Good Enough | Leanne Brown
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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.
Leanne Brown: My name's Leanne Brown, and my latest cookbook is called Good Enough. And it is about embracing the joys of imperfection, both in the kitchen and out.
Suzy Chase: You had me at the subtitle, embracing the joys of imperfection in and out of the kitchen, because I'm always talking about how cooking is so hard for me. And the perfectly curated Instagram food page is hard too.
Leanne Brown: It is for everybody, I think.
Suzy Chase: I think it's just for me. I'm the worst food photographer. Anywhoo, I need your cookbook. So Good Enough is the follow up to your brilliant New York Times best seller, Good and Cheap. And I'm so happy to chat with to you again.
Leanne Brown: I'm so happy to be here.
Suzy Chase: So after Good and Cheap came out, you weren't finding peace and happiness in or out of the kitchen. You write in one of the essays about going to the grocery store here in New York City. It's a trek, it's raining, and your heart was beating wildly at the thought of getting wet. Can you just read a small portion on page 15, please?
Leanne Brown: You got it. "One day I was sitting in front of my computer at my co-working space. I was miserable, struggling with writing that just wasn't flowing. My baby daughter was in daycare, and these hours to think and do my own work felt immensely precious. I let myself drift to thinking about food and suddenly my mind started churning and bubbling with recipe ideas. I had to get back home to my kitchen ASAP, because I felt like I could still squeeze some success from this brutal day, but there was one catch. To make the food I was envisioning, I'd have to go to the grocery store first. Unfortunately, as I stepped outside, thick, swampy air enveloped me and I looked up at a darkening mid afternoon sky. It was thunderstorm weather. Too bad, I thought sort of maniacally. I was really ready to go."
Leanne Brown: "I was loaded down with my purse, a bag with my breast pump and my computer. I hustled to the subway. It was a lot to carry already. And I knew that adding groceries would be a struggle, but I decided I didn't care. I needed this. A few subway stops later, I walked up this stairs and out into the world again. By then, it was actually raining those big fat droplets that mean this is the real one. This is some serious rain. So I hustled four or five long blocks. These are New York City long blocks. They take a while to the grocery store. I'm very aware that home was still three long blocks from there. On the way it began raining hard, soaking me almost immediately. And by the time I reached the store, I was running awkwardly with my bags, breast pump banging against my hip, just to get inside and escape the torrent. And I was drenched."
Leanne Brown: "My breathing was short and I felt a little panic. I knew this was an overreaction, but I couldn't seem to calm down. My mind was racing. I'm really wet already and I'm not even home yet. I'm loading myself up with groceries, which make it even harder. I can't just wait in the store for the rain to stop or I'll run out of time to cook because I have to pick up the baby from the daycare in a few short hours. I could call a car, but it's just three blocks. And when it rains, getting a ride becomes impossible since everyone has the same idea. I was worrying, but I decided to just focus on my first task, getting my groceries."
Leanne Brown: "So I'm leaving the store. The rain began to thicken again and my whole body was so tense. My heart was beating wildly. Instead of ignoring the clear panic I was experiencing as I would've done in the past and hurrying on, today I felt curious. Why was I so afraid? Why was my body acting like a pack of wolves were on my heels, instead of knowing I was simply on a street corner with some bags in the rain, in no real danger? I tried to calm my stream of thoughts by starting a conversation. Why are you so afraid of getting wet? I took a deep breath. It's okay. You're just going to get wet. That's totally survivable."
Leanne Brown: "But a voice deep inside me responded, no, it's not just getting wet. That's not what's so scary. And I asked, well, what is it, as kindly as I could. And the voice responded well, we could get so wet and it's already starting to rain harder that it could soak these grocery bags and they will disintegrate and all our groceries could fall out onto the sidewalk and be ruined or just won't be able to get home. And then you can't do your recipes or we'll run out of time to come back and get them. And we won't accomplish anything today and all this food will go to waste. And so I said to the voice kindly, yes, that would be difficult, but I think we can survive that."
