Latest / Cookbook Love Podcast / Episode 391: Baking and the Meaning of Life: A Conversation with Helen Goh

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Episode 391: Baking and the Meaning of Life: A Conversation with Helen Goh · Cookbook Love Podcast

• 0:02
  You are listening to the Cookbook Love podcast with Maggie
• 0:05
  Green, episode number 3 91.
• 0:11
  Welcome to the Cookbook Love podcast, a podcast that celebrates cookbook readers,
• 0:16
  buyers, collectors, writers and clubs.
• 0:19
  And now your host cookbook author, culinary dietician, and cookbook
• 0:23
  writing coach, Maggie Green.
• 0:31
  Hi everybody.
• 0:32
  Welcome back to another episode of the Cookbook Love podcast.
• 0:36
  How's everybody doing today?
• 0:37
  Hope you're all doing well.
• 0:39
  We are having an exciting time here in Kentucky.
• 0:44
  One of my children got engaged recently, so that's been a lot of fun to celebrate.
• 0:50
  We are.
• 0:52
  Trying to decide if it's spring here, having some cold weather,
• 0:56
  a warmer weather, sunshine, still some snow flurries.
• 1:00
  So trying to get that figured out.
• 1:02
  And had a great weekend this past weekend, um, celebrating my mother-in-law's
• 1:07
  birthday and went to a dinner experience that we received for Christmas from
• 1:14
  our children, where we enjoyed a beautiful dinner in Lexington, Kentucky
• 1:19
  with the theme of the Italian Alps.
• 1:22
  I thought that it was because of the Olympics being in Milan, but I guess
• 1:27
  from what I understand from the owner of the event center that hosted the
• 1:32
  dinner, it was actually coincidental.
• 1:34
  But, uh, what a beautiful dinner.
• 1:35
  Uh, lots of lovely food at, um, from the northern part of Italy,
• 1:41
  and what a great time to celebrate it as the Olympics wrapped up in
• 1:47
  Milan over the weekend as well.
• 1:50
  So if you, um, wanted to let you know if you're interested in learning about
• 1:55
  traditional cookbook publishing and traditional cookbook publishing deals,
• 1:59
  today is the final day to register for the masterclass, get paid to write a cookbook.
• 2:06
  A lot of people who want to write cookbooks believe they need to finish
• 2:10
  their book before pitching it to publishers, and although that sounds
• 2:15
  logical, it often leads to years of overthinking momentum, momentum,
• 2:21
  stalling, backtracking and uncertainty.
• 2:24
  So in the Get Paid to Write a Cookbook Masterclass, I talk all about the
• 2:31
  step-by-step path to help position your cookbook for a traditional
• 2:35
  deal where you can get paid in advance before you write the book.
• 2:40
  So if you would like to register for this masterclass again, it's going
• 2:44
  to be coming to an end very soon.
• 2:46
  Head on over to www.cookbookwritersacademy.com/get
• 2:51
  paid masterclass.
• 2:53
  I will put the link in the show notes and you can register for the
• 2:58
  class before the registration closes.
• 3:03
  So today on the podcast, I am thrilled to have a conversation with Helen Go.
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  Helen is the author of the new book, baking and the Meaning of Life.
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  How to Find Joy in 100 Recipes.
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  No one knows the why or How of Baking Better Than Helen as a recipe
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  developer with Yo Tim Otto lge.
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  For more than a decade, Helen is the co-author of his New York Times
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  bestselling books Sweet and Comfort.
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  Now with the debut of her first solo cookbook, go shares her distinctive
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  approach to baking with 100 delicious desserts and savory bakes.
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  Drawing on her upbringing in Malaysia and Australia.
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  Her acclaimed work with Ottogi and her active psychotherapy practice go not
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  only shares her favorite baking recipes, but also reflects on life sharing, how
• 3:57
  baking can bring us together and add joy filled meaning to everyday moments.
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  Today on the show, Helen and I talk all about her, her new book.
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  We dive into the table of contents.
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  We talk about how baking adds meaning to our life.
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  It's not just for survival.
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  And Helen shares many tips, tricks, and secrets for several delicious,
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  sweet and savory baked goods.
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  So without further delay, let's dive into this interview with Helen.
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  Go.
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  Hi Helen.
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  Welcome to the Cookbook Love podcast.
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  Hi Maggie.
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  Thanks so much for having me on.
• 4:35
  Yes, very excited to have you here to talk all about your beautiful new book.
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  But before we dive in, can you please tell everybody a little bit
• 4:43
  about who you are and what you do?
• 4:45
  I am Helen.
• 4:46
  Go.
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  I was born in Malaysia.
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  I grew up in Australia, and I live in London.
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  I've been co-author, the co-author of, um, a number of lanky books,
• 4:56
  more Particularly Sweet, which is the baking book that was released in 2017.
• 5:02
  And Comfort, lanky Comfort, which is a kind of family cookbook
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  that was, that was out in 2024.
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  I'm a baking columnist for the Sydney Morning Herald and The Guardian in the uk.
• 5:14
  Um, yes, that's just about me full-time.
• 5:16
  Well, I'm a mom of two children too.
• 5:19
  Yeah.
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  That's always a, a fun part of our, our work as well and our life.
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  Mm-hmm.
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  So your book, baking and the Meaning of Life, uh, recently published,
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  uh, fascinated me in a way that.
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  A lot of cookbooks do, obviously, but this one in particular because
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  it combines your, uh, professional life, what you do, and then obviously
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  what you've done as a cookbook author with a book now of your own.
• 5:44
  Mm-hmm.
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  So, I'd love for you to tell us a little bit about, uh,
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  your work as a psychotherapist.
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  Mm-hmm.
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  And then how that, and, and let's talk a little bit about, just before
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  we get into baking, like the meaning of life and, and your description of,
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  uh, what that means, um, in terms of who we are and what we choose to do.
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  Well, I, I, when I left school, I went to university because I wanted to
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  do, uh, wanted to be a psychologist.
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  I did a Bachelor of science and the faculty had said to me, I was too young at
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  that point to qualify as a psychologist, so they suggested I. Go and experience
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  life a bit, which I think was a fair call.
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  And I did that.
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  And I, uh, because of my science degree, I worked for a pharmaceutical company
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  and part of my job was to talk to doctors about, uh, you know, new drugs.
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  And I found that one of the ways that I could do it that efficiently
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  was to organize a lunge and invite all the doctors rather than sort
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  of go from one clinic to another.
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  I would put on a lunge.
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  And very quickly I thought, I'm so much more interested in what's for
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  lunch than, you know, what I'm, what I'm supposed to be talking about.
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  And I just listened to that.
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  And at the time I had a partner who was, um, a journalist and
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  he was given this opportunity to have a, a redundancy package.
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  And he'd said to me, you know, what would you do if you had this sum of money?
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  And I said, well, I would just open a cafe.
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  And it was the most ridiculous thing because I'd had no experience whatsoever.
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  And neither had he, did he, but somehow we.
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  You know, didn't let the ignorance and the lack of experience get
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  in the way of a, of a good story.
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  And we went on to open this cafe and we worked very, very hard.
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  And it was a, it was a great success in the sense that people
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  came and they came again and again.
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  And, and it, you know, we were kind of on the map, you know, in, in a
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  small little suburb in, in Melbourne.
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  Um, and from there, you know, when we burnt out and sold it, somehow
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  we had people who were just remained interested in what we were doing
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  and, and invited us to follow.
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  And so I then just, you know, cooked around and, and learned and, um, did
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  a lot of that for about 10 years.
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  And I went back to study to finish my psychology.
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  And, um, when I registered, I'd met my husband who was based in London, and
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  he suggested we, you know, well I could move to London, which, which I did.
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  And when I.
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  Make that decision that I would move to London.
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  I thought I would hang up my chef's coat and, you know, settle down to a life
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  of psychology because those 10 years were amazing fun, but they were also
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  incredibly hard and physical as well.
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  But one, one of the things that was difficult when I moved to London was that
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  I couldn't practice with my Australian registration and I had to apply for a
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  British registration, and it was a very.
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  Obstru sort of book that I just couldn't get my head around.
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  And the alternative was to do a doctorate.
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  And I thought, well, I'll do that.
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  But there was a lag time between when I applied to do the doctorate
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  and the doctorate actually starting the course starting.
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  And during that time, the, my husband had suggested that I might want to check
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  out this little deli down the road.
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  And of course, that was the OT deli.
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  And I went in and I had a look and I was, you know, completely
• 9:08
  seduced by this Aladdin's cave.
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  And, and I wrote that afternoon, I wrote your t an email to say,
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  um, you know, perhaps I could, do you have any shifts I could do?
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  And unbeknownst to me, he'd been given a tip by a friend that I was
• 9:23
  moving to London and if I was ever going to knock on his door, you
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  know, to, to, to, to snap me up.
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  So he was waiting for me and we just got talking and, and it's was, and
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  we haven't stopped talking since.
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  And that was 20 years ago.
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  Yes.
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  Yes.
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  And then you went on to help him write, uh, sweet and comfort.
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  And, you know, it's interesting.
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  One of the things I ask my guests a lot is, uh, not just talking about
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  their cookbook, but other cookbooks that have influenced their work or
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  have been staples in their kitchen.
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  And his books have come up several times, so mm-hmm.
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  Your work and the work that he did and published in books,
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  um, is touching the lives of.
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  Oh, thousands and thousands of cooks and bakers, which I think is one of the
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  really neat things about, um, cookbooks in your book now, what was it like to
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  do one for yourself and not one mm-hmm.
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  In partnership with Yotam?
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  I think it was both.
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  It's, it's been both daunting and liberating.
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  Um, at, you know, at Lange, because we work collaboratively as a team,
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  we get the, we have the luxury of sort of staying in our lane.
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  I mean, my forte is developing recipes and, uh, you know,
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  there's a, there's an in-house editor, so I write up the recipes.
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  Um, but, you know, we have the luxury of somebody looking over the
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  work and correcting the grammar.
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  So it was very l it's very luxurious.
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  So coming out of that, you know that it's quite daunting in the sense that
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  you are now this one man band, you know, you have to do it all, taste it, all,
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  write it up, create, develop in this.
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  Not a vacuum as such.
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  Of course, there are always people around, but you know, the,
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  the hub of Olge is incredibly creative and incredibly fertile.
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  You know, there's, at any given point in the kitchen, there's somebody
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  willing to give you feedback, in fact, even when you don't want it, you know?
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  Yeah.
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  Um, so in preparation for that, I'd read a number of books.
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  I was concerned about whether my writing was good enough and,
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  and I read a number of books, including Bird by Bird, by mm-hmm.
