521: Great Recipes Don’t Need 20 Steps with Seattle Chef Renee Erickson

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0:31but in regards to the cauliflower like you want it to be textural so I think that char and the and the crispiness that you get from roasting something really hard adds to that like kind of soft steamed interior that you're going to get of the cauliflower as well a lot of that comes from not fussing with it. This is Taste. I'm your host, Matt Rodbard. We loved catching up with the legendary Seattle chef Renee Erickson. She is the chef owner of The Walrus and the Carpenter, The Whale Winds, Barnacle, and many other restaurants in this great American restaurant city. She is also the author of a really unique new book, Sunlight and Breadcrumbs.

1:15It explores creativity in and out of the kitchen and how making everyday food can wind up being much more than dinner. This book is a really smart way to think about home cooking, and I really enjoyed catching up with Renee to talk about her collection of recipes.

1:39Renee Erickson, welcome to This Is Taste. How are you doing? I'm great, thank you. Let me first ask you, you're out here on the East Coast. You've been traveling up and down. I know you were in Boston. What do you look for when you're traveling and visiting a new city? Or not a new city, but a city. What do you want to see? I mean, it is exactly what you just said. It's like, I want to go to old favorites, and then I want to see what is happening that's new and curious and young. And then also things that are similar to what I do, or at least like what I would imagine to be similar for just curiosity's sake.

2:11So like going to Penny will be really fun to see. And I'm really excited to see those like metal oyster holders on the wall and just kind of see how people create the restaurants. I think is the most inspiring part of it for me is just kind of getting into a place and kind of looking and seeing what people's decisions are. Of course. And you have multiple restaurants. So you're always thinking about inspiration. So, Renee, before we get into it, let me ask you, like your restaurants. I mean, I know Walrus and Carpenter. I know that one had been multiple times this year. But there's more going on in your portfolio of restaurants in your group.

2:43Let's go over all of your restaurants. Sure. So, yeah, Walrus is the first one that our company, which is called Sea Creatures, opened. And that will be 15 years next year. We then opened the Whale Winds, which is a wood oven restaurant. Basically, everything kind of gets cooked in the wood oven and somehow touches the smoke and the heat. We have two restaurants on Capitol Hill. One's called Boat Bar, which is another oyster-focused restaurant. And then Bateau, which is our whole cow grass fed, grass finished steakhouse that is a really impressive, incredibly challenging restaurant that thankfully folks love.

3:25Because of the investment you put into it? Because of the labor of like that kind of effort. I think it's it's a it's a I don't know that there's another place in the world like it. And and that's great and also makes it really, really hard. uh yeah so um we i forgot next to walrus we have a very lovely amari bar called barnacle uh and then um downtown in the land of amazon we have um two spots one's called wilmot's ghost which is kind of a love letter to rome and uh lots of like uh um pizza ataglio and and soupy and vegetables that are inspired off of my time in Italy. We have a bar there called Deep Dive, which is this really beautiful space that is filled with crazy installations by a good friend of ours named Curtis Steiner, who is a madman around making things beautiful.

4:25Let's see. Westward, which is one of our newer restaurants, which is on Lake Union, seafood-focused as well, kind of our largest well is our largest um space so we're able to do a lot of events which is great because it's on the lake um a newest i think i've got everything um lioness which is also a very um it's our newest it's tiny it's has 18 seats little patio a standing bar again very focused on italy and uh and just kind of trying to make simple neighborhood food it's it's really close to my house so I can walk there and yeah it's really wonderful description Renee and holy shit that's some P &Ls like that's a lot of tabs open on your computer when you're looking at that businesses and I'm so impressed I've been to a couple of those I've been to Pateau for sure let's talk Seattle I like criminally never really spent time in Seattle until this year I went twice in a year for various reasons.

5:26And wow, it blew me away. I had no idea. I was kind of in that like Portland is the best, but sorry, Portland. Sorry, Portland. Ooh, can I bait you into some tough talk? What's the rivalry to the cities? I mean, we actually love each other, but I think there is a little bit of like, you know, why did it, why does it, I mean, we're not that much farther away from Portland. So I sort of think Seattle is like the stopping off to places and people don't actually stick around long enough. So yeah, I'm a little annoyed that we're a little second fiddle to Portland, but that's okay. Deep down, we're like, we're still better.

