Molly Baz Transcript
Kerry Diamond:
Hi, everyone. You are listening to Radio Cherry Bombe and I'm your host, Kerry Diamond. I'm the founder and editor of Cherry Bombe Magazine and each week I talk to the most interesting women and culinary creatives in and around the world of food.
Today's guest is the one and only Molly Baz culinary creative video star champion of home cooks everywhere, and mom to Tuna, the food world's favorite canine. Molly is the author of the brand new book, “More is More,” which no doubt will be another bestseller just like her first, “Cook This Book.” I had a blast talking to Molly, so stay tuned for our chat.
This episode of Radio Cherry Bombe is supported by OpenTable. OpenTable is partnering with us for our Cherry Bombe dinner series, Sit With Us, which highlights amazing female chefs and restaurateurs in the Cherry Bombe network. Tickets for our next four dinners are now on sale. Grab a pen or open up that notes app because here are the dates and cities. We'll be at Chef Evelyn Garcia's June in Houston on October 23rd. Chef Renee Erickson's The Whale Winds in Seattle on October 25th. Chef Beverly Kim's Parachute in Chicago on November 1st, and Chef Camille Becerra's As You Are at Ace Hotel Brooklyn on November 11th. How does it work? You can come solo and sit at a Cherry Bombe community table or bring a friend or two and we will seat you together. Tickets are available exclusively on OpenTable. Just search the restaurant and go to the experiences tab to purchase a ticket, which includes a welcome drink and a three course or family style meal. A portion of the proceeds from each dinner will benefit a local charity. Learn more about the open table and Cherry Bombe Sit With Us series at CherryBombe.com. I can't wait to get back on the road and meet some of you at Sit With Us.
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Now let's check in with Molly. Molly Baz, welcome back to Radio Cherry Bombe.
Molly Baz:
Thank you. I'm so happy to be here.
Kerry Diamond:
So your brand new book was just published, “More is More.” It is the follow up to your bestseller, “Cook This Book.” How are the two books different?
Molly Baz:
Okay, so this is something that a lot of people have asked. The way I explain it is that “Cook This Book” was your entry level cookbook that kind of lays the foundation of all the things I think you need to know and be equipped with in order to be successful in the kitchen. So it's a very technique driven book, whereas More is More the follow up is about loosening up in the kitchen and it's about how once you've got all the technique under your belt, you can start to cook a real cook and cook less rigidly and a bit more with your own intuition and you can improvise in the kitchen, and so it's all about empowering home cooks to start to loosen up.
Kerry Diamond:
Before we talk about loosening up and rigidity in the kitchen and all those things, I have a big question for you. I'd love to know how you're different today than when the first book came out.
Molly Baz:
Oh my gosh, I'm a woman. I literally feel like I'm a woman now for a lot of reasons. It's funny, I look at that book and it feels so childish now to me, which I feel like most people wouldn't see. They'll look at both books and think oh yeah, this is obviously the second part. But I don't know, I moved away from home from the state that I grew up in. I bought a house. I don't know if I was married. I was married already when the book came out and really launched a career since then, so it feels like I'm in this totally different phase of my life of just having grown up in a kind of sad and also incredible way. I'm a woman.
Kerry Diamond:
That's what's so interesting about having a physical product like a book.
Molly Baz:
Totally.
Kerry Diamond:
It's so different from looking back on social media.
Molly Baz:
Yeah.
Kerry Diamond:
You have to scroll back through years and years and years to see what you used to be like.
Molly Baz:
Yeah, it's like a marker of a time. I was actually upstate this past weekend visiting my family and they still live in the house that I grew up in, so I was in my home bedroom and I started flipping through old journals and diaries and was able to get back in my head space and read some entries I wrote that were incredible. I was like pumping myself up at age 14 being like this is the year of you. You're really going to come into your own this year, Molly. And so it was funny to be able to zoom back in time and inhabit my old head space, and so that's what I think cookbooks are incredible as well as they mark a moment in time in your life and what you were eating and cooking.
Kerry Diamond:
Is your childhood bedroom like a time capsule?
