reading those words in my head. i don't even know whathalf of them mean. i really just kindof fiddle around.
i like working by a window. natural light makesthings easy. i use a dslr. and i use a 50-millimeterlens, which is often considered a portrait lens,because i really like to take sharp pictures. i know what i want thephotos to look like. i'm just not-- the difference, i think, is aprofessional photographer
could make it happen. and i just kind ofhope it happens. cross my fingers. maybe today will be the dayi get the shot i want. but i mostly just take photosas i'm working. i keep the camera right outsidethe kitchen on a shelf one foot higher thanmy son can reach. and i just usuallyjust grab it. and i've gotten in the habitof just taking photos at
almost every step, just becausei find that if i don't, it will be the time thatit worked out perfectly the first time. i'm like, d'oh. i use auto focus. i mean, i'm such a hack. and you had asked abouthow i knew it was time to make the leap. well, i've always hadads on my site.
i try to keep themsmall and subtle. i like people who come to thesite to know that they're more important than the littlestuff in the sidebar. but i've always hadad earnings. and basically, as the site grew,the ad earnings grew. and because i was, like, theworst reporter in the world, i had basically no salaryto speak of. so getting the outside salaryto match the job salary was not quite the process it wouldbe if you had a real job.
so for me, it was really justabout figuring out if i could make do without myday job salary. and that was basicallywhat happened. i mean, you guys know this, butwebsites make money the same way television shows andmagazines and newspapers do. they just sell ads alongside the content. so the more popular the show,magazine, readership is, the more money thereis to be made. but you guys know this.
you've got google ads. hi. oh, hi. audience: i'm wondering, whatare some of the best tips or hints that you would have tocooking in a small kitchen? deb perelman: actually, i lovethat question, because i have lived in new yorkfor a long time. and i didn't cookthe whole time. and i didn't cookin my dorm room.
and i was not this great,motivated, young cooker. i think it helps to start withsomething that you really hunger, like that you're hungryfor, something specific that you're cravingthat you don't-- this is new york city. you can get most foodspretty well. but there are still some whereyou're like, nobody makes tomato soup the way i like it. nobody makes thiswild rice pilaf.
ok, i'm probably the only onehas weird cravings for wild rice pilaf. pie? how about pie? but to start with something thatyou're not getting the way you want, so you'll be supermotivated to deal with all the limitations ofyour tiny kitchen. i mean tiny kitchens areabsolutely annoying. but if you're hungry enough, andyou want that enough, and
you're excited enoughto make it, i think you'll put up with it. beyond that, i think that youshould clear your counters, get all the clutteroff of them. like forget the coffee maker. you can go out and buy coffee. you can leave on what you want,but i actually just clear the decks. i don't keep anything besidesmaybe some salt, like pinch
dishes, on my countermost times. and it really helps you feellike, at least if you have the space, you have enough. and remember that at all yourfavorite restaurants in the city, they are working withstations about this big, too. and they put out like what,hundreds of meals a night? so we can probably make do. but i think the mainthing is to just to start with one recipe.
it doesn't have to be a smittenkitchen recipe. when i'm googling for a recipeor looking, i gravitate towards recipes that havecomments and reviews, sometimes to just have one ortwo outside people saying, oh my god, i made this, and it waswonderful, gives me the confidence to know thati'm not going to totally waste my time. and then just startfrom there. and then move ontothe next thing.
and soon, you'll have arepertoire of things that you make, that you can make as analternative to going out or ordering in all the time. audience: i have anothersmall kitchen question. deb perelman: sure. audience: where do you find thespace to store all of your gadgets and thingsfor the kitchen? that's my first question. and then, i'm also wondering,what are some of your favorite
restaurants in new york? deb perelman: i store thingsin my son's room. i don't know. things are just everywherethese days. at one point, i wasreally good. like the new york ruleis like, one thing in, one thing out. you get a new pan, you haveto get rid of an old pan. or you get a new sweater,you have to get
rid of an old sweater. something fell out of balanceover the process of me writing the book. and i have this stack of stuffin the living room. it looks terrible. but beyond that pile ofdoom, i actually-- our kitchen is so small, and ithas, like, three cabinets. and when we moved in, i realizedthat i could either keep dishes in there, or icould keep food in there.
i knew there was no wayi could keep both. and so what we actually didis we got a china cabinet. and we put it out inthe living room. and so one day, it mightactually hold china. now it holds everyday glassesand dishes and flatware. so that's been a big help. the other thing i'm a huge fanof is get a pot and pan rack. my kitchen is so tiny. but i just have a flat one.
