Arty Parties | Julia Sherman
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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.
Julia Sherman: Hi, my name is Julia Sherman and my newest cookbook is called Arty Parties: An Entertaining Cookbook, and it's published by Abrams Books.
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: In your follow up to Salad for President where you explore the meaningful connection between food art and everyday obsessions. Arty Parties explores integrating the artist touch at home, and you emphasize the point that food doesn't matter. I mean, what a relief.
Julia Sherman: Yeah. I mean, it was a funny conclusion to come to as a cookbook writer and this is... First and foremost a cookbook, it has upwards of 90 recipes and so I don't want to make it sound like I don't think the food matters in my world, but I do find that people get really hung up on it. When I was really thinking about what do I want to contribute to the world of entertaining guides and tones? I think that what I came away with was thinking about the best parties that I had ever had. And they were certainly not the ones where I nailed it on every single dish. So, that should come to as a relief to most of your listeners, because it did definitely came as a relief to me.
Suzy Chase: And I think the biggest takeaway from this cookbook is to take risks. And you say to use the cookbook as sort of a laboratory to express yourself.
Julia Sherman: Yeah. I think that a lot of people have come to use the internet and social content as this sort of copycat or this kind of call to replicate what is this perfect image of domestic success. And I find it all to be very sterile and very impersonal. And when I look at the way that artists in my world entertain and the way that I hope that I entertain my friends and my family. I really think that what sticks with everybody and what really becomes an important takeaway is when you have an experience that you feel is really an entree into the person's mind and into their world and their passions and what they're thinking about. What they're experimenting with, not so much this kind of Polish performance that that kind of has an opaque backend if that makes sense.
Suzy Chase: All your friends in this book are so wonderfully creative and fun, but I really love Francesca DiMatteo and her head dresses.
Julia Sherman: So Francesca is a Renaissance woman. She's an amazing sculptor, a self-taught sculptor in a lot of ways. I mean she studied painting and she is so incredible in that there're no boundaries around what she considers her work and what she considers her home life. One on the occasion that I went to go visit her upstate, she was getting together a party for her son's birthday and she had the idea that she was going to create these papier-mache, head dresses of all these different animals and it was sort of this Noah's arc scene. And so five minutes before the party, Bruno, her son decided that he would absolutely not wear this thing, that it was not comfortable. And she had made them for all the kids and all the kids came over to try to get them to wear them. And there were a lot of tears until she finally gave up and all the adults ended up spending the entire day dutifully wearing her paper-mache, head dresses.
Julia Sherman: And then to decorate the table, it was plates that she made with her son that were sort of messy, beautiful, naive design. And then she went into the garden and picked all these things that one would normally think were like compost. It was late fall and so there was dried leaves and plants that had bolted and cords and things like that. And she just made this abundant table and it was really incredible because I don't think there was a single store bought item in that whole experience.
Suzy Chase: So you entertain all the time, which gets expensive and you champion ingredients such as cabbage celery, and canned sardines. You talk about finding infinite inspiration in a head of cabbage. And I think the best example is your Cast Iron Cabbage Tinga. Could you describe this?
Julia Sherman: I am a huge fan of taking the humble cabbage and making it the main event. And I think most people, their mind doesn't go to cabbage when they think about how to spoil people at a dinner party. But I really feel like the cabbage can be transformed in so many ways and it really is an exciting vegetable, especially when you cook it properly and give it a little time, a little bit of love. So the cabbage Tinga you sear the quarters of the cabbage and there's all different types of cabbage you can use. I've done this with red cabbage. I've done this with flathead cabbage, which is really nice cone cabbage. Also your regular green cabbage is perfect. And then you simmer it slowly in a sauce, a Tinga sauce, which has some chipotle. It's got some warming spices. And you know, I also say you can totally do this with whatever tomato sauce you have around. Maybe you want to spice it up a little bit. I love using Mexican chili so, if you want to do that, but you know, you slow cook it in the cast iron pan and it really just kind of melts. It becomes so soft and so silky. And the sauce also reduces down to this sort of intense flavor. So for me, this is a very, very affordable way to feed a crowd. And it's just not something anybody sees coming.
