Mastering the Art of Plant-Based Cooking with Joe Yonan

Join Chris Spear in this episode as he interviews Joe Yonan, the acclaimed food and dining editor of The Washington Post and celebrated cookbook author. Joe’s latest work, Mastering the Art of Plant-Based Cooking, redefines plant-based food, focusing on creating flavorful and approachable dishes without dietary labels or limitations.

Together, they discuss the nuances of plant-based vs. vegan terminology, the cultural roots of global plant-based cuisine, and practical techniques to elevate vegetable dishes. Tune in for Joe’s insights on culinary creativity, low-waste cooking, and embracing plant-based meals—whether for a day or a lifetime.

JOE YONAN
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Transcript

[00:00:00] Chris Spear: I hope y'all can handle another vegan episode because today I have a good one. I'm speaking with Joe Yonan. He's the food and dining editor of the Washington Post and all around pretty great guy. And me, this is Chris Spear and you're listening to Chefs Without Restaurants, the show where I speak with culinary entrepreneurs and people working in the food and beverage industry.

[00:00:22] Chris Spear: Outside of a traditional restaurant setting. I have 32 years of working in kitchens, but not restaurants, and currently operate a personal chef service throwing dinner parties in the Washington, D. C. area. So living in the D. C. area, I've been following Joe's work for a while now. Today we're talking about his new book, Mastering the Art of Plant Based Cooking.

[00:00:44] Chris Spear: What does plant based cooking even mean? That's the first thing I wanted to talk to Joe about. Is it vegan? Mm hmm. Does that mean exclusively plants? For this book, it essentially does mean vegan. But Joe set out to decouple from the politics, [00:01:00] choosing to solely focus on the food. We talked about vegan food and cooking being more like a cuisine and less like a religion.

[00:01:08] Chris Spear: Joe's passionate about exploring the versatility and richness of plant based foods, and he shares fascinating techniques like making vegan ricotta from pumpkin seeds. And developing nut based ice creams that capture unadulterated flavors. Want to make DC chef Michael Rafiti's tahini soft serve? That recipe's in the new book.

[00:01:28] Chris Spear: And one of my all time favorite cookbooks, even though it's not that old, is Joe's book, Cool Beans. If you're a bean lover, I definitely recommend you checking that out. And if you happen to be one of my personal chef customers, there's a good chance you've had one of those recipes because I've stolen quite a few of them to serve to my customers.

[00:01:46] Chris Spear: So whether you're a ride or die vegan, or just looking to eat more plant based options, I think this episode's for you. And here we are, episode 249, and I have to say, I'm really excited. I have one more [00:02:00] episode in this season, and it is a huge one. And as always, you can reach out to me on Instagram or threads at Chefs Without Restaurants.

[00:02:09] Chris Spear: And remember that I have a new podcast coming in January called Personal Chef Business Startup Guide. If you want to go ahead and start following me on all the socials, you can find me mostly at Chef Startup on pretty much everything, I think. And like I've said before, I know that you have a lot of options when it comes to what you're listening to or just consuming in general.

[00:02:30] Chris Spear: And I really appreciate you taking the time to listen to the show. And as always, thanks so much for listening and have a great week. Hey, Joe, welcome to the show. Thanks so much for coming on. Thanks for having me, Chris. Appreciate it. I'm looking forward to this. You have a fantastic new book that I'm looking forward to cooking my whole way through.

[00:02:47] Chris Spear: Um, and I want to dive into some of those recipes. I, I actually, my favorite book is Cool Beans. Oh. Which I cook from all the time. In fact, this week I'm making two recipes from that [00:03:00] book. You know, I work as a personal chef, so a lot of what I do is cooking for people in their homes. Sure. I have a lot of people with varied diet restrictions.

[00:03:07] Chris Spear: Oh yeah. Uh, quite many of them being, uh, vegan plant-based vegetarian, which we'll get into really soon. But, um, yesterday I made the Ethiopian kind of red lentil dip. Yeah. Which is a great one. And then my personal favorite is the. Cannellini being roasted carrot harissa dip, which those always go over huge at parties when I do this.

[00:03:26] Chris Spear: So great. Great. I've stolen some of your recipes to use for dinner parties. Yeah. So your new book is, um, mastering the art of plant based cooking. That's right. I want to jump in with terminology because I find it to be a little confusing for me as someone who's not a vegan. Um, I cook a lot of plant based food, both personally and professionally, and the term, like, what does plant based cooking even mean?

[00:03:51] Chris Spear: Because I have customers say they're plant based, and it's like, well, can I use honey? Because if you're vegan, I can't use honey. Does that mean you eat processed foods, [00:04:00] like, beyond meat? Like, And I think we're getting into this thing where diets are almost like religion and political affiliations, like we're so tied to them.

[00:04:09] Chris Spear: And the words are very loaded. Um, you know, vegan. It's like, am I not wearing leather, you know, as opposed to I just choose not to eat animals. So, you know, That's right. What does that mean to you when we talk about plant based? I'm sure you've thought about this a lot and there's a lot in your book on this.

[00:04:27] Joe Yonan: Yeah, I I chose the term because for a lot of the reasons that you're that you just said, particularly because I feel like, Okay. The, the term vegan is so, is so particularly loaded and plant based to me at least puts more of an emphasis on the cooking and the food and, and, you know, one of my main impulses for writing the book was that I, I felt like in so much of the dialogue around, uh, [00:05:00] eating this way or cooking this way, you know, so much of it gets bogged down in those, uh, in that, the identity politics, right?

[00:05:09] Joe Yonan: And who's better and who's making the right decision and who needs to go farther and who hasn't gone far enough and who's better for the planet. And I just thought that the cooking was getting sort of ignored a bit. Um, I mean, I'm not trying to say that I'm the first person to try to make plant based or vegan cooking delicious, but I just felt like I wanted to sort of decouple the culinary from the political.

[00:05:33] Joe Yonan: And there's a lot of reasons why you might want to. Eat a plant based meal or eat plant based for a week or for a month or for the rest of your life, and I support anybody's reasons for honestly for eating anything. I don't like to proselytize. But for all practical purposes for this book plant based means vegan like I'm defining it that way in terms of the food I I don't have any commentary on leather in the book [00:06:00] But but it's an excellent point, you know And it kind of goes to my point that vegan is a lifestyle and plant based to me Is a is a way of cooking, so that's why I wanted to use the term.

[00:06:12] Joe Yonan: You're right that it's vague. I mean, you know, technically speaking, and I'm a word person and I edit stories for the Washington Post all the time, you know, technically plant based just means exactly what it says based on plants. It doesn't mean Technically mean plant exclusive, but for the purposes of this book, I'm my recipes are all vegan.