it's like a rail. and it's over the window. and just anchor it with theheaviest, strongest-- you're like, oh i only have200 pounds of pots. it's ok. get the 500 bolt. you're not going tobe sad about it. get it anchored upreally well. and the other thing is i havesome space above my cabinets,
which would normally be adust and grease trap. it probably still is. but i have some of thosevertical plate racks, or file folders. and i keep a lot of mybakeware up there. so you don't have that stuffcluttering up your cabinets. so anything you can do to justclear the space out. after that, it's really justabout deciding if you really need two peelers or you reallyneed, like, eight knives.
maybe you don't needa knife block. maybe just one knife will do. so after that, it's just choicesand yelling sometimes, because it is really annoying. wait, did you have a secondquestion, or is that it? audience: my second questionwas what are some of your favorite new york restaurants? deb perelman: hmm, well, onthe way over here, we were talking about wallse, whichis this-- probably
not terribly popular. it's like austrian, german. kurt gutenbrunner. he's got other places in thecity that are more exciting. but i love going there for thistime of year, good bib lettuce salad, pumpkinseed oil, and the schnitzel is fantastic. i don't have a go-tofavorite right now. perla is really good inthe west village.
i think like most new yorkers,there are places i gravitate to in my neighborhood. i live in the east village. and like i love the red headfor fried chicken. but i don't have an all-overfavorite restaurant. but i'm happy to audition oneand come back to you with a suggestion. audience: hi. i love your blog.
i make tons of your recipes. deb perelman: thank you. audience: and what i love aboutit is it's arranged by ingredient. so when i'm like, oh, i havea butternut squash. what should i make? or i have too many pears, theni know i can go and find something to do with it. but what i found is with allof your baked good recipes,
strangely, i always haveto add more liquid. and what i'm wondering iswhat am i doing wrong? like what is going on thatthis is happening? deb perelman: you meanlike shortbread? because i mean, you should checkout the scone section where everybody complains thateverything's too sticky. so do you mean like crumblyshortbread type stuff? audience: so the first recipeof yours that i made-- i remember this actually--
it was the everyday raspberrycake that i make all the time now. it's just like a thinsheet cake. and you put fruit in-- deb perelman: oh, right. that came out dry? audience: when i looked at thebatter, i was like, this is like a cookie dough. deb perelman: oh, yeah it is.
so actually thoseare the best. it's actually intentionallythat way. audience: really? deb perelman: whenyou're making-- have you ever made the blueberrymuffins, too? they're so thick. it's like a cookie dough. so the trick is-- one of thethings that i read a lot in the comments is thatpeople hate it when
fruit sinks in cakes. and actually, the trick isto have thicker batters. people say that if you read oneof your mom's recipes, it will probably tell you todust the fruit in flour before it goes in. and it helps a little bit, butactually, it's thicker batters that spread nicely. and it pulls the moisture fromthe fruit as it cooks. so they're actuallyintentionally--
a good, thick batter, usuallyworks out really nicely, especially if there'sfruit in it. it bakes out to be a good,tender consistency. audience: i never gaveit a chance. i just added more milk becausei was like, there's no way. deb perelman: no, no, no. bake it up. it's fine. that's a good one.
no, it's actually likea yellow cake. and it has this extra moisture,which are the juices from the raspberries. so it keeps the fruitfrom sinking. and it also gives it a reallynice crumb, because you have all that fresh fruitin there that would add a lot of wetness. otherwise, it can geta little soggy. so actually, i like when i seegood thick cake batters that
spread nicely because theyusually work out really well and have a nice crumb. but was there another one? audience: i'm just tryingto remember-- deb perelman: i'm hereto help you. audience: thank you. i made your rhubarb muffinswith the crumb topping. deb perelman: super thick, too,especially-- and it's the same thing.
it was the rhubarb, theblueberry muffins, like all of them, the plum onesin the book. the idea is-- actually intentionally thick. but it gets the moisture fromthe fruit as it bakes. and the fruit shouldn't sink. audience: so the problem is ijust have not been having enough faith is whatyou're saying. deb perelman: youshould trust me.
you should have faith. well, i mean i understand whyyou wouldn't trust me not knowing me. but i can tell you that partis, at least, intentional. audience: i was wondering howmany times you make a recipe to consider it tested. deb perelman: oh, i haven'ttested them. sorry. yeah, i have to stopsaying that.