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  And Lamont, and, you know, and that not only did it help me to be a better
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  writer, it gave me that permission to have what she calls the shitty first draft.
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  You know, this idea that you just get it down on paper.
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  And I applied that to recipe testing as well, because I have a tendency
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  to try and live in my head and to think and create something in my head.
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  So fully formed that.
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  That when I get, by the time I get to the kitchen, you know,
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  it's, it's, it's almost there.
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  And then I would be devastated when it doesn't sort of come out as I'd imagined.
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  And that idea of the shitty first draft just gave me permission just
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  to get one version of it down, you know, on that kitchen table.
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  That was hugely liberating because once you do that, you've
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  got a roadmap where to go.
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  But it's that starting, you know, it's that fear sometimes that
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  something that lives in your head is not going to work out, and when it
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  doesn't, it can feel quite crushing.
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  So the idea of just getting something out there and deciding from there what
• 12:31
  you want to do, it, it made me approach the work with less trepidation and
• 12:36
  more curiosity, genuine curiosity.
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  So that book really helped me in not just the writing, but in terms
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  of recipe development, I'm just far more efficient, um, you know, for,
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  for being, for being able to endure.
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  You know, a, a bad, and I think when we let things live in our head too
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  long, they, that's where they stay.
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  Yes.
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  They don't, they don't progress any further than that.
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  Exactly.
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  And it's such a common thing to have happen because we're thinking about it.
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  We're thinking about it, but we're not doing anything.
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  And then it, yes.
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  You know, so I, if we, if we feel stalled or stuck, usually, um,
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  I agree with Anne, you just have to get something out on paper.
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  Yes.
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  Get the first draft out, see where you are, and then, uh, go from there
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  because you finally have taken it from what's up here to something
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  that's actually living on paper.
• 13:27
  Yes.
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  You, and actually when you've got it on, when you've got that thing on the
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  kitchen table, you know, you can think, oh yes, that needs a bit of lemon.
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  Oh yes.
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  But it's a bit creamy.
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  And do I really want to put, you know, a creamy I frosting on top?
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  You know, there's it, I mean, I'm, I'm speaking of what my, my baked
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  today, which is an almond cake, um, and almond raspberry ripple cake.
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  It's for Mother's Day in Australia for my column.
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  And, you know, it's, it's buttery and armandy, the cake is really
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  beautifully buttery, but it needed frosting because it's Mother's Day.
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  You know, I wanted it to look pretty, but I thought, you know, I've
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  already got 2,250 grams of butter.
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  I can't add another 250 grams of butter.
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  You know, so once you get it on the, on the kitchen table.
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  It's, it's much easier to make those decisions.
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  Yeah.
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  What was it like to write a baking book individually when it comes
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  to, not just the development of the recipes, but the tasting, the testing,
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  the making sure it all tasted okay.
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  'cause I think as a someone who has written savory books, I always felt like,
• 14:27
  well, if I tested something, I could just feed it to the family for dinner.
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  Yes, we'll all be.
• 14:33
  Satisfied.
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  Everybody will be fed.
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  But when you're baking, it's not always the case.
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  I know.
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  And it's not as easy because people say, oh, you could just drop it around
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  or discuss it amongst your friends, and sometimes you can, but oftentimes
• 14:45
  I want to see how that cake is the next day, or how is it in room temperature
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  and do I need to refrigerate it?
• 14:53
  You know, I sometimes I just have to throw it out.
• 14:56
  Yes.
• 14:56
  So that's not, that's not easy.
• 14:59
  Yeah.
• 14:59
  No, it's not.
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  It's not easy.
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  So let's start at a little bit of a high level.
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  When you talk about meaning of life mm-hmm.
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  And what baking does for the meaning of life.
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  Tell us what you mean by that.
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  So I'll start with the title because I, I admit it sounds rather grandiose,
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  you know, and it, it's, I'm what I, I'm referencing a book, um, a book
• 15:20
  from, from my studies in psychology.
• 15:22
  Uh, I really loved an American, uh, um, at psychoanalyst called Irv Yalom.
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  And he wrote a number of books, both textbooks and novels based on
• 15:32
  his experience as a psychoanalyst.
• 15:34
  And one of the books was called Mama and the Meaning of Life.
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  And Apart from, you know, it's, it's, it's a very rich book, but what I
• 15:41
  took away from it was that this idea of people's ordinary lives, or the
• 15:47
  ordinary moments in people's lives when you stitch them together makes
• 15:50
  for the, the, an extraordinary life.
• 15:52
  And I thought actually, you know, with ot, with the process of writing books,
• 15:56
  it's very outward facing, whether it's, you are looking at your cookbook
• 16:00
  audience or the customer who comes into those stores and the restaurants.
• 16:04
  When I. Came out of writing for lanky.
• 16:06
  I suddenly thought that actually I have a whole host of kind of quieter
• 16:12
  recipes that I've been baking from for years, and they feel more, almost
• 16:18
  more reflective in some way, and coming out of that sort of exuberant.
• 16:22
  Face with, with creating for olge, I realized that I had so much
• 16:26
  within and so much of a, a quieter kind of recipe that I really love.
• 16:32
  And when I looked at it, it was whenever I looked at these recipes
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  and when I've made them, who I've made them for, and the context of
• 16:39
  them, there was usually a story.
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  And when I pieced together the story, and I, you know, that what came out
• 16:46
  of that are those seven chapters, which we'll, we'll talk about soon.
• 16:50
  Um, but I thought to myself that all of those things stitched together
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  makes for an extraordinary life.
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  I've captured all the little moments that I've celebrated and commemorated with
• 17:01
  friends and family and, and strangers who've maybe ordered a cake from me.
• 17:05
  All of that is made up my life and.
• 17:08
  I was, when I did my thesis, my doctoral thesis was I interviewed women and
• 17:13
  I transcribed their interviews, and then I tried to find common threads.
• 17:18
  So I applied that quite unconsciously.
• 17:20
  I really did not think that the process would have anything at all
• 17:24
  in common with writing a cookbook.
• 17:26
  But I think without even realizing, I employed something of this,
• 17:30
  delving into the narrative and letting the, letting the.
• 17:36
  Themes well up from within.
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  And when I looked at that, when did I make that?
• 17:41
  What was it for?
• 17:42
  I realized, oh, that's about continuity.
• 17:44
  Oh, that's a ritual and a tradition.
• 17:46
  So those chapters kind of almost formed themselves.
• 17:51
  Yeah.
• 17:51
  Um, you know, after quite a lot of work and thinking.
• 17:54
  Yeah.
• 17:54
  But I realized that everything I'd made was not in a vacuum.
• 17:57
  And even when it was, even when it was because I just wanted
• 18:00
  to perfect making shoe pastry.
• 18:03
  Well, that fitted into this idea of learning growth and achievement,
• 18:06
  because that's what gives me, you know, derives a lot of meaning for me.
• 18:10
  Yeah.
• 18:11
  Yeah.
• 18:11
  And something you pointed out in the introduction that I
• 18:13
  think really helped to, um.
• 18:16
  Kind of bring home what you were setting out to accomplish with this book was
• 18:21
  the difference between things we do to survive and things that we do in our
• 18:26
  life to add meaning to our life, right?
• 18:28
  Yes.
• 18:29
  So tell us a little bit about the difference between those
• 18:32
  two and how it is that baking falls into one and not the other.
• 18:37
  You know, when we got, Tam and I were traveling after Sweet, our
• 18:41
  baking book came out, it coincided with the time that there was a, a
• 18:46
  big uptake of this idea of no sugar.
• 18:48
  You know, that sugar was evil and, and sugar was as addictive as cocaine.
• 18:52
  And we need to make a real effort to ban it.
• 18:54
  And, and we thought we could be really either very defensive or
• 18:59
  we could lean into that, yes, you know, it isn't something you want
• 19:03
  to eat every day, but why does it, why have we persisted in baking?
• 19:07
  Why have we done that?
• 19:08
  And it's because it's not just about the taste of it.
• 19:11
  I mean, often it's.
• 19:12
  Tastes wonderful, but it's because it represents something else.
• 19:16
  It's a bit like, and I don't, again, don't want to sound grandiose, but it's
• 19:19
  like art, you know, nobody needs it.
• 19:21
  And yet, on the other hand, what does it mean to live a good life?
• 19:25
  You know, some of the things that don't really matter.
• 19:27
  Do we need flowers?
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  Well, we don't, but you know, what does it add to our lives?
• 19:32
  What would our lives be without flowers, without art, without
• 19:36
  baking, without that cake, you know?
• 19:39
  So, yes, you know, we, we all need, um, uh, sustenance and nourishment with,
• 19:45
  with, with dinner, but we also need.
• 19:49
  The humanity, what brings us together?
• 19:52
  And you know, you'll see that in my book, there's a chapter on community
• 19:55
  nurturing rituals and traditions.
• 19:58
  I mean, I'm currently baking for Chinese New Year and, and I'm writing for Easter.
• 20:03
  You know, I'm doing chocolate cakes and hot cross buns for Easter.
• 20:06
  We mark our lives with these, with these beaks.
• 20:10
  And I think it's because they, because of the very fact that they're not essential,
• 20:15
  it, it, it guides us to thinking that there must be something symbolic or there
• 20:19
  must be another reason why we do it.
• 20:21
  And I think these.
• 20:23
  These bakes that we do, uh, uh, you know, during particular times in the,
• 20:27
  on the calendar, I think it helps us to locate ourselves in time and also in
• 20:32
  community because soon everybody will be making hot cross buns and chocolate
• 20:37
  eggs and chocolate cake and you know, and then I know for Ramadan, you know,
• 20:41
  there'll be making, you know, date bakes and, and you know, ma biscuits.
• 20:46
  And so there, there are reasons why we do it.
• 20:49
  Right.
• 20:49
  And I think we'd be kind of lost without them.
• 20:52
  Yeah.
• 20:52
  Because of what would life be without art?
• 20:55
  Um, yes.
• 20:56
  Music.
• 20:57
  Yeah.
• 20:58
  Um, architecture.
• 21:00
  Yes.
• 21:00
  Um, beautiful things.
• 21:02
  Gardening.
• 21:03
  Um, yes.
• 21:04
  Baking.
• 21:05
  Even you mentioned sports, and I think that that's true.
• 21:08
  People that pursue individual sports, team sports, athletics, not none
• 21:13
  of these really for survival, but I think they point to something bigger.
• 21:16
  And obviously, um, I come from a, uh, background where I would probably
• 21:21
  talk about transcendence and the fact that we lit something bigger
• 21:25
  and more powerful than us, uh, you know, shine through us, and it's a
• 21:29
  means to joy and happiness and peace.