Molly Baz:
Yeah, my mom doesn't like to get rid of stuff, so it looks the same.
Kerry Diamond:
What's on the walls?
Molly Baz:
There's a Consumer Reports newspaper cut out of my mother when she was a model for the newspaper when she was in her twenties and a bunch of art, I think like French art. I used to be obsessed with Paris, so they used to adorn my walls with French art.
Kerry Diamond:
Let's talk about that subtitle of “More is More: Get Loose in the Kitchen.” Do you find that people are just too rigid?
Molly Baz:
Yeah.
Kerry Diamond:
And scared almost in the kitchen?
Molly Baz:
Think there's a lot of timidity and not unjustly so. I mean, cooking is so overwhelming. My whole sort of MO here in the world is to demonstrate to people that while it's overwhelming and there's certainly a right way and a wrong way in some cases, at the end of the day, the worst case scenario in any given moment is that you kind of -bleep- something up and your meal is not as great as you thought it would be, but you learned something along the way. And so the loosening up is like let's not take it too seriously, let's lower the stakes here. It's just cooking and that will make it a lot more enjoyable. You will therefore feel more inclined to do it on the regular.
Kerry Diamond:
So you have a section called Play by the Rules.
Molly Baz:
Yeah.
Kerry Diamond:
It's all about kitchen rules, so getting loose, playing by the rules, obviously, two different things, but you kind of explain that. I'm guessing you need to know the rules to break the rules, right?
Molly Baz:
Exactly.
Kerry Diamond:
Give me one kitchen rule you swear by and why.
Molly Baz:
This is a hard one. I feel like all of the rules in the book represent something different and something important, but I think at the end of the day, if I could distill it all into one, there's a rule in the front of the book that says, "If it ain't yummy, fix it." And I think that is another thing that I notice in home cooks that are timid is that there's a lot of following word for word a recipe and putting all of your trust in the recipe. And of course, a great recipe developer will deliver a recipe that more or less turns out well.
But the kitchen is such an unpredictable place and everybody's ingredients are different and everybody's kitchens are set up differently and they have different equipment and there's literally no way to predict exactly how a dish will turn out for someone else. And so adopting the philosophy of if this doesn't turn out well, I'm going to figure out how to make it right is the mentality that I think that cooks need in order to ensure a delicious meal and find confidence in their own abilities to land it.
Kerry Diamond:
One thing I'm always surprised by is people aren't tasting constantly.
Molly Baz:
Totally. That's a huge part of it, of tasting as you go and tweaking as you go. But then I think a lot of it comes down to having a thoughtful moment with yourself once you've cooked the meal and saying what's missing? If you can tell that it's not exactly right, then you should be able to identify to some degree what's missing and what you wish were there. And instead of just accepting that, finding a way to fix it and make it happen kike it's likely in your fridge, in your pantry. There's a crispy crunchy top or a nut or a hot sauce or a something that you can use to zhuzh up a lackluster dish.
Kerry Diamond:
Which recipe is a good gateway to the rest of the recipes?
Molly Baz:
It's a tricky one and there's probably a lot of ways to answer this, but one that comes to mind immediately is crispy orecchiette with sausage and collared ragu. And it's basically just like a classic sausage and greens ragu and orecchiette being my favorite pasta shape is featured in the dish, but not only do you boil the pasta, but once it's drained, you then add it into a non-stick skillet with a little bit of olive oil and you like re-fry it before you toss it with the ragu. So the orecchiette itself starts to get crispy so the edges of the orecchiette are brown and crunchy and the center parts are chewy and al dente. So it's a level up to what you would otherwise expect in a ragu and in a classic pasta dish. And that to me is really the heart and soul of “More is More” like how can we just take this a little bit over the edge and what's a little technique that I can learn that's a game changer for my kitchen?
Kerry Diamond:
You have a kitchen organization section as well. What are some common organization mistakes you see in folks' kitchens?
