Sara Moulton:
I mean I still had my job at Gourmet, I was still a mother, I was still a wife, I still had a world but I had to go see a shrink to sort of get myself straight again.
V. Spehar:
Hey, Bombesquad, you're listening to Radio Cherry Bombe. I'm your guest host, V. Spehar, the host of Under the Desk News on TikTok filling in for host, Kerry Diamond, who's on vacation. We're coming to you from the Newsstands Studios at Rockefeller Center in the heart of New York City. Today's guest is Sara Moulton.
Sara is the star of the public television show Sara's Weeknight Meals, cohost of a weekly radio segment on Milk Street Radio and author of the cookbook, Home Cooking 101. Since yesterday was Julia Child's birthday, we'll also chat about the culinary icon and the upcoming documentary about Julia. Did you know that Sara worked as Julia's assistant back in the day? She did. We'll hear all about it when we welcome Sara back to Radio Cherry Bombe in just a minute.
First, we'd like to thank our sponsor, Free People. Who doesn't love Free People? So chill so stylish. Don't miss the Cherry Bombe Free People Summer Supper Club Club, featuring food stylist Mariana Velasquez and Chef Tara Thomas. Head over to the Free People's YouTube channel for Mariana and Torres plant-based recipes and to learn their tips and tricks. See how much style these to bring to the kitchen. That's the Free People on YouTube.
Some housekeeping. Speaking of Julia Child, the latest edition of Cherry Bombe is all about Julia Child. If you haven't picked up your copy yet, visit your favorite cook shop or bookstore or stop by cherrybombe.com. You can purchase a single issue of Cherry Bombe magazine or you can subscribe. Learn why Julia continues to resonate today, 109 years after her birth. Now, here's my interview with Sara Moulton.
I am so excited to finally meet you Ms. Sara Moulton. We are going to be talking today about just a whole bevy of things from women's leadership to your time with Julia Child, maybe a little tour on what's happening with the world of your television show right now. But first, I wanted to ask you, what are you up to right now? What's going on post-pandemic? Or are we out of the pandemic?
Sara Moulton:
I don't know. I don't...
V. Spehar:
Semi-out?
Sara Moulton:
Yeah, I don't know. Well, you know what? Even before the pandemic, I was sort of heading towards semi-employed, semi-retired. It doesn't mean I'm not doing things but not taking on anything new. I paired it down to TV and radio and I did a column for U of M that just went bye-bye. University of Michigan, I'm a graduate. That was fun.
V. Spehar:
Right, I remember.
Sara Moulton:
And so I paired it way down and then just started having more fun. Like many people of my age, my parents got older and then my mom died and then my dad lived alone. He was great. I spent all that time with him. And then finally, it was time to have a good time and then the pandemic hit. But it was... I think, for some people... I was lucky I didn't lose my job, I didn't lose my apartment. I was so lucky that I'm at that point in my career where we are secure.
Sara Moulton:
The husband and I actually enjoyed each other's company, didn't kill each other. My daughter moved home to go to graduate school remotely. Like everybody else, I tried to find flour and yeast and make things I'd never made before. Dinner was a highlight of the day. We did not leave the city.
V. Spehar:
I don't know how many people know but you're married to Bill Adler, of course, the famed hip hop publicist. Were you guys listening to a lot of throwback '80s, '90s hip hop?
Sara Moulton:
No, not necessarily.
V. Spehar:
No?
Sara Moulton:
That's mixed in his... He actually likes all kinds of music, oh dear, with the exception of classical but there's a few classical he likes. He even likes country which my children find baffling. But he listens to a lot of Jazz and Blues. There was just a lot of music. There always is. He's got 3,000 records.
V. Spehar:
3,000 Records?
Sara Moulton:
Yes. They line the wall.
V. Spehar:
Between his records and your cookbooks?
Sara Moulton:
Yes. We have not that much room. The good news is it's a big old loft that we bought a million years ago.
V. Spehar:
When you're at home cooking, what kind of music do you have on in the background?
Sara Moulton:
Jazz.
V. Spehar:
Jazz.
Sara Moulton:
I like many of the other genres also, but jazz is really my thing. I just love it. I need a song to have a melody. So I'm not in for the experimental stuff. It's like I'm sort of old guard, old school. John Coltrane and Miles Davis and those guys.
V. Spehar:
You know that you're my sister's favorite TV chef. She has watched-
Sara Moulton:
Your sister must be old, that's all I can say.
V. Spehar:
She's very young. When I told her that I was interviewing you she was like, "Oh my gosh, she used to put me to sleep. I would watch her and I would learn so much and then I would just peacefully go to sleep to her voice." I'm like, "That's so nice Jenny."
Sara Moulton:
Okay. So she was part of the under five set who used to watch me.
