I am not seeing an enormous amount of discourse online regarding one of my all time favorite gelato flavors, Fior di Latte or milk gelato. So I thought it might be helpful to share some of the things I learned in my journey of trying to find a recipe/formula and method that will produce the creamiest, milkiest, silkiest, perfectly sweet, dense, and slightly stretchy, fior di latte gelato, in a home kitchen.

There is also a richer version, which I love, called Fior di Panna or Cream Gelato. These are distinct from one another, and for now, we will focus on the milk version.

In today’s post, I will go over the 4 fior di latte recipes I have tried so far. I will share what I enjoyed about each as well as things I personally didn’t like along with any other major takeaways I think might be helpful to anyone attempting these in their own quest for fior di latte gelato perfection.

List of Recipes:

1. Fior di Latte Gelato Recipe by Emiko Davies from her Torta della Nonna (out of print) 2021 cookbook

   1. You can find a version of the book’s recipe on her website/blog here.

2. Fior di Latte Gelato Recipe by Stella Parks for Serious Eats

3. Gelato Fiordilatte by Sergio Dondoli

   1. Italian version here and YouTube version here.

4. Fior di Latte Recipe by Nick Palumbo from his Gelato Messina: The Recipes (out of print) 2013 cookbook

   1. You can find the book’s fior di latte recipe here.

I tried to list these recipes and their methods from easiest and most accessible to the hardest and most time consuming.

In my own quest for the perfect homemade fior di latte, ease, accessibility, and time commitment aren’t important factors but I know these things are for many.

1.

Let’s start with Emiko Davies’ recipe and method. Emiko only asks for three ingredients; milk, cream, and sugar. That’s it. No skim milk powder, no stabilizers, no alternative sugars, just three core ingredients of this now classic gelato flavor. In theory, that’s all you need to make this milk flavor gelato. And from today’s list of recipes, Emiko’s is definitely the closest to how gelato was made pre-industrialization; making this a great option for anyone looking for the most “traditional,” or maybe the better word is old school, recipe/method for making fior di latte.

Unfortunately, in practice, the actual results of this purest approach will never be able to achieve the level of creaminess, silkiness, and body that one would find in a modern day gelateria (or the type of gelato I am personally looking for).

Even freshly churned, this recipe produced results that were too cold and overly icy making it unpalatable and hard to enjoy. There was also the issue of the freshly churned gelato melting super fast leading to further iciness once the gelato had time to harden in my home-freezer after a couple of hours. Without the addition of any alternative sugars, skim milk powder, stabilizers, or emulsifiers, the final texture of the gelato was too hard. There was simply no way to scoop the gelato straight from the freezer. As a way to manage the overt hardness of the gelato, Emiko suggests that you leave the gelato at room temperature for 15 minutes before serving, helping it become more scoopable and enjoyable.

In her recipe, Emiko strongly encourages you to seek out the best quality milk (non-homogenized) and cream. Following her recommendation, I did get my hands on non-homogenized milk from a nearby dairy farm, Baker’s Golden Dairy. But even with the richest milk and best quality cream, the final product didn’t have the level of creaminess and scoopability I wanted.

If you are excited to go this traditional route, I strongly advise that you experiment with the fattiest possible milk you can get; including fun options like water buffalo milk.

The method Emiko employs is super straightforward, you heat up the milk and sugar (until the sugar is dissolved) and tiny bubbles start to form but without bringing the mixture to a boil, take it off heat, let it come to room temperature and then add the (cold) cream at that stage. At this point, she says the base is ready to churn, (meaning without aging or chilling the base further in the fridge).

My advice is to pop the gelato base into the fridge until it reaches 40F before churning if you are going to churn in a home ice cream machine such as a KitchenAid ice cream maker attachment.

2.

Now let’s talk about Stella Park’s recipe that she developed for Serious Eats. The list of ingredients is a little longer for this recipe. Stella asks for cornstarch as the stabilizer (thickener to increase the viscosity of the base) for the recipe, a little bit of kosher salt, and instead of using regular granulated sugar, she wants you to use lightly toasted granulated sugar.

I always like to start with the positives. This gelato had great overrun. Ideal overrun for gelato is somewhere between 20% and 30%. I did want to remind anyone new here that I am using a KitchenAid ice cream maker attachment which produces higher overrun than the majority of homemade ice cream machines because of its powerful motor. But remember, we don’t want to incorporate too much air as we are making gelato, not American style ice cream.

In addition to having great overrun, Stella’s base also produced creamier and silkier results. The final texture of the gelato was shockingly creamy. I truly did enjoy the creaminess of this version.

I honestly might have even stopped here in my quest if it wasn’t for two major drawbacks. Unfortunately, the gelato was incredibly sweet. It was so sweet that for me personally it took away from the enjoyment of eating it. I did attempt a modified version by substituting a portion, I think around 18% of granulated sugar with dextrose, to try and reduce the sweetness, and that did help mitigate the overt sweetness of the first batch. I did want to point out that lightly toasting granulated sugar will reduce the sweetness but for me even with this sweetness reduction method the final gelato was still too sweet. The cornstarch does give this gelato base quite a bit of viscosity which helps produce that creamy and dense final product.

Onto the second con, and that is the use of cornstarch. I’m one of those people who always notices and tastes the presence of cornstarch, yes, even if it is cooked and prepared properly. I have always had this problem with pastry cream recipes that use cornstarch and now I have the same experience with cornstarch based gelatos.

I do want to stress that cornstarch is a common ingredient in gelato making so that’s not at all my issue here. My issue is the off-flavor that comes with using it. If you personally can’t detect the taste of cornstarch you should definitely give this recipe a go, especially if you love very sweet desserts, this might just be the perfect recipe for you. And for anyone who thinks I haven’t been cooking or boiling the cornstarch long enough, let me assure that I absolutely have! I have experimented with unconventionally long cornstarch cooking methods, and I can still always taste it in the final gelato (custards, curds etc.). The moral of the story is if you have a sensitivity to cornstarch this recipe is probably not for you.

3.

Sergio’s formula is where we get closer to what one would label as modern or the more accurate word is probably contemporary commercial gelato making. From what I can see, this recipe was developed with chefs and professional gelato makers in mind.

This is also the first recipe that calls for more advanced stabilizers and emulsifiers; locust bean gum, guar gum, and the hardest of the three to find here in the US, citrus fiber. I will share a little more about this mysterious but apparently commonly used ingredient in Italian gelato making in Italy in future posts.

In addition to the stabilizers and emulsifiers, you also need skim milk powder and dextrose. These two ingredients are relatively easy to find in the majority of US grocery stores and health food stores.

This is just a reminder that skim milk powder enhaces the milky flavor in gelato, hence why I especially love to use it in fior di latte gelato. To learn more about the benefits of using skim milk powder in both gelato and ice cream pleasee see my previous post.

One thing that immediately jumps out to me about Sergio’s formula is the reduction in sugar when compared to Stella’s recipe. Having said that, the sweetness of this gelato was still quite pronounced! The majority of Italian gelato according to commercial conventions tends to be quite high in sugar. From what I have read, Italian gelato formulas tend to have a higher percentage of sugar than American style ice cream formulas. In addition to that, gelato recipes designed for home cooks tend to be even sweeter since sugar is heavily used to improve the final texture and scoopability of the gelato as a way to compensate for the lack of commercial equipment and stabilizers/emulsifiers.

• This is why in my own quest for gelato perfection I prefer to incorporate the use of stabilizers and emulsifiers instead of relying on high quantities of sugar. This might not be the case for other home gelato makers.

Sergio’s process for making his gelato is pretty straightforward. You slowly bring the milk and cream to 185 F or 85C while gradually adding the dry ingredients at various stages of the heating, what he and other gelato makers refer to as the pasteurization process.

In the YouTube video, Sergio uses a commercial gelato maker. Those machines can pasteurize as well as cool down the gelato base very quickly, which then allows him to churn the gelato base immediately.

I do want to point out that if you are making Sergio’s recipe in a home kitchen with a home style ice cream machine, it is best to let your base cure in the fridge for at least 4 hours but somewhere between 6 to 12 seems to be even better because it gives the stabilizers enough time to properly hydrate before churning the gelato.

In other words, once the mixture reaches 185 F or 85C you want to cool it as quickly as possible, usually over an ice bath, put it in the fridge, let it reach 40 F or 4 C, and let the base cure from 4 to 12 hours. The questions of how long to let you base cure and when is it diminishing return is one I am thinking about.

Another step that I have incorporated into my own gelato making process, that I thought would be helpful to share with you, is using an immersion blender to blitz the base for about 1 minute right after I remove it from heat and once more immediately before churning the gelato. Doing these two extra small steps gives me a smoother and silkier gelato, and it also does a great job of properly incorporating the stabilizers/emulsifiers in the base.

Sergio finishes his recipe with the use of a blast chiller to harden the gelato as quickly as possible. Using a blast chiller guarantees your gelato maintains its perfectly creamy texture after the hardening process and throughout long term storage. Obviously, as we saw in my previous post, most home cooks don’t have access to a blast chiller so the closest you can get is by building your own using dry ice.

So what’s my verdict? This recipe is a great starting place for those experimenting in their home kitchens trying to achieve gelateria quality gelato!

And this is where I am. Specifically, I am trying to figure out the perfect ratio and combination of stabilizer/emulsifier for this formula. Sergio recommends a blend of three ingredients at the following ratio, 5:3:2 (citrus fiber, parts locust bean gum, and guar gum).

I made my own blend following those ratios and used the recommended 5 grams in the recipe. The final texture of the gelato was spectacular! And not just freshly churned, the texture remained unchanged after hardening in my home freezer, and even after a week in my home freezer.

The only drawback and it is kind of a major one for me was in the taste. Following the recipe’s exact ratios and measurements for the stabilizer/emulsifier blend and the quantity to be used in the recipe, the gelato had a slight bitterness, and I definitely do not want a bitter off-flavor in my dreamy milky gelato. After doing some digging around, it turns out that this bitter aftertaste is indicative of using too much citrus fiber. Who knew! I am a total newb here! All of these stabilizers and emulsifiers are brand new ingredients to me.

Anyway, I just wanted to share with you that too much citrus fiber can lead to a bitter taste in gelato. So if you are using this ingredient for the first time, consider this my warning. Read this article if you want to learn more about the use of fiber in ice cream! I am going to follow Ruben’s advice and try .5% in my next batch!

Like I just said, I am brand new to this world. Additionally, I wasn’t able to get my hands on the exact type of citrus fiber, Sergio and other Italian gelato makers use in their gelato. There are different grades and strengths of this ingredient.

In the end, do I think Sergio’s recipe is worth trying exactly as written? I guess my answer would have to be no. Mainly because of how difficult and expensive it was to secure all three stabilizers and emulsifiers. And the bitter taste was also a turnoff.

I do think for those of you who are seriously committed to nailing this and other gelato flavors, experimenting with stabilizers and emulsifiers is nonnegotiable.

But for the average home gelato maker this is probably a level of commitment that is incongruent with their goals.

Lastly, even after getting your hands on these ingredients, you will need to dedicate time to experimenting and adjusting the ratios of the stabilizer blend to achieve your perfect gelato.

I will continue to report back on my own findings and experiments with this formula and I definitely would love to hear from others who are in pursuit of their own gelato perfection. Tell me in the comments how it is going!

Leave a comment

4.

Last but not least. Let’s look at Nick’s fiordilatte recipe from his 2013 Gelato Messina: The Recipes book.

Nick’s process is by far the most hands-on and time consuming. While Nick’s formula isn’t drastically different from Sergio’s, they both use the same ingredients (besides the stabilizer blend) and similar ratios of each ingredient as well.

As with the previous recipe, you will need skim milk powder, dextrose, and some type of stabilizer and emulsifier blend.

For this one, let’s start by talking about the stabilizers and emulsifiers. In the linked article, it simply says to use 5 grams of (gelato) stabilizer.

In the book, Nick does spend a couple pages talking about the types of stabilizers and emulsifiers commonly used in professional gelato making as well as mentioning the approximate industry standard breakdown of their ratios. In other words, most gelato stabilizer blends are a combination of 2 grams stabilizer and 3 grams of emulsifier, so a total of 5 grams per 1 liter of gelato base. Unfortunately, he does not specifically say, which I personally find a bit frustrating, which exact stabilizer blend or individual ingredients he used when developing the gelato recipes for this book. He simply states that the best thing to do is to buy a premixed stabilizer/emulsifier blend directly from a company that specializes in gelato making and gelato making ingredients.

From what I have seen in the stabilizer/emulsifier market here in the US, a lot of stabilizer blends don’t specify their exact ratios (that info is considered proprietary). I personally haven’t been able to get my hands on any Italian manufactured blends. If anyone has some insight on how or where to get those, please let us know in the comments or send me a message!

In full transparency, after a bad experience with an ice cream stabilizer/emulsifier blend, I personally haven’t tried any existing US easily available gelato blends. I was thinking of testing the Perfect Pantry Perfect Gelato blend but after my experience with their ice cream blend I am a bit skeptical. I would love to hear from anyone who has tried the above or any other US gelato blends! Are you happy with the results? Do let us know in the comments.

So if I am not using a gelato premix blend for this recipe, what am I using? I have made this recipe with 2 grams of locust bean gum. And the results have been great.

Nick’s gelato book has two methods; one for domestic ice cream makers and another one for professionals. For the purposes of today’s review, we will focus on the domestic method.

I did want to call out one pretty cool thing I discovered. I know of at least one restaurant that uses Nick’s “domestic” method to make restaurant gelato.

shared his pistachio gelato recipe where he employs Nick’s double boiled method. I asked where he learned this method and he said that he learned this way of making gelato while working at Misi restaurant in NYC. Pretty cool!

The Secret Ingredient

Misi's recipe: Pistachio Gelato

This pistachio gelato comes from Brooklyn restaurant Misi…

Read more

9 months ago · 103 likes · 47 comments · chef Harrison

Let’s take a closer look at this double boiler method. The double boiler technique relies on an extended period of evaporation, meaning you have to keep the mixture at a certain temperature, in this case 65°C (149°F), for a period of 30 minutes. You may be asking yourself, why? I have talked about this previously, but this domestic method of making ice cream is meant to mimic the pasteurization of commercial ice cream machines which help reduce and evaporate some of the water that is in the milk and concentrate the milk solids. Since gelato bases are largely made up of milk (with a smaller ration of cream), they inherently have more water that needs to be evaporated during the preparation process in a domestic environment or in the case of commercial gelato making, through the process of pasteurization that comes built in fancy commercial gelato machines.

What does that look like in practice? Well, we start with 997 grams of the base and by the end of the 30 minutes, we are left with approximately 878 grams. This is roughly a 12% loss in evaporation.

Maintaining a steady temperature of 149 F or 65 C for 30 minutes is definitely a more hands on process which requires you to be managing the source of heat constantly especially if you are using a gas stove, as well as needing to frequently whisk the base to prevent any scorching or film from forming on the top of the base.

As with the previous recipe, I recommend using an immersion blender to blitz the base once it is removed from heat and doing it one more time right before churning.

So how does this more hands-on method (with a higher evaporation rate) compare to the more traditional homestyle making version we saw in Sergio’s recipe? I’m not entirely sure this is a helpful question especially since Sergio’s formula uses a higher percentage of heavy cream and a lower percentage of milk (which kind of evens out the water content between the two). Having said that, the results were comparable and the differences in texture and creaminess weren’t obvious.

Another reason this comparison isn’t fruitful is because the main issue of what stabilizer and emulsifiers to use hasn’t been fully resolved for both of these.

You might be wondering why I even picked to test or make Nick’s recipe if I don’t have access to a professional Italian blend of gelato stabilizers, believe me, I asked myself that same thing.

But ultimately my fior di latte goal is this. I want to figure out my own perfect formula, process, and blend of stabilizers. So to me it was worth trying Nick’s method even with a slightly adjusted formula, which in this case, was the exclusion of 3 grams of emulsifiers and the use of 2 grams of locust bean gum in place of a generic gelato blend. Once I do have access to a quality gelato stabilizer blend, I will retest this recipe and method using the 5 grams of “stabilizer”.

So do I think this recipe and method is worth trying for the majority of folks who want to make fior di latte gelato at home? Probably not. Unless, you went ahead and bought an Italian gelato stabilizer blend. In that case, it is definitely worth trying Nick’s recipe.

To be honest, Sergio’s recipe is a lot easier, since all you need to do is bring the base slowly to 185 F or 85C, take it off heat, and not worry about maintaining any specific temperature for a prolonged period of time.

That’s it for today!

In Part II, I will share another round of fior di latte recipes I have attempted. Do share your favorite fior di latte recipes with us in the comments!

Eventually, I will share everything I have learned in a separate post and show you how I have started to apply that knowledge to making my own version.

Quick Summary of Key Takeaways from All 4 Recipes:

• Reflect on your gelato making needs and make decisions based on how much time and money you want to spend.

• Use the best quality whole milk you can get your hands on.

• Use a scale to measure out all of your ingredients and a high precision scale to measure out stabilizers and emulsifiers.

• Use the best quality heavy cream (ideally pasteurized not ultra pasteurized) between 35% and 40% fat.

• Use some kind of stabilizer or emulsifier blend to achieve the creamiest results.

• Consider starting with a generic gelato stabilizer blend.

  • I def. did this backwards, so don’t be like me and start with a million different stabilizer options unless you already have experience making gelato and ice cream.