Molly Baz:
I think the greatest piece of advice that I can give someone when setting up and organizing their kitchen, which is something that I went through just a few years ago when we designed and renovated our own is to think about storing things in a place that is closest to the zone in the kitchen that you'll need to put it to use. So sometimes I walk in people's kitchens and it's like the pots and the pans are all the way at the other side of the kitchen underneath the sink where they're almost never being used in the sink, they're going from the drawer or the shelf to the stove top and therefore, should be stored right underneath.
One thing that you learn about cooking when cooking restaurants is that efficiency of movement is like key to your success as a line cook. The less that you move around, the faster you can crank food out and the more successful you'll be and I think it's the same sort of approach in a home kitchen, which is like why walk all the way across the kitchen to grab a pot when you could just have it right underneath. So I always say like think about where you will use this item the most and store it right nearby.
Kerry Diamond:
That's great advice. Are you a super organized person?
Molly Baz:
No. When it comes to my work life, yes. And then when it comes to my personal life like things unravel. My kitchen, however, because it is my work life and it's the crossover of both, it has like a system to it and then there's a bit of chaos beneath it. Everything that's in the kitchen is there for a reason and I know exactly where it is and I think it's in a thoughtful place, but things might be a little helter-skelter in that particular drawer. Organized chaos.
Kerry Diamond:
I opened your fridge and was just greeted with the smell of fresh dill and all these beautiful herbs and I was like oh my god, Molly's fridge is a dream.
Molly Baz:
Yeah, Molly's fridge smells like dill. Are we shocked? I do really believe in storing herbs in a bucket or a mason jar in water. They last so much longer. It's basically like putting a flower bouquet in your fridge. And yes, it smells great.
Kerry Diamond:
Do you put a Ziploc over them?
Molly Baz:
I haven't needed to. As long as they're in a jar of water in that cold climate control, they seem to do well. Basil, I do on the countertop.
Kerry Diamond:
Don't put your basil in the fridge, folks.
Molly Baz:
Yeah.
Kerry Diamond:
It will turn black fast.
Molly Baz:
Yes. I have a solution for that. This book, one of the rules of this book is thou shalt not waste herbs and it's all about how I'm sick and tired of seeing recipes that call for a couple tablespoons of chopped parsley as if it's just like an aesthetic garnish and not there for flavor. And so all the recipes in this book will use a bunch of herbs entirely, and there's a lot of ways to use them. You can use them fresh, you can cook them into stews, you can fry them, sizzle them, and so part of the exploration of this book is what are all the expressions of an herb and how can we never waste an herb again? I don't want to see them wilting in your crisper drawers.
Kerry Diamond:
Another thing about fridge organization is I saw somebody who they don't put their produce in the crisper drawer because they forget about it, so they put it out where they can see it and they'll consume it. And I thought that's kind of genius.
Molly Baz:
Or it's like adopting the restaurant mentality of first in first out where like you should ...
Kerry Diamond:
FIFO.
Molly Baz:
Yeah, you FIFO it.
Kerry Diamond:
Oh, FIFO. Sorry, FIFO.
Molly Baz:
So anything new ... FIFO, FIFO. Anything new that comes from the farmer's market, you must put in the back and move the older things to the front and force yourself to move through those, otherwise you'll waste food.
Kerry Diamond:
Okay. What are the three condiments you replace the most?
Molly Baz:
Mustard definitely, and that can be any type of mustard. We plow through mustard in my house. Pickles for sure, and then probably chili crisps specifically Mama Teav's hot garlic, which we plow through at an unreasonable rate.
Kerry Diamond:
Wait, I don't know that brand. What's it called?
Molly Baz:
It's called Mama Teav's Hot Garlic
Kerry Diamond:
Mama Teav's, okay.
Molly Baz:
I'll send you the link. It's amazing. It's like friends of friends of ours who run this company and I think it started during the pandemic. It's very crunchy and very garlic-y and we put it on everything.
Kerry Diamond:
Love a pandemic project.
Molly Baz:
Yeah.
Kerry Diamond:
That is now a business. Go back to mustard though, I have never in my life said I go through mustard like crazy. What do you put it on?
Molly Baz:
Wow. We eat a lot of roll-ups.
Kerry Diamond:
Okay.
Molly Baz:
As snacks and so like ...
