209: Natasha Pickowicz

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1:00I'm holding this layer cake and there's like this patch of icing on the front that's sort of like discolored or it looks different or it's like not perfect. And he's like, do you want me to like fix it so it like all is one color or whatever? And I was like, no, like I made that cake. That's kind of like the beauty of what it is. It is not perfect. You're listening to The Taste Podcast. I'm your host, Eliza Barbinelle. Nobody makes cake or cookies or tarts or anything else in the pastry case quite like Natasha Pikowitz, the former pastry chef at Floribar and Altro Paradiso, who now helms the acclaimed pop-up Never Ending Taste in New York and organizes mega bake sales, raising hundreds of thousands of dollars for reproductive health justice, makes what are frankly the coolest pastries I've ever seen.

1:50Think, crackly shoyu peanut cookies or cakes crowned with radicchio instead of flowers. I've long awaited Natasha to create a cookbook so I can attempt even some of that energy at home, so I'm happy to have her back on the podcast to talk about the release of her debut book, More Than Cake, and bringing her distinct pastry style to life.

2:17Natasha, thanks for coming back to the Taste Podcast. Thank you so much for having me. I was doing my research as a good podcast host should, and I found out that you were episode 16 of the Taste podcast, and we just passed 200. So it's very exciting. Yes. I mean, I remember coming in. I think it was one of the first podcasts I ever recorded. And I was so just had this like awe at being in this hallowed hall because it's you record in the Penguin Random House building and all the books that are in the lobby that used to line the walls there and just having this feeling of being like, wow, this is so exciting.

2:50Yeah, right now the books are removed from the lobby because there's construction, but I've heard that they will be returning, which I was very concerned about. So I'm glad that that was something that resonated with you, too. I took a picture of the, like, Da Vinci Code book that was in the shelf. I thought that was awesome. I love that that's the one that I love that that's the one you went for. And now we have headphones on. We're back in the studio. It's, like, official and formal because you have a cookbook out that we get to talk about. Yes, I know. It's so crazy. I'm so happy to talk about this with you, too, and see what you think.

3:18Yeah, for people that aren't here, I'm wearing a shirt with a bunch of cake on it right now because the cookbook is called More Than Cake, but it is a lot about cake. So I figured I should dress for the occasion. I love it. Well, so I do want to talk to you about cake. But first, I have been wanting to talk to you for a while about music and music writing because I think a commonality that we have is that we both did music writing before kind of transitioning into the food space, right? Yeah. I mean, I was definitely trying. Yeah, I was trying also, I guess, succeeding, maybe not quite as much.

3:49But I do think about the way that that informs my writing. And I'm curious if you think that having a music writing background translates into the way that you write or maybe even just like the music that you listen to when you're writing. I mean, I think definitely, at least subconsciously, you know, because my background is not I'm not formally trained. I didn't go to culinary school. You know, I'm I had aspirations of becoming a music journalist in my 20s. And I think I'm very proud of this cookbook, which I completely wrote myself. And, you know, cookbooks are like instructional texts and they're manuals and it's technical writing.

4:28You know, you're writing, you know, a set, a guidebook for people to kind of work off of and hopefully succeed from. But I think for me, a really fun challenge was figuring out how to sort of position my own writerly voice like within all of that. And I because I personally am very inspired by cookbook authors who, you know, have a great writerly voice and bring a lot of like wit and humor and looseness and kind of like narratives into, you know, technical writing. Like whether it's like a great head note or a chapter opener or like a standalone essay or even just the way the steps are written.

5:09And I think like that's something that I thought a lot about when I was writing about music was how to describe sound and senses and like impressions and these sort of ephemeral subjective things that you're trying to put into words. And that was a challenge around music writing that I really like appreciated and loved. And also just, you know, music and food are both passions for me and are things that engage the senses. So I was definitely trying to figure out how to write about food in a way that felt like personal and real to me. Yeah, I really like that thought because I think that one of the biggest struggles I have with baking is just that I think so much of it does draw on this like learned knowledge when a meringue is done, when batter is risen or, you know, I'm not even saying the right things probably.