[00:06:32] Joe Yonan: So I use vegan in the subtitle of the book. Well, so 

[00:06:34] Chris Spear: much of it goes back to why we do this on a personal level. I chose to be a vegetarian for a couple of years, about 20 years ago. I was doing it more from a health standpoint. I didn't feel that, you know, I was healthy. And I met my now wife, who at the time was a vegetarian, but she was doing it more for like animal rights issues, though she wasn't a vegan, right?

[00:06:56] Chris Spear: And then we now eat meat. But when we started working that [00:07:00] back into our diet, there's a lot of conversation about why we even were here in the first place. You know, like I wasn't always eating healthier. 20 years ago was really hard to find a lot of these products. So it's like, okay, I could have a lean, boneless, skinless chicken breast, but now I don't eat meat.

[00:07:13] Chris Spear: So I'm having like a fried egg and cheese sandwich. Is that healthier? You know, like, So, you know, finding balance, but I, I know everyone's on their own journey. I, I had, I've had a couple of guests on the show who are vegans and one of them said to me a couple of years ago, you know, There's a lot of vegans who wouldn't even want me coming on your show talking to you if you're not talking about the exclusivity of vegan dining like I, as a representative of the vegans, shouldn't even be talking about the possibility of eating meat.

[00:07:38] Chris Spear: So, um, there's a lot that comes with that. But I think it's great to see so many more people incorporating this into their day to day. Again, You know, at my house, I could have a pork chop last night, but tonight it might be a chickpea curry stew, and it's just become how we eat at home. 

[00:07:56] Joe Yonan: Yeah, I mean, I think what you're, what you're hitting on is the fact that, [00:08:00] you know, the identity, the number of people who have claimed an identity of vegan or vegetarian really hasn't changed all that much over the decades.

[00:08:08] Joe Yonan: What has changed are the number of people who say they're eating more plant based meals, eating less meat, eating more vegetables, eating more plant based meals. And I think there are several things going on. I mean, you know, the holy trinity of reasons that people turn to a vegan or plant based diet, you've mentioned two of them, animals, health, and the third piece of the third leg on the stool or however you want to put it, Is the planet.

[00:08:33] Joe Yonan: So I think all of those reasons are reasons why more and more people are choosing to eat at least more this way. I really will say that I do think that all the news and facts that we've been hearing year in and year out about climate change and and the fact that so much of global climate change has become more palpable.

[00:08:55] Joe Yonan: It's less theoretical than it needs to be. You know, we're seeing seeing the effects [00:09:00] of it more directly. You know, there's new stories about, you know, what used to be one in 1000 year climate events that are now one in 50 years or, you know, it's just I don't need to go over all of those. But I do think that just the frequency of those kinds of events and just the general conversation about climate change, I think, has spurred a lot more people than that it had previously.

[00:09:22] Joe Yonan: Because I think I think before you sort of Thought, well, there's nothing really I can do. It's probably not gonna be a problem in my lifetime. It'll be something my grandkids have to deal with. Well, pretty much all of those things have proven to not be true. Uh, and shouldn't 

[00:09:36] Chris Spear: you want a better environment for your grandchildren than you would?

[00:09:38] Chris Spear: You should. Should. 

[00:09:39] Joe Yonan: Yes, you should. Yes, you should. But I think that just shows that people were willing to sort of be a little more selfish about it. And now I mean, it's hard to argue with the fact that we are having to deal with it with not just the crisis, but the consequences already. So I think that's been probably the [00:10:00] biggest shift has been people now.

[00:10:02] Joe Yonan: I'm not basing this on on really any hard data. I just it's just been my sense. And I hear people talk about it a lot. I mean, you also do hear people Um, you know, talk about a hell crisis of some kind a lot, you know, their doctor told them that their cholesterol is too high or heaven forbid, they actually had a heart attack or or they have cancer.

[00:10:23] Joe Yonan: I mean, the rates of cancer among younger people are going up so much. And so I think more and more people know somebody, um, you know, who has had cancer or has cancer. So, you know, I think that's a factor to, you know, a lot of people just realizing that vegetables are really good for you. I think one of the other things that I like about calling it plant based and focusing on the culinary is, and this gets back to what you were saying about your fried egg sandwich, is that I don't want it to be about subtraction.

[00:10:51] Joe Yonan: I want it to be about addition. I want people to add more vegetables to their diet. In terms of health, [00:11:00] you know, I think. That might be one of the only things that every study, every scientist, every piece of research that I've read on the topic agrees on, which is that more vegetables is good. More vegetables equals good.

[00:11:15] Joe Yonan: There's a lot of controversies about how much less meat, you know, whether it's worth it to completely cut it out or partially, but there's no argument that eating more vegetables is going to be better for you. 

[00:11:26] Chris Spear: Well, I think. As we, as a whole, are eating more interesting foods, more global cuisines, it's easier, I think, 20, 30 years ago, you thought of vegan, and it's this hippie, crunchy, you know, all these things I don't know, and I think so much of food comes down to you.

[00:11:45] Chris Spear: How are you preparing it? The sauce is the preparation. So if you're having something like a taco, you can take out ground beef and put, you know, seitan or tempeh. And it's like, once you put the salsa and everything on there, do you even know that the meat is there or not? Um, and I, and I [00:12:00] know you've, you've talked about like, not wanting the discussion to be To be positioned as like, Oh, you, this is so good.

[00:12:06] Chris Spear: You won't even miss the meat. I've heard you talk about that before, you know, because so much of that is like, Oh, this is such a great, you know, vegan lasagna. You won't even miss the meat or the dairy and like moving away from that as the focal conversation point about plant based and vegan diets. 

[00:12:21] Joe Yonan: Yeah, and I, you know, I've talked about this a lot.

[00:12:24] Joe Yonan: Um, you know, I made a tofu chorizo years ago and just loved it. And I took it to my friend, Patty Hinoj's house. You know, she, she has that great PBS show, Patty's Mexican Table, Copacabana, a very good friend of mine. And for a while when we weren't both so busy with book stuff, we were trying to get together on at least Maybe one Saturday or two a month and just at each other's kitchens, and we always kind of brought each other something that we wanted the other one toe kind of see that we thought they may not know.

[00:12:52] Joe Yonan: So I brought her this tofu Teresa that I had made and her. Husband and teenage boys were out and they came back while I [00:13:00] was still there and the chorizo was on the stove top and Patty said, Oh, you guys try this, try the chorizo that Joe made. It's from, and I, and I was like, it's a little spicy, you know, and I'm not, Interested per se in fooling anybody, but I just wanted to see what they thought and and they couldn't stop eating it.

[00:13:21] Joe Yonan: And what I think that proves, and this goes back to what you're saying about the tacos is that often the things that are appealing to us about some of these really amazing and delicious dishes, especially globally, as you said, It's the spices. It's the flavorings. It's the reason that the tofu chorizo tastes great is that I crisp up the tofu and I add, you know, chilies and cumin and garlic and vinegar.

