natasha pickowicz transcript
Kerry Diamond:
Hi, everyone. You are listening to Radio Cherry Bombe. And I'm your host, Kerry Diamond, coming to you from Rockefeller Center in the heart of New York City. Each week, we talk to the coolest culinary personalities around, the folks shaping and shaking up the food scene. Today's guest is Natasha Pickowicz, the celebrated pastry chef, pop-up queen, and Cherry Bombe Magazine cover star. Natasha has truly carved out her own path in the culinary world. And she's here to tell us about the twists and turns that led to where she is today. From getting cut from the rowing team at Cornell, who knew? To the random job at a punk rock bodega in Montreal that helped her discover her calling. Also, we'll talk about Natasha's dad, the history professor, Paul Pickowicz, and his journey back to Ukraine to learn more about his roots. Stay tuned for my chat with Natasha.
Speaking of Ukraine, for all you bakers out there, Bakers Against Racism has announced that its latest bake sale is to raise funds for Ukrainian relief organizations. Anyone can participate in these bake sales. Visit bakersagainstracism.com to learn more. And thank you to Bakers Against Racism for mobilizing everyone. Thank you also to today's sponsors, Lenox and Foxtrot. Lenox has a lovely wine glass collab with star sommelier Victoria James that is available now on lenox.com. Be sure to check out our giveaway on Instagram for your chance to win the Lenox Signature Series glasses. Here's Victoria, to tell us more about the collab.
Victoria James:
Hey there, I'm Victoria James, sommelier and the author of the memoir Wine Girl, which chronicles how in 2012, at the age of 21, I became the youngest sommelier in America. Wine however, isn't just my profession. It's a magical alchemy of love and artistry that fascinates me to this day. So when Lenox approached me about collaborating on an exclusive stemware series, I immediately said yes. I knew this was an opportunity to create wine glasses with Lenox that were affordable and high quality, and that other somms would appreciate. I wanted to move beyond the traditional idea of red and white wine glasses and focus instead on terroir, that sense of place that truly defines a wine.
To capture the essence of terroir, Lenox and I have created the Signature Series wine glass collection. Together we've designed one glass for wines from warm regions, think a Barossa Valley Shiraz or a Napa Valley Chardonnay, and one glass for wine from cool regions, perfect for a Mosel Riesling or Loire Valley Cabernet Franc. Lenox has been creating heirloom-worthy home and tabletop items from 1889 to today, for presidents and first ladies in the White House, to everyone in your house. I'm honored to be part of this rich history. To learn more, visit lenox.com\signatureseries. I hope this special collection brings more joy to your wine drinking.
Kerry Diamond:
Thank you Victoria. If you haven't read Victoria's book, Wine Girl, I highly recommend you give it a read. Today's show is also sponsored by Foxtrot. Foxtrot is a new sponsor, so welcome to the Radio Cherry Bombe family. Foxtrot is the modern corner store that's redefining convenience. Foxtrot has locations in Chicago, Dallas, Washington, D.C., and Virginia. So if you are lucky enough to live in any of those cities, you can go visit. Foxtrot also has a website packed with all of our favorite products and national shipping is available. But what I want to tell you about is Foxtrot's second Annual Up & Comers Awards. Foxtrot wants to find the next best thing in food. Is that your brand? If so, grab a pen. You can apply March 8th through April 4th at foxtrotco.com/upandcomers. So mark your calendars. We'll have that link in our show notes, by the way. Winners will receive a spot on Foxtrot shelves plus funding, marketing support, and mentorship from some of the biggest names in food.
Cherry Bombe is co-hosting some fun events this March with Foxtrot in Chicago, D.C., and Austin. So maybe I'll see you in one of those cities. Check out Cherry Bombe's Instagram for more details. One more thing, we have a curated online shop of our favorite women-owned brands at foxtrotco.com. Isn't that fun? You could check it out right now and pick up some yummy stuff from folks we love, including Brightland, Omsom, Honey Mama's, and Red Clay.
A little housekeeping, the Cherry Bombe team is busy working on Cherry Bombe Jubilee, our annual conference. Tickets are sold out, but you can join the waiting list at cherrybomb.com. Also, sign up for our newsletter so you don't miss any Jubilee updates. We have some fun activities that all of you can take part in Jubilee Weekend, and we'll share those details soon. Now, let's check in with today's guest. Natasha Pickowicz, welcome to Radio Cherry Bombe.
Natasha Pickowicz:
Hi, Kerry, thank you so much for having me back.
Kerry Diamond:
I just realized this is your third time on Radio Cherry Bombe.
Natasha Pickowicz:
Absolutely.
Kerry Diamond:
You are part of an exclusive third time is a charm club.
Natasha Pickowicz:
It feels amazing to do these things in person because the last time that we spoke it was recorded remotely and there's just so much texture and nuance that I feel like you get from being able to be in person.
Kerry Diamond:
That was pretty much the start of the pandemic. I think it was spring 2020, my gosh, and we really had no idea what was going on.
Natasha Pickowicz:
You were like, "What's going on with you? What's happening?" I'm like, "Great question."
Kerry Diamond:
Well, I'm happy that these are slightly better times. But I do want to start with something that is just awful, the situation in Ukraine. I thought we'd jump right in and talk about the Bakers Against Racism sale to raise money for Ukrainian relief organizations. We shared information about the sale on Instagram when it was announced and a lot of people DMed us and asked how they could participate. Now, I know you're not a founder of Bakers Against Racism, but you are the bake sale queen. So what advice do you have for folks who would like to participate?
Natasha Pickowicz:
It's a great question. It's a big question. And I think also just more broadly speaking, it's so incredible that you're seeing people here in the States or wanting to participate in these acts of mass civil disobedience. And there's so many different ways that you can express that or convey solidarity. And I think there is such a giant need for people that we're seeing who are feeling helpless or feeling like that they want to contribute or do something beyond just reading the news, which can be this grueling sort of endeavor. So I've been definitely fielding so many questions on social media, I have a pastry chat on DEMI community called Never-Ending Salon. And there are a lot of people who are like, "I've never done a bake sale before, where do I begin?"