6:03I love that. That's the pull quote. We'll put that at the top of the episode. You'll get this great rivalry. No, they're very different cities, of course. And I mean, I think geographically, they're different too. I mean, completely different, yeah. That's the most important thing, I think. For sure. I mean, the West Coast, I'm such a West Coast person. So I'm a big fan of all of it. So I will I will fight for it being on those lists. Let's talk about Seattle and about how there is an identity in the restaurant community. And you're a big part of it, have been for years. And my question is, is how do you how do you define your city?

6:40I mean, it's it's not easy, but I think you could you're up for it. knowing that there's a lot of perception versus reality happening. There's obviously a big tech stakeholder between Amazon and Microsoft in the area. So there's like that happening, which is different from Portland. Sorry, no much Portland talk, but define the city for us. I mean, I think you're kind of touching on the challenges of the industry as far as trying to kind of rise above what, you know, is the kind of obvious things that people think of when they think of Seattle. I think prior to Amazon, Microsoft mania, it was, you know, grunge and which is a great thing to be, you know, proud of and part of.

7:25But, yeah, I think the industry itself, I think, is it's very community driven. People are really supportive. We're very proud of what we get to do. There's such a huge focus on all the like the industry in regards to like hospitality, in regards to how we care for our teams. And then at the food level, just this kind of impressive ability to just showcase what's so great about the area. So the water, the mountains, all the ingredients, the farmers, everything is pretty stellar. And I think unlike a lot of places that I get to visit. I want to talk a little bit about your style because it's really unique.

8:08And then, of course, we'll get to the book. But you've got a lot going on with raw seafood and just seafood in general. And that's a route. And then you've got Rome and Italy as like a place that you've spent a lot of time and you clearly reading the cookbook are really inspired by creatively. So how do you think about these these two areas working together in your restaurants? Yeah, I mean, I think when we're thinking about, especially when we're considering opening something new, we really have a focus around what it's going to be before we even think about opening it, really. Like there's an idea or a love of something that we want to share with folks and have as an idea that becomes the restaurant.

8:55So the seafood part was really just me traveling a lot and coming home and frankly being kind of irritated that there wasn't a really kind of easygoing, simple spot that you could get oysters without it being like attached to a steakhouse or a really fancy restaurant. And so that was just like, this is what I want in my city kind of idea. And that kind of, I think, continues with the idea that I really, really, really think what, you know, especially with shellfish in the Northwest, it's some of the best in the world and we should be celebrating that. But and then Rome is just. I mean, anyone that's been there, I think that spends any time outside of just the checking the lists of the Colosseum and everything.

9:43um culinarily is is really really really unique and fun and crazy and beautiful and and historic and all the things that i think when you're especially a young cook is pretty a young cook from america i would say from like growing up in the 70s just this dedication to daily uh thinking about food in a way that isn't like i'm hungry but like what am i going to cook tomorrow or I'm going to go to the store and see what's fresh and see what is what someone who's like managing all of these things is going to tell me is the best or special with the backdrop of like one of the world's most like most iconic cities in terms of like architecture and art but also just being a thought leader in Italy in terms of like progressive politics and also just like just like in terms of cultural movements come out of a lot of it comes out of Rome yeah I mean it It feels like, yeah, it's like you're walking through a museum all the time.

10:39Right. And, you know, like it just melts my heart. I love it so much where I think about like if there's a place that's not Seattle, it's going to be Rome if I ever kind of lived anywhere else. and I think just also there's something about being there when you're young and impressionable and having you know your eyes kind of widened by a culture that is you know similar but totally not the same as what you grew up with you know and similar in that like it's really like family focused and I mean you know it's just it's just Rome but it I don't know there's something about it. They're just like got under my skin in a way that it's just like, it's so important to me as a place that I got to live and as a place that I thankfully get to return to all the time.

11:23All right. Let's talk about cookbook writing. You've just released Sunlight and Breadcrumbs, which is a wonderful, wonderful book. Like you really have done something very cool with the way illustration works with essay works really smart recipe development. You've written multiple cookbooks before this. How do you get back on the horse to write this very personal book? How do you how do you get inspired I mean books are our slog and we just went over all of the businesses you're running you must love writing books if you're gonna do a book like this now funny I've written through myself I don't know anyone loves writing cookbooks I don't know it's it's a there's something the creative endeavor of it I think is the part that just really keeps you tied to it because you are creating something that eventually will sit in your hands And and you can kind of obviously go through time and the experiences that you're putting into it.

