300: Sohla El-Waylly

0:00This episode is brought to you by Rezzy and American Express. Resi is a digital platform that connects restaurants to restaurant lovers by elevating dining experiences, providing original industry content, and helping to fill some of the country's most exciting dining rooms. Because restaurants have always been more than just places to eat. The amazing world of restaurants is just a few taps away in the Resi app and at resi.com. Eliza, we're here at 300 episodes. Can you imagine 300 episodes when we launched in 2018? No, I think 300 episodes is huge. And I'm so excited to get to be part of it.

0:34Yeah, it's really fun to be here at 300. And it's been really a great ride. And 300 is just the start. I just want to thank everyone for all the notes we get on Instagram. And in our inbox, we get notes all the time. Thank you for listening to the show, supporting it. If you haven't reviewed, you should. But really, it's such an honor to do this show for you. We love doing it here. And we have an extra great episode for you today with Sola Elwayli. So let's get to it. Let's get to it.

1:06Working in a test kitchen is different because you got a walk-in fridge and you have a bunch of people tasting and giving you opinions. When you're at home, you're alone, but it's like you kind of get like caught up in your head and it's hard to know if something's good or if something's done. Sometimes I'll test something forever and then ultimately go back to the first version. This is Taste. I'm your host, Matt Rodbarg.

1:57Man, the three weeks that she shot it, wow, I cannot imagine being there. I love the photos. They're great. We also talk about her love of Top Chef, her own reality cooking show Star Turn, and what has excited her most, including breakfast at the Salka. I hope you enjoy this conversation with Sola.

2:24Sola Whaley, welcome to This is Taste. How are you? I'm good. How are you? I'm great. It's great to see you. Thank you for coming into the studio. Yeah, thanks for having me. We were talking quinoa crunch off mic. My favorite photo in the book, there's many favorites. I just love that. It looks so delicious with Green Goddess. I'm glad it looks delicious. It is delicious. Okay, it is. So we accomplished our goal. So you've been spending a lot of time at Veselka. I've been noticing. And I absolutely love that choice. It's just a great restaurant. Why are you there so much? Well, a big reason is because our life is really chaotic because we have a newborn.

3:02So you can't have a dinner reservation. There's no way I'm getting anywhere at any time. As you can tell as I'm late today by like, what, 30 minutes? Listen, time is a construct, especially when we're recording podcasts. It doesn't matter. Yeah, the baby's in control. So the great thing about Veselka is if she's fed and pooped and quiet, we're like, okay, let's get out of the house. We can just go to Veselka, get a table, and they have the best dog service in town. Okay. Yes. When we get there, the first thing they do, we have two dogs. The first thing they do is bring two bowls of cold water for them and peanut butter biscuits.

3:40They actually give the dogs a little bit of amuse. The dogs get a little amuse, and it's really great. The dogs know as soon as we walk by, they're like, that's the peanut butter biscuit place. It's very smart. So the whole family loves it. But working on the dog level is great marketing. It's really smart. The dogs know. They'll actually lead the owner there. And the water's actually cold. Yeah. The water for the humans that they pour at the table is not cold. Not cold. But the water for the dogs is cold. Love that. I love that. Is there something you order there all the time? Is that restaurant you could go morning and have the blintzes?

4:13You could have the burger if you want. What do you like? I usually go with breakfast no matter what time we go. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Two eggs, scrambled, side of tomato, toast, and I like their pork sausage. And then him and I will split a waffle. So definitely not in like the Ukrainian vibe. You're going more traditional American breakfast. Yeah, but sometimes instead of the waffles, we might do a plate of pierogies. Pierogies. So thank you. All right. There's pierogies once in a while. Okay. Depends on the mood. And then if we're feeling really crazy, they have a really delicious honey cake. Ooh.

4:46If you haven't had it before, it's like really thin layers of this burnt honey biscuit that's layered with cream. And it's kind of like an icebox cake. It gets softened and there's a little bit of bitterness from that burnt honey. And it's like, it's so delicious. And the Veselka one, they throw some walnuts in there. Oh, nice. For crunch. Yep, with a little texture in there. Enjoy that. I've never had the cakes or pastries there. I've actually. It's quite good. I recommend it. They make everything in-house. I love that. We'll go to the Vesalkanese Village. Let's talk about Outback. Okay. So you worked at Outback.