Obviously Bakers Against Racism, their platform has built-in resources to it. I've seen them and their documents that outline how to begin, what language to use. And though it's great to research and find those resources and ask people about it, but to people who have never thrown a bake sale before, the thing that I always want to tell people, because I give out this advice because people ask, is to really start small and don't go too big or overly ambitious, especially if it's your first time. Because I think people get really excited about the idea of it. But the truth is that, as you know, producing events like this, there's so many moving parts and you're coordinating with other bakers, you're figuring out what you yourself are going to make. You're finding a venue, you're trying to align with a nonprofit. You're finding out what that even is. How do you vet something like that?
And I think you're seeing a lot in the discourse around providing relief to Ukraine is sort of where do I begin? This is a part of the world where people aren't as from familiar with the organizations, there's less understanding or fluency in like, how is our money going to be... So you have to put in that research, you have to do that legwork to even establish that before you even begin. So my advice is, with all of these moving parts, just think small, to begin with, and then you're setting yourself up to duplicate it again, to do it a third time, to make it a more sustainable thing.
Kerry Diamond:
You don't have to participate in an actual event though. You as an individual, could bake some cookies, sell them to your neighbors, et cetera.
Natasha Pickowicz:
Totally. And that's the great thing about a bake sale is that you can really... There really is such a spectrum of ambition or scale that you would like to accomplish. And I think one thing isn't better than another. A big event isn't any better than you getting together with a few of your girlfriends and dropping off cookies at your local wine shop for pickups, or stopping by your local community fridge and filling it with treats. I think there are lots of smaller gestures that can happen within your neighborhood that is just as important as something that perhaps you might daydream about doing something even bigger. So my advice would just be, get really organized, work with people that you know and trust or look up to, and then just give yourself the time and the structure to do it so that when the day happens, you're doing the bake sale, you're having the pickups. You can actually enjoy it and be in the moment, because you know that you've done all the organization to begin with.
Kerry Diamond:
And Bakers Against Racism for those who aren't familiar, they came to be in the summer of 2020, and eventually raised over $2 million worldwide for causes related to Black Lives Matter. But the beauty of Bakers Against Racism is they really function as an umbrella organization. So you are doing your own bake sale, whether it's just you by yourself or you getting some friends and family together, or like Natasha said, putting something bigger together, and you are telling them how much you raised.
Natasha Pickowicz:
Right. Yeah. I think that structure is that framework that's already been made is comforting and reassuring to people, especially starting out. They'll have the visual assets, the graphics that you can use, the hashtags that will connect you to what other people are doing, other examples of how things are being executed in other places. I think that's really inspiring and I think that especially people to a certain extent are still sheltering in place. They're still keeping to their little pod. So this is a way to make new relationships, friendships, beyond what might be your immediate circle too, and I think that's also really valuable.
Kerry Diamond:
And how about using social media to get the word out? What do you recommend?
Natasha Pickowicz:
I also grew up in a very analog way of distribution. I was booking shows where you're literally putting up flyers in coffee shops, record stores. I guess my point is, I think that there's still something to be said about connecting with people in real life beyond just relying on social media as a way to let people know that you're doing something. So especially if it's something focused in your neighborhood, relating perhaps to a local business that you care about, it's about showing up in person and not just doing it all through the internet, as long as you feel comfortable. So I think that there should be this joint effort of materials you can see and interact with in person mixed with putting up your information online for pickup or whatever, is just my opinion.
And I think it's more fun that way too. Like with the bake sales that we did for Planned Parenthood, we had quarter cards made up and we were handing them out to all of the places that were participating. So they had the asset in their location prior to it. I mean, if you're just a home baker and you're working with friends who also are baking in a more amateur level, there's still versions of that that you can do, that I think bring a lot of tangible joy to the event in advance.
Kerry Diamond:
I'm laughing thinking of you out there with your staple gun stapling flyers to telephone poles.
Natasha Pickowicz:
I was out there doing that.
Kerry Diamond:
I see you and Brooks Headley out there with staple guns. One thing you also can do is take pre-orders. You don't want to run out and buy a ton of ingredients when you don't know how much you're going to sell.
Natasha Pickowicz:
Yeah. That's a great point. And that's also something I tell everybody to do, is this idea of a par in restaurants. Your par is the amount of something that you think you're going to go through in a service in a day, whatever. We're going to bake off 60 sticky buns today. That's our daily par. I think that's really important. And that's also goes in line with setting up your expectations and thinking manageable, thinking something that you can execute the day of. So maybe it's like you're asking five of your friends, "Can you make 20 of this one thing?" And then you know exactly what you have, nobody's buying more or spending more money than they need to, to execute this idea.
And also you're not disappointing people who might come by and then you're sold out. And that's happened to me from doing pop-ups before, and it is the worst feeling. And I think if you're somebody like me who experiences anxiety around letting other down, then doing something like pre-orders is a way to mitigate that stress. And it's just, again, another tactic to help you streamline the event, so you can make the whole thing feel more impactful in general.
Kerry Diamond:
You are participating in a sale that Dacha 46 has put together.
Natasha Pickowicz:
Yes.
Kerry Diamond:
Can you tell us a little bit about that?
Natasha Pickowicz:
I'm so happy to be asked. So Dacha 46 is this Latvian-Ukranian business that specializes in food from those regions that's run by a married couple, Jess and Trina Quinn, who both have worked in super fine dining restaurants in New York, but decided, in the wake of COVID in 2020, that they were going to go back to what their roots were, to make the food that had personal meaning for them. And I think especially when you're thinking about, what is fine dining? In New York City, for example, you're seeing a domination of the Western continental cuisines of France, of Italy-
Kerry Diamond:
Of France and Italy.
Natasha Pickowicz:
Yeah. Maybe a little Spain but-
Kerry Diamond:
You could pretty much stop there. Yeah, I know, people, there are other fine dining cultures. I'm just saying who dominates the scene.