6:01But having like indicators in the method that say, you know, cook this until it's golden brown or until it's fluffy and doubled in size is the kind of the closest way that you can get. So I think it's nice to think about like describing an 808 is maybe not that different to describing like bread that has risen. Right. And I and I think also it's about like the cookbook also as potentially being a text that's open for critical analysis. And I think that, you know, I think something about baking that maybe intimidates home bakers versus like the whole genre of just cooking is that, you know, it is a series of steps that people think they have to kind of fastidiously follow.

6:43And sometimes I think when you're following steps, you sort of shut off the part of your brain that is like engaged to critically like analyze something. so you know what I am hoping to give to the reader is sort of tips on how to be present and how to like engage all your senses to observe what's going on so if I say you know the whipped cream will come together in six minutes but that might be different for you but if you know what to look for what the texture is like how it feels on your palate like the temperature of the thing then that will sort of empower you to make that call on your own.

7:22Right. And then hopefully over time, you'll know what those things look like inherently, and that can apply into other recipes. Exactly. Yeah. So were you listening to music when you were writing the book? Yeah. I mean, do you listen to, are you able to listen to music when you write? Oh, I can't write without listening to music. I think, I mean, writing, first of all, is extremely hard for me. And I think a lot of writers will say this, like, just because you identify as a writer, it doesn't mean it's easy or comes naturally to you. Like for me, it's very difficult and it's something that I have to create a lot of discipline and structure around.

7:54Otherwise I just am like on the internet or I'm just like making a playlist instead of like writing. So I think for me, you know, vocals can be kind of distracting if I'm trying to write. If I'm like editing a recipe or maybe just doing like more technical stuff, like I'm working on steps or converting, you know, metric measurements or something like that I can listen to anything I want but when I'm writing something difficult I listen to I guess I was listening to more like instrumental music like a lot of like ambient music drone like I'm really into like like Terry Riley Laurie Spiegel you know Tangerine Dream Lamont Young Steve Reich that kind of stuff love it so you know kind of long format pieces that I love, but they don't ask me to, like I can kind of dip in and out of enjoying them, but they sort of set the tone for me to try to write.

8:50Yeah. I have a whole playlist that I listen to. I think if I'm writing something that's like a newsletter or maybe more casual, I can kind of do whatever. But if I'm trying to be really precious with something, I have like a Fortet, Nicholas Jarr, like very minimal vocal, very like extended electronic playlist. But converting metric, that would not be something I could listen to music for. That would be like no headphones calculator out. Horrible. I'm not a pastry chef. Horrible. I mean, it's hard for me to. I'm like, oh, one cup of coconut flakes. Like, what does that even that's just different for everyone.

9:22So I definitely had to make kind of a series of arbitrary decisions based off of like what volume measurements look like for me that I used throughout the book. And hopefully, you know, that's but I have a whole argument in the book where I'm like, please buy a scale. Like it is for your own good. It will make you faster, more efficient, like just dishes. Yeah. So, you know. So I want to talk to you about the title and the cover of the book and how they interact because the book is called More Than Cake. And then there's a slice of cake on the cover, which I think is so funny and like kind of ballsy.

9:55So like, how did that happen? And what is More Than Cake mean as a cookbook title? Yeah, I mean, That's a great question. Like I it was actually the name of the book that I proposed that I put forth in my book proposal. And it really just kind of like stuck with me. And I think it sort of for me encapsulates this idea that like for me, baking isn't necessarily about like the thing that we eat and what it is. It's sort of like the context and the surroundings that it exists in and the feelings and the sort of like symbolic kind of emotions that sort of swirl around what enjoying something like cake might look like.

10:35So I'm like, yeah, it's cake, but it's like more than cake, you know, right? It's like about bringing people together. It's about like, you know, being alive in your community. It's sort of all of the strategies that circulate around what it means to have cake. And for me, it's not something that I do and eat alone necessarily. It's something that I do as a way of connecting with other people. So I wanted the title to sort of nod to that. But I mean, like, of course, you know, when we were talking about what the image of the book cover was going to be, that was obviously like a decision that involved like absolutely everybody that was involved in the process of making the book.

