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Episode 82

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Published on:

27th Feb 2023

About Mushrooms, Our One-Minute Cooking Tip, An Interview With Susan Gravely, Butcher Box, Instant Pot Chili & More!

Mushrooms are a super food!They're packed with essential minerals--and pretty sustainable, to boot.

Join us, veteran cookbook authors Bruce Weinstein & Mark Scarbrough, as we talk about mushrooms and how you can get more of them into your weekly food routines. We've written a lot of mushroom recipes in our career that's spanned over three dozen cookbooks and countless magazine articles.

Beyond mushrooms, we've got a one-minute cooking tip about making substitutions. Then Bruce interviews Susan Gravely, the author of ITALY ON A PLATE and the owner of Vietri, an importer of glorious Italian tableware and home goods. Plus, we tell you what's making us happy in food this week.

Here are the segments for this episode of COOKING WITH BRUCE & MARK:

[01:00] All about mushrooms--and why you should consider getting more of them into your meals.

[13:32] Our one-minute cooking tip: how to make cooking substitutions.

[16:10] Bruce interviews Susan Gravely, the owner of Vietri, an Italian tableware and home good importer, and the author of ITALY ON A PLATE.

[33:02] What’s making us happy in food this week? Instant-pot chili and Butcher Box Meats.

Transcript
Bruce:

Hey, I'm Bruce Weinstein and this is the Podcast

Bruce:

Cooking with bruce and Mark.

Mark:

And I'm Mark Scarborough, and together with Bruce Weinstein, we have

Mark:

written 36 cookbooks, including the very latest, the Instant Air Fryer Bible.

Mark:

We are all.

Mark:

Into air frying.

Mark:

Check out our YouTube channel Cooking with Bruce and Marsy.

Mark:

Aren't we clever?

Mark:

We named it all the same thing.

Mark:

cooking with Bruce and Mark, in which you've got a ton of air fryer

Mark:

recipes up some from this book and some original to the YouTube site.

Mark:

You can check all of that out there.

Mark:

But in this episode of our podcast, we're not talking about that.

Mark:

We're talking about mushrooms.

Mark:

Oh wait, can you believe it?

Mark:

Which means Bruce's sister has automatically turned us off.

Mark:

. Uh, We're gonna have a one minute cooking tip.

Mark:

Bruce has an interview with Susan Graves, the author of Italy on a Plate, and

Mark:

we're gonna talk about what's making us happy in food this week, as we always do.

Mark:

So let's get started.

Bruce:

I have heard mushrooms referred to as a super food.

Mark:

I think we've all heard that.

Mark:

I think it's a common thing that runs around and I don't.

Mark:

Quite know, I have to tell you going into this, and, uh, we haven't rehearsed this

Mark:

together, but I'm gonna tell you that I don't quite know what a superfood means.

Bruce:

No, I don't either.

Bruce:

I mean, n don't add us, but if you do think you know what a superfood is, uh,

Bruce:

you can share it with us on our Facebook group Cooking With Boost and Mark.

Bruce:

I know Blueberries or Superfood,

Mark:

I dunno what that means.

Mark:

I mean, they're highly nutritious and I

Bruce:

think that's what it means.

Bruce:

It's highly nutritious and.

Bruce:

Calorie count,

Mark:

but they're not gonna, they're not gonna somehow make you live to 90.

Bruce:

No, I Ice cream is not a superfood.

Bruce:

I know that.

Mark:

Yes it is.

Mark:

Yes.

Mark:

Yes it is.

Bruce:

Does it wear a Cape I i think Superfoods Need to wear

Bruce:

capes and have in insignia?

Mark:

No, I mean, there's, without a doubt, there are some.

Mark:

Things that are better to eat blueberries, let's say whole grains are better to eat.

Mark:

Mm-hmm.

Mark:

, there are a host of things that are leafy greens.

Mark:

Mm-hmm.

Mark:

are better than eat, but I just don't know what this term superfood means and

Mark:

it strikes me as US based faddishness, but, well, that, I'll go with it.

Bruce:

Well, I think it's.

Bruce:

Also, people are always looking for the magic food, right?

Bruce:

The magic thing.

Bruce:

That's gonna make them younger.

Bruce:

Make them thinner, make them healthier.

Mark:

Well, I mean, you know, listen, at my ripe old age of 62, I will tell

Mark:

you that I've been seeing a lot of ads for eye creams, and I am looking at them

Mark:

like, Hmm, which eye cream should I try?

Mark:

So, well, whichever one you're.

Bruce:

Really working well.

Mark:

Oh, thank, thank you.

Mark:

That would be nothing , so thank you.

Mark:

That's very nice.

Mark:

But I still am looking at eye creams, super creams.

Bruce:

Do they wear cape too?

Mark:

Yeah, so you're right.

Mark:

We, we are kind of timed and prone and I don't know what conditioned to

Mark:

look for these things, but it is true that mushrooms are rather nutritious.

Mark:

They are that they are rather . Delicious.

Mark:

Your sister notwithstanding

Bruce:

and flexible and.

