Rebel Homemaker | Pilar Valdes
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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.
Pilar Valdes: Hi, my name is Pilar Valdes and I am the co-author of Rebel Homemaker, a new book that's out and I co-wrote it with Miss Drew Barrymore. And I'm also a culinary contributor to her show, The Drew Barrymore Show.
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.
Suzy Chase: Can I tell you, I just adore the title of this cookbook. I love how the word rebel modernizes the word homemaker. And I feel like I'm a rebel homemaker. I'm a wife, I'm a mom to a teen and I manage our home, but I also host and produce three podcasts and I'm constantly learning how to cook out of cookbooks. And it's not perfect. Being a rebel homemaker means many things to many people. How do you connect with the term rebel homemaker?
Pilar Valdes: Well, first of all, Suzy, thank you for having me. I'm really excited to be here. And also I think you, very much just in your intro, really captured the spirit and the ethos of the book in terms of how I think Drew really wished it would resonate with people. And to me it's really about sort of inventing it for yourself. But in addition to that, really embracing the imperfect. I think all our homes are going to look differently and that's okay. You know, instead of really just embracing that instead of rolling with it is really kind of this spirit behind the book.
Pilar Valdes: And I think you'll see and hopefully if folks pick up their copy of the book, Rebel Homemaker, we have these really beautiful photographs inside, but we also have very kind of pedestrian like iPhone snaps that both Drew and I took. And that was like some of the thinking there to be like, okay, we have the aspirational photographs, the wonderful food photographs by Graydon and Herriott, but then we also have kind of what the real life looks like. And it's so nice to be able to juxtapose those two things.
Suzy Chase: So in the cookbook, Drew writes about her 30 meals of a lifetime. And in it is the predictable French Laundry meal, breakfast at the Park Hyatt Tokyo, clam chowder at Pike Place Market. But two jumped out at me on her list. And one was number seven, eating a box of Kraft macaroni and cheese. I mean, haven't we all done this, with lots of cracked pepper, A giant bottle of red wine and crying to Sex and the City after my boyfriend broke up with me. And then her number 16 is Pilar's Stovetop Scampi. And she talks about how it blew her mind. I would love to hear about your Stovetop Scampi.
Pilar Valdes: So the Stovetop Scampi I think also is probably one of, I mean I have many favorite recipes in this book, but that scampi is definitely one of my favorites. I think it's very, it feels very special and festive because it is head on, but it also takes probably seven minutes to make. So it feels like this sort of fancy dish, but comes together in no time. And I think that's something Drew really, really appreciates. She's just like, not everyone has sort of the hours and hours on end to cook, but we can still make something that really feels special and we feel taken care of in a few minutes. So we do use head on shrimp. If that doesn't float your boat, you can totally use head off shrimp, it'll work equally deliciously. And basically what you do is just kind of warm up some olive oil.
Pilar Valdes: You have some garlic slices in there, some chili flakes, and that really infuses the oil. And then one tip is that I actually take out the garlic just so that it doesn't burn while it's cooking. So it's infused the oil, we take it out, and then we sear the shrimp probably like a minute and a half on each side. And then we throw back in the garlic and it gets finished off with some butter of course and some white wine. And it's just this most amazing, luxurious feeling dish. And that sauce is to die for. I mean, I would lick it off almost anything I think. And it's just, it's very nicely balanced and it has a little heat in it and all this sort of roundness from the butter and I'm just getting hungry actually talking about it, but I hope folks will give it a shot. It's really this sort of beautiful, beautiful dish.
Suzy Chase: So another recipe on page 25, the Soft Scrambled Yuzu Kosho Eggs with Crisp Avocado Salad. It's a mouthful.
Pilar Valdes: Yes it is.
Suzy Chase: You and Drew encourage us to make room in our pantry for Yuzu Kosho. Can you describe this recipe and what exactly is Yuzu Kosho, I'm probably saying it wrong.