V. Spehar:
She was. She absolutely adored you and your show is coming back. Tell me about the show coming back this October. We're in season 10.
Sara Moulton:
We're in season 10. After the Food Network offed me in 2006, I started a public television show based on sort of what really mattered to me and what continues to matter to me, which is weeknight meals. Our religion in my family, my husband's Jewish and I'm brought up episcopalian and we both went to our various whatever churches and whatever.
But for me, religion is family meal. I grew up with it. He grew up with it. We've always had it, always had it. And so weeknight meals is my focus. That is what the show is, Sara's Weeknight Meals. Something I learned at the Food Network, always put your name into the title.
V. Spehar:
I hope folks are listening at home. We have done so many interviews recently of people who have worked in kitchens or exceptional home chefs and now want to move to be in front of the cameras or on the radio and building out that brand and what that means and putting your name in the show is important.
Sara Moulton:
Yeah, very important. Because it wasn't [crosstalk 00:06:45]. Yeah, but it really helps. Yeah. So anyway, we never get the funding we need.
V. Spehar:
Of course.
Sara Moulton:
Full disclosure, some of the... It's 10 episodes, and part of each episode is a rerun. But there's also new material. We shot the 10 episodes, or the new stuff in a week, which is how you have to do it with public television. There's no money, so you just bang it out.
But it was really fun. We had a wonderful young team of women who did the culinary. We had exactly one camera guy, which is crazy. He was practically hanging off the ceiling half the time taking shots. He set up two other cameras that were stationary. That's what everybody did last year when they shot their own right video or... I call them in-videos, their stuff at home. We shoot at my producer partner's house. We pretend it's mine. Because I live in Chelsea. I live in a New York City apartment. My kitchen is wonderful, but it's sort of like a railroad kitchen.
V. Spehar:
Yeah, too small to film from there.
Sara Moulton:
We couldn't shoot from there. But my producer partners house has a garden outside cheats in Riverside, Connecticut.
V. Spehar:
That's what I picture.
Sara Moulton:
Yeah, it's just gorgeous. Also I like it as a city person. I get to go sit in the garden when we have a break for a second.
V. Spehar:
Of course. I think it's interesting you say that you were doing that on a shoestring budget because it was public television. So many folks are doing things in their home, on their TikTok, on their Instagram with just their cell phone camera.
I think if anything came out of the pandemic time, it was the idea that you didn't have to be so produced and that you could be closer to your audience. Is that the vibe you're putting out now?
Sara Moulton:
I couldn't agree with you more. We've always been that way. Since I left the Food Network, as they offed my first show... I survived a few more years of cooking live because they didn't like the production values. They wanted it to be fancier because they'd gotten fancier. Rather than upping the production values, they just lost the show.
But no, we've always been warm and friendly and down to earth and it's not scripted. I just say what I want, which is sometimes a problem because I go [inaudible 00:08:58]. And we have lots of guests. I had two new guests this time. One of them Airis Johnson, Airis the Chef, who has a spice line who's worked with people like Gordon Ramsay and Still Standing.
V. Spehar:
Wow.
Sara Moulton:
She's an amazing chef. She's also done some work in South Africa in the school, culinary school. She was a lot of fun. She's from New Orleans. So we made Jambalaya.
V. Spehar:
I love that. I think people are looking for that. We had the Gods of Food issues of a couple years ago. Now folks aren't maybe looking to be screamed at all the time or I don't know that we're looking for brigade anymore. I don't know if it ever worked that well in the first place. It did, but for everybody?
Sara Moulton:
It's just so not necessary.
V. Spehar:
Yeah.
Sara Moulton:
No.
V. Spehar:
We're not orphan French boys. We're not going to do a brigade.
Sara Moulton:
No.
V. Spehar:
We could do better than that. We're highly trained now.
Sara Moulton:
I think so. And we're human. That's the point. You can do this in a human way.
V. Spehar:
What is your thought on the rise of the Instagram chef?
Sara Moulton:
Back to my problems because I was part of the old guard at the women's culinary lines from the point of view, this is how we've always done things. I'm trying to embrace technology. There's something to be said about somebody who's really telegenic and really fun and can do a recipe and can get somebody else cooking. I think that's great. If that is indeed what they're doing, hopefully is they give credit to where it came from, I'm fine with it. I think it's great.
V. Spehar:
Yeah, as long as you're saying it upfront. Like the Julia and Julia story, right? Like that woman in that movie was cooking her way through the cookbook. She was honest about that in the first place and she was very clearly the front side of that, enjoying it, living through that.
Sara Moulton:
Yes, yes. Actually, if she hadn't written that blog that hadn't turned into the book, that hadn't turned into the movie, I don't think people would know Julia, young people would know who Julia was as well as they do now. Of course, we've evolved. There's new movies.
