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What would the holidays be without food and family? These elements are at the very heart of our celebrations, and no one does a better job of blending the two than Savannah's own Paula Deen. This holiday season, Deen's millions of fans can sample Christmas traditions, Southern style, in a beautifully designed gift book, Christmas with Paula Deen. This collection of recipes, family photos, gift ideas and Christmas stories would put even the Grinch in the mood for a holiday party. Deen took a few minutes from her whirlwind of media appearances to tell BookPage about the new book and her family's plans for the holidays.

You say in the book that when it comes to Christmas, anticipatin' is the best part. What are you most excited about this holiday season?
One word: Jack. He's my grandson who's now walkin', just gettin into a run actually. Just to watch him this Christmas, opening presents, will be the most fabulous gift I could ever have.

What's your favorite Christmas memory from your childhood?
My favorite memory from childhood would have to been when I was five years old. My brother Bubba wasn't born yet, so I was all alone, didn't have to share my parents or Christmas with anybody. Santa was at the top of his game, bringing all the toys I asked for including a baby doll that was just exquisite.

What holiday traditions did your husband Michael bring into the family? Has it been fun to blend your traditions with his?
To tell you the truth, Michael didn't have a lot of holiday traditions before we met. The poor fella was working so much, being off on a ship he just wasn't at home. But he sure gave me my favorite Christmas memory as an adult when he asked me to marry him. The way he surprised me, with the whole family around us, was perfect in the most romantic way.

Why is being home for the holidays so important to you?
I don't know if my Daddy once spent a Christmas away from us, but I remember very clearly that he would never allow us to be away from home at the holidays. And I'm sure that's why it's so very important to me.

Who will do the Christmas cooking for your family this year you or the boys?
I will. And the kids will probably help. But I'll be doing most of it.

What is the one thing you most enjoy cooking for the holidays?
Probably candies, because it's something I don't ordinarily make throughout the rest of the year. I make lots of cakes, pies and cookies throughout the year . . . but Christmas means candy!

Give us your real opinion on turducken: a crazy fad or worth the effort?
You know, actually a turducken is not hard! It would be impossible without a good butcher. The butcher does all the work. You just have to lay one on top of the other, fold it all back and it's ready to go. Now, it does take a long time to cook. But the flavors you get are delicious. My absolute favorite though, is still a fried turkey.

Does anyone in your family actually eat fruitcake?
No. Not a traditional fruitcake. My mama used to make a delicious Japanese fruitcake though. And I have an icebox fruitcake that is very good and the family enjoys.

What's the easiest Christmas cookie for a novice cook to attempt?
Slice and bake cookies from the grocery store (laughs)! Actually, traditional cookies like oatmeal or chocolate chip or peanut butter are all fairly easy to make. I wouldn't suggest a Magnolia Lace Trumpet cookie the first time, but the traditional cookies are easy and just great.

What do you want Santa to bring you this year?
Nothing. Unless maybe another grandchild (laughs). Michael and I enjoy our blended family so much. They've all come together, it's like we've always been together. So if I wished for something it would be another addition to this beautiful family.

When you count your blessings, what's at the top of the list?
My family and the fact that we're healthy and all able to work. God granted us good health and we're thankful for that.

What would the holidays be without food and family? These elements are at the very heart of our celebrations, and no one does a better job of blending the two than Savannah's own Paula Deen. This holiday season, Deen's millions of fans can sample Christmas…

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What marks the start of the holiday season for you?
Bobby: College football! Especially the first Bulldogs game.
Jamie: When the weather turns a little cooler.

Does your family have one very special holiday tradition?
Bobby: We gather at Mom’s. She cooks and we all laugh and talk. But every day is Christmas for us.
Jamie: We always open one present Christmas Eve.

What are you most looking forward to during the holiday season?
Bobby: Spending time with my family, and watching my nephew enjoy it!
Jamie: My son Jack’s face on Christmas morning.

What’s your favorite holiday book or song?
Bobby: Just about any Elvis Christmas song. “White Christmas,” maybe? “Here Comes Santa Claus”?
Jamie: My new favorite is Elf on the Shelf—it’s great for children.

Why do books make the best gifts?
Bobby: Because they last and require so much thought to give. Also, they can be enjoyed over and over.
Jamie: When someone spends time choosing a book for a gift it reveals something about the giver and how they feel about the “givee.”

What books are you planning to give to friends and family?
Bobby: I’ll have to go shop.
Jamie: How not to Act Old—for myself! And The Deen Bros. Take It Easy, of course!

What was the best book you read this year?
Bobby: My favorite book is my dictionary. I use it every day. I also have some intellectual daily devotionals that I really love.
Jamie: Inherent Vice by Thomas Pynchon.

What’s your number one resolution for 2010?
Bobby: Be the best husband, father, brother and son I can be.
Jamie: I don’t really do resolutions. I just strive to be better every day and leave a positive impression on everyone I come in contact with. And always do the right thing.

What marks the start of the holiday season for you?
Bobby: College football! Especially the first Bulldogs game.
Jamie: When the weather turns a little cooler.

Does your family have one very special holiday tradition?
Bobby: We gather at Mom’s. She cooks and we all laugh…

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When you bite into a burger, a steak sandwich or pile of juicy wings—and sauce drips down your wrist and your jaw aches from opening wide—you’re having a classic Guy Fieri moment.

