Sohla El-Waylly Transcript
Kerry Diamond:
Hi, everyone. You are listening to Radio Cherry Bombe, and I'm your host, Kerry Diamond, coming to you from Newsstand Studios at Rockefeller Center in New York City. I'm the founder and editor of Cherry Bombe Magazine. And each week, I talk to the most interesting women and culinary creatives in and round the world of food.
Today's guest is Sohla El-Waylly, video star, home cook champ, current Cherry Bombe Magazine cover star, and a new mom. Sohla's debut cookbook, “Start Here: Instructions for Becoming a Better Cook,” drops tomorrow. I'm so happy to welcome Sohla back to our show. And just a note, our interview was recorded before her baby arrived. Sohla talked to me from the comfort of her kitchen. Stay tuned for our chat.
If you are a Sohla fan and want to hear from her in person, she'll be at Cherry Bombe's Cooks and Books Festival on Saturday, November 11th at Ace Hotel Brooklyn. She's part of a panel called Mom's the Bombe that's all about motherhood, kids in the kitchen, family meal, and more. All tickets are $20. Snag yours at cherrybombe.com. No babysitter, no problem. Kids are welcome. You can check out the full lineup for Cooks and Books at cherrybombe.com. If you'd like to make a weekend of it and stay at Ace Hotel Brooklyn, use code CherryB for 15% off when booking at acehotel.com.
Today's show is supported by the Republic of Tea and its new collection of premium dessert teas, Theo and Thea. You might not know this about me, but I love tea. I start and end my day with tea, and I love a little midday sip, herbal, green, black, even fresh herb tisanes. I've often thought it would be amazing to go to tea school and learn even more about this beautiful beverage. That is true. But until then, I'm happy to enjoy the most interesting teas around. That includes Theo and Thea from the Republic of Tea. Theo and Thea is dessert reimagined, and the most indulgent tea yet from the Republic of Tea. The four Theo and Thea flavors are inspired by classic nostalgic desserts, caramel coconut, bananas foster, blood orange spice, and my favorite, mint chip creme. I just had some of that last night. The teas contain two sustainably sourced superfoods that have been used for millennia to lift one's spirits, premium tea and cacao. The cacao delivers theobromine while the tea leaves supply L-theanine. Each flavor can be steeped and enjoyed warm or poured over ice. And of course, you can use a splash of your favorite milk for a flavorful tea latte. Shop, explore, and learn more at republicoftea.com. Discover hundreds of great tasting teas you can feel good about.
Now, let's check in with Sohla. Sohla El-Waylly, welcome back to Radio Cherry Bombe.
Sohla El-Waylly:
Hey, thanks for having me.
Kerry Diamond:
Let's jump right in. “Start here: Instructions for Becoming a Better Cook,” why that title?
Sohla El-Waylly:
Why that title? I really wanted a book that I would've wanted when I started cooking. Because in the beginning, everything is so scary and new and intimidating, and I really wanted to demystify stuff, but I feel like it's a good book even if you aren't a beginner and you just want to dig a little deeper because it's all about getting into the technical stuff and the science. And I know everyday cooking, maybe you don't need to know the science of protein coagulation, but I think knowing a little bit more can make you feel more confident and capable of coming up with your own dishes and cooking on the fly. And the goal is ultimately to get people to cook without recipes.
Kerry Diamond:
I am always struck by how attached people are to recipes. They love a recipe.
Sohla El-Waylly:
Well, I did not grow up with recipes. My mom is an amazing home cook, but she cooks completely from intuition. She started cooking by making her mother's recipes, which helped her develop a lot of skills in the kitchen. And then after that, she just became this very skilled technician. We'd eat out, she can taste everything that's in something and come home and recreate it, and she never used a recipe. But I want to teach people how to cook like that. Because when you really understand technique and flavors and how things work, you don't need to look at a recipe anymore.
Kerry Diamond:
You said this is a book that you wish you had when you started cooking. When did you start cooking?
Sohla El-Waylly:
I started cooking with my mom as early as I can remember. She said that she would just have me in a high chair rolling out dough, or she'd give me a little dull knife to do some prep work. I've been cooking from day one, but I didn't really professionally start cooking until I was older, obviously, but it's been something that's always been a part of my life.
