Maman: The Cookbook | Elisa Marshall
Maman: The Cookbook: All-Day Recipes to Warm Your Heart
By Elisa Marshall and Benjamin Sormonte with Lauren Salkeld
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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.
Elisa Marshall: So my name is Elisa Marshall. I am the co-founder of Maman Cafe Bakery and Event Space based in New York City with locations all across New York and in Montreal and Toronto. And we just recently launched our first debut cookbook called Maman: The Cookbook, where we are sharing some of our classic recipes and some of our family favorites as well.
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. 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. Maman is more than food. You created your own world with everything you love with the person you love. So how did this start out as a small project in Soho and turn into something so much bigger?
Elisa Marshall: It really started off as a dream, ultimately. I always grew up having this vision of something that I wanted to create. And during my career in my twenties, I was really doing a little bit of everything. I was doing event planning. I was baking, I had a nine to five in fashion PR and I started a company interior decorating on the weekends, and I just genuinely loved doing everything. And I got to a point where, it's one of those moments, "What am I going to be when I grow up?" And I was testing at a whole bunch of fields and I just couldn't figure it out. And I really wanted to find a job that really was able to encompass all of my passions. And I was able to go into work and do a little bit of everything that I loved because I found myself in a position where I was doing five different jobs and not being able to give anything 100%.
Elisa Marshall: So I searched for my dream job, where I was really able to pursue all of my passions from events to branding, to marketing, to baking, and it didn't exist. So I knew I had to create it. So I was very fortunate at the time, met my husband back in Montreal in 2012 and our first date, he was a corporate lawyer at the time. And he said, "I would love to just leave law and open a restaurant." And I have such a passion for that. And I said, "I would love to open a bakery that's an event space." And ultimately what Maman is and here we are almost 10 years later living our dream with each other. So we're very fortunate. We're in a wonderful place.
Suzy Chase: Maman means mother in French and you and Benjamin, your husband, named it as a tribute to your mothers, who were your biggest influences in the kitchen. The book starts out with two introductions, one from your mama and one from Ben's mama. These passages are more than just talking about the cookbook. They're very personal essays about family and mothering. Can you talk a little bit about that?
Elisa Marshall: For sure. So when we looked at coming up with a name, we sought out and did a bunch of brainstorming and we found out that every single recipe and so many of the topics of discussion in the developmental process was relating back to our families and our homes. And I said, "Oh, my mom used to do this. And my mom used to have that." And Ben would tell stories about his recipe that his mama and his grandmother used to make for him. And it was just a reoccurring theme in the brainstorming process. And so, as we were trying to really define the concept of what this was, we're like, "It has to be my maman." We're like, "We have to do this for our mothers." This is something also, that's so relatable to so many people and I think that when thinking about your childhood, your culinary experiences, being together with people and eating, it relates so much back to family.
Elisa Marshall: And so many people say their mothers are either the best cooks or their mothers are either their worst cooks. But I feel like it's something that's so relatable for people to associate food and dining with their mothers. And for us, they were huge influences on not only our culinary, my creativity, the design inspirations, so many things that brought us to where we are today, we owe to our mothers. So we thought that this would be a wonderful tribute to them to do something to highlight many of their family recipes and also something that's relatable to so many other people. And I think family, and food just go so well, hand in hand together.
Suzy Chase: So there's also another chapter in the cookbook called What Is Maman with notes written by a few of your regulars. Could you please read one?
Elisa Marshall: Of course. So one of my favorites is- Maman is a gathering place, a place to feel special while still feeling at ease and just as in any good maman's house, you find comfort in the form of food, drink or simply in sharing in the ambience.
Suzy Chase: It must be so gratifying to read those words.
Elisa Marshall: It really is. And I think my biggest sense of pride and accomplishment that I feel is hearing the opinion of others and the warmth that they have when they come in and they'll pick up dish and say, "Oh, this is reminiscent of what my grandmother had," and I love hearing those stories of how they'll come into our space and in the crazy hustle of New York City, they feel that they've escaped and found a quaint little warm and welcoming atmosphere that transports them back into time into their grandmother's dining room when they were having beautiful family meals together.
