"Sunlight & Breadcrumbs"
Talking with James Beard Award-Winning Seattle Chef Renee Erickson About Her New Cookbook, Making Food with Creativity and Curiosity, and a Recipe for Meatloaf for Sandwiches
Sunlight & Breadcrumbs
Yesterday afternoon I had the chance to catch up with award-winning Seattle chef Renee Erickson to talk about her new cookbook, Sunlight & Breadcrumbs: Making Food with Creativity & Curiosity (out today from Abrams Books!). I wanted to turn this around quickly and transcribe and write and edit this to share this with you for the book’s pub-day (today!) as I hope LAST CALL readers will be as excited to pick up and cook from this inspiring volume as much as I am.
Renee is one of Seattle’s most celebrated chefs and a prolific restaurateur, whose Sea Creatures restaurant group is behind the famed restaurants The Walrus and the Carpenter, The Whale Wins, Barnacle Bar, Bateau, Boat Bar, Westward, Willmott’s Ghost, Deep Dive, Lioness, and General Porpoise. She is also the author of Getaway: Food & Drink to Transport and A Boat, a Whale & a Walrus: Menus and Stories.
Written with Sara Dickerman, Sunlight & Breadcrumbs: Making Food with Creativity & Curiosity features more than 100 approachable recipes to elevate a dish from merely nice to unforgettable, but it’s Renee’s lyrical and informative headnotes, poetic “Work in Progress” sidebars, and philosophy on creativity—in the kitchen and in life—that truly brings the book to another level.
After more than 25 years running her renowned restaurants, Renee, who didn’t go to culinary school but instead earned a BFA in Art at the University of Washington’s School of Art, Art History, and Design, and studied at their Residence in Rome program, reconnects with her own artist’s intuition for this very personal book. Sunlight & Breadcrumbs is also illustrated with Renee’s paintings and photographs. Be prepared to slap a Post-It on recipes like Big Meatball Feast; Escarole Caesar with Creamy Anchovy Dressing, Parmigiano, and Pangrattato; Grilled Pork Ribs with Garlic, Aleppo Pepper, Honey, and Rosemary; Tuna Melt with Charred Jalapeño Pickles, Chives, and Provolone; Roasted Plum Ice Cream, and more.
Read on for my interview with Renee to learn more about her creative process, painting at home and on the road, tips on elevating a dish, the art of self-editing (yourself and dishes), photographing her own book, her cat Kitty B, and she shares her Meat Loaf recipe which is made specifically for the killer leftover sandwiches.
“I am so happy Renee wrote this book, because this kind of joy and curiosity is the kind that should be shared.”
―J. Kenji López-Alt
“A beautiful tribute to how we all want to cook, and eat, today.”
―David Lebovitz, author of My Paris Kitchen and Drinking French
"Much has been written about the interaction of food and art, often laid out in pompous and esoteric terms. In her latest book chef Renee Erickson deploys images and recipes to show just how naturally the two can merge without pretense while filling the belly and mind."
―Katie Parla, author of Food of the Italian Islands
Order your copy of Sunlight & Breadcrumbs
Meet Renee on the Sunlight & Breadcrumbs Book Tour (Seattle, Boston, NYC, Houston, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Charleston, Atlanta, Decatur)
Talking with Renee Erickson
Your new book, Sunlight & Breadcrumbs, felt to me like a kitchen notebook of sorts, with stories, memories, inspiration, guiding the recipes. Did you have a particular inspiration in mind, whether culinary or chef going into this book?
Renee: I mean, it felt like I was trying to get it to be more about me rather than “Restaurant Renee.” Particularly how I cook at home or things that have been really with me along the way—the Meat Loaf is a great example—and having that whole chapter of things that are nostalgic. Which maybe I didn't think of as culinarily important, or at least maybe not something that I wanted to revisit in the restaurants. But then looking back over the last 25 or 30 years, or really my whole life, the things that still stand out as really important and make me feel happy and love the place that they live in my history and my family and the restaurants. So it was just a little more intimate, a little more less “restauranty” I guess.
