Alison Stewart: This is All Of It on WNYC. I'm Alison Stewart. On today's Food for Thought, we're going to talk about endless possibilities with my next guest, Julia Terschen. Julia knows that you stare into the fridge wondering how you're going to make something different. In her new cookbook, Julia breaks down the components that go into a dish, a crunchy thing, a rich thing, a dressing thing. Then she creates charts that mix and match, frameworks for thinking about dishes that allow you to improvise, substitute, or add your own creative spin based on dietary restrictions or ingredients you have on hand.

Julia Turshen's new cookbook is called What Goes with What: 100 Recipes, 20 Charts, Endless Possibilities. Julia is a New York Times best-selling author and the host of the podcast Keep Calm and Cook On. Of course, she teaches cooking classes online. She'll be talking about her new cookbook at Rizzoli Bookstore tonight at 06:00 PM, but she joins us now in studio. It is really nice to see you.

Julia: It's so nice to see you. I'm so happy to be here.

Alison: Listeners, we want to hear from you. Do you have a question about what goes with what? Is there a leftover ingredient that you're trying to plan a dish around? Do you need help planning a meal for an event? You just need general cooking advice or tips, let us know by calling or texting.212-433 WNYC. 212-433-9692. You can call in, you can text to us, or you can send us a message on our social media. All of It WNYC. You start the book with a couple of tips before you even get into the cooking, tips that you've learned like you put a wet rag underneath the cutting board and it stays put.

Julia: Yes.

Alison: What are some cooking tips that you've learned over the years that you use frequently, you can't believe you didn't know them before.

Julia: [chuckles] That's a big one, and that's one when I tell anyone who doesn't know to do it. They're always astounded because I think home cooks have a tendency to make things harder for themselves. I say this as a home cook. People are trying to chop on a board that's too small or their board is moving around the counter, and if you just put a damp towel under it, it's going to hold it in place.

Another tip that also I think feels like a given, obvious, but maybe isn't is anytime you use something sticky like honey, maple syrup, something like that, when you pour it out of the bottle or jar before you put the cap back on, just take a second to take-- it could be that same damp towel and just wipe off the jar before the cap goes on, and then the next time you go to undo it, it's not going to be cemented on there.

Alison: I didn't realize that until I looked at in the cookbook. I said, "That makes so much sense. So much sense." What do you wish people understood about being a home cook?

Julia: Great question. I think that home cooks do so much labor. I think home cooks do so much more than just making a meal. They're figuring out what to make. They're planning for it, they're budgeting, they're grocery shopping. They're taking into account all the different preferences of everyone in their house or whatever latest restrictions someone might have, whatever it might be.

They're trying to remember what's in the freezer, what's in the cupboard, and then after all that, they make the meal. Then after they make the meal, they're cleaning up after it. They're putting things away. It's so much work.

Alison: Wow.

Julia: It's so much labor. Your question was-- [laughs]

Alison: Well, you know what? I read in the book, you said, "Don't be afraid to make things easier for yourself."

Julia: Yes, I guess I just wanted to acknowledge that labor because it is so much. I guess what I would love home cooks to know is that labor is recognized. I think it's important and it serves a valuable purpose. Don't be afraid to take a shortcut here or there. It is so much work and it's relentless work, and I think taking a shortcut, taking some help where you can get it is important to make that work sustainable.

Alison: Why do you think people don't work smarter, they just work harder? That seems like a regular fixture in the kitchen.

Julia: That is so true. I think there's a lot of pressure from social media and just media in general for things to look, I'm doing air quotes, which no one can see, but things to look perfect, things to look ready for social media. Something I tell my students in my classes, people who read my books all the time, is just not every meal you eat has to be the best meal you ever had or has to be beautiful enough to go on Instagram. Really simple food is really satisfying and worthy, and I think, worth celebrating.

Alison: The example you give in the book is your love for Better Than Bouillon-

Julia: [chuckles] Oh, yes.

Alison: -which is-- [laughs]

Julia: I love it so much. I really do.

Alison: People don't know.

Julia: I'm not paid to say this. I just want to say I just love it.

Alison: It's like a paste in a jar and you whip it up. Make your case for Better Than Bouillon.

