Why Did Carla Lalli Write A Cookbook About Her Divorce?

Thirty years into her career as a chef and cookbook author, Carla Lalli is releasing a book many people told her she shouldn’t write. It’s called Food Is A Feeling, and it’s a lot more personal than her others.

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

• 0:00Dan Pashman?

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• 0:41Dan Pashman?

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• 1:23Dan Pashman?

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• 1:41Dan Pashman?

  This episode contains explicit language.

• 1:44Speaker 01

  Sort of spending that afternoon knowing that my kids were going to learn something later that day, like, they have no idea. And I'm in control of when this hammer's gonna drop, you know? As a sort of a menu planning proposition, this is not one that's in any of the entertaining books, you know? This is not like a

• 2:05Dan Pashman?

  Martha Stewart didn't cover this?

• 2:07Speaker 01

  It's not a graduation brunch. It's not a celebratory dinner. It's like, you know, something else. I kinda had to like, figure out, do I try to serve something everyone loves and then potentially have that recipe ruined by the association? Do I serve something everyone kinda hates, so it can all just be like, that whole night sucked?

• 2:32Dan Pashman?

  This is the Sporkful. It's not for foodies, it's for eaters. I'm Dan Pashman. Each week on our show, we obsess about food to learn more about people. Before we get to the show, I wanna let you know about an upcoming event in New York. I'm gonna be interviewing chef Alon Shaya at the 92nd Street Y on Sunday, October 11th, all about his new book, Memories of a Good Meal: Recipes of Resilience Inspired by Stories of World War II Survival. We'll also be joined by his co-author, culinary historian June Hirsch. I love Alon's cooking, and I cannot wait to have a chance to talk with him and June. Tickets are on sale now. Get details at sporkful.com/live. Okay, let's get into it. Today, I'm talking with chef, cookbook author, and YouTube host Carla Lali. For decades, Carla's career followed a pretty typical path. She went to culinary

• 3:16Dan Pashman?

  school and cooked in high-end restaurants, transitioned to food media, where she created recipes at Bon Appetit, among others. Then, she started writing cookbooks, including a New York Times bestseller. But now, 30 years into her career, she's breaking the mold with a book that many people told her not to write. It's called Food is a Feeling, and it's a lot more personal and intimate than her others. It has plenty of great recipes, yes, but at its core, it's a series of essays about her divorce from her husband and how that changed her relationship with food. When we first sat down in the studio, I asked Carla to read from the introduction.

• 3:48Speaker 01

  As a cookbook author and food writer, I've been taught that your recipe style should stay consistent over time. Regardless of where my previously published recipes have appeared or when they were written, I'm supposed to mimic their language when I come up with new ones. Well, that's not what's happening here. With due respect to my former self and anyone who has cooked my dishes before, it didn't feel right that my recipe voice should stay the same, because I am not the same. I wrote this book during a tumultuous, pensive, painful, joyful, transformative, celebratory time in my life. The precipitating event was the dissolution of my 24-year marriage. While I was experiencing the feelings and phases that followed the

• 4:31Speaker 01

  separation, I fell completely in love with cooking and eating again, and with myself as a cook. As I moved through that crisis, I became overwhelmed with thankfulness for the role food has played through all my years, as part of my nurturing and upbringing, as an education, as a practice, as a career, and as an outlet. With clarity, I saw the way I cooked as a reflection of who I am.

• 4:57Dan Pashman?

  Carla started in the food world by going to culinary school in New York. Her goal was to get a job in a high-end restaurant, even though she knew what to expect once she got there.

• 5:05Speaker 01

  Even in cooking school, they would say, oh, if you wanna work in restaurant kitchens, you have to be tough. You're gonna have to be resilient. It's gonna be abusive. It's gonna be this. It's gonna be that. So, I think I went into it thinking like, I gotta put armor on.

• 5:19Dan Pashman?

  She got her first job out of culinary school at a three Michelin-star restaurant. She was one of the few women working in the kitchen.

• 5:25Speaker 01

  I didn't want help. I didn't want to be treated like a girl. The idea of being like, good for a girl was just like horrifying to me. And I knew that you kind of have to like, prove your merit.