Personal creativity is the through-line in this book, and I love how you hope this book can poke the reader into reframing their cooking. Your last book, Getaway, highlighted how much travel was a big inspiration for your creativity, whether where you live in the Pacific Northwest or Rome, Normandy, or London. Now you have travel and art and photography kind of coming together with this connection between the art studio and the kitchen—your home kitchen is literally your art studio and vice versa. What are your thoughts on that?
Renee: The working title for a long time was Kitchen Table Studio. I like the title now, but I still think this would've been kind of a little more telling of the book. I mean, you just said it literally, the kitchen is a place where I am also painting. I don't really have a studio so I’m also cooking and eating and working on my computer and all the things. And I think it took me really writing this book to pay attention to the fact that my background and my love of art and artists is less so about the actual making of work. But thinking about things visually, in regards to food, has always been part of what I've done, but I just never really acknowledged it. I think I'm a little bashful maybe. Yeah, that’s a good word.
I have so many friends that are incredible artists, and I'm not really that, but it is really significantly an element of how I think about food, and has been all along. I just don't know that I put the two together in a serious sense. I know, I think what I have known for a long time, is that I have a real clear vision of things. Whether it's right or wrong, I am quick to be like, okay, we're going to do this or we're going to do it this way. And that part of it I think comes from the practice of making art. And in the same case, I'm making food where you kind of have a signature or style that is yours because of so many years doing something. That was sort of how we approached organizing the book, and also how we kind of focused on elements that I think a lot of people might overlook as a choice.
I think there's choices in all of that and they're going to result in something that is a particular way because of those decisions. And some of that might be accidental. The Anchovy Toast in the book was entirely that, but also super intentional based on years and years and years of doing something.
What I notice about myself, but also I think is pretty common with most adults, is we’re real picky and maybe not as loose and easygoing about things. One of the things I think as a person growing older is to try to keep it's constant where you have to remind yourself to be like, stop that. Stop the negative, stop closing down opportunities for yourself because you don't think you can do it. Through our whole kind of existence, learning has been through trial and error and mistakes and all those things. And I think as an adult we kind of think that, oh, we're supposed to be better at it now and we're not. I think there's joy in that where you just sort of have some freedom around it. I know sometimes I think, especially with art, I know my Dad's this way a lot, where he thinks there's a right way and a wrong way, and I think letting that go is really valuable. And I feel that goes with food, too. Obviously overcooking a steak sucks, but the next time you're going to pay better attention, or you're going to use a thermometer, or you're going to whatever the thing is. So it's like we're constantly, hopefully paying attention and evolving. It's really hard to do.
Why do you prefer working with gouache when you’re painting?
Renee: It’s a really old form of painting and the difference between gouache and watercolor essentially is there's just more pigment kind of smashed into the binder. So it’s just more vibrant and more intense. And because of that you can paint on top of it, whereas watercolor is kind of the opposite where you use the water and this really lovely kind of openness. But with watercolor there is no white, you can't paint white over anything in watercolor. It’s an entirely different form of painting and something that I'm sure I could do it if I really wanted to, but it's the opposite of how I think about creating things. I respond to things versus having a plan, and so I'm happy to paint and paint and paint and paint and paint, and then eventually I'm like, oh, I went too far, or I am going to add a big old wash of something to hide it. And with gouache you can do that. You can really kind of respond to things, especially if you don't like it, you can kind of go over it. I mean, eventually it might just be garbage, but there is more opportunity to kind of react that way.
So when you got back into painting during the pandemic, was using gouache new to you?
Renee: No, it wasn't new to me. I used it when I lived in Rome. It has a history of being part of a mode of painting, but when I used it, it also gave me two things. It gave me kind of a similar process as it would if I were painting with oil paints, but I could easily travel with them. They’re really transportable. They both come in little plastic squares and in tubes. I would generally take six tubes of color paint and white. And if you get the nice you the nice paper it is already sized, and it has this rubber all the way around so that it doesn't warp. So you could work on something and it would stay flat. And that's how I did the same thing at home basically. I could easily pick it all up and hide it if I were having dinner. So there's an ease to it and it doesn't require a big room or a bunch of smelly stuff.
This might be a silly question but say you’re going to paint a Dungeness Crab. Do you already have that in your head or do you sketch it out or reference a photo? Or is it simply the years of experience of catching, cooking, and eating Dungeness Crab?