Kerry Diamond:
What was your first professional chef gig?
Sohla El-Waylly:
The first time I was on a line and actually cooking was at a pub when I was in college. Before that, I worked in different chain restaurants, but it was more like plating stuff or washing dishes, or bussing tables. But the first time I was actually cooking cooking on a line was at this pub called The Fox and Hounds on Ventura Boulevard. They were the only people who would let me be on a line. I did like the whole door to door thing, got rejected by everybody. But my first really fancy a New York City kitchen experience was at Del Posto. So there are very different experiences, but I learned a lot from every single kitchen I've been in.
Kerry Diamond:
Okay. Here's the big reveal. Tell everybody how many pages are in this book?
Sohla El-Waylly:
Oh, I don't remember.
Kerry Diamond:
Stop, yes you do.
Sohla El-Waylly:
I think it's over 600.
Kerry Diamond:
I'll help you. I think it's 625 pages.
Sohla El-Waylly:
Okay. Yeah. There you go.
Kerry Diamond:
You don't seem phased by the fact that your book is that big, but it is almost three times the size of a regular cookbook.
Sohla El-Waylly:
Yeah, that wasn't intentional. My publisher was very flexible, and they just let me write. And I was really worried about length in the beginning. And they were like, "No, just keep writing. Just keep going." And it was actually longer than this. I'm the one that pushed to make the cuts. I think we lost 40,000 words, which I think it's okay. At first, I was a little worried about cutting so much, but too much information can be intimidating.
Kerry Diamond:
I'm just curious, how long has this book been in your brain? And how has it evolved over time?
Sohla El-Waylly:
I never thought I would be writing a book, honestly, because I didn't plan for my career to go in this direction. I always was really just focused on wanting to be in a restaurant and own a restaurant. I wasn't thinking about it as a book for very long, but it's all stuff that I've learned throughout my whole career. So it's my whole life experience, but distilling all of that into a book happened within 18 months.
Kerry Diamond:
From start to finish, it was an 18-month project.
Sohla El-Waylly:
Yes. But the first full year, I wasn't writing anything. I was just doing lots of research and having really panicked phone calls with my editor, and he would just hear me, because I would go really deep into something like, too deep. I would spend a week reading about rice, and then I would just talk to him about rice. And then he was like, "Okay, cool." And then he was very, very nice because he would just let me talk at him for a long time. And then it took me a while to let all of that information settle in my brain, and then the writing happened in about three months.
Kerry Diamond:
My jaw's on the floor. That's amazing, because you've been busy. You've had so many projects, you've done collabs. You did “The Big Brunch” on HBO, which we all loved. You've had a very busy productive few years, so I'm so curious how you tucked in the writing of such a significant book.
Sohla El-Waylly:
I think that for me, whenever I'm working on something, it's better for me to be busy. Because if I'm actively thinking about something, I overthink it. So there was a lot of passive thinking about stuff. Maybe I'd have a month shoot at “The Big Brunch,” and then you finish your 12-hour day and not think about the book at all, and then come back to my apartment and suddenly be like, "This is what the egg chapter should be." I think it's really nice when things just kind of marinate, and then the writing happens quite quickly, for me at least.
Kerry Diamond:
You've also got dogs to walk. You've got so much going on over there, Sohla. Let's talk about the foreword to the book, everybody's favorite. Samin Nosrat wrote the foreword. Why did you ask Samin to contribute that?
Sohla El-Waylly:
I didn't even ask her to write the foreword. She wanted to write it. And I was like, "Okay, cool." We weren't even planning on having a foreword, and the fact that she wanted to write it, I was really excited and surprised and honored, because I don't think she's written another foreword. So I was like, "Okay, awesome." Because I think in the beginning when I was talking to publishers about this book, I used her book as an example of what I really wanted. I wanted it to be like a cross between Samin Nosrat's book and Kenji's “The Food Lab,” and I feel like we kind of got that.
Kerry Diamond:
To have your book in between those two books. You have those three books, what else do you really need?
Sohla El-Waylly:
Nothing. Oh, "On Food and Cooking." I remember that book.