Bruce:

They are so flexible and so delicious that the New York Times last year.

Bruce:

Call them the ingredient of the year.

Mark:

Oh, there, see, there's nothing I'm really gonna get irritated

Mark:

with the ingredient of the year.

Bruce:

It got me to click on it.

Mark:

Oh, I want, I want, um, what?

Mark:

Ice cream to be the ingredient.

Mark:

That's not really ingredient is it?

Mark:

Ingredient.

Bruce:

Go back to that.

Bruce:

Ice cream of super food and a cape.

Mark:

It is, it's completely a super food, particularly if

Mark:

you serve your ice cream over

Bruce:

wheat berries.

Bruce:

What if you serve sauteed mushrooms over your ice cream?

Mark:

Well then it would be disgusting . But, um, okay.

Mark:

Well, to tell you before we get to, we we're way off track.

Mark:

Get to mushroom set.

Mark:

I should tell you that once person and I, well we wrote several ice cream books.

Mark:

We have written several ice cream books over the course of our career.

Mark:

Early on in one of the first books, there was a question of adding garlic ice

Mark:

cream to the book, and it was so vile.

Mark:

It tasted like frozen Alfredo sauce.

Mark:

Oh, it was disgusting, which was just too much to even fathom it not happening.

Mark:

I, I know the lot chefs are doing roasted garlic ice cream now, but,

Mark:

I still, I, I shy away from it given my early experience with it.

Mark:

Okay.

Mark:

Anyway, so there's this 15 minutes of fame that has been given to

Mark:

mushrooms, so let's talk about

Bruce:

it.

Bruce:

If I had my way, that 15 minutes will last forever, because I do love mushrooms,

Bruce:

even though my sister hates them.

Bruce:

And she's gonna be talked about a lot during this podcast.

Bruce:

But they are, here's the thing about mushrooms.

Bruce:

They are not just in the fresh produce aisle anymore.

Bruce:

No, they are.

Bruce:

You can find mushroom tea, hot chocolate with ground mushrooms.

Bruce:

Yep.

Bruce:

I've seen mushroom infused sparkling water.

Bruce:

Ew, gross.

Bruce:

I've seen mushroom protein bars, mushroom jerky and chips, and

Bruce:

all sorts of seasoning mushroom.

Mark:

Absolutely.

Bruce:

Yeah.

Bruce:

And seasonings made with ground dry mushrooms.

Bruce:

And that's a brilliant thing because we've talked on this podcast before

Bruce:

about using ground dried mushrooms with a little soy sauce as an umami ingredient

Bruce:

to boost the flavor of steaks and roasts.

Mark:

I mean, I mean edible mushrooms, the edible by human mushrooms

Mark:

are incredibly nutrient dense.

Mark:

And they are a wild product to add tons of minerals and vitamins to your diet

Mark:

and they are a kind of wildly good food.

Mark:

The ones that we can eat.

Mark:

I, I should say that Bruce and I live in super rural New England and we

Mark:

have some land in rural New England.

Mark:

And it's mostly forested and people who are always saying, oh,

Mark:

are you going out finding morels?

Mark:

Are you going out finding mushrooms?

Mark:

The answer is no, we don't.

Mark:

I'm not a mycologist and I Russian

Mark:

roulette.

Mark:

I'm not playing that.

Bruce:

I'm you too afraid of the false mushrooms that look like the ruins.

Bruce:

We do have a really nice relationship with a friend.

Bruce:

Down and she permits us to come and take henna, the wood mushrooms from

Bruce:

a stump in her yard sometimes during the course of the year, late, right?

Bruce:

Late in the summer it usually is, right?

Bruce:

Mm-hmm.

Bruce:

summer September kind of time, and that's a really, really

Bruce:

fine and lovely gift she gives.

Bruce:

We trade her jam for head of the woods that grow on the

Bruce:

stump in her yard, but okay.

Bruce:

I know exists, but, uh, I don't just go foraging.

Bruce:

But the, you know, the mushrooms are often offered as a meat alternative.

Bruce:

And Bruce just made a beautiful noodled stir fry the other night

Bruce:

that was full of mushrooms.

Bruce:

Mm.

Bruce:

Nice.

Bruce:

They had

Bruce:

no meat.

Bruce:

Right?

Bruce:

Yeah.

Bruce:

I used king oyster mushrooms and they're chewy texture is such

Bruce:

a great alternative to meat.

Bruce:

And you, you

Mark:

sliced them long, kind of like long strip

Bruce:

king oyster mushrooms.

Bruce:

Are very tall.

Bruce:

I sliced them the long way into flat strips, and then I slice

Bruce:

those flat strips into thin strips so they mimic the noodles.

Bruce:

So when I toss them with the noodles, you almost couldn't tell what was

Bruce:

a noodle and what was a mushroom.

Mark:

And you know, of course there are a lot of restaurants that have, uh,

Mark:

portobellos as, uh, burger substitutes.

Mark:

Now I have to tell you, I'm gonna con confess right now that I actually don't

Mark:

like the portobello burger substitute.

Mark:

I do.

