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Welcome Dede. I was so excited. Now I am one who grew up with an
easy bake oven so my first question
is going to be: When you were five
Yes. Tell me what did you want to be when you grew up?
or had no idea? It's funny that you did zero in on 5. I
did not have an easy bake oven but I do have a five-year-old experience
involving a real stove which I guess I can tell you. Oh I wanna hear. So
I thought that I was gonna be standing up here and talking and I'm actually
excited because your questions will take me
who knows where and I was thinking about things from my home life and
things from school and how they've been formative for me
and what happened at home happened at five.
My father had learned how to cook when he was in Paris after World War 2
from his French housekeeper and she taught him how to make omelets. And when I was 5
years old
he decided "I'm going to teach Dede how to cook and make omelets and I'm going to recreate this
scene and teach you how to make omelets. And so we were talking about
experiential learning and certainly I'm someone that
benefits from that and although of course at the time you don't think about
the fact that
I'm doing experiential learning. You're just having this amazing
experience.
So my father recreated the scene and gathered together the eggs and all the ingredients.
The difference of course is that I needed to stand on a chair to reach the
counter
and he proceeded to show me
how to crack the eggs so that no shell got into them and he showed me how
his housekeeper told him to whisk the eggs with a fork
because you want to incorporate a little air but not too much. And she'd like to
add a little bit of water because this made the eggs
fluffy and he had brought home an omelet pan from France and
you know showed me this is an omelet pan and this is why showing me the
slant in the sides and the diameter of the base and why it is the way it is
and you know how much butter to put in the pan and how to
tilt it so that it's coated and you know all this learning is going on. In the
meanwhile
obviously, I'm just thinking I'm having a great time. So
he showed me how to make the three omelets I remember.
We made a ham omelet and he showed me how after you put the ham inside after you finish
omelet we're gonna put little bits of ham on the top
and that way the person who you were serving it to knows they are getting a ham omelet.
And then his two favorites were cheese omelet
and a crouton omelet, which you don't see it
really in the states. The idea behind the crouton omelet
is that you saute a little squares of bread you make the croutons crunchy.
And then
you're making the omelet and while you're trying to keep
the eggs soft and velvety and moist you're trying to put these crunchy
croutons in the middle and
its all supposed to come together at the perfect time so that the eggs are cooked
but the croutons aren't smooshy. And you know we're doing all this
so the story goes and I do not remember this myself but it is been
relayed to me many times shortly after this.
I 5 years old and was having sleepovers in kindergarten and a girlfriend Annette
that was sleeping over
and my father observed me that evening before I went to bed. I came into the
kitchen and I took a piece of gruyere cheese out of the fridge
like cut a small piece and I wrapped it up put on the counter and I put the
piece back in the fridge. And I was
going back to join my girlfriend and he said to me
Wait why did you do that? Why did you leave the cheese on the
counter?
And I said to him, Well I'm making a cheese omelet for Annette in the
morning
and I want the cheese to be at room temperature so it melts evenly.
So you know he said at that point he should have
known my future. But again I mean this
at five. I had no idea you know. We've been talking a lot about
after school stuff. I mean I was dancing at the Geoffrey Ballet which was
in Greenwich Village just two blocks away. I'm taking pottery lessons and
horseback riding. But
food was a big thing from the beginning. So it's interesting he created Paris in
your kitchen.
Right-handed sensory experience. So I happen to be reading your blogs
and there was a blog about how literally you bathed in wine
in France? So you have to tell us about that!
Well you know it's an amazing story. So when I was 13
my father was friends with the president of
Air France and he had a daughter who was 16 and I was 13.
And they thought it would be a brilliant idea for me to go spend
the summer with them in the South of France. Now there is a huge difference between a
16-year-old european girl and a 13-year-old
American girl. And I went and I was miserable.
I could not connect with this girl at all.
But we went horseback riding we had that in common. And
her uncle had a chateau up the hill from their house. And we would
trudge up there and in the really hot sun and go swimming in the pool. And so there is
this pool
that overlooked this valley. This was about 45 minutes outside Leone. So
amazing
countryside and one side the long edge of the pool had grapes
growing near and the grapes as they became
ripe would fall into
the pool and and it fragranced the pool.
And so we would dive into the water and there would just be the essence of the
aroma. And yes I mean I wrote a story. I'm so happy to read those
stories
It was an amazing experience and just you know going back for a moment
about you know my dad. So my dad's business with import/export. He
speaks eight languages. Travelled all over the world. And so here I was
in the early sixties mid-sixty's early seventies.
