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hellofresh.com. I

1:05

was

1:08

a boy. So

1:12

you were more likely to say I'm going to grow up to

1:14

be an astronaut than you were to say I'm going to grow

1:16

up to be a food writer. Welcome

1:22

to Your Mama's Kitchen, the podcast that

1:24

explores how the kitchens we grew up

1:26

in as kids shape who we become

1:28

as adults. I'm Michelle Norris. How

1:30

did the man who has introduced thousands

1:32

to the wonders of cooking learn to

1:34

cook himself to create and

1:36

write about recipes that enrich the lives

1:39

of his readers? In this

1:41

episode, we fire up a conversation

1:43

with award-winning food writer and journalist

1:45

Mark Pittman. He walks us

1:47

through the evolution of his relationship with

1:49

all things culinary. From a childhood spent

1:51

taking his mother's cooking for granted, eating

1:54

cheeseburgers and vanilla ice cream, to

1:56

his early years as a parent,

1:58

taking ownership of food. preparation for

2:00

his family. It's possible

2:02

you've benefited from Mark's work. Maybe you

2:04

own one of his many cookbooks. I

2:06

myself have several on my shelf. Maybe

2:09

you've watched him whip up a meal

2:11

on The Today Show or you've

2:13

read his New York Times column

2:15

The Minimalist during its 13-year run.

2:17

Well today you get to hear all

2:19

about the cookbooks that got him started

2:22

and when and how he realized that

2:24

he had something special going on in

2:26

the kitchen. What started as a hobby

2:28

turned into a passion that would fuel

2:30

his professional career. Mark's

2:35

story is about much more than food though.

2:37

He came up in the 60s and 70s,

2:39

a time when many things were in flux

2:42

around the world. Revolution was in the air.

2:44

Counterculture was the culture on many

2:46

college campuses. Bittman explains how

2:48

he developed his strong political

2:50

views early on but struggled to

2:52

incorporate them into his writing. How

2:55

early odd jobs opened his eyes

2:57

to New York's rich variety of

2:59

international cuisines and why

3:01

his grandmother's recipe for something

3:04

called potato nick is the

3:06

comfort food that makes him feel like home.

3:09

All that's coming up. Mark

3:13

Bittman let's jump into this. I am so glad

3:16

that you are with us. You feel like you

3:18

are a part of

3:20

my kitchen because your cookbooks, I

3:22

have a wall of cookbooks and

3:24

there are several entries from you.

3:26

How to cook everything, how to

3:28

cook everything vegetarian, how to cook

3:30

everything fast. The book

3:32

you did that encourages us to eat vegan

3:35

before 6 p.m. we burned through all

3:37

those books and so thank you very

3:39

much for being with us. Always happy

3:41

to talk with you. You're

3:43

someone who has helped America

3:45

figure out how to

3:47

eat and how to eat well at a

3:50

time where we approach food in a

3:52

different way but I would like you

3:55

to go back down memory lane and tell us

3:57

a little bit about your

3:59

relationship. with food starting in the kitchen,

4:01

and why don't we begin with the kitchen

4:03

that you grew up in? Where did you grow

4:05

up? Tell me a little bit

4:07

about the house you grew up in, and then

4:10

I want you to walk me past the foyer,

4:12

past the dining room, into the kitchen,

4:15

and describe that

4:17

space where your mom

4:19

and dad held court. I

4:21

grew up in an apartment in Cyvuson Town,

4:24

which was at the time world's

4:26

biggest middle class, should

4:29

be said almost exclusively white

4:31

housing project on the Lower East Side

4:34

of Manhattan. An entire neighborhood

4:36

called the Gas House District had been raised

4:38

to the ground in order to build this

4:40

thing, primarily for

4:44

World War II veterans and their families.

4:46

So everybody's parents were the same age,

4:49

every kid was the same age. It was like an

4:52

imported family kind of thing. Everybody

4:54

moved at the same time. So

4:57

there were some quite unusual features

4:59

about that neighborhood. The

5:01

kitchen was right off the front door to the

5:03

left, and it was, I don't

5:06

know, six by eight maybe, sort of

5:08

a typical New York kitchen

5:10

crammed with cabinets, not a lot

5:13

of room for more than one

5:15

person. My mother was a responsible

5:17

cook, I think an obligatory cook,

5:21

as were many, if not most, women

5:24

of that generation, and maybe

5:26

somewhat resentful about it, but she would

5:28

never talk about that. But

5:31

very dutiful, and she did it every

5:33

meal, and the food was as real as she knew

5:35

how to make it, and as good as she knew

5:37

how to make it. It wasn't great, but I

5:40

used to make fun of

5:43

my mother in interviews like this. Then

5:46

I came to realize she did

5:48

all that work, and she

5:50

taught me how to cook, even though she didn't

5:52

teach me how to cook well, she

5:54

taught me to put food on the table

5:57

all the time. Your mom's name is Gert.