[00:13:46] Joe Yonan: You know, the apple cider vinegar is a really important part of a fresh Mexican chorizo flavor. And And I do think that that that shows that the meat just starts to become less important. You know, I remember [00:14:00] the first time I tried that recipe, I was adapting it from someone, and I thought it was pretty good, but I couldn't quite figure out what was missing.

[00:14:08] Joe Yonan: And then I realized that, you know, one of the also appealing things about a fresh chorizo is just how fatty it is. So I just added a Bunch more oil to it, but I was like, yeah, this is it. This is it. Like another quarter cup of oil and and and it's great. Mission accomplished, right? Yes. Yes. I mean, I think that the global aspects of this are so important to talk about.

[00:14:33] Joe Yonan: And it's actually one of the reasons why, you know, I wanted to write the book is because similarly with cool beans, I really wanted to show people that there were, uh, traditional recipes from all over the world that feature beans. And similarly, there are Traditional recipes from all over the world that are naturally or traditionally plant based.

[00:14:54] Joe Yonan: Um, certainly I have recipes also that aren't traditional because I'm a recipe [00:15:00] developer and like you, I can't help myself from tinkering and coming up with things that I think are cool, but I just wanted people to understand the global nature of it. For a while now, Americans have been much more comfortable with a lot of different cuisines.

[00:15:15] Joe Yonan: It's easier and easier to get the ingredients than it ever was. It feels like it's pretty common for a Fairly confident cook or even maybe not so confident to feel like they have some facility with cuisines that aren't quote unquote American. Now you can also say that American cuisine by its very definition is inclusive of so many global cuisines because of immigration.

[00:15:40] Joe Yonan: But what that sort of led me to what. was this realization that if you wanted to figure out the best way to make us paella, you know, and you wanted to know the secrets to how do you do it if you're not going to put it on the, you know, if you don't have an outdoor paella set up, how are you going to get the crispy rice, that lovely [00:16:00] succarat on the bottom, you know, how are you going to make sure the rice Cooked but not overcooked.

[00:16:04] Joe Yonan: You know, you don't feel compelled to give up your US citizenship and move to Spain and say to yourself and to your friends, I am only eating Spanish food for the rest of my life. You know, obviously you can visit and that's great. And I've done that many times in Spain. I would like to be there right now talking to you from Barcelona.

[00:16:23] Joe Yonan: But, um, but you You know, you feel like you can learn about it in all sorts of ways, and you're curious about it as a cuisine, and I wanted to remind people that they can also think that way about plant based cooking, that you don't have to decide to be vegan or vegetarian to be interested in this type of cooking and to want to know how to do it better.

[00:16:45] Chris Spear: We somehow. Go to this all or nothing. I see the same with drinking, right? Like I still drink, but I drank a lot less. But if you're to go out and order non alcoholic drink, people like, Oh, are you in recovery? Are you not drinking? It's like, no, it's a Tuesday night. And I just like, [00:17:00] I just want to have a non alcoholic beer.

[00:17:01] Chris Spear: And you know, Friday I might have a cocktail. It's the same thing. If you go out and. You know, get a tofu taco with friends. Sometimes the comments will be like, Oh, I didn't realize you didn't eat me. It's like, no, I ate meat. I just like really wanted a tofu taco. I don't know why we have to like make it this whole thing.

[00:17:17] Chris Spear: It's not that it's just vegetarian. I get people all the time telling me. They quote unquote don't want that vegan food like when I'm planning a menu for my my personal chef guess it's like well Let's say it's very core. Let's look at guacamole and chips completely vegan, right? Delicious right for me because I do dinner parties and I can't be making different things for everyone So I've made at its core Most of my menu vegan or vegan modifiable and people don't even notice.

[00:17:47] Chris Spear: So again, like I've borrowed a couple of recipes from like your cool beans, but you know, making a red lentil dip, that's a vegan dish. And I don't anyone, I don't say that as vegan, but when someone says, Oh, well, there's one vegan at the party, like [00:18:00] that's a dish I can put in and it doesn't have to be this, you know, 80s version of earthy, crunchy, hippie kind of food.

[00:18:06] Chris Spear: It's just. Delicious globally inspired food that I think everyone's gonna love whether or not you eat meat. 

[00:18:13] Joe Yonan: That's absolutely right. I mean, I think that we all have access to this. I know sometimes I hear from people. Yeah, I don't like being food and I say, Oh, so you're real down on strawberries, huh? I love that.

[00:18:25] Joe Yonan: That's 

[00:18:25] Chris Spear: a great response. 

[00:18:29] Joe Yonan: And that's a little unfair because I jumped right to a single ingredient. But, you know, yours is also really good. Oh, so you hate guacamole. I mean, you know, it just goes to show you that where people are too caught up on labels and they really don't need to be, you know, a lot at events for years, people have come up to me.

[00:18:45] Joe Yonan: There's always usually one who comes up to me and kind of gets a conspiratorial whisper and says, I really want to be vegan or I really want to be vegetarian, but I'm just afraid that every now and then I'm, I'm, I'm just going to want to [00:19:00] have a steak and I lean in and I drop my voice to a whisper and I say, here's what you do, become a vegetarian.

[00:19:06] Joe Yonan: And then every now and then have a steak. And I think they're shocked when I say that because they think that, of course. You know, some purists would think that I should never be advocating that, but I think it's more important to draw the lines. Around your diet in a way that feels comfortable and sustainable for you and in a way that maybe moves towards something that's better for you, better for the planet.

[00:19:30] Joe Yonan: And that if what's keeping you from doing that is the idea that it has to be all or nothing that, you know, you're like, I can't be 100%. So I'm going to be 0%. I mean, that Doesn't make any sense. No, not at all. That's the definition of the baby with the bathwater, right? I mean, that's just, that's, that's nuts.

[00:19:48] Joe Yonan: So I like being able to tell people that and they just, they get a kick out of it when I say it. But it's true. I mean, I kind of did that when I was first moving in this direction. You know, I had, I had tried years ago [00:20:00] to, to just call it, uh, many years ago before I finally did. I tried to just call it one day.

[00:20:06] Joe Yonan: You know, I was like, okay, this is the day. I'm not going to eat any more. Meat and I don't know if it's just the lure of the forbidden, but I couldn't stop thinking about it. I couldn't stop thinking about the meat that I wasn't even thinking about that much before. So when I let myself move toward it a little more naturally and gradually, it was just a lot easier.

[00:20:28] Chris Spear: Yeah. Our first experience going back to me, it was when my wife and I went to Spain, we had never been before, you know, and I had only been a vegetarian for four years. And like I said, like, just so you know, my plan is when I'm there, you know, how Mona Birka, which we weren't even importing in the U S at the time.