Suzy Chase: When you were thinking about this concept, did you ever really believe that you could put all these ideas together and make them come to life? Because oftentimes I go to a restaurant and I'm like, "Oh, the food's great, but the atmosphere is so, so, or the atmosphere is really great and the food's like ugh, but at Maman, everything is a 10.
Elisa Marshall: That's so sweet. Thank you so much. You know what, honestly, when we first started off, I really had a very distinct vision for what I wanted this to be. And I really looked at everything in creating a multisensory experience. And I think that there's so many amazing places for food in New York City. Just as you said, you can go so many great places for a great cup of coffee. You can go places for a great ambiance, but for me, it's all about creating a multisensory experience. And not only are you going to come to our space, because the coffee is great, but the food is great and the customer service is wonderful and you're transported into a beautiful environment where there's tons of gorgeous details surrounding you. And you're smelling chocolate chip cookies fresh out of the oven. And I feel like New York City especially is such a competitive atmosphere in the restaurant industry is that... And you need to really be so much more than good food.
Elisa Marshall: It's so important to deliver to customers something a little extra and something a little special. And I think we can really attribute a lot of our success to that because there's five other places on the block that have wonderful coffee and why would you come to our space as opposed to going there? And that was really my philosophy when building out Maman and creating that little something extra special and that little something more.
Suzy Chase: Speaking of details, features like exposed brick, rustic wood tables, mismatched China, and your signature blue and white patterns that are on everything from your go-to cups, to your wallpaper, are at every Maman location and now in the cookbook. Your dad was an antiques dealer. Did he shape your design style in any way?
Elisa Marshall: So it's a funny story. He most definitely did and we still laugh about it to this day, because growing up I had, what I think now is the most beautiful farm house, 12 foot table with all mismatched chairs and exactly what we offer in Maman right now. And as a child, he had beautiful antique pieces surrounding the house and I had zero appreciation for it and I was embarrassed by our home and I would not even have friends over to the house for dinner because in my mind, I'm like, "We're poor. This is embarrassing. None of our chairs match at our table." And I said, "Why can't we just have a regular dining room set with matching Ikea chairs like all my friends have?" and it's a big joke now. And even the cars, I remember my father. He had the most beautiful Jeep Grand Wagoner that was all wood sides and it's my dream car now.
Suzy Chase: Mine too.
Elisa Marshall: ... and all of my friends had the fast and furious souped up BMWs with the tinted windows and I would make my father and mother pick me up around the side of the high school because I was too embarrassed to let my friends see me get into that car. And that was my car to drive as well and I wouldn't even take it out. I'm like, "I'm not going out if I don't have a cool car. I'm not leaving the house." So I was one of those bratty teenagers that had zero respect for any of the beauty that my parents invested in and created and now it's so funny and I'm fighting with my dad to get some of his pieces and some of his beautiful antiques from his house. And he's like, "Oh, now you want this, huh?" He's like, "Let's go back 20 years ago when you were fighting me to get rid of it and you would hide things in the house so we didn't look like a garage sale home."
Elisa Marshall: So it's definitely a huge influence on me. And it's funny how it definitely took a few years to really appreciate the beauty in those things. But I love how... It is something that's so reminiscent of my childhood in a good way and in a bad way.
Suzy Chase: So writing a cookbook has always been a goal for almost as long as you've had Maman. Talk a little bit about how this cookbook is a scrapbook.
Elisa Marshall: So this cookbook started years and years ago with my mom and I think this was pre-internet times. Most of our recipes growing up were ripping from Martha Stewart magazines and my mom would have notepads and be watching The Today Show and jotting down even different recipes that she saw on scrapbook pieces of paper. And my grandma would be writing recipes on little note cards and she would have binders and binders that we would compile together and put all of these recipes in and each binder kind of represented a different course. I remember there was a dessert binder and an appetizer binder and she still to this day has so many of these. And so it was something that I did with her growing up, really picking and choosing our favorite recipes. And what we really wanted to do with this book was make it so much more than a traditional cookbook.