• 21:33
  Mm-hmm.
• 21:33
  And, um, things that, uh, that we all want to pursue in life.
• 21:37
  But these just become means to that end.
• 21:39
  And the thing about baking is this won't be a, a channel to a
• 21:44
  meaningful life for everybody.
• 21:46
  Uh, but people that love to bake and people that can see that we're not talking
• 21:51
  about necessarily a loaf of bread to put on the table to feed the family.
• 21:55
  This is even things above and beyond that.
• 21:58
  So let's talk about the table of contents, because you organize it in a way that.
• 22:04
  Is unique to the book, unique to the topic, and something that I've
• 22:08
  mentioned on the podcast before that I'm seeing in a lot of cookbooks
• 22:11
  where the table of contents is really almost a story in and of itself.
• 22:18
  Mm-hmm.
• 22:18
  It's not just, uh, cakes, cookies, pies.
• 22:21
  Mm-hmm.
• 22:22
  That's great if you wanna do it that way.
• 22:23
  But yours tells us more about the recipes.
• 22:26
  Tell us a little bit about how your recipes are organized.
• 22:31
  Yes.
• 22:31
  Because you are right.
• 22:32
  I mean, mostly in a way it's easier just to say yes, this is a cookie chapter.
• 22:37
  Yeah.
• 22:37
  This is a cheesecake chapter.
• 22:39
  Yeah.
• 22:39
  And these are small cakes and these large cakes, and this is confectionary.
• 22:42
  But I think you are absolutely right when you say that the table of contents
• 22:47
  reflects something about what the author wants to convey because the, the
• 22:53
  qua non of a cookbook is the recipes.
• 22:55
  And they have to work, you've got to have a good body of them, and
• 22:58
  they have to be, you know, reliable.
• 23:00
  Without that, there is no cookbook.
• 23:02
  And, and you know, I'm very conscious that my, for me, for,
• 23:05
  for my publisher, that was it.
• 23:07
  You know, they could listen to my ideas and, but actually really
• 23:11
  all they cared about was that I got that a hundred recipes.
• 23:14
  Really, really, you know, good recipes in there.
• 23:17
  Yeah.
• 23:17
  Yeah.
• 23:18
  Um, and then you could sort of play around a bit, and there is a bit
• 23:22
  of a trade off in terms of how.
• 23:24
  Um, you want the book to be straightforward and easy to
• 23:27
  use, but on the other hand, yes.
• 23:29
  What, what else might you want to say about it that makes it uniquely yours?
• 23:34
  And as I said, I drew something about the doctoral thesis that I wrote
• 23:37
  for my psychology, um, dissertation.
• 23:40
  I drew from that something about themes and I.
• 23:45
  Felt confident that my recipes were interesting,
• 23:49
  were good, were joyous to eat.
• 23:51
  And that gave me the idea that I could play around a bit and, and,
• 23:55
  and tap into something more that I wanted to say without disrupting that.
• 24:01
  Um, you know, the recipes.
• 24:02
  So my idea on these chapters, there's a little short essay at the beginning of
• 24:07
  each chapter if people want to read it.
• 24:09
  I mean, they don't have to read it because, you know, they could just buy it
• 24:12
  and use it as a straightforward cookbook.
• 24:14
  But I felt, as you said, you know, authors want to bring in something
• 24:19
  more of what they want to say.
• 24:20
  Yeah.
• 24:20
  That, that isn't, that, that doesn't get in the way of, of the recipe.
• 24:26
  You're in great company here on the Cookbook Love podcast because many of
• 24:30
  our listeners love to read cookbooks even over and above using them.
• 24:36
  Uh, so I know, well, I grew up just reading cookbooks in bed, you know?
• 24:40
  Yes, yes.
• 24:41
  The best thing was getting a new cookbook and tucking yourself up, you know?
• 24:44
  Yes.
• 24:45
  Yeah.
• 24:45
  And I always had the habit of like starting, I don't know why this,
• 24:49
  but I would start like reading, I'd start with the index mm-hmm.
• 24:52
  And read through.
• 24:53
  And, you know, an index really is a great way to see exactly
• 24:56
  what's in the book mm-hmm.
• 24:57
  As opposed to the table of contents, which kind of shows
• 24:59
  you it's organizing principle.
• 25:01
  Yes.
• 25:01
  And I would, um, go, you know, then I would kind of go back to the beginning.
• 25:05
  But the index always fascinated me.
• 25:08
  And, um, your table of contents has chapters like giving,
• 25:14
  receiving, and sharing.
• 25:16
  Mm-hmm.
• 25:16
  Um, nurturing.
• 25:18
  Celebrating, remembering and continuity, community and
• 25:22
  belonging, ritual and tradition learning, growth and achievement.
• 25:26
  And you mentioned that you had this repertoire of recipes outside of even
• 25:30
  the work you did with Otto Lange, and you started to kind of think, well, I made the
• 25:35
  shoe paste and that might go in the growth chapter, or I made this roasted pineapple
• 25:41
  that might go in the nurturing chapter.
• 25:43
  So you kind of almost in your mind had reasons or ways that you
• 25:48
  bake these things and they kind of categorize themselves, it sounds like.
• 25:53
  Yes.
• 25:53
  And some of them could belong in multiple chapters because you can
• 25:56
  make the same thing for different occasions and different reasons.
• 26:00
  And so there was a bit of.
• 26:02
  Move, you know, I could move them around a bit.
• 26:04
  I tried to locate the thing that was most meaningful, uh, and put it in the
• 26:08
  chapter that was most meaningful to that.
• 26:11
  Yeah.
• 26:11
  Um, yeah.
• 26:13
  Yeah, yeah.
• 26:14
  So then I love to, the introductions were very good.
• 26:18
  I think that, um, it does give you a sense of the types of
• 26:21
  recipes that might be in there.
• 26:23
  Um, and that, that's of course, like you said, of course they
• 26:26
  could be in multiple chapters.
• 26:28
  But, um, I like when I, then, when I went into the nurturing chapter
• 26:31
  and I read the recipe list, I'm like, I can totally see why this.
• 26:35
  Apple pie might be in the nurturing chapter, right?
• 26:38
  Yes.
• 26:38
  Yes.
• 26:39
  Yeah.
• 26:39
  And, and talking about, you know, um, necessity, you know,
• 26:42
  and, and nourishment with eating and then baking that apple pie.
• 26:47
  Um, the story around that is that I had a friend whose husband was going through
• 26:50
  chemotherapy and, you know, they had a very, very challenging time and a number
• 26:56
  of us used to bake and well used to cook dinner, you know, drop off soups
• 27:00
  and roast chicken and salads and stews.
• 27:03
  And towards the end of his treatment, she said to me, he's really feeling
• 27:07
  better and he's craving an apple pie.
• 27:10
  And she described this particular one that he loved on his travels to Australia.
• 27:14
  And I said, well, I don't know that one.
• 27:16
  Tell me more about it.
• 27:17
  And so she described it and I worked.
• 27:21
  According to her description and the day that I delivered it, I mean, I
• 27:24
  think it was nine at the end of sort of nine months of, of, of, of, um,
• 27:29
  uh, you know, therapy, chemotherapy.
• 27:33
  They were almost in tears.
• 27:34
  And even though they were very appreciative of the lasagnas and
• 27:38
  the chicken and the salads and soups that we brought, there was
• 27:41
  something about that apple pie.
• 27:43
  And it was because no one needed to eat it, but it, it,
• 27:46
  it symbolized his recovery.
• 27:48
  Yeah.
• 27:49
  It symbolized the time and the focus that I took to developing that for him and
• 27:55
  making that and, and giving it to him.
• 27:57
  So, you know, it was the, the, the symbolism of it and the idea that it
• 28:02
  wasn't just an apple pie, it was my, our care for each other, you know?
• 28:06
  Yeah.
• 28:07
  Yeah.
• 28:07
  It's beautiful.
• 28:07
  And I could totally see why it was in that chapter.
• 28:10
  I thought we might, um, go through a couple of the chapters here and look at
• 28:14
  some of the recipes and talk a little bit about it, because it's not only.
• 28:18
  Sweets.
• 28:19
  There are some savory things in the book as well.
• 28:22
  Yes.
• 28:22
  Some savory bakes.
• 28:23
  Mm-hmm.
• 28:23
  And some very, uh, delicious ones.
• 28:25
  The one I wanna start with, um, little bit of a personal connection.
• 28:29
  Over the weekend, um, for Christmas, our children got us, uh, experience for a
• 28:35
  gift where we got to go to a dinner that celebrated the food of the Italian Alps.
• 28:41
  And this was in connection to the Olympics being in Italy.
• 28:46
  Right.
• 28:46
  And so it was food from Northern Italy.
• 28:48
  Um Right.
• 28:49
  I know.
• 28:49
  Just the recipe you're thinking about.
• 28:51
  Right.
• 28:51
  Yeah.
• 28:51
  So there was some wild boar on the menu.
• 28:54
  Wow.
• 28:54
  And we had, um, some, you know.
• 28:57
  Several courses related to a Northern Italian cuisine and Food of the Alps.
• 29:02
  So there's a recipe in here for, um, NOCO Frito and mm-hmm.
• 29:06
  I would love if you talked a little bit about that recipe.
• 29:09
  'cause I have to say I had read it about it in books before.
• 29:12
  I've never personally made it.
• 29:14
  And then I saw it on the menu there.
• 29:16
  Of course, we had it in the context of a little, uh, charcuterie plate.
• 29:19
  Yes.
• 29:20
  And now here I turn to your book and it's a recipe in here.
• 29:23
  And this is in the.
• 29:26
  Uh, giving, receiving, and sharing chapter.
• 29:29
  Yes.
• 29:29
  Because it's what I love to have when friends come over for drinks,
• 29:33
  you know, or we are having a little drink before, um, before supper.
• 29:37
  Yeah.
• 29:37
  And I mean, although it's not baking, in fact this particular pastry is fried.
• 29:43
  I justified its inclusion by saying that it's a pastry, you know,
• 29:48
  it's just so you roll it very, very thinly and it's steep fried.
• 29:51
  And usually, as you said, it's served with charcuterie.
• 29:54
  And what I've done there is served it with anchovy and a salsa verde.
• 29:58
  'cause I love this idea of something sharp and acidic.
• 30:01
  Um, but I love savory food because of the rusticity.
• 30:04
  You know, there's something so inviting about it.
• 30:07
  Oftentimes with cake, there's a bit of pressure that it has to look pretty
• 30:11
  and, and, you know, cheesy rustic bites.
• 30:15
  For me, it's just an invitation to relax.
