Hey, I'm Bruce Weinstein, and this is the podcast cooking with Bruce and Mark

and I'm Mark Scarbrough.

And together, Bruce and I have written three dozen cookbooks.

Doesn't even seem possible.

We have sold over 1 million copies of our cookbooks.

That really doesn't seem possible.

And that Actually became a number we knew about as of this past week, a million

copies sold of cookbooks over a million.

We're still counting.

So we've done a lot of cookbook work and this is our food and cooking

podcast cooking Bruce and Mark.

We're glad you are here with us.

We have got as he is traditional on one minute cooking tip.

Bruce has an interview with Micah Peters.

She's the author of noon, an.

Interview that he was very excited about and we'll tell you what's

making us happy in food this week.

So let's get started

Today's one minute cooking tip is a vintage tip from the 50s

and it has some resonance today.

What?

Okay, what is it?

Is it about vote for eisenhower treat cooking like an art form?

Not a chore Oh, eeeeh.

Back in the fifties, yes.

Really?

Really?

Here it is.

The first female graduate of Le Cordon Bleu cooking school was Dionne Lucas.

And she said in an interview, If cooking becomes like housekeeping,

like making beds, nothing good will come out of the kitchen.

Just something unpleasant.

Um, okay.

Well, first of all, most of us are pushed up against a wall.

Most of us have no time left in our lives.

We find that occupation levels, that is how much time you spend working,

are back up to pre pandemic levels.

People are really busy and in debt and...

Mortgaged out of this world and, um, how can it not be a chore?

Even a grilled cheese can be an art form.

Well, I agree with that.

You use better cheese, nice bread, you look for the beautiful crust,

and if it's not even so much how you do it, it's the attitude.

When you go in to make...

dinner.

Think about it as art.

Don't think about it as a chore and you'll make better food.

Okay.

Okay.

So let me, let me just, I'm going to continue to be the devil's advocate

and extend this one minute forever.

What if you're not artistic?

What if you don't want to make art?

In that case, you can still take pleasure in the eating of the

food, even if it's not the art of making, say, pasta carbonara.

And let's say you're so overworked that you grab a frozen

lasagna out of the freezer.

Okay, now that may not be art, but sitting down to eat it can be.

Don't eat it out of the tin.

Put it on a plate.

Have a nice glass of sparkling water or wine, use a cloth napkin

to turn the whole experience of dinner into an art, not a chore.

Yeah, when we wrote our book, uh, Real Food Has Curves, which was a

six or seven, six step, gosh, so many books, I can't even remember,

six step plan to get off processed food and get it out of your life.

We actually, uh, talked a lot about actually making

dinner an event and cloth nap.

And, you know, I see a lot of TikTok videos out there in which

people eat on paper plates.

And listen, if you do, there's nothing wrong with eating on a paper plate,

but you know, as well as I do, that if you eat off a plate, even if it's, um,

we have these plastic like plates made from wheat chaff, they're recyclable,

oh, they're the ultimate liberal dream, but they're recycled wheat chaff plates.

I mean, even those plates make it seem more like a meal to me.

So, you know, like for instance, I had a frozen leftover piece of eggplant Parmesan

for lunch today and I microwaved it in its container that I froze it in, but

I didn't eat it out of that container.

Yeah, I put it on a plate, one of those wheat chaff plastic plates,

and I sat with Mark and I ate it off a plate and I had a cloth napkin.

And it was lovely.

We've talked about this before on this podcast, but let me just say that the most

joyless meal you can eat is that package of sushi from Whole Foods when you buy it

and you take it out to your car and you sit in your car and eat that joyless box

of 30 sushi that you've just purchased.

That is truly one of the most joyless things you can do in your life.

than the sushi from Stop and Shop or even better from your mobile Exxon station?

Oh god, okay, well, alright, anyway, I'm just calling it from Whole

Foods, but, um, yes, it's true.

I, even sushi from the Big Y, when you buy it and you go out and you sit

in your car and you eat it, it is...

Truly a joyless experience.

It always is.