Kerry Diamond:
That's a good one. Are you a cookbook collector?
Sohla El-Waylly:
Oh, yeah. Yeah, definitely. It's different now. Now that I'm in the author space, people just send me books all the time, which is nice, but also, it kind of takes away some of the specialness of it because cookbooks are expensive. So him and I would spend... What we would do is we'd spend the whole year thinking about the books we want. And we were cooks, so a $40 book is a really big investment for us, so we'd spend a lot of time thinking about the books we want, and make lists and review it together and talk about it, and then do a big purchase every fall and maybe get 10 books at a time just once a year. And it was such a special thing. That was our Christmas present for each other, and we loved doing that. And now, we can't do that because everyone's just sending us all their books, which is nice, but also I miss having to work for it.
It's a weird feeling to get everything. All I ever wanted was to have a huge library of cookbooks, and now I have it, but I feel like it's almost more special when you have to save and plan for it. It's a mixed, bittersweet kind of thing.
Kerry Diamond:
I understand. I feel that way about my records. I still have a stereo and I still have actual LPs, and have dragged around the same 100 since the eighties for exactly for what you talked about. I saved up all my money to buy them, or you could buy one every few months or so. So things are so special when there's the hunt and the decision-making and all those things involved in it.
Sohla El-Waylly:
We were so excited when we got the Michel Bras' “Essential Cuisine.” Because it's out of print, so it's incredibly expensive. And we got that when we were line cooks making like $8 an hour, so we saved up for months for it. So that one has a special place in our heart.
Kerry Diamond:
Do you think you two will do restaurants again?
Sohla El-Waylly:
My husband's opening a restaurant shortly.
Kerry Diamond:
Well, that's exciting. Does he have a location?
Sohla El-Waylly:
Yeah, they have a location. It's going to be in Fort Green. It's a New Orleans themed oyster bar. He's working with a couple of partners. And it's really interesting because they're doing it in a completely different way than when we opened our own restaurant because they have the time to plan, and they're working with a designer, and they're getting proper permits. Because the way we did it was just like, "Hey, let's Google how to upholster a couch," and then we bought random fabric from the street and did it ourself. So it's like completely different experience, but I'm really excited. It's looking really cool so far, and hand developed all of the menu in our apartment. So I've tasted everything, and it's really fun and delicious.
Kerry Diamond:
Let's take a quick break and we'll be right back. Today's show is supported by OpenTable. OpenTable is partnering with us for our Cherry Bombe dinner series, Sit with Us, which highlights amazing female chefs and restaurateurs and the Cherry Bombe network. It was so great seeing everyone at our Sit with Us dinner at Renee Erickson's The Whale Winds in Seattle last week. Thank you to everyone who joined us. Up next is the Sit with Us dinner at Chef Camille Becerra's As You Are, the restaurant at Ace Hotel Brooklyn. That dinner is taking place Saturday, November 11th. So if you're coming to cook some books, join us for dinner. Tickets are available exclusively on OpenTable. Head to cherrybombe.com to learn more.
Let's talk about some of the recipes in the book. I know you're trying to get away from recipes, but you do have proper recipes in the book.
Sohla El-Waylly:
Yeah. And actually, initially, I wanted to have no cook times or be really loosely amounts, but that the publisher was like, "It's a recipe." So there's cook times. We got grams in there, all that good stuff that you need.
Kerry Diamond:
Which recipe is the most personal to you?
Sohla El-Waylly:
Oh, I think the last chapter is called After Party. It shows you how to make any kind of layered cake. It is the hardest recipe. That's why it's at the end, but it gives you a recipe for a really base solid yellow cake, solid Italian buttercream and sprinkles. And then you can mix and match and add different fillings. It is really hard, so it's like you need to graduate from the pastry section before you attempted. But I love it because one of my first cooking experiences, which I don't even really remember, everyone in my family tells me about, is that when I was very young, I used to make a... I went through a little phase of about six months where every single day, I had to bake and frost a Betty Crocker cake mix and sing Happy Birthday to myself. I don't know why. And I actually talked to my mom about it recently, and she said the reason why they did that was because we were really poor, and it was an affordable thing that we could do together as a family. I have this obsession with these classic layered cakes though.