12:18But you also can, you know, experience the making of it again, which is sort of special and wonderful. I don't know. There's books. It's funny, like comparing them like to opening a restaurant. It's it's a million times harder, which doesn't make a lot of sense because it's just this little thing that shows up, you know, two and a half years later. But I think the personal part of it, but my first two books are personal, but they were more focused outward on things that like influenced me or my first book about a whale was the people like close to me in the Northwest that had been really important to me as a cook.

12:55And so this one, if I were to talk about it, you know, before I was getting ready to do it, it was kind of just speaking to my history as a human, you know, and the things that happened to me, the choices I made, and then kind of how that has been a part, has driven like who I am as a cook. I mean, I'd say artistic choices. Yeah, for sure. And when you say choices, this leads to kind of the idea of the cookbook. And I just want to, you quote Louis Bourgeois, you know, in a pretty famous quote, art is not about art. Art is about life. So how is food art? Yeah, you know, it is a famous quote. And I think it's, I've read it a million times.

13:38And I don't think I ever like really stuck on it until I was thinking about this book. And it made so much sense to me where I'm trying to tell a story about my art background and my career and how those have been together the whole time. And I think not entirely something that I was aware of. I think you know I'm I have very close friends that are artists and like make their livings doing that and I think would support me in saying that like art or you know the air quotes art is really much more simple than you know things that hang on a wall in a gallery or in a museum I think the creative process and creating things to be art doesn't have to be for sale or for you know even for to live on forever like it could be created and then destroyed so i think um for me like if it's art it's probably um the act of creating something that like matters to you you know or the story you're trying to tell or or really like the idea that art is food and food yeah because you've really laid it out it can be it doesn't have to be finite it can be it can be destroyed.

14:52Yeah, it could be a moment. If you look at the art world in general, that's blown up all the time with installations, theater work, things like that, that I think you have to be present to see it, and then it's gone. The concept of this book then, when you were thinking about the recipe list, you obviously wanted to publish just highly personal recipes, and you tell the story of many throughout your life. You're, you know, your mother, you have like family recipes and you've got recipes through the course of your career. But what is the goal with this book for you, generally speaking? I mean, I think personally for me, it was, you know, I think as a person that's been cooking for 28, well, longer than that, but owning restaurants for 28 years, there's a lot of like self-judgment or questioning of what you're doing along the way, constantly really.

15:51And I think having this kind of time to write this book and think about me and my food and the things that have mattered, I was able to kind of admit and also kind of make fun of myself in that these things like the mayonnaise salmon, which isn't really, it's a recipe, but a very simple one and something that I ate a million times and didn't really... consider as delicious or anything. It was just dinner, um, is, is, is a really important thing to me. And I think to the Northwest, um, I think if anyone grew up there in the seventies and eighties and probably even now people are putting mayonnaise on salmon and throwing it on the grill and it is like the centerpiece of, of summer.

16:38And, um, so to have the ability and the kind of courage to write something that doesn't have to be a brand new idea or, you know, to tell a story around things that like cumulatively make up, you know, my past and my things that have given me, you know, the time to think about food in a way that isn't just something new, looking forward, you know, what's cool and giving myself the freedom to write about that in a way that is, is, you know, honoring that, but also just kind of like making fun of it too, where it's just like, this is, it doesn't have to be this 20 step process thing to be important.

17:20And it also can be something that's like kind of ridiculous and still be lovely. So this, let's talk recipes. I love that mayonnaise salmon recipe, by the way. I called it out as one of my favorites. There's like a lot of cool ideas here. And I like that you are kind of making a statement, like how to dress a green salad. There's roasting chicken ideas, which I think are like obviously part of the paradigm of writing a cookbook, but you have like a real point of view. So let's start with the salad. And how do you dress your green salad, which is a question that for the until podcasts are basically wiped off the earth will be asked in food podcasts.

17:57Yeah. I mean, so my original training in food was by a woman named Susan Kaplan, who grew up on the East Coast in Maine. And also her family was from France. And so like the kind of French mustard shallot vinegar, olive oil dressing, kind of punchy and bright and has been kind of a go to for me. And I think in thinking about something that simple and something that is, you know, like a lot of times is like something that you're putting together on a Thursday that it can still be incredibly delicious if you're able to buy, you know, a slightly better vinegar that has been made by somebody who is like caring for it all along the way.