• Seriously consider using skim milk powder to improve the texture and body of your gelato!

• Let you gelato base age in the fridge for at least 4 hours and until it reaches 40F.

• Use an immersion blender or at least a whisk to blend or mix the gelato before churning!

• Be patient.

• Be prepared to experiment with different amounts and ratios of stabilizer and emulsifier.

• Be prepared to fail.

I think I am starting to get it! Ice cream making that is. I mean, to be completely honest, I still feel like ice cream has a mind of its own, but at least the pieces are starting to fit together. Or maybe that’s exactly what it wants me to think.

Okay, get to the point. I know.

My main goal for today is to share with you a list of helpful ice cream and gelato making tips that will help you achieve creamy results.

I came across these tidbits of ice cream making knowledge in the various ice cream and gelato making resources I have been consulting in my own educational journey of this craft. I say various, but it is an absolute pile of books, articles, videos, and whatever else stacked to the ceiling. For my complete bibliography of ice cream making and science resources please see my previous article, Part I of My Ice Cream Making Curriculum.

Let’s dive in!

Creamy Ice Cream and Gelato Making Tips:

TIP 1.

Skim Milk Powder (SMP) Is Your Friend: I wish someone would have told me right out the gate just how important this single ingredient is in ice cream and gelato making. Maybe it’s a secret ingredient when people talk about their guarded secret ingredient. If it isn’t, it probably should be.

This one easily available ingredient in the majority of U.S. grocery stores can drastically improve the texture, mouthfeel, and creaminess of your ice cream and gelato, as well as enhance viscosity of your bases giving the final product more body and stability.

What exactly is its function? Let’s start by looking at milk. Milk, an essential ingredient in gelato making, is largely water (somewhere around 87%). That is a lot of water! One of the most important roles of skim milk powder is to increase the milk solids-not-fat (MSNF) without changing the fat content of your frozen dessert bases. This helps to stabilize (or retain) a lot of that free water that would otherwise result in an icy final product. But that’s not all folks, there are a lot of other benefits to this seemingly insignificant product. I found this helpful summary on Reddit of all the different benefits of using SMP:

The two major components of SMP are protein (around 38%) and lactose (around 50%). From an ice cream science perspective milk protein is a very good emulsifier. Which is why using SMP in your ice cream recipes will result in a creamier product. The milk proteins also help trap and incorporate air during the actual churning process. While the lactose (milk sugars) in SMP acts as a stabilizer by binding (absorbing and retaining) free water in your base which prevents the formation of large ice crystals resulting in smaller ice crystals giving the final product a creamier and smoother mouthfeel.

1. Helpful Info: According to Nick from Polar Ice Creamy, the use of SMP mirrors the pasteurization process of commercial ice cream making; during pasteurization water evaporates increasing milk solids.

2. Helpful Info: Whole Milk Powder is not the same thing! It can not be used as a substitute for skim milk powder. If you were to use whole milk powder instead of SMP you would be altering the fat content of whatever formula you are using which would require you to re-balance the formula to account for the extra fat.

   1. I actually tried making a couple recipes with whole milk powder and it had the most awful flavor.

3. Helpful Info: It took me way too long to come across this information so I wanted to make sure to share it with you all but too much SMP can result in a grainy or sandy texture in your ice cream. It is suggested to keep SMP under 10% of the total weight of your mix (I am actually a little blurry on this point so if anyone has insight please do share). From an ice cream science perspective this happens because the lactose in SMP isn’t very soluble.

4. Helpful Info: If you are on the hunt for a super creamy and dairy forward ice cream, especially if you make a lot of fior di latte like I have been, I will be writing a separate article on my fior di latte experiments, please note that the use of SMP will enhance the milky or dairy notes in your gelato.

TIP 2.

Don’t Be Afraid of Stabilizers and Emulsifiers: There seems to be a lot of stigma regarding these two in the ice cream making world. There are several ice cream making books that pride themselves on only using “natural” ingredients in their ice cream making.

This rhetoric of stabilizers being unnatural is super bizarre to me and seems to be some weird marketing tool trying to drive sales based on fear tactics. What makes me laugh is that almost every stabilizer and emulsifier I have used in my ice cream making I bought at local Natural Food Stores. So how can products sold by NATURAL FOOD AND HEALTH STORES be deemed by certain ice cream makers as unnatural? Doesn’t make sense, right? Okay, so natural food stores might not be the ultimate arbitrator of what is healthy, real, or whatever. I know you can’t generalize and assume that just because it’s sold at a health store it is inherently good for us given that this entire food industry is rife with deregulation, misnomers, marketing and all sorts of pitfalls. But demonizing the entire family of stabilizers is beyond silly. Especially if you don’t want to use eggs in your ice cream and gelato recipes, you’re just hurting your chances of producing the results that you want, if you don’t take the time to look at individual stabilizers and emulsifiers.

We don’t need to be running away from big scary words. Stabilizers and emulsifiers can include ultra processed things, but they also include all of the natural ones that come from plants (beans, trees, fruit), seaweed, fermented sugars, and so on. Interestingly, my partner uses some of them in his art making such as boiling seaweed to make binding agents or sugars for photo emulsion—some of these processes are hundreds of years old, if not older. There are certainly industrial ultra processed grade stabilizers that a lot of ice cream manufacturers use. These companies prioritize cutting costs over making quality ice cream, but this doesn’t mean that we should be throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

There are plenty of natural alternatives for you to try. But for those of us just getting started it can be quite disorienting to understand why there is so little nuance out there on this topic. We definitely should not be lumped in things like locust bean gum (also known as Carob Bean Flour), citrus fiber, carrageenan, guar gum, xanthan gum, sunflower/soy lecithin, tara gum, tapioca starch, etc. with commercial industrial grade ultra processed stabilizers.

If you want to learn more about stabilizers please check out my previous post for a full list of stabilizer specific resources. Nick from Polar Ice Creamery does a great job demystifying these ingredients!

Also remember that we are using tiny and I mean tiny quantities of both stabilizers and emulsifiers. Sometimes less than a gram, as you will see in my next post where I share one of my favorite recipes for Malted Milk Ice Cream.

TIP 3.

Keep Everything As Cold As Possible: Temperature, be it in baking or ice cream making, is an incredibly important factor that will for sure impact the quality of your final product. The ideal temperature for your ice cream base is 40 F or 4 C. Some folks even recommend putting the ice cream/gelato base in the freezer for 10 to 15 minutes before churning.

Additionally, if you are like me and using a non-compressor ice cream machine (aka something with a pre-frozen canister), do not remove the canister until you have everything ready to go. You absolutely cannot risk losing any of that cold since the pre-frozen canisters start warming up as soon as they leave the freezer.

1. Helpful Info: If using a frozen canister you have to make sure that your freezer is set to a low enough temperature. According to ice cream sources such as Ice Cream Science your freezer should be set to at least -0.4 F or -18 C. The colder you can get the canister the smoother and creamier your ice cream and gelato will be since the goal is to churn our frozen desserts as quickly as possible. Just remember that the less time your ice cream spends in the machine the smaller the ice crystals will be and the less likely you are to get icy results.

   1. My freezer is set to 0 F or -18C and I have been able to achieve solid results. If you are able to go lower definitely do, as mentioned on the Ice Cream Science blog the results will continue to improve if you can get an even lower freezer temperature, they suggest -14.8 F or -26 C for example.

2. Helpful Info: If you have a KitchenAid, you can take advantage of the stronger motor which allows you to churn your ice cream surprisingly quickly (as compared to other comparable options on the market). The average churning times in most ice cream recipes seem to hover between 30 and 40 minutes. In my experience, I was able to churn a batch of ice cream or pistachio gelato as quickly as 15 minutes! My average churning time is around 20 minutes.

3. Helpful Info: The churning time will also depend on the viscosity (thickness) of your base. In simplified terms, the thinner (less viscous) the base the longer it will take to churn. I wanted to point this out to you since this relationship between the viscosity of your base and churning times is something that you don’t often see in ice cream cookbooks.

4. Helpful Info: Another benefit of using a KitchenAid is greater overrun. In other words, if you churn your ice cream with the KitchenAid machine you will end up incorporating more air into your ice cream (which will result in greater volume). If you know you will be making a lot of American style ice cream, the KitchenAid option might be your best affordable option (if you already have the machine itself of course). I have had great results churning American style ice creams using both Speed 1 and Speed 2 on the KitchenAid. We definitely cannot compete with commercial ice cream machines that are so insanely powerful that they can churn large quantities of ice creams in under 10 minutes with over 100% overrun but the KitchenAid does get surprisingly close with as much as 70% overrun!

   1. Gelato on the other hand is traditionally churned slower producing a denser product with less overrun.

TIP 4.

Keep Track of Your Drawing Temperature: This is the temperature at which your ice cream is ready to go into the freezer, or the temperature that tells you your ice cream or gelato is done churning. According to Goff and Hartel’s 2013 ice cream making textbook, the ideal drawing temperature (for standard commercial ice cream machines) is between 23 F and 19.4 F or -5 C and -7 C. As a home ice cream maker if you can achieve 23 F or -5 C you are in great shape and will get wonderful results!

1. Helpful Info: But I did learn that there are actual benefits of aiming for a slightly lower drawing temperature for home ice cream makers. According to the Underbelly blog there are significant benefits of aiming for a lower draw temp in homemade ice cream machines. They suggest trying to extract your ice cream at 16 F or -9 C which will give you a smoother and creamier result! Just to be clear, most home ice cream machines can barely hit the 23 F. But! There are exceptions and this actually includes the KitchenAid attachment. Just to be extra clear, your ability to achieve a low drawing temperature depends on the freezing power of your machine! With my KitchenAid attachment I have been able to get it as low as 16 F, but I get around 20 F more consistently. If you can push the drawing temperature to around 16 F or -9 C let me know if you notice the difference in quality.

2. Helpful Info: Once you have reached your desired drawing temperature it is go time! This is where we need to move fast. We are trying to get our freshly churned ice cream into the freezer as quickly as humanely possible, with minimal melting. I will share more insights into the hardening phase in the next round of ice cream tips.

TIP 5.

Home Freezers Are Your Biggest Nemesis: I wanted to note an important drawback to pretty much all of homemade ice cream making. And that, my friends, are our freezers. Once your ice cream has reached that ideal draw temperature the goal is to get it to freeze or harden to -31 F or -35 C at which temperature no more ice crystals can be formed making sure the ice cream texture remains smooth after hardening. In order to achieve these super low temps you absolutely need a blast freezer. Asking our home freezers to do that is an impossible task. If you happen to have a super cool freezer that can achieve this, do let us know.

1. Helpful Info: If you are a real ice cream fanatic, and I haven’t tried this myself, but I really want to, you can actually make your own tiny blast chiller using store bought dry ice, a cooler or a Styrofoam box with a lid. This way you can blast chill your freshly churned ice cream. WHEN WORKING WITH DRY ICE SAFETY IS ESSENTIAL! Treat it like fire or acid, you absolutely can and will burn your flesh, eyes and soft tissues if you touch it. Protect your eyes, skin and lungs with proper personal protection equipment such as goggles, gloves and closed toe shoes. So please have all the safety measures in place before attempting this. If you are curious about this dry ice method my advice is to check out the The Wanderlust Creamery Presents ice cream book, the Blast Freezing section. If I end up doing this, I will make sure to share my experience since you all know how much I love making my own “machines” out of coolers lol.

TIP 6.

Experiment with Serving Temperature: Most American style ice creams are meant to be served somewhere between 7 F / 10 F or -12 C / -14 C, while gelato serving temperature is slightly higher at around 12 F or -11 C. This will usually take a couple of hours depending on your freezer and draw temperature.

1. Helpful Info: Serving temperature can also be a very personal thing. So definitely go with your gut on this one. One of the reasons I love gelato so much is because it is served at warmer temperatures. I am pretty sensitive to super cold ice cream (more on this in the future).

2. Helpful Info: My advice is to harden your ice cream or gelato to your preferred serving temperature and eat it that day! Not all of it of course, but if you love ice cream or gelato the best day to enjoy it, in my humble opinion, is the day it is made. Especially if you are not using any stabilizers or emulsifiers. I personally love freshly churned ice cream, so I tend to eat mine straight out of the machine, after having put the rest of it in the freezer first, of course!

That’s it for today! In the next round of tips we will look at the crucial role of invert sugars, the role of aging your bases, and much more!

I am so excited to continue to collect and share helpful ice cream making tips and information as I keep learning and researching this endlessly fascinating topic!

Do you have any ice cream or gelato making tips for me?

I would love to hear some of them.

Leave a comment

In my next post, I will be sharing my first ice cream recipe for Malted Milk Ice Cream! The ice cream is super creamy and luxurious.

If you found this article helpful please share it with your ice cream and gelato loving friends.

As some of you might have already figured it out; my latest kitchen project (obsession) is learning how to make the creamiest possible homemade ice cream. I’m also on the hunt for the perfectly dense and creamy homemade pistachio gelato1.

Let me outline some key differences between the two before we move on.

There are a LOT of regional American style varieties of ice cream, so I am trying to generalize. Locally I have access to Handel’s Ice Cream, started in 1945 by Alice Handel (fat content of 24%), but I also miss some of my favorite options from the H-E-B freeze aisle. Not sure if it is still the case but they used to make a very creamy store bought ice cream.

Gelato is easier to pin down or at least has way less variations before someone cries that it’s no longer gelato.

The first major difference is in fat content. Gelato is significantly lower in fat content usually between 6% to 10% range versus American style ice creams have to at minimum be 10% and go all the way to 25%. The second (and third) major difference is in the percentages of sugar and stabilizers. Gelato has a higher percentage of sugar, and the same goes for the percentage of stabilizers. Gelato requires a higher percentage of stabilizer because it has more free water due to the lower overall fat content.

Another important difference is in the overrun. American ice cream has substantially higher overrun. In other words, American ice cream has a lot more air in it than gelato. Some commercial machines can achieve above 100% overrun while gelato has an average overrun of 20 to 30%. Overrun is an industry term that refers to the total percentage of air incorporated into the mixture. So before churning you have 1 quart of ice cream and after churning you have 1.5 quarts, that is 50% overrun since the mixture increased 50% in volume.

The last big difference is the serving temperature. Gelato is served at higher temperatures than American ice cream, usually between 10 F to 22 F or -12 to -6 C while American styles of ice cream are served at colder temps somewhere between 14 F to 0 F and -10 C to -17°C.

It was with this challenge on my mind that I began my ice cream and gelato making side quest about 6 months ago. I bought some new tools, got my hands on way too many ingredients, and I of course made a huge mess.

But my obsession with achieving the perfectly creamy and luscious ice cream did not peak until this December. Maybe it was the massive dump of snow forcing us to stay inside, but during these short winter days and endless snow storms, ice cream making seemed like the ideal project to help both Tom and I keep our spirits up.

As with everything I do, I began with research. I made a list of ice cream making books and cookbooks, and got my hands on as many as I could, from local libraries, online databases, and bookstores. I began reading the literature to understand the general theory of ice cream making.

The first thing that immediately jumped out at me was that every single book has its own method for making ice cream. One of the most frustrating aspects of this is the fact that with each new method there are new ingredients. Let me give you an example.

Jeni’s ice cream book Jeni’s Splendid Ice Cream Desserts from 2014 uses cornstarch and cream cheese to achieve a creamy consistency in home kitchens. Van Leeuwen Artisan Ice Cream Book: Classic Flavors and New Favorites on the other hand utilizes a custard approach incorporating egg yolks to give the final product a smoother and richer finish. Van Leeuwen famously refused to use any additional types of stabilizers or emulsifiers in their ice cream formulas as they deem them unhealthy and unnatural products. The majority of stabilizers actually come from natural ingredients but that’s another story for another time. In the Salt & Straw Ice Cream Cookbook Tyler Malek employs xanthan gum as the main stabilizer for his formulas. The advantages of this approach is that it barely requires any cooking time just enough to dissolve the sugar.

You get the point.

Every single book I have read so far on ice cream making (check out the bibliography at the bottom) has their own method and formulas. Unfortunately the majority of the books don’t provide an in-depth scientific explanation for each step that is being executed or the ingredients used. I can follow the rituals, but it doesn’t leave me feeling confident to experiment on my own. In order to understand the science, you need to seek it out yourself, as a way to supplement the gaps in knowledge in cookbooks.

And this continues with every ice cream blog, Substack, Patreon, etc. The list of ingredients used in both ice cream and gelato making is absolutely enormous!

It is worth stressing that there are a ton of different styles of ice cream here in the US and all over the world. Each style requires their own techniques, ingredients, and machinery. But even within the same style of ice cream making there are endless variations in what the authors or recipe developers deem vital to include to achieve their desired final product along with the method or steps taken for achieving those results. You will see everything from no cook bases, double boilers, cooking to different temps, immersion or high speed blenders and so on.

Is all hope lost? No. Absolutely not. There are definitely some books and lots of online resources for understanding ice cream science. To understand and learn about the science of ice cream making, get your hands on Dana Cree’s Hello, My Name Is Ice Cream: The Art and Science of the Scoop: A Cookbook published in 2017. From there you can start reading ice cream science textbooks, blogs, and academic articles. Like I said earlier, there aren’t very many trade books published on this topic. The only other exception I can think of is The Wanderlust Creamery by Adrienne Borlongan. You can find my full bibliography below.

