How I Built Resilience: Live with Samin Nosrat and Alice Waters & Fanny Singer

Samin Nosrat, the author of Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat, talks with Guy about unintentionally writing the ultimate quarantine cookbook, and how she's been inspired by the camaraderie among fellow home cooks. Chez Panisse founder Alice Waters and her daughter Fanny Singer tell Guy some tips for growing a victory garden and helping local farmers stay in business. These conversations are excerpts from our How I Built Resilience series, where Guy talks online with founders and entrepreneurs about how they're navigating these turbulent times. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Guy Raz?

  Hey, welcome to How I Built This: Resilience Edition. I'm Guy Raz. Each week, I'm doing live video conversations with founders and entrepreneurs about how they're building resilience into their businesses right now. And in case you miss them when they happen live, we're posting excerpts right here in your podcast feed. And by the way, if you're looking for our regular episodes of How I Built This, we are still making new ones. They come out on Monday, so check your podcast queue for the new Monday episodes. Okay, today, we're bringing you my conversations with two incredible chefs. Later in the show, you'll hear from Alice Waters, the legendary founder of Chez Panisse. But first, you'll hear from her protege, Samin Nosrat. You may know Samin from her cookbook, Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat, which is also the name of

• 0:44Guy Raz?

  her Netflix series. Now, normally, Samin practically lives on airplanes, but these days, not so much, of course. Samin's been at home in Oakland, California, carefully swapping ingredients with her neighbors and trying to make the most of her pantry. I spoke to Samin about the steep rise in home cooking right now, and I even got to ask her some questions from our live audience, like, what do you do with a head of cabbage and a ton of salmon? How are you doing in general?

• 1:12Speaker 01

  Uh, I mean, I go through ups and downs like everyone, I would say. I live in a particularly special and, like, bucolic place. I live on a piece of property where four homes share a huge courtyard and garden, and I have a lot of nice neighbors. So I feel very lucky. And also, I go through my own emotional swings. Like, last week, I was just really grumpy and angry all week. And this week, I'm doing a little better, though. I think everyone really thinks I'm like, or people like me are home just like, creating genius, culinary genius, all the time. But the truth is, I mean, I also am affected by the, you know, the scarcity and how hard it is to shop for stuff. And also, cooking is work.

• 1:56Speaker 01

  I mean, it's my actual job, but I think all of us, more than ever, are realizing how much it goes into feeding ourselves. Even for me, I think I drink, I'm going through so much coffee at home. I only drink one coffee, one coffee. Cup of coffee a day, but still the I it's dawning on me all of the sort of times that I just go and grab a sandwich or a cup of coffee somewhere else. Now all of that's coming out of my own kitchen. So I get tired too. You know, I eat a lot of toast for dinner.

• 2:26Speaker 01

  It's not always like the fantasy, like what I think everybody thinks is happening, but also there is some joy in the kitchen.

• 2:33Guy Raz?

  Yeah, totally. The the other day I was I was like really wanted a a chicken sandwich. There's an amazing chicken place in Oakland that you know, Baked Sale Betty's. And I wanted one of those sandwiches and I had breadcrumbs and I bought it Trader Joe's like a year ago and I found and I was like, wait, I'm gonna make a fried chicken sandwich with this and it was great.

• 2:51Speaker 01

  It was good. Well, I think that's the thing is in a way I'm like, oh, I kind of wrote the guide for this time. Because the whole point of salt, fat, acid, heat is to teach you how to think outside the bounds of a recipe. And I think what recipes do, and they are necessary, is they but they make people feel like if they don't have this ingredient, this tool, this specific thing, that they can't make it. And right now it's like the time of substitutions and it's the time of improvisation. My whole theory as a cook, my whole philosophy, my whole thing with cooking is think about what role those ingredients and tools are playing and then figure out what else you can use. So you don't have to run to the store.

• 3:33Guy Raz?

