Staples +5 | Tanorria Askew
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Intro: Welcome to the number one cookbook podcast, Cookery by the Book with Suzy Chase. She's just a home cook in New York City, sitting at her dining room table, talking to cookbook authors.
Tanorria Askew: My name is Tanorria Askew and my first-ever cookbook is Staples + 5: 100 Simple Recipes to Make the Most of Your Pantry.
Suzy Chase: Before diving into this book, I'd like to thank my new sponsor, Bloomist. Bloomist creates and curates simple, sustainable products that inspire you to design a calm, natural refuge at home. I'm excited to announce they've just introduced a new tabletop and kitchen collection that's truly stunning. Surround yourself with beautiful elements of nature. When you're cooking, dining, and entertaining and make nature home. Visit bloomist.com and use the code "Cookery20" to get 20 off your first purchase or click the link in the show notes. Now, on with the show.
Suzy Chase: A 2016 contestant on MasterChef hosted by Gordon Ramsey, you walked away as the fourth-best home cook in America. Gordon Ramsey said your shrimp and grits were the best he's ever had in the MasterChef kitchen. Wow. How did that feel? What do you think set your shrimp and grits apart from the others? I can't even imagine how amazing that was.
Tanorria Askew: Oh, that's such a good question. How did it feel? Still a little unreal, even though it was five years ago. I think the thing that really hit it home for me was after that day of filming, we got back to our hotel, and I asked a casting person. I was like, "Did they just say that for TV? That's how we're working here. This is what I can expect." He's like, "Oh, no. He went down after everyone left set and finished your plate of shrimp and grits.
Suzy Chase: Oh, my gosh.
Tanorria Askew: "I wanted to go taste them and Gordon Ramsey finished them," and I was like, "Okay. Let's get this show on the road." I was in it to win it from that moment. But what set mine apart, flavor, just flavor. Seasoning food is so incredibly important. I think it is something that lots of people, especially home cooks in a hurry take for granted is seasoning their food. When people ask me why my food is so good, it's just because I'm not afraid of seasoning and salt and high heat, and so cooking shrimp at high heat to get nice caramelization, but still plump and juicy on the inside, and adding an obscene amount of cream and butter to the grits. I mean, this was MasterChef, so we're not worried about calories here. The shrimp and grits start in a base of andouille sausage being rendered, so everything is a built-up layer of flavor after that.
Tanorria Askew: Then I think the thing that was just extra special for my shrimp and grits was I took my grandmother's fried okra recipe and made it my own and put that on top, so you've got all the textures. You've got creamy, you've got the succulent texture, you've got crunch from the okra. You've got smokey, you've got salty, you've got a little bit of spice from the andouille. It really was kind of like a flavor explosion in your mouth.
Suzy Chase: I definitely want to pick your brain about seasoning, but I want to kick things off with the title: What does Staples + 5 mean?
Tanorria Askew: I grew up cooking everything from scratch. There was no Stove Top or Kraft mac-and-cheese in my house, and from learning how to cook everything from scratch, as well as having a staple pantry on MasterChef, I really feel like I have mastered cooking based on staple ingredients, ingredients that we have in our pantries that we kind of take for granted, like salt, flour, sugar, dried pasta, beans, et cetera, and so Staples + 5 is a list of 35 pantry staples. These are what I'm considering the bare minimum you should have in your pantry and then you can have up to five additional ingredients, and so those are usually things like your produce items, your proteins, things like that. In Staples + 5, there are a hundred recipes. There are some that are just made from staple pantry items and then there are others that are made with up to five additional ingredients.
Suzy Chase: The use of seasoning and spices along with the mission of making well-seasoned food you say comes from your ancestors. Talk to me about seasoning with salt because I feel like I just don't really know the ins and outs of salt.
Tanorria Askew: Yeah. I get on a salt soapbox every time I facilitate a virtual cooking demonstration because I ask people, "'Okay, go into your cupboard. Do you have iodized table salt in your cupboard?" Most people say, "Yes," and I say, "Okay, when you follow this recipe we're doing today, cut your salt in half because your salt is too salty." It has additional ingredients in it. It's processed differently. The flavor is more acidic and metallic. I use Diamond Crystal kosher salt. I love kosher salt. Kosher salt is my everyday table salt, but Diamond Crystal is where it's at for or me. It is the least salty of the salts, so you have more control over the salt that you're putting in your food. A lot of people see me put a generous amount of salt and they're like, "Oh, my gosh." I'm like, "Guys, it's just different. It's just different."