He would come home from trips with all kinds of things. Like he would come home from
Indonesia with eight
different sembles. You know like no one knew what sembles were in the
United States in 1964 in all these different continents
and we be tasting things and he was cooking
Sunday night was always when we did pasta. And he would do
authentic Italian food many people didn't do authentic
Italian food at that time so he would go wherever he needed to go in
New York to get the panchetta or he would go to where we needed to go in New York
to get
you know the right pecorino and so I didn't know that my palate with being
educated but
so it sounds like your family
environmental was pretty pivotal in terms though
giving you that exposure to food what with school like
its you know what happened in school again so picture Greenwich Village
at that time it was a
very small progressive private school we had
30 kids a grade 15 kids to a class
so it was a rarefied existence that was and
with Bakepedia you know for me my daily existence is food and writing food and
writing I mean this is what I'm doing all day long
and my seventh and eight grade English teacher Ms. Statts
Maggie Statts with hugely influential
for me now let me set the stage she was a formidable woman she went on to be Saul
Bellows lover he
had written about her she went on to work at the New Yorker
but at this point in time she was our seventh and eighth grade English teacher
and I love the picture be classroom with
you know all those desks she had
bean bag chairs and she had Moroccan rugs in
she I remember her so she's probablyin her thirties with her
twiggy haircut and she would have you know this like
wool jumper mini dress on she's very modern and hip
and she would take us on field trips to Revolution Books and all this would buy
you know mouth little red book and she would on habits read Art Buchard
and The Mouse that Roared and all these
really interesting things the thing about Ms. Statts was
I'm friends with a bunch of my classmates and I emailed them all about a month ago
and i said im gonna be doing this talk
and I know I'm gonna bring up Ms.Statts and I wanted to know if you guys had any
memories and what was fascinating is that all of us are so different
then as well as now yet all of us had a consistent
experience up her which I thought was really interesting
and what that was was that she was
so authentic I mean warts and all
I mean she would do inappropriate things like
can you imagine in this day and age telling a student that his handwriting looks
psychotic
but she did and she was sitting at her desk
with her legs tucked underneath smoking
I me can you imagine 1974
and as one of my a classmate said to me he said you know
she was about getting meaning read it
and get it out meaning right punctuation be damned
this was about thought this was about
you know your an individual what do you think of this
now express what you think let's write
you know and she that the common experience that we all had was that
I said I said you know she she might've been the first adult who treated me
like an adult albeit my short
fourteen-year-old adult but as one of my classmates said
she was the first one who treated me like a sanctioned adult
there was something about her where she didn't just set the bar high
and expect us to reach it she set the bar high and just knew we could
and so we did you know there was this sense of confidence
that she instilled in us and this sense of individuality
and do you mind if I tie it to the future
so the last time I had her as a teacher was 1975
exactly twenty years later 1985 I signed my first book deal
and so I'm looking at this contract it says OK
you are now responsible for writing this cookbook we
gave the advance and you better write it and the deadlines an 18-month
deadline I had like never experienced anything like that before obviously
about point being my first never written a book before
really stewed about this for a day or two how am I going to do this
and then it came back to me Ms. Statts outlines
she had us create outlines for everything we did you know so we had a
beginning a middle and
and an end we had structure we had flow and even know I had one of
Apple's like first laptop computers which i think was like this thick and I
am really heavy
I did it the way we did it in 1975 I
pulled out this piece of paper and I made an outline
for this cookbook and I was ready to turn it in two month early
I mean it worked in here these tools that relayed
down way back when and so when the book was published
I tracked down and she at that point in time
was the editor in chief at travel holiday I only recently found out
literally like a few weeks ago
that none of us knew why she had left the New Yorker there were like all these
like rumors did she get fired like
you know why did you leave the new yorker
like but it's she was editor in chief at
Travel Holiday magazine and I tracked down and I said
you now I just published my first book getting
here's the experience and I pulled out these are all tools and it was so
gratifying to be able to have
that connection and to be able to relay that to her
so um when I emailed all my friends
about a month ago there about 8 on this collective email eight or nine
about and all the stories are going back and forth about it
and one of our classmates Valerie said do won't believe this but
I'm having lunch with her next Tuesday because I'm gonna be teaching
undergraduate class and I want
somehow I conjured that mixture that she had
of command and accessibility and and so
whatever we're having lunch and then emails are going back and forth and then Valerie
said to all of us
do you mind if I show her all these emails cuz I think she might get a kick she
goes it seems to me like
these are the kinds you think that you say it someone's eulogy but they're not
exactly
but the funny thing was that several of the boys have been saying how she
was kinda
this sensual being to them and so
your Valerie was worried you know like is it okay if I tell her that you
thought of her this way
you know I bet you she is still the same way today
and one of the said she got married five times you know she's
a passionate woman I so she shared with her all of that and she
she actually wrote back to all of us and actually we're hoping we're all gonna
get together
but I think we all
felt that but you know the experience of my father the experience with her the
common denominator to me
is is
you know I was really little I was five and then I was
you know just into my teenage years with Ms. Statts
but the relationship
with these adults was a very adult relationship was
with the teaching was being imparted
in a way a that with ageless
it was really about this is how you make an omelet I'm not going to dumb it
down or you know this is how you write an
outline or create an outline and and this is how
to get your brain to think critically it wasn't
dumbed down none of it was dumbed down it was very much imparted in this way to us
where we were