6:00

Dad was Murray, right? And

6:02

your mom cooked, you said she was a

6:04

dutiful cook. Dutiful is such an interesting

6:06

word because it's kind

6:09

of loaded in some ways. Did

6:11

she do things in the kitchen

6:14

as you remember to

6:16

take the edge off the

6:18

duty or the burden of cooking? Do you

6:20

remember, did she have a radio? Did she

6:23

have something that brought sunshine into the kitchen

6:25

that made that space feel like

6:27

it was less obligatory and more

6:29

of her own, her sort of secret

6:32

garden that she could create that would

6:34

turn that space into just something

6:37

that didn't feel like drudgery? You

6:39

know, honestly, not. Meal

6:42

time was not a particularly happy time for

6:44

us. My mother did not appear to like

6:47

to eat until she got older. I would say

6:49

when she was in her 50s, she

6:53

started to develop a sort of more of

6:55

an appetite. But by then she was done

6:57

cooking for her children. So there could have

7:00

been something there. But I think, you

7:02

know, so much of this is about women's

7:04

roles and I mean, in

7:06

the world, but in the United States in

7:09

particular, in the mid 20th century in particular,

7:12

my mother was not what

7:15

came to be called a women's liber.

7:17

She didn't want to have any truck with that. But

7:20

I think that she was well

7:23

aware of the fact that there were

7:25

expectations of her that were beyond her

7:27

control or seemed to her

7:29

to be beyond her control, that there were

7:31

roles that women of her age

7:34

were only beginning to be really questioned.

7:36

We're talking about the 50s and 60s

7:38

here. And she was

7:40

not among the questioners. I think

7:43

she was a pre-questioner or a

7:45

contemplator or but more of a

7:48

similar or a Caesar. You know,

7:50

she was, I think

7:52

she was resentful. I think she carried anger

7:54

around it. I don't

7:56

think she liked that she was expected to do

7:59

All of the clean things. Which she was

8:01

and. I'm. All.

8:03

Of the cooking which she was an.

8:07

By. The time my sister and I are

8:09

old enough to start doing chores, chat a

8:11

job. See. Work Nine cents for

8:13

thirty am. Not what's considered totally full

8:16

time, but effectively full time. And then

8:18

she came home and made dinner. and

8:20

then she cleans up after dinner. And

8:22

I mean. I can do that,

8:24

but I do it mostly in the

8:26

comfort of my home and mostly willingly

8:29

and any time I don't wanna do

8:31

it. I'd pounds, but that wasn't an

8:33

option for her and I think Arabs,

8:35

Arabs, whatever Joyce you might have had

8:37

and cooking it, but at the same

8:39

time she wasn't. Openly

8:41

anger issues, just sort of quiet

8:43

at a resentful air about her.

8:46

And it's not the see. Never

8:48

enjoyed cooking, but I think. You

8:51

know, when you're doing something, and especially

8:54

when we were little, when she's cooking

8:56

breakfast and lunch and cleaning the house.

8:58

and then generous centered sets. And when

9:00

you're doing that six days a week?

9:02

Seven days a week. I mean, you're

9:05

the equivalent of a servant. So you

9:07

made love the other people, but you're

9:09

an unpaid worker and away and many

9:11

people have outgrown the Hazard Saints. That,

9:14

and. But been. On that. Sort.

9:16

Of relationship exists. Degeneration

9:19

you're talking that are his

9:21

posts Warriors and. For. Their

9:23

a lot of magazines were suddenly targeted.

9:26

At one end and mean see

9:28

magazines at weren't targeted at moments.

9:30

often had stories that are advertisements

9:33

that were targeting women on. The.

9:35

Idea on expectations. Use that word Expectations.

9:37

With that, there was going to be

9:40

a certain kind of protection in the

9:42

kitchen. And so there was this. all.