• 5:44Dan Pashman?

  The work was grueling. And in some ways, it seemed designed to make the cooks' lives harder, like at another high-end restaurant called Union Pacific, where Carla was told to peel fava beans.

• 5:53Speaker 01

  For anyone who doesn't know, fava beans come in this like, big, kind of fuzzy pod. Inside the pod, there's the individual bean.

• 6:00Dan Pashman?

  Like, snap peas?

• 6:01Speaker 01

  Yeah. But each of those beans inside is like, has its own little sheath, its own thin skin around it. If you shell the fava beans and you blanch those favas, it is really easy to just pop them right out of that thin little skin.

• 6:17Dan Pashman?

  So, you take the fava beans out of the big pod?

• 6:19Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 6:20Dan Pashman?

  Now, you have three beans, or whatever it is. And if you drop them in boiling water for a minute or two, if you blanch them, then it's very easy to take that sheath off.

• 6:27Speaker 01

  Exactly. But that's not how we did it at Union Pacific. You had to shell them before blanching them, which is much harder. That skin is sort of adhered. You have to do it with your fingers. If you are too aggressive with it, you'll stick your fingernail into it, or you might split the two peas that are sort of stuck together. It was just a pain in the ass, and it took a really long time. And when you have prep, you're just like, watching the clock incessantly. And so, there was this one day that I was doing it, and I knew better than to challenge. So, I just asked the sous chef.

• 7:00Dan Pashman?

  You weren't gonna go straight to the head chef and be like, why did we do this?

• 7:02Speaker 01

  Be like, we're doing this dumb.

• 7:04Dan Pashman?

  Yeah, this seems dumb.

• 7:04Speaker 01

  Like,

• 7:05Dan Pashman?

  So, you ask like a

• 7:06Speaker 01

  I say to the sous chef, why is it that we shell before we blanch, rather than blanch and then shell? And he just looked at me, and he was like, well, shelling them before blanching is harder. If the chef had a choice between doing something harder or doing it easier, he's gonna want us to do it harder. And that was it. And I was like, okay. Like, that's a terrible, that's not a real reason, right?

• 7:34Dan Pashman?

  Well, it's also, I mean, this is a mentality that I see across all kinds of creative fields and across a lot of, all different professions, that I think is so stupid, which is like, it's not possible to do great work unless you are suffering.

• 7:47Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 7:48Dan Pashman?

  And that is not true.

• 7:49Speaker 01

  Right.

• 7:50Dan Pashman?

  Especially once you've been doing your job for a while. It's possible to do really great work, work very hard,

• 7:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 7:56Dan Pashman?

  and not be miserable.

• 7:58Speaker 01

  Totally.

• 8:00Dan Pashman?

  In these jobs, Carla was belittled for making mistakes and body checks on a regular basis. She saw one head chef throw hot metal plates at other cooks when he got angry. But she also saw this chef come in with a word of praise, just when it seemed he had pushed someone to the brink.

• 8:14Speaker 01

  I mean, I don't think there's like, a ton of other ways to get people to like, abuse their bodies for like, an amount of money that is not appropriate for however many hours a week. Like, there has to be something else. For me, it was realizing that I did perform for praise and love and the positive feedback that was like,

• 8:40Dan Pashman?

  Right.

• 8:40Speaker 01

  I would put myself through anything to feel that I did it, did a good job. So, I'm perfect for that job.

• 8:54Dan Pashman?

  Carla left Fine Dining and transitioned to food media. She spent years at Bon Appetit, where she became a mainstay in their YouTube videos. Later, she created her own YouTube channel, where she shot videos in her kitchen. Her online persona throughout this time was like your wacky aunt, awry, sometimes goofy, and always enthusiastic home cook. But in her actual home life, raising two kids and working full-time, cooking was much more complicated.

• 9:17Speaker 01

  I think being the person who like was going to make dinner gave me an out. You know, there are certain activities that at a certain point, like, I can't do this anymore. I can't be in the playground anymore. I can't pretend I'm a bear anymore because like I have to cook.

• 9:34Dan Pashman?

  Right.