The restaurateur, author and top-rated Food Network personality is best known for his hit show “Diners, Drive-ins & Dives” and the best-selling cookbooks of the same name, in which he travels the nation in his ’67 Camaro in search of the best hole-in-the-wall joints with “good food by good people.” 

But long before “Triple D” (as Fieri refers to it), his quirky rock-’n’-roll, adrenaline-fueled food philosophy helped him win season two of “The Next Food Network Star.”

“I didn’t want to do ‘The Next Food Network Star,’” the very busy Fieri says in a phone interview. “I had no interest—go on national TV and lose? But I always had this mantra in my company: Take that hill. Be all that you can be. That’s the challenge.”

He sized up the competition and realized that most of the contestants were younger and had been to culinary school. He decided to focus on “having a good time, and maybe I’d get to meet Emeril and hang out with Bobby Flay.”

Fieri ended up winning the whole thing, and made his Food Network debut with “Guy’s Big Bite.” Ditching the traditional chef’s coat and bandana for bowling shirts, spiky dyed blond hair, tattoos and man-bling, he created a big, bold, in-your-face food category that he has made his own.

“I’m comfortable with who I am and how I cook and what I do,” Fieri says. “I don’t believe in luck. I think it all comes back to surrounding yourself with good people, surrounding yourself with information and, more importantly, feeling comfortable in your own skin.”

On May 3, Fieri moves a bit beyond his bad-boy, rock-’n’-roll image with his first cookbook of original recipes, Guy Fieri Food, which includes more than 125 recipes, plus color photos and cooking tips. The same goofball humor and big flavors are there, and the same emphasis on quality ingredients and expert preparation, whether it’s a hot dog or filet mignon. But this book focuses on how he cooks at home in Northern California, where he also owns and manages a small chain of fusion restaurants.

“I’m very into ethnic food, fresh food, vegetables,” Fieri says. “I’m a huge texture person. Love BBQ, love stuff that has to cook for 12-16 hours, love Asian food, love complexities, love French food, Italian food, love making pasta, love making food and working with it.”

Guy Fieri Food features twists on everyday classics from appetizers, soups, salads, sandwiches, pizza and pastas, to main course meats and seafood, vegetables and sides, sauces and marinades, a smattering of desserts and drinks, all with a funky fusion of flavors (Irish Nachos, anyone?).

“The recipes are out of bounds,” Fieri says. “Everything from Asian to All-American to cooking with your kids, to homemade whole wheat pizza dough to juicing fresh vegetables, making chicken stock, tomato sauce and meatballs—not that I’m trying to be everything to everybody. I just opened up my Rolodex to the 150 recipes that I’ve been cooking at home and this is what you get.”

While Blackened Sesame Salmon with Cellophane Noodle Salad, Caramelized Leek and Apple Pizza and Lamb Loin Chops with Mint Pesto could be at home in any California restaurant, Fieri adds Bacon Jalapeno Duck Nuggets, No Can Beato This Taquito, and Good-to-Go Pizza Dough to the mix. It’s the high and low he’s known for.

“There are some steak sandwiches, there is some crazy food in there,” Fieri says of the new book that aims to teach as well as make cooks salivate. “But what you’re going to see is a lot of fresh ingredients. I broke down all the vegetables, cuts of meat. I try to give some insight. Chili from dried beans—that’s just the energy. It’s the life of Guy with food.”

Long before he became known as a fearless rock-’n’-roll chef, Fieri fell in love with food as a 16-year-old exchange student in France. Today, he shows great respect for all the cooks he visits on his “Diners, Drive-ins & Dives” show. “The guy making the burger, that’s what he wants to make, how he wants to live. That’s his domain,” he says. “When you walk into somebody’s castle, you’ve got to respect that. That’s how I was raised.”

Fieri’s new cookbook reflects the way he and his family really eat. His children have never been to McDonald’s.

“Probably the last thing you’ll ever see me eat is a hamburger,” Fieri says. “I’d much rather have a tri-tip sandwich—I can’t even tell you the last time I had fried food, and not because it’s wrong. I love a good french fry like anybody [else], but I have to keep a balance.”

“I’m not saying I’m a purist—you can look at my petite 215-pound structure and tell I’m not some dietary wizard,” he says. “It’s about eating good food by good people. Make a french fry the right way, use good beef, fresh baked buns, lettuce that wasn’t sliced two weeks ago and packed in a bag in Schenectady. Keep it real.”

It also reflects how Fieri spends his off-camera time. He helped draft California legislation proclaiming the second Saturday in May as “Cook With Your Kids Day” and just launched Cooking with Kids, a program that promotes healthy eating habits and encourages families to share quality time in the kitchen. Fieri has also visited military bases as a guest of the U.S. Navy, entertaining troops and consulting with their cooks.

Whether he’s cooking for family, hosting hopefuls on the hit game show “Minute to Win It,” “bustin’ down” another best-selling book or cooking show, or hitting the culinary highway with “The Guy Fieri Road Show,” his focus is always clear: quality food and maximum fun.

 

When you bite into a burger, a steak sandwich or pile of juicy wings—and sauce drips down your wrist and your jaw aches from opening wide—you’re having a classic Guy Fieri moment.

The restaurateur, author and top-rated Food Network personality is best known for his hit…

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Paula Deen may be a walking food – and – entertainment conglomerate, but success hasn't dimmed her sincerely charming and caring ways. "I always remain true to my roots," says Deen from her home in Savannah, Georgia. "God has been very good to me."