Tanorria Askew: I explain it to people in that if you go to a restaurant and you have an amazing meal and you ask the chef, "Oh, my gosh, would you please share the recipe with me?" and the chef does and that person goes home and tries to recreate the meal and it's not the same, it's because they're using the wrong kind of salt. Chefs are not afraid of salt and it's because of the type of salt they're using. Sea salt is great. Pink Himalayan salt is great, gray salt. I love fleur de sel because it just makes me feel super extra and fancy, but they are not your everyday standard cooking salts. They should not be the ones that are next to your stove that you're putting in your food as you're cooking. Also, tasting as you're cooking. If you're putting in granulated garlic and granulated onion and smoked paprika and all of these great baseline seasonings into your food, taste it after you've mixed it in and give it a second to bloom in that heat. Taste it first and then decide if you want more.
Suzy Chase: Now, when thinking about dried or herbs versus fresh, you say, "When you use dried, use less than you would if you were using fresh." I feel like I've been thinking about it wrong all these years. You also talk about the health benefits of herbs, which a lot of cookbook authors don't.
Tanorria Askew: Yeah. I am a huge proponent of when I'm not feeling the greatest, I will go steep some garlic cloves, some honey, and drop some oregano in there and sip on that because I know oregano is an anti-inflammatory. It's going to hopefully reduce some of that phlegm and that ache that I'm feeling when I make chicken soup for when I am sick, not just because it's cold outside, but when I'm like, "I need a good hearty bowl of chicken soup to feel better," I'm going to add a little bit of cayenne because that's going to help reduce my fever, and I am going to add all the herbs, the thyme, the rosemary, the oregano, the bay leaf. They do have healing qualities. I feel like if people aren't doing it regularly, consistently, it's not going to change. I am not a nutritionist. I am not an herbalist, either. But I do know that when I first started doing it, I was like, "Come on, this isn't working. This is just a bunch of juju." But using it consistently in my diet, I can tell that it does help at times.
Suzy Chase: You tell us to use less dried than we would if we were using fresh.
Tanorria Askew: Yes, if it is dried and it is dried rosemary and not ground rosemary. Typically, when people are using dried herbs, they are putting them on food that is already cooked or close to being done to being cooked. When I use dried herbs, I use them as I'm cooking. I let them come in contact with the heat. That wakes them up, that blooms them, and so you're going to taste it. It's almost like a quick oil infusion or sauce infusion to whatever you're cooking. But if you're just sprinkling dried herbs on the top of something, one, it's awful on the palate, and two, you're not really going to taste it a whole lot because you haven't given it an opportunity to bloom, and so I tend to use less dried herbs because I use them earlier in the cooking process.
Suzy Chase: I'm curious about your Grandma Judy and how she inspired the philosophy of Staples + 5.
Tanorria Askew: My grandmother raised five kids as a single mother. My mom grew up absolutely as a low-income family. I think about that being that I live in Indianapolis in one of the largest food deserts in the nation. I should ask my mom that. I wonder what her experience was like with access to food. But my grandmother told my mom and my mom told me, even as a little girl, "As long as you have a bag of potato and a bag of flour, or a bag of rice and a bag of flour in your home, you're going to be able to make a meal." Even if you're just cooking up the rice and then mixing the flour with water and maybe frying it up in a pan or sauteing it in a pan for little bread patties or something like that, at least you're eating.
Tanorria Askew: That's kind of why Staples + 5 is important to me is because I truly, truly feel that every single person deserves a good quality whole meal, and while that bit of information that my grandmother imparted on my mom and my mom imparted on me, while I cherish it to this day, at the same time, it's also like, "Nope, that's not good at enough anymore. Everybody deserves a good meal."
Tanorria Askew: In Staples + 5, there is a pantry spaghetti recipe that is just making spaghetti from scratch instead of buying a jar of sauce, and I feel like everyone has access to a can of tomatoes and a box of pasta. Can you make that? But there's also a recipe for pan-seared scallops with a brown butter sauce. If you want to make that, you should make it. If you have to go purchase your groceries with government assistance and you choose to buy scallops, you have every single right. Yeah, I just carry that story with me when I'm cooking for myself and when I'm cooking for others, when I'm serving others, because everyone deserves the same good quality food.
Suzy Chase: Amen. Cooking is not only your career. It's also your gift. You've said never in a million years, would you have thought you were on this Earth to feed people. When did it dawn on you that this was your path?