As a word of caution, once you dive deeper into the real underbelly of the ice cream making world it will be hard to stop.

Over the course of the last couple of months, I did end up making a couple of rookie mistakes hence why I wanted to write down and share these things in case someone new to ice cream making needs some pointers. I hope these ramblings will help someone else have a smoother ice cream learning journey, along with saving them a buck or two in this hellish economy.

So I am going to tell you that the best way (and most affordable) to start learning the art of home made ice cream making is to pick one (or at most two) sources (e.g. one cookbook and one blog or two cookbooks) and practice making those same formulas and methods over and over again to understand the various stages of ice cream making.

You need to start somewhere and honestly, anywhere is a good start. Go with Jeni, go with Malek, go with Alton Brown, it does not matter. As I am writing this I am of course thinking of bread baking which also benefits from this same approach, and bread baking cookbooks share the same frustration as ice cream making books, as they tend to also reflect the individual methods/style of bread baking from a single baker/bakery, food writer, or recipe developer along with their preferred ingredients and tools.

Secondly, I believe that the best way to learn is through practice. Don’t get stuck in the theory, get into the kitchen and see how things behave in your specific machine, with your specific ingredients, and so on. And like with anything else you are learning, make sure to take copious notes, as any good recipe developer and tester will tell you, keeping a notepad and a pen in the kitchen will save you so much time and energy. So please don’t let this essay discourage you from starting, go start accumulating experience making ice cream in your own kitchens.

A NOTE ON STABILIZERS

One of the main reasons I think the one formula at a time approach works best is because of the hell that is the world of ice cream stabilizers. THERE ARE SO MANY OF THEM. And each ice cream maker has their own reasons and personal preferences for using their own stabilizer of choice.

Sure, once you understand that ice cream making is about creating well balanced formulas you will realize that each type of frozen dessert (be it ice cream, gelato, sherbert, sorbet etc.) requires its own perfect stabilizer or even more commonly a combination of different stabilizers, ratios, and let us not forget emulsifiers. It is overwhelming and it is, at least for me, way too much like a home chemistry set. I thought ice cream was, you know, milk, cream, and sugar! So how is a beginner supposed to navigate all these options? They can’t. Pick one and go with it. The best solution is to experiment with one of these at a time. Also check out my favorite ice cream stabilizers resources, find the full list below.

Another frustrating aspect of stabilizers is that they are quite expensive. If price is an important criteria for your ice cream making venture, maybe start with one of the cheaper options such as cornstarch, gelatin, pectin (powdered or liquid) or a tier above something like xanthan gum. Personally I am not a fan of using cornstarch because I always taste it in the final products including pastry creams, no matter how long you cook (boil) it. Cornstarch still imparts a flavor profile I don’t want in my ice cream. This is where your note taking shines. And like some mad scientist, you too can eventually devise the perfect stabilizer brew for your tastes.

Unfortunately this is another domain where I got a bit ahead of myself. I got my hands on too many options and felt immediately overwhelmed.

There is, however, a way through that mess. You can also buy premixed stabilizer mixes from companies such as Modernist Pantry or Secret Ingredients. However, be aware that others and myself find these types of premixes produce mixed results. I honestly would rather control my own ratios and shelf life of the ingredients used in the mix than have one premixed mix that might not always work for all my formulas. In other words, I would rather buy Guar Gum, Locust Bean Gum, Tara Gum, L-Carrageenan, separately and mix them based on individual needs2. If you know that you have serious ice cream making ambitions this might be the best route for you as well. I don’t see this suggested or written down in many places hence why I thought it would be helpful to do so.

If I had a chance to re-do one thing about my approach, I would have spent a little more on Locust Bean Gum, and started experimenting with it first. LBG is the best out of all the stabilizers mentioned above in fighting crystallization (ice crystal growth results in icy ice cream) and improving the creaminess of your final ice cream guaranteeing a smooth finish.

Instead I started with xanthan gum (after reading the Salt & Straw cookbook). One thing I really think is worth stressing is the fact that xanthan gum has to be used in incredibly small percentages. For this reason, xanthan gum can be extra tricky to work with especially for home cooks or those who don’t have a high precision scale! Something that I truly believe every ice cream homemaker needs.

Let me give you an example, the Salt & Straw formula asks for 1/8 teaspoon to 1/4 teaspoon of xanthan gum for its base recipes. The first time I made it, I used teaspoons (but measured it on the scale to convert everything into grams). I got 2.6 grams of xanthan gum. The final product came out slimy with an unpleasant stretchy texture. That’s due to the strong gelling and thickening properties of xanthan gum. The perfect amount of xanthan gum for the base formula in Salt & Straw for me is .7 gram! Xanthan gum does an excellent job at increasing the viscosity of the mixture, resulting in a creamier final product. And to be honest when used in accurate and precise amounts you do get great creaminess and mouthfeel. Furthermore, you can get away with just using xanthan gum on its own unlike other gums that require the addition of other gums/stabilizers/emulsifiers to achieve the same results. I haven’t personally tried it, but Tara Gum is also meant to be a good catch all option except that it doesn’t do well with acidic bases.3

There are pros and cons in each stabilizer, and ideally, you will eventually start understanding enough about them to create your own blends, but in the meantime, I encourage you to check out the stabilizers portion in the resources section.

These are the resources I have been using and referencing over the last couple of weeks to educate myself as much as I can on this endlessly complicated subject.

A NOTE ON SUGARS

To a lesser degree, as there are fewer options in this category (thank the gods), a similar note applies to all the various sugar options. I can very briefly share what I learned about sugars. All ice cream and gelato recipes (unless you are looking for sugar-free alternatives) will use granulated sugar (sucrose). In addition to sucrose, a lot of ice cream makers will use dextrose, fructose, invert sugar, maltose, or glucose syrups, as these help primarily with lowering the freezing point of your ice cream which is a way to control the final hardness of the ice cream and its scoopability. Sugar also plays an important role in helping prevent ice crystals from forming along with their size.

These seem to be the most common organized from most common to least across the resources I have reviewed;

• Light Corn Syrup

• Dextrose Powder

• Glucose Syrup

• Glucose Powder

• Maltodextrin (not technically a sugar but it acts as one)

The cheapest and easiest option for American home cooks is to use light corn syrup (this is not the same as high fructose corn syrup). It is easily available in American grocery stores.

The main take away is that incorporating any type of inverted sugar will improve the texture and scoopability of your ice cream.

A NOTE ON TOOLS

I know I already mentioned this but make sure to get a high precision scale, especially if you will be using and experimenting with stabilizers.

Trust me! You can thank me later.

The same goes for a thermometer. More on this in Part II. But in short you need it for literally every step of the process cooking the base/activating stabilizer, churning, and serving.

So at this point you must be wondering what ice cream machine I have been using for all these ice cream experiments. I have been teaching myself ice cream making with a KitchenAid ice cream attachment. This falls into the freezer canister category of ice cream machines, meaning you have to pre-freeze your canister for at least 24 hours before making ice cream. When considering what machine to buy, make sure to take your freezer into account. You need to have enough room in your freezer for one of these canisters.

A frequent complaint is the need to pre-freeze the canisters 24 to 48 hours ahead of time. I personally don’t mind needing to pre-freeze ahead, since you need to age/cure the majority of ice cream and gelato bases at least overnight before churning them, this sort of planning is intuitive.

The real limitation for me is only being able to make one batch of ice cream at a time every couple of days since after you use the canister you need to let it warm up, clean it, dry it, and put it back in the freezer to freeze again for a day or two. All this really means is that you can’t make a lot of ice cream or different types of ice cream in one go. The KitchenAid ice cream attachment can churn 1 liter (1 pint) of ice cream or gelato base with relative ease.

Apparently from what I have read (and most definitely from what I experienced in my own kitchen), the advantage of using the KitchenAid over something like a Cuisinart ice cream maker is the power of the motor. The KitchenAid machine is strong enough to incorporate a lot more air (as much as 70% overrun!) giving you a better overrun than the other freezer canister options that spin at a slower rate which is actually better for gelato making as it is traditionally churned slower. So if you want to focus on making American style ice cream that requires the incorporation of more air during churning I would definitely consider going with this option.

Do I dream about the Lello 4080 Musso Lussino daily? Maybe. I am SO curious about how much better (creamier) my ice cream could be in this fancy machine. A lot of professional ice cream makers I know started making ice cream for sale with this machine. Honestly not buying one of these 5 years ago has been one of my biggest regrets in life lol.

At the end of the day, I am able to produce some pretty killer ice cream and “gelato” in my $39.99 KitchenAid ice cream attachment. Something I was initially skeptical about.

I am going to officially end things here for today.

Part 2 will include additional takeaways from my ice cream making research and experiments. We will look at things such as ideal draw temps, the crucial importance of skimmed milk powder, issues with home freezers, my favorite ice cream calculator for balancing formulas, etc.

I am also putting together a spreadsheet of all the formulas and methods I have tried so far. If anyone is curious I would consider sharing it. It is super messy and unprofessional but it has been helping me keep track of things.

Lastly, would you be interested in annotated ice cream recipes? So I would take an ice cream recipe from a blog, cookbook, etc. and I would annotate it with notes, questions, observations, etc.

Tell me your favorite books, websites, YouTube videos etc. on the subject of ice cream!

Leave a comment

Resources and Bibliography:

Ice Cream (and more) Cookbooks:

These are affiliate links which means I get a tiny percentage from each sale.

Bauer, Jeni Britton. 2014. Jeni’s Splendid Ice Cream Desserts. New York: Artisan.

Bauer, Jeni Britton. 2019. Perfect Homemade Ice Cream : The Best Make-It-Yourself Ice Creams, Sorbets, Sundaes, and Other Desserts. New York: Artisan.

Beranbaum, Rose Levy, and Matthew Septimus. 2020. Rose’s Ice Cream Bliss. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

Borlongan, Adrienne. 2024. Wanderlust Creamery Presents : The World of Ice Cream. New York: Abrams.

Clarke, Chris. 2004. The Science of Ice Cream. Cambridge: Royal Society of Chemistry.

Cree, Dana. 2017. Hello, My Name Is Ice Cream : The Art and Science of the Scoop. First edition. New York: Clarkson Potter.

Goff, H. Douglas, Richard W. Hartel, and Scott A. Rankin. 2025. Ice Cream. Eighth edition. Cham, Switzerland: Springer Nature Switzerland.

Lebovitz, David. 2018. The Perfect Scoop : 200 Recipes for Ice Creams, Sorbets, Gelatos, Granitas, and Sweet Accompaniments. Revised and updated. [Berkeley] California: Ten Speed Press.

Malek, Tyler, and J. J. Goode. 2019. Salt & Straw Ice Cream Cookbook. First edition. New York: Clarkson Potter/Publishers.

Malek, Tyler, JJ Goode, Stephanie Shih, and Salt & Straw (Ice cream Shop). 2025. America’s Most Iconic Ice Creams : Classic Flavors & Creative Riffs. First edition. New York: Clarkson Potter/Publishers.

O’Neill, Laura, Ben Van Leeuwen, Pete Van Leeuwen, Olga Massov, and Sidney Bensimon. 2015. Van Leeuwen Artisan Ice Cream Book. First edition. New York, NY: Ecco, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.

Gelato Cookbooks:

Kenedy, Jacob, and Morano Gelato (Firm). 2021. Gelupo Gelato : A Delectable Palette of Ice Cream Recipes. London: Bloomsbury.

Lagorce, Stéphan. 2020. Amorino Guide to Gelato : Learn to Make Traditional Italian Frozen Desserts. . Translated by Bob Mitchell. First Skyhorse Publishing edition. New York, NY: Skyhorse Publishing.

Morano, Morgan. 2015. The Art of Making Gelato : 50 Flavors to Make at Home. New York, New York: Race Point Publishing.

Palumbo, Nick. 2013. Gelato Messina : The Recipes. Richmond, Victoria: Hardie Grant Books. Out of print only available as an ebook.

Ice Cream Science Resources and Ice Cream Calculators:

Websites, Newsletters, and Patreons:

• https://icecreamcalc.com/

• https://www.icecreamscience.com/

• https://www.dreamscoops.com/home/

• https://www.dreamscoops.com/ice-cream-science/

• https://www.patreon.com/cw/PolarIceCreamery

• https://scoopulator.app/

• https://under-belly.org/

• https://www.icecreamcalc.app/

• https://www.daywithmei.com/triple-toasted-vanilla-ice-cream/

• https://www.daywithmei.com/strawberry-ice-cream/

• https://www.youtube.com/@Gelatoexpert

bake chats

all about ice cream

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4 months ago · 64 likes · 10 comments · Kassie Mendieta

• https://morethansweet.substack.com/archive

Stabilizers:

• https://icecreamcalc.com/stabilizers/

• https://www.dreamscoops.com/ice-cream-science/using-stabilizers-ice-cream/

• https://www.icecreamscience.com/blog/stabilizers-ice-cream?rq=stabilizers

• https://under-belly.org/ice-cream-stabilizers/

• https://asktheicecreamqueen.com/xanthan-gum-in-ice-cream-making/

• All of Polar Ice Creamy Videos on the topic of Stabilizers

Sugars and Inverted Sugars:

• https://icecreamcalc.com/2023/07/11/glucose-and-dextrose-explained/

• https://www.icecreamscience.com/blog/sugar-in-ice-cream

• https://www.dreamscoops.com/ice-cream-science/sugar-in-ice-cream/

• All of Polar Ice Creamy Videos on the topic of Sugars

Looking backwards has always been difficult for me.

Whether that’s a result of a faulty memory that has kept me in the dark for the majority of my life or a very robust trauma response (i.e. total lack of resilience), I have always struggled with remembering the past.

In addition to my inability to remember what happened, the act of looking back on the past has always been emotionally difficult.

Maybe my memory is more based on emotions than events, which feels really silly when I look back at my intellectual interests in the study of history. If history is a record of events of the past, shouldn’t our personal record of our past be defined by events? I always felt history was written too impersonally. Memory is less about events and shared reality, and that’s difficult to admit to yourself. Memory is an emotional journey, a deeply personal one.

Does everybody deal with this in some way?

Just typing those couple of paragraphs, I can feel the tension starting to grow from my upper shoulders into the base of my skull and all the way up into my jaw. There are a lot of emotions to look back on.

Having this problem makes it especially difficult to be a well adjusted functioning human being. Right? I’m working from hearsay and rumor on what it is to be a properly adjusted real person. Despite the risk of self realization, reflecting on our past is incredibly important. It gives you the ability to see again; gain insight through comparison; make informed plans; decisions based on experience and observation; and with that you can finally make time to celebrate wins, relive happy memories by accepting the gauntlet of emotions leading to it, see, smell, and feel old friends who might no longer be here…you get the idea.

Initially when I came across the 2016 trend in my various social media platforms, I brushed it off as just another dumb trend. More likely it is some nefarious AI plot to track our faces across time and build algorithms to better identify anyone, much like those silly personal information fishing traps where you respond with your rapper name based upon birth year and other identifying info. I don’t remember being so cynical in 2016.

And then something started to pull me towards the past, and I became curious about what my 2016 looked like. It was this curiosity that helped me look back to rediscover.

Did I have to fight through some feelings of fear, anxiety, and nervousness of what I might see? Sure. Did it stop me from looking? No.

Curiosity will always override our lizard brains. Maybe it’s only a reconstruction, but it feels and I live it in no less truthful a fashion. Is the past just the truth of our present?

Turns out 2016 was an especially important and transitionary year in my life.

It was the year I started baking! Blimey! How could I forget? And when I say start, I mean I went from baking my first ever tin of muffins at the beginning of that year and by march I was attempting to bake my first ever sourdough loaf.

This isn’t a conscious memory. It’s an external one, and one I had quite literally had to rediscover by organizing some old photos. I remembered baking 2016, but only as a matter of fact that I had baked. When I came upon those old photos, that’s when I felt something. That is when I began to remember as a matter of experience. The feelings of success and risk and surprise, they felt as new as that first underproofed and overbaked loaf that I celebrated.

Looking back I definitely should have started with baking basic bread before pivoting into sourdough bread baking and 100% rye sourdough baking but hindsight is 20/20 and at that time I was following my cravings over my logic. If I really wanted to, you know, do it all over again and be better at it. I wouldn’t, I wasn’t doing it for those reasons. I could never have felt such joy if I had been doing it for any other reason than why I actually did it. That’s the truth I rediscovered by looking back and feeling.

Baking was helping me deal with some major life and career changes that I was going through that year, but most importantly baking and cooking were processes that helped me rebuild my sense of self.

In 2016, I “decided” (story for another time) to leave my PhD program at the University of Texas at Austin. I didn’t necessarily go far, I got a full-time job on campus as an Undergraduate Advisor for the College of Liberal Arts to help Rhetoric & Writing as well as English majors navigate their degree requirements, professional development, and academic expectations.

Leaving graduate school is incredibly existentially difficult, especially for those of us who derive their entire sense of self from their work (this is definitely the majority of graduate students). Being a scholar/an academic is who I thought I was. Everyone I knew was a scholar, academic or otherwise embroiled in that world. So if I am no longer an academic, who am I? What was my purpose? Where do I go?

And let’s be honest, the nature of academia promotes this identity merger, since it expects graduate students to dedicate their whole self to their intellectual pursuits, by keeping you attached to the campus, department, whatever field you are in as closely as humanely possible.

