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Amanda Hesser and Merrill Stubbs |
Amanda Hesser and Merrill Stubbs are the creative forces behind the James Beard Award-winning website
Food52.com, which showcases recipes from talented home cooks around the globe. It led to Hesser and Stubbs' best-selling book,
The Food52 Cookbook. The book was created in 52 weeks and is the first crowd-sourced cookbook featuring recipes from home cooks.
The Food52 Cookbook, Volume 2, is due out in December.
Hesser was an award-winning food writer at
The New York Times before catching the entrepreneurial bug and launching
Food52.com with Stubbs. Stubbs previously worked in the food industry for more than a decade and has written for numerous publications, including The Times.
Food52.com's launch, in 2009, came after Hesser and Stubbs asked: Why not let people on the Internet team up and create a cookbook?
How do you like to use extra virgin olive oil in your cooking?Amanda: We use olive oil for everything. And while we love lots of oils, it's fair to say that olive oil is our primary cooking medium. I lived in Italy and Merrill studied in Italy, so we both drank the Italian Kool-Aid, aka olive oil! One of my favorite ways to use olive oil is for
poaching fish and shellfish. The oil surrounds and protects the fish; and as the fish cooks, its juices mix with the oil and make a delicious sauce.
Merrill: I just recently started cooking for my 8-month-old, and I add
extra virgin olive oil to almost everything I make for her - carrots, broccoli, zucchini, sweet potatoes, squash, ground turkey, and roast chicken. She loves it, and I love that I'm giving her early exposure to an ingredients she'll hopefully enjoy her whole life.
What's in your home fridge?A: Where to begin! In my fridge right now are probably 100 foods and ingredients. Everything from vanilla beans to mascarpone to anchovy paste to Sriracha sauce to pistachio oil!
M: We just moved, so it's a lot less jammed than usual. One whole shelf is dedicated to food for the baby, plus our own leftovers. There are eggs, yogurt, bacon and a whole chicken that has yet to be roasted, and my cheese drawer is overflowing, which it always is. My condiments are sparse at the moment: mustard, mayo, peanut butter, and a few jars of jam.
What do you like to cook at home? A: I really like when my food supply is waning and the fridge is filled with odds and ends. Makes it more of a challenge to come up with something interesting!
M: Simple things: roast chicken, steak, salad, pasta. I like using as many seasonal ingredients from my local greenmarket as possible.
What do you like to eat when you're too tired to cook?A: Toast with salted butter and jam. Or I like to have cured meats, olives, bread, and sparkling wine.
M: Toast with ricotta and sea salt, or cheese and crackers.
Do you follow recipes, or wing it?A: Maybe this comes from all the recipe testing we've done, but I'm a pretty good recipe follower. I like to trust the recipe writer and see what he/she had in mind and learn something new. And because we do so much of our own recipe creation and development, I find it comforting to just get in the kitchen and let someone else (the recipe author) tell me what to do.
M: I usually wing it, unless whatever I'm making involves baking. My mother is all about improvising in the kitchen, and I take after her.
Do you clean up as you cook, or do you wait until after you're done?A: The dishwasher and counter space has made me so lazy in this department. I used to be so good about cleaning as I go, but I've slacked off a bit. One thing I'm a stickler about is keeping my work space and countertop clean as I cook. No mysterious spills and sticky spots!
M: I make my best effort, but sometimes the dishes pile up in the sink. My husband and I have a "you cook, I'll clean" agreement, so he's usually stuck with the lion's share!
What's your favorite global cuisine? A: I love south Indian and Sri Lankan food, which is based on coconut oil and coconut milk, rather than the ghee and yogurt you find in northern India, and incorporates more fish and herbs. The best way I can describe the cuisine is that it's invigorating.
M: I love the clean flavors of Vietnamese food. Rice noodles are one of my favorite comfort foods, and the Vietnamese use a lot of them, along with simply grilled meats and fish. I also love how they incorporate fresh herbs and vegetables into so many of their dishes - I never feel weighed down after a Vietnamese meal.
What's your earliest food memory? A: Eating our poodle's good food. And I liked it.
M: We had a babysitter who was from Thailand, and I remember the first full Thai meal she made for us with great clarity: tiny fried spring rolls filled with ground pork and bean thread noodles, chicken and coconut milk soup, and Thai curry with all of the accoutrements.