Tanorria Askew: Oh, yeah. That's a good question. I spent 15 years in corporate America working at a credit union. Half of that time was on the retail side of things where I managed a team and had to care about how many checking accounts we opened. Then the other half of that time was in the human resource, training and development, diversity, equity, and inclusion. It was about five years before I left, maybe even seven years before I left where I was like, "I just don't want to retire doing this. I don't want my legacy to be that I spent all these years at a credit union." I felt like I wasn't making a significant impact. The one part of my job that I absolutely loved, the thing that got me into work every day, was just a bullet point in my job description. That was the diversity, equity, and inclusion component.
Tanorria Askew: I just started cooking. My friends, that's how I get them to come over to my apartment at the time, was to feed them: "Hey, it's Friday night. I'm going to make Mexican and margaritas. Come over." I just really realized that food was a great connector. Prior to that, I thought, "Oh, my gosh, I can't have a job in the culinary field. That's not a real job." I was super-cutthroat, corporate, and so once I started recognizing that food was bringing my people together and I was able to even use food to love on and serve strangers, I was like, "Okay, we can do something with this." It was almost like recognizing how my parents always hosted growing up. I was like, "Oh, this is why they did it all the time. It built community."
Suzy Chase: You sound a lot like Julia Turshen.
Tanorria Askew: Oh, gosh, I love her.
Suzy Chase: I do, too.
Tanorria Askew: I had the pleasure of meeting her once. She came here to Indianapolis when I think her cookbook Now and Again, I think it was that one, and I got to meet her and she was just so honored that I was a member of Equity At The Table. Honestly, Equity At The Table even helped me find my publicist for Staples + 5 and Julia helped me find my agent for Staples + 5. I reached out to her and said "Help. Can't find anyone. Do you have any resources?" Yeah, she is just such a valuable asset to the food community.
Suzy Chase: You say, "This is the job of my dreams. There have been plenty of times over this last seven years where I didn't think I would ever get here. I thought I was going to have to stop doing this work and go get a big-girl job, but I persevered."
Tanorria Askew: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Suzy Chase: For a home cook who's listening right now and wants to make food a full-time successful career, whether that be a chef or recipe tester or cookbook author, what would you tell her?
Tanorria Askew: I would say, "Sweetheart, you cannot worry about what anyone else thinks, that you need to get out of your own head. Imposter syndrome is a bitch and it will defeat you daily if you let it."
Suzy Chase: Yes.
Tanorria Askew: You need to be in a mindset of abundance and a mindset of a Gumby-like mentality because you are going to have to shift and change and move and adjust. You cannot be in a fixed mindset or a scarcity mindset. Once you have your mindset right and you can confidently affirm yourself that you are here to do what you are supposed to do, go for it. The rest will come.
Suzy Chase: Over the weekend, I made your recipe for Black-eyed Pea Salsa on page 20. Can you describe this recipe?
Tanorria Askew: Yeah. Black-eyed pea salsa is like a bright little flavor explosion that's excellent any time of year. It uses canned black-eyed peas, so there's actually no cooking involved, and you just rinse off that canned flavor. It's got canned black-eyed peas, a multicolor option of bell pepper. I usually recommend red, orange, and green for this, but sometimes if I get my hands on yellow or purple, go for it, a red onion and some grape tomatoes that are just going to burst in your mouth, along with the creaminess of the black eye peas, and then it's got a balsamic vinegarette to go over it, so you've got salty from the black-eyed peas. I love black-eyed peas. Growing up, they were the only thing in the bean family I would eat. You've got saltiness from the black-eyed peas, you've got sweetness from the balsamic and the tomato and the peppers, you've got a little acidic from the balsamic, and the red onion. It is excellent on grilled chicken. It's excellent on top of roasted salmon. It is really, really great and fun and beautiful to put out at a table with some tortilla chips.
Suzy Chase: I also made your recipe for Crispy Onion-Baked Chicken Wings on page 33 and I love that these are baked and not fried.
Tanorria Askew: Yes, yes. Well, he was my boyfriend just two weeks ago. We got married.
Suzy Chase: Yay. Congratulations.
Tanorria Askew: Thank you. We eloped and didn't tell anyone. It was excellent.
Suzy Chase: Oh, that's wonderful.
Tanorria Askew: My now-husband, chicken wings are his favorite food. If I would let him, he would eat grocery store fried chicken wings and rice every day, and that's just not acceptable, so I had to find a lighter way to make these. He really loves the texture of a crispy wing and so cooking them in the oven at a high heat for an extended period of time, and when I say extended, I mean, 30 to 45 minutes, sometimes even up to an hour, depending on how thick they are, and using that bacon fat is going to help crisp up that skin and give it a nice different flavor than just regular salt and pepper. These are on regular rotation in my house because they're one of my husband's favorites.