  How are you getting ingredients? I mean, a lot of people are, you know, talking about having a hard time getting butter or flour, eggs. You know, wait, a lot of people don't want to wait in line forever at grocery stores. Are do you have any like hacks to just get stuff?

• 3:49Speaker 01

  I wish I did. I have definitely been waiting in my fair share of lines. I mean, and I know that this is tricky, but on my street, we share a lot of resources. I know this is definitely not what everyone has, but across the street, for example, somebody has chickens. And then we have many fruit trees, so we're just constantly sharing stuff. And also cooked food. I live by myself, but when I make a big pot of soup or a big pot of beans or, you know, big lasagna, I'm constantly sharing that. And at first, I think there were a lot of questions about if sharing food was safe. But it seems, you know, on the research, based on the research that I've read, this really is not transmitted through food. It's you have to be careful about the container you're using and people wiping off the container

• 4:34Speaker 01

  once it comes into the house. But like yesterday, somebody texted me and said, do you have any cardamom? And I said, yeah, come over.

• 4:42Speaker 01

  So there's a lot more sharing.

• 4:43Guy Raz?

  Yeah, I did that with a friend. She left eggs in front of her house and I left a half of a roasted leg of lamb that I made.

• 4:49Speaker 01

  Oh, I love that.

• 4:51Guy Raz?

  Yeah. Yeah, it's great. And we're getting tons of questions. This is from Patricia Merrell Act. She asks, like, how has your personal cooking changed in recent weeks? And like, for example, are you having to change ingredients that you're used to just having?

• 5:07Speaker 01

  Well, I have always been a champion of the pantry. And so I had a pretty rich pantry, like a pretty well stocked pantry before. So I don't actually feel like I have changed a ton. I'm not, I will say like, I don't have the plentitude of fresh vegetables that I always have. And so there's a lot more like broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, and the kind of stuff that can last a long time that I sort of work through over the course of the week. But the other thing I will say that's been very strange in my life, one of the ways I've been affected is I have historically been known for my huge appetite. And the way that the coronavirus has like probably emotionally and physically affected me is I don't feel like eating that much right now.

• 5:50Speaker 01

  As much as I cook, I sort of just give stuff away most of the time, but I'm not like drawn to eating. So I'm trying to wrap my mind around how I can share substitution information with other people. I've been working on a recipe for cake where you can use whatever you have, you know? But it's hard, like, it's hard.

• 6:07Guy Raz?

  Okay, here's a question from Marinolin Jacob Oviat. What advice do you have for people who want to bake bread but can't find flour or yeast anywhere?

• 6:16Speaker 01

  Change your desires. I don't know what to tell you about if you can't find flour. I mean, if you're specifically referring to all purpose flour or bread flour that you can't find, but say you're able to find whole wheat flour, there are recipes for hundred percent whole wheat bread online. In terms of yeast, I think a lot of people have yeast that um are who are hoarding, so look for somebody to borrow from. But you can also, you know, it seems daunting and I myself never wanted to do it. But I have like I have over there now my sourdough starter that I feed every day. It took me 10 days to get it to come to life and now I'm able to make really beautiful

• 6:58Speaker 01

  bread. So if you want to commit to the time commitment, that's a way to sort of um do it without yeast. But then the tricky thing is you have to feed starter flour. So it's complicated. But now I have endless time to stand there and baby my dough. So I've started doing it and it's actually really wonderful way to pass the day.

• 7:18Guy Raz?

  Thank you for that question. Um, this is, this is a question from Jackie Levine. She says, we've found ourselves with a lot of salmon and cabbage, presumably frozen salmon. Any quick and easy advice for those ingredients, salmon and cabbage?

