Meet Stephanie Meyer. The prolific Minneapolis blogger (www.freshtart.com) and photographer has just released her first book.
"Twin Cities Chef's Table" (Globe Pequot, $24.95) takes readers inside nearly 50 Minneapolis and St. Paul restaurants — as well as markets, food trucks and nearby farms — and features a wide range of scrupulously tested recipes culled from a platoon of the region's top chefs.
In a recent conversation, Meyer offered advice for Instagrammers, revealed a few of the cooking secrets she gleaned from local culinary professionals and reiterated the importance of making family dinner.
Q: What was the book's genesis?
A: I was approached by the publisher. They've had this series going for the past several years. There are at least a dozen of these books in other cities. They normally hire a writer and a photographer, but they asked me if I wanted to do both. Because I've never done this before — and because I'm insane — I said, 'Yeah, that sounds like a good idea.' But I really wouldn't have wanted to do it any other way, because the writing and the pictures really went together.
Q: Do you have any advice for would-be food photographers?
A: You need someone else's point of view. I love social media for this reason, because you can invite feedback from people who are better than you are. I always tell people to take whatever class they can find. Sometimes Kitchen in the Market [in the Midtown Global Market in Minneapolis, www.kitcheninthemarket.com] has their Food Porn class, and they bring in Amber Procaccini or some other photographers in town. But tons of practice also helps. Everyone is terrible when they start — myself included — but it gets better. And for people who are trying to take pictures at home and in restaurants, natural light is everything.
Q: How did you select the restaurants and chefs featured in the book?
A: The publisher had sort of this loose idea of what they wanted it to be. Their interest was in Minnesota chefs who are achieving a national spotlight, as well as the farm-to-table thing that's happening here, and where we're at with it. They also wanted a sense of the ethnic food scene. Their overreaching focus was chef-owned or chef-driven restaurants. So I really just made a list off the top of my head, which was, of course, way too big. I ran it by lots of people, I chopped it down by debate, and then I started inviting people.
Q: Was it difficult to translate chef recipes into home-cook recipes?
A: You could totally tell which chefs write a lot of recipes, whether it was because they'd written their own book, or because they share a lot of recipes with culinary schools, or they teach at places like Cooks of Crocus Hill. Those recipes went a lot faster. Some chefs really hadn't done a lot of recipe writing, and I had to fill in those gaps. It's pretty clear that recipe writing isn't taught at culinary school. That's too bad. It should be, especially given this era of teaching classes and sharing recipes.
Q: In the book's very first recipe, from Paul Berglund of the Bachelor Farmer, I learned that everything — particularly beets — is better when brushed with duck fat. What other revelations did your research uncover?
A: That's the coolest part of this for me. That's what everybody wants, those little chef-y tricks that, for whatever reason, cookbooks meant for home cooks don't employ.
Q: Such as?
A: If you're sautéing a piece of meat, throw whole sprigs of herbs in the pan and just fry them alongside the meat, then discard them afterward. You're adding so much flavor as you go. You should also think about seasoning in stages, instead of cooking without any seasoning and then just trying to apply it at the end. A little salt in a few different stages can really change a dish, where just dumping some salt in at the end doesn't really give you that same depth of flavor.
Q: I was happy to come across recipes of dishes that I love, including the dill pickle fried chicken from Wise Acre Eatery chef Beth Fisher and the Crusher Cookies from Sun Street Breads baker Solveig Tofte. What's a recipe that you were pleased to finally have in your arsenal?
A: Erick Harcey's chicken liver pâté, absolutely. I just love that stuff. People assume that because it's ethereal and meaty, it's really difficult to make. But it's not difficult to make at all. And Erik [of Victory 44] has this twist to pair it with pickled blueberries, which takes approximately five minutes to prepare. It's very impressive for not a ton of effort.
Q: Restaurant-wise, where do you take out-of-towners when they visit?
A: There's such a wide range. I love eating at Corner Table. I always take people to La Belle Vie because I think the lounge is so beautiful. I usually take people to the Strip Club because they're just so awesome at making you feel like they've known you for a long time, and people jam on it, they just love that. And then I take people to the Kenwood because it's so Minneapolis. You're right in that beautiful neighborhood, and it just feels like, you know, spiffy Minnesota.
Q: What do you think is missing from the Twin Cities dining scene?
A: A great deli, we don't quite have that yet. Plenty of people have delicious sandwiches, but not that sort of full-scale deli experience. I can't say that I wish we had more fine dining, I'm just not interested in that right now, and I don't know that anyone is. The dim sum scene at Mandarin Kitchen is chaos, so why isn't that happening at a higher level? I feel like people would be all over it, because brunch is ruling the world right now.
Q: You're a bit of a butter maniac, right?
A: It's my favorite thing in the world.
Q: What role did — and does — family dinner play in your work?
A: I just wrote a book out to my dad and my stepmom and I said, 'Thank you for making dinner at home.' That started everything, really. I mean, that even led to this book. We had this luxury — we made dinner, every night — and we took it for granted.
My mom was working, and she would leave me directions on how to start dinner. You know, how to brown a pot roast and get it in the oven, really simple things. And I made a lot of really hilarious mistakes. But I learned. And I loved it.
I know I gave that to my son. He would do homework while I made dinner, and that time together was a great thing. He's in college now. He still has zero interest in helping me cook, but he cannot wait to come home and eat. I'm like, 'Yes! That's it!'
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