There isn’t much time to be anything else.

You get to wear a lot of academic hats when you are pursuing a PhD but not many hats outside or at least you start to forget all your other identities due to the demanding nature of academia. You don’t demonstrate your commitment to academia through work-life balance or having communities outside of academia, if anything dedicating time to these external things is often penalized and work against you, labeling you as someone who is less “dedicated” to their scholarship and academic ambitions. Academia is starting to sound like a cult, and in some ways it very much is. It suffers from the weight of ego and hegemony in an uncomfortably similar way, and there are many victims of this kind of institutional violence.

Coming out of this toxic environment requires one to almost completely rebuild their entire sense of self. It is the safest form of recovery and rehabilitation, otherwise that slow poison can hang around to wreak havoc. Trust me, I didn’t completely rebuild myself. Not immediately. I should’ve just cut it off at the hand, when I saw it starting to go bad.

In graduate school there is no alternative, your purpose is your work.

No wonder so many grad students pursue graduate school when they have no idea what they actually want out of life. And yes, I am 100% included in that company. I thought I wanted to be a professor after having watched too many Woody Allen movies. Looking back, it was only ever an anachronism I was sold and one that every mentor, advisor and colleague idealistically, almost childishly, insisted upon. The reality was that a lot of people were treated differently, poorly and contrary to the ideals that brought many of us to these institutions.

I started baking (and cooking a lot more) that semester. If I didn’t know who I was, I went back (all the way back) to my roots, my ethnic identity. I began reconnecting with my Greek-Ukrainian self; learning to cook my mom’s dishes from memory and by asking her questions whenever she was in the mood to talk about it; talking to my father about the dishes he grew up eating; and a lot of independent research, therapy, and reflection.

Additionally, once I started to bake and cook the things from my past, they ended up being a self-soothing mechanism for the existential angst I was constantly feeling. And you know what? All these skills that I’ve built up in the libraries and lecture halls, the pure stubborn endurance of writing a goddamn thesis, all of these scholarly and academic things I was afraid of losing were right here as I baked and cooked.

My most memorable bake of 2016 was my 100% rye sourdough bread, something that I couldn’t find in Austin at that time. Looking back I could have taken a more systemic approach to my first loaf but I did some initial research, picked a 100% rye recipe I found on YouTube, and had zero expectations of it working out. Like pulling a random old book off the library shelf from an unexamined subject I’ve often daydreamed about, a pure act of discovery.

Here’s my little monster:

Cringe! I know. I swear I won’t make a comparison to Frankenstein. Victor was nuts. My creation is at least delicious. And just so we are all clear, this was my first ever loaf of bread I have ever baked.

But looking back I am so proud of myself for diving into the deep end and honestly I didn’t know how deep that end really was which turned out to be exactly what I needed to start this insane journey. I didn’t care back then. I still don’t. I just want to keep diving. Because I think if I knew how complicated this world really is I would have talked myself out of it, or would have been too afraid to even attempt it.

But my appetite was stronger than my fear. I wanted the taste of 100% rye sourdough bread. So I made it happen.

Looking back at the year 2016 felt fulfilling and even a little exciting. Fear wasn’t the dominant feeling.

Did I latch on to baking and cooking at a time when I didn’t know who I was anymore. I guess maybe I did. Did these things lead me to a completely different world and people? Sure did.

It also gave me skills to be self-reliant. The fact that I can go into a kitchen and with a few tries make pretty much anything I want is a really freaking cool thing.

Do I want cooking and baking to be my whole self? HARD NO. I learned that lesson too many times in my life.

We are not defined by any one thing or event. The definitions change. They don’t become different, but they become more. More what? I don’t know. Maybe they’re more clear or more loud or we no longer hear that frequency that worried and frightened us? What you do or who you are is, I think, a deeply personal conversation with yourself. Defining your past by the externalized betrays the depths of your memories, your emotional truths. Humans are complex beings and our sense of self comes from a lot of places, never just one, unfortunately we are not often reminded of this and society is designed to reward people who tend to be one dimensional on the surface. But please remember that we are complex and multifaceted.

Personally for me 2026 is the perfect time to start leaning into my various identities and maybe even add a couple new ones.

Maybe overtime, and practice, looking at the much harder years of my life will become easier as well. Those emotions are a lot, but I’ve seen the trees from the forest before. The title of my post might be a little misleading since I still have quite an immense fear of confronting my entire past, but doing it bit by bit moment by moment feeling by feeling is an approach that is working for me at this time.

What were some of your memorable moments from 2016?

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It is not at all surprising that somebody in their late 30s is writing about the act of browsing the internet.

After all, aren’t we the generation that spent the most time browsing, exploring, and just hanging out on the web? It’s a tired truism by now, but we were born analog and grew up digital. Gen Z is the first generation to grow up with a pervasive and truly internet. We, as their older cousins, spent our early teens and formative years browsing the web. We were the kids in the hall, not quite understanding the places we were running through but adaptable and curious. The super information highway. We were dealing with cassettes, reels, magnetized spinning things, clunky chips and maybe, after so many gates to pass through, navigating some message boards and web rings before the apps and social media platforms took over. We were there, but as kids, as AOL opened the gate and we were early adopters of that big bang in the web’s development.

Message boards and all sorts of weird personally crafted websites were out there. The usenet, the web, the internet, was online and accessible for everyone—not just the incoming freshmen every September and capable adults who could afford the super expensive home computer. Usenet was open to everyone and 1993 would be referred to as Eternal September. Après moi, le déluge, and I think we were the flood.

Popularity without mainstream conglomeration.

You might say we took to it eagerly, effortlessly, like ducks to water. Maybe the dark waters of it all mirrored something back at us. It was new, culturally and technologically, but we filled it. We weren’t passengers on the water, we were the waters rising. We explored with unrelenting curiosity unconcerned with our torrential force or the established norms of that place. Curation wasn’t a term used for the web back then, not that I recall. There was an aura of egalitarianism.

Let me ask you. How often do you really think about being online, like really being online? With every mundane object suffering from networked WiFi and screens, apps to scan glyphic codes to read menus, multi factor authentication, and an Orwellian surveillance infrastructure of cash back points and cookies to feed us what we ought to want, it has become normal to be chronically online and connected.

But when was the last time you were, you know, on the web or internet? When was the last time you browsed? Think about your last experience of discovery, forming connections and finding community or relevance.

Think about even something as basic as reflecting on what your favorite internet browser is. What is your internet browser of your choice? Not just search engines. Tell us in the comments. Is it Internet Explorer (which I believe has been replaced with Microsoft Edge), Safari, Google Chrome, Firefox? The list goes on. It’s an important choice, it feels very personal and some of the options feel outright icky.

I used to be constantly on the web looking for things and discovering stuff in a way that, looking back, felt deeply personal and intentional but now oddly removed. There was a distance and anonymity. In some ways it was archeological, in other ways it was like stumbling into a mom & pop shop, but it always felt connected as you made your way along your own path. Like picking up a book after book while scouring the aisles of a library or archive, reading one page, putting the book down, and picking up another, and so forth. The vastness felt vast not because there were so many items, but because there was a potential for newness. The newness of discovering a book on the shelf but also the newness of someone writing a new book for that shelf at any time. It never felt linear or numbing. Gratification wasn’t an immediate concern if at all.

Gradually our internet browser use as a society began to decrease, year by year, we spent less and less time on our computers browsing the internet and much more time on our phones scrolling on social media; first we had Instagram, then TikTok, and now Substack. There are less places to be or go to online, like a town drying up. We are starved of third spaces online just as we are in the real world.1

Instead, the apps and internet of today is commodified for instant gratification. There is no loitering or hanging out, it’s get in and get out, if you’re buying something or giving away data. Mall rats had to go. The corporatization of the internet was complete. Scrolling replaced browsing.

Our decreased use of internet browsers gradually led us (or played a role in leading us) to de-prioritizing the act of browsing the internet—the act or process of searching, discovering, and connecting.

The linear nature and apparent ease of scrolling became the modus operandi of being, engaging, or existing online.

As embarrassing as it may be to admit, I became radically aware of this shift in my own life just the other day, as I was laying looking at my new giant bookshelf full of books and other physical media. It really hit me that I went from spending countless hours scouring the internet on my computer to spending hours of my daily existence scrolling on my phone.

The shift began with the likes of AOL Instant Messenger (AIM), MSN Messenger, and later Facebook and MySpace, the computer and internet browser predecessors of social media apps we now have on our smartphones. Still though, those places you had to sit down and connect to the internet. You had screaming modems, you tied up the phone line, usage was metered in purchased minutes. Facebook, MySpace, and who can forget LiveJournal were an evolution of the personal webpage and web rings and of IRC (Internet Relay Chat) and usenet. They were a streamlined and an integrated way to share something of yourself, social browsers, before they became honey pots of advertisements and data collection.

Nowadays even newsletter hosting platforms such as Substack are focusing all their efforts on making sure that people download and read newsletters (or what they are much more commonly referred to as “Substack posts”) on their app, not people’s inboxes. The introduction of Notes was part of this initiative to get people to spend more and more time on the Substack app. Why this pressure on getting folks to use their app? Scrolling = money. It is that simple.

When you open the Substack app, you are greeted by something familiar: the Home and Follow on Substack is reminiscent of TikTok’s FYP (for you page) and Following tabs. Substack is implementing a familiar structure enabling new Substack app users to scroll endlessly on Substack looking for that next great read or idea. What is most likely to happen is you save an article you will never read just as you save recipes on TikTok you never make. They want our attention, our data, and of course our money.

Furthermore, social media platforms and their influencers started to slowly become the internet browsers themselves. While we, the users, gradually traded browsing for viewing. I suppose that viewership is the common metric for screens, and maybe this relationship is a sign of the rising tide of popular acceptance of “being online”. Radio, television, all these coming before and invading our home space become part of the home and for many these things define the home space.

We become passengers, relinquishing our agency to unseen drivers and ever more streamlined, manicured and curated highways.

We scroll from one TikTok to the next in the hope that we will come across something that resonates with us—maybe even something that motivates us or gives our lives meaning. It’s just looking out this window or the other. You can’t actually roll down the window and touch it—it’s already in the rear view as new scenes scream by.

Unfortunately no amount of scrolling will get us closer to figuring out what we are actually searching for or in need of. Making art, going to therapy of whatever form, looking at art, or being active out in nature have much higher odds at helping humans navigate the challenges of life and existential dread that comes with being alive. You at least get to participate even if it results in dirty hands, dust in your eye, and a sunburn.

Our agency is key in making being online a fulfilling and human experience. I think this is why scrolling is so numbing, when you scroll you lose the human aspects of engaging with the online world where we connect ideas and with others. You turn off making decisions (consciously and subconsciously) for the ease of stumbling upon something good. And just like the lotto you can hit the scrolling jackpot and find something creative and in alignment with what you are looking and longing for, but more commonly that doesn’t happen.

Scrolling has no destination. It is meant to go on forever.

The autopilot nature of scrolling tends to hijack our attention, the goal is to simply be on our phones rather than derive actual purpose or joy from the content you are viewing while scrolling.

Scrolling is Sisyphus in a hamster wheel. No mountain.

Training your algorithm can help improve your odds, unfortunately even if you do spend a lot of time “training” your algorithm, the act of scrolling still has no destination.

Becoming aware of the fact that scrolling needs to be treated and conceived of differently from how we use to engage with the online world is simply a great starting point. Not to mention we should all be setting timers each time we scroll.

That’s it folks.

My hope is that reading this piece may help someone snap out of scrolling autopilot.

Maybe reading this short essay is enough for someone to put their phone down and realize that there are alternative ways of being online. And newish habits can start to form. Like opening your computer or using a computer at your local library to browse the internet. Maybe this article will help someone remember the joy they derived from browsing the internet, helping them get one step closer to developing a more content and fulfilling relationship being online.

AFTERWORD

As a writer and researcher you get to spend a lot of time browsing the internet. This is one (of many reasons) why I love research. Looking for primary or secondary sources across endless online databases and websites. These are some of my fondest memories from my time in graduate school.

You can read more about my passion for research in an article I wrote last year.

To be honest, this is an important motivator for me personally of becoming a full time writer and researcher. Doing this work full time would allow me to explore and discover information that is scattered and often buried all over the web.

—

If I were to ask a random 16 year old right now here in the U.S., what’s your favorite internet browser, how would they answer that question? What would they say? The question is really about where and how our youth is spending their time online.

The answer is probably social media apps.

(Don’t get me wrong there are tons of really cool apps out there! But who wants to spend endless hours browsing the Apple App store.) This is partially why curation has become so popular in our online landscape, we have come to rely on others to browse and search the internet for resources, apps, websites, online journals, newsletters, etc.

Giants like YouTube play a terrifyingly prominent role in how people search and look for information. A lot of people learn about stuff on YouTube and TikTok.

YouTube has made it increasingly difficult for creators to publish and more difficult for users to navigate, as well as community moderate good videos, by removing the rating system. By eliminating the peer review process, folks could watch completely fabricated and even dangerous videos. All in the name of viewership, YouTube jeopardizes the very thing that brought us all to those services.

But there was a period when we used to find and look for things on the internet itself, not through apps. Maybe it’s my millennial, xennial, brain being so skeptical of all things as I remember the countless hours of trying to write a solid bibliography. Sources, and being able to verify and vet information, is something I grew up with as I played Oregon Trail on black and green text screens. It was part of the search. Knowing what to toss aside, what to note, what to use and what can be used.

We used to be the searching that is now corporatized by algorithms of these massive apps.

Encourage people in your life to reclaim their agency and start browsing the internet.

I had to break up with my therapist this week. I will tell you about that some other time.

But I did make a very important discovery in session this week—a life altering one.

—

Have you ever wondered, why is it so hard for you to sit down and read a book for example? Not for research, to learn, for work or a school project work, but just for you, to bring you pleasure and joy.

Another good example is journaling.

I personally have asked myself time and time again, why is it so hard for me to journal? Intellectually I know how good journaling is for one’s mind and emotional health but there was always something getting in the way.

Then, finally, it clicked! EUREKA! A revelation.

I struggle with doing things that are inherently for me and my own fulfillment.

I have always struggled with prioritizing, articulating, or even identifying my own needs. I must have picked up this form of self-neglect from my mom but also from being an eldest daughter of Ukrainian-Greek immigrant parents who instilled in me the value of doing things for others; my parents, my little sister, my grandparents, my cousins, my partner, my in-laws, etc. In the long list of priorities, mine are at the bottom.

In Eastern European countries, especially for women, doing things for oneself is often met with criticism and judgement. Whenever I tried to put my needs first, I was judged, shamed, made to feel guilty, and called selfish. I can’t even imagine suggesting wants. This type of messaging reinforced my belief that the needs of others always had to come first. And then it morphed into; I wasn’t supposed to take care of myself or my needs.

The thing that fueled this form of self-neglect is the fact that helping people is actually a central value of mine. Doing things for others has and is an important (almost essential) motivator for me to actually do and get things done.

With baking and cooking, I want to share the final dishes with family, friends, and strangers. Make their day a little better, bring them a little joy, bring them a sense of comfort, and just make them feel an ounce better even if it’s for a couple seconds.

I love sharing recipes, culinary knowledge, things I have learned in the hope that it can improve someone’s quality of life or help preserve culinary cultures.

I value being vulnerable and sharing my lived experience through personal narrative in the hopes that it can help someone else feel less alone or give them something to relate to or even offer a sense of comfort.

There is a downside to being motivated by doing things for others. You forget or never learn how to do things for yourself. Yes, just for you. No other value than to simply show care and love for yourself. If your motivation for getting things done is rooted in providing value to other people's lives, you will keep doing things for others at the expense of your own well being. How do we (sometimes referred to as people pleasers), do things that are inherently for ourselves? We have to start by believing that we are enough; that we are just as deserving of our attention and love as others.

Going back to journaling. The value of journaling is inherently for oneself, and no one else. The value of reading a random nonfiction or fiction book is simply to enjoy the practice of reading. Making art just for your own fulfillment or playing a game of Tetris (remind me to tell you about my newest obsession with Retroid Classic).

It makes even more sense now why I struggle so much with rest. Rest, in that moment, is for me. Now that I have started to prioritize rest, I can start prioritizing activities that are for my own fulfillment be it writing, making art, reading, journaling, being bored, playing video games, or lounging around with my three cats.

Honestly, how was I expecting to be able to do things meant only for myself when my entire life I was chastised and even punished when I tried to do so. I didn’t. I couldn’t. But I want to. And I am learning. And I invite you to do the same thing for yourself.

The first step is self-awareness. Now that I am cognoscente that this is my default setting, I can work on adjusting the settings. I can block off “Olga Time” on my calendar. I can write out a list of self-care activities since these behaviors still feel foreign to me. This list can remind me of all the things I can do to take care of my physical, emotional, mental, spiritual, and social health—training wheels as we get started.

The second and hardest step is actually believing and feeling that I am worthy. Believing that doing things for me alone is valuable in itself. Start by constantly reminding yourself that you are enough of a reason to do things for.

Lastly we need to become comfortable with doing things that go nowhere or have no expectations beyond our own fulfillment. Your writing doesn’t need to be published and sold and your hobbies don’t have to be monetized or turned into a business. There is no end goal besides your personal fulfillment.