Once a single mom with a simple entrepreneurial idea, Deen launched a box lunch and catering service in Savannah in the early 1990s, assisted by her sons, Jamie and Bobby. A popular local restaurant, The Lady and Sons, followed, as did self-published cookbooks that helped spread the word about Deen's Southern "comfort food" cuisine. Then came an Emmy Award-winning Food Network television program, "Paula's Home Cooking," more cookbooks, appearances on "Oprah" and other talk shows, a role in the 2005 feature film Elizabethtown and, in 2007, publication of a memoir, It Ain't All About the Cookin', which told of Deen's triumph over hardships and disappointments and her amazing emergence as a celebrity. In the midst of all the show biz, Deen remarried in 2004, to a Savannah tugboat pilot named Michael Groover. Deen, 61, has a bigger-than-life persona and a sharp drawl that almost projects deep-fried caricature. Yet when she's speaking about the importance of home and family – and the kitchen as the hub of cycle-of-life activity – she comes off as the real deal.

Her new book, Paula Deen's My First Cookbook, is her first for children."It blew me away to find what a large audience I have among the children," says Deen. "Maybe it's because I get silly, I giggle a lot and I like to have fun. You have to make it entertaining. And I probably remind them of someone in their lives that loves them very much – a mother, an aunt, a grandmother. But I've never targeted any audience in particular. To me, it's just about bringing family into the room."

Co-authored with Martha Nesbit and featuring infinitely charming illustrations by Susan Mitchell, Deen's heartwarming new cookbook features recipes for dozens of yummy main – course dishes, sandwiches, salads, soups, snacks, desserts and holiday treats, plus drinks for all-year-round, tasty surprises for mom and dad and a final section on kitchen arts and crafts ("Don't Eat These!"). Each recipe is explained plainly and clearly – just right for savvier older children who want to figure it out for themselves. Yet this is a book ideally pitched to parents, older relatives and friends or caregivers, who can share in the preparations, patiently supervise the creativity and be the "adult helper" who needs to be ever – present whenever youngsters are near cutlery or hot stovetops and ovens. "My granddaddy," says Deen wistfully, "God love him. He taught me how to make gravy – clumpy and thick like wallpaper paste – and he had the patience to let me get in there with him. It's important for kids to be in the kitchen and for us to teach them to do simple things. That's a self-esteem builder. And they see the product of their work. They're proud of what they've done, and they're trying something they might otherwise have turned their noses up at."

Besides Mitchell's colorful and quaint drawings of kitchen utensils, ingredients, finished dishes and a pair of cartoon kids who prepare them (and eat them!), the book features chapter-head snapshots of Deen and her devoted sons through the years. The elementary school picture of a pixieish Paula, age nine, is adorable.

"I didn't really cook as a young girl," says Deen. "I was too busy. I had a social life and was always active. A couple of times I remember saying, 'Mama, let me cook!' Reluctantly, she would say OK. Then, later, she'd say, 'Paula, honey, you have to leave now.' I married young, and I couldn't even boil water. Then I fell in love with it. It's in the genes, maybe?"

Deen's favorite recipe in the new book is the Cinnamon Rolls. It's a surprising choice, given that more complicated dishes stand out, like the Porcupine Balls, the Sausage Quiche or the Hawaiian Beef Teriyaki Kebabs with Grilled Pineapple. On the other hand, there's something that says simplicity and kid – friendliness about crescent rolls stuffed with marshmallows and sprinkled with cinnamon sugar.

"Cooking is about memories," says Deen, "and that is so important. We relate that to a time in our lives that is carefree and safe, when there wasn't a bad world out there. Cooking connects you to those times. I think 9/11 played a big part in jogging memories about family times and kitchen times. Some of our safest times were in Granny's or Mama's kitchen … back when daddies and granddaddies were our heroes."

Paula Deen may be a walking food - and - entertainment conglomerate, but success hasn't dimmed her sincerely charming and caring ways. "I always remain true to my roots," says Deen from her home in Savannah, Georgia. "God has been very good to…

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James Beard-nominated chef Todd Richards recently published his first cookbook, Soul, which is our Top Pick in Cooking for June. Soul celebrates Richards’ ever-evolving relationship with soul food while pushing past stereotypical ideas about its definition. For Richards, soul food is deeply personal and far from narrowly defined: The endpapers of Soul feature photos of Richards and his family, and the recipes encompass a myriad of influences, from his mother’s love of Chinese food to a childhood predilection for fried pies. 

BookPage editor Lily McLemore sat down with Richards to chat about his new book before joining him for a celebratory dinner prepared by Richards and his friend chef Sean Brock at Brock’s Nashville restaurant, Husk. Click here for Richards’ recipe for Grilled Peach Toast with Pimiento Cheese. 

Lily McLemore: How has it all been going so far?
Todd Richards:
So the book came out three weeks ago, and it’s been really amazing, the response—and not only the response, just people understanding the perspective that I’m coming from. And it’s a gorgeous book. It is as beautiful as it is handsome, which I think is really important for a good cookbook. That you can have a lot of this masculine feel with all this wonderful feminist beauty inside of it. Turning the first page and seeing my mom there. . . . Then, just, the judgment of my peers, whom I highly respect, who are telling me, “Man we needed this book for a very long time.”