Sara Moulton:
Cherry Bombe just did that fantastic issue. That whole initiative around Julia was so heartwarming because Julia was the original.
V. Spehar:
She was.
Sara Moulton:
She was so authentic in that what you saw on TV was who she was. That was so refreshing. But anyway, yeah, no, so Julie Powell did that. Even though Julia Child was not happy about it, it really was a great thing in the end.
V. Spehar:
It's a good representation of like if you're going to do it, this is a good avenue at least tell people, you know what you're up to and understanding the difference between maybe television and social media talent as a personality, as a culinary personality, which is something we've only really had what? In the last like decade and a half or so?
Sara Moulton:
Yeah.
V. Spehar:
Those are two decades, this idea of culinary media personality over being just a chef, just a chef, a real chef and wanting to be... Everybody wants to be in the kitchen. Everybody wants to be the.... But people like to feed other people. That's a huge part of it.
Sara Moulton:
Yes.
V. Spehar:
And it is beautiful and creative and interesting and wonderful. But getting that education on where things came from is so important. It's also understanding the rise and release of culinary world. You could be real hot one day, and then that dish and that cuisine is not cool anymore and we're back down and we have to reinvent and recreate. It doesn't mean you failed, it means it's a fluid industry. We're constantly reinventing.
Sara Moulton:
It is so fluid. When I had my show on the Food Network, particularly the cooking live show, so it was actually live live. It was an hour, it was initially five nights a week and then it was four nights a week after the first nine months because it was just exhausting.
But so many people were discovered on my show. Everybody wanted to be on my show and I had to be very wary of do they like me or did they just... Which is fine. But at anyway, I used to say to all of them because I could see the eyes light up like, "Wow, maybe this is going to go somewhere. This went pretty well." I tell them and the ones who also look like maybe something's going to happen, "Keep your day job. You must keep your day job. TV is so Mercurial, you're only as good as your last ratings. And this too will pass. It passes for everybody."
I have to say, even though I gave that really, really sage advice to every person, when the Food Network dumped me, I was devastated. Devastated. I still had my job at Gourmet, I was still a mother, I was still a wife, I still had a world but I had to go see a shrink to sort of get myself straight again.
V. Spehar:
It's something that we talk about in the TikTok world also, because the kids are so young and they achieve a level of fame so quickly off of something that oftentimes was flipping because there's not a lot of editing or production that goes into... There's some industry plans like anywhere. But a lot of these kids are getting a million followers straight off and then comes like the small trickle of money and this recognition and being seen as so important to humanity in general, that when it's happening, it's so exciting that those kids don't have any training on what rejection feels like and how to manage rejection. I don't handle it well and I'm almost 40 years old.
Sara Moulton:
Well, I didn't handle it well. It's hard to be rejected.
V. Spehar:
Of course.
Sara Moulton:
Even if you thought you were keeping yourself straight throughout the whole thing and navigating it well.
V. Spehar:
It will come to everyone.
Sara Moulton:
It will.
V. Spehar:
Everyone gets rejected at some point. Everybody doesn't get that part they wanted or their dish doesn't come out right or something happens. There's always going to be another opportunity as long as you stay persistent and resilient, but man, it is food media... I think we see a lot of chefs who want to get into it and a lot of chefs who will say like in some ways, it ruined them because they weren't cooking in their kitchen anymore. They got disconnected from their food because they were appeasing essentially that industry call for what's in season, what's the trend?
Sara Moulton:
Yeah. You're so right.
V. Spehar:
Just tied to advertising of course.
Sara Moulton:
You're so right. No, you're so right. Absolutely. I agree.
V. Spehar:
Tale as old as time.
Sara Moulton:
Yeah.
V. Spehar:
Talking about things that never change, summer flavors, the best, most fun time to cook because you've got everything available to you. Tell me, what are you cooking this summer?
Sara Moulton:
Corn and tomatoes, corn and tomatoes, corn and tomatoes with maybe a pause for zucchini. Although, I think zucchini is one of the blandest, most boring vegetables on the planet but I know how to get the best out of it.
V. Spehar:
Tell me about zucchini.
Sara Moulton:
Well, it's watery, like most vegetables but even more so. So you need to get the water out. What I generally do, well two different things. One is if I'm going to add it to a recipe, I salt it first. Either I grate it, salt it, drain it, squeeze it and then proceed.
When I drain it, it's like for 20 minutes. There's so much liquid comes out. Or let's say I'm going to grill it. I'll slice it, salt it, pat it dry, then grill it. Just get that water out first. Or another favorite way to cook it and most people won't do this at home because they're scared as they should be about deep frying is I batter it and fry it and I love that. I love doing zucchini blossoms stuffed with yummy cheese and beer batter and deep fried.
And I don't have a deep fryer, so I'm not about having a good deep fat thermometer, big pot, only two inches of oil, keep it way below 400 because if you need a high smoke point, blah, blah, blah, all that stuff.