9:44

That. For many women I think a

9:46

sea of failure, our affairs not living up

9:48

to that American idea that was betrayed and

9:51

Look magazine and Life magazine ads and so

9:53

that was always kind of sending over women

9:55

of that generation. right? he

9:57

said at some point the you realize that your mom

10:00

even though she may not have been the world's

10:03

best cook, taught you how to cook,

10:05

or taught you at least the routine of cooking

10:07

when and how did you realize that? She

10:10

taught me that cooking was important, I

10:12

guess. And by example, completely by example,

10:14

she never, I

10:16

was a boy, so you were more likely to say

10:18

I'm gonna grow up to be an astronaut than you

10:20

were to say I'm gonna grow up to be a

10:22

food writer. I think

10:25

I just took it for granted. You're at

10:27

home, someone's gonna cook. I did

10:29

take that for granted. So there were the college

10:31

years where I lived in a dorm, I ate

10:34

cheeseburgers, vanilla ice cream and Coke. I mean, you

10:36

can get anything you want that that's what I

10:38

wanted. You know, I also

10:40

slept till two in the afternoon and took a lot of

10:42

drugs. It was not a happy time. The

10:46

second year I got my own apartments and I

10:48

started cooking. And I just thought, well, I have

10:50

an apartment, obviously I need to be able to

10:52

cook. And I didn't really know how to cook

10:55

anything. I knew how to cook

10:57

a hamburger and I knew how to make sandwiches

10:59

and I knew how to make scrambled eggs. Very

11:02

rudimentary stuff that I had

11:04

sort of done for myself growing up.

11:07

But the year after that, I wound

11:09

up living with three women who were

11:11

all great cooks. And there

11:13

was really no room for me in the kitchen, but

11:16

I kind of elbowed my

11:18

way in and started making desserts, which

11:20

was actually the first ambitious

11:24

thing I did. And then I just

11:26

started cooking from cookbooks and cooking

11:28

as many interesting things

11:30

as I could find. And

11:33

soon after that, I started feeling

11:35

like, yeah, this is just a seamless

11:38

part of life. This is just something you

11:40

do five or six in the afternoon and

11:43

the evening you settle down and you start

11:45

cooking dinner. And that just never stopped. So

11:48

how does the person who is known

11:51

for creating so

11:55

many well-loved, well-used cookbooks come

11:58

to cookbooks yourself? find

12:00

those cookbooks that you were foraging

12:02

through? Well, when I

12:04

moved in with Karen and Anne and

12:06

Ellie, they had Settlement

12:09

Cookbook, New York

12:11

Times, Craig Claiborne's first New York

12:13

Times cookbook. And cookbooks by this

12:15

woman, Paula Peck, who was a

12:17

devotee or a student of James

12:20

Beard's. Those are the cookbooks that

12:22

were there. Fortunately, they were all,

12:24

I mean, Paula Peck and Settlement

12:27

were especially reliable. New York Times cookbook

12:29

was good because it was so eclectic

12:31

and non-personal

12:33

in a way. Like, just was all over the

12:36

place. You didn't know what you were going to

12:38

find. And then the following year, I was

12:40

living by myself again, I just

12:42

started buying cookbooks that appealed to

12:44

me. And I had

12:46

become fascinated by Indian food. I still

12:48

have it. The first cookbook I bought

12:51

was this little tiny paperback called House

12:53

of India Cookbook. I bought

12:55

Joy of Cooking because everybody who cooked said you

12:57

ought to buy Joy of Cooking. I bought James

12:59

Beard because people said you ought to buy James

13:01

Beard. I bought Julia Child

13:03

because that was the thing. And I

13:07

was off and running. I mean, really, if I

13:09

had those six or eight cookbooks, I just mentioned

13:11

now would kind of be enough. And

13:14

so were you cooking because you loved

13:16

the food or because it was the

13:18

science of it, the process of it, the

13:20

cookbooks themselves were beckoning you in some way?

13:23

Well, I loved the food, for sure.