[00:20:44] Chris Spear: I was like, I'm going to be eating some charcuterie when we go over there. I'm not going to like go crazy, although they have a very strong meat centric kind of culture there where we were. And it was challenging to eat more vegetables at the time. Um, Yeah, and I've heard [00:21:00] you say that it was almost like a second coming out when you became a vegetarian.

[00:21:04] Chris Spear: Um, how old were you and what was that like when you became a vegetarian and started moving away from meat? 

[00:21:09] Joe Yonan: Yeah, well, it was 12 years ago, so I was in my mid 40s, and it happened because I was Well, I was having a dinner party and I was having people over and I opened up the freezer and I noticed and it surprised me, you know how sometimes you don't notice things about your behavior and until like somebody calls it out or there's some specific kind of moment and I opened the freezer and there was all this incredibly beautiful farmer's market bought, um, humanely raised, gorgeous, expensive meat in my freezer that I had been stockpiling and not cooking at home.

[00:21:48] Joe Yonan: And, and it's sort of, you know, it's, it just was very stark to me in that moment that I realized, wow, I've got like 20 pounds of meat in here. Like how long have I not been cooking meat at home? [00:22:00] And then I just started thinking about it and realizing that I, I think it started because I was trying to eat lean and clean at home because of all the restaurant meals that I was having.

[00:22:09] Joe Yonan: And. As soon as I kind of called it and named it and realized it, I also realized, you know what? I feel great. Like, I actually feel great. I, huh, like I've got all this energy and this must be connected. And so I just started doing more and more. And this was about, also about when you were really seeing an explosion of more interesting vegetarian dishes in restaurants.

[00:22:40] Joe Yonan: So a lot more restaurants and chefs were doing creative things with vegetables. And so I start, so the, so the line stopped being so stark between home and restaurant, right? Like I started playing around more with ordering more vegetarian things at restaurants, and then it was like, they were great. [00:23:00] And so I just kind of kept moving in that direction.

[00:23:02] Joe Yonan: I took a leave of absence from work, partly to work on a cookbook, partly just for sanity in 2012, and I moved up to my sister and brother in law's homestead in Southern Maine, where they grow almost all their own food. And so I was helping, you know, I was, I was, you know, lugging. wheelbarrows full of manure to place onto tomato plants and it's a big operation.

[00:23:27] Joe Yonan: It's just for them, but they, but it's very ambitious and it's great. And the soil is incredible, but eating off of eating off of the land for that year. And my sister has been a long time vegetarian that pretty much did it. Uh, and I also was taking a little bit of a break from work. So I kind of was like, all right, when I go back, I'm just gonna, yeah, I'm going to have this second coming out.

[00:23:47] Joe Yonan: And I call that it's like a, it's a, well, it's, it's a, it's a. A double entendre in a couple of ways, like it reminds me of the first time that I came out, but I also think I just enjoy saying second coming because it's a Jesus joke. [00:24:00] So apologies to anybody out there who might be offended, but I just think it's funny to say, 

[00:24:04] Chris Spear: well, we haven't touched on it, and I'll obviously have put it into the intro.

[00:24:08] Chris Spear: So by the time people hear this, but we haven't mentioned the fact that you were working at the Washington Post. You you're in Food, right? So you're not just like a random person like food was your, uh, professional life. So that is kind of a big deal to be talking about food and dining, you know, in one of the biggest publications in the US to then decide, you know, you're not going to be eating meat.

[00:24:32] Chris Spear: And how did that impact the writing and the work you were doing with them? 

[00:24:36] Joe Yonan: Well, you know, it I think people at first thought that I think a lot of people thought it was great. There were there was certainly a undercurrent of readership. Um, I don't even know if they were actual readers, but commentators, let's say who were saying things like, how can you edit the food coverage of a mainstream daily newspaper if you [00:25:00] don't eat everything?

[00:25:00] Joe Yonan: And my response was always twofold. I mean, one, I had been travel editor, but I had never been to Timbuktu. So, you know, I thought I don't really have to eat everything in order to be able to make journalistic decisions about it all. I was not determined to come into the post and turn it into a vegetarian food section.

[00:25:20] Joe Yonan: You know, there's always a balance. This is an aside. There's always a balance in in journalism between giving people what you know they want and giving people what you think they might. Need this is a classic example of that. Like, I wasn't gonna just all of a sudden say, all right, we're not gonna have any more meat in the section.

[00:25:40] Joe Yonan: Um, but I wanted to write about it myself and I wanted to write about the ways that you could make it delicious. And I was hoping maybe to inspire people to be more comfortable with it. Um, you know, the second answer that I always had to people to was, When they said, how can you edit the food coverage of a [00:26:00] major daily newspaper without eating everything?

[00:26:02] Joe Yonan: The second piece of that as well. I got people. I have people. I have people who eat everything and I'm an editor. I'm primarily an editor. I'm not the restaurant critic. I'm not obligated to eat everything that my writers might be writing about. You know, when a third answer, if I thought of it sometimes is that I had I had Forty years of eating me like I remember everything.

[00:26:27] Joe Yonan: I don't think anything's changed. Um, you know, and I went to culinary school and we certainly cooked a ton of meat. I understand it. I'm also not. This might be changing a little bit, but I haven't historically been someone who finds meat to be repulsive in any way, you know, I didn't stop eating it because I didn't like it.

[00:26:47] Joe Yonan: I stopped eating it because of the reasons that we've that we've talked about. So, so if we're planning, you know, a That's primer on how to grill the best steak. I don't look at those photos and read that and think I can't even I can't even look at [00:27:00] this right now. Yeah, no, no, it's fine. 

[00:27:02] Chris Spear: Yeah, I would, you know, it's like you'd be at a party and someone order pepperoni pizza.

[00:27:07] Chris Spear: And when I wasn't eating meat, it's like we just picked it off. Like, I know that's like a big no go for some people. It's like, Oh, my God, the pepperoni touched the cheese. There's still a little grease residue. It's like, I'm gonna be fine here. Right? Oh, and D. C. I mean, talk about a food scene, which It's a whole other thing.

[00:27:22] Chris Spear: I'm, I'm not going down this road where, you know, so much discussion has been like the D. C. food scene is terrible. Like you clearly know what the food scene is like. I think we have a great food scene, but especially if you don't eat meat, there's so many options, whether it's a full on vegetarian place or just the options.

[00:27:39] Chris Spear: And with the, you know, the ethnic food, like I love Ethiopian food, like that's one of those my go to cuisines. Or if you eat Thai or, you know, There's so many, there's so many great options for non meat dining in the D. C. area. Absolutely. I feel like we're very fortunate. I think most big metro city areas probably do as well.