Pilar Valdes: I mean, how I pronounce it is Yuzu Kosho, but I might also be mispronouncing it. I think, and I hope that's the right way to do it. I was like, I feel like we should probably attach a bottle of Yuzu Kosho to this book because we talk about it so much and it is one of our favorite condiments. So it's a Japanese condiment and it's essentially like a fermented chili paste and it has citrus in it. It has the rind of a yuzu citrus. A yuzu citrus is typically from Japan or east Asia. And it has this very like bright, floral flavor to it. I don't know, it's somewhere in the cross between like a grapefruit and a lime maybe. There's something very, very special about it. And basically what they do is they take the rind and they sort of ferment it with a little bit of chiles, usually like a Thai bird chile.
Pilar Valdes: And some salt, so it does have some salt to it. So usually when I use it in things I'm more conscious about adding more salt because it comes with a lot of savoriness and salinity packed in already. But it's one of those things that I feel like first of all, I've not come across a person that has tried it that's like, oh no, that's not for me. Everyone is like, what is this magic and where can I get a bottle? It's one of my favorite things to give people top. I always have a few bottles at home unopened and whenever I'm meaning someone new or seeing an old friend I'll usually bring a bottle.
Pilar Valdes: And it's just something that really transforms meals. Sometimes there are ingredients that are so outside the box when you're looking at cookbooks and recipes that they're harder to get, but this is one of those pantry items that'll just like, you're going to start throwing it in everything. I use it on fish. I use it in noodles. I use it in soups and it just adds this really beautiful depth to everything. And it feels a little extra special, so we were trying to give breakfast a little more love.
Suzy Chase: Do you think we can find it at Whole Foods? Is it hard to find?
Pilar Valdes: You can definitely find it at Whole Foods at this point. A lot of Asian groceries will carry it and it's very, very easily available online as well.
Suzy Chase: So Drew lived around the world for years and since she didn't have a permanent home until her mid-twenties, she wasn't very good in the kitchen. She was the takeout queen until she met you and you bonded over Campbell's Cream of Mushroom Soup. Hers was her mom's Tuna Noodle Casserole. And tell me about your memory of Cream of Mushroom Soup.
Pilar Valdes: Oh, God, I feel like my childhood is so tied to that red and white can. So I was born and raised in Manila. I feel like I should back up and just say that, although I've been in the US for quite some time now. But I was born and raised in Manila and there are two things that my mother would make for me when I was not feeling well. One of them is in Arroz Caldo, which is like a congee and it has chicken in it and ginger, very soothing. And the other thing was just a can of Cream of Mushroom Soup. She would do it like when we'd come home from the dentist and we'd eat soft food. And there's just something about that can and that soup that immediately just resonates with being taken care of, I think. So from very, very early on, that is a soup that's near and dear to my heart.
Pilar Valdes: But funnily enough, my mother actually has her story with Cream of Mushroom Soup. She had an aunt, I believe when she was growing up, that used to do these fairly elaborate dinners, I think fairly fancy dinners. And my mom as a child used to look forward to them so much because she said that their kitchen, they just produced the most beautiful food. And especially this soup, this mushroom soup, that felt like the most luxurious, most decadent thing. And I think my mom was like 11, probably at the time, and she walked back into the kitchen one night and she discovered in the trash can was a can of cream of mushroom soup.
Pilar Valdes: And her mind was completely blown because she thought, and she had assumed that they had just made it from scratch. And she was like, oh my God, I can actually buy the God blessed thing. So she would save up her allowance basically and buy herself a little can every so often so that she could sort of treat herself. And to this day, Suzy at this point this is like, I don’t know, maybe 50 or 60 years later for my mom, our pantry, whenever I go home, every time I go inside the pantry to this day is stocked with cream of mushroom soup.
Suzy Chase: I think it's so touching that Drew calls you her safe harbor in a storm as she was going through a divorce with two young girls. So were you neighbors? How did she connect?
Pilar Valdes: No. We really started, and Drew talks about this, we started in a working relationship. So I actually was working with her, sort of developing menus and a sort of food program for her. She was transitioning, she was moving from LA to New York and that's how we met. So it was a working relationship. But I think very much through exchanging stories, much like sort of the cream of mushroom soup and really bonding over food and food memories, we started to build more of a friendship together.