18:44Oh, totally agree. Like a red wine vinegar that has some terroir. Yeah, and it's like the$7 bottle of vinegar versus the$7 gallon of vinegar, I guess. No, true. You're needing three tablespoons of it. So I think to have something that you would actually just drink on your own and think that's yummy versus so many vinegars that are really harsh and acidic. They're good for cleaning metal more than anything. Delicious. Delicious metal cleaning. So yeah, so like, you know, for me, a salad is something that's quick and simple if I'm going to just have like lettuces because I want the lettuces. I want to taste them.

19:27And I think I want those ingredients that are then on them to be as delicious, but not kind of a little bit harsh. I like how you are thinking about roasting chicken as a two day process. Not a brand new idea, but I want it as it's like a common practice. but yours, you have a great marinade for this chicken. Take us through that. Yeah. So I've been cooking a lot of things. Well, mayonnaise is one thing that I think is a really great marinade, but also yogurt and even, in this case, crème fraîche, where there's a sourness to something that I think adds some flavor and then also texture when you're roasting it.

20:10So it's not the prettiest looking thing, but it's really, really i mean it's pretty in a like you know intensely darkened chicken which i love um but the flavor that you get from something that sits overnight in the fridge and i'm someone who is often like damn it i didn't do that you know and i thank you for admitting and i still roast the chicken and i might put the marinade on it and it won't be the same but if you can and put it in your fridge with you know uncovered on a tray so that it can dry out a little bit, it really just adds that crispiness and kind of extra loveliness that you can get with a roast chicken.

20:49What a cow reminder on the phone. Yeah, I know. Right? I know. It's, yeah. I've often done the other thing where it's like three days later and I'm like, oh, that chicken's still in the fridge. So, you know, no one's perfect. But yeah, I think the quality of the skin and the texture and then the moisture that you get from it is better. Yeah. Okay, so why do you like a boring sandwich? You know, I've been thinking about this a lot because my husband has a sandwich shop and his sandwiches are anything but boring. They're like the opposite of mine. And I've been asked this before where, you know, where does this come from?

21:28And I think two things. One, I'm a cook and so I'm like eating in a hurry. and two I spent a fair amount of time in France and in Italy where sandwiches are you know I think so delicious and by and large compared to like an American sandwich connoisseur kind of boring so like you know a baguette with salami and cheese and maybe some cornichon and that's it or hopefully some butter maybe is is is not hard and it's certainly not um not a lot of stuff going on but it's super delicious yeah um and it's one of those things where you know you could keep adding things like some gross lettuce that's going to wilt or a bad tomato and it's not going to make it better and i think there's some pleasure and also just like confidence around something that if you're putting the right things on it and making you know like choices around what cheese or what salami, it can be stellar.

22:26I agree. You want to really just not force in those bad products. Speaking of sandwiches, I love this place, Mean Sandwich. That's like my, that's like, I went three times in Seattle. It's so good. Yeah, yeah, it's a good spot. It's a, I mean, I think there's some, it has a similar confidence except for there's just a lot more going on. And I think there's courage in that where, you know, Dan will, like the mean sandwich comes with mint on it. Yeah. Is this your husband's place? Yeah. Oh my God. I had no, listen, I had no idea. I was like, I love that. No, for real. I was like, I don't know if this is like competition.

23:02This is your, how does she like this sandwich shop? Dude, it's amazing. Oh, so that's your husband's shit. I'm like, I went three times in two visits. I love this. I love this place. He's going to freak out. He, yeah. So like, he'll basically say, you know, just try it as it is. I'm not taking the mint off. And if you hate it, I'll buy the sandwich back, which is great because I think it's forcing people to kind of live outside their comfort zone, which I think is the best part about learning about food is discovering things. And so if we all kind of did the same, if we ate the same thing every day, you know, how horrible would that be?

23:35I mean, it blows my mind that people do. So yeah, so I think a boring sandwich, my favorite, is equally delicious as one with like 20 things on it. The maximum. You laid out the point well. Let's get to that salmon slathered with mayonnaise. 1970s classic, as you write, a family favorite of yours. And I want to ask you, I mean, if we don't have like this amazing Seattle salmon, is it still going to work? How do we think about this recipe? Yeah. I mean, you know, I'd be a bad promoter of Washington if I didn't say that anyone can have really great salmon if you buy frozen salmon and have it shipped to you.