Mark:

Fake burgers, like bean burgers with mushrooms in the mix.

Mark:

Mm-hmm.

Mark:

, because I think it pulls down the sweetness of the beans in bean burgers.

Mark:

I love bean burgers,

Bruce:

and a lot of the plant-based meat substitutes, startups now

Bruce:

are putting mushrooms in them, so they're adding some more mommies.

Bruce:

So Not Impossible Burgers and not Beyond Meat, but other brands are starting to put

Bruce:

ground mushrooms into their plant-based meat substitutes, which really give it

Bruce:

so much umami flavor because mushrooms really do make a good meat substitute.

Mark:

They do.

Mark:

They, they are a plant, a good plant-based substitute forese.

Mark:

We eat at a vegan restaurant in Asheville, North Carolina, when we

Mark:

spent a week down there last year just on a vacation in Asheville.

Mark:

And the, there was a lot of mushroom,

Bruce:

there was a lot of mushrooms going on.

Bruce:

There were, and mushrooms.

Bruce:

I will say that back to those hand of the wood mushrooms, they make the

Bruce:

best faux fried chicken ever that if you lightly batter them and then

Bruce:

you fry them, you panf fry them in a few inches of oil, they're amazing.

Bruce:

You don't even know that you're not even fried chicken.

Mark:

Yeah, it's kind of amazing.

Mark:

And uh, now, As you probably know, there are tons of companies that

Mark:

sell essentially fake logs or boxes where you can grow mushrooms in your

Mark:

own home, grow edible mushrooms.

Mark:

I will confess that Bruce and I have never tried this.

Mark:

Mm-hmm.

Mark:

, so we've never bought one of the boxes and grown mushrooms.

Mark:

I'm kind of intrigued to do it cuz I'm a gardener and I love growing things.

Mark:

I will tell you that also I.

Mark:

Mushrooms in my garden.

Mark:

I fight them.

Mark:

Uh, we got a load of mulch a few years ago, and it clearly

Mark:

had some of the, what are they?

Mark:

What spores?

Mark:

Yeah, some spores, or maybe it had mycelium in it.

Mark:

It's something that allowed mushrooms to grow in the mulch.

Mark:

And now for the last, oh gosh, I don't know, five, six years, I have just f.

Mark:

These big clusters of brain looking mushrooms that are, no, we're not

Mark:

eating them, popping up in my gardens, and they make me very irritable.

Bruce:

One of the reasons I don't want to have mushrooms growing

Bruce:

in the house is I don't want to encourage fungal growth in the house.

Bruce:

Oh, I mean, mushrooms are a fungus.

Bruce:

And you're asking this fungus to grow in your house, and I just

Bruce:

don't like the idea of it, but they

Mark:

couldn't, we do it sometime just to say, okay, so I, I understand not wanting

Mark:

mushroom spores and not wanting fungal growth in your house and all that kind of

Mark:

stuff, but isn't there a way to do this in the summer where you put that box out

Mark:

in the garage or someplace like that?

Mark:

I mean, wouldn't that be a thing?

Mark:

I don't think critters are necessarily gonna want that box.

Mark:

We have a, we, again, we live so rurally and so deep in the woods.

Mark:

We have a.

Mark:

As we call them, furry, well furry, well wishers and, um, well,

Bruce:

I'm gonna look into that, that we can, maybe we can do that.

Bruce:

If you've ever grown mushrooms at home on one of those logs, those

Bruce:

boxes in your garage, let us know.

Bruce:

Go to our Facebook group cooking, Bruce and Mark, um, because we'd

Bruce:

like to try that and mushrooms.

Bruce:

Are such a great future, um, of food for, for humanity cuz they

Bruce:

need minimal water, minimal energy.

Bruce:

They are one of the most sustainably produced foods in the us So

Mark:

if you feel add more mushroom to diet, here's a couple ideas.

Mark:

One, when you make a soup st or a Braze, something that's wet and liquidy.

Mark:

Think about adding a few dried mushrooms to it, and you can

Mark:

do this in one of two ways.

Mark:

You can buy the dried mushrooms.

Mark:

Well, yeah.

Mark:

That's the way you always have to do it.

Mark:

, you start by buying the dried mushroom.

Mark:

But I mean, you can either rehydrate them in some water and add them to the soup,

Mark:

but they will rehydrate in the soup.

Mark:

It's just how much.

Mark:

Of the liquid of the soup or the stew, you want them to eat up or you

Mark:

can take the fully dried ones and you can grind them coarsely and add them

Mark:

for flavor, and then they won't soak up quite as much liquid in the pot.

Mark:

If

Bruce:

you're going to grind up dried mushrooms or put them dried

Bruce:

right in soup, make sure that you get ones that are clean and that.

Bruce:

You know right.

Bruce:

Because if you look at the package, it might say to strain the liquid

Bruce:

after you rehydrate the meaning there could be a lot of sand and dirt.

Bruce:

It means they're sandy.

Bruce:

So you want to get ones that aren't, cuz you don't want to have

Bruce:

sand and dirt added to your food.