• 7:30Speaker 01

  Yes. Okay, cabbage lately, I've been doing this thing where I take the whole head of cabbage and I slice it into in slices, maybe an inch and a half thick and roast them on a sheet pan with um whatever flavors I'm feeling. So the original way I had it, someone made it for me. He put a ton of butter and like coriander seed and poured some white wine over it and roasted it in the oven at about 300 degrees for maybe an hour and a half. And what happens is I think we forget, we consider cabbage this like really boring depression era thing. But if cabbage spends time cooking, it turns into something completely different. It gets so sweet and silky

• 8:12Speaker 01

  and tender and wants to melt in your mouth. And so I have been making that and with all sorts of different flavors. I made one that was like kind of Japanesey with rice wine and sesame seeds and soy sauce that was super good. And I think you can reflect Whatever's happening on the cabbage on the salmon. I do a slow cooked salmon where I put it on a sheet pan on a piece of parchment, skin side down. Just do the whole big piece. And I stick it in the oven typically at like two twenty five or two fifty. But if you wanna just cook the cabbage and the salmon at the same time, it'll be fine at three hundred degrees also. The salmon will take less time than the cabbage will. So get your cabbage started.

• 8:53Speaker 01

  If you're doing the roast inversion and then get that salmon in there and you'll know it's done. When the pieces kind of flake apart when you try to touch them. Cause they doesn't really look the same as when we cook salmon on the stove. It kind of stays translucent. It's much more about the texture.

• 9:09Guy Raz?

  Yeah, that's my total go to. Um, I love this question from Lucas Matias. Um, when this crisis is over, what dish are you gonna order to restaurant that you miss?

• 9:18Speaker 01

  Oh, man. My favorite restaurant is a Korean restaurant nearby. That uh makes hot tofu soup in like a stone bowl. And they also have these like thin kimchi pancakes that are so crispy and delicious. I haven't really been ordering any takeout, but what I miss is all of the kinds of foods that taste totally different than what I make for myself. I rely a lot on olive oil and lemon and vinegar. So kind of my food almost all tastes in that Mediterranean. You know, flavor palette, which is fine and delicious. But I look forward to eating stuff from other parts of the world. Yesterday I was really craving Mexican food. I think I'm gonna probably make some beans.

• 10:02Speaker 01

  In the next day or two and maybe some tortillas and stuff.

• 10:05Guy Raz?

  I love that. Okay, this is from Suzie Wyshak. Um, she says she's got like eight ish year old za'atar spice mix that still smells good. But would you be concerned about using it?

• 10:15Speaker 01

  Oh, no, I wouldn't be concerned about using it. I would taste it. The only thing that would maybe have gone wrong is that the sesame seeds may have turned rancid. But I think as long as it still tastes and smells good, it's totally fine. If you've kept it in a cool, dark place, there's totally a chance that the sesame seeds are still fine.

• 10:31Guy Raz?

  Um, this is from Kevin Lindsay. He's getting a lot of charred. Um, but what about making a dessert with charred stock?

• 10:38Speaker 01

  I've never heard the chard stems. You know what? That's kind of amazing. I've never thought, I didn't, that, that question did not go where I thought it was gonna go.

• 10:50Speaker 01

  You really threw me a curveball, Kevin. Um, okay, I have, it's never occurred to me to go sweet with chard stems, but I suppose you totally could. You know, the thing about rhubarb is that it's so sour and so that really invites sugar. Whereas to me, chard stems are much milder and there's, I don't really taste a sourness when I try them. What I like to do with chard stems, like the little yummy treat that I do, is I save them until I have a big pile and then I blanch them just until they're tender in boiling water and then I deep fry them. So you can just batter them with buttermilk and flour and fry them, or you could cover them with like, you know, egg and breadcrumb and fry them in a pan. And then they're kind of like little french fries. They're, they're really delicious.

• 11:35Guy Raz?

  Here's a question from Jennifer Klein Valina or Vaina. Butter versus olive oil when sautéing?

