I’d love to chat with you about your amazing career so far from being one of the founding editors of ‘martha stewart living’ to working on movie sets, and publishing quite a few books. I’d love to know how you initially got your start?

Well it’s a long and convoluted story and it’s hard to do the abbreviated version so I will do my best. I started off with an interest in art as a kid. I only wanted to go to art school when it was time to go to college. Even in high school, art was my favorite class, I’d hang out in the art room as much as a I could. I loved my art teacher and I wasn’t the best student other wise. I wanted to study fine arts, I didn’t think about anything else, I just thought I was going to be an artist. It’s what I felt strongly about. I knew I had a natural talent for drawing and painting because it’s what I enjoyed more than anything except perhaps baking. As a kid, I loved to bake and I would try different recipes from my mom’s cookbooks or maybe a newspaper. My very first recipe was out of Weekly Reader when I was in kindergarten. I remember coming home and telling my mom I wanted to make Kris Kringles. I was very interested whenever I saw a recipe, I was never intimidated. Then later I got more into cooking at home. My mom was a working mom so she would leave me the ingredients or instructions for dinner and she would maybe do it halfway and I would finish it for the family. I had a natural ability with cooking,I wasn’t afraid to cook either, I knew the basics and my way around the kitchen. It wasn’t a popular career choice when I started out. It’s so glamorized now and people want to be involved in it and it’s a wonderful thing if you can find a way to make it work for you. It has taken me years to get to the point where I think it’s working for me.

I worked for about ten or 12 years in food in restaurants in one capacity or another. I became more and more interested in food, I thought I could become a chef and that’s what I did. I always found a way to find a job that was a little outside the normal restaurant job. I worked in catering and prepared foods. I wanted to cook but I didn’t want to work on a line. I always looked for a job where I would have more creative input. I worked at a prepared food store, which was where Jane Restaurant is now, where they hired me as a chef. I thought, wow, that is great, I can’t believe it. I started to get some press because there were some magazines that were weekly back then. I loved getting not so much attention as much as the recognition.

All of those things led me to getting my job at Martha Stewart Living, which was a combination of luck and pluck, I guess. I started working there before it was officially a magazine. They were only putting out four issues. I joined the team and I was the 13th employee. I had a lot of skills, meaning, editorial skills, people skills, cooking skills, that I had never gotten to use in one place where I could really contribute and Martha Stewart was that opportunity. I was younger, less experienced—everyone was— so we learned together. We were making this amazing thing and on this amazing journey together. It was so collaborative, I learned so much in the first years on the job. It was incredibly hard work but it was a lot of fun. It sent me on the path I am on now. I stayed there for 12 years; for me, it was like K-12, a whole other eduction.

Was there a springboard that launched your career into a different playing field?

That was my career and it was an important stage of my career. I haven't worked another full-time job since then. I have been freelancing. It was like, how could you beat that? So after leaving, I wanted to explore my own path. When I left, I had to find my own way and also who I was creatively; not to use an overused word but what was my brand? It has taken me a while to figure that out. I did a book in 2005 and if you look at it, I am on the cover because that was what my editor wanted at the time. I am posing a lot like Martha (laughs), because it’s what I knew. It’s taken me a long time to figure out who I am.

Was it at all scary to jump ship and set out on your own?

Not at the time, most people said, oh, you are so brave. And I would ask, what do I need bravery for? (laughs). I wasn't scared at all, I just felt something propelling me to leave that job and to try something else. I think that’s a big part of being a creative person, you can’t keep doing the same thing over and over again because you want to grow. That’s the main reason I left that job when I did because I wanted to grow and spread my wings. I wasn’t the type of person who was going to do the same thing over and over again for years.

Have there been any challenging moments where you have had to lean into perseverance more or pivot?

I think you always need perseverance. But I would say after my first book came out. It was a bit of a disappointment because the expectations of my editor and agent were a lot higher than what I ended up delivering. People didn’t know me, there wasn’t social media like there is now, so I was one of those people in the background. People still say when they introduce me in writing or person, you may not know her name (laughs), but you know her work. It’s like can’t you know my name? I have been doing this for so long! I have always needed perseverance, so after my book was out I felt disappointed and I didn’t know where I was going to go from there and what I should do with my life or career.