Bruce:

Now you can also slice up fresh mushrooms, saute them in a little butter or olive

Bruce:

oil, add those sauteed mushrooms to any mac and cheese you're making.

Bruce:

You could toss them.

Bruce:

Any pasta, you could top a pasta dish with them.

Bruce:

Mm-hmm.

Bruce:

. So that's a wonderful way to add mushrooms.

Mark:

Yeah, it, it's a great way.

Mark:

And think about them too, if you saute them particularly hole on

Mark:

top of all kinds of appetizers.

Mark:

I know butter boards are really hit right now.

Mark:

Um, cream cheese boards, hummus boards.

Mark:

But again, if you saute some.

Mark:

Smaller whole mushrooms in olive oil and then added them to a hummus board.

Mark:

Mm-hmm.

Mark:

It'd be a really nice, I can imagine a, a nice addition.

Mark:

I can imagine a hummus board with sauteed mushrooms in olive oil.

Mark:

Olive oil, cuz it's hummus and with some sliced radishes and maybe some

Mark:

harissa or some kind of hot sauce on it.

Mark:

And then lots of crunchy bread to pick it all up with and scrape it off the board.

Mark:

It'd be a really nice addition to a really chill evening and, a nice party,

Bruce:

it would be delicious.

Bruce:

And also slice and fresh mushrooms put them in some butter when they release

Bruce:

all their liquid and it evaporates at a splash of cream and some chopped chives.

Bruce:

Let that cream reduce and then just spoon that onto toast.

Bruce:

Mm-hmm.

Bruce:

. And that's like sort of like the vegetarian cream chip.

Bruce:

Beef, fun toast.

Bruce:

Only made with mushrooms, right?

Mark:

So again, let to sum up, Bruce and I are a little bit reticent

Mark:

about the superfood category.

Mark:

We're a little bit held back because it sounds a little

Mark:

bit like Faddishness and US.

Mark:

Culture is driven so much by Faddishness.

Mark:

That seems a little wrong.

Mark:

What we can say is that humans have been me eating mushrooms

Mark:

for thousands of years.

Mark:

Some dying along the way When they've tested mushrooms, they didn't know what

Mark:

they were, but by now we kind of know what we can eat in the psychological world.

Mark:

So there are lots of ways to add mushrooms, which do have

Mark:

really high nutrition value into your standard food and much.

Mark:

For example, adding them to soups and stews.

Mark:

Buying dried mushrooms is fairly economical.

Mark:

They're a little expensive, fairly economical.

Mark:

But remember, you can get a fantastic flavor add in the soup or stew with

Mark:

just one or two tried portini mushrooms.

Bruce:

You can, oh, yum.

Bruce:

They're so delicious.

Bruce:

And remember, not every mushroom tastes the same.

Bruce:

Nope.

Bruce:

So for my sister who may or may not still be listening, , they

Bruce:

don't all taste the same.

Bruce:

So if you don't like one, try.

Mark:

Up next on our podcast, our traditional one minute cooking tip.

Mark:

What is it?

Mark:

This time?

Bruce:

Don't be afraid to make substitutions when you're cooking.

Bruce:

Experimenting with ingredients is part of the fun of cooking, and to be honest.

Bruce:

, one dried fruit can easily be exchanged for another.

Bruce:

A celery root or rutabaga can be used instead of

Bruce:

carrot or potatoes.

Bruce:

No,

Mark:

I, I'm gonna stop you in this one minute cookie tip already.

Mark:

I may it longer by saying Bruce is a chef more than a baker, although

Mark:

he bakes beautifully do substituting and baking is a much different

Mark:

matter than substituting and cooking.

Mark:

And chef, you know, chefs cook, pastry, cooks big, and Bruce

Mark:

tends to be much more of a chef.

Mark:

So when he's saying, oh, you know, throw rutabaga instead of carrot, he's not.

Mark:

Saying, throw a corn starch in instead of flour?

Bruce:

No, no, no, no, no.

Bruce:

If you notice the, a couple of examples I gave, they're similar products, right?

Bruce:

One dried fruit for another, one, root vegetable for another.

Bruce:

So no, you cannot substitute baking powder or corn starch for a wheat flour.

Bruce:

They're completely different things.

Mark:

And let me say that, if you're interested in making all kinds of

Mark:

substitution, In cooking and even baking.

Mark:

There's a fantastic book by Dave Jak, who has been on this podcast.

Mark:

Mm-hmm.

Mark:

with the Food Substitution Bible, and it is a great reference.

Mark:

You should have a copy and keep it in your kitchen and know we

Mark:

are not being paid by Dave at all.

Mark:

He's a nice guy though.

Mark:

But he is a nice guy.

Mark:

And the food Substitution Bible is a brilliant addition to your kitchen.

Mark:

Before we get to the next segment of this podcast, let me say that if you don't

Mark:

know, Bruce and I have a newsletter.

Mark:

It comes out about once a week, maybe sometimes once every other week.

Mark:

It has a recipe in it.

Mark:

It often has news about us.

Mark:

It has some conversational bits.