All of this is connected with our self-worth or maybe it is more accurate to say lack there of. When you have so little self-worth that you can’t even access your own value as a way to get yourself to do things for yourself, it is time to hit the brakes and reassess your relationship with yourself. And you also need to change the scripts that you are running in your head.

You need to believe that you are worthy of good things or your life will become solely about others.

Furthermore, those of us with little self-worth aren’t predisposed to self-love.

We are constantly filling our time with projects often seeking external validation to replace or compensate for how little we love ourselves. No amount of likes or publications is going to magically make you love yourself, those things are the by-product of your labor. These things will help with self-esteem, which relies on external validation and achievements. But it is important to remember that our self-esteem tends to fluctuate with our wins and setbacks. While self-worth is the inherent value we place on ourselves as individuals.

Doing things for your own fulfillment should not be confused with the growing trend of constantly working on improving oneself. You can have personal fitness goals, writing goals, life goals, but here I’m not talking about improving or optimizing oneself or striving for some better version of you. I am not talking about achieving things.

I’m talking about being enough just as you are and where you are and still loving and caring for yourself.

There is a lot of online discourse right now about self-improvement. I think our culture of bettering ourselves with the goal of making ourselves more productive, more attractive, more affluent, has been conflated with caring or making time for ourselves.

What we really need is time to take care of ourselves and comfort ourselves.

We need to just be.

I write about this realization in the hopes that it can help others begin their own journey of self-love. To help others see that they might also have been caught up with doing things for others at the expense of their own needs and wants or as a way to seek external validation as a short-cut to self-worth.

I will never stop wanting to help people. I am on a quest to find balance. To value myself as much as I value others.

NEWS:

Just a reminder that I also have a savory varenyky version on Serious Eats!

RECIPE FOR SAVORY SYR VARENYKY PUBLISHED ON SERIOUS EATS

As always let me know if you have any questions!

I have no idea how to start this particular newsletter. What does one say after being gone for months? Since I don’t know where to start, let me tell you about my new relationship with my body, my thoughts on rest, and how I escaped the grips of debilitating tension.

After 3 months of doing physical therapy three times a week, I finally feel physically better. My migraines have subsided and their severity decreased exponentially. The left side of my body doesn’t go numb (as frequently). And my chronic neck pain has reduced, especially during periods when I have to sit at my desk (and there’s a lot of that in my life) to write, do research, or work my 9 to 5 college publishing job.

Even my posture has improved. I have been focusing on building both strength and working on mobility in my neck and scapula. My daily chronic pain has also decreased.

I was able to release a lot of tension in my face, jaw, and neck primarily with the help of massage therapy. We started every session with massage therapy.

The strangest and most unexpected part of massage therapy was fully experiencing being truly tired. Tired to the point where I was barely able to walk, sit, keep my eyes open, or lift any of my limbs. THAT’S HOW TIRED I ACTUALLY WAS THIS ENTIRE TIME.

The thing that kept me going wasn’t energy, it was tension, lots and lots of tension. The tension held me back from feeling truly exhausted but once I allowed my body to release a lot of that tension, I finally felt uncensored tiredness. To be completely honest, I didn’t realize that it was tension that was preventing me from experiencing how tired I actually felt.

The tension still comes and goes in waves. What is different now is that I am much better at recognizing the role stress plays in all this as well as what it does to my body. I am also more conscious of the connection between increased stress(ors) in my life and the almost immediate rise of tension in my body. My focus now is not only noticing the tension but taking steps to prevent it from taking control of my body.

At the end of all this, I am learning that tension has been my modus operandi for decades. When life gets tough, and it has been for quite some time now, my default state is to push through at all cost. And when things get a little better, the tension doesn’t suddenly go away. Its grip is looser but it’s there waiting for any cue to tense up and take the wheel.

I honestly think the amount of tension in my neck and jaw could have fueled a small spaceship. And the more tired you get the more tension is exerted. To the point where the body and mind have to go completely offline in the form of a migraine, temporary paralysis, and seizures as was the case for me.

Pushing through the pain is something that is drilled into us (especially women) since we are children. Like the phrase all of us are familiar with “No Pain No Gain.” The theme of existence as suffering is something that I personally grew up in a Slavic/Balkan household. Coming to America, it is that same familiar relationship. I don’t think either world can accept that the universe is indifferent to suffering.

Of course, I had to learn this lesson by running on tension to the point of making myself severely ill. It feels like it is truly preprogrammed into the every day, like you have to get to that point of tension to participate. Not just blistering early morning alarms, caffeine in every variety, gig, hustle, grind, my country’s PTO scam, proud displays of lack of sleep and accumulation of injuries and grievances, but the whole damn mythos of being successful or productive or mattering in some way. Disability, whatever that means, becomes a derogatory label because a fish can’t climb a tree.

Don’t get me wrong. If I was stranded on a remote island or lost in a Canadian forest, that tension would have probably been the only thing to save my life. Unfortunately, functioning on tension instead of actual energy is a recipe for severe health issues.

And I know most people don’t think like “LinkedIn lunatics” who espouse frankly psychotic displays of devotion to their, uh, fantasy. We all need that fantasy at least sometimes, whatever that might be.

For me, getting through the day takes a lot of energy already. Even on my good days. As someone who constantly feels like they are preparing for their next performance, interacting with the world and people in it comes with a hefty toll. Now on top of that lets add all the different types of stressors; daily, familial, relational, job, financial, political, environmental, health, etc. By noon, I used to exert 90% of my daily energy. And instead of recognizing that, and hitting the brakes to give myself a chance to recover or restore a little strength, I power through on you guessed it, tension.

You shouldn’t need to be exhausted to take breaks, what you need is an honest relationship with your body and self. In a society where rest is moralized as bad or wasteful, prioritizing it can be incredibly difficult. Whether that’s because of the stories we tell ourselves from internalizing this messaging when we were young or the lack of role models in our life. Being honest with yourself about what you have and don’t have energy for is an important step. Healing your relationship with your body starts with listening to it, and that’s already difficult for some of us. Where even picking up on physical cues for hunger, going to the bathroom, thirst, are even a challenge.

Rest also looks different for all of us. So spend some time reflecting on what exactly rest looks like for you. Maybe it’s massage therapy once a week, or spending time in nature, protecting your sleep hours, etc. Rest is not only something you make time for, rest is also figuring out a way of life that aligns with your ebbs and flows. A life where the amount of energy you exert matches your capacity to give. Creating a restful way of life is just what I think our way of living ought to be. Obviously during times of stress or high-pressure situations that boost of energy we get from tension can still occur, such is life. But we can’t rely on it to function on a daily basis. That way of life will only result in problems.

My mom doesn’t take care of herself. This deeply influenced my relationship with myself resulting in me not taking care of myself, ignoring the needs and wants of my body, that was all I knew. But that’s not who I am.

Did my neck start to hurt towards the end of me writing this newsletter? Yes. Did I power through the pain? No. I stopped typing, got up from my desk, microwaved a heat pad, put it on my shoulders, laid down, and closed my eyes.

It is not surprising that my first newsletter after coming back from medical leave is about my body. After operating on tension for the majority of my life, without taking care of myself and my physical needs, I see now that there’s no sustainable future, not just for me but for anyone who operates on copious amounts of daily tension.

We can’t continue to mine ourselves for endless resources and output. Oftentimes, the best thing to do is to pause and ask yourself what does my body need, how do I really feel, and is there anything I can do to support myself today. I approach the needs of my body with compassion and kindness. I don’t push down and ignore them. I don’t push through the pain and discomfort, unless of course I am in an emergency situation or a medical crisis.

Don’t push yourself and in turn punish (hurt) yourself. Show yourself love and understanding and use every resource you can find to support yourself in this hellish landscape. As women we are often conditioned to be attuned to the needs of others rather than our own. It is about time we broke with this toxic and patriarchal tradition and started to participate in the radical act of rest.

NEWS:

Check out my latest recipe for Serious Eats!

Please let me know if you make it or if you have any questions.

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RECIPE FOR SOUR CHERRY VARENYKY PUBLISHED ON SERIOUS EATS

Not having an appetite is a painful experience for any human being but there is something especially cruel about someone who works in and with food to lose their appetite.

For me, having an appetite or craving food has always been connected with creativity. They are deeply interlinked. Losing my appetite has meant struggling creatively, and for me that creativity is found through writing and developing recipes.

My motivation is also rooted in and intertwined with my appetite. I bake, research, teach, cook, and write about things I love and long to eat. Even my bakery was built on this principle.

The last 2.5 years, but especially the last 6 months, of my life have been quite tumultuous. One bad thing after another. One stressful thing after another. And the war, the ruthless, endless, fucking war.

When I’m under a constant stream of stress, I am often completely disconnected from my body. This includes losing access to some of those important physical cues such as hunger and cravings. The dial has been turned way down.

Don’t worry. I am still eating. I’m still a healthy weight. I have a support network of family and friends and I am safe, but I am still utterly depleted, devastated, ass kicked, and just exhausted. Deja vu, right?

I guess the most obvious place that I am struggling with is recipe development and all the steps that go into that laborious process including writing, testing, filming. My lack of appetite has made recipe development super challenging, or if I can be honest, agonizing.

I am just not enjoying what I eat like I used to. I am just not enjoying food.

I walk into a grocery store or even a market and my brain is empty. I feel no calling. No triggers are throwing me into excitement. No ingredient is making me see, feel, smell dishes. Certainly some of this is due to our recent relocation: the shelves are different, and of course this could be because of how fucked the world is right now too. It is regressive. Food deserts are real.

Me, I simply cannot connect to the joy that comes with eating and therefore preparing and developing a delicious meal. It’s not depression, but it leads to depression and then we’re dealing with that too—on an empty stomach, no less.

There is so much shame that comes with this specific struggle. Thoughts such as; I should be able to create dishes without the desire to eat. I should be able to write about food and think about food even when I am not enjoying it. Others are doing it and hold full-time jobs in food but you are failing miserably. I should be able to come up with creative ways to use ingredients even if I myself am not hungry. It shouldn’t be this hard, it’s clearly you that’s the problem. Do you see anyone else struggle with this? You shouldn’t either!

I know this last sentence isn’t true. There are many people in the food industry and food media that have lost their appetite and are struggling every single day to keep going, to keep their jobs.

The unchecked guilt is unhelpful. I know I need to stop shouding all over myself. Unfortunately, nowadays, even making a cheese sandwich has turned into a struggle since the joy of eating is taken out of the equation. In other words, the reward is no longer rewarding.

Stress, again with that catch all term for too wide a spectrum of doom, has resulted in me struggling with what are now almost daily migraines. At least I think it’s stress. The fatigue, the nausea, the dizziness, the insane sensitivity to smells, and the endless tension in my neck and head have made it difficult for me to experience joy (of any kind) or be able to enjoy food specifically.

Overwhelmed yet? It is okay. I’m carrying this and you can too. We can do it together.

Why am I telling you all of this? I am writing this to remind anyone who is struggling with a similar experience that you are not alone. You are not weird or broken. Fuck shame. Fuck guilt and humiliation. Life is just fucking hard. It gets so hard that we lose our ability to feel and experience joy. It’s probably not permanent.

My lack of appetite is this strange void, this missing piece in a chain of bits and pieces that add up to me. It is as though some chunk of the recipe is missing even though I still try to laugh, have fun, and find excitement beyond food. But food is such an important part of my life that so much of my identity is built on top of.

Gradually losing my appetite over the last couple of years has been one of the most difficult/challenging experiences of my life. It took me 30 some years to find and embrace my appetite for it to abandon me when I need it most.

There are tiny glimmers of joy and relief. Moments of the before times. Eating a slice of my naturally leavened Paska (Easter bread) brought me to tears last week. Those were happy tears. Even though I was back in my current reality where things just don’t taste as good almost immediately, there was that second of relief and reconnection to what it was like to experience bliss from eating good food.

You sure better believe that I will be holding on to that glimmer as tight as I possibly can. If I can experience joy for a split second that means I can experience it for a whole second, then two, then three and so on.

Food for a very long time has been one of the only things that brought me real joy, fulfillment (this includes personal and professional), and comfort. Eating was one of the only times my family wouldn’t fight.

My mom and I can’t talk about much but we share a deep love for food and even though we can’t cook together, we always connect over recipes and conversations around food has helped me slowly heal my relationship with my mom. Eating and enjoying good food is also something that my sister and I have in common and share a deep bond over, we are two very different people, but eating together was always our shared language.

I do continue to make things. My partner makes stuff. We go out. We enjoy dinners with friends and I savor their delicious recipes. But I wish I could taste their amazing food and crave it because goddammit I should. I know I should. It's just that right now, my joy of food has been numbed. The longest it ever has. In many ways, I am numb to life and going through the motions, it’s like something is just quiet, I am just trying to survive and get to the other side.

As I mentioned before, developing and sharing recipes has been one of my biggest challenges. I feel little motivation or have barely any energy to research, develop, test, and write recipes. If I can’t enjoy the process, what’s the point of me doing it?

And here is where I want to end today’s essay. A reminder that there are many important reasons to continue sharing and developing recipes with people beyond their taste.

For me one of them is to preserve diverse Ukrainian culinary traditions. Another is to preserve my family and community's recipes as well as tell mine and their stories. I want these recipes to be made and known by more folks ensuring their survival and the traditions they hold.

If you are struggling with something similar, I encourage you to look past the food. And encourage yourself to articulate the other why(s) for your work.

Once I get a better grip over these migraines, my stress levels, and fatigue I am going to go back to pitching recipes and sharing them here in my newsletter. I know no one wants to pay me to do this work, and I haven’t figured out a sustainable way to do it quite yet, but I know I will. And if I don’t, my notes will pass on to someone who will continue where I left off. In the end, it’s a community effort.

We all go through phases. Periods when we eat more or less. Periods when we enjoy cooking or going out more. Periods when we write a lot or nothing.

Relearning how to feel joy is my true challenge. Learning how to write and develop recipes without an appetite is another. And that’s okay.

Do you have your own story of losing your appetite?

This essay is a work in progress and I appreciate your thoughts and feedback!

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Having lived in Barcelona as a teen and visiting my parents there for the last 20 years has given me lots of insight into what people hope to find when visiting the city, especially when coming here for the first time.

When talking to folks at the airport or on the flight over, I always make it a point to ask people what they look forward to the most. The answers almost always include visiting Gaudi buildings, Picasso Museum, eating paella, tapas, and drinking cheap wine.

Hearing a slightly different version of pretty much the same answer has revealed some of the various things that visitors tend to miss out on. In today’s newsletter, I wanted to share 3 main things that often get overlooked by the city’s visitors.

Visiting a new place is wonderful, but oftentimes it is easy to fall into those little traps of just not knowing. Even worse, you can walk right into the trap of “knowing”! Like focusing too much on eating tapas but forgetting to try traditional Catalan dishes. Luckily I’m here to help break you from that tunnel vision and introduce you to some of the not-as-famous highlights. Let’s dive in before I give everything away.

1. Order Catalan Pasta Dishes:

This might be the saddest one on the list. Why? Because Barcelona has some of the tastiest pasta dishes out there and nobody seems to be eating it. I honestly feel bad when I see hoards of tourists solely ordering tapas, paellas, and only seafood dishes.

Don’t get me wrong, Barcelona has some of the best arroz and seafood in the world, but what about trying some local alternatives? There is of course fideuà, or the Catalan version of paella which uses short noodles (pasta called fideo) instead of rice.

And then there’s one of my favorite dishes, Canelons. Cannelloni pasta sheets are filled with different types of roasted meat, fish, or vegetables topped with a bechamel sauce and drizzled with cheese. Traditionally, this dish is made in Catalan households the day after Christmas. But you can find it on menus throughout the year of most establishments serving Catalan cuisine.

Canelòn from Bar del Pla, video taken by me!

I especially love to order pasta dishes that have the word abuela (grandma) in them. The real name of the dish is Macarrons de l’àvia. It is very similar to pasta bolognese but casserole style. My favorite so far is from el Xampanyet!

Last but not least is Sopa de Galets, a traditional Catalan soup made with a homemade broth with meat-stuffed large snail-shaped (galets) pasta. This is a traditional Christmas dish.

2. Drink Catalan Vermut:

This one always throws me for a loop since Catalan Vermut (vermouth as Americans call it) is my drink of choice. Most visitors tend to drink wine, cava, sangria :(, and tinto de verano.

Catalan vermut deserves to be much higher on the list. Vermut is a fortified white wine aged in barrels with very many different types of spices, aromatics, dried fruit, etc. Catalan vermut is very cherry forward unlike its Italian cousin with more bitter and orange peel notes.

Most traditional bodegas and vermuterias serve house vermut directly from the barrels! You can also get bottles of vermut to go! (I mean that’s what original bodegas were for.) On average you can buy a liter of house vermut from a bodega or vermuteria for around $4 euros, use to be around $2.

I’m going to have to write a whole separate post about my favorite places to drink vermut in Barcelona and other parts of Catalonia.

3. Try These Traditional Catalan Dish:

Tapas culture is very hard to resist and is inseparable from Spanish and now Catalan gastronomy. Barcelona’s tapas game is very strong. I don’t blame anyone for eating as many tapas as they can while in Barcelona, I mean just look at these patatas bravas.

But the tapas food culture is relatively new in Barcelona. Tapas culture took off during the mass migration of 1950s, over a million migrants from Andalusia and Extremadura (and other parts of Spain) came to Catalonia to seek work, followed by the tourism boom of the 60s. Which, okay, yeah post-war reconstruction era but tapas are still relatively new.