• 9:34Speaker 01

  Being a mother is like, a working mother especially, is an incredibly like guilt-ridden existence. I never really felt like I was 100% there as I should be, but also was very committed to having a job. And cooking for my kids was a way to show up and provide for them this very important thing in my life. I also, like, you need, as a parent, especially on the weekends, to like get a little time to yourself. And in some way, this chore or this like duty or responsibility I had also

• 10:15Speaker 01

  was my like solo time. And I don't think I connected it then. It was just, I actually liked cooking. But later, realizing that the activity of cooking was incredibly like creative for me, I did realize that I was getting something selfishly out of it, at the same time that I'm providing.

• 10:39Dan Pashman?

  In other words, Carla had transitioned from cooking solely to please a restaurant chef, to doing it partly for her own pleasure, as well as to take care of her family. But in some ways, cooking remained fraught.

• 10:50Speaker 01

  Because like sometimes it was like, I have to make dinner. And so my husband would be like, we'll go to the playground for an hour, and then we'll come back and we'll eat, you know? And like many years later, I thought, what would it have been like? What would my weekend have looked like if someone else was cooking dinner and I was the one who like got to go sit in the playground for an extra hour, you know? Would that have been nice? You know? And it would have.

• 11:21Dan Pashman?

  If you could go back, if you had a choice between spending that hour cooking for the family, or taking the kids to the playground, you go back in time, you would pick the playground?

• 11:29Speaker 01

  I would have pushed for more 50/50 in that kind of responsibility.

• 11:36Dan Pashman?

  So you cook half the time and go to the playground half the time?

• 11:38Speaker 01

  Yeah. Instead of like, if I'm not cooking, that means we're gonna go out. We're gonna go out to eat. Those were the choices.

• 11:45Dan Pashman?

  Right.

• 11:45Speaker 01

  And I would have really loved, like, could somebody else cook tonight? And I come home and there's like a hot meal waiting for me? Like, I would have liked that some of the time.

• 12:00Dan Pashman?

  Coming up, what do you cook for your family the night you tell your kids you're getting divorced? We'll hear Carla's answer. Stick around.

• 12:09Speaker 02

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• 12:14Dan Pashman?

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• 13:16Dan Pashman?

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• 14:43Dan Pashman?

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• 15:22Dan Pashman?

  Welcome back to The Sporkful. I'm Dan Pashman. Last week on the show, I spoke with Carlos Frias. For years, he was the food editor at the Miami Herald. His father had survived imprisonment under the Castro regime in Cuba and fled to Miami. Even though Carlos's father never went back to Cuba, he was always searching for pieces of his homeland in the Cuban-American community in Miami.

• 15:41Speaker 05

  In January, we have an annual parade down Calle 8, La Parada de los Reyes Magos. It's the parade of the three kings. And it becomes an event, like the place gets full. And my dad says, I'd really love to go to this. And I drive down there and I drop him off as close as I can. I park, make my way through the crowd. And there he is, watching the parade with his cigar in his hand and his big hat.

• 16:06Dan Pashman?

  But just a few years later, Carlos's father's life was cut short by a random act of violence. Amidst the tragedy, Carlos turned to the Cuban cafe culture of Miami as a place to remember his father. This is a really special episode. I hope you'll check it out. It's up now. Okay, let's return to Carla Lally, whose new cookbook is Food is a Feeling. Carla and her ex-husband were together for 24 years. She says there was no specific event that led to the split. No cheating, nothing like that. They just grew apart. The last few years were very difficult.

• 16:36Speaker 01

  When you don't have something to hang it on, it also makes it even harder to make the decision to end it.

• 16:44Dan Pashman?

  When you don't have like an obvious glaring, like this thing happened and that's the reason.

• 16:47Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 16:49Dan Pashman?

  One of the stories you tell in the book that's so compelling is like, so you guys decide you're gonna get divorced.

• 16:53Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 16:54Dan Pashman?

  You have to tell the kids. And there's a lot of thought being put into when and how and-

• 17:00Speaker 01

  Totally. We were in couples therapy, we were sort of getting the script, right? And how to navigate this very hard conversation. And then it was, for me, I mean, it's maniacal, but I'm like, are we gonna eat dinner after? Are we gonna have dinner fir-

• 17:17Dan Pashman?