Natasha Pickowicz:
It's true. And then I think there's a real lack of representation with these Eastern European Slovak cuisines. And so they're making things that maybe I can go and get at my Polish diner in Greenpoint, but I can't really have this more elevated experience of ingredients that are sourced from the green market that are made in small quantities with love, food that's coming from the heart. So all of that is to say that the kind of desserts Jess, who's the pastry chef, makes are extraordinarily personal to her and her heritage. So I think that this moment that we're in now of Russia invading Ukraine is obviously incredibly fraught and personal for her. So she is also coming up with a bake sale of her own that's going to be held March 22nd at Agi's in Crown Heights, that's going to involve number of local pastry chefs, bakers, cookbook writers. And that's going to be announced right around now, early March, early mid-March.
Again, I think when we're thinking about ways that we can show solidarity, connect to this crisis that's happening, obviously food is such a powerful conduit for those feelings. And I think that the work that they're doing, which is showing people what this cuisine is, it's almost like an education. And I think that that's a really important part of the story too, is in order to understand Ukrainian nationalism, you have to really also think about food traditions, oral histories, these recipes that have been preserved and now are being reinterpreted by younger people like Jess. And I'm so excited to be a part. I'm not sure what I'm going to make yet.
Kerry Diamond:
That was my next question. You don't know?
Natasha Pickowicz:
Not sure. I mean, also when you're planning a bake sale, I think it's also important to make something that will fit into the genre of a bake sale bake, so-
Kerry Diamond:
Wait, wait, you have to explain that, fit into the genre of a bake sale bake.
Natasha Pickowicz:
I did a bake sale once at Squirrel in LA and I was the only person in the group who did a savory pastry. And all the beautiful pastries are grouped in this box together. It's like Anna Posey from Chicago, and it's like Sasha from LA, and it's like all these wonderful people. And I made this scallion pancake. I wasn't very smart. I opened the box and it was so fragrant. I felt like it didn't... So I think you also want to think about how everything is going to play with everything else.
Kerry Diamond:
Well, get along with others.
Natasha Pickowicz:
Yeah. And thinking about travel, stability, shipping. I'm actually trying to figure out the particulars around that now, because I'm going to be in California when this bake sale happens, because I'm gearing up for the photo shoot for my cookbook. So I'm like, "What can I make? What is the Ukrainian biscotti?" And I think I'm looking forward to finding out what those things are. And one of the cookbook authors I love for exactly this is Darra Goldstein, and she's written indispensable books that are about these Eastern European, Russian, Slavic food traditions. So I'll probably go through my books of hers and pick something out that way.
Kerry Diamond:
Well, I look forward to seeing what you make as do many of our listeners, thank you for taking part in it and thanks to everyone out there who's doing what they can. It does feel very frustrating. Right now we're recording, by the time folks hear this, a little bit of time will pass and hopefully things will have improved dramatically, but as if we record this, it's still very bleak and awful.
Let's talk about something a little bit more upbeat. Although I have to say our community coming together once again, is a very positive thing. So there's a lot of power in that. Let's talk pop-ups. You are, as you kind of alluded to, do a lot of pop-ups, you are, I don't know, in my book, you're definitely one of the queens of the pop-up. We had chefs Lana Lagomarsini and Nana Wilmot on the show last week. And they talked about pop-ups as a replacement for fine dining, which I find very interesting as a concept. What are your thoughts on that as someone with a fine dining background?
Natasha Pickowicz:
Just to go back to even Jess and Trina at Dacha, they did a "pop-up dinner" fine dining dinner. I think it was like $150 ticketed thing. There was a dessert trolley. There were multiple courses and I think that there is this sense of, if you would like to play around with the format that is fine dining, if you go to a pop-up, you're going to see something probably quite spectacular because it's like a one and done kind of thing and they want to impress. They want to wow. They want to awe. And I think also when you examine historically what fine dining is in a place, let's say like New York City where we are now, I think you're also seeing not just the domination of certain kinds of cuisines that we just referenced, France, Italy, Western Europe, but also, who is making those foods too?
There's also a certain domination of a certain kind of person, a certain kind of man, that is running and in charge of what fine dining is. I say this as someone who loves fine dining, right? I love the ritual of getting ready, getting dressed, feeling taken care of. The hospitality is a huge aspect of what fine dining is almost to me more than the food itself. And so I think that's something that's very inimitable. That's something that is crucial to what it means to experience $150 dinner. You want to be taken care of. It's also theater. So it's really interesting to think about what that means in a pop-up context. I mean, I can tell you that I did a pop-up at Honey's, which is a meadery in Bushwick.
Kerry Diamond:
A meatery?
Natasha Pickowicz:
That's right. That's right. I know. It's like a very-
Kerry Diamond:
How are we spelling that? M-E-A-T-E-R-Y?
Natasha Pickowicz:
D, because they make mead.
Kerry Diamond:
Oh, a meadery. Meadery. I was like, "Okay, wait, are people meeting up or are they eating meat?"
Natasha Pickowicz:
It's enlightenment wines. They're making these stunning, delicate, nuanced meads with honey sourced from upstate. It's a very unique venue as well, but it's more like a bar. So when I pitched to them, can I do a pop-up in the winery, in the main floor of Chinese hotpot, which is not fine dining, but it is sumptuous celebratory over the top way of eating. It's a feast. It can go for hours. So there's certain aspects of that meal that I think can be traced to a more grand dining experience. And it is very challenging for chefs to execute nights like this. So hopefully diners feel a sense of gratitude. And I wonder if that's the kind of thing you guys talked about last week as well, for the work that goes in to pulling something off for one night and not being able to roll into the next service the next day with product that you have left over, you have to run a very tight ship. There's a lot of numbers that go into thinking about that beforehand.
I feel very excited to see how, when we talk about pop-ups, which is something usually perhaps that exists more in the fringes of fine dining culture, they weren't chefs at those fine dining restaurants. Maybe they were line cooks or sous-chefs, or have that history, but they weren't running those kitchens. They're deciding to interpret that format on their own terms. And I also was thinking about this a lot last week with the James Beard nominations that were announced. And it's so interesting to see how foundation like the James Beard Foundation is going to find ways to acknowledge what that work is that's being done, because it doesn't traditionally fit into these categories of being nominated.