people aren't really laughing. so it can really range. if i'm starting from like-- thatraspberry cake that she mentioned is actually anold "gourmet" recipe. and it's fantastic. i think i made that twicebecause it's a good recipe. i didn't want to changeanything. it was just really great. that would be somethingi'd put on the site.
for the book, i was steppinga lot further out of my comfort zone. and so it was often thingsi'd never made or never seen before. i wanted-- i'm not going to ask you to buya book full of things that you already know how to make. so it could be anywhere from,i would say a minimum of six times to there arethings that--
i mean, the lemon bars inthere, i think i like completely went nuts. i think i made them,like, 18 times. the fig challa-- there are things where i wasreally stuck on one part where i just felt like it was thiskink that wasn't ironed out. and so i didn't want topublish it unless i was 100% about it. so it could really range.
there were recipes i couldn'teven look at for, like, six months because i was sotired of testing them. so i was wondering, aside fromnumber of tries, what's your process of creating a recipe? like how do you go about-- doyou look at a recipe and start to hack it? or do you just think ofsomething you want, and you already know the ratio? i'm very curious.
deb perelman: you know,it really can depend. it can be-- sometimes, i want to make-- ok, i got this weird ideaa couple months ago. and i haven't been in my kitchenthat much since i started the book tour. so we'll get to thatin january. but i love rye bread toastfor breakfast, and i love english muffins.
so i was like, i want to makerye bread english muffins. so this is the ideai have in my head. the first thing i wouldprobably do is i would probably google it. and i think what i will probablyfind is that nobody has my weird taste in this,and it doesn't exist. so from there, i've made englishmuffins a few times. and i've also made rye bread. so i might take a couple ofthese recipes and sort of mash
them together. i actually do type up-- likei write a recipe, including every detail that i couldpossibly think that will come up. i try to get my best guessof what i think will be a working, functioning recipe,print it up, stick it to my fridge with a magnet. i've got a cup of pens up there,take notes as i'm going adding adjustments or oh my god,never make this again,
with a big scribble over it. let's say i do find thatsomebody's made it. i might look at the recipe andsay, is this really what i want to make? is this close? if it looks really close,i might just make it word for word. and if it's exactly the same,say hey, by the way, you should make peter reinhart'srye bread english muffins.
they're amazing. and if i make it, and it'squite far off from what i wanted, that's when i'llstart tweaking. and it goes into additionalrounds. so it can depend. it depends on how obscureit is, i guess. i hope that helps. i was wondering if there was aparticular recipe, or a few recipes, that were your favoriteor that you thought
were most memorable? deb perelman: in the bookor on the site? audience: overall. deb perelman: you meanchoose a favorite? so i tend to think of foodvery seasonally. like the things i want to cookin december are so different from what i want tocook in january. and so-- i was like, oh, englishmuffins.
that's january. don't ask me why. it's just this is howi am in my head. when i think of a wholesomebreakfast bun, i think of january. and when i think of decadentfrench toast, i think of mother's day. so i don't know. that's just me.
so for right now, for thismonth, i'm all about, as most people are, holiday cooking,heavy roasts. i think the short ribs in thebook are so great for a good holiday party, because theykeep really well. like you could make them a dayor two before a party. there are brown butter mashedpotatoes-- no, was that with the brown-- that hasthe parsnip puree. but you can use the brown buttermashed potatoes from the meatloaf.
so i definitely think a lotmore about heavier, roasty meats this time of year. if you're a vegetarian, i highlyrecommend you do not let the month go by before youmake mushroom bourguignon, because it's such a greatway to get that amazing bourguignon flavor withouthaving to eat beef or cook beef for several hours withvery exacting steps. and, of course, cookies. you've got to bake cookiesthis time of year.
i love the gooey cinnamonsquares in the book are my-- like the book was done. and they were like, couldyou stop adding recipes. i'm like just one more. and that was the last onethey let me sneak in. i felt it was like, wehave to put these in. and they're basically-- you do it in a pan. and the bottom is asnickerdoodle, and the top is
like a layer from gooeybutter cake. it's a st. louis thing. and the top has this cinnamonsugar that you would normally roll the snickerdoodles in. so it's just like butter,vanilla, cinnamon, butter, vanilla, cinnamon and thenin tiny squares. so it tastes like a toastedmarshmallow on top. ok, you guys are goingto make them, right? ok, good.
after you've had so manyhundreds of recipes on your blog, how are you able tocome up with all new recipes for your book? and what was the time framelike in developing those? and then also, wasn't it alittle bit heartbreaking to not be able to include someof the ones off of your blog in the book? deb perelman: so whatwas your name? audience: michelle.