Kerry Diamond:
Like turkey?
Molly Baz:
Yeah.
Kerry Diamond:
Okay.
Molly Baz:
Like turkey or ham or Mortadella or like a little leftover roast chicken or whatever. We eat a lot of protein snacks and I'm just always dipping in the mustard, and then I make a lot of sandwiches, so there's a lot of mustard involved there. And then I feel like my go-to vinegarette or dressing always has mustard in it. We like to eat a balanced meal and so there's kind of just mustard flying off the shelves in our fridge.
Kerry Diamond:
Okay. Are you like a spicy brown mustard? A Dijon girl? A yellow mustard?
Molly Baz:
I'm a Dijon ...
Kerry Diamond:
Yellow hotdog mustard.
Molly Baz:
And whole grain like the little whole grain.
Kerry Diamond:
Yep.
Molly Baz:
Pickled mustard seed energy. I just actually this weekend braised a pork shoulder in cream with Dijon mustard and whole grain mustard seeds and it was so good.
Kerry Diamond:
Oh my gosh, that sounds so good.
Molly Baz:
So yeah, I put it in my braises. I'm literally putting it in everything.
Kerry Diamond:
Okay, mustard, the secret ingredient.
Molly Baz:
Yeah.
Kerry Diamond:
Do you like grocery shopping?
Molly Baz:
To an extent. Depends on where I am, what grocery stores are available. I like shopping a farmer's market. I try not to waste my time picking out dry goods at a grocery store, and so I'll do online ordering if I need like tomato sauce and whatever, canned beans and chickpeas, and then try to hand shop things that are more important. Being a very busy lady, but obviously, the great joy of living in Los Angeles is the farmer's market, and so that is a place that I really enjoy spending time and there are a lot of them.
Kerry Diamond:
So not a grocery store nerd?
Molly Baz:
Not really, no.
Kerry Diamond:
You drop me in a foreign country. I will walk into the closest grocery store.
Molly Baz:
Well, I'll do that too and I'll just go straight to the snack section because I'm just like what's happening over here? What crunchy, salty thing am I bringing home? But one thing I have learned in my travels is the joy of the French system of there being a boucherie and the cheese shop, and then going to a different place for my meat and my charcuterie, and then the produce stand. And you really only end up going to a grocery store for like cereal, and so that mentality is so magical to me that I'm a bit disillusioned by the supermarket in America.
Kerry Diamond:
I do love grocery shopping and I don't know why. I'm just weirdly drawn to it and love just walking around and seeing what they're doing in groceries. If you could redesign a grocery store to make it more interesting to your generation and the younger generation ...
Molly Baz:
I guess I would ...
Kerry Diamond:
What would you do?
Molly Baz:
I guess I would design it like that street Rue Mouffetard in Paris. It's like a big, long hill and everybody's got its specialty. Instead of it being a Whole Foods where like there was the stores in charge of curating, I would hire out smaller businesses to curate each of their own specialty. I feel like trust the meat guy with the meat and the cheese guy with the cheese, and let everybody focus on their one area of expertise and bring all of these smaller artisan producers together.
Kerry Diamond:
That would be fun.
Molly Baz:
Should I do that?
Kerry Diamond:
You said you love farmer's markets. We totally share that. After I saw you and Altadena, I of course, went to the Santa Monica farmer's market.
Molly Baz:
Yeah.
Kerry Diamond:
And brought back passion fruit. Of course, they all ripened on the same exact day, even though I tried to pick.
Molly Baz:
Yeah.
Kerry Diamond:
Different.
Molly Baz:
And stagger it.
Kerry Diamond:
Levels of ripeness. Avocados. I mean, the avocados out there are just a different ...
Molly Baz:
Yeah.
Kerry Diamond:
Animal.
Molly Baz:
Yeah.
Kerry Diamond:
Than what we get here in New York, and I got a few other things that I could throw in my suitcase and I was just in heaven.
Molly Baz:
Yeah, it's the best. I freak out over the dried fruits at the farmer's market because I'm like okay, I know the persimmons aren't going to last forever, I'll get a few of them and then also, I can get these incredible dried persimmons and snack on them all year round. They've got you covered at the farmer's markets in LA.