So what does it mean to be best chef Northeast? Who gets to be nominated for a title like that? Of course, it's like the institution is going to catch up to what's happening on the fringes, on that outskirt's underground. But I feel like there's going to be a dovetailing of that at some point, because you're seeing media also acknowledge not just Cherry Bombe, but other mainstream media acknowledge what's happening at pop-ups too, as this completely valid form of expression and skill.
Kerry Diamond:
You mentioned Dacha's dinner, I think it was like $150 a head. But I think even the pop-up they did at Poppy's in Brooklyn, in my neighborhood, where you could get a box of dumplings, they had two kinds, you could get slices of their cake. To me, that was as much fine dining as going to a white tablecloth restaurant now and having to sit through a very stuffy few hours, multiple courses, too many people fussing around you. I'm with you. I mean, sometimes that can be fun and there's the theater of it, but less and less, am I interested in that.
Natasha Pickowicz:
I'm with you. And I think that a lot of people's habits have been reframed in the last two years.
Kerry Diamond:
But even before that a little bit.
Natasha Pickowicz:
Yeah. Yeah, perhaps.
Kerry Diamond:
Did you really want to sit through 20 courses?
Natasha Pickowicz:
Right. Or spend that kind of money.
Kerry Diamond:
Or spend that kind of money, yeah.
Natasha Pickowicz:
And there's something about that that feels really gratuitous too.
Kerry Diamond:
Like even the donut box.
Natasha Pickowicz:
Yeah.
Kerry Diamond:
The Cherry Bombe donut box that all of you cover stars graciously did with Fan-Fan Doughnuts. I mean, to me, that's fine dining today.
Natasha Pickowicz:
Yeah. So that's really interesting. So then maybe we're looking at the meaning of that feeling, of that idea is actually shifting. And it's so exciting to see how restaurant food culture, fine dining culture, can be changing before our eyes or that we can participate in it in some way.
Kerry Diamond:
We need a different name for it, I mean, fine dining's the wrong term to describe that donut box or the dumplings that I got at Poppy's, the same skill and intention and great ingredients.
Natasha Pickowicz:
I think people are craving storytelling. And I think people are craving authenticity and intention. And I mean, that all just sounds like a bunch of buzzwords that I threw out, which is so annoying, but it's true. I think that people respond well when a chef has a personal relationship to the food that they're making, whether it's family lineage or where they live currently, or the relationship they have to the ingredients or the farms. I think that people want to see be more meaning behind that transaction. And I think it's like this idea where you can taste the love. You go to a place like Fan-Fan and you get a donut, so ubiquitous, but I think that so much care and thought is put into every iteration of her donuts that you feel the love. And I truly believe that, you can feel it-
Kerry Diamond:
Love cuisine.
Natasha Pickowicz:
Yeah, you can feel it and-
Kerry Diamond:
We need to come up with a new name for this. Is it love cuisine? If anybody out there has a great idea, DM me with what we can call this instead of fine dining.
Natasha Pickowicz:
But it's something that you can feel expressed in music and in art. And I think that people have bullshit detectors and are craving things that feel real. And hopefully that's why people love things like this donut box that we did, or Dacha and Poppy's, because these are not money makers, nobody is doing these things-
Kerry Diamond:
Yeah, let's talk about that quick before we move on, because there are so many pop-ups around the country. I mean, people tag us in them all the time and thank you for doing that. I appreciate that. So we can see what folks are up to. How do you not go broke doing the pop-up? Because a lot of chefs are doing this now as a way to make a living.
Natasha Pickowicz:
Yes, I would love to know the answer to that, but seriously, I did do my taxes yesterday. It was horrible. It was like a complete... I'm going from filing one W-2 to now I have like 20 1099s. So there's definitely a chaotic quality to that transition. So I can only speak for me, which is that I feel incredibly fortunate and privileged to be able to do the pop-ups because they're offset with income that I'm able to make through other things. And so what do I mean by that? I'm a full-time freelancer now. The pop-ups for me do not make me money. And if people come up to me and are like, "Can you explain to me how you did this pop-up?" I'm like, "I'll send you all my numbers."
When people are doing a pop-up, they want it to be the best it can be. So for me, I do pop-ups relatively infrequently perhaps. So I want it to be memorable and I want to give people the best experience possible. So instead of at a restaurant, perhaps I would keep my food cost to 17%. At a pop-up, that can shoot up to like 40%. I'm trying to source exquisite vegetables from Boatytree Farm. I'm buying organic mushrooms from Smallhold, I'm pulling out all the stops. When we're talking about staffing, I'm paying people to start at least $25 an hour to do prep or to work that service. It's less important for me to make money off of a pop-up because at the end of the day, it might be a couple 100 bucks, might be $1000 maybe. And honestly, most of that is donated towards the whatever organization or cause that I'm going for.
So for me, it's like I'm able to keep doing those because I have to pursue relationships with brands, partnerships, with brands. I'm a chef ambassador for All-Clad. This is an incredible honor for me. Already it's a cookware brand that I believe in, used my entire adult life, but also working with a brand like All-Clad is what helps me pay my rent so that I can do pop-ups that allow me to connect with people in the neighborhood. So again, I feel incredibly lucky to be able to do bake sales, to do pop-ups because I'm working off stage doing other things.
Kerry Diamond:
I don't want to bum out chefs out there or bakers or anybody listening who might want to do pop-ups and try to find a profitable angle. If you had the time, do you think you could make them profitable?
Natasha Pickowicz:
For sure. And I think that more often than not, I'm saying no to pop-up opportunities than I'm saying yes. Because like I said, they do take a lot of work. I think you're seeing... Have you been at Kitin Crown Heights, which is formerly…?
Kerry Diamond:
I have. I have.