11:18Like the whole team at Artisan, that was so great. And, you know, it still is like the book is about cake. But, you know, there's other chapters. There's like savory also and like the breakfast section. But it is 50 percent cake, maybe 40 percent. I mean, I have two dedicated chapters to cake. One is on my layer cake philosophy. And then one is sort of on the single layer cakes that you can, you know, that don't need like soaks or, you know, big, you know, buttercreams or whatever and kind of can stand alone on that way. So they're kind of distinct approaches. But I wanted to be able to provide like both kind of ways of thinking.

12:00I mean, that makes a lot of sense. Yeah. But like the whole title for More Than Cake actually was like not even something that a phrase that I came up with. And it was actually came through FEF, the Food Education Fund, this like nonprofit that I work with over in Hell's Kitchen. They work out of the Food and Finance High School on West 50th Street. And I like I always will go over there for like career days that they have and I'll like talk to the kids and they're so amazing. And I went in. This was before COVID. So I think this was like fall 2019. So it was right when I was starting to think about the book.

12:37and I spoke in front of this class of like ninth graders and they were like super cute you know it was great and I was just talking about pastry being a pastry chef working in restaurants the bake sales that I do that kind of thing and then like two weeks went by and I got like 30 emails in my inbox like all at the same time like obviously their teacher was like time to thank the chef class assignment yeah and they were so cute and it was just a joy to go through all of them, but one of them, this student sent me this email and he was like, dear Chef Natasha. And I was like, oh my God, already I was like, I love you.

13:16But he's like, dear Chef Natasha, like, thank you so much for coming in to speak with our class. You've taught me so much about, you know, being a pastry chef. It's so much more than cake. And I was like, whoa. And I got like chills when I read that because I felt like he sort of understood what I was talking about, where it was not just necessarily like making the dessert on the plate, but it was about like a chance to connect with like a guest in the dining room, with the team that supports you in the pastry kitchen, with like the way your ingredients are coming in, like all of the people that sort of, you know, are part of like your experience, like as a pastry person, like in this world.

13:55And I, and I just really love that sentiment and that idea. Yeah, I really love that also. And I think it makes me think about the way that pastry chefs kind of play into the whole restaurant experience, because to me, like the biggest selling of the restaurant fantasy is deciding to get dessert as well. You know, and sometimes like I don't always have room for that. But if I'm really committing to a night out or if it's celebration, like it's not a question that you're going to have dessert. And that's maybe something that sets it apart from eating at home where, like, you know, maybe I'm having some Haagen-Dazs, but I'm not really having dessert every night.

14:25Right. Exactly. Yeah, exactly. It's like not seen as, you know, your caloric nutrition for that day. It's always sort of seen as like something extra. And I think like what that extra thing is, is inherently like joyful, fun, like celebratory, like delicious, but not necessarily like, quote unquote, nutritious, like no one expects it to be. So it kind of serves you in this other way, like it feeds you this other thing. Yeah, exactly. And so you were doing pastry in restaurants at Alter Paradiso and Flora Bar, and then you kind of transitioned out of that. I'm curious if like the way that you thought about developing dessert recipes changed when it came time to be doing a book for home cooks as opposed to this whole other realm of pastry making.

15:08Oh, my gosh. I mean, we could like literally just talk about this because it was such a process. And, you know, for the book, I developed like every recipe in that book is was uniquely developed and written for this text for a home baker. But that being said, like, obviously, I came into the book writing process with a repertoire of hundreds of things that I had worked on and developed, not just at Altro and Flora, but like other restaurants that I had worked at. other projects I had been a part of. And so I certainly had like this sort of like corpus to choose from. And, you know, when you're developing recipes for a restaurant, like you're looking at recipes where the yields are like, makes 100 cookies, makes 200 pieces, makes like, you know, 20 quarts of olive oil cake batter.

15:58And often scaling things up and down is not just as simple as dividing by 10 or dividing by 15. It's like recipes don't always translate that way. So it required like a certain level of detail to be like, well, I really want the, you know, vanilla bean pound cake from Flora Coffee to be represented in the cookbook in some way, but it's not as simple as just scaling down. So because you're thinking about like, you know, the equipment that the home cook has in their kitchen, like I don't have a Vitamix or a Robocoup. I don't own a stand mixer. Like, that's a whole other thing. It's like totally crazy.