Leanne Brown: I sighed and relaxed a bit, but I still felt so much tension in my body. It wasn't just getting wet or having my groceries. So I asked, is there more? What are you so afraid of? And this time something in me let go. And that voice said, I'm afraid of how ridiculous we look. Here we are walking in the rain with stuff getting wet, with our bags about to burst. We look like we made the wrong decision. We look stupid and weak. Who would do this? What self-respecting adult with their life together does this? Huh? All that fear, that horrible tense feeling, all this panic all because I was worried about the judgment of others.
Leanne Brown: "But this time, somehow in that moment on the street corner with my soaking web bags, after all the work I had been doing to cultivate self compassion, trying to treat myself in the same kind way I treat my baby daughter, things went differently. In that moment when my deepest self revealed that I was afraid of looking wrong in public, my first reaction was not admonishment, but compassion. I was not alone here in the rain. I was surrounded by other people who were also stuck in the rain. And there was nothing wrong with any of them just as there was nothing wrong with me.
Leanne Brown: "I suddenly was looking around, noticing everyone. Some on the sidewalk with me getting soaked, some in their cars, lucky, one person walking their dog, another with their children. I could look away from me and the fears I had and out at these beautiful people all around me. Here we were together in the rain, just doing the best we could. Some of us were caught in the rain because rain is a part of life. And I felt so connected to those people in that moment. I didn't care if they were judging me. And I couldn't really imagine that they were because I wasn't judging myself. What mattered was that we were all alive together."
Suzy Chase: "We were all alive together." I love that line.
Leanne Brown: I know it seems in some ways an odd thing to put in a cookbook, but it felt really important to share how intense these almost very every day banal experiences can hold so much fear and tension. And how magical it can feel when you are able to let some of that go.
Suzy Chase: And it's New York City, we've all cried on the street. We've all tripped and fallen down. No one judges anyone. We just judge ourselves.
Leanne Brown: Exactly. Exactly. Yeah.
Suzy Chase: I think that's even what you said earlier, your feelings when you're looking at Instagram. I think that's likely what you're going through even there is that you're judging yourself.
Leanne Brown: Well, please, my food photos do not look good, but let's get real.
Suzy Chase: So you write in the book, "If self care is something you struggle with, you may need an Antonio? Who is Antonio?
Leanne Brown: Oh, yes. So Antonio was this ... again, I love to use the imagination to help me change my perspective a little bit and reframe things. So Antonio is basically my imaginary friend who helps me to get self care things done, especially the things that I don't like, doing the dishes, going to the grocery store when I don't want to all the fussy things that I don't always love, like making sure that I wash the fruit and set it out and put the herbs in water and all those things that can really set you up to be in a really good space when you're cooking and feel really organized and wonderful, but that I just don't always want to do. And so Antonio is my butler , a weird idea that I came up with. He's my imaginary butler.
Leanne Brown: And I made up this whole personality for him. He's this incredibly warm man. And he just loves to take care of me and it brings him joy and I feel that. And he's fiercely protective of me and that makes him want to do these things. And so when I find myself ... but he's not real, of course. And so sometimes when I find myself just not wanting to do tasks that really are in my interest, but I just don't want to do them, I imagine Antonio and I embody him. And yeah, and so I wanted to share this goofy process that I do in the hopes that maybe someone could come up with their own version of that.
Suzy Chase: You say cooking is great, but eating is essential. Sometimes we don't have the time to prepare a meal. In the section entitled Assembly Only, you write about levels. The first level is zero to low effort. So what is included here?