So that's the sort of things I do with zucchini but corn and tomatoes, corn and tomatoes, corn and tomatoes. Yeah, particularly tomatoes. It's so exciting. It's funny because I do Milk Street Radio with Chris Campbell.
V. Spehar:
Of course, yeah.
Sara Moulton:
We answer questions from people, which is so much fun.
V. Spehar:
Yeah.
Sara Moulton:
My god!
V. Spehar:
You're one of the few though that does live answer questions.
Sara Moulton:
Well, you never know where it's going to go. But what I love, people are so much more sophisticated than they used to be. They call in and say, "Well, I've just been given a whole steer and I'm breaking it down. What should I do with a blah, blah, blah?" I'm like, "What?"
V. Spehar:
Call the butcher?
Sara Moulton:
But when I do radio with Chris, he'll say something that drives me crazy on purpose. Like, "Black pepper is overrated. The French add it to everything, why bother? I think there's so many more exciting things." I'm like, "Well, no. I like black pepper." Or he'll say, "Garlic is too strong. You should only ever add it as a whole clove and then take it out." I'm like, "No." I think the problem is the garlic is not fresh as we buy it in the supermarket. So that's another ingredient that I love buying at farmer's markets, it's fresh garlic, the hard neck that is just so much fresher. But he'll also say things like, "And I haven't had a good tomato in years." And I'll be like, "Chris!"
V. Spehar:
You've got to get out.
Sara Moulton:
I do believe they're still out there in season which is really late July, August into September, but tomatoes just float my boat. But back to salt.
V. Spehar:
Yes.
Sara Moulton:
I don't add a tomato to a salad unless I season it first.
V. Spehar:
Really?
Sara Moulton:
Salt it. Yeah. And so even if it's cherry tomatoes, I cut them in half and salt them.
V. Spehar:
Wow.
Sara Moulton:
Kosher salt. And let them sit and then pat them dry and they won't taste salty, they'll just taste more tomatoey.
V. Spehar:
I'm going to do that.
Sara Moulton:
If I add, I love making tomato tart. I have one tomato mozzarella basil with a bacon pressed. So you cut beefsteak tomatoes, a third of an inch, second, you salt them and let them drain and then you make the crust and you roll it out and you blind bake it. And then you take ricotta, basil and whisk it up with some herbs if you want. Oh well it's basil. What am I saying? It's tons of basil. So it's green. And then you add some Parmesan and mozzarella and then you put the tomatoes, pat it dry in the bottom and then that with an egg in it too, the ricotta mixture and then more tomatoes on top and you bake it. It's so good.
V. Spehar:
I understand that Julia Child is an early mentor of yours. How did you get to meet her?
Sara Moulton:
I was the luckiest person on the planet. It was 1978 and I was the chef manager of a catering operation in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
V. Spehar:
We love a caterer.
Sara Moulton:
Yes. And Julia lived in Cambridge. One day, we were appealing a million hard boiled eggs for some event and I started talking to the person I was working with, Barrett Pratt, her name was I will never forget because she was so important. As it turns out, she also I later found out was the daughter of one of my dad's oldest friends from childhood. That was a weird connection.
V. Spehar:
Wow.
Sara Moulton:
Yeah. Anyway, I was talking about how Julio hard boiled eggs which is not to boil them. And she said, "Well, I know Julia. I'm a volunteer on her public television show." So I said, "Well, do you think she'd like another volunteer?" Barrett said, "Well, I don't know. We're just about to shoot another season. Let me go ask her." So she came in the next day and she said, "I told Julia all about you and she wants to hire you."
V. Spehar:
Wow.
Sara Moulton:
I said, "What? She wants to pay me? She doesn't even know me." She said, "So I told her all about you. Go call her." So I went down corner payphone, Julia was listed. So anybody could call her at any time for any reason and believe me, they did at Thanksgiving.
V. Spehar:
I bet.
Sara Moulton:
She'd have to talk them off the ledge because they would be doing stupid things like leaving their turkey in a heated garage for three days before doing anything else with it.
So anyway she answered and she said, "Oh dear. I heard all about you. Do you food style?" Back then, food styling wasn't the codified art that it is now. It's one of the few places in the industry you can actually make money. So I did some fast thinking. I thought well, at my first restaurant job, everybody said I garnished the plate nicely.
At this catering place, we just did cold poached decorated salmon for 700, I think it looked pretty good. I used to do watercolors in high school, so what did I say? What would you have said?
V. Spehar:
Absolutely.
Sara Moulton:
"Yes, I'm really good."
V. Spehar:
Classically trained.