16:36Do you just have like a... On my KitchenAid, if you're listening. Electric egg beater or... I bought it last month. Like, I... Eliza, I can't even get into it. My apartment is so small. I did do a lot of recipe testing in my apartment, but I did quite a bit at my parents' house in California. I did a lot at RIP, the Old Munchies Kitchen in Williamsburg, because a lot of the recipe testing happened the first year of the pandemic when things were closed. So I went to the Munchies kitchen alone. I like tested with all this space. It was like a dream come true. I did a lot of testing at the Arcus Radis kitchen.

17:13Same thing. Like they were closed to the public, not open. And the owner, Paige Lepari, like gave me a set of keys and she was like, come in, use it what you need. But it was really important for me to test recipes in a home kitchen to see like the true oven baking time of something that wasn't convection, that was done with like basic home equipment that, you know, what would a ground nut look like if you didn't have a RoboCook? Like what? And I wanted to write recipes that would like not make you rely on expensive appliances that you might see in like a restaurant kitchen. So it definitely, and by extension, I think also the kind of luxury high scale kind of quality ingredients that I was used to handling and having access to in restaurants.

18:02Obviously, like if you make an incredible panna cotta with like the world's best, you know, local fresh heavy cream and amazing vanilla bean and, you know, fancy finishing salt, like that thing will taste exceptional. But as much as I could, I tested all of the recipes with like I would go into my sea town on Manhattan Ave or I go to Key Foods and buy like the out of season honeydew melon or I'd buy like conventional citrus or, you know, granulated sugar, like whatever. And I would try those recipes with those kind of standard ingredients, too, because I wanted to know, like, will this thing still be delicious in the end?

18:40And that kind of informed the recipe testing process as well. So, so many things went into it and, you know, it was really fascinating to see like how I could streamline in certain cases, like make the steps for the recipe like more efficient or easier to understand in some way or written out in ingredients. Because often like, you know, I think you'll find like in a lot of fine dining restaurants, like there are recipe databases or books that cooks will use as reference points. But often, at least in my experience, this procedure, the steps are not written out. Like the cooks are kind of expected to know like the technique for pate a choux, like how to make pastry cream, you know, like what certain things are kind of like up to that person to sort of replicate and know.

19:36So the process of writing out, you know, what does nappe look like? And also, can I not even use that word? Yeah, what is that? But it's like that was something where when I was going through my manuscript, the first pass with my editor, Judy Prey and the copy editor, they were flagging all of that stuff. They were like, if you're going overly technical with certain terms, they either need to like be defined or find a way to say them so that, you know, they're accessible for everybody and people will know what you mean. Like even it's like that Schitt's Creek thing of like, I don't know what fold is.

20:11It's like folding the cheese. Because Sola and I talked about that because she did that show with Dan Levy. So I was like, did you ask him about this all the time? But I think like that is such a salient example because, you know, there's jargon, I think, with like restaurant cooking or pastry technique or whatever. And, you know, it's not enough to just be like cook the curd to nappe. It's like. Wait, what is nappe? I need to know. So it's like the term for when a custard that is thickened by like egg or cornstarch or flour reach it like kind of seizes and thickens in a certain way where you can like drag your finger through a spoon or the back of a spatula.

20:50And it sort of doesn't immediately fill back in with liquid. It sort of stays thick and hangs on to the spoon in a certain way. So that's like something you look for if you're making an ice cream anglaise or cooking a jam to a certain temp. So that kind of goes back to what I was saying about like critical thinking and engaging your senses. It's like let's just not even use the word nappe, but if you know what to look for when something is thickened, then you'll know it's done because your senses are kind of paying attention. I love that. And now I'm going to be dropping this word just all throughout my life so I seem like I know what I'm doing because I've done that a lot.

21:28but I don't know that that was the word for it. Yeah. I mean, yeah, I feel like you're a great cook and definitely know what you're doing. So I'm just not paying. And to the point about engaging your senses, I think another thing that I really appreciate about your pastries when I've had them before and also when I've just been on Instagram and looking at them is like, I feel you have a really distinct style, hyper seasonal, kind of unexpectedly savory in some ways. And And I'm curious, like, if you intentionally thought about, like, this is what makes something a Natasha recipe or if that's just kind of inherent.