Renee: No, I look at things all the time. The crab was from basically a photo of a crab. It wasn't like I was painting the photo, it was mostly just using the photo to make sure I know how many dots are on a spot prawn, that kind of thing so that it looks real.And I do sketch things out.
So onto the food… these headnotes, sidebars and actual recipes combine to help readers and home cooks elevate an everyday meal. We’re thumbing through your “field guide” of basics and then we’re off to the races with a collection of versatile green sauces. Were you envisioning these essential sauces as an artist might prepare paint on a palette, or am I completely reading into this?
Renee: Oh wow, I love that. I mean, it's probably one of those things that I don't mean intentionally, it's why I was saying earlier, I have a hard time connecting things and sometimes I just don't spend enough time contemplating any of it.
Originally it was just like, we're just going to do a green sauce. And then I was like, who am I kidding? I can't just do one green sauce. This is silly. I definitely find myself being like, I want to put some vibrant, spicy, herbaceous all over whatever I’m cooking—always, I’d put it on anything. As far as connection to paint as you describe it, I do have tricks or methods that are something that you kind of fall back on when it comes to painting as well. And I think I definitely feel that way about green sauce where I think if you were to ask Bobby, our executive chef, he'd be like, Renee, we can't use that green sauce again.
Why not? Who cares? I love it. There's a simplicity to it. I think that's also something that I have grown to love more and more in cooking, and not being bashful about it. I think, especially in the world that we live in now, where everything's so kind of perfect and beautiful and fabulous, it's easy to kind of be like, I'm bad at this. But I try really hard to always just be like, fuck it, I love this. I'm just going to do it. And I think more of that makes me a happier person.
A key focus seems to be how thoughtful details can push a simple dinner, or a painting or artwork, into extra special territory. How do you distill that practice turning something simple into extra special level that’s not necessarily a grand gestures, but something more subtle?
Renee: Yesterday for this lunch event we did the Parmesan Broth Beans from the book, and for me the idea of making something like that feel more special is really paying attention to what season it is. Which is obviously overplayed and talked about all the time, but Sungold tomatoes are everywhere right now and we were going to just put them in the broth. That’s good, but we had a wood-burning oven so I was like, well, let's roast them and get them even more insanely intense. Just using elements of cooking is a way to enhance flavors. And if you’re at home you would just throw them in the oven with olive oil and salt on them. But they transform in a way that I think is incredible. Something that goes from raw and delicious to almost confit without really having to do anything other than putting them in the oven.
And learning a few new things is kind of nice, too. Obviously I love my green sauce, but also learning how to make aioli, which I think can be intimidating and I fuck it up often, so you just have to learn how to fix it. Having a stash of not shitty anchovies is really pretty special and wonderful. And I love using leftovers. I think the Pangrattato in the book is a really great example of using your freezer to extend the life of weird bits. I’ll find myself being like, oh, I don't need to store this and then I'm just, shut up, Renee, what are you doing? Just because of this moment where I'm like, oh, it's more work but then I’m going to turn it into extra really delicious breadcrumbs that I can tuck away for a rainy day. And it can really can go on anything. It really great on tomatoes, salads, or macaroni and cheese. And you can add herbs to it if you want, thyme would be really great.
It’s a way to make your food more interesting without it costing a bunch and have them ready to go straight from the freezer. ways to do that. It's sort of like how Dorie Greenspan always has frozen gougères in her freezer, and I'm always like, fuck, you're good. That’s beyond me but it’s such a magical thing. I’ve only been to her place in Paris once and felt so thrilled and special because she’s pulling out hot gougères and I’m like, oh man, you’re incredible. Now I need a gougères freezer.
Let’s talk about your Meat Loaf, which falls under Unfussy Old Favorites. And I just loved this section, which also includes the Boat Street Kitchen Just a Pork Loin Sandwich, a Tuna Melt with Charred Jalapeño Pickles, Chives, and Provolone, and 1970's Mom’s Mayo-Slathered Salmon. But you mention the only reason you’re making the meatloaf is for leftover sandwiches.
Renee: It’s a great example of having my mind blown by other people who have cooked for a while. The Meat Loaf was a recipe I made at the original Boat Street before I owned it, and it was Susan's [Kaplan] recipe and it's evolved, but the idea of it was this kind of “meat loaf terrine” in a sense. Meat Loaf is a terrine, but it’s kind of a lowbrow version. We would serve it as an entree but then we would also serve it as a sandwich at lunch.