Overtime, tapas became an integral part of Barcelona’s culinary culture as the city and people rebuilt and redefined their city and land. A standing, fast-paced, delicious and light feeling meal enjoyed in brisk, bustling social settings? Yeah, it is no wonder tapas became such a well known symbol even across Catalonia.

Most places that serve great tapas, will also showcase traditional Catalan dishes that are experiencing their own revival as some of the heartier dishes fell out of favor with the newer generations. Which, in my opinion, is much more up my alley when trekking around the city. The hearty dishes that, for instance, an 1800’s dock worker would’ve enjoyed is just enough calories for hoofing it around Barcelona! Dishes such as cap i pota/capipota are experiencing a new found popularity as a breakfast option. The stew is traditionally made as the name suggests with calf's foot and head. You will often find it with chickpeas. Make sure to order extra bread to soak up all that delectable rich sauce.

A bowl of capipota from Bodega Montferry, video taken by me!

Another one of my favorite traditional Catalan dishes is Escudella i Carn d’Olla. This is a Catalan soup made with lots of meat and vegetables. The broth is served alongside a plate of vegetables and meat that were used to make the stock. This dish was traditionally served on Christmas day, but can also be found on menus of Catalan restaurants throughout the year.

The last dish I want to mention is a personal favorite. I try and order this one any where I go. Mandonguilles amb sèpia or meatballs with cuttlefish (squid), this dish is emblematic of Catalan cuisine where the blending of land and sea, this coming together, is a characteristic feature.

Mandonguilles amb sèpia, video taken by me!

Let me know in the comments if you have any other advice for Barcelona visitors! Or tell me your favorite traditional Catalan dish and where do you like to eat it!

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Next week I will share some tips and “underground” delights of Catalan baking and dessert culture—if you love churros I know something even better!

This is Part II of my Is the Hype Real? series. In my previous post, I shared three places that are currently incredibly popular in the city of Barcelona. My goal is to offer an honest review of Barcelona’s most viral spots so you know whether to spend your hard earned money and limited time waiting in those barely moving lines.

I am reviewing places that are trending with tourists (primarily English speakers due to the influence of English language food and travel media and social media) but also places that are viral and loved by residents of Barcelona, Catalans, and visiting Spanish speakers as a result of local food media and social media.

I stood in line so you don’t have to.

Today we continue with two more spots.

Bar El Tomàs de Sarrià

You won’t find a hoard of tourists here. At least not yet. Bar El Tomàs is located in the heart of the barrio (neighborhood) de Sarrià. No where near the touristy center, the neighborhood of Sarrià has been able to shield itself from the mass tourism that is running rampant in the Gothic Quarter, el Born, el Raval, La Barceloneta, and even Gracià. Tourism certainly keeps some places alive, but this place doesn’t appear to be in any threat with how absolutely bustling the crowd is there. Brush up on your Catalan or Spanish, have a little self awareness, and get ready for an amazing experience!

Bar El Tomàs gained its mass popularity with the locals, visiting Catalans, and folks from nearby regions of Spain when a local foodie Edu González (@bravasbarcelona) deemed them the best place for patatas bravas in all of Barcelona.

Edu wasn’t lying. When I first had them back in 2014, they had me coming back every trip. And so of course I visited them again this March.

The vibes have not changed. Sveta and I were among the few non-Catalan speakers in the whole establishment. Patatas and other tapas, and lunch menu deals kept flying out of the kitchen. We got there around 2pm, at the height of Catalan lunch hour rush. We got a table at the very back of the place next to the kitchen doors, literally where all the action is.

We ordered two drinks and a round of patatas bravas of course. The potatoes were perfectly cooked with a melt in your mouth-like texture covered in a in house made aioli with a perfect punch of raw garlic. Just see for yourself.

Keep in mind that Bar El Tomàs like most Catalan establishments is closed between 4pm and 6:30pm.

Pro Tip: My favorite way to get here is a leisurely walk from the Sants train station. Obviously you can ignore this if you have a metro ticket you need to use up, but to me there is no better way to fall in love with the city than through walking as cliche as that may sound. It is a lovely walk, you have my word.

Bonus Pro Tip: If you arrive and the place is packed. Try going to their sister restaurant just around the corner called Restaurant Ivorra 10. It’s owned by the same folks and you can of course try their delicious bravas there too!

This is a must visit spot for any potato lover.

Food Quality: Superb and Unchanged

Ambience: Retained Traditional Vibes (mostly locals with few tourists)

Return on Investment: High

La Plata

Everyone knows this spot. It has been on endless English and Spanish food television programs. This place was also famously frequented by Anthony Bourdain. Anthony Bourdain had a close working relationship with food writer and co-founder of Roads & Kingdoms, Matt Goulding, who is based in Barcelona.

It is impossible not to stop by here. Even when the place is bursting at the seams with people, literally overflowing onto the streets it sits on. The food has never been bad, not one off day in my experience. I have eaten there at 11am and at 11pm. The quality is always consistent.

This might be due to the very limited 7 item menu at La Plata. My order is always the same; pescaditos (fried little fishes), butifarra (a type of Catalan sausage), and a simple salad made of perfectly ripe tomatoes, white onion and Arbequina olives.

Most important of all is their exceptional house vermut. I always get a bottle to go because that way I can always have a piece of La Plata just a reach away.

Pro Tip: If you like to experience La Plata as empty as it gets, I suggest you visit early morning right when they open. I like to grab a bite there mid day, a pre-lunch appetizer if you will anytime between 11:30am and 12:30pm.

You can’t mention La Plata, without mentioning Pepe Gómez. You won’t find a more hospitable host. Make sure to stand at the bar so you can chat with Pepe since he has over 50 years of knowledge working and lets be honest running the place.

Food Quality: Superb and Unchanged

Ambience: Retained Traditional Vibes (mostly tourists with few locals)

Return on Investment: High

I WOULD LOVE TO HEAR IF THERE’S A VIRAL SPOT IN YOUR CITY THAT FALLS INTO THIS SAME CATEGORY OF CONTINUING TO PROVIDE QUALITY FOOD AND EXPERIENCE EVEN AFTER THEIR MASS POPULARITY. HAS THE HYPE EVER PROVEN YOU WRONG?

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As I’m eating my way through Barcelona, I thought it would be helpful to offer an honest and concise review of Barcelona’s most viral food spots. I am gonna start with three in today’s essay and go through my entire list over the next couple of weeks.

One question in particular that was gnawing at me as I was getting ready to revisit these places this March is whether their growing fame has negatively impacted the quality of the food? And secondly, I was curious to see how this immense virality impacted the overall experience of eating at these now incredibly popular places.

Simply, in today’s essay I want to weigh in and let you know whether these places are really worth your precious vacation time and hard-earned money. For some of these great places, the wait can be over an hour long! Do we wait or go while the prices in Barcelona are ever increasing, new places opening, and there are already so so many choices.

The decision is a difficult one, but I’ll try to keep it at least very vaguely scientific in my assessment. I will focus on three main criteria; food quality, ambiance, and those dreaded three letters, ROI! Yes, whether you get a good enough return on your investment in terms of how much time you have to spend waiting in line and the price tag. No really, you’ll be surprised. This is Barcelona, after all, there is an entire way of life you step into when you’re stepping into line for some amazing patatas bravas.

La Cova Fumada

There’s always a wait. No exceptions. No matter how early you come, expect to wait at least 20 minutes. One pro tip as you are giving your name to Josep María Solé—one of the owners and grandson’s of Sra. María Pla who opened La Cova Fumada back in 1944/45—is to ask for a standing spot at the bar (that’s what I do) and you will have the shortest wait. If you get lucky, as me and my sister did, Josep María who seems to somehow always be there will close the iconic ancient wooden doors behind you. And the noise of the waiting crowd outside fades, you are in, not closed off but tucked in the heart of a traditional Catalan kitchen. And the dishes as soon as you order start appearing from every which way be it from the bar or the kitchen that’s almost itself a part of the dining room.

You can learn more about the family history of La Cova Fumada here.

Food Quality: Superb and Unchanged

Ambience: Retained Traditional Vibes (with lots of tourists and locals)

Return on Investment: High

El Xampanyet

As someone who predominantly is a skeptic when it comes to waiting in lines. I usually associate hype with unmet expectations, but this time, I ate my fucking words. I would wait a lifetime to have another bowl of grandma’s pasta, chickpeas with eggplant, spicy snails, and their creamy molten bacalao tortilla for which I would consider giving them my first born. Same pro tip as before, your best bet, if you want to cut down on your wait, is to ask for a standing spot at the bar. On top of the perfectly executed food the staff was welcoming and considerate given the volume of customers they serve each day. While waiting for my sister, who was stuck somewhere in the hollows of the Barcelona underground train system, the hostess handed me a complementary vermouth which is an occurrence that is quite rare here in Europe.

El Xampanyet is right in the heart of el Born and it opened back in 1929, operating under the same family. So when your long wait is finally over and you are called to claim your spot, you feel like you are walking right back into history. The tiles, oh those colorful Catalonia patterned porcelain tiles.

Food Quality: Superb and Unchanged

Ambience: Retained Traditional Vibes (with lots of tourists and some locals)

Return on Investment: High

delaCrem

Running from the rain with my sister, gripping one umbrella, we found ourselves looking at the most versatile gelato menu. Don’t get overwhelmed by all the options, remember you can always try and get your favorite.

Barcelona and gelato might not be a pairing that comes to mind right away, but the gelato here is exceptional. At the end of a long day full of walking, sightseeing, salty tapas, and refreshing cervezas, what can be better than a creamy cup of gelato? Especially one that is made with locally sourced, high quality ingredients, and served out of traditional metal canisters. The gelato is temperature controlled assuring that creamy gelato texture, something that is very commonly overlooked in most gelato shops.

There are several DelaCrem locations throughout the city, but my personal favorite is the one just a few blocks away from the Passeig de Gràcia train station. Their gelato also comes in a wide variety of flavors and is not too sweet especially if you go for the more savory flavors such as pistachio, Parmesan, Pastis de Formage, and Yogurt Natural de la Garrotxa (a personal favorite of mine) with lots of vegan options.

Food Quality: Superb and Unchanged

Ambience: Retained Original Vibe (some tourists but mostly locals)

Return on Investment: High

I WOULD LOVE TO HEAR IF THERE’S A VIRAL SPOT IN YOUR CITY THAT FALLS INTO THIS SAME CATEGORY OF CONTINUING TO PROVIDE QUALITY FOOD AND EXPERIENCE EVEN AFTER THEIR MASS POPULARITY. HAS THE HYPE EVER PROVEN YOU WRONG?

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How? How is it that I have been writing a newsletter for almost two years and I haven’t written one about my favorite topic: bakeries. Okay, so let’s do this and let’s do this right! Bakeries in Barcelona, my second (third, fourth?) home whose flavors compelled me to try baking. I missed those bakeries so much. I always miss them. I walk out of their door and I miss them, I love them that much.

One of the hardest parts of leaving Barcelona is saying good-bye to the rich and abundant bakery culture of the city—unique and yet so traditional to the region of Catalonia. Old, new, experimental and traditional. The ancient entrepreneurship of Barcelona hasn’t been lost on its bakeries.

Today I want to share some of my favorite bakeries across Catalonia as well as some bakeries I can’t wait to visit during this trip. Just a taste, because I’m pretty overwhelmed and I want to pace myself—there’s so much! And hey, bakeries are a personal thing so don’t be worried if someone’s favorite isn’t yours. I want to share bakeries that I think give you an incredible experience that will enhance your love of the craft, deepen your appreciation of the materials, and at least give you a delicious fare to enjoy.

L’ESPIGA D’OR in VILANOVA I LA GELTRÚ

This might be my favorite bread bakery in the world! And no, I’m not being hyperbolic. This is fact. If I had to choose only one to visit, this is the one for me. Those of you who know my work know that I don’t throw around high praise without tangible evidence.

L’Espiga d’Or is a fifth generation owned bakery. Jordi Morera is the owner and head baker. He is passionate about sharing his knowledge with both amateur and professional bakers. Jordi uses social media to teach and share his passion for baking, or more specifically naturally leavened baking.

Another aspect of his dedication to the craft of baking is his commitment to using organically and locally grown grains. They even mill their grain directly at the bakery using a beautiful stone ground mill. This is something special. It is very rare to find bakeries (and bakers) who work directly with farmers growing the grains as well as mill and extract their own flour.

The bakery also uses pasta madre (sourdough starter) in many of their baked goods. Jordi has a bit of an obsession with fermentation and using ancient grain varieties in his breads. Just look at the wide variety of breads!

In addition to all the wonderful breads, you can also find a large variety of regional baked goods such as xuixo, ensaïmadas, coca, bunyols, pa de Sant Jordi, and many others. Just take a look for yourself.

Seriously don’t sleep on their ensaïmadas and their olive oil brioche!

ORIGO in BARCELONA

Origo has two locations now. The original location is in one of my favorite neighborhoods of Barcelona, Gràcia. I just love how intimate the neighborhood feels. The streets are small and winding. There are what feels like endless bodegas, bars, vermuterias, restaurants, bakeries, local shops, and even international markets.

The bakery opened in 2018, and I got a chance to visit it for the first time in 2019. François de Halleux is the owner and head baker who is extremely dedicated to the craft of baking and fermentation.

In addition to a ton of delicious sourdough bread options, you can find some of the best tasting cinnamon (kanelbullar) and cardamom rolls (kardemummabullar) in the city!

COUSH ARMO in BARCELONA

This is my newest favorite bakery in the city. I visited the Gràcia location (they have two others) in fall 2023, and to be completely honest I haven’t stopped thinking about it since. They have these stunning pastries Medialuna de Manteca made with lard, and in their case they actually use manteca ibérica! Just look at those crispy edges. Don’t they just make you want to take a bite.

The use of (manteca de cerdo) instead of butter is actually quite a popular practice here in Catalonia. Pig is king.

The bakery itself has Catalan, French, and Argentinian influences.

Whatever you do, if you find yourself in any of the three neighborhoods that house the bakery do yourself a favor and give their baked goods a try. You will not be sorry.

For anyone who doesn’t consume animal products the bakery offers plenty of vegan options as well.

PANES CREATIVOS in BARCELONA

Another baker I admire a lot is Daniel Jordà, he is the owner of Panes Creativos. Located in one of the less popular districts of Barcelona, Nou Barris, but very much worth exploring if you ever visit the city.

Daniel was awarded the best Panettone of Spain in both 2021 and 2022. Before becoming a baker, Daniel was a practicing artist. He adds his creativity to all of his baked goods whether that’s through flavor, colors, design, etc.

He recently published a Panettone baking book for anyone interested in learning more about his process. I am going to try and buy a copy while I am here!

FORN DE PA I PASTISSERIA CASAS in CUNIT

An absolutely lovely neighborhood bakery with the best xuixo de crema I have had to date, and I have eaten at least 50 of these over the last 5 years. It is seriously good. The exterior is perfectly crispy and the dough wasn’t overly drenched in fat, which can happen quite often. A xuixo is a fried croissant of sorts filled with a type of pastry cream. Or as I like to call it the original Cronut. The bakery has the kindest staff as well.

BAKERIES I WANT TO VISIT:

1. Ca l'Agustí, forners des de 1884

   1. Carretera de Ribes, 19, 08698 Cercs, Barcelona, Spain

   2. This is a gem of a place in a little town called Cerc in the comarca of Berguedà in Catalonia.

2. La Fabrique

   1. Carrer de Radas, 35, Sants-Montjuïc, 08004 Barcelona, Spain

   2. A eco-minded bakery making organic baked goods in the Poble Sec neighborhood.

3. Obelisc

   1. Carrer de Provença, 118, L'Eixample, 08029 Barcelona, Spain

   2. I actually made it to the bakery itself last fall but they were literally sold out of everything but one loaf of bread. I am planning on visiting them again this time around except I am going in the morning!

4. A27bakehouse

   1. Carrer del Carme, 53, Ciutat Vella, 08001 Barcelona, Spain

   2. I really want to try their croissants! Just look at them! Located in the hustling and bustling Raval district.

5. Pa de Kilo

   1. Carrer del Doctor Dou, 12, Ciutat Vella, 08001 Barcelona, Spain

   2. Very excited to try as many baked goods as possible here. It has been on my list for years now!

6. Quim Pa!

   1. Plaça dels Cotxes, 6, 08800 Vilanova i la Geltrú, Barcelona, Spain

   2. Another stunning bakery serving traditional Catalan baked goods and seasonal breads.

SUPPORT UKRAINE:

My segment for Austin PBS was nominated for a Texas Broadcast News Award, and I hear we made it to the final three! With all the devastating news coming out of Ukraine (and the U.S.) this little bit of good news is helping me regain my energy and get back in the ring. Representation matters. Seeing positive displays and actions supporting Ukraine are some of the few sweet things helping me keep my sanity and joy today.

After leaving Austin, where I was able to use my baking to raise funds for Ukraine, I have been feeling quite useless lately. I am still in the process of recovering from burntout, still in the process of caring for aging and sick family members, still in the process of so so much, but I can’t help but feel an enormous sense of guilt.