• 30:18
  And the savory chapters came about because I had a friend who was moving
• 30:22
  house, and normally what I would do when I visit is to bring a cake.
• 30:26
  But she'd declared that she was not eating gluten and not eating sugar.
• 30:29
  And I thought, oh God, that's a big bit, bit of a boar.
• 30:32
  But then when I recovered from that, I thought, I'm going to bake a savory pie.
• 30:37
  So I made a broccoli pie for her, which is in the book.
• 30:39
  And, you know, we loved it so much.
• 30:42
  We, I made it, it was round in this, I made it in the cake tin, and we sliced
• 30:46
  it up like a cake, and we sat in the garden and enjoyed it with drinks.
• 30:50
  And it was every bit as.
• 30:52
  Wonderful as if it was a cake.
• 30:54
  And that gave me the kind of opening to including more savory baking.
• 30:59
  In fact, there's 17, and I have to say I've been on Instagram seeing what people
• 31:04
  have made, and I have to say that savory chapters have been a real hit Yeah.
• 31:08
  Savory recipe.
• 31:08
  I think that's gonna, and I think that it, it takes that, you were
• 31:12
  talking about sugar and baking and, you know, we can't have any sugar
• 31:15
  and, but this, this is baking.
• 31:17
  This is, um, I've always had a fascination with homemade crackers.
• 31:21
  And here in Kentucky we make, uh, little cheese wafers with
• 31:25
  like sharp cheddar cheese.
• 31:26
  It's like a small, uh.
• 31:29
  Nibble that you would eat with a cocktail, Kentucky, probably something
• 31:33
  with bourbon in it, but it's a homemade, it's like a homemade cracker.
• 31:36
  Its little savory cracker.
• 31:38
  Yes.
• 31:38
  And uh, to me this is sort of the same thing, but instead of
• 31:41
  being baked, it's, it's fried.
• 31:43
  Yes.
• 31:44
  Um, but it was just absolutely delicious and it kind of puffed up and, uh, yes.
• 31:47
  This looks like in the picture it's a little bit puffed up and you That's right.
• 31:51
  Yeah.
• 31:51
  And so, um, I think that it's simple.
• 31:55
  It's, um, homemade.
• 31:57
  It shows, uh, and perfecting or being known for someone who makes
• 32:02
  something like this when company comes over to share with people, I think,
• 32:05
  I think it's just that little, um.
• 32:10
  Improvement's not the right word, but it's like a little elevation of what we
• 32:14
  might normally do for a cocktail hour.
• 32:16
  I totally agree with you, Maggie.
• 32:18
  It's just, it's simple, but it's delightful.
• 32:20
  It is delightful.
• 32:21
  It's something delightful that yes, you could, you know, just
• 32:24
  tear open a box of crackers and there's nothing wrong with that.
• 32:26
  No.
• 32:26
  There isn't anything wrong with that.
• 32:28
  No.
• 32:28
  You know.
• 32:28
  Absolutely.
• 32:29
  But if you wanted to make it, it's just an extra kind of delightful.
• 32:33
  Yes, thank you.
• 32:33
  So I'm thrilled to see the recipe.
• 32:36
  Um, we love the, um, idea of the toppings you put on it as well, so
• 32:41
  I'm gonna have to give that a try.
• 32:43
  Oh, great.
• 32:44
  Alright, so the nurturing chapter, we have to talk about the perennial
• 32:48
  favorite chocolate chip cookies.
• 32:50
  Um, is there anything more nurturing than home baked cookies?
• 32:53
  So tell us about your crisp and chewy chocolate chip cookies.
• 32:58
  So I do have a recipe in sweet, which my children, well they're not very keen
• 33:03
  bakers, but when their friends come and they want to eat something, it's
• 33:06
  usually that chocolate chip cookie.
• 33:08
  And one day my younger son, um, Jude had a friend over and they were
• 33:12
  desperate to make that and we didn't have any eggs, but I'm prone to
• 33:16
  collecting egg whites in the fridge.
• 33:17
  You know, I'm always saving them.
• 33:19
  And so I sort of thought, well, look, you know, doesn't, it's just really
• 33:24
  for them to keep them occupied.
• 33:26
  So let's just.
• 33:26
  You know, use the egg whites and see how that goes.
• 33:30
  And even if, you know, even if it's not great, they can still eat it,
• 33:34
  we can bake it and the afternoon would've been taken care of.
• 33:37
  But actually what happened was that it was delicious.
• 33:40
  And I'm not a huge chocolate chip fan.
• 33:42
  I don't like, um, I don't love when it's very doy or, or, or when
• 33:48
  it's undifferentiated, whether it's very crispy or very chewy.
• 33:53
  And these hit that spot where it was chewy around the edges and,
• 33:57
  sorry, it was, um, crisp around the edges and chewy in the middle.
• 34:01
  And I thought that is just a really delicious biscuit.
• 34:05
  And from there.
• 34:07
  It was a short step to thinking, well, I could actually make this
• 34:10
  vegan because if I can use egg whites, I can use Aqua Farber.
• 34:14
  Um, which I also collect because we eat beans.
• 34:16
  And, and then when I made it, that also worked.
• 34:19
  I mean, it doesn't look quite as robust as a regular chocolate chip cookie,
• 34:23
  but I think it's a sort of thing that when you want to be able to feed a lot
• 34:27
  of people, when you make a batch of chocolate chip cookies, there's something
• 34:30
  very inclusive to be able to say yes.
• 34:33
  You know, you, you, you, you, if you are dairy free or if
• 34:37
  you're vegan, you can eat this.
• 34:39
  Yes, yes.
• 34:40
  Um, in fact, that brings me to another recipe in the book called
• 34:42
  the, um, chocolate Cake for Everyone.
• 34:45
  Did you see that?
• 34:46
  No, I haven't seen that one yet, but this sounds great.
• 34:48
  Tell us about it.
• 34:49
  Well, my oldest son, uh, who's quite a competitive boy at school, that
• 34:54
  the teacher had organized a kind of school, bake off a class, bake
• 34:58
  off, and, you know, there's, you know, 22 of them in a classroom.
• 35:03
  And, and he, when it was his turn to make something, he realized that three
• 35:08
  of his friends, um, had in intolerances, one was intolerant to eggs, another
• 35:13
  was dairy, and the other one was nuts.
• 35:16
  So he came home and said.
• 35:18
  What's, what's a chocolate cake?
• 35:20
  A favorite cake that everybody can eat.
• 35:22
  And I thought, oh gosh, we'll have to really think about that one.
• 35:26
  It's not easy to make a dairy-free, egg-free, nut-free sort of cake.
• 35:29
  'cause normally, you know, you use ground almonds or ground nuts to give it
• 35:33
  sort of a texture if it's gluten-free.
• 35:35
  Yeah.
• 35:36
  Anyways, so together, over a number of weeks, we came up with this cake that,
• 35:40
  um, it's actually one of my favorites.
• 35:42
  And, and when I tell the story, people think, oh.
• 35:45
  Son is so lovely, how inclusive.
• 35:47
  But actually I think in his mind, the more people who voted for who could
• 35:51
  eat the cake would vote for him.
• 35:52
  And he was just very competitive.
• 35:54
  And he wanted to win.
• 35:55
  Yes.
• 35:55
  And he wanted one that everybody could enjoy.
• 35:57
  Yes.
• 35:58
  Because actually the more people who enjoyed it, the
• 36:00
  more people to vote for him.
• 36:02
  But I was very pleased because I'm not generally prone towards
• 36:06
  free from baking, and that really forced me to dig a bit deeper.
• 36:10
  And I think it's one of my favorite recipes.
• 36:13
  I love that no one can tell that it's, um, that it's vegan and that it starts off as
• 36:19
  dried apricots that are soaped and pureed.
• 36:22
  So something about that gelatinous quality that it, it, it, it both
• 36:26
  functions as sort of the glue for the cake and also the egg replacement.
• 36:30
  And I think it's a really lovely tasty cake.
• 36:33
  Yeah.
• 36:33
  Nice.
• 36:34
  You mentioned aquafaba, this is a technical question.
• 36:37
  Is it the aquafaba from chickpeas?
• 36:39
  Generally the only one that works the best in place of egg whites.
• 36:44
  I think they all work.
• 36:46
  Yeah.
• 36:46
  Other, or, or do other bean liquid also work?
• 36:49
  Yeah, I think they do.
• 36:51
  They do.
• 36:52
  I, for me it's more, um, let's say a tin versus a jar.
• 36:57
  The tin ones tend to be a bit more watery when I, my experience.
• 37:01
  So it's not so much what kind of pulse it is, what kind of bean
• 37:05
  it is, and more the kind of how it's been sort processed, stored,
• 37:09
  processed and how it's been processed.
• 37:11
  And so, uh, buying a.
• 37:13
  Beans in a tin or a can versus in a jar versus cooking your own beans,
• 37:19
  that might not be the same as, is that true than the ones that are purchased?
• 37:23
  Is that right?
• 37:24
  In my experience, I mean, I think if you can cook with very little
• 37:28
  water and not dilute it so much, you may have a have more luck.
• 37:32
  Yeah.
• 37:32
  Yeah.
• 37:32
  But I tend to, if I'm looking for aquafaba, you know, if I, if we have
• 37:36
  beans, I will save it and freeze it.
• 37:38
  Um, yes.
• 37:39
  But, and you would jarred beans in your experience, maybe tend to work
• 37:42
  a little better over the tin beans?
• 37:44
  I do, but it varies also from brand to brand.
• 37:47
  So it's interest an easy Yeah.
• 37:48
  Yeah.
• 37:48
  You know, it's, it's, um, I'm just saying you're thinking too, like if
• 37:52
  you did, like, I think black beans, you know, the, the color of the
• 37:56
  bean gets into the liquid, but maybe you would try that at a cake that.
• 38:00
  Is chocolate or something that's darker in color, uh, already, rather than
• 38:05
  putting it obviously in a lighter cake or something that you wouldn't wanna see any
• 38:09
  of the brown flicks from the black face.
• 38:11
  Right.
• 38:12
  Yeah.
• 38:12
  Yes.
• 38:12
  I just was curious about that.
• 38:14
  Yeah.
• 38:14
  My experience is that once you mix it all up and whip it and do all that i, that it
• 38:19
  doesn't tend to affect the cake so much.
• 38:22
  Okay.
• 38:23
  Yeah.
• 38:23
  Very good.
• 38:23
  Well, that's an interesting, um, observation.
• 38:27
  I am glad that you answered that.
• 38:29
  A couple people had asked me and I'm like, well, I had always heard just chickpeas,
• 38:33
  but I guess we can, one thing about it, you can always experiment, right?