• 11:42Speaker 01

  I don't think there's a versus. I'm, I'm into both. I think it's more about making the decision that's right for that moment and right for that dish. So I really feel like fat, the fat that you start with in a dish determines the final flavor of the dish. So I choose butter when I want something to be extra rich and really to taste sort of more Northern European or French. And I choose olive oil when I want things to taste Italian, when I want things to taste like they come from the Mediterranean, you know? And then I extend that to even things like I, when I'm making Indian food, I use ghee. When I make Korean food, I use neutral oil or sesame oil. So I really do suggest choosing the fat based on the flavor that you're after.

• 12:28Guy Raz?

  This is from Usha Shanmugan. Do you think that for you personally, um, this moment is gonna change the way you cook? I mean, there is definitely is something to like, there's like a connection that I think millions of people are, are kind of making with their, with their homes, right? Like we are in our homes. We have to cook. A lot of people are baking bread. I mean, in some ways, like the stuff you write about is to kind of encourage people to make their own food.

• 12:53Speaker 01

  Totally. I actually think one of the greatest things that will come out of this is I think a lot more people will have confidence in the kitchen and feel like they can take care of themselves. And they can, because now sort of overnight, we were all forced to. So people are practicing, which the only thing that makes you a better cook is practice. It's not, you know, fancy tools or like going to some culinary school. It's just practicing. So now that we all have to make meals, you know, multiple times a day on end for ourselves and for the people around us, we are all getting better. The

• 13:32Speaker 01

  other thing I think is kind of the invisible force that helps us become better, that a lot of us don't even realize, is constraint. Total freedom is often overwhelming. You know, when you can have any ingredient, when you can do anything, when you could make any recipe, you don't know where to start. You don't have like a path. But when we are constrained by our space, or our ingredients, or our time, or, you know, what our kids are going to eat, or if they're going to lose their minds, like, all of those things help us decide what to make and sort of make better choices within our confinement.

• 14:13Speaker 01

  And so I actually think if people can become more comfortable at identifying the constraints and working within them, that that also will help later when you go to the farmer's market and you're faced with total abundance.

• 14:26Guy Raz?

  Samin Nosrat, author of Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat. Thank you so much for being with us. It's just been such a joy having you.

• 14:32Speaker 01

  Thank you so much for having me. This has been so fun.

• 14:35Guy Raz?

  That's an excerpt from my conversation with Samin Nosrat, the author of Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat. To see our full interview, you can go to facebook.com/HowIBuiltThis or to NPR's YouTube page. When we come back in just a moment, we're going to hear from Alice Waters and her daughter Fanny Singer about the future of Chez Panisse and how to grow a victory garden wherever you live. Stay with us. I'm Guy Raz, and you're listening to How I Built This from NPR.

• 15:10Guy Raz?

  Hey, welcome back to How I Built This, Resilience Edition. So we just heard from Samin Nosrat, who actually started her culinary career at Chez Panisse in Berkeley. And her mentor was none other than Alice Waters. Alice and her daughter Fanny Singer join me to talk about how Chez Panisse is doing during the crisis and how we can keep local farmers in business by buying straight from the source. Fanny, I know that you are sheltering in place with your mom right now in Berkeley. First of all, how are you guys doing? How are you holding up?

• 15:41Speaker 02

  It's a sort of strange, very surreal moment. I live in San Francisco and I do still have an apartment there, but it's a one-bedroom apartment and my partner and I are there together. And we both were working at home and there's no outdoor space. And being in Berkeley was not just to be with my mom, who I obviously was concerned about too, just because I wanted to be a sort of insane person about disinfecting nail and all the things. I'm a little bit more germ-centric than my mother, so these were concerns of mine. But also, to be in Berkeley in a place that has a really rich outdoor environment and to be able to walk through-- I mean, there are 137 paths in the hills of Berkeley and

• 16:24Speaker 02

  to just be able to walk for 10 miles is the only thing, I think, keeping me from total insanity.

• 16:30Guy Raz?

  Alice, tell us a little bit about what's going on with Chez Panisse right now. Obviously, you've been closed for five, maybe six weeks. What's going on with the staff right now?