Leanne Brown: So to me, this is the, I'm hungry, I'm incredibly grumpy, I need food right now moment, which we've all been. And so this is a piece of cheese, a piece of chocolate. I love to have dates around. They're something that I really enjoy. They're so sweet. And they give you that little hit of energy. I have dips and your hummus and carrots or salsa, tzatziki that kind of thing, fresh fruit, the kind you can really just grab and eat like an apple and orange, stuff that really takes almost no preparation. And it's funny, again, is I wanted to highlight this because so many of the people who I talk with and myself included who struggle with cooking define themselves by, I ought to eat in a certain way. Eating needs to look a certain way. It has to have three square meals a day, and they each have to look like the MyPlate, and they have all these standards for themselves.
Leanne Brown: But that's just not realistic, I think, in the world. And I wanted to share that also cookbook authors and food professionals, we all eat in the same way that everyone else does. The important thing is to feed your body. And there's so many times where there is not a square perfect meal available, and that's totally okay and totally normal. And in fact, if we take that as the reality and we plan from there, I think we have ourselves in a much better situation when we don't plan for, I will have three square meals a day. We plan for, nope, life is often hard and we need to have things available to us so that we can eat when we need to, because that's really what's important. That's the most important kind of self care.
Suzy Chase: The next level is thoughtful, but still low stress. What are some items in this category?
Leanne Brown: Yeah, I have this funny little thing that I like to do, and actually it's really nice at this time of year. I like to take oranges and just add a little something to them at this time of year and into January when you can get the beautiful little baby oranges. I just break them into segments or slice them in half and then add things like crumbled feta and herbs to make them more savory, or ricotta and honey to make them more sweet and delicious, or do a chocolate drizzle. I also have a bunch of ideas for how to make honey roasted nuts, something in the oven, take some nuts. You can do cocoa and cinnamon. You can do Tahini and matcha powder, coconut and cardamom and salt. Just some flavors that you really like together, spread them out on a baking sheet and bake them at 350 for 10 to 15 minutes.
Leanne Brown: Another go to, something that takes a little bit of forethought is hard boiled eggs. I absolutely love them. And it feels so special when you just slice them in half and add just a little sprinkling of either some salt or I really love a little soy sauce and sriracha. You can dip them in salad dressing. You can wrap them in something that you have around like a little bit of nori or some smoked salmon. There are just these ways to take something very simple and make it feel just a tiny bit elevated and a little bit special, which I think can be just again good for the psyche, good for the soul. I have more ideas for things to do with dates and snack mixes, all that kind of thing. Just taking things a little bit further.
Suzy Chase: And then you go a little bit further with the next level, and it's called going the extra mile.
Leanne Brown: Yes, this is the real Antonio stuff, in my view. This is the roasting potatoes in advance, taking the vegetables that can't necessarily be eaten on their own that need cooking. Things like potatoes and sweet potatoes, I really love to roast them or boil them in advance because then all of a sudden, if you have pre-cooked potatoes and you have some lettuce or something, you can make yourself a salad in no time, on a weekday and it feels amazing. Or you can put together a dinner really quickly. And if you just take an hour and do a bunch of these little preparation tasks, you can feel just gorgeously organized.
Leanne Brown: I love to arrange a little fruit bowl in the fridge and then have it ... or on the counter, depending on the time of year, depending. And then that's just available for you whenever you need it. Creating these little elements of meals that can be available for you later, really doing the work in advance. I always think of that as a gift to my future self. And then I lastly have this spa water idea. It's, I think, something that a lot of offices and spas have where add fruit or something to water and all of a sudden it's the simplest thing to do, but it just feels luxurious and special and beautiful. And it really, really is easy to do, just this nice way to let you know. It gives you the feeling of somebody's thinking of you. And if that person is yourself, that's a beautiful thing.
Suzy Chase: This cookbook is all about the feelings that come up around cooking. Talk a little bit about the term good enough and what it means to you.