Sara Moulton:
So I got hired. I think the reason she... The problem was the person who usually did the food styling, her friend, couldn't make it till midway through the taping, which was three months. Only three days a week. I don't know why. She thought since I had gone to the CIA, that I probably knew how to do it. Of course, I didn't. But we hit it off right off the bat. She was like Jacques Pépin, another, I guess, mentor is the word. She felt like a buddy. She felt like a mother. She felt like a sister. She was just fantastic.
So I wasn't the only... And she couldn't have kids. I was one of her kids. I was no spring chicken. I was in my late 20s at that point. But she mentored a lot of people, but that experience set up a lifelong relationship so that I ended up working at Good Morning America doing all the prep for all the chefs because of Julia, because I worked with her there.
And because of that, I ended up on air as their food editor. So I worked there for 20 years. It all was because of Julia. I'm pretty sure the reason the Food Network reached out to me in... They first reached out to me in like '94 was because of Julia. The job I got in New York, the great restaurant job was because of Julia. When I was at Gourmet, I think one of the reasons the editor-in-chief at the time actually hated Julia but loved the idea of hiring me because I'd worked for Julia. She opened so many doors, but she was also so much fun and she loved my husband. She loved men. She was horrible at flirt. Yeah. Which is fine.
V. Spehar:
Yeah.
Sara Moulton:
So she was just the best.
V. Spehar:
I love the way you talk about her and even Jacques Pépin and I would throw in Natalie Dupree, that class of chefs and what they were doing for the food world, bringing it into America's kitchens, into the home of people who like you said they didn't know what a Panko bread crumb was. Who did? Was just so nurturing, so generous, opened every door they could for anyone who wanted to walk through them, just believed in them straight off. I hope that we're starting to see that again, with the ways that we're building these communities of women, especially, who are leaving the door open for more and more people and getting away again from that bad boy, you're lucky to even be here situation.
V. Spehar:
It feels like the pandemic accelerated, for me at least like these pockets of awesomeness and Boston is one of them, still an incredible town for women and chefs.
Sara Moulton:
There are a lot of women chefs there.
V. Spehar:
Yeah, you've got them... Like lots of great chefs up there that are women. When you were there with Julio, were you guys going out to restaurants? What was the day in the life like?
Sara Moulton:
Well, first of all, so we worked on the set. I could only work two out of the three days because I started a job as a chef at a restaurant. So I worked seven days a week for three months. But on top of that, what we would do is and we would stop every day and have lunch on the set. That was fun. We'd set the table with flatware and glasses, we'd have a little aperitif before lunch and then wine with lunch and things went very slowly in the afternoon.
We also were developing the recipes as we did the show, which is unheard of.
V. Spehar:
Wow.
Sara Moulton:
I don't get it. But aside from what we did there and that was really fun, and Julia would have friends come like Carl Santa or the guy who invented the Cuisinart would come and other people would come and chefs would come and they'd hang out with us at lunch, it was fun. But she'd do dinner parties at our house. That was fantastic. For me, it was a little challenging because the kitchen, which is in the Smithsonian was designed for her size.
I'm five, she's 6'3. She was 6'3. Her niece corrected me I said 6'2 at some speech, I was doing. She was 6'3. All the counters came up to my chin, the knives... As you know, everything was hanging on the walls were way up. It was a little challenging, but we would throw these dinner parties and it wasn't, would you me and her and some other people from the set who she was friends with and we'd all cook together and she'd put out a little bowl of goldfish because she... Pepperidge Farm goldfish because-
V. Spehar:
Hot stuff.
Sara Moulton:
Yeah, because she sometimes didn't feel like making [inaudible 00:28:43]. And then more people would come. We'd all have some nice wine and have a wonderful raucous dinner. And then, we'd all retire to the living room and watch Dan Aykroyd do the Julia Child imitation. She loved it.
V. Spehar:
Loved that.
Sara Moulton:
Yes.
V. Spehar:
I love that. That is fun. Because she didn't love a lot of impersonations, right?
Sara Moulton:
No. She might be mad at me for the one I did a minute ago.
V. Spehar:
I thought it was pretty spot on.
Sara Moulton:
I thought was pretty good, I worry sometimes. But the other thing we did is we'd go out to dinner. That was fun, huh? Both there or if when she was in New York and she inevitably... Everybody knew, everybody would stop. She was so gracious. She talked to anybody at any time for any reason at great length and wanted to know all about them.
She never talked about herself. But what I also love, we go into a restaurant and if it had an open kitchen or even if it didn't and they wanted to give her tour and she went in she didn't see women, she would give the chef a hard time. I loved that about her.
V. Spehar:
That's how you have to do it though, right?
Sara Moulton:
Yep. Yep. Yep.
V. Spehar:
What do you think was Julia's favorite food? If you were to guess for her, what were you guys eating the most of?
Sara Moulton:
I know what her favorite food was because she was pretty fixed.
V. Spehar:
What was it?