• 38:38
  You can.
• 38:39
  Yes.
• 38:39
  And I think this is the other thing about baking.
• 38:41
  You know, when you are involved in it, it feels like you are very focused
• 38:45
  and very, it's a very embodied process and you, you have to really bring
• 38:49
  yourself to it to be attuned to it.
• 38:51
  And yet it's a low stakes kind of.
• 38:55
  Environment because what's, what's the worst that can happen?
• 38:58
  Something isn't edible, you know?
• 39:00
  Yeah.
• 39:00
  It's not the, the end of the world, and I think it both offers that I, a laboratory
• 39:06
  for creativity that you can really immerse yourself into, but, um, but it's, it's
• 39:11
  challenging enough that you can, you know, feel very connected to it, but it's not so
• 39:17
  challenging that it's stressful, you know?
• 39:20
  Yeah.
• 39:20
  Yeah.
• 39:21
  I love the question, what's the worst thing that can happen?
• 39:25
  Right.
• 39:26
  Well, I guess that comes from my psychology.
• 39:28
  It's true.
• 39:29
  It's true.
• 39:30
  Yeah.
• 39:31
  I, it's a hundred percent true, and it's really an important
• 39:33
  thing to ask ourselves.
• 39:35
  If there truly is not a lot of risk and it's something you want
• 39:40
  to do, why would you not try?
• 39:42
  Exactly.
• 39:43
  Right.
• 39:44
  Yeah.
• 39:44
  For a long time I was baking with my youngest son who does like
• 39:47
  baking and, and I realized that I saw it as teaching him how to cook.
• 39:52
  And actually it really put him off because I was pedantic and I, I was
• 39:57
  very fastidious about not getting eggshells in that brownie batter.
• 40:01
  Mm-hmm.
• 40:01
  And actually, thank goodness I came around to seeing it as
• 40:04
  just, we are, we are hanging out.
• 40:06
  And what he's learning is this mastery of something and this idea of making a
• 40:11
  mistake and the world not ending right.
• 40:14
  And next time cracking the egg a little more neatly without
• 40:18
  getting the shell in the batter.
• 40:20
  And that's.
• 40:22
  That is the, the gift of it.
• 40:24
  It's not learning to cook, you know?
• 40:26
  No.
• 40:26
  He'll eventually get there if he wants to.
• 40:28
  That's right.
• 40:28
  That's not the important thing.
• 40:29
  The important thing is that the kitchen functions as a kind
• 40:32
  of laboratory for real life.
• 40:35
  You know?
• 40:35
  You can keep at something and then you'll master it.
• 40:38
  Yeah.
• 40:38
  You definitely.
• 40:39
  Um, and that actually, you know, if you make a mistake, it's okay.
• 40:42
  It's recoverable.
• 40:43
  Yeah.
• 40:43
  Yeah.
• 40:43
  A hundred percent.
• 40:44
  And I think that's a great thing for us as parents to model to mm-hmm.
• 40:48
  Our children and in the kitchen is a perfect place to do it.
• 40:51
  'cause we know there's spills.
• 40:53
  There's drips, there's, like you said, eggs shell in the batter.
• 40:57
  There might be an ingredient that we open and it just isn't the
• 41:01
  right thing or you know, we are.
• 41:04
  Thought we had enough olive oil and we don't.
• 41:06
  Um, just lots of things to overcome but easily overcome through
• 41:11
  practice and through learning and knowing that, um, it isn't the end.
• 41:15
  It truly is not the end of the world.
• 41:17
  Yes, yes.
• 41:18
  Well, let's go into the community and belonging chapter.
• 41:20
  Tell us a little bit about this, and I'd love to talk about the ice mini cakes.
• 41:25
  Ah, yes.
• 41:27
  When I think of Australia, where I. Did most of my growing up.
• 41:32
  You know there's a iconic biscuit called When it was, when
• 41:35
  I say biscuit, it's a cookie.
• 41:36
  It's a commercial cookie called Ice V, and the cake bears absolutely no
• 41:41
  resemblance to that cookie except that it was cherry and coconut.
• 41:46
  And that's what.
• 41:48
  That's what I think of when I think of cherry and coconut.
• 41:50
  And that made me think of this cake.
• 41:52
  So they're loose associations and I think this is the thing
• 41:55
  about our, our connections.
• 41:58
  They don't have to map one to one.
• 42:01
  And that association alone gave me this sense of continuity because I've lived in
• 42:05
  England now for 20 years, but when I think of that, it takes me to, you know, being
• 42:10
  the, those first years in, in Australia.
• 42:13
  And there's something about the Australian, uh, baking, which is
• 42:17
  sort of generous and casual and relaxed, and I wanted to capture
• 42:20
  something of that, fun of it with that sort of small barrel looking cake.
• 42:25
  It's quite an easy cake.
• 42:26
  It's just a, an assembly that makes it look quite special.
• 42:29
  Yeah, it looks really good.
• 42:30
  It looks like it's rolled in.
• 42:31
  Is it coconut on the edge?
• 42:33
  Yes, it is.
• 42:34
  So it's rolled in jam.
• 42:35
  It's brushed with jam and rolled in coconut.
• 42:38
  So, so, so that was the part that is the Ice V, which is
• 42:41
  the cherry jam and the coconut.
• 42:44
  Hmm.
• 42:44
  Here in the US we have this.
• 42:46
  Snack cake that comes you bite at the grocery store?
• 42:49
  Mm-hmm.
• 42:50
  Two of them in a package, they're called snowballs.
• 42:53
  Oh, okay.
• 42:53
  And it's a round chocolate cake.
• 42:56
  Um, and depending on the season, it might be covered in green and then Oh, right.
• 43:02
  Coconut for maybe St. Patrick's Day or mm-hmm.
• 43:05
  Pink and coconut for Easter.
• 43:07
  That sometimes, so they change the color of the snowballs based on, and I don't
• 43:10
  know who makes it hostess or little Debbie or somebody, but the whole, the idea of a
• 43:15
  nice coconut on the outside of this cake.
• 43:18
  Uh, I love it because you can easily pick it up and eat it,
• 43:21
  but it doesn't get your fingers.
• 43:23
  Yes.
• 43:23
  It's like, kind of like it provide the coconut provides like a
• 43:26
  little bit of, uh, protection.
• 43:28
  Yes.
• 43:28
  And it, and that's exactly this my ice over cake as well, because
• 43:32
  it's jam underneath that coconut.
• 43:34
  Yeah.
• 43:34
  But you can pick it up.
• 43:35
  It's beautiful.
• 43:36
  And then the cream is a mascarpone, is that what it is?
• 43:38
  The cream on top?
• 43:39
  Yes.
• 43:39
  It, yes.
• 43:40
  Yeah.
• 43:40
  Beautiful.
• 43:40
  I usually put a bit of mus caponi because I, one of the things I've
• 43:44
  learned with, um, baking, um, around the world is how different cream can be.
• 43:49
  I mean, the double cream here whips to a very luscious sort of consistency.
• 43:54
  And I know when I was traveling in America and I did a couple of TV
• 43:58
  segments and I've thought, well, this cream is really light and airy.
• 44:02
  And by the time you try and, you know, sort of cover a cake with it, it's,
• 44:05
  it's, it's, it breaks down very quickly.
• 44:08
  So the, is as much for.
• 44:12
  Stabilizing it when, when we cook around, you know, around the world.
• 44:15
  Yes, yes.
• 44:16
  Um, to make sure that it, it holds because everybody can get MAs
• 44:19
  caponi and that gives you that sort of richer, um, richer texture.
• 44:25
  Yeah.
• 44:25
  And actually talking about, um, cross-cultural or cross country baking,
• 44:30
  I employed a, a, a recipe tester to test the every single recipe in.
• 44:37
  She's based in San Francisco and I had one in Sydney as well.
• 44:40
  That was really important to me because, you know, apart from
• 44:44
  anything, you know, when we talk about.
• 44:45
  Baking that's very close to our hearts.
• 44:48
  Nostalgia and sentimentality can sometimes cloud our judgments.
• 44:52
  And I was, it was very important to me that these bakes would work
• 44:56
  and would be equally delicious in anyone else's kitchen.
• 45:00
  Yeah.
• 45:00
  Um, in fact, I've never met these two ladies.
• 45:02
  Of course I've got gotten to know them much better now, but they cooked
• 45:06
  every single recipe, um, and provided feedback on how this different cream
• 45:11
  worked and, and, um, well, and, and they can be very different.
• 45:15
  So yeah, the musco in there is because of the feedback that some
• 45:19
  of the creams were just not like the double cream that I was working on.
• 45:23
  Yeah.
• 45:23
  I think the heavy cream here is maybe 36% butter fat.
• 45:29
  And if you have a double cream in the UK it's probably, it might be in the forties.
• 45:34
  Yes.
• 45:34
  And it does provide more stability.
• 45:36
  And, um, I love that you talked about the testing of it, um, in.
• 45:42
  The countries where you thought the cookbook would be popular,
• 45:44
  where it might sell and mm-hmm.
• 45:46
  Not just in the uk but obviously a US audience and uh, Australian audience.
• 45:52
  And then of course your inclusion of, uh, imperial measurements and
• 45:56
  metric measurements in terms of gram weight for people that bake both ways.
• 46:01
  Yes.
• 46:01
  Um, some people use cups and tablespoons, some don't.
• 46:04
  Um, of course baking.
• 46:05
  I think there's a huge argument to be made for using a scale.
• 46:09
  I think it makes it so much easier, but everybody's gotta do what
• 46:12
  they're used to doing and mm-hmm.
• 46:14
  Um, I see that you included both, which is nice.
• 46:17
  Yeah, I remember when I got Maria, who's my recipe tester in San Francisco.
• 46:22
  When I got her on board, the very first email she wrote to me was, now
• 46:26
  I know that you are often very critic.
• 46:29
  All of you living abroad are very critical of the imperial measurements,
• 46:33
  but this is why I like it.
• 46:35
  She said, you know, between my thumbnail and the first.
• 46:39
  A crease on my thumb, that's one inch.
• 46:41
  Um, I know approximately what a foot is.
• 46:44
  I know approximately what a cup is.
• 46:45
  And you know, she almost convinced me you didn't have to
• 46:50
  have a scale for any of that.
• 46:51
  Right.
• 46:51
  Yeah.
• 46:51
  But, but it, but I think what she was saying was that it was that something
• 46:55
  intuitive that you can, when you say a cup of sugar, you immediately
• 46:59
  know just about how much, where it's actually saying 200 grams of sugar.