I was looking at these pictures from your childhood in the book, and I was wondering if you could tell me a bit about some of the dishes you ate growing up in Chicago.
The book is a little biographical when it comes to the actual dishes in there. We started with things like traditionally cooked collard greens and then progressed forward. My mom had a love for Chinese food. There was a Chinese place on 87th and Jeffery, and she’d get what’s called yakamein. It’s basically noodles, broth, two slices of pork belly, a soft-boiled egg and scallions. My dad, in his frugality, said, if we ordered something out, anything in the refrigerator that was leftover had to put out on the table as well. So having collard greens on the table with that dish, and then you see the collard green ramen in the book—this is a dish I was eating when I was 5, 6 years old. The way that I interpreted it is a little bit different because of my background in cooking, but it’s the exact same dish I was eating as a kid.

Then there’s other dishes like the Blueberry Fried Pie. Growing up in Chicago with the Hostess factory, that whole Hostess culture—tearing that paper off and then eating it, and all the icing on the packets. Having a great fried pie, for me, is like being a kid all over again. I interpret this recipe a little bit differently: Instead of cooking the blueberries to mush, you make the liquid and then you put the blueberries inside of it. So when you bite into that fried pie, the blueberries burst in your mouth, you know? You get all this really fresh blueberry flavor that’s not overly sweet in the fried pie. It’s just really taking my childhood memories and progressing them to fine-dining dishes, and then writing a cookbook that I think everyone can enjoy.

Can you tell me a bit about how you got from Chicago to fine dining and now being a James Beard Award-nominated chef and restaurant owner?
My dad worked in downtown Chicago, at a place called Montgomery Ward, which no longer exists. He worked from eight at night to eight in the morning, Thursday, Friday and Saturday night. Some nights my mom would cook for him, but some nights we took my dad downtown to work, and we’d eat. So our family ate out constantly. I remember we went to Lawry’s steakhouse in Chicago. The chef came out with the big old hat on and opened up that prime rib cart: prime rib, lamb, mashed potatoes, creamed spinach, green beans, horse radish sauce, au jus and bread. Just in the cart! You open it up, and it’s like this whole glory of things! So my life has always been around food.

In the book, you write about the broad definition of soul food for you. It beautifully meanders across influences and across the world. Did that fluidity come naturally to you?
I think soul food is a broad definition. Just like people say Southern or Chinese. You look at Chinese food—you can go Szechuan, you can go to many different regions in China. When you say soul food, it’s really a vast difference from the South to the North to the West Coast, how that’s interpreted. I think in the South, Southern and soul run the same gamut. When you get farther north, you see different influences come in. If you get to Florida, you’ll see the Caribbean influences come in. If you go to the West Coast and see soul food, it’s way more vegetable-focused than it is on the East Coast. And it has a lot of Latin influences and Asian influences as well.

So I think I just pulled all the stories that I knew about food together, then spoke about it through my family’s lens and then how it translated to fine dining.

You include really wonderful pieces of food history in your book. Was it important for you to pull in history?
I think so. I don’t think you can talk about soul food and not understand the history of it. That term started in the 1950s and ’60s, and there isn’t really a lot of modern context out there. That’s what I really wanted to do: show the modern context of where that food came from. And to give a brief history of it, because I’m not a revisionist of history, and there’s some much better historians out there than myself that have done it and are doing it, like Adrian E. Miller, of course, Michael W. Twitty, Toni Tipton-Martin. They’re great historians of it. I wanted to show it in a modern context. Not only where it came from and paying homage to that but really how vast it is, and how far we can explore it and make it even more delicious than what it is.

Todd Richards grilling with Sean Brock at Husk in Nashville, Tennessee.

You’re based right now in Atlanta. Do you ever think about expanding outside of the South?
You know, the government won’t allow cloning yet, but if the government allowed me to clone myself, I would think about it quite more seriously. I do have a soft place to go back to Chicago and do a restaurant there. There are places I’ve dreamed about going, but I think the reality is, I won’t do it at this point in time. I’m not a young person anymore. But you know, I’m saying all that, and if someone called from New York or LA right now and said, “Hey do you want to do a restaurant out there?” I’d probably do it. [Laughs.]

Is there any particular person or chefs that really had an influence on you?
Yeah, that would be Chef Evans. Chef Darryl Evans. I met him at what is now the Four Seasons Hotel—before that it was the Occidental Grand Hotel—in Atlanta. He was the first African-American chef to compete in the Culinary Olympics. Four gold medals, two silver medals. They were so shocked that he made it to the team that the culinary federation made him go to Germany and redo the entire thing in front of them.

When was this?
Late ’80s, early ’90s. He was a very brilliant chef. I think he’s probably one of the most unsung chefs, especially for African-American chefs. Unfortunately he passed away a few years ago. I think he’s really unsung, because out of that kitchen came nine or 10 African-American chefs who are either exec-chef level, chef-owner level or something like that.

But I pull influences from all over. I pull influences from when I was a kid, with my grandmother watching the whole Saturday lineup of cooking shows: “Yan Can Cook,” Julia Child, Justin Wilson, Jacques Pépin. That’s what I’m saying. Food has been such a critical part of my life—every memory about my family is about food.

In the book, you’re really pushing against stereotypes. I was wondering if you could talk a little more about that.
At one of my first jobs after Blue Ribbon Grill that I applied for, the chef de cuisine asked me, “What are you gonna do? Come in and cook soul food? Fried chicken, mac and cheese? No body wants that here.” And it put me in a place—like, I know this is delicious. Why in the hell would nobody want it? But if he’s the chef, and he’s saying nobody wants it, then maybe I shouldn’t be cooking this.