5:20I did not work at Outback, but a lot of my friends did in high school, and I felt like I was a default member of the Outback community, and what a party for those guys. Talk about working at Outback Steakhouse. Well, since I've mentioned this, so many people have come up to me and told me they also worked at Outback. So I feel like it's the place where a lot of people start. Yeah, totally. I was a busser, and I was really bad at it because I was just not physically strong enough. I mean, it's a big, the bin. And it's tough because the plates are heavy. Well, those restaurants have like those sturdy plates, you know, so they don't break.

5:57But my favorite memory was that when a lot of folks don't finish the Bloomin' Onion. Or is it called an Awesome Blossom there? No, it's the Bloomin' Onion Outback. Because I know Chili's has one. That's the Awesome Blossom. The Bloomin' Onions, like with the Australian patois, you know, the voice and the commercials. Wait, so you have like these scrapes, these leftover half onions? Yeah. I would live off of half, like everyone's leftover onion. Like no one finishes the Bloomin' Onion unless it's the big table. Yeah. Like a couple can't finish a Bloomin' Onion. So you're telling me that there is a side of the onion that was untouched that you got to actually enjoy?

6:34I would eat a lot of leftover Bloomin' Onions. I love them. And I recently got one. Where? Like at Outback? I, this is crazy, but I got a Bloomin' Onion delivered. No, it's not crazy. It's fucking genius. I didn't even know they could deliver Bloomin' Onions. I was just like, all I could think about was Bloomin' Onions. Oh, I mean, I've been pregnant recently, so I think that's where this is coming from. Yeah. But it was my first Bloomin' Onion in like 20 years, and they are still amazing, even delivered, soggy, so perfectly seasoned. Okay, I was like, it has to be a little soggy when it's delivered.

7:03It is a little soggy, and I still loved it, and I really want to go there in person and have it now. I, as well. And it's the sauce, too. Now, from your, you know, with your food science and culinary background, you could break down the sauce now. What do you think's in that sauce? I mean, I feel like it's like a barbecue ranch, right? I believe it has barbecue in it because it's very sweet, like barbecue sauce. I think there's like a chipotle pepper in it, too. A little bit of smoky. It's got smoke more than like the standard barbecue. And of course, it's definitely like a ranch-ish or cream, like sour cream.

7:38I mean, tons of mayo for sure. Yeah. I feel like it's heavy on the mayo. And something about dipping something fried in mayo, even though it's just like fat on fat, it really works. Do you ever marinate chicken or cure chicken with mayonnaise? Do you ever do that? I've tried it. It's not for me. Yeah. Because I feel like when you cook mayonnaise, like a lot of people do grilled cheese with mayonnaise. When you cook the mayonnaise, it gets a bit eggy, a little sulfurous. Yeah, sulfurous, totally. And I think I'm just sensitive to that taste. It doesn't really work for me. But, I mean, if it works for you.

8:13It adds a richness that you maybe aren't ready for with the chicken. I did it last night, so I'm bringing it up. Oh, wait, how'd you do it? We did. It's actually someone working on it for taste. Rob Newton did a recipe. We do like mayonnaise, fish sauce, soy sauce or tamari, paprika, and sesame oil. So it's like that kind of angle. Well, I imagine the fish sauce will cover any egginess. I think so. And I've done it with just lemon. And there's like lemon zest and lemon juice, of course. But yeah, definitely have had mixed results. This one worked for me. Okay. Thank you for asking. I want to ask you about Big Brunch.

8:53Okay. Love the show. You were a judge on the show. Daniel Harthausen has become a friend of mine, and he won. And he's told me about this, like, summer camp vibe during production. And just, I have a second follow-up question related to reality television. But first, what was it like judging a show like this? Well, I'm a huge fan of cooking competition shows. I know. So it was, like, surreal to be in one. I grew up watching the original Iron Chef with my mom. and I remember we'd always talk about how amazing it would be to like taste all that food and then my husband and I basically built our relationship off of watching Top Chef.

9:30We've been watching it together the whole time we knew each other. Actually, the way my husband got me to hang out with him was that he had Top Chef loaded on his laptop. It was like before streaming so he had like a loaded on the laptop. Yeah, that was a big deal. I got the DVDs from season four. Like I was like, yeah, okay, I'll hang out with you. That's so sweet. So it was really cool to do that. But I was also really scared because it's the biggest production I've been on. Yeah. A lot of cameras. I was really nervous. And I was sitting next to Dan Levy. And when you see a face that you've seen a lot on screen in person, it's really trippy.