Natasha Pickowicz:
This is a great example. Maybe the owner there she's offering kind of... What I see is between a pop-up and a restaurant, these sort of residencies. And people like Zoe Kanan, she'll make bagels every weekend for a month. And I with her on a donuts... Really, I piggybacked onto what Zoe Kanan was doing there, which was, she was doing donuts and bagels and things like that. And she had structured it in such a way where I was like, "Oh, this is how you do it." A concentrated tight little menu, only on the weekends. She's able to roll her inventory into the next week's bake. And I think it's strategic in a way where you could see it being a sustainable effort.
And I think also in my experience, bakers, pastry chefs, whatever, who are doing pop-ups, I think often underestimate the value of their work and what they're putting out there. When I worked in restaurants, I was used to my boss or somebody telling me, this thing will cost this many dollars. And you're like, "Okay, it fits into the grand plan here." But when you're doing a pop-up, it's up to you to set those numbers. And something I see a lot is people being like, "I feel weird charging like $50 for a layer cake." I'm like, "Oh girl, you just put in your skill, your labor, ingredients, your effort, you can charge more for this thing." But I think that there is this sense of being like, if you ask for more, then it's like people might not think you're worth that much. And I think we all need to get over that, myself included.
Kerry Diamond:
Me too. It's very hard. It's very hard. We deal with that with the magazine. If I priced Cherry Bombe what it should be priced, no one could afford the magazine, but it's similar to what-
Natasha Pickowicz:
You want it to be accessible to people.
Kerry Diamond:
Right. We want to be accessible. And so we do other things around it to keep it at the price that it's at. I look at it the same way you would look at a bolt of fabric. I hear people complain about the price of food and I know what people need to charge or pop-ups. And sometimes the prices can seem a little high, but it really is the same as like, you're not going to hand someone a bolt of fabric and say, "Here you go, make your own clothes." You are handing them a beautiful dress that you have just made essentially.
Natasha Pickowicz:
I love that.
Kerry Diamond:
Right?
Natasha Pickowicz:
I think so. And this is also something that I see as a freelancer, not just for pop-ups that I'm in control over, but also commissioned bakes and contract work where people are like, "Oh, I have $100 budget for this photo shoot in two days." And you're just like, "There is not enough, I think, awareness or value for food service work in general." What freelancer would you ask to do anything for $100 in 24-hours notice?
Kerry Diamond:
Or better yet.
Natasha Pickowicz:
And this is something that can be really challenging to navigate as a freelancer because you're alone and without the structure of a business or coworkers or a boss to guide you through that. So a lot of the time it just comes down to like, is this worth it for me or not? And sometimes I do things for free, sometimes-
Kerry Diamond:
We should do a whole episode on that.
Natasha Pickowicz:
Yeah.
Kerry Diamond:
I want to talk about your parents. Like a lot of people, your relationship with your folks evolved during the pandemic. And let's start with your dad. You did a Zoom with him the other week to talk about his Ukrainian heritage and it was really wonderful. So thank you both for doing that.
Natasha Pickowicz:
Thank you so much for being there.
Kerry Diamond:
Tell us about your dad.
Natasha Pickowicz:
So my dad, his name is Paul Pickowicz. He is a historian and he's a professor of history in Chinese studies at UC San Diego. He basically made the department what it is today, which is one of probably the strongest department in the country for 20th century Chinese history. And so I definitely grew up in a household of academics and academia, but perhaps only really understanding a lot of that work from more of a distance. And I've been thinking a lot about oral histories. And we're in this age of Zoom, we're in this age of phone calls, and how to connect oral history to this more modern digital format. Pickowicz is our family name, so my dad's dad's side is Ukrainian. And my dad is an incredible storyteller. This is from decades and decades of teaching and lectures and relationships with students, but he's incredibly gifted storyteller.
When the details around this crisis in Ukraine was emerging, like everyone, we're all inundated with news that can feel very intense and very grueling and very exhausting. And I was interested in, is there a way that we can talk about or examine a current crisis in Ukraine, but from perhaps a historical personal or familial lens? In that spirit, I asked my dad if I could interview him for a Zoom to talk about his travels to Ukraine in the late '70s when, as you know, Ukraine was part of the Soviet Union until the early '90s, and has since been a independent nation for like the last 30 years or so. And now this is all being thrown into turmoil. But I had started this playing around with this format for my pastry chat on DEMI, and interviewed my parents for Zoom last spring, to talk about the Chinese Lunar New Year and food symbols and traditions around the New Year.
My dad gives great Zoom. He'll bring like a show and tell aspect. So to this Zoom talk, he brought the New York Times with the front page, it's like Ukraine at war with Russia, this dramatic headline. He had family photos talking about our history of our family in Ukraine going back 120 years. And I think that this way of talking about the conflict again, humanizes the Ukrainian experience, gives us a better idea of why this conflict is so crucial to the sense of Ukrainian nationalism, all of these things that they're striving to do and have accomplished. And also on a more personal note, I only ever do these things because I personally want to do them. I'm calling my dad and being like, "Can you explain what's going on in the world right now? Can you break down the geopolitics of this conflict?"
And so I wanted to share that with other people. So it wasn't just between the two of us. And of course, on a personal level, it's an amazing way for us to relate beyond the usual parent-child dynamic of the normal worries or the normal topics. And I would encourage everybody to be having these kind of conversations with, maybe it's not a parent or a grandparent or a family member, but just somebody older in your community that has so much to share that they have incredible stories and things to talk about and want to share. And this is an amazing thing to do with somebody and it's incredibly intimate, but we need to be hearing what these perspectives are. So I was so happy to do that.
Over 80 people showed up, was on a Saturday afternoon. I was so moved. And I had pledged for every person that comes into the Zoom this day, will be donating $5 to Doctors Without Borders, which provide services all over the globe, but are also providing relief to the front lines along the Eastern border in Ukraine, which is where a lot of this conflict is happening. And so I wanted to be held accountable also for why I was doing it and opening up to people in that way. And then you're getting notes from people, "Oh, I wasn't able to come, but I made a donation." And this is again, something you see in bake sales as well, where yeah, everyone wants a delicious cookie, but I think more than that, people want to help and they want to be a part of something. I know people who are like, "Well, I'm not eating cookies, I'm doing Whole30, but I made a donation." And you're like, "That's great, you are wanting to be involved and we can make that happen."