Suzy Chase: It's so funny how people meet. You never would've met. I mean, you never would've connected.
Pilar Valdes: No. And I don't think for either of us, it's sort of hard to imagine looking back and I always say it really feels like the universe was flinging us together. And Drew always says, I was a woman who was born and raised in the industry in Los Angeles. And I, Pilar, grew up in the Philippines and I don't think either of us would've ever considered building this kind of relationship. But the universe really sort of flung us together and then put these different opportunities in front of us. That being said, not with a lot of hard work. I mean, I don't want to make it seem as if it was just all sort of chance. But we ended up coming together in New York at the very particular time, I think, in both our lives.
Pilar Valdes: So I have a catering company called Kickshaw Cookery that I started in 2010 and sometime in 2017, 2018, I was actually considering stepping away from food. My business partner that I had started my company with had moved to Texas to be closer to family and I sort of didn't want to run my catering company on my own. And I think I'm a little particular about sort of the vibe and who I work with. And I was really sort of gutted by that experience because we had such a wonderful working experience together. And we're still very good friends to this day.
Pilar Valdes: She's one of my best friends. But I think the thought of working so intimately with someone else was a little bit daunting and I was sort of taking a step back from my catering. And that's when actually the opportunity to work with Drew came about. I was a little hesitant and I was like, well, let's see where this goes. And I think that really marks a lot of what my relationship with Drew has been. It was there's these sort of very kind of new opportunities for me that I hadn't necessarily considered prior. So, the show and also working on the book together and it's been this really phenomenal ride that I'm incredibly grateful for and really, really excited to share with people too.
Suzy Chase: In the creating a space where you love to cook and eat essay, you have a dialogue with Drew about how to keep your table unfussy and your meals unfussy and thoughtfully prepared, which we need to read because the holidays are here. So can you talk a little bit about that?
Pilar Valdes: It's about being able to be present with people and not worrying about the 65 dishes and being removed from your friends and family and guests, and really just having it relaxed and easy. Drew, she doesn't love formality. There's no pretense there. And she's really about having things be easy and fluid. And I think that the book really embraces that. So that chapter, which is really near and dear to my heart, is really about a reminder for us all to kind of practice that and embrace it and just be there for each other and present in a very particular way.
Suzy Chase: So a theme that keeps coming up in this cookbook is recipes from around the world. Drew grew up in a home that didn't have real meals, that's her term. And she learned about different cuisines by traveling and eating around the world. And she mentions that you are a self-taught cook. When did you start getting interested in cooking?
Pilar Valdes: Getting interested in cooking, not probably until much later. So Suzy, I actually started cooking professionally "late" in life, but I've always, always been a good eater. And many things thanks to my mother because she always encouraged me to try different things and we always had this rule, you can order whatever you want at a restaurant, but you have to finish it. That was always our agreement, and same with at home. And so I always had the love of eating and I think the sort of interest in cooking probably grew out of that.
Pilar Valdes: And I had worked in the nonprofit industry after graduating college for almost 10 years before I transitioned jobs, basically, and started my catering company. So it was actually much, much later in life. You know, I didn't have the opportunity to go to culinary school or to work in restaurants, like most of the folks in the hospitality industry. But a lot of it was sort of reading cookbooks, really studying and trial and error and trial and error and failing at the dish and getting back up again and trying to figure out how I messed it up and then doing it over and just relying also on my palate to trust, being like this tastes good and I think people are going to enjoy this. That being said, I've been cooking professionally for over 10 years at this point. Oh my God, it seems so crazy to say that.
Suzy Chase: So Drew's signature dish is Harissa Spaghetti on page 160. I have never heard of putting harissa in spaghetti, but it makes sense because it's tomatoes, garlic and warming spices. Can you talk a little bit about this dish?