10:11And actually his dad came on set once. And I actually couldn't say hi to him. I ran away. because it's like, you know, we've been seeing that face since we were kids. You've been seeing those eyebrows. Those eyebrows, yes. Like literally since you were like ever, yeah. So it was a little overwhelming, so I had to trick my brain into thinking it wasn't a show. It was the only way I could function. You're great on it. You're terrific. You're really natural. I had to pretend it was— Good acting then. Or delusion. Or stress and doing it. I don't know. Yeah, I just, I like blocked out all the cameras.

10:44I didn't even notice them until the end. And that was the only way I got through it. Do you want to do it again? Oh, totally. We're hoping we can. We don't know yet. Oh, is it one of those I don't know yet? Yeah, I actually don't know yet. The studio is yet to decide if they're renewing it. Maybe by the time this comes out, I'll know. I hope so. We're running it pretty soon. So now it's a Top Chef thing because I want to ask you a couple things. Can you, like, rank your top five Chef Testants? Chef Testants? Chef Testants? Well, I have a top five, but can I do them in no particular order? No order whatsoever.

11:21But like my favorite five. Separated by semicolons, no numbers. Yeah, I like that. Okay, so Brooke definitely is one of them. I think she's so talented and so fun to watch her cook. And you can watch her now on Guy Fieri's Guy's Grocery Games. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Which is a lot of fun. Kristen, who is going to be the new judge. Yeah, I think that was a great decision. Amazing, because she's like, I feel like she's like every person who goes on Top Chef their hero, because she got eliminated and came back through Last Chance Kitchen. And she also, she played really honorably. She didn't throw anyone under the bus.

11:56She didn't cause any drama. She just cooked really good food. That's just like, that's like more modern Top Chef. If you go like season one through six, it's like, there's no honor. No, there's no honor. But those are really fun to watch. Well, let's keep going. You have three more to give me. I also love Buddha. He recently won the latest Top Chef and he won the international Top Chef. The last season they did a special episode. I forgot what they called it. But it was all of the top contestants from the global Top Chef franchise. Oh, that's what it was, right? Gail was telling me that before.

12:29And they came together. So he won two Top Chefs back-to-back. Dang. And I really like him because his food is just really pretty, really thoughtful. I think he has some of the best plating and I love that he can do pastry and savory like equally well because a lot of them get scared of that and he's just, he embraces it and I think that's why he's so good because he can do all of it and you see a lot of savory techniques in his pastry and vice versa so I love that blurring those lines is cool especially it makes for good TV yeah, how many? I think you have two more two more, well definitely Blaze, Richard Blaze yeah, Richard Blaze, my gosh he's also someone who played with so much honor like he and like when he won the all-star season he helped everyone out he was not like one of these guys who was like uh all for himself like he helped people out and he's still and he just it wasn't like he was competing with anyone who's competing with himself so i love watching people who compete in that way because that's really you can really only do your best not better than anyone else so i love that perspective and he's also like really great with the modern stuff and like not doing it in a stupid way.

13:42No, totally agree with you. And then I love Hung. Yeah. Oh my God. Let's talk about him. Genius. He's just technically so. Oh my gosh. And one of our favorite scenes from Top Chef is when they do a relay race and Hung has to break down chickens. Yeah. And he does it so fast and him and I actually rewatch that all the time. Just like as a straight like inspo like when you're about to cook something. No, we just love watching it. It's like when, if you're really into, Ham's really into soccer, so he'll watch like a cool goal over and over again. Yeah, yeah, right. Greatest goals, YouTube. Yeah, yeah.

14:17So it's like the same thing. I don't watch sports, but. No, Hung is an amazing chef. And I remember when he was in New York post that season, and I'm not sure where he ended up. Have you connected with him at all? No, I haven't connected with any of them. No. It would be weird. I've watched them so many times. Yeah, yeah. I've re-watched Top Chef too many times. Thank you for the Top Chef talk. Last comment. Gail is the truth. I feel Gail, like, Podman's great and, you know, got her farewell. Tom, I don't know. Not for me. Gail, though, is so great. Like, she is such a smart, just, she's an advocate, first off, for, like, chefs and cooks.