Julia: Okay, here we go. I liken it to miso paste. It's like this concentrated flavor paste. Basically, if you are not someone who makes homemade chicken or vegetable stock all the time, and I will say, I'm a cookbook author, I don't have kids, I'm home all day. I don't make homemade stock all the time.

[laughter]

Julia: If you don't make homemade stock, but you want to put some broth in a soup or whatever you're cooking, it's a really valuable ingredient to have on hand. First of all, it takes up way less space than cans or boxes of stock. It's more affordable. I think it's better for the environment because you're not filling your pantry with all these cans and boxes and everything.

You can add as much or as little as you want. You have a lot of control with it, but most importantly, it tastes really good. When I make soups and stuff with it, I don't think it tastes worse than when I do make a homemade stock, and why would I go to all that trouble when I can just open this great little jar that does all this work for me? I just love it. I love it so much.

Alison: My guess is Julia Tershen, author of the cookbook What Goes with What: 100 Recipes, 20 Charts, Endless Possibilities. Listeners, we want to hear from you. Do you have any questions about what goes with what? You need some help planning a meal for event or just general cooking advice or tips? Give us a call. 212-433 WNYC. 212-433-9692. Let's talk about charts.

Julia: Oh, sure.

Alison: [chuckles] These charts can help you understand what you need when you need it. I'mma to let you explain how you work the charts.

Julia: I love the charts. I'm so glad you asked about them. The book, it consists of-- it's 20 charts, and each chart has essentially the formula for how you make something, like the infrastructure of a recipe. We were just talking about soups. I'll use that as an example. There's two charts in the book for soups. One for brothy soups, broth with stuff in it. One for pureed soups. The charts give you the formula for how to make these soups and then five examples of how to employ that formula to put it to work.

Once you see that most dishes, pretty much everything we cook, has this kind of essential formula to it, and by it, I just mean cooking, I think it all becomes less overwhelming. I think when you see the formula, you realize, oh, it's not that there's infinite varieties of soup. There's a formula, and you can riff on it.

I think when we see food this way and we understand it this way, I think it becomes a lot less intimidating to do what you said earlier, to riff on things and to substitute an ingredient if you don't have it, to substitute for something you prefer, that kind of thing, to have that flexibility in cooking, that kind of intuition, that confidence.

That's the charts and why they're there. I love them, and I think they give me a way that I've never found before to explain how I think about cooking. I feel like I've tried to explain this a million times in various books and in my classes. The charts really let me show it rather than tell it, so I'm trying to describe it to you by telling it, but I think to see it is to really get it.

Alison: It's interesting. It says, "Pureed soups,"in the upper left. Down the line, it says, "Roasted squash soup, carrot ginger soup, red curry soup, creamy tomatoes and coconut soup, and spicy sweet potato soup." Across the top of the chart, it says, "Saute or roasted vegetables. Add liquid puree with something good," and you have a different thing for each soup that you make, and then I guess I could just go in there and zhuzh up what I like.

Julia: Exactly. You have those examples. If you want to do squash or tomato soup, whatever it might be, but maybe you don't have those things or you don't like those things, and you have another vegetable. Maybe you have a CSA share and you have a ton-

Alison: Oh, that's a good idea.

Julia: -of some vegetable and you don't know what to do with it, take a look at the chart and make it your own.

Alison: That's true. Over the summer, CSA shares are great, but, boy, I don't know what to do with beets.

Julia: [laughs]

Alison: There's only so much you can do.

[laughter]

Julia: I've got a chart for you.

Alison: You've got a chart for me? Here's a text. "Hello. I'd love to know if Julia has any ideas for a cut of beef to cook for 14 people for my dad's 90th birthday potluck. Not a stew, but my Irish dad likes his meat well done." Of course.

Julia: Not a stew. Your dad's turning 90, and it's 14 people-

Alison: And a cut of beef.

Julia: -and a cut of beef. I think the following is not a stew, but in the soft braised meat world, I would do a brisket. I think a long-cooked brisket. I grew up in a Jewish New York family, so brisket cooked with-- even if it's onions and ketchup and chili sauce, like Heinz chili sauce, that kind of thing, I think it's just delicious.