And of course, you know, buying the sushi, I guess you feel like you're

doing better than buying the, I don't know what that one pound tub of potato

salad and eating it in your car.

But nonetheless, it's not very happy making and You know, every meal

doesn't have to be a celebration.

I think the big takeaway here is the fact that cooking and

even eating should be joyful.

And even if you grab a burger on the go, or we made these no bake cookies for a

segment on Portland, Oregon Morning TV a couple weeks ago, all of that, and they're

made so you can keep them in a muffin tin in the fridge and then run away with.

it on your way out the door with this like no bag, highly nutted and fruited

cookie like a protein bar in ball form.

Yeah, I know.

And it's, it can, even that can be joyful when you do it and

it makes things a lot better.

So I guess I'm back to treat cooking like an art form, not a chore.

Before we get to the next segment of this podcast, let me

say that we have a newsletter.

It comes out once every two weeks or so.

We had a recent newsletter that went out, I'm laughing because it's a little

weird, that went out about death, because of the death of our colleague earlier

this year and what it kind of made us realize about death as we get older.

And I know this doesn't have anything to do with cooking, but so the It

touched a lot of people though.

We got some wonderful responses from people.

It did.

And I I have to say that if you would like to be a part of that newsletter, you

can sign up on our website, Bruceandmark.

com.

I do not capture names and I do not capture emails, so you can subscribe.

I won't know who you are.

I just see numbers and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Sometimes the recipes from this podcast appear in that newsletter.

Sometimes it's other stuff, meditative stuff.

Sometimes it's other stuff, meditative stuff, and, you know,

more thoughts on life itself.

Anyway, you can find all that on our website, bruceandmark.

com.

So, coming up next, Bruce's interview with Micah Peters.

She is the author of the brand new book, Noon.

Hey, Micah.

How are you?

I'm great.

I had my German book launch last night, so it was a, it was a really great book

launch and a great party afterwards, so.

The book is beautiful.

Thank you very much.

I'm very impressed by your combination of flavors and textures and food ideas.

It's, it's unique, so it's really nice.

I think because I didn't start as a, um, as a chef, or I

studied architecture originally.

So that was not what I learned, or that was not where I felt like that's

what I said I'm supposed to do.

And I started with a food blog, um, in 2013.

So it was my playground and I, I didn't feel judged.

I mean, a blog is anarchy, do what you want to do.

Um, and I could really experiment and figure out, I could find my voice.

rather than copying other people or feeling like pushed into a direction.

And I think, um, that allowed me to develop my own, um,

style or way of cooking.

And, um, this plus, um, I mean, I learned cooking from my mother, which

is Southern German cooking because my stepfather was from, from Swabia,

from Stuttgart, from Southern Germany.

Um, so it's Southern German cooking with.

A lot of French and Italian influences.

And I feel like she taught me the basic techniques.

Um, it's like a musician.

I felt like, okay, she, she made me rehearse and learn my instrument.

Um, and after this, I could, could play around.

I was, um, together with my ex boyfriend, he was from Malta.

So there was the strong, um, Maltese, um, influence as well.

And Malta is close to Sicily and the cuisine is very similar to, yeah, it's,

it's close to Sicilian cooking, a strong Arabic influences and Italian cooking.

And it just, apart from that, there was a strong focus on, on, on the produce.

And, um, there was this, they simplified it so much.

It's, it's the olive oil, it's the vegetables.

You have a few spices, fresh herbs, and that's it.

And you focus on strong single flavors.

And that really, really left a deep mark.

And, um, I think that shifted something that maybe that opened up.

The woman speaking is Micah Peters, a James Beard award winning cookbook

author and creative force behind the Meat in My Kitchen podcast.

And she is the author of the brand new book we're talking

about, Noon, Simple Recipes for Scrumptious Midday Meals and More.

Some people say breakfast is the most important meal of the day, but

that is not your philosophy, is it?

I was never really a breakfast person.

Everybody always, like when you're a child, people always

tell you, you must eat breakfast.

So, and I did, but it never felt right.

My, my tummy never really liked it, really.

Although I've done it like through my teenage years and my early twenties.