  I gotta make sure it's gonna be warm.

• 17:18Speaker 01

  We're not not having dinner. You know what I mean? Like, this was after a school day. Like, we're going to eat. Should we eat while we tell them something horrible? Should we tell them something horrible and then eat? Or like try to get through like a normal dinner and tell everybody after? So we decided we were gonna have this hard talk and then try to have dinner.

• 17:46Dan Pashman?

  For the meal, Carla decided she'd cook some nice fatty pork chops, fried rice, and sugar snap peas. Normally, this would be a popular choice for her teenage sons. But this wasn't a normal night.

• 17:56Speaker 01

  Am I gonna ruin pork chops for the rest of everybody's life, you know? And after we told them, you don't know what to do. Like, everybody kind of splits off. It's like, you can talk about it for so long, but then it's like, the talking part's over. Everyone's processing. And I was like, well, somebody's gotta make dinner, you know? And so I did that.

• 18:20Dan Pashman?

  So you tell them the news?

• 18:22Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 18:23Dan Pashman?

  And what's the reaction? I mean, obviously not good, but like-

• 18:27Speaker 01

  Yeah. It's, I mean, there are certain things that are private. And what actually was said and how everyone reacted is like, is private.

• 18:39Dan Pashman?

  Okay.

• 18:39Speaker 01

  But it's terrible. Angry, sad, mad, disappointed, shocked. Like, all of-

• 18:44Dan Pashman?

  Right.

• 18:45Speaker 01

  It sucks, you know? And then it was kind of like, now what do we do? And that was one of those moments where I went to go, well, I guess I'll just cook these pork chops. Like, everything's normal, nothing to see here, like doot doo doo. And kind of going through the motions of that and realizing that like, I didn't know what to do, really know what was gonna come next. I didn't exactly know how to navigate everybody's feelings. But like, I knew how to make these pork chops, so I did that.

• 19:16Dan Pashman?

  And how did the meal go?

• 19:18Speaker 01

  My younger son ate with me and my husband, my then-husband. And my older son was like, I'm, he was like, peace out, I'm out. And then later, after dinner, I noticed that he came down on his own. He got his own bowl. He made a bowl of rice. He cut up some pork chop, he put it, and he took it back to his room. And like normally, eating dinner in your room or in front of the TV is like, not allowed. At this moment, I was like, all good, you know? And inside, I was like, he's eating. Like, it's good that he's eating. It's like when you have a sick kid and they won't eat for however many days, and then

• 20:00Speaker 01

  they finally eat again, you're like, okay, like, they're good, you know? It's, it's turning. So just the fact that he ate was in some way like comforting to me.

• 20:15Dan Pashman?

  After that conversation with the kids, Carla and her husband officially separated. They sublettered an apartment nearby where they switched off living. He stayed there for one week while she was in the house with the kids. Then they would swap. The first night Carla would be sleeping in the new apartment, she had to figure out what food she ate with her from the house.

• 20:32Speaker 01

  You know, and I've written articles about like, what to bring to your lake house and like what to pack for the Airbnb. And I was just kind of like, it was so random. You know what I mean? I was just kind of like prowling through the kitchen. I took some everything bagel spice. Red chili flakes. I took like a half a stick of butter. I, you know, took some kale from the CRISPR drawer. So I just packed like random stuff.

• 20:57Dan Pashman?

  So your sister comes over for dinner?

• 20:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, my sister came over that night. So I had the rice, I had the butter and I made buttered rice. I sauteed the kale because I had it. And that's what we ate. Like that was literally, it was like kale and rice with butter and some spices and a couple of red stripes.

• 21:20Dan Pashman?

  Can I ask a quick aside? When you make buttered rice, when do you add the butter? Is it going in the boiling water?

• 21:25Speaker 01

  No, you start, it's kind of like a peel off. So essentially melting the butter, foaming the butter. As though you're starting a risotto, add the rice, then the water.

• 21:35Dan Pashman?

  So you like toast the rice in the butter?