You can park it in the oven for a few hours. You could do it in a pressure cooker. You can get a nice big piece that's going to serve a lot of people. What's best about that kind of thing, especially if it's a 90th birthday party and you probably want to be really present at the party, you can make this ahead, and it's going to taste even better when you warm it up a day or two later.

Alison: Let's talk about your salad chapter. Your recipe for a classic Caesar with big, crunchy croutons, it's a follow-up from one of your previous books. You expanded on it. What did you learn the first time about Caesar salad that you applied to this recipe?

Julia: One of the, I think, great privileges of getting to make more than one book is getting to go back through some of your old stuff and think, "Oh, have I learned a better way to do this, and if so, can I share it?" In my first book, Small Victories, I did a recipe for Caesar salad with the Caesar dressing I make, which I always love to tell people because I get to call it Julia's Caesar, which always makes me laugh.

[laughter]

Julia: The recipe in that book, one thing that I learned after years of making it over and over is I always double or triple the batch because the recipe I did originally didn't call for the whole can of anchovies. I think it's quite annoying to be left with half a can or two-thirds of a can of anchovies. Then it's another thing you have to remember as a home cook. What are you going to do with it? What are you going to put them in? I would much rather have leftover Caesar dressing in my fridge than leftover anchovies.

This is a bigger batch. It uses up the whole can. It uses the oil from the can, which has so much flavor, and it just allows you to have it go in your blender more easily. When there's more stuff in a blender, the blade is able to do its job a little bit more easily than having to pack things down. It's just an easier recipe. It leaves you with plenty of this dressing, which you can put on Romaine lettuce, classic Caesar, but you can put on so many other things or use it as a dip for vegetables. Honestly, potato chips dipped in Caesar dressing is really good. Really good.

Alison: What?

[laughter]

Julia: I have to think about that for a moment. My guest is Julia Terschen. We'll have more with Julia and we'll take your calls after a quick break. This is All Of It.

Alison: You are listening to All Of It on WNYC. I'm Alison Stewart. My guest is Julia Tershen, author of the new cookbook What Goes with What: 100 Recipes, 20 Charts, Endless Possibilities. We got a text for you. It says, "Hi, Alison and Julia. What goes with sweet potatoes? I usually have them as dessert with nuts and cinnamon because to me, the sweetness just doesn't get along with savory dishes. FYI, I have Better Than Bouillon in the fridge now." [laughter] It's great for making onion soup. What can you do with sweet potatoes that's not dessert?"

Julia: Sure. I love that that person uses them for dessert. I think that's really cool. That sounds delicious. I have a recipe in this book for roasted sweet potatoes with salsa matcha, which if you've never had it, it's a really delicious sauce that's made of toasted chilies and sesame seeds. It's like a chili oil, like a chili crisp kind of thing with just a lot of depth of flavor, especially from those sesame seeds.

That comes in the section of roasted vegetables, which I love roasted vegetables, especially sweet potatoes. What I love about roasting vegetables is they get really sweet, but what this person points out is really true. Sweet potatoes are already sweet, then you roast them, they get even sweeter.

Alison: Oh, yes.

Julia: I think serving them with something a little acidic, a little spicy like a salsa matcha is just such a nice way to balance out that flavor. I think with roasted vegetables in general, just adding something a little acidic, a little bright, or maybe even a little spicy as well as acidic is just so nice. It could just be like a squeeze of lemon on a roasted vegetable. It's just going to wake it up a little and just give you this mixture of sweet but also a little tart. A nice pinch of salt on things, you're getting all of the flavor, not just one flavor.

Alison: If you and I were to go to the farmer's market right now,-

Julia: Oh, I'd love it.

Alison: -head to Union Square,-

Julia: Let's go. [chuckles]

Alison: -what vegetables are in in season?

Julia: Oh, my gosh. This is such a great time if you live in New York or on the East Coast and New England. This is such a nice time to be eating vegetables. I feel like everything is just perfect right now. I spend a lot of time at a farm where I actually used to work, and right now we're cutting things like fennel, which is so delicious just shaved thinly with lemon, olive oil, salt and pepper. All the greens are so good. Kale, collard greens. Delicious. Squash is starting to come in. It's prime time for vegetables.