13:25

It became the thing

13:27

that I cared about learning how to do. And

13:29

I got good at it. And then I started

13:32

writing about it. And then so there was reason

13:34

to do it more. You know,

13:36

the stupid pun is they fed each other. But

13:40

the writing impelled me, compelled

13:42

me to cook better. And the better

13:44

I cooked, the better, more interesting my

13:46

writing was, I think. So I was I

13:49

look at stuff I wrote then

13:52

now and it's corny, but it wasn't corny

13:54

then it was innovative then. By

13:56

this time in your life, you had

13:58

held several jobs. You were a

14:01

cab driver, you were a gopher for an

14:03

electrician. Sounds like an interesting line

14:05

of work there. A substitute teacher, a

14:08

traveling salesman, and a trucker.

14:10

You were a trucker for

14:12

a while. So how did the

14:14

things that you learned during all those

14:17

other jobs, work their

14:20

way into who you became as

14:22

a cook? The traveling

14:24

salesman thing was in Connecticut. So

14:26

I have as thorough knowledge

14:29

of the food of Connecticut, southern

14:32

Massachusetts, Rhode Island,

14:34

and Westchester as anyone has.

14:37

But that wasn't that interesting a food scene. But

14:39

it was helpful when I later became a restaurant

14:41

reviewer and sort of had an inside

14:44

knowledge of where it might be good. So

14:46

I was a cab driver in New York. It

14:48

was something I always wanted to do. I became a

14:51

cab driver in New York in September, October 69, I

14:53

was 19. I

14:55

was a junior in college. There's two

14:57

things you can do when you're a cab driver in

15:00

New York anyway. You can cruise, just drive up

15:02

and down a way for someone to hell you,

15:04

or you can sit at cab stands and both

15:06

have advantages. We don't forget into

15:08

the techniques of driving a cab, I don't think.

15:11

But if you sit at cab stands, you talk

15:13

to other cab drivers, which is one of the

15:15

advantages there. And the other cab drivers

15:17

were from all over the world, all over the

15:19

country and all over the world. And they were

15:21

every age, they were 18 and 19 year olds

15:23

like me. And there were 70 year olds who'd

15:25

been driving cabs for 50 years. And

15:28

everybody knew the best place to eat for them.

15:31

So people would say, well, next time you're in Brooklyn,

15:33

you gotta check out this place. Next time you're in

15:35

the Bronx, you gotta check out this place. Next time

15:37

you're in Harlem, you gotta check out this place. If

15:39

you wanna try Indian food, go to this place if

15:41

you want. And so I just

15:44

had this running list of organized

15:46

by borough of restaurants

15:48

that I was supposed to knock off. And

15:53

if someone, cab drivers in

15:55

those days were notoriously, white cab

15:58

drivers didn't go to Harlem, they didn't go to Harlem. the

16:00

Bronx. They wanted to stay in Midtown.

16:02

It was the 70s. Everybody was afraid

16:04

of everybody else. For

16:07

whatever reason, I wasn't like that. So

16:10

if guys said to me, next time you're in the

16:12

Bronx, go to this place, and it was a Puerto

16:15

Rican restaurant, I'd go to the Bronx and

16:17

go to the Puerto Rican restaurant. They'd say,

16:20

go to this ribs joint in Harlem. I'd

16:22

go to the ribs joint in Harlem. I

16:24

wasn't being particularly brave. It just was

16:27

my nature to think that was

16:30

fine. So I had

16:32

a running list, borough by

16:34

borough, of restaurants I was supposed to go

16:36

to per the other cab drivers. Needless to

16:38

say, they were all cheap. They were all

16:40

fast. They were all greasy

16:43

spoons, more or less. There was nothing fancy

16:45

on there. But I suddenly, at 19 and

16:48

then 20, I was out three,

16:51

four nights a week, winding up

16:53

at some place or another where I'd had

16:56

some food that no one I knew ever

16:58

heard of. And this

17:01

was the time of the great student rebellions.

17:03

This was the time of the so-called counterculture.

17:05

This was the time where smoking pot was

17:07

so cool that if you smoked pot, you

17:10

didn't need any other justification for being a

17:12

cool person, etc., etc. And

17:15

here was this thing that suddenly

17:17

I had that I didn't have in

17:19

common with other people, that I could

17:21

become good at and understand all myself.

17:26

And that was an amazing thing to me. And it's

17:28

probably the first time in my life that it happened

17:30

to me. And it didn't

17:34

feel like fate, or

17:36

it was thrust upon me, or anything like that. It

17:39

just felt like the way it was.

17:42

It wasn't going to be a subject

17:45

in school because that's not who I was.