How did you get past that?

You just keep going. I do have an internal creativity that I am not borrowing or copying. I have a drive and you just have to rely on that drive. I find it very propelling. There is this unseen force that propels me forward just because I like making things. I like creating things, and that’s why this book in particular is an expression of my creativity in every way. I photographed it, it just feels very personal.

I want to talk to you about that but reflecting on your career so far, what are you the most proud of?

I am going to say this book, really. It’s a culmination of of all of my years of cooking no-how and my visual creativity. Always the last thing you did is the thing you are the most proud of, right? I can still look back on my time at Martha Stewart and show you stories that I did that still hold up today.

Absolutely, the magazine was such an inspiration for me when I first started ROSE & IVY. Congratulations on ‘Veg Forward’. It’s pretty awesome that you shot it on an iPhone. As someone who loves vegetables and sees them as works of art or jewels, I cannot wait to cook through the book. What inspired you to focus on vegetables?

I always wanted to do a seasonal book and I wanted to embrace the thing I love, which is cooking with vegetables. We never don’t eat a lot of vegetables. I have two Sub-Zero drawers in my kitchen, thank goddess, because I would never have enough room in my regular fridge (laughs) for all the produce we buy. I think vegetables first, I do eat mean but not always. I think we are all getting the message to eat less meat for our health and for the health of the planet. There is no down side to eating less. This book is when you get your CSA and what are you going to make with the vegetables you buy? The inspiration is seasonal, that’s how I cook, that’s how I live. When I want to decide what to make for dinner, I go to a farm stand or the farmer’s market. That's where I put my menu together with the vegetables really being the inspiration for the meal. I’m inspired by color, sometimes I’ll make a dish that is all different colors of orange, because it inspires me. I’ll put in butternut squash not only because it tastes good but because it looks good. I think of salads as paintings. Another way cooking is like art is because you have to know when to stop. Showing restraint was a lesson I learned early on in my art school career. You can really muck it up if you do too much, and you can also do that with food.

Talk to me about the art of food styling. What do you think makes a dish look mouthwatering, is it color, texture?

I think it’s all of those things. It’s trying to show someone what something tastes like if that makes sense. That’s another thing shooting it by myself, there was nothing between me and the food. Things aren’t overly propped and things are shot overhead, partly because it’s the way I love to see food and most people do because of Instagram. It’s almost closeness, intimacy and that you are showing the best feature of the food. Like if it has a crunchy crust on top, you want to be able to see what’s underneath. For me, the composition is within the plate and that has to deal with how close you are. I feel like the closer you are to it, the more hungry people will get.

What would you say is the biggest driver behind the way you cook?

It comes from all over really, I haven’t been traveling as much, I think I only traveled once during the whole pandemic. It’s also about going to the farm stand because I feel like the produce is the most inspiring thing and the ephemeral nature of it. You need to capture that thing when it’s at its absolute peak for flavors and looks. That’s why you want to cook with that thing because you know it will be gone.

I feel the pressure to keep going to the market because I don’t want to miss anything!

There’s an urgency to it, and that urgent need to capture the flavors of the moment, that’s the thing that drives my cooking more than anything else.

Quick Questions

A well-stocked refrigerator always has…

cheese. I like to buy cheeses that will keep for a while.

My favorite restaurant in New York…

this is hard; I have different favorites for different things. Overall, and this is a lot about vibe, but I would say King.

A memorable meal I recently had…

I went to this restaurant Rory’s Place in Ojai, two sisters run it. I just loved the casual California vibe of that restaurant. They served this oeuf mayo—a classic French dish—but the way they made it was so beautiful with an anchovy on top of a perfectly cooked egg. Simple.

Food is…

my life!

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In Conversation with Legendary Food Stylist and Author, Susan Spungen