[00:27:59] Chris Spear: Right, [00:28:00]

[00:28:00] Joe Yonan: right. No, I, uh, the D. C. Food scene is just exploded in the time that I've been at the post, which is coming on 20 years here in a couple of years, which is amazing. Yeah, I came in 1996. So, yeah, it's an outstanding food scene. And I do think it's really I, I love that there are so many, uh, omnivorous restaurants for lack of a better term where you can get good vegetarian food.

[00:28:26] Joe Yonan: And I think that's key because You know, we need to be able to go out with our friends. I also, I also certainly remember a time, and I'm sure you do too, from when you were a vegetarian before, when if there was a vegetarian entree, there was only one, and it was the mushroom flatbread or the mushroom risotto, right?

[00:28:47] Joe Yonan: And then, God forbid, you'd be out with a friend who shares your, your vegetarianism, because you guys are getting the same thing. Um, so now you can go to a lot of places and just. Eat a lot of different [00:29:00] things. And I think a big part of it in addition to the global cuisines that we have that's really working our favor is that, you know, D.

[00:29:07] Joe Yonan: C. Was the pioneer of the renaissance or the popularity of small plates and small plates like that opened up another whole world. Like all of a sudden, chefs didn't feel comfortable. Like they were limited to this idea of thinking about, you know, a big protein and then what else is gonna be on the play, like the size of the starch or anything.

[00:29:28] Joe Yonan: All of a sudden, it was more about like, how can we make this just really interesting and the textures great and knowing that people are going to order multiples of them. You know, you don't feel as much like you have to sort of yeah. Capture the entire range of someone's diet on on one plate, and that, I think, was a huge gain for people who want to eat more vegetables, 

[00:29:53] Chris Spear: but I think being able to modify, you know, that's something I try and do because having been a vegetarian and [00:30:00] going out and, you know, everyone's got this delicious food, and then you get the roasted vegetables and maybe a portobello mushroom on a plate where, like, this is late, you know, If I do a dinner party and people have shrimp and grits, there's no reason I can't do a tempeh and grits, and you just make grits for everyone with a vegetable stock, you can omit the cheese, and then it's just like cook the protein separately, you throw a tomato, stewed tomato topping on that, maybe the ones with shrimp get some andouille or bacon or something, and you just don't for the vegetarian, but I love that I can have a very similar Type thing.

[00:30:30] Chris Spear: Um, one of the recipes in your new book that caught my eye was making a ricotta out of pumpkin. Oh, yeah I'm gonna try because I had to Have a non dairy ricotta for a component last week and I I had to use like one of the pre made yogurts or something But the dish is you have chopped radishes and cucumbers And apples and you toss them in chimichurri and then you have on the plate like a mound of ricotta And then you put that over so it's kind of hidden and then it has pepitas on top So this looks perfect Perfect for [00:31:00] that.

[00:31:00] Chris Spear: And I think there was a note in the book about don't worry. It's green colored, but that would be handy. That would be fantastic. With by the time you have the chimichurri on top of that, you know, I think that would look perfect. I think the recipes in the book to me look easy and approachable. What seems daunting is if you're going to be stocking your pantry with multiple of these.

[00:31:20] Chris Spear: So for me to make like the ricotta for this dish. Not a big deal. But then if I'm thinking like, okay, I'm going to make a cream cheese, a ricotta. Oh, I should have some oat milk. Like once you get into making like seven or something. So is there any tricks for streamlining your processes? Uh, or if you, you know, And I guess some of it is like shelf stable because a lot of the pre made processed foods probably are more shelf stable and will hold up longer as opposed to like if I'm going to go the trouble of making a homemade ricotta, like that's probably not going to last as long as one that I'm buying commercially made, right?

[00:31:56] Chris Spear: That's right. 

[00:31:57] Joe Yonan: No, I mean, I think being reasonable about your [00:32:00] ambitions is always a smart idea, no matter what you're cooking. But. So I don't know how many people are going to be in in your position of thinking about seven different things, but but certainly a lot of the plant based milks can freeze.

[00:32:15] Joe Yonan: That's helpful. Um, I would say something like oat milk. I'm glad you brought up if people don't make their own oat milk. And I mean, I don't do it all the time because sometimes I just Don't have a ton of spare time, especially when I'm, you know, promoting this gigantic book that I just wrote. But oat milk is by far the easiest plant based milk to make.

[00:32:36] Joe Yonan: You don't have to soak it. In fact, it's better if you don't. Um, you don't have to blend it for very long. In fact, it's better if you don't. Uh, you just blend it up with water and then strain it. And if you're using it for something like smoothies and the like, I mean, you can actually just leave all the solids in there if you want, but it's super easy to make.

[00:32:54] Joe Yonan: Um, the pumpkin seed ricotta is so interesting to me because this is a recipe [00:33:00] that I worked with Miyoko Shinner on. She was the founder of Miyoko's Creamery, which is the maker of Ground breaking game changing cultured vegan 

[00:33:09] Chris Spear: butter. I think they're the best products like the cheese. There was like a Roadhouse cheddar spread or something like I love the products and I know she's no longer with them.

[00:33:20] Chris Spear: Um, so that's cool to hear that she had worked with you on that. 

[00:33:22] Joe Yonan: Yeah. Yeah. And what was so surprising to me about this ricotta, Chris, is that you make it very much like Ricotta in that after you blend the pumpkin seeds, and there's some cashews in there too, but it's mostly pumpkin seeds with water, and then you put it on the stove, you don't even have to add a coagulant.

[00:33:41] Joe Yonan: Like, it just, there's no acid or anything that you add, it just, you start cooking it and it just forms curds. And you're like, what? So, it's super, super easy because then you just Boom, the curds into, you know, a strainer and you've got this ricotta and of course you salt it, you know, and I use it [00:34:00] in a tortellini to where I combine it with some nutritional yeast, some garlic powder, some other flavorings to make a tortellini filling.

[00:34:08] Joe Yonan: But. The other thing that's so interesting about that pumpkin seed ricotta is that it led me down the road to making a pumpkin seed tofu, which is one of my favorite recipes in the book. I was inspired by this product called Pumfu that, that you may have seen in stores and I've tried it and I really like it.

[00:34:29] Joe Yonan: And I just like the texture of it. It's different from tofu. And I know, you know, some people might be allergic to soy or just be looking for something different. And when I was thinking about it, I noticed on the package that it's only pumpkin seeds is the only ingredient. And so I started wondering whether I could just kind of do the same thing that I had done with that ricotta and then just let it drain longer and maybe press it a little bit.

[00:34:52] Joe Yonan: And sure enough, That's exactly what I did. And that's exactly what worked. 

[00:34:58] Chris Spear: I, well, I, I'm looking forward to trying [00:35:00] that tofu because I did see that as a recipe in the book and I occasionally get people who have soy allergies 

[00:35:06] Joe Yonan: or you, 

[00:35:06] Chris Spear: or you just want something different. 