deb perelman: hi, michelle. ok, so the first questionwas how did-- so i don't know. the ideas, they just come. i don't know wherethey come from. i mean, i would say that if iwake up one day, and i don't feel like cooking anything, ihave no new ideas, it's just time to go back and revisit anold favorite or go out and refill the proverbial well.
i mean, we all hitwalls sometimes. and usually, it's just fatigue,or you're working too hard, or you haven't takenenough of a break. if i've actually cooked fourdays in a row, i don't even want to look at a kitchen. i do not cook every day. i cook some days. i cook when i feel like it. that sounds really bratty.
but especially, i mean, for non-"dinner needs to be on the table, and we're hungry,"it's a creative process. and so you have to sortof not push too hard. but i actually keep a very--this is the google docs-- i have a very, very long list. i have a document calledcook this. and it is pretty much everyrecipe idea i've ever had, usually sorted by seasonsor months or holidays. and when i say sorted, it'svery loosely organized.
but it might just be anythingfrom those rye english muffins, to a salad i didn't getto, something that didn't make it into the book, thingsthat are partially made that might link to another documentwith the full recipe in it. it's a labyrinth. so i just try to jotthings down. and i use the notes function onmy phone all the time when i'm on the road. i'm sorry.
your second questionwas about-- audience: what was the timeframe like for developing everything? you said the book tookthree years. deb perelman: i said it wassupposed to be six months, but don't do what i did. i missed every deadline. i think i missed, like,two major deadlines. i was starting to get threats.
i wouldn't recommend it. i'm sure that my editor has somegrey hairs because of me. i thought i could finishit in six months. i had no idea whati was doing. always give yourself moretime than you need. you're not going tobe sad to have it. this is like your baby. you should do it properly. and so i ended up probablygetting it in about a year an
a half late. no big deal. year and a half or so. and sorry, you askedone more question. and i'm not usuallythis forgetful. audience: oh, i just asked ifthere was anything from-- like if it was hard for you tonot to be able to include everything from your blog. deb perelman: sometimesi'm like, i have
something on the site. i'm like, oh, this is so good. it would've been so greatfor the book. but i guess i could alwaysdecide not this week, not next week, but maybe at some point,i will consider writing another book. and it could fit in. or maybe one day a best of thesite could always happen. but i don't generally feel thatby putting things on the
web i'm losing out. i mean, i know that for somepeople, their books are the center of their career. there are some foodpersonalities the show is. for me, it's reallythat website. and so i never feel like i'mgiving anything away for free or missing a chance to sell itto people or something like that, because i feel like-- i mean, in general, anything onthe site is always going to
get more eyeballs than a book. so i'm happy to havethings there. but maybe one day therewill be a collection. and i mean at the rate-- it took me three yearsto write this book. can you imagine howlong it would take me to get that done? a decade. so i have two questions.
the first one is, so youmentioned in the book you've made some recipes six timesor, like, 18 times. so how do you stay motivated,after you messed something up, to do it again? because i find that when i trya recipe, and it goes wrong, i'm just so deflated. i'm like, ugh, now i'm justgoing to order pizza, because i don't feel like cookingit again. deb perelman: that is exactlywhat i do, by the way.
i get totally pissy, andi storm out of the kitchen in a huff. and i angry text my husband. i'm like, this is terrible. hope you're picking up pizzaon the way home. i do not handle things well. so don't worry about it. audience: but yet you still makethem, like, the next week or something?
deb perelman: eventually. and sometimes i don'tget back to things. it depends on if, like if i feellike it was centrally at fault, or even it came outcorrectly, but it tasted terrible, back to thedrawing board. other times, it's just like ineed to take a break from it and come back. and i've done that a lot. there are things that never madeit into the book because
i wasn't really ready torevisit them in time. and then, actually, a lot ofthem have ended up on the site since then. there are some dijon-braisedbrussels sprouts that i was dying to put in the book. and i made them, like, 12 times,and they were just never right. and all i needed to do was juststop working on it and take a break and come back andbe like, right, i was doing
the sauce all wrong. i was making thistoo complicated. and then i made them. and it was like literally oneround before i felt like they were ready for the site,after 12 rounds of pulling my hair out. another one is there arestrawberries and cream biscuits on the site. and for some reason, i intendedthem for the book.