Kerry Diamond:
How do you shop the farmer's market? Do you go look at everything first and then go back?
Molly Baz:
Yeah, I'm a once over type of person. I'm a big sampler and I'm a big advocate for asking for samples. I've been to so many farmer's markets where the plums at one stand and the plums at another are completely different animals, and it's so hard to make a choice based on just the visual of what something looks like. And so I always ask, respectfully of course, whether I can have a sample if there's something that I'm interested in buying and I'll pass if it's not as good as I want it to be. And I feel like that's the key to a farmer's market because it's really expensive and you have to really seek out the right product, and it all looks incredible, but it's like you got to know your people and you got to ... Every day is different. Every week is different. The produce is always changing.
Kerry Diamond:
I don't think I ...
Molly Baz:
Yeah.
Kerry Diamond:
Sample enough at the farmer market.
Molly Baz:
If they say no, they say no, but they almost always say yes.
Kerry Diamond:
Yeah.
Molly Baz:
They want you to taste their food too.
Kerry Diamond:
Okay, next question. If you could travel to any moment in food history just for the food, where would you go and why?
Molly Baz:
I feel like I would have to go to Versailles and eat cake with Marie Antoinette and like sit at a banquet. I mean, an 18th century French banquet feels correct.
Kerry Diamond:
I could see you in Sophia Coppola's movie.
Molly Baz:
Yeah.
Kerry Diamond:
Walking around.
Molly Baz:
Lounging.
Kerry Diamond:
Yeah.
Molly Baz:
Yes.
Kerry Diamond:
The iconic scene with the macaroons.
Molly Baz:
Yeah.
Kerry Diamond:
And all the cakes and ...
Molly Baz:
I mean, who wouldn't want to go back there just for a moment.
Kerry Diamond:
We'll be right back with today's guest.
This episode of Radio Cherry Bombe is also supported by Ace Hotel Brooklyn. We're thrilled to be hosting our third annual Cooks and Books celebration there on Saturday, November 11th. Cooks and Books is a great day for all you book lovers out there. If you're joining us, leave time to get some lunch at Ace Hotel Brooklyn's restaurant As You Are from Chef Camille Becerra. Be sure to check out the special Cherry Bombe set menu while you are there. Chef Camille is one of our favorites and has re-imagined As You Are's menu to highlight seasonal fare and the bright fresh flavors that are her trademark.
Then on Saturday night, we're hosting one of our Sit With Us community dinners at As You Are. Join team Cherry Bombe for a welcome drink and beautiful three course dinner by Chef Camille and her team. Tickets are available exclusively on OpenTable head to the As You Are experiences tab on the OpenTable app or website to get your ticket. A portion of the proceeds will benefit the Lower Eastside Girls Club. If you want to make a weekend of it, be sure to use promo code CHERRYB to get 15% off your stay at Ace Hotel Brooklyn when booking at AceHotel.com. And visit CherryBombe.com for all the Cooks and Books and Sit With Us details. I can't wait to see you at Ace Hotel Brooklyn.
You studied art history in college.
Molly Baz:
Yes.
Kerry Diamond:
How does your love of art show up on the plate?
Molly Baz:
I have developed an aesthetic eye through having studied art history, through having grown up in a really creative family. Color is a really important part of cooking to me. I'll oftentimes plate something or develop a recipe and be so disappointed with how it looks that it's not finished until it looks as scrumptious as it tastes, and so that's a total consideration in the development is just like you eat with your eyes, see color and texture, and the color of your plate will affect the color of your food and photography. And it's all just so wrapped up in seeing the world through a visual lens I think.
Kerry Diamond:
I do always notice when I go through your books, the color, the texture.
Molly Baz:
Yeah.
Kerry Diamond:
It all just jumps off. It's almost like a painting
Molly Baz:
Yeah, totally.
Kerry Diamond:
In a sense. What artists do you love?