Mark:

One coming up now that's gonna come out this next week.

Mark:

Well, when you're listening to this podcast, is all about

Mark:

non-alcoholic cocktails and the kind of craze of non-alcoholic

Mark:

cocktails that's going on right now.

Mark:

You should check all that out.

Mark:

It has links to find us in various places, including cooking classes

Mark:

that are happening in the offing.

Mark:

So said that.

Mark:

Go to our website, bruce ad mark.com.

Mark:

There is a signup feature for the newsletter.

Mark:

There you can sign.

Mark:

And I promise you, I will never even see your email.

Mark:

But beyond that, that list will never be sold to anyone, and you

Mark:

can always unsubscribe at any time.

Mark:

Our next segment of the podcast is as traditional an interview.

Mark:

It's Bruce's interview.

Mark:

with the author of Italy ona plate.

Bruce:

This morning I have Susan Gravely with me.

Bruce:

She is the co-founder with her sister and her mother of Viri, America's

Bruce:

largest importer of Italian ceramics.

Bruce:

And Susan offers up a beautiful and delicious new

Bruce:

book called Italy on a Plate.

Bruce:

It's Part cookbook.

Bruce:

Part memoir about her 40 years of traveling and entertaining in Italy.

Bruce:

Welcome, Susan.

Susan:

Thank you so much Bruce.

Susan:

Glad to be here.

Bruce:

You start the book off with a line.

Bruce:

I grew up in a home filled with guests.

Bruce:

Well that's a wonderful image, just a happy childhood.

Bruce:

And you write that even as a child, you were allowed to attend

Bruce:

your parents' dinner parties.

Bruce:

So doesn't surprise me that you have a career centered on fine

Bruce:

food and gorgeous tableware.

Bruce:

Oh.

Bruce:

Um, but it sort of came about accidentally.

Bruce:

Didn't that?

Bruce:

On a trip to Italy with your mother.

Bruce:

Tell me about that.

Susan:

It was totally back accident.

Susan:

My father, just to back up a little bit, was an international tobacconist, and what

Susan:

that was was that my great-grandfather had started this company called China

Susan:

American Tobacco Company, and then it went to CAT Code, the initials.

Susan:

And we had people from all over the world in a house that were testing the

Susan:

burley, the sweet part of a tobacco.

Susan:

And so as long as we had good manners and we sat quietly, we could listen.

Susan:

To everything they were talking about and serve drinks as a southern family does,

Susan:

and, uh, and bring a tray of the different tobaccos that they were looking at.

Susan:

So that was my beginning.

Susan:

My father, he had just sold his company, if it cat codes, had gone down to

Susan:

Valdosta, Georgia to introduce the new owners to the Italian conglomerate.

Susan:

Of all people came back, felt bad, and had a heart attack and died.

Susan:

And this was the trip that he and mama had been planning mama had seen in it

Susan:

was either gourmet or Bon Appetit in 1979, an article about the San Piero.

Susan:

She had wanted to go, they loved Italy.

Susan:

So after he died two years later, she called my sister and

Susan:

me and said, will you take the.

Susan:

Your father and I were planning well, yeah, so off we went

Susan:

much to my two brothers Cha.

Susan:

They were not invited, but that was the trip where we stayed at the San

Susan:

Piero, walked into this glorious.

Susan:

Hotel that should be on every person's splurge bucket list and saw the

Susan:

animals and the flowers and the fruits all splattered around the border

Susan:

of the plates in different colors.

Susan:

And we said, we've either gotta buy it for ourselves, others, or do something else.

Susan:

So that was the.

Bruce:

From walking in and seeing this beautiful table where you Yes.

Bruce:

You were like, oh my goodness, and we are gonna do this.

Bruce:

And you have brought that to the us.

Bruce:

You've, you've created a look of what.

Bruce:

Beautiful Italian food should, should be like on what kind of dinnerware?

Bruce:

So you and your mom called the company Vietri.

Bruce:

And what does that mean?

Susan:

The village where this dinner, where it came from was called Vietri

Susan:

Sur Mari, and we looked at the word and said, okay, if you reverse the

Susan:

syllables, In Italian, Tre three lives in French twk, three lives here.

Susan:

We were three lives and thought once people can say it, which

Susan:

still is an issue, but once they say, they'll never forget it.

Susan:

So that's how we came up with the name.

Bruce:

And when you started this venture, you didn't speak Italian yet?

Bruce:

You're traveling, you're doing business in Italy.

Bruce:

When and how did that change?

Susan:

I found out living in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, that there

Susan:

were college classes in Sicily.

Susan:

Well, I didn't even know where Sicily was really.

Susan:

So I signed up and where with all undergraduates.

Susan:

31, and I had Bruce private classes every day.

Susan:

Cause those students had no interest in going to class.

Susan:

So I was studying Italian and being the psychologist, the counselor

Susan:

to the teacher who was Italian and ringing his hands because nobody was

Susan:

coming to class and the university wouldn't let him come the next year.

Susan:

So that was my first month of Italian classes.