• 21:37Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 21:37Dan Pashman?

  Then you add the water?

• 21:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 21:39Dan Pashman?

  How much butter like per cup of rice? Is like half a stick or it's just like a pat? What are we talking about?

• 21:44Speaker 01

  I probably put half a stick in.

• 21:46Dan Pashman?

  Half a stick of butter for one cup of rice? That can't be right.

• 21:50Speaker 01

  Why not?

• 21:51Dan Pashman?

  That's a lot of butter.

• 21:52Speaker 01

  Yeah. Exactly. And the first thing my sister said when she took a bite, she goes, oh, did you put butter in the rice? And I was like, I totally did. And she was like, mom always put butter in the rice. And I was like, she totally did. And we were both like, butter makes it good.

• 22:09Dan Pashman?

  Yeah.

• 22:13Dan Pashman?

  How did that meal feel?

• 22:15Speaker 01

  Crazy. Like at first I was like, I'm fine. I'll be sweet alone. I'm totally fine. It's all good. And my sister was like, are you sure? And I'm like, yeah, maybe you're right. Maybe not so good. But this is hard to say when divorce is so hard for the people around you.

• 22:34Speaker 01

  But I, I did not, I did not only feel sad, right? I was like, I have struggled with this decision for many years, years. And that decision is behind me and the next part starts now. And so like, I was relieved. I was happy.

• 23:01Dan Pashman?

  Coming up, Carla puts all these feelings into a new cookbook and decides to include a recipe that she herself thinks is not very good. Why? We'll find out. Stick around.

• 23:16Speaker 02

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• 25:22Dan Pashman?

  Welcome back. So Carla spent that first night in the apartment when she cooked that buttered rice. She says in her book that this early part of the separation wasn't so much sad as it was weird. And a lot of that was getting used to spending parts of every month living alone.

• 25:36Speaker 01

  And on the weekends, when I wasn't with my kids, I kind of had to figure out like how to entertain myself, right? And one of the ways that I did that was just by cooking something. So I'd gone to the farmer's market. I had these fava's. I get excited in the spring, brought them home. And I was like, I'll make a little spring pasta out of these. So I started doing it the way that I had been taught.

• 25:56Dan Pashman?

  The way that she'd been taught was the way we heard her describe earlier, shelling them first before blanching them. In other words, the hard way. So instinctively, that's how she started doing it. But after a few fava beans, she stopped.

• 26:07Speaker 01

  And I was like, that guy's not here. You know what I mean? I'm not going into service. No one's watching me. And actually, it was like a shit reason then. So in that moment, I was like, no, like absolutely not. Like I'm going through a hard enough time. Like I've just made one of the hardest decisions of my life that is affecting many other people, including myself. And why should I also like suffer through making these fava beans? Like cooking should be fun. I am doing this to make myself feel better. So like being in control of that in that moment was a way to take care of myself, to not like inherit this like kind of bogus,

• 26:50Speaker 01

  just do it because it takes longer and it's harder. Like I don't want to do that. So I'm still getting divorced, but like, I don't have like fingernail marks in my fava's. And for that, I am grateful.

• 27:06Dan Pashman?

  Yeah. And if you did, it would be okay.

• 27:07Speaker 01

  Right. That's right.

• 27:10Dan Pashman?

  So this was another shift in Carla and her approach to cooking. Gone were the days when she cooked for other people's approval or out of maternal obligation. Now she was cooking for herself. While Carla was adjusting to her new life, she was still developing recipes. One that she started tinkering with was for a tuna melt. She started thinking about how the classic tuna melt might be improved.

• 27:29Speaker 01

  For example, nobody wants hot tuna. I'm also open face forever. I'm open.

• 27:36Dan Pashman?

  For tuna melts?

• 27:37Speaker 01

  Tuna melts should be open face, direct to camera.

• 27:40Dan Pashman?

  That I, I, okay, we'll, we'll table that. I just almost don't know why anyone would ever want an open face sandwich.

• 27:46Speaker 01

  Okay. Again?

• 27:48Dan Pashman?

  It's not, first of all, it's not a sandwich. But like that aside.

