All Things Julia
Julia Turshen joins us on the podcast — and is our featured Cookbook Club author for March!
Happy March! Happy one-year-since-the-pandemic-took-hold-and-we-all-went-into-beans-and-sourdough-mode. Hope you are holding up well as the world keeps moving toward normalcy.
And now, it seems March is turning up All Things Julia! Julia Turshen that is.
First: Julia returned to the Salt + Spine airwaves last week, this time to talk about her latest cookbook, Simply Julia. Listen to our conversation here and see more details below.
AND: Julia Turshen is also our March featured author in the Salt + Spine Cookbook Club! Check our Instagram page to see the announcement and stay tuned for more on how to participate and to reserve your seat for our Virtual Dinner Party with Julia later this month.
Happy March, and happy cooking,
Brian Hogan Stewart / Salt + Spine
EPISODE 98: JULIA TURSHEN | Tuesday, Feb 23, 2021 | 41:26
Julia Turshen on cookbooks, healthy comfort food, and the role of home cooking
We're excited to welcome Julia Turshen back to Salt + Spine, the podcast on stories behind cookbooks!
Julia returns to Salt + Spine to talk about her latest cookbook, Simply Julia. Julia is the well-known author of other cookbooks, including two highly praised solo books: Small Victories and Now & Again. Julia joined us remotely from her home in the Hudson Valley to #TalkCookbooks. Stick around for the full show: we’re closing by playing a secret ingredient game with Julia.
And she’s a prolific writer in the industry, bringing together a range of voices and recipes for 2017’s Feed the Resistance cookbook as well as authoring The Interview, a Food & Wine magazine column that features compelling people in food. And the list goes on: cofounder of Equity at the Table, host of the podcast Keep Calm and Cook On, and so on.
"I am all for talking about home cooking. It's one of my favorite things to talk about. I always want to know … like, I'm dying to ask you what you had for lunch. But at the end of the day, that's not why I do what I do. I do what I do because I think cookbooks are a way to create connection. All that personal stuff I hope leads to that."
Called one of the 100 “Greatest Home Cooks of All Time” by Epicurious, Julia brings the simplicity and crave-ability she’s known for to the recipes in her latest, Simply Julia. With a focus on healthy comfort food, you’ll find weeknight go-tos like Tex-Mex Turkey Meatballs, soups and stews like a Smoked Trout Chowder, morning starters like Breakfast Nachos, and memorable sweets like a Cornmeal Cobbler that employs whatever frozen fruit is on hand.
We’re featuring two recipes from Simply Julia:
Eighth Avenue Ropa Vieja
In my early twenties, I ended up living in a studio apartment in the same building that I grew up in. It was a surreal experience, almost a time loop, and living there allowed me to reconnect to some of the places I went to as a little kid. One of those places was La Taza del Oro, down the block on Eighth Avenue, a very special lunch counter that opened in 1947 and sadly closed in 2015. Along with Casa Adela in the East Village, La Taza del Oro was one of New York’s iconic Puerto Rican restaurants and it served dishes from other cultures too, including traditional Cuban ropa vieja (which translates to “old clothes,” an evocative description of the texture of the shredded beef).
I make this version at home regularly, and while it doesn’t bring back a restaurant I wish was still thriving, it helps me keep my memories of it alive. It’s also just so satisfying and soul-warming (which is why I made it a few times for our local volunteer EMT squad when Covid-19 hit our area).
After cooking, shred the beef and store in a container in the refrigerator for up to a week (it’s honestly better the longer it sits). Warm it up in a saucepan over low heat (splash with a little water or stock if it needs some moisture) and then enjoy on its own with rice or sweet, starchy things like roasted squash, fried plantains, grilled corn, or Sweet + Spicy Mashed Sweet Potatoes (Simply Julia, page 135). It’s especially great with the Best Black Beans with Avocado Salad (Simply Julia, page 62). You could also use this beef for tacos or inside of a pressed sandwich (try it on your next grilled cheese).
Stewed Chickpeas with Peppers + Zucchini
A late summer go-to during our volunteering shifts at Angel Food East, this light stew of chickpeas, peppers, and zucchini is the best way I know to use up a ton of summertime produce without a ton of effort. Served with a creamy, lemony sauce and couscous, pasta, rice, or quinoa (or any grain), it’s a healthy-and-hearty recipe that is simple to make and infinitely adaptable, too. Swap out the chickpeas for any type of bean. Have extra peppers? Add them! Have a bunch of tomatoes? Chop them up and throw them in. Dice some eggplant, roast it, and fold it in at the end. Add vegetable stock to this and call it soup. Skip the grain or pasta and use the mixture to fill quesadillas. This is flexible cooking, which is my favorite kind of cooking.
MARCH COOKBOOK CLUB: Julia Turshen!
We’re cooking along with Julia Turshen this month. Check your inbox this week for more from Julia as we kick off the month — and find details on our Instagram page:
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