Kerry Diamond:
Well, it was incredibly generous of you and your dad for a lot of us who don't have personal connections to Ukraine, it was remarkable hearing his story. And what really struck me was, I guess this was in the '70s when he went?
Natasha Pickowicz:
He went in 1978.
Kerry Diamond:
How badly he wanted to get to Ukraine and how difficult it was made for him.
Natasha Pickowicz:
Unreal. I loved that part of the story. I loved imagining him, he's going en route to Hong Kong, flying into Cairo, then stopping into Jerusalem and then-
Kerry Diamond:
To try to get a visa to go.
Natasha Pickowicz:
Exactly.
Kerry Diamond:
I mean, he wasn't going to these countries because he was just bopping around. He kept getting rejected. And travel to that part of the world back then was a lot more difficult than it is today. And he couldn't get a visa. And he had to keep trying until he finally found a country that would give him a visa. And then he gets there and-
Natasha Pickowicz:
Poland.
Kerry Diamond:
... one roadblock after another, KGB people following him, minders babysitting him. I mean, a part that really brought tears to my eyes, he knew he was being watched at every turn and he found a moment to pull some leaves off a tree and he felt bad about doing it still to this day. But he wanted to bring them back to put on his grandparents graves.
Natasha Pickowicz:
Yeah. I think that's why history is so important in understanding where we are in a contemporary or a present moment. Because once you start to understand this legacy of Russian surveillance and censorship in these villages, in these cities, it's like we cannot... As Americans, it's like we can't even begin to understand what it would be like to have all of those freedoms taken away from you. It's out of our comprehension, myself included. It's providing these actual anecdotes, these stories of these experiences, helps us understand other people's lived experiences in a way.
Kerry Diamond:
He wasn't allowed to talk to anyone. He was literally told like, "You can't talk to anyone in Ukraine."
Natasha Pickowicz:
So if anyone is like, "Oh, I want to hear this story." I recorded the Zoom and it's living on my drive. It's free and open to whomever. So anybody is welcome to reach out to me. I'll send them the link. I really believe in the power of oral histories. And it was really, and really moving to hear feedback from people that were like, "This has helped me better understand a human aspect of this current conflict." And I mean, that was exactly, I think what we were hoping to accomplish.
Kerry Diamond:
Let's give your mom some equal time. She has been a very big part of your ongoing pop-up series called Never Ending Taste. Tell us about your mother.
Natasha Pickowicz:
It's funny because everyone's like, "You must have this perfect relationship with your parents." And I'm like, "Well, it's not quite that simple, but"-
Kerry Diamond:
Were you a rebellious kid?
Natasha Pickowicz:
I was a great kid.
Kerry Diamond:
You were.
Natasha Pickowicz:
I had a very like, play piano for two hours a day, play varsity sports the other three hours of the day, do all AP courses, all everything, extracurriculars, volunteer work. I was definitely always doing the most.
Kerry Diamond:
You and Claire Saffitz, man, you have so much in common with Claire Saff.
Natasha Pickowicz:
Yeah, definitely. She's left-handed too. But-
Kerry Diamond:
You were a good kid.
Natasha Pickowicz:
... as I've matured, my relationship with them has improved because I'm less self-centered probably. Also this new working relationship I have with my mom is-
Kerry Diamond:
Tell us your mom's name. Sorry.
Natasha Pickowicz:
... Li Huai, is also completely materialized in the last two years. And now that we've been working together for so long, I'm like... My mom is a visual artist. She also teaches at UCSD as well, exhibits internationally. It never occurred to me to combine her skills with the things that I think about with food until I started doing my pop-up, Never Ending Taste. And the first iteration of that was at Superiority Burger in the East Village. And I was inspired by, Brooks would make the menus and it's just black Sharpie written out on a piece of white computer paper. It's like pretty punk. It's very minimalist. It's like super off the cuff. So I sent my mom the Instagram to Superiority Burger to be like, "Can you do your version of what that is?"
And of course the thing that she does is this incredibly detailed, intricate, masterful sort of Sharpie illustrations of farmer's market fruits, of cakes, of our cat, these incredibly whimsical but also just very beautiful natural drawings. And so that became an identity of the pop-up, which was, I'm doing a pop-up, I'm asking my mom to do a poster. And it's been incredible to see a dream of my own be to compile these all into a beautiful book or a zine or something, because to see them all together is really amazing. It's like a scrapbook in a way where I'm like, "Wow, oh yeah, Kismet, LA, Four Horsemen, Brooklyn, Yellow Rose, East Village." All done by my mom.
Kerry Diamond:
They're so beautiful. We ran some in the cover story and I wish we could have run some more.
Natasha Pickowicz:
Amazing. I was obsessed with how that came out. I was just like, "This is so, so, so cool, so meaningful." We've expanded that now where she's going to be involved with the production of my cookbook. And it's not just doing illustrations for the book, but she is hand painting all of the canvas backdrops that we're using on set. I don't have $80,000 to spend on surfaces, to spend on marble, to spend on wood, whatever, all the things that bring up cookbook to life. I'm just without that budget. So for me, it was like, how can we be playful with what we do have? And perhaps it might even be more personal because of that.
Kerry Diamond:
Well, I was going to say, that's also way more you than going out and spending a fortune on the same surfaces that everyone else uses.
Natasha Pickowicz:
Right. And I'm so excited for people to see these. It just is another great way for my mom to get involved. It's a way for us to communicate beyond, "Do you have enough masks? Do you have enough socks?" I'm 37 and I still get these queries, which obviously come from a place of love, but it's nice to change that dynamic and have these... Like I remember the first time we talked about collaborating together, we had the Zoom and I was explaining the specs to her, the text, the concept. And I was like, "This is so..." out of body moment where I was just like, "Whoa, we're making something happen together."