[00:35:07] Joe Yonan: Yeah. Yeah. It's a really interesting texture.

[00:35:09] Joe Yonan: And when you roast it, it gets a really different crust on it than tofu does. As you might imagine, you know, from the nuts. So it's super good. My only difficulty with it is honestly that it's one of those where I have a hard time getting it onto the plate because it. Go straight into my mouth and I, you know, I eat like half of it as I'm trying to get it on the plate because I just keep snacking on it.

[00:35:31] Joe Yonan: So good. Oh, well, well, 

[00:35:33] Chris Spear: that'll go on my list of things for sure. My kids love tofu. In fact, when we do tacos, if we don't do tofu, they're mad. Like if we just did like ground beef, they're like, We don't have chipotle tofu. We found this great recipe. I think it's an eating well where you just like crumble your tofu and mix it with like the adobo out of a can and some lime juice and you put in some corn starch in there and throw it on a silicone mat and it just gives like a nice texture and it comes out better even if you do the freeze thaw.

[00:35:59] Chris Spear: Oh yeah. But [00:36:00] if you don't have time for that, just like crumbling it up and giving a little more time in the oven. But. If we're not serving tofu when we do that, they're kind of upset. So, you know, we've started them young on kind of stuff. 

[00:36:11] Joe Yonan: I love that. And I love that. They're just seeing it as another food, right?

[00:36:14] Joe Yonan: Because that's all it is. It's just another ingredient that you can, that you can make delicious food with. 

[00:36:18] Chris Spear: Well, my son hates gristle and like chunks of things in meat that turns him off. So if you eat like. The first or second bite of pork or steak or something. He gets like that little knot of something he's done and turned off and won't eat.

[00:36:31] Chris Spear: So we never have that with tofu. So we always keep tofu in the fridge. So if we're in the middle of eating something and he doesn't want, it's like, well, we can always, you know, the nice thing is it cooks up so quick. You just slice off a piece, throw it in a pan and tofu has become kind of his go to protein.

[00:36:46] Chris Spear: That's 

[00:36:46] Joe Yonan: great. Yeah, I've never heard that reasoning, but I love it. Yeah, there's no gristle in tofu. 

[00:36:50] Chris Spear: Um, you know, I think one of the cool things is you've leveraged so many great chefs and [00:37:00] restauranteurs and authors in these books. What's it like working with other people to bring these recipes to life in your book?

[00:37:06] Joe Yonan: It's amazing. It's amazing. Incredible. You know, I reached out to a lot of people in, uh, for cool beans and it was partly because I was at this, it was kind of at this point where in the development of that book, where I just was feeling really overwhelmed with everything that I had to do. And I was just having a really hard time kind of organizing my thoughts and kind of figuring out what to do.

[00:37:27] Joe Yonan: And I, I ended up hiring a friend to be a project manager for me, which was really awesome. So she helped set up systems and spreadsheets and everything. And After that, when I started thinking more about what I wanted to do, it started to occur to me that I didn't need to quite feel like I was in this alone.

[00:37:46] Joe Yonan: So, I know so many people, I know so many chefs, and cookbook authors, and great home cooks, and producers, that I just started talking to people about beans, right? And I got tons and tons and tons of ideas, [00:38:00] and certainly some of them were great. some for meals that I was having in restaurants and the same thing was really at play in this book.

[00:38:07] Joe Yonan: I ended up working officially with about a dozen contributors who did, who helped me with anywhere from one to a couple dozen recipes and it was really gratifying because it started with my just thinking about who I thought did. Kind of cool things with vegetables and not necessarily define themselves as vegan or plant based or even vegetarian.

[00:38:31] Joe Yonan: But that I just thought they had an affinity for it. And and I would have these conversations and you know, I would explain the philosophy of the book and Kind of what I was sort of starting to think about some of the things that I was I already had working, but one of the most important questions that I feel like I asked people was what do you think should be in a book like this?

[00:38:53] Joe Yonan: Like, what would you be looking for as a consumer if you saw a book with this title? Like, what kinds of things? And so we had these [00:39:00] really great conversations. And then we brainstormed recipe ideas. You know, some of the people were thematic. Most of them were pretty thematic, like Allie Slagle I worked with, who's a great recipe developer.

[00:39:10] Joe Yonan: She's done stuff for the Post. She does stuff for the New York Times. She's written cookbooks. And I just knew that she's a really great cookbook. committed salad person. And so as soon as we started talking, she was asking me like, so what are you thinking about salads? And I was like, do you want to like do a bunch of salads?

[00:39:28] Joe Yonan: And she was like, yes. And so we came up with an idea, a framework, the kinds of things. One of the things that I'm doing a lot in the book is trying to give people kind of a master recipe and then spinning off lots of variations so that you're teaching them not just, of course, how to make this one thing, but you're teaching them how to think about it.

[00:39:46] Joe Yonan: for their own riffs and, and just learning. And what ended up happening was I would get, then I would get the first draft of the recipes back from someone and I would look at them and, and I was just filled with so much gratification [00:40:00] because, I don't know, it was weird. I thought, well, yeah, this feels like me, which was very important because even though the book is Certainly trying to be what we call a category killer.

[00:40:12] Joe Yonan: You know, like the, the be all and end all word on the subject. I also want it to feel like it's me, you know, that it's my personality is coming through that I'm kind of the thread, um, through all the recipes. And so that was really important for me to, To feel like I was really picking these recipes and of course I, you know, there were some things that didn't work out, but then there were cases where kind of like with Cool Beans where I got inspired by something that I saw in a restaurant and just directly approached the chef for help.

[00:40:41] Joe Yonan: Like I'm thinking of the tahini ice cream. I'm so excited. 

[00:40:45] Chris Spear: I'm so excited to try that because I love. Yellow is one of my favorite places to go when I'm in D. C. Um, I've even kind of like without his help stolen some of just some of the ideas like he has a salad and I think it's like [00:41:00] apples and radishes like in a harissa kind of vinaigrette dressing on greens.

[00:41:03] Chris Spear: And I was eating it for lunch one day and I think it had pita. Friton. I was like, why? Like I should be doing this. I don't even need a recipe. So like flavor bombs. Michael is amazing. So Michael Graffiti from Ali. So you have the Tahini Soft serve. Yeah. Ice cream in the book. 

[00:41:18] Joe Yonan: So yeah. So I had it at yellow and then he tells me it's vegan.

[00:41:23] Joe Yonan: And I was like, all right, you and I have to talk . Yeah, you and I have to talk. So I worked with him on the recipe and it's just fantastic because it's tahini and oat milk and cornstarch and sugar and vanilla and I, a little salt maybe? I think that's about it. And And what was so amazing about it was I, two things.