Sara Moulton:
French.
V. Spehar:
French.
Sara Moulton:
And then Italian and then Chinese and that was about it.
V. Spehar:
That was it.
Sara Moulton:
I have to say she was not really open to new ingredients and cuisines. New ingredients if they were fit into her world but never got into Southeast Asian cooking, not much Mexican cooking, thought grilled food tastes burnt.
V. Spehar:
Hey. You're not wrong sometimes.
Sara Moulton:
I know. I know.
V. Spehar:
The health craze, was it worth it?
Sara Moulton:
Yeah. God. That was the funniest thing. Do we have time for me to tell you a story?
V. Spehar:
Yeah.
Sara Moulton:
I forget what year it was. But it was the height of the anti fat thing, don't eat any fat at any time for any reason. I was at the IACP Conference, International Association of Culinary Professionals Conference, I think it was in Philadelphia. And we were sitting in a big room. It was lunchtime, many, many big tables in a ballroom and somebody from the… Board had just talked about the other white meat because they had been breeding pork to have no fat anymore and saying how bad fat was and this and that and this and that and then they sat down and the moderator said, "Is there any questions?"
Julia raised her hand and said, "I just don't understand what is so terribly wrong with batter. I just love batter." I just about crawled under the table. I don't remember what happened after that. But hey, she was right. Years later, we come to find that actually, that whole anti... In the New York Times, there was an article a couple years ago and I suspected it at the time. Because what people did when they stopped eating fat, fat is a conductor of flavor.
Anytime you add fat to a recipe, it just tastes better because there's fat in there. When you remove fat, you're removing flavor. What do people do? They went and reached for the box of snack wells and ate the whole box because they were so desperate. So they got hooked on sugar. I date that is the beginning of the obesity era. This is I guess, late '80s or whatever it was.
V. Spehar:
Or sauce extra things with sugar and stuff and-
Sara Moulton:
Yes, sugar just crept into absolutely everything because all the labels had fat grams and fat content. They didn't address sugar at all. That was sort of like what you were looking for. Calories, they didn't care about them just fat. The New York Times had an article that the sugar board talked a couple of leading doctors at some reputable institution, I will not name to write an article saying that fat was what caused heart attacks, strokes, obesity, all those things. And so the sugar people benefited and look at where we are now.
V. Spehar:
I know. It's an important thing to note and definitely something that folks should dive into more if you're interested, that connection between big agriculture, a lot of the problems we have in the food supply chain and systems and the politics that surrounded it and who did get rich during that time and who's still in the Senate that got rich during that time. Do we still have the same problems because of that, but that'll be a whole nother scandalous episode.
Sara Moulton:
Yes.
V. Spehar:
People love Julia Child. She's very much having a moment. The documentary is coming out. If you were going to watch the documentary, what would you cook for that night? Like what would be the best immersive experience to have a house party like Julia used to and watch the story about her life?
Sara Moulton:
Well, here's the thing, I wouldn't eat and watch Julia because she wouldn't do that.
V. Spehar:
Fair.
Sara Moulton:
We'd have goldfish and champagne.
V. Spehar:
Yes.
Sara Moulton:
And then maybe I'd make... My husband loves ducks, so I might as well make two people happy, Julia in heaven and the husband. So I invented this recipe when I was a chef in Boston called [inaudible 00:33:42]. My husband's name is William and I don't even think it's proper French. So it means duck good William. And it's like with duck. Except that the duck is roasted, not stewed.
But it's got Pearl onions and carrots and red wine sauce and garlic like crazy and thyme. And so then the husband would be happy and then I'd make something ooey gooey with potatoes like maybe potato gratin. And then I don't know, some sort of nice green vegetable and a salad.
For dessert, something chocolatey. But no, we wouldn't eat it while we watched. We would have goldfish and champagne. She loved champagne.
V. Spehar:
Lots of folks are cooking at home now. Lots of people don't know how to build flavors. You have a cookbook that's been out since like 2016. But it's still available for folks. They can get it tonight. Home Cooking 101: How to Make Everything Taste Better.
Sara Moulton:
Yes.
V. Spehar:
Tell me about it.
Sara Moulton:
Okay. Well, it's my fourth cookbook and it's departure because I was focusing on weeknight meals and getting dinner on the table quickly. And then I thought finally I'm going to do a real teaching book. Because I'm old. I've been in the industry over 40 years.
V. Spehar:
Well seasoned, well seasoned.
Sara Moulton:
Thank you, I like that better. I'm well seasoned. I'll use that from now on. Anyway, so it's a teaching book. I start with sort of the 10 top things you need to know. And a lot of it has to... Salt is a big thing. I talk about how important it is to have a really good knife.