Kerry Diamond:
I love that.
Natasha Pickowicz:
And that felt really profound. And I think a lot of people felt that when COVID first descended upon the world, the sense of urgency to do something, to make something, to reconnect with family. And that was very much the place that I was coming from, which was, boy, our time on this earth is limited for everyone. It is not too late for me to make a book with my mom. And that felt really profound.
Kerry Diamond:
I love that. If you take anything away from our chat today, it's not too late, folks.
Natasha Pickowicz:
Yeah. Truly.
Kerry Diamond:
You mentioned a cookbook, we're not going to go into it. Just tell us, when can we expect it?
Natasha Pickowicz:
The book will be published by Artisan Books, thrilled to be working with them, adore my editor, adore... I mean, the whole thing is just incredibly intense and new to me and the hardest thing I've ever done. But the more that we get done, the more that it's crystallized. I handed in my manuscript a month ago.
Kerry Diamond:
Congratulations.
Natasha Pickowicz:
Thank you. I remember I promised, I was like, "I'm going to get you the manuscript by end of day, Friday." It was like 5:29, and I was putting it into the email and I was just like, "Oh my God, really waited till the last second." Because these deadlines also are arbitrary in a certain sense, which is also everything new to me that I'm learning. But this was a deadline I made for myself. So could I have missed it? Yes. But I think that I'm trying to build structure into my life as a freelancer. So I was just like, "Got to get it in."
Kerry Diamond:
You might have to explain more about that concept to me at another time. Two things I want to chat about before we get to the speed round, but we'll keep it brief. I did mention these in the intro. So I do have to say them. You did crew. I don't even know the correct way to refer to it, but you-
Natasha Pickowicz:
I was on the crew team.
Kerry Diamond:
You were on the crew team. You were a rower in college and I had absolutely no idea.
Natasha Pickowicz:
I know. Did you play sports growing up?
Kerry Diamond:
Yeah, of course I did. I played every sport growing up and I played basketball in high school and I was very good. Well, my family might not agree with that assessment, but I was pretty good, but I quit to be the editor of the school newspaper.
Natasha Pickowicz:
Oh my God. I love that so much.
Kerry Diamond:
And the basketball coach at my college was constantly trying to recruit me. But you know what it is, you give off such artsy vibes, such punk rock vibes. If you had told me like you were a yoga teacher in college, that would've made all the sense in world. Well, and maybe fencing, something kind of Wes Anderson-ish.
Natasha Pickowicz:
Well, rowing has got that yappy Wes Anderson vibe to it too, for sure. It's like ridiculous kind of elite sport in that way but-
Kerry Diamond:
It didn't end well?
Natasha Pickowicz:
No, just want to go back to this idea you said where you're like, "I stopped doing sports and I started doing something else." My dad is a perfect example of this. He was first of all, inducted into his high school sports hall of fame. He was the captain of his football team, baseball team, basketball team. He was like... I think anybody would've said that he was a jock that didn't care very much about school when he was in high school. And then what happened? He went to college. He was suddenly no longer the big fish in the small pond, was benched most of the season trying to play basketball and then fell in love with history. And then that became his whole life. He became a historian. He went to China, he got his PhD. It's funny because I think that there's a lot to that, that other people experience too, of when you're young, you're playing sports, you think that's like your whole identity.
But what it does is take up so much of your own time that you aren't able to edit your school newspaper, do radio, book concerts, all these things that I also did in college. In high school, rowing was my identity. I remember being in my high school's Kumrade society and my dad also gave the ceremonial speech, inducting us, the 10 of us or something into the ceremony. And I missed it because I had a regatta in British Columbia and I didn't even care. I was like, "I don't care about that, I want to win this race."
But I think that sense of competitiveness I had then, and also this love of being on a team is something that set me up for working in restaurants very much so. I always like to make my sports analogies when I'm working with new cooks or new people. And I'm like, "We are on the same team. We all have different roles to play, but we're all here to take the whole thing across." But yeah, no, I ended up rowing at Cornell. It's funny because I was telling this story and my mom was like, "You weren't kicked off the team." Because she thinks that there's like-
Kerry Diamond:
Is she not like my cover story? I think I say you were kicked off the team in the cover story.
Natasha Pickowicz:
But my dad was like, "Well, if you're a coach, you can get kicked off of a team by just telling people, "You're not going to play. I'm not going to put you in, you can sit on the bench if you want, but you're not good enough to play." And so it's just like a different way of saying I guess. But I felt like an incredible loss of identity around that. When you're basing your worth, your camaraderie, your best friends, the boys that you like, the classes that you take, because it works around your schedule for being on the lake. But once I took that away, it was like you were saying, started writing from a newspaper. I started doing a show at WVBR. I started booking concerts, going to concerts, making friends outside of sports.
My whole life went into alevel jump. Now I'm grateful for that and I can laugh about it. But I was like at 5'6" at Cornell, where a lot of women will go on and compete in the Olympics or be on the nationals team and go to worlds. I was like the slowest, shortest, least good person. But I'm very proud of the races that I did compete in, the boats that I did row in. My best friend to this day is a rower that I met on our first day of orientation as a freshman. And so I'm very thankful that that happened because a lot of that is still a big part of who I am.
Kerry Diamond:
Last thing I want to talk about is this punk rock bodega in Montreal. You are self-taught, which might surprise some folks.
Natasha Pickowicz:
Yeah. I'm so glad you mentioned this because I've been talking with the owners recently now. So the place is called Dépanneur Le Pick-Up, a dep in Quebec, is like a bodega. It's like a corner store where you could buy beer, paper towels, chips, batteries, but also there was this lunch counter in the back. They had this big flat top griddle and they make like breakfast sandwiches and home fries. And they had the pulled pork sandwich. They had a little pastry counter at the front by the cash register. And it was like lemon bars and brownies and peanut butter and coconut cookies, just very comforting Betty White style, but all with this. Sorry, Betty Crocker.
Kerry Diamond:
That's funny.