17:47

It wasn't going to be the roots of

17:49

World War II

17:53

or the history of Reconstruction. I'm saying these

17:55

things because they're all things That

17:58

I'm kind of interested in now.. But... They were

18:00

not gonna be the things that turned

18:02

into my life's work and miss for

18:04

whatever reason. A

18:15

family that's kind of fanatical. About Sports and

18:17

like to watch sports on Tv. The like

18:19

to listen to sports on the radio and

18:21

we'd love to go to a good sporting

18:23

events particularly my son and my aunt like

18:25

that's and we're always looking at trying to

18:27

get the best seats because if you're watching

18:29

tennis you gotta figure out how you're not

18:31

and the direct sun at certain times as

18:34

he want get the best angle season seats

18:36

whether a ball actually was in the line

18:38

or just over the line and so we're

18:40

always trying to game that systems. To get

18:42

the best tickets and energy that you often

18:44

have to move fast. A lot of planning

18:46

goes into this. When you want the best

18:49

you have to act quickly or someone else

18:51

might get it and said it's like if

18:53

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22:12

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22:14

things I love to do when I am at home is entertain. I

22:17

love to be able to cook in a kitchen and have

22:19

a good meal with the people I care about all around

22:21

me. And Airbnb allows me to do that. When

22:25

I was in California recently, I rented

22:27

a house that had a great kitchen and a

22:29

big island. And we

22:31

were able to all get in and do our

22:33

thing together and sit down in the adjoining dining

22:36

room and have a long loud meal. And

22:39

then clean up afterwards and continue the conversation. I

22:41

love being able to do that. And Airbnb allowed

22:43

that to happen. And

22:46

when we were sitting around the table, we were all thinking, we're

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slash host. So

23:17

how as a 19 year old did you wind up living with three women? Because

23:20

that was probably a little unusual for a 19

23:22

year old also. One was

23:24

becoming my girlfriend. The option was

23:26

I was living at my parents' house. It

23:29

was clear that it was

23:31

preferable to live with them and they weren't

23:34

against this. So that's how that

23:36

happened. And that was that was really

23:38

life changing, not only from the

23:40

cooking perspective, but because by then it was the spring

23:43

of 1970. And

23:46

Nixon was bombing Cambodia. The world

23:48

was on fire. They were

23:50

shooting students at Kent State and Jackson State.

23:52

I mean, all of that

23:54

stuff about the so-called 60s, because

23:56

by this time it was 1970, was kind of... at

24:00

its peak right then. So it was

24:02

an exciting time and really at that

24:04

time food was not... It

24:06

sounds bigger than it was because that's

24:09

what we're talking about. But really the

24:11

big stuff felt like we

24:14

really thought we were on the verge of making

24:16

the revolution. I mean we really thought that we

24:18

were going to make big change in this country

24:20

and in this world. And you

24:22

know that's an adolescent, I

24:24

now think that's a kind of adolescent thing to

24:28

think. But I'm not ashamed we thought

24:30

that we did good work, we did

24:32

interesting stuff. I think we supported the

24:34

right people, we allied with the right

24:36

people. I think we

24:38

took the right side, I still think that. So

24:40

you know that was... It

24:43

took 30 or more years of

24:45

food writing for me

24:47

to be able to figure out how to

24:49

work those politics into my

24:51

career. And that only

24:53

happened really when I was 60. So

24:56

that was a really happy thing for me to

24:59

be able to say, how do I bring these

25:01

left politics that I've carried since I was

25:04

20 or really 16 or whatever. But

25:07

these politics that have always felt like such an

25:09

important part of my life, how can I bring

25:11

that into my career? And it's

25:14

not. I always thought

25:16

it was worthwhile to teach people how to cook

25:18

and to show people that cooking was useful and

25:20

important then. I used to say

25:22

if I could teach Americans how

25:25

to eat rice and beans once a week, that

25:28

is those Americans who don't. That

25:30

my career would be, have been a successful thing. But

25:32

when in 2007 or 2006, so I was in my

25:34

mid 50s, late 50s, I started to write about the

25:41

politics of food and nutrition and environment

25:44

and climate change and so on. That

25:47

was a huge, huge thing for me. And to be

25:50

able to do that for the New York Times, no

25:52

less, not my own blog.