22:02I mean, it's so tricky. I think that, like, my style, like anybody, probably like you, like any person, is probably always evolving. But, you know, there are certain, like, flavors, techniques, like aesthetic styles that I've definitely honed in on or really love or appreciate. And, you know, it's like even to go back to this idea that I didn't go to culinary school, like at the time I remember feeling like super insecure about that and being like, I don't have the training. Like I've never made fondant. Like I can't make a rose out of sugar or whatever. Oh, no. And it made me feel like inadequate and that I wasn't like a real pastry chef unless like I knew how to do all of these like technically fussy things.

22:49But now I'm like, well, I'm really fascinated in like what it means to have kind of this outsider perspective. And it's one that is like maybe rejects the canon or rejects like these institutions that are like your dessert or your thing must have like all these elements, like must have this like coulis or this foam or this garnish. It's like all of that, like throw all of that away. And then now I can create my own point of view that doesn't rely on like what I think needs to be included. And there was definitely like a certain amount of freedom or liberation that came with not working in the institution of fine dining restaurants anymore for sure.

23:28Because it's like all of a sudden, you know, the terror is, well, I'm not associated with an institution anymore. Like people might stop caring what I'm doing. And I still feel that, you know, like anyway. But also there is like a liberation in that being like, wow, I don't have to run literally everything I do by a man who's in charge of me, who like pays me, who has hired me to do, you know, his vision, execute his vision, which is what any employee in a restaurant ultimately is doing is, you know, you're serving your boss's vision. And so I think that, you know, once I became free of that, like, hierarchy and those institutions, like, I start to play around with, like, ingredients that felt, like, personal to me or that I was intrigued by, like, developing my palette and a style that maybe didn't have to be as austere as I was used to.

24:23Like I could do things that felt a little more like loose and or like chaotic and just like being able to give myself permission to have things not be so perfect and, you know, like flawless, like whatever that is. But certainly like an expectation that was asked of me when I was working in restaurants, which is like very stressful, you know, to be able to deliver like that consistently all the time. and now I'm just like okay I'm a home baker I'm working from home I'm making recipes for people at home like I can sort of like I want to give myself permission to let go of some of that stress and just be like put throw the buttercream on there like don't worry about the edges being like perfectly straight and smooth like on the back cover of my book there's this photo of me which like it was hard for me to come around to that reality of being so prominent.

25:24A picture of you on the book that you spent years making. Horrifying, honestly. But I'm holding this cake anyway. And, you know, when Artisan was doing all the final touches for the cover and stuff, I think whoever their retoucher was, was emailing me about certain things because they'll, you know, do final things for a photo. and there's I'm holding this layer cake and there's like this patch of icing on the front that's sort of like discolored or it looks different or it's like not perfect and he's like do you want me to like fix it so like all is one color or whatever and I was like no like that's like what the kit I made that cake I styled every single thing in every photo in the book I'm you know I baked it myself um and I was like that's kind of like the beauty of what it is like Like I it is not perfect.

26:09It is not like perfect 90 degree angles, like super smooth facade. Like I wanted it to reflect the reality of like I just made this in my kitchen and it's not perfect. And I think there's a certain kind of beauty in that look, too. So I think like my style will definitely keep evolving. And I'm very inspired, like you were saying, by, you know, seasonal ingredients and things that feel unexpected in the genre of pastry, which is obviously stuff that like we're seeing so much more now with cakes. It just feels like much more like mainstream, I think, with cake decor. But, you know, as recent as like three or four years ago, like was not that common.

26:50And I remember doing a layer cake feature for Bon Appetit in 2018. And I was on set and we were styling these layer cakes. And they brought in all this stuff from the farmer's market. They were like, is there anything that you need or want specifically? And I was like, whatever, like whatever's in season, like it was the middle of summer, everything was in season. And they came back with like, you know, flowers and like small berries and stuff like that. But I also was like, grab, you know, cute little things like tiny tomatoes on the vine, like, you know, savory herbs, like we can play around with all of this stuff.