Suzy Chase: So lots of entertaining cookbooks focus on the final result, but this book is an homage to process. You say there's an art to putting it all together and an art to letting it go. I swear, you made this book for me because the thought of pulling a dinner party together makes my palm sweat. If you could give me one takeaway, what would it be?
Julia Sherman: I think it would be that entertaining is really an opportunity for you to experiment and for you to kind of figure out what are the new things that you want to try? And I think that the thing to remember is that everybody has a good time when they know that the host is having a good time. And when they see you sweating and trying to perfect something or make it seem like everybody's at a restaurant, that's not fun. So, I think the fun thing is to loosen up and to just use this as an opportunity to bring something new into your life and also your friends' lives.
Suzy Chase: Arty Parties was really one revelation after another for me. You're so honest and down to earth, especially in the section called Tag, You're It where you wrote about starting this book by interviewing your friends who have never invited you over for a meal to discuss the concept of reciprocity and you came up with four conclusions. So number one is, don't put the food under a microscope. Your friend Joanna was worried, you would find faults in her cooking.
Julia Sherman: Yeah. So, Joanna is one of my closest friend. She actually illustrated my first cookbook. Her name is Joanna Davala and she's so talented and so wonderful. And I was feeling secretly a little bit hurt that I had never been invited over to her house when she was sort of a fixture in my kitchen. So, I did use this book as an opportunity to figure out what I was doing wrong and why I wasn't being invited over to other people's homes. And I think a lot of that was that people assume that I want to entertain and I want to host because and rightfully so I mean, it's the greatest pleasure of my life, but sometimes I want a night off. And I also think you learn a lot about your friends by going to their house and letting them show you their way.
Julia Sherman: So I did talk to Joanna about this and she gave me some really valuable advice which was that, I had been taking an incredibly critical tack to my own cooking. And this is where that thesis that the food really doesn't matter comes into play because I had been asking my guests often to critique my food. And this felt very natural to me because my background is in visual arts and critique is the greatest form of compliment. It's giving somebody your time, giving them your brain to help them improve what they're doing. And when you write cookbooks, there's a lot of recipes testing and a lot of asking your friends to eat your food and give you feedback. So, I had been folding that into so many of our meals together and it was leaving her with this sense that if were she to have us over at her house I would take the same critical lens to everything that she made, which is a horrible thing.
Julia Sherman: And so we got right back on track and I actually went over to her house for dinner last week. And I was very clear with her that, this is what I do, but I do need to be conscious of the fact that other people don't necessarily want to be dragged into it and they just want to enjoy your party. But I think that we all have the tendency to apologize when something goes wrong or when you didn't get some dish perfect, or under season something, whatever. But leave those apologies at the door because little do you know, but people are internalizing that and they feel like that's actually a lot of pressure when it comes to the next time that they are thinking about inviting you into their home, which maybe they're not very experienced cook, but I definitely freed her of those anxieties and told her, should she have me over for, with a loaf of bread and some sardines, I would be more than thrilled.
Suzy Chase: So number two is sit when you're dead. If you never have a sit down dinner again, you will be better for it.
Julia Sherman: Yes, I'm a very active and impatient person. And so, this is probably why I love to be the host is also gives me an excuse to be bopping around and getting up for my chair and going to the kitchen and checking in on everybody that feels way more comfortable for me than sitting still and finding my place card and remaining there for the next three hours. So, I try not to impose that context on my guest. And I think that, especially when I spoke to a lot of friends who live in New York, one common refrain that I heard was that people felt that they were not set up to host because they didn't have a proper dining table. I didn't have the space, but you know the packed apartment that kind of bustling vibe or sitting on the floor, or if you really don't want to be in your house that like having everybody meet in a really special location.
