Homemade-ish | Lauren McDuffie
Suzy Chase: When two podcasts collide, magic happens. Welcome to Dinner Party, the podcast where I bring together my two hit shows, cookery by the book and decorating by the book around here. We're all about cooking, sharing stories behind recipes, and creating a cozy home. I'm your host, Suzy Chase, a West Village wife, mom and home cook. Inspired by Martha Stewart trying to live in a Nora Ephron movie, surrounded by toile, plaid, cookbooks, decorating books and magazines, cooking in my galley kitchen and living my best life in my darling New York City apartment in the cutest neighborhood in the city, the West Village. So come hang out and let's get into the show.
Lauren McDuffie: I am Lauren McDuffie. I'm a food blogger and food photographer, and my most recent cookbook is Homemade-ish.
Suzy Chase: Last we chatted in May, 2019 before the world fell apart. We talked about your cookbook, Smoke Roots Mountain Harvest, which was all about your Appalachian home, and this book, Homemade-ish seems so different.
Lauren McDuffie: That was kind of the idea. They look different too. I mean, every little part of the books it looks like People tell me they don't look like they're by the same person.
Suzy Chase: Yeah. So was there any Appalachian influence in Homemade-ish or did you just completely wipe the slate clean and it's a new day?
Lauren McDuffie: Yeah, it's funny. I think I thought I was wiping the slate clean and on the surface they look like totally different books like I just said. But really when I think about it, there is a very clear through line between these two books. I mean, smoke Roots, mountain Harvest was very much about being super intentional with your ingredients and your recipes and embracing a whole day cooking project kind of thing. And let's go forage for mushrooms and then build a smoker on our stove top and smoke the mushrooms and dehydrate them and make a butter with them. It was very much about digging your heels into a cooking project. This book is totally on the other end of the home cooking spectrum, but they both really embrace the notion of just making the best of what's around and finding tricks and things you can do to just make the most of humble ingredients, which really is a hallmark I think, of Appalachian cooking. And I think there's a lot of truth to that in homemade dish as well, even though it might not seem apparent on the surface, I think the books actually have a little more in common than meets the eye.
Suzy Chase: I feel like Smoke Roots Mountain Harvest was a little aspirational, and this is just for us home cooks.
Lauren McDuffie: Yes, as a person that just loves cooking so much and I like to learn about food. Smoke Roots was very aspirational, but it gave me a really cool opportunity to learn about the foods back where I'm from and that was wonderful and there's a market for that, there's an interest there, but I also am a busy mom and I have a job and life is crazy. And so my day-to-day life looks a lot more like homemade ish. And I think that's true for a lot of my friends and family members who, when the time came for me to kind of develop a new book concept, I had a few ideas I floated around, but people were just like, Lauren, how about you just make a book for me? Busy. We want to cook. It's important to provide home-cooked foods. I think people still really value that, but people don't want to wash a million dishes and take many hours to make something, and people want to be able to go to a store, one store and find everything they need easily. So that was the philosophy that I kind of held onto when I started working on this book. It's not aspirational, it's easy.
Suzy Chase: In the cookbook you wrote, the primary goal, however, is to get more people in the kitchen cooking homemade food and sharing it either with an exclusive party of one or a big bustling table of many. I love that you included cooking for one, because I feel like a party of one just totally gets overlooked.
Lauren McDuffie: Yeah, well, that's true. I think there are a lot of entertaining books out there, and most recipes are written to serve four to six people. That's just kind of a standard. But I have a lot of friends and family members who are single, but they love to cook. And so just a little nod to that reality and that truth is yeah, I think it's good.
Suzy Chase: And you don't even have to be single. I'm married, but sometimes my husband will be out and I don't want to order, but I just want to make a little something for me.
Lauren McDuffie: Oh, same. In fact, my husband has been on the carnivore diet for about six months now.
Suzy Chase: How's that going?