25:54

That was really important to me. That was kind

25:56

of full circle. thought,

26:00

those revolutionary ideas played out in small

26:02

ways in people's lives also. And

26:04

some of the decisions that they made, and it sounds like that happened

26:06

in your own partnership. Your

26:09

wife was going to medical school and you

26:11

made a decision that you were going

26:13

to hold down the kitchen when

26:15

your daughter came along, Kate came along. Was

26:19

that part of your revolutionary thinking or was

26:21

that just more pragmatic? Somebody's got to cook.

26:24

So it might as well be me. By 1969, 1970, if

26:26

you wanted to justify yourself as a progressive and you were

26:28

a male and you thought,

26:36

oh yeah, somebody's got to cook and it's going to

26:38

be the woman in this house, then

26:40

you were booted out or

26:44

you were not taken seriously. It was a

26:46

bit hypocritical then for you to hold these

26:48

ideas, but then... Continues

26:50

to be hypocritical, I think. That

26:54

part was easy and I don't... It

26:57

happened that cooking became my hobby and

26:59

then my career and Karen

27:02

was eventually squeezed out of the kitchen,

27:05

I think, or felt to some extent. I

27:07

think every woman I've lived with since then

27:09

has felt like the difficult part about me

27:11

in the kitchen is not getting me in,

27:13

but getting me out. Not

27:16

that there are so many complaints about that. But

27:21

that was a bit over the top,

27:24

let's say, or unusual. It wasn't just

27:26

that I saw

27:28

that it was my responsibility as a

27:30

good partner to share in those kinds

27:33

of things, cooking and cleaning and childcare.

27:35

It wasn't just cooking, but it was

27:37

cooking I was passionate about. You said

27:40

that cooking at home right now is

27:43

the most radical thing that people

27:45

can do. As someone who had

27:48

radical ideas throughout your life, it's interesting

27:50

that now you're saying that cooking is the

27:52

most radical thing that people can or

27:55

maybe should do. Can you explain

27:57

that? I'm sure I have said that. I've said a

27:59

lot of things. I don't know that I

28:01

would say that right now, that the most radical

28:03

thing you can do is cooking. Now,

28:05

when young people ask me what I

28:08

think they should do, I say, go to

28:10

Nebraska and run for Congress. That's

28:13

what I think people should do. But sure,

28:15

cook at the same time. So

28:18

I did write

28:21

this thing once called Cooking Solves Everything, and I

28:23

think I was in that vegan

28:25

before six period when I really thought,

28:28

I do think that cooking can have a big

28:30

impact on who you are, what you do, and

28:32

also on the world. But

28:34

I've come to recognize since then that

28:36

not everybody wants to cook, not everybody

28:38

can cook, not everybody has the means

28:41

or the time to cook. For

28:43

a minority of the population, it could

28:45

be a big minority, but for a minority of the population,

28:48

I think cooking is and can be

28:50

really important and really rewarding and really

28:53

gratifying and a gift

28:55

for a lot of the other part of

28:57

the population. Having

28:59

said all of that, I really do think

29:02

that we need to find the means to

29:04

get food to people who

29:06

don't, can't cook, who don't have kitchens, who

29:08

don't have families, who don't even have apartments,

29:10

who don't have money, who don't have time,

29:12

et cetera. Those people need

29:15

to be fed and they need to be fed not crumbs

29:17

that are swept off the table, not the food

29:20

that's left over from what the rest of us

29:22

eat, but they need to be fed good food in

29:25

a dignified way, in

29:28

a way that everybody respects and

29:30

recognizes is legitimate. We are, have

29:32

thoughts about that, many thoughts about that, but we

29:34

are really far from seeing that happen for the

29:36

most part. When

29:42

you go about your cooking, and I would love to see

29:44

your kitchen, I just, I can imagine

29:46

it, but I imagine it's organized and

29:49

I imagine you're semi-particular about the

29:52

Things that you use that implements the pans,

29:54

the way it's organized. But As you go

29:56

about your life and your cooking and your

29:58

writing, but mainly when you're cooking. If

30:01

there's that, You do some pan you

30:03

reach for some way you clean something

30:05

somewhere you'd shop something where every time

30:07

you do you think asks I'm doing

30:09

what my mother used to do his

30:12

inside me because of all those meals

30:14

I saw her make. Is

30:16

there one thing? And what? is that? one thing? I

30:19

have really reinvented. There.

30:21

Are things that I do and the kids in that I

30:24

think? Oh I remember when I started to do this. This

30:27

way. But. My mother did not

30:29

have anything approaching a chef's knife. My.