Natasha Pickowicz:
Betty Crocker. Well, they're like Americana, but it was with this queer twist with the punk twist. There's a Zine Library there. They would host queer nights there.
Kerry Diamond:
You'd film festivals and concerts.
Natasha Pickowicz:
I would book my friend, Hisham, to screen a film he made about his travels to Libya for his record label, Sublime Frequencies. And we projected it behind the cash register above the jars of gum drops or whatever. And then after I made these little Moroccan cookies with orange blossom order in them and I think that's just as important to be able to share and talk about art outside of also the institutions too. And that was definitely a very important place for me to not just bake, but also organize. Also, have community events, also have culinary workshops to make sausages, to have luaus in the backyard to raise money for our staff to compete in a volleyball tournament. All of those things are true. And so I think that place was very formative for me because it showed to me, you can be in the service industry, participate in food making, but also combine it with other kinds of programming, other kinds of community events like fundraisers, bake sales, workshops, classes, concerts, et cetera.
And I think that is harder to find in the mainstream city like New York City, because rent is so expensive, because the margins are so slim. So you're seeing people focus more on just the traditional meal experience. In my transition to these kinds of restaurants, lost a little bit of that texture and lost the time and wherewithal and energy and resources to also be able to put together these impromptu lo-fi event.
And so that is an extremely important place to me in that way. They're actually working on a zine documenting the history, over 10 years of history of the annual cookie swaps we used to do. And the owner, Penny, emailed me and she was like, "Do you still have that recipe for that peanut butter and jelly cookie that everybody loved?" And I was like, "Wow, no." But it made me revisit my archives and I found the old Google Drive doc of my recipes that I developed for them. And it's like 2010. So it was a lot of cupcakes. It was like not stuff I would make now, but I also got very nostalgic looking at that and being like, "Oh yeah, these were like all Ina Garten Recipes that I just took."
Kerry Diamond:
It all goes back to Ina Garten. Let's do a very speedy speed round so we can get you out of here, because I know you are busy. And apparently we've never done a speed round in the previous times we had you on the show. I don't know why. Maybe because we were too depressed back in 2020 to do one.
Natasha Pickowicz:
Right.
Kerry Diamond:
Coffee, tea or something else? What do you take? How do you take it?
Natasha Pickowicz:
I have one coffee pour over every morning. I did a thing for the James Beard Foundation last year and it was sponsored by Lavazza. And so I developed this recipe for coffee for them, and to give me product to test with, sent me, I'm not joking, conservatively, 80 bags of coffee.
Kerry Diamond:
Still working through it.
Natasha Pickowicz:
So anyway, I'm still going through that. I have a couple Lavazza in the morning. I do drink a lot of tea, lot of tea. I love Kettl tea. I don't know if you've had, beautiful Japanese tea. I drink a lot of barley tea, non-caffeinated tea, but that's like a all day long kind of thing. One cup of coffee at the beginning of the day. Any more than that, I'm like, "Not doing well."
Kerry Diamond:
Treasured cookbook.
Natasha Pickowicz:
Oh wow. I've been going back to a lot, especially this time of year, end of winter, to Lindsey Shere's Chez Panisse Desserts, which I think is cannon for a lot of pastry chefs because it's organized by seasonal ingredient. The citrus section is absolutely exquisite and I get a lot of inspiration because it's a lot of kind of traditional seeming French English style desserts and puddings, but with this California emphasis on exquisite ingredients and seasonality.
Kerry Diamond:
Fave kitchen tool.
Natasha Pickowicz:
My scale. And I'm writing many essays in my book and hopes of convincing people to buy a scale. But I have like a $19 Escali scale. And I feel like if you only have one thing, the scale is going to be the thing that makes you a faster baker, a more accurate baker and a more consistent baker. I'm speaking about baking and not my savory style cooking, which is more loose. But I think that people often think, have it twisted the other way around. They're like, "Oh, baking with a scale, pain." I'm like, "No, faster. You are going to... Less clean up, faster to mix something, start to finish." So that's my hill that I die on.
Kerry Diamond:
Footwear of choice in the kitchen.
Natasha Pickowicz:
I would say I've always been a Blundstone girl even in the summer because they're not hot. So I prefer... It's like boot, so it's like a pull on tubed boot because I need my ankles protected, I want my toes covered. If I wear clogs, I don't know about you, but I will shuffle around. And I think that's something my mom would be like, "Pick up your heel. We can hear you walking around." So boots.
Kerry Diamond:
Okay. We'll jump to the last question. If you had to be trapped on a desert island with one food celebrity, who would it be and why?
Natasha Pickowicz:
Okay. I have just gotten very into, for the first time, which is insane, Top Chef. I've been tearing through it. I absolutely love it. And I feel like if I were on a desert island with Padma, she has this steely quality that where I feel like she would know what to do in a tropical setting perhaps. And also seems like she would probably be really fun to keep company with.
Kerry Diamond:
So Padma for the win. Natasha, thank you. I am such a fan. I can't thank you enough for coming on the show yet again and for all the cool things you do with the Bombesquad.
Natasha Pickowicz:
Thanks Kerry.
Kerry Diamond:
That's it for today's show. Thank you so much to Natasha Pickowicz. Follow Natasha on Instagram so you can stay up to date on all her pop-ups and other projects. I'd love for you to get a copy of the Cherry Bombe Magazine issue with Natasha on the cover. You can order a copy through cherrybombe.com or swing by your favorite bookstore, like Archestratus in Greenpoint. I know they have lots of copies because they love Natasha as much as we do. Thank you to Lenox and Foxtrot for supporting today's show. Visit lenox.com to learn more about the Victoria James Signature Series wine glass collab, and check out our giveaway on Instagram. And head over to foxtrotco.com and check out what Foxtrot is all about.
Radio Cherry Bombe is a production of Cherry Bombe Magazine. Our theme song is by the band Tralala. Thank you Joseph Hazan, studio engineer for Newsstand Studios. And thank you to our assistant producer, Jenna Sadhu. And thanks to you for listening. You are the bombe.