Lauren McDuffie: It's going great. I think if you'd ask him, he would really start campaigning for it pretty into it. He eats like a T-Rex. It's very meat driven, but he loves it and it's been good for him. But oftentimes we will go in two different directions when it comes to dinner. My kids are so busy and sometimes I'll make them something that I know that they'll love and eat, and then I just will treat myself to something that's like you said, just for me. So I'm cooking for one, even though I'm surrounded by a bunch of other people
Suzy Chase: Surrounded by steak. Somewhere between totally scratch cooking and restaurant fair exists this easy breezy in-between place where food can be anything you want it to be. Talk a little bit about that philosophy.
Lauren McDuffie: I think really that's just me kind of trying to acknowledge that cooking doesn't have to be, it doesn't have to live in the extremes, like eating out all the times, probably not great for the waistline or for our budgets. It just seems not super healthy, but you also don't have to make every single thing from scratch or the most amazing aspirational version of everything. And I think if you spend a lot of time on maybe social media looking at lots of food content, it might have you thinking otherwise. And there's some shaming going on sometimes I see, especially maybe in the wellness space, and I just want people to know that you could do whatever you want. There's a happy middle ground in there where you can take a little help from your supermarket, make a little bit of it yourself and call it good. That's a happy place to be.
Suzy Chase: What's so funny is I learned in the cookbook that you just do not love going to the grocery store. No. You said working your way through this cookbook renewed your appreciation for your local store. Talk about that.
Lauren McDuffie: Yes, that's true. I think it's just a time thing. I wish that there were many more hours in the day, and I think if that were true, I wouldn't have any beef with the grocery store, so to speak. But it's, it's a time thing. So I grew to a point where I became a little bit resentful of just the task of it, the chore of it. This book is very much about looking at your grocery store maybe in a different light or with a different lens on, it's kind of like not what you can do for your store, but what it can do for you. And there's just a bunch of items out there on these shelves that can be hacks if you just know how to look at them. And that are really great jumping off points for recipes. And my intention for this book was to just give people some inspiration when it comes to what their grocery store can do for them.
Suzy Chase: What did you learn about your meat department?
Lauren McDuffie: Yeah, see, that's the perfect example of what I'm talking about. It's just a part of our supermarkets and our grocery stores that's always been there. And they're always lovely places that I think a lot of people just kind of grab their packaged ground beef or chicken thighs and they go about their business, but this is a part of the grocery store that is ready and waiting to really help you out in all sorts of ways that I don't think people take full advantage of sometimes.
Suzy Chase: No, sometimes I don't know what I'm looking for. So I feel so intimidated when they're like, what do you want? What do you need? What's, come on, come on, take a number. You're right. They are there to help us.
Lauren McDuffie: They're there. And there's so many things. I used to use batch cocking a chicken as my primary example because it became kind of a trendy thing at one point, which you can just ask them to do. They will prep meat for you, like spatchcocking a chicken or they will portion out anything for you. If you want maybe a beef tenderloin cut down into filets, they'll do that for you. You just have to ask. They will give you cooking advice if you want. And I swear I've actually tested this out and it's true. I think most of the people standing behind that counter are caught off guard when you ask them questions like that. But it's fun and it gives this kind of almost throwback old school feel to the grocery shopping experience. And it's made me like it more. I have somebody to talk to about food, which I love. It's a little treasure trove of information that you just got to do a little digging and there's lots there.
Suzy Chase: Yeah, you can get a sample over here. Talk to the meat guy over here. It's a good thing. Good thing. I love this section called We hold these truths to be self-evident. Go through some of the truths for us.
Lauren McDuffie: Okay. Yes. This is just a little moment that I take in the book to just offer up my, I guess, encouragement to anyone who happens to be reading it, that it is okay to just keep it real in the kitchen. You can use a bagged salad, you can use canned beans. You don't have to soak 'em and cook them. You can use a rotisserie chicken all of the time, and it's okay. Nobody's judging you. And that's really the point that I'm trying to drive home with this book is that most people, if you're cooking for them, are so lucky. They're so happy. No one's judging you. This happens to me all the time whenever I go to someone's house for dinner or someone's cooking for me. I think because I work in food so much, it's intimidating to people. And it's funny to me because I could not be happier to be cooked for. I am not picky at all. I'm so grateful to not have to do it myself, and I love food, so I'm just a really happy audience. People are just happy that you're there and that you showed up. That's really what it's about.