30:32

Mother didn't have a cutting board my

30:34

mother is of kind of funny electric

30:36

frying pan which i think my be

30:39

fun to have but i don't have

30:41

room for it's. There

30:44

are things I do when the kids and that

30:46

remind me of other people, but not so much

30:49

my mother. The she

30:51

lives inside you in the routine. There

30:53

for sure. We. Always

30:55

loved to leave our listeners with a

30:57

recipe. At mean something

30:59

special. To our

31:01

guests And. You.

31:04

Talk about something called the T .net

31:06

at the the names interesting and as

31:09

explain that and. Tell us what It isn't

31:11

why it's assumed he. Was

31:13

my grandmother who did the sort

31:15

of things you went crazy about

31:17

and she would do to roasted

31:19

chicken with garlic and paprika. See.

31:22

Made amazing cookies the one rests be

31:24

in my whole life that I've never

31:26

shared with anyone outside of my family's

31:28

called mom as cookies and for some

31:30

reason we still refuse to share it.

31:33

But the thing that my grandmother. Is.

31:35

See treated all holidays the same.

31:37

It didn't matter for the Jewish

31:39

holiday or American holiday or whatever

31:41

it was a holiday. She made

31:43

the same food. Thanksgiving she

31:45

made a turkey every time. She'd make

31:48

a chicken that I'm at. other side

31:50

dishes with the same and one of

31:52

their side. This is was which sequel

31:54

to Potato Neck and I've since found

31:56

out either Eastern Europeans. Call.

31:59

it the same thing and It's basically a giant

32:01

latke, a giant potato pancake.

32:03

So you take a recipe

32:05

for potato pancakes, and instead of

32:08

making individual potato pancakes, you make

32:10

a pie. You make one giant

32:13

potato pie. So it's potato,

32:15

onion, breadcrumbs, or matzo meal,

32:18

egg. The potatoes

32:20

are shredded, right? Shredded potatoes. So my

32:22

grandmother did them on a box grater,

32:25

and the joke was always that the

32:27

blood from her knuckles was added extra

32:29

flavor. But that

32:31

was always the joke. I have

32:33

the advantage of a food processor. And

32:36

my grandmother did it in a cast iron skillet. If

32:38

you have a nonstick skillet, it's like the easiest thing

32:40

in the world. And there's a very cool

32:42

technique that my grandmother did,

32:45

which was you slide the thing

32:48

out onto a plate, and then you put another plate

32:50

over it, and then you turn the two plates over,

32:52

and you slide the uncooked part, the

32:54

uncooked side back into the pan, which as

32:56

a six-year-old or an eight-year-old or whatever, I

32:58

thought that was pure genius. And you got

33:00

a nice little crisp on it on both

33:02

sides. Yeah, but with a nonstick skillet, the

33:05

tricks are minimized, and with a food processor,

33:07

the work is minimized. And yeah,

33:10

my grandmother never thought that my cooking was

33:12

particularly interesting or good, but she did say

33:14

that my potato nick was credible. I mean,

33:16

she didn't use that. I think she said

33:18

that it's pretty good, you know? Not bad

33:20

kind of thing. Wait, that's

33:23

high praise, though. Yeah, it was, well,

33:25

yeah. I gave

33:27

the impression that my mother was grumpy, but I

33:30

think she came by it legitimately. So

33:33

is potato nick on your holiday table, is that something

33:35

you serve up for? Yeah, I make it,

33:38

I mean, a partner

33:40

runs a thing called Glenwood Center

33:43

for Regional Food and Farming, and the center

33:45

is on a farm. So I live on

33:48

a farm. I'm not a farmer. Sometimes people think I'm

33:50

a farmer, but I'm the farthest thing from a farmer.