Kerry Diamond:
You say it's the hardest though. Layered cake doesn't necessarily seem that hard, I think because most of us started with box cake mix. Why is this such a hard recipe?
Sohla El-Waylly:
This is a tough recipe because I really wanted it to have the box cake texture, that really fine crumb, that very light melts in your mouth kind of thing. But doing that not with the box mix is actually technically very difficult. You have to be very good at understanding the temperature of your butter and your eggs and your buttermilk, and you have to be really solid at knowing how to cream things properly, scraping your bowl. And it requires a stand mixer. Most of the recipes don't require any special equipment, but this one really needs it to aerate it properly, to get it super fluffy. And I don't think I gave any volume measurements for this one. You got to use grams. You got to use a scale. It's very precise. But if you do properly emulsify your batter and you measure everything properly, there's a lot of room to get creative with the flavors. So you got to get your technique down, and then you can get creative.
And that's kind of the theme of the whole book. Once you get technique down, then you can get creative. A lot of people want to jump the gun and get creative before they know what they're doing, and that's how you make bad food.
Kerry Diamond:
I have a crazy attachment to my hand mixer. I don't own a stand mixer, probably because I have a very tiny kitchen. But no to the hand mixer? No stand mixer? Okay.
Sohla El-Waylly:
Hand mixers can't do the same thing. They don't have the horsepower. And the thing about a lot of the modern cakes, by modern I mean cakes that were made in the last century, they really depend on horsepower to get you that texture that you can think about. If you think about cakes from before that, the traditional European style cakes, they're all either a little bit dense or they're leavened with egg white. The kind of leavening you get from intense creaming is very specific. It's very nostalgic to an American style of baking, and it's not possible without horsepower because it's all like post-industrial revolution stuff.
Kerry Diamond:
Okay. Might have to pony up and get myself a stand mixer finally. Okay, what recipe do you think will be the most popular?
Sohla El-Waylly:
The lemony potatoes. There's a place in the East village we love called Taverna Kyclades, and they make these really bright lemony potatoes that kind of go with everything. So I wanted to make a potato inspired by that. Mine's a little different. I think theirs are under a grill or something, but I do it in a skillet. So the potatoes are cooked in a skillet in the oven with a lot of butter and a lot of lemon, and it's an interesting way to cook potatoes. Because I think whenever people think of potatoes in the oven, you think crispy. But these are creamy, and jammy, and saucy, and you get the whole lemon in there. And it's five ingredients, and it's inactive cooking, and it's all about the seasoning. And it's so delicious, and it's like the perfect side for everything. I think it also teaches you a lot about seasoning. Because in order to make all that lemon not come off as sharp or acrid, you need a good bit of salt, you need a good bit of fat.
So you learn about the power of salt, fat, and acid. Wow, that's like Samin Nosrat, we're just missing heat.
Kerry Diamond:
You used the term inactive cooking. What does that mean?
Sohla El-Waylly:
Oh, it means you put it in the oven and you forget about it. Let the oven and the skillet do all the work for you. So it's like a perfect side to make while you're doing other stuff or you're busy. But what I really love about it is it's really simple, cheap ingredients that come together magically. And I think that once you get that recipe done, it's going to be in your repertoire, and you're not going to need to measure. You make it once and you're going to know it in your heart. The book is in two parts. So the savory side... It's like equal part, sweet and savory. Because I think that to be a better cook, you need to know both. You shouldn't be afraid of anything in the kitchen. So the savory side, the recipes are a bit more loose and fluid because good savory cooking should not be precise.
Even if you follow a recipe exactly and you cut an onion and measure it in a measuring cup and you're super accurate, it's never going to be precise because every onion is different. Depending on the season, your meat's going to be different. Ingredients for savory cooking are so fluid depending on the time of year and the harvest, and whether it's organic or conventional. So you really got to use your intuition a lot. So there are recipes to give you a place to start, but with savory cooking, the goal is to get you away from the recipe. With baking, it's all about precision. All of the baking recipes have grams. Ideally, you should use the grams. I give you cups too because there's a lot of people who are really against the scale. But for baking, you really should be measuring in grams. Baking's completely opposite. I want you to use a scale. I want you to use a timer. And I think being able to do both teaches you a lot. It's good to have precision and intuition. And when you bring that together, that's when you can become a really amazing cook.