You need to get to know your stove, you need to know... Use all of your senses when you're cooking, all of them. So let's say you're making a stew that... You're making it on top of the stove, so you can hear that it's vaguely bubbling. You decide to go sit down and read the New York Times on Sunday morning, which sounds so wonderful, doesn't it?
V. Spehar:
Sure, it does.
Sara Moulton:
You sit down and suddenly you hear this frantic bubbling, get up and turn down the stove. But likewise, when you put say a steak in a pan and you want to get a nice sear on it, you want to hear that [inaudible 00:35:49] when it gets in the pan. You can also see that the oil is hot enough because it starts shimmering, so use all your senses.
I talk about if something's too salty, which is very hard, you can only add more water, but too sweet, too acid, too spicy, how do you balance it and there's so many different ways. There's all of that. It's sort of tools, general tools, general things to think about when you're cooking and also how not to waste food which is such a huge issue. And then I have... It's almost, I do have a vegetable chapter, I do have a dessert chapter. But mostly it's all entrée, which is always what I focus on.
Because I don't do courses for dinner, I do dinner. I have a quick and quicker chapter and then I have things that take more time, I have one pot meals. I have like 10 guests in there and I also have a whole chapter on Thanksgiving. Because for years, when I worked a Good Morning America, I worked on Thanksgiving. We weren't going anywhere anyway, because it's the worst day to travel.
Every year, I'd make turkey a different way. So I could report a different way to make it. I had all sorts of ideas about how to make a heads and ratios and gravies and lots of things. That is a very useful chapter all by itself. It was really... There's lots of photos and there's tons of how-to photos.
V. Spehar:
That is very helpful.
Sara Moulton:
Including a few tricks. If you want to make a French apple tart that looks like a rose, I've got a trick for you.
V. Spehar:
I'm going to get this book and I feel like I should have learned that by now. But I'm like, "No, no. This is how we're going to learn." It sounds like a great book for kids even, like so many of my friends children are eight, nine years old and they're like little baby culinarians. They want to know how to do everything. They speak the language. They're seeing it on YouTube, they're seeing it on the television and they want to have that hands on experience, which I just think is the coolest thing.
Sara Moulton:
Yes. Yes.
V. Spehar:
So teaching them home cooking, we don't need to teach everyone like how to cook in a restaurant. So much of how we're going to feed ourselves is going to be things you learn in this book, it sounds like.
Sara Moulton:
I hope. Yes. Yes.
V. Spehar:
Chef Sara.
Sara Moulton:
Mm-hmm.
V. Spehar:
It is time for the speed round.
Sara Moulton:
Okay.
V. Spehar:
All right. I'm going to ask you a couple of questions and you just give me right from your gut what you think. Here we go. What food trend do you wish would just end?
Sara Moulton:
Oh god. Gluten-free if you're not gluten-free.
V. Spehar:
Yes.
Sara Moulton:
If you don't need to be.
V. Spehar:
I love that. What is the most under appreciated spice in the pantry?
Sara Moulton:
Does it need to be an obvious one?
V. Spehar:
No.
Sara Moulton:
Tarragon.
V. Spehar:
Tarragon. Do you cook at home still?
Sara Moulton:
Every night.
V. Spehar:
Every night. What is your most requested dish?
Sara Moulton:
Braised short ribs with beef.
V. Spehar:
Yeah.
Sara Moulton:
It requires one bottle of red wine for four people in the recipe, just for the recipe.
V. Spehar:
Not for when you're cooking it? That's a whole another bottle?
Sara Moulton:
No, no, no, no, no. We have a bottle with it afterwards.
V. Spehar:
Of course. Is there anything that you won't eat?
Sara Moulton:
No.
V. Spehar:
No?
Sara Moulton:
Well, no. Wait a second. I'm not sure. I might eat a bug if I was in the right place right time with the right people. So no.
V. Spehar:
Chocolate-covered grasshopper.
Sara Moulton:
Maybe. I hear they're crunchy.
V. Spehar:
They were pretty good.
Sara Moulton:
Oh, you have?
V. Spehar:
I had. I had to cover something for The Economist once and they were pushing cricket protein and I had to enthusiastically eat it. Thanks Economist. Is there anyone in your family who thinks that they can out-cook you?
Sara Moulton:
No.
V. Spehar:
No.
Sara Moulton:
No. No. Not at all.
V. Spehar:
Who's the best cook second to you?
Sara Moulton:
My son, Sam.
V. Spehar:
Sam.
Sara Moulton:
Yeah, Sam the Man. But all of them when I did my cookbooks, I did all four at home, meaning we tested them at home. They were my testing team, tasting team.
V. Spehar:
I love that.
Sara Moulton:
I created monsters. So now I make a casual dinner and they'll say, "I think this needs to be pointed up. I think you needed to reduce this more. Where's the acid?"
V. Spehar:
You're like, "That's done bud."