• 27:51Speaker 01

  It's a melt, but it's a melt.

• 27:53Dan Pashman?

  Yeah, but like I'm going to eat it with a fork and a knife now?

• 27:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 27:57Speaker 01

  Anywho, when you put the cheese over the tuna and then you broil it, you are going to get.

• 28:04Dan Pashman?

  It's going to be warm.

• 28:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, that tuna melt, that tuna is getting contact high from the top of the broiler. Additionally, I like something crunchy and cold in my tuna melt. Specifically like a this thick piece of iceberg slab.

• 28:17Dan Pashman?

  Like an inch thick.

• 28:18Speaker 01

  I really want that to be cold and crunchy. So I was like, what if you just melted the cheese on the bread? And then you had a really delicious tuna salad? And once the cheese is melted, you put your cold crunchy lettuce and then the tuna on top seems perfect.

• 28:34Dan Pashman?

  So you said, I'm going to keep the cold stuff cold until it meets the hot stuff.

• 28:39Speaker 01

  And I'm like, I'm a genius, you know?

• 28:43Dan Pashman?

  So Carla decides to test this tuna melt in a beach house that she and her husband bought just a few months before they separated. Yes, Carla agrees that was a bad idea. Also, the kitchen is going through a full renovation, so it's barely usable. But she isn't letting this tuna melt go. She creates the brilliant new innovation that she envisioned and?

• 29:01Speaker 01

  It's bad. So the first thing that happens is the lettuce hits that melted cheese and it's just a slip and slide, right? There's no grip. We have a lot of movement. So I've got this and it's slipping and it's sliding. And then I put the tuna in kind of like you have a tuna lettuce cup. And because I'm so committed to it being open face, I'm holding that. Now my hand is like in the top is the tuna salad. And now you're like, fingers are in the tuna? And I'm just like, you boffed it. Like it's bad and you failed, you know? But I'm going to eat it anyway because it's like my lunch. And it tastes good.

• 29:43Speaker 01

  It's just like foundationally suspicious.

• 29:47Dan Pashman?

  Right, right. You call it in the book structurally unsound and conceptually flawed.

• 29:52Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 29:53Dan Pashman?

  See, though, I wonder Carla, if you took the, the bread, you melt the cheese on top, as you say, give it a second to cool.

• 30:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:00Dan Pashman?

  Then put the tuna salad on.

• 30:02Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 30:02Dan Pashman?

  Then you take the lettuce cup and you turn it, you flip it over. So it's like a dome. Now it's going to sit comfortably. It's going to protect the tuna. Yes, your layering is different. Now you don't have the tuna, now you don't have the lettuce underneath the tuna, but it's going to be more structurally sound.

• 30:18Speaker 01

  Totally.

• 30:20Speaker 01

  And you would be touching like the top lettuce.

• 30:23Dan Pashman?

  Right. Typically, when we hear about recipes and cookbooks, we hear about sort of the painstaking, testing and retesting until it's quote unquote, perfect or the closest thing, you know, in that moment. Clearly, you don't think that this tuna melt was anywhere near perfect. But yet, you put the recipe in the book.

• 30:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:41Dan Pashman?

  Why?

• 30:42Speaker 01

  The way their book is structured is the recipes are set up by the essays that precede them. So this essay is about that. It's also about sort of coming to this realization that like, I'm never going to spend any time in that house. You know what I mean? And, and I had to be there to figure that out, you know? So this was actually, at the beginning of the editorial process, something that like, my editor and I went back and forth because he said the same thing. He was like, I feel weird about that we're going to include a recipe that basically ends with me saying, this is, you could do this. It's going to be messed up.

• 31:20Dan Pashman?

  Right.

• 31:21Speaker 01

  And you probably won't ever do it again. But to me, it was, would have been bizarre to tell that story and then write the recipe for the perfect tuna melt, which didn't exist. So I'm almost like stubbornly had leaned into the recipes have to track my actual lived experience during the time that I was writing the book.

• 31:46Dan Pashman?

  Right. Because you're writing about messy stuff.

• 31:48Speaker 01

  You're writing about messy stuff.

• 31:50Dan Pashman?