Elisa Marshall: And that's one of my frustrations with cooking today and cooking online. And yes, there's so many wonderful recipes online and I'm constantly on Pinterest and on blogs trying new things. But my biggest frustration is, I am such a customized person when it comes to cooking and I really like to alter recipes and make them my own ultimately. So what we wanted to do here was really allow you to make modifications. And my frustrations that I have is I'll make a wonderful cake that I found on Pinterest. And first of all, I'm lucky if I remember where I found it to go back to it and sometimes it's maybe too sweet. So next time I'm going to do a quarter cup of sugar and I would love to add dried cranberries instead of raisins. So I feel like after you make these recipes, you always have your own customizations and personalization that you want to add to it, to make it more suitable for your taste preferences and your family's taste preferences.
Elisa Marshall: So what we decided to do here is to make it a little more unique is really lend that scrapbook approach to the book and on every single recipe, there's a note page. So we really encourage people to get this book dirty, to make edits to it, to really customize these recipes to suit your taste preferences and give you an ability to actually market and write it down and note it as well.
Suzy Chase: Okay. One recipe that I doubt people are going to want to change is your Nutty-
Elisa Marshall: I know what's coming-
Suzy Chase: Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe on page 151. It's world famous at this point. Oprah put it on her favorite things list in 2017. So you use chocolate wafers instead of chocolate chips and big chunks of nuts. And you also bake the cookies in a ball shape. There's surprisingly quite a bit of salt in this cookie, but it's not salty. I would love for you to describe it better than I did.
Elisa Marshall: Of course. Well, you did a fabulous job. So I think what makes this cookie very unique from a lot of other cookies and what helped set us apart in the cookie industry of New York City is the combination of textures and then the contrasts of flavors as well. So I think looking at texture, of course you have your gooey chocolate and then we use the whole nuts in there as well as opposed to crushed so that really helps to add to that nice consistency. The combination of butter and sugar, of course, leave a gooey center on the inside of the cookie, but then of course the edges caramelize and brown, and then the melting point of the chocolate wafers as opposed to chocolate chips, just gives that nice oozing center.
Elisa Marshall: So it's really a delicious... I think texture wise in your mouth. It has such wonderful contrast. And then the sweet and the salty too. So as mentioned, there is quite a bit of salt in here, but it's so nice enhancing the flavor of the nuts and balancing out the sweetness of the chocolate and the dough as well. When baking it in the balls as well, one secret of these cookies is really to limit how much you roll them with your hands. We find even in the restaurant, the natural heat from your hands while you're balling the cookies tends to flatten them. You're softening the butter, you're softening the dough and they'll turn out super flat. So we roll them, we ball them and then we chill them and you really want them to be super cold when you go into the oven because it'll help retain that shape and keep a higher cookie as opposed to going too flat. And that's the trick to give you that gooey center and then the crispy outside without turning it a little too pancake like.
Suzy Chase: Okay, so now we have our cookies made. How should we set a beautiful Maman inspired table?
Elisa Marshall: Ooh. So one of my favorite things to do is mixing and matching China, something my father did that I hated growing up. What I like to do, and one of my favorite tricks is really creating that vintage inspired aesthetic is finding a common thread and a common pattern so it doesn't look like a flea market. So for us at Maman, we have decided to go with blue and white florals and that was actually a gift that was passed on from my grandmother-in-law, my husband's grandmother who passed down a beautiful set of her French vintage blue and white floral plates. And I just loved them and I wanted a larger collection and I found something that was similar at antique market, but not quite. And when I put it together and I started growing this collection, then that was what got the balls rolling for Maman.