Susan:

And then from then on I just started picking up words and practicing

Susan:

and practicing and trying, and it took about 10 years, but I speak

Susan:

a mean Southern accented Italian.

Bruce:

Your book.

Bruce:

Filled with people who've inspired you, who you've met over your 40

Bruce:

years of doing business in Italy.

Bruce:

You start the book off with your friendship with Ti Bosio.

Bruce:

Ah, who is she and why are her recipes so important to you?

Susan:

Tito was, well, a little backup on this.

Susan:

We flew over on a Italian because my sister Francis.

Susan:

Is more dramatic than I am.

Susan:

And she wanted the experience of Italy.

Susan:

And on that flight in 1983, she walked up to business class to use the

Susan:

bathroom because that was much nicer.

Susan:

Started talking to an Italian gentleman who ended up coming down,

Susan:

being mesmerized by the southern.

Susan:

Lovely mother and two daughters and he gave us restaurants in,

Susan:

in Florence and then gave us his business card and said, if you.

Susan:

Or in Florence, please call, which we never would've called.

Susan:

Well, we did because in Florence Mama's pocketbook was stolen and

Susan:

those were the years, you might be too young for this, but that you only

Susan:

had travelers checks and cash, right?

Susan:

Yep.

Susan:

So we lost everything.

Susan:

We had put our passports and mama's pocketbook and well, once we

Susan:

called Fabio and he helped us find our pass, get passports and all.

Susan:

. We told him about these plates and at 11 o'clock at night,

Susan:

he took us to Tita's house.

Susan:

Tita had some antique stores, but she also worked for Macy's Corporation.

Susan:

And she said, beautiful designs, fabulous factory.

Susan:

The most impossible people I've ever worked with.

Susan:

I wouldn't try it

Susan:

that's all we needed.

Susan:

You know, let's give it a try and see what happens.

Susan:

So she was the first inspiration.

Susan:

She, um, has a beautiful home in the hills of Florence and she was that first

Susan:

person that said, come and eat with me.

Susan:

Let's eat in the kitchen.

Susan:

And the kitchen was filled with art and books, and she had.

Susan:

Hand painted her floors and.

Susan:

Uh, for 40 years I have always called Teta and met with her.

Susan:

She has the most fabulous attitude about living and living well and being

Susan:

around a table and being with friends.

Susan:

So I'm still in love with her.

Bruce:

And you write about a young boy you watched Grow up in Positano,

Bruce:

, Giovanni Carrassi, and Bravo

Bruce:

One of the recipes in your book is Nochi with a Lemon Sauce.

Bruce:

Tell me how your friendship, with Giovanni influenced your life in Italy

Bruce:

and about this luxurious gnocchi a limone.

Susan:

I met him because there were only a couple of ceramic factories in

Susan:

Positano and whenever I was traveling or or am traveling, I'm always going

Susan:

into every store, looking in all the Italian magazines, seeing what

Susan:

the trends are, what's new, where factories, and I would go into that

Susan:

shop and his Uncle Enza ran it.

Susan:

and Giovanni was this little boy who loved people and he was this

Susan:

little chunk of a little boy.

Susan:

Loved people, loved to sell.

Susan:

And so every time I went, I would go.

Susan:

I would go in to see Enzo, but I'd ask where Giovanni was.

Susan:

Well, he's now a 33 year old man.

Susan:

I call him the mayor of Posy because he was born there.

Susan:

He loves it.

Susan:

He.

Susan:

Everybody.

Susan:

He is a beautiful cook, as is his wife.

Susan:

And so this is a recipe that is so simple, yet so delicious, because you probably

Susan:

know that the lemons on the Amalfi Coast are almost the size of small pineapples.

Susan:

Mm.

Susan:

And their skins are.

Susan:

, but the, the meat inside is very, um, juicy and tender.

Susan:

And so making things on the Amalfi Coast in lemon with lemon taste, lemon zest,

Susan:

little lemon juice, simple, delicious.

Susan:

You feel like you know you are.

Susan:

In a boat, sailing in the ocean, eating this newi.

Susan:

So, uh, I've eaten with them several times at their home, this Newi, and

Susan:

I've made it, and you've got to make it.

Susan:

It's very easy.

Bruce:

Mm-hmm.

Bruce:

You write in the book about your deep friendship with Francis and

Bruce:

Ed Mays, and Yes, most people are familiar with Francis's bestselling

Bruce:

book under the Tuscan Suns.

Bruce:

And what was it like to find fellow North Carolinians as your Tuscan soulmates?

Susan:

I first met Francis when she was designing furniture in High Point with one

Susan:

of the great furniture companies of High Point, and they wanted some dinnerware.

Susan:

And so I was called in to create some dinnerware that we called Bra

Susan:

Sole, which is the name of her house.

Susan:

Mm-hmm.

Susan:

. And so we met.

Susan:

with me looking at the furniture, the great heavy Tuscan style furniture,

Susan:

and talking to her about the colors and the color of her house, and

Susan:

then creating that dinnerware.

Susan:

So you go to their home, Bruce, they are open.

Susan:

They are caring.

