Tag: cookbook

creativity

Falling in love with vegetables thanks to Hetty Lui McKinnon

Christa Avampato
Tenderheart: a cookbook about vegetables and unbreakable family bonds by Hetty Lui McKinnon

A number of years ago, I upgraded my diet to be plant-based. I still eat meat and animal products occasionally, but the bulk of my food comes from plants. I knew this change would be good for my health though I can’t say I was excited about it because I really didn’t know what to do with vegetables other than roast them. Enter the New York Times Cooking app, loaded with thousands of ways to turn vegetables into a feast. Some of my favorite vegetable-centric recipes are by James Beard Award winner Hetty Lui McKinnon whose inventive style and focus on easy preparation makes me feel like a gourmet cook even though I most certainly am not. Australian by birth and Chinese by heritage, she now lives in Brooklyn (as do I).

I recently read Hetty’s beautiful memoir cookbook, Tenderheart: a cookbook about vegetables and unbreakable family bonds. A love letter to both vegetables and her family’s role in stoking the fires of that love for her, Hetty gives us a glimpse into her past, present, and future, and celebrates her family history on every page. Organized by vegetable, the recipes include a snippet about why she loves each one, vegetable swaps and ingredient substitutions that can be made without compromising the flavor. I read cookbooks like they’re novels or biographies, so Hetty’s book is perfect for me. Give me a simple, healthy recipe and then tell me the story behind it. 

From cabbage carbonara(-ish) to chocolate eggplant brownies to the not your traditional Sunday roast to her Mum’s velvet potatoes, Hetty now has me dreaming about vegetables. Her recipes have also caused me to seek out vegetables I don’t normally buy because I never knew what to do with them. While vegetables can take a bit more coaxing than other foods, they can be made to be every bit as satisfying and craveable as any other food. 

Post-dissertation, I’m happy to be back in my kitchen more now than I’ve been able to be over the past two years. If you want to fall in love with vegetables, please join me in my sun filled apartment. With help from Hetty’s recipes (I’ve now ordered all of her cookbooks!), I’ll be happy to play matchmaker. 

creativity

Dreaming of Sicily through food

Christa Avampato
Sicilia: A Love Letter to the Food of Sicily. Photo by Christa Avampato.

Though I’m working on my dissertation for most of this weekend, I took a little time out to dream about my ancestral homeland thanks to Ben Tish’s gorgeous cookbook, Sicilia: A Love letter to the Food of Sicily. More than just recipes, Ben gives us a glimpse into the rich arid land, history, and the bustling society that is so prevalent on this island (and the many islands dotted along its coast). I particularly love his vivid descriptions of the food markets, each with its own unique spin on street food. I can’t wait to see and experience them myself.

Sicily’s history is dotted with many influences from many places and peoples. It’s not a melting pot, but rather an amalgam, a collage, with all the parts clearly visible and working together to create something none of them could do alone. Sicily isn’t one culture but many. Its food is its historical archive. 

Arab and North African influences are some of the strongest we can find in Sicily’s cuisine, including both its ingredients and preparation. The Moors and the Islamic culture they brought are closely tied to Spain. However, they are just as prevalent, perhaps even more so, in Sicily. Pistachios and honey, oranges and lemons, saffron and pomegranates, sorbet and granite, couscous and sardines, almonds and pine nuts, raisins and fennel. If you love anything deep fried (and who doesn’t?), thank the Arabs who ruled Sicily in the 9th and 10th centuries for infusing that cooking preparation into Sicily and then on into the rest of Europe. 

This island’s sprawling variety, so much packed into such a small amount of real estate, reminds me a lot of my home in New York. Here, Sicilian culture, along with hundreds of other cultures, can be seen and experienced all the time everywhere. Maybe my bloodline to Sicily is why I feel at home everywhere and with everyone–because my ancestors were diverse, people who came from all over to this plot of land that connects east and west, north and south, and celebrates its many influences.