Community Corner
Big Girls, Small Kitchen Come to New Canaan
With spatulas in one hand and cell phones in the other, Cara Eisenpress and Phoebe Lapine formed a friendship over food that has spurred a popular blog and recently released cookbook.
Say mealtime to a college student or someone living in their first New York City apartment, and Ramen Noodles and cold pizza come to mind. With barely-there budgets and almost non-existent kitchen space, is there really an alternative to takeout or pre-packaged dinners?
In their blog Big Girls, Small Kitchen and newly released cookbook In the Small Kitchen (100 Recipes From Our Year of Cooking in the Real World), co-authors Cara Eisenpress and Phoebe Lapine share delicious recipes and hilarious narratives about cooking and entertaining within the constraints of a twenty-something life.
The two spoke at the on Tuesday, July 26. Event co-sponsor sold copies of their book.
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Patch sat down with the girls before they appeared on stage to ask them a few questions about cooking, blogging, and how they became successful in the quarter-life. Here is what they had to say:
Patch: How do you become a good cook? Really, how do you get from the point of being able to follow a recipe, to knowing how to make something off the top of your head, to creating your own recipes?
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Big Girls: Honestly you just cook a lot! We say in our “Cooking for One” section that that’s really the time to experiment. If you’re just feeding yourself you can try out new things and just mess up, and then that’ll let you begin to start to master the tools of the trade. The important thing is to try it.
Patch: So, neither of you have any formal training?
Big Girls: We really pride ourselves in being legit home cooks—not chefs, not formally trained. We’re the sorts of experts at the things you could never learn in culinary school, like how to set a coffee table or make a fish taco buffet. We’ve dabbled in more professional kinds of cooking and found that this is more fun.
Patch: What is the biggest mistakes made by young chefs?
Big Girls: Under-seasoning. It’s important to taste as you go, so as you’re cooking you can say, ‘This doesn’t have enough salt.’
Patch: For someone moving into their first apartment, what is the most important kitchen tool to invest in?
Big Girls: A Dutch oven. It will last a lifetime and you can cook so many things in them that you might ordinarily need a host of other pans to do. And they’re pretty, so if you have no cabinet space you can leave them out. (The girls use Le Creuset, but recommend cheaper alternative brands like Lodge).
Patch: Where do you get inspiration for your recipes? Do you read other cooking blogs, magazines, or watch the Food Network?
Big Girls: Phoebe reads "Food and Wine" and "Bon Appetit." They’re lighter than a cookbook and still touching on new trends. We’re also inspired by what’s in season, what’s at the market, who’s coming to dinner, and more recently on diet restrictions like creating gluten-free recipes.
Patch: Do you usually cook for yourselves at every meal? What about going out to eat?
Big Girls: Once you get good at cooking, going out can be a disappointment. We go out for some of the stuff like ethnic food or somewhere like a Mexican restaurant that has an ambiance you can’t recreate at home, or great margaritas. Going to an Italian restaurant can be a little bit of a let down. But we’ve definitely cut back on takeout.
Patch: So many people have blogs these days, how have you made yours so successful and wide-read?
Big Girls: The most important thing is that we created our blog with a niche in mind and always kept to our point of view. At the time (their blog was first created in 2008) we were the only twenty-something food blog that mixed the point of view of musing and tutorial. We’ve still come across only about one blog today that’s similar to ours. No one else is really hitting what were trying to do.
Patch: Do you have any advice for aspiring bloggers?
Big Girls: Figure out what your niche is. People get frustrated when their blogs don’t take off right away. Just keep plugging.
For great recipes and an entertaining read, visit BigGirlsSmallKitchen.com or pick up a copy of In the Small Kitchen, on sale at Elm Street Books.