but i was like-- they had annoyed me. i felt like they weren'tinteresting. and i felt that they hinged toostrongly on having really freshly picked strawberries. and i felt like that's kind ofan unfair thing to put in a book that's supposedto be year round. i mean obviously, fresh produceis always best. but there's really a differencebetween the
strawberries that you pick andthe strawberries that you can buy in december. and i didn't want most peopleto be unhappy with it. so anyway, there are a lot ofthings where i don't come back to it, or i come backto it years later. and that's where the list comesin, because i can always revisit something when i feellike and not feel like i have to work on that untilit's done. audience: so my other questionis, since you've started
blogging, has that kindof ruined going out to restaurants for you? where you go to a restaurant,and you're like i can make this at home. or i would change this, andi would make this better. do you ever think that? deb perelman: not atall, actually. i still love going out, becausei just like the-- and i like to just turn off thecooking brain and just get
to try new flavors. i usually like picking somethingvery weird on the menu that doesn't sound verygood, because why would they have it on the menu unless-- i mean, everybody has roastchicken and steak on the menu. but it's when you hear, like,turnip gratin and pasta that you're like, wow, i bet that'sgood, or they wouldn't be trying to sell it. so i get a lot of ideasfrom going out.
ok, fine, it's kind of hardfor me to buy muffins at coffee shops. they're really terriblefor the most part. and i would say in almostall cases, you can do better at home. there are a few exceptions. but i would say that breakfastbaked goods are hard to get excited about outsidemy own kitchen. but beyond that, everythingelse, i'm so happy somebody
else is cooking. i'm like, thank you. thank you so much. as somebody who's been bloggingfor a really long time about food, do you have anyopinions on pinterest or how this has affected yoursite or the process of figuring out stuff at all? deb perelman: that's sucha good question. pinterest hasn't actuallychanged anything for me.
i think it's great. i don't use it thatmuch, personally. like, i don't pin my recipes. but i make them pinnable. it hasn't really causedany static for me. i know there are a lot of peoplein the beginning who felt like there are certainlysome copyright issues. is that what you meant? audience: well, there'scopyright.
and did it increase yourtraffic, or do you feel like-- deb perelman: i thinkit has, actually. i mean my general feelingwith new technology-- i sound like an old fogey-- with new technologies that haveemerged since i started blogging is i actually like tomeet people where they are. as long as it's no real troublefor me-- like when everybody was gravitatingtowards facebook-- god, this makes me sound likean old blogger--
i set up a facebook page. i post a link to newrecipes there. when a lot of people wanted tofind out about new recipes through twitter, i createda twitter feed that just updates recipes. audience: then why don't youhave a pinterest board? deb perelman: i do havea pinterest-- well, to me there's a totallydifferent process from-- i kind of think pinterest isbetter when it's not just site
owners pinning theirown stuff. somebody else usually does, soi don't usually do that. in terms of me personally usingpinterest, like to use bookmarks, i don't know. i'm very resistant to it. i do actually have a board. for some reason, there'sthis thing. this is just like a personalthing, but i feel like i would probably just create acollection of things that i
wanted to buy and eithercouldn't afford-- i felt like it was sort ofunhealthy for me to just collects wants and needsand whatever. that sounds weird. so in general, i personally-- because i know i would justpin like really expensive stuff that i don't really needto be spending my money on. but at the same time, i lovelooking at pinterest and other people's boards forinspiration.
as an artsy fartsy person, ilove to follow design people and just see whatthey're finding. but i actually think it'sbeen great for sites. i mean, especially with foodblogging, visual bookmarks are an important thing. and i know a lot of foodbloggers have changed the way they do their photos to havecaptions on them in the photo. but i just don't want to messup the photos that way. so i haven't changed that.
i don't want to. so it sounds like you do mostof your research online. how you feel about moretraditional, like "the joy of cooking" or older books? what's in your library? deb perelman: i lovecookbooks. i am on the computer, so ittends to be like the place that i look first. but it depends on whati'm looking for.
i mean, i am a huge fan of-- i believe that everybody needs"mastering the art of french cooking" in their library. i have larousse. i have "the joy of cooking." ihave a lot of the classics. and then i have new booksi pick up each season. so there are a wholebunch of books i've picked up this fall. i've been spending a lotof time in bookstores.
and so every time i go,i pick up a new book. i love using cookbooks. i almost prefer cookbooksfor reading. i feel like the recipes thatcome in the kitchen with me are usually more often from awebsite or something that jumped out at me from a book. but for the books, i liketo read them in bed. it's like looking at abeautiful magazine. i wish they weren't so heavy.