33:52

But we really try to eat

33:55

seasonally, almost exclusively,

33:57

as much as we can. And I've come to

33:59

think. from November on I've come to

34:01

think of it as

34:04

peeling season because every vegetable you do

34:06

you have to peel. I mean unless

34:08

you're lucky enough to get greens. So

34:12

once peeling season comes I start making

34:14

not only

34:16

I make many kind of

34:18

vegetable pies which is what potato nick

34:20

is. So you can mix those potatoes

34:23

with sweet potatoes or carrots or

34:25

beets or and all of which you can

34:27

cook individually in the same way

34:29

pretty much. I mean some adjustments need to

34:32

be made. I can't go into details on

34:34

that but you can make

34:36

a vegetable pie out of almost any

34:38

vegetable. And then the other thing I

34:40

make is mash. I mean what Northern

34:42

Europeans sort of call mash which is

34:44

mashed anything. But

34:47

it's all about peeling. You wind up spending

34:49

20 minutes every night peeling stuff. Last

34:51

question about the potato nick. Would she

34:54

serve those with applesauce and

34:56

sour cream? I

34:58

think applesauce was a concession. Sour

35:01

cream was a staple for my mother's

35:05

family, my father's family, both of them

35:07

and probably a billion other or you

35:09

know a million other Eastern

35:11

European Jewish family. Sour cream was a

35:15

I think an important protein source because

35:17

it kept for a long time and

35:19

you could serve it with almost anything.

35:21

My father's line when he was yelling

35:23

at us to finish dinner was when

35:26

I was growing up we were we had

35:30

a boiled potato for dinner with sour cream

35:32

if we were lucky. So sour cream was

35:34

like a daily kind of luxury and

35:37

believe me potato nick is ten

35:39

times better with sour cream than applesauce.

35:41

I'm with my grandmother on that but

35:45

you have to serve applesauce as a concession to

35:47

people who think that that's important. And

35:50

you're not one of those people? This

35:55

has been fun. Thank you so much, Mark. what

36:00

I expected it to be but it was widely

36:20

celebrated as Mark Bittman could get from

36:22

his grandmama is pretty good or not

36:25

bad. Hearing him talk through

36:27

his journey it's clear how influential all

36:29

the women in his life were to

36:31

his development in the kitchen. The three

36:33

women he lived with as a young

36:35

adult gifted him access to his first

36:37

cookbooks and while his mom and his

36:39

grandmother had different skill levels together they

36:41

taught him that cooking consistently is a

36:44

form of love and it was a

36:46

way to remain connected to the food of

36:48

his Ukrainian heritage. So much

36:50

of Mark's story doesn't happen though without his

36:53

own willingness to explore. By taking

36:55

the road less traveled literally as a

36:57

cab driver to expand his palate

36:59

he's a true testament to the

37:02

power of curiosity. I

37:04

can't wait to try my hand at

37:06

Mark's grandmother's potato Nick. If you'd like

37:08

to find out how to make it

37:10

head on over to my Instagram page

37:13

at Michelle underscore underscore Norris that's two

37:15

underscores or go to our website yourmama'skitchen.com.

37:17

You will find all the recipes from

37:19

all the previous episodes there and before

37:21

we go we want to remind you

37:23

that we want to hear from you. We want

37:26

to hear about your mama's kitchens thoughts on

37:28

some of the stories you've heard on this

37:30

podcast. Maybe you want to share what tastes

37:32

like home to you. We want to hear all

37:34

of that. Make sure to send us a voice

37:36

memo at YMK at highergroundproductions.com

37:39

and your story and your voice might

37:42

be featured in a future episode. That's

37:44

it for today. Goodbye everybody. Please come

37:46

back next week because you know us.

37:48

We're always serving up something interesting. Until

37:50

then be bountiful. This

38:02

has been a Higher Ground and

38:04

Audible Original produced by Higher Ground

38:07

Studios. Senior Producer Natalie Wren, Producer

38:09

Sonia Tung. Additional production support by

38:11

Misha Jones. Sound Design and Engineering

38:13

from Andrew Epen and Ryan Kozlowski.

38:16

Higher Ground Audio's editorial assistant is

38:18

Camilla Ferticus. Executive

38:20

Producers for Higher Ground are Nick White,

38:23

Mokta Mohan, Dan Fehrman and me, Michelle

38:25

Norris. Other Producers for

38:27

Audible are Nick DiAngelo and Ann Hefferman.

38:30

The show's closing song is 504 by

38:33

the Soul Rebels. Editorial and web

38:35

support from Melissa Bear and Say What

38:37

Media, talent booker Angela Paluso.

38:40

Chief Content Officer Rachel Gyatza and

38:42

that's it. Goodbye everybody. Copyright

38:44

2024 by Higher Ground Audio

38:47

LLC. Sound Recording Copyright 2024

38:50

by Higher Ground Audio LLC. Higher

38:57

Ground Audio LLC. Higher

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