24:12So there's, you know, in my book, there's resources for that for sure. I think we have a tendency to think that like fresh, quote unquote, is better. And I can tell everyone that that's not the case when it comes to salmon. If you don't live like by a dock in the Pacific. You know, yeah, exactly. So we serve mostly throughout the year Bristol Bay sockeye salmon, which is amazingly successful salmon run in Alaska. And we buy it all frozen. That is perfect. So that would be the perfect solution to this challenge around where do we get the salmon? Otherwise, mayonnaise is delicious on other fish, too.

24:55So it would be really great on a piece of halibut. But, you know, I think the last time I did this recipe, I added some of the green sauce, the ginger green sauce to the mayonnaise and then put that on the salmon. So that on any, you know, striped bass or even on like shrimp on the grill would be really, really delicious. So how do we do it? What's the mayonnaise? What is in the marinade with the mayonnaise? And if we have an oven, does it work as well or does it have to be grilled? No, oven's great. Yeah. Yeah, we would. Yeah, my mom would put it on. I mean, it was just like such like burned into my mind, like foiled sheet tray, salmon, mayonnaise stuff on it in the oven or, you know, on the grill, depending on what time it was.

25:34You don't. Yeah, it doesn't need to be on a grill and it doesn't need to be anything fancy. I think the mayonnaise, like the actual recipe is mayonnaise, salt and pepper, which isn't really, like I said, not much of a recipe. But like, you know, in the book, there's three green sauce recipes and there's always leftovers. And I think that's a really great thing, even just on like a ham sandwich, adding that to mayonnaise and putting that on your bread would be, you know, mayonnaise is great. Mayonnaise with ginger and cilantro and jalapeno or whatever is even better. So that on whatever it is that you're going to cook, I think tossed.

26:04You don't want it like gloppy. You want it kind of like a nice coating. But if it's really gloppy, then you're going to have these blobs of salmon, which are blobs of mayonnaise, which might be great. I don't know. Like, I think kind of a little more even over the surface. evenly but if you have those little gloves i think that'd be great actually all right so you kind of put forth a challenge about the cauliflower about the burnt yeah you basically like i basically my question is how far can you take roasted cauliflower to the to the you know the edge of being burnt i mean i think it can go i mean i don't you know you don't want it to turn into charcoal so i think yeah you know that's too far for those bites are not my favorite those aren't the best ones yeah But I do think there is a tendency and I, you know, I find this with cooks that I cook with to like, you know, home cooks where I think people are afraid to push that cooking of something.

27:01I mean, and I would say the same way there's recipes in the book that are described as long cooking vegetables where you go like past the point of pretty. And I think, you know, it's a classic Italian way of cooking vegetables is you essentially stew them to a point of like this luscious deliciousness. But in regards to the cauliflower, like you want it to be textural. So I think that char and the crispiness that you get from roasting something really hard adds to that like kind of soft steamed interior that you're going to get of the cauliflower as well. A lot of that comes from like not fussing with it.

27:41I think we are not overcrowding a pan. You know, if you're putting too much on the pan, it's just going to steam and get and then the sides that are touching aren't going to get any color or certainly aren't going to burn. burn unless you really burn them so um you need to have less on the pan probably a little more oil and space them and and take them right to the edge yeah and i mean i think helpful if you try it you know before and then decide like can it go farther oh yeah yeah right around the way i mean yeah we roast vegetables you you yeah take out that first one you're like okay not quite yeah and i you know it this recipe is the you know there's a um actually both cauliflower recipes in the book kind of are forcing you to cook it far than I think you would imagine it.

28:27I love that. I mean, you're giving, it's a cosine. Yeah. Like go far, go hard. Yeah, why not? I mean, it's just cauliflower. So the oyster pan at home, I'm just going to say, it's something I just like am intimidated by. Like doing an oyster pan and you at your restaurants do it so well, many different ways. The oyster bake, the oyster pan. You've got a great one with yuzu kosho cream in the book, but sell us a little bit on why this can be done at home, why it's a great meal, like a dinner party or whatnot. So I have a special love for like oyster pan roasts. Cause when I, when I took over my first restaurant, Boat Street, there was a similar recipe that had, it had actually the cornmeal biscuit to go with it, but it was more traditional with like bacon and diced tomato and things like that.