Alison: Here's a text we got. "I find that having convenient foods on hand that are prepped from the store, something fun, such as a bag of flavored chips that can be purchased cheaply from a bodega, can really elevate a dish while allowing some flexibility, creativity, and fun. I use chips or Cheez-Its to place underneath chicken skin or under the chicken before baking, and the juice from the chicken becomes emphasized with the nuance from those little additions."

Julia: What time can I come over?

[laughter]

Julia: That sounds amazing. Wait, they're roasting a chicken on top of Cheetos?

Alison: Yes, I guess you put Cheetos under the skin and it-

Julia: You know what? Sounds Great.

Alison: -makes you happy. Here's a classic. "Hey, what can I do with sour cream?"

Julia: What can you do with sour cream?

[laughter]

Julia: Sour cream is the favorite food of both my mother and my spouse, so it's something that's always in my fridge. Sour cream is good with everything. Grace puts it on pretty much everything we eat. I did a recipe for this in my last book. You can do-- if you roast a chicken, I'm thinking about roasted chicken from the Cheeto person, when you roast a chicken, you take all the pan drippings from that roasting dish and just whisk them with sour cream, and you have a beautiful, quick, easy, happens to be totally gluten-free, gravy.

Alison: Oh.

Julia: That's so good. It's like this creamy chicken sauce you can pour on your mashed potatoes, whatever. That's a fun thing. Just dollop it on everything. Bake with it. Like a sour cream cake, fantastic.

Alison: If you have questions for Julia, our phone number is 212-433 WNYC. 212-433-9692. If you have a question about what goes with what, give us a call. 212-433 WNYC. 212-433-9692. You can text us or you can join us on air. You talk about sandwich, "A good sandwich has the basics. It's got a bread, it's got a creamy layer, something crunchy, an extra acidic thing." Now, what was the extra acidic thing about?

Julia: I always use, and it's in the book, it's in the chart, I use a BLT as the example of a perfect sandwich. I think for anyone else who enjoys bacon, you'd probably agree BLT is fantastic. When you think about what a BLT is made of, you find out the formula for a great sandwich. You have the bread.

Alison: Bread.

Julia: You have the crunchy thing, the lettuce. You have the rich main thing, which in this case is the bacon, then you have this extra acidic thing. Tomatoes are incredibly acidic, so tomatoes with-- seasoned well, salt and pepper on a BLT. Fantastic. Plus a creamy layer like a good amount of mayo. Even something as simple as a BLT, it gives you this formula. I like to think about that in other sandwiches. I love to put pickled peppers or pepperoncini peppers on sandwiches to give you that extra little acidic thing. Pickles, whatever it might be.

Alison: What's been the strangest or weirdest ingredient you've got to go into a sandwich?

Julia: Oh, now I'm thinking about a Cheeto roast chicken.

[laughter]

Julia: I haven't had it, but I feel like I want to put it on a sandwich.

Alison: How do you know which bread to use for your sandwich?

Julia: Oh, great question. I love bread. That's a full sentence. I love crusty bakery bread. When it comes to sandwiches, I'm just very aware of the size of the sandwich and what's comfortable to eat. I think we often have sandwiches on bread that's way too thick. I like a sandwich I can really bite into comfortably. I, for the most part, love everything well done and well toasted. I want the corner piece of everything, the edge of everything, but when it comes to a sandwich, I only want the bread lightly toasted because otherwise, it hurts my mouth-

Alison: I agree with you.

Julia: -when I bite into it. I love focaccia for sandwiches. I think it's so good. It's soft. It absorbs. If you have a nice oil and vinegar dressing on the sandwich, it soaks it up, but it still maintains its form and shape. I think it's a great choice.

Alison: You have a section on rice grains and pastas, and you have a grain bowl recipe called Child of the '90s Bowl.

Julia: [laughs]

Alison: How did you come up with a Child of the '90s Bowl and what's in it?

Julia: The Child of the '90s Bowl is definitely a testament to my childhood, and it includes all the things that I feel like were just staples of my household and just the culture I grew up in. It's got blanched green beans. It has wild rice. It has dried cranberries and pesto and goat cheese. It's actually all really so delicious together. To me, it's just a little funny because all the stuff is a little dated in a way that I find charming. Whether or not you were a child of the '90s like I was, I think it's a good one. It's got a lot of textures and colors, and it's delicious.