Susan:

They love to cook.

Susan:

You have got to make those orange and sage, um, cookies that have

Susan:

zested of um, Of herbs in them.

Susan:

Mm, they, they're the most divine things.

Susan:

Easy.

Susan:

Easy.

Susan:

They love people.

Susan:

They love to entertain spontaneously.

Susan:

The last time I was there, we were gonna walk into town and this car drove up.

Susan:

It was at the bottom of the hill looking up at the house, and this young girl

Susan:

got out and she was just looking at the house and then, Partner or young husband

Susan:

got out and they were just staring.

Susan:

most famous people.

Susan:

And Francis is a famous person in my eyes.

Susan:

Yes.

Susan:

Wouldn't dare do anything.

Susan:

She said, well, I think I'll just go down and see who they are.

Susan:

She goes down, opens the gate.

Susan:

This gal's whole goal in life was to see this house because she loved

Susan:

the movie and the book so much.

Susan:

And here she was meeting Francis.

Susan:

Hmm.

Susan:

So that's just.

Susan:

Indicative of her warmth and but her sophistication in understanding

Susan:

the world and caring about people.

Bruce:

That kind of warmth, that kind of open to entertaining.

Bruce:

Comes through in your book in the way you write about entertaining

Bruce:

and the food and your friends there, your stories and recipes.

Bruce:

Take us from Pasano to Florence to Venice.

Bruce:

The photos of the food are mouthwatering.

Bruce:

Do you have any tips or secrets to entertaining with this kind

Bruce:

of simply elegant cuisine?

Susan:

Let go of your fears.

Susan:

Cause the most important thing.

Susan:

and all of our lives are to be together for me to meet you and for us to talk

Susan:

and understand each other's lives.

Susan:

So I think people worry too much about perfection.

Susan:

I think imperfections are part of life and people really just wanna be together.

Susan:

We tend to.

Susan:

Mix what's ever on the table.

Susan:

There could be old platters that were my mother's or grandmothers with some

Susan:

vry product, depending upon if we want to use cotton or linen napkins

Susan:

or our paper napkins, we just do it.

Susan:

Mm-hmm.

Susan:

. And then the food is about if it's impromptu, what's in the refrigerator

Susan:

and what quickly we can get to going to a farmer's market and planning what's fresh.

Susan:

But I would say my biggest tip is, Not get burdened by a lot of dishes or formality,

Susan:

but make it casual and make it welcoming.

Bruce:

Susan, if you had to choose one meal that you've had in 40 years

Bruce:

of traveling to Italy, that was so good that you could have it again and

Bruce:

again and again, what would that be?

Susan:

I'll tell you what is my favorite.

Susan:

Dish in the world.

Susan:

There is a restaurant in Florence called Camilo.

Susan:

It is a charming family owned.

Susan:

It's been there for centuries and people from Florence come in, everyone, and

Susan:

I think this isn't as Italian news.

Susan:

You think they're shrimp Curry is so delicious.

Susan:

This curry with.

Susan:

Rice and their fresh shrimp, and they've kind of sauteed the

Susan:

shrimp in the classic Tuscan way.

Susan:

Olive oil, you know, some parsley, some a little bit of garlic.

Susan:

, it's divine.

Susan:

So I know that's a surprise, but that would be number one.

Susan:

There is a favorite second one, . A lemon and Parmesan and butter pasta.

Susan:

And it's again that cheese, that creamy cheese with that lemon and that

Susan:

little bit of butter and olive oil.

Susan:

Simple divine.

Bruce:

Sounds absolutely amazing.

Bruce:

Susan Gravely, congratulations on 40 years with Viri and bringing this beautiful

Bruce:

Italian culture and style to us and great.

Bruce:

Good luck with the new book Italy on a plate.

Bruce:

It is stunning.

Bruce:

It makes everyone want to go to Italy.

Bruce:

The food looks beautiful.

Bruce:

Thanks for spending some time with me.

Susan:

Thank you.

Susan:

Thank you.

Mark:

Let me just say that Bruce and I started in this business in 99 with

Mark:

our first cookbook, and the cookbook industry has changed so much, hasn't it?

Mark:

Yeah, a little bit.

Mark:

We started when cookbooks were still compendium of the

Mark:

Compendia compendia of recipes.

Mark:

Lots and lots of recipes in every direction.

Mark:

and now it seems like so many more cookbooks have become lifestyle

Mark:

ish.

Mark:

and a kind of a, I don't know what now overall take uh, or

Mark:

lifestyle take on life itself.

Bruce:

Yeah.

Bruce:

Why don't, you know, she was a lifestyle expert in an entertaining expert

Bruce:

and, you know, with her company Viri, it's just all about how beautiful

Bruce:

Italian food is and can be presented.

Mark:

Yeah, exactly.

Mark:

Before we get to the final segment of this podcast, which is always what's

Mark:

making us happy, and for this week, let me say that it'd be great if

Mark:

you could subscribe to this podcast.

Mark:

If you could rate it, you can drop down on the audible menu, on the

Mark:

Apple menu, on the Google menu.