It wasn’t until about 2004, 10 years later, that I was at the Oak Room in Louisville, Kentucky. We had a tasting menu, and we’re doing a lot of the great dishes of the South and everything. But at some point someone has to be telling their story, and I know it’s a great story because my parents were great people. Before, I didn’t have one single dish with watermelon because of the stereotyped caricature of watermelon in our country’s history. And that was the first time I ever did a watermelon dish on a menu. Middle of summer, watermelon is beautiful. It’s versatile, you can juice it, you can puree it, you can compress it, which is a modernist technique. So we did a whole tasting of watermelon, and we used every single part. We pickled the rind, we took the seeds and dehydrated them and mixed them with hibiscus powder so we had a spice. It was a way to just throw away the stereotypes and embrace how delicious damn watermelon is in the middle of the summer when it’s 100 degrees outside! It’s the perfect food for that! And that to me has really became the emphasis—not being shameful of my culture’s food, but embracing it and telling the world how great it is, standing on a chair, beating my chest, saying, “This food is delicious!” If you don’t want to pay for it, that’s your problem, not mine.

I noticed that you included soundtracks with the suggested menus. Can you tell me about that connection between food and music for you?
People ask me that question all the time. I say, “Well, you know what, have you ever eaten in a silent restaurant?” Can you imagine that? You can hear every plate clinking and all that. But cooking is a rhythmic art. When you chop, you don’t chop unsyncopated; all this stuff is a rhythm. And I wanted to give people a sense of what my rhythm was in writing this book.

Food is a temporary art. You put it on there, you consume it, it always changes. Music always stays the same in the sense that, once it’s recorded and it’s out there, you can listen to that same track over and over. Food is not that way. Things change too much. A tomato is not always the same size. It’s just not. Everything changes in nature. Music stays. It’s an art form that you can consume in the same manner all the time.

You mention that you love the radish so much that you got a tattoo of it. I was wondering what your favorite ingredient to work with is?
You know, it changes all the time. We grow a lot of food at home.

Oh really! What do you grow?
We have tomatoes, peppers, onions, jalapenos, cucumbers, ground cherries, tomatillos, watermelon, fig, Meyer lemons, of course all the herbs in the world, and potatoes. And all this is in a three-bedroom town home.

No deer around to eat all your stuff!
No, no. Occasional rabbit, but my wife won’t let me kill it. [Laughs.]

He’s a friend!
I guess. But I’m like, if we ever get hungry! [Laughs.] But so, it really depends. I like walking to the farmer’s market and talking to the farmers. That’s what inspires me with food. I’m definitely a seasonal guy. More so, that’s the way my grandmother cooked when I was a kid.

You write about the often-overlooked meat cuts. Is there any piece of offal that you wish Americans in general would embrace more wholeheartedly?
I mean, if you want to get into the most soul food way, chitterlings. My sister makes really, really good chitterlings. I like them fried. Or you can julienne them really fine and fold them into something. But offal-wise, I love sweetbreads. My doctor wouldn’t like it too much, but I could eat sweetbreads everyday. When it gets to chicken, the liver, the gizzards, the heart are some of the best.

I feel like at some point the offal is going to cost more than the chicken breast.
Well, look at ox tail. It’s a perfect example of that. Ox tail used to be 69 cents a pound. Now ox tails are $4.49-5.99 a pound. I mean, I understand it from a scale—there’s only one tail per cow, you know!

That’s true!
I can get it from that standpoint. My favorite, though, is lamb heart. Lamb heart tartare is so delicious. It’s not gamey like other parts of the lamb can be. The heart—just, nice small dices of it. A great taco to me? Lengua taco. Beef tongue tacos. Those are the best tacos. Tender, when you crunch into it you get the cilantro . . . I stopped eating red meat a long time ago, but that lengua taco? Man, that’s good.

So what’s your hope for the future of soul food?
My hope is that more chefs embrace cooking it. That from a value standpoint, it gets to the same point as French food. Soul food takes some of the longest cooking time to make it really taste delicious. Collards greens on the first day are great. Collard greens on the second day are even better. Collard greens on the third day? I mean, you would smack somebody to get a bowl.

It’s just—how much skill does it take to make chitterlings taste good? It takes a lot of skill and know-how to even get them cleaned right. So we have a food that takes the longest to cook, but we charge the least amount for. It’s not a sustainable model moving forward.

Whats next for you?
I keep asking myself that. I know I need to get back to my restaurants! Oh, my goodness. But opening more restaurants, writing more, trying to find a good outlet for a show that I want to do based on the book. That would be my ultimate goal in two years: to have a show done based off the book. And really just expand the conversation around it. And to mentor more chefs. That’s number one, everyday. If people saw my phone, most of the time I’m talking to young chefs. I spend a lot of my day answering questions.

I’m very excited about the dinner tonight!
Yeah, so am I. I don’t get to see Sean [Brock] that often. Years ago we used to hang out with each other a lot more. But now he’s busy with his empire, and I’m trying to build an empire. But we go back a long way. We always stood up for each other, because we were always doing things far outreaching what people thought we should do. Him coming out of Appalachia, me coming from Chicago, we always modernize food, and we always went way back to pull things up to push things way, way forward. I think that’s how we became friends.

 

ALSO IN BOOKPAGE: Read our review of Soul.