Pilar Valdes: Absolutely. It's I think one of her favorite dishes for sure in the book. Drew loves heat. And what I also appreciate about her is she has an incredibly wide palate. So stuff like harissa paste, which is I think it's traditionally a Tunisian paste, is not necessarily super familiar to folks. But she knows it's this really, really, deep, smoky, delicious flavor that is great in the pantry. Again, like the yuzu kosho, great in the pantry. And it's one of those things that's just going to add all this depth and flavor to a dish. And as we probably know, Drew loves her spaghetti. She just, she loves her pasta very, very dearly. And this was sort of a marriage of those two loves and then you have like the freshness and the pops of brightness from the cherry tomatoes and it's a really lovely, really satisfying dish. I really do think this is a really nice kind of entree into the book and really embraces kind of Drew's style. It's sort of this like messy, delicious tangle of amazing flavors, basically.
Suzy Chase: Talking about amazing flavors, I made your Lemongrass Beef Skewers on page 113.
Pilar Valdes: Yes.
Suzy Chase: And I tell you, that lemongrass skewer is a brilliant idea as an alternative to wood.
Pilar Valdes: Yes, yes, absolutely. Oh, I'm so glad you made it and I'm so glad you enjoyed it. That happens to be one of my favorite recipes actually in the book. And it's based off this really amazing Vietnam dish and it's basically ground beef that is seasoned with all sorts of beautiful flavors. There's chopped lemongrass. There's a ton of herbs. There's shallots. There's a little bit of curry powder. It's a total party in your mouth. But as Suzy you were saying, it basically is, it's meat on the stick, but the stick is a lemongrass skewer. And that way you continue to carry through the flavor profile of the lemongrass that's actually in the beef.
Pilar Valdes: What I love about it Suzy is that it's such a simple dish to make. I think we've referred to it many times. I'm like if you make meatballs, it's kind of like making meatballs. It might actually be simpler because you're not soaking the bread and milk and there's no eggs and all this, there's no filler. It's just beef and herbs and that's it. And it's a really delicious dish. It's so much fun for a group or a gathering because people can sort of assemble their own. Because we like to serve it with some lettuce cups or herbs and people can sort of just grab and go and bite. And it's one of those super crowd-pleasing dishes. I think everyone that has made it has really, really loved it. And we're really, really excited to be sharing that one with folks too.
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.
Pilar Valdes: So I haven't seen my family, except for my brother who lives in Brooklyn, as well as I do, I haven't seen my family in almost two years due to the pandemic. They're in Manila. And my current dream dinner party would be to actually have dinner with my mother because a lot of my love for food, love for feeding others and for cooking is because of her. It's how she sort of raised us and I haven't seen her in almost two years and I haven't been able to celebrate with her the fact that this book has come out, which has been a tremendous labor of love. And also that I'm on Drew's show and it's been this sort of tremendous year, but I haven't been able to share it with family. So I would have to say, I would love to go out with my mother. We would probably go to a Mexican restaurant because that's her fricking favorite. She loves chips and guac and have a big old margarita and celebrate together.
Suzy Chase: Oh my God, I'm going to cry.
Pilar Valdes: I know. I think I got really emotional actually. I'm like, I'm glad there's no video right now because all of a sudden I'm like, oh my God, I can feel it in my throat.
Suzy Chase: Me too.
Pilar Valdes: Yeah. I miss my family terribly. I hope I'm making them proud.
Suzy Chase: I just want to say in a world full of pretentious cookbooks, this is joyful breath of fresh air.
Pilar Valdes: Oh, I really appreciate that. And I'm sure Drew would too.
Suzy Chase: So where can we find you on the web and social media?
Pilar Valdes: So my catering company is on Instagram @KickshawCookery, and I'm also @chefpilarvaldes. And you can also find me on The Drew Barrymore Show, which airs every weekday and they also have a YouTube channel and I'm a regular culinary contributor on The Drew Barrymore Show. I'm part of Drew's Crew and we're in season two of the show.
Suzy Chase: To purchase Rebel Homemaker and support the podcast head on over to cookerybythebook.com. And thank you so much Pilar for coming on Cookery by the Book podcast.
Pilar Valdes: Thank you so much, Suzy. And thank everyone for listening.
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