you know where I was treated as someone who could handle this
information
are could absorb this information and I think that
you know with the cooking the tactical stuff and someone I forget which
I'm speaker is speaking before about saying putting things in your
a into a practical realm
I sucked at math I was always really good at English I could write
I could always express myself verbally or in the written word
I was horrible at math I mean really bad
barely hanging on and now every day
I mean for years now I you know that first book
now it's 14 books later and every one of those books and we were talking about
a lot of math measuring
volumes you know weights
comparisons doubling things having things and
having something to apply it to
all of a sudden math works for me I still we were actually my boyfriend and I
were stuck in traffic coming here you know and we left extra time to get
here because the parade
and we're stopped and he is like it says we're 16 miles away
so for if we go sixty miles an hour
if its in volume or cups or dry measurement
I can handle it but I think that
you know knowing how one's brain
works whether the student has figured that out themselves and they're
able to communicate and the able say well I need
this to understand that or whether it's a teacher
who can see okay well they're having problems
absorbing this particular concept
in the way it's being delivered right now but perhaps there's a different way to
deliver that message to allow
that brain to use it
and what i find interesting is I'm sure there was no guidance counselor that
that okay you've got that love of food and this love writing let me put it
together
to create your brand what was that moment where you saw all that you can
blend the two together
what was the influence I ended up going to Hampshire College and I was
there
a doing I I entered as a journalism student
then I sorta veered off then I was doing
pre-med for a while for a year and a half and I got totally tapped out and I
took a break for about a half a year to try and figure out what I wanted to do
and I thought more what do I really like I like
food and that's I sort of put it together and I think what was
interesting about that
is that none of the
adults in my life helped me do that you know my parents didn't
and the teachers didn't I think it wasn't that
more than avocation was on I was dissuaded from going that way but it was
never presented to me is an option
my mother went to Smith she was all excited I was gonna be in the Valley
I think it was just assumed that there was going to be some sort of
academic component right and
so it still remains sort of frustrating to me that I was around
all these really smart people who
knew who I was and what I was in to but no one presented to me
externally why you know you could do this yeah I found it interesting I
believe you have some family members who are pursuing a food path
my daughter and my son yes and another one who is undecided
let's talk a little bit about how did that happen did
you have the five
the omelet when they were five its a funny thing my daughter my
208-year-old daughter has a wholesale bakery in New York City and then I
have twin 23 year old boys and one of them is at the Culinary Institute of American Hyde Park
and he's pursuing a food you know really
traditionally and then his twin works in restaurants you know just to make a
living
so in my daughter was doing this for quite a while and everybody said well
of course she is what do you mean of course it's not like every Wednesday
they came home from school and I said today we're going to learn how to roast a
chicken
you know it wasn't like that but you know in retrospect I realize that was
exactly what I experienced it was just that they were in a home
where there was real food around and real cooking being done and there was
interaction with ingredients and with equipment
and you know so it was more you know through osmosis I think
well there in I think you wrote an interesting blog about how healthy
lunches in schools need a makeover as well
add I'm curious as to what about the obesity problem in the United States
what is kinda how did you create the environment and what did you see in
schools and what would you like to pave
for the high school cafeteria ladies to who are part of our children's future
it's so funny
my boyfriend is like I live with a world class baker and
I don't get enough baked goods and you know moderation is key
and also I think you know like I said real food
real food so I know people will
email me and they'll say I wanna make this cake with
aspartame are you know and I am so
interested in real food with real
nutrients and if you're working with butter and sugar and white flour
their are you know there are amazing things that you can create
with these ingredients which are obviously we would never
profess them to be healthy but if it's a birthday cake
it is the occasional thing it's like have a slightly surreal cheesecake as
opposed to eating
you know 100 calorie a you know fake
ice pop you know every day so you know but the it's hard because the price you
know that the cost
analysis I mean the whole thing with farm to table and getting schools
involved with
you know regional agriculture and trying to buy direct from farms and
stuff like that I mean that may be the solution because it'll give you
the real food but also hopefully keep the cost down so we have
39 seconds a little no more than that to
a create the perfect recipe to educators
for how to how to create entrepreneurs
scientists created folks I what would be
going into that recipe i'd say I
well no one showed me what to do
I'd say that my home life and my school life
showed me there really wasn't anything I couldn't do
so I think there was always a sense in my education whether at home or in school
that there are possibilities that think that the world is open to you
that you need to use your brain to think about Who Am I what
what that's my creative juices flowing with interests me and then go
you know that there were no walls no walls and you created Bakepedia
again so tell us about that pivot point influence
so Bakepedia I specialize in baking and two years ago the word Bakepedia
entered my body literally like when it entered my head
it like I felt something hit my head and I'm not kidding and I went like I
haven't heard that word before and I called up the
you know one of the registries in the URL was available and i was thinking this
is crazy and I
registered it still not knowing what it was but what its
hoping to be what I'm hoping to do with with the whole concept
is Bakepedia will be the most comprehensive online resource for things
related to baking and desserts
so it's alive we we launched in August and as I was saying to you before
its like this live beast now that I have to feed every
day with content
but you know those outlines
and lots of
creative thought well dede eighty thanks for feeding our mind
and I'm going to be having
some of your delectible treats
and for giving up a little bit if your story thank you so much