Elisa Marshall: So the secret is really finding a common theme. It could be a color theme, it could be a pattern. It could even be a shape and just growing with that. So right now I'm just constantly, at least I spend a few hours a week shopping, which is probably one of the most fun parts of my job and one thing that I never want to give up and I'm constantly on eBay and on replacements.com and on Facebook Marketplace searching for mismatched blue and white floral China because, with the volume we have in the restaurant and how fragile the dishes are as well, they tend to break them quicker than I can buy them. So I definitely think it really adds a beautiful element to your table and something you can just always keep collecting. You don't have to stop at 12. You can continue with your serving pieces and can just keep growing and have a lot of fun with it.
Suzy Chase: So I went to Maman King twice last week and I want to call it Maman Hudson. Does anyone else say that?
Elisa Marshall: Well, so here's the story is we already have a Maman Hudson and we didn't expect Maman Hudson number two. So we had to get creative and change the name. So Maman Hudson is on Hudson and Canal and that one opened up about four years ago. And then we found the beautiful space on Hudson and King Street already associating Maman Hudson with our 205 Hudson location and because the Maman King location is just so beautiful and large and grand, so we decided to go with the side street name of Maman King, but there's often a lot of confusion between the two, being both on Hudson, of course.
Suzy Chase: So at Maman King, I brought home the truffle crock maman, the quiche Sophie, pistachio loaf cake, nutty chocolate chip cookie, about five of them and the pain au chocolat.
Elisa Marshall: So you had quite the feast.
Suzy Chase: Yeah. Oh my God, I have a teenager and he was so happy.
Elisa Marshall: Oh, wonderful.
Suzy Chase: The Crock Maman is on page 95 in the cookbook and it features a variation with truffle . bechamel. Can you describe this amazing sandwich?
Elisa Marshall: Of course. So this is traditional French bistro style sandwich. So this is made with Parisian ham. We use a really delicious comte cheese. We have a wonderful brioche and bechamel sauce, of course. So what's really great about this sandwich is it's just like an ooey, gooey, delicious grilled cheese adding in the ham, adding in the extra layer of cream. It's very indulgent and probably like one of my cheat day dishes at Maman's for lunch. What we've done as well as a variation that we offer in the winter months is adding truffle to our bechamel. And you can really get creative with various different flavors and truffle and cheese and ham just go so perfectly hand in hand with one another. And growing up for Ben truffle was really big for him. It was something that he really loved and his parents still to this day put truffle oil and shave truffles on anything with cheese.
Elisa Marshall: You could use the shaved truffles. You could infuse the oil and the bechamel sauce as well, really rich, delicious indulgent treat, and also great served with an egg on top as well. Can turn it more into a brunch style dish. Hot out of the oven. There's nothing like it.
Suzy Chase: After we stop recording, I may have to strut down to Hudson and King, it's closer to me than Hudson and Canal and get one.
Elisa Marshall: Perfect.
Suzy Chase: So 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.
Elisa Marshall: So the one person I would love to invite to my dream dinner party, which would be a very intimate one, would be my grandmother. It's my grandmother, Gracie. And she of course was our main culinary inspiration for both my mother and myself. And I would love to have the opportunity to have dinner with her again.
Suzy Chase: On to happier things, where can we find you on the web and social media and where can we find Maman Cafe?
Elisa Marshall: All right. So you can and find us on our website at mamannyc.com, on social media we are at _mamannyc_ because unfortunately it was already taken. Someone else beat us to it. And our restaurants, we are located all across Manhattan. Exciting news, we're actually opening our upper west side location this Saturday. And next month we have Cobble Hill in Brooklyn coming as well. And Montreal, Toronto for our Canadian customers and hopefully more to come soon as well. We're definitely going to be growing and expanding. And for those who aren't in New York or can't come to New York, come Thanksgiving, we'll be picking up our cookie shipping again. So if you're not an at home baker and don't want to attempt the cookie from the book, you can have them shipped directly to your doorstep as well
Suzy Chase: To purchase Maman: The Cookbook and support the podcast, head on over to cookerybythebook.com. And thank you so much Elisa for coming on Cookery by the Book Podcast.
Elisa Marshall: Thank you so much for having me. It's been a joy to speak with you.
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