Sara Moulton:
Yeah, yeah. "Just dinner, just eat it." But no, my son Sam's really good.
V. Spehar:
Shout out to Sam. If you could have dinner with one person, dead or alive, not Julia Child, who would it be?
Sara Moulton:
Oh, dear. Nancy Pelosi.
V. Spehar:
Okay. We can make that happen, I feel like.
Sara Moulton:
I don't know about that. Actually-
V. Spehar:
We can go to Georgetown. A little chocolate ice cream with Nance in the morning.
Sara Moulton:
She's a little busy.
V. Spehar:
She's a little busy, that's true. She doesn't eat much either, but she does love chocolate ice cream.
Sara Moulton:
Yeah, she does.
V. Spehar:
We can get maybe a little dessert with Nancy.
Sara Moulton:
Yeah.
V. Spehar:
Is there a dish from your past that someone made you that you wish you could have just one more time?
Sara Moulton:
That I haven't been able to recreate?
V. Spehar:
Yeah.
Sara Moulton:
No, because I mostly have. Many recipes die with the grandmother. But we have the recipes from the grandmother. I will tell you one recipe and anybody is welcome to try to help me to get it, the green sauce at Pio Pio.
V. Spehar:
Okay.
Sara Moulton:
The rotisserie chicken. That comes with this amazing green sauce. I've tried twice in two different cookbooks to replicate it, which meant I tried it and tried it and tried it and tried it. That's not the question you asked.
V. Spehar:
No, it is about the green sauce.
Sara Moulton:
Yeah, from Pio Pio.
V. Spehar:
And of course the most important and divisive question in the culinary industry of all time, is a hot dog sandwich?
Sara Moulton:
I don't care, but I love hot dogs.
V. Spehar:
I do too.
Sara Moulton:
All I ate till I was nine was hot dogs.
V. Spehar:
Yeah. Do you have a brand?
Sara Moulton:
No. What should I like? I haven't been eating them in recent years because I'm a little scared of them. But anytime I'm at an event and they have them, I will eat one and I will be so happy. Tell me a brand.
V. Spehar:
I grew up on Hummel Brother Hotdogs, which is a small brand in Connecticut. The Butcher Girls, Jocelyn and Erica, they're Cherry Bombe darlings. They have a line of cured meats, they have hot dogs, Kielbasa.
Sara Moulton:
Oh, I love that too.
V. Spehar:
They have an incredible line of products and they're inspired to be like safe foods for their daughter. It's a hot dog, but it's a really high quality beauty hot dog and we're going to get you some Butcher Girls all time. Split top bun or no?
Sara Moulton:
Sure.
V. Spehar:
Yeah. Yeah. Batter on both sides.
Sara Moulton:
Yeah, do it. Like lobster rolls. Yeah.
V. Spehar:
Absolutely.
Sara Moulton:
Yeah. That's New England. Did you know that?
V. Spehar:
I did.
Sara Moulton:
The split top is native to the Eastern states.
V. Spehar:
Yes.
Sara Moulton:
Yeah.
V. Spehar:
Growing up in Connecticut with teenage parents, I knew a lot about hot dogs and buns.
Sara Moulton:
Yeah. Good thing to know.
V. Spehar:
Sara, it was so fun chatting with you.
Sara Moulton:
Thank you so much for having me on.
V. Spehar:
Thank you.
Sara Moulton:
I really appreciate it.
V. Spehar:
I hope that you enjoyed your time here. Did we settle it, is a hot dog a sandwich?
Sara Moulton:
No.
V. Spehar:
No.
Sara Moulton:
No. It's in a world of itself of its own.
V. Spehar:
It's a whole own dish.
Sara Moulton:
It is.
V. Spehar:
All right. We'll give it reverence. Thanks so much there.
Sara Moulton:
Thank you.
V. Spehar:
Thank you so much to Sara Moulton, the star of Sara's Weeknight Meals. Be sure to pick up a copy of Sara's latest book, Home Cooking 101. Thank you to Free People for supporting today's show. Don't miss the Cherry Bombe and Free People Summer Supper Club. It has been an honor to fill in for Kerry this week. I have had the most fun hanging out with Joe and Audrey in the studio and I really look forward to coming back again.
Radio Cherry Bombe is a production of Cherry Bombe Magazine. Want some more Cherry Bombe in your life? Sign up for our newsletter at cherrybombe.com. Love this episode? You can find radio Cherry Bombe interviews with other food media icons, including Yotam Ottolenghi and Nigella Lawson, wherever you get your podcasts.
Radio Cherry Bombe is recorded at Newsstand Studios at Rockefeller Center in New York City. Thank you to Joe Hazan, studio engineer for Newsstand Studios and our assistant producer, Jenna Sadhu. Thanks for listening everybody. You're the bombe.
Harry From When Harry Met Sally:
I'll have what she's having.