15:00And she's, like, fucking smart about food. And she has the funniest lines. There are lines of Gail's that him and I repeat to ourselves just randomly for no reason at all. I love it. I'm glad we could have that conversation about Top Chef. I feel like we should do more Top Chef talk. I could do a whole podcast about Top Chef. You be careful, Sola. If someone wants to do that. Be careful. I think Ham and I, our dream would be to just do. Yes. You got to do the rewatch. Obviously, you start with S1, E1. Do you guys want to do that? Yeah, let's do it. Because that's like our dream come true to just sit around and talk about it.

15:35S1E1, S1E2. Yeah, we would totally do that. Do you know Harold? Have you ever met Harold? Haven't met anybody. Season one winner. Amazing chef. Cool guy. I mean, his kinshop, the restaurant he had in New York was amazing. I thought it was a great restaurant. I don't think we've been there. It's closed like in 2010. I mean, it's – anyways, we should do this. Let's – Are we not rolling? Let's figure it out. Let's figure it out. We can make it happen. Well, I thought you meant let's do this like the podcast. Let's start the podcast now. Let's actually transition to Start Here because it's an amazing book.

16:11We were talking off mic about it, and I really, really like it. I think Start Here is a tricky concept when you're doing a big 200 recipe book and you're just really covering. It's a general cookbook with a lot of general ideas. I mean, the first thought I had was like, how the hell do you shoot this? all of these recipes and make it look consistent and really interesting. It sounds like you did it in your kitchen at home in the East Village. We did it in our house, which now that I think about it was crazy. But renting a studio is very expensive. It is, man. So we were going to make it work. So we bought a giant.

16:46We have a tiny fridge. Like if you live in Manhattan, you know this fridge. It's not a full-size fridge. It's not a mini fridge. It's like it's not a girl, not yet a woman. It's just a recorder. Yeah. Yeah. And it barely functions for our daily life. So to make it work for the shoot, we actually got a Yeti cooler. Oh, yeah. That we put in the backyard. And we also, we intentionally did the shoot in February. So we knew it would be cold and just kept replenishing it with bodega eyes. That's really, that was your decision. You knew you needed a fridge and it was like, let's make the fridge outside.

17:18Yeah, yeah, yeah. And we've shot a lot in our apartment. So we know that in the summer, it just gets too hot. Yeah. So the food would die. And it would be really hard to like prep temperature sensitive things like fish and whipped cream and things like that. So strategy. You shot the book over three weeks. That's 200 recipes over three weeks, 15 days. It's like 14, 15 recipes a day. Knocking them out. Photos are beautifully styled. What's the team like? So the team was myself, my husband. Laura Murray did all the photos. and we worked with Helena Picone as like a culinary assistant. I also work with her for History Channel and the History Channel shoots are really intense.

18:02We shoot four episodes a day and we're making crazy food. So I knew she could keep up with the pace. Her parents have a restaurant. She like has that like restaurant energy. Like you're doing service every day of the shoot. Yeah. So like I knew she would be amazing for this because she's got that stamina because a lot of food stylists are like they want to tweeze something for hours and like we don't have time for that no so it was a great solid team laura is amazing too because she's super talented so she can she knows how to use her lights and lenses like a lot of photographers take some time you know and then food gets cold and you got to make things look fresh so she could switch from this light to that light this angle to that angle really quickly So we were like lean and mobile and fast, like a little pit crew.

18:49It's the best. And especially when you're trying to cook real food for a real audience who's going to do it again in their home. Why fake it with like too much time? No, it's all real food. Yeah. And like when you see the steps, it's like that you see the one dish go through the whole process. So it wasn't like, oh, the sear on this wasn't good. Let's get more short ribs and fake it. Like everything is like top to bottom. Everything except for a couple of things happened in one take. And it's all just, I want it to look like real food so that you know what it's going to look like in your own kitchen.

19:25Process. Let's talk about process shots. I think that that's rare in cookbooks. There was a time when process shots were considered dated and antiquated, but I disagree fully. In our book, Food IQ, we have quite a few. You have many. How did you land on that style? Well, I knew I wanted to do at least one per chapter. Cool, cool. And then we ended up doing a lot more. Just because we were cooking the food and Laura was like, I'm right here. So we just started taking pictures of it all. And then we ended up with a ton. But what I didn't think about is when you have, so we started out with 10 ,000 photos.