• 47:03
  It's quite difficult to picture.
• 47:05
  No, I think, I think the imperial measurements do allow you to visualize
• 47:08
  a little bit better what it might be.
• 47:10
  Yes.
• 47:11
  Um, so like, let's say that they say, oh, every day you should eat
• 47:14
  three fourths a cup of oatmeal.
• 47:15
  I'm thinking that is a lot of foods to eat every day.
• 47:19
  I mean, that's a huge portion.
• 47:20
  I don't know what these people are talking about, but it's all
• 47:22
  because I can visualize like what, how much that might be.
• 47:26
  Yes.
• 47:26
  Cook.
• 47:27
  'cause if you think hundred grams of like, I dunno how much that is what that means.
• 47:30
  Well, and I think that's one argument that people have with food labels is
• 47:34
  sometimes the food labels are calculated based on a hundred gram quantity.
• 47:38
  And people are like, what does that even mean?
• 47:40
  Yes, that's right.
• 47:42
  So okay, we got a hundred grams of m and ms. Well that's nice.
• 47:45
  Like is that a handful or is it two handfuls or is it a bowl
• 47:49
  full of m and ms? How much is it?
• 47:50
  No, it's so confusing.
• 47:52
  And sometimes you buy this huge meal and it says, you know, um, 152
• 47:56
  calories, but that's for 80 grams.
• 47:58
  Exactly.
• 47:58
  And you're making, making something that's 800 grams a right.
• 48:00
  10 times that amount.
• 48:01
  Yeah, exactly.
• 48:02
  So food labels are a whole nother conversation.
• 48:05
  But I think that, um, in a book like yours to put both is kind
• 48:09
  of a nod to people do both.
• 48:12
  You have audiences that do both.
• 48:13
  So, um, I don't think it has to be all one way or the other, which, which is nice.
• 48:19
  Mm. All right.
• 48:20
  Let's talk about the learning growth and achievement chapter because
• 48:23
  this is different than nurturing.
• 48:25
  It's different than community, it's different than ritual.
• 48:28
  Tell us a little bit about this chapter in your intent behind it.
• 48:32
  This chapter was the very last chapter to come about.
• 48:35
  I, in fact, I almost didn't have it because the book was
• 48:39
  so much geared towards this idea of community and nurture.
• 48:42
  You know, other people, when we think of baking a cake, it's very unusual that
• 48:46
  there isn't a relationship involved.
• 48:48
  There's usually somebody you're having for afternoon tea, or you're drop
• 48:51
  dropping it off for a birthday, or you're making it to commemorate something.
• 48:55
  But then I thought, that's actually not true for people like me.
• 48:58
  And there are a lot of people like me who enjoy baking because of the process of
• 49:03
  it and because of that sense of mastery.
• 49:06
  And I thought, you know, I'm not on my own here.
• 49:09
  And whether it's gardening, and of course I'm in this book I'm talking
• 49:13
  about about baking, but I'm, I. When I say learning growth and achievement,
• 49:18
  I'm really referring to lots of things that we do from learning a language to
• 49:23
  gardening, to um, learning, to crochet.
• 49:27
  All of these things might seem meaningless.
• 49:29
  I mean, no one needs a little table crochet, you know?
• 49:32
  And yet there's something about learning that craft that is.
• 49:36
  That brings, that can bring some meaning.
• 49:39
  And I thought, you know, that chapter belongs in there.
• 49:42
  And I'm glad because the number of people I've spoken to, including
• 49:45
  you and the podcast where, you know, people, it's a dedicated podcast to
• 49:50
  cookbooks and people who bake and cook.
• 49:52
  Mm-hmm.
• 49:52
  Mm-hmm.
• 49:53
  You know, we, they exist as you know, they're, they are popular Yes.
• 49:57
  For a reason.
• 49:58
  Yes.
• 49:58
  And, and not every book has to be for a beginner or someone that's just starting.
• 50:04
  There are people that buy books that want to learn new things or master
• 50:08
  something or get better at it.
• 50:10
  And there's, uh, people that listen to this show that I'm sure could be
• 50:13
  considered master cooks or master bakers, but they, that's not their
• 50:17
  profession, it's just what they.
• 50:20
  Just something they, it adds meaning to their life.
• 50:23
  Yes.
• 50:23
  And the one recipe that stuck out to me, and I gotta tell you, um, napkin cakes
• 50:27
  with jam and white chocolate cream.
• 50:30
  It's an example of something that's a little bit more unusual.
• 50:33
  Probably haven't seen it a lot.
• 50:35
  But you mentioned Jeremiah Duarte Bills.
• 50:38
  Yes.
• 50:38
  Um, who is, was a quarter finalist in the Great American Baking Show.
• 50:43
  That's right.
• 50:43
  Is so Jeremiah and.
• 50:46
  Is it Amanda?
• 50:46
  Amanda, Amanda Favor had the Flower Hour podcast.
• 50:49
  That's right.
• 50:49
  They had the podcast and they interviewed me when Sweet came out.
• 50:52
  Mm-hmm.
• 50:53
  And I was so fascinated by, well, they asked a lot of very good questions,
• 50:56
  but when I discovered what they both did, I had lots of questions myself,
• 51:01
  you know, and I thought, well, I really wanted to learn from them.
• 51:03
  And Jeremiah is very dedicated to Portuguese Baking.
• 51:07
  Yes, yes.
• 51:07
  So I signed up to one of his, um, classes, online classes, and he made
• 51:12
  these Guana pos, which is napkin cakes in, um, in, uh, in Portugal.
• 51:18
  And they use a lot of egg yolks.
• 51:21
  Uh, so there's a custard and then there's, there's eggs.
• 51:24
  Egg yolks and the, uh, in the sponge.
• 51:26
  And then there's a custard as well.
• 51:28
  And I was so taken by this because I'd never seen it.
• 51:31
  Never heard of it.
• 51:32
  And yet it was the idea that it was just this delicate thing that was folded
• 51:38
  that was just completely, it's almost looks like a, it's a square, but it's
• 51:42
  almost like a, like a top, like a, when I think about a taco shell like
• 51:45
  folded, like around the filling, right?
• 51:48
  Yes.
• 51:49
  Yeah.
• 51:49
  And these are intended to be eaten out of hand like that.
• 51:52
  Yes.
• 51:53
  Yeah.
• 51:53
  Yes.
• 51:53
  Yeah.
• 51:54
  So, I mean, he, you know, he'd made them, they, they were very rich
• 51:58
  and, and I'm not used to the flavor of sort of custard on custard.
• 52:02
  Mm-hmm.
• 52:02
  But when I thought of the cake, I thought, you know, it's like eating a
• 52:05
  light Victoria sponge or a sponge cake.
• 52:08
  And whenever I think of a light sponge cake, I think jam and cream.
• 52:12
  And that's what gave me the idea that I wanted to make it with Jam and Cream.
• 52:16
  I've done one iteration of it, which, um, I brought my Malaysian heritage
• 52:19
  to it, which is caa, it's a coconut jam, and I've added CAA in it.
• 52:24
  And I've made the sponge with Pandan because Pandan and caa very, very,
• 52:29
  um, familiar flavors in, in Malaysia.
• 52:32
  But it's such a beautiful recipe that I really wanted to not make it so exotic.
• 52:38
  I wanted to make it more accessible that if you could just make it with Jam and
• 52:42
  Cream, you know, it's just like a little.
• 52:45
  Jam and cream sandwich, you know?
• 52:48
  Yeah, yeah.
• 52:49
  Um, but it does, when I first looked at it, I, it looked, it reminded
• 52:53
  me of, uh, I, I, without looking at the, I'm just looking at the photo,
• 52:58
  almost like a fold over sandwich.
• 52:59
  Like you might have a piece of bread and you fold it, maybe you put some jam
• 53:03
  or peanut butter and you fold it over and you just eat a sandwich like that.
• 53:06
  Yes, that's exactly right.
• 53:08
  I mean, it's not quite as easy as that, but I wanted to convey
• 53:11
  something about the eating of fresh, soft bread with jam and cream.
• 53:15
  Yes.
• 53:15
  I mean, that to me is just utterly delightful.
• 53:18
  Yes.
• 53:19
  And I'm very thankful for Jeremo.
• 53:20
  'cause I'd never seen anything like it.
• 53:22
  And yet it just makes complete sense.
• 53:24
  So the cake is cooked, doesn't, it's a very exquisite, very flat, yeah.
• 53:28
  It's a very flat sponge cake that's cooked in a sort of a tray bake, um,
• 53:32
  like a, you know, like a oven tree.
• 53:34
  And then you cut it into squares and fold it diagonally.
• 53:37
  So it forms a triangle and it, it just, it's kind of barely draped over.
• 53:41
  You know?
• 53:42
  Yeah, yeah.
• 53:42
  Well, I had Jeremiah on the podcast, gosh, it's probably in, it's in the early days,
• 53:47
  but he told me the reason in Portugal they use all the egg yolks in baking
• 53:53
  is because all the nuns or sisters use the egg whites to starch their habits.
• 53:57
  Starchy.
• 53:58
  Yes.
• 53:59
  That's try to keep all the, the white part of their habits like stiff.
• 54:03
  Yes.
• 54:03
  He's, and that they had all, so he often called 'em convent sweets, that a lot
• 54:08
  of the history of Portuguese sweets came out of, um, the con, the convents there,
• 54:14
  um, the Catholic tradition and that, that most of them were egg yo based.
• 54:18
  Yes.
• 54:19
  So isn't that fantastic?
• 54:21
  Yes.
• 54:22
  Yes, a hundred percent.
• 54:23
  So I was so thrilled to see Jeremiah's name here and um, I love
• 54:27
  that you, uh, put that also in the learning growth and achievement
• 54:31
  chapter because that's something that we could all learn how to do.
• 54:35
  We could, um, definitely take our baking to the next level.
• 54:38
  And also, I think also it's fun to be known for something like, oh,
• 54:43
  Maggie makes these wonderful, like.
• 54:46
  Napkin cakes.
• 54:46
  I mean, who, so there's so many.
• 54:49
  The world is so big and there's so many people.
• 54:52
  There's, and, you know, pockets of people all around the world make napkin cakes.
• 54:57
  It just is a way to, um, I don't know, just bring a little bit of, I think it's
• 55:01
  kind of whimsical, a little bit different.
• 55:03
  Yes.
• 55:03
  Something fun to the experience.
• 55:05
  Uh, and, and also just the idea of learning from other people.
• 55:09
  Right.
• 55:09
  It's, I think sometimes there's a pressure and thankfully I don't really
• 55:14
  feel that, you know, the pressure to be very clever in making something unique.
