A formative presence in the early 2000s food blog explosion, Deb Perelman — the founder and leader of “Smitten Kitchen” — writes and speaks with an inviting, fun, and conversational tone that is practically always welcome, no matter your mood.
Perelman clearly loves food. She is passionate about the importance of a "good recipe" and all that entails. Her imagination and talent shine in her recipe development, ingredient choices and flavor profiles. Plus, she's a reliable pal when it comes to container-specific measurements — no errant half cans of coconut milk or half tubes of tomato paste here!
“Smitten Kitchen's” refreshing voice and reliability have remained steadfast in the nearly 20 years since its debut. In addition to the immensely comprehensive blog and recipe archive, the brand now includes several cookbooks. As Perelman puts it, she has created over 1,500 recipes overall. Her most recent cookbook, “Smitten Kitchen Keepers,” was released to much fanfare and acclaim less than two years ago.
Now, as a companion to that book, she’s releasing a PDF and audiobook designed to guide fans and listeners through her recipe development process. The audiobook delves into the ins and outs of each recipe, the personal stories behind them and much more. Perelman describes the audiobook as akin to having an informal chat with a friend about what you're making for dinner — nothing stuffy or ostentatious. Instead, it offers a relaxed conversation, commiserating over a dish that didn’t turn out as planned or celebrating one that exceeded expectations.
Perelman hopes to be a patient, fun, and guiding voice, helping home cooks improve, learn, grow — and make really good food. Salon recently had the opportunity to connect with Perelman to discuss all of this and more.
Deb Perelman (Photo by Christine Han)
The following interview has been lightly edited for clarity and length.
I'd love to hear about the new audio project, "Smitten Kitchen Keepers: A Kitchen Counter Conversation" — such an interesting idea!
I thought it would be fun to do a cookbook audiobook, but understood from the get-go that nobody wants to hear me read a recipe aloud — "half a teaspoon of salt, a quarter-teaspoon of black pepper. . ."
Fortunately, after a small amount of convincing, my publishers were game and we decided to home in on the parts we hope listeners would find the most enjoyable to listen to: the introductions and stories. We wanted it to feel like I get to hang out in the kitchen with you, leaning against the counter, chatting as we cook. We focused on some of my book favorites and went a little deeper, including extras and side notes that didn't make the cut in the headnotes due to space.
I love that there's a companion PDF to complement "A Kitchen Counter Conversation." How did that come about?
Having a companion PDF allowed us to not taunt you with descriptions of recipes you had no ability to make. The PDF covers the recipes we included in the special audio edition of Smitten Kitchen Keepers, should I have succeeded in enticing you to drop everything and make one of them immediately.
There are 44 recipes discussed throughout. Are those all from "Smitten Kitchen Keepers?"
Yes. Keeping an eye on length and the recipes we felt would translate the best to an audio conversation, I focused on a little under half of the recipes in Smitten Kitchen Keepers, the ones I truly cannot — in my words — "shut up about." They had a bigger conversational element and I knew there were even more interesting parts I had to leave on the cutting room floor.
That's terrific. Are there any long-time fan favorite recipes that you still hear a lot about, whether from any of your cookbooks or the site itself?
Oh yes. So many: The caramelized cinnamon sugar french toast, toasted ricotta gnocchi with pistachio pesto, ginger garlic chicken noodle soup, oven-braised beef with harissa, thick molasses spice cookies and the cover girl, the devil's food cake with salted milk chocolate frosting. Nothing makes me happier than these recipes making it into other people's repertoires, too.
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Back in my halcyon cooking days pre-culinary school, "Smitten Kitchen" was an invaluable resource, so thank you for that. I still make salted caramel brownies the way I learned from you way back when. Your cookbooks are tried-and-true, your recipes always accessible, your food delicious. What else do you attribute your enduring success to?
Thank you. I don't have all of the answers, but I do know that I'm secretly a very picky eater, but I've tried to make this an asset, not a hindrance by turning it around. "Why is ricotta gnocchi so underwhelming and fussy?" "Why do so many black bean chilis just taste like soup?" etcetera. I'm also very lucky to love my work and even though I've published over 1400 recipes on my site and over 300 in my cookbooks, I can easily think of 500 more I'd make this year if I had time.
