You grew up around serious home cooking. When did you decide to ignore the family “stay out of the kitchen” rule and make food your work?
“I always like to tell the story of my grandparents, because they came from Italy and they immigrated to Brooklyn. My grandfather had a bread bakery in Williamsburg and then eventually they retired, and they moved out to Long Island, where they had this tiny, tiny house, but like a massive garden in the back, and my grandmother would make fresh pasta all the time and dry it all over the house. I just grew up seeing all this… she was [not] very interested in teaching me, it was always kind of like, get out of the kitchen. You can eat all the food, but stay out the kitchen.
And so I kind of became really intrigued, and I really wanted to cook, and I wanted to go to culinary school as I got older. The whole family was like, absolutely not; they refused to entertain that idea. They were like, ‘you’re gonna go to regular college. You’re gonna be the first one to go to college.’ So I did that, and I finished college, and I got out, and I worked a couple years in a corporate job, but I really want to go to culinary school. So, I started taking a nights and weekends program, and I just was completely enamored, and I know that was what I wanted to do. So, once I finished… it allowed me to explore that while I was still working. I left my job because I decided that was what I want to do. And I started private chefing, and then I started this blog, because it was early in the blogging days of 2011 or so. And so I was doing both simultaneously.”
Early blogging changed your trajectory—what did What’s Cooking Good Looking open up for you?
“It’s embarrassing now, but it was called What’s Cooking Good Looking. I feel like it was this time where everyone had a kitschy name for their blog, but it did really well. Two times I was nominated by [Saveur] for Best Overall Blog. I poured a lot of my heart and soul into it… But I realized through that, that my strength was really in recipe writing, and I still really loved being in the kitchen.
So, when I started getting the recognition, I started getting bigger jobs, like cookbook jobs. I ghost wrote a cookbook. And then I also started getting jobs as a recipe developer, but professional, like in the kitchen. One of my first jobs was working with ESquared Hospitality, and… I was just in the kitchen doing actual recipe testing. And we were coming up with really cool stuff.”
You chased a fine-dining stage right as COVID hit. Walk me through the pivot that led to [Francis Mallmann] and, ultimately, staying in Mexico.
“…I started to look for a stage in the end of 2019 to go work in a Michelin star restaurant… I actually got a job offer at Mugaritz in San Sebastián… But then it was early 2020, and so… I couldn’t get my passport, I couldn’t get a visa, so that got canceled.
And the day that I found out that I didn’t get that job, a friend of mine bumped into Francis Mallmann and told him that I was looking to learn and get a new experience… we had a meeting. It lasted like three hours… he was totally lovely, and he offered me a job on his traveling team. This was the end of February of [2020] … so now it’s like the first week of March, and things are shutting down. And I gave up my apartment in New York because the lease was up… this is my dream job, to go work with Francis Mallmann. And… he’s like, well, this COVID thing, do you mind staying put where you are?… and of course, yeah, it just like domino… And my friends… said I should stay in Mexico… So I stayed in Mexico, and just everything kind of changed… I ended up setting my roots here… I have worked with some really cool people, accomplished people… and, yeah, that kind of inspired… once I was stuck here and during COVID, I just started developing recipes for myself… So that’s kind of how I got to the book.”
What was the catalyst for Simple Pleasures?
“I think… there was a heavy emphasis on special diets… and I felt like I was influenced by that in my first book, in some ways, and then once I was able to step back from that, the second book became a lot more about,… what is it that I love? Like, what is it that I crave? What are foods that make me happy, foods that are nostalgic?… during COVID… I was only cooking for myself… and the idea of, I just want simple pleasures, came to my mind over and over again… this tomato sauce that I grew up with… my grandmother would also make this [milanesa] or this shrimp scampi dish… familiar things that I think would be familiar to other people too… I just want food to make me feel good. Like, from my soul.”
How do you translate chef-level ideas into home-cookable recipes?
“I think I’ve done some really sophisticated things in my day, but I know when I make great recipes for people to cook at home, I want to be really approachable, not the same steps that I would take necessarily when I’m in a kitchen or as a chef, but how to [pare] it down for the home cook… you don’t need to do all these steps… a home cook might not need to toast and grind their own spices… little steps that make it easier and more approachable.”
What do you want readers to take away—and what’s next for you?
“The biggest compliment for cookbook writers is when people actually use the book. I really try to pare everything down to essentials… tell you where you can reuse pots and pans… so that you’re enjoying the food as much as the process…”
“I’m always in conversations about it… I really am going to live out this dream of either having my own restaurant or working really closely with a very well known chef… when I come to New York, I have a couple potential conversations, because that itch is really strong still. So, I think that’s the next step. I hope so.”