Kerry Diamond:
Sohla, listening to you, I wish you were my high school teacher.
Sohla El-Waylly:
I think I would be a terrible teacher.
Kerry Diamond:
You do? Why do you say that?
Sohla El-Waylly:
I don't know. The idea of having to be somewhere every single day, the consistency that's required to be a good teacher, I don't think I have that.
Kerry Diamond:
Do you think of yourself as a teacher at all?
Sohla El-Waylly:
Yeah, but it's great because I teach it intermittently.
Kerry Diamond:
Inactive teaching?
Sohla El-Waylly:
Inactive teaching, yes.
Kerry Diamond:
All right, let's talk about your Cherry Bombe cover shoot. Thank you so much for being on our cover. That was really exciting. Even though you don't believe me, I was very impressed that you brought your supermodel game to the photo shoot with Jen Livingston, our photographer. Did you really research how to pose?
Sohla El-Waylly:
Oh yeah. Yeah. I hate taking photos. It's very weird. I'm fine on camera, but something happens when I'm in front of still photographer. For “Big Brunch,” that was my first big photo shoot. So we had the whole video part, we shot the whole show and I was totally fine, no nerves. I didn't even look at any cameras. And then the second we had to do the still shoot, which was at the end after everything else was done, I full on had a panic attack. I would walk myself in the trailer. Someone had to get me. And every single photo is exactly the same because I didn't move. So there is no selection. Something about being in front of a camera, I really hate. I hate looking at photos of myself. I was just on TikTok and something... Your phone listens to you. TikTok knows. I was just scrolling and it came up to me like how to pose, and then I went down a whole how to pose rabbit hole. I'm glad some of that seemed to have worked.
Kerry Diamond:
I loved it because I felt like you approached it sort of like how you approached everything in the book. There's technique, there's preparation, and you looked into both.
Sohla El-Waylly:
Yeah. Preparation, I think, helps prevent me from getting nervous about stuff. Right now, we're going to have a baby. I think by the time this comes out, there will be a baby. We're currently a month away from, T minus four weeks from baby, and we're preparing. We're getting our nerves together by over preparing and reading all the books. And we know so much information about birth and labor and babies. When we talk to our friends who've had kids, they're like, "I didn't do any of this. I read half a book." So we're like knowledge is power people. Yeah.
Kerry Diamond:
Ham joined you at the photo shoot. It was so nice to meet him, and I was really struck by how you two seem like great friends, and we all know that you're creative partners. I was curious how you two met?
Sohla El-Waylly:
We met in culinary school. Yeah, the only good thing to come out of culinary school. I guess it's a very good thing. So meeting him made culinary school worth it. We were the only two brown kids. A lot of culinary school, you pair up to do a lot of the projects and cooking. Normally, it's completely random who your partner is. But since we were the only two brown kids, all the teachers, every single instructor put us together for every single thing, which initially really made me angry. I just didn't like him at first because everyone wanted me to like him. You know what I mean? And then once I got over that, we clicked really fast and got married while we were still in school. We just eloped.
Kerry Diamond:
I love the projects that you two have done. I've got your Burlap and Barrel spices on my counter.
Sohla El-Waylly:
Oh, we have another one coming that's very exciting.
Kerry Diamond:
Tell me. Tell me.
Sohla El-Waylly:
It's called Yo Quiero Taco Blend, and it's a taco seasoning. It's not like an authentic Mexican taco. It's like Taco Bell flavor for tacos, which I have a deep love for. My dad worked at Taco Bell for 20 years. I'll always love Taco Bell. It's my favorite fast food. So we're really excited. We think this tastes like that, but so much better because we got the amazing Burlap and Barrel spices, plus a lot of nuance layering of flavor with mesquite and things that you might not even see coming in the taco seasoning. So I was excited for that.
Kerry Diamond:
Okay, so the theme of the issue that you are on the cover of is the Future of Food. And I was thinking in respect to what you do, teaching, recipe development, video, I was curious, where do you see the future of food headed?