Julia Sherman: I think all of these things are, there's so many different ways to host, but I think this flexibility and the movement of it and the energy is really something to keep in mind. And I don't feel like the best parties that I go to are the ones where I'm seated the whole time. And I've got this sort of traditional setup of a dinner partner to my right and my left and across from me. And that's about it.
Suzy Chase: So number three is all about flexibility. Space is a concept and I live in Greenwich Village and I've had some of the best parties over at the Hudson River Park.
Julia Sherman: Yeah. I mean, I think that's the thing is that you know party does not have to happen in your house and that artists often entertain in there studios where, and there's a few examples of that in the book. But there's not that expectation that they're walking into, you're walking into a perfectly appointed apartment. It's rough, it's supposed to be, it is what it is. And there's a story in the book, in Paris I went to a party at my friends who are book pub... They publish artists books and these sort of books that really are more like sculptures and they had this party in the studio. The fluorescent lights are on. They're not trying to make it into anything that it's not, and it was one of the best parties I've ever been to. Just had energy and it and it was so great to be let into their workspace and to kind of see how they're living their everyday lives and where their passions lie.
Julia Sherman: But I love your idea of going to the park. That is a really great solution if you feel like your face is too small. I once had a party at the top of this hike in Los Angeles and at the top, there's a mountain, there's a burned down the remains of what was an old resort in the 50s. And there's like a train tracks that used to take everybody up to the top of the mountain. And there's all of these sort of ruins of a resort of yesterday. And we all did a potluck where we all hiked to the top, and then everybody shared food. We had a picnic and that was such an unusual thing. And it really motivated people to do something they wouldn't have done otherwise.
Suzy Chase: And it's also great if you have kids because not everyone can get a babysitter and you want couples to come together. So if they can bring the kids, it's even better.
Julia Sherman: Totally. I mean, I feel that a lot since having kids myself is that it's a big ask to get people, to find childcare and leave their kids at home. So most of my parties these days happen at like 4:30 or 5 and I think that feels inclusive and it feels more natural to everybody. And it's more intimate.
Suzy Chase: Number four, optimize for leftovers. So when thinking about cooking for dinner party or guests, I never consider leftovers.
Julia Sherman: I mean, everything the recipe has a key at the bottom that lets you know, if it is good for leftovers. So, if you want to make extra and know that you're going to have lunch for the rest of the week, then that is a really smart way to entertain and cut down on the amount of work you're doing total in the kitchen. But for example, there is a braised lamb taco that is so delicious and I was developing this recipe in order to cook the meat and to get it super tender. It has to be pretty much submerged in the sauce that's made from chilies and tomato and cinnamon and all. It's really outstanding and so that sauce only gets better as the dish cooks because all the juice from the lamb is mixing in there and it's a slow cook.
Julia Sherman: So once we serve the tacos and everyone had eaten all the meat, I was left with the pot of this sauce. And I was like, there's no way I'm throwing this out. So I developed a sole recipe for the next day that really truly does not need any meat in it. You can just use the sauce as your base and then put squash in it, harmony, a whole host of vegetables, but that's like two really substantial meals with essentially like one basic prep time. So, something like that for me also, it's a great way to justify spending all your weekend cooking for friends because you're also cooking for your family for the rest of the week.
Suzy Chase: So could you talk a little bit about photographing this whole cookbook?
Julia Sherman: Yeah. So, I'm a photographer before I'm a cook, before I'm a writer and that's what I studied in at school and that's what I've been doing all along. And so photography for me I love, I taught myself how to do food photography when I started my blog salad for president. And so, the shoot for this was just so much fun. I mean, it was also in the pandemic and it felt like such a gift to just be able to work closely with people in person. And we shot about, 10 dishes a day and I had a wonderful food stylist named Vivian Lui who just is food stylist on a photo shoot for a cookbook is really your producer. I mean, they're invaluable. And I did all the prop styling myself. And so that involved working with a lot of local artists to source plates and bowls, and then Daniel Gordon, who's the artist I collaborated with on the cover and the chapter openers. We made backgrounds for all the food by taking crops of his existing artworks and then blowing them up and printing them on vinyl wallpaper.