Mark:

You could drop a rating no matter in what country you're listening to us in.

Mark:

We realize that the bulk of our listeners come from the US but we also.

Mark:

That we have lots of listeners in Australia, in Canada, and the uk.

Mark:

If you can drop down on your particular country's site and write a review or

Mark:

leave a rating, that would be great.

Mark:

Okay.

Mark:

Now, as always, what's making us happy in food this week?

Bruce:

Instant Pot Chili.

Bruce:

I mean, we have written four instant pop books and I never get

Bruce:

tired of making Instant Pot chili.

Mark:

Well, let me say he's, he's gonna go on of it.

Mark:

It's chilly in a minute.

Mark:

, but let me just say, one of the recipes is, uh, riff is a riff

Mark:

on one off of our books, which is Freezer to Instant Pot, the Cookbook.

Mark:

Mm-hmm.

Mark:

. And this cookbook is basically you do not thaw anything.

Mark:

You pull it out of the freezer and throw it into the Instant Pot and make

Mark:

it, and I wanna tell you that ground beef chili, Fr in the Fri and Instapot

Mark:

book is kind of amazing because the ground beef still stays a bit chunky.

Mark:

Mm-hmm.

Mark:

at the end of it.

Bruce:

Yeah.

Bruce:

Cuz you take your sauce, you make a base sauce with, uh, canned

Bruce:

tomatoes and you throw salsa in it and fresh onions and lots of spices.

Bruce:

And then you heat that up in the instant pot on saute.

Bruce:

Right.

Bruce:

So it's bubbling.

Bruce:

Then you take two one pound blocks of frozen ground beef and you set them.

Bruce:

And cover the machine and put it on pressure cook, and by the time it's

Bruce:

done in 20 minutes, you open it.

Bruce:

Your sauce has been enriched by these chunks of beef, which almost

Bruce:

acted like a roast in there.

Bruce:

Mm-hmm.

Bruce:

, you pull them out.

Bruce:

Mm-hmm.

Bruce:

, they're not cooked through, they're so rare in the middle, but you chop

Bruce:

them up as coarses you like, so you can have big chunks of meat, throw

Bruce:

them back in, let it bubble for about two minutes and it's done.

Mark:

Yeah.

Mark:

I mean, I had spoon size.

Mark:

We just had this and I had spoon size.

Mark:

Chunks of ground beef and that was really nice cuz ground beef chili

Mark:

often gets so thready and mushy.

Mark:

Mm-hmm.

Mark:

and the beef almost like dissolves into the chili and it, it was, it's

Mark:

a much better way to make chili.

Mark:

And again, that recipe is in our book Freezer to Instant

Mark:

about the cookbook gets it.

Mark:

It was really delicious and Bruce didn't add this, but I'm gonna add it.

Mark:

What it's making me happy in food this week is a big box of meat from ButcherBox.

Mark:

Mm-hmm.

Mark:

ButcherBox sent us a giant box of frozen meat.

Mark:

As they do, they drop ship frozen meat to you.

Mark:

We are not paid by them and not sponsored by them, but it was so

Mark:

nice to get this big box of meat.

Mark:

And the reason we got it is because Bruce is teaching an

Mark:

Instant Pot class with, but.

Mark:

Box on the 28th of February.

Mark:

You wanna talk about that?

Bruce:

Yeah, it's a free class.

Bruce:

If you want the link, send me a message at cooking with Bruce and mark.com

Bruce:

or go to cooking with Bruce and Mark on Facebook and send a message

Bruce:

there and I will post the link.

Bruce:

I'm gonna be making three instant pot chilies with the ButcherBox meat.

Bruce:

It's free and,

Mark:

and it's free, which is always good.

Mark:

So that's our podcast episode for this week.

Mark:

Thanks for being on this journey with us.

Mark:

Thanks for connecting with us.

Mark:

We would like to connect with you.

Mark:

Connect with us on our Facebook group Cooking with Bruce and Mark.

Mark:

Connect with us through our newsletter.

Mark:

Go to Bruce and mark.com and sign up there and otherwise, we will see you next week.

Mark:

See, we'll talk at you . Next week on the podcast.

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About the Podcast

Cooking with Bruce and Mark
Fantastic recipes, culinary science, a little judgment, hysterical banter, love and laughs--you know, life.
Join us, Bruce Weinstein and Mark Scarbrough, for weekly episodes all about food, cooking, recipes, and maybe a little marital strife on air. After writing thirty-six cookbooks, we've got countless opinions and ideas on ingredients, recipes, the nature of the cookbook-writing business, and much more. If you've got a passion for food, we also hope to up your game once and a while and to make you laugh most of the time. Come along for the ride! There's plenty of room!

About your host

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Mark Scarbrough

Former lit professor, current cookbook writer, creator of two podcasts, writer of thirty-five (and counting) cookbooks, author of one memoir (coming soon!), married to a chef (my cookbook co-writer, Bruce Weinstein), and with him, the owner of two collies, all in a very rural spot in New England. My life's full and I'm up for more challenges!