Sohla El-Waylly:
Oh, that's hard. I think a lot more people are thinking about sustainability and trying to eat more plant-based. I don't think that means that meat's going to go away. I think that means people in the US are going to eat more like the rest of the world, which is meat is on the side. It's like flavor. I didn't grow up vegetarian, but meat was never the center of the plate. Oftentimes, it was like a little something. My mom would make a big pot of vegetables with a few little dried shrimp, and it just brings so much umami and depth and interest to your vegetables, or cooking something in a broth. Or a lot of the things would be like, yeah, you're having this brothy chicken stew, but then there's a whole bunch of sweet potatoes and greens in there.
So I think more people in the U.S. are going to start cooking like that. I don't think we have to say goodbye to meat. I think we have to be more aware of the kind of protein and animal products we're consuming and try and minimize it. It doesn't have to be every meal, and it definitely doesn't have to be the center of plate.
Kerry Diamond:
And then how about in terms of the chef world? You started out on a traditional path and wound up in a very different place.
Sohla El-Waylly:
There's so much more opportunity now than when I started. And it's crazy because it wasn't even that long ago. But when I started, it was like you go to culinary school, and then you work inside dining, and then you meet some investors and you open a restaurant. And that's pretty much the only way you can move if you're serious. And now you can learn online. So so many people doing cool stuff, just like teaching themself. A great example is that Tanya Bush. She's completely self-taught. She's a pastry chef at Egg, doing really amazing, interesting intricate desserts. She co-founded a scene called Cake Scene where they're highlighting really interesting writing. She's completely self-taught. You don't need culinary school. She didn't do an apprenticeship. You can find your own path. So I think what's really amazing about food right now is you just need to start somewhere, and then there's so many paths. You can go into media, you can go into restaurants, and you can even just do it all on your own.
Kerry Diamond:
We love Cake Zine. The Cake Zine founders were on The Future of Food is You, our other podcast, and they're in this issue. And they are on the Future Food 50 list.
Sohla El-Waylly:
Oh hey, it's like we're in tune here.
Kerry Diamond:
Speaking of the future, as we mentioned, by the time this airs, you will be a mom. Nothing says the future like having a baby. I'd love to know what is one wish for your baby's future?
Sohla El-Waylly:
I guess we really hope she has a good palette. Yeah, we hope she's not a picky eater. Oh, I guess the biggest wish though, the biggest wish we have is that she becomes a hard worker. We don't really care what she ends up doing. We just want her to work hard. And I think that it's something that not everybody has, unfortunately, and I don't know how you instill it in someone. We're hoping leading by example will be a good thing. But I don't think it matters what you end up doing or what you care about. As long as you work hard, you're going to end up somewhere good.
Kerry Diamond:
Do you think you'll be like your mom, putting her in a high chair, giving her a piece of dough and a dull knife?
Sohla El-Waylly:
Oh, totally. Yeah, we've already talked about that. We got a high chair that specifically can come up to the table. You can scooch it all the way up to the table so she can just start prepping early, washing greens, using the salad spinner.
Kerry Diamond:
So you don't know this about me, but I'm one of five kids and I'm a good babysitter. So if you and Ham are jammed on a Friday night or a Saturday night, or he's stuck at the restaurant and you're stuck somewhere, definitely call me. I've changed more diapers than most people as the oldest of five children.
Sohla El-Waylly:
Oh, okay. Cool.
Kerry Diamond:
So count me in. It was so good to talk to you. The book is astounding in every way, and no doubt it's going to be a big hit. So congratulations.
Sohla El-Waylly:
Thank you. Thanks for having me on again.
Kerry Diamond:
That's it for today's show. If you are looking for a copy of Cherry Bombe's print magazine with Sohla on the cover, head to cherrybombe.com to nag one. It's a great issue, so don't miss it. Our theme song is by the band Tra La La. Joseph Hazan is a studio engineer for Newsstand Studios. Our producer is Catherine Baker, our associate producer is Jenna Sadhu, and our editorial assistant is Londyn Crenshaw. Thanks for listening everybody. You are the Bombe.