[00:41:45] Joe Yonan: One, I started to think immediately, well, this, this could handle all sorts of variations. So I wanted to give people some ideas. And so one of my favorite ice creams are the black sesame ice cream. So I was like, this would be so perfect with black. So I tried [00:42:00] that and loved it. I, you know, Did a pomegranate swirl and loved it.

[00:42:04] Joe Yonan: You know, I put cocoa powder in there and loved it. I did a stretchiatella approach with melted chocolate to form like the shards. Loved that. And then I was thinking about more, I was thinking about, uh, is there a master Ice cream strategy, and, and I started to realize that, well, tahini is just a nut butter, so could I not make a pistachio ice cream with pistachio butter?

[00:42:32] Joe Yonan: Could I not make a hazelnut ice cream with hazelnut butter? Those are two of my favorite ice creams. On the planet. And, and so I started thinking about that, and then I realized, well, you know, Michael uses oat milk with the tahini, but if I've got all these nuts, like, if I'm doing a pistachio ice cream, why don't I turn some of the pistachios into a pistachio milk?

[00:42:54] Joe Yonan: So that recipe I love because you're starting off with just pistachios. You make a milk [00:43:00] with some, you make a nut butter with some, you save some for adding in at the end, and you combine the milk and the butter. The nut butter with sugar and vanilla and the nut butter obviously gives you all this fattiness and you put it in your ice cream maker and you fold in the roasted nuts that you've saved and all of a sudden you've got a pistachio ice cream that is that is uninterrupted in its flavor by anything.

[00:43:33] Joe Yonan: Like dairy, you know, one of the things I like to remind people about is, you know, if you've ever had chocolate sorbet, you know that sorbet has a much more intense chocolate flavor than chocolate ice cream for the very simple reason that the cream and there's nothing wrong with cream. I don't want to say that cream is bad, but the cream certainly is.

[00:43:54] Joe Yonan: Yay. Yay. Covers up some of the chocolate deletes the chocolate flavor. It's obvious, you know? 

[00:43:58] Chris Spear: Yeah, I did a little work with ganaches [00:44:00] with that because I was doing a event at a brewery and I want to incorporate beer into everything and I want to make a beer ganache and I asked a pastry chef and she said actually using like water or water based Things to melt the chocolate.

[00:44:12] Chris Spear: You get more of the chocolate flavor. So now the technique of like, I'll brew up coffee or I'll do beer or something and just melt the chocolate directly into that with no cream. And my ganache is just chocolate and whatever that water based liquid is. 

[00:44:25] Joe Yonan: Yum. Yeah, yum. So, so that ice cream method with the unadulterated flavor, the kind of tripling down on the one flavor it works with.

[00:44:35] Joe Yonan: I tried it with five different nuts and four different seeds, and it's delicious. 

[00:44:40] Chris Spear: Well, I think what's really cool is, I'm sure for you, even for me as a reader is you're picking up so many different techniques from different people, you know, going back to cool beans. I love. Christian he's been on my podcast when I'm part of like what before when it was just a pop up I had him on the podcast, but he's got the black bean.

[00:44:57] Chris Spear: Is it like salsa madre recipe in there? [00:45:00] but the the technique of Brining the beans. I've never seen that in any of my Techniques anywhere and just the idea that we're gonna cook these beans with no salt at all But then we're gonna soak them in salt water for an hour It just changed the way I cook beans now.

[00:45:16] Chris Spear: So even if I'm just cooking beans for something else, like a bean salad, just like throwing them into some salt water afterwards was genius. And I love picking up on those little tidbits. So we've all seen black bean soup recipes for dozens of years, but I had never seen anything like that. And that's the kind of thing that I like picking up when you pick up a cookbook.

[00:45:36] Joe Yonan: Same, same. I mean, you know, chefs, chefs. Think about things in a different way than a home cook and I think mostly that's for the better You know I do think there are times when chef cookbooks can be you know Sometimes a little out of touch with the realities that home cooks face But one of the reasons we go to restaurants is well, I'll speak for myself.

[00:45:57] Joe Yonan: One of the reasons I go to restaurants [00:46:00] is Well, a for the hospitality, B to not have to do the dishes and C to potentially experience something that I am not going to make at home, either because I never would have thought of it or it's like super involved or it's just, it's just awesome. Thank you. Wild in a way that just had never occurred to me.

[00:46:21] Joe Yonan: And that is so fun. And I love going to those meals and and saying to somebody, this is why we have chefs. This is it right here. And that was an example of that. I never would have thought of that. And then there's another recipe and cool beans that has a similar. Feeling to me, which is this recipe from Lalo Garcia and Maximo Bistro in Mexico City.

[00:46:44] Joe Yonan: And it's for these beans that he serves as the introduction to a tasting menu. And they're the best bowl of beans I've ever had. And I got that recipe from him. And I was, I, I just, I was surprised at the technique. Again, you cook them slowly at first. And there's some, there's some [00:47:00] aromatics in there, but then after they're tender, you basically do kind of a reverse sofrito, like you add the elements of a sofrito into the beans, and then you crank up the heat and you boil them for 30 minutes, like they're like bubbling and boiling.

[00:47:14] Joe Yonan: And I just, you know, I kind of come from this perspective on beans of treating them kind of gently and like, you know, and, and this was so, Great, because it infused that flavor into the beans. Of course, it concentrated with liquid, and they were the tastiest bowl of beans I had ever had. He uses cranberry beans that in Mexican cooking are called cacahuate beans, which mean peanut because they look like peanuts.

[00:47:40] Joe Yonan: It's also the same as the borlotti beans. It's all the same bean. When I went to visit him, he was talking about this bean as if it was so unique. I only can get it from from this one part of Oaxaca and everything. And then I got home and I, you know, I'm eating them and I'm like, they're like, kind of remind me of cranberry beans.

[00:47:53] Joe Yonan: And then I got, I got home and I did a little research and I was like, oh, that's because they are cranberry beans. They are, 

[00:47:58] Chris Spear: yeah. Different name for the [00:48:00] same thing. Beans seem to be like the gateway, I think, to, you know, because we do talk about Meatiness. I don't know what the other word for that is, but I think the texture, the text you have my permission to 

[00:48:11] Joe Yonan: use the word.

[00:48:12] Chris Spear: But I mean, I think that's what's that's what's missing. Similarly, like I don't like a lot of pureed soups that just don't have like the body, like the chew. Like I need some kind of chew. And I think that's what's missing when you go from eating Steak and chicken and things that to like a bowl of mush like you get away from that and especially beans and a whole texture where you're like chewing on something.

[00:48:34] Chris Spear: I think it's like it's a good gateway. 