  I mean, I, I feel like recipes are only one reason why people buy cookbooks. And to me, it's more interesting. Like, I don't know that the world needs another recipe for a great tuna melt.

• 32:01Speaker 01

  Right.

• 32:02Dan Pashman?

  But this recipe in the context of the story is compelling.

• 32:05Speaker 01

  Right.

• 32:06Dan Pashman?

  And if someone chooses to make it exactly as it's written, it's not going to be the best tuna melt ever, as you say, but it will connect them to your experience.

• 32:17Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 32:18Dan Pashman?

  Which I think in a lot of ways is more interesting and compelling and unique to you than just being like, here's the best tuna melt.

• 32:26Speaker 01

  I hope so. I also hope that someone might read that recipe in that story. And then, on a totally different day, they might have an idea of something that they want to make, and they might make it, and it might suck. And they might not feel bad about it because that happens to everybody. And that maybe that thing that like, didn't come out exactly the way that you thought it was going to, is also just like, just a tuna melt, you know? And we don't have to like, beat ourselves up about it. That was, that was what happened that day. And the next time you make it, you won't make that mistake.

• 33:05Dan Pashman?

  We should say that there are many recipes in the book that look insanely delicious.

• 33:10Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 33:11Dan Pashman?

  Where there's no part that you're like, actually, this kind of, isn't that great?

• 33:13Speaker 01

  Totally. I know. That was my, that was how I pushed back to my editor. I was like, we're not going to do this anywhere else. It just happens to go with the story.

• 33:20Dan Pashman?

  The lamb chops look insane. The pork chops, right? The, the.

• 33:23Speaker 01

  Separation pork chops.

• 33:24Dan Pashman?

  Separation pork chops. There's an anchovy forward pasta fazool, tofu and kimchi soup with noodles.

• 33:30Speaker 01

  Made it constantly.

• 33:31Dan Pashman?

  Caught my eye. Coconut tapioca with tropical fruits.

• 33:34Speaker 01

  Love.

• 33:35Dan Pashman?

  So there are a lot of really excellent, delicious recipes in the book. There is one more that I want to cover.

• 33:40Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 33:41Dan Pashman?

  That I think is delicious, but not as gourmet as some of the ones I just listed. And that is your son Cosmo's PB and PB and J and J and J.

• 33:51Speaker 01

  Correct.

• 33:52Dan Pashman?

  So this is well after the separation. The two of you are driving upstate to.

• 33:56Speaker 01

  Those are my parents.

• 33:57Dan Pashman?

  Visit your parents. You ask him to make PB and J sandwiches for the road. He eats his along the way. You realize I'm driving, I don't have a chance. You get to your parents' house, you open up the PB and J that he made for you, and.

• 34:08Speaker 01

  It's insane. It's the most like Cosmo sandwich I had ever seen. It was maximalist. It was, the bread is cut this thick.

• 34:21Dan Pashman?

  Like, like more than an inch thick.

• 34:22Speaker 01

  And then, but then on one side, because the knife moved, it's like, goes down and becomes really thin. So the jam in that part has completely saturated, like through, and now is on the plastic wrap. Like, the idea that I would have eaten this driving is, I'm like, that was a good decision. Hasn't cut it into two triangles. It's just a giant square. There's this much bread, there's also that much peanut butter.

• 34:45Dan Pashman?

  So like, an inch thick layer of peanut butter.

• 34:47Speaker 01

  Yes. And then also the jam. And then he likes to add honey. And because I raised him right, there's a little bit of salt sprinkled in there, crunchy peanut butter, little bit of salt. So I'm like, I'm start, I've done this drive. I'm like, scary hungry. So I'm like, how do I even get into it? I start on the thin end. You know, there's peanut butter is like getting into my hair. And I was just kind of like, this fucking kid, you know? He is an example and a beacon of like, going full for, just go full force into it. Be unapologetic, be the most, indulge, don't hold back.

• 35:29Speaker 01

  And I never would have made that sandwich for myself, but eating what he made for me was like hilarious and joyful and like immersed. And it's just a PB and J, but it was like, his entire personality is in the sandwich. But also, when other people cook for you, the way that that feels, I felt so taken care of. One of the things that reflected who I was during the time that I was writing the book was not wanting to deny myself of pleasure because I was going through a hard time. So that meant, if I was craving something, I ate it.