Julia Sherman: So, the surface that you see all the food shot on, those were all made for the shoot. And so, there's a lot that goes into preparing all the elements for a photo shoot like this, because in my mind, I really just don't want to image us to ever feel the same. My priority is always to kind of find that balance between things looking really artful and different than other cookbooks but at the same time, the food has to look beautiful. So the food has to look good. I never wanted to feel like we're sacrificing the appeal and of the recipes themselves for the kind of impact of the styling or anything like that.
Suzy Chase: I love that I didn't see one picture of marble.
Julia Sherman: Exactly. So this is the thing in order to do these shoots most often people are relying on prop houses and that's a big reason why when you look through your cookbooks, if you pay attention to the backgrounds you're going to see most of them are the same. Most cookbooks are using, some distressed wood, some Carrara Marble, maybe some distressed metal, but these are sheets of material that one rents for like a hundred dollars a day from a crop house. So, it's extremely expensive, and it's also, yields an image. It looks a lot like everyone else's. So we went to a great trouble to try and do something different.
Suzy Chase: So you say snacks count as hosting.
Julia Sherman: One of the revelations that people need to embrace about hosting is that it doesn't have to be the dinner party. The dinner party is a lot of pressure and you don't need to be game for that. I think it counts to host if you have someone over for a coffee, if you have someone over for a snack, maybe this was just my excuse to make a bunch of recipes for popcorn because I'm a popcorn addict. But I think if you put a little bit of creative energy into one little detail, it goes a long way, like to have some over for movie night and I make Japanese popcorn is amazing. People are going to always remember that. You don't have to do a whole meal. It's really about the experience and the gesture.
Suzy Chase: Can you describe your Turmeric Poppy Kettle Corn?
Julia Sherman: Yeah. Okay. So I mean Kettle corn is basically you know... It's an incredible tool for getting anything to stick to your popcorn. So, it's a little bit of sugar, not very much into the pot and when the sugar melts and caramelizes, it's going to create a sticky surface that anything else you throw in there's going to adhere to the kernels. So, it's a little bit sweet. It's a little bit salty. It's this beautiful orange color because it has the turmeric in it and then the poppy seeds for kind of crunch and a flavor that is a little bit hard to place. But it's so, so fun and so delicious. So I really, I recommend this one for movie nights or if you're the type of person who watches the Oscars or anything like that, or succession on a Sunday night. And like that's a really great way to host.
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.
Julia Sherman: I think it would probably be Agnes Varda. I mean, she's not alive anymore, but I'm not sure if you're familiar with her, but she was a French new wave filmmaker and she was so playful and so incredible and a lot of her films had her own voiceover and they were super personal and she would do things like, once she went to Cannes, and she came dressed as a potato because her movie, The Gleaners and I, starts out with a scene of potato Gleaners. And she's just this incredibly playful woman and she really didn't follow by any conventions. And she was creative and dynamic until she, I think she died at like the nearly a hundred. And I love older people, especially older women. It's sort of, I could just sit and listen to them talk forever, especially older artists and the stories that they have. And so I think any event, anything with Agnes Varda would be a dream for me.
Suzy Chase: Where can we find you on the web and social media?
Julia Sherman: @saladforpresident on Instagram and my blog it's saladforpresident.com. And then also if people want to sign up for my newsletter, there's a link to do that on my website, and we can get updates about events coming up for the book and also my low-alcohol sparkling verjus called Jus Jus which we'll be launching again in next few weeks.
Suzy Chase: To purchase Arty Parties and support the podcast head on over to cookerybythebook.com. And thanks Julia for coming on Cookery by the Book Podcast.
Julia Sherman: Of course. Thank you so much. This was great.
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