19:59And then you have to look through all those photos. Dramatic pause when you said 10 ,000 photos because that is a fucking lot of photos. Well, yeah, because the way you normally do this with a cookbook is you might have like a thousand or a few hundred and you print them out. and you put them on a wall and you look at them to decide what's going to go into the book. But since it was so many, we had to look at it all on the computer. And so just going through the photos and making the selects took a really long time. And then for Laura to go through and edit all that took a really long time. And then for the designer to place all those photos took a really long time.

20:33So we didn't realize how everything exponentially got more difficult. But we all got it done. no you did you know keying art in a book with uh with like what do you have like 1500 photos in the book uh 5000 in the book there's 5000 photos I think so yeah oh my god I'm sorry like totally undershot wow that's all your production editor if they're listening they were really mad at us honestly yeah I would and the production editor if they're listening god bless you for doing this book because that's a lot of photos yeah apparently my editor got really yelled at by the production team Typical Yeah It's always a little bit of that fun tension But book is beautiful And I want to talk about a couple things Ranch in particular to start Why is ranch the only dressing that matters?

21:27Well, it's always been my favorite dressing I grew up in California And I think it's a California thing Like you dip everything in ranch Every dinner party there was like a plate of ranch with stuff around it. And growing up, my favorite ranch was the one from Jack in the Box. Mmm. I don't know if you had it. It's like... No. It's got like a particular level of tang that I appreciate and like a nice body. You like tang and body, but not sweetness, right? It's like tang is not sweetness. No, it's not very sweet. Good acidity and it's not like the Hidden Valley, I think, is a little gloopy. I was going to say HV because I can't even say those words.

22:06No. That ranch is so bad. You know who makes a really good ranch? Oh, I know a lot of people. Tell me. We have a ranch seasoning that you can get through Burlap and Barrel. Oh, no doubt. We've linked to it in our newsletter. It's actually very good. Burlap and Barrel has amazing spices, and then we did our favorite ideal blend. That makes a lot of sense that you have done a dehydrated in the ranch and Burlap and Barrel sells it. That makes a lot of sense. Yeah, yeah. It's perfect. But also, ranch, you can really make it your own. So, you know, you just need something creamy, something creamy, tangy, and like you can play around with that.

22:43Like I think traditional would be mayo and sour cream, but we have a lot of fun with it with like labneh or Greek yogurt or kefir. You can kind of get crazy. And then you need dill is a must. Always dill. And then assorted alliums. So like garlic and onion powder might be like classic. But what's really fun is in the spring when there's a lot of alliums, we make like a ramp ranch. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, spring garlic ranch. There's so many. Oh, you know what's really amazing? This is very cool. Okay, so you take buttermilk. And then you do like 10 % salt, 10 % sugar into that buttermilk. And then you put a bunch of ramps in there.

23:27Yeah. Make sure it's covered fully. Put like a weight. Put in a clean container and let that ferment for about a week. Okay, so the ramps are like just going in like whole, clean, obviously trimmed, and then just boom. And just let it ferment. At like fridge temp? Room temp. Room temp. Uh-huh. Give it a whiff every couple days and make sure it doesn't explode. Yeah, I was going to say, like there's going to be like something blowing off the top, like kimchi style. No, just keep an eye on it. And then what happens is the ramp itself becomes infused with like ranch. I like a tabletop fermentation project, but I think of it more like kimchi or namool or things like that.

24:01But damn, with ranch is amazing. I should do that. A kimchi ranch? For a recipe. No, no, this ramp thing. People need to know about it. It's amazing. I worked at a restaurant where we would make that and then you batter and deep fry the ramp. Yeah. And it's like, it's almost like an onion ring that's filled with ranch. You mean the ramp that has been seasoning the ranch is then used as a battered part of the... The ramp that's been fermented is then battered and fried. And it's the greatest thing in the world. My favorite ranch is from Buddy's. It's a Detroit pizzeria chain. I haven't heard of it.

24:35It's great, but it's definitely got body, which I agree. No one wants that gloopy or thin runny ranch, but it doesn't have the sweetness of some of the HV stuff. No, if that's the ranch you know, there's better ranch out there. Is this book informed by any of the CIA textbooks? I ask because textbooks are oftentimes considered textbooks, which is not exciting, but I've had many on the show talk about how much they love their CIA textbooks. books did it inspire you at all? I hated them. Okay you're not in that camp. I hated my whole experience at the CIA. This book is inspired by everything that I think is wrong with the CIA.