• 55:17
  And Yeah.
• 55:18
  Actually I'm just thrilled if, if I'm learn something and, and then
• 55:21
  you can add something your own Yes.
• 55:23
  And make it your own.
• 55:25
  Yes.
• 55:25
  You know, and for me, that is both creative as well as respectful,
• 55:31
  you know, to some, somebody.
• 55:32
  I mean, I really admire Jeremiah's cooking and I really, uh, was
• 55:38
  thrilled to learn this from him.
• 55:40
  And.
• 55:41
  It, it, it, it was both to tapped into my creativity ex as,
• 55:46
  as well as my acknowledgement of his expertise and craft.
• 55:50
  Yes.
• 55:50
  I just feel that that's win-win, you know?
• 55:52
  Yes.
• 55:52
  Yes.
• 55:53
  And I think, um, as you were saying that, I was thinking about baking being win-win.
• 55:57
  'cause not only do we get the enjoyment of what we've baked mm-hmm.
• 56:01
  I always think the baked good is like the, the means.
• 56:04
  It's like the middle part.
• 56:05
  It's not the end.
• 56:06
  It's like the, it's like, well, eating it is the end, but it's the emotional
• 56:09
  experience of sharing it with people or.
• 56:12
  Creating something new that that is the end part, right?
• 56:16
  The yes.
• 56:16
  The way we feel as a result.
• 56:19
  Yes.
• 56:19
  But then I think it's even more layered than that because the very first part of
• 56:24
  it is often this, that you are just you and that idea and you, and that process of
• 56:31
  measuring butter and creaming butter and sugar and folding and lining the cake tin.
• 56:36
  And that's quite solitary and yes, and, and quite focused.
• 56:41
  So you go from that very, uh, personal experience to then this
• 56:47
  very social experience of sharing it.
• 56:49
  And then the layer on top of that is the cultural element of sharing.
• 56:54
  So you've got something personal, something social, and something
• 56:57
  cultural usually as well.
• 56:59
  Because you know, is this from your grandmother?
• 57:01
  What heritage is it?
• 57:02
  Is it Portuguese?
• 57:03
  Is it Malaysian?
• 57:04
  And what, when do you make it?
• 57:06
  Or we usually make it at this time of the year, we usually, you
• 57:09
  know, so it's layered in a way.
• 57:11
  That is I think, a little more than just cooking.
• 57:15
  Yeah.
• 57:15
  You know, and then you have something delicious.
• 57:19
  To eat on top of it.
• 57:20
  Yes, exactly.
• 57:21
  I mean, that's those things that you mentioned doesn't even talk about the
• 57:25
  enjoyment of the baked good itself.
• 57:27
  Yeah, yeah.
• 57:28
  And you know, also the other process that you don't see is the alchemical process.
• 57:33
  Yeah.
• 57:33
  Where this, I mean, a couple of weeks ago I did this, um, I, I
• 57:38
  posted something on Instagram.
• 57:40
  I had donated a baking class, a private baking class to a charity event.
• 57:44
  And the lady had come to claim it.
• 57:46
  And the night before I weighed out all the mis on plus on trays.
• 57:50
  And my son came down in the morning and he said, can you imagine
• 57:53
  that when I get back from school, this is going to be three cakes?
• 57:58
  And I thought you, that's exactly it.
• 58:01
  How, who would imagine that these random pools of butter and sugar and
• 58:05
  chocolate are going to be these three?
• 58:08
  Delicious cakes.
• 58:09
  So there's that alchemical part of it.
• 58:11
  And it was the way he captured it, the way he said, can you imagine
• 58:15
  that this is all going to be cakes by the time I get back from school?
• 58:19
  Yeah.
• 58:19
  And you know, so there's, there's also that.
• 58:22
  Yeah.
• 58:22
  I mean, of course, you know, anything that you make is anything
• 58:26
  one cooks is, there's some sort of chemistry involved in that, but Yes.
• 58:31
  You know, but it's different to the way a chicken goes into the oven as a
• 58:34
  chicken, and it comes out as a chicken.
• 58:36
  Right.
• 58:36
  But a cake goes in as a kind of molten batter and then comes out as this.
• 58:40
  Whole other thing.
• 58:41
  Yeah.
• 58:42
  Yeah.
• 58:42
  The food science behind it is fascinating.
• 58:44
  And how does it feel then, to not only have your baking and the meaning of life
• 58:49
  in your own kitchen and thus individually, but now to have a book about it that
• 58:54
  you mentioned in the introduction?
• 58:56
  It's a joyous process that magically expands when shared, and now
• 59:00
  this book is magically expanding this message that you have.
• 59:04
  Um, Maggie, I can't tell you how utterly thrilled I am Yes.
• 59:10
  With the, the, particularly with the American response.
• 59:13
  Yes.
• 59:13
  I mean, you said something there about sort of cooking
• 59:15
  in Australia and the uk Yes.
• 59:16
  And the US and, and I want to share something which is sort of a little
• 59:20
  embryonic in my head, but I think that there, there's some truth to it.
• 59:24
  The book has been, we're very well received in Australia.
• 59:27
  And very well received beyond my wildest dreams in America.
• 59:32
  Mm-hmm.
• 59:32
  And in England, the response has for me, I think, has been a tiny bit clipped.
• 59:36
  And I think there's something a bit too confessional in it.
• 59:39
  You know, I really brought, I really, I really brought my personal stories,
• 59:44
  my professional insight and my kind of baking expertise into this book.
• 59:48
  And I think it's all together a bit too, too confessional and, and large
• 59:53
  for the, for London, for, for the uk.
• 59:56
  I've had, you know, wonderful writeups and that, but I, what I know when I
• 1:00:01
  speak to people, the exuberance that I'm feeling from the Americans was not
• 1:00:06
  something I'd experienced in the uk.
• 1:00:07
  Ah, there was a real respect and a real appreciation for the book, but in
• 1:00:12
  conversation it hasn't been this sort of, you know, bubbling over of, you
• 1:00:19
  know, kind of conversation about it.
• 1:00:21
  And I think it has something to do with, um, that it, that
• 1:00:26
  it's maybe more emotional rather than cerebral, I would say.
• 1:00:31
  Yeah.
• 1:00:31
  Um, yeah, to it.
• 1:00:33
  I agree.
• 1:00:33
  So it's been interesting to see that cultural difference.
• 1:00:35
  Delicious, fun.
• 1:00:37
  Um.
• 1:00:38
  It is meaningful.
• 1:00:39
  It's, and this magic expansion of ingredients and words now
• 1:00:44
  turned into this beautiful book.
• 1:00:46
  And, um, you know, cookbooks do that in a lot of different ways, baking books
• 1:00:50
  in particular, because it's, again, it takes you from this necessity thing that
• 1:00:55
  you maybe feel like you have to do to, uh, uh, experience of baking, which is
• 1:01:01
  certainly not necessary, but adds a lot of meaning, as you say to your life.
• 1:01:05
  Yes.
• 1:01:05
  So, um, I'm thrilled that you have written the book and that you brought, um,
• 1:01:10
  this, what did you say in the beginning?
• 1:01:11
  The title seemed a little, um, grandiose grand use.
• 1:01:16
  I, I think you did a beautiful job with it because, because.
• 1:01:19
  Uh, hopefully people that have listened to this conversation
• 1:01:23
  understand what you, what you mean.
• 1:01:26
  And if, if people buy the book and don't understand what you mean by reading
• 1:01:30
  the title, all they have to do is read the introduction to understand what you
• 1:01:33
  mean and look at the table of contents and it all becomes very apparent.
• 1:01:36
  Yes.
• 1:01:36
  It's really about the small things, as I said, you know, all the large things
• 1:01:40
  that Lange, but then I thought, well, actually all these small things really
• 1:01:43
  add up to something special as well.
• 1:01:46
  And in fact, more so in some ways.
• 1:01:48
  And in a way the book is an invitation also for people to not just bake
• 1:01:52
  from that, but to think about why they bake, who they bake for.
• 1:01:56
  Mm-hmm.
• 1:01:56
  And what recipes lurk within their families.
• 1:01:59
  Right, that's right.
• 1:02:00
  That have, that have brought so much joy as well.
• 1:02:02
  You know, when a lot of times, uh, recipes that are passed down include both.
• 1:02:06
  Savory items and a lot of baked goods and in particular, holiday
• 1:02:10
  baked goods that are mm-hmm.
• 1:02:12
  Family traditions for different holidays, Christmas cookies or Easter
• 1:02:15
  cakes, or Thanks people make for Thanksgiving or Yes, thanks people
• 1:02:19
  make for Mother's Day, the new year.
• 1:02:21
  Um, I encourage people to dive into that and to really explore what
• 1:02:26
  your family did, especially if it's written down and to preserve it.
• 1:02:29
  Because you talk about meaning for a family.
• 1:02:31
  If someone rep reproduces a cake that someone in the family used to make
• 1:02:36
  that is no longer with them, it just like brings back the memory of them.
• 1:02:40
  That's right.
• 1:02:40
  And that, that's an example of some of the recipes in my chapter
• 1:02:44
  called Continuity and remembering.
• 1:02:46
  Mm-hmm.
• 1:02:47
  You know, um, that it instantly connects you to somebody.
• 1:02:51
  Yeah.
• 1:02:51
  You know, it instantly connect in instantly you,
• 1:02:55
  that recipe holds that story.
• 1:02:57
  I mean, I don't want to be, you know, too sentimental about it, but it's
• 1:03:00
  quite an extraordinary thing to do.
• 1:03:02
  Sure.
• 1:03:02
  It is.
• 1:03:02
  And, and I think in particular for someone like you who has moved from.
• 1:03:06
  Uh, several different countries, several different places for a variety of
• 1:03:10
  reasons that, uh, baking can bring back memory of places you've been before
• 1:03:15
  and people you've spent time with.
• 1:03:18
  You know, Maggie, I've not thought of it like that, but you're
• 1:03:20
  absolutely right because I don't travel to Malaysia very often.
• 1:03:24
  Yeah.
• 1:03:24
  But the idea that I can buy pun done leaves at my local Asian grocer and make
• 1:03:29
  a cake and tell my children this was the cake I ate when I grew up in Malaysia.
• 1:03:33
  Yeah, that's really pretty amazing.
• 1:03:35
  It's pretty, it is pretty amazing, right?
• 1:03:37
  It is pretty amazing.
• 1:03:38
  And we have our modern ability to get ingredients now to thank for that.
• 1:03:42
  But it really truly is amazing because a lot of the memories that we have as
• 1:03:46
  children, um, many of them are based on food and connection to people and flavors
• 1:03:53
  and aromas and smells and settings.