So I made a ton of it and I never got sick of it, but I never wanted to eat it for dinner ever. I was just like, why would I do that? I really think meatloaf is intentionally made for sandwiches. It’s so much better than, it kind of feels a little bit sad for dinner. Obviously it's not bad but when you let it sit overnight in the fridge and then you slice it, I mean… I like it heated, warmed back up, but I also love it cold as a sandwich just with mustard and mayonnaise.
So I think just thinking back as a cook and making it since I was 22. I guess it was a very different meatloaf than what I grew up on with classic ketchup and all the things. I remember liking it too, but the one at Boat Street had roasted tomatoes and red wine and garlic and anchovies and all the orange peel. Who does that? It's a good example of where you can kind of keep pushing as it's easy to just fall into a rut. It was clearly something that was intentionally not what America thinks of as meatloaf, but in the end comes off as as one, but with more more oomph to it.
As someone who's written books and worked in publishing for a while, usually when an author says, I'm going to take my own photographs for my cookbook, the publisher get nervous because they want to hire professionals who can do that. Obviously you're tested and have a track record, but what was their reaction when you said, I'm going to paint original illustrations and shoot my own photos?
Renee: I think there was a big giant eye-roll but they were also very supportive and were like, okay, great. I think the photography part was their biggest worry and I had to submit photos to them to prove that I wasn't a total idiot. I think they still wanted me to hire a professional, but for the story of the book I was really adamant that I do it all.
I wouldn't do it again, but I really enjoyed it. It was extra hard during the photo shoots because I don't hire anyone really other than Sara [Dickerman] who wrote the book with me, because I'm a control freak I guess. I don't want to have to teach someone how to do it, and I don't want it to not look like me. So I cook all the food, I do all the food styling, I cook all the food, and so being able to have a camera on hand during all stages, even in testing, was really wonderful and just makes sense. I was able to take photos in the wild versus a studio which made them far more interesting and more real. It tells a better story and if someone else had shot the book many of these moments wouldn’t exist.
What does the the title of the book, Sunlight & Breadcrumbs, mean to you?
Renee: [laughs] It really means nothing. It’s essentially a feeling, kind of a charm to cooking. If I had it my way it would still be the original title although I don’t think it’s as evocative but either one could’ve worked. This was one of the moments of working with a publisher where we were pretty stuck and I was kind of dug in. We kind of started thinking about the book in regards to poetry and how things don't have to be literal to create a feeling. We were going to use the word blackberry for a while, but everyone's obsessed with having seafood on a cover, and nobody wants to only talk about dessert because it'll feel like a dessert book. Weird things that American publishing holds onto pretty tight. I think the idea of a book that was based in creativity literally around art was really challenging for them. I'm really stubborn and willing to fight but this book was the hardest one I've ever done.
I love when you write about self-editing, with food and art, and knowing when something is done, whether in life food, work, art, or a new restaurant dish.
Renee: It’s a constant thing I think about. It becomes a little bit easier to me in regards to the idea of it because it's something that has been part of how I think about food for so long where I was just waking up one day being like, why am I putting parsley on this? Parsley's not part of the dish. This is stupid.
Everything has to be a clear thought or planned in advance, but I do think the process of things along the way, kind of questioning if it's necessary or not, is sort of where I land. And I think that holds up in food and painting, or in any sort of creative endeavor. I mean when you’re in a hurry we're all going to screw it up. So I think holding some grace for yourself is important. There’s plenty of paintings where I'm like, well, I can't go back now, I’ve gone too far. And that's fine, too. But even the process of thinking about it is a form of self-editing.
Okay, last and most important question. In the foreword your friend the artist Jeffry Mitchell writes about you as someone who “is always stopping for dogs and cats.” Your dog Mr. Arlo appears throughout the book, and your charming calico cat appears in a full @windowkity tableau guarding a tray of brownies cooling on the table. What’s that sweet girl’s name?