Molly Baz:
A lot, I think I've always been really drawn to abstract expressionism, and I feel like you can kind of see that in the color choices and the sculptural-eness of my fonts and I don't know, Rothko and de Kooning like these artists feel ... They feel like they express themselves in a similar way to the way that I express my food on a plate. Yeah, there's like a vibrancy and a color to it all that is really resonant for me.
Kerry Diamond:
I love a lot of things about you, Molly, but one of the things I love about you is that you have your own language.
Molly Baz:
Yeah.
Kerry Diamond:
If you could Molly Baz-ify some of Julia Child's greatest hits.
Molly Baz:
Okay.
Kerry Diamond:
I want to know what you would rename them.
Molly Baz:
Okay.
Kerry Diamond:
I'm going to throw some out. Boeuf bourguignonne.
Molly Baz:
Beef berg, very American, but that's how it would come out.
Kerry Diamond:
Beef berg. Okay. Ratatouille.
Molly Baz:
Ratatoots. That's funny because I call my dog Weeby Toots, so me and the Weeby Toots would just go eat ratatoots together and live happily ever after.
Kerry Diamond:
Duck a l'Orange.
Molly Baz:
Duck a lo, probably. Just a simple one.
Kerry Diamond:
And then Coq au Vin.
Molly Baz:
COV. That's an easy one. Just knock all the letters off.
Kerry Diamond:
You dedicated your book to Los Angeles.
Molly Baz:
Yeah.
Kerry Diamond:
Why?
Molly Baz:
I moved to Los Angeles and it changed my life. I never have felt so welcomed into a community. I met so many people in the last three years, I guess since I've been there, many of whom have become great friends of mine. I just feel so connected to the vibrant creative community there. We built our first home there, which feels so special and I never want to leave, and so it just feels like the whole energy of the book came about and came to life in this place that I hadn't really known before a few years ago, and it just felt like I had to dedicate the book to all of it.
Kerry Diamond:
Before we get to the speed round, let's talk about drink this wine. You have a wine company?
Molly Baz:
I do. Yeah, I started this natural wine company with my friend Andy Young, who is the winemaker of The Marigny, which is like an OG Oregon based natural wine company that I have always loved. And during the pandemic we were chatting and we just decided we wanted to do a project together and it started really small, and then all of a sudden we run a company together now, which is crazy. And it's really cool because the way that he approaches making my wine is by cooking through specific recipes that I select for him in my book.
So our first releases, which he made like a year and a half or so ago at this point, he made after having cooked through a bunch of recipes from Cook This Book and then this year's releases, I gave him an advanced copy of More is More and was like cook this one and this one and this one. These feel like really representative recipes of the palette of this book at large, and he cooks through them and then creates wines that he thinks will accord with them. So it's truly wine that's meant to be consumed with the food in my books, which is so special.
Kerry Diamond:
Did you ever envision you could just sort of expand what your recipes are all about to the bottle like that?
Molly Baz:
No. I mean, it's honestly a dream come true, and I am the first one to admit that I know nothing about like actually making wine myself. I've learned so much through Andy, but it's only in partnership with this great genius that I'm able to do this. And that's something I think I've learned in my career in general is that never in a million could I imagine doing any of the things I've done, and also never in a million could I have done any of them without all of the people who like don't even really get recognized for having gotten me to the place that I am. And Andy is one of dozens of those people.
Kerry Diamond:
You do have a great team around you.
Molly Baz:
I do.
Kerry Diamond:
What are the wines in the collection?
Molly Baz:
It varies year to year. We're about to drop a new chilled red, which is like a little bit darker than last year's. They're all made from Washington and Oregonian grapes. It's still super juicy and chuggable. It's meant to be consumed chilled. And then we've got a special release sparkling red coming out, which is kind of like our take on a Lambrusco, which is just for people who are in our wine club.
Kerry Diamond:
I love a Lambrusco.
Molly Baz:
Yeah. And then we'll have a white and an orange next year in the spring and summer.
Kerry Diamond:
All right, I'm going to join the wine club. I'm already a member of the Club Club.
Molly Baz:
Yeah, I know.
Kerry Diamond:
How many clubs are there?
Molly Baz:
There's a couple.
