I'm Kristin and I'm a chef, freelance writer, recipe developer, and cookbook devourer based in southern California. I hope you enjoy reading the site. Please grab a snack and stay awhile. Questions or inquiries? Reach out at kfrieder@gmail.com.
Reading about Bailey’s journey is deeply personal to me, as I dream of an industry that is more equitable to all chefs…
“Fast forward to the time of Instagram and online recipes and now we can find a way to create our version of almost anything without tasting the original. While nothing can really replace the time-honored mom or grandma or grandpa version of a recipe, we have almost all the resources one could hope for at our fingertips if we want to try.”
“What person doesn't like to receive the gift of unexpected marmalade?”
“this recipe can be a secret weapon to keep in your back pocket, at the ready for holidays, hostess gifts, or gatherings of any sort.”
While living in Copenhagen, I enjoyed rhubarb's status as a celebrated ingredient in the city, where it popped up in everything from pastries to compotes to sodas.
Whether on a beach or at a campground, cooking in the outdoors has become one of my favorite activities. Plus, there's nothing like offering the people at the campsite next to you a little neighborly sampling of your 4 course outdoor meal and seeing their surprised faces.
I'd like to see homemade cracker-making experience a comeback in American households. If canning and fermenting can become hip again, the from-scratch cracker certainly deserves a place at the table too.
"I know it's anything but easy, so I'm very thankful to all the entrepreneurs who give it a go so we can have better specialty coffee, hoppier beers, and flakier pie crusts.
"...it's no surprise that linguini aglio e olio is a meal I have made myself many times, particularly during the days I used to travel frequently for work. I could come back from out of town and know that I'd always have garlic cloves, olive oil, linguini, and chili flakes on hand. Cooking up a big batch of pasta always had a way of helping me settle into home again, of making the space feel instantly lived-in in a way a takeout meal couldn't."
In the book's forward, Chef Thomas Keller reminds us that cooks should have patience and "enjoy where you are while you are there." Funnily enough, when I was working my way through culinary school, my very wise mom gave me that same advice.
Danish cuisine is not widely available in southern California, so it's up to me to make my own food when a nostalgic craving hits. With an October heat wave coming our way, smoked salmon open-faced sandwiches (called smørrebrød in Denmark) seemed like an ideal no-oven cold dinner option.
Lemon bars made with gelatin give you a clean, precise slice when all is said and done. They're great for presentation. Lemon bars without gelatin are more gooey, less showy, and meant for Sunday afternoons sitting on the porch catching up with a close friend. They are completely lacking in pretension-- they may not totally hold their shape while you're trying to plate them up, so you might as well eat them right out of the pan.
Growing as a cook is all about knowing when it makes sense to adjust your recipe.
"No matter how messy things are, or how disorganized they feel, the day you set aside time to use your Kitchen Aid mixer and actually bake something is the day you're officially 'moved in', regardless of when you started paying rent."
It was the book that convinced me my baking habits warranted buying the jumbo sized commercial container of sprinkles.
What are your essential, most functional, most efficient kitchen tools? And what are those unnecessary but soul-satisfying kitchen artifacts that make life a little more colorful?
So is the idea of hygge exportable to a place like sunny southern California? Even with the absence of winter, I would argue that we have our own brand of California hygge, shaped around the places we call our own.
April's Cookbook of the Month is: Dorie's Cookies by Dorie Greenspan
Among all of my cookbooks, my Dorie Greenspan books are likely the ones I have used the most over the years. She has a very approachable way of writing, to the point that you feel she could be your cool next door neighbor who shares killer recipes at every block party, and always has a batch of excellent homemade cookie dough in her freezer* (*a personal life goal of my own.)
No matter how much you may have struggled or sweat to get the final product, the diner will experience the glossy, Instagram-ready, Hollywood version of your efforts.