Suzy Chase: I also made your Apple Pie Dip on page 43.
Tanorria Askew: Thank you.
Suzy Chase: It's such an autumn vibe and so different. How did you come up with this recipe?
Tanorria Askew: My dad loves apples and apple pie and we were trying to keep the crust away from it. Like, "Okay, are you going to have the whole thing of apple pie?" Meaning, you're going to have the buttery crust and the sugary filling. Let's pick one. I know that he loves apples, so we can use graham crackers. We can use flour tortillas and a little bit of cinnamon sugar. He will even put it on his toast or mix it into his oatmeal, and so it was just a way to satisfy his sweet tooth and his love of apples without tempting him with a whole apple pie. It's really fun at a party to put it out. It's kind of one of those no-muss, no-fuss desserts. You know that people are going to enjoy it. It's going to be a bit nostalgic because it's apple pie, but it's also a conversation starter, like, "Wow. This is different. This is delicious."
Suzy Chase: Yeah. For Christmas, I'm going to do your black-eyed pea salsa and the apple pie dip.
Tanorria Askew: Oh, my gosh. I'm so honored. You're going to share that with your family?
Suzy Chase: Yes.
Tanorria Askew: Thank you.
Suzy Chase: Yay. The very last recipe in this book is your grandmother's rice pudding and I would love for you to talk a little bit about this recipe.
Tanorria Askew: Yeah, it was made by my Grandma Judy, who blossomed the Staples + 5 concept in my heart with her saying, "All you need is a bag of rice and a bag of flour and you can have a meal." Well, she made rice pudding a lot with leftover rice. My dad loves rice pudding. I feel like that was the way to his heart, even though was his mother-in-law, that was the way to his heart was her rice pudding, and so it is just warm comfort nostalgia for me, but it really is paying homage to her and the concept of this book, just as a whole.
Suzy Chase: Now, to my segment called Dream Dinner Party, where I ask you who you most want to invite to your dream dinner party and why, and for this segment, it can only be one person.
Tanorria Askew: I'm going to say my Grandma Lily. There's a recipe in the book that pays homage to her. It's the sweet potato pie bars. I had a relationship with my Grandma Lily as an adult, and so I was able to talk to her about the herbs I was growing in my garden, and she was fascinated with that. There's a full-circle moment that I had with her. Growing up, my brother and I would go to visit her and my Grandma Judy in Tennessee for the summer for about two weeks and my Grandma Lily would make the most amazing blueberry pancakes, and honestly, Suzy, I think they were a box mix, but back then, they were fantastic. In my 20s, before she passed away, I was able to make blueberry pancakes for her, and just to have that full-circle moment as an adult is really, really special.
Tanorria Askew: When I am making sweet potato pie, which I will be for Thanksgiving, or making sweet potato pie bars, which I will be for Christmas, to switch things up a little bit, she's standing in the kitchen with me. I feel her presence. I know she is there. When I taste it and it's not right, she's telling me what to change. If she can sit at my table now and eat my food now, I wonder often what she's thinking right now.
Suzy Chase: She's proud of you.
Tanorria Askew: Oh, thank you. Thank you.
Suzy Chase: Where can we find you on the web and social media?
Tanorria Askew: Yeah, everything. My website, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest and LinkedIn are all Tanorria's Table. I am so sorry that my mom did name me, Suzy. I ask her this all the time, "Why'd you give me such a hard name?" But when you are looking up-
Suzy Chase: I love it. I'm Suzy. Suzy. Everyone thinks I'm eight years old.
Tanorria Askew: ... But I bet you get people trying to spell it S-U-S-I-E instead of the way it's actually spelled.
Suzy Chase: Yeah, and then they call me "Susan." It's a whole thing.
Tanorria Askew: Yeah.
Suzy Chase: I think we all have issues with our names.
Tanorria Askew: Yeah. Anyway-
Suzy Chase: But anyway, I love your name.
Tanorria Askew: ... I do love my name now, I've embraced it as an adult, but just when you're looking me up, it's one N, two Rs. That seems to be the biggest challenge for people in spelling it correctly, so when you look for Tanorria's Table, make sure it's one N, two Rs. It's Tanorria's Table everywhere and it really is me on the other side of the phone or the screen, so when you shout me out on Instagram, when you tag me and things like that, it really is me that talks back.
Suzy Chase: To purchase Staples + 5 and support the podcast, head on over to CookerbytheBook.com. Thanks, Tanorria, one N and two Rs, for coming on Cookery by the Book Podcast.
Tanorria Askew: Thank you so much for having me. This was lovely.
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