• 16:39Speaker 03

  Well, we really paid the staff for their time off so that when it comes, time to reopen, that they would be there and available. We had the good luck to get a kind of bridge loan from some wonderful friends of the restaurant that are helping us get to the point where money comes from the government to pay people. Some are on unemployment and some are being paid a portion of their salaries. But it's really-- Important to me that people are paid at this time.

• 17:21Speaker 03

  If I have to ask my friends, I have to ask my friends.

• 17:26Guy Raz?

  Alice, one of the things I read about, which is super cool, is that obviously you work with a lot of small farmers all over California. And a lot of these farmers presumably, I mean, they they supply restaurants. So first of all, from your conversations with with the farmers that you work with who supply your restaurant and other restaurants, I mean, what is their situation like? I mean, how long can they go like this without having restaurants to supply?

• 17:50Speaker 03

  It's very serious what's going on with our whole organic farm community because they really have only the farmers markets to bring food to. And the number of people that are going to farmers markets is not what it usually is. So we're trying to figure out how to buy that food from the farmers. And we have a project in Stockton, California. The mayor of Stockton is very enthusiastic about getting organic food into the public school system.

• 18:28Speaker 03

  And so at this moment in time, he asked if we could help buy food from the farmers so that he can give in Stockton. And I thought that that would be a perfect way for us to begin building that network that we're going to need for the public schools. And we're putting little recipes into the boxes so that people know how to make very simple dishes. And we've given at least 4,000 pounds of food away in Stockton.

• 19:06Guy Raz?

  Wow. Alice, I mean, you've talked about this for years, that when you were a little girl, your parents had a victory garden at home in New Jersey, and that you really are encouraging people to plant their own things. You actually inspired me so much. I've got some seedlings here. Can you see my seedlings? Some bib lettuce. There you go. And I'm gonna, hopefully that'll be lettuce in a couple of months. I mean, I don't have a big backyard. I don't, I have a small space. I got a planter. But for people who don't have a backyard, who might live in an apartment, I mean, what are some ways that people can think about growing their own food?

• 19:38Speaker 03

  Well, I keep looking at Ron Finley, and he started by planting food out in front of his house in that little parkway between the sidewalk and the street. And it caused a lot of controversy. And he actually was cited for violating some ordinance about it. And he went to court and he won his case. And he actually has planted that whole strip of land. So sort of thinking about him, I did the same thing. I dug up that little plot right in front of my house.

• 20:17Speaker 03

  But I think you can plant like you have done and plant your boxes on a balcony. I hope that the community gardens begin to

• 20:29Speaker 02

  Surge?

• 20:30Speaker 03

  Surge.

• 20:32Speaker 02

  I mean, I, my mom planted the little section that's just in front of our house. Because even though we do have a garden in the back, she wanted people to think about this victory garden moment and the potential for even the most throwaway pieces of land. It's now planted with a few different edible things. And she's already gotten notes through our mailbox thanking her for taking this kind of action symbolically and encouraging people. And you've just seen this proliferation of gardens now in people's sort of little forgotten front yards and people sowing seeds all around the neighborhood now in this way that's really incredible. I've just never seen anything like it before.

• 21:10Guy Raz?

  You know, one of the things that you've talked about is the idea of buying local produce, supporting local farmers, wherever you are. In the country, around the world. And you know, one of the questions that we're getting from folks on Facebook too, this is from Belle Zelazny also, which is, what are ways that we can help small farmers? Are there ways, are there places where we can go buy things from them, especially farmers who are used to providing restaurants?

• 21:35Speaker 02

  I think if you are at a loss for who your farmers are, do the work of researching. Call the farms. See, are you having trouble? Are you imperiled? Is there a way that I can help you even facilitate a network of deliveries? Can I help you deliver? But also, it might be a question of just helping them figure out logistics, or even knowing who they are, where their farms are. I mean, I have friends in LA, the lines were so long that they weren't able to get any food. So they just started figuring out who the farms were that they could drive out to, so they could still get great produce. And I mean, it's being a little bit more problem solving and resourceful, and also knowing that the farmers are maybe really good at growing vegetables, but don't necessarily know how to work a whole distribution

• 22:19Speaker 02

  network. And if that's something that you have extra time for or facility with, like, make the effort, because they do need us.