Renee: It’s Kitty B but we just call her Kitty. We adopted her in Puyallup. There was a shelter there and we joked that all the young girls working there named a whole litter of cats after places they wanted to travel to, like Sydney, Paris, and Brooklyn. We didn’t really want to call her Brooklyn but we also didn’t want to change her name, so it’s evolved since then.
Recipe: Meat Loaf for Sandwiches
(Makes 8 Sandwiches)
I really don’t ever serve meat loaf as meat loaf. It would be delicious warm with some roasted veggies on the side and a good grainy mustard. But I make my meat loaf in anticipation of the most delicious sandwiches, like a lower-effort pâté of sorts that shines with soft-centered white bread and a leaf or two of extra-crunchy lettuce. I do like to layer a lot of flavors into my meat loaf, like orange peel, red wine, anchovies, chile, and pecorino—so have some fun with the construction of this lovely loaf.
Ingredients
Olive oil
Grated zest of ½ orange
2 cups (480 ml) dry red wine
¾ cup (180 ml) tomato passata
6 anchovies
Pinch of red chile flakes
1 clove garlic, peeled
1 pound (455 g) ground pork
1 pound (455 g) ground turkey
1 pound (455 g) ground beef
1½ cups (90 g) Plain Dried Breadcrumbs (see recipe at the end)
3 ounces (85 g) pecorino Romano cheese, grated
2 teaspoons sea salt, plus more to top
Lots of freshly ground black pepper
2 cloves garlic, grated
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
3 ounces (85 g) basil leaves, no stems
Instructions
Preheat the oven to 375°F (190°C). Lightly grease a 9 × 5 × 3-inch (23 × 12 × 8 cm) loaf pan with olive oil.
In a blender, combine the orange zest, 1 cup (240 ml) of the red wine, the tomato passata, anchovies, chile flakes, and garlic. Blend until pureed.
In a large bowl, combine the ground pork, turkey, and beef. Sprinkle in half of the breadcrumbs, then add the cheese, salt, pepper, garlic, and eggs. Using your fingers as a rake, combine everything together until well blended.
Pack half of the meat mixture into the bottom of the prepared loaf pan. Pour in the tomato mixture. Place the basil leaves in a single layer atop the tomato mixture. Cover with the remaining meat mixture and gently spread from edge to edge of the pan, being careful not to squish out the tomato layer. Sprinkle about half of the remaining breadcrumbs across the meat loaf, then drizzle the remaining 1 cup (240 ml) wine across the whole meat loaf. Finally, use the remaining breadcrumbs to cover the whole top of the loaf. Season the top of the meat loaf with salt and pepper.
Set the loaf pan on a sheet pan and cook the meat loaf to an internal temperature of 155 to 160°F (68 to 71°C), 60 to 70 minutes.
Serve right away, or if moving onto sandwiches, let cool to room temperature, then refrigerate overnight.
Note
I can’t quite bring myself to write a full recipe for a meat loaf sandwich, but as with all sandwiches, the details add up to make them special: I start with sliced white bread from our local bakery, Sea Wolf, cut ¾ -inch (2 cm) thick, lightly toasted. Spread a little too much mayonnaise on one side of the bread, making sure to get to all the edges. On the other piece of bread, spread a thin layer of Dijon mustard. Place a big hunk of room-temperature meat loaf, about ¾ inch (2 cm) thick, on the mayonnaise. Then lay a couple of ribs from the inside of a head of romaine on top of that. Finally, top with the mustardy bread slice. Eat it with both hands, and if you are like my husband, Dan, you won’t put it down until you’re finished.
Plain Dried Breadcrumbs
Wait until bread is a few days old and getting a little dry, then slice or tear it into chunks (I generally keep the crust on for this). Cook in a preheated 350°F (175°C) oven in an uncrowded layer on a sheet pan, turning the pieces from time to time, until they are dry all the way through and ever so lightly browned. Let cool, then pulse the bread chunks in a food processor until they are coarsely crumbly. Store in an airtight container in a dry spot for a week or for several months in the freezer.
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What a wonderful, thoughtful interview with such an interesting and so very likable person! I can’t wait to see all the paintings and attempt the recipes in this book.
Love this interview! I've been lucky to go to The Whale Wins and General Porpoise (the lemon-filled doughnut is one of the best I've ever had) and look forward to picking this book up. I think Renee cooks exactly how I want to eat.