In an effort to continue to help my country and people, I will be donating all sales from my Burnt Basque Cheesecake Zine and any new paid newsletter subscriptions for the month of March to Liberty Ukraine. Just look at how much good they have done. This is just the beginning as we look ahead to what we can and are doing—especially as the price of eggs and materials continue to rise.

Please continue to support Ukraine! If you follow me, I don’t have to try and convince you. If you need convincing, I’m not sure I am capable of forming anything but an emotional plea. I hate that, but that’s where I am at right now. Whether that’s donating, raising funds for Ukrainian charities, supporting Ukrainian owned businesses in and outside Ukraine, protecting Ukrainian refugees, attending protests or Ukrainian cultural programming, advocating for Ukrainian rights, writing to your representatives, and talking about what’s happening in Ukraine.

Liberty Ukraine

Sharing online or in-person what’s happening in Ukraine is a form of support. Baking and cooking Ukrainian recipes is a form of support. Demanding Ukrainian content is a form of support. Commissioning Ukrainian recipes and hiring Ukrainian artists is a form of support. Raising awareness is a form of support. All of these acts are in service of protecting the sovereignty of an independent nation and preserving the diversity of Ukrainian culture(s).

Keep talking about Ukraine.

Keep having the discussion, the argument, the plea.

Recipe I Loved This Week:

I had the most random craving for almond cake!

I don’t even like almond flavored baked goods. I did recently buy a ton of almond meal so I had all the ingredients I needed to bake a simple almond cake. I decided to spice it up with an addition of anise extract. I have been in a black licorice mood lately, as some of you might have noticed. If you prefer to keep it in the almond family, sub the anise extract for almond. The combination of anise and almond is simply perfect. I am actually surprised I haven’t seen that pairing more frequently. Seriously give it a try!

This recipe is adapted from the Assorted Eats blog.

ITALIAN ALMOND ANISE CAKE

Yield:

x1 9-inch cake

Tools:

Mixing Bowl

Baking Spray

Cooling Rack

Offset Spatula

Hand Mixer or Stand Mixer or a Whisk (and some muscle)

9-inch round cake pan

Measuring cup

Ingredient List:

Dry Ingredients:

• 170 grams almond flour

• 85 grams all purpose flour (I use King Arthur All Purpose)

• 1 grams or 1/4 teaspoon baking powder

• 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

Wet Ingredients:

• 70 grams melted unsalted butter

• 50 grams neutral oil such as peanut oil

• 1 teaspoon Anise extract

Rest of Ingredients:

• 200 grams or 4 large eggs, room temperature

• 175 grams sugar

Anise Flavored Whipped Cream to serve:

• 120 grams whipped cream

• 7.5 grams or 1 tablespoon powdered sugar

• 1/2 teaspoon anise extract

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 325 F or 165 C.

   1. Mine baked somewhere between 330 F and 350 F turned out great, so don’t stress!

2. Spray a 9-inch round cake pan with baking spray or grease with some butter. I also like to line the bottom of the pan with a circular piece of parchment paper.

3. In a large mixing bowl, whisk together almond flour, all purpose flour, baking powder and salt, and set aside.

4. Add melted butter, oil, and anise extract to a measuring cup, and set aside.

5. In another large mixing bowl or a stand mixer, mix the eggs and sugar until the eggs have quadrupled in volume and have almost reached the ribbon stage, about 8 minutes on medium high speed.

   1. Ribbon stage is when the egg mixture fall off your whisk or beaters and the batter leaves an imprint on the top of the batter before disappearing into the batter.

6. Now slowly begin to add the butter, oil, anise extract while mixing the egg and sugar mixture on medium speed until everything is combined and properly emulsified, about two minutes.

   1. You don’t want to rush this step otherwise the mixture will curdle and separate. Resist the temptation to dump the butter, oil, extract mixture into the whipped eggs. Instead, gradually pour the liquid ingredients into the batter.

7. Now we can add the dry ingredients to the mixture. I like to do this in three additions. Using a spatula gingerly mix or incorporate the flour mixture in with the wet ingredients until no streaks of dry ingredients remain. Yes, fold in the dry ingredients.

8. Pour the batter into the prepared 9-inch pan, put on the middle rack, and bake for 35 to 45 minutes. Using a knife check to make sure your cake is cooked through.

   1. The knife should come out clean without any wet batter.

9. Let the cake cool in the pan on a cooling rack for around 15 minutes. Remove from pan and serve immediately or to be honest it gets better once it has a chance to sit for at least 12 hours at room temperature.

   1. The cake keeps well in an airtight container for up to 4 days.

10. I served the cake with a couple dollops of anise flavored whipped cream and a light dusting of powdered sugar. You can also serve it with just a light dusting of powdered sugar.

Anise Whipped Cream:

1. Place a large mixing bowl in the freezer along with the whisk for at least 15 minutes, I usually set a 30 minute timer.

2. Once your equipment is chilled, pour the heavy cream into the bowl and add the powdered sugar. Start mixing or whisking over low speed if using a stand mixer. Increase the speed to medium high after about a minute and add the anise extract. Continue to mix until you have reached medium peaks or whatever your personal preference of whipped cream texture is. I like mine to be a little runny for a dessert like this.

   1. Remember the powdered sugar will help stabilize it since it has cornstarch.

   2. I would recommend doing it by hand since it’s a small batch and over-whipping is more of a concern.

3. Serve immediately or you can keep the whipped cream in the fridge for several hours.

(Yes, that is Alison Roman’s voice in the background of my video. I’m doing research for a project.)

Who are you without your work?

Serious question.

So much of who we are is defined by what we do or more specifically what we produce. Project after project. What are you working on next? Is one of the most common questions a writer gets as soon as they finish a major writing project.

We are simply not allowed to have periods of nothingness. Lack of productivity makes us all uncomfortable as a society. We all need to be constantly working. Constantly producing. Constantly feeding the cultural algorithm.

Many have written on overproduction and this is not the place to rehash those arguments. I encourage you to go directly to the source.

What I did want to discuss today is the anxiety and self-doubt that often comes with periods of rest or as we have been conditioned to think, periods of being unproductive.

During these phases, we question who we are.

Who am I when I’m not occupied with creating, writing, baking, cooking? (Insert whatever action you want here.)

It makes us deeply uncomfortable thinking about ourselves without the reassurance of our work(s). We have been conditioned to think that it is the work that defines who we are. For example, I’m a food writer because I produce assignments for food media publications.

This mindset, or more accurately existence, has a grip over so many of us.

We are programmed to constantly strive to make things that can offer us the reassurance we so desperately seek. We continue to look outside ourselves (external sources) to feel a sense of self.

We need to know we are somebody in this world and too often and frequently we rely on external validation and our productivity to derive that sense of self.

It turns into a performance, a chase. No matter how much evidence you accumulate (work you produce) you need to keep making or producing things to continue to call yourself a writer, baker, editor, researcher, etc.

No amount of words written or works published will give you that reassurance.

What we really need is to first heal our relationship with ourselves. We need to make time for introspection. We need to know who we are and not base that off what we do or produce.

If you don’t do that internal work of healing your relationship with the self, you will succumb to external pressures (social, familial, fake, cultural) of performing and doing for others.

If you believe yourself to be an artist, no lull in your work will take that away from you. If you never decide to publish your work, you are a writer.

Your validation doesn’t come from the outside, you know who you are.

This is a reminder to separate yourself, your identity, your worth from your work and from the external expectations of what that work and output looks like.

Don’t let the world bully you into performing what they believe a writer or an artist to be. Define your own relationship with your art. Make time to reflect on how your work makes you feel. The time we spend away from doing our work is equally important as the work we make. Maybe that faint feeling of “I am doing this for the wrong reasons” is worth listening, paying attention to, and exploring.

So often we jump into projects without considering how they align with our internal needs. We often take on work to appease the inner critic who constantly undermines our belief that we are enough. We need to keep working to keep the voice quiet.

What would happen if you woke up one day and couldn’t do what you are doing? You lost the ability to make things. These periods of not being able to work are a common occurrence for those of us who struggle with mental health, chronic fatigue, or any chronic illness. No wonder we are left feeling worse about ourselves when everyone around us is bent on deriving their sense of self from all the stuff they are making.

The first step is to recognize and admit how much of your self-worth and sense of self relies on your work and external validation. Being honest with yourself about this will only make it easier to break the cycle and heal your sense of self.

I hope this short essay offers you a little relief.

It is simply a reminder that your work, nor the quantity and scale of your work or achievements, doesn’t define who you are.

What matters is your relationship with yourself and your work.

Feeling bad about how little you make is a byproduct of capitalism and societies it fosters. Embrace your lack of contribution/productivity and start talking to yourself about what it means to you to be a writer, artist, etc.

Ask yourself:

• What kind of writer do I want to be? And why?

• What’s important to me? And why?

• What kind of questions do I want to ask? And why?

• What motivates me and my work?

Give yourself time to understand yourself.

Slowly begin to unravel your sense of self-worth from your work.

A strong sense of self will help you enjoy periods of rest and it will make your work more fulfilling because you will be able to produce things for reasons that matter to you and not simply doing them to meet external expectations.

If you need someone to give you permission. Here it is.

You have my permission to do less and be more introspective.

I know the taste of black licorice can be quite divisive. In theory you could leave out the anise extract and anise seed or replace it with vanilla or lemon extract, but the anisey aroma and flavor is really at the heart of this beloved Italian and Italian American classic. This cookie is ubiquitous in Italian American households in the Great Lakes area. I found a chocolate pizzelle version as well. I actually came across it in one of the only Italian American baking books that I currently own, called Dolci! American Baking with an Italian Accent by Renato Poliafito. Here in Youngstown, Ohio anise is the flavor of choice, and what you will find in most bakeries.

The first time I ever tried a homemade pizzelle was back in the fall of 2007. I was visiting Tom in Youngstown for Thanksgiving, and his incredible grandmother is a pizzelle queen! The recipe I’m sharing today is not hers but I will share her recipe one day. Promise! After the first bite, my immediate reaction was to say, I don’t like it. Weird way to get you interested in making some pizzelles, right? I just plain don’t like that sharp black licorice flavor. But as that flavor lingered, I kept going in for more bites. Then a pizzelle, and a couple after that too. After 4 or so pizzelles, I knew there was something special about this cookie. Even for a non-black licorice lover like myself, the anise flavor and aroma left you wanting, dare I say craving another bite.

It took me 17 years after eating my first pizzelle, to make my first one this past month. My partner Tom got me a pizzelle iron this Christmas! It’s maybe an old Vitantonio. It’s manual and all aluminum with a wonderful pattern (manufactured in Cleveland, OH).

It’s a perfect welcome gift to Youngstown as well! Everyone here makes pizzelles and no cookie table is complete without pizzelles— yes there is a whole culture of cookie tables in this part of the country. These cookies also make an appearance on every major holiday, especially Christmas and Easter, and I’m pretty convinced anyone will accept any excuse to enjoy these anisey pressed cookies with their stunning decorations.

To be honest, I was intimidated by this cookie. You need a whole separate tool to make them. And this is coming from someone who spent two plus years baking Panettone.

Two weeks ago, I finally conquered my fear and made some. Making them for my Italian American partner and mother in law was a little anxiety provoking as well since the two of them have about 100 years of eating pizzelles between them. I am happy to report that my first two batches of pizzelles were a hit! I like to think that even Tom’s grandma would be proud. I will make them for her, once I build up some confidence!

I made the mistake of making pizzelles on a super wet and humid day. That’s a recipe for disaster for a cookie that is supposed to have a crispy finish similar to a waffle cone. The ideal texture of a pizzelle does seem to change from person to person but traditionally these are meant to be crispy and quite thin. Some folks like them a little more bendy and thick, which you can achieve by cooking the cookies a little less and applying less pressure when pressing the iron or electric pizzelle maker shut.

The recipe I am sharing with you today, I found on YouTube. Thank you, Maria!

I made this recipe several times now with my own tiny adjustments. I think this is a great starter recipe for anyone who is pizzelle curious. The batter comes together in minutes and requires minimal prep, not even the step of melting butter, since this recipe uses oil.

The hardest part of the process is definitely the cooking especially if you are attempting to make these with a handheld old-school pizzelle iron. The process actually reminds me a lot of making crepes, standing over each one, waiting, and checking patiently to see if the iron is ready to turn, as you would check on a crepe to make sure it is ready to be flipped. When the pizzelles come off the iron they are pliable and can be molded into different shapes, and they become crisp as they cool. It is a wonderful transformation of form. And something waffle makers are very familiar with.

Making one pizzelle at a time is definitely not ideal for Christmas level production but it is perfect if you are looking for a more immersive and meditative approach. Tom has suggested it’s probably best to work like a book binder gilding and use multiple irons so we can rotate them out to maintain heat. An electric griddle usually makes two or three at a time, but there’s still downtime in between to allow the heat to rebuild. The key is to work at a pace that works for you.

As far as sourcing ingredients for this recipe, the only two hard to find ingredients are anise extract and whole anise seeds. I bought mine at one of many Italian grocers here in town but you can purchase yours online no problem. You can also leave out the anise seed if that’s too much.

The cookies are absolutely stunning, even the “ugly” ones are beautiful! Best of luck! And let me know if you have any memories, stories, or favorite pizzelle recipes in the comments.

Leave a comment

Yield:

Makes between 21 and 25 cookies

Tools:

Pizzele Iron or Electric Pizzelle Maker

Mixing Bowl

Baking Spray

Tablespoon

Cooling Rack

Offset Spatula

Ingredient List:

• 150 grams or 3 eggs, room temperature

• 100 grams or 1/2 cup sugar

• 50 grams or 1/4 cup neutral oil such as peanut oil

• 1 to 2 teaspoons Anise extract (I do two)

• 1 to 2 teaspoons Anise seed (optional) (I do two)

• 180 grams or 1 1/4 cup all purpose flour (I use King Arthur All Purpose)

• 3 grams or 3/4 teaspoon baking powder

Method:

*I use an old school handheld stove-top pizzelle iron which I like to preheat while making the batter. I preheat between 6 and 7 on an electric stove for about 10 minutes or so.

1. In a large mixing bowl, whisk the eggs until foamy, about 3 minutes.

2. Add the sugar and whisk until the mixture is a nice pale golden color, this should take around 5 minutes.

3. You can now add the oil, anise extract, and anise seed, whisk until everything is combined, about a minute.

4. Lastly, sift in the flour and baking soda into the bowl with wet ingredients, using a spatula mix the flour in with the wet ingredients until no streaks of flour remain.

5. Once the iron is hot, I usually hit it (both sides) with a spray or two of non-stick baking spray, if it smokes ever so slightly the iron is just right. Now place a tablespoon of batter right in the middle and close the iron. It is important to hold the iron shut pretty tight if you want a nice thin pizzelle. Cook on each side for 30 to 40 seconds. Repeat 20 to 25 more times! Good Luck!

Notes:

• If your first couple of pizzelles come out a little dark turn down the heat, take the iron off the heat, and let the iron cool down a bit before placing it back on the heat.

• Don’t be scared though! You are building muscle memory with each pizzelle!

Storing:

• Store in an airtight container with some wax paper. In theory these could last you months but I promise they won’t make it past one week.

No one wants to pay for recipes. Is a sentiment I hear over and over again from recipe developers, cookbook authors, food writers, and food adjacent professionals.

The most common comment on a cooking or baking TikTok or reel is Recipe? Recipe please? Where is the recipe? Can I have the recipe? I’m gonna go out on a limb and guess that the most common DM food folks get is “recipe?”

The viewer expects (and often demands) a recipe to accompany every single food video or photograph they see on social media. An expectation that no doubt has its roots in food blogging, early cooking/baking YouTube videos, and Instagram posts.

The audiences’ hunger for recipes is insatiable. It honestly brings out something dark or at times silly in people. People even get angry, cranky, aggressive, and sometimes straight-up offensive. I even had some people DM some pretty horrible things when I told them I don’t share certain recipes for free. I will spare you the details of the nasty messages but the takeaway here is that folks have a tendency to become emotionally dysregulated when they don’t get a recipe they feel entitled to for free.

So how do we reconcile this tension between the public who feels entitled to endless free recipes and recipes as labor and an art form?

We talk about it, endlessly and passionately! And by reminding our audiences what recipes really are—products of culture, people’s labor, and expertise!

One of the main reasons why I think people need to charge for their recipes is because it challenges the preconceived notion that recipes, unlike other forms of culture and art, are meant to be free for one reason or another which inevitable boils down to devaluing someone’s labor and knowledges, as well as aiding in erasing their artistic, cultural, and historical value.

Since recipes are cultural artifacts which are often preserved through oral traditions and histories, they get excluded from the culture economy even though other forms of ephemeral art and culture are not. Museums buy paintings, vases, statues, books, etc. And certainly some of those may depict or contain recipes—and yes the subject, theme or focus of a collection might be, when it boils down to it, recipes if that is the mission of the curator. But I want to talk about the idea of a recipe as an object because a recipe, decoded and analyzed, contains so much about culture.

If we pay for some cultural objects but not others, what does that say about our society? Do we value certain types of knowledges over others? Yes, there are many hierarchies of knowledge. Quantitative data is more valuable than qualitative, I think that’s slowly changing. A lot more research funding goes to quantitative research than qualitative research which is predominantly done by scholars who come from diverse ethnic, racial, gender, and socioeconomic backgrounds. Yes, even knowledge is colonized.