And at one point I figured out for myself, what works better is I just,

I always drink a lot of green tea with lemon and then around noon, I get hungry.

And then I'm.

uh, strong cravings.

So I always enjoyed eating at noon far more than eating,

eating, having breakfast.

But, um, in the last two years, um, apart from the, there was a pandemic, but also

after 15 years, my partner and I, we had separated and I, and like my whole.

I had always been in relationships, and we always, as a couple,

celebrated the evening.

There was always listening to music, drinking wine, cooking, talking.

And so food for me, and cooking, was evening, social.

sharing this sharing aspect was important.

And when I was single for the first time in my life, I didn't enjoy

cooking in the evenings anymore.

And I had to find new rituals.

And I had to kind of restructure my day or find where am I in

this new in this new rhythm.

And this is where I really discovered noon for myself.

Because at noon, we often focus on our own needs.

We don't think so much about what to do, unless you're a mother and

you're a father and you have kids.

But very often people Just think about, hey, what do I want to eat?

But my feeling is that we often don't take it so seriously.

It's like, okay, we need to eat something.

So, um, I had a conversation with a friend last year in January, and she told me, you

know, for lunch, I'm always eating out.

It's expensive.

It doesn't taste that good very often.

And it's also not good for my body.

I don't have a good body feeling afterwards.

And that really sparked something inside me.

And, um, it wasn't a conceptual approach.

It wasn't an intellectual approach.

It's really after this conversation, I was sitting in a park one day, it

had snowed and all of a sudden I had this complete vision for this book.

I knew the title.

I knew the kind of recipes and it fit very much to my cooking in

general, because I do simplify a lot.

Uh, like I'm an impatient person.

I love having.

Like long lunches on the weekend or dinners with friends and cooking for

hours, but very often during the week.

I wanted to quit the kind of person who cooks with high need

briefly, briefly seared or cooked.

This is this is my style of cooking so that all these.

elements were, or many elements were already there.

It feels like they just fell into place.

And so I discovered Noon for myself, and without even thinking

about it, that kind of, through my own experience and conversations

with friends, led to this book.

Well, I just want to say that we don't want to rule out people who

only like dinner, that your recipes in noon, of course you can eat

them at dinnertime if you want.

Most of the recipes are quite quick to prepare.

They are, they're relatively simple.

I always, I want them to, I want the recipe to excite me.

I think when I, when I share a recipe with the people out there,

I have to add a new element.

I don't have to share a recipe that already exists a million times.

So I know I want, at noon also, I want to have fun.

I want to have sexy recipes.

I want to entertain myself.

Um, and it is possible to do that in a quick way.

And on top of this, it is, there's a strong focus on vegetables.

I do it meat and seafood.

And it's also, we have chapters, uh, meat and seafood chapters in the book,

but there's a big focus on vegetables because this is also what makes me feel

good because there's another element.

Or a difference between noon and in the evening.

In the evening I can eat a heavy Bavarian roast with sauerkraut

and I can go straight to bed.

At noon there's still the second half of the day ahead of me

and I need energy for that.

So that was also part of that, that thinking.

But yes, these recipes work, um, in the evening just as well.

Actually, I also use them for the evening.

So you start the book off with salads and they are Full and fulfilling

and some unexpected combinations, which I love about your cooking, like

cucumber, fennel and melon salad.

Tell me about the inspiration for that.

The inspiration always comes from the produce.

So very often when I, when I go shopping or see a picture or

someone I have, I often have these culinary phone calls with my mother.

She tells me about a combination or just about a vegetable.

Someone says something about a fennel.

And then I think because I've been cooking for almost 30 years now, um, it's I feel

like I have this library in my head.

And very often, I don't even have to think actively about it like

it like subconsciously, even my brain is just putting dots together

and spitting out and seeing that this is what I'm doing every day.

This is automatically what your what your brain choose on.

So very often these Combinations pop up relatively quick.

I still try to keep it simple, having two, three elements that I can like

main elements that are combined.

And then very often, because I think because this library has been like,

it's, it's been built up in like over like three decades, it's quite reliable.