• 36:14Speaker 01

  If I, if something tasted good to me, I had seconds. If I wanted to have popcorn for dinner, I did. And that being also like, very powerful thing that is connected to self-care, in a non-corny way, like, in a non-bath bomb gin nate. Like, and I feel very grateful for the relationship that I have with food, that it is a source of pleasure, because, you know, I need it.

• 36:51Dan Pashman?

  You read the excerpt from the introduction of the book. You said that through this whole process of your divorce, you wrote, "With clarity, I saw the way I cooked as a reflection of who I am."

• 37:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 37:02Dan Pashman?

  So what is the way that you cook? And what has it taught you about who you are?

• 37:08Speaker 01

  When I cook, I think about how I learned, like, every single little thing that I'm doing. And I think that's part of being flooded by memory, not only in the eating of the food, but in the preparation of the food. And that's what I mean when I say the way that I cook is a reflection of who I am because it's built on now 30 years of experience cooking, where everything sort of ties back to another moment in my life.

• 37:45Dan Pashman?

  And that's something you weren't really aware of until you went through this process?

• 37:49Speaker 01

  Not the way that it kind of fully solidified during this time. Because I was, it, it overwhelmed me.

• 38:03Dan Pashman?

  That's Carla Lally. Her new cookbook is Food is a Feeling. It's out now. And if you want to enter to win a copy of Carla's book, just sign up for our newsletter. Sign up by September 25th, and we'll pick one lucky winner to receive a copy of Food is a Feeling. If you're already subscribed to our newsletter, you're already entered into this and all of our future giveaways, so get on that list. It's open to US residents only. Subscribe now at sporkful.com/newsletter. Next week on the show, The Great Yogurt Feud. We're going to dig into an international food rivalry you've probably never heard of, all about yogurt. This is the show that we taped live at Little Island. It also includes a Bulgarian choir to help tell the tale. That's next week. While you wait for that one, check out last week's show about how Carlos Frias found solace in Miami's Cuban coffee culture as a way to commemorate his late father.

• 38:48Dan Pashman?

  That one's up now. And hey, if you want to hear new episodes of The Sporkful ad-free, subscribe to SiriusXM Podcast Plus on Apple Podcasts, or visit siriusxm.com/podcastsplus to listen to Spotify or another app of your choice. This episode was produced by me, along with managing producer.

• 39:06Speaker 01

  Emma Morgenstern.

• 39:07Dan Pashman?

  And senior producer. Andres O'Hara. It was edited by.

• 39:10Speaker 01

  Camille Stanley.

• 39:11Dan Pashman?

  Our technical director is.

• 39:12Speaker 03

  Jared O'Connell.

• 39:13Dan Pashman?

  Music help from Black Label Music. The Sporkful is a production of SiriusXM Podcasts. Our executive producer is Camille Stanley. Until next time, I'm Dan Pashman.

• 39:21Speaker 06

  And I'm Brittany from Rahway, New Jersey, reminding you to eat more, eat better, eat more better. This podcast is supported by Nurtac ODT, Remedy Pant. We know you didn't ask for an interruption, but migraine doesn't wait for the right moment to interrupt either. It just barges in, takes your time, and throws everything off. So when migraine takes your time, take Nurtac. It's for the acute treatment of migraine with or without aura in adults. Nurtac can provide pain relief in two hours, which can last up to two days. Ask your healthcare provider if Nurtac is right for you, because your time is for you,

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  not migraine. Don't take if allergic to Nurtac ODT. Allergic reactions can occur even days after use. Get help right away for trouble breathing, rash, swelling of face, mouth, tongue, or throat. High blood pressure and Raynaud's syndrome can occur. Get help for high blood pressure, numbness, coolness, pain, or color changes in fingers and toes. Common side effect is nausea. For full prescribing information, call 1-833-4-NURTC or visit nurtc.com. All right, back to your podcast, playlist, or whatever's keeping you going today.

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