What are some of the conversations during "A Kitchen Counter Conversation" that yielded the most fiery debates food-wise?
Pizza always amuses me with its contentiousness among certain types of home cooks — the flour, the oven, the hydration, so many absolute rights and wrongs. And I think it keeps too many people from just making pizza at home. I enjoyed tackling the hang-ups and my refusal to participate in them in The Angry Grandma (Pizza), celebrating the no-fuss, any oven, whatever-flour-you've-got grandma-style pizza. The "angry" part is that it uses a spicy arrabiata sauce, which translates as angry.
Can you talk a bit about the early origins of "Smitten Kitchen," the blog?
I had just started cooking more at home and realized I didn't have go-to recipes for so many things I wanted to know how to make. I created it as a space where I could share recipes I thought were worth the time and had great outcomes too. I had no professional cooking experience and had never been to cooking school; I didn't expect anyone to read along to my yapping when there were actual experts out there. But, that wasn't what happened and it's still wild to me today that it took off and allowed, in turn, for me to become the cook and recipe developer I wanted to be.
You have released three wonderful "Smitten Kitchen" cookbooks. What are some dishes, ingredients, cuisines or topics that you feel you still haven't touched on and look forward to possibly addressing in future cookbooks?
We don't have a lot of space and my kitchen is deeply unfancy but I love having people over and I think it would be fun to write an entertaining cookbook for real people — things that work, warnings about things that never do — with the singular goal of having the kinds of parties you get to enjoy too because you're not stuck in the kitchen.
Smitten Kitchen Keepers: A Kitchen Counter Conversation by Deb Perelman, read by the author. (Courtesy of Deb Perelman/Penguin Random House)
The "online food" realm nearly 20 ago was so vastly different from today's landscape. Could you speak a bit to that?
So, so different. Did you know, could you imagine, that you often didn't have photos at all in early food blogs? Blogs often didn't have themes, SEO or social media strategies. But, I'd argue that even though the technology and how we use it couldn't be more different, what we want hasn't changed: something good to cook for dinner with a recipe that works and won't waste our time.
Do you have a number-one favorite ingredient to work with?
I love cabbage with the abandon of someone who wasn't tormented with it as a child and am glad it's getting a glow-up these days, like brussels sprouts and cauliflower before it. The charred salt and vinegar cabbage in "Smitten Kitchen Keepers: A Kitchen Counter Conversation" is one of my favorite recipes, an oddball I thought everyone would brush past but, instead I've gotten so many messages from people about how it became a staple for them too. I'm thrilled.
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What stands out for you as a formative moment that got you into cooking or food at large?
I remember being a kid and I'm definitely showing my age here but crazy enough, telephones used to have cords and the telephone in the kitchen used to have a really long cord, so it could stretch as you needed to walk around. There's a way people talk about cooking with friends over the phone — "but this dough looks sticky! I'm messing it up!" "Really? Just smash it down? Okay, if you say so..." — that is relaxed, funny and conversational in a way that written recipes from chefs and cooking professionals in cookbooks and magazines never get to be.
I don't care what some chef in a toque says about caramelizing onions; I want to hear the telephone cord cooking lowdown you'd warn your cousin about when she was making dinner. It remains my guiding force.
What would you say are your three most used ingredients?
Onions, butter and eggs. Not wildly exciting, but I could make a full menu from it!
What is your favorite cooking memory?
I remember my parents attempting to make soft pretzels one day; it was a mess. They weren't normally so wildly experimental, but I think it embedded in me the idea that you didn't need to have it all figured out to try to make something new.
What’s your biggest tip for cutting down on food waste?
I really like recipes that use ingredient amounts that align with can or packaging sizes. I've got an orphanage of 2-ounce bags of dried pasta in my cabinet. I'm pretty sure I've got a molded can of tomato paste with only 1T taken out in the fridge at any given time, and if there's one carrot left in the bag, I've already forgotten it exists until it's too late. So, I try to keep package sizes in mind as much as possible when I write recipes and if there's any way to use all of it, I will.
What’s next on the horizon or agenda for you?
I should probably start working on that entertaining book! Maybe 2025 will be the year.
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