• 1:03:55
  So I think it's wonderful that you're able to do that for them, particularly
• 1:03:58
  if they haven't experienced it with you.
• 1:04:01
  Yes.
• 1:04:01
  In Malaysia, they can have it with you now.
• 1:04:03
  Um, as you've recreated it, I think also bake baking, you instantly connected.
• 1:04:10
  The association is with care and attention because the very first, you
• 1:04:15
  know, from when we are young, we've all had birthday cakes made for us.
• 1:04:17
  Yes.
• 1:04:18
  So it's that connection to being cared for and and and being the
• 1:04:22
  focus of attention is also Yeah.
• 1:04:24
  What a, what a, isn't that the truth about birthday cakes?
• 1:04:27
  My, there were eight children in our family.
• 1:04:30
  Oh wow.
• 1:04:30
  The birthday cake always was on this metal birthday cake stand.
• 1:04:36
  Mm-hmm.
• 1:04:37
  That you, my mother would have to like wind it up and put the cake on it and
• 1:04:41
  then it was like a music box and it played happy birthday as it Oh, so amazing.
• 1:04:46
  I know.
• 1:04:46
  Do you still have it?
• 1:04:47
  I know we don't still have it.
• 1:04:49
  And I don't even remember the house I was born into.
• 1:04:53
  We moved when I was in the first grade to a bigger house.
• 1:04:56
  'cause we needed room for more children and I don't remember that cake plate.
• 1:05:03
  At the second house.
• 1:05:04
  I'll have to ask my older sisters, but I've never come across that.
• 1:05:07
  And yet it seems so logical.
• 1:05:10
  My grand, my grandfather was, uh, German and it music boxes were very
• 1:05:14
  popular in their culture and like cuckoo clocks, you know, all this
• 1:05:17
  like tickling like stuff going on.
• 1:05:19
  So it's possible that he had bought it for them, but I'll have to ask that.
• 1:05:24
  But I just remember my mom's cakes were, you know, she would make a little
• 1:05:28
  layer cake and put some frosting on it.
• 1:05:30
  But just that memory of everybody's birthday, having the, not just the cake,
• 1:05:34
  but the, the plate that it was on that is fascinating because it, it's fascinating.
• 1:05:38
  It feels so logical.
• 1:05:39
  And yet yes, why have I never seen one?
• 1:05:41
  And it was such a special thing, you know, for, so a lot of memories are,
• 1:05:45
  well, it's a holiday, a special day, but birthdays are individually focused too.
• 1:05:49
  Mm-hmm.
• 1:05:50
  And, um, I think it's, I, I think that we all need to celebrate our
• 1:05:54
  birthdays, our children's birthdays.
• 1:05:56
  It's a very important day.
• 1:05:58
  It's a very special day.
• 1:05:59
  And, um, don't ever act like it's not because it's.
• 1:06:02
  It represents a human life, and I think that's the most valuable thing of all.
• 1:06:06
  Yeah.
• 1:06:06
  Absolutely.
• 1:06:07
  Celebrated a person that we love and care about.
• 1:06:11
  Uh, absolutely.
• 1:06:11
  Yes.
• 1:06:12
  That's very, very fun.
• 1:06:13
  Well, this has been a delightful conversation, Helen.
• 1:06:16
  I would love if you would tell everyone how they can connect with you online.
• 1:06:22
  Online.
• 1:06:22
  I'm on Instagram as Helen go bakes.
• 1:06:27
  I'm not a TikTok and I'm, I don't have YouTube, although I've
• 1:06:31
  done a number of YouTube things.
• 1:06:33
  But I think, yes, Instagram is about all I all I can do.
• 1:06:37
  Yeah.
• 1:06:37
  That's great.
• 1:06:38
  And I do like to ask if there are, outside of Otto Lange's books in your book, if
• 1:06:43
  there's any cookbook that you have used or that has been had a presence in your life
• 1:06:48
  over the years that is special to you?
• 1:06:51
  Gosh, so many.
• 1:06:53
  If I could scan my home, you'll see there are cookbooks on every surface.
• 1:06:58
  Yes.
• 1:06:59
  'cause I see them not just as.
• 1:07:01
  Recipes, but you know, they're stories.
• 1:07:04
  Yes.
• 1:07:04
  I think we, you know, spoke about that.
• 1:07:06
  Yes.
• 1:07:06
  Um, what do I like to use?
• 1:07:08
  I, I love, I used, I used to love the ones with lo you know,
• 1:07:12
  more narrative than mm-hmm.
• 1:07:14
  Um, so for example, uh, Gabriel, uh, what's her name?
• 1:07:18
  Gabriel Hamilton.
• 1:07:19
  Yes.
• 1:07:19
  You know, I loved reading sort of the narratives in, in the book.
• 1:07:23
  Yes.
• 1:07:23
  I don't use the recipes so much, but I love reading it.
• 1:07:26
  Yes.
• 1:07:26
  And then there are other ones like the Flavor Thesaurus.
• 1:07:28
  Do you know that book?
• 1:07:29
  Uh, yes I do.
• 1:07:30
  Yeah.
• 1:07:30
  So, you know, that I don't cook from obviously, but I, it's so wonderful
• 1:07:34
  for, for pairing things together.
• 1:07:36
  Yes.
• 1:07:36
  It's wonderful.
• 1:07:37
  I have one by my bedside one and one on my kitchen table because I'm always thinking,
• 1:07:42
  oh, now what about putting that together?
• 1:07:44
  And, but the way it's written, it's so witty.
• 1:07:48
  It's, and erudite and just a beautiful read.
• 1:07:52
  So I, I enjoy those as well.
• 1:07:54
  Yeah.
• 1:07:54
  Um, I don't read the Lange ones so much because sometimes I feel
• 1:07:58
  like, okay, we've done that.
• 1:07:59
  You know, that's all there.
• 1:08:01
  Other people can, can do it.
• 1:08:03
  But it, but it, but it, I also know that it contains a lot of information because
• 1:08:07
  I know how much goes into every recipe.
• 1:08:10
  And of course, I've used that model for my own book.
• 1:08:12
  Mm-hmm.
• 1:08:13
  The kind of re the rigor in terms of the testing.
• 1:08:16
  Um, but sometimes that can bring its own sort of, oh gosh, no, I
• 1:08:19
  don't want to see that recipe again.
• 1:08:20
  You know?
• 1:08:21
  Yeah.
• 1:08:21
  Sometimes it is like that after you publish it.
• 1:08:23
  And then the other fear I always had was if I look at it again, I might
• 1:08:27
  find a mistake, so I'm just gonna like, pretend it doesn't exist.
• 1:08:30
  Absolutely.
• 1:08:31
  Spot on.
• 1:08:32
  Exactly.
• 1:08:34
  So there are so many books.
• 1:08:35
  I mean, I love Nick Brown's books.
• 1:08:37
  I love learning.
• 1:08:38
  Mm-hmm.
• 1:08:38
  From, from him, the, the science of it.
• 1:08:41
  Um, I think I've become quite impatient over the years.
• 1:08:45
  In the past, I would've been fascinated by, you know, the Harold McGee and I
• 1:08:49
  did my fair share of oh my gosh, looking at Harold McGee and, and Nick's book
• 1:08:53
  has, uh, you know, some of that, but even more, uh, uh, is sort of brought
• 1:08:57
  out even more practical, um, on food and Cooking by Harold McGee, I think
• 1:09:01
  has two different additions and that is a wonderful, uh, food science book.
• 1:09:06
  It's just fantastic.
• 1:09:07
  And think because of the pressures I'm under to get my recipes out,
• 1:09:12
  because I have two columns that I write for, and that means pretty
• 1:09:14
  much every day I'm recipe testing.
• 1:09:16
  I don't always have that luxury to sort of delve into the science of it.
• 1:09:20
  I just need to find a way to make it work and.
• 1:09:22
  You know, send the recipe off.
• 1:09:23
  Yeah.
• 1:09:24
  Um, so, but you know, I read them for all kinds of, all kinds of reasons.
• 1:09:29
  Yeah.
• 1:09:29
  Um, but for me, I think it's quite delightful to have pictorially, especially
• 1:09:34
  in a dessert, to be able to see it.
• 1:09:36
  And for that reason, I'm very, very thankful to the photographer
• 1:09:40
  Laura Edwards and, um, Annie Riggs who did the styling at the shoot.
• 1:09:44
  'cause I think they absolutely nailed that.
• 1:09:47
  The feeling that you could just look at that book and imagine, do
• 1:09:50
  you want to eat this napkin cake?
• 1:09:52
  Yes.
• 1:09:52
  Yes.
• 1:09:52
  I, I Or I didn't wanna eat it.
• 1:09:53
  You want eat this broccoli cake?
• 1:09:54
  Yeah.
• 1:09:55
  Yes.
• 1:09:55
  It is a beautiful book.
• 1:09:57
  Well, thank you again for, um, coming on the show, talking to us about your
• 1:10:01
  beautiful book, baking in the Meaning of Life, how to Find Joy in 100 Recipes.
• 1:10:08
  Maggie, it's been such a joy speaking with you.
• 1:10:10
  Thank you so much for having me on your show.
• 1:10:11
  Thank you so much for coming on the show, and I hope you have a great rest
• 1:10:14
  of your week and spring and enjoy, um, all the holidays coming up, although
• 1:10:21
  I think it was right in the columnist.
• 1:10:22
  You probably enjoy 'em ahead of time, right?
• 1:10:24
  I do, yes.
• 1:10:25
  Mother's Day has already been and done for me and so is Easter.
• 1:10:28
  It's time to head into the summertime.
• 1:10:30
  Well enjoy whatever season you're in.
• 1:10:33
  Thank you so much, Maggie.
• 1:10:35
  Okay, thank you.
• 1:10:37
  Thank you so much for joining us today for this episode of the Cookbook Love Podcast.
• 1:10:41
  Again, all the links can be found in the show notes@www.cookbooklove.co.
• 1:10:46
  And if you are interested in writing a cookbook of your own, please check out the
• 1:10:51
  free cookbook writing masterclass called How to Get Paid to Write a Cookbook.
• 1:10:56
  It is designed specifically for food or nutrition experts,
• 1:11:00
  and you can check that out at www.cookbookwritersacademy.com/free.
• 1:11:08
  So that's it for today's episode of the Cookbook Love podcast.
• 1:11:11
  This is your host, Maggie Green, and until next time, have a great
• 1:11:15
  day and keep loving your cookbook.
• 1:11:21
  Thanks for listening to the Cookbook Love podcast.
• 1:11:24
  You can find out more information@www.cookbooklove.co.