Alison: This is a text we got. "I'm part of a CSA and recently got a bunch of kohlrabi.

Julia: Oh.

Alison: What on earth do I do with it?"

Julia: I am so thrilled. I am Kohlrabi's biggest fan, and I am always talking about it, and no one ever asked me. Did my mom ask this?

[laughter]

Julia: Did she plan this? Kohlrabi, if you've never had it, it looks unusual if you've never seen it. Basically, to prepare it, you're going to-- it's either purple or white or green, and it has this thick skin. I think you can think of it almost like a squash. You're going to want to remove that thick skin. What is underneath it is a very pale white, crunchy, very mild-flavored vegetable. If you've ever snacked on the stems from broccoli or something, it's like that.

It's not a super flavorful thing. It's so crunchy. I like it raw. I just cut it into circles or wedges or sticks and just have it dipped into things like we were talking about Caesar dressing before as a dip. Delicious. I like it raw, thinly sliced with just lemon, olive oil, salt and pepper for a nice little salad, but you can cook it too. You can cut it into matchsticks or whatever shape you want.

You can add it to a stir fry. You can add it to a pan of roasted vegetables. It's extremely versatile because the flavor is so mild, but it's crunchy and delicious and I think so, so underrated. If you get it nice and fresh from the farmer's market and the leaves come with it, and the leaves feel nice and fresh and green, you can also cook the leaves, and they're lovely. You can saute them with garlic and oil and call it a day.

Alison: You have a whole section about meatballs. What makes a good meatball?

Julia: Oh, my gosh, I love meatballs. I think what makes a good meatball is having something to stretch the meat to turn it into more food. Traditionally, meatballs, that's egg and breadcrumb, that's also going to make them more tender and really flavorful stuff to make them taste delicious. I think instead of egg and breadcrumb, you can do ricotta cheese.

Alison: Oh.

Julia: That's going to take the role of the egg and breadcrumb, which is really nice if you're cooking for someone who has celiac or is allergic to eggs. They don't usually get to have meatballs, so that's a nice thing to do for them, and then herbs or prepared pesto, chopped up sun-dried tomatoes, Gochujang paste, anything that has a ton of flavor and hopefully doesn't require that much work from you.

Alison: In your cookbook, I looked at your writing. I'm like, "Wait, that's Julia's handwriting on the cover," and all over the book is your handwriting. Why is that? I'm just curious.

Julia: The charts are all in my handwriting. I would say my hand literally is in a lot of the book. I actually took almost all the pictures myself for this one.

Alison: Oh, nice.

Julia: I just want this book to feel, hopefully, how I feel when I'm in a friend's kitchen with them, like warm and welcoming and inviting. It's important for me to do the charts in my handwriting because they're not spreadsheets. I didn't want people to feel inundated by it or overwhelmed. I didn't want it to feel too formal or academic.

I just wanted it to feel like, "Oh, I wrote this down for you." I was talking to a friend about meatballs, and I was explaining that there's a basic formula to them, and they're like, "Wait, what did you just say?" And I just wrote it down and gave it to you. I want it to feel that friendly and informal and that easily to digest.

Alison: What's your favorite recipe in the book?

Julia: That's such a hard question. I think without overthinking it, [laughter] I did a recipe that I just called The Fastest Chicken Noodle Soup. Part of why it's so fast is, again, not sponsored, is because it uses Better Than Bouillon.

Alison: And in full circle.

[laughter]

Julia: In full circle. It's just so good, and literally boiling the water for the broth takes longer than making the whole soup. It tastes like it cooked all day, and it's just so comforting, especially now that it's getting cooler out. It's just delicious. Kids love it. Everyone loves it.

Alison: The name of the cookbook is What Goes with What: 100 Recipes, 20 Charts, Endless Possibilities. My guest has been Julia Tershen. Tonight at six at Rizzoli?

Julia: Yes. Correct.

Alison: Thanks for coming in, Julia.

Julia: Thank you so much for having me.