i'd read them on a plane. so i really love cookbooks forreading, especially because it's more of an organizedthing. with the web, you only getwhat you ask for from it, whatever it retrieves backbased on your request. but with a book, you end up-- i keep thinking of this rootsbook i picked up this fall. and it's like a living in a coldclimate, as most of us do, pretty much the only freshvegetables we have all winter
from green markets areroot vegetables. and i don't really know-- i have a bunch of things i liketo do with each, but this is, like, 200 recipes. and its stunning. and just each pageis this new idea. so when you are at the market,and all they have is turnips, wow, here are eight recipesthat are like really original for it.
that one i've been thumbingthrough when i'm supposed to be sleeping. so i really love it. and i feel like buying cookbooksis almost like buying beloved art books,especially with so many of them having so many beautifulphotos these days. there is a place forall of them-- well, maybe not in my apartment,but i keep buying them anyway.
nobody with questions? yeah, ask. audience: so i reallylike the disasters section of your blog. i think it's really funny thatyou put up the recipes that totally fail. and they still have thesegorgeous pictures that look really nice. and i'm just curious, how manythings do you cook that you're
like, this definitely goesin the disaster pile? do you do them like numeroustimes and fail over and over again before theymake it there? or how do you decide? deb perelman: so yeah, in theearly days of the site, i had this disasters category. and i used to-- if i just made something thatwas an utter flop, i was like martha, i can't believeyou did this to me.
this is the worst recipe ever. and it was like that. and i've stopped populatingit so much for a couple of reasons. one, people wouldmake it anyway. and they'd be like,this was terrible. i'm like, i told you that,but it doesn't matter. and i felt bad thatpeople were having disasters because of me.
i don't want them to associatemy site with failures in their kitchen. the other part is as readershipgrew, i felt a lot worse calling peopleout and being mean about terrible recipes. i'll say it, but for me, i feellike it's far more useful for me these days to make therecipe work and say, this recipe did not work theway it was printed. here are a lot of changes imade, but not just leave
people at a dead end. so i don't do it as much, butthere are plenty of disasters. that does not mean that wedo not have failures. by the time they're onthe site, i've done something with them. or i'll say, i've madethis soup, and it was utterly revolting. it was pureed spinach water. like i did.
it was really gross. here's something that ithink is a lot better. here's how i changed it. so i try to lead itto a positive-- like a happy ending, like aromantic comedy at the end just so it's more useful forpeople than just complaining. so yeah, but it was sort of funto have a collection of things that were just awful. is there any chef or cookthat you consider
your culinary hero? deb perelman: oh man. i'm not a big chef follower. one of my favorite restaurantsin new york city was-- before it closed-- was tabla. i love it. and i loved everything floydcardoz touched, i thought it was perfect. and so of course, i followedhim downtown.
and i've been to north end grilla couple times, and it's just as amazing becausei think it's the chef. i mean, he is what transformsthese ingredients in a very specific way. so that was definitelyone of my favorites. i love michael anthony. i think he was up atstone barns before. and he's at gramercytavern now. so there are definitely somenames that have stuck out to
me at restaurants wherei've had good meals. and i often realize that i ateat their other restaurant at some point. but i do tend to follow chefnames more than i follow actual restaurant projects. it means a lot more to me toknow who's cooking there. like i mentioned this wallseplace, this kurt gutenbrunner-- well, i mean his personalityaside, he makes a lot of the
food that i like to eat. so i wouldn't say i have onelike david chang level chef worship, like some name in thestars, though you know, who doesn't like momofuku? i live in the east village, soit's like chang is all around at all times. so i don't have one. but there are definitely namesthat jump out for me more that mean a lot.
and of course, especially whenthey've had a cookbook, like "sunday suppers at lucques"from suzanne goin. i always pronounceher name wrong. she's out in la. that cookbook is one ofmy favorite cookbooks. and so then, of course, goingto the restaurant is so much more meaningful, knowing how shespeaks and talks, writes recipes in a whole collection. that was not very articulate.
but yeah, there are some. do you have a favorite chef? audience: i am a bigfan of alton brown. deb perelman: nice. for home cooking, he is it. he doesn't have restaurants,right? he's just a home cook guy. audience: i think so. deb perelman: he's just gotcookbooks and grape juice.
but yeah, i agree. he makes amazing recipesfor home cooks. i think that he, ina, "cook'sillustrated--" i mean if you're a home cook and trying tofigure out where to start, those are the places. thank you.