In late May, Atlanta chef Todd Richards published his first cookbook, Soul, which celebrates his evolving relationship with Soul food. For Richards, Soul food is far from narrowly defined—it encompasses a myriad of influences and regions, from his mother’s love of Chinese food to a childhood predilection for fried pies. It’s also deeply personal.
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After 88 years as America’s most popular cookbook, Irma Rombauer’s great-grandson John Becker and his wife, Megan Scott, continue the legacy of Joy of Cooking. We caught up with the authors about their contributions to this latest edition.


What’s the biggest difference between the original edition of Joy and this one?
Size! This is due to several factors. Perhaps the most meaningful and defining is Marion [Rombauer Becker]’s contribution to the 1963 and 1975 editions of Joy. These two editions were truly groundbreaking for us. Before, Joy was Irma [Rombauer]’s book: a collection of useful recipes, rendered on the page with wit and aplomb. Marion had a grander vision for Joy: a collection of recipes and a primer on making ingredients—items such as corned beef, sausage, cheese and tofu—from scratch and a compendium of trusted information, covering subjects ranging from the best fats to use for deep-frying to tips for beating egg whites to instructions for growing various herbs to the difference between cassia and true cinnamon.

Though we hold the 1931 edition as sacred and admire Irma’s style and wit, Marion is the one whom we looked to most when deciding how best to improve Joy. The cookbook publishing world has a surplus of titles that are highly personal. Indeed, personality is the primary selling point for countless books every year. Among this abundance of tightly focused titles, we felt that the best way to position Joy was as a supplement of comprehensive practical knowledge—one specifically geared toward readers who are cooking for the first time, as well as toward curious cooks who need to fill in the inevitable blanks left by more personality-based or single-subject titles. We also wanted to give a sense of identity and perspective in our writing, since that’s what so many of our readers have loved about Joy over the decades. We tried to inject some of our own humor, opinions and personality throughout the book, much as Irma did. We want to inform and educate, but we don’t want to put people to sleep in the process!

“We try to assume as little as possible about our readers and their knowledge base. Whereas most titles are aimed at specific audiences, we deliberately try not to.”

What characteristics does the typical cook have in 2019 as opposed to 1931? What traits do they share?
We’re not sure we’re qualified to normatively define a “typical cook.” Such things are best left to historians, sociologists and cultural anthropologists. We know for a fact that we did not “focus group” this edition in any way. Actually, this is perhaps one of the more unique things about Joy: We try to assume as little as possible about our readers and their knowledge base. Whereas most titles are aimed at specific audiences, we deliberately try not to. This is definitely an unpopular marketing strategy, but we think the result will serve our readers well in the kitchen.

If we had to armchair it though, we would say that the biggest changes in our (potential) readership are:

1) Diversity: This country is less homogenous. Thus, our collective awareness of different cooking traditions is unprecedented.

2) Gender: Home cooking is not as gendered as it used to be.

3) Engagement: Modern food media is huge, social media is huge, and as a result cooks are more motivated, engaged and educated than ever before.

As far as what we share in common with cooks circa 1931: We all need to sustain ourselves and our loved ones, we all (to one degree or another) think of cooking as an act of caring, and we all need guidance and encouragement when we are learning how to cook.

Joy has been referred to as the kitchen Bible. How, like the Bible, can this cookbook inspire love, community and dedication?
We always find this analogy troubling . . . or perhaps the better word is thought-provoking. In what ways is our book like a religious text that purports to explain the ways of God to humanity? Do readers really feel like we are prescribing how they should eat? Is our book more of a new or old testament?

Speaking of new testaments, we can certainly attest that some readers invariably find the changes we make from edition to edition apocryphal. We get impassioned complaints, especially with regard to recipes we cut. My [John’s] father, Ethan, recalls an especially memorable haranguing over the omission of an orange chiffon frosting recipe. Just recently, we were hassled over the absence of schaumtorte. (It was cut in 2006, so don’t blame us!)

In some ways, comparing a comprehensive, beloved book to the Bible is apt: Both Joy and the Bible occupy a special place in the homes of countless families. Many copies of Joy get passed down, not unlike a family Bible. It’s a sort of kitchen talisman.

One funny (and touching) thing we have noticed after years of interacting with Joy fans: The majority of readers will insist theirs is the “original” edition. And for them, it feels that way. If your mother hands down her copy of Joy to you—stains, margin notes, recipe cards stuffed between the pages—it was, in a very real sense, hers (and now yours). Though Irma, Marion and the rest of our family may be Joy’s authors, readers are the ones who animate the book, who cook from it, who scrawl notes in it. In this way, people claim Joy as their own, which is not unlike how the devout internalize and interpret scripture. To us, it speaks to the (very humbling) place we occupy in the lives of families.

“We get impassioned complaints, especially with regard to recipes we cut. Just recently, we were hassled over the absence of schaumtorte. (It was cut in 2006, so don’t blame us!)”

For some, cooking is a form of art. For others, cooking is a way of science, experimentation and discovery. What is cooking for you?
It depends on our mood. Sometimes, we are animated by the idea of cooking as scientific inquiry—exploring new recipes, using an ingredient that is new to us. Other times, we are drawn into the kitchen with a fully formed idea that we want to realize (which we guess is a form of artistic self-expression?). Honestly though, we think both of these scenarios occur in our kitchen because of our profession. And even then, they do not characterize the majority of our time spent cooking.