Kerry Diamond:
Does Tuna have a fan club? Because I would join the Tuna fan club.
Molly Baz:
No, then husband never let me do it because he was like we're not going to be that family. And so I never started an Instagram for her, but I'm like there's a whole revenue stream that we just like left on the floor.
Kerry Diamond:
Speaking of Tuna, how's Tuna? Since we can't follow Tuna's Instagram account.
Molly Baz:
I know. She is doing well. She's actually ... We're here in New York City right now, we just got here from upstate. She, full disclosure, hates New York. I think she's really triggered by it. We lived here for ...
Kerry Diamond:
Oh, Tuna.
Molly Baz:
... many years and it's just too overwhelming of a place for a little pip squeak like her, and so she won't get out of her bag. She's looking forward to going home.
Kerry Diamond:
Okay. Last question for the speed round. Why do you do what you do?
Molly Baz:
I believe in the power of cooking for oneself, and I believe in the power of joining around a table, around a meal that has been cooked by someone you know and you love. And as much as I love going out to a restaurant, there's always a disconnect between where did the food come from, who prepared it like what love went into it, and I just so relish the feeling of putting a meal on the table for my friends or my family or new friends, co-workers, whatever it is like that feeling to me is the greatest in the world. It's such an accomplishment of oneself and it's also such a gift. It kind of just checks every box of feeling that a human could have, and I want more people to have access to that and so that's why I do what I do.
Kerry Diamond:
All right. Speed round. Morning beverage.
Molly Baz:
Almond. No, actually I recently switched to pistachio milk. Pistachio milk cappuccino.
Kerry Diamond:
Do you sweeten it? Unsweetened?
Molly Baz:
Unsweetened.
Kerry Diamond:
Last cookbook you flipped through.
Molly Baz:
“The Book of Sichuan Chili Crisp.” I think I just got Jing's cookbook in the mail and I blurbed it actually, so I was super excited to see it in person.
Kerry Diamond:
Oh, fun. We love Jing.
Molly Baz:
Yeah.
Kerry Diamond:
Favorite kitchen tool?
Molly Baz:
Oof, microplane. I use so much garlic and so much lemon zest, I would perish without them.
Kerry Diamond:
Favorite snack food.
Molly Baz:
Popcorn.
Kerry Diamond:
Music in the kitchen. And if yes, artist that pops up the most.
Molly Baz:
I feel like it rotates all the time. I love soul music and that's what I listen to a lot of in the kitchen. If I could start a radio and I often do on Spotify, it would be like Betty Swan and just the good vibrations that that channel brings.
Kerry Diamond:
Cool. Song that makes you smile.
Molly Baz:
Oh, Fly Me to the Moon by Bobby Womack.
Kerry Diamond:
Kitchen footwear of choice.
Molly Baz:
Hokas.
Kerry Diamond:
If you had to be trapped on a desert island with one food celebrity, who would it be and why?
Molly Baz:
She's a very well-respected recipe developer in her own right, but I wouldn't call her a celebrity. Her name is Nora Singley. I used to actually assist her when I first started working and she used to work at Martha Stewart and has become a really close friend of mine. She actually helped me on More is More developing a lot of the recipes and we have almost the same palette and we cook like exactly the same way. It's like we finish each other's sentences in the kitchen. And so if I were with someone on a deserted island, I would want her there because she would just like finish whatever I started. Even if I were out on a raft fishing, she would know how to keep things moving for me.
Kerry Diamond:
All right. Well, Molly, I adore you. Thank you for being on the pod again.
Molly Baz:
Likewise. Thank you for having me, Kerry.
Kerry Diamond:
That's it for today's show. Thank you so much to Molly Baz. Want to stay on top of all things Cherry Bombe? Sign up for our free newsletter at CherryBombe.com and be sure to subscribe to our podcast on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or wherever you listen. Our theme song is by the band Tra La La. Joseph Hazan is the studio engineer for Newsstand Studios. Our producer is Catherine Baker. Our associate producer is Jenna Sadhu, and our editorial assistant is Londyn Crenshaw. Thanks for listening, everybody. You're the Bombe.