VALUES OF RECIPES

I often write and talk about recipes as objects of cultural heritage. Recipes allow us to preserve the cooking and baking traditions of people across space and time. We can learn so much about the culinary practices of our past through the study of cookbooks and the recipes they hold.

Alicia Kennedy in a recent essay, “Recipe as Object,” discusses the value and role of recipes.

“That overproduction of everything is the norm, and recipes—an age-old form used for the transfer of heritage and skill dating back to at least Babylonian clay tablets from 1700 BCE—have become objects unto themselves, something paid for that either becomes absorbed and taken throughout life, shared and cooked repeatedly, or is easily discarded for the next.”

Recipes, similar to furniture/ceramics (I guess pick any artifact), need to be researched, developed, designed, fine-tuned, written down (recorded in some way), and disseminated (distributed). In most systems, all of these steps are considered labor. I mean it really is a lot of work, and it is a lot more work to do it right.

There is also material cost to consider—in the production, recording, and sharing. You need ingredients to experiment, test, and video/photograph (record) the recipe. And we should also mention all the non-food related labor. Sure, yes, I am a cook and baker. But I am also a historian. I am also a writer and editor. I am also a videographer and video director and a sound technician or engineer and maybe a publicist or marketing and art director. I have lost track of all of the things I need to be if I don’t have help or hire someone.

Maybe the best approach for easing the tension is by reminding the public and our individual audiences that recipes are a product of culture and people’s labor, expertise, lived experience, culinary training, intergenerational knowledge, and more.

And often paying for something is a good idea, especially if you’re paying a person. Paying for something creates a contract of accountability. You pay someone for something and you have an expectation. If that expectation is met or exceeded, you’ll likely pay for more products from that source.

As trust in food media companies continues to dwindle, the public relies more on independent food writers and recipe developers for recipes (and content creators of course). That’s why we all have a responsibility to talk about our work as work.

Also, there are instances where paying for the recipe means being a patron of a food writer, an artist who writes evocative, creative, and beautiful recipes. There is literary value in these types of recipes. It is the prose and the poetry of food we pay for. Recipes are not limited to being didactic. They are writing. They are video. They are photographs. They are art. All of these forms have the ability to emotionally move us like any work of art. I really want to write about recipes as art in much more detail, more to come, promise!

The public’s demand for free recipes needs to be checked. And this can only happen if we talk more openly about the work/labor and the creative and cultural value of recipes—continue to acknowledge and recognize recipes as intangible artifacts of cultural heritage.

CONTINUE TO BE CONSCIENTIOUS CONSUMERS

We can also apply the same strategies we use as ethical and conscientious consumers to purchasing recipes. What you really need, and this is where it is super helpful to think of recipes as products in their own right, is to do a little research to evaluate whether paying for the recipe is a worthy purchase like any of your other purchases.

Also, if a recipe is free, ask yourself, why and how is it free? Is anything ever really free in the attention economy we live in? How much will it cost you in time and ingredient cost? Don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of good reasons why people decide to share recipes. I will discuss my reasons for keeping the majority of my recipes free further down.

I understand why most food bloggers (and now content creators) don’t charge for their recipes, it’s because they don’t rely on the recipes themselves for income (and most food bloggers do come from a higher socioeconomic background but that’s a different topic for a different day). Ultimately, these individuals are bloggers not recipe developers or food writers. Their money comes from advertising be it ads, collaborations, affiliate links, and so on. I, and many others, really do not want to be that.

If a recipe is being sold, I would ask myself, what makes it a product worth buying? You can buy it to support the person you follow (having the bills paid so that a person can spend time and resources on research and development is critical) or you can buy it because you recognize one of the values we discussed earlier in the recipe itself.

Am I saying that all free recipes are shit? No. But, would I be more wary of a free recipe especially for something that requires quite a bit of knowledge or expertise? Definitely. I’m not necessarily including food media publications here. Although, the recipe testing and development process at some of those is, how do I put it mildly, questionable. An editor can only produce, edit, assign so many recipes a week, a month, a year. Magazines usually have a very limited budget for recipe testing. You should definitely periodically re-evaluate what food media publications you support be it monetarily or with your attention cash.

REASONS THE MAJORITY OF MY RECIPES ARE FREE:

First of all, I do sell some of my recipes—specifically those that I developed for my micro-bakery. These recipes took years to perfect. A lot of hours, a lot of failure, a lot of experimentation, a lot of energy. And I want to keep doing that, so some important recipes have been neatly packaged for your consumption.

But here are my current reasons for not charging for the majority of my recipes.

First of all, I don’t rely on recipe development as my main source of income. Recipe development is something I do on a case by case basis nowadays.

Additionally, my recipes are free because I want as many people as possible to learn about Ukrainian culinary culture and engage with Ukrainian recipes, especially now when Ukraine’s culture is once again under threat.

I also love the act of sharing my favorite recipes that I tested, modified, or adapted and not necessarily developed. I also like to write recipes in my own words, in my voice, and through my thought process/mindset. It’s great writing practice. Give it a try. Seriously! Try writing about the art (process) of making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

For me, at the end of the day, free and open access are part of my ethos. I hope to one day create an extensive archive of thoroughly researched, tested, well written, and beautiful recipes. Recipes that hold artistic, culinary, cultural, and historical value on and off page.

ADDENDUM

1. Historical recipes are an interesting beast. On the one hand, most historical recipes are in the public domain. You can go online, go to the Library of Congress, and find some super old cookbooks and cook your heart out.

   But not all historical essays can be accessed with such ease. Some recipes need to be found in archives, translated, and adapted to modern ingredients and kitchens. And those historical recipes often require translation which is an entire other field of study—fields of study. Not just translating from a different language but from a different time as well. Old nomenclature for flora and fauna, old names for preparation and units of measure, as well as understanding the science and relationships of materials in the cooking and prep.

   1. Some recipes only exist in the minds of a few people. We have to track down those folks, interview them, transcribe the interview, fact-check, test, and adapt the recipe for home-cooks. Not so easy. Are the majority of food bloggers in the business of doing this type of work? No. But those who are are often grouped or overshadowed. I like to think of myself as a recipe detective personally!

2. Purchasing a recipe from a reputable source often means the recipe has a higher probability of coming out well if not on the first try but the first couple tries, which will save you money, cut down on food waste, and most important of all, save you your most precious commodity, time.

   1. The likelihood of you successfully learning how to make a dish increases exponentially if you do a little research in the beginning and decide to learn from food people who are ethical, knowledgeable, and passionate about their craft.

MORE OF MY EVER-CHANGING THOUGHTS ON THIS TOPIC TO COME!

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It is not quite beet season but I can never resist beets when I see them at the store or market. Beets seem to be everywhere I look here in Ohio! In celebration of this wonderful root vegetable, I wanted to share one of my favorite beet recipes: Vinegret/Вінегре́т. Today I’m sharing my family’s version that we have been making for 80+ years, if not longer.

But before we dive in, I want to tell you a little about the dish and my hypothesis for its origin.

A brief disclaimer. As a cultural and social historian, I am of the school of thought that questions of origin are usually unhelpful, but it can be interesting and worthwhile to examine from time to time the evolution of dishes, as well as how and why they change their form over long and sometimes short periods of time.

I also believe that a dish can be created simultaneously in two different places. And I certainly encourage the cross-pollination and sharing of dishes across cultures, ethnic identities, religions, etc. We can all add our hand to these delicious dishes as we share and enjoy them. BUT none of these things are a free pass for colonizers to claim what is not theirs! Okay. Now let’s dive in.

Basically vinegret is a medley of boiled diced vegetables such as beets, potatoes, carrots, with finely diced onions, pickles and sometimes sauerkraut. Although I personally don’t like to put the sauerkraut in with the medley, my preference is to keep it on the side and mix it in with each bite.

There are many other versions that include peas, fish, meat, mushrooms that are attested in older Ukrainian, Soviet, and Russian cookbooks. My grandmother used to make a bean version as well. Vinegret is one of those flexible clean-out-your-fridge dishes you can enjoy in any season.

The dish gained mass popularity during the Soviet Union. Its humble, available and inexpensive ingredients; it's simple, but manually laborious, prep; and its shelf life ensures its success—not to mention its incredible taste!

Till this day, it is a staple dish of most ex-soviet households primarily as part of celebrations. You’ll find this dish on almost every New Year’s Eve, Christmas, Birthday, Easter table.

It is served as an appetizer or cold hors d'oeuvres, in Ukraine we call these zakuski. The more colloquial translation is actually chasers aka the thing you eat after taking a shot. And yes, it is an excellent chaser!

The Origins

The dominating narrative is that vinegret was probably introduced by French chefs sometime in the late 19th century in Russian court kitchens.

But, if we look back far enough, to me, vinegret appears to be a distant cousin of a much older Ukrainian dish called Taratuta/Таратута. Taratuta has two forms—one as a cold beet, pickle, and onion soup (particularly popular in Vinnytsia Raion of Ukraine) and the second as a beet, pickle, and onion salad.

If we compare vinegret with taratuta, it’s impossible not to see the astonishing resemblance, especially when looking at the salad version!

Taratuta is a very old Ukrainian dish from Central and Eastern parts of Ukraine. Some sources date it as far back as the 16th century when beetroot, emphasis on the root, was first introduced in Eastern Europe. Ukrainians were consuming beet greens for much longer. I’m still in the process of trying to track down historical sources to verify some of these rather messy timelines but whatever the exact date is the dish has ancient roots in Ukraine.

History is written by the victors conquerors. To be blunt: because of its proximity to Russia and the Russian Empire, this dish has been claimed by the colonizers. As has vinegret. In the case of vinegret, Russians rather believe that it’s a dish with French origins than to attribute its roots to Ukraine.

Seriously, it is straight up silly (to put it mildly) to think that they ignored, for hundreds of years, a delicious beet salad that their Slavic cousins ate every goddamn day and brought to every important celebration. In other words, it is a bit suspicious when the bully sat next to you in class has the same answers on their test.

There are also plenty of Finnish, Scandinavian, and German beet salads that could have inspired the creation of vinegret. Many of which use an acid and add salted fish, while the French use mayo. Seemingly the closest recipe to vinegret is taratuta.

Was there also French influence on the dish as we know it today? Yes, the probability is very likely. The French culinary term macedoine means cutting fruits or vegetables into small cubes. This French culinary technique gained popularity in restaurants and noble families across the 19th century Russian Empire. It is well known that the Russian Empire went through a pretty serious Francophile stage, I mean just try reading War and Peace. Did this French technique influence the form of vinegret that’s known to us today? Yes. Were the vegetables cut macedoine in the oldest versions of taratuta? Probably not. Personally, I prefer to cube my veg. However…IS THAT A REASON TO ERASE UKRAINE FROM THE NARRATIVE OF THIS DISH? ABSOLUTELY FUCKING NOT.

These are just some of my initial thoughts on the topic, I will report back as things keep developing in my research.

If you want to explore the taste of taratuta, since you have been reading about it, you can find my recipe for the beet, pickle, and horseradish salad in a previous newsletter.

Additionally, you can find the recipe in my friend’s Alissa Timoshkina’s upcoming second cookbook, Kapusta. The cookbook is a celebration of vegetables across Eastern European and its many culinary cultures and ethnic communities. I contributed two Ukrainian recipes to the book. The cookbook comes out February 25th here in the U.S., but you can still pre-order your copy today. I am so excited for my copy. Also just look at the stunning cover!

Pre-Order Alissa's Cookbook Here

Vinegret / Вінегре́т

Yield:

Serves 4 to 8, with leftovers

Ingredient List:

• 900 grams or 4 large diced boiled beets

• 500 grams or 3 medium diced boiled potatoes

• 200 grams or 3 medium diced boiled carrots

• 200 grams finely diced pickles

• 150 grams or 1 small finely diced onion

• 3 to 6 tablespoons pickle brine (depending on the acidity of your pickles)

• 5 to 7 tablespoons unrefined sunflower oil or good quality olive oil

• salt to taste

To Serve:

• Sauerkraut (optional)

• Lox (optional)

• Sourdough Country Loaf or Rye Bread

*A note on boiling the vegetables. I boil the beets separately because they take the longest. I boil the carrots and potatoes together. I peel the carrots before boiling them. Potatoes I usually don’t peel until after (some say that helps retain the flavor) other times I peel them and then boil them. Never had any issues with either method.

*Makeahead: You can boil the vegetables a day ahead of prep and let them hang out in the fridge until ready to dice and mix everything.

Method:

1. In a large mixing bowl, place the beets, potatoes, carrots, pickles, onion and gently mix with a spatula until all the vegetables are thoroughly combined.

2. Now add pickle brine, unrefined sunflower oil, and salt. Mix well with a spatula to distribute everything evenly.

   1. It’s very important to taste the salad at this point for the right balance of salt, acid, and oil and adjust accordingly.

      1. For example you might need to adjust the brine amount to find the right balance of acidity since every jar of pickles is different!

3. The salad can be served with lox, herring, sauerkraut, and many slices of sourdough or sourdough rye bread.

Why am I writing and sharing this short essay? In the hope that it can help others better understand the experience of living with depression. I want to help normalize talking about depression, and normalize depression being seen at all. One way to do so is to talk and write about it. I’m choosing to do so with a therapy technique known as radical openness, something discussed in DBT, CPT, and other therapies.

Often when people hear someone is depressed, they don’t stop and think of what that experience must really be like. We are usually flooded with stereotypes when we hear the word depression. It’s unclear and vague. What does it mean exactly, to be depressed? What does it look and feel like mentally, physically, and emotionally?

Essays that describe individual experiences with depression such as the one I am sharing today, can nuance our discourse around it. Having said that, my experience is my own, and to say that everyone experiences depression in the same way would be a gross generalization. It looks different from day to day for the same person not to mention how everyone individually experiences it.

I do believe that the more experiences of depression people can see and read about, the more compassion we can cultivate as a society and community that is full of people prone to depression. We can be kinder to ourselves, our neighbors, our fellow citizens, and fellow human beings. Depression is universal. But the cultural and societal context of depression morphs its shape and how those of us who have it get to live with it.

Working class depression is a strange beast. Being able to go to work seems like an oxymoron to someone who is in the throes of a depressive episode, but just because you are able to get yourself to work doesn’t mean you are able to participate in the work. Some of us get lucky, and the depression lifts before a major project deadline. For others it often means losing their job and access to the few resources they had.

At a time when narratives and art around mental health are being suppressed, it is our responsibility as artists to keep writing and sharing.

It’s back.

It always comes back.

It’s never not there to be honest but now I feel its weight.

It feels as if every atom in my body is fighting not to succumb to gravity.

The desire to close your eyes and never open them.

I feel nothing.

Completely disconnected from my senses.

No appetite. No joy.

Bones aching.

I struggle speaking.

I struggle thinking.

Everything is a struggle.

Days and nights come and go without any real sense of time having passed.

You feel nothing and everything all at once—fighting to keep it together every minute.

Being social is agony.

Performing a functioning human in front of colleagues is so hard you pass out from exhaustion as soon as you clock out.

Everyone around you is better.

Of course, they are.

No one else is wasting their life away, taking up space, and leaving an unnecessary carbon footprint on the planet.

You spent the last 15 years of your life paralyzed unable to feel or remember your own life.

When you come up for air, you feel miles behind your peers.

Nothing to show for and barely making just about anything.

The one question that comes up during this time is, why?

Why keep doing this?

A harsh little voice chimes in, “there isn’t enough time to start over or to catch up.”

It keeps going, taunting me, “You wasted your life away.”

I exhale in self-defeat.

Maybe it’s right.

Maybe there isn’t anything more I can do here?

Of course I will never make up for those 15 years of not reading or writing (enough).

Seeing yourself as a zombie, something out of Dawn of the Dead, doesn’t fill one with joy and sense of worth.

You instead feel immense shame and loss.

Loss for time you will never get back and shame of how little you have done or accomplished.

That’s it.

Nothing seems worth doing.

Nothing feels worth doing.

Nothing is worth doing.

For how little you feel, your heart is constantly racing.

Your chest so tight you have problems breathing—as if someone is squeezing it shut from the inside.

Your limbs feel heavy.

Your head feels heavy on your neck.

Your shoulders slouch forward as your chest is tightening with every passing minute.

You need to remind yourself to take a deep breath to make sure you can still breathe.

Sometimes gasping for air.

Yawning in an attempt to help yourself catch a breath.

It works—but not for long.

Rinse and repeat.

Get up!

Brush your teeth!

Go to work!

A voice is constantly yelling at me; commanding me to obey.

It’s authoritative.

It’s giving me a command to follow and so I do, barely.

Days turn into weeks, weeks into months, months into years.

I can’t enjoy any of it.

It is time passing me by as I try to survive until the following day.

Why keep going if I can’t remember any of it?

The same question is back.

If I can’t experience anything to a point of it imprinting onto my psyche at least the conscious part.

Why am I constantly grieving the time passed?

I can’t enjoy the present.

How utterly ridiculous.

Depression is worrying not living.

Not the helpful caring kind of worry but the destructive internal worry that gives us no rest and joy.

The all consuming worry that strips us of our lives and purpose.

This!

This is how I live.

If you can call it living.

This is the state I am in the majority of the time;

Fighting;

Pleading;

Resisting.

Shut up.

Stop complaining.

It is what it is.

Just wait.

The fog will clear.

Nothing is permanent.

If you have a favorite poem, short story, novel, quote, paragraph, or book on the topic, I would love to hear about it!

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