As lifelong home cooks, we think of cooking as daily practice. Sure, it’s necessary for providing sustenance, but it’s also one of the essential ways we express care and affection for others (and ourselves). Experimentation and art seem to presuppose a beginning: resolving to shop for a new recipe, sourcing a special ingredient to try or experiencing a creative moment of ideation. Habitual cooking, however, is much more fluid and messy—guided by what’s on hand, what’s leftover and what we are able to fit into our lives.

For us, being able to confidently juggle time, ingredients on hand and appetites is a source of joy—one that is achievable and grounded rather than aspirational and perfectionist. Making cooking artistic and scientific can be motivational and enriching for ambitious cooks. However, for most of us (most of the time), lowering the stakes a bit leads to a much more enjoyable time in the kitchen. No need to stress about performing a test correctly or getting the brush strokes just right. Though if you can channel Bob Ross in the kitchen, by all means, follow your muse!

What was the first thing you ever cooked?
John
: My mother was teaching me to make omelets when I was 5 or 6. I would always add weird, inappropriate spices, and the eggs would not look like eggs anymore. (I’ve always had the “cooking as inquiry” bug.)

Megan: I don’t remember one specific thing, but from an early age I helped my mom get dinner on the table by doing small cooking tasks like making rice or cooking green beans. By the time I was 11 or 12, I was interested in more complex things. I remember one Thanksgiving around that time I made a pumpkin creme brulee that I was really proud of.

What is the biggest mistake you’ve made while cooking?
John:
Aside from grotesquely colored omelets? Probably the time I tried to introduce my father to lamb saag and misread my own recipe—adding two tablespoons of ground cardamom instead of two teaspoons. It was borderline inedible. Still feeling shame from that one.

Megan: At Christmas when I was 14 years old, I wanted to make homemade croissants. Everything was going well until I put them in the oven. I didn’t realize that I should use a rimmed baking sheet, so some butter melted out of the croissants and pooled in the bottom of the oven, where it caught fire. My mom quickly put out the fire, and we were able to save the croissants, which turned out well, all things considered.

What is the biggest triumph you’ve had while cooking?
John:
This is tough. From a logistical point of view, I remember working at a cafe in the mornings, when there were usually just two people working, a cook and a barista/cashier/server. On several occasions, the owners would ask the cook to help out at their catering business, leaving me alone to do everything. Attending to a flat top, serving a line of customers at a coffee counter and taking orders at tables was by far the most challenging kitchen-related multitask I’ve ever done successfully.

Aside from that, it’s hard to pick. Shredding my first smoked pork shoulder at a table of appreciative guests felt really good, and so did tasting my first exceptional ragu. Pulling off something successfully on the first attempt is always fulfilling and special. (This is why recipes are so important, even if “firing from the hip” is generally more fun.)

Megan: It’s not one single triumph, but learning how to make pies really well is one of my proudest accomplishments. There is definitely an art to making pastry crust and keeping it crisp and flaky. For me, nothing quite compares to pulling a perfectly baked pie out of the oven. Really, any kind of pastry project that turns out well makes you feel a little like a wizard.

What are some of the challenges today’s home cooks face, and how were those challenges addressed in this new edition of Joy?
Overcoming the initial reluctance to start cooking is the biggest challenge facing home cooks. (Or not getting discouraged after a failure or two.) We think this has held true throughout our publication history: Those first steps are the hardest.

And though there is much more enthusiasm for cooking today—as hobby, profession and entertainment/sport—we’re not sure these developments have done anything to quell the anxieties of novices. Expectations have risen, which has the potential to alienate and discourage. To varying degrees, food media invite cooks to compare their own efforts against those of professional chefs, to emulate them, to “cook like a pro.” The judgey, tense atmosphere of competition shows make a spectacle of kitchen failures. Though this may drive enrollment at culinary schools, secure advertising dollars for publications and raise ratings at television networks, we question the utility of this mindset (taken as a whole) for home cooks.

Long story short: We think the recent overexposure of cooking and the various narratives that have formed around how we celebrate, value and codify it have made it harder for people to participate, not easier. Chef means “boss,” the leader of a militaristic batterie de cuisine. Why are we referring to each other like that, and why are other titles—like “cook”—seen as less important?

In this edition, we have tried to forgo this mindset altogether and to invite readers to think of cooking as a good habit or a way of life, rather than as a performance to be judged. For Joy, this is nothing new. Since Irma [Rombauer] self-published the first edition, our family has tried to demystify and “deprofessionalize” cooking, to provide answers to as many questions as we possibly can, to address readers as fellow cooks and to enable rather than prescribe or dictate good taste.

“We think the recent overexposure of cooking and the various narratives that have formed around how we celebrate, value and codify it has made it harder for people to participate, not easier. . . . In this edition, we have tried to forgo this mindset altogether and to invite readers to think of cooking as a good habit or a way of life, rather than as a performance to be judged.”

How have your personalities—likes, dislikes, unique experiences and perspectives—found their way into the cookbook?
The new recipes we have included are certainly a record of our enthusiasms and taste. Beyond that, we have lived and breathed this book for nine years. Even if we wanted to, it would be hard to avoid reflecting our personalities in this book. Some specific things:

Spicy and “funky” stuff. Many of the recipes in the new edition do not shy away from the use of spicy and/or pungent ingredients. This is no accident! We love strong flavors, spices and chiles in all their forms.