Leanne Brown: Yeah, it was really important. It was such an interesting conversation figuring out what the title should be. This book has gone through so many iterations. I wrote it over several years and eventually when it became clear it needed to be called Good Enough, and that it really needed to be a lot about me and my experience. I first really wanted to tell the stories of others and talk about these issues. And I finally realized that the most important thing was for me to share my own truth and my own experiences, my own struggles with feeling not good enough. And that something like that experience of going to the grocery store, that it truly did and has affected my life so much believing that the things that I do, if they aren't perfect, if they aren't ideal, if they aren't living up to some standard that was always shifting, right?
Leanne Brown: That's the other thing, a perfect standard never just stays as it is. It's if you meet it, then somehow there's more that needs to be done, then we didn't do it fast enough. We didn't do it ... whatever it is. So I had and have really struggled with these things in and out of the kitchen for years and years. And then my story was the one that I could tell most honestly and most truthfully, and I was scared to tell it because it's scary to be vulnerable. I'm not proud that I have felt these ways, but I have. And I also know that in my experience with art and with people's beautiful writing, the things that have most moved me and have helped me in my life have always been when people share their truths, their most vulnerable experiences. And I wanted to join people in doing that.
Leanne Brown: And so Good Enough, the title really came and the idea really came from ... I think that's the core message behind all of this, and cooking and feeding ourselves is just another way to act that out. Just to always know fundamentally whatever you're doing, whether it's shoving some cheese in your mouth at 11:00 PM or creating a beautiful meal for 10 people that you worked on for a week, that no matter what, in that moment, you are good enough. And what you're doing is enough.
Suzy Chase: In your Vegetable Celebration Chapter, I made Maple Soy Cashew Brussels Sprouts on page 216, Pickley Sausage Cauliflower on page 218, and Mouthwatering Miso Roasted Broccoli and Shallots on page 219. All really flavorful, layered recipes, but the most different and surprising was the Pickley Sausage Cauliflower. Can you describe this?
Leanne Brown: Oh, good. Yes. Well, you're exactly right. It's really unusual. Cauliflower, of course, especially when roasted, ends up quite sweet and then crunchy. So the pickle comes in with this acidic hit, and then you have this sweet yet really, really savory crispy crunchy experience from the sausage in there and the lemon. So it's zingy and bright and acidic, and yet sweet and crunchy and oily and umami-ish from the sausage. And it's just a really, really unusual, wonderful combination, but it's all the things we love in our mouth all at once. And it's all these different textures and it's really fun, but it's also really quite simple and just came from messing around with fun little things that I have to have and love in my fridge.
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.
Leanne Brown: Maybe this is a boring answer, but I think I'll go with the Buddha. Just being in the room with him would be so special. I could think of writers or musicians. There's so many amazing people who I would love to have dinner with, but there would be this pressure to connect with them. And what if I didn't ask the right questions? Or there'd be all this nervousness, but I think just being in the room with someone who embodies compassion and love and peace would just be such an incredible experience.
Suzy Chase: Would you make him your Pickley Sausage Cauliflower?
Leanne Brown: Oh, gosh. I don't know. I think I'd have to ask him if he's eating meat.
Suzy Chase: I just want to thank you for writing the line, "Managing meals takes a significant mental load." I think I want to have that needle pointed on something.
Leanne Brown: I know. I think I need it too. I think I need to frame it and put it somewhere in my kitchen too. I have to be reminded all the time. It's real though. There's this thing about effortlessness. It's this beautiful thing like, oh, yay. It's so cool for something to be effortless, but it's just not true. There's so little that we do in our lives that is effortless. Meal planning can become easier the more you do it, but it's never actually easy. And it's certainly not without work and mental load.
Suzy Chase: Where can we find you on the web and social media?
Leanne Brown: These days, I'm on Instagram a fair bit. And I'm @LeanneEBrown on Instagram, and my website is leannebrown.com
Suzy Chase: To purchase Good Enough and support the podcast, head on over to cookerybythebook.com. And thanks, Leanne, for coming on Cookery by the Book podcast.
Leanne Brown: Thank you so much. This was really fun, Suzy.
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