So of course it happens sometimes that a combination doesn't work out, but very

often it does, and this is not because I'm genius, this is just because I'm.

I'm tasting so much and I'm thinking so much about it.

And so, yeah, a lot of combinations come up.

I try them and when they're good, they're good.

Well, some other wonderful combinations in that chapter, red cabbage with beets

and persimmons and Stilton cheese, lentil with roasted squash and lemon.

Is there anything particularly important to you when composing a midday salad?

I like layering when it comes to texture, and I like layering

when it comes to, to flavors.

I like it when, because we have a spectrum, I like it when there's acidity,

there's a bit of sweetness, a bit of peppery spice, like the red cabbage for

example, it has a subtle peppery spice, there's a crunch from this, and then the

persimmon for example, it's this lush, jelly like, very sweet flavor and texture.

It's, it's It's having a whole composition.

I like it to make it complete to have like wider range.

I mean, sometimes I can, I can enjoy like this summer.

Sometimes when you have a really ripe peach and good olive oil and

good sea salt, that's amazing.

It's so good.

So you just drizzle some olive oil over your peach, some sea salt.

And it tastes so good.

And first our mom, I think, peach, sweet, it's baking.

No, you can add this.

So this is something that you often find in Sicily as well.

I remember one morning in Sicily for breakfast.

I, they gave me an orange, sliced it up with olive oil,

sea salt, and dried oregano.

And first I was so confused by it, but it tasted good.

And this is what I always come back to when it tastes good, you can do it.

You talk about liking to cook quickly.

And one of the things I that's really exciting is one pan dishes,

like your one pan butter beans and tomatoes with arugula and sourdough.

The dish almost looks like a warm panzanella with the

bread cubes and tomatoes.

So tell me about this technique.

And what else in the book do you do using this technique?

So I love, I love cast iron skillets and I discovered them quite late in

my life because I grew up with Teflon or like, yeah, more in Germany,

we had more of these kind of pans.

So when I, when I discovered cast iron skillets for myself, I

became far more brave with heat.

And the great thing with the cast iron skillet is you don't

even need to add any fat.

You can really turn up the heat.

And then it's basically like a barbecue.

You can, for example, you can put a whole, um, cherry tomatoes, you don't

cut them, whole cherry tomatoes in a, in a very, very, very hot cast iron

skillet, um, and you just shake it a bit for so few, three, four minutes,

uh, until it gets a few blisters and that creates such an intense, nice.

flavor.

You have that smoky touch and it creates a very nice texture because

it softens on the outside and inside there's still a bit of bite and this

is something I do like in general.

So, um, with a pan with the dish you just, um, referred

to, I like to use canned beans.

Canned legumes are just so amazing for lunchtime because usually You can just

pile up your, your shells, you have it there, chickpeas, white beans, whatever.

Um, and they work very, very well, um, with this, this technique as well.

They are add a bit of olive oil, heat really, really high, and then they

really They, they, on the outside, they're really, they, they, they

crack and they, they're, yeah, they soften their, no, they crisp a bit.

Um, and then you just add the tomatoes and the bread and you have a whole meal.

And this is, it takes like five minutes.

It's such as, and often we are, I feel, I think people who don't cook

so much are often shy with heat.

Heat is not, it doesn't threaten you.

It just means you have to watch it and you have to, you have to focus.

So you have three, four, five minutes, where you focus on your food, which in

general, that helps to focus on your food.

Um, and then it's done and you have a far more interesting play of

textures than by cooking with lower temperature over a longer time.

And it's also very convenient because in a few minutes, your, your lunch is done.

I want to talk about pastas because you talk about liking to eat a little

bit lighter at midday than at dinner.

Yet, I want to know, how does pasta fit into your midday feasting concept?

And also, the recipe in your book for mac and fava bean carbonara and

green vegetable with bosun sauce.

So, also, What's a Bozen sauce?

So Bozen is, it's the capital of South Tyrol.

South Tyrol is a region in Northern Italy, where the Italian Alps are.

There's great wine in this region, great food too.