Nerd-outs on meat cuts, veg and fruit varieties, ingredient info, preservation processes and fermentation. I (John) love researching subjects. I love digging for stuff, learning things, writing about them. (This is why I identify with Marion much more than Irma. Marion was the bookworm!) Though somewhat consuming, the opportunity to fact-check and expand upon the material Joy covers was a dream come true for me.

How does cooking give you joy?
When we’re in a certain mood, thinking of cooking as inquiry can be a lot of fun; conversely, if one of us has a “creation” worked out in our head, bringing it into the world can be very fulfilling. And, of course, being able to express care and gratitude for others by cooking for them is a source of joy for us.

Another joy-giving aspect of cooking that’s especially important for us: contemplation. There are some kitchen tasks that require your full attention—shelling beans, browning meats for a braise or ragu, peeling and cutting vegetables, to name a few—that, for us, are incredibly satisfying because they force you to slow down and just be in the moment. These are the same tasks that are supposed to be onerous, the ones home cooks have no time for, the prep steps that 30-minute-meal hawkers try to dispense with (or offer hacks to cope with).

We’re not always in the mood to be contemplative. Sometimes dinner just needs to get to the table ASAP. But for less stressful moments, there is little we like more than sharpening a knife, making sausage links, tending the fire of a smoker full of pork, stuffing an herb paste under the skin of a chicken or caramelizing onions. From our (slightly overwrought) headnote to the carmelized onions recipe:

The traditional method of slowly sweating the onions does not have to be burdensome. Think of it as a kitchen-bound lacuna in the story of your life, where contemplation and mindfulness can flourish as the onions slowly surrender their moisture and turn a deep bronze.

The kitchen can feel claustrophobic and chaotic, but sometimes it is truly a refuge!

What is something cooking gives you that nothing else can?
See the answer above! John hikes. Megan jogs and practices yoga. These activities are certainly relaxing and conducive to thought and stillness, but cooking can offer this and the opportunity to offer nourishment to others and yourself. A real twofer.

Cooking is also one of the few ways that the average person gets to create something with their hands. A lot of us have jobs where we sit at a computer and never really get the chance to be creative or to physically make something. Cooking is a skill that gives you an opportunity to flex creative muscles or to have the physical experience of making something tangible—and not only tangible but literally life-sustaining!

Which dishes from Joy should a starting-out cook try first?
John started with omelets, but it’s hard to go wrong with pancakes. They are the least intimidating and the easiest to execute, and they fall squarely under the “life skills” category. From there, we would say a batch of salsa or hummus (super low-key, no heat involved, demonstrates how you can save money by making staples from scratch). Moving on to orchestrating a whole meal: roast chicken and a big salad with scratch vinaigrette, or perhaps a spaghetti-and-meatball dinner with garlic bread, or a pot of jasmine rice and a batch of Thai curry (using store-bought paste). All of these are relatively simple recipes, and pulling them off will give beginners confidence and a rationale to keep it up (as in, “Hey, I could have spent a lot of money ordering this from a restaurant!”).

For an established cook—which dishes in Joy would pose a fun challenge?
Personally, we think the DIY-type recipes are the most fulfilling. Though some are not really all that complicated, they may require time to develop. Among them are: homemade pastrami, homemade bacon, homemade feta, merguez crepinettes, bratwurst, pork rinds, fermented hot sauce, kimchi, half-sour pickles, Calabrian-style chiles and nocino.

Some things that are involved but less DIY: cassoulet (using homemade duck confit if you have the time), Sichuan hotpot (simple but a bit of a production), goat birria, chicken makhini masala, pelmeni, fatayer bi sabanekh, ciabatta, kouign amann, cannelés de Bordeaux, macarons and honeycomb candy.

Which recipe is your personal favorite?
John:
This is such a tough question for us. There are so many! My favorite right now: lasagna made with fresh semolina pasta. A fall chill is in the air, and baked pasta feels like the answer. In a month, it will probably be khao soi gai, asopao de pollo, or maybe mapo dofu.

Megan: One recipe I keep coming back to is the olive oil cake. I make it whenever we have dinner guests because it’s such a simple cake but has an amazing flavor. I’m from the South, and this cake reminds me of pound cake but with an Italian twist. It also goes with any seasonal fruit, from macerated strawberries in the spring to roasted pears in the fall to citrus segments in winter. I usually serve it with whipped cream, too.

How does Irma Rombauer’s legacy live on in your family?
John: Well, every 10 years or so, we publish this big book. 🙂

No, actually, my family really does live this book. My mother recently showed me Marion’s working copy of the 1975 edition. There were marked pages and notes about things to change in the next edition. This might seem rather normal, but keep in mind that Marion passed away within two years of the book’s release. She was already planning the next edition before the ink on the last one had dried!

That was a real moment of recognition—of one obsessive seeing the work of another and feeling a kinship. Before my mother showed me Marion’s edit copy, Megan and I had already started making notes on things we wish we had been able to add to our edition and would like to incorporate into the 100th anniversary edition.

In other words, Joy is the “how.” I never had the privilege of meeting Marion or Irma, but I feel like I know and understand them by working on this book. I can see a recipe and know who added it, or read an anecdote and recognize who wrote it. In much the same way as our readers find a connection to their families through this cookbook, so have I.

Author photo © Pableaux Johnson.

After 88 years as America’s most popular cookbook, Irma Rombauer’s great-grandson John Becker and his wife, Megan Scott, continue the legacy of Joy of Cooking. We caught up with the authors about their contributions to this latest edition.


What’s the biggest difference between the original edition…

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