• 22:25Guy Raz?

  Yeah, I mean, totally. And you guys have been talking a lot about this by producing these little videos in your kitchen. What are you guys cooking right now that is giving you just some comfort at this time?

• 22:36Speaker 02

  Well, I feel like coming home pasta, which we've rebranded as always home pasta. Coming home pasta was a recipe that we would make whenever we would come back from a long trip, to kind of feel oriented back in our house. And it's totally a pandemic recipe. Garlic, chili, things that are preserved, little capers, maybe some parsley if you have it. And we've been eating coming home pasta at least once a week. There's something very homey about it, but it's also something that feels very achievable right now. But I, you know, trying to make these recipes that also stretch things and that make use of one ingredient over a long period. It's both satisfying and necessary, and also sort of comforting to know what your meals are going to look like over the course of a week.

• 23:20Guy Raz?

  Yeah, never before in living memory for most people is has have we spent such a concentrated amount of time at home with our families? And like the two of you, spending all this time together, like, when was the last time the two of you spent such a concentrated amount of time together? I mean, the relationship with our homes is is also changed because we're spending so much time here.

• 23:43Speaker 02

  Well, I mean, we've gone on some occasional longer trips. So it's not untraud territory, but this is definitely a more durational experience of it. And it's also it's in our homes. We're not somewhere else experiencing new stimulation. We're very much in this place, which is why, you know, I, you know, this book that I wrote, which was about the more figurative relationship to home, instructs also in how to be comfortable in your actual home, how to feel like there's a change of atmosphere from one room to the next. If you burn a branch of dried rosemary and you reset the smell of a place, or my mom is always putting on a stock. I mean, she'll do that wherever we are, but like now there's this almost like ritual chicken stock once a week.

• 24:27Speaker 02

  And the way that that just marks time in your week, too, even to prepare things that you have a very sensory relationship to. It's like picking a rose or a flower or something outside that you can smell that will give you a little bit of a shift of atmosphere, which I think, you know, these are things that I talked about in this more like abstract way that are now like actual tools that we feel like we're using all the time.

• 24:49Guy Raz?

  Yeah. Before we go, Alice, in five years' time from now, when we talk about this period and I say to you, what was the thing that you took away from this period or that that allowed you to build more resilience into what you do? What do you want that to be?

• 25:02Speaker 03

  I don't want to take anything for granted. I want to really be in present time. And it's so important in my everyday lives that I am somehow connected to nature in what I'm eating and to really pause, to light the candles at the table and really feel

• 25:27Speaker 03

  Grateful. I think that's something that I will always feel.

• 25:33Guy Raz?

  I love it. Alice, Fanny, thank you so much for joining us. It's been so great having you.

• 25:38Speaker 02

  Thank you. Thank you so much.

• 25:41Guy Raz?

  That's an excerpt from my conversation with Alice Waters, founder of Chez Panisse, and her daughter Fanny Singer, the author of Always Home. To see our full interview, you can go to facebook.com/HowIBuiltThis. And if you want to see all of our past live interviews, you can find them at youtube.com/NPR. We're going to be putting these episodes into your podcast feed every week and hosting the conversations in real time at noon Eastern, 9 Pacific. On Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook, they happen every Wednesday and Friday, sometimes five days a week. If you want to find out more about the How I Built This resilience series or other virtual NPR events, you can go to nprpresents.org. This episode was produced by Candace Lim with help from John Isabella,

• 26:25Guy Raz?

  Julia Carney, Neve Grant, and Jeff Rogers. Thanks for listening. Stay safe, and we'll see you right here next week. I'm Guy Raz, and you've been listening to How I Built This from NPR.