They have an amazing cuisine.

And bosun sauce is a sauce made with a hard boiled egg, olive oil,

mustard, and lemon, lemon juice.

And it's Well, you can make it relatively quick and it's, um,

it's a chunky, chunky sauce.

You just chop the egg very roughly and it's often eaten with asparagus, but you

can use it for all sorts of vegetables.

It just, I mean, it's egg.

It means you have protein.

It's just richer and it has this nice silkiness, um, which I like a lot.

So with the pasta dishes, I mean, I do love carbonara and I love the classic

carbonara, but if for lunchtime, I might have a little bit less

pasta than I would have for dinner.

And then I need something green in there, either peas or fava beans, or if you

have other beans, throwing other beans.

I find, maybe also the older I get, I do need vegetables.

When I was younger, I often just had my carbs and I was happy.

Carbs and cheese, and I was happy.

And, um, I do, I got so used to always having my vegetables.

So when I create pasta recipes, I always have this in mind.

And I do like playing around with the term pesto.

So I call basically everything a pesto that I can blend in my mixer.

So I often make a pesto with, also with canned legumes, canned beans,

for example, or, or chickpeas.

And, um, yeah, I always try to, again, decrease the amount of pasta maybe

at lunchtime and have something, something fresher, some vegetables,

some legumes that make it lighter.

You do offer some sweets in your book, and most people don't have dessert at

lunchtime, but your sweets all have a savory slant to them, like peach tart

with stilton and thyme, or you have a grape tart with chèvre and rosemary.

And even your Dutch baby has pair.

So what is it about combining cheese and fruit that makes

that the perfect midday treat?

I think in general, it's just divine.

Mixing cheese, cheese and fruit anytime.

It's just, I love this so much.

Um, the sweetness for lunch, I think there was Because I also have, um, the

German apple pancake in the book, which is a very traditional German thing,

which mothers used to do often for kids that, that was a special treat.

Like once a week, you would get an apple pancake with cinnamon sugar,

which is basically, it is sweet.

But, um, it's, it's so funny because with American friends, they

always find that very disturbing.

Like, why would you eat that for, for, for lunch?

I knew this recipe, this apple recipe, uh, apple pancake would have to be in there.

Um, and with the tarts, it feels so luxurious having a piece of

tart or quiche for, for lunch.

And, um, I often like I make one or two in the evening and then I

have some leftovers the next day, but you can even, if you use.

Um, prepare the dough and have it frozen, obviously, then you would defrost

it or you have store bought pastry.

You can do it relatively quick.

I do everything with shortcrust pastry, but you can use puff pastry too.

For example, this peach tart, it's one of my favorite tarts.

I love it so much because the peaches are actually left in quite chunky big pieces.

So you cut the peach in half, which again, playing with the texture then.

So when it bakes, the outside gets softer, but the inside still has this this bite.

And that makes it really, really fun and exciting.

And then the cheese melts into that.

It's just something, especially blue cheese.

I love blue cheese.

Blue cheese with this sharpness and it's, it's hard.

It's, it's, it's really, it's really quite like, here I am.

And it's very present and this playing with that, that sweetness, the juice

and all of this from the, from the fruit is something that I find, especially

with stone fruit to find very exciting or with the shaver and the, the grapes

then, which is because grapes also have very nice, they, um, yeah, they have

a nice texture and they bake them in the oven because they're, they don't

cut them in half, you leave them whole.

So they just soften a bit and it's nice.

Micah, I am in awe of your flavor combinations.

Your recipes are exciting and unique.

Your new book Noon, Simple Recipes for Scrumptious Midday

Meals and More is now for sale.

Great good luck with the book and thank you for speaking with me about it.

Thank you very much.

That was fun.

Thanks a lot.

You really like talking to her.

I did, Micah.

If you're listening to this episode, you should know that if you lived in the U.

S., because if people didn't realize in the interview, she lives in

Berlin, I would invite you to dinner, and maybe we could become friends.

Yeah, I mean...

And that doesn't happen very often.

And she has a...

Podcast in German, right?

She does.