[00:48:37] Joe Yonan: Yeah, I think a lot of plant based cooking. If you're not careful, can sort of lose. That attention to texture. So I really I'm glad you brought that up because I really think it's important to to pay a little bit more attention to it. You know, when you throw a steak on the grill, you naturally get three or four different textures in one piece of meat.

[00:48:57] Joe Yonan: You have to do anything with most [00:49:00] vegetables. I mean, you have to, you have to think about it. And and I think that that, you know, it represents it. A huge part of our satisfaction with eating like you're like with the soups that you're talking about. There's been scientific studies that have shown that if you just eat a pureed soup that you get tired of it within a few bites.

[00:49:24] Joe Yonan: That's why I garnish the hell out of soups. You know, all this crunchy stuff, all this other stuff just to give you more interest. So I think texture is really important. 

[00:49:34] Chris Spear: I went to the Star Chefs convention and this is probably at this point 10 years ago. Dahlgren was doing his whole demo was on a whole head of cauliflower.

[00:49:43] Chris Spear: Oh, yeah. And he, it was like something crazy, like 12 ways. So, you know, there was like a puree on the plate and then he took the core and he like shaved it on a microplane and pickled it and he graded the head on a box grater and then dry roasted it. So it was like [00:50:00] crumbly, but then, you know, he's got this other where it was like thrown on the grill and he.

[00:50:05] Chris Spear: And he took the greens and he braised them up like you would collard green. And it, it really was a great way of truly highlighting a dish going, you know, is it root to stock, whatever we're calling when you use a whole vegetable, but the textures. It was so, it like was so impactful that there was so many different textures from this one thing where it didn't feel like you were just like, Oh, I'm just eating like steamed or even sauteed cauliflower.

[00:50:30] Chris Spear: Like every bite had a different texture. And I think when you find someone who can treat vegetables that way. It'll make them a 

[00:50:35] Joe Yonan: believer. You know what that's making me think of, Chris? Um, I think we're really on to something here because you're familiar, I'm sure, with the event Cochon 555. Brady was actually on my podcast a year 

[00:50:48] Chris Spear: ago or so, yeah.

[00:50:49] Joe Yonan: Cool. Well, I think we should do a cauliflower one. Awesome. Um, haha. Here you go. Because what I'm thinking about is how, what you're describing with [00:51:00] that chef is, is just that he looks at the cauliflower. harder. He looked at it. He looked at the cauliflower. He thought about all the different parts. He thought about the different ways of preparing it that would create different textures and and that's what we all should be doing.

[00:51:18] Joe Yonan: We should be looking at our vegetables the same with the same kind of creativity and curiosity that we have reserved for animal products. 

[00:51:28] Chris Spear: And I think as you get into these chefs who are looking at zero waste, there's a lot of people who are doing zero waste or low waste that unlocks your creativity and you see some interesting things.

[00:51:36] Chris Spear: I used to do an event when I worked at a place, it was called off the shelf and was a food bank dinner. But one of the things we did is we wanted to highlight not only things you could find in a food bank and make them high end, but also like a zero waste, like if people had a limited income and it really pushed me and my staff.

[00:51:53] Chris Spear: We would spend a year like planning for this event of like. Like corn, like I do corn, corn husk ice cream where [00:52:00] you take the corn husks and you roast them and then you infuse them into the cream base and you know, instead of throwing them out. But I challenged my cooks for the whole year. Like every time you throw something that's, you know, uh, in the trash that is a food product, like think what could we be doing with that?

[00:52:16] Chris Spear: And that was like a big unlocked, uh, you know, like we would make. Concord grape jelly and you'd strain it through the strainer, but then you'd have all of it in the mesh strainer. Yeah, well we started just making vinegar like not but like infusing so then you scrape that and then just pour a bottle of White wine vinegar in there and it picks up the sugar from the jelly and the natural flavors and it's a new pantry staple Condiment using something that would have been thrown out, you know So if you 

[00:52:40] Joe Yonan: so smart if 

[00:52:41] Chris Spear: you start doing more things like that, I think you could have an interesting pantry you could You know, eliminate your carbon footprint and find interesting ways of making new food.

[00:52:50] Chris Spear: So I love when chefs are looking to that degree of like, what can we do with this? 

[00:52:54] Joe Yonan: Absolutely. And you know what I love about the Concord Grape idea too, is that it gives you something [00:53:00] quick to do with it in the moment. Yeah. Because I feel like too many, for a home cook, I feel like too many Low waste suggestions are all like, okay, then save this up.

[00:53:09] Joe Yonan: And when you've got enough of it, then make this your freezer is full of Ziploc bags, skins and 

[00:53:15] Chris Spear: seeds. It's like I've got a watermelon and it's like, okay, I'm going to make watermelon pickles, but I don't, but I don't have time today. So they're just going to and in three days they're showing black mold on them.

[00:53:26] Chris Spear: And you're like, I guess that goes in the compost bin. 

[00:53:28] Joe Yonan: Exactly, exactly. But to be able to just pour white wine vinegar Mix it with the pulp of the conger grates is, that's brilliant. 

[00:53:37] Chris Spear: Is there anything you want to leave our listeners with today? I mean, I'm sure we could go on forever, but in the sake of time, like, what, what do you want to get out there is kind of something to leave people with?

[00:53:48] Joe Yonan: Well, I think I just want people to realize that this kind of cooking is for everyone. So you shouldn't be intimidated by it. There are a million ways to jump in. Um, obviously I'm [00:54:00] giving you 300. Possibilities in my book. They're not all involved. There are very easy ways to incorporate more vegetables and plant based recipes into your routine.

[00:54:11] Joe Yonan: So I just want people to feel like, um, for whatever reason that they want, this is something that they can jump into for however many meals appeals to them. 

[00:54:23] Chris Spear: Well, there are so many recipes in this book. I think, you know, there's something for everyone in this book. I hope so. Well, thanks for coming on the show.

[00:54:30] Chris Spear: It was great talking to you today. Yeah, I really enjoyed it. And to all of our listeners, this has been Chris with Chefs Without Restaurants. Thanks so much and have a great week. You're still here? The podcast's over! If you are, indeed, still here, thanks for taking the time to listen to the show. I'd love to direct you to one place, and that's chefswithoutrestaurants.

[00:54:48] Chris Spear: org. From there, you'll be able to join our email newsletter, get connected in our free Facebook group, and join our personal chef, catering, and food truck database so I can help get you more job leads. [00:55:00] And you'll also find a link to our sponsor page, where you'll find products and services I love. You pay nothing additional to use these links, but I may get a small commission, which helps keep the Chefs Without Restaurants podcast and organization running.

[00:55:12] Chris Spear: You might even get a discount for using some of these links. As always, you can reach out to me on Instagram at chefswithoutrestaurants, or send me an email at chefswithoutrestaurants at gmail. com. Thanks so much.