Suzy Chase: I keep telling myself that because having some gals over next week for a Friendsgiving thing, and I was like, don't bring anything. I'll make it all. And now I'm freaking out.
Lauren McDuffie: No, just do a Homemade-ish. That's what I'm doing. How many people are coming? It's not going to be huge. But I am hosting Thanksgiving this year, and I did it last year for the first time in my life, which is sort of funny. I've always been a guest, but I hosted it last year and I did so many little homemade tricks, but I didn't tell anybody. I basically used store-bought mashed potatoes. I just doctored them up a little bit.
Suzy Chase: Oh really?
Lauren McDuffie: Yeah, I ordered a Turkey. I bought gravy from Whole Foods. I doctored it up a little bit. No one knew and everyone loved it. So I just say, give yourself a little help from the store. It makes it way more manageable.
Suzy Chase: You're right. And everyone will have fun anyway. Yeah.
Lauren McDuffie: Oh yeah. Nobody cares.
Suzy Chase: Nobody cares. Yeah. Another thing I love about this cookbook is no recipe requires more than 20 ish minutes of hands on time.
Lauren McDuffie: That the most, I think that was important to me because time spent cooking is such a big deal to people because really that's what it's about. Like I said, there's only so many hours in the day. So yeah, that was a huge thing for me when I was writing the recipes. Some things might sit in the oven for a little bit, but they're all meant to be super quick.
Suzy Chase: Do you have any super quick d'oeuvres?
Lauren McDuffie: Yeah, I mean, I'm a big fan of dips just in general. I could eat dip for dinner actually every day and be perfectly happy, but it's probably more appropriate to have dips as an hor d'oeuvre. And for me, I think it's also because I'm from the south, pimento cheese will always and forever be my favorite hor d'oeuvre, and people always love it. So that's my all time favorite d'oeuvre. And it takes, I don't know, five minutes the most to stir it together.
Suzy Chase: So you took all the photos in this cookbook. Can you give us a couple of food photography tips for us home cooks that need to make stuff look good?
Lauren McDuffie: Well, lighting, I mean, it's kind of a boring answer, everyone says that, but it's true. If the lighting's off, the photo's going to be off. So that's very important. I do all of my photography by windows. I like natural light. That's just preference. But now that I live in the Pacific Northwest and it gets a little dark here during certain times of the year, I'm learning to embrace artificial light. But whatever light source you may be using, just learn to make the most of it and to work with it. I use to teach food, photography and styling classes. And the thing that I like to tell people was to just embrace imperfection. You can't physically make food look perfectly symmetrical. For example, the human eye was going to notice it. So I say just go the other direction and lean into a very lived in photo, like take a bite out of something or sprinkle little salt, make it look like something spilled and intentionally make it asymmetrical or use odd numbers of things. People tend to really like that, and it looks like you're not trying too hard. So I always say just embrace the Wabi-Sabi imperfection takes the pressure off.
Suzy Chase: Tell me about the cover photo.
Lauren McDuffie: It's chorizo black bean chili and the hack for that as I use a jar of salsa and it flavors it immediately and it's everybody's favorite chili, and I swear it takes five minutes to throw together. It's the quickest chili ever. And I love that they chose that as the cover photo because I think they played off the color of the bowl. The book is basically indigo, which is my favorite color, and they didn't know that, and it's sort of random, but yeah, I love that it all came together. I'm going to look at it here too. Yeah, the cover sort of shows what I was just talking about.
Suzy Chase: Yes.
Lauren McDuffie: Not super symmetrical. There's just some stuff that's kind of in the frame, kind of not in the frame. Keeps it interesting. Nothing's perfect,
Suzy Chase: But it looks so good.
Lauren McDuffie: Thank you.
Suzy Chase: So this weekend I'm making barbecue chicken skillet dip on page 46 and vinegar tuna and white beans with garlicy breadcrumbs on page 85.
Lauren McDuffie: So again, with the dips, I mean that barbecue chicken dip also, you could literally have it for dinner. Cause it's so hardy.
Suzy Chase: I'm going to!
Lauren McDuffie: Yeah, I mean it's great. A lot of people know buffalo chicken dip. That is a very popular appetizer and I've had it a million times and I love it. So I just wanted to change it up a little bit and go kind of a barbecue chicken route. But for me, barbecue sauce sometimes is a little overpowering. It's really sweet. The classic bottle, just barbecue sauce. And so this recipe uses that, but we kind of balance the sweetness out a little bit with soy sauce, a little extra salt just to kind of temper that sweetness a little bit. So for me, it's pretty balanced and I love the flavors and the tuna. It's funny you should say the tuna. I literally just had that right before we started talking. I make it for lunch multiple times a week just because I like the protein. It's pretty healthy. But it's interesting, you might have to brush your teeth after because it's pretty strong. It's pretty strong. The flavors are not subtle, but, but I love that. And it's, again, it's just very easy pantry staples that are kind of ed up a little bit to look greater than the sum of their parts.
Suzy Chase: What are the breadcrumbs in quotes?
Lauren McDuffie: So it's just croutons that I smash up and sprinkle over.
Suzy Chase: I love that. That's so smart.
Lauren McDuffie: It's so easy. And that's basically what all of these fancy breadcrumbs taste like once you've gone about making them yourself. And so it's just another little hack that works really well and no one knows.
Suzy Chase: I love this cookbook, the kind of cookbook that you can just leave out on your counter all the time and just what do I want to make tonight? And just flip through it.
Lauren McDuffie: Yea that's kind of the goal, I guess. So awesome. Thank you. Mission accomplished.
Suzy Chase: Now for my segment called The Perfect Bite, where I ask you to describe your perfect bite of a favorite dish.
Lauren McDuffie: So this is a well-timed question because literally today on my Instagram, I shared a dish that I think would be my perfect bite. It's something that I'm contributing to Friendsgiving this year. And I think also Thanksgiving because I like it so much. It's kind of my modern take on a classic sweet potato casserole, the ones with the marshmallow on top and super, super sweet. So I kind of riff on that and I do a caramelized sweet potato wedges. They get all creamy on the insides and kind of crunchy on the outsides. And then I make basically a vanilla whipped cream that I lace with vanilla yogurt, which gives it like a tanginess. And then I just top it with hot honey and smoked almonds and a little flaky sea salt. And for me, that's the perfect bite because it's creamy and it's crunchy, it's sweet, it's smoky, it's spicy, it's a perfect bite, all of the things. So it's my favorite.
Suzy Chase: Where can we find you on the web and social media?
Lauren McDuffie: So my recipe website is called My Kitchen Little, and that's just my kitchen little.com. I share new recipes there all the time that are meant to be easy, approachable for home cooks. I have a newsletter called Talking With My Mouth Full, which you can just Google that and find that. But I also have linked to it in my Instagram bio, which on Instagram, I think I'm just at Lauren McDuffie.
Suzy Chase: Well, thank you so much, Lauren, for coming on Dinner Party Podcast. It's so fun to talk to you again.
Lauren McDuffie: Thank you for having me, this was so much fun.
Suzy Chase: Okay, so where can you listen to the new Dinner Party podcast series? Well, it's on substack suzy chase.substack.com. You can also subscribe to Dinner Party for free on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. Additionally, the episodes will be available on both Decorating by the Book and Cookery by the Book. Long story short, you'll be able to listen to it virtually everywhere. Thanks for listening. Bye.