So, uh, wenn sie deutsch können, gehen sie da.

Yeah, she's great, and her recipes, as we talked about, I

love her flavor combinations, and she's really great about not...

Publishing recipes that you could find anywhere else.

They are unique and it's I love that about her her cooking.

Yeah, it You were very excited by the book when it came in.

I'm very excited by talking to her So check out that book if you want

to know more about that book See it's cover and all that you can find

it on our website or so mark calm.

I have it up on the website for this week, so you can see it there.

And of course, you can also check out more about Micah Peters

through her own websites and blogs.

Okay, up next, as is traditional with us, our final segment, what's

making us happy in food this week.

And I'm going to start out.

All right, you go.

I never go first.

I'm going to tell you about a gin.

If you listen to this podcast, you know that I love gin and

you know, it's a thing with me.

Gin is quite a favorite of mine and I don't mother's milk to her mother's milk.

And I don't really like gin and tonics.

I don't like gin mixed with much.

I don't just like gin with ice and sometimes a slice of lemon.

And that's basically it.

I always say a distilled spirit and an ice cube is a cocktail

as far as I'm concerned.

So anyway, I like gin and I want to tell you about this gin I love.

It's called Mojave gin.

It is from the Mojave desert and there's high and low

desert gins made by Mojave gin.

And they're made with things like sage, like not sage in your garden if

you live in a temperate climate, but like desert sage and prickly pear.

They're made with all kinds.

of botanicals that come from the Mojave Desert.

They're delicious gins, of course, juniper, but botanicals

that come like prickly pear.

Can you call it gin if it doesn't have juniper?

I don't think so.

I think juniper is like the one thing all gin must have.

It must have.

But in this case, the high and low desert gins from Mojave Gin are really tasty.

I really like them.

And again, I'm pretty much of a purist.

I just like gin on ice with maybe a lemon slice.

So I'm really looking for all that floral and botanical component.

to it.

I like big, huge, giant gins with lots of floral notes, which

some people I know don't like.

We have friends who come, very fancy friends, right?

Who always come and before he comes, I know I have to go buy

a bottle of Beefeater because that's really the gin he likes.

Not high end.

No, I keep it in the back of the cupboard for when they return.

So not everybody likes this.

But again, Mojave Gin is a great gin, and we are not sponsored, nor do we get

anything, nor have they ever sent us any free product for saying this on air.

I'm just telling you about something that I love.

Okay, what's making you happy in food this week?

I am loving green sambals.

Until recently, I've only really known about...

Sambo Ole.

So I found a bunch of green Samal recipes for Samal, and I don't even

know that I'm pronouncing this right.

Ijo or Ijo or ieo?

Yo.

With the J I don't know.

How is that J ing A Y I J O?

I don't actually know that I'm saying it right, but I found that and there's,

I found these green Sambos, which.

It, as Bruce said, are these really hot sauces, not salsas, but really

chili heavy, uh, herby pastes.

If you're used to sambal oelek, which is, you know, the basic red chili sambal.

It's just, it's just chilies and salt basically pureed up into a sauce.

Sometimes a little vinegar is added.

And then there's sambal bajak from Indonesia, which is

deeper and more fermented.

It has some shrimp paste in it.

I love sambal bajak.

And then Mork had discovered this.

I J O E O E.

Joe sambal.

So I was trying to create it and I went in the kitchen and came up with

a recipe for it, which uses jalapenos and serranos and garlic and scallions.

And oh my goodness, I've been putting it on everything.

I slathered it on meatloaf the other day.

I even took out some of that leftover parmesan from a parmesan tasting

and I ate some with parmesan cheese.

I actually put some mayonnaise on a piece of it.

Toasted bread and then spread this over the mayonnaise and then

crushed an avocado on top of that.

So I had avocado toast with mayonnaise and this sambal.

It was really delicious.

And that recipe may well be coming soon to somewhere near you, but we'll

talk more about that down the line.

I think you'll probably see that recipe again, but, uh, green

sambals are kind of